Written for the prompt: I've had this headcanon since 311 that when Emma and Hook are saying goodbye at the town-line, they touch (maybe just a hand squeeze) and he gives her something of his, perhaps one of his rings (or maybe even his hook; that would be really symbolic) as a token and of course she forgets him but she has this object and she keeps wondering how and where she got it, staring at it in the darkness of night and fighting the intense feelings it evokes within her.

I incorporated some minor headcanon about Emma's jewelry here. Also, if you'd like to look at pictures of the token Hook gives Emma, I have links on my Tumblr and AO3 posts of this same fic.

Emma's never been much for jewelry; she doesn't go for delicate or expensive, and dangly earrings and the like can always get in the way during a fight. So she doesn't wear much, and what she does wear (aside from some small earrings) is always meaningful.

There's a necklace: a simple silver circle on a chain. Nothing fancy, but she doesn't ever take it off. She got it from an old friend, the man who first introduced her to the idea of becoming a bail-bondsperson. The necklace was a gift after her first successful solo bounty, a celebration of Emma being capable, Emma being strong and clever, and she always wears it so she can always remember that she is strong. She doesn't need anyone else, she can raise Henry on her own and she's doing a fine job of it.

(There used to be a second necklace, a swan hung round her neck like a noose, choking her every day with the reminder to never trust, not ever again, she knew what came of it. Emma wore that necklace for six straight years, until one day Henry asked where she'd gotten it. She hadn't been able to tell him - there was a lot she'd never been able to tell him about Neal, though he knew the bare bones of the story. Staring down at her son's innocently curious face that day, it suddenly hit her how much she was letting Neal poison her, even years and hundreds of miles later, and in a flash of anger she'd decided she was done. She didn't even want him back any more, and there was no way she was going to let him continue to hurt her, no way she was going to cling to him any longer. She'd thrown the necklace in the trash and clenched her hands into fists to keep from digging it back out, and only sometimes regrets her choice. Never, when Henry's in her sights.)

Emma wears a shoelace around her left wrist. It's long and brown and rough, well-worn. She runs the fingers of her right hand over the loops of cloth sometimes, gently fingers the knot and always gets a matching little lump in her throat. It's just a shoelace, and Emma can't even really remember where she got it but it feels like it's always been there, and she hasn't taken it off once in the past year. It feels right to have it there, and whenever she feels overwhelmed or lonely or like she's losing all hope, her eyes drift down to the shoelace. The fingers of her right hand reach for it, she slides it around her wrist in warm circles, closes her palm over it and closes her eyes and always feels comforted. Always feels like even though Henry is enough, maybe he doesn't always have to be everything. Maybe there are still good people to believe in, people worth letting in. And Emma doesn't really have a reason to think this, but sometimes she closes her eyes and thinks of the color brown and warm smiles, and feels happier, more hopeful for it.

Emma doesn't wear much jewelry, but the few things she wears matter. They give her strength, and hope, and that's why she doesn't need anything else… Or it should be, but it's not. Because there's one more, even if she never wears it, and it affects her more than all the rest put together.

A ring.

She keeps it in a small box on her bedside table; never wears it, because it doesn't even fit her, first of all, slips off her fingers like it was meant for someone else's hand. It's impractical, too, no simple band but a silver monstrosity, rising up high off her finger - much too bulky for Emma's tastes. Also unlike her other jewelry, it's not simple or understated; the ring is colorful, topped with a flat red stone, and the the sides are decorated with little carvings, patterns and maybe vines and framing each side there's a heart encircling a curved shape that looks almost like the bowed head of a swan.

Maybe that's why she bought it.

But the thing is, Emma can't remember ever buying this ring. It seems like something she'd find in a costume jewelry place - or a pawn shop, maybe, a place where stolen items and family heirlooms are bartered over, where distasteful deals are made but there's always something useful to be found. She can almost picture such a shop, but Emma knows she hasn't ever been to one. No, the ring appeared almost exactly a year ago, on the drive through Maine as she and Henry moved to New York. She stopped to get gas, and when she put her keys in her pocket as she stepped out of the car, Emma's fingers wrapped around the ring, left there as if by magic, warm to the touch.

She'd pulled it out and stared at it as the gas tank filled, slipped her fingers through it one by one and turned it over and over again in her hands. For some reason her heart was beating hard, and she couldn't seem to take deep breaths. She lifted the ring up and pressed it against her lips, breathing in the scent of the metal, blinking fast and a little scared - almost threw the thing away a second later, a bit freaked out about why it would affect her so strongly, but something stayed her hand. Instead, Emma tucked the ring back into her pocket, and for the rest of the drive her fingers would occasionally wander down to brush against it curiously.

Logically, Emma must have gotten the ring from somewhere, even if that place was just the side of the road, but she can't ever remember. It doesn't seem to matter; the ring's effect on her is just as strong despite her lack of understanding. Whenever she puts it on, emotions swoop through her wildly, forcefully: grief, fear, longing, a terrible sort of bitter amusement and a fierce desperate desire.

