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Uma lay in her berth on the Lost Revenge, relishing the easy motion of the waves below. The celebration on Auradon had lasted til well after dark, but she had made her way to her ship soon after midnight, ready to be alone and to rest.
Before trying to sleep, she had hunted up every last piece of physical evidence that Harry Hook had inhabited her cabin for all the months she had been away. She'd wanted to throw it overboard, or at least into the passageway, but the first option seemed too petty, and the second was unsafe, so she'd loaded it into an empty crate and left it in an out-of-the-way area of the crew quarters.
Currently, she was attempting to sleep on her back. It wasn't her favorite sleeping position, but being on her sides or stomach brought her nose closer to the stench of unwashed first mate. If only that could be banished from the cabin as readily as his belongings. Tomorrow she'd see if Auradon had a good laundromat. Or at least a fresh set of bedding.
A board creaked, and she sat upright instantly.
To a landlubber, all sounds aboard a ship were strange. Uma, however, could distinguish between creaks on the Lost Revenge as easily as if the ship were speaking to her. For instance, the steady nighttime creaking of the ship at rest in the harbor stood separate from the creaking of the floorboards in front of the captain's cabin. The slow catching of metal against metal was another sound entirely.
Uma huffed out a sigh and moved swiftly and silently to stand by the door, so when it swung open a moment later, the intruder who stepped in nearly swayed back out again out of shock.
"Problem?" Uma clipped.
Harry adopted a cringing pose ill-suited to his height. "Can't a first mate come wish his captain good night?"
She rolled her eyes. "It's three in the morning. A first mate might assume his captain were asleep."
"Maybe he likes to watch her sleep."
"Maybe that's creepy and he should stop."
"If he thought she meant that..."
She placed a hand on his chest and pushed backward. "We're done here."
"You don't mean...?"
"'Get out'? That's exactly what I mean, actually. Trying to sleep, here."
"'Trying'?" His eyes sparked. "So the first mate's assumption would've been incorrect. About the sleeping captain."
Uma brought her other hand up to join the first and to push harder, but Harry foiled this move by dropping to both knees. She almost fell over him, but he caught her around the waist, turning his ear against her abdomen and clutching her close.
"He can't sleep, either."
"Who's..." Uma barked an irritated laugh. "Get up, you idiot. And can we be done with pretending we might be talking about other people, instead of us?"
"Not sure." He hopped to his feet and stood tall, looking down at her with sudden lucidity. "You ready to talk about us?"
Uma cursed under her breath. Sometimes Harry's insanity act dropped away at inconvenient moments. "There's no 'us.'"
"Barnacles. Best captain and first mate on the Isle? Us. People standing in this cabin talking? Us. Awkward moment earlier needing resolving? Us."
"Villains who don't talk about feelings? Us."
He smirked. "So it's feelings, is it?"
This time, Uma's curse was audible.
He stretched out the hand that wasn't holding his hook, but stopped, fingers hovering and twitching an inch from her temple.
"Well, then," he said, eyes narrowing slightly as he read her expression. "Feelings it is."
She was a little surprised when he let his hand fall. Hadn't he tried to make everything right with a kiss at the celebration in Auradon the previous night? Physical contact had always been part of their relationship―hands (or hook) in hair, on shoulders, against faces. The occasional make-out session after they'd been in big fights. But now, he was setting his hook down on the table and straddling a chair backwards.
"Uma." It was calm, gentle, empty of the lustful lilt he usually put into it, and her heart stuttered as it never had before. "Isle-born and bred and all, we can have feelings, too. We're of the Isle, but we've got brains, not just blood."
He gestured to the opposite chair, and she eased herself into it.
"Says the man ready to hit on five different women in one day."
"Didn't say I'm all brains. Never saw it matter to you til yesterday."
Uma felt a strange sensation come over her eyes, then wetness on her cheek. Instinctively, Harry reached toward her, but again retracted his arm before touching her. He pulled a grubby handkerchief from his pocket, shook his head, and tossed it aside. Uma ran the back of her hand across the dampness.
"Don't bother," he said. "I needed to see that."
She scoffed. "So you could have your precious assurance of feelings?"
"So I could see what an arse I've been." His fingers played across the back of the chair. "If we're to be...less villainous than previously...there's some things'll need to be left behind."
His eyes latched to hers, and she held them, head lifted in defiance of the ongoing tears. In consequence, she was positioned to see a few tears tip from his own eyes.
"Uma," he whispered tenderly, "I don't want one of the things I leave behind to be you."
"And the others?"
"Won't miss them, and they won't miss me."
"How do you know?"
"Don't think any of them even know my name." One corner of his mouth pulled up. "Uma?"
She arched an eyebrow in response.
"What's my name?"
The rest of her irritation crumbled away before his increasingly genuine smile, one she couldn't help but answer.
"What's my name?" he asked again, gripping the chair back as if restraining another impulsive move at her.
She extended her hand, palm out as it had been when she rejected his kiss hours before, and he extended his in return, near enough to touch, but not touching. Uma closed the distance, folding her fingers between his and finding it to be almost overwhelmingly intimate. She squeezed lightly, and he returned the gesture with equal pressure.
Uma took a deep breath, inhaling the fragrance of salt water and sea breeze and adventure and home.
"Harry," she declared, and his smile lit the room.