He recognized the hallway. The walls were the same, the door was the same, but following Emma to her apartment made it feel so different.

She hadn't said much since she picked him up from the police station. She trusted him and took the potion he offered, she remembered him, and yet she still seemed so far from him. But Hook didn't want to push, assuming she was trying to process so much of what she missed the past year and what she would be facing next.

As she put her key in the door, a light flickered in her eyes and a sheepish look crept across her face. "Uh...sorry about earlier," she said, gesturing to the space in front of her door.

"No need," he said, a smirk on his face. "It was bad form and I'm nothing if not a gentleman."

Emma rolled her eyes at him - he didn't realize how much he missed that - and led him into the apartment. She shrugged off her red coat and threw it over the back of a chair. "I need a drink," she said, kicking her shoes off on the way to the kitchen. "Take off your pirate coat and have one with me."

"You don't have to tell me twice, love," he said.

But instead of handing him a drink, Emma just stood there staring at her bottles of rum. Bottles and bottles of rum.

"Quite the collection you have there, Swan. It would make any pirate jealous."

She just kept staring at them. "After Henry was born, I discovered I loved rum. Never really cared for the stuff and then…" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. "I guess I have to thank Regina for that."

She gave him a sad smile, nearly breaking his heart in pieces. Emma was obviously struggling with her world being turned upside down again - and this time it was his fault. He was the one that had been sent to find her, that had been sent to convince her to remember.

He watched as she quietly opened the cupboard door and pulled out two tumblers. She grabbed a particularly ornate bottle of amber liquor from her collection and poured two glasses with a heavy hand, giving one to the pirate.

"If you're here because you need my help, I'm assuming you need this as much as I do."

"You have no idea," he said, her sadness and desperation making its way into his own voice.

He raised his glass to her before tossing down his drink. Emma had become quite the connoisseur, he thought, as the rum went down easy and smooth, immediately warming him.

He reached around Emma to put his glass on the counter behind her, his arm brushing against her. He hadn't noticed how much space he had closed between the two of them until he realized how close her eyes were to his, how warm her breath felt on his chest. He reached for her cheek and she immediately leaned into the palm of his hand, letting him caress her warm skin.

"I never forgot about you, Emma."

Pain crossed her face as she gently pulled his hand away. "I didn't remember you until today."

"Emma, it's -"

The sound of a key in the apartment door's lock jolted them apart, both reacting by getting as much distance as possible between them before Henry opened the door.

"I'm home, Mom!" he yelled from the hall before stopping to stare at the stranger standing in their kitchen. "Oh, um… Hi, I'm Henry."

Hook turned to Emma to get a cue on what he should do, but the panicked look on her face made him realize she had no idea. "Uh….this is…"

"Killian Jones," Hook said, quickly extending his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Why are you dressed like a pirate?" Well, at least Henry's matter-of-factness was still intact even if his memories had been scrambled.

Emma finally snapped back to reality to throw Hook a lifeline. "He's an artist in SoHo and needs help finding some people so I thought I would take a side job."

"You do the pirate thing well then," Henry told him.

"I appreciate your honesty, lad."

The boy gave him a strange look. "Are you sure we haven't met before?"

"Deja vu, kid," Emma said quickly. "Go get your homework done, OK?"

Henry grabbed his bag and said a quick goodbye before heading to his room. And once again, a silence fell between Emma and Hook, one he could tell was filled with questions and concerns and emotions.

Emma finally broke the quiet, but her voice was soft and heavy. "Do we still have enough potion for Henry?"

"Aye."

"Do we give it to him?" Emma said, looking Hook straight in the eye as she asked.

Hook sighed. This was what he was dreading. "There is much I need to tell you and I don't know where to start."

"Start with my family," she said. "Where do we need to go to help them?"

Hook took a deep breath to get out what he had to say next. "They're in Storybrooke."

Emma stared at him with a look of shock and disbelief as the color began to drain from her face. She had to take a few breaths and steady herself with a hand on the kitchen counter. "My parents? They're in Storybrooke?"

"Aye."

"Storybrooke exists again?"

"Aye. And we need you back there with us."

Something changed in Emma's eyes. Hook recognized it immediately - it was the same change he saw that night on the beach in Neverland when she became their leader on the quest to save her son. This time, it wasn't Henry she needed to save, but the same resolve and determination was there.

"Do you have any way to get back there? Pirate ship or something?"

"Regina gave me a way to get here, but you'll have to take the helm to get us back."

Emma's eyes started looking around the apartment and he could tell she was formulating a plan. She may not have wanted to be their savior again - and it was something he would only tell her much later when this was over - but she was pretty good at it.

"Do you have the rest of the potion?" she asked.

He reached into his vest pocket and put it in her hand without letting it go. "Are you sure you want to give this to him?"

She hesitated before wrapping her fingers around the blue bottle. "Not yet, but I want to have it so I can make that decision when I need to."

He looked into her eyes with as much confidence as he could, making sure she knew that he would stand by her, that they were in this together. "What else do you need from me, Swan?"

"Can you just stay here for a bit? I need to deal with some packing and then Henry," she said. "Not a word to him yet though."

He gave her a reassuring nod. Then Emma flashed him that wicked smile that he missed so much and waved her hand towards the rum. "Get the one with the red label and fill up your flask."

He watched her disappear down the hall, then walked over and grabbed the bottle, thankful that her knowledge of rum now rivaled his own.