The knock on the door, while sudden and unexpected, couldn't have come at a better time. Especially for the pirate, who all but fell off the bed in his haste to respond. Belle watched him go, the curtain of beads rattling noisily in protest at the speed in which they had been disturbed. The strands would continue to bump into each other long after Hook had passed, their noisy click clack competing with the beat of Belle's furious heart.

Her heart was an echo of what she was feeling, the inner turmoil and upset that had fear lacing ribbons around Belle. She was angry yes, but also hurt and bewildered, with a healthy dose of shock running through her. The shock she couldn't really afford to wallow in, her wits needing to be sharp to deal with the pirate and any questions he might still ask. It was questions that needed answers that would be satisfactory to them both, questions Belle wasn't sure how to answer for herself let alone for Hook but she knew the full truth wasn't an option. And not just because Belle didn't understand how this trip through time had come to happen, but because of her connection to Rumplestiltskin, the pirate's most hated sworn enemy.

It was truly frightening to Belle to even consider what Hook might do to her should the full truth come out. He had already tried to kill her once, or at least the Hook of the future had. Belle didn't want to have the added trouble of the Hook of this time period also turning murderous towards her. Of course the alternative didn't seem much more appealing, Belle actually shivering as she thought over the way the pirate had been acting towards her since she had awakened onboard his ship. Overly solicitous and staring, quick to touch and even quicker to react, Hook showed all the signs of wanting her.

That wanting was as big a problem as his potential to turn murderous towards her, Belle not at all liking the way Hook had stared at her. With a look of a starved man that had found something to finally satisfy all his hungers, Belle some creamy treat that Hook wanted to devour. It was unsettling, upsetting to realize, and even worse to experience the way Hook watched her every move. It made a knot of unease ball up in her chest, Belle unable to breath right so long as she was under his keen scrutiny.

It was why she too had felt real relief when the knock at the door had come, Hook having scrambled away in much the way Belle had desired too. But there was no peace in his going, Belle remaining unsettled. Remembering her barbed inquiry, and the fact that Hook had not been able to give her an answer, and the fact that just a few minutes earlier, he had had his arms around her and had been excited by the act.

More than excited, if judging by the signs of his body. The moan, the rasping breath, and worse yet, the fact that she had brushed against what had clearly been the hard proof of his arousal. Already aware of her vulnerable position here on his ship, Belle had been downright terrified to think there was nothing to stop him from taking things further then a hug. There still wasn't, Hook having all time and opportunity in the world to do what came naturally to a pirate. And he had in effect warned her, pointing out that pirates take what they want. A fact she had already known, pirates infamous in the kingdoms for their looting, pillaging, and raping ways.

With that firmly in mind, it hadn't been just anger or a need to be defiant that had Belle back talking at Hook. It had been fear, Belle truly wanting to know what-who would protect her from Hook. Be it from his lust, or his revenge, neither one seeming better than the other. She could turn him easily from lust with the truth, but then that same truth would then most likely see Belle dead. And she refused to die for Hook's revenge, and for Rumplestiltskin's mistakes.

Her will to live strong, Belle hoped that she could survive Hook and Neverland long enough to get back to her own time and place. She didn't know what was happening in Storybrooke, if Rumplestiltskin even had a clue as to what had truly happened to Belle. But she had to hang on to the hope that he would find a way to bring her back, maybe with some bit of magic she didn't yet know about. He was the Dark One after all, and if anyone could do the impossible, it was he. His magic unlike anything, anyone else's, in the entirety of the Enchanted Realm's kingdoms.

That magic had been well hungered after, people time and time again desperate enough to seek Rumplestiltskin out. Some tried to take what he had, but most weren't that stupid. Instead of resorting to stealing, they tried to bargain with him, an act Rumplestiltskin had delighted in. Currying favors, calling in debts, Rumplestiltskin as the Dark One fulfilled dreams then turned most into nightmares as he lined the pieces and players into place. It was only fairly recently that Belle had learned the truth of Rumplestiltskin's deal making and manipulations, his quest for his son justifying much in the Dark One's eyes.

Knowing the truth hadn't made it easier for Belle to accept a lot of the things Rumplestiltskin had done, that he still sometimes did. But she understood, now knew he was motivated by the love of a father for his lost son. She hung onto that love, to the belief of it, even when it hurt her in turn. Painful though it was, that love also made sense of things that had once seemed irrational, even insane. Belle fervently hoped that love would help her to once again make sense of something, a horrific thing that was by all accounts an unspeakable crime. Belle's heart would break if there wasn't some way to explain, to justify the death-the murder of Rumplestiltskin's own wife.

