Cassandra was awoken from a blissful slumber by the impatient rumbling of her own stomach. She sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. For a moment she was confused by the unfamiliar surroundings. Where did all the clothes spring from, and why did the ground seem to be swaying ever so gently?

Her drowsy brain finally kicked into gear and reminded her where she was. Neverland: Jolly Roger: Captain Hook's closet. Cassandra grunted and flopped back down onto the covers, pulling the pillow over her head. Maybe if she just lay here with her eyes closed, she wouldn't have to face any of her problems. Eventually the hunger pangs became too insistent to ignore and she dragged herself grudgingly out of bed. She tried to look on the bright side, at least, she was still mostly alive and had slept in a real bed.

Her muscles were still rather stiff, but at least the pain of the day before had died down to more of a manageable dull ache. She carefully changed her bandages, this time paying more attention to peeling them off without disturbing the scabs. She had no wish to repeat the debacle of the day before. Throwing up was never fun. Doing it in front of someone else was even worse. It was with immense relief that she found the skin closing over rather nicely, with no obvious signs of infection. There were more than a few agents walking around with prosthetic limbs because they had not disinfected a cut. She dabbed on some more cream just in case.

Inspection in the mirror revealed that the bruise on her cheek was darkened to a very interesting shade of purple, somewhere in between aubergine and plum, with a slightly lighter, slightly greenish patch in the middle. She poked it to see if it still hurt. Unsurprisingly it did. She found her brush and tackled the rather matted clump which was her hair. A good fifteen minutes of pulling, separating and getting the hairbrush stuck, it was relatively tangle free. She braided it and pinned it up into a bun so it was out of the way.

She sat back down on the bed and pulled on her boots, lacing them a little looser than usual to accommodate the lacerations on her calf. She rifled through the supply of clothes she had brought with her. The jacket was slashed and stained with blood, as was the shirt she had been wearing under it. There was another set of clothes, but being the ones she had arrived in were soiled with both salt water and the accumulated grime of several days of sleeping in trees, climbing mountains and tramping through the forest. The jacket, if she mended it would be alright for the time-being, but everything needed a good wash. She walked over to the still full bath. The water didn't look tooo, bad, so she dunked her clothes in, gave them a good rub with the soap and left them to soak.
Part of her wished that she had brought more clothes, but while her bag was quite a bit bigger than it appeared on the outside, it wasn't that big and she had to pack conservatively, there was more important equipment to accommodate.

Having procrastinated as much as possible, she pried the doorstop out and swung the door open.
The cabin was empty. Based on the light spilling in through the window she judged it to be around midday. She must have been asleep for quite a while. Her stomach rumbled again, louder than before. No wonder she was ravenous, it had probably been over a day since she had consumed a decent meal.

The other door was pushed open, and Captain Hook entered, clad in full pirate regalia, including an enormous hat with a feather on the brim.
'Ahh, Miss Haversham. You have deigned to once again grace us with your presence,' he drawled, sweeping off his hat and giving her a low bow.'
'Are you always this dramatic, or are you just showing off for my benefit,' Cassandra said.
'My dear girl, have you any idea how long you have been wrapped in the arms of Morpheus?'
'If you mean asleep, then I would guess around eleven or twelve hours?'
The captain chuckled, 'you have not emerged from my closet for a full two days. Happily I had the foresight to remove some clothes before you settled. I knocked on the door to enquire of your health, but you only muttered something about Vikings and not wanting to weed the potato patch again before falling silent.'

'No wonder I am literally starving right now,' Cassandra said, rubbing her stomach. 'You don't happen to have an entire roast cow and a gallon of tea lying about do you?'
'I am afraid not, however I will summon some refreshments. It would be unfortunate if you were to expire from lack of sustenance before you have imparted your self-styled 'cunning plan'.
He gave her another mocking bow and left.

Cassandra sat down at the table and considered the man who had just departed. It surprised her to discover that when he wasn't laying on the intimidation or trying to seduce you, he actually wasn't unpleasant to converse with. He was obviously well-educated and capable of carrying an intelligent conversation. He wasn't exactly hard on the eyes either which didn't hurt. Cassandra had absolutely no intention of falling for his dubious charm, but she wasn't totally adverse to the view.
Despite this, she wasn't about to drop her guard entirely. There was undoubtedly something dangerous about him. She had already witnessed his unpredictable temper. Even just now, when he had seemed perfectly cordial, she could still sense something dark running just beneath the surface.
The man was like a snake, and give him half a chance, she wouldn't be surprised to find herself pinned up against the wall, or with a hook in her guts.

