Disclaimer: I just make up the story, I don't own it ... as much as I would like. XD
A/N: In this story, Peter and Wendy are around the age of fifteen. I see Peter Pan as a much darker story than that portrayed by either movie. O.o This story is also slightly AU and a mixture of the Disney version of the Peter Pan and the 2003 movie with Jeremy Sumpter and Jason Isaacs. In this version, Hook talks to Wendy about Peter not feeling right before Peter finds her in the clearing, trying to separate the two. Thank you for reading, and I'd appreciate any constructive criticism you have to offer. Enjoy!
Peter blinked. That, whatever "that" was, was certainly no what he was expecting. He had simply gone looking for Wendy, wondering where she had run off to after the Indian campfire celebration. To feel so entirely happy, like he hadn't in a long time, to plunging to the very depths of human emotion. That kind of range of emotion was one he hadn't had to deal with since coming to Neverland. It was bringing up unwanted emotions and Peter wasn't sure how to deal with it, the memories or the emotions. And so he blinked.
As if that would erase the questions that still hung in the air.
"Do you, Peter?" she asked. Wendy. His Wendy. His, beautiful, and unexpected in every way. "Do you know how to feel, Peter?"
She was supposed to be like all the other girls he had met: timid, shy, dainty. But Wendy was nothing like that. Physically, she was weak, everything a girl should be, but that wasn't what mattered. It wasn't about just her looks. It was about how she reacted to him, how she responded, what she felt and said. She was unafraid of him. Something that no other girl had been. Even his Lost Boys had a fearful respect for him as their leader. And yet, here she was questioning him about the forbidden, about his past, about who he was, demanding that he feel. Avoiding that last part was what had driven him to Neverland and to become Peter Pan. He didn't want this. He didn't need this.
Peter had gone in search of Wendy after she had left the celebration, not wanting her to miss out on any of the fun to be had. He had found her in a clearing not too far off from the Indian's party. He stopped in his tracks the moment he laid eyes on her. She was ... astounding. Seeing her in the moonlight, simply standing in her nightgown staring up at the stars, had caused something to stir in him. It had been something Peter would've rather not felt, despite the fact that it was good. That was all that he knew it was. His breath had caught in his throat. She had been the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and that included seeing the royal faery dance. As soon as he had thought that, another quickly replaced it. He would show her the faery dance tonight. Peter would show Wendy just how beautiful she was that he thought her better than the spectacle he was about to show her.
Wendy didn't disappoint. The joy and wonder when she had seen the glowing sight within the hollowed tree trunk had only made her harder to look away from. Peter never knew hat drove his impulses, but the one to dance with his Wendy among the faeries had been especially strange. And yet, he held out his hand regardless. For the first time in all the years since first learning how to fly, Peter had to keep a conscious watch on just how high his happy feelings and thoughts took him. It was, for lack of a better word, magical. His Wendy. She was his Wendy, and she always would be. He couldn't look away from her eyes. He leaned closer, to see whether it was the light from the faeries around them or something from within her that made her eyes twinkle so. Their foreheads were touching and he still wanted more.
Peter Pan did the only thing he could think of to satisfy the need. He kissed her. Wendy had gasped, leaned into him, and just as suddenly as everything was happening, she pulled away from him and started sinking. Her face distorted the euphoric expression she wore only moments before to one a mixture of pain, confusion, and sadness. Peter didn't know many things about the world, despite what he convinced himself of, but he knew that was not supposed to happen after one received a kiss. He frowned at her, letting go of her hand as she sank past his reach.
"Did you not like it?" he asked, confused and hurt by her reaction. She said nothing for several minutes, choosing instead to stare at the ground.
" Peter? Who were you before Neverland? Were you anybody?" He said nothing, and so she asked the hardest question of all. "Do you feel, Peter? Do you feel anything at all for me?"
Peter blinked. His breathing hitched and blood pounded in his ears. The memories were starting to resurface. The ones he had kept buried for so long. The ones even Neverland could never erase. He knew he should have answered with something, anything. But how? How could he?
"I-" he attempted. He hadn't even realized he had been sinking as well until he touched the ground, so distracted. Wendy wore a looked worry, having never seen the great Peter Pan grounded by the weight of his own thoughts. She hadn't even thought it possible. Had she gone too far? Fear settled in her stomach at the possibility of ruining the friendship, and possibly more, with the boy in front of her.
"I don't want to feel," Peter finally said with great difficulty. He was still trying to fight the memories that threatened to spill into his thoughts. Wendy stared at him and tried to figure of it was safe to venture any further. It was difficult with his head down, eyes covered by the unruly mess on his head he called hair. In the end, Wendy couldn't resist her own curiosity.
"Why?" She stepped closer, trying to gage his reaction.
