Author: Mosh
Fandom: Peter Pan
Title: By the Light of the Fire
Pairing: Hook/Mrs Darling
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Mary Darling mistakes someone else for her husband.
Disclaimer: These characters are property of J.M. Barrie. No money is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: Written for a challenge at The Nether Land, using the three prompts: Shadows, Mistaken Identities, Dancing. With thanks to Dal for the fab beta! 820 words.

Note: You may not archive, re-post, or alter any of my stories without my permission. Please contact me first. Thanks!

"Mary Darling." His voice drifted softly through the shadows. She must have fallen asleep; her sewing board was still held loosely in her fingers, a half-finished picture of a hummingbird on the fabric's surface. Her eyes felt heavy and she blinked in the shallow, dying firelight, the armchair creaking as she sat up.

"What time is it, George?"

"Past midnight."

The tall darkness of his figure crossed the far end of the room to the gramophone and she listened as he slipped a record out of its paper sleeve, placing it on the spindle with a quiet 'click'. The crackle of static fizzed out of the speaker and she saw his silhouette turn and extend a hand towards her.

"Come, dance with me. It's been so long since I've danced with such a beautiful woman."

She couldn't help but smile. "George, it's late. Let's go to bed-"

"One dance," he insisted.

One dance. What could it hurt? They rarely danced anymore, with her husband training at the bank all hours of the day, usually too tired at night for much more than a soft kiss before bed. She rose from the chair and crossed the living room to meet her husband.

Shrouded in shadows, his arm still outstretched for her to catch hold of, his presence seemed almost palpable in the air. She could smell an unfamiliar scent on him, rich and what she always imagined to be exotic. She was taken by his sudden mystery and remembered how it was when they had first met. On contact, he pulled her against him and at that moment the record began to play, a slowly winding, melancholy tune.

His hand slid around her waist, his fingers a cold pressure through the fabric of her dress. He lowered his face to her shoulder, pressing his cheek against her skin. She shivered little whispers of dreams from her past, of rebellion and boys, wearing her mother's clip-on earrings when she had been a girl and painting her face in secret like the harlots that lounged against the street lamps in town.

He led, turning her with rising fluidity, her skirt floating around his knees. She laughed, quietly lest the neighbours heard them, a long repressed thrill wakening in her from their younger days when they had been courting. She felt all of seventeen again, her head spinning with love for him, her hands clutching his shoulder as everything around them became a blur of colour and motion.

He spun her faster and faster as the tune picked up pace and she almost shrieked, her shoes seeming to skate across the carpet. In between the chairs and table they waltzed, her legs coming dangerously close to the furniture before he would whisk her away in another direction.

When silence fell he pulled her to an abrupt standstill beside the fireplace, the orange embers in the grate flickering like stars.

She looked up at his face and in an instant her smile slid from her lips, her eyes growing dark as his hands tightened around her in an iron grip.

"Where is my husband?" she whispered, unable to wrench her hand from his grasp. Something uncomfortably sharp dug into her lower back, piercing the cotton of her dress.

The eyes that stared down at her were cat-like in their intensity, pupils fathomless with a wicked violet colour circling them. There seemed to be a thousand predatory horrors etched into the vivid irises.

Her scream was cut off by his violent kiss.

He took her there on the hearthrug, one good hand pressed across her mouth, wrenching her thighs open with the flat edge of the hook that replaced the other.

When George came down in the morning he found her pale in her chair. His dreams had been haunted by a darkness with a deceptively sweet taste, the glass on his bedside table empty but for an unusual layer of wet brown dregs at the bottom that looked like powder of some kind. He hadn't been able to explain it, and had rinsed it out in his haste for a drink of water, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him.

"Mary, did you stay down here the entire night?" He rubbed his eyes, his vision swimming as if he had woken from a fever.

She could not appear to speak, and no matter how much he pressed her she brushed him off. It was a matter of days before their cosy little house went up for sale.

Kensington became their new home and she wandered its rooms with fear always one step behind her, nightmares keeping her awake for days on end.

Her cycle faltered that month and after a petrifying two weeks she had no choice but to believe that what her body was telling her was true.

She broke the news to an ecstatic George that she was carrying their first child some time later, but for the life of her she could not return his joy.

~Fin~