Disclaimer: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to J.M Barrie. No infringement
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.
Summary: The sky turns red, before a storm arises, and in Neverland, a person might
sometimes turn pink. The sixth in a series of vignettes.
Author's note: Well, I certainly never intended it to take so long, and this time I don't even
have a good excuse, but I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I'm, as ever, grateful for your
reviews. Thank you!

Skies Turning Red
by Hereswith

Consciousness returned to her in a terrible rush. Wendy fell into it as if from a great height
and she gasped, sitting up straight in a bed that was, most decidedly, not her own.

She didn't panic. The cabin was well lit tonight and she could clearly see that Hook himself
was not beside her, nor had the covers been disturbed, except where she had ruffled them.
Her fingers curled, nails digging into the soft material beneath her, and she heaved a long,
slow sigh, counted to three, then slid off the edge of the bed.

She spotted him at once, lying slumped across the desk at the opposite end of the room.
Beclawed, he was, and bedecked in sumptuous velvet, his hair spread out like an ebony
fan. He would, she thought, have a crick in his neck when he woke and judging by the
glass and bottle in front of him, most likely a headache as well.

The flimsy weight of her shadow did not rouse him and she hesitated, worrying her lower
lip. "Captain?"

He struck with such force that, before she could protest, she had her back to the wall
and that dreaded hook grazed the skin below her jaw. She winced, glaring daggers at
him, since she could not safely lash out in any manner she would have preferred.

"You." Recognition sparked and he withdrew the hook, but did not otherwise give her
room for escape. The last vestiges of sleep still clung to him in rags and tatters and his
gaze was oddly fevered, if not dimmed by red. "Dost thou know what I dreamt, Wendy
Darling?"

"No," she replied in wary surprise, expecting him to recount some battle with Pan, where
the outcome had been in his favour at last.

He leaned forward, so that their foreheads almost touched, maintaining a mere inch of
empty space between them. "The days are all the same," he said and his breath, heavy
with liquor, ghosted over her, "and I am tired of this cage." He inhaled, nostrils flaring.
"I dreamt there was a door, Wendy, but with my eyes open, I cannot find it."

She raised her hand, her stomach, suddenly, a haven for butterflies of every shape and
hue. Up until the moment she felt his heart thud, quite like clock beneath her palm, she
would have sworn she meant to push him away.

Hook flinched at the contact, recoiling so quickly it left her bereft. What she had been
about to say, what she knew of cages, gilded or plain, he never learned. With a snap,
he straightened, gaining both height and hauteur in one fell swoop and he turned from
her, towards the desk.

Wendy swallowed, watching the line of his shoulders shift as he reached for the glass.
As he drained it and proceeded to refill it. "You didn't think I would be back."

He rolled his head, neck creaking in complaint. "I did not think you had been here."

"But you remember it? You have seen me—like this?"

He twisted to face her, light glinting off the gold metal thread that decorated his cuffs,
and he looked her over, taking her in. "You had socks," he remarked. "Ghastly things."

She flushed, startled, and wriggled her bare toes self-consciously. "I knitted those
myself."

His brows arched. "Then you'd best keep to your storytelling, Miss Darling. It, at least,
was an art in which you excelled."

"I still do," Wendy responded, detaching herself from the wall.

"Is that so?" He twirled the glass around. "Yet you should know by now that there is
no such thing as 'happily ever after'."

"Why? Because I'm a woman?"

Hook bared his teeth; she would not have called it a smile. "Because you're not a child."

She pondered that for a bit, then gave a rueful grin. "No. The feelings came. And the
pimples."

He snorted, not derisively, rather in frustrated agreement. "The feelings," he declared,
"are the worst. A burden you cannot hope to put down."

"Have you attempted it, Captain?"

He did smile at her question. It was a high winter smile, in a land where only Peter could
cause the summer to wane. "I—am—human, Miss Darling."

She didn't refute his claim. Something troubled her though, an incongruity that had not
been explained. "But you are alive, as if the crocodile had not devoured you."

"I made good use of my hook, I believe," he said. "It was a reflex, perhaps, the final
spasms of a dying person. I recall—very little of it and even that is too much."

Wendy couldn't read his expression, but there was a nuance to his voice like a streak
of colour in a leaden sky. "You would have preferred to have died, would you not?"

He started to shrug, but his right shoulder stiffened in obvious pain and he grimaced,
slamming the glass on the desk so hard the liquid sloshed over the sides and the stem
seemed in danger of shattering. "Brimstone and gall!" he spat. "Damn that boy!"

