So, here we are. The end. This story has grown to become something very precious to me and I'll be bold enough to say that I'm proud of it. I always had in my head the image depicted at the beginning of this chapter as how I wanted to end it. Strange, you know I never used to like the story of Peter Pan. But when I viewed it as the story of Wendy and as the story of James Hook, some very different themes and thoughts emerge. And this is how I would want their stories to continue. Entrancing Wendy isn't about a boy who doesn't grow up, it's about a man and a woman who were supposed to grow up but felt that it didn't quite fit. They realise, eventually, that you don't actually have to grow up, you simply have to be content to grow old and make the most of life in the meantime. It took each other for these two to realise that.

Incidentally, I wrote the first part of this chapter at sunset, overlooking the ocean.

Thank you for sharing in this tale with me. It's been an absolute pleasure. LL x

Three years later

Wendy hung back for a time. The image was so perfect, so confirming of all she had longed for, that she wanted to fix it in her mind.

The evening sun shone down on the slow, silver ripples of the ocean, a ribbon of light reaching from the ship to the far horizon. The rigging tapped regularly against the masts, and the timbers of the Last Star creaked a slow good evening to her, that settling and adjusting of the bones of the ship that Wendy had grown to love and understand.

He stood on the prow, silhouetted by the red of the sun behind him. His hair fell about him in those same thick silken curls she had first distinguished him by. In this light, the edges glowed, as sacred and radiant as an archangel's. Tomorrow, they were sailing for Colombo. He had supplies there due to him from long ago, treasures discovered and long stored. The sea and the ships that crossed it still provided for them, but they now made gains through business acumen and discussion rather than fear and intimidation. It had been many months since they had used force to gain their ends, and for that Wendy was glad. There had been one or two moments, and there would always be, Hook was a pirate after all, and a proud one at that. He would not revoke his calling and Wendy had no desire for him to. The unpredictability of the sea meant that it sometimes threw up men so wicked and twisted meant that Wendy had no compunction in allowing James to deal with them as he saw fit. But such moments were increasingly rare. Perhaps it was her influence. She allowed herself the occasional indulgent twinge of pride.

Her pirate was preoccupied tonight, as he usually was at this time. The ocean provided the backdrop, but his world was in his arms, and his silhouette swayed slightly as he gazed down at what he held. Wendy approached gently, reluctant to interrupt. She touched his arm softly.

'Bathtime,' she whispered, knowing how he hated to hand over his daughter. James turned to Wendy while cradling his baby girl in his arms. Lillie was snuggled against him, her eyes drooping. Wendy recalled a time, long ago, when she had found her own father holding John while he stood framed against the window in the nursery. James had that same look on his face now, a look that was at once both perfectly peaceful and ferociously protective. Something inside her tugged. She stroked his arm. 'She's nearly asleep already, James. I'd better hurry with her bath.'

'Can she not miss it for one night? She is so content here. It is quite magnificent tonight, don't you think?' He indicated the setting sun.

She reached up and kissed him. 'Always. We'll be quick and then you can carry on with the story you started last night. You had her giggling stupidly with that silly voice you put on.' James had become quite the story teller since becoming a father. He smirked in satisfaction at Wendy's approval.

It was three years since Wendy had left London. There had been not one moment of doubt or regret. Her boys took to the ocean like old sea dogs, and Hook declared that they would one day make fine captains. Jane was now five, and when Papa Hook, as she called him, was busy, was quite capable of commanding the Last Star all by herself, thank you very much. She would stand on the deck, feet apart, hands on hips, bellowing orders at the crew, who were far too enrapt of the ferocious little lady to argue.

They had returned to Neverland briefly, and Wendy had even seen Peter. It was a strange encounter, wonderful in that she could thank him for helping her realise who she truly was. For if it hadn't been for him all those years ago, she would never have known otherwise, would never have dared the unthinkable. She would have stayed in London, married another banker, and simply continued.

She had found him in a forest clearing. He had not changed at all. He had stood while she spoke to him, asking him how he had been. It had not been a long meeting. He had been distracted, eager to get on, she could tell. She had bent to Peter and kissed him on the forehead. He had smiled because he felt he ought to, waited for her to leave with as much patience as he could, then run off into the forest after the fairies.

Wendy could tell he could not remember her at all. And it was right that way.

As for Hook, he found his quarrel with Peter had evaporated. And so the lure of the Neverland was severed. They stayed only a month or so before sailing far, far away, back to the other world and a life where the passage of time allowed for change: wondrous, rousing, revelatory change.

Two years after sailing away together, life and time brought them a daughter.