Hook returned, putting a halt to her considerations.
He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite.
'The food will arrive presently milady. In the meantime, I suggest we discuss the future. Before you begin however I should warn you that if you are planning some kind of ruse, or prove un-useful to me, well…,' he smiled at her, showing his teeth, 'I will leave the rest to your imagination.'
Annnd, the other side was back again with a vengeance.
'Look,' Cassandra said, 'we've established that neither of us trust each other. However, we both want the same thing.'
The captain stroked his chin with the curve of his hook, and a wicked smile curved around the corners of his mouth.
'Well,' amended Cassandra hurriedly, 'we want mostly the same thing.'
'You underestimate me love, but that is a discussion for a more opportune moment.'
Cassandra crossed her arms and glared at him, 'are you going to zip it and hear me out or not. I'm perfectly content to leave right now and go live with the people you so inaccurately refer to as 'the Indians. .At least they seemed to possess some actual manners.'

'My deepest apologies madam,' Hook said with mock sincerity, 'please continue your fascinating observation.'
'As I said, we both want to deal with the problem that is Peter Pan. You want to be rid of him. I want to clap the cuffs on him and drag his butt back to justice.'
'My reasons for wishing him ill are obvious, but yours are as yet unfathomable. Why exactly do you wish to capture him? What mischief has he wrought in your past?' Hook enquired.

'It's a long story, but, it's not as personal as your motivations. I mentioned how I work for an agency whose primary interests relate to time travel (for legal reasons I am not permitted to go into more detail). Well, as an agent, I have a pretty broad set of duties, one of them being fugitive retrieval. If someone seriously breaks the rules, or tries to make off with company tech then one of us gets sent out to bring them back. You have no idea how many disgruntled former employees try to keep their time travel devices. Anyway, we have a wanted list, most people on it haven't done anything really, really bad, but there are a couple of major exceptions. The primary example being Patrick Dean Walters. Walters used to be the poster boy. Everyone loved him. He was exceptional at his job and was even being groomed to take over the whole show one day. Civilisations all over the world had legends about him – I assume you've heard of King Arthur for example. I didn't really know him well or anything, but he did take some of my training sessions. When I was especially green I actually managed to give him a scar. He was pretty cool about it, I think he rather liked it. Made him look more rugged or something. Then, stuff started to go wrong. Sometimes, if someone's not all quite there, time travel can drive you mega-insane. It happens slowly until you eventually snap. Well, he snapped bad! He went super-villain and killed seventy-three agents before disappearing into time.'

Cassandra paused to make sure he was keeping up with the story, before continuing. 'I saw the bodies, and it was… messy. He hadn't just killed them. Some of them were in pieces,' she shuddered, 'they never did find some of the bits. Ever since then he's been Mr Number One Fugitive, there hasn't been so much as a trace of him for over a hundred years. And this explains why. Goodness knows how long he's been here, and as for how he resembles a child now – I can't even begin to explain that one. It's a complete fluke that I'm even here, I'm way too junior to be sent out to something like this.'

At that moment, a clattering from outside of the door signalled the arrival of food, and they both remained silent until the table had been set and Smee had taken himself off again.
'And that,' Cassandra finally said as she tucked into the food, 'is why I'm after him. To be honest you're actually quite lucky he didn't do anything worse than cut off your hand.'

'That was a most enlightening tale,' Hook said, 'I have only one question. Why is such a young thing as you undertaking such a perilous occupation? From the little I have observed you seem to be in a perpetual state of danger.'
'I can take care of myself,' Cassandra retorted, downing an enormous cup of tea. 'As for being young, come to think of it, I'm probably quite a bit older than you are.'
Hook raised his eyebrow in a blatant indication of his disbelief.
'No really,' Cassandra said, 'I was born in 1627, you were born in what, the late 1800s. When you time travel, it's a little bit hard to accurately tally up how long you've been around, but according to my calculations, if you take the time linearly, I've been doing this for about three hundred years, give or take. That makes me, oh at least a hundred years older than you.'

