Wendy was efficient. She had all of the boys both shackled and locked below in the brig. It was a sad sight down there, with all of the boys chained in a row to the bars of the cell. But it was not in her heart now to be sympathetic. Enough was enough. She told them that the pirates were going to make each one walk the plank, without even a last meal. She said this only to frighten them, and it was effective, causing the smallest boys to cry..
Peter was placed in a separate cell, still bound and un-conscious, and four men were stationed below to guard the prisoners. They had orders to make certain the boys did not move or make a noise, and when one is shackled to a pirate ship and guarded by the four largest, gruffest, most fearsome pirates...one is not disposed to make much of a fuss. Not even the toughest biggest boys dared to even sneeze.
Satisfied that the boys were contained successfully, Wendy returned above. There was much more work to be done. The ship was still smoldering in places, and there were the dead to see to. She sighed to see that a few children lay among the deceased and wounded. Well, it was to be expected. And, she reminded herself, they were only children because they lived here, where no one ever aged. They were probably older than herself, some of them. after all, Peter Pan himself was older than her mother.
Under Wendy's direction, and with the assistance of Blue McGill, they began restoring the ship. They worked for a long time, under the sun. Wendy found that the physical labor helped to keep her thoughts level, though still she was still very worried. At last, Smee appeared at Wendy's shoulder. He told her that it was not so serious as a wound could be, given that the boy had never fired a pistol before.
" It might have killed a man with a full grown heart..." he said. " But the shot went clean around the Cap'n's heart."
" Might I see him?" she asked, sighing in relief.
" Oh, aye. And don't be worrying miss, it won't be a long time before he's ready to pillage and plunder like his old self."
He led her inside, where the Captain was lying in his large bed, and then closed the door, leaving them alone. Wendy crept over to the bed, for some reason feeling as if even a meager sound would snatch him away from her. His face was pinched and pale. Wendy could smell the liquor that had been used as a cure for pain. and saw the decanter on the bedside table. Her hands shaking a little, she un-stoppered it, and after a pause to brace herself, she took a good swallow.
It was so warm and comforting, that she took another.
" Are you drinking that, for my sake or yours?"
She jumped, nearly dropping the decanter. Hook was watching her from the bed, his eyes large and luminous, his lips crooked in a wry smile.
She smiled guiltily an replaced the stopper returning the bottle to the table.
" Oh, don't stop on my account. I would enjoy seeing you tipsy." he said.
She ignored this, and was about to ask how he felt...but caught herself. He didn't need to be bothered with silly questions.Obviously he would be in pain.
" Well, say something girl. I nearly died because of you. " he said, watching her as she stared at him.
" Because of me? 'Hic!' " she covered her mouth, eyes widening. His moustache twitched. " What did 'hic' I do?"
" You crying out in that fashion...If you had kept quiet, Pan wouldn't have escaped me." he said sullenly.
" Well, I was being 'hic' kidnapped while you 'hic' two boys were playing at adventure, you know. 'hic'! " she turned her nose up at him, trying to look offended, but her hiccups kept interrupting her seriousness.
"Oh, Wendy..." the captain said, suddenly, his voice slithery and smarmy. She looked sternly at him from the corner of her eye. Her hiccups still jerking her body.
" Reach your hand under the covers, I have something for you. " he said, his voice practically evil in it's rich smoothness.
She opened her mouth in shock, and a very loud hiccup sounded through the room. " I most certainly 'hic' will not!" she insisted in an appalled manner.
He grinned. " Oh yes you will. No need to play shy with me, Wendy, darling." she glared at his twisting her name into a joke, but did not move.
" Come on...I am no condition to have to force you."
" Then 'hic' you should behave!" she said, but reached her hand tentatively for the coverlet.
" That's a good girl. Higher." he purred.
She felt something cold and metal touch her hand, and at first flinched, thinking it was the hook.
" Go ahead, take it out." he said.
She pulled the object from under the cover, and found it only to be an odd shaped flask.
" Drink a sip of that. It will stop that unsightly noise you're making." he said.
She blushed, both from relief that he wasn't asking her to do anything improper...and from the fact that she had been prepared to willingly do whatever he asked. She opened the flask and sniffed. The very fragrance made her eyes burn, but she turned it up and had a sip from it.
He watched with amusement as she fought the urge to cough and gag. He reached over for the flask, and she scolded him.
"You shouldn't move that arm! " she exclaimed.
" Well, I cannot lie here with no arms at all." He took the flask, tipped it up, and emptied it, trying not to wince as the pain shot down his arm " Forgive me, but I intend to become fully and completely drunk. But before I pass out into the inky depths of intoxicated gloom...tell me what has been done with those filthy brats?"
" They are chained below. " she said.
" And Pan?"
