A/N: This is set in an AU, where at the end of season 3a everyone went to the Enchanted Forest together. And they all lived happy-ish ever after. Ish! This story is intended as a slice-of-life kind of deal, more fluff than substance. Please let me know how you like it! I'm planning to add at least several chapters more. :)

iii iii ii ii ii

iii ii ii iii ii

The woman vanished with a properly witchy cackle and a puff of noxious smoke, and Hook coughed and waved the smell away with his one good hand. "Well that was a lot of noise over nothing, wasn't it?" But when he turned to his companion expecting an agreement, he was instead greeted with the face of a small boy with a truly prodigious thatch of hair.

For once, he found himself speechless.

"What happened?" The boy asked, his voice shrill with youth and dismay. "I don't...I just...Captain?"

"I...yes, Bae. It's me." Even through his own shock he managed to dredge up enough wits to realize- "Now, hold on, lad! You're younger than I ever saw you, how the hell do you know who I am?"

Baelfire looked down at his hands, touched his chest and face like he doubted he was real. "I just...I remember." He looked up helplessly, those huge green eyes wide, and sat down in place, hugging his coltish legs to his chest.

"You remember! Well here's a pretty mess and no mistake." He turned slowly, looking over the whole clearing in case the witch (clearly more powerful than expected!) hadn't actually left, and growled to himself when he realized that there was little he could do even if she were still there. Hook cleared his throat and gathered his coat and his senses up as he followed the lad's example in sitting himself down in the dirt. "I shudder to ask, but...what all DO you remember?" Bae frowned, brow wrinkling and full lip jutting out as they still did in adulthood, and Hook felt a surge of dizzy affection for the boy.

"I remember coming to your ship...learning from you...hiding. Then I was very angry with you, and then I left." He looked up through his fringe. "Then I wasn't angry and I wanted to come back, but I couldn't."

"Ah. Most everything then." He rubbed at his eyes, hook scratching restlessly at the earth by his knee. "Though I hate to dwell on it all myself...in the interests of us all being on the same page, do you remember why you were angry and how you left?"

"I was angry because you loved my mother, and I left because the Lost Boys took me."

He smiled slightly and restrained himself from ruffling the boy's hair. "An over-simplification, but not untrue." He wanted to leave it at that, but found himself unable to; curse the Charmings anyway, and their absurd infectious eternal goodness. "To be honest, I think you were more angry because I caused your family to break up, and you left because I let them take you."

"But you didn't break us up. Not really." Bae's eyes met his squarely as he said it, and Hook nodded in reply with a curiously strong feeling of relief. "And...you had to let them take me. Or they would have killed you."

"I didn't have to let them take you, Bae. But yes. They would have killed me." Bae sighed as tension drained out of his frame, head drooping down to rest on his raised knees. Hook hauled himself to his feet and brushed dirt off his hand. "Well, while I believe there is more we need to talk about, I also believe it would behoove us to take this conversation somewhere a little less exposed." The boy raised his face up, and Hook gave into the urge to pat the soft young cheek. "Come on then, up you get."

There was, of course, a minor problem-as he realized when Bae stood by his (Neal's?) horse and looked up (and up, and up) with a deeply intimidated look. "This is mine?"

"Indeed she is," Hook said, and relented with a roll of his eyes. "Well, come on, then. You can share with me, seeing as you're more than a little bit little at the moment." He mounted easily, gathering the reins up and leaning over to offer Bae his hook. The boy grabbed it and between the two of them he was lifted up to sit before Hook on the saddle.

"Shouldn't I be behind you?"

"Eh, I wouldn't be using my hook to hold the reins, anyway," Hook said, and suited actions to words by wrapping his free arm snugly around Bae's middle. "Might as well give you a decent view. Not to mention harder to miss if you fall off, this way."

"I won't fall off," Bae said, and Hook had forgotten the way the lad said everything so earnestly. He pulled him a little closer and nudged the horse into movement.

They rode hard and fast for some distance, Bae clinging to the pommel as tightly as he'd ever clung to railings while getting his sea legs, and Hook sympathized but didn't slow until they were well away from the clearing and-one could only hope-the witch. When he felt it as safe as it was going to get, he slowed to an easy pace and nudged his passenger. "There now, we can slow up a bit. Now, Bae...do you know what happened to you?"

Bae twisted sideways to look at him and frowned again. "I...not really? There was a witch?"

"Aye, there was." He tried to give an encouraging look. "You seem to remember the whole of your time aboard my ship: what do you remember after that?"

"I don't...huh." Bae's eyes unfocused. "I remember...a long time. A very long time? Living in a cave...then in a strange place with enormous buildings...stealing things, a lot of things...my..." He stiffened and fell silent.

"Your father?" Hook finished softly.

"Yes," said Bae, tense and quiet. "He's...he's dead. Isn't he?"

"I'm afraid so, lad."

Bae snorted, but his voice was more weary than bitter. "Don't lie. You hated my father."

"Aye, that I did. But you loved him, and I take no joy in an event that caused you such pain." He hated seeing that look on his face, and added a little more lightly; "Besides, how big of a hypocrite would I have to be to ignore the fact that the man tried to change himself, for you?" Bae flushed, and dropped his head. "Hey, none of that," Hook chided, holding him closer.

"I'm sorry," Bae said, and straightened up. "So I was a man?"

Hook nodded, leaning down as they passed under a low-hanging bough and covering the boy's head. "Indeed you were, a man full-grown." He cleared his throat, wondering if he should leave it...but no. "Does the name Henry mean anything to you?"

"My son," Bae said promptly, then tilted his head back to look at him with a most odd expression on his face. "I have a son."

"That you do."

His nose crinkled up. "Who's the same age as me." Hook merely nodded, and he released a huge gust of a sigh as he slumped back against the pirate. "That's so...weird."

"On the one hand, yes. On the other hand- if I had another hand- it's actually surprisingly common in these parts."