Water sluices over him, no longer the battering waves of a storm. It takes him a moment to realize the water is rain pouring off the edge of a building. Hook blinks the stinging downpour from his eyes. He remembers drowning. Panic grips him, a fist squeezed about his lungs. But no. He isn’t drowning, not anymore, perhaps never again.
He’s on his back, looking up at a narrow slice of gray sky. There’s a body flung over his, clinging as a man clings to a spar of wood in a wreck. He tries to push himself upright, and fails. There’s something missing. The smooth stub of his wrist protrudes from the cuff of his sleeve. His hook is gone.
Bitter laughter rises to his lips, and he chokes it down. The sound turns to a cough, and he uses the other hand to push himself upright. The man lying across him stirs and sits up as well. Samuel. His pulse trips over a beat with unexpected relief.
They came through the storm together, but through to where? He’d been trying to get home, a place he barely recalls; is this the same place he left? All he can see is gray—the gray fall of rain, gray stone, and the gray sky above. Empty boxes and crates and worse crowd the narrow alleyway, thickening the air with stench.
“Captain?” There’s a tremor to Samuel’s voice; he shivers, whether from cold or shock, Hook can’t tell.
Samuel rubs a hand over his face, does it again, a compulsive motion. It’s as though he’s trying to clear the world around them from his eyes, scrub it away. Samuel holds his hands out, studies them, turns them over.
“It doesn’t hurt. It should hurt?” He sounds lost. “Did it work? Where are we?”
“I don’t know.” An answer to both questions. He feels different, less somehow, and unmoored. A ship without an anchor. He wanted to escape, to be free of that boy and his petty tyranny. But did he ever stop to think what that meant?
His…sister. Yes. He’ll find Anna. She’ll give them a place to stay, and… But where would he even begin to look? How long has he been gone? She might be married now, or living somewhere else entirely. When he didn’t return as he promised, where would she go? And would she even recognize him now?
Samuel stands, and Hook tries to follow him. But once again, he tries to push himself up with his absent hook, and almost falls. Samuel catches him, steadies him, and helps him upright.
“Your hand, Captain.” Samuel’s eyes widen slightly, and the words your hand jolt through him as though the hook were an inevitable part of him.
Isn’t it though? He brings his eyes to focus on the smooth stump of his wrist. The phantom pain of jaws closing, severing nerve, severing bone, rewriting him; his throat tightens in response. His pulse speeds, an autonomic thing, leaving him wanting to scramble to hold on to something he lost a long time ago—his self, one he barely even remembers.
But when he reaches after that self, the one he was before, all that comes to mind is stepping onto his ship for the first time, feeling it settle around him like a new suit of clothes, perfectly fit. His feet had carried him to the captain’s quarters without hesitation, and it had felt like coming home. There, waiting for him in the center of the pillow on the richly brocaded bed, had been the hook, like a holy relic.
He’d lifted it, seen the marks of wear on the leather cuff, and a stain on the hook itself that made him think of blood. Holding it had left him dizzy with the sensation of being pulled out of himself, something else trying to move in beneath his skin. He’d been afraid, but only briefly. In the next instant, the hook had been pristine again, and he’d slipped it onto the end of his wrist where—as far as he could recall—a hand had never been.
The leather cuff had hugged the end of his arm, molding itself to him. He’d felt the echo of violence clinging to it, the sense that it belonged to another life, another man, and at the same time, the man that it belonged to had also been him. A full circle, the past, the present, his future all collapsed to the single sharp point gleaming at the end of his arm. His ship. His home.
He’d felt his lips stretch, his teeth bared, his steps already carrying him back to the deck to shout orders, knowing his crew would be there waiting for him. Power. A ruthless lust for adventure, for blood, all of it singing through his veins. In that moment, he’d never wanted to be anything else, shedding whatever he’d once been—only a pirate, only Captain Hook.
And now? Samuel watches him as he contemplates the smooth skin, the faint outline of bone underneath. He touches the spot. He’s been given a chance to reinvent himself, none of Pan’s magic forcing itself on him this time. He has a choice now in who he wants to be.
