Disclamer: I don't own anything
A/N: ok so I know I should be working on my other neverland fic, but this just wouldn't leave me alone, the lyrics at the top of each chapter are from Heart's a Mess fron The Great Gatsby sound track. I hope you like it I enjoyed writing it.
Your heart's a mess
Wendy Darling plastered a smile on her face, trying to hide the pain inside. She felt betrayed by her own brothers, even when her parents had not been on her side at least her brothers did. Wendy had always wanted to be a novelist, but no one thought that it was the sort of thing that a respectable young woman would do. Everyone wanted her to marry into money, to gain status from a marriage, but Wendy didn't care about status, she cared about love and adventure. Wendy was nearly seventeen, on the brink of becoming a woman, and on the brink of being eligible for marriage.
John being only a year younger than Wendy had always been her closest confident. He was always there when she was upset, but she felt as if he had turned on her. That morning at breakfast Mr. Darling had gotten onto the topic of marriage. He had said that he thought he may have finally found an acceptable match for Wendy. Mr. Darling had said that the young man was only a few years older than Wendy and that he was the son of his boss. He thought that Wendy might be able to charm the young man, and she would surely marry up.
Wendy had told her father, in the most polite way possible, that she did not want to marry at least not for something as stupid as status. That was when the fighting started, everyone in the Darling family had started to take sides. Wendy's mother just wanted the best for her, which in her opinion meant marriage. The whole plan had been Mr. Darling's idea so of course he too was on the side of the marriage. Michael was still to young at ten to really understand what was going on. Michael just sat at the table staring blankly at the chaos that had ins-sued. What surprised and hurt Wendy the most was that John also took her parent's side.
There was a lot of yelling and anger. The issue had been boiling for a while, but the confrontation had never happened. "Wendy you have to think about your future now. You're not a child anymore, you can't seriously think you could become a novelist." John said with a look of annoyance on his face. Tears welled up in Wendy's eyes as she felt utter betrayal. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room ignoring the calls for her to come back. She didn't care what they said anymore. What was done, was done.
Wendy tore into her room shutting the door with a bang and locking it. Tears had begun to flow down her face not that she cared all that much. Wendy pulled out a leather bound book from under her bed. It had been a gift from John that Christmas. It was pretty, it had wide pages and plenty of space for her to write whatever she desired. Wendy had begun to write stories, stories about fairytale characters. She figured they were of her own invention since she would often see these characters in her dreams. That was why she had started writing in the book, it was because she just had to write down the dreams that she had.
For the longest time Wendy had not used the book that John had given her at all. She didn't want to waste the paper until she knew that she was writing the right thing. She had just woken up one morning and known that it was what she wanted to write in it. Most of the dreams she had were about the same character, so it was really quite easy for her to write about them. It was almost as if a story were playing out in her head when she closed her eyes.
Wendy set the book on the small desk within her room and began to write again. Wendy always wrote down the stories as soon as she could so she wouldn't forget the dreams and never be able to write down the story. Wendy's hand moved across the page almost on its own accord. She was writing about Rumplestiltskin and his son Bealfire. Bae was the one exception to all of the stories. Wendy had in fact met him. She had found him in her kitchen and from that point forward he had been like a brother to her. The problem was about five years he had disappeared. She could have sworn that she saw a shadow take him, but she doubted that it was true, maybe he had just run away, maybe he hadn't liked her family as much as she thought. Either way she missed him dearly.
Wendy was always excited when she got to write about Bae. She felt almost as if she were closer to him when she was writing about him. Wendy pictured Bae and his father in her head. Bae was easy since she knew him, but his father was harder. In her dreams Bae's father had become something called the Dark One. He had become distant and obsessed with power. Bae had told her that he didn't get along with his father. She would have been angry if her father had done that she would have wanted to leave, she already did with the way her family was acting.
