Disclaimer: Only my made-up characters are mine, as well as the plot. I had help with this plot from three amazing friends/sisters and beta-readers, Kayla, Cami, and Amanda!

This is a new story that has been brewing in my head for well over a year, and thanks to my friends, I've finally started it. I used the names of women of the Darling family that already exist, but I've taken their characters and made them my own. Alice is my only original character, and the first half of her full name is taken from Alice in Wonderland. I hope you enjoy the story!

SUMMARY

Here's an official, longer summary than what this site allows!

Alice Kingsleigh Darling Teach has always been an outcast, and waited diligently for her turn to go to Neverland. But when her older sister Margaret came back, Peter swore he'd never take another Darling again. Ten years later, on the verge of giving up, Alice finally gets her chance and befriends Peter, teaching him that love isn't just romantic. She teaches him to deal with his emotions, and he teaches her freedom and gives her the one thing she has always wanted - friendship. Adventures ensue. One day, she finds herself in a desperate situation while out in the jungle near the ocean. She needs help, but Hook is the only person around. He offers help and she takes it after fighting it, not trusting her enemy at all. But all it took for her to see him in a different light was that one moment. Weeks later, she spies on a pirate party on the Jolly Roger. He catches her, and invites her on board. Chaos ensues, and she finds herself in another desperate situation, but this time, she is the only one who can help herself.

Snickering. Teasing. Harsh, unnecessary words. Things no one truly understood the meaning of. Venom people spouted without thinking. Without feeling. Without wondering if they actually hurt. People could be so cruel, but there was no one worse than a popular high-schooler. Or, any high-schooler when you were the outcast. Such was the life of the youngest Darling child.

Alice Kingsleigh Darling Teach has always been an outcast, simply for the sole fact that she outspokenly, and quite stupidly, as her older sister Margaret says, believed in her great-grandmother's stories. She was a quirky girl who kept to herself, and kept everyone else at a distance. After all, no one wanted to be friends with the girl who insisted Peter Pan was real - and she did so into adulthood.

And no one hated Alice more than her own sister. In fifth grade, Alice made the mistake of telling her biggest family secret to who she thought was her best friend. The girl, Ashley Gordon, went on to tell the entire school. When this got around to Alice's sister Margaret, then a sophomore in high school, she assured that the story wasn't true and went on to ruin Alice's life.

Margaret did not believe in the stories. So when Peter Pan came through her window when she was fifteen, she was flabbergasted. But, not one to waste an opportunity as she was a Teach and obsessively proud of her Blackbeard heritage, she greedily went with him. Eleven-year-old Alice was ecstatic. She had always believed the stories, but this was proof. This meant that she would definitely be going in a few years. So when they finally came back six months later, Alice scrambled to Margaret's room to listen and peek through the doorway.

"Good riddance. You are a disgrace to your family," she heard a male voice say, a bit deeper than she remembered when eavesdropping on them six months earlier. "I can't believe you have Wendy's blood in your veins. She would never have done the things you're capable of."

"I have much more Blackbeard in my veins than Wendy's diluted blood, thanks to my father," Alice heard her sister say venomously. "Just wait 'til I'm older, Peter Pan. I will return. You'll get what you so badly deserve, and I will give it deliciously."

"You will never be allowed back. Have fun telling everyone in your family that I will never come for any more of you!"

Alice ran in, screaming and crying. "NO! PLEASE come back for me! I am nothing like her! Please don't judge me based on her! She's evil! PLEASE, Peter!"

"NEVER!" he shouted, then their mother ran in. She paused when she saw Peter's pained, angry expression and was shocked into silence at the scene before her. She looked at her daughters and when her eyes turned back to the window, he was gone.

Alice fell to a crumpled heap of tears and sobs. "What did you do?!" she screamed at her sister.

Margaret rolled her eyes. "Oh stop being such a baby. It's his fault for waiting so long and letting me grow up a bit before taking me."

"BECAUSE OF YOU, NOW HE'LL NEVER COME FOR ME!"

"Oh quit your whining. You're better off if he doesn't."

Jane took a deep breath. She knew Margaret had a... bad streak. She hated to call it evil. "Margaret. What did you do?"

Alice turned to her with a face full of tears. "Margaret did something in Neverland and now Peter hates her and banned her and banned all of us and our children and their children! He said he'll never take another Darling to Neverland! I begged him but he said NEVER!"

"I know, darling. I heard. Margaret?"

"I'm not telling you. You should know better than to ask."

"I am your mother, Margaret! You will not speak to me that way!"

"Whatever. Father wouldn't care."

"I know you're proud of your Blackbeard heritage, but your father was not as obsessed about it as you and actually, he would have cared very much about your abhorrent behavior!"

Margaret rolled her eyes and stalked out of the room.

Ever since then, Alice hated her sister. Because Peter kept true to his word, and never came back.

"Are you seriously going to sit there every night for the rest of your life?"

A grown Alice snapped out of her thoughts and turned her head away from the open window, and stared blankly at her sister. She had stopped fighting with her sister about Peter, and just ignored her. She learned to tune Margaret out over the years. But tonight felt different, so she engaged. "Yes. If I have to, for the rest of my life."