Sometimes she can only wear the ring for a second before yanking it off with a gasp, flinging it down on the bed and storming out of the room. Those times, she usually goes right to Henry, spends time with him so determinedly that it's almost like she's trying to prove a point. To whom, she doesn't know, but Emma will take Henry out for pizza and ruffle his hair and read stories with him and play video games and talk to him about school and bully him into cooking dinner together with her. She'll play music and dance around the kitchen with him, watch his favorite Disney movie without protest (though Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs always leaves her feeling a little uncomfortable, a little on edge - maybe just because he's made her watch it too many times).

She'll spend the whole day with him, and then put off going back to her bedroom until she feels like a coward. She'll step in slowly, shutting the door behind her so quietly the latch doesn't even click. She'll walk forward, step by step, staring at the ring in the center of her bed. What happens next differs - sometimes Emma will just sit and stare it, wracking her mind for where she could have gotten the thing. She might reach out a finger but hesitate to touch it, she might think about throwing it away. She might slip it on.

She might slip it on her finger and take a slow, deep breath, fall back in bed and let the emotions take hold of her. Close her eyes, maybe, rubbing her thumb up and down the side of the swan (if it is a swan; sometimes it looks more like something else, a hook maybe), the metal worn smooth from what feels like centuries of habit. Sometimes Emma will hold her hand above her face and stare at the red stone until her eyes water. Hours can pass that way, keep passing that way because Emma keeps coming back, keeps picking the damned thing up again and staring at it like it holds all the answers to the universe. She has no clue why she's so fixated on this thing, but she can't bring herself to get rid of it because for all that it makes her feel awful, sick and aching every time for something she can't name - for all that, she feels good, too.

There's something about the ring that, despite how many wretched emotions it stirs up in Emma, always makes her feel wanted. Valued, trusted, believed in, something about this stupid gaudy ring makes Emma feel comforted when she's most alone because somehow, somehow it makes her feel like there's someone out there who would maybe give her this ring, who loves her. Not just Henry, who loves her because she's his mother and she's all he's ever had, but someone who can see all of Emma's broken places, her walls and fault-lines, someone who loves her all the more for them. Something about the ring reminds Emma of that saying about "loved and lost" - but not in regards to Neal, it makes her wonder if there could be another love out there that she's lost before it even truly began. A stupid thought, and one that should make her feel even worse about being alone, if anything, but instead it's a comfort. It means that she's right to let herself hope, fingers tracing the shoelace on her wrist. It means that she doesn't ever have to give up her strength, palm curled around her necklace. It means she can slip the too-big ring onto her finger and smile up at it and know that someone could have loved her, that she is not unlovable and maybe that someone will find her again.

It's all just a flight of fancy, a stupid delusion brought about by her loneliness - Emma loves Henry more than anything, and she's happy to let him fill her world, but it's still so hard to let anyone else in, so hard to accept a drink from a man and start searching for love again; no matter how handsome or how nice they are something in her is always holding back and she just wants to be able to let it go. So she puts her son to bed and then sits in the dark, with a ring on the third finger of her left hand, and wonders, and wishes, and feels like the worst sort of fool.

But she always puts the ring back neatly in its box, every night before she goes to sleep.

-xxx-

The day the lunatic first knocks on Emma's door, babbles about her non-existent family, and then kisses her, she hesitates to put on the ring. Something feels different, feels tense in her chest and she can't help but remember the huge, gaudy red jewelry he wore on his right ring finger. She can't help but feel like she's teetering on the edge of something far too treacherous to handle, a whirlpool waiting for her to get in the water for a swim.

She puts the ring on, and thinks about him. His words, her family that she's never had but hurts for constantly; his kiss, full of such passion and desperation and something so much deeper that maybe she could have understood if she'd just kissed him back a little longer, something that she isn't sure she's ever felt but wants so badly to feel. Everything about him was strange, unexpected and freaking weird and reminding Emma of everything she's missing in her life, and with the ring warm on her finger she wonders if she ever could, wonders just what she's lost and why she can't remember ("You have to remember!"), and very quietly cries herself to sleep.

She dreams of bright sunlight and a long climb, of humidity and jungle noises, of cold air and a deadly fog rolling in. She dreams of a compass and a flask and a hand, calloused and warm and pressing something into her palm, curling her fingers over it, over the ring. She dreams of that same hand in hers and of letting go quickly; dreams of that hand in her hair and lips on hers like there's nothing else to live for and of stepping back fast; dreams of that hand curling a ring into her palm and of never wanting it to let go and of it letting go. She dreams of a voice screaming her name, a low confession of love, a promise to never let go.

(She wakes up the next morning with the ring still on her finger. Stares at it for a long moment before replacing it in its box, feeling like there's something she's forgotten.)