She stares at me with eyes that are wet and gleaming, wearing some broken, damaged look that is a mirror of what I feel. The fright that Belle shows me is nothing new, but that bleak, almost hopeless look is, and it kills me inside. I've got her running scared again, but more than that, I've got Belle feeling as though she is all out of options. And maybe that part is as true as anything else, this desperation I feel a mad, unreasonable thing that drives me to do much, many of it inconceivable. I must seem like a nightmare made real, a monster more horrific than any she has ever known, and it's all the scarier because it's love for Belle that has made me like so.

"I'm sorry." I say, and my insincere words can't abolish the uncomfortable beat between us. I can't and won't apologize for loving her, but I am sorry it-I, frighten her so. The sad truth of it is I frighten myself, the love that I feel transforming me into someone desperate and damn near unrecognizable. I'm not the man I once was, and I am nowhere near the man I had started to become for her. I'm someone infinitely more dangerous, and a dozen times more unpredictable.

He-I leave her disturbed, Belle visibly shaking, her arms hugged around her for warmth and comfort as she stares at me with a look that is stricken at best. Some damage control is needed, but I haven't the faintest idea what exactly should be done. That same love that empowers me leaves me floundering, the loss of it making me crazed, even stupid.

"I'm sorry." I say again, and rub my hand over my face. "Maybe that was a little too honest."

She starts to say something in reply, then hesitates, a nervous flick of her tongue washing over her bottom lip. Belle takes in and lets out a deep breath, and I don't think my encouraging nod is what gathers strength to her.

"Are you...were you even ever planning on bringing me back to Storybrooke once the three days have passed?"

Now I am the one to hesitate, actually twisting at my hook with my fingers. "I...maybe yes, maybe no..." I let out a bitter sound. "Hell love, I know what I WANT to do versus what I SHOULD do."

"And what is that?"

The look I give her is not exactly pleasant, my gaze dark and heated. There's a message to the look, one that practically dares her to ask again. She persists all the same, Belle's voice almost strong, and more than a little demanding.

"Killian, tell me."

"Before or after I make love to you a dozen and a half different ways?" I challenged her, never losing the dark heat in my eyes. "Because that's never far from my mind, Belle. It's more than desire, and it's about more than sex. It's a need I have, to be close to you, to connect to you. To have the taste of your kiss on my lips, the feel of your breath on my skin, to hear your moans in my ear. I don't just want you to say you love me, I want to feel it, to know that feeling is deep in your heart as you quiver and break apart. I want you screaming for me, coming for me, but more than that I want you to BELIEVE."

My own breath had harshened as bodily testament to the passion I felt in just speaking about this to her. I think my eyes might have blazed at the last of it, and without thinking I had begun to advance on her.

"Belle..." I felt and was ruthless, stalking towards her even as she began to press back against the kitchen's counter. Her hands gripped at the smooth wood that was in her way, Belle wide eyed and staring, her chest heaving with her uncertain breath. I was in effect scaring her again, and I couldn't seem to stop. "Do you know why I haven't taken you past the curse's boundary? Can you even fathom why I haven't given in to such a very real temptation? Can you?"

"It would be SO easy." I continue before she can try to speak. I am there looming over her, my hand cupping the side of her face. The panic Belle feels freezes her in place, her blue eyes wide and wild in contrast to the growing darkness of my own mirthless expression. "You wouldn't be afraid anymore. Of me, of your feelings, or our love."

My hook had caught at the front of the shirt she had borrowed, the tip of starting to tear open the front in a jagged line downwards. Belle's breath quickened even more, her hand reaching to grab at my wrist, to stop me, and then the cold curve of my hook was pressing over her heart.

"This is why I DON'T do it." I tell her. "This beautiful, proud and fierce heart that deserves so much better than to have me, to have anyone, destroy it. Because Belle, if I destroy you, I destroy it, all the memories we shared, all the love we have had, gone once you cross over that line. I don't want a shell of who you once were, a body with your face. I want YOU. All of you, from every emotion, every thought, to every memory good or bad. I want and love YOU, Belle, and not who I could turn you into."

"I..." Those words of mine had rendered my beautiful girl speechless, her lips trembling open and then closed on that stuttered word.

"I know that the way things are now, I might never see you look at me with all the love and affection I have grown used to. But better I never see that, than to lose so completely the woman that you are, the woman that I fell helplessly, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with."

