London, 1917. WWI is still going of a missing scene from the epilogue of "Something changed" and a tribute to "Peter Pan in Scarlet", which is a bountiful source of imagination for Hook/Wendy shippers Here Wendy is 25, James is 48 or 49 and Jane is 3 years old.
"We regret to inform you that your son and brother,G.I. Michael Darling..."
Wendy Moira Angela Stuart nee Darling gasped before leaning with haste onto the parlour wall. For an endless moment she stood still, a likeness of Lot's wife.
A telegram – a crumpled piece of greyish paper – was still in her hand.
She was looking onto the lines without seeing them, her state of mind blurred like a pool of cold October rain that was pouring outside.
Her youngest brother. Her favourite brother. Her "Baby".
The only one of her brothers, real or adopted, whom she could truly call a soulmate. Who, until the fatal 1914, was still merry, still innocent, though by no means heartless.
The best of brothers – killed in a battle. Lying at the moment in the cold earth in some God-forsaken place of Eastern Europe.
This was too much to bear.
"My lady? Wendy, who's there?" – her husband's voice now reached her ears, as did his steps, that have became more slow and a little heavier in five years of their married life. However, the sounds seemed to be somewhat blurred as well, as if she was put into a seashell.
'A ..a telegram.." – her voice became hoarse, as if she had a sore throat. "Michael is..."
She failed to utter the word "dead"
She was unaware how much time had passed.
Now she was in a cosy armchair, her legs covered with a quilt, a cup of tea by her side.
She turned her head to see her husband standing near the window of their bedroom, his shoulders slumped, his head bent down, his only fist clenched behind his back.
"Damned Germans!", he muttered.
She didn't have the heart to say "Language, darling!", as she usually did.
"They haven't woken Jane up, have they?" Her voice was still alien to her.
He sounded puzzled. "Beg pardon?"
"I mean, the doorbell – did she wake up when it rang?"
"No, Jane never woke up. I have just been in the nursery – she is fast asleep."
Wendy's expression became less tense, but it was still absent-looking, as if there was a film being shot, not severe reality invading her life.
"James, he was not yet nineteen..."
Her husband was silent, but that silence around him was opressive, like air before a thunderstorm.
"He will...would have been nineteen in December... Oh, but why him, of all our family, and not anyone else? Why does the Lord always claim the purest – the best of people?
The former Captain's face, until then expressionless, fell, as if he had been slapped.
"So, you are now imagining God to be unjust, my lady? You, a devoted Christian? My,my, what is the world coming to?"
Wendy felt uneasy. " I – I only meant..."
His features hardened.
"Isn't it quite evident that your brother was taken away for the same reason your husband wasn't?"
Her heart sank.
"What on Earth do you mean?"
"Only the obvious things, Mrs. Stuart. Your unworthy husband should have been dead ages ago, but but for some reason he still lives. To die on the battlefield, defending your country, or at least your country's security, being sure you were fighting for the right Cause – that must be glorious! One has to deserve a death like this – and in this case I am definitely a failure.
"But, James, I never thought..."
"Yes, our authorities didn't even want to give me a chance three years ago – you do remember, don't you? Unfit for duty, so they told me...UNFIT FOR DUTY, by all means!" He spate the phrase with disgust, and Wendy wasn't sure whether the emotion was meant for the authorities or for himself.
"But..."
"Oh, yes, God does always take the best of us- "Blessed are the pure-hearted, for they shall see God" – though I dare say that quoting the Book becomes you better than me, Wendy-lady! So that's exactly why your youngest brother was taken away, straight to New Jerusalem, and that's why I was left...again..." He sank heavily on a stool by her side.
Wendy's words of compassion were frozen on her lips.
Only then it dawned upon her how deeply he was injured by having been barred from active service back in 1914.
His pride, which had in past proved his undoing, has indeed had a fall, and a considerable one.
Was he really so eager to die?
Or did he hope his death to be a sort of atonement for his past transgressions?
Oh, man unfathomable, indeed!
Now she finally dared to look at him, but he was looking as if through her, his gaze wandering in search of something he couldn't find – a gaze she sometimes caught on his face when he was thinking of the days gone by – as if looking again into the open sea in search of land.
"I am a failure, Wendy-lady" , he whispered." I am neither here nor there, and I do not belong anywhere. A lost case – that's what I am."
For once the famous storyteller was at a loss for words.
"Oh, James..."
Perhaps no words, however right and proper, could do any good at such moment.
So she just kneeled down, embracing his knees, her head on his lap, her small hand squeezing his only large one.
"You are not lost, James, she finally whispered . "And we'll make it, I'm sure" .
Night was passing away, and they still sat holding each other, entwined like a pair of twisted trees.
Somehow, the shared pain grew less heavy for each of them. You know, when another's pain becomes your own, it feels different.
Perhaps, sharing each other's burdens was the only way to survive, to hold togehter in that hostile world, that seemed to be falling apart.
They were one - soul and body. And she just couldn't let their ship sink in the dark waters of misery and gloom and self-pity.
Moreover, she still had to tell the news to her parents. And the boys, who were fighting in different parts of Europe, still knew nothing about Michael.
From now on, Wendy realized, she couldn't afford herself to be weak.
Somehow, they had to pull through.
Together.