This chapter I also heavily used Fox to double check my character for Hook as well as to make sure that these next couple of chapters and the chapters in 4x12 make a decent consistent story line. Thank you Fox24!

They didn't waste time, Hook was antsy as it was from doing very little other than looking at books over the last couple of weeks and the change of scenery was necessary. The pair of them left Rapunzel at the library and she called Will to ask him to watch the shop just a little bit longer for her. Together they grabbed flashlights and bags to put whatever they might find inside, then took off for the convent for what she was sure was going to be a very long trip, no matter how short it was actually going to be.

She'd never been up here before, but it was beautiful she supposed. A series of buildings huddled together right where Hook said they were…the middle of nowhere. It was dark and still. That was to be expected. As far as she knew all of the fairies had been gone since before the Spell of Shattered Sight had been cast and some how that just made the atmosphere she found herself standing in eerie. It felt haunted.

Hook bounded up the stairs and quickly tried to open the door. "Locked," he muttered before turning his eyes on the grounds. Before she could question what he was doing he'd retrieved a stone, gone back to the door and with a "watch your eyes love" reeled back.

"No! Stop!" she shouted grabbing his hand as she realized what he'd been about to do. "No, that's…that's not necessary," she informed him tossing the rock aside before he could break a window.

"Right, because you've got some kind of magical stardust to get us through a locked door?" he assumed.

"Something like that," she whispered, pulling pins out of her hair and kneeling down in front of the door. The only magic part about it was that she'd gotten this handy little ability from a magic curse. Since Regina had given her Lacey's memories, she had yet to meet a locked door that stood a chance against her. "There," she said as she opened the door and replaced her pins. "Less messy."

"Fascinating…" Hook muttered as he stared at her. "I've never seen this side of you before. I rather like it," he finished with a smirk she could only describe as mischievous.

She ignored him. Of course he hadn't "seen this side of her before". She'd remember if she ran into Hook during her time as Lacey. And while they'd been in the Enchanted Forest and she'd needed to use these skills he'd been off doing-

It didn't matter. How many times did she have to remind herself that it didn't matter what he'd been doing or where he'd been because until the fairies were free they were stuck together. There was no need to create any more animosity between the two of them than there already was. "I am capable of more than just reading books and studying, you know," she responded leading the way into the first building.

Hook moved quickly around her into the big dark room they'd come into and turned on his flashlight. She preferred a subtler, less graverobberesque approach. "Well…you're just full of surprises now-" he flinched and spun around when she found the light switch and illuminated the world around them. "Aren't you?" he finally finished looking almost embarrassed at his flashlight and lowering it.

"There's certainly more to me than meets the eye," she smirked proudly. She probably shouldn't have felt pride in their interaction, but it was there. After being seen as nothing but a weak bookworm for nearly all the time she'd known the man it was fun to know that her abilities could shock him as they did. Hopefully from this moment on he'd never see her as that weak bookworm again.

"So…what exactly are we supposed to be looking for here?" he questioned as they wandered further into the lifeless building. What were they looking for...wasn't that the question of the year!

"Anything," she breathed beginning in the room they'd turned up in. There were some books, there in the corner on the shelf. And on the stage there were some old dusty boxes. They were going to be here for a while. "If the Black Fairies wand was here I'll bet there is more. Find me magic, books, artifacts, anything that even remotely looks like it doesn't belong in a convent, or might be magical, or be helpful. We'll see what we can find."

It wasn't easy. And it certainly wasn't a short trip. When they missed lunch Emma appeared with pizza and a bottle of soda. Hook smiled, the way he always did whenever Emma dropped by. It was one of the few times she ever managed to catch a smirk like that on his face while they were working, but Emma or not, lunch or not, he didn't let it distract him. That was impressive. They didn't stop, merely ate while Emma joined in the search at his insistence. But Emma didn't stay for long, she had other duties to do. However she promised that if they were still at it by dinner then she'd send David out to help. In all honesty she wasn't sure what good that would do. Hook already came to her at everything he found that might remotely have magical properties. "What about this fuzzy green circle thing?" "A book of strange musical incantations?" "There is a golden ball on a chain over here!" The only thing more irritating than checking those items off the list was that she barely knew what she was looking for herself! If David came up here…it wouldn't help any. Unless the person was Regina and the idea of talking to her again after their last encounter didn't exactly give her the overwhelming need to go to her for help at the moment.

