"Dad! Come, chase me!" Peter opened the door to race his children and was surprised when he saw Wendy on the other side.
He looked at her and that familiar, cocky grin slowly descended. When he came back from Neverland, he didn't know what to expect... Did he honestly believe she would be twelve again?
No, but he didn't expect to see her the way he had left her either. Seeing her aging hurt him somewhere very deep, the same place where he loved Margaret and his two children... And Wendy.
But things had changed, he married her granddaughter and had children of his own, but that was alright for him now.
He looked at the old woman standing in front of him, her wrinkles etching the lines from all the laughs she had had, and Peter silently hoped some of them were thanks to their laughs from all those years ago.
Wendy stood taken aback as well, for he reminded her of… a boy. A boy she knew a very long time ago, one she hadn't seen in quite a while, but that smile had proved her assumption correct. When it slowly came back, she hugged him ever so tightly, and he spun her around and for a moment, just a moment, they were twelve again.
When he let her ago, he simply said, "Hullo, Wendy lady."
They both smiled the same sad smile and remembered it all. The tears, laughter, pain and joy... It was a smile that told the tale of Peter Pan and Wendy.
Then, they exchanged a glance he could never exchange with Margaret, it was a stolen kind of exchange. One that told of an old adventure and in that look, that moment, he said sorry for it not being her and it being her granddaughter and for him not being there when she was married with a pink sash to the man called Husband Hook had warned of, and in that one look, green eyes met blue and he was forgiven.
Old age had made Wendy wise, and she said these last words to her childhood hero before she resigned to sleep:
"Go run along, for your last and greatest adventure of all is waiting just around the hall, chase them Peter. As many before, they believe in you, as I believe in you.
I'll always believe in you Peter Pan."