Disclaimer: I own nothing except Sarah and other minor characters.

AN -Thank you everyone who has taken the time out to review my story, you're all fantastic!

Chapter 5: The fragrance of desire

The tropical heat of the night swarmed Sarah's mind, making her feel light headed and queasy. It didn't help her wound flaring up in pain, causing her to walk into the Neverland Jungle half as slow as she would have liked to. As much as her mind told her to head to the camp, it just didn't seem right. The second place she told herself to go was Pearl sands. Her instinct warned her of the possible state it could have been and whether it would be a good option to go back, but she settled herself to have a look at least.

Pearl sands looked habitual. The small beach oozed calm and tranquillity. A peaceful state of mind breezed by Sarah as she took off her shoes and walked bare foot in the sand. The tide had recently been in and she made her way to the water mark, sinking her feet in the cool sand. There was no blood on the beach; the tide must have sorted that and no bodies either were seen, a sign that the mermaids had visited. In all fairness the beach looked virginal tonight and the air had a tranquillity resting in it. Sarah looked out to the horizon, no cloud littered the sky and no boats blocked the panorama. A light smile fell onto her lips, falling into her eyes as the stars seemed friendlier on this beach than any other. Sarah briefly turned her head to the spot where she was shot but quickly turned her head back to the view, her hand resting on her shoulder. She walked a little into the warm water, the tiniest Neverland fish skimming her ankles as they swam around her feet and away. Sarah traced her steps back from the water and went to a near by large rock. She peered over it checking the view for anything, before removing her outfit and accessories, leaving her hair pinned up. The moonlight illuminated her body as she walked into the warm sea. A gasp animated her lips as the water soothed over her skin, its light waves brushing her body. Her wound tingled but relaxed in time. For a few minutes, the world was shut out of Sarah's mind and it felt so good.

"Tell me Sarah, is the water nice?"

Sarah's head flew to the voice that stood on the beach, a good few metres away. His velvet tones caressed her ears and the panic that she thought would be Peter, was the panic of the other person she didn't want to meet.

Sarah's throat tightened and she slowly crouched into the water, leaving her head above.

"It's very good." She quickly said, not looking or speaking in his direction.

"Then you won't mind if I join you."

Sarah's eyes widened and she turned around crossing her arms and holding her breasts, moving into the darker patches of the water. Sarah noticed he was bluffing and he had lit a cigar and sat on the beach, his beautiful, rich garments, contaminated by the pearls grains. Sarah darted her eyes to both ends of the beach, seeing it was clear, resting her eyes back on Hook, who didn't seem interested in her nakedness and more interested in the sky and the stars.

They stayed like that for what seemed a while until Sarah cleared her throat.

"Can I help you?" Sarah asked timidly.

James slowly turned his attention to Sarah and smiled lightly in an approval.

"Well actually no, but I can help you." He said before talking a draught of his cigar and blowing it out smoothly.

Sarah watched this motion finding her gaze on his lips. She quickly looked up to his eyes.

"How?" She asked nervously.

"This." James reached into his pocket but before he could retrieve anything, Sarah called to him.

"Wait, I-I don't trust you." Her voice quivered.

James frowned at the girl but found a way to comply with her accusation, carefully screwing the metal claw from its joint.

"Better ?" He asked holding the hook up in the air.

Sarah nodded a little too fast.

He placed it on the ground and then with his left hand, picked out a glimmering earring and held up towards her.

"I believe you dropt it, I'm just returning it." He finished sincerely.

"Is that all?" Sarah asked suspiciously.

"Well, I'd be lying if I said yes."

Sarah's heart raced and she could feel it pulse into her rib cage. The very thought of Captain James Hook, one of the most feared men ever to set foot in Neverland, sitting so relaxed a couple of metres from her, all by herself was honestly petrifying her. She'd never seem him in a long while, being forbidden to have 'adventures' and yet, he hadn't aged a year. The last time she'd seem him she would have classified herself as a girl and yet even though she saw him in her younger eyes, something else that was him came differently to her, resting in the middle of her body. His skin glowed a healthy colour and his hair was beautifully curled, the shade of dark chocolate. It made her want to touch it, just to feel how soft it was and whether it was real or not. His strikingly blue eyes had an alluring quality about them and held a rich, history of knowledge, power, riddles and answers.

"I just wanted to thank you."

Sarah blinked, mentally shaking her mind of studying this fascinating being before her.

"Thank me?" Sarah frowned.

"Yes, for saving my life."

"But I?"

"Well, If you hadn't of been where you where at that precise moment, I would be dead now, a bullet impaled in my chest."