"Thanks for the offer," she dismissed, "but I think we're better off on our own, she muttered setting aside a box of old shoes."

"Alright," Emma conceded. "Not a problem just...remember to keep it down out here, alright. The last thing we need is this town realizing the fairies have been missing all this time. I'm enjoying this panic free lifestyle we've got going on right now."

"Noise free, love," Hook assured her. "If the lights weren't working we'd be using flashlights."

Emma left, and the two of them pressed on, looking in box after box of Christmas ornaments and candles and offering plates. There were coats and jackets, blankets and other items that had been set aside for the needy. The books were filled with songs and liturgy and otherwise unhelpful stories. They searched another building which turned out to hold the kitchen and dining room, then they left that building to get to the sanctuary where they also found the church office. Nothing. It looked like an ordinary office to her. Books filled with numbers, a rolodex, paper, pencils. Nothing! Nothing hidden or remotely magical!

"Have we checked that building yet?" Hook finally questioned, pointing out a window.

"No…" she sighed looking it over. It was a single floor, long, not very big. She could only assume that it could be one thing. "Must be the living quarters. We've found everything else."

"Worth a shot," he figured. She agreed and followed him over. This time he waited for her to unlock the door for them just as he had every other time and they found themselves inside a long hall with doors on either side. Hook opened one up and then closed it. "Cabins," he explained. In other, non-nautical terms that meant she was right, it was where they lived. It made sense. But they still had to be checked. All of them.

"Let's get to work," she conceded sadly. She knew it had been a long shot, coming out here with him. But…their magic had to be somewhere! Was it just so well hidden that they'd need magic to find it? Maybe she should have brought Rumple's black bag out with them. Magic might have been helpful, if not necessary, at a time like this. Surely she should have thought that the magic would be guarded in some way!

Finally they made their way into a room that wasn't for sleeping. Only…this didn't make sense. "Two offices?" Hook remarked looking around. "Why would they need two offices? We already found the offices in that building there!"

"Unless one of them isn't an office." Maybe she didn't need his magic. Maybe it was inside of her all along. That certainly felt like what was compelling her forward to look through the desks and closets…the filing cabinets. She nearly gasped when she opened the first drawer up. They weren't filled with files. They were-

"Spells!" Hook realized looking over her shoulder.

"Gently," she gasped as he picked one up and she realized what it was. A crumbling piece of old paper pressed and safe inside a piece of plastic, stored in its very own folder for preservation. "They're very, very old spells," she breathed carefully placing it back where it belonged.

"In very old language," Hook commented looking, gentler she admitted, through the folders before her. "How do we know which one we need?" he questioned. She rolled her eyes at him and flipped the folder closed.

"Some I can read, others…" she pointed to the tab, the little place on the folder where the title usually was, "I don't have to."

"'Ritual to incite prosperous living'," Hook read. "2nd century…trollish'?!" he blanched. "Trolls have a language?"

She sighed and sat down next to the bottom drawer wishing that she could do this alone. "Obviously," she muttered opening the drawer. "Just…start from the top and pull out anything that looks promising. We're looking for something to do with a summoning, fairies or light magic or…anything of that nature."

Her eyes widened as she settled into her work with the drawer. "Spell to produce tenfold harvest. 15th century, Elfish", "To mend a broken heart, 13th century, language unknown", "Summoning oracles, date unknown, Fae", "A curse against the light, date unknown, language unknown." That one drew a shudder from her. This, the black fairies wand, obviously it wasn't just good magic being guarded here. They needed to be careful.

"What was that one, love?" Hook asked and she quickly shook her head, moving it aside and getting back to work.

