2002, London, England
𝒯he sky was crisp and black, and the stars shone like shattered diamonds. The air was cool and clear and the breeze shook the shriveled leaves off the aging trees. London's parks were coated in seas of red, orange, and brown foliage. Overhead, a full moon was cast like a magnificent large pearl, its reflection on the River Thames, which resembled more of a mirror on this particular night.
Angela Darling-Warren walked to her apartment, treading past fallen leaves with her hands in her coat pockets. Her long brown hair flew a little in the wind. I hope they call me, she anxiously thought. She'd been looking for a job after she graduated from university with a music degree. Her previous job was miserable, so she had quit in hopes of finding a better one, but for the past few weeks, she had no luck.
It was early December, and already she was worrying about the bills that would come due at the end of the month. Rent and light and water and everything was so expensive, as was internet. Living in London on your own was so difficult when the cost of living was high, and, well, she was currently unemployed. The only reason she was able to stay afloat so far was because of her grandma Jane's help—one of her few living relatives—but it made her feel immensely guilty.
She even felt a bit ridiculous, going through such lengths to become independent but almost having nothing under her own belt to help with that, except a music degree. She felt lost. Maybe she didn't really have to be living by herself at this point in time—she was only 22. She could just live at Grandma Jane's house. But Grandma Jane was always a woman who encouraged her independence and resilience in order to thrive in adversity—after all, she was a World War II child. She didn't mind helping Angela get on her feet while she found her way into the working world.
Disappointed, she decided to try and forget about it all, at least for the rest of the afternoon. Stepping inside her apartment, she walked past pictures of Grandma Jane and Grandpa Albert—who passed a couple of years ago—and pictures of her mother Moira, whom she never met in her life. All of Moira's pictures never featured her older than a teenager, because she had died when she was 19. There were no pictures of her father, either. But there was a beautiful portrait of her great-grandmother Wendy Darling in the middle of the rest of the portraits, with her light brown hair and dreamy blue eyes.
There were many days in which Angela, already accustomed to the circumstances in which she was raised, could walk past the portraits without feeling much. In fact, most days, she did not notice them. But certain more melancholy days would make her think about the mother and father she never knew, and then she'd cry. Which is why music, to her, had always been the best medicine.
Music allowed her to pour herself into a world that wasn't there, a world that only she could enter. It embraced her when she was down, and it understood her when nobody else could. Music was the only thing that spoke truthfully, without masking one's emotions or struggling to find the right words. And so it was in this world that she felt liberated. She always had a yearning for a world apart from the one she lived in.
She reheated the previous night's dinner and listened to some music. She read for a little bit and then went to take a bath. She got a call from one of her friends from uni, chatted for a bit, and then laid down on her bed. For some reason, it was a sleepless night. She twisted and turned in bed but she couldn't find the position that usually worked for her. She considered tossing away the nightgown that she had put on, as she felt like she was overheating, but realized that sticking a leg out from the covers would do the trick. She opened the window to allow the cool breeze to slip in, and then returned to her bed.
It was a few minutes past midnight. A light rain started pouring from the skies and dark clouds rumbled in anticipation. It all happened before, and it will all happen again. This was the night that Angela Darling-Warren would come to Neverland. This was the night that would change her life forever.
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Hook and Angela: A New Story of Neverland (ON HIATUS)
Fanfiction"All children grow up, except one," my grandmother Jane would tell me, as my great-grandmother Wendy would tell her. "Wendy had Jane, Jane had Moira, and Moira had me-Angela. For decades after the initial meeting with Peter Pan, the Darling women wh...