Sarah said nothing but listened to his words.

"I only wanted to thank you is all."

"And that's why you saved me." She asked.

"A life for a life." He stated.

"Pirate code?"

"Exactly."

"But, I'm not a pirate." Sarah blurted out mainly to herself before frowning and looking straight up at Hook.

His cigar hadn't touched his mouth was held elegantly in his left hand. His eyes had changed to a more bewildered look as he stared at Sarah before he laughed to himself, shaking his head into his chest.

Sarah widened her eyes again as a twinge of fear crept up her neck.

James put down his cigar and stroked his goatee beard before tapping two fingers on his lips.

"Tell me Sarah, your not a pirate, your certainly not a red skin and your not from Ravens town. What does that make you?"

Sarah couldn't see why he looked bemused. She just frowned and bobbed into the water, still keeping her head above.

"I think the little lost girl should come out of the water and tell me what she was doing four days ago on Pearl sands, hmm?"

"Nothing…"

"You call falling into me nothing?" James spoke loudly, quickly taking out his pistol and aiming it towards Sarah, the gleam in his eye changing dramatically.

"No." Sarah barked closing her eyes tight, gasping as the bullet skimmed past her. A horrible wretched scream sounded behind her and Sarah opened her eyes to see a lifeless mermaid, floating near her, her dark blood dripping from the corner of her mouth onto her scaly face, her eyes turning white as ice.

"I think it's time to get out the water." James said quickly, more of an order than a posing question waiting for an answer. He still aimed his gun at the retreating mermaids who wailed and hissed at him, their revolting glances boring him.

Sarah wadded though the sea, quickly coming to the shallow water but not fully. She looked to Hook who put down his gun on the sand and held out his coat turning his gaze from her.

"Descent?" He asked quietly.

"Mmhmm." Sarah mumbled silently watching the small, dark shadows of the mermaids swim away.

James picked up his gun and turned to Sarah who stood dripping into his coat. A silence echoed between them as no words seemed to enter the air. Sarah's face looked white and her eyes started to fill up as she tried to sniff her tears back, her chest starting to rapidly heave in and out. James stood there watching her feeling quite uncomfortable, wishing someone like Smee was about to reassure the girl. He could of himself if it had been a child, with his deceptive tone, then the thought occurred to him. This was no young girl; this was a young woman, a lost girl, who had become a woman.

Sarah's sobs escaped her lips and she closed her eyes, her breathing quickening, the brief mermaid encounter obviously alarming her.

James looked anxiously around the beach, checking for signs of no one before timidly putting his left arm on her shoulder. Sarah flinched and held her sobs for a moment. James understood her body language and removed his hand from her, turning his gaze. Sarah placed a hand on his left arm and he quickly turned his face looking at his arm. She moved closer to him and rested her head into his broad chest, her tears helplessly sliding down her cheeks. James felt her shake in his chest and he wrapped his left arm around her keeping his right firmly beside him. Her tears dripped into his dark shirt and James felt a revelation in her contact with him, something that actually felt like it hurt inside his soul. Sarah's cries didn't hush and James spoke her name in the softest whispered tone he could gather.

"Sarah."

She looked up to his face, her tear marks illuminated by the moon and the stars. Her sobs calming. James looked into her eyes and Sarah noticed his glance briefly change to her lips. Slowly he put his lips against hers. The silence that surrounded them was strange as even the waves seemed to hush. James moved away ever so slightly to look at her

"Thank, you for saving my life, again." Sarah said truthfully, a smallish smile mingling into the sorrow in her face.

"You're welcome." He replied, slightly captivated by her.

Sarah pushed her chin up to him, a clear invitation as tears still slid down her cheeks. James' lips lightly pressed against hers and moved to another angle, his own blood filling his lips, giving life to hers. He opened his mouth taking the kiss a step further, feeling all his senses come alive. After moments of his lips taking hers dominantly, Sarah took charge using her tongue to battle his in a frenzying. Her lips tingled after they drew for breath and Sarah left her mouth open slightly in the shock of what had just happened. Sarah looked away to her clothes and back to Hook taking in his gaze, his eyes a brilliant forget me not blue.

The moment passed as Sarah spoke.

"Do you want your coat back?"

James concealed his disappointment very well but not well enough for a woman to glimpse.

"No, just keep it for the moment."

"Thank you." Sarah smiled half heartedly.

"It's only a coat."

"That's too big for me, I'll return it."

"With the blood stain removed?"