Margaret's face contorted with haughty anger. "You're such an idiot, Alice. You're twenty-one! Get over yourself, get over him, and get on with your life!"

"Why do you care?"

"Because you're an embarrassment to this family!"

"Again, why do you care? You hate everyone and everything except Dad, who's been gone for eleven years. Why don't you get over him as you're telling me to get over you fucking everything up for me and making me the only Darling girl since Great-grandmother to not go to Neverland?"

"How could you tell me to get over Dad?!" Margaret seethed. "How dare you! Peter is nothing compared to him!"

"I know. I'm just trying to piss you off because after all these years, I feel like it."

"You're a cynical bitch."

Alice actually laughed. "You're calling me a bitch? Really? After everything you've ever said and done, and what you did in Neverland that you refuse to tell Mom and I? Really? Me? That's rich. That's so rich. You ruined my LIFE, Margaret!" She was standing now. "Not just because of ruining my chances of going to Neverland, as everyone back to Wendy has, but because of what you did to me in school. I still can't go anywhere without seeing someone snickering at me! I can't do anything in this city without people re-visiting the rumors! People who never went to school with us know the rumors and call me crazy! I can't even get a JOB because of what you did to me! Because so many people have bullied me and spread those rumors!"

"Oh cut the crap, Alice. Yeah I started them, but it was your fault for being so stupid about it and telling people that you believed our family stories."

"Shut the fuck up. I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for you. My only chance at anything is to become a writer like Great-grandma Wendy, but what then? That won't help Mom! YOU don't even help Mom with expenses and you have a great job! So FUCK you, Margaret! And get the hell out of my room!"

"He is never coming for you, Alice! Grow the fuck up!"

"GIRLS!" They turned to the doorway, towards their mother. "Enough! Margaret, leave! Now! Go do whatever it is you do and get out of my house!"

Margaret sniffed. "Gladly. I'll get out of Dad's house. Once you die, it's mine, anyway. You never loved me, so he left it to me in his will and then I will take it and put Alice out on the streets."

"Mom never loved you because you're an evil BITCH!" Alice screamed.

"ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU! GET OUT, MARGARET!"

Once Margaret left, she wrapped Alice in a hug and Alice burst into tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I can't help you out. I'm sorry that I can't get a job. I'm sorry that I'm a good-for-nothing mess. I wish I could help you so badly, but there's nothing I can do. I don't belong anywhere. I don't fit in anywhere. And everyone within the vicinity hates me. I'd have to go far away and send you money, if I could even get a job in the first place."

"Alice, shush. You are fine. I am fine. I love you. I don't want you to leave. We will manage."

"I don't want to stop believing. But I can't stop waiting for him, even though I'm an adult. That makes me as much of a lunatic as everyone calls me."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes, Mom. It does. It really does. And I don't want to leave you, but if he came... I swear I would go and I would never leave Neverland. I'd come back for you and take you with me, even. I would never, ever leave him or that island. From what you've told me, I would thrive there." She paused. "Why did he keep to his word? Why did he judge a whole group of people that doesn't even exist yet? Why did he judge me? I'm the only one who'd actually stay, and he didn't even try with me."

Jane saw something and glanced up from her daughter's shoulder. Her eyes widened as Peter's eyes bore into hers from the window. "Peter has taken every Darling girl to Neverland, and a lot of the boys, expecting them all to stay. But every single one of us returned home. Even Margaret, who remained on the island the longest. His heart has broken so many times. You must realize how hard that has been for him, to befriend so many people and have them all leave. Yes, I know you would stay. Even if he did come for you, even as an adult, I know that your soul is so youthful that you would never want to come home. You're right, you have never fit in anywhere. Your soul does not belong in this world. And as much as I want you to stay here with me, I would make you go. You belong in Neverland." Jane said all of this while keeping her eyes locked with Peter's. She finally looked away and pushed Alice away from her at arm's length, holding her shoulders and staring into her grandmother's eyes. She was so grateful that one of her daughter's received Wendy's eyes. "Alice. I know you think it is impossible now that you are an adult, but I still hope that he will change his mind one day and come for you. I hope he can realize that you are not Margaret, and that you would be the first Darling to stay there forever, and never return. I would miss you so dearly, but I want your happiness more than anything. And you would find it there." She kissed Alice on her forehead. "Goodnight, darling."

She gave Peter one last meaningful glance, and left, not missing how much older he looked.

Alice let her head hang where she sat on the floor, her back to the window still. More tears fell down her cheeks as the horrifying thought she had avoided for twenty-one years crossed her mind. 'What if he never comes?' She angrily wiped away her tears, but more fell. She sniffed and used her sleeve, but to no avail. "You bastard... you..." But she couldn't really be angry with him. Her mother was right; he'd been betrayed too many times. Her shoulders slumped. "I'll never go to Neverland."

"Girl, why are you crying?"

I hope you liked the first chapter :) I know it's short, unusually short for me, but I can't imagine ending it anywhere else. The next chapter will come shortly!