When Wendy told James of her pregnancy, it was as if his life suddenly made sense to him, as if all he had been fighting for was for this moment. The years had brought out some grey in the waxy black of his hair, but when he learned Wendy was to have his baby, James Hook took back those years. He was newly rejuvenated, and even the lines which had been etched onto his face in his darkest times – which Wendy would love no matter what, it must be noted – were smoothed back.

If possible, he was more attentive and devoted while the baby was growing inside her than ever before. No task was too great, and his first question each morning was for her needs. Wendy almost grew tired of it, her ferocious independence was being tested, but for nine months she indulged him and herself. She kept herself as busy as ever around the ship, although did concede that climbing the rigging would have to be put on hold until after the birth. His crew too showed unstinting devotion. Hook had acquired them through force, but he kept them through respect. He, with Wendy by his side, ran a fair ship where all men were valued and their individual skills utilized.

The birth had been an easy one, fortunately. They were moored off Kingston in case of the need for aid, but the delivery of Wendy's fourth child was the easiest one yet (as much as the birth of a baby can ever be easy). Hook stayed with her, wiping her brow, offering a hand to cling to. (She later noticed nail marks so deep he'd bled.) But it was Solomon who proved a surprising but efficient midwife. He was the eldest of twelve, he said, and had helped his mother in the births of the last six. He was as calming and encouraging as the best Harley Street practice could offer. Lillie made a loud entrance into the world, announcing herself in shrill tones. As Wendy lay exhausted but elated below decks, the noise of new life was joined by the muffled shouts of celebration from the crew on deck when they heard her baby's first cries.

They named her after Lillie Lenton, another who had opened Wendy's eyes to what being Woman truly meant. Wendy often thought of her and Olive and hoped that life would eventually be as good to them as it had been to her. The world was changing. Europe was at war, they knew, but their business kept them far from the fighting. Hook had wanted to sign up, and she could see him at the helm of a Royal Navy war ship, but he was too old, apparently, and the regulations of war would most likely have frustrated him all too soon. So they continued in a different world, where ships still had sails, and balmy waters sparkled sapphire clear.

After Lillie's birth, Wendy had the immediate support of the widest family, that of the ship's family. There was always someone keen to clean or dress or amuse or watch over her daughter. The help was greatly appreciated, but she sometimes had to snatch Lillie back from eager hands to ensure time alone with her baby.

As she approached James now, she tried to take Lillie, but the child whined and clung to her father. 'Come on, Lillie Lou,' she crooned, lifting her as gently as she could.

The girl started to sob and reached out for her father. 'Papa papa …' she murmured, the only word she spoke as of yet.

'Bath's ready!' called a familiar voice behind them. Wendy turned with a smile. Here was someone who could coax Lillie away. After her father, Mr Smee made the little girl beam like no one else. He puffed over to them and bestowed her with the broadest smile.

'Who's ready for a splash, eh? Come on, Lillie lumps, time to get all that tar off you. I've put extra bubbles in tonight.'

Lillie's eyes widened at the prospect of bubbles and she reached out for Smee. 'You take her, Mr Smee. I'll be along in a moment. She's far happier to go with you than me,' laughed Wendy.

'Come along then, you, Mummy's on her way. Show her what a good girl you can be.' Smee tickled her tummy and her rippling laugh rose up delightedly.

Wendy smiled after them. They had nearly lost Smee, but with tender care and a lot of soup, he had been nursed back to health and was now the same rotund, jolly pirate she remembered. Starkey had not been so lucky. They had got him to land but his injuries were so extreme that sedation was the only option, and he had died during his first night in hospital. His captain had sat by his side until he passed.

Wendy kissed James softly and went to bathe her daughter. Afterwards, James arrived and continued his story of the sea dragon, not a ferocious one, but a silly one who wanted no more than to play with ships and their crew because he was lonely and needed a friend.

By the time it came to laying her in her crib, the little girl was asleep already. Her parents kissed her tenderly and stood gazing down on her for some time, their happiness illimitable.

Sleeping arrangements on ship were complicated with three children and a baby, but the men had put their considerable carpentry skills to good use and devised a new cabin layout below decks. Peter and little James (not so little anymore) tended to sleep in hammocks with the others, but Jane had her own cabin, and after six months, so did Lillie. Wendy and Hook had the captain's cabin to themselves again, for which they were most grateful.

James Hook took her hand now and led her to their cabin, shutting the door carefully behind him.

He held her head and studied her carefully. 'So much beauty,' he murmured.

She reached up and stroked his face, smoothing over the new grey hairs in his beard. They gave him an even more pronounced air of distinction. The man had much fight left in him, but growing old with him would be the greatest privilege and pleasure.

Pleasure. Had she forsaken all else in her quest for pleasure? As James began to remove her clothes now, she wondered. But her time with him was not all pleasure. There had been pain, there had been anxiety and danger. And that is how it should be. Her life in London had been a repetitive ritual of avoiding that, of smoothing over the cracks, of ignoring the rot which set in. Here, the bad was embraced and accepted and, if possible, defeated, and if that was not possible, then you found a way to live in harmony with it.

