Disclaimer: I do not own Peter Pan, or even Slightly. They are the products of J.M. Barrie's genius. However, I do claim credit for what Slightly is thinking. I'm pretty sure it's original.
Slightly stares up at the unremarkable house in unadulterated horror as he realizes that for once, he is not sure. The house looks exactly like every other on the street. Is this it? A flash of something catches his eye, and Slightly strains to see it in the faint starlight. No, there is nothing there.
Slightly had been so sure he saw Curly go into that house, but- wait a minute! Is that Nibs? Slightly's head jerks to the side, and again Nothing meets his gaze. Despair rushes to fill Certainty's wake.
A dog's bark echoes through the not-silence. Slightly, attuned to sounds from Neverland, jumps. He sternly tells himself that that is not the twins peeking out from behind a large metal jar that mo- that Wendy calls a 'garbage can'. Slighty is sure he remembers them, can summon an image of a cat scrounging through one out of his memory.
He feels weird. His right hip feels too light, his sword not being there. Wendy made all the Lost Boys leave them on the Jolly Roger. "London is no place to carry a weapon, unless you're a bobby and even then it's only a stick," Slightly mutters to himself in Wendy's voice. Even Slightly had to admit that he had no idea what a bobby is.
The dog barks again, but Slightly doesn't jump this time. If anything, the sound springs a memory.
"Now," Wendy had said before they left the ship, "one thing you have to know is that we have Nanna."
"Who's Nanna?" Tootles had asked.
"Nanna is our nanny. She's a dog. She'll probably bark a lot, when you first come in, but she wonderful once you get to know her." Perhaps that was Nanna. Slightly hopes so; it means that he is close by.
A sparkle on light draws Slightly's eyes up, up far enough to see Peter floating below an upper story window of the third house down. That must be it! Slightly sprints to the house, pushing open the door. Whoever had gone in last hadn't closed it properly; for all that John had gone over 'closing doors like an English gentleman' a thousand times, demonstrating with the door to Hook's cabin.
The sounds of happy laughter drift down the stairs, and Slightly runs forward, hoping that he has not missed asking Wendy's mother to be his mother too. However, he has enough presence of mind to close the door properly, and in doing so, or rather, in spinning around to head back up the stairs, stubs his toe on a mini house that sits on the floor by the door.
"Ow!!" he cries out, clutching at his toes with grubby hands. In a feat of flexibility that John or Michael would have admired had they been there to see it, Slightly pulls his foot up, leans his head over, and sucks on his toes until the pain goes away.
Then he dashes up the stairs.
The sight that meets his eyes is terrifying and infuriating at the same time. Wendy (how could he have ever called her mother?) is holding, locked arm in arm with Hook! His hair has been cut, and he is wearing Smee's spectacles, but he is undoubtedly Hook.
Slightly's hand reaches for a sword that isn't there; his fingers touch air. He can do nothing. Wendy had led them into a trap. Any minute now, the pirates will jump out, and capture them all, and they won't even have weapons to defend themselves.
And Peter can't come to the rescue because he had probably already left. How clever he had been, seeing through Red-handed Jill's plot. He must have known. But why would he let the Boys go? Why would he leave them? A flash of gold catches Slightly's eye, and he starts paying attention just in time to hear Michael ask, "Will this cover the expense, father?"
Slightly trembles despite himself. Is Michael in on it too? No, he couldn't be… could he? And then Hook gives a smile of a sort that Slightly has no memories of, has never seen before, and laughs. A pure, delighted laugh, and asks, "Who wants a pony ride?" A chorus of cheers goes up, and Slightly understands.
This is not Hook. Hook would have called in the pirates, taken the money, and forced them all to walk the plank. This is not Hook. A little farther away, a Sweet Lady asks Nibs if he wants a mother, and he pauses for a second, and then whispers 'yes' and throws himself into her arms.
That is Wendy's mother. Not Slightly's. Slightly doesn't have a mother. Now he will never have a mother. Wendy can't be his mother. He has no mother. Or for that matter, Slightly glances at Not-Hook, a father.
Slightly's lower lip quivers, and he can feel the tears about to spill when a nasal voice asks "What's wrong, boy?" from above.
He looks up and sees a woman who is not so Sweet as Wendy's mother, and looks not at all sweet. Slightly explains that he couldn't find the house, and consequently has no mother.
Tinkerbell (is Peter still here after all?) giggles and throws something at her eye. The woman's face lights up, and suddenly there is a Sweetness that Slightly couldn't see before.
"Is your name Slightly?" the woman asks, and Slightly looks up again- his gaze had somehow drifted down.
"Yes."
"Then I am your mother." Slightly stares up into the woman's eyes, trying to see himself in them. He had to be there somewhere, since there was a little bit of Wendy in the Sweet Lady, and even in Not-Hook. And perhaps even the smallest bit in Hook, too. Perhaps that was why Wendy announcing Hook's invitation to join the pirates as Red-handed Jill so scary. Something twinges in his chest.
"How do you know?" There was something there, maybe.
"I feel it in my bones." Feels it… in her bones? She had to be… his mother. Slightly had felt it in his bones that believing Tinkerbell had been a bad idea when the Lost Boys found that Wendy wasn't a bird. He had felt it in his bones that it would be a good idea to not be standing when Peter started glowing Pink.
And Slightly knew it in his bones that none of the other Boys felt things in their bones. Slightly had tried to describe it to Toodles once, but Toodles had told him that he had no idea what Slightly was talking about.
Slightly knew in his bones that he had found his mother.