This is my first fic in years, and my first ever for OUAT. (Yes, I know, it might appear otherwise given my name, but check my profile; I've had this name since my fictional New England town allegiances lay in Stars Hollow instead of Storybrooke.) In any case, I've held back from OUAT fic-writing as I never thought, as much as I love Captain Swan, that I could do Hook justice. I probably still can't, so please forgive any bits that seem inaccurate or out-of-character.

As far as the actual story goes, it came about rather suddenly because I wasn't 100% happy with either Hook or Emma last night. I sympathize with Hook - he thought he had finally reached the finish line, only to find he still had a few more laps to run. But I think he was a bit pushy. Emma, however, seemed childish in evading Hook. This is my spin on a different tactic he could try.

Anyway, here goes nothing...

Oh, and I own nothing but the DVDs.

Avoidance Tactics

After one snarky comment brought on by the frustration of a rather unsatisfying whisper of kiss, Killian bit his tongue and dutifully followed Emma out of the woods and back towards town. The walk was mostly silent, each lost in their own thoughts. And of course he dared not initiate any public show of affection like reaching to hold her hand; he had a feeling that the requested patience dictated such things off limits.

When they neared Granny's and were met by an inquisitive Henry and Mary Margaret heading for lunch, he took the opportunity to slip away as Emma bore the brunt of the boy's excited questioning.

Be patient, she'd said. As if he hadn't already given her patience through escapades with lost boys, green witches, and flying monkeys. He was getting a bit sick of his own willingness to be patient. After the night before, he had thought they could finally just be. He hadn't thought that the walls she had would go flying back up after a mere 10 minutes together, blissful as they had been.

Entering his room upstairs, Killian flung his heavy jacket to the chair in the corner and kicked off his boots before easing himself onto the bed. Swan may have been right, that there was more coming from whoever had fabricated the ice beast, but he wasn't wrong either; the temporary crisis had been averted. He trusted that if something else important came up and required his assistance, Emma or her father would come fetch him. But short of that, he'd begun to think he might need to undertake a bit of avoidance of his own. For one, he could use the respite from constantly being so tantalizingly near Emma but unable to really have her, but also, perhaps keeping his distance would serve to spur her on to where he'd prefer them to be. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all, he chuckled wryly to himself. Leaning across the bed to the window, he pulled back the curtain briefly with his hook, noting that everything seemed to still be calm for the moment. With a sigh, he plucked a worn book, salvaged from the hodgepodge collection in Granny's common room, from his night stand, trying to distract himself from a certain blonde and the patience she'd requested.

He managed to stay engaged in the novel into the early evening. With a yawn, he set the book down and eyed the window once more, the deep blue glow telling him that more time had passed than he'd expected. With not a peep from Swan, he noted with a snort. Pushing thoughts of her from his mind yet again, he re-dressed and headed for a bite.

The next day was more of the same. He didn't run into Emma or any of the Charmings, preferring to linger in his room. Grumpy had filled him in at the Rabbit Hole the night before - no one knew much of anything yet, but the snow beast had not made a repeat appearance. There was speak of a young woman called Elsa, but Grumpy hadn't known enough to relay anything more than her name and that she was somehow involved with the ice. The current status was merely trying to track down the Crocodile to find out what he might know about the situation.

But by that second evening, Killian was antsy, Granny's old books no longer holding his attention and Emma flitting into his brain more often than he'd like, especially given that he'd yet to hear anything from her. Eventually he made his to the diner, entering cautiously lest a certain savior be present and accuse him of not being patient enough. But the dining room was Charming-family-free, so he ambled up to the counter, flagging down the wolf with an order of a pint of ale and the realm's delicacy known as a cheeseburger.

The drink arrived quickly, along with a sympathetic smile from Ruby for the lonely pirate. The hour was late, and the diner mostly empty, leaving her wiping the counter with little else to do as Hook's dinner cooked. As Hook drank, his brow furrowed of its own accord until he blurted out unceremoniously to the wolf, "Love, what's a net-flicks?"

Ruby smirked, launching into an explanation of moo-vees and tee-vees. As best as Killian could tell, tee-vee was a bit like a cross between a traveling puppet show and the theater, but with real humans acting out the story in one of those black box devices, like the one sat in the corner of his room. The wolf admitted that she and Granny had not set up any sort of access to the net-flicks in the guest rooms, but she promised to show him the ropes of tee-vee and whatever digital cable was as soon as she finished her shift that evening.

As such, later that night, Killian found himself fascinated by the bright moving pictures of the tee-vee. He didn't specifically recall falling asleep that night, but he knew it was to thoughts of how wonderful watching tee-vee and net-flicks with Emma in his arms would have been...

He woke with a start, the room bright with morning sun, the tee-vee still flickering across the room, but with no immediate indication of what it was that had woken him. Then he heard it again - a soft knock at the door.

Peeling himself off the bed, he padded across the room in the loose linen pants he used as sleepwear and pulled the door open. He blinked, bleary-eyed, at the green-eyed blonde hovering in the hallway.