I'm still looming over her, and Belle is still gripping my wrist just below where the metal of my hook takes place of my lost hand. I want so badly to kiss her, not just because I love her, and not just because I want her but because the words are coming, a flood of them pouring out of me and I don't think I can stop. And a part of me doesn't want to.

"So yes, I will return us to Storybrooke even if the unbearable should happen." I don't give her time to wallow in relief, my cruel passion manifesting as verbal fact. "But it doesn't mean I will give up. I won't...I CAN'T! Belle, you are everything that matters to me. Maybe it's not healthy, and maybe it's not sane, but you have become the most important part of my life."

Belle had begun to blink rapidly, her lips again trembling with her quiet efforts to speak. I so badly wanted to know her thoughts, to hear what she was trying to say. It took a concentrated effort of my own to keep quiet, the words of my heart bubbling within me, wanting, needing an outlet now that she was finally near.

"It's...It's a lot to take in." She began. "A love like that...it's more than a little...frightening. To be that wanted, that needed, that loved? I don't think any one can be prepared for that level of devotion."

"That's fine." I say. "I wasn't anymore prepared for it then I was prepared for YOU." That almost drew a smile, the hint of it playing at the corners of her mouth. "Belle...you...and the feelings you inspired me to feel...it's safe to say I was totally blind sided. I didn't enter into this relationship with the best of intentions...but you, the kind of person you are, you changed me. Made me start to be a better man...More than that, you made me WANT to be better. It was no longer about revenge, and living only long enough to get it...I had a new purpose, a new reason and that was you."

The sentence barely completed, Belle has pressed her fingertips to my lips as though to stop the words from coming out. "Don't." She says softly. "Don't make me your only reason for living. It's too much...too much for any one person to bare."

"But it's true."

"You think I want that?!" Her eyes suddenly flashed, the first hint of her pain giving way to an anger. "You think it makes me happy to know your life, your happiness hinges on my decisions?! Killian, no! I wanted someone who would fight for me, fight for my love, not be consumed by it!"

Startled, I drew back as though struck by her. I must have worn a wounded expression the likes of which softened the worst of Belle's anger. Her blue eyes now gleamed with a blinding compassion, Belle stepping towards me, both her hands reaching to cup firmly my face. She forced me to look at her, to stare at the truth that glinted in her eyes.

"A love should be a partnership. One half shouldn't hold all the power over the other. It won't flourish otherwise."

She was right of course. I could recognize that much at least. But I felt trapped, locked in obsession, consumed by the very passion that was my love for her, for Belle. I didn't know how to love less, how to lessen the strength of my driving need for her, wanting to both posses Belle and be owned by her.

"God help me." I ended up whispering it out loud. "How?!"

That very God I prayed to might not have taken pity on me, but Belle did, an already compassionate gaze softening even further. "It starts with small steps." She said. "Finding, remembering the things that once mattered."

"I don't know if I can remember that far back." I told her.

I watched her frown in response. "Well..." She began slowly. "Maybe we don't have to go back quite that far. Maybe all we need to do is look around."

I must have looked confused, for Belle smiled. "Like having a roof over your head. The clothes on your back, the food on your plate." She then let go of my face, placing her right hand on my chest. "The heart that still beats, the eyes that still see...Killian, life is a miracle, and wonders happen every day. Everything from the sun setting, to the rainbow after a storm. We just need to appreciate them."

"I'd rather appreciate them WITH you."

"That's fine." She said slowly. "Just so long as you aren't only able to appreciate life and it's wonders THROUGH me."

It was easier said then done, the last seven months spent with her having left an indelible mark. Not just on me, but on Storybrooke, it's wonders and marvels all colored with memories that Belle herself had had a starring role in. Everything from discovering the creamy cold treat that was known as ice cream, to laying snuggled together on Granny's floral patterned couch while watching that magic box that was called a TV. I had been all over Storybrooke with Belle, laughing, loving, living.

Some part of me must have mellowed at just the thought, my energy turning relaxed, much of the tension leaving me and in turn leaving her. With the memory of Belle's laughter echoing through my thoughts, I gave her a crooked smile.

"Learn to appreciate the wonders all around me, eh?" Difficult that, when Belle was before me, the most wondrous, and lush marvel made real, my dream girl in the flesh.

