A/N: I have to give a HUGE thank you to Ice Cube1 for beta'ing, cheerleading, threatening, cajoling, begging, bribing, and all around pushing for this fic to happen (AND ART!). You're awesome (and evil) and this probably wouldn't have happened without you. I love Firefly a whole lot, I love OUAT, so it seemed only natural to combine my two favourite pirates in an adventure of their own. This will be Captain Swan, eventually, but there will be a bumpy road ahead.
Rated M for eventual violence and romance, so please keep that in mind.
I hope y'all enjoy! Feel free to leave reviews, comments, or send messages, I love hearing from readers. Oh, and free cookies to anyone who can finish the rest of the title quote. =)
Chapter One - On the Raggedy Edge
He notices her before she can see him, her path marked by her bright yellow dress and the colourful flowers she clutches in her fist as she weaves through the trees. He keeps some of his attention on the smallest of the sheep nearest him, making sure that each gets their turn at the food trough, watching the girl in the sparse forest. She's young, perhaps a little younger than he is, but not by too much. Her hair is just as golden as her dress, flying behind her freely.
He waits. Maybe she'll come closer. Maybe she'll even say hello.
He chases away that thought with a forceful shake of his head, a frown on his lips. He shouldn't wish for such things. The captain will become suspicious of her, as he does with all new faces, and he'll take it out on the boys in his care.
Care. He wants to laugh, but only to keep the tears away. If care means just enough food to keep the boys from dying, just enough sleep to keep them productive.
He glances back toward the ship, to his brother who helps build the fence for the flock. One day he'll be allowed to help with the heavier tasks, one day he'll not be forced to wade among the sheep droppings in the field.
One day, he might even be free.
He hears a noise from the woods, turns back quickly before he can remind himself that freedom is just a dream. The little girl is nowhere to be-
There. Just at the edge of the trees, he sees her. The yellow dress, now covered in mud, flowers strewn about on the ground as her hands scrabble in the dirt. She's half-sunk into what must be a hole in the ground, a small ditch of some kind. She struggles to free herself, she can't seem to get out, though she doesn't stop trying.
He wants to help, he wants to… but he can't, the cuff on his wrist linked to the ship. If he gets too far from the Firefly, if he ventures more than a few paces from the electronically tagged sheep, it'll go off. The painful shock through his small body is nothing compared to the beating he'll get afterward. But he has to help her, he has to do something.
Ignoring his brother's cry for him to return, he holds tightly to the lamb beside him, encouraging the beast to accompany him. If he can just bring the animal close enough, perhaps he can rescue the girl without punishment.
He's almost beside her, he can see her fear clearly as he approaches the small hole. He sees her foot, trapped in the dirt and rocks that must have fallen in as she tripped. She doesn't say anything, her green eyes pleading with him loudly enough. She must know what he is, she must, but she doesn't flinch as he draws near, her fear is not for him.
He recognises it in a flash, it's the same as his own. The fear of being left behind.
More determined to help her, he keeps one hand on the lamb at his side and bends down beside her. Using his free hand to scrape away the rocks and dirt, they work together in silence, and soon her foot is free. She scrambles up from the pit, gathering her once abandoned flowers as she does.
He stands.
For a moment, they stare at each other, her eyes wide, no trace of her earlier panic, filled instead with words she almost says. He doesn't talk, can't talk, he fears he won't know what to say, or how. It's been so long since he's been allowed to speak to someone from outside the ship.
She smiles. He feels his mouth turn up at the corners in response. He's surprised; he was certain he didn't remember how to smile anymore. She looks down at her hands, at the flowers coated in dust from the ground. Carefully, she pulls out a small blue one, nearly the same colour as his eyes.
Still smiling, she hands it to him. He hesitates, uncertain. He can't keep it, he can barely manage to hold onto the few possessions they're permitted on the ship, keep them from falling into the hands of the older boys, or the crew. He can't, but he needs to, some part of him wants this flower more than anything he's ever wanted.
Even more than his freedom.
His fingers tighten around the stem, brushing against hers ever so slightly. She doesn't let go.
Instead, she steps forward, closer, the lamb backing up a half step with her approach. Before he can react, before he can pull away, she kisses him, a brief peck on the cheek.
She laughs then, her voice light and impossibly beautiful. She laughs, and he wants to laugh with her, if he only knew how.