"Nothing," she answered.

The air went still in the room as she turned back to the drawer, wishing for some kind of system to make it all go faster. If only she could-

"May I ask you something?" Hook growled from above her.

She fought back the urge to sigh irritated because this only felt like the millionth time that he'd "asked her something". It had already been a long day and she was beginning to wish that she'd brought Will instead of Hook. The company would have been better.

"Never hurts to ask," she commented idly, continuing to look though the files in her drawer. "Though be prepared for me to remind you, again, that I'm just as in the dark about all this as you. What you know I know, remember-"

"No, it's…it's not about that," he quickly interrupted. "It's about you, love…and me."

She felt her blood run cold because she honestly wasn't sure what he could question her about the two of them and why it couldn't wait for a time when they were both less…busy.

"What…what about 'us'?" she questioned. She had an urge to find something heavy to throw at him, because when he talked about the two of them it made her uncomfortable, it made her want to leave the room. Working with him she could handle, sometimes, when days weren't as long as this, she even let herself acknowledge the fact that she could enjoy it. But the moment he started talking about them as if they were a team, a pair…she wanted to be just herself again. She wasn't ready to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about she was sure.

"You see…I'm wondering what I have to do to prove myself to you. To prove that I'm not the man you knew anymore," he muttered. At his words she risked a glance up at him and found that instead of going through his drawer, he was gazing down at her. Was this really a mystery to him? Was it really a conversation that they had to have now? "What more do I have to do to convince you I'm not the villain you once met."

"The villain that tried to kill me, you mean?" she countered.

"To start with…"

Yes. Apparently they were about to have the conversation that she was afraid they'd have to have. Wasn't the answer obvious though? All he needed to do was…

She couldn't think of anything. Not now at least. Apologize to Rumpelstiltskin. Feel guilt over taking Milah away, over taking Neal's mother from him and starting this mess. There was a time that she wanted those things from him. But to want them now just seemed wrong. Like it was too much too late. And yes, she could demand an apology for her shoulder and for trying to kill her but what good would it do? It wouldn't change the past, it wouldn't fix anything! There was a time that she believed that it would have. If the past was different, if he'd never come here, if he hadn't interrupted their happiness then everything would have been fine!

But it wasn't. It wouldn't have been fine, she knew that now. Rumpelstiltskin would still have done what he did, he'd still be gone, and she and Hook, they might actually have-

"I don't know," she answered quietly before digging back into her drawer. She wasn't ready to admit the what if, to say that they might have been friends one day. She just didn't think that would ever have been possible. Would it?

"You see, the truth is, love-"

"Don't call me-"

"Belle! My mistake, apologies," he countered quickly, shocking her with his look of sincerity. "The truth is that you don't seem the type to hold personal grudges against strangers."

"You're not a stranger."

"I am now. I'm not the man that shot you a year ago and I won't try to harm you now, I've changed." That word again. That word was a lie as far as she was concerned. It was a myth. People didn't changed.

"I once knew a man that told me just that. He never changed."

"I can understand your…hesitation to believe that after the Crocodile, but not every man in the world is like him."

"I know that!"

"Do you?"

Yes. She did. She knew that. Not every man in the world was the man that her ex-husband had been because if every man was like that there would be no world to live in. And she didn't believe that Hook had changed. He'd been a murderer then and he still had the potential to be a murderer now. The only thing that was different now was his lack of motivation. There was no reason for him to go back to being that murderer hell bent on revenge because she'd done his job for him and she woke up every morning with her stomach in knots over it. But she wouldn't let him know that. Not yet anyway.

"What I know is that you won't harm me," she conceded. "You've had plenty of opportunities since we started working together but no more motivation now that Rumple is gone from town, but that doesn't mean-"

"Then what is this grudge you hold against me if not for your own safety? Is it still for what happened centuries ago over Milah, a blood feud you weren't even alive to see?"