"Swan," he stated flatly, purposely keeping his voice even. "It would seem your avoidance scheme could use a bit of work, wouldn't you say?"

Emma blushed faintly, rolling her eyes as she shrugged. "I just," she started bashfully, "I haven't seen you. Almost seems like you're the one doing the avoiding, Hook," she said, grinning, a teasing lilt to her voice.

Killian could tell she was trying to make light of her behavior the other day, but he merely lifted an eyebrow in response, confirming what she'd been making out to be a joke.

She caught his drift immediately, appearing rather taken aback. "Seriously?" She asked in disbelief, "Now you're avoiding me?"

"Aye," Killian nodded, his voice soft but solemn.

He could tell he'd thrown Swan, that she'd not been expecting this, evidenced clearly by the weak "But..." of protest that slipped from her lips.

"You should know by now, Swan," Killian offered glibly in an attempt to bring the conversation back to the bantering safe zone she'd clearly been expecting from him. "Gentleman. If I can make easier a lady's attempts to stay away from me by giving the lady nothing to stay away from, is only honorable of me to do exactly that." He finished with another raised eyebrow and an exaggerated bow, ensuring he got his point across.

Emma's confused expression now replaced by a furrowed brow and a frown, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and asked pointedly, "So this is some sort of payback?"

"I'm merely abiding your wish to be away from me," Killian replied lightly.

"I never asked for you to do that," Emma shot back.

"Aye," he agreed amicably, "nor did I ask you to avoid me. But you said yourself that's exactly what you were doing."

"I told you, the thing with Regina..." Emma spluttered, clearly frustrated and not having expected this from him. "This thing with us just doesn't seem... right," she continued weakly, "when I basically took the same thing away from her."

Killian eyed her intently for a moment before speaking again. "Swan," he began, "let's for a moment ignore the fact that the other option was to allow Regina to kill Marian. That awful triangle is of the Queen's own doing. But you'd begrudge yourself... this," he blurted out, for lack of a better word as he gestured to the space between them, "simply because someone else's relationship doesn't quite work out as planned?" he finished incredulously. With a snort, he added, "I can assure you the crocodile had no qualms about moving on to the librarian though he had taken Milah and my happiness with her from me."

"That's Gold!" Emma blurted out, "He's the dark one! Of course he didn't-"

"Then what of your mother?" Killian hissed, cutting her off harshly. "If I am to believe the talk of your father's previous betrothal from downstairs the other morning, she put an end to Katherine's relationship so she herself could be with your father."

Emma's mouth gaped open for a moment before she could begin to formulate her weak reply. "Yeah, but..." she trailed off.

"You'd have preferred they'd stay apart?" Killian jumped in. "No marriage, no you, no Emma the savior. Your brother, your son, nothing? Because they should have stayed apart to mourn the loss of Katherine's happy ending?"

"You know that's not what I meant," Emma scowled, narrowing her eyes before sighing in defeat. "There's just a lot happening, Elsa, Regina, everything. I told you," she repeated, her protest weakening even as she spoke it.

Killian lowered his voice, inching closer to Emma. "Aye," he breathed, "and I told you that the moments in between the mess are what is to be savored. Again, your parents. They didn't exactly wait for the curses, the witches, the ogres, the... who even bloody knows, to have what they have, did they?"

Emma dropped her gaze to the floor, biting her lip and having no apparent rebuttal for his words.

"Swan, I promised you that I would win your heart," Killian insisted softly. "I bloody may well have actually done it," he added, with a halfhearted incredulous laugh to himself. "But apparently I still need to win your head," he finished, his tone clearly conveying his feelings of defeat.

She'd drawn her gaze back up to meet his, her eyes shiny with the hint of tears, but she remained silent.

"Look, Swan, you want patience?" Killian sighed, "I can be patient. Neverland was patience. Baelfire. Finding you. Fighting Zelena and the monkeys, her curse, patience. Whatever this icy lass brings, I can be patient. But I can't be there for you only when it is convenient for you, love. You- we are far more than that to me," he breathed, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair as he spoke the insistent words.

"I..." Emma began, whatever words she intended to say clearly stuck in her throat.

Killian gave her wan smile as his hand drifted, unbidden to cradle her cheek gently. "Swan, you need to figure out what it is you want from me. I'm not going anywhere."

He let his eyes flutter closed, leaning into her and dropping a soft kiss on her forehead as her hand covered his.

It took all his will to pull away and ratchet up the fake jolly demeanor, but he somehow mustered the strength. "Now," he announced playfully, "Not to seem like I'm pushing you away, love, but I looked into this net-flicks of yours. The wolf tells me they don't have the service here at Granny's, but she did set me up quite nicely with this tee-vee and the digital cable. It appears the moo-vee I planned to watch is about to start." He fought with himself to get the words out, fought with himself to step backwards into the room and begin closing the door. Just before it shut, he allowed himself one last glimpse of Emma's clearly befuddled, and perhaps even a bit hurt, expression. "Cheers, Swan. You know where I'll be. Always."

He shut the door and sat gingerly on the bed. He turned off the TV.