entitled; if i had any heart but mine (we might have left you cold)
summary; she knew that in an hour from now, maybe, they'd be on completely opposite sides again. but she'd still know that he was the only other person in Storybrooke with a heart like hers.
rating; k+
disclaimer; i want to own colin o'donoghue and his eyebrows, but i don't. /sigh~
notes; this lovely little piece of fluff is a product of too much wishful thinking and a few posts in the captain swan tag on tumblr that killed me. there are slight spoilers for 'The Queen is Dead' if you haven't watched, but not many, i promise.

if i had any heart but mine (we might have left you cold)

.

if i had any other heart, if any other piece spoke louder
if i had any other hands i wouldn't need the voice to tell
the world about the coward that refuses to stand and claim the blood on your hands
if i had any other heart beside my own, we might have left you cold

- any other heart ; go radio

It shouldn't have bugged her as much as it did. Heck, it shouldn't have bugged her at all, the idea of Neal steering Hook's ship. But it did. So very, very much. And definitely not for the reasons it should have.

But it still did.

"Are you sure you want to be steering this thing?" Emma asked, watching as Neal headed towards the front of the ship.

"Emma, I can steer this thing just fine." Neal assured her, sending her a small smile that she responded with a small, nervous one of her own. "I know what I'm doing, I wouldn't let anything happen to you guys."

His words were well meant, but that wasn't what she was worried about at all. She was just… Irritated. Frustrated. Annoyed.

And mostly with herself.

"Yeah, alright." she nodded, turning her back on the man and walking down to the Captain's quarters, where she'd tied Hook to a chair. They'd only been on the ship long enough for Henry and Neal to get Gold settled in one of the rooms below deck while she opted for making sure Hook didn't somehow escape and try to kill them all while they were sailing back to Storybrooke, but a part of her was desperately waiting for him to come to so she would have someone to deal with that wasn't Neal, Henry or Gold.

It was all very troubling for her, really.

But she just found out that Gold was not only Neal's father, but her kid's grandfather - and he was now dying - that Neal was engaged and so much more about why he let her take the fall for those watches, and Henry was very upset with her. She really didn't want to deal with any of that, and the way she saw it, Hook was her best option, unless she was considering throwing herself overboard at some point during their journey back home.

Sighing, Emma pushed the door open, expecting to see a still unconscious Hook but seeing probably the most hilarious thing since she left Storybrooke.

Hook was on his feet, bending forward at an awkward angle because he was still very much tied to a chair as he leaned forward to pick his hook up from a large desk with his teeth.

"Oh my God." she breathed, breaking into laughter almost immediately and causing Hook to drop the hook as he jerked his head in her direction. The hook clattered onto the floor and he glared at her.

"You better give me my Hook after making me drop it, Swan." he muttered darkly, which really only made her laugh harder. "Yes, yes, I'm sure this is just wonderfully entertaining to you, now my hook, if you please."

The laughter continued for a bit more, and Hook set the chair back down, sitting there and glaring at her until she stopped. When she finally did, she walked over to pick up the hook and held it in her hands as she leaned against the desk. "What were you planning to do with it? You can't exactly attach it when you're tied up the way you are. I made sure to keep your arms apart and the rope tight enough to keep you from so much as squirming under it."

"This my ship, Emma. My quarters. Do you really think I couldn't find a way out of this?" he asked, sounding particularly bored.

"I suppose you have a point." she sighed, rolling the hook back and forth in between her fingers. It was an action he seemed to pay a great deal of attention to, but she brushed it off. "Why'd you do it?"

His gaze made it back to her face again and he rose a dark brow, "You're honestly asking me why?"

"Okay, okay, I know why." Emma sighed, "I just…"

"You just what?" he asked, tone mocking, "Thought I was a better man?"

There was a bitterness there that Emma didn't quite understand but she nodded anyway, "Yeah. You weren't lying to me when you said you wouldn't have left me at the top of that beanstalk. That day I saw… something in you, and for the first time since I'd met you, you made me almost regret not trusting you. For all I know, if I had, we could have been back in Storybrooke without Cora looming over our heads."

He was silent then, expression unreadable as he looked at her and Emma was growing increasingly curious as to what was going through his mind after that little confession. He surprised her by simply saying, "You're different."

"I'm different?" she repeated, bewildered, "What are you talking about?"

