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Hook was the best. I mean... yes, he was a murderer, a looter and a barbarian, but he was the best. That's what Wendy thought that night she was taken to the Jolly Roger.
Hook was wild, as wild as Peter, if not more so. Adventure made flesh. But he was mature, almost as mature as George Darling. A perfect combination, wasn't it? A man who loves adventure but also keeps his feet on the ground, like Wendy.
That night at The Jolly Roger she talked to him, spent most of the evening doing so. They were sitting in the dining room in Hook's room, Smee was present.
Hook wiped away the tears his crude truths had caused her and asked her if she wanted to join his crew.
Oh, Red-Handed Jill. The world missed so much.
The first time Wendy saw Hook, she was amazed. The man was dressed as elegantly as a pirate could be, standing on a large rock and holding a shotgun with a firm fist. His long, curly hair fluttered in the icy wind of the moment and those blue eyes glittered with the killer instinct he possessed, yearning for Peter's blood.
For a moment, Wendy wished they were red. As red as the blood with which he needed to bathe his sharp hook.
When Smee emerged from the Captain's chamber, it didn't take long for Hook to sit down on one of those expensive pieces of furniture that had probably once belonged originally to some wealthy household that James and his bootlickers had plundered on one of their voyages. "Come here, sailor" he said to Wendy in a sweet tone, but it was clearly an order that left the girl no choice.
Wendy sat on Hook's lap. James began to wrap a lock of Wendy's hair in his hook in a calm way. Wendy analysed it, as much as she had before but less than she would later.
James had the same features as Wendy's dad. The blue eyes, the frown lines, the brown hair and the sour features. But Hook's wildness made him better company than her father.
For God's sake, Hook even wore a sleeping dressing gown the same colour as Wendy's father's, which matched Wendy's mother's dressing gown.
Wendy, mesmerised, stroked the curls of the Captain's hair. They were soft, but tangled. The hair looked like oil between Wendy's fingers. Of course, she had never seen oil, but Daddy and Aunt Millicent said it was very dark.
Whatever cruelty Hook had, it was Wendy's way of feeling the recent cruelty her father had adopted towards her. "Don't do this, Wendy", "Act like a lady!", "You'll take lessons from Aunt Millicent"... that's what George Darling said, but James Hook would never say. When she began to cry involuntarily, Hook cradled her gently and allowed Wendy's tears to wet his shoulder.
Red-Handed Jill was once again approved, and the cruelty that tormented her heart disappeared.
James held Wendy's face and kissed her on the forehead. "That's it," he said, "pirates don't cry, sailor." She felt the hairs of his moustache tickling her forehead.
And then the feelings come, but that's only until you get old enough. Peter doesn't have feelings, let alone one as passionate as love, but James can feel. Wendy saw him. Hook was older, mature, but adventurous. A perfect middle ground. He was not like Peter, Hook had grown up and understood what love was. And he wasn't like George Darling either, he was mature but not so bitter about life. That was what Wendy thought and prayed for.
She fell asleep, though not for long. James didn't have the finesse to lay her down on the bed in the bedroom, she was lying on the couch. When she awoke she realised that she was wearing a dressing gown over the white nightgown she had come to Neverland in. It was not Hook's dressing gown, but it was one of a similar colour. It was similar to Wendy's mother's dressing gown.
That made her very happy. She had always wanted to look a little like her mother, from wearing red dressing gowns to sleep in to wearing the pink party dress her mother wore to the gala with her dad.
Her mum used to talk about how difficult it was to close the drawer of dreams and the courage it took to do so. But Wendy was not that kind of "brave". She might wield swords, but she would never chain her dreams. Wendy sniffed at the dressing gown, and wanted to imagine all that it entailed.
When James saw her awake, he stopped sharpening his hook and said, "I've heard of your talent for storytelling." Wendy looked up at him and smiled a modest smile. He nodded and she rose from the armchair. "Would you like to tell my crew a story, Red-Handed Jill?" he asked. Wendy didn't have to answer.
The Captain moved closer to her and caressed with the hook that hidden kiss on the right corner of her lip. "An adventure," Aunt Millicent had said, "Those who have it go to heaven and back," had been her words.
Wendy believed that Peter was the owner of that hidden kiss. Now there was no doubt in her mind how wrong she had been.