'My aging process halted due to the strange influence of this island,' Hook said, 'but what pray tell has caused you to retain an appearance of youth?'

'Prolonged exposure to time travel. It was an unintentional but helpful side-effect. It means we can continue working almost indefinitely. Well, until we are driven insane, die horribly or get fired for gross misconduct. Time travel is addictive, that's why people try to steal it. They don't want to lose the whole immortality thing, not to mention being able to go wherever and whenever they want.'

Hooks eyes travelled down to focus on the device attached to her wrist, 'so this little bauble,' he said thoughtfully, 'allows one to move at will through time…'
'Don't even think about it,' Cassandra warned, slapping her hand over the device 'you'll get your hands on this tech over my dead body. And as you have probably picked up on, it's incredibly hard to kill me. Besides, it's essentially useless at the moment. It's completely dead until I put the transport cuffs on the fugitive.'

'I would not dream of it,' purred Hook, a strange look in his eyes.
'Anyway,' said Cassandra loudly. 'We've gone off on a tangent. Back to the plan.'
Hook delicately dabbed his lips with a napkin, 'forgive me for my enquiring mind. I shall endeavour not to distract you further.'

True to his word, he remained silent as she outlined the details of her plan to capture Peter Pan.
The general contents were as follow: capture a lost boy, feed him false information, and pretend to be about to torture the location of Pan from him, before finally leading him believe he has escaped through his own cunning.'

'And then,' finished Cassandra, 'he'll fly straight back to his comrades with a highly dramatized version of events, hopefully resulting in an angered Pan being drawn from his lair and out into the open where we can more easily capture him.'

Hook remained silent, considering her proposition. 'This plan is not without a great deal of risk attached to it,' he finally said.
'But,' challenged Cassandra, 'have you got a better one. Haven't you been trying to snare the brat for several hundred years to no avail?'
'What a perceptive insight. In all that time, do you really suppose we have not attempted to lure Pan out?
'I'm sure you have, but there's one very important thing you didn't have on your side back then.'
'Pray enlighten me.'
'Me. I assume he currently thinks I'm dead. You clearly did. When he finds out I'm alive I doubt he will leave me to my own devices. He knows I know who he is. He also knows that I can't leave until I have captured him. Ergo, he's going to want to get rid of me, to remove even the slightest chance of me bringing him in. He torments you for his own amusement, preferring not to kill you outright. I on the other hand pose a real threat worthy of elimination. So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to sum up my closing argument. I'm the bait.'

Hook leaned back in his chair. 'I will admit you pose a fair point. You have given me much to consider, and consider it I must. I am dreadfully afraid that you will have to remain in suspense of my decision while I give the matter proper thought. In the meantime, I hope you will deign to continue to avail yourself of my hospitality.'

Cassandra crossed her arms, 'I suppose your terms are reasonable enough. I suggest you do your thinking swiftly though. If he figures out I'm alive before we have set things in motion, the outcome might not be pleasant.'
'Unpleasant you Miss Haversham,' Hook said, with that dangerous smile of his, 'as you so eloquently phrased it. I am merely a mouse being toyed with by the cat, you would be the one to feel its teeth.'
Cassandra stood up and dumped her napkin unceremoniously on the table. 'I'm going back to bed. Let me know when you've stopped being so insufferably arrogant. Goodnight.'

As she slammed the door, she could still hear his mocking laughter.
She so took back any nice things she had thought about him earlier, the man was the devil incarnate.

Hook had every intention of assisting her to enact the plan, at least some of it… eventually. It was rather a good one, and worth at least a try. But in the meantime, he would enjoy playing with her. He found that infuriating her caused him great enjoyment. He had no doubt that in time, when he had worn down her defences that a completely different type of interaction would provide him with equal enjoyment, but for now he would settle for unsettling her. And at least, it had ensured him some peace and quite. Did the woman ever stop talking!

He went out on deck to strike some fear into the hearts of the sailors, little knowing that even as he was considering her, she was fantasising about him. Primarily in terms of how much she would like to pepper spray him, right in the eyes… and watch him writhing on the floor in agony.

A/N: I only gave a very brief description of Cassandra's plan in this chapter as I will be discussing the details of it quite a bit in subsequent chapters and don't want to repeat the same information multiple times if I can help it. Please let me know your thoughts on this chapter, especially what you think of the interaction between Hook and Cassandra, does it make sense?