"The spark, that fire in you," he murmured, tone hushed as he gazed up at her, "It's dimmed, not there. You're… Hurt. Out of sorts."

All Emma could really do at that moment was stare at him. She'd been out of it since she first found Neal, but she was pretty sure she'd been hiding it well enough. Now here was Hook, picking out her problems without the slightest bit of trouble.

"Yeah, well… I was just bombarded with more surprises during my time here." she told him; this was not where she'd wanted her conversation with him to go.

"Tell me." he told her, surprising her again.

What surprised her even more?

She did. She told him everything. From her owing Gold a favor - something that had him seething for whatever reason - to finding out Gold's son was Neal, to explaining her past with Neal and how he was Henry's father, to how Gold thought she was still in love with him, and how she'd literally just found out a few hours ago that Neal was engaged. She told him everything.

"I'm being completely honest here when I say I'm not in love with him anymore," Emma sighed, "We're different people. Completely different and while there's so many 'what ifs' going on in my head right now, I wouldn't change a thing. It's just… strange, knowing that he's engaged now. There's that tug, that uneasy feeling when I think about it, but if given the chance to be with him again, I know without a doubt that I wouldn't take it."

"You loved this man." he answered as if it was the most logical reasoning for all this, "No one wants to picture a person they were once in love with being with someone else."

She really wished she knew what was going through his head; was he thinking of his own experiences and someone he once loved? Was he thinking about Milah?

"I guess…" she shrugged.

There was silence then, a much more comfortable one, and when Emma met his gaze again, she kind of wanted to hug him. It was really, really stupid and she mentally scolded herself for it, but he was just about the only person she'd been able to talk to about things involving Neal in such a long time and it felt good.

"Why aren't you this tactful all the time?" she asked, lifting herself onto the desk and crossing her legs as she sat there grinning at him.

He scoffed, "Maybe because you're chaining me up and leaving me behind before you get the chance to trust me."

Emma's brows rose, "Are you insinuating that I trust you now?"

It was his turn to grin, "No, but you're getting there."

"How do you figure?" Emma asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Well, you didn't leave me behind this time." he stated simply.

And it really was more loaded a statement than he could have possibly known; she and Neal had discussed leaving him behind, letting him find his own way back to Storybrooke but at the end of the day, she couldn't. She'd told Neal, Henry and Gold that the possibility of him finding his way out of here could expose them and their fairy tale lives, but Emma knew that they'd more likely lock him up in the nuthouse before actually believe him.

So why had she so desperately refused to leave him behind?

She didn't trust him, she knew that much. With all he'd done trust wasn't something he deserved in the slightest, and she wasn't just going to hand it over to him. But…she saw something in him. She really did, only she was just starting to realize it was bits and pieces of herself that she was seeing.

'I don't mean to upset you Emma, but I think we make quite the team.'

"I don't trust you." she said quickly, something that made him laugh.

"Oh, I know you don't, love." he stated, smirk on his lips, "I'd hardly imagine you'd have me tied to a chair if you did. But, like I said, you're getting there."

"I heard you the first time." she snapped, her mood quickly souring.

And things were going so damn well.

"Emma, look at me."

Her attention had been focused on the wooden floor when he said that, but suddenly it was like she was back on that beanstalk, staring at the cobblestone floor and unable to look him in the eyes after she'd chained him up.

'Have I told you a lie?'

"I can't trust you." She breathed, eyes falling shut instead.

"Why?"

Why? Why? God, talk about loaded questions.

Opening her eyes again, Emma met his ocean blue gaze and said, "Because of that man up there." She signaled towards the ceiling with her head, but she was positive he would get who she was talking about.

"I am not that man. I am nothing like that man, Emma."

"I know." She whispered, "I just can't risk being wrong about someone again."

'I can't take the chance that I'm wrong about you.'

"You weren't wrong about him. He did love you. You told me this."

