CHAPTER 1- Hook's Lady
"Yes dear, just the second star on the right and straight on til morning" said Wendy as she looked at her young nephew.
It was many years since she had returned to London after that lovely time spent in Neverland with Peter and the Lost Boys, she was now a grown woman looking after her brother John's children for the night. It was on those special occasions that she told the story of her trip to Neverland and the children could never seem to get enough of those tales. The Lost Boys had returned to London with her and her brothers those many years ago and were all grown men now, some with families of their own. Wendy, however, couldn't seem to find a man that suited her as well as she expected, though it hadn't been for the lack of trying. Wendy seemed to have never ending dates with men from all over the British Isles, and yet none seemed to compare with the exciting nature and dashing good looks of one Captain James Hook. Indeed for Wendy it was Hook that captured her fancy, not the boy Peter that refused to grow up.
Wendy finished telling the children the latest story of Neverland, the one where she met Tiger Lily for the first time and was nearly kidnapped by her tribe, the Piccaninny Indians. The children cheered on and were gleefully laughing at her description of the mending of the teddy bear while the whole of Tiger Lily's tribe sang a healing chant. Wendy herself even giggled a bit at that memory and then she told the children it was time for bed; grumbling they jumped into their beds and thanked Wendy for the story before nodding off. Wendy decided she would sit in the rocking chair by the window for a bit and look out at the stars that she missed and the boy who never grew up that promised to return and never did.
It had been ten years since Wendy had returned to London and not a day went by that she didn't remember the exciting times she spent with Peter Pan in Neverland. She told him she would gladly return with him when he came for her, but he never came back to her window and she missed him terribly after that. Wendy was not in love with Peter, she never had been, she had only wanted to feel grown up at a time when she was not and had wanted to make a little boy act more like a man. Alas, Peter was destined to never grow up and she knew that now, now after ten years of wondering what had become of him, of Neverland and most of all, of a certain Captain Hook.
Yes, Wendy Moira Angela Darling had grown up and had never forgotten those last words she had spoken, so carelessly at the time, as only a child would have done in spite to the dashing Captain James Hook.
"Old, alone and done for", those had been the words of a mean spirited child urged on by a boy that railed against all that the man, Hook, had stood for.
Wendy sighed and thought, 'I should never have said those words, it is only now that I realize the power that words can hold and I regret them now more than anything else in the world. If only I could take them back, if I could return to Neverland and discover what happened to him… perhaps he survived.'
Wendy sighed once more before taking herself off to bed and dreaming once again of the cornflower blue eyes and dark hair, and of the words that could turn back the clock and bring back the one man she believed that she could truly love forever.
The next morning started bright and glorious and for a moment Wendy could imagine she was waking aboard the Jolly Roger and it was the light of Neverland that shone through the Captain's window above his bed.
'That is a silly thought to think this early in the morning, and will only be an unhappy moment when my eyes tell me this is home.' Wendy thought these things before opening her eyes once more and seeing her bedroom with the pink sheets and the floral wallpaper before groaning and climbing out of bed to check the children.
The children were ready to play outside after breakfast and so Wendy took the opportunity to return to her daydreams once again. 'Oh my darling James, if I could look into your eyes once more, just as I did that fateful day, then I would gladly say some other words to you… perhaps I would tell you how lovely your eyes are or how captivating you are when you raise your hook and threaten your dastardly pirates.'
Wendy sighed once more and thought back to that day and how utterly sad the Captain's eyes had looked when he had stared at her, at how desperate he had pleaded with those eyes, those lovely blue eyes that for the first time in her young life seemed to see her. 'I do not think that is the only time a man has looked at me like that, but I know it has been the only time a man has looked at me and really SEEN me, as if my soul was there laid bare to him. Oh but to have another chance to see him, to show him the woman that I have become, to perhaps be his lady.' After this thought John returned to claim his children and Wendy was left to her own thoughts again, something she seemed to gather more and more these days.
That night a fearsome storm raged outside Wendy's window and she wished on every star in the sky that she could return to Neverland and discover the whereabouts of one infamous pirate captain. It was also on this predestined night that the Fates were listening to her wishes and decided that the girl and her captain deserved another chance; that perhaps the bastard Captain Hook was deserving of someone's love. The Fates had thought about the situation with the awful Captain for many years and had left his character in the mist, in the place made up of dreams, of perhaps; but now it seemed that they thought that he was to be given another chance. There could only ever be one Captain Hook and Neverland was not the same without the mysterious, reprehensible pirate captain. Neverland was to be re-gifted with its caustic captain and Wendy Moira Angela Darling was to be given a second chance at rehabilitating the Captain and teaching him about love.
The storm raged over London and began anew in Neverland, the clouds raced across the sky and the wind blew so strong that it nearly ripped the Jolly Roger from its mooring in Pirate's Cove. Smee was in charge of the ship for the past ten years and though in charge he would never accept the title of captain. Smee was a caring little man and he too wished on all the stars in Neverland that one day the magnificent Captain Hook would be returned to his post aboard the greatest pirate ship to sail the waters of Neverland and beyond.
Smee thought to himself, 'these winds are so strong, I best get the men to re-secure the lines for now… I wonder what has caused this raging amongst the gods here. The boy Pan is still alive and well in his hideaway with his newest bunch of Lost Boys…hhmmmm… I wonder what is causing this.'
At that the ship rocked wildly and a crack of lightning lit up the sky above the captain's deck, where Smee and the others could barely contain their shock and joy at seeing the dashing, harsh glare of their Captain's wild grin. Cheers rose up amongst the men as the one and only Captain James Hook raised the infamous hook and laughed maniacally above the sounds of the thunder and cracking of lightning.
Wendy awoke from her slumber with the strangest feeling that something in the universe had changed, that something about her world had shifted and would never be the same. The walls shook with the force of the winds and rain outside her window but Wendy couldn't resist rushing out of bed and throwing open her window. The winds and rain blew in but Wendy stood there in all her beauty and knew without a doubt in her mind or heart that her captain had returned and it was time to return to Neverland, finally.