Through the grimy windows, the dawn filters and dust motes swirl in the shaft of golden sunlight. It woke her up but she doesn't mind. She needed to leave on her own accord before she was called away. Slowly, Mal sits up and consciously ignores the other body in her bed as she swings her legs off of the mattress, placing her bare feet on the floor without any sound.
"What would you do if I asked you to stay?"
Its barely audible, simply words released with a heavy breath, so quiet that Mal almost missed it as she pulls her clothes back on with fumbling fingers.
She pauses momentarily, frozen with her t-shirt bunched across her sternum. Rather than turning to face him, she swallows thickly and resumes redressing.
"Would you?" she questions.
"Ask you?" he clarifies, laying on his back and she could feel his eyes burning holes into the back of her head as she stood up.
Mal nods once, controlled and quick. She pushes herself up from the mattress that lay bare besides two pillows and a handful of blankets, on the floor of the warehouse. It's not much but for her final night, it was where she felt she needed to be.
"Mal," he says her name in a tone she has never heard from him and she her steps falter.
Sad and broken but with some sense of a command, still holding some sort of power over her.
It's then that Mal realises her cheeks are wet. A single tear-drop had fallen from her lashes and splashed on her skin, startling her. She refuses to let herself turn to face him, knowing that she would break down completely; one or two tears were fine but she would not allow herself to sob at that moment, especially not in front of him.
Instead, she goes searching for her shoes; black heeled boots that she had toed off at random point as he led them to the bed in the small hours of the previous night, not even six hours earlier.
She can hear him sigh and move out from under the blankets but she simply pads through the warehouse with a new sense of urgency, cursing herself for allowing the night to have taken this dangerous direction.
With one boot in her sight, Mal crosses the cold concrete floor to scoop it up but her body is pushed into the closest wall with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs before she can reach it.
She groans quietly in pain as he pins her face-first to the brickwork, the texture rough against her tear stained cheeks and chin. Mal knows better than to move or struggle; his fingers are in her hair and keeping her locked in place as he looms over her.
"Stay with me," he begs, his voice gruff in her ear. Heartbroken is the word that comes to Mal's mind which is odd as she would never have said the pirate had any emotions besides rage or desire.
It's then that Mal's resolve finally cracks. She cries as he eases up, releasing her hair and pulling back so she is leaning on the brick rather than pinned to it.
"I can't," she wishes she could say something else, anything else, but its the best she can do and it kills her inside.
Harry's sniffing when he gently turns her around. Mal feels weak and empty and allows him to manhandle her into facing him, an act she would never have usually allowed.
"I can't do this without you Mal," he tells her and she sighs, crying silently as he physically sags and leans his forehead against hers.
They've both got their eyes closed, breathing in tandem as they fight through the need to cry or scream.
"There's nothing we can do," she whispers, no longer trying to distance herself from him. Neither move, content to just lean their foreheads against one another but both want to wrap the other in their arms.
"Run away with me then," he proposes, the pitch of his voice rising with a hope they both know they cannot afford.
Mal shakes her head and Harry has to stand up fully once more. "They're coming here, they won't let me stay Harry. It wasn't an invitation it was an order."
Shaky breaths are the only thing piercing the silence in the large, empty space. Silence and then the jarring sound of ceramic smashing against the wall.
Mal closes her eyes once more, trying desperately not to jump every time Harry throws something or breaks a piece of furniture. He's shouting and swearing, screaming as he lets out his anger on the inanimate objects and Mal can't find her voice to object. It's the same reaction she had had when she had opened her letter all those weeks ago. The same lamp Harry kicks off of a side table was the same one Mal had thrown into the wall and then repaired with her magic.
Their reactions were the same because they were the same.
Eventually, Harry is in the middle of the ruined living area after having plunged his hook in the soft pillows of the sofa and turned it into ribbons of material and sponge. He's breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly as Mal finally opens her eyes and looks at him.
"Don't go. I'll hide you away," he rushes over to her, abandoning his hook with a clang as he crosses the debris to grip either side of her face in his hands.
Mal's all out of tears so her eyes simply sting as she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. "It's no use!" she is almost screaming at his but neither care. "I don't want to leave you," she confesses but rather than his reply, there's a barrage of loud knocks on the door to the warehouse space.
"Miss Mal, this is your two-minute call and then you will be escorted to the royal car downstairs," comes a detached voice.
Mal sniffs and presses her lips to Harry's, taking her time to ensure that he feels the love she is trying to convey. They kiss for seconds or hours but it's over too soon when the guards outside the door knock once more.
"I love you," she tells him as they enter to collect her and her few belongings. If any of the three palace guards are surprised to see the pirate, none of them shows any emotion besides unsheathing their musket guns as if expecting trouble.
"I will find you," he promises and a guard takes that as their parting as he crosses the room and holds out a hand for Mal. She takes it warily and the pressure and grip he applies as he tugs her out of the room are almost crippling.
"I love you!" she hears Harry shout as he is held at the end a gun to ensure Mal will leave without any complications. The last thing she sees before she's pulled down the stairs is Harry squaring up against the two guards.
Then when she nears the bottom of the winding metal stairs, there's a deafening bang, the unmistakable sound of a gunshot and the thump of a deadweight hitting the floor. Mal doesn't remember screaming but a hand is covering her mouth and then she bites down on it as she fights the arms that have encircled her.
She is kicking and crying, twisting in the guard's arms so that she can try and break free. She's causing a scene in front of the Islanders who had gathered around the limousine in the street, she knows its not what the guards want and more trouble will probably arise from it but all Mal can think about is Harry. They shot Harry.