“It seems I left it behind,” he says.
Samuel still has ahold of his arm, and he doesn’t shake him off. It’s a strange comfort, a tiny scrap of warmth amidst the unfamiliar. Samuel’s touch is solid and real through the fabric of his sodden coat. This, he thinks, not the point of a hook that slaughtered so many, this could be his anchor, his self, his home.
“What do we do now? Where to do we go?” Samuel’s voice teeters on the edge of breaking.
The way Samuel looks to him, seeking leadership, is suddenly unnerving. He’s as lost as the surgeon, not captain of anything anymore. What is he without his hook? Without his ship, or his sword.
“Captain?”
“Don’t call me that.” The words emerge more sharply than he intends.
Samuel shrinks back, his hand sliding from the wet velvet, and immediately Hook regrets the loss. Hook. The name grates in his mind, worse even than Captain.
“I…” Samuel falters, looking afraid.
All at once, he wishes he could take back every harsh command, every shouted word. He wants Samuel to see him with fresh eyes and none of the weight of their past between them. He doesn’t want Samuel to be afraid of him. He has no way of knowing if any of the rest of the crew survived; they may be the only two left in the world—this world, at least.
“James,” he says, breathing out, and a burden lifts as he does. “Call me James.”
“James.” Samuel says the name as though he’s tasting some exotic fruit, sweet on his tongue, a precious gift given to him by his former captain.
A shudder, involuntary, passes up James’s spine. The name settles on him, like his velvet coat, but an even better fit than the blood-red garment. It feels familiar. Maybe it was his name before, but it doesn’t matter. It’s his name now—a new name for a new life.
“We should get somewhere dry,” he says, unable to look at Samuel anymore.
“Where are we, Ca—James?” Samuel follows him to the mouth of the alleyway.
The rain softens everything. Nothing looks familiar, and yet he remembers the dock, smells the sea, hears a gull cry. He remembers bidding Anna goodbye and promising to return. The world briefly doubles itself. He’s here and in Neverland. He’s leaving and arriving and leaving all over again, falling through the world. He catches himself on the wall, and Samuel is there again, steadying him.
“London.” Speaking it aloud sharpens the edges of the city behind the curtain of rain.
Everything looked different then. Horses. The streets running with shit, both animal and human. This isn’t the city he left, not anymore.
“We’re in London, Samuel,” he says, and he holds the last words in reserve, not daring to speak them aloud. We’re home.
* * *
Another tremor wracks him, despite the covers pulled to his chin, despite the fact that he’s sweating, clothes sticking to his skin.
“Here, drink this.” Samuel perches on the edge of the bed.
Even the slight weight of the surgeon near him is too much to bear. James’s bones ache with the fever working its way through him, leaving him bruised and hollow all the way through.
He fights the urge to slap the bowl from Samuel’s hands. He doesn’t want doctoring right now. He wants…
James fights a breath, lets it out. Samuel’s gaze is steady, concern mixed with a kind of disappointment, judgment without as many words saying that this is precisely what James deserves. The expression drains his anger, leaving misery and self-pity in its place. And the realization that Samuel is still here; he hasn’t given up on him despite his raving, despite his sickness. Samuel is still by his side.
“What is it?” James sniffs as he reaches for the bowl, and it nearly spills. Samuel catches it.
“Here, let me help.” He holds the bowl where James can reach it and hands him a spoon.
Rage creeps back in. He isn’t a child. But then, Samuel has allowed him the dignity of holding the spoon himself, and his hand is shaking. He sits up, tamping the anger back down, tamping down the humiliation as well.
Samuel watches for a moment, silent. A frown works its way onto his lips. Not a break in his infinite patience, but something else.
“I may be able to…obtain something to lessen your symptoms,” he says after a moment, reluctance in his tone.
“What’s wrong with me anyway?” The spoon scrapes against the bowl, an unintentional motion of his hand.