Sarah frowned and looked over to herself seeing nothing. She looked back to Hook who nodded to her shoulder. Sarah carefully slipped her right arm out of the coat, careful not to reveal too much of herself to the stranger who watched her. Hook was right as the wound in her right shoulder had started to bleed but not so much that it looked dangerous to her health. Sarah sneered at the wound making her feel sick.

"Wounds can be tricky like that, believe me, I know." Hook spoke sarcastically.

Sarah smiled at him feeling slightly sad for Hook and what Peter did.

Another silence surrounded the beach until what looked like a flash of light from the near by trees flickered. Sarah gasped as she knew very well who and what that was.

James turned his head in the same direction, a slight frown on his brow.

Sarah took a worried glance at Hook and then back to the trees.

It was a stupid idea because she had no idea where she was heading to, but Sarah ran again this time towards where the opposing pirates had settled their ship a couple of days ago.

James called her name a couple of times, each one getting louder as she ran into the distance, the second time tonight.

James sighed. This was the second time she had run away and his temper was starting to fray.

The sound of bushes rustling ever so slightly caught his hearing and he turned around, his eyes changing into his usual cruelty.

"Boy." He shouted into the jungle, a small smile creeping on his lips.

Peter walked out onto the beach; his fast movements completely disappeared as he walked out into the moonlight slowly and what seemed by himself.

James eyed him carefully, taking quick glances around.

Peter looked onto the sand and saw the hook lying on the beach, but his matters did not lie with Hooks poor excuse for a hand.

"What do you want?" Peter shouted from the near the trees.

James kept his distance far from Peter.

"Nothing."

"I meant with her." Peter pointed in the direction that Sarah had run off in.

"Nothing that has to do with you, but now maybe it does."

"What do you mean?" Peter narrowed his eyes.

"And I always thought of you as a child Peter, you should have told me that you've grown up."

"I haven't." Peter spat. "Do you see me getting any older?"

James smirked to himself.

"So Peter Pan has been keeping a woman in the lost tribe, please enlighten me, what do they call then, a boy who is fornicating with a woman?"

Peter opened his mouth to reply but his anger got the better of him.

"Oh have I touched a swore spot for you Peter? Is she one of your whores? A slut that seems to displease you, by the look on her face."

Peter's anger grew but his words declined.

"I've never seen her about with you, is she your little secret? To precious to have an adventure in Ravens town? Let me guess, she's the one to bare your filthy children." James sneered and spat on the floor towards him laughing after he did at the thought but wishing he didn't for his own reasons.

"I should kill you now old man!" Peter growled, the glare in his eyes filled with fury.

"Go ahead then." Hook mocked him.

"It would be unfair; you haven't got your hook on." Peter called angrily, the prospect of a fight welcoming but the calmness of Hook and his odd outing nerving him a little, the potential of an ambush coming to mind.

James looked onto the sand and looked back up to him quickly.

"I don't need a hook to kill you."

"No, you need to learn to fight properly or get an army." Peter sneered wondering where his witty comments or heroic phrases had gone to.

"Boy, come and say that to my face." James replied low and deadly.

Peter licked his lips and prepared to fight with him but Hook simply watched Peter with a deadly gaze and then tossed the hook in his direction and walked away.

Peter was left dumbfound. There had never been an occasion when he and Hook had not once fought if they had been within each others path. Peter actually rubbed his face just to see if this was a dream, actually glad that he left. In his eyes it could have been seen as a defeat and it was something to brag about to the boys.

Tinkerbell flew in front of him and hovered.

"I know, very odd." Peter replied to his companion. "So what did you see?"

Peter listened to her words actually feeling nervous of what Tinkerbell might say. Satisfied for the moment of what she said but not letting the meeting between the two slip from his mind.

Peter took hold of his hook and studied it before running out onto the small beach and chucking it back in the direction where Hook would have been, except he was no longer there.

The jungle felt different to Sarah this warm night. The air was dense the further you got into it and the moister seemed to seep onto your skin, a clean bead line of Neverland heat lay on her bare skin. Hook's jacket became heavy but not heavy enough to take off. Sarah sat down on a large root in the middle of now where. She knew the camp must be near but the night had disorientated her vision. Sarah huffed taking a deep breath. Unusual smells filtered her nostrils and she found herself taking another inhalation nearer the collar of Hook's coat. The aroma wasn't a smell she was used to and her mind found it a while to match the smell with its name. Smoke and rum laid there but also a clean fragrance as well strength and masculinity. She found herself pulling up the collar of the jacket and holding it into her face, her eyes closing as a delightful smile appeared on her lips.