She opened her mouth but really had nothing to say to that because it sounded silly even to her. She wasn't about to regret that. Frankly she never had. In some strange sick way she'd always seen it as a blessing because if he hadn't done what he'd done then she wouldn't have had her Rumple. But it didn't matter now. She still didn't have her Rumple. She never had because he'd never belonged to anyone or anything but that dagger. And she wasn't sure she could defend that statement. At least not in that way. There was someone that she'd fight for over it now and for always. One person she still cared for. Milah hadn't just been a wife.

"It's for Neal," she answered.

"Baelfire?"

"For Emma," she clarified, suddenly realizing that it wasn't just Milah the pirate had taken. "He loved her, cared for her more than anything. He wouldn't tell just anyone but he told me."

"And you are angry at me because you think I stole her away from him, is that right?"

"I certainly don't think you helped things for them."

"In the five days that we were all together in the last year?" he questioned. Well, when he said it like that it did sound a bit absurd. "Belle, I stood aside."

She opened her mouth but closed it again quickly at that pronouncement. He'd 'stood aside'? What did that mean? "What?" she questioned.

"After we got home from Neverland I swore to Baelfire I wouldn't interfere as he pursued Emma. He was the boy's father, it was only right he be with her if she wanted to be with him, but then…everything changed so fast," he breathed shaking his head at the memories. "The curse and the enchanted forest, I got the memory potion and had to bring Emma back because the boy had gone missing again but…I would have stepped aside still. I could see their love just as you could. I'd already taken one family from Baelfire I wasn't about to do it again."

She gapped at the information that he'd just poured into her. "Neal never told me that," she whispered. Did that mean that it hadn't happened, or just that he hadn't told her? They never really got around to speaking about Hook in their time together. Just Neal's intention to be with Emma. Was that why? Was that why he was always so confident that he was going to be, because he and Hook had this conversation? Because he had believed him?

"It's true," Hook defended. "And after he was back, after the curse was lifted I would have let Baelfire claim his rightful place by her side again if that was her wish. It was only fair. But before I could…" his voice trailed off and he had a distant look in his eyes that she'd seen in her own before. She understood. Neal had died.

He'd left the room.

It was one spark of a memory but a true memory that she'd nearly buried because there had been so much going on. When Neal had first come back and everyone had been there with him in the room, he requested the opportunity to talk to Emma alone, she'd nearly forgotten. Hook hadn't fought then. He'd left as Neal asked, without a fight. Was that why? All this time had he really been acting honorably?

"Hook-"

"Killian Jones," he interrupted quickly.

"What?" she questioned, confused as ever.

"My real name is Killian Jones, Hook is a name I don't particularly mind because it suites me and the mysterious aura that captures my nature so very well," he smiled raising his hooked appendage as if it was some kind of sick joke while he made those puppy eyes at her that made her think that he was only trying to get her to see him as dashing. "But…I also tend to associate it with…darker times in my life. Times that…I hope now are passed?" Passed? Did he really expect that one conversation that they'd just had would clear everything up between them?

Between them?

Was there ever really anything between them besides Rumple and Neal? But Rumple was gone, he'd betrayed her and she'd never see him again. And Neal…if Hook was telling the truth then he'd done the honorable thing. Instead of taking Emma from Neal he'd stood aside to let her choose Neal, Henry's father. They'd been enemies for as long as she could remember? Hadn't they?

This chapter is obviously another in the series of pushing forward Hook and Belle's relationship and I thank Fox24 for her help on it once more. Remember, I'm not aiming for them to be all hunky dory BFF's . I'm not even aiming for them to really be friends. I'm just aiming for the two of them to say "you aren't my favorite person in the world but I can overlook the bad blood between us for the sake of the good to come."

Thank you to Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Grace5231973, Fox24, Ladybugsmomma, Raizen Yusuke, Deweymay, and Skitzoeinhoven for your reviews on the last chapter. Truly you are all too kind! I'm just happy that we all enjoyed the idea of Belle getting ideas from RPG just as brilliant as it is funny! Peace and Happy Reading!