There are so many things that could have gone wrong. There are so many things that could have worked against my favor. The house could have been bespelled by Rumplestiltskin, Ruby might not have charged out the door, Belle might have succeeded in calling for help. Granny could have come home earlier than expected from the diner, the neighbors could have come to investigate. But for once it feels as though the fates are in my corner, Belle's unconscious form cradled in my arms as though the Gods themselves have put her there.
It's not something I have accomplished solely on my own. Smee has provided an invaluable assistance, and not just because he's moved Ruby. He's played both the lookout, and the get away driver, lending the use of his chrome and rust vessel as the vehicle that gets us to the harbor in a matter of minutes rather than the hour it would have taken on foot. Even with the time considerably shortened, I was tense, holding Belle slumped against me while expecting at any moment the flashing lights that would signify that the sheriff was in hot pursuit.
They never came. Even with Smee driving like a mad man, taking turns at neck breaking speeds, the streets behind us remained empty. Where ever the sheriff was this night, she wasn't out to get in my way for once. Another small miracle that, for that woman has a knack for involving herself in things that should be of no concern of hers. It is especially true for the situation I find myself in with Belle, the law having no place in our romance.
It hasn't from the start, Belle and I two free spirits, who have defied the rules, the very laws and limitations others would have put on our love. We have ignored those who had tried to restrict us, outright defied those who would stop us. That defiance had come easily, the rule breaking as natural as breathing. Harder yet would have been to stay away, my vengeance and then my love, driving me to be with Belle at all cost. She had felt the same way, not caring what others thought, or about how our continued association had caused conflict in all her other relationships. Belle had wanted to be with me, and I was determined to see her want that again.
But it won't be easy. I am prepared for the fight that looms ahead of me, my opponent not the Sheriff, or Rumplestiltskin, or even the wolf, but Belle herself. I fully expect her to fight me every step of the way, fully expect that same stubborn streak that had led her to defy her guardians time and time again to turn against me now. I will try to be as patient as I can be, but I fully expect us to be torn ragged before this is all through.
I don't truly look forward to the fighting, especially when the ultimate outcome is so uncertain. I don't know where we'll end up, what we'll become, but I know that almost anything is better than not having Belle in my life. She has become my reason for living, the reason for all the joy and happy feelings I have had, but Belle has also become the source of my frustration and torments. It is no lie to claim it is sheer agony to be apart from her, that our separation tears at my very soul. I want her, need her, and only she can soothe the madness that threatens to overtake me even now.
Simply put I love her, and it's that love that is driving me to do all this. Everything, from the kidnapping, to knocking out Ruby, to setting out to sea from the harbor. There's not a set destination in mind, I simply sail the Jolly Roger out as far as I dare, lingering close to a boundary I wont yet cross unless pushed there by a pursuit. An anchor tethers us in place, keeping the ship just out of reach of the curse.
There will always be the temptation of it, the desire to take the easy route where Belle's memories are concerned. I don't want to resort to it, but then I'm doing a lot of things I haven't wanted to do. But she's left me no choice, and Rumplestiltskin being invited into her home is the game changer where everything is concerned. Because I won't give her up, and I won't lose her to anyone, least of all HIM. I may have abandoned my revenge, but I am not about to let go of my heart's desire.
But there is a part of me that is angry. A part of me that growls for answers. I want to know why Rumplestiltskin was there, why she had allowed him near, and what they could have been talking about. I fear I already know, the lack of magic around Granny's house a damning evidence. I torture myself with imagining how far things went, with wondering just how much Belle might have allowed, might have done to try and put a damper on our love. I am sick at the idea of him touching her, of Belle letting him. I wonder what is so wrong about me, so terrifying, that she would prefer to run to the arms of that monster than accept the love I have for her.
I have dozens of questions, and too few answers. The not knowing kills me, but the truth is just as scary. I don't want to think of how badly I might react, don't want to think what I might say, what I might do in a fit of insane jealousy. I want the comfort of knowing she told him no, want to believe she sent him packing shortly after I had left. I need her to tell me it had all been a lie, a show put on with the sole intent to discourage me. That it hadn't didn't matter, I just needed her to reassure me.
I needed more than just that reassurance, I needed her. I needed her warmth, her nearness, and I wasn't content to wait for her okay. She was still unconscious when I settled into the bed beside her, her chest rising and falling with the gentle ease of her breath. My eyes couldn't help but be drawn to modest cut of her thin nightgown, the way the white silk strained across her voluptuous curves. Form fitting to a point, the sleeves were a loose flow of silk that draped down her arms, and nearly reached to her finger tips.