"it hurts too much." Peter's hands flew to his mouth to cover it. He hadn't meant to be so open and forthcoming with her. He didn't want this to happen, not right now, not ever. He looked to her. She looked surprised. Whatever Wendy had been expecting, that wasn't it. Peter didn't want to be there anymore. Things were getting dangerous. They were going into territory that shouldn't have been crossed. He liked Wendy, and if they continued, if they kept this up she wouldn't like him anymore. He wouldn't be the Peter Pan to her anymore.
"I need to leave," he said before turning to fly off.
"Wait, Peter! Please!" Wendy called to him. His Wendy. He could hear the desperation in her voice. "I need to know, Peter." Her voice fell to a whisper.
He looked back at her. She looked – Peter didn't even know what the word for it was. He supposed, if anything, Wendy looked broken, like something had been pulling her too hard in two different directions and she snapped. She was looking down, as though she had expected Peter to fly off and not heed her call. Her shoulders were slumped, and they themselves spoke volumes of defeat. The sight was pitiful. His heart broke knowing he was causing his Wendy so much pain.
"Why?" he repeated her question back to her. Wendy's head snapped up. "Why do you need to know?"
it was her turn to be speechless. Should she tell him the truth? It wasn't that she thought he couldn't handle it, Wendy just wasn't sure she herself could handle it. "I need to know if I stay here, it will be worth leaving my family. My parents who love me, my brothers who look up to me. Even my close friends, who will surely miss me. I need to know if you will have been worth it, Peter. I want to stay with you, but I know you will never leave Neverland. So, I must stay in Neverland if I am to be part of your adventure. But will I regret it, Peter?" Wendy stared straight at him. It was mostly the truth. Peter didn't need to know about her talk with Hook or about the pirate's offer of a place upon his ship. The rest of it was true enough.
Peter faced her fully now. She had his attention. Until now, Peter had never grasped just how big of a deal moving permanently in Neverland would be for Wendy. That she would give up her life … did she care for him that much? "You'd do that for me? Give up everything?"
"Yes." There was no question in Wendy's heart. She wanted to be with him. It was what she would have to give up that was the hard part.
Peter looked away. He wouldn't allow her to see the tear in his eye. She couldn't see how much that affected him. He stared at the ground to the side for a while longer, trying to decide whether to tell, to finally let out his secret after all these years. Could she be the one he could trust with everything? Wendy was good, but all the women he had chosen to trust in his life had betrayed him. However, his experiences were limited. If her were to tell her – if – it couldn't be here. Someone might hear. He would take her to his spot. As much as he would've rathered the clouds, he couldn't trust his flying abilities, amazing as they were, when talking about this subject. It was just too dark. peter took a deep breath, locked his memories away for now behind a thin wall and decided. he flew over to Wendy and took her hand in his.
"We're going somewhere we can talk." Wendy said nothing as they flew to the center of Neverland, deeper into the forest than she had ever been. She didn't want to give Peter any reason to change his mind and she didn't trust herself to say anything as it was.
Every passing second, Peter's heart beat faster. He had promised himself this day would never come, and yet, here he was getting ready to spill everything to someone he had just met. He didn't want to think of how she would view him after or how she would react to his answer, his story, his past. But he owed this to her. She had to know who he was if she was going to give up everything he wanted in life for himself, for something that shouldn't be allowed to live. Wendy, sweet Wendy, his Wendy. She had to know what she thought she wanted.
He had never had this problem with the boys. They had all been runaways or came from houses and lives that the boys never should've known. Wendy had everything going for her. Her family loved her. She had friends. She had a future. She had a home. Peter couldn't let her give that up so easily. Not without telling her.
They arrived at a clearing on the side of the highest mountain in Neverland. It looked just like the one they had left, flowers blooming everywhere, even in the dead of night. The only differences seemed to be the small creek that ran through one side and the tree trees that formed an almost tent–like structure near the creek. It was to this side, with the creek and the tree-tent, that Peter walked to once they landed. Wendy followed silently a short distance behind, not wanting to break the silence even now.
Under the little alcove, Peter sat in a hammock Wendy hadn't been able to see until she was under the tees, facing the babbling stream and away from the clearing. The hammock looked as if Peter had made it from vines he found around the forest. Wendy reminded herself that he probably had and braced herself for whatever would happen tonight.
As she approached, Peter patted the small space he had left for Wendy, motioning for her to set next to him. He wanted to be close to her for as long as possible. He may never get this opportunity again. He reveled in her soothing warmth next to him for a while before starting the hardest story of his life. He thanked anyone and everything that Wendy instinctively knew not to interrupt him.
"Neverland helps me forget. Helps all of us forget. The Lost Boys, we all have memories we'd rather forget and something here knows that and helps us. Over there, we weren't allowed to be boys, to have a childhood. Here, we can be. They all have stories, but I'm the only one who remembers mine. I know theirs, too, but mine is the worst. That's why I remember sometimes."
Peter paused, trying to delay the inevitable by watching the moonlight shine on the water, bright flecks of light almost hypnotizing him. He sighed, and without looking away so that he could not see his Wendy, he continued.
