Somehow they make it back to his ship, stumbling across the ground as they alternate between running and kissing. Getting below deck is probably the hardest part, the stairs proving too dangerous to venture down clumsily and aimlessly. Jim takes her hand, pulling her quickly along behind him. It doesn't take a moment until she has her back pressed to his door and her fingers twining in his wet hair that falls into his eyes. She thinks, silently to herself, she loves the way they do that. Every time right before he kisses her, his hair falls over his eyes. It's an image and a feeling that she sears into her memory, one the many small things she will forever keep with her.

They tumble over the threshold and Jim kicks the door closed haphazardly with a loud crack. In the back of her mind she prays that no one will come running to check on him. Melody is the first to take things a step further, tugging his sopping wet shirt over his head. Tell-tale drips scattering across the floor. His fingers find the row of buttons that line over her spine and pops them quickly from their catches, some nearly tear off but she can't bring herself to care even a little.

His quarters are small, as is his bed. Though she doesn't think he's ever in it enough to really care. She finds that she doesn't either as they lay on it together. The confined space has them constantly pressed together, she likes it- revels in it even.

His mouth is almost hypnotizing in the way he kisses her. His senses drugged and consumed only by the sensations they invoke in one another. This time is different than the last. She is not trying to prove anything and he is no longer trying to convince her of something. This time they take things slower, his hands holding hers as they come together.

When its over his muscles give out and he collapses on top of her. She strokes her fingers through his hair almost languidly as she feels her heart rate dropping back to normal- her lungs no longer gasping as if she'd run a hundred miles. They stay like that for awhile before falling asleep in one another's arms.

When she wakes again its to the sight of him. Laying on his side, head propped on his hand while the other traces patterns on her back soothingly. He was watching her sleep. They stare at each other for a few moments when she gives a small laugh and looks away. Burying her face into her pillow she says, her voice muffled, "Stop staring at me."

"Why?" She won't look up because the smile she knows is on his face would hypnotize her and keep her from thinking straight.

"Because it makes anxious, and I'll start giggling like an idiot."

"You blush too." He leans in close, his breath tickling the sensitive spot just below her ear. "I like that."

"You would." She comes out from hiding, feeling brave enough again to be scrutinized in the candle light. Melody tugs the sheets over herself more modestly as she moves to lay on her back and doesn't miss the way he rolls his eyes and smiles. She knows what his devious mind is thinking, that he's already seen every inch of her and now there is no need to hide. However, they both know old habits die hard and so neither says a word.

Jim shifts toward her again, saying in that low voice he has no idea has any effect on her, "It's your turn, why do you love me?"

Her eyes drift off to space. She's thought about it many times, albeit unwittingly. Little things she notices when she's with the duke or when her mind simply wanders. She never has to think about why she loves him when she's actually with him, only that she feels it to the very core of her being. Suddenly Melody sits up and carefully takes his hand that's closest to her, tilting the palm toward the sky like the time they went swimming together. She focuses on the lines there, too shy to watch him as she answers him.

"All my life, I've felt like I've just been... drifting along with everyone else. There's actually a lot of pressure to being a princess, sometimes it feels like too much." She traces the longest line, a gypsy she met once very long ago told her they called it a life line and how to read it. "When I'm with you... I feel safe. Like I'm not gonna collapse into a million pieces. It's like being gone for decades and finally coming home. You're smarter than you let on, it's probably the only thing you're not arrogant about." She follows the curve that goes from below his smallest finger and up between his middle and index fingers. "Your mother means a lot to you. When you talk about her I can tell how much you respect her. Your friends too, I wish I could meet them..."

She stays on his heart line, tracing it over and over again as if she were searching for herself in it along with the small mass of people she knows are there forever. "You don't give up easily, your passionate. And your reckless and careless..."

"Those last few don't sound too good."

"You called me a pain in the ass." She bites back, and then softening adds. "I love your flaws too."

"Anything else."

She looks up at him seriously, and for a moment he's worried until she says, "And you are really really good in bed." He laughs as he pounces on her capturing her laughing mouth with his. She falls into the kiss as always, every time feeling like the first somehow. The movement of his lips and body against her igniting the butterflies in the pit of her stomach to vibrant fluttering life.

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A rapid knocking on the door is what pulls them from sleep a second time. Jim is already crawling over her and putting on his pants when she is finally fully awake. "Who is it?" Jim calls through the door cautiously.

"It's me." Thomas' familiar smothered voice calls through the heavy material of the door.

"What is it?" Jim asks after opening the door a crack, Melody crawling to hide in the far corner swathed in the bed sheets, as he simultaneously tugs his shirt onto his shoulders.

"They're searching for her, the princess. I know she's in there." She grabs her dress off the floor and nods at Jim.

"Give me a minute." Jim helps her with the dress, even the corset though he doesn't even try to tighten it like she's used to. She pulls her hair over her shoulder as he fastens the tiny row of buttons. Leaving at least three open where the buttons has disappeared, hiding in the tiny crevices of his floor. She nods to him again, and Jim let's Thomas into the room.

He just stares at them both in disbelief for a few moments before finally settling on Jim, giving him a firm shove against Jim's shoulder- setting him back a few steps. "How could you be so stupid?"

"It's not like I planned this." Jim looks ready for a fight as does Thomas. Melody has to fight the urge to step between them, something about Thomas tells her intuition that he won't turn his back on his best friend. He proves her right when he settles back on his heels calmly.

"What are we going to do about this?" Jim moves past Thomas to Melody's side, taking her hand protectively in his.