I touched my fingers to hers, then let the sleeve be drawn back to stare at the bruises on her delicate wrist. They contrasted with the porcelain beauty of her coloring, the bruises from where I had grabbed her already turning an ugly mottled blackish blue. It was a regrettable but necessary evil, the first real force I had ever had to use against her in this world.
Of course I've threatened her, even struck her, but that was all in the past. I had been a different man then, a man consumed by his revenge. The Hook that I had once been hadn't been the type to regret being ruthless, but the Hook I was now felt bothered to see the bruises. But I also knew we would be lucky if the bruising was the worst we would inflict on each other in the coming days.
The maelstrom of emotion wasn't something I was eager to confront. But like the bruising, the fighting and arguing would be a necessary evil, one that would hopefully, eventually lead to a reconciliation. I didn't want to consider what would happen if our battle led us anywhere else, if she left me with no other choice. I didn't want to think on what I might be capable of, how far I would go when I already had her, warm and pliant in my bed.
Just the act of having her there was a great comfort to me. But it wasn't enough! I needed more than to just have her laying there, I needed to touch and hold her, needed to feel her warmth on me, to breathe in and surround myself with her scent. I needed her, and I didn't see anything wrong with stealing a few touches.
With my hand trembling, I lay it down on the hip of her. I could feel the warmth of her skin through the fabric of her nightgown, but it was dulled by the silk. I wanted to be done with that barrier, but I didn't dare. Belle's supple beauty was such that a saint would be tempted, never mind a pirate!
I moaned in frustration, knowing what was right, knowing what was wrong. Belle didn't stir at the sound, the sleep powder having her firmly in it's grip. I rubbed my hand down the length of her, from hip to knee, always careful to keep the nightgown's fabric between us. But I wanted more! I ALWAYS wanted more from her, and it wasn't easy to stop.
My hand shook harder from the effort, my rebellious fingers reaching with their tips to try and sneak a touch of her skin. I knew my control would shatter should I get it, and I abruptly snatched my hand off of her. But I didn't leave the bed. Instead I fell back against the pillows, my hand shaking as I brought my fingertips to my lips. I imagined I could still feel her warmth on them and let out a sigh.
To myself I acknowledge that perhaps this was the worst torture of all. To have Belle so close, and be unable to act, to know my control was so fragile that even a touch could prove my undoing? But then, it's been this way for a while now, her every touch, every kiss, every expression the key to my unraveling. She's had this power over me since before we first kissed, and it's only gotten stronger with every expression of our love. I'm obsessed with it, with her, and the way she makes me feel.
It's a feeling that is good, but frightening in it's all consuming need. When I am with her, when all is right in our world, I live and breathe contentment. I am happy, but more than that, she brings a calm to me, helps me to find a peace that had eluded me for roughly three hundred years. Without her I am dying, drowning on desperation and need, torn apart by the sadness of being pulled from her side.
It's not that I am nothing without her, but that my life has no meaning if she is not an every day part of it. She's my reason for not giving up, for living, for laughing. For finally learning what it means to be happy. The seven months I had spent with her had made their impact on me, Belle marking me more thoroughly than an iron hot brand. I am hers, and it's time she acknowledge it.
Once she would have had no problem making that claim. With both words and actions, Belle had seized hold of my heart, her every kiss, her every promise cementing further her hold on me. I might as well have been her slave, so thoroughly did she have me, and never once did I wish to be free.
I want to make the same impact on her. I want to bind Belle so thoroughly to me, that she'd be just as incapable of leaving. I want her so twisted up on the inside, that she can't breathe without me, that she'd die without me. I want her heart to break at the thought of losing me, want her to stop fighting, stop resisting what we have. Most of all I want her to want me, want to hear the declarations from her lips, the confirmation that she still loves me.
I want her to tell me that the lies didn't matter, that the seven months we had spent together had meant as much to her as they did to me. I want to spend every waking moment making new memories, to reaffirm our love and connect on all levels. I want her, want her everything in return for my heart.
It seems a small price to pay, given the effect she has had on me. On my bruised and battered heart. Broken once, Belle had put it back together, filling the empty void within me. She had shared her love and warmth with me, slowly healing the rifts within it, rebuilding it so that I myself changed. I became a caring man, a loving man, her man, nurtured and nourished by just her presence in my life.
With every touch, every act, every whispered I love you, I had become more than I had been. By the time we had first made love, I was gone, helplessly, hopelessly in love with her. And it showed, my every thought, my every act centered on her. It was whole hearted the love I felt, and I was uncharacteristically gentle, a man focused not on his own satisfaction but on hers.