Without a word, she releases the flower, turns, and heads back into the woods, weaving her path through the trees as brightly as before, though her dress is far from clean. The smile on her face as she turns back to him one last time makes up for that.
He heads back to the rest of the flock, the small sheep still at his side, the flower held tightly in his fingers, the cuff on his wrist silent. He finds a place to hide the flower, hopes he can keep it safe for a while, the only reminder of the one person who gave him a chance to be a more than just a slave.
Later that evening, he's beaten anyway, for figuring out a way around the electronic leash they've tied to his arm.
The whispered memory of her kiss on his cheek lingers long after the bruises fade away.
Captain Hook stood on the bridge of the Jolly Roger, staring out into the black. The enemy cruiser was just ahead, he could almost make out her contours against the glow of the moon behind her. No matter, the radar had it pinpointed with more accuracy than his eyes ever could.
Alliance Patrol Boat, same model as the Jolly, though Hook knew he had far more weapons aimed at the APB than could ever be directed back at him. The benefit of hiring an ex-military crew - they never left anything to chance.
"Sir, we're coming up on the Winchester in about five minutes," the pilot said quietly. Lieutenant Charles Hunter knew Hook didn't need more information than that. They'd been at this for close to six years now, had the entire procedure down to a routine.
Find the ships. Salvage for useable materials. Blast them out of the sky. Keep flying.
"Good," Hook acknowledged with a nod. "Scramble their communication in two."
It almost felt too routine for Hook. Six years was a long time to wage a war against an enemy that didn't seem to care that he existed, aside from the vexing attacks from which they had yet to successfully protect themselves. He had lost track of how many Alliance ships he'd captured after the first fifty they'd disabled. Each haul usually yielded more weapons, more food supplies, more medical equipment, and the occasional load of seed crops or cattle. He never took the cattle, couldn't handle the stench of the animals on his ship, not anymore.
He sighed, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck to rub out the knots of muscle that formed just over his left shoulder, ignoring the familiar shocks of pain that climbed that arm from beneath the brace he wore at the end of it. Always happened before a raid, no matter how simple, the blunted wrist and curved metal hook in place of his missing hand the only physical reminders of why he was even firing on an Alliance patrol in the first place.
Hook sighed again, trying to breathe out the pain through his mouth. He was exhausted - tired of fighting, tired of the attacks, tired of trying to justify the swath of destruction he left in his wake, trying to find some purpose in his actions where there was none, not anymore. All the anger, all the hurt, it felt as if it had burned itself out a long time ago, and he had nothing left to fuel his hatred toward the government that had taken everything from him, nothing to recharge the sense of purpose he hadn't felt in ages.
He was just… tired.
"Everything all right, Captain?" Hunter asked, eyeing him carefully. The man was loyal to a fault, nearly as reliable as Smee, who, if Hook had to guess, was off securing the weapons for the boarding party. Hunter was the best pilot he could have asked for, and it only helped that Hunter's entire platoon had been destroyed in a mistaken burst of friendly fire, Hunter himself left behind amid the wreckage. All Hook's crew had the same common enemy, a target on which to focus their hate and anger and feelings of uselessness after the war left them broken in more ways than just physical, and it was what kept them all in the sky.
"I'm fine, Lieutenant." He dropped his hand from his neck, the tensed muscles still throbbing beneath his skin. "Call me over the com when it's over. I'm going on with the boarding party."
"Very good, sir."
Hook turned and left the bridge.
As usual, the raid went off without a hitch. Communication equipment destroyed and no way to call for help, the few officers on the Winchester surrendered after little gunfire and a handful of casualties. Hook hadn't lost a single man. He stalked past the tightly-bound Alliance personnel guarded by his crew, and headed for the cargo bay to catalogue the inventory.
Crates with various forms of weaponry were stacked four high, mostly military grade, but a few smaller pieces as well. A row of brand new plasma cannons lined the side, and Hook nodded approvingly. His could use updating, and his men would be glad to have a few more guns on board. There were smaller bins off to the back, foodstuffs and planting materials, a few boxes of farm equipment and animal feed.
Good. He could use a quick trip to Hera, hadn't been back in nearly six months. The villagers there would be glad to have it, he knew, despite never having stayed long enough to see the people's faces when they found what he'd left.