Belle shivered every time she so much as thought about the idea of Rumplestiltskin murdering Milah in cold blood. Her heart had been in turmoil from the moment of Hook's revelation, Belle reeling and frightened, disturbed at the very idea, and by the thought that she might be in love with a man capable of doing such a thing. A part of her had been in shock from the moment Hook had uttered that frightening claim, while another had been in pure denial. Some part of her still wanted to deny everything Hook had told her, and that same part was scared of the opportunity that lay with the Hook of the past. The chance to find out more, to learn the full details of what had went down the day Milah had been murdered.

Scared to learn the truth, scared to NOT, Belle was a tense ball of emotion and fears. It made thinking difficult, in a time when she needed to be smart, Belle wishing she had more time to herself away from the pirate and his curiosity and lust. But time wasn't on her side in this, Hook already returning. And with him, two steps behind, was another, much older pirate. A man that Belle had to fight to keep from reacting too, and still her wary dislike showed as she looked at the red capped wearing Smee.

He looked no different here than when he had kidnapped her back in Storybrooke. His eyes still gleamed with that deceptive kindness and concern, Smee looking harmless. But he was not. Belle's fingers didn't quite clench, the woman remember how Smee had nearly succeeded in sending her over the boundary which would have wiped out not only her memories but her very identity. He might have been acting under her father's orders, but she still couldn't forgive Smee. Not even now, when it was long before Smee had acted to do such a horrible thing. He was a pirate after all, and they were without scruples in the best of circumstances. But add money or worse yet revenge to the table, and a pirate was capable of just about anything.

With that thought in mind, Belle looked downright defiant in response to Hook and Smee's approach. She didn't relax when Hook stepped aside to reveal what Smee was carrying, the older pirate holding a tray that held a mug of something steaming, and a bowl of some kind of stew that's delicious smell made Belle's mouth water despite herself.

It left her torn in three directions, Belle trying to keep an eye on both pirates and the tray. Her hunger won out, Belle realizing it must have been days since she had had the chance to eat something solid.

Her hungry reaction to the tray did not go unnoticed, Hook chuckling softly in response. "Smee was right to hazard a guess you'd be wanting something more substantial than just tea."

"It was an easy enough guess to make." The man, Smee said, his cheeks rosy with a flush of pleasure at his captain's words. "I said to myself, the lady's bound to be starved with nothing but the doctor's medicines in her belly."

The tray was brought before her, with it's hearty portion of meat stew, and chunks of white bread dipped in the brown colored sauce. It smelled wonderful, to the point it was all Belle could do to keep from gobbling it all down in a few bites.

"Easy love..." Hook cautioned. "There's no need to make yourself sick trying to eat it all at once."

She very nearly blushed in response to that, a mortified Belle forcing herself to slow down and actually enjoy the taste of the food. It was well worth the effort, the stew perhaps the best thing she had tried in recent memory, and that included the hamburgers at Granny's! The comparison brought on what might be the first pang of homesickness Belle had ever felt for Storybrooke, the woman wondering how, IF she would ever get back to that time and place.

Her unhappiness showed, the sad frustration drawing Hook closer to her. She quickly put another spoonful of stew in her mouth, to stave off if not the question, than the answer she had to carefully give.

"What's wrong, love?"

Chewing slowly, Belle merely shrugged her shoulders in response. Admitting she had felt homesick, even for a brief second, seemed out of the question. It would bring up too many questions, Hook having already professed an interest in figuring out just where exactly in the Enchanted Realm's many kingdoms, Belle had come from.

"Just can't remember the last time I tasted something this good..."

The bed creaked with the weight of Hook added to it, the pirate leaning in close to her. The blunt curve of his hook gently touched under her chin, the pirate urging Belle to look up at him.

"Now that be an evasion if ever I heard one." He smiled though, his eyes dancing with an amused light. "Now what is the real thing troubling you?"

She watched his eyes glance briefly at her mouth, Belle having begun to bite down nervously on her bottom lip. Her face grew hot in response, Belle jerking away from the pirate and the hook he was named after.

"Belle?"

"I'm just..." She finally settled on what to say. "Just wondering if I will ever get to leave Neverland."

"So quick and eager to want to leave...but then I suppose I can't blame you." Hook had lowered his arm. "After all Pan has done to you...ah but then you think I am to blame."

"Aren't you?" Belle demanded hotly, at the same instant Smee spoke up in surprise.

"You captain? But why?!"

Hook didn't even look towards the other pirate. "Pan has been playing games."

"Nothing unusual about that." huffed Smee.

"Ah but this time he's gone so far as to manipulate events so that our sweet guest here thinks I am to blame for her misfortunes." Hook continued in a pleasant tone of voice. "You see Smee, he's made the lady here think I was the one who tried to kill her."