"I know, I know, but I didn't know that then!" She cried out, slamming her hand down beside her onto the desk, "I was eighteen, and unwanted. I'd been abandoned and unwanted for most of my life!" Her gaze was growing hazy and she knew the tears would start soon if she didn't stop, but she couldn't anymore, "I find this guy who wants me, who loves me, who wants to settle down with me and the next thing I know I'm being held at gun point for a bunch of watches I didn't even steal! What was I supposed to think? How was I supposed to feel? And all because a fucking puppet told him not to run away with me? Are you fucking kidding me?" She couldn't read the look he was giving her, her eyes were burning with unshed tears and her voice was cracking the further into this she went. "I loved him! I loved him and he betrayed me! And I know now why he did what he did, but it still doesn't change the fact that I can't trust people now because of what he did to me. It doesn't change the fact that I spent the past ten or eleven years of my life thinking I wasn't good enough to be wanted, to be loved."

"Emma, untie me."

"What?" She was thrown off, outraged even; had he not been listening to her at all? She was on the verge of tears and he was worried about getting free? What the hell? "No."

"You can tie me back up after this, I give you my word, but untie me now." he repeated, giving her that same calm and collected expression he'd held through most of their conversation.

There were warning bells, telling her it was a bad idea. A horrible idea; Gold, Neal, Henry - They were just upstairs and he could have gone for them without a second thought, but something compelled her to do as he said. She pushed herself off of the desk and moved around him to untie the knot at the back of the chair. The minute the rope was loose enough for him to wriggle out of, he was on his feet and pulling her into his arms.

She didn't know what surprised her most; the fact that he was holding her, or the fact that she was not only allowing it, but wrapping her arms around his mid-section and burying her face in his chest in return.

The tears were flowing freely now. Her throat and eyes were burning and this was probably the strangest situation she'd been considering all she'd been through, but it was so nice to finally get all of that off her chest and have someone to hold her as she broke down completely.

"He gave in so quickly…" she muttered, so quietly she was positive he wouldn't hear her, especially when it was being muffled by his chest, but he was always good at surprising her. "He should have fought for me. Isn't that what you do when you love someone? You fight for them, no matter what?"

He tensed a bit at that, and Emma pulled her head back to look at him, but refused to let him go. She knew her hair was a mess, her eyes were no doubt bloodshot from the crying and she could feel the tracks of tears against her heated cheeks. But the way he looked at her, damn it sent shivers running up her spine.

"I haven't been a right and proper example of it in a little over three hundred years of living, lass, but I always said: 'A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.'" His arms tightened around her and she kind of wanted to smack him for that.

"And what did he get?" she mumbled, "Another chance at love? While I got stuck with the mother load of all trust issues?"

"Perhaps," Hook answered, giving a small shrug, "But you're letting him have the best of you, while the rest of us get stuck with the worst of you, and I'd hardly say that's fair, love. You're letting him get away with things he doesn't deserve."

Emma pondered this, brows furrowing as she looked up at him. She hated admitting it, but he was right, "How is it that you can read me so damn well?"

He gave her a crooked little smirk at that, "Ah, love, a pirate never reveals his secrets."

"That's magician." she replied automatically, blinking whatever was left of her tear-fest away.

His brows furrowed, "What?"

"The saying here is 'A magician never reveals his secrets.'" She repeated.

Hook seemed all the more confused, "What the bloody hell is a magician? Some sort of witch? And last I checked we weren't discussing a magician of any sort."

Emma lips broke into a grin and she gave a small laugh, "Never mind."

He looked at her oddly for another few seconds before pulling back and bending down to pick up the rope that had been holding him. "We need to get back the best of you, Swan." He murmured, holding it out to her a small grin on his lips, "Because I'm not quite done with you yet."

'…Just as I am done. With you.'

Emma stared at the rope for a moment, not quite believing that he was actually handing it to her. That he was actually keeping his promise.

Reaching out, Emma wrapped her fingers around the rope, skin brushing against skin in the process and she paused because suddenly nothing else mattered. Gold, Neal, Henry were all just upstairs but completely forgotten as she laced her fingers through his - rope and all - and pulled him forward.

Her lips found his without any trouble and he responded without hesitation. The sensation was electrifying, a pulse of energy running through her from their connected lips all the way down to her toes.

It was exhilarating.

It was insane, and random, and reckless, and stupid, but it was probably one of the only few decisions she'd been sure of in a while. For the moment at least.

She knew that in an hour from now, maybe, he'd be tied back up on that chair until she could get him back to the station as they did all they can to keep Gold from dying, and to keep Hook from getting the chance to finish him off again if he survived this time around.

They'd be on completely opposite sides again.

But she'd still know that he was the only other person in Storybrooke with a heart like hers.

[end.]