In honor of Mother's Day 2017 (which is today in the US), here's a story about one tough mother, Miss Peregrine. It always bothered me that after Barron took her prisoner, we never really saw in human form again, so I decided to write this.
For my own reference: 113th fanfiction, 2nd story for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
The sea was calm, but Miss Peregrine's thoughts were stormy as she circled above the ship leaving Blackpool. A falcon's eyes were sharp, and she could see further in bird-form than she could as a human – all the way down the coastline to where it swerved east at Lytham. Where would she and the children go from here? Her maps and papers were all back at the house, which must be gone now, bombed to rubble, since she hadn't been there to reset the time-loop.
Her children, thank goodness, had all escaped from the house before the bombs fell. They had managed so splendidly without her that she wondered if perhaps they didn't need her anymore. Working together, they had resurrected a sunken ship, sailed to Blackpool, found Miss Avocet's loop, defeated the Hollows, outsmarted the Wights, and saved her from Barron's experiment.
Her children had saved her, and that troubled Miss Peregrine almost more than anything else. In all her years of caring for them, only once before had she ever felt like a failure as their guardian, and that was when the Hollow had killed Victor.
Stop it, she told herself. You haven't failed them. But it was hard to believe the words.
She flapped her wings, gliding on the salty sea breezes, and looked back down at the ship. They were headed south right now, and she knew that if they sailed on, she would be able to find a new home for them somewhere and create a new loop. But after this taste of freedom and adventure, would her children really want to return to the sheltered, repetitive world of a loop? Perhaps not – not the older ones, at least, and she didn't know how to deal with that. It would break her heart to force them to stay in a loop if they were unhappy there. Perhaps they would want to go out into the world, grow older, have normal lives, as Abe had done. Perhaps she should find some way to give them more freedom... but how could she, after she'd spent decades protecting them, watching over them every minute? This ordeal was the first time that she'd been separated from any of them in over seventy years.
She'd believed Barron was going to kill her when he took her prisoner, yet sacrificing herself to protect her children had been easier than letting go of them ever would be.
Get a hold of yourself, Alma, she scolded herself mentally. Stop moping. She had to focus on "the good old here-and-now," as she liked to say. She was now strong enough to transform again, and beneath her, she had a ship full of children who didn't know where to sail. She tucked her wings in, dropped down to the deck, and transformed back into a woman.
Her children were all up on the deck, most of them standing at the railings, looking out over the sea. But when they heard her transform, their heads swiveled around in unison to face her, and delighted grins spread on their faces. They hadn't seen her in human form since Barron had taken her away.
"Miss Peregrine!" they cried in one voice, and then they nearly knocked her over as they ran to her and all tried to hug her at once.
"Here, what a rough lot of hooligans you all are," she admonished them, laughing a bit. "What have you done with my well-behaved children?"
They laughed, too. She spread her arms wide and tried to gather all eleven of them close to her, like a mother bird tucking her fledglings under her wings. She squeezed the twins' shoulders, stroked Olive's hair, cupped Claire's little face between her hands, and willed herself to remember this moment forever. Millard didn't notice when his hat got knocked off and went flying away across the deck, and Horace didn't care when his precious clothes were mussed, and even Enoch was grinning.
They were all talking at once and jostling each other. Hugh's bees buzzed around them, louder than usual, and Hugh laughed and said, "Miss Peregrine, look, my bees are glad you're back, too."
Emma said, "What till you hear what's happened to us, you won't believe it."
Millard cried, "Miss Peregrine, we missed you so much!"
Fiona scolded, "Miss Peregrine, you can't ever leave us like that ever again."
Bronwyn started to say, "We... we thought you were..." but she couldn't finish. A second before it happened, Miss Peregrine knew – ymbryne's instict – that she was about to start crying, and she bent down and picked her up, which wasn't easy because the twins were still hugging her around her legs as if they'd never let go. Bronwyn wrapped both arms around Miss Peregrine's neck and burst into tears against her shoulder.
The other children's smiles wobbled and disappeared, as they remembered how close they had come to losing their ymbryne forever. Bronwyn's tears set Claire crying – "They bombed our house!" she wailed – and then Fiona began blinking and sniffling, her eyes very bright. The twins made sad sounds behind their masks, and Miss Peregrine had her hands full – which was how she liked it. She decided to worry about the future some other day. Right now, her children still needed her.