Belle heard Smee's outrage gasp, then turned to look at the sputtering pirate. "The captain would NEVER! And certainly not to a lady!" Smee grew more agitated at Belle's lack of response, seeming to vibrate in place with his anger.

"Easy there, Smee." Hook spoke up. "She doesn't know Pan like we do, or of the games he would play."

It didn't work to calm Smee down entirely, the man still red faced with his upset. "Pan is the worst, my lady! Quick to make a victim of us all, you'd best be on guard where that demon imp is concerned."

Belle couldn't stop her curiosity from bubbling up. "Why? What has he done that is so bad?"

"What hasn't he done?!" Smee exclaimed. "Kidnapping, torture, murder, turning Neverland into a place of total terror..."

"We've lost many a crew member to Pan and the dangers of Neverland." added Hook. "To his tricks and traps. It's sometimes been all we can do to survive..."

"And yet you have stayed." Belle noted with an arch of her brow. "Why?" Her gaze narrowed at Hook. "Because you have a monster to kill?"

"Aye because of that." Hook said with a nod of his head.

She eyed him thoughtfully, considering carefully how she wanted to reply to that. She settled on a half truth, giving the pirate a bitter half smile. "That's a noble intention for a pirate." She sipped the warm drink for a second's pause. "The reward offered for it's head must be substantial for you to...dedicate yourself to such a dangerous pursuit."

"Its not money that drives me, and I'm hardly one for noble intentions." Hook answered, the barest hint of some menace darkening his blue gaze.

"Oh?" Belle tried to keep herself calm, not wanting to betray the excitement felt in her at the chance this conversation offered her. "Then what?"

"This vendetta's more personal than anything you might be imagining." Hook told her. "Fame, heroics, money, it all means nothing. The monster's destruction is the only reward I'd want, the only compensation for what it has cost me."

"What it's cost you?" The remains of the stew were completely ignored, Belle staring at Hook in an almost anxious manner. "What is that exactly?" Her eyes briefly glanced at his hook, before flicking back towards his face. "Your hand?"

"Would that my hand was all the monster took from me." Hook all but growled. "But no. What was lost was something infinitely more precious."

She couldn't help but shiver in reaction to the look in Hook's eyes, the dark menace, the hungry desire for vengeance now burning there. "Then...?"

"Her name was Milah." Hook finished for her. "And she was the love of my life. The ONLY love of my life."

"I...I'm sorry." Belle said with sincerity. Hook gave a slight nod of his head back, but otherwise seemed content to not reply at all. "But...vengeance...it cannot be what this Milah would want you to devote your life to."

It was Smee who made a sound, a muffled noise of protest as though he was trying to stop Belle from saying any more. She didn't dare glance at Smee, not with Hook's expression darkening further.

"And what would you know about that?" Hook demanded in a gruff, snarl of a voice. "Have you ever lost anyone, seen them killed before you?!"

"I may not have, but I know what I would feel." Belle answered heatedly. "I wouldn't want my loved ones to waste their life on pursuing revenge. I would want them to focus on healing."

"Healing?" Hook then scoffed. "As if it's easy or even possible."

"Have you even tried?" Belle asked in challenge. "Do you even want to heal?"

"I've followed this course for roughly two hundred years. I'm not about to divert from it for anyone, not my crew, and not even for someone as pretty as you." Hook snapped back, and abruptly got off the bed.

But he didn't leave the alcove, standing instead with his back to Belle. A deep breath was heard, as though Hook was trying to calm himself with it. Belle wisely chose to keep quiet, not trusting that any response she could make wouldn't make the pirate angrier. Smee stood there uncertainly, giving Belle a pleading look before glancing at Hook with a shake of his head.

"I'm sorry." Hook finally said. "The wound Milah's loss has dealt me, still stings to this day." He turned to Belle with a bitter expression. "In a lot of ways I feel as raw and torn open now as I did then..."

"That must be a terrible way to live."

"In truth, it's the only way I know how to be." Hook answered. "You asked about what drives me. It's the pain my lady. That gut wrenching loss I suffered, the pain of having her ripped from my life...that hurt is all I know, my revenge as much for myself as it is for Milah."

"Yourself...?" Echoed Belle uncertainly.

"Aye. For without it, I'd have no reason left for living." Hook told her. He said it with real feeling, with such a bleak look coloring his expression, that Belle believed Hook meant every word. Her own heart might have gone out to him just a little, for Belle would have needed to be made of immovable stone not to feel for a person who was reeling from a loss as devastating as the one Hook had suffered. It didn't mean she liked him any better, or the situation she found herself in, but Belle was closer to seeing Hook as something more than a murder minded pirate out for his enemy's blood.