Wendy sometimes felt guilty about the lives of the characters she dreamed of. Her imagination was truly horrible to them, she didn't know how she imagined it, but she really never had understood dreams, they were almost as confusing as real life.
Wendy wrote to her hearts content a few tears falling onto the paper. For a while no one came, maybe for hours, Wendy wasn't keeping track of time, footsteps sounded outside the door. Wendy kept on writing disregarding whoever was outside her room. She heard the sound of the door nob rattling. Wendy ignored it. "Wendy, can I talk to you?" a voice on the other side of the door said. It was John. Wendy rolled her eyes ignoring him.
She continued to write her scrawl getting more and more hurried. She was angry, very angry. "I don't want to talk to you John" she said exasperation ringing in her voice "you already made it very clear what you thought." She said a note of disdain in her voice. Wendy could hear the muffled sound of footsteps walking back and forth in front of her door. It was almost as if John were trying to come up with something to say. After a while he seemed to give up and walk away. Wendy was glad that he was left since face to face she didn't think she could deal with her emotions. She would probably forgive him, and the thing was, she didn't really want to forgive him. John had always acted like he supported her, what could have possibly changed his mind?
Wendy wrote and wrote and wrote, until her hand was cramping, and still she wrote, she put all her emotions into the scrawl that went evenly across the page. Left to right, left to right. Before she even knew it the sun was starting to set. It seemed that indeed no one else had bothered to talk to her again. Wendy felt slightly lonely, but she had been pushing her family away. Wendy thought that maybe she should feel guilty, and maybe she did deep down, but in her anger she didn't feel any guilt for shutting John out or locking herself away from the rest of her family.
It seemed that more and more often Wendy could only be herself when no one else was around, when no one else was watching making sure that everything she did was just so and proper. Soon the lanterns in the street were set and burning merrily and the moon was shining bright over the city. Wendy finally finished writing feeling content having finished all she knew from her dreams.
Wendy slipped into her night dress before crawling into her bed. The day had left her emotionally spent, and all she really wanted to do was curl up in her bed and go to sleep.
Wendy woke with a start when she felt the soft breeze of the outside air going through her hair. She glanced up and saw that her window was open. She approached the window carefully looking outside. The lanterns in the street had long since been extinguished and not a soul seemed to be in sight.
Wendy turned her back to the window dismissing whatever she thought she had felt as paranoia. Wendy left the window open hoping that maybe the fresh air would do her some good, it always seemed to help her before.
Wendy didn't feel like sleeping at all, so instead of going back to bed like she should have she crossed over to her desk and lit a candle. She had had another dream about Bae, and she was really quite excited to write about it. She began to scrawl out the story of how he had gone to the blue fairy for help and she had given him a magic bean that could take him anywhere he wanted to go.
Wendy's dream was almost like an explanation for just how the boy had shown up in her kitchen that one night. Bae had tried to get his father to come with him away from the Enchanted Forest where they lived, but he wouldn't. Rumplestiltskin cared more about his power than his own son. Bae had jumped through the portal and gone to a world without magic, Rumplestiltskin did not follow his son.
Suddenly a gust of wind blew out the candle that Wendy was using to write. She looked around for a moment bewildered. She didn't understand why the candle had gone out. Then she saw it. There was a shadow with glowing eyes standing directly behind her. Wendy let out a soft gasp as she saw the shadow. It looked just like the one she had thought she imagined. It had it's hand held out almost as if in invitation.
Wendy didn't hesitate for very long. She closed her book and grasped it tight against her before taking the shadows hand. The shadow pulled Wendy out of the room and out the window, and then they were air-bound. Wendy let out a soft gasp as suddenly there was nothing but air beneath her feet. She clutched the book tighter to herself and watched the horizon as they flew towards the stars.
Left on the window sill were two identical notes. One was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Darling, the other was Addressed to Michael and John Darling. Both were written in Wendy's handwriting though she in fact had not written them herself. These letters were crucial to what was about to transpire.