scripsi: (Default)
scripsi ([personal profile] scripsi) wrote2005-02-18 07:01 pm

Not A Memory

Pairing: Hook/Wendy
Rating: R for theme
Category: No warnings really. It's sad and cruel, but the cruelty is of the non-violent kind.
A/N: Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] japanpeterpan for beta.

Dark little drabble of how the loss of memory can be someone else's gain.



It amazed Hook how easily the memories of childhood slipped away from her mind. He had her tell him all about it once, every mundane detail of a family life so boring in its predictability that it made him yawn, but he still soaked up every word she said and stored them in his mind, and there they glitter like jewels. Even more precious because they are all his now. She cried when she told him, cried in her longing after those who loved her, but then she forgot. At first she reached out for her memories, gripped at them, but they faded, and one day she didn't remember that she had lost them. She doesn't know that Hook has them locked away safely, and has no intention of ever letting them out again.

The wonderful adventures she had with a never growing boy- those are gone too. Well, not exactly, it's the knowledge that they are memories that are no more. He made her tell him those memories as well, and every time she finished, he mocked her, taunting her for being so foolish as to believe in them. Like a fairy tale they lost their shimmer, but not for Hook. He knows, and he savoured it, each and every memory he stole from Wendy Darling.

The last thing she forgot was her name. Hook was magnanimous, he let her keep one of them, but not the precious one, not the one her mother whispered to her in her cradle. Not the one the boy used to cry after her with laughter in his voice. Now the name belongs to Hook, and he only whispers it in her ears when she is asleep, and the taste of it in his mouth is laden with triumph.

Hook devoured her soul, and after that he took her body, and now she is all his. All his. When the nights grow long and neither of them can sleep, he makes her talk, so he can feel the warmth of his victory again, to once again gloat over what he has robbed her of.

"Tell me a story, darling. Tell me about Peter Pan."

She tells him, her voice alive when she depicts the wonderful adventures of a boy that would never grow up.

"So what happened after? Did Pan live happily ever after with his Wendy-girl?"

She laughs, not hearing how brittle the laugh sounds. "It's just a story. Peter never existed, and Wendy- well... She must have grown up."

She gets out of the bed, walking toward a window. When she leans out he sees a glimpse of her clean profile as she wistfully stares at a very specific star on the night sky.

"Come back to bed, Moira. Or, is anything the matter?"

She turns to him and he can't see her face anymore, silhouetted as she is against the glass.

"Of course not, James. What would ail me?"

She comes back, walking softly, her steps unconsciously adapting to the movements of the ship. When she curls up against him her cheek brushes against his arm, and he can feel that it is wet from tears.