"What happens if you do achieve your revenge?" She asked, uneasily. "Your reason for living...will it change then?"

Hook shrugged, evasive. "It doesn't really matter right now. I'm still a long ways from coming close to destroying my monster."

"Which means we're a long way from leaving this accursed Neverland." Smee muttered unhappily.

"Has it really been about two hundred years?"

"Still having trouble believing?" Hook asked her.

"Not exactly." Belle said. "But with all the time you've spent here...the world outside has changed so much. Kingdoms rising, kingdoms falling. Heroes born, and villains vanquished. Maybe even the monster that you know...is no longer..."

"Alive?" Hook interrupted. "It's an ageless being with no known weaknesses. I've no doubt you've heard of him. The Dark One."

"The Dark One?!" Belle forced herself to respond in fright to the reveal. "That's who you hunt?!"

"I see by your reaction that the Dark One's reputation precedes him."

"Everyone knows of the Dark One." Belle retorted. "And of his deal makings."

Hook glanced at Smee. "What have I always said?"

"The more things change, the more they remain the same." Smee dutifully supplied.

Belle frowned at them both. "The Dark One is dangerous." She forced herself to say. "It's suicide to go after him..."

"He'd see me dead even if I wasn't chasing after his death." Hook told her. "No. He won't tolerate my being alive, anymore than I can tolerate it for him."

"Why?" Belle demanded. "What reason could the Dark One have for wanting you dead so badly? Because you hunt him?"

"Because it was I who had the love of his wife." Hook answered. "And the Dark One couldn't stand the thought of that, or the fact that she had never loved him at all."

"But surely he must have loved her..."

"And that excuses what he did? That justifies being jealous and angry enough to kill a woman for rejecting him?!" Hook demanded angrily. "He didn't even hesitate before acting. Milah had barely gotten out the words, before he was ripping out her heart, and crushing it before her eyes!"

Belle finding herself blinking back tears, just as upset now as she had been the first time she had heard such things from Hook. It wasn't any easier to hear this time, Belle wanting to scream and shout in protest. Because it wasn't the actions of the man she loved that Hook was describing. It couldn't be.

But she couldn't deny the pain that Hook was feeling, or the anger that he showed when speaking about Rumplestiltskin. It was a hard truth to accept, and there was still so much of the story Belle didn't know enough about. What kind of woman had Milah been to have impacted both men so strongly that the ghost of her haunted them even in the present day? And how could love go so wrong, that it had left scars on them all?

She didn't know, but Belle was determined to find out. It was why she sat up straighter in the bed, pushing the tray away from her as she told Hook to tell her everything.

To Be Continued...

This chapter gave me all kinds of trouble. This is actually the third attempt...the first attempt got up to 10 KB before I decided it was crap, and started over from scratch. Second attempt only got as far as FOUR paragraphs before I trashed it. I think part of the problem is I wanted a Hook POV, but my gut instinct was saying it HAD to be a Belle POV. All attempts were in Belle's POV, but I was very resistant to the idea when I had my heart set on writing another Hook POV.

But I finally got it finished! But...I liked this until about 15 KB in...then I started struggling again. I also don't imagine Hook telling Belle everything like she asked just yet. But we'll see. I may take a break from this to update another story. I'm really itching to update one of my other Hook Belle fics...particularly the trade off. Plus I feel kinda stuck right this second on how to advance the story to the part when a certain boy who never grew up makes his presence known. I'm really eager to get to Peter Pan's encounter with Belle written. But it's still a ways off as they are very far from the main land at this point and time...

-Michelle

Angelfan984, thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed his chapter! And yes, she is gonna be difficult, but hopefully not too difficult. It's a tough balance perhaps, to get right...X_X

Jewelzy, oh thank you! I'm so glad to hear that! Thank you for everything, it makes me smile so much! And yes, Peter Pan will have a role in the story. I'm actually wondering how to write it without having to give him a POV narration for a chapter or two...

Zerousy, yay! Glad to see you playing catch up. :) And that you liked what you read during it! ^_- Well not to spoil, but Peter Pan will have a part in this story. But I am still a ways off from his introduction.

The Elegant Faerie, youre welcome and thanks in return. :) Actually I don't think it will come out anytime soon..I mean I and Belle have no plans to let Hook know about her connection to his enemy. Actually I have this idea in my head, of much farther in the fic's future, like after Belle feels safe and confidant in her feelings for Hook, and his for her, and she tells him...and he thinks she's off her rocker crazy! XD But it's still a long way from happening writing wise. ^^;;