A/N: Hey guys. So, I'm a crazy Wendy and Bae shipper. Which sucks, because that's obviously never going to happen. I always pick the doomed ships…*sigh*. Anyway, this takes place after the flashback in the part one of the finale. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: If I owned Once, Wendy would have left with Bae and they would have grown up together (eventually) and married and lived happily ever after. But no; I don't own Once.
Mr. and Mrs. Darling found their sons in the crawl space and their daughter on the floor in tears the next morning. Their new ward was nowhere to be found.
They really weren't sure what to think.
The boys gave them some fantastic story about a shadow that had visited every night and had taken Wendy away the night before. It returned her for one of them in exchange, and Bae bravely offered himself in their place.
Of course, most intelligent people know children create such stories to explain things they don't understand, so, being intelligent, as far as the Darlings were concerned, their poor, kind little ward had been kidnapped for some unknown purpose.
Wendy, as she recovered slowly from her sorrow, listened to her parents discuss what the story "really meant" and "how much of the truth" it contained. All they knew was that they had received no ransom note for the boy, and they had new locks put on the nursery window.
So the next day, when Wendy had risen of her own accord and came down for breakfast, her parents asked her for the story. For the truth. And sadly, this was the first step toward adulthood Wendy Darling took; she lied with the truth, precisely and vaguely.
"There was a person, a man I believe, who made his way to our window each night," she began, " he had talked to us, promising magic and all sorts of wonderful things if we came with him. Once Bae—" Wendy choked on his name, but continued bravely, "once we told him, he made us promise to never open the window, to never let the man in. He said, he did not want our family destroyed like his. I didn't listen. I opened the window, and the man demanded one of the boys to let me go. And Bae offered himself." A fat, single tear made its way down her face, but she did not fall into the sobbing of the other nights. Wendy Darling was beginning to grow up, and she began with heartbreak.