She reached up and pulled him down in a kiss, kissing him harder than usual. He groaned into her mouth in surprise, but he responded, of course he did. As she ground her hips against him, she felt him harden and swell quickly.

His groan became a growl, and her belly rolled over in expectant delight. Her clothes fell away – he had sliced through them with his hook.

'Impatient tonight, my Wendy?' Hook asked, cocking an eyebrow.

'So it would seem,' she slurred, tearing at his shirt, pulling it off his shoulders and dropping her head to kiss and lick over his torso, as magnificent as she had always known it. He normally took off the brace holding his hook at this point, but not tonight. Tonight, she needed him in all his raw purity, and he knew it.

He was soon at a breast, tugging on the nipple, rolling his tongue around it so that it tightened as hard as a hazelnut in his mouth. He continued, nipping the taut flesh between his teeth, and squeezing the other between his fingers so that it grew as red and tight as its twin. It started to hurt, but they both knew that was what she sought. She gasped as the underlying throb began to pulse out of her, making her body radiate heat which prickled down to her core.

'Does that make you wet?' he asked, breaking away from his torment to ask her. He knew the answer, but he knew also that she loved when he spoke his filthy words to her.

'Yes,' she moaned, instinctively pressing her legs together and feeling the dampness between them. 'So wet for you.'

'Tell me how, tell me what you want me to do.'

'Want you to touch me, please touch me, want to feel your fingers on me and in me.'

He reached down and grazed lightly over her soaking folds. 'Like that?' he crooned.

'More,' she whined. 'Harder, fuller.'

'Always hard and full, Wendy. How insatiable you are.'

'Only for you.'

'But of course.'

His fingers were rougher now, more concerted. With a groan of his own, he pushed two up into her, while his thumb circled her swollen, ready nub.

For a time, she let that haze of pleasure enfold her, but soon it was not enough and she raised her hands to his shoulders and pushed so that he walked backwards to the bed. Hook fell back onto it and Wendy crawled up towards him. His mouth curled into a grin but he lay back and let her take the lead. She needed this, at least as a starter, needed to see him there under her, feel him inside her as deep as possible.

She drew her leg over him as he reared up high and hard, placed her hands on his chest, waited until he gave a little grunt of frustration, then, holding him carefully between her legs, lowered herself slowly – excruciatingly slowly – onto him.

Joined. He was rooted to her. There was no other way. Despite the roll of the ocean beneath them, he grounded her. With him, all was as it should be.

Wendy took a moment to sit there astride him, feeling him stretch her and press up into her. She ground her hips, needing that achingly sweet pain until it was nearly too much.

She leaned down over him and his cock was pressed hard against her inside, causing her to gasp with the sweet bliss of it. His eyes flared.

He was lying with his arms up behind him, one hand clasping a strut of the bed, his hook curled around another. She started to move, rolling her body on him, knowing this way he could feel her on him, warm and enclosed. His brows creased and his mouth opened, but she knew he could keep this up for an age. They could pace their love-making so instinctively that words were unnecessary.

She reached along his arm and pulled his hook closer. Wendy drew herself upright again, still moving on him, still working his cock sublimely inside her. He was moaning now, low but present.

Sitting up on him, she guided his arm to her neck. She arched it, exposing the pale skin. She placed the curved upper blade of his hook under her chin and started to draw it down. It would not cut her, not unless there was sudden movement, but she loved the brilliant, clean rasp of it, loved the threat of it, the threat of him, loved reminding herself of the fragility of life. She would not squander one moment of it.

As the blade scraped down her throat, she felt an orgasm approaching fast. She looked down at him. He stared up at her, entranced, but did not pull his hook away. She drew it up again and this time brought it to her mouth. She kissed it often, like she had that time she swore her allegiance, but now she let her tongue touch its shining brightness. With his cock hard inside her, she licked along the steel.

'Wendy …' he muttered, mesmerised. 'Wendy …'

Her other hand reached between her legs, and she soon reached a blinding climax.

She panted it out, the hook still close to her mouth, her warm, rapturous breath clouding on its cold metal.

As she slackened, he moved, pulling her off him and kneeling. He turned her onto her belly and instinctively she knelt for him. He was inside her again before she could miss him.

He worked himself along her for a while, concentrating hard, holding her tight, thrusting, long, deep thrusts, a grunting moan with each. He hit that perfect place, and she immediately felt pleasure, deep pleasure now, building again.

'Feel me,' he said, his voice gruff and low. 'I live to fuck you, Wendy, I live to fuck you.'

