Editing Neverland (section)

===EPILOGUE===

The late Good Sir Commodore Hook found himself standing on the barrens shores of an unknown water. He looked out across the vast expanse for any sign of life. The moments just before his death were a blur to him.

He stood for hours, unsure of what to do. As the time passed, he was sure he had died. The memory was painful and vivid. This new world before him flickered in and out violently. He heard voices talking to him. He was not sure why, but he had felt at peace afterwards.

He waited for what seemed like days, unmoving, staring out across the strange water. In the distance he saw a worm eating ferry make it's way to him. The rider was a skeleton. His name was Charon. How Hook knew this he did not know.

He approached and the ferryman crossed his scythe across his chest.

He pointed behind Hook. Where once no water had been, there spanned a vast ocean. In the distance he spotted a boat. It approached slowly.

"Good Sir Commodore Hook, Ahoy!"

"Smee?"

"Aye, Commodore."

"Where are we going?"

"Elysium, Commodore."

"How do we get there?"

"That's why you're here sir," he teased.

They paddled out to a huge ship. In brilliant gold letters read "HMS JOLLY ROGER." Starkey was the first to approach him. "We waited for you, sir. No way we'd head off without you." His marines, his sailors, his officers; all awaiting his first command.

Near the captain's corners a small redheaded girl played with a little pixie doll. "Hello Papa," she said, "Wendy!"

The reunion was more than he could handle. He turned command of the boat over to his long lost friend Smee and spoke with his daughter. "Where's Bea?" she asked. The name was oddly familiar, he knew it would come back in time, he did have an odd feeling, it was strange however that he had what he knew was a right answer, "I think she's just fine, darling."

"I think so too," she smiled.

"Commodore!"

"Yes, Smee!"

"We approach Elysium, your wife has been waiting."

"Then we should make this fast."

"Of course sir."

Hook look proudly at his crew. His brave soldiers who had sacrificed everything for him. He knew the limitless rewards that awaited the valiant in Elysium; but having his family again was reward enough.

Bea, emerged from the cave hours after he encounter with Pan. The pulses of energy had grown tame around her. With her, she carried the bodies of her new found father and sister. She had known them only briefly but in that learned what it meant to be loved and to love another.

She walked to the highest peak on Neverland and with her hands, dug the graves of her father and sister. She held her lonely vigil for them for three nights.

On the third night she opened the letter that her father had written her. The wax seal was still pressed and she loathed to break it. She pulled the letter open. Written on it were simple words, written hastily by a man wishing to impart a life time of wisdom into a few words, a man who was broken and made whole, a man who had lost the world and found it:

"Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough.You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it."

At dawn Beatrice Hook, folder her father's coat and put it into a sac about her body. She was going for a trip, she would need her wings and she still refused to ruin her father's coat.

Just as the sun crawled over the horizon she took off. Her wings would take her to England, where her father lived, where her sister was born, where she would learn what it meant to be a Hook.

In England many had forgotten the Good Sir Commodore. The King might have branded him a deserter if he didn't have a thousand other ship captains to take his place. The few people who did know of him, knew only of the traitor. The man who abandoned the Crown and the Empire. The uncouth Pirate, not worthy of remembering.

Then opinion began to change. Soon, cities and townships were boasting some bit of Commodore Hook lore. How much of it was true will never be known now. Something changed one day, the glory of Hook was so bright that it illuminated all who surrounded it. No less than a dozen captains in the Royal Navy fought to christen their boat 'the Jolly Roger.'

It's hard to know exactly what changed the people. Though the changes do coincide with a certain oddity that appeared. A young woman looking for the Hook Family. She had gone door to door telling her tale of the Commodore and his men. However the speed with which she moved from one township to the next was much too fast to be true. The families of the crewmen of the Jolly Roger,however, took comfort in the young woman's words and kept hope that she would come visit others.

News Papers began printing stories about the Good Commodore and his adventures, not all of them true. Some of the stories, however, were given credibility when a boat of injured sailors from the Jolly Roger washed up on the colonies with corroborating stories.

Slowly the stories faded away. Perhaps the woman had found what she was looking for. But people continued to believe that she would visit them. Enthrall them with stories of Commodore Hook and the Jolly Roger. There were occasional sightings and a strange iridescent dust that never stayed long enough to analyze. But people wanted to believe. They dreamed of her and the Good Commodore and the Jolly Roger and her brave crew. And in those dreams they would live forever.

THE END

[[Category:Stories]]