3. A SERIOUS CONVERSATION AND A NEW START.

The next morning, a really surprised Mulan found them sleeping on the Jolly Roger's deck. She didn't know what to think and just tried to wake her up.

"Aurora..."the princess moaned "Aurora..."

"Good morning" she answered rubbing her eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she noticed the rum bottles next to them.

"Oh, I was just keeping him company." Mulan raised her eyebrows "What? He's sad."

"Yeah, sure, and you're naïve Aurora, maybe he was just pretending... as he did the last time."

"I know he wasn't."

"Anyway, let's get out of here."

"I'll wake him up, he mustn't be here or he'll catch a cold."

"Don't be silly."

"Go ahead, I'll catch you." the warrior surrendered and let her behind. "Hook... Hook wake up."

"Good morning beautiful" she gave him a threatening glance "You've stayed with me" it wasn't a question.

"It's obvious" she replied. "Are you coming with us or are you staying here drinking and feeling sorry for yourself?"

"I'm doing the first, if you help me" he answered.

"Sure" she said "I'll be there, if you behave. Now let's go" she started to walk.

"But help me" he said with puppy eyes, helding out his hook.

"Aren't you old enough to get up by yourself?" puppy eyes again "How do I know this is not a trick to pull me down?"

"Damn it, you're clever."

"Of course I am."

"Well, I just wanted to have a little laugh" he said and, without any help, he got up. She couldn't help laughing.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, nothing. Let's get out of here before Mulan thinks you've kidnapped me." she started to walk and Hook followed her.

"Is she always so serious?" he asked.

"She seems so, but she's a great person" she answered and suddenly stopped, rubbing her forehead "Damn rum."

"Why did you drink with me? I mean, you, as a princess, must be used to drinking more sophisticated drinks." he'd stopped too.

"Yes, I am, but I think it's very sad to drink alone" she answered.

"Thanks for your kindness, your highness" he answered with a bow. She rolled her eyes.

"Let's go" she said.

.

When they arrived the camp they found everyone awake and having breakfast. They said good morning and sat down in the sand.

"Where have you two been?" asked Snow.

"We fell asleep on the ship" answered Hook.

"And what were you...?" started Emma, who was sitting next to Neal.

"Things for adults" he answered. Phillip choked. Aurora elbowed Hook. "Just talking."

"We couldn't sleep" she finished.

"Well, why don't we return to our conversation?" said Mr. Gold, who was not interested in knowing his 'dear' captain's adventures with women.

"We were talking about what we should do next" explained Snow.

"And..." said Hook.

"We've decided to stay here for a while" she answered "We want to check on our kingdom and explore this land. Now that we're here we've got an opportunity to do something to restore it. Maybe we can bring someone from Storybrook to try to fix as much stuff as we can."

Hook looked at Mr Gold and Regina, wondering what they would do.

"We're staying with them if that's what you're wondering" said Mr Gold as if he could read his mind.

"And we hope you stay too" Snow told Hook.

"Me? Why?"

"You are now one of us, if we've pardoned Regina and Mr Gold we can pardon you too" said David. Killian looked at him wide-eyed. He didn't expect to be forgiven so soon. Maybe Aurora, who was smiling at him, was right after all.

"Well, I don't have another place to go, so I'll stay but I can't promise anything. The sea can call me again" he gave a meaningful glance at Emma and Neal which they didn't notice. Aurora whispered to Mulan 'what did I tell you? Look at him' The warrior sighed and just kept eating. Aurora rolled her eyes.

After eating nobody was on the mood for starting working so they just sat in the beach talking about everything, as in the last night. And, as in the last night Killian couldn't avoid looking at Emma and Neal. Since they had arrived Fairytale Land, he hadn't seen the happy couple separated at least for one minute. One of those fairy godmothers would say that it was true love, that they were made for each other and blah, blah, blah. He had assumed it, but couldn't help being sad and jealous. He had thought he would have the opportunity to be with her until he saw the happy reunion and understood that her heart had always been Neal's, not his ('Who would choose me instead of him?' he thought). There came a moment when he couldn't stand being there any longer, so he stood up, faking a smile.

"I must stand up or I'll rust." surprisingly, James (or David, as they had already discovered) followed him.

"Yeah, me too, maybe we can go to find a map and start thinking about the next step."

"Sure" said the pirate. He was not very delighted about the plan but what could he do? It was his way to scape from his latest nightmare, so they walked towards the Jolly Roger. They didn't talk about anything during the way and, when the maps they needed were in their hands, Killian told the prince to return alone with the rest because he needed to clean all the mess from the night before. The prince didn't ask anything and, telling him to end soon, he left him alone.