The hook sliced through the air like the paw of some wild thing. Some feral creature.
Wendy tensed, but she didn't back away from him. It had not been death she had
glimpsed in his eyes when last they parted. And it wasn't now. "It's hurting you."

"That," he said, in a precise, clipped tone, "is nothing new."

"Then take it off," she reasoned. "Let me—"

"No!"

It was a command, not a request and Wendy, about to step forth, froze to the spot.
"You didn't wear it before," she reminded him. "I won't be shocked, if that's what
you think."

Something flared in the midst of forget-me-not blue, a brief will o' the wisp of emotion,
too elusive to catch. "Are you so certain of that?" he questioned, softly, lightly. Making
a challenge out of his words.

And he began to undress.

Wendy dared not offer her help again, though he struggled with the coat, the vest and
finally the shirt, tossing each piece of clothing to the floor as he rid himself of it. It took
some time and fabric was torn and ripped in the process, but she gritted her teeth and
endured the sight.

He didn't remove the hook; he flaunted the iron blade and the leather harness instead,
as if he took some pride in that clever, that grotesque construction. "This is Hook,"
he said and he was breathing heavily, his skin like bleached linen. "This is what I am."

He would brook no pity, she was sure, and it was not pity that moved her to speak.
"What you are, or what you want to be?"

He hissed like a cornered snake. "You don't know what I want."

"To kill Peter Pan," she countered, nonplussed. "Isn't that all you've ever wanted?"

Hook paled even further, inasmuch as that was possible, and his anger receded or
was somehow forced inwards. "Not ever. And not all." He gripped his upper arm
tightly and he shuddered, in spite of the fact that the room was quite warm. "Pan,"
he added, almost as an afterthought, "turned pink."

It stunned her, momentarily, and her mouth went dry. A thimble was a young girl's
gift, not a woman's. And it was not a boy, standing there before her. "I loved him,"
she replied. "I do not love you, Captain."

His chin dipped minutely and then lifted, but the hook hung quiescent at his side.
"So, you hate me, Wendy Darling?"

She had no wish to lie to him, but there were layers to the truth and shades of grey
upon grey. And oh, how she yearned for the simpler days, so long in the past. How
glad she was, that they were gone. "I haven't forgotten what happened and I can't
pretend that I have," she finally said. "But hate you—you would have noticed it,
if I did."

He did not seem to have listened past the very first sentence, for he gestured carelessly
at the door and beyond that, the whole of Neverland. "The ship's anchored close to
the island, this eve. Pan would not be far, should you venture to search for him."

Wendy shook her head, annoyed by both his assumption and that stubborn deafness.
"I chose," she stated, resolutely. "And so did he. I've grown up and, in time, I will
grow old, but Peter will always be a child."

"And what of Hook?"

"You and I," she said and, when he looked at her, trapped his gaze to hold his attention.
"James Hook and Wendy Darling—it's the one story I don't know how it will end."

He made a small scoffing noise in his throat and shifted position. Ink black locks that
would never be silvered, or guttered, slipped across his collarbone. "Foolish girl."

The corners of her mouth twitched and some of her tension dissipated. "Mule-headed
man."

Hook scowled, but he did not argue. Whether exhaustion prevented him or if he thought
she was correct, was a matter of guess and conjecture. He pinched the bridge of his
nose, eyelids fluttering shut. "Tell me, then, how it will continue. If I rest a while, will
you vanish from this world?"

"I can't promise you I won't," she answered. "If there are rules that govern this, I've
yet to determine them."

"Like shooting in the dark, is it?" he mused. "I admit my right-handed aim was better,
but this will have to do." He walked over to the bed and lay down as he was, draping
his wrist over his face.

Wendy, for her part, ensconced herself in the divan and drew her legs up under her.
She neatly tucked the folds of the nightdress around her knees and leaned back.

"What became of the Lost Boys?"

"Didn't Peter—" She cut off. Of course he would not have. "We took them home
with us, to London. They are as brothers to me, just as much as Michael and John."

"I see," Hook said and he did not elaborate.

Though it puzzled her, she decided to let it pass. A curious calm swept over her, not
like the calm before, but that which comes after a storm—the stillness and clarity that
follows the thunder.

In the silence, broken only by the quiet murmur of the waves, the inevitable occurred.
Wendy fell asleep and, through that innocuous deed, was lost to Neverland and to
the captain of the Jolly Roger. Or they were lost to her.