Hey guys, thank you so much for your wonderful reviews and your follows/favorites, etc. Do any of you know the song "Without You" by Breaking Benjamin? It reminds me so much of Peter and Pocahontas/Tiger Lily and I thought I should share that with you guys. *wink wink* Also, I'm having a hard time deciding how I want this story to end, so if you are willing to give up the bliss of not knowing what's going to happen, PM me to help me decide what the heck I should do with this story. I have a few ideas, some better than others, some more emotional than others, etc. If you're willing to help, let me know! Thanks guys! ~A Keeper

Two days came and went and Henry waited eagerly for a sign from Pocahontas to show him what he should to. He was eager to speak with her. He had even told Felix that he would ask her if he could bring Pan's right-hand to the next meeting so long as he promised utter secrecy.

He waited and waited, but as the feeling of being forgotten overtook him, he drifted towards sleep.

But not entirely into that unconscious peace.

"Hello, Henry."

Henry woke up and found that he was still in Pan's camp, but there were no Lost Boys and it was sunny out. He smiled upon seeing Pocahontas in all her beauty standing beside him, offering her hand, he accepted and she pulled him up. "Hey, you, you're-" He stammered, realizing what she had just done.

"Not quite," She said with a smile. "Welcome to that little place between sleep and awake. Here I am whole, anyone can be. Before we went to sleep, if we wanted some privacy from the boys, Peter and I would come here to explore and dream and show children the wonders of Neverland. Welcome to the facade of my dream, Henry."

"You dream about Neverland?"

She jerked her head towards the forest—it was a forest here, not a jungle—and they began to walk along a path. "I dream about Neverland as it was. A place of peace, of belonging and of adventure. That is the facade, if I bring you to my actual dream, you would see more of memories and of desires than you would this empty place. I will spare you of my memories, for it's a wonder they did not make me mad, but I wanted to show you what Neverland was like and what it could be like if this turns out for the better."

"What are the chances of it doing that?"

She weighed the possibilities in her head, "It...could be better. I sent a messenger to Peter in hopes that he could talk some sense into him, because his plans could destroy the island altogether, but that didn't work. Needless to say I probably didn't send the best of people to speak to him-"

"Who?"

"His name is John Smith," She explained. "I knew him from the world I came from and he owes me for saving his life, which is why he is doing me these favors. He is a hermit on this island, Peter knows him...from his past, but the only reason Peter keeps him alive is because I begged him to."

"How can I help?"

"Resist."

They came to a door built into a tree with the symbol of a crescent moon attached to a stick at the bottom. Her face paled and she turned away from the door.

No, not a moon, a hook.

"Peter aims to make you feel lost and abandoned so he can use you to do his bidding," She explained, turning him away from the door. "He means to do more than just bring me back, but he intends to use you nonetheless. If you resist this, it will give me enough time to help your family and their allies save you."

He nodded, "I can do that," He stopped and refused to budge. "But what will happen to Pan?"

She paused, taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and looked away. "Henry, you have to understand that things are...difficult between us. I don't-"

"You loved him then, didn't you?" He asked. "You love him now, don't you?"

"Of course I do, but you see-"

"He's only trying to find the person he loves, because, believe me, he loves you. He's no different from my grandpa, Prince Charming. He's just...going about it another way." Pocahontas shook her head and shrugged. "Everyone deserves true love, even someone as cruel as Pan."

She sighed and a little smile crept upon her lips, "You are a wise boy, Henry. I want to be with the Peter I fell in love with though and over the years, that boy has changed. I am trying my hardest to be with him, but not everything has a happy ending."

"I will do this for you, Pocahontas," He agreed. "But will you at least talk to him? Please?"

"Wait, me? Talk to Peter?" She scoffed and looked around, feigning surprise and distaste. "I-I can't. No, I can't. It's been years. I just can't pop up and...and I, it's just not right. No, I can't, I won't. It's not practical-"

Henry raised an eyebrow and smiled, "It's alright, everyone gets nervous sometimes. You should talk to him, he wouldn't send you away, if that's what you're afraid of."