"My dad was bad, but my mom was worse. My dad would come home drunk all the time. He hated his job. He worked at a factory. We were poor, and he had stopped trying to advance before I was born, if he ever did. Everyday, he would find a reason to hit my mother or me, then, if he pleased, he would take my mom wherever he wanted. I learned quickly to hide in my room when that happened. I felt sorry for her when that happened in the beginning, but then I realized that she wanted it. It was the only kind of attention my father would giver her and she still loved him in a sick, perverse way."
"Most days, my mother was too drugged out on opium to care much about anything, let alone me. She used what little money she had to spend on her drugs, so we never had any food. There were times when she would send me to get food from the neighbors' garbage slops because that was better than the food in our house. I had to steal food often. Never got caught though. My mother probably would've told the coppers to keep me. The only time she cared for me was when I could do something for her in return. I wasn't her son, I was her scapegoat, her servant. Usually, she just used me to get on my dad's good side. Whatever she could blame on me …"
"She died when I seven. I was out of house. I stayed away as long as I could most days. My dad got laid off. Came home early. Beat her to death with a table leg. I lived with my aunt after that. She had two girls, my age. My uncle died of a heart attack a year before so me an' her had to work at the factory. Her girls went to school."
"She would have episodes. Throwing dishes, yelling, beating me. For no reason. I made sure that she never hit the girls. I was used to it, and my aunt would've felt even worse afterwards if she hurt her girls. She felt bad as it was. Always did afterwards. Didn't know what happened 'fore I got there. It went on like that for five years. Nothing too bad happened. Then one, she comes home three hours late. She was in one of her episodes. Chained me to the bathroom door. I couldn't use my hands or feet the way she did me up. Made me watch when she drowned Elizabeth and Mary Anne. 'To save your soul, show you the consequences of evil,' she said. I couldn't do anything to save them. Managed to escape when she tried to drown me too. She never said a word while she killed them. I still don't know what made her do it. I'll never forget the sound of them screaming."
"I lived on the street after that. Don't know how long it took until Tink found me, but she saved my life. Neverland saved my life. I was going to kill myself the next morning. Slit my wrists in an alley behind a restaurant. Didn't see why I should've lived. Life until then had been hell. I couldn't escape. I went to sleep that night saying goodbye to the world. I woke up in Mermaid Lagoon. Neverland and the faeries healed me, helped me forget. Gave me a reason to live. To fight Captain Hook." Peter snorted, amused by the thought that Captain Hook was why he was still alive. It was the first time he had shown any sort of emotion since first telling the story. "Later, it was to help other boys who had the same kind of life. Hell. I had to."
Peter closed his eyes, expecting the worst of Wendy. For her to look at him with the disgust he so rightfully deserve. For her to yell at him, demand that he take her home and forbid him to come back. After several long and tense moments, he dared to open and eye and look at her. What he saw made him forget everything.
Wendy was looking at Peter with a mixture of admiration and amazement. Tears streamed down her face as her hands covered her mouth. She was shocked. There was no other way to say it. Wendy had always known Peter was something else, something incredible to behold, bet never to this extent. To have gone through all he had and to still be able to function took more courage than anyone she had ever known had. Wendy couldn't sit quiet and still anymore. She lunged at Peter and hugged him like she never had.
"You, Peter Pan, are the bravest person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting," she whispered in his ear. "I'm sorry you ever had to go through that. You never will have to go through anything like that again."
That was all it took. Peter Pan broke down. He hugged his Wendy back and let out all the tears he'd ever held back. The two stayed like that for a while, until Peter had run dry of tears. It was only then, after all that time, that the boy realized just how uncomfortable Wendy must be. He was certainly going to be stiff in the neck later on.
Without much resistance, he pulled them into a laying position, with Wendy laying on him. They were both content to just be. There was no reason to think of the past or future. They just were.
Peter Pan and Wendy Darling fell asleep like that, in the hammock in each other's arms. It was the first night since he was a little boy in which Peter slept with no nightmares of one kind or another. When he woke the next morning feeling more well rested than he had in quite some time, he had come to a decision. One which he thought was about time. He wasn't afraid anymore, not that he ever was, enough so to be comfortable in his choice. Today. He would tell Wendy today.
"I'm going to grow up," Peter Pan whispered to no one in particular. Tinker Bell would continue his work, in finding Lost Boys who needed Neverland, and they would continue fighting Hook and his merry band of pirates. Tink would miss him, and then forget him. She was a faery after all. He couldn't expect her to miss him for long. There simply wasn't enough room in her tiny body to miss him too long. Besides, Tink would find another to become leader and she'd stick with him. He had Wendy now. She was what he had been waiting for before he could grow up. To grow up would be an awfully big adventure. To grow up with Wendy, Peter didn't even know words could describe the kind of adventure that would be. But he'd learn them. If they were out there, he'd learn them.
With that, Peter watched the sun rise, opting to let his Wendy sleep just that much longer. It was the least he could do for what she had done for him.