Hi! I know it's been years and because of the years, some inconsistencies in this fanfic. I'm sorry but after this chapter, it will flow better and not be so back and forth. I had a hard time moving on from where I left off in 2015 but I'm trying! Bear with me, please.

Chapter 11

The ship swayed and rocked day and night. The nausea was relentless, almost as unbearable as my first trimester with Henry. So I was not in a great mood when Hook joined me at breakfast. And fell into a worse mood this morning when he took one look at me and barked out a laugh.

"Oh, Swan. Tell me you don't have that same look on your face when you're in bed with a man."

I tried not to scowl. "Too bad you can't answer that yourself."

"I can't, but that doesn't mean I won't."

I tried hiding the heat from my face. No matter how obvious it was, I didn't want him announcing it to the entire ship.

"That's quite rude of you," I said. "I am engaged."

He looked down at his breakfast, instantly soured. "Oh yes. Your knight."

"His name is Graham."

He smiled too widely and laughed. It didn't reach his eyes. "Had I known you were alive, it would not be a knight to whom your heart belongs. Trust me, Swan, that if you and I had not been stolen from one another, it would have been a matter of days before I presented you with this."

And in too casual a manner, he slid a small black box across the table. I opened it and inside laid a cushion diamond, two emeralds on either side. Thin white gold band.

"Killian. . . ."

He shut the box and tucked it inside his jacket. "And look at us now, perfect strangers." Tucking into his breakfast without looking at me, he nodded at a crewmate who sat beside him. Didn't acknowledge me for the duration of the meal, not as I stared at him, sorting through the emotions that ring ignited. Even after he and the crew left, I sat there.

There had been a future within my grasp, one that didn't involve duty or house arrest or choke me with resentment. There had been a future I lost, not one forced on me.

Smee took my untouched plate and shook his head disapprovingly. I didn't acknowledge him. It was like I couldn't see as I finally rose and climbed onto the deck. Per usual, it was dark and wet outside. He overlooked the ocean with a small telescope, his hook on the wheel. The drizzle had smudged his eyeliner and when he looked at me, those eyes were sharp.

"You were really going to propose to me?" I asked from across the deck.

He waved his hand with a flourish. "With roses and champagne."

"You really loved me that much?"

"Never were you returning to your land without magic alone."

"You would have left your entire life, one of honor, to live on the streets with me? I had no home to return to, just a car and a few dollars."

He crossed the distance between us and raised his eyebrows. "It may seem unbelievable, but yes, it is possible to love someone as much as I loved you."

"And you think you loved me more than I loved you?" I challenged. When he looked away, I stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest. "Like I didn't die when I heard you had sailed away on a ship that sunk two days later. Like I didn't write letter after letter, using my goddamn title, to get information about your death, hoping for some miracle that you had survived. Killian, you were my one and only, and yes, we are perfect strangers now. But we don't have to be."

He looked down at my face, so close I could taste his mouth on mine. One little movement and I'd press those words onto his lips. One second and -

"Be that as it may, you are engaged," he said, stepping backward.

Suddenly I was angry. I raised my hands and grabbed my hair. "Yes, I know. But it's not like that, it's just duty. I don't love Graham-I mean, as a friend, of course. But Killian, we lose the kingdom if I'm not married by the time I'm twenty-four, so do you blame me for choosing my best friend over a strange man I would have met two days before my mandatory wedding?"

"Emma, I don't know what it is you want of me."

I grabbed the lapels of his leather coat and pulled him closer. "I want us to pick up where we left off. This is our second chance to make things right. Killian, let's not resist this pull between us."

All of the bravado he'd sculpted on his face over the course of centuries dissolved in seconds. "All the while, you have your knight waiting for you back home? You left your life incomplete, Emma, and I can't just . . . I can't be this villainous pirate who stole away the princess on the cusp of her wedding day."

"We don't have to go back." As I spoke, I felt the tears forming in my eyes so I clenched my jaw and nodded. Yes, this was my best option. My only option. "I don't want to go back. I want to stay here with you. I already proved it when I let that portal wither away. What happened between last night and this morning?"

He ran a hand through his hair and looked out at the ocean. Silently, he looked back at me then at the ocean. He drew a flask from within his coat and took a swig of it, cursing.

"Your handful of years doesn't compare to my centuries of waiting," he muttered. "That which you want to continue, for me, has been cemented over a century. I don't know that the love I had for you is more than a memory."

Those blue eyes I knew full of kindness were hard. Still beautiful, but I knew what people meant when they spoke of the fearsome pirate Captain Hook-as easily as he could bed me, he could kill me.

"Then why confess all of that to me?" I asked.

And it was with a sneer that he brushed the hair away from my face. "For you to understand the depth of my pain, and for you to understand why I will never endanger myself that way again."

With his lip curled, he stormed across the deck to the captain's cabin and slammed the door shut. I was left standing on the deck with a broken heart and tears in my eyes.


The next morning I didn't go to breakfast.

While everyone was below deck chewing through salted meat, I walked right into Hook's quarters. Based on how long he normally he took breakfast plus the suspicion of my absence, I calculated about five, maybe ten minutes, before he returned. So without shame, I opened each drawer of his desk and found nothing but scraps of paper and maps that had been refolded so many times they were falling apart. Nothing on his desk but a handmade map of Neverland. I recognized his writing. The same centuries later.

After that whirlwind of expired words, I opened the door to the bedroom of the quarters he'd been staying in and froze. Laying half asleep in his bed was the blonde, beautiful queen of Arendalle. The same woman whose existence and presence Hook had refused to discuss. The woman he had accused me of occupying as a figment of my jealous imagination. But plain as day, she laid there half-naked in a slip I would be uncomfortable wearing alone.

"?" asked Elsa, blinking those big eyes at me.

I stood, frozen at the sight that lay before me. The anger that rose in my chest was not human. I simply stepped backwards and shut the door in front of me, between me and that woman.

Clearly Hook had types and that type was blonde and royal. I tried not to dwell on this as I left the captain's quarters and filed into the bunks below, seeking my own private room, far more cramped that Elsa's was. I tried not to think of her as the reason why he refused to consider us together.

I had made my decision to stay in Neverland without considering Hook's feelings about me. I was part of his crew and that was that.

When there came a knock at my door, I ignored it.

When the knocking persisted, I continued to ignore it.

When again, for the millionth time, the sound of metal scraping wood hit my door and his voice accompanied it - "Swan, would you let me pay you a visit?" - I ignored it.

Because I did understand what Hook felt, that experiencing that loss of love - or, at the very least, that loss of future - was too painful to want a second time around. Whatever Hook was, I should start considering in past context. He was no longer mine to invision in fancied daydreams or lost time. He was only my captain and my captain I would serve.