Hello gorgeous beans! Here is my latest CS offering, I've been trying to focus on schoolthings but this would not leave me alone! I hope you enjoy it :) I, of course, own nothing but my feelings.

Emma Swan opened the front door of her home and was met with complete darkness. It was late and she was glad that her family was able to get some sort of rest, even with knowing the next danger was surely on the horizon. She hoped that Mary Margaret, David and Henry were sleeping peacefully.

She paused just inside the doorway and scanned the room.

Something was slightly amiss.

The living room window was cracked open, a chill pouring in. Not a mistake or an accident to be made in a town filled with magic, both good and evil.

She left her black winter coat on the rack and ran her fingers through her long flowing hair. She sensed no danger as she tread carefully over to the window and closed it as quietly as she could muster. Confident that her family was under no threat, she wandered over to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water and heard footsteps behind her, most likely David checking to see she'd arrived home alright. She turned to say hello, but it wasn't David she greeted.

"Hook!" she exclaimed, seriously confused as to why the pirate captain was standing in her family's home.

"Easy love, you'll wake the boy." He soothed.

She knew he meant her no harm, and relaxed marginally, still taken aback to find him standing before her in his signature pirate finery.

"Oh, I'm the one who should take it easy, when there's a fairytale pirate standing in front of me with a habit for B&E." she whispered through gritted teeth.

He only laughed in response. Insufferable man, Emma thought.

"What are you doing here, Hook?" she asked. She wondered if he'd brought news of yet more danger. Couldn't she have one night of peace?

"I came to see you darling, but your lad found me instead. We had a rather nice chat, he invited me to stay and wait for you and then toddled off back to bed. Good lad. More manners and welcoming sensibility than you, Swan. He must have got that from the Queen, she's very hospitable indeed…" he leered slightly, expression laced with empty suggestion. Her stare challenged him. "Well, she at least offers a drink."

"You break in to my home, have a 'nice chat' with my son, and want me to offer you a drink? Dream on buddy." She said rolling her eyes at him.

"Fetch one myself then, shall I love? Very well." He came behind the kitchen island and began opening all the cupboards, as Emma retreated to the safety of the other side.

"Hook, it's late. Can't whatever this is wait until tomorrow?"

He turned back to face her, hand still on the cupboard door. "This'll only be a minute, love, and don't try and tell me you don't enjoy our time together. I know I do." he said, waggling his eyebrows. "Oh, that reminds me, I recently acquired an object that might be of interest to you."

He paused, removed something from the inside pocket of his long coat and it something on the counter. She turned to investigate. It was her weatherworn copy of Peter Pan, acquired during her days in the system. The pages were slightly yellowed and the corners where somewhat bent from years and years of rereading.

"Why do you…where did you?" She stammered, obviously flustered.

"Where did I get it? Why, Swan, I am a pirate. Of course, I ransacked all your personal belongings and stole it." He stated proudly, before breaking character to smile at her. "The boy gave it to me, thought I might enjoy it. Might come in handy. Some reading material for next time you inevitably lock me up, perhaps?"

He returned to searching for a glass and she turned away from him, cheeks burning. She wondered if he knew it was her favourite, her being an open book and all. As a girl, she'd always struggled with Wendy's decision to leave Peter and Neverland and grow up. Growing up in the system, she would daydream of Pan coming to her window and whisking her away to Neverland where she would become a Lost Girl. She assumed the family of Lost Boys weren't all too lost at all, as they had each other. She felt she would have been less lost with them than being shipped from family to family. But there was no adventurous boy coming to her window to whisk her away. As she grew older, she realised that no such adventure would ever come. Boy had she been proven wrong since.

As the pirate shuffled around behind her, she wondered.

Wondered if he had known the true Wendy. She wondered about fairies and mermaids. She wondered about the man the existed before Captain Hook.

Lost in her thoughts, eyes firmly trained on the floor, she didn't notice the pirate had fixed himself a drink and travelled to stand beside her. He leant down towards her ear and softly whispered, "Forget them, love. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never have to worry about grown up things again."

Her subconscious was desperate to give into this inviting, gravel-toned offer, but realizing precisely what he had said, she was snapped out of her reverie. She whipped her head round to face him and found herself nose to nose with the pirate. His sea blue eyes were filled with sincerity, searching hers in return.

He tilted his head and murmured, "It's about time, darling." There wasn't even a hint of snark to his words. His omission was tender and true.

She took a step back and almost tripped on the leg of a stool. He caught her. He seemed to do that more often than she'd like.

"Don't faint on me, sweetheart... Course, you wouldn't be the first." He said with a winning smirk.

Her hand was in his, the calloused pad of his thumb moving gently back and forth on the top of her hand.

He softened again. "Tell me, love. If I were…him," he laced the word with disdain and was that regret? Sadness? "Would you take me up on my offer? Come away with me? Leave with the promise of adventure? Flying high toward the second star to the right."