She whined and turned her head to the side, pushing back to meet each brutal thrust of his engorged cock. He had been inside her for an age now but had held himself back, not letting himself come. He must have been so ready, so swollen and hard that his seed screamed for release.

With a grunt, he reached under her and pulled her suddenly up so that her back was pressed in tight to his chest.

He groaned against her ear and she turned to meet his searching mouth, opening it wide to be claimed by him. Their tongues danced as he rocked her body on his.

'Live to fuck you … live to fuck you …' he muttered over and over. Then it changed, morphing into another mantra, one that bound her to him. 'Live to love you … live to love you …'

His left arm clasped her around the belly, holding her tight against him, while his good hand moved between her legs and played with her bud, teasing pleasure from her again.

'Come for me again, Wendy,' he murmured hot against her ear, not demanding, not asking, but knowing. 'Come for me always.'

She reached down, holding the base of his hook, gripping his arm so that she was pinned with almost painful force against him. His cock was deep in her, completing her, filling her, still fucking her perfectly, still awakening her personal truth.

'Love me, Hook, love me, fuck me and love me … for I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you …'

With that he came explosively. Hook grunted in wonder as his seed burst suddenly out of him and into her, binding them again as their couplings would, over and over, for as long as time allowed. He bucked three, four times, muffling his final moans against her neck. But it was not finished. He moved in her with more desperation after his own pleasure diminished, eking out hers until it broke spectacularly. Her orgasm came upon her with such sudden force that she gasped and her fingers tightened so hard on his arm he hissed. Still he powered his cock into her. Her body was rigid now, rigid with the shock of such extreme ecstasy. It took her so hard that she was motionless, still as a statue as it coursed through her, paralysing her limbs with its force. Her eyes stared wide, her mouth gaped. To anyone looking, they would have thought her near death. But then, when the pleasure billowed to its peak, it broke out of her in a heaving groan of utter freedom. Her body then melted around him as ebbing pleasure left her in slow, soft billows.

They stayed there, kneeling, still joined, not speaking. Their panting breaths eventually settled and he rested his head on her shoulder. Wendy reached behind and stroked him, her eyes closed.

Slowly, he guided her to lie down. She turned to face him and together they lay, staring into each other's eyes.

'Thank you for coming back for me,' she said. 'Thank you for not forgetting me.'

'How could I forget you? You, who reminded me what life could be without fear.'

'Without fear of what?'

'Of time.'

'Time has given us each other. Time has given us Lillie.'

'Aye. And that is why I no longer fear it.'

She stared into him again, her eyes dancing.

His brows creased. 'What? Is my moustache out of sorts?'

She let out a giggle. 'No!' Wendy restrained her laughter but still smiled at him gently. 'I'm looking for him.'

He frowned. 'Who?'

'My villain.'

'Can you not see him?'

'Oh yes, I can always see him. He's never far.'

'How wonderful!' he exclaimed. 'I have not lost my touch.'

'Oh no, Hook, I won't let that happen. For that is what you have made me see – how life is neither right nor wrong, how we should accept and rejoice in ambiguity. How we should strive for meaning in complexity, but never want to solve it completely.'

'You are a curious creature, Wendy Darling.'

She smiled at him and bit her lip. 'You still call me that. My full name. My old name.'

'That is who you are to me. There are many Wendys in this world, but there is only one Wendy Darling, and a most fitting name it is too, my darling Wendy. It seems we each have a surname to suit our circumstances.'

She reached over and kissed him again. 'I suppose we should get up. It is only early evening and we said we'd eat with the men tonight.'

'Aye, Smee has prepared a fine bouillabaisse, he tells me.'

'I asked Briggs to lay up on deck. It's too fine a night to be below.'

'I will open the Petrus.'

'Are you sure? Perhaps save it for a special occasion.'

He pouted. 'I have plenty more, taken from a French privateer ten years ago or so. Those French pirates, best avoided generally, but if they're carrying wine, worth a diversion. Aye, it was a lucrative enterprise on that occasion. He himself had intercepted it from a ship on route to the governor's residence in Montreal.'

He lay back and sighed deeply.

'What?' asked Wendy.

'A sunset and a story with my Lillie, immeasurable pleasure with you, a fine meal with my crew and a bottle of Petrus. I have had worse evenings. You missed something out in your discourse on life … the quest for happiness. It had eluded me, no matter how hard I sought it. I filled in the gaps with schemes and feuds. But I am happy. Thanks to you, I am, I believe, the happiest man alive.' He looked down at her. 'Are you happy, Wendy?'

She smiled softly, tears pricking at her eyes. She held them back and cupped his face. 'Yes. I am so happy I could fly. You have done that, you alone.'

'And that, I declare,' he said, bending once more to kiss her, 'is very good form indeed.'

The End