Happily Ever After

Chapter Twenty-One: Confessions

I denied the apple of course, I knew the story, I knew that eating it would only sentence me to an eternal sleep and Peter and I weren't exactly on good terms when I got kidnapped for him to wake me. I denied that apple for a week straight, saying no every day that Hook waltzed in and offered.

The ship set sail occasionally, but didn't seem to be headed in any direction away from Neverland, so getting me to the Queen was obviously not the preferred choice.

I sat in my cell everyday, sometimes eating, sometimes sleeping, sometimes just thinking. In the end, it always came down to another pointless conversation with the Captain. I never saw the rest of the crew, only heard their footsteps from above, so I had no idea of how many people were exactly on the ship with me. Neither did I have any nature around me to utilize. I was powerless... And very bored.

Hook came in as he always did that night, carrying a tray of food with the nice porcelain apple on it. He sat and kicked it under the cell door, his arms crossed.

I, like always, ate the food while looking at him. Once I finished with the soup and the water, I ignored the apple and pushed the tray towards him.

This time, instead of just taking the tray and leaving, he sat there, staring at me. Then he decided to break the seemingly never-ending silence. "The Queen told me to give you that apple."

This did not surprise me. In fact, it was a conclusion that I had discovered during the many nights that I spent awake.

"She was also the one who claimed that Peter Pan stole my heart." He continued.

Another thing that I had concluded.

"I know you know both of those things. And you probably know what that apple is capable of." He said, leaning forwards into the light of the setting sun.

"You're looking for your gem, aye?" He asked.

I nodded, trying to catch on to what he's about to say.

"How about we make a deal?"

"A deal?" I inquired, creasing my eyebrows.

"I know the Queen has my heart, I have this gut-feeling that she's the reason my entire crew has no memory and we just chose to follow her orders."

I nodded, remembering what Arista said. "Yes, this entire island is cursed with no memory. Once someone entires, they have no memory of why they came. Whether she has your heart or not, well I can only assume she's that cold-hearted."

"She is." He replied, his face growing grim. "I despise her if anything. Yet she knows that if I think Peter has my heart, that if she says she'll let me kill him, I'd be willing to do almost anything for her. That is why you are here and why I do raids on the island. The more I encountered him, though, and from what you said a week or two ago, it confirmed what my instincts were telling me: the Queen had been lying. Which should come at no surprise, yet for some reason I never even considered it."

He stood up and came to knelt in front of me in my cell, the bars just an inch away from our faces. "I'm willing to take you under my wing, in exchange for finding your gem."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You are very unskilled, physically. You have made no effort to fight and the little effort from back on Neverland was pathetic. My crew and I will train you how to use a sword and how to survive a fistfight. If you do this, I'll assist in finding your gem, which is located in the cave of a deadly beast near Neverland."

"How would any of this benefit you?"

"The stronger you are, the stronger you will be against the Queen, plus I know how much the Queen despises you, so it would be fun to help the person she hates."

"And why would I trust you? You seem to know an awful lot about my gem."

"I know the location of all of the gems, since the Queen's plan on retrieving them involved a very mad spy. He was so crazy that he just admitted where he put them all and why." Hook said, almost disgustedly.

"So what do you say, love? Are you willing to trust a pirate? Or are you going to waste away in this cell until the Queen's deadline for your body is up?"

The option was too clear. "Let's do this." I responded.