"They shot him, they shot Harry!" shes shouting, her voice hoarse as she screams and yells.
Mal watches the Islanders swarm and protest, they shout and hit the limo with the same angry passion Mal can feel in her bones. Te Islanders swarm around the guard holding her and he drops her to the dirty ground as he is hit over the head.
"Go!" they tell her.
"Run!" someone throws a piece of rubble onto the car and smashes the passenger window in a shower of glass.
"Royal scum!"
Somebody is fighting the guards who descend from Mal's warehouse and the driver is being pulled from the cab and passed into the furious mob. The Islanders take care of their own.
Someone prises the door to the limousine open and three teenagers climb out, hurrying over to the sobbing girl on the cobbles who they had heard about from their mothers and island folk law. The ruthless witch was shaking on the floor until the thief helps her stand and the Queen's daughter pulls her from the mob to the stairs.
Mal catches on quick and she takes the stairs two at a time, overpassing the blue-haired girl and ripping the warehouse door from his hinges in her haste to reach the pirate.
Mal's knees buckle and she retches. Harry's on his back, his feet swept underneath him as the guard had been stood directly in front of him, the kinetic power of the bullet had sent him reeling backwards.
He's lying in a pool of crimson blood and his usually lively face is pale and sunken, as though he was a lifelike imitation carved from marble and covered with a grey cotton, no longer a living being but his chest, with the large bleeding bullet wound, is rising and falling in uneven beats.
"No, no, come on, live for me, please," she pleas but its useless, he barely stirs under her kisses as she presses her lips to his as if the action alone could revive him.
"He's dead," the girl says slowly, placing a hand on Mal's shoulder which the witch rips off in fury.
"No," she's stopped crying and her tone is one of determination, her demeanour changing so quickly that the girl takes several steps back in shock and fear.
Inside her, Mal feels her magic rippling under her skin, ready to erupt. The emotional charge of being ripped from the man she loved and hearing the gunshot that killed him had woken up some animalistic part of her.
Without speaking she reaches out and her magic pours from her palms and over him, seeping into the still torso of the pirate. She can feel it as it infuses with his cells, combining with his DNA to kickstart something. It's not his heart, a small voice in Mal head says.
Harry's heart remains unmoving but his eyes snap open and he looks up at the witch above him. His lungs no longer require oxygen but he takes a breath regardless, still used to the habit of doing it when he had been alive.
"I can't live without you," Mal tells him. She knows that necromancy was dark, black magic and she can hear the blue haired girl screaming as she flees the warehouse.
"You don't have to," Harry says, his voice the same as it had been when he had been alive, still husky and deep with the same intoxicating accent. "I am never leaving you Mal, you own my soul" he promises.
When they descend the stairs once more, Harry's silver hook is gleaming on one hand and his sword is shining in the early morning sun in the other as he stands behind Mal. He looks slightly fuzzy and grey and the blood from his bullet wound is floating into the air like smoke. His eyes are darker than they had been and there is a wolf-like grin on his face.
Mal was still wearing her blood-soaked shirt and there was Harry's bloody handprint on her neck and cheek but that was not what the Islanders stared at as she parted through them to the three guards who were holding their own, using their guns and sword skills on the villagers who had been fighting them.
Everyone stands transfixed and in awe of her eyes and hands. Her green eyes are bright and her magic is alive in her palms, dancing like flames as she glares at the guards who stand like statues in fear.
"But he was shot through the chest," one of the guards exclaims and its then that people realise Harry Hook is stood behind her, looking only slightly dead. He smirks towards the guard as Mal screams and throws her hand in his direction, her magic impaling the man and killing him instantly.
"Witch!" one of the remaining two cries and he blesses himself but its too late, Mal slowly makes a fist and the crowd watch as the guard's neck is crushed with the force of her magic that's slowly darkening from a pale mint to a deep emerald.
When she releases him, the guard's lifeless body drops in a heap and the final man drops to his knees, begging for his life.
"Tell your King to raise the barrier or there will be more bloodshed," she commands and it is followed by a small sliver of magic being absorbed by the guard's temple as he nods. Cheers from the crowd make him shake and Mal smiles wickedly. "Take them back with you."
The guard looks up at her and she reaches out, infusing their lifeless bodies with her magic and making them sit up with blank, vacant eyes. The two corpses stand and grip either arm of the final guard, hauling him into the back of the battered limousine as the crowd stand in silence, parting for the walking deadmen as they climb into the cab.
"We will no longer stand by idly as the Crown rips apart our lives. If they think they can murder my lover and dampen my power then they are wrong!" Mal shouts as the limo drives off and the crowd drop to their knees in front of the witch, partly in fear and partly in recognition of her desire to free the Isle.
"Long live evil!" Harry crows, his hook bloody with the guts of the original driver who had not outlived his one-way trip.
"Long live evil, long live Mal!" comes the collective response and Mal leans back into her lover's dead chest, testing the mental connection she can feel between herself and the dark magic pulsing in the three men she had risen from the dead.
"Love live love," she whispers to Harry as they retreat back to the warehouse with the two villainous kids and the blue-haired girl in tow, ready to plan and build an army to fight the oppression of the crown with their one advantage, a willingness to play dirty in the name of love.
Hello,
So this is a simple stand alone one shot that's a bit bloody and very gory about a Mal who practises dark magic (namely necromancy to some degree)
Family Affair will be updated by this time next week so look out for that and as always...
please favourite, follow, leave a review and enjoy XO Pops