A/N: hey there! this is my first attempt at a multi-chapter fic. As I said on my tumblr, the idea for this came up from a weird dream I had a few days ago. The first chapters are not part of that per se, they're more like a kind of intro, soon we'll get to the part that was inspired by my dream ;) I want to dedicate this to my soulmatey Carmina who encouraged me to write this and who I annoyed the hell out, asking for her opinions and such. You rock, girl, thanks for your patience :)

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. Dammit.

Well, you and I collapsed in love
And it looks like we might have made it
Yes, it looks like we've made it to the end.
~To the End - Blur~

"A little help here!" David's voice could be heard from her place on portside as he struggled up the gangplank. Emma ran towards him just as her father dropped on his knees on the deck, giving in to the effort of carrying a seemingly unconscious pirate captain on his shoulders. Quite unceremoniously, he dropped Hook on deck as well, whose only reaction was a small grunt.

"Damn, he's heavy!" David exclaimed between pants, trying to catch his breath.

"What the hell happened?" Emma exclaimed, kneeling down next to Hook, eyes scanning his body in search for injuries.

"We were combing the east side of the jungle looking for any clues, as we had agreed, and suddenly one of those damn carnivorous vines seemed to come to life out of nowhere and wrapped its branches around his feet and threw him to the ground. It was pulling him towards the center of the plant but I managed to cut him loose with my sword. But I think he hit his head with a rock when he fell, so I brought him here."

Emma sighed. Hook had told them as soon as they'd crossed the portal, all those days ago – or was it weeks already? She didn't think so but it sure as hell felt like they'd been trapped for fucking months in this hellhole – that Neverland was full of dangers, than even the grass in certain parts could be deadly if it came in contact with one's bare skin. Despite his warnings, most of the group had at least once almost been bested by a creepy insect or a tempting mermaid or, as it now appeared, a fucking plant. Emma was getting pretty tired of it.

"We gotta take him to his bed," she told David, positioning herself behind Hook and wrapping her arms around his chest under his armpits. David immediately grabbed the captain's legs and they both carried him to his cabin.

It was not a long walk but for Emma it was endless, as she found out that worrying about Hook's health was proving to be increasingly difficult when all her efforts were concentrated in trying to ignore the feel of her breasts pressed against his back and his head resting on her shoulder, his black hair tickling her chin. Get a grip, Emma. And an ice-cold bath.

Finally, they were able to lie him down on his bed. Emma didn't know –or didn't want to know- what possessed her to absentmindedly run a hand through his hair, but she was glad she did because she found a big bump starting to form on one side of his head. She turned around but her father had already left the cabin, so she went to the kitchen and, a few minutes later, came back with a piece of cloth and a small basin full of cold water. She dipped the cloth in the water and pressed it against the bump on his head. It was the next best thing, as there was no ice in the ship.

Waiting for him to regain consciousness, Emma took her time to examine his face carefully. There was something about his calm expression that seemed to call her. Since she had first met him, she had seen many different sides of Hook: bad-blacksmith-impersonation, annoyed, cocky, shamelessly flirty, practically mad with revenge, betrayed and hurt. And in all this different versions of Hook's personality, she'd been able to spot the grief, anger and guilt in his eyes, in the lines of his face. Sometimes well hidden under his façades, sometimes more visible, but always there. And now, she was amazed that the only feeling etching his handsome features – because yeah, she had accepted a long time ago that he was undeniably handsome – was peace. He looked as if he was dreaming the happiest dream ever. She was tempted to let him like that, to let him enjoy that peaceful state in which he seemed to be, until she remembered that he was injured. And that they needed him to sail the ship and find Henry. She needed him.

About fifteen minutes later, she felt him starting to stir, so she placed the wet cloth in the basin as his eyes fluttered opened.

"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," she greeted him, carefully hiding her relief to see him awake in her neutral tone.

"I wouldn't go as far as considering myself a beauty, but it's nice to know what your actual opinion of me is," he replied weakly, still a little disoriented. Still, if he had it in him to make those kinds of replies, he would be alright.