"No, of course I'm not afraid of him; it's just, he's...he's Peter and I, I'm a ghost-thing! I wouldn't be able to talk to you or your family as often if I spend my strength on him-"

"Pocahontas!" Henry exclaimed, grabbing her shoulders. "What are you afraid of?"

She was quiet for a long time and then murmured, "The last words we shared were ones of anger and hatred. What if...what if he doesn't like the person I've become? What if him using you to get to me is just a cover up for greater plans? What if he doesn't really love me anymore? What if he loves someone else?"

"You'll never know if you never try."

She smiled and nodded, "Alright, I accept." They continued to walk, turning back down the path and past the door with the hook on it. "You know, the first night we came here, I asked him what would have happened if he had died the night I saved him. He kissed my forehead and told me, 'you know that place between awake and asleep? That place where you still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, that's where I'll be waiting.'"

"It'll work out," Henry promised. "True love always does."

"I really hope your right," She sighed hopefully. "Otherwise we might just destroy the universe."

The Echo Cave. One of the most dangerous places in Neverland.

Peter Pan had created the cave long before Tiger Lily came to the island for a reason few people knew. From the newly gathered information, Baelfire, Emma's lover, was inside. However, to the Captain of the Jolly Roger, there was something of much stronger desire within that he thought would be able to change the course of the war between them and Pan.

Hook walked into the cave knowing well enough what his darkest secret was and he was not very eager to share it.

He looked to the others and knew that he would have to be the one to show them what to do as well as show them the toll that it may or may not take. So, with a heavy heart, he looked across to the cage that held Baelfire and then to the tiny corner where stood a false wall.

He sighed, took a deep breath and turned to them, "I...I kissed Tiger Lily."

"Wait, you what?" Emma asked, casting a glance to Mary Margaret. "You-you psychotic-"

"No, no, no, none of that, love," He interrupted, holding up his hand to finish. "I kissed her to get to Pan. I did more than that. My darkest secret is that I used one of the very few people I cared about to settle a score and destroyed her life in the process. My secret? I can't live knowing that her death was my fault."

Hook could only think of Tiger Lily as Emma and the love birds took their turn at the game and as Baelfire was freed, the pirate captain swept passed them and across the bridge to the false wall where he used the word she had given him upon their last meeting (he truly was one out of a hand-full who used her real name) and opened it.

Emma and Neal watched as the pirate went in and were surprised when he came out baring the body of none other than Princess Tiger Lily.

"You couldn't have lost some weight while you were dying, love?" He whispered to the young woman who could not hear her. "Doesn't matter, soon enough you'll be able to run again, princess, I swear it."

Pocahontas was running, as she often did, through the forest of Neverland with a smile upon her face and joy in her heart. She had been living on the island for a very long time; she did not know how many years it had been since there was no such thing as time in that wonderful place. It was a good time to be a resident second star to the right.

She and Peter had flipped a coin to decide whether they would be exploring the island through flying or running and she had won.

"Flying is exhilarating, yes," She had agreed. "But have you ever felt what freedom came with running?"

Thus, like most things, it became a game. She laughed at how slow Peter actually was and enjoyed pointing out that anyone can fly, but few can run.

Upon reaching a clearing, she stopped and hid behind a tree to scare him when he finally caught up to her. Patiently, she waited.

"Look what we have here, just who I wanted to speak to."

Pocahontas jumped and found herself not alone in the clearing, but standing opposite of the Captain Hook. The young woman was neither armed nor afraid as she had never been when facing him, but she was more dangerous than anything he had ever faced before.

"Captain," She nodded in greeting, though remained cautious—incredibly so.

"Relax," He said. "I only wish to talk." He stepped closer, but she took a step back.

"You can do your talking a good distance away from me," She replied. "I'm listening." That was, perhaps, her best and worst feature: she would always listen.

"What are you doing, mate?" He asked. She raised an eyebrow, but no longer moved back as he came towards her—it might also help that there was a tree at her back.

"What do you mean?"

