Tink cleaned the special glasses Curly had made her for about the tenth time and set them on the shelf. She looked around at her small room. It was immaculate. She had cleaned, organized, and rearranged everything in her space several times. It turned out that having the network down was great for her cleanliness, but bad for her nerves.
Tink had been leaving central control more often lately simply because she was bored. She was incredibly grateful that Curly had designed her glasses to work offline, and while sometimes she felt that she was finally adjusting to life outside of her room, there were other times when all she had to do was set foot outside her door and the panic would overwhelm her.
Not having her video feeds or her avatar was driving her crazy and meant that she was more cut off than ever before. Her only consolation was that she had managed to rig the audio so she could still listen in on a few areas of Neverland. Right now she was tuned in to Hook's cabin, which was usually entertaining because he talked to himself a lot. But at the moment he was having an argument with that Angela lady.
"Curly offered to climb up a rope with you on his back," Hook said weakly.
"I am a grown woman, James. I'm not going to cling to a teenage boy."
"Well then, the twins have a pulley they can attach near the entrance, but they're not sure if it'll work with a human. They'll have to hoist you up a few meters to find out."
"Hoist me up? Isn't there a respectable way for me to get out of this place?"
Tink snorted. "Lady, you threw 'respectable' out the door when you jumped into a pit with Captain Hook," she murmured.
"Angela, I'm sorry, but nothing is functioning very well at the moment and we're left with primitive options. Perhaps in a couple weeks-"
"I don't have weeks! I don't even have days! Why didn't you tell me the truth from the beginning?"
Hook laughed bitterly. "Angela, usually when a man is trying to impress a woman, he doesn't start by listing off all of his mistakes."
Angela sighed. "Still, it would have been helpful information to have before I followed you into a hole and got stuck in an underground world with no way out."
"There are ways out. They just don't seem to be to your liking." Hook paused and lowered his voice. "Could it be that perhaps you don't really want to leave?"
Angela groaned and Tink heard a door slam. Hook muttered something about women and treasure, then a little more clearly he said:
"Tink will know what to do."
"What?" Tink cried, jumping up from her chair. "Why do I always have to solve his problems?" She turned off her audio feeds and three minutes later there was a knock on her door. She opened it reluctantly.
"What do you want?"
"Why hello, Miss Tink! How nice to catch you in such a lovely mood."
Tink stomped back to her rolling chair and let Hook follow her inside. "What do you want?" She repeated, sitting down. "Don't waste my time."
"Of course. Because I can see you're so busy," Hook said, gesturing at her spotless room.
Tink leaned forward. "If you don't tell me why you're here in the next five seconds I'll cut off your hand with a surgical saw and throw it in the lagoon."
Hook sat in the chair opposite Tink. "I need your help with Angela. How can I get her to like me?"
Tink nearly choked. "Hold on. You're asking me for love advice?"
Hook stood up, looking anguished. "She's so wonderful and I don't want to lose her!"
"Oh yeah, she seems like a real gem," Tink scoffed.
"Miss Tink, you don't know her like I know her."
"Well, give me a couple hours with her and then I'll know as much as you do. Maybe even more since I won't be wasting time gazing into her eyes and smiling like an idiot."
"There must be some way to reverse her feelings for me." Hook was staring at a plant above Tink's head, clearly wrapped up in his own thoughts.
Tink let out a slow breath. "Honestly, Captain, the best thing to do is to give her what she wants. Find a way to get her back home."
"You think that will help her to like me?"
"She'll definitely hate you less."
"But she's refused everything I've proposed."
"We could open up the tunnel again."
Hook chewed on his lip. "Yes, but that might get rather messy at the other end. I'm trying not to draw attention to Neverland at the moment."
Tink narrowed her eyes at him. "Someone recognized you in the Grey World."
Hook collapsed into the chair again. "I don't know how it happened! You erased my record, didn't you?"
Tink threw up her hands. "Yes, I did. But you're one of London's most wanted criminals! You can't just go frolicking down the streets in broad daylight. I erased your file, not people's memories!"
Hook put his head in his hands. "I've really made a mess of things, haven't I?"
"Yes, you have."
Hook's expression turned miserable, so Tink softened a bit. "Maybe after we've rebuilt Neverland you can return the rest of the treasure to the bank and they'll lighten your sentence."
Hook shifted in his chair. "Ah, that's the other problem," he said with a weak smile. "I'm not exactly certain where the treasure is."
"What?" Tink shouted. "You mean you lied to us?"
"Not exactly. The treasure is definitely somewhere."
"Wow, that's very comforting."
"Minerva hid it and never let on where it was."
Tink groaned. "The Crocodile? We're up against her again?"
"Yes. It seems that woman just won't die."
"Do you have any idea where it might be?"
"Well, it's in Neverland or somewhere near it."
"Hm, that really narrows it down."
Hook spread his hands in front of him, "I was actually wondering if you might be able to tell where it is?"
Tink shook her head in exasperation. "Why in the world would I know that?"
"Well, you're always looking at Neverland and its infrastructure and diagrams and all that. I thought you might be able to see if there was any discrepancy or anything out of the ordinary?"
Tink wanted to scream. "Oh sure, let me just pull up a map of the infrastructure right now." She made a big show of typing on the keyboard of her blank computer. "Oh wait, I can't because you fried the network!"
"Yes, yes, I know. I've ruined everything," Hook replied with a wave of his hand. "But I was wondering if in all your observation you remembered anything being inconsistent?"
Despite her frustration, Tink began to mentally review the framework of every part of Neverland. After about a minute her head began to hurt and she was about to tell Hook off when something caught in her mind's eye.
"The lagoon."
Hook leaned forward. "Yes?"
"There are several airtight chambers on the west side, about 30 meters down. I always wondered what their purpose was but I was never curious enough to find out."
Hook's eyes sparkled. "That's it! That must be it!" He stood and rubbed his hands together. "Tink, I would kiss you if I wasn't afraid of being pummeled by your boyfriend."
Tink raised her eyebrows. "And it's illegal."
"Well, yes, that too, but I've not been known to obey the law."
Tink made a face and Hook smiled. "Don't worry, my dear, I wouldn't dream of it. I've got someone else's lips on my mind."
Tink rolled her eyes and Hook started for the door, but she had another thought.
"Captain, if you want relationship advice, you should ask Slightly."
Hook looked thoughtful. "Really?"
"Yeah. He's got a weird sense about those kinds of things."