"In my world, Princess Aurora is called the Sleeping Beauty. Because you know, she was under a sleeping curse and all that," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Was I under a sleeping curse too? Oh, did you kiss me awake?" he tried to wiggle his eyebrows at her but winced in pain during the process. Emma was barely able to suppress her smirk.

"Trust me, Hook, if I kissed you, you would definitely remember it," she whispered huskily. Two could play this game. Upon seeing the startled expression in his face, she smiled satisfactorily. "Nope, sorry to disappoint you but I'm afraid you fell and hit your head with a rock."

"But you're nursing me back into health. So caring, Swan," despite his words, his tone wasn't mocking. His eyes were too intense on Emma's face and she had to look away.

"Yeah well, we need you to sail the ship and you know the most about his place, so..." she trailed off, getting up from the chair next to his bed and taking the basin with her as she walked to the door. "I'll leave you to rest for a while." She wasn't sure if she actually heard the whispered "Thanks" behind her or if she imagined it as she closed the door behind her.

"Swan! Come here." The voice came from the helm.

"What do you want, Hook?" she said as she approached him. She swore to Thor, if he dared make another comment about her being his personal nurse – as he had done many a time, in front of a livid David and a fuming Snow, since he emerged from his cabin earlier that day – she was going to give him a matching bump on the other side of his head. And not only for symmetry purposes.

"Climb up here, I'm going to teach you how to sail."

"WHAT?!" Well, that had been unexpected.

He turned around and looked down at her shocked expression. "We lost precious time last night because I wasn't able to sail due to this," he pointed at the injured side of his head, "and after some consideration, I've come to the conclusion that, should anything happen to me during this quest, someone else must learn how to sail this ship in order to make a quick getaway or to get back to your world. And you are the only person to whom I trust the Jolly Roger, Emma."

Emma was well aware that she probably looked like a complete moron, stuck in place with her jaw dropped and her eyes open wide, but how was she supposed to react after him openly expressing the extent of his trust to her? After seeing nothing but sincerity in his eyes? After hearing him call her by her given name again? A few moments later, she blinked and climbed the few steps to the helm. Hook moved to the side to give her space and she stood in front of the helm. Hesitatingly, she grabbed two random pegs and looked at him, silently waiting for his feedback.

"Your position is too forced; you have to stand in a way that the helm feels like a natural extension of your body. Here," with his hook on her lower back, he pushed her gently and she took a couple of steps forward. His hand took her right and placed it in another, lower peg, his fingertips caressing lightly the back of her hand as he released her. "Does that feel better?" he asked, his voice low and velvety.

Emma nodded, not being able to trust her voice at that moment. She was suddenly too aware of Hook's closeness, his smell and the tingling sensation in her hand from where his skin had touched.

The truth is that she had always, since the beginning, felt a connection with Hook. They were too similar, they were both broken by love and the loss of it, they worked too well together, as if they shared same mind in two different bodies. It scared the hell out of her so she had kept him at arm's length as much as she could, but everything changed when he came back with the stolen bean after Henry was gone through the portal. When she had thought she had lost her baby boy for good and he came back – the only person who ever came back – bringing the bean and the hope to get Henry back. Giving her hope again.

And of course, getting Henry was her priority and she wouldn't rest until he was safe in her arms again and, most importantly, wouldn't let herself get distracted from her goal at any rate. But she could not deny that her relationship with Hook had shifted since he threw the bean she had handed him to the ocean to open the portal. Their banter now lacked the bite it had in the past. They often teamed up when they decided to do a short expedition to the island or to visit some of Neverland's native creatures. They only needed to look at the other's eyes to understand what they were thinking, no words needed.

She was broken free of her unsettling train of thoughts by the glimpse of carved marks in the wood near the helm: a P and an S crossed out with a zigzag line (Oh dear God, please don't tell me that now we're going to run into the Zorro).

"What's that?" she asked Hook, pointing at the marks. To her surprise, his relaxed expression hardened a little and his eyes were downcast and somber.

"Portside and starboard. I carved the letters to teach someone to sail, a long time ago," he said, no inflection in his voice.

