From Your Tower ➛ OUAT

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Rapunzel heard screams. She heard them so loud and clear in her ears, that forced herself awake and to leave from the dark confinement of her tent.

But when she got out, she was not surrounded by the woods and grass she has became adjusted with.

She was back on the ship. On the step that goes up to the wheel to steer, there were fourteen coffins in a straight line, Captain Hook stood behind all of them, looking at the coffins with an angry look on his face.

Around every single coffin, there were other people sobbing. A women, some kids. One even had two old people crying into each other next to it.

"Who are they?" Rapunzel asks. But it wasn't her voice. It was deeper, darker.

"Families of the deceased. They all did have families." A flash of hurt flashed across his face but he quickly composed himself. "I want her dead."

"Not so fast." The man's voice carried out of her mouth. She walked forward and knelt next to a open coffin with a dead man staring up into the sky with his eyes wide. There was blood all over his neck. She wanted to look away, but she kept on looking. "Don't forget who you're really here for."

"I've put that on a rest." Hook said nonchalantly. "He can wait."

In a swift movement, she had Hook pinned up against a wall with a knife to his throat. "We had a deal, Hook."

"Which I will carry out until the end." Hook manages to say. "But this is all part of the initial plan."

"Let her go." She takes the knife from his throat and twirls it around her finger. They suddenly looked bigger then usual. "The real punishment she would get is to let her suffer. She has a guilty conscience, she is a good person. She already is overthrown by guilt."

"You love her," Hook concludes, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "That's why you don't want her to die."

"Don't even." she snaps, holding the knife back up at a ready position. "I want her to suffer, I said. Not because I love her. I have no compassion, you know that. Not for a petty girl, not for anyone."

"Whatever," Hook rolls his eyes, but stops mid-way when he thinks of something. "I know how to get rid of Peter Pan."

"Don't tell me." She snaps. "Just- do it." She turns around and jumps off the side of the ship into the air.

She begins to wonder how she could fly, but stops when she looks down to the ocean. The reflection staring back at her was not her own.

It was Peter.

She woke up out of her bed in a ear splitting scream, this time coming from her own mouth. Sweat was sticking her to her sheets, and all she could do was scream at the horrid dream plaguing her mind.

"Rapunzel?" Peter comes in the room with his eyes wide in fear. "Are you okay? I heard screaming and I thought- Hook-"

She can't answer, for her breathing is not regulated, still in shock of the dream. She finally stopped screaming after Peter came in, but she still can't get out of the fear that the dream caused her. It seemed so... Real.

"What happened?" He asks her, coming to the bed and sitting next to her.

"I had a nightmare." She manages, calming down slightly with Peter's touch. He grabbed her hand and rubbed circles onto it. The fear gave tears to her eyes, the first tear falling slowly down her cheek.

"Do you want to talk of it?"

She doesn't answer to him, just lays her head onto his chest. He's stiff at first from the gesture, but gives in to it after a minute.

"Does it get any better?" She asks after a wait of around ten minutes, just laying with Peter, letting him calm her down to where she can finally talk. "The guilt... the hurt."

Rapunzel looks up to him. He was thinking, and when she looked up, he looked down to her. For the first time, he managed to keep eye contact with her for more than five seconds.

"Eventually," He answers, his green eyes go back and forth looking from both of her blue eyes, looking for something in them. "The first year- maybe more- is nothing but guilt. You sit there every night, begging something to kill you because you think you deserve it. But Rapunzel- you don't deserve it."

Surprisingly, she was the one to look away this time and put her ear back onto his chest. She can hear the fast beating of his heart.

"Your heart is beating so fast." She laughs quietly, though she doesn't find it funny. She became numb again, not able to feel the pain anymore.

"Yeah, I suppose it is."

"Can I sleep?" She mumbles.

"Ah, yes. Of course." Peter begins to get up, but she holds onto his arm before he can get fully up. He looks down at her confused, but she saw a smile crawl at the corner of his mouth for a split second.

"Can you please stay with me? For just tonight?" She was aware at how pathetic she sounded, but what the hell. He saw her kill multiple men then allowed her to cry into his shirt about it. Then she woke the poor boy from is sleep from her screaming Bloody Mary because of a nightmare. Then she cried some more into his chest. She's passed pathetic long ago.

"Sure." He answers, climbing back into the spot he was before he got up. She resumed her position with her head on his chest, her finger twirling around a loose string on his shirt.

"Thank you for all of this, Peter Pan. You are an amazing friend."

His stomach rumbles up and down with a chuckle but it stops after seconds.

She took joy in the fact that before she closed her eyes to sleep, she saw him staring at her. She wasn't sure what the look was on his face entailed. Fascination- she would guess. The same look she gave him.

They understood each other. Though, Peter Pan's thoughts and wishes were still mostly unclear to her, she managed to understand the ones he will still speak of.

His laugh was the last thing she was thinking of when she finally fell back asleep.