Peter Pan soared over Bloomsbury's smoke-filled skies, attempting to wipe the soot from his eye. Boys didn't cry, and certainly not Peter Pan. Most definitely not over a silly thing like a girl. Attempting to reassure himself that Wendy was just playing pretend. She wasn't really engaged. Not now. Not ever. She was his Wendy-bird, Mother Wendy, his friend and had been for…
For how long?
He wasn't sure. Yes, they had both changed, that much was certain.
He, for one, had grown dramatically in what seemed to be no time at all, and now stood at least three heads higher than he had when he first saw Wendy, and had hair in places he had never expected to. That was surely one of the more embarrassing changes of late. Peter might have been naïve, but he wasn't wholly without a basic idea of the process of 'growing up'. He'd seen Wendy change, after all. She'd changed into something terrifying but fascinating and frankly, a little odd. She now called herself a 'lady' more often, he'd noted. She wasn't the little girl he used to know.
''Peter, I've grown-up'', she would tell him, matter-of-factly.
''Peter, I'm engaged.'' That's even more grown-up! What does it even mean? What if she has children? What if one gets lost? Should be return the child to her?
Peter shook his head.
I can't think…
Her words still rung in his mind.
''But we can still be friends, can't we?''
And here was where Peter felt most conflicted.
With Wendy's becoming a lady, surely that meant that he'd have to stop being her friend? It was part of the Lost Boys' code, not that they had many rules. The one never to be broken was that you must never grow up. Wendy had broken that promise, and quite abruptly, too, he might add. On the other hand, she had never actually promised that she wouldn't grow up, only that she would be friends with him as long as possible. What did that even mean, 'as long as possible'?
Ah. It was too soon… Wasn't it? Too soon to go home, in any eventuality. Peter felt terribly confused. He needed to think things over, to come to terms with what he had been left with. That horrible, dreadful, hollow feeling. It began in the pit of his belly, and rose up through his chest, to his throat. Being confused was truly terrifying, and nothing terrified Peter Pan. It seemed Time had simply gotten away from him. Time didn't make sense at the best of times, not in Neverland, let alone in London. Now, flying away from Wendy's house (she no longer occupied the nursery, he had discovered; in her place was an ugly looking thing, a baby!), Peter felt more lost than he had in years. What even is a year?
He didn't know.
Peter found himself flying towards a tower of weather-worn red brick, with a clock in the middle. Below lay the bustling, winding, oil-slickened railway lines of Saint Pancras station. Slowing down in flight, Peter came to rest on the ledge of the roof of the engine shed. He watched the locomotives shuffling slowly in the night, sorting out one wagon from another, moving it from here to there. It was soothing. The locomotives were somewhat like the Lost Boys, he thought, in their slow actions at the dead of night. Plotting. Shifting, like pieces in a battle plan. Not that he had been in any battles for quite some time, now Peter thought of it. His life had become meandering and gentle. Dull, even. Peter needed a battle. Something to focus his attentions on. Anything would be more welcome than the intruding thoughts in his mind. No more Wendy.
Wiping the tears from his face gently with a leaf from his suit, the golden boy brought himself to his feet, and crowed.