Emma pondered about it for a few seconds until a memory came back to her and suddenly everything clicked in place.

"When I ran into Nea...Baelfire in New York, he said he knew you. And he sailed the Jolly Roger on our way back to Storybrooke – sorry about that, by the way," she added, sending an apologetic smile to his direction. "It was him you taught how to sail, wasn't it?"

"Always so perceptive, aren't you, Swan?"

Back at calling her Swan. Pulling his walls up. He was clearly hurt by that memory. It was something Emma recognized all too well. After all, she had been doing the same for over a decade. What had happened between Hook and Neal?

As if he'd been reading her thoughts – which at this point wouldn't have surprised her at all – he sighed and looked away, at sea, as he started to talk. "After the Crocodile killed Milah in front of me and chopped off my hand, my crew and I travelled to Neverland because I knew that if I wanted to avenge her death, I would have to find a way to stay alive for centuries, just like he does due to his dark magic. After some time, I rescued a boy who was drowning in the sea and brought him to my ship. I found out that he was none other than the Dark One's son, so I decided to keep him aboard and gain his trust so he could tell me the way to kill his father. But..." he trailed off.

"But he was Milah's son as well, right?" she finished for him in a soft voice, her heart hammering in her chest.

He looked at her, an unreadable look in his eyes. "Yes. Exactly. That day the Crocodile found us...we knew it was risky to go back to her town, but we wanted to take Baelfire with us, be a family together in my ship. But he had already disappeared, and his cowardly father was now a powerful dark sorcerer. Eventually, Baelfire did tell me exactly how to kill Rumplestiltskin; he was now useless to me but I couldn't bring myself to kick him out of my ship. I grew fond of him. I wanted to honor Milah's wishes and be a family for him, be a father for him. But then he found a drawing of Milah that I kept with me and he thought that I was the pirate that had killed her mother, as his father had told him," he closed his eyes, clearly upset by the memory. A rush of sympathy travelling all over her body, she placed her hand on Hook's arm and squeezed gently. He sighed again and went on. "I told him the truth, but he didn't believe me. He accused me of being the reason he had been abandoned by his mother and then his father. He called me a coward. Blinded by anger and betrayal, I sold him to the Lost Ones. My last chance of love and redemption had disappeared and all I had left was my revenge."

Emma was silent for a few minutes, taking everything in. She had never expected that he would open up to her in such a way. Somehow, it filled her with a weird sense of pride, the fact that he probably had never spoken about that out loud and now he was confiding it to her, of all people. She felt the need to reciprocate.

"He abandoned me too, you know," she added softly. Hook's head shot up to look at her. She looked down, not able to hold his penetrating gaze, and found out that she still had her hand on his arm. Gently withdrawing it, she looked up at him and told him what she hadn't told to anyone in all those years. "Remember back in the beanstalk, when I said maybe I had been in love? It was with him. I was an orphan, never wanted by anyone, and this guy came along and for the first time I saw the possibility of having a home, somewhere and someone to belong to. I was just a kid, just seventeen. He was older and cocky and dangerous and I was so damn naïve. But then he betrayed me, sent me to jail for a crime he committed. Pregnant, nonetheless," she added with a humorless laugh. "Funny how we both got screwed over by the same person centuries apart, right?" She tried to light up the mood after such a heavy heart-to-heart.

Sensing her change in mood, Hook smiled and shook his head. Then he locked eyes with her and his expression sobered. "I'm sorry, Emma. For what you had to go through. You didn't deserve that."

She gulped. There was nothing but utmost sincerity in his voice. "Ditto. And, Killian?" His name rolled from her tongue with ease; the look in his eyes when she said it made her grab the pegs of the helm tighter to stop the shaking of her hands. "Thank you for doing all this. I know it must be hard, having him on board and letting go of your revenge."

Apparently at a loss of words –that would be a first – Hook nodded and, clearing his throat, motioned towards the helm, silently indicating her to go back to the sailing lesson. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful, but by the end of that day, Emma somehow felt lighter and, for the first time, she was completely certain that everything would be fine.