So there he was, fetching the empty rum bottles as slowly as he could so he didn't have to return with the group. At least there was still a lot of full bottles just in case he would need them. Just in case? He surely would need them. Finally, when he calmed down a little, he joined the group again. Nothing had changed, only the fact that now they all were focused in the maps. He sat down as far as he could from the happy couple and, avoiding looking at them, he just followed the conversation without really caring about what they were saying. After an hour of exchanging opinions and ideas, the group gave up and decided to leave the task until the following day.

.

Hook was still sitting there, staring at the fire Snow had set to cook dinner later, when Aurora sat next to him. She asked in a quiet tone:

"After what we talked about last night, did you think you could lie to me?"

"About what?" he answered without looking away from the fire.

"You said you would 'rust'. It was because of Emma, wasn't it?" he nodded. "Are you fine?"

"I'll get over it. In the end, I'm just a pirate, nothing more, nothing less." he looked at her "Pirates are not supposed to love princesses."

"Why not? They can be friends, can't they?"

"It's different. Look at them. They've accepted me because I'm useful and..."

"They trust you" she added.

"Not exactly, even you, after having spent a whole night alone with me, can't be 100% sure about that. I've been a scoundrel too many years to be easily trusted."

"Can you stop that?"

"Stop what?"

"Building walls around you. You've been given a chance to show them you're not that scoundrel anymore, to start over."

"Start over from where? You could see it last night: I don't have anything but my ship, and don't name Regina or the crocodile..."

"Who?"

"You know him as Mr. Gold... Don't name them because she's got a son and he does too, along with a grandson and a young, intelligent and beautiful woman that he doesn't deserve. And me, what do I have? A family? What is that? Milah? No, because she's dead, her son? he hates me, Emma? I thought I would be able to love again with her but I was total and completely wrong" he was being rude and she didn't deserve it, after all, she had been the only person who had really cared about how he was since they'd arrived Fairytale land, but he had kept all that stuff inside him during so much time that he couldn't avoid being like that. The strange thing was that she didn't seem to be upset about it, no, she just looked at him with sad eyes, as if she could understand how he felt. "After all these years all I had was my revenge, but now I'm supposed to be in his same boat (what an irony) and if I tried to get it that would be the last thing I'd do because his dear family would kill me on the spot. Because he's got one and I've got nothing."

"You've got me" she simply said. "I know how it feels when you think you've lost everything you lived for. But it's not the end." he tried to say something "No, now it's my turn to make a speech. First, it was my twin brother, then my parents, then I thought everything had ended but, after 28 years I was awaken by Phillip just to lose him again. The first thing I thought about was revenge, but I gave up immediately and I started to fight: I made new friends and we found Phillip again together. Althought this is not the happy ending I expected, it's happy enough and you can find yours if you take this chance. One doesn't know what they will find on the way. So is there anything more you want to complain about?"

"I think it's enough." he answered.

"I hope so because I don't want to hear anything about that issue again." she said with an authoritary tone.

"As you wish" he was really impressed about what she had already said. He couldn't have imagined that, in her apparently perfect life, she had been through that kind of problems and how she had dealt with them, instead of doing what he'd done... and she still wanted to help him, which was still a mistery to him, why a princess would care about a pirate? "You're more amazing than one might think." he smiled and she did too.

"You don't have to start with your compliments."

"I'm being serious. I had no idea... you are much stronger than one can see at first sight. Look at me, I was older than you and I spent years and years just thinking about revenge instead of doing what you've done, instead of starting over."

"Now it's your turn to do it."

.

The night fell and the morning came, as it happens everyday, but something had changed in Hook's attitude. Aurora's speech had opened his eyes: he had a new life to build from that moment on. If the spoiled (or not so spoiled) princess had been able to do it, why not him? Who knows how this new life would be like? To find it out seemed to be an interesting adventure to him. Maybe staying with the happy family (specially with Emma, Neal and Rumplestiltskin) wasn't his idea of fun and adventure but what else could he do for the moment? Moreover, the situation had his advantages: it represented an opportunity to spend time with Aurora, he was so impressed about her inner bravery that the only person he wanted to know better was her. Her story, her real personality intrigued him, along with that princess' attitude that amused him. In fact, there'd been a long time since he'd had that kind of deep conversations with someone. He'd opened up to her in a way that he hadn't done in almost three hudred years and that had been better for him than he could have expected. And what the hell! She was really beautiful, who wouldn't want to spend time looking at that angel face?

"Good morning people!" he greeted everyone "What do we have to do today?" he sat up with them and started to eat his breakfast.

Nobody spoke for a while. Some of them looked at him as if they thought he had gone crazy. Everyone had noticed that he hadn't been particulary excited with the project of restoring Fairytale Land but now he seemed full of energy to help them in whatever they needed.

Despite this new attitude, he still avoided Emma and Neal as much as he could because, althought he had assumed that they loved each other and all that stuff, seeing them still hurt him. So, instead of looking at them, he found Aurora sitting next to Mulan (as usual) and winked at her. She smiled in response.