He didn't need to see the accusations in their faces either, when they found out his role in their destruction.
An oblong crate behind the cannons caught his eye, the rust at the edges a clear sign that this wasn't normal Alliance cargo. They tended to prefer their shipments brand new, not worn and used like that. Likely something they confiscated from some backwoods moon, from some poor farmers or homesteaders who had the poor luck to be citizens.
He slid past the heavy guns, the black leather of his long coat pulling behind him as he did. Using the sharpened metal tip of his hook, slightly bloodied from the one guard he'd stabbed a few minutes back, he carefully pried open the dented metal lid.
It came off with a sharp hiss, the crate had been clearly sealed hermetically before he'd interfered. Something preserved, then. Hopefully food, more fresh than the flavoured protein bars and canned assortment the ship's cook was currently using. He lifted up the lid and nearly fell back in alarm, dropping the metal heavily onto the cargo bay floor with a loud clang that muffled his gasp of surprise.
Flowers.
The crate was brimming with them, all different colours, all different sizes and shapes, more than he'd seen in years, not since well before the war. The small tags on a few of them clearly pointed to the original owners of the flowers, a shop located somewhere on Shadow. But that was impossible, Shadow had been utterly devastated after the Independents lost the war, retribution for the amount of Browncoat rebels to come from the area. Alliance ships had scoured the ground, burning huge swaths of land and villages and homes without discrimination.
Thousands had died there, the planet destroyed, the land infertile and unfit for human colonisation. For these flowers to have come from Shadow, they were old, at least six years old. They should have withered away to nothing, shouldn't be hiding amid the weapons that murdered the people who cared for them, cultivated them, loved them.
Without a word, Hook left the cargo bay, leaving behind the ghosts of a long-dead planet to wither in the recycled atmosphere of the ship.
His men made quick work loading up the guns, the cannons, the food supplies, bringing them across to the Jolly Roger efficiently and quietly. They piloted away from the APB with the last load of goods back to Hook's ship.
They left the flowers behind.
As soon as the crates were unloaded on the Jolly, as soon as the shuttle was sealed up for another day, another raid, weapons stacked in the locker beside it, Hook returned to the bridge. Standing behind Hunter, he could clearly see every detail of the crippled Alliance ship in front of them, the moonlight casting shadows across her edges.
"Destroy it," Hook said quietly. Hunter nodded and prepared the guns to fire. Hook closed his eyes, the faint hum of cannon fire rumbling through the ship under his feet.
Captain Hook left the bridge, and didn't look back.
Emma Swan sat in her shuttle, looking over the report she'd just printed off the Cortex. Her newest job, one she was finding more and more unsettling. As a bounty hunter, she'd brought in various pirates over the years - usually Alliance bounties paid better than private, but this job was almost too good to be true. A former contact on Ezra had brought her this contract, but each new piece of information she learned made her regret her eager acceptance more and more, despite the money it offered.
The bounty didn't have a name, that should have been her first clue. Just a code he went by, a nickname based on the hook he wore instead of a hand he must've lost. Whether he was born that way or not, no one seemed to know. He'd simply showed up in the 'verse about six years ago, just months after Unification Day, the official end to the civil war that had destroyed so many lives, including her own.
She frowned, reading over the reports of the early attacks he'd led against Alliance patrols, ultimately stealing one of the mid-sized APBs to claim as his own. The Jolly Roger, he called it, after the old pirate flags from centuries ago, trying to instill a more classic sense of piracy on his brand of destruction. He and his crew only attacked Alliance vessels, though, and not for the first time, she wondered why the contract she had for this rogue wasn't from the Union of Allied Planets, but from some old guy with a heavy accent holed up in an orbiting space station.
This target hadn't attacked a single civilian boat in all his time terrorising the skies. Hadn't even fired on one to get them to turn away. This Captain Hook, whoever he was, seemed singularly focused on destroying only one particular type of ship: Alliance.
Emma sighed, shuffling the papers into a mostly-neat stack and stowing them in the pocket near the console. Her ship was fueled up, ready to go, the converted Firefly 1 shuttle - nicknamed the Beetle - had a range of a week's travelling before she had to worry about restocking again. She planned to head off to Persephone, download new intel on her bounty, and see where that led her. There had been reports of a few recent Alliance attacks, matching similar reports from Hook's previous raids. It was worth checking out.