His eyes beseeched her. He was almost frightened of her answer. Whatever she said or did next would be his undoing, for better or worse. Unfortunately, Emma Swan didn't know that and gave the most straightforward answer:

"But you're not." She furrowed her brow at him.

"Aye, lass. I'm not." He said in a particularly clipped manner.

His gaze was cast downward, jaw clenched. When he looked back up at her, there was something different in his eyes. They were harsh and cold. "I'll tell you why I came in the first place and be out of your way: I'll not let you get between me and the Crocodile again, Swan."

"You have to let it go, Hook. He won't think twice about killing you on sight." She replied. Did he have a death wish? Was he mad?

"It's of no consequence to me, love," he countered offhandedly, with a wave of his hand. "I've nothing else to care for."

"You need to find something! Something other than revenge! Let it go, Hook. We can find another way, I can help, I—" She made a reach for his hand, but he withdrew it quickly as if it burned him.

"I don't need your help, princess. I don't want it. I don't need you. I don't need saving." He said as he turned from her.

"Of course!" She threw her hands in the air, "The destructive, murderous, hell-bent-on-revenge pirate couldn't possibly use a good influence!" She fired back, incredulous.

"I'm not one of your little projects, sweetheart. I don't need a savior." His voice was clipped, but still sounded so sad. The pirate was at war with his emotions.

He wasn't the only one.

Emma couldn't help but think that he would be yet another person who would leave her.

Abandon her.

"Well maybe I do!" she countered, "Maybe it's time for someone to care enough, to stick around long enough to save me!"

"I'm not good for that either love, call on one of the others for reassurance of your good intent. You'll find no peace and calm with me." He scoffed.

Emma didn't know whether she'd find it without him, either.

"Is that what you think you'll find, Killian? Peace and calm through revenge?"

"What did you say?"

"I asked if you—"

"No… You said my name."

She shook her head slightly, ignoring the bewildered look in his eyes. She pressed on: "Without your revenge, without your Hook, what would you be? Who would you be?"

"I wouldn't be a good man, Emma."

"You don't see it, do you? There is good in you, blurred by hatred."

The Swan girl, armed with enough audacity to accuse him of being good?

"The only match for hate is love, and there's no chance of that is there?" he challenged.

"I think you're worth saving… it's you who doesn't see." Her eyes danced around, she felt too vulnerable, too exposed.

"That's what you do, isn't it princess? Save us mere mortals?" He knew she didn't like being reduced to titles, which is precisely why he said it, full of intent to mock and hurt her, as he'd been hurt so many times.

"It's not all I am, I'm not the savior. I was a just girl, a person, before all this."

"We were all "just" something once. I was just a lad…." He paused before straightening up, and his sad eyes turned fierce. "Know this, Swan. I've torn through towns and homes and plundered and stolen and fled. I've killed, I've hurt and then turned a blind eye to the damage I've caused. I am a pirate. I am a villain." He said it as though he were reminding her, but convincing himself.

"Maybe that's what you're content to be, Killian, but it's not all you are." She countered defiantly, "Why not try? Just be Killian."

With each utterance of his name, his defiance was chipped away. Didn't she know what she was doing to him?

"Will you say it again?" he pleaded.

She'd take the chance. She was so hopeful that she was right about him, that he wouldn't leave her if she gave him a reason to stay. She turned squarely to him and uttered the name he'd heard more in the last five minutes than in the past three hundred years.

"Killian…" she breathed.

"You make it sound so sweet." He said, almost in a lament, before closing the space between them and quickly capturing her lips with his own.

She kept very, very still, arms frozen to her sides, fingers tense and splayed. He moved his lips tentatively, sweetly as the back of his hand moved to caress the soft skin of her cheek. His actions were reverent; she knew he was holding back.

He gave a low moan and something inside Emma Swan snapped.

One hand tangled in the pirate's dark hair while the other rested on his chest. She deepened the kiss, pressing herself closer to him. He responded in kind, moving the flat side of his Hook to press gently against the small of her back, his hand moving to stroke the soft blonde waves at the nape of her neck. With each action she attempted to convey words she was not yet ready for him to hear. With each action he attempted to show her that she'd forced his hand, that he'd stay safe, that he'd try, all for her. His saviour.

The broke apart slowly, slightly breathless, with the pirate greedily returning to her to steal small kisses. She could feel the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Perhaps we might try saving each other?" He offered, moving his hand down her side to rest on her hip.

She smiled up at him. "We could take turns?"

"Aye lass. Taking turns." He agreed, before kissing her again.

To be hers, and she to be his, would be an awfully big adventure.

Yay! Reviews are welcome and feed my soul, much to the dismay of my academic pursuits... I hope you're all hanging in there during what is arguably the best hiatus I've ever witnessed!