This was part of the cssv 2015 project on tumblr.

When she woke up with a gasp in the middle of the night, at first she was confused and not sure where she was, but only a few seconds later Emma realized that she was in her own bed. The dizziness in her head, intensified by the darkness surrounding her, was probably caused by her earlier difficulties to fall asleep. And automatically, her mind drifted back to that talk from a few hours before, when she'd told Hook they needed to talk and he'd responded with his usual quip of that demand meaning something unpleasant was going to happen. Which was completely unfair by the way, because except for very few occasions, they'd never had unpleasant talks since they'd become a couple.

In fact, the last time she'd talked to him on a more serious note had been the occasion when she'd finally pulled her courage together and asked him if he would like to move into her apartment officially; although they'd practically been sharing it since the day Emma and Henry had moved into the cozy, yet spacious loft by the harbor, offering Hook the key and asking him to share their life had been another step forward. Even if she'd never really doubted he would be over the moon about her offer, it still had taken quite an amount of courage; somewhere deep inside her, there were still remnants of that lost little girl's ever-present fear of rejection...

"You seem to enjoy putting yourself in danger!" she scolded him in an exasperated voice, after yet another risky encounter with a potentially lethal villain.

"I had to react somehow!" he gesticulated wildly. "What was I supposed to do?! Call you and leave a message on your talk-box?"

"Mailbox," she corrected automatically.

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Fine. So I'm ignorant." He took an almost menacing step into her personal space. "Answer me one question, Swan: do you really think I would have survived for three hundred years if I was stupid?" His blue eyes were sparking with anger.

"I didn't say that," she replied in an annoyed tone.

"Well, I've heard enough for today," he snarled and stepped back again. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll withdraw to my quarters." He didn't forget to actually bow and sway out his arm before him in a gesture of completely sarcastic mockery.

Then he had the nerve to turn his back on her without another word – and it would have been so easy to let him walk away and storm off to Granny's, to go to bed alone and wait for the next day to make up. For one moment she contemplated it, was tempted to procrastinate what she'd had on her mind to do all day and what scared her a little anyway. But then she straightened her back and told herself: not this time. "Hook, wait!" she called after him. "I want to talk to you!"

He stopped dead in his tracks, already outside the apartment door, and turned around to her again, shaking his head and pointing his ringed index finger at her. "No, love, you want to yell at me. That's a difference. And it may be a surprise to you, but today I'm really not in the mood."

She clenched her fists. "God, you're such an idiot sometimes."

"I think we've established that. Is that all now?" He raised his eyebrows in the most infuriating way.

"No, it's not," Emma growled and shoved something in his hand. "Here, I've been meaning to talk to you about this all day."

He frowned and looked at the item sitting on his open palm. It was a small key. "I don't understand."

"I thought you were so smart!" she snapped, angry now. "Figure it out!" And she turned around on her heels, went back into the apartment and slammed the door behind her, leaving a completely dumbfounded Hook standing in the hallway.

The same moment she rolled her eyes at herself and growled: "Really?!" But when she turned around to open the door again, she already heard the metallic sound of a key being inserted into the lock and turned around. She froze in mid-movement, couldn't help but grin and backed away from the door. When the door swung open, Emma was awaiting him with folded arms and a menacingly raised chin.

Hook was standing in the doorway with a sheepish expression and held up the key. "It's the key to your apartment," he stated unnecessarily.

"Aren't you a mastermind."

His eyes narrowed again. "Does that mean you're asking me to share your home?" He tried to keep a steady face, but the clenching muscle in his jaw betrayed him.

"It means I'm not having you walk out on me again when we're having a discussion." Her voice was bold, but a tiny flutter of her eyelids betrayed the tension behind her facade; there was still the remote chance he'd turn down her offer, after all.

But his eyes twinkled with amusement, affection and something more – she'd be damned if they weren't glistening suspiciously. He scratched behind his ear. "You're selling your cause very well, I must say," he finally said, his voice a little croaky though. Emma couldn't help but laugh out loud, and they both moved in simultaneously for a tight embrace. He buried his face in her hair. "Are you sure you want this, Swan?" he murmured.

She leaned back to look into his eyes. Her own danced and sparked now with happiness. "Live with me," she simply said.

That had been only a few weeks ago, and by now it seemed to her that she'd never lived without him, and she asked herself how she ever had managed to. It had taken a ridiculously short span of time to get used to all those precious little things that came with it: falling asleep and waking up in his arms every day; watching him and Henry grow closer day by day; finding him downstairs in the kitchen, getting her cocoa ready for her on weekends when she slept longer, because he was a morning person and she wasn't; being able to say I'm going home and knowing he'd be there waiting for her; getting into heated little skirmishes over stupid everyday random things – and then making up, not less heatedly; waking up in the middle of the night, like now, and feeling that warm body beside her. There were so many wonderful, small quiet moments, and she was enjoying all of them.

They had settled in really nicely and comfortably in that new life, and she had allowed herself to revel in it. For the first time, she had something that was only and completely hers, and nobody could take it away from her. And she knew that for Hook it was the same. Neither of them had had a home, a real home, in a long time, and now they were building one together – two damaged individuals, slowly learning that they could have it, a place where they belonged: a home, a family, happiness.

Emma would have preferred if it had stayed that way for another while, but of course she should have known that the unpredictable found always its way to her. She'd honestly had no idea how Hook would react to the news that would blow apart their life as they'd just gotten to know it, and she'd been really nervous when she'd told him they needed to talk only a few hours ago.

He'd raised his hand and his eyebrows and tilted his head in that way of his...

"Whatever it is, Swan, I solemnly swear that this time I'm completely and utterly innocent," he declared a little theatrically.

"No, you're not," she replied dryly and suppressed a nervous chuckle.

"It's about Henry's homework, right?" he assumed. "I can explain..."

"I don't even know what you're talking about," she waved him off impatiently, "and I don't even want to know. It's not about that."

Hook scratched behind his ear a little cluelessly. "Well, then tell me what it is that I've done, love, so we can put it to rights."

She averted her eyes for a moment. "It's not that simple."

He sighed and rubbed his hand slowly over his mouth. "It never is." Then he drew a deep breath. "Out with it, Swan. You're worrying me."

And then she'd told him.

Emma sighed and snuggled a little closer into his warm body that was spooning her from behind. He stirred in his sleep and nuzzled the back of her neck.

"You alright there, treasure?" he murmured into her hair.

"More than alright," she whispered back. "Go back to sleep."

"Hmmm..." his husky voice trailed off, and she could hear that he was already on his way back to dreamland again. Right before she drifted back to sleep herself, she felt his hand crawl up from her hip where it had been resting and to her front where it came to rest on her still flat stomach. He spread his fingers protectively, and she smiled into the darkness.

Yes, he had taken the news well. Very well, indeed.