He lifts her chin, looking carefully into her eyes. "I have to take you back, we can fix everything. I just need a chance to talk to them."

It takes her a moment to consider their options. Running would only make them look more guilty than they actually were. But facing her parents judgement, she didn't have clue what they might say or do. It felt too unpredictable. But she knew her father, no one could ever call him cruel or unjust. She trusted him... "Okay."

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Getting past the castle's doors proves more difficult than they had planned. Melody had assumed the guards would listen to her, but Hanley was among them and ordered Jim be arrested the moment they saw him. She had little authority, a weak minded girl.

She feels like screaming when they start dragging Jim away. It is Thomas who grabs her arm from behind, pulling her back from the fray and saying low in her ear, "Fighting with the guards won't do any good. You must speak with the king on his behalf."

"I'll be fine." Jim says in agreement, "I know you can do it." She shakes her head in agreement, closing her eyes as she pulls him into her arms one last time. When they're gone Hanley attempts to take her hand in his but she jerks away as if he'd burned her. She ignores the look of confusion on his face before running as fast as her feet can carry up the pantheon of staircases to her father's study where she knows he is no doubt waiting.

Her lungs are on fire and her heart is racing. She doesn't even realize Thomas is behind her, protecting her back, until she hears him stumbling over the few steps below her. "Come on." She urges, pulling him back onto his feet after a few minutes to catch his breath.

"Okay, I'm right behind you. Go on." He smiles and nudges her ahead of him. "Time to be the heroine." She smiles back assuringly, letting him know how much his words and presence means to her. She continues up the steps and it isn't long before she can see the tall white doors beyond the long stretch of hallway.

Throwing them open happens more dramatically than she intends but at least she has her father's attention from the moment she enters and that's all that matters. She opens her mouth to speak, before she ca lose her nerve. But it takes a grand total of five seconds for her mother to charge across the room toward, eyes blazing and mouth set in a firm line. "Where have you been?" Ariel doesn't even notice that Thomas is there as well, she just keeps yelling at Melody. "Were you with him? Were you with that boy?"

"What boy?" Her father asks, his back straightening, and for the first time Melody can see the dark bruise like circles under his eyes and generally disheveled appearance. It was clear he'd been up for hours, making himself sick with worry. I'm a terrible person, she thinks before she can look away. Though it's yet another thing she knows she has to set aside for the moment, along with her guilt at making him so.

"How do you know about Jim?" She asks breathlessly. Eyeing her mother very carefully as she steps away from her.

"How could I not?" Ariel practically shouts. "You were about as careful as a storm!"

"Who is Jim?" Eric demands rising to his feet.

"Hawkins." Her mother throws back exasperatedly, massaging her temples with her long delicate fingers.

"Captain Hawkins?" Her father asks again surprised, this time looking at Melody and her alone.

"Yes." She answers, her voice quiet and sad. He falls back on his chair, stunned eyes staring at nothing but air. Though she knows full well the tone of his thoughts.

"I thought you had chosen the Duke?"

"I had." Her tone clearly regretful, and perhaps a bit ashamed though unwarranted. "Because I thought I had to, I thought I could live that decision but I can't."

"Melody," Ariel says as she takes her by the shoulders, eyeing her carefully before Eric could say anything else. "I know things with Jim are exciting and dangerous, but that's not love. It's infatuation-"

"He loves me. The way that you're supposed to love someone, whether they want you to or not."

"He won't stick around, he's not the type." Her mother says before grasping Melody's shoulders tighter. "Remember the last time you didn't listen to me, how wrong things went?" The words felt like a slap in the face, stinging her heart like the crack of a whip against fragile skin. She steps back from her mother, a look of pure pain darkening her. "I'm just trying to protect you."

"By breaking me down? By trying to convince me that I'm not worth staying around for?"

"You know I don't mean it like that-"

"It's beside the point." She's putting her foot down, ending this inane argument before turning to her father. Facing him head on a tall. "I don't come here to argue about me. I came here for him, he didn't kidnap me. I went with him because I love him. I... I won't marry Hanley, I can't."

She's afraid, maybe that makes her childish but what daughter isn't the slightest bit afraid of disappointing her parents? Her father falls back in his seat, as if he's being racked with waves of information he wasn't prepared for, isn't sure he can fully process.

"I suppose there isn't much I can say to change your mind?"

"Not really... no." The words come out more firmly than she expects and for a moment it feels like she standing on that precipice again. Waiting to be pulled back or pushed off.

"You're like your mother in that way." He twists his fingers before him and says, staring intently at the carved wood of his desk, "Very well, the guards are on orders to release Captain Hawkins-" As if on cue a guard immediately breezes past Thomas and out the doors and Melody takes a deep breath, feeling a however coming on. "But this... informality. I won't have it with my daughter. I'm not saying you have to be married or that you have to stop seeing him, but there will be no more sneaking out at night or leaving without informing either your mother or myself. Am I understood?"

Relief, it swarms through her every nerve as she steps behind the desk and pulls her arms around her father. Whispering a quiet 'thank you' before making to leave. She doesn't have to think about it, suddenly she's running and nothing has ever felt this wonderful before.

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A/N: Okay well let's skip the part where I'm a liar who really shouldn't make you guys any promises because my life always has knack for getting hectic when it's least convenient. That and I'm negligent, I already had to put another story on temporary hiatus cause I just can't get inspired enough to write something I think is good enough for you guys. But i hope you liked it, reviews are always appreciate. I was in a bit of a rush to post this so forgive any spelling errors! I'll update when I can, again I'm really really sorry for the long wait.