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Harry had gotten his heart broken.
Again.
Uma sighed as she watched her first mate from afar in their little hideaway they called the Cove. His shoulders were slumped as he stared out into the sea; he had once told her that the waves were the only thing that calmed him when he was anxious about something. That was a weakness that he didn’t share with the rest of the crew, who took his erratic nature as something mad and deadly – but no. Harry just didn’t react the same way to things as other people did.
Slowly, she walked up to stand by his side and look down at him. “Whoever she is, she doesn’t deserve you,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she added, “I can go gut her, if you want. Free of charge.”
A small smile curved on Harry’s lips. “Just a fancy, Uma,” he said. “I’ll get over it.”
You don’t look like it was just a fancy, she thought. Then she kneeled down and sat in a cross-legged position beside him. Harry didn’t react, just sighed softly into the wind.
Moments passed with only silence between them. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
Harry seemed to hesitate for a moment before he said, “They say they want to have a bit of fun, and I oblige them. But then I scare them away. They say I’m too intense.”
“Some people like intense,” Uma said. When that didn’t seem to help, she said, “C’mon, Harry, lighten up. These are your glory days. Don’t get hung up on the ones that get away.”
“Oh, are you one to talk?” he asked, and Uma kept quiet upon hearing that. “You watch that beaten-up television in the chip shop all the time for every hint about Auradon. And I know who you’re looking for. You don’t exactly hide it well.”
Harry was far too perceptive in ways she envied.
Uma huffed out a sigh. “I know better, though,” she said. “I can jump into anyone’s bed and be just fine. I don’t have to have a special someone like you do.”
“I don’t need someone special,” Harry said. “I just need someone who will look at me and not see a rogue pirate they want to mishandle for a few hours.”
Uma snorted. “Mishandle? Is that what you call it?” When he didn’t laugh, she continued on, “Look, I get it. You think you’re gonna find love and everything will fall into place afterward. But it doesn’t work that way, Harry. We’re the villains. Hell, most of us don’t even know who both of our parents are.”
“Not exactly the place for romance,” he agreed. Then he looked down at his hands and twirled the hook that brought him some relief for the streaming thoughts that raced a mile a minute through his head. “But I guess I dream too much.”
Uma just studied him and wondered why she was the only one who ever got to see this side of him. To everyone else, he was Crazy Harry Hook, always ready for a romp and a scheme and a hell of a good time. But she remembered the days when he had slept at her place because he had to get away from his dad and the drinking. Perhaps that had been the beginning of it, when their friendship really solidified into something that might last forever.
She touched his shoulder, but he didn’t move. “We may be stuck on this Isle for the rest of our lives, but that doesn’t mean we have to just lay down and take it and suffer through it. We can find our own piece of heaven here.”
“Sounds like a challenge,” he said, his familiar grin coming to his face. A part of her wondered if anyone else saw that smile and felt warmth from it. Whatever anyone else said, Harry Hook wasn’t a cold person. Far from it. He just didn’t show every facet of himself to the waiting world.
She wished she had a bit of that same self-discipline.
Before she could think better of it, she leaned in and brushed her lips against his cheek. Harry looked at her then, really looked at her, and she thought of how it might hurt to be rejected from this kid who had been her right-hand for so long. He had seen her through so many storms.
But she needn’t have worried. Whether it was the heartache or the loneliness or just pure want, his mouth found hers. He tasted like the salt of the sea, a brine she knew so well for living near the sea wharf. She wasn’t thinking clearly when she reached out to grasp the back of his head and pull him closer. The closer, the better.
Behind her eyes, however, she imagined a different person. A girl whom she told herself she hated, a girl who had gotten her ticket off the Isle and left her behind to go find a happily-ever-after with a boy king. Uma had never voiced it aloud, but Harry had known. Harry knew, even while she kissed him.
His wasn’t the only heart that could break, after all.
When she reached to help him remove his shirt, however, he grasped her hands gently in his. “I think that’s as far as we go, my little sea witch,” he said.
She laughed against his mouth. “What’s a little fun between friends?”
But he leaned away, until they were staring into each other’s eyes. “You’d regret it,” he said, “and so would I.”
And now she found herself getting angry. “What, you’re being all high and mighty on me now? You sleep with anything that moves—”
“Uma, I love you, and I always will,” he said, “but we’d be hurting each other more than we would be helping each other. Even for a ‘little bit of fun.’”
She felt the burn of tears in her eyes. “Why – why do you—” She suddenly felt so upset that she couldn’t even finish her sentence.
Before she could voice her thoughts into coherency, Harry brought their joined hands up to his lips. “You’re just too important to me, Uma,” he said. “You’re the best thing in my life, and I don’t ever want to ruin that.”
This time a hiccup of laughter bubbled out of her lips. “Sure you ain’t got a prince in your family tree somewhere? Because that sounds like something one of those snooty royals in Auradon would say.”
Harry laughed too. “Can’t be too sure,” he said. “Never exactly met my mother, you know.”
And there was another twinge of sadness, even beyond the heartbreak he felt from the girl who had rejected him. All the Isle kids had a sad story like that; it was like a disease for their villainous species.
When they had untangled and sat again with their faces toward the sea, she breathed in the crisp air that actually felt calming. One of the few perks of the Isle was that the breeze was always a fine thing to feel.
Uma touched the back of Harry’s hand. “Next time, I’ll set you up with someone. No more of these girls and guys who use you and abuse you. Your taste can’t be trusted.”
That comforting grin came to his face again. “At least I’ve got good taste in captains to follow to the ends of the earth,” he said.
She returned the grin with one of her own. “Well, can’t exactly argue with that one.”
Then captain and first mate simply watched the waves of the sea that felt like home even when nothing else could.