" He too, is chained below. They are being heavily guarded. I must ask you though, what should be done with them." she said.
" Do as you please to the boys. Release them back out into the wild, if you like." he said, darkly.
" And Peter Pan?" she asked.
He was silent a long and thoughtful time. She could actually see the many different methods of torturing and killing a boy, as they passed behind his eyes.
"You once said, that you wanted him to live, and suffer." Wendy said.
Hook fixed her with a steady, cool stare, waiting for her to suggest that he show good form and be merciful to the boy.
But Wendy was not thinking so much of mercy. She was thinking back to the days when she had lived here before, as a mother to the Lost Boys. She knew Peter, in a different way than Hook knew him. Hook knew what made Peter, but Wendy knew what would truly scare Peter. She had the secret of what would be the ultimate punishment for a boy such as he.
" I believe that I know the proper way to punish him..." she said, carefully. " But I do not know if it can be done."
" What is your way, then? Is it cruel?"
" Oh, I believe it will be to him, though it would not seem so to you, at first."
" Ahh...I believed the last trick I played on him would be a cruel punishment. Having you denounce him as just a boy...then persuading you to return. But it did not go well. He forgot you, you know. Isn't a child a fickle friend?" he chuckled without humor.
" I do not think Peter will be forgetting this punishment. I want to send him home." she said, bitterly.
" Send him home? What sort of punishment is that? " Hook looked disappointed.
" It is a cruel punishment indeed! Peter is afraid of having to grow up and become a man, if he is banished from Neverland, he has to grow up! They will make him grow into a man. He will forget how to fly, and how to believe. He will have to go to school."
Slowly it began to dawn on Hook's face, just how truly evil this would be. All children grow up, therefore, they expect it. But Peter Pan didn't have to... and therefore, it would be like caging a wild bird. His freedom would be gone. He would have to dress, and take baths, and learn his numbers, and read long boring novels. No more flying through the air, no more fighting with pirates, or hunting with the Indians. He would have to grow up.
Become a man.
What a splendid idea...He met Wendy's expectant eyes.
" Very well, we banish him from Neverland! Exiled, never to return. Give me a kiss." Wendy leaned over him and he pressed her against his lips, using the forearm of his mutilated arm.
" There is one thing more..." she said. He didn't release her.
" And that is?"
" One of the boys...turned traitor on his fellows this morning. Seems he wants to be a pirate..."
" And you want him as a pet, don't you? Always having to be the little mother. " he scoffed lightly." Very well, but he works as hard as the other's or he is keel-hauled."
She thanked him with a better kiss, that lasted a little too long for his health. He had to push her away, while he was capable of rational thought.
" Go then. Send Smee in here, I'll explain the turn of events." he closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted.
Wendy, along with Smee, and Stutter, weeded through the boys. She gave the real lost boys a chance to stay in Neverland if they liked, but they were shy and unsure of what they would do now that they had no leader. Not a one of them was as arrogant as Peter, and couldn't see themselves as the father to their old playmates. Instead, they said that they would go home too, and find themselves a real mother and father.
Stutter took them home, by himself, and Wendy was afraid that he wouldn't return. But he did, not three days later.He said the boys had knocked on nurseries all over London until they found homes that would take them in. Even the twins had found a home.
The bigger rough boys, remained chained, because Wendy was afraid that they would kidnap Stutter if he tried to take them home. It would have to be the grown men who took care of them. As for Peter, she had visited him the next day, when the guards said he had waked. He didn't recognize her, and she was in no mood to try to make him remember what he was determined to keep forgotten.
" You are just a filthy pirate." he said, turning his head away to stare at the wall.
" And you are just a boy." she said.
" I am not! I am Pan! And I will get free.I'll sink this whole ship, and every pirate on it!"
" No you won't Peter. You aren't going on any more adventures...you aren't killing anymore pirates. You are going to a place where they don't exist."
" No."
" You have no choice anymore. You should have stayed away.You should never have followed us around the island. "
" I will have my revenge on him." Peter said, stalking to the door of the cell. His hands were still bound behind him, and he was bruised and dirty. Yet, Wendy did not feel very sympathetic.
" For what Peter?" she asked.
But he wouldn't say it. He would not admit that Hook had almost beaten him once. If he remembered that, he would have to remember Wendy and how she had promised the captain that she would die bravely in the place of all of the boys.
" Go away." Peter said, turning to hide his tears.
" Very well. I wish you would remember me, so that I could thank you for the adventure, but, if it cannot be so, then all I can say is...Goodbye, Peter Pan. "
And Wendy turned away and walked from the cell without ever looking back.
" Goodbye Wendy." Peter whispered...not letting her hear his farewell. After all, she was only a girl,... and a pirate.