The night was bitterly cold. His leather cloak kept out most of the chill, but some numbness had begun to creep into his limbs, making them stiff. He stood up on the rooftop to stretch out his aching muscles, which were protesting strongly at having held a crouch for so long. He had been up here for hours, and wasn't about to give up his perfect perch in favor of the comfort of his ship's cabin just yet. It had taken him a week to find the perfect vantage point from which to watch her. The rooftop that he was currently occupying was directly adjacent to the sheriff's station, and with the use of his spyglass, he had been silently watching her go about her day.
The sky had already turned to an inky black hours before, and yet still she sat at her desk, searching endlessly through papers, staring contemplatively out of windows, or pacing back and fourth across the strangely tiled floor. Something was bothering her. That much was clear. He had even briefly entertained the thought that she was musing about him. But of course she had hardly spared a thought for him since last they met. He hardly entertained the thought that she might feel for him. He had thought, for a brief flickering moment, that she felt those same stirrings of longing, but he'd been mistaken. She had abandoned him; left him alone at the top of a beanstalk with a giant she claimed would not kill him. She'd had no compunction about knocking him out cold during their heated duel afterwards. No, he harbored no such romantic delusions. Though he admired the strength of her arm and the valor with which she had fought him, he could not help but recall those memories without the faint taste of bitterness tainting them. Indeed, the same bitterness colored each of his memories of her, for he was angry at himself for letting her affect him so. And yet here he was, watching her from afar like some love struck fool.
Yet despite these angry thoughts he quickly resumed his huddled crouch once he had stretched enough to alleviate some of his discomfort. He wouldn't risk being seen for the pleasure of being able to walk in the morning. Better to have his muscles clench in cold and pain then to be caught, let alone caught spying on the Swan girl.
Despite the biting frosty air the night itself was clear and beautiful. Killian glanced up at the stars and wondered, not for the first time, at the beauty of the heavens above. The night sky held more sparkling jewels in its dark embrace then he had ever been able to plunder in his many years before the mast. His eyes were immediately drawn to two bright stars in the eastern sky. The second star burned brighter than it's companion, and Killian smiled faintly at the memories it brought.
The cold was quickly sapping the strength from his fingers, and he forced them open to place his spyglass next to him on the roof. He blew into his hand, the warmth of his breath bringing some relief from the draining cold. Briefly he eyed his hook. The metal glinted brightly in the starlight. The steel, he knew, would be colder than his fingertips would ever be. It adapted to the changing temperature of the air around him, alternately hot and scorching from the blazing sun as it had been when he had wandered the jungles of Neverland, or cold and frozen as it was tonight. It certainly wasn't natural, but it was as much a part of him as anything else.
Sighing softly to himself he retrieved the spyglass from the ground beside him. He tugged it open; holding it in his good hand and catching his hook on the notch he had placed there to help open it. It had once been an inconvenience to live each of his days with only one hand, but he hardly gave it a thought as he placed the spyglass back up to his eye, resuming completely the position he'd held for hours.
He angled the spyglass towards the window that looked in on her desk. The blond hair that has been within his sight for hours was not there. With rising dread he trained the spyglass on each of the lighted windows of the sheriff's station in turn.
She was gone.
An exasperated huff escaped him as he swung himself around to face the street and found that it too was empty. After hours spent watching, his beguiling creature she had slipped away the second his gaze had wandered.
His beguiling creature...well that was new. Killian forced that newfound thought to the back of his mind. She was maddening that Swan girl. In the short time he'd known her, he had apparently begun to think of her as his. After all that he'd been through, he had sworn, with every fiber of his being that he would never love again. But now...
He had to stop this. Now, before it got out of hand. He already spent more time thinking about her, both un-intentionally and very intentionally, than he spent thinking about his revenge. He wasn't about to let some girl interfere with the vengeance he'd been plotting for the past three hundred years.
And yet here you are. Standing on this roof.
Suddenly furious with himself, Killian roughly closed his spyglass and shoved it angrily inside the leather pouch at his belt. He glared at the lighted windows of the sheriff station, glowing brightly and speaking of a deceptively inviting warmth behind them. There was no warm welcome awaiting him there. Of that much, he was certain.
A door banged shut from somewhere behind him. He jumped at the sudden noise in the quiet night, his hand going unthinkingly to the hilt of his sword.
A quiet, disbelieving voice broke the silence.
"Hook?"