“You’re in withdrawal.” Samuel’s lips crimp again, but James imagines he sees a small flash of sympathy there as well, and a warmth above and beyond the fever touches him. “Your body has grown use to certain…substances which you no longer have access to, and it’s in revolt.”
Just the words conjure the heavy scent of Neverland’s flowers, the smell alone thick enough to bite. Lack makes him dizzy. Samuel sets the bowl aside, but despite the broth, the hollow feeling persists.
“I might be able to find something comparable here, to ease the transition. Only…” Worry flickers in Samuel’s eyes, and James understands without his surgeon having to speak it aloud.
The deep pockets of his coat had been enough to save his compass and a small pouch of coins when they fell through the world. The coins—despite their strange markings—had at least been enough to rent them this room. How will they pay their way going forward? What does he know, save sailing and violence? And right now, he’s in no condition for either.
“I’ll find work,” Samuel says, speaking to both of their thoughts, continuing before James can object. “The world is at war, and doctors are always needed in war.”
There’s a heaviness in Samuel’s expression, sorrow. Yes, James remembers. War. He’d dragged them from one world of violence to another, but instead of boys with carved swords here there are whole countries at war, exploding canisters of gas and dropping bombs. Another tremor passes through him, and it isn’t entirely to do with his need for the flowers’ drug this time.
Samuel’s expression is contemplative for a moment before he stands, gathering the bowl. “You should rest. I’ll make inquiries.”
Samuel moves toward the door, and James has the sudden overwhelming desire to call him back. He almost reaches after him, instinct lifting the arm that no longer ends in a hook before letting it fall atop the covers again. He remembers the hook skittering across Samuel’s cheek, unintentionally drawing a line of blood. Whether he wants it or not, whether he intends it or not, he is a creature made only for violence. The thought is bitter, and now all he wants is for Samuel to get away from him. He doesn’t deserve the kindness, hates Samuel for it. He hates himself, a pitiable, low creature.
“Captain?” At the door, Samuel pauses, concern in his voice.
“I told you not to call me that.” James clenches his jaw against another tremor.
The memory of Anna pressing the compass into his hands, then pressing a kiss to his cheek, rises dizzyingly clear.
So you can always find your way home.
“My coat.” He gestures, voice thick. “The pocket.”
Samuel obediently fishes within, drawing out the compass. It glints in the light—electric, still a wonder after years, a lifetime, of flickering candlelight. Confusion remains in the surgeon’s eyes. When Samuel tries to hand the compass to him, James presses it back into the surgeon’s hand.
“Sell it. It may not be worth much, but it’s bound to bring something. Enough to let us survive another day at least.” He offers a weak smile.
Samuel opens his mouth to object, but James drops his gaze, shame welling in him. “Please.”
The word, soft as it is, is strange on his tongue. It tugs at something deep inside of him. He is no longer Samuel’s captain. He wants… He wants equality between them. He wants Samuel to help him, stay with him, not because duty demands, but because he chooses to do so. The realization settles heavy in his chest, but James cannot say any of it out loud.
His gaze flicks up again to find Samuel watching him, his expression unreadable. A faint scar marks his cheek, marring the symmetry of his face, yet adding to it somehow, making it more pleasing. It isn’t a face like any other, it is uniquely Samuel’s, marked by his hand. Guilt twitches in him at the same time as a strange, possessive thought—mine.
“I’m sorry.” James touches his own cheek reflexively, then looks away again. “For everything.”
“Thank you…James.” There’s the touch of wonder in Samuel’s voice again, as if his former captain has become something unknowable and utterly strange. Perhaps he has.
The heat again, nothing to do with the fever, colors James’s cheeks. All at once he regrets the electric light for fear it will show too much.
“Rest,” Samuel says, his voice gentle. “I’ll return soon.”
James doesn’t look up until he hears the door close, then he dares to lift his head again. The all-over bruised feeling of his body is slightly less for a moment, the terrible pressure of the future easing off him, if only for now. This isn’t his London anymore, it isn’t home, but perhaps it could be again, in time.