Author Note: I am so sorry about how long this took, and also that this is a single chapter after such a long break. I thought it would be better to post this than to post nothing, and hopefully this will be the first break in finishing this thing for good. Don't get me wrong, I love writing it, but it would be nice to have it done, right? :) Anyway, this chapter is kind of important for the relationship between Hook and Wendy, and it came about because I felt like they needed a moment for themselves after everything that had happened.

Tell her something in my heart needs her more than even clowns need the laughter of the crowd. --Del Amitri "Tell Her This"

After a few days of cleaning and minor repairs, The Jolly Roger and her crew were able to return to the routine they'd followed for years. Two pirates had died in the battle, but their duties were fairly general and they had been easily replaced. Wendy thought more about it than anyone else, but she said nothing. Her own duties of copying Hook's logs and occasionally helping Smee kept her busy during the day, and she rarely had time to think about much else until dinner, and then her full attention was focused on Hook. Smee still sometimes joined them, but for the most part their evenings had become somehow more intimate than they used to be. Hook treated her differently; he was more considerate, perhaps kinder. He had always been courteous, but until recently she'd always felt somehow threatened by that courtesy. Now that it was balanced with his genuine effort to see to her happiness for its own sake and not for his, she found him to be almost sweet at times, but never sickeningly, and not always. However much he tried not to be, he was still occasionally taken by his temper, though never because of her, and she didn't mind, anyway.

Hook had given her free reign to wander where she would on the ship, provided that her duties were seen to. If she had a question, she was free to ask it, and he would usually answer it or send her to someone else who could if he was busy. At night, though, he would tell her almost anything she wanted to know. They still had not discussed how he'd lost his hand in any detail, but he told her a little about his life—what he could remember of it—before Neverland. After dinner they would sit by a window in his cabin and look out over the water as they spoke. When it got late, he would leave her to get ready for bed in private and return after she fell asleep. She wondered if he minded that she had decided to stay in his bed; he never said anything if he did. There was no need for it now that the cold weather had gone, but she felt more comfortable there, if a little embarrassed about her boldness. She had her side and he had his, and there was rarely any crossing of the invisible boundary between them, though sometimes a hand or leg would stretch further than usual and find the other's body.

Wendy smiled and paused in her transcription. She looked out the window to her left and saw Hook standing on the deck with Gentleman Starkey. She had no idea what they were talking about, but she enjoyed watching him. He was a fantastic sight to behold on any day, but today was different. It was warmer than usual, and he'd foregone the usual embroidered jacket and settled for only a loose shirt and soft cotton pants with a sash belted around his narrow hips. His hair stayed back in a neat ponytail tied with a purple ribbon that tangled in his curls when the wind blew. He somehow looked just as regal without all the embroidery and jewels. He must have felt her eyes because he turned his head and caught her in a stare, smiling. Wendy blushed a little and went back to her work, but she knew he was still watching. She kept her hand steady as she felt his eyes rake over what he could see through the window, but it was a difficult task not to smudge the ink. She nervously pushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear and turned to the next page in Hook's log. Something in her stomach shifted uncomfortably as she tried to push his face out of her mind, but the discomfort was exciting; it reminded her of the first time she'd learned to fly. She pushed the thrill inside her away and got back to work, hoping for the rest of the afternoon to pass quickly.

"How far did you get with your work today, my dear?" Hook asked, pouring wine into a glass for Wendy.

"Several pages, sir," she replied. She chewed the last mouthful of her dessert and swallowed before wiping her mouth and standing to join Hook at the window. "I expect to finish that journal tomorrow and start on the next, if it is your wish."

"How very grand," Hood said. He handed her the glass of wine and indicated that she should sit. She did. "But perhaps not tomorrow."

"No, Captain?"

"Wendy," he said, sipping his wine and smiling at her. "Tell me, would you like to go ashore tomorrow?"

