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By Hook or By Crook	By : OktoberBlack Category: M through R > Peter Pan > Het Views: 14973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Peter Pan, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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These are not my characters (except for the ones that are). Not making any money off of them. Wish I were, never going to be. Don’t sue me, please.
And don’t ask me why it’s taken me so bloody long to get back to this story. It’s a longer story than my story! But I’m back for now and trying to see if I can continue this fic. Here’s hoping!

By Hook or By Crook (for want of a better name)

Chapter Twenty-Two: Recovery

It took a while to get my life back. Being declared dead is a difficult thing to come back from, it turns out. I stayed with my mother while I tried to put it all back together. They’d sold my condo and given away my cats. My job was gone, of course. No one holds a job for someone presumed, and then declared, dead. My mother had given away most of my personal effects to charity, so I had no clothing, shoes, jewellery, anything really. I had to start from scratch. Luckily, I had the money I’d stolen from Stephano’s cave to help me along. The gold coins, it turned out, were worth more than the four thousand dollars the cops in Buffalo had mentioned. They were rare collectibles, antiques even, from the mid-1800s, and I managed to sell them through a broker for over $50, 000 altogether. It was pretty impressive.

My mother had put the money from the sale of my condo away too; she told me she’d always believed I was still alive somewhere and that I’d come back someday, but all her friends told her she was kidding herself. She listened to them insofar as she’d gotten rid of my clothing and other personal items, but she couldn’t bring herself to spend any of my money. So she’d sold the condo and closed the bank accounts, but she’d pooled it all in a general savings account “just in case.” I was grateful for her eccentricity, that was for sure. All told, I had enough money to buy another condo and all the other necessary items to get back into the world of the living.

What was harder was adjusting to life three years in the future. I’d lost three years of my life in a month or less and I didn’t know how to reconcile that. All of my friends treated me with kid gloves, afraid, I supposed, that I was unhinged from my enforced captivity. They all thought I’d been held by some lunatic for three years. Three years! I couldn’t explain that I’d been in a fictional world where time ran at a different pace. Who would believe that? I started therapy to try and deal with what had happened to me, but I couldn’t tell my therapist, at first, what had actually happened to me. Even when I finally told her the whole story, I could tell she thought I was delusional. Nothing was quite right any more.

I couldn’t go back to writing. I had the world’s largest writer’s block. All I could get on the page was the story of what had happened to me, and I knew no one would believe me. I didn’t even really want anyone in the world at large to know about it. So I went back into teaching full-time. It was hard to get into it again; nothing seemed to be worth it any more. The world was grey and I felt lifeless. It wasn’t that I missed Hook and the terror he instilled in me, but somehow, after all that, life seemed colourless and dull. People seemed useless and ridiculous, and their needs and wants completely unimportant. I drifted through things, through life, without caring about anything and without really feeling anything.

And then something happened to change all that. I met Jason.

Every morning, I would walk to work. Rain or shine, snow or wind, whatever the cliché… in all weather, anyhow. The college I taught at was about ten minutes away by foot from the condo I’d purchase downtown, so I walked to work. I always stopped at a Starbucks for a chai latte in the mornings – skim milk, no foam. The same thing, every morning, and I’d smoke my single cigarette for the day as I walked to work. Jason was a lawyer in a downtown firm; he lived around the corner from the coffee shop and stopped in every morning for his daily dose of caffeine. We’d seen each other but hadn’t even spoken before the accident. The morning we met, I’d purchased my latte, as usual, but when I turned to leave the counter, latte in hand, I tripped over a bag someone had placed on the floor while they waited in line. I tried to regain my balance and my hold on my cup, but I couldn’t get a grip on it and the next thing I knew, my latte and I were flying across the shop. Jason, poor bugger, was directly in my way. He caught me before I landed on the floor but he also caught my latte—right down the front of his expensive wool coat. Good thing it was winter or he’d have been burned, but as it was the coat caught the brunt of the hot beverage.

Amazingly, he wasn’t angry about his coat at all, but was just concerned that I was okay.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m sooo sorry about your coat. I’ll pay to have it cleaned! I’ll buy your coffee for a month! I’ll…”
“You’ll shut up now. Don’t worry about it. It’s just steamed milk. All you ever get is a chai latte, right?” he said. He grabbed a handful of napkins and dabbed at the front of his coat.
“You know what I order?”
“I’ve seen you in here every morning for the last couple of months,” he said, looking up at me. His eyes were a startling blue, just like… My heart started to pound and I had to find the first chair I could to sit down. “Are you okay? I mean, don’t think I’m stalking you or anything. I just noticed… well, I noticed you, that’s all. You stand out a bit, y’know?”
“Mmm, yes, I suppose I do.” I pressed my hands against my cheeks, trying to calm down.
“I’m Jason,” he said, holding out his hand. I looked at him for a moment and then gave him my hand to shake.
“Cassandra.”
“Pleased to meet you, Cassandra,” he replied with a smile. Geez, he was cute.
“Look, can I at least pay to have your coat cleaned?” I asked, my heart finally slowing down.
“No, that’s okay. I needed to get it cleaned anyway,” he said, looking down at the front of his coat. “I got splashed by a bus yesterday and it’s covered in salt and crap.”
“Well, at least let me buy your coffee this morning,” I said.
“I don’t know. It seems to me like I should buy you another latte. I mean, I took yours,” he said with a laugh. I smiled and shook my head.
“Not intentionally. Besides, wearing a latte isn’t the best way to get the full flavour,” I replied, getting back into the line-up for the barista. I bought him his coffee and me another chai and we walked all the way to my work, talking.
“Look, would you have dinner with me sometime?” he asked, as we stood in front of the main doors to the school. Students were streaming in around us, and classes were due to begin momentarily.
“Sure. When would you like?”
“Well… how about tonight? I don’t have anything going on tonight.”
“That would work.”
“I’ll make reservations somewhere good for 8 tonight. Give me your cell number and I’ll call you later, okay?” he said, pulling out his cell. We exchanged phone numbers and he grinned as he put his phone away. “I knew today was going to be a good day.”
“I ruined your coat, and you call this a good day?”
“Well, I met you, didn’t I?”

Dinner led to theatre tickets, led to spending a whole night just sitting in an old-fashioned diner, talking. I knew he wanted to spend the night, but I kept putting it off. I couldn’t bring myself to think about sex again, not since Hook. And Jason had the same damn eyes. He had the same bright blue eyes. It was sometimes painful to look at him. But he didn’t pressure me, which was good, and finally I came clean. I explained about being lost at sea and being declared dead. I told him about being taken captive, and told him a bit about what I’d been through. I didn’t, of course, tell him whom exactly it was that had taken me captive. I was being as honest as I could without being a complete idiot about it. I liked Jason a lot, so I didn’t want him to think I was insane. And eventually we were able to spend the night together and it was awful at first, no matter how kind and gentle he was. But it got better and then it was wonderful and finally, we were engaged and living together. I sold my condo and moved into his townhouse.

And the whole time I kept looking over my shoulder for Hook.

I knew he would show up someday but I had no idea when or how or from where. Jason called me jumpy and made fun of my paranoia, but I knew it wasn’t unfounded. Hook would show up someday and he would try and make me go back with him, and when that happened I had no idea what I would do. Or what Jason would do. Jason was a wonderful man, but he was no match for Captain James Hook. How could he be? Sure, he’d done some fencing in university, but that wasn’t the same as the dirty sword fighting Hook was so good at. It would be over in a matter of moments. So, no matter where I was or whom I was with, I always had one eye out for Hook.

And sure enough, six months after we were married, Hook returned to my life.
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By Hook or By Crook