She nodded at me, so solemn, so serious, almost seeming to hold her breath when I turned away from her. I spied the pan on the stove, the stir fry just seconds away from smoking, and hurried towards it.

By some miracle, it hadn't yet burnt to be inedible. I quickly put out the stove's flames, and left the pan to rest on the counter, a plate underneath it so that the heat of it's metal wouldn't scar it's imprint into the wood. While I did this, Belle finished up with preparing the fruit salad, and soon we were sitting down at the counter, enjoying a leisurely if quiet meal.

The chatter in my head wasn't anywhere as quiet, my thoughts more than making up for the lack of conversation between us. I kept thinking on Belle, on what she had said, her views on love, and what she wanted from a partner. On some level I knew she was right, my love not so much nurturing as a suffocating, frightening thing. It bordered on unhealthy, these feelings that I have as much obsession as it was loving, twisting together to become some dark, deranged thing. It-I was as much my opponent as Belle in this, the worst of me an enemy I MUST master and defeat. Only then do I truly stand a real shot of it, a real chance at a future with Belle.

To Be Continued...

This one was...okay I got it started not problems, all was going well...then I got about 10 KB into it, and was convinced it had gone from a powerful start to it being absolutely stupid. T_T I had to sleep on it, and the next day (Saturday) I realized it wasn't as stupid as my stressed out state had had me convinced of. But then I started becoming convinced it was stupid the parts that came after the first 10 kb.

I think I know what some of my mental hang ups and issues were with this chapter. One thing is...I have been torn on what kind of ending to write for this story. I have two in my head. A happy one for both of them, and a more tragic one. I think when writing this chapter, it felt like the words being spoken, were setting me up to finally pick one of the endings in my head. (Unless the characters throw me a massive curve ball in future chapters yet to be written.) I just didn't feel ready to settle decisively on an ending. I still kinda don't feel ready...but I am working with what I got.

The other thing is...I felt like he was mellowing out a little. Just a little. I wasn't sure I liked it, felt it changed the feel of the fic. Now realistically I know he has to mellow just a little, tone down how obsessive he is if I want to go for the happy ending. So again we'll see what happens when I try to write the upcoming chapters.

I had the hardest time after the paragraphs that opened with the words easier said then done. I finally decided to stop struggling and stressing so hard, and let this chapter end even though it would be a shorter chapter than I had wanted. Really at this point I either want to curl up with a good book, OR work on a different fic to get a breather from all my worries and stress from this chapter.

All in all I like this chapter, even with my difficulties in several places. X_X

-Michelle

Ryunn Kazan, thank you! Was blown away by your response to the fic! :D Don't worry it's not abandoned. I don't consider any of my Hook Belle works abandoned at this time. It's just I suffer from too many ideas, and not enough of me to go around and write them all. I've got like a half a dozen ideas for stories for this wonderful couple that I haven't even started yet. Lately I've been trying to update some of my older works, with mix results. Really right now I feel like I am going around, throwing chapters at a wall, see what sticks. I really don't want to update just one chapter and then switch to a different story, but lately it feels like that's what my brain is demanding I do. Ideally I would like to write a BUNCH of chapters for one story, before switching to another. But I'll take what I can get accomplished even if it means just one chapter here and there. (But I'll pout all the way about it!)

I am happy and honored you consider this story a fave of yours! Whoo hoo! I do think he needs to bare his soul to her, even if it's scaring her. Actually for me, the truth of the depths of his love and desire for her is easier to write, than what will come next, him trying to mellow out so as not to be so frightening and overwhelmingly obsessed to her. X_X

Liz, hello and thank you! I like that mix too! Dark obsessive desperate Hook who can't help but love her so much. XD Let's hear it for dark pirate Hook! XD

Clarembees, oh my! What a welcome back for writing this story! :D Thanks so much, enjoyed reading your reactions. Ah, I hear you on the fantasy versus in real life dilemma. It is a complicated situation, and it makes me torn on what to do ending wise. I rather like both ending ideas I have to be honest...^^;;

I think I would have died happy if this had been done in any way on the show. XD Though sometimes I don't know if the show could have handled it that well, since I think something with the thoughts and feelings would get lost in translation, since we the viewers, wouldn't have an in depth look to the inside of his head like we the readers get to see when it's done in written form.

Thanks again! I really love the feedback I am getting. :D *glomps* I was pretty happy with the grapefruit moment too! XD