Wendy's eyes brightened. She had not left the ship since she'd been brought to it, and as much as she enjoyed being aboard, the very thought of sand beneath her feet excited her. "Oh, yes, Captain! Really?" She leaned forward in her chair and placed a small hand on Hook's forearm.

"Really," he said. "We have need of some supplies."

"And I may go with you?"

"Yes, my dear," he said, "If it pleases you."

Wendy set her glass down and jumped across the space between them to wrap her arms around Hook's neck. "Oh, it does, Captain! Thank you!"

Hook laughed a little and patted her back. He was still unaccustomed to this part of his new relationship with Wendy, and though it did not displease him, it made him slightly uneasy. He was not nearly inexperienced with women, but Wendy was… different. She was bright and beautiful, and she was not afraid of him anymore. He held still and allowed her to adjust herself into a sitting position across his legs as she had taken to doing from time to time. His arm settled across her back, his hook draped over her hip.

"Where will we go, sir?" Wendy asked.

Hook shrugged. "Here and there," he said as he swirled the wine in his glass. "You are familiar with our seaside garden already, I believe." He paused and Wendy nodded. "We shall go there in the morning and collect some of the crop, and then, weather and roguish little spawn permitting, we shall journey into a village and purchase other necessities."

Wendy's eyes lit up like suns. "There is a village? I don't remember there having been a village!"

"About that I am not surprised, my dear. Villages are hardly impractical enough to have been bothered with by Pan. All the same, there is a village. Where else did you think the lost boys who grew up went?"

"Peter never said."

"I would be shocked if he had. As I understand it, once they become too old, he either kills them or banishes them, at which point he ceases to remember that they exist. Some of them wander into the caves or the lagoon, and you can guess how they fare. Most make it to the village and find work there. Some of them wind up here."

"Really?"

"Really, though not for some time."

Wendy leaned her head onto his shoulder and sipped from her wine glass. She thought about the Lost Boys whom she already knew and wondered what might have become of them had they not left with her the first time she visited, and she thought about the ones who lived with Peter now. "Do any of them ever stay with Peter?"

"No. They all grow up eventually."

"All of them? Really?"

Hook sighed, but it was not out of annoyance. He tilted his head in thought and stared out at the sea for what seemed like a very long time. At last, he lowered his bright eyes to Wendy's and smiled the softest, most unalarming smile she'd ever seen. "All of them, Wendy," he whispered. "There is only one person who can avoid growing up forever." Wendy nodded and laid her head back against Hook's chest. They spoke no further on the subject of Lost Boys or anything else that night, and Wendy fell fast asleep as Hook continued to gaze out the window. Eventually, he surrendered to his own tiredness and carried the sleeping girl in his arms to the bed. He smiled as he laid her head against the pillow and pulled off her satin slippers. Without considering whether or not he ought to, Hook slipped into his bed and tugged Wendy closer. She stirred a little, but he only brushed her hair away from her cheek as he leaned down over her. He stared at her profile and her barely parted eyes, long lashes of both lids still so near each other. "I have heard that The Neverland is most frightening just before one falls asleep," he whispered, "but I always find it much more peaceful just then. While I can appreciate the beauty of a sunrise, the promise of another day trapped in this place has always haunted me beyond measure." Hook's eyes narrowed and focused on the moonlight falling into the window near his bed for a few minutes before he returned his gaze to Wendy. "You have made a palace out of a prison, my beauty." He barely smiled, but the tone of his voice was as near joy as it ever could be. "The truth is, I need your company; I need you. I have not had a reason to do anything other than take vengeance on Pan for so long that I had forgotten there were other things in the world." As he spoke, the long white fingers of his left hand traced her forehead and down her nose, but they stopped at her mouth. He could almost swear there was something winking at him from the right hand corner of Wendy's mouth. It was so beguiling that, without thinking about it, he leaned down and kissed the curious spot, then pressed his face into the pool of her hair on the pillow. "Wendy," he whispered, "I am glad you grew up." She smiled gently in her half sleep and imagined that when she woke up, her hidden kiss would be gone.