She spared a single glance at the small photo at the edge of the console, just one look, the picture memorised years ago, unforgettable. The little boy looking back at her, his green eyes the same colour as hers, the silent pleading in his eyes the reason she kept going each day.
If only the bounties she caught could bring her one step closer to him.
She sighed and looked away. This wasn't the time to go running off on sentimental missions. She had work to do, coin to make. Then, maybe she could afford to take some time off. Maybe she could find the one person who eluded her for so many years, the one person she'd failed so miserably.
After all, Niska was definitely paying her enough to catch this Captain Hook to afford some vacation time.
Emma flipped the switches on the console, started up the Beetle, and plotted her course to Persephone.
"Forty percent, final offer."
Badger looked nervous, exuded it, really, his neckerchief soaked in sweat before he'd even settled at the small table a few minutes before. Something was up, something he wasn't saying, and Captain Malcolm Reynolds didn't like people holding out on him.
"Fifty," Mal countered, taking a sip of the god-awful piss water the 'businessman' claimed to brew himself. He tried not to flinch as he swallowed.
"Mal, come on," Badger pleaded, his voice taking on a note of desperation Mal hadn't heard from him in a long time. "I gotta pay my crew, right? Can't 'ave you takin' all the loot befo' they even get their cut."
Mal traded glances with Zoe who was silent as usual, a raised eyebrow the only sign she was paying attention. He took another sip, choked it down, and leaned forward.
"Way I see it," Mal said, his voice even, unrushed. Let Badger squirm a mite longer, it was probably good for him. "Your crew ain't the ones taking up arms against this supposedly dangerous pirate. Mine is. So either we get half the reward, or there's no deal."
"Mal, look at it from my-" the other man began, but Reynolds held up a hand, cutting him off.
"Look, why you got youself a contract like this, I ain't asking," Mal said, staring hard into Badger's eyes. "Maybe you want to clean up the sky, make the 'verse a safer place for honest criminals like yourself. Maybe someone's got your naughty bits twisting in the wind. Don't much matter to me. But the deal's this - fifty, or you find yourself another sucker who'll take your offer."
Mal leaned back, took another drink from the cup - or would have if there had been any left. Small favours. He pretended to swallow it anyway - no reason for Badger to know he wasn't quite as drunk as he wanted. He waited.
Badger's face twisted angrily, visibly considering his options. It was a dangerous job, Mal had to admit, and not one that he usually agreed to take, but with the buckets of sweat the other man was shedding through his clothes there seemed to be more here than met the eye. Someone wanted this money, someone big, scary enough to make Badger nervous. Not Alliance, Badger didn't much care to get involved in their politics. Some other player then.
"Fine," Badger spat out. "You'll get your fifty. Find the guy, grab the loot, bring it back 'ere to me, and ye'll have the money."
Mal smiled. "Then we have a deal. Pleasure, as always." He stood, straightening the brown coat across his shoulders, the holstered weapon at his side. Zoe stood as well, ready to go. "We'll just see ourselves out then?" he asked, motioning toward the door. "Unless you had more of that wonderfu-"
"Ge' out," Badger snapped, and Mal's smile grew wider still.
He and Zoe turned and left the complex.
"I don't like it, sir," Zoe said quietly as they headed back to the ship. "Something's not right with this one."
"Yeah, I know it," Mal agreed, finally allowing the frown to cross his face. "Badger's actin' too jumpy for this to be a simple cash grab."
"I say we go back, tell him we changed our minds."
He stopped completely just outside Serenity, turned and stared at his second in command, the Corporal who stayed with him throughout all the fighting during the war, throughout everything they went through after. In all that time, Zoe never changed her mind about anything, never admitted weakness to an enemy looking to exploit it. If she was spooked this badly…
"The money's too good to pass up," Mal said quietly. "With Inara gone, we need the coin, more than ever. Too many repairs to make, too many things Kaylee's noticed about to go wrong. Can't have that, not again. We need this job, Zoe. We need it."
She nodded, but her eyes didn't agree. "I just don't like it."
"So we keep our eyes open, stay alert, and get the job done." He grinned, hoping to force some optimism he didn't really feel. "Besides, when else do we get to chase after a real live pirate named Captain Hook?"
Zoe didn't smile as she and Mal made their way up the ramp of the waiting Firefly.