For the first time in some three hundred years, I had cared about a woman's feelings. It was no longer about getting my own, or about using Belle for vengeance. It was simply about being with her, and that was pleasure enough on it's own. That first time, as badly as I had wanted her, had been about controlling myself and soothing the worst of her uncertainties. Belle hadn't feared me or the act, but with her memories gone, there was that unknown factor of how far she might have gone with the Dark One. She hadn't known if she was a virgin, but then her virginity had never been much of a concern to me. But still I had wanted to be gentle, to make sure I eased her into what was essentially the first sexual experience she could ever remember having.
I still remember the tremble of her arms around me, the way her soft hands had stroked fingers down my back. She had been understandably nervous, but had also been excited, her hungry little mouth hot and eager on my own. Such a heady response had made it difficult to not devour her from the mouth on down, the ardent expression of her lips urging my own into a greater frenzy of passionate play. I remember tangling my fingers in her hair, gripping those brown curls in an effort for control.
The same control that I used that night, I seek now, Belle enough of a temptation on her own, without the memories adding to my struggle. With the same hand that had touched her then, I reach out to her now, ghosting my fingertips a hairsbreadth away from her sweet lips. I know they would be soft to the touch, and know well the sweet clinging feel of them pressing down on my own. Most of all I know the moist heat that they guard, have felt it, been burned by it's brand on my skin. I want to feel that heat again, want to remember how it made me shiver that first night, when Belle had softly suckled my thumb inside.
That sensation alone could have led to my undoing that night, but then Belle had boldly met my heated gaze with one of her own. With her eyes the color of a gentle blue sea, Belle had looked at me and had smiled. That smile, along with countless others, are ingrained in my memories, each one special and different and all mine.
I have seven months of memories with this woman, and we have squeezed a lifetime of loving into that time. I've seen her at her happiest, and at her saddest, and everything in between. It kills me the idea that she might never be that happy again, that her terror and tears might be all that's left for me, for us.
But then it is an all too real possibility. I might never see her look at me in that adoring way, may never again have the love and affection gleam in her eyes. I can destroy her memories, but in doing so I lose a part of her, the Belle that I have spent seven months loving, seven months making memories with, gone. And perhaps that is why I truly hesitate, the idea of starting over with what amounts to a stranger with her face almost more than I can bare.
It would be easier if I could. But I want more from Belle then her body, I want the complete package, the personality and memories and wit. I want the woman who had teased me, who had laughed with me, who had enjoyed reading to me excerpts of her favorite books. I want the woman who I had explored Storybrooke with, who had showed me the wonders of modern day living. I want the woman who I had taught the secret to navigating by the stars, the woman I had stolen fruit for, the woman I had fought a werewolf for.
I want THAT Belle, and there is just about nothing I won't do to have her.
To Be Continued...
Oooh this one...okay the writing process was mostly smooth and painless until I got to the part after the line about easing her into what would essentially be her first sexual experience. I had wanted to do their first love making as one of his memories, but what I tried to write felt wrong for the fic, felt like it became a total plot what plot. It really frustrated me...I am not hating on the trashed scenes (That didn't get that far before I trashed it.) just hating that they weren't right for the feel of this story.
I still want to get that first time love making scene in somehow...don't know if it is possible but I will try. maybe even for next chapter. Funny enough, when I first thought about it, I wanted it to be him remembering their love making while touching her...so it would be a good memory mixed with some creepy in a good way feel from Hook. I don't necessarily mean full on sexual touching, but probably more like he did this chapter. Trying to control himself and behave.
I'm also having to make a decision about some things. One of them being when Belle wakes up, do I change the narration style a bit to include a more verbal dialogue rather than maintain the way Hook has been telling the story to you all. Personally I feel it would be jarring to change the narration style too drastically mid fic, but we shall see what happens.
Over all I like this chapter, and it only took me like two and a half days to get it written. So yay for that!
-Michelle
Zerosuy, thank you! I'm glad someone else found it worthwhile. It's not my fave chapter, but the background info was stuff I felt was necessary to include and use to explain stuff mentioned in previous memories/chapters. I do like that that chapter also had their first kiss. XD So I don't hate the chapter, it's just not my fave.
I'll try not to feel bad about doing such short chapters. Though I WILL be thrilled when they end up longer than the short ones. XD And yay! Glad you found the kidnapping to be exciting.
Ryunn Kazan, and whisk her away he has! XD