"You and Pan," He replied. "I've heard the rumors floating about the island. 'Princess Tiger Lily has the Great Peter Pan head over heels,' they say. It's particularly obvious that you love him, but he can't love you back."

"Of course he can and he is-"

"No, no, no, I mean: Pan is frozen at the age of seventeen. He's a boy who can not love you properly in the way you deserve to be loved."

He was mere inches from her rather gorgeous being and could see the warnings going off in her eyes by how small the proximity between them was becoming. He could also see the acknowledgment of his point. If he just hit the right nerves and pushed a little further-

"He can not love you as a man and you dodeserve a man, Pocahontas, you should expect nothing less. A man who can care for you, build a home for you, ravish you," His voice became a growl, low and suggestive, but she was already lost too deep in thought to question it. "You won't find that man in Pan."

"I won't find him in you, either," She whispered.

"Ah, but a man's gotta try for one as lovely as you." he leaned forward and met her lips with his own, taking her by surprise. He deduced that she had either never or only kissed once, therefore, he had already brought a whole new variable to the equation and was quite enjoying her surprise and acceptance. It didn't take long for her to kiss back.

"Get your ugly face off of her!" They ripped apart and found Pan along with Felix prepared to lose an arrow of death into his face.

"Peter," She whispered, then ran to him, wrapping him in a warm embrace. For a moment, he was almost jealous of the boy. He then regained his senses and decided to take his leave.

"As much as I would like to continue our elongated duel to the death, I really must be going."

"Scared?" Pan challenged with a taunt, his arm wrapped around her waist.

"No, just too busy." He replied. He winked at Pocahontas and flashed a charismatic grin. "Remember my offer, princess, there's no one else on Neverland who can do that for you." She glared at him, but said nothing against it.

"Hook, if you evercome near her again, I willkill you."

"Fair enough," He said, then bid them farewell.

He never saw her awake again.

Pocahontas sat on her hammock in her tree house, humming an old tune as she sketched. There was a knock at the door and she called, "Come in!" Without taking her eyes off her work.

"It's late," Peter said, leaning his back against the door, content to just watch her sketch. "You should be resting, it was a rough day."

"Since when do you care about how much sleep I get?" She asked with a smile. She felt a hand on her shoulder and paused to let him examine her work.

"You're drawing me?" He questioned.

"Why wouldn't I?"

He sighed and his hand fell to the small of her back, "I care an awful lot about you, Pocahontas, I really do."

She closed her eyes and shook her head, "You heard what Hook said to me."

"Pocahontas, you're lucky the whole island didn't hear what he said to you,"

"But you controlthe whole island, it's the same thing," She mocked, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. She took all of her sketches and stuffed them into a cabinet and then resumed loudly cleaning up her supplies.

"You're angryat me!" He exclaimed. "How could you be angry? If anyone had the right to be so, it should be me! You went off ahead of me and got caught by Hook who then tried to buyyou! You're not for sale!"

"Peter Pan!" She cried in surprise, covering up the hurt his words generated. "Get out, now! I don't need your protection, I didn't get caught by him and I am most certainly not an item to even be considered for keeping or buying! Get out!"

"You can't force me to do anything," He said darkly, pinning her to the wall. She refused to look at him, but he took her chin and forced her gaze upon him. "You're forgetting your place, princess. I own you and you listen to me. I do care a great deal for you and your safety, but that doesn't mean you get to push your luck. I can kill you at any time I chose."

"Hook was right," She growled through clenched teeth. "You can never be the man I need—and want."

He leaned close for a moment, angry words on his tongue, when he shoved her away and stormed out of the tree house.

She had tears in her eyes and felt like crying far into the night, but then wiped them away before they came. He didn't like it when the boys cried. With a horrible sadness growing in her heart, she reached for the little box under her bed and pulled out a vile with a cork stopper.

In the first month of her living in Neverland, she had mixed together a concoction—a potion, if you will—which would act as a sort of sleeping spell. She would store the energy of years until the boy Peter spoke of who would save magic would come. Then, she would meet him and help him and in return, he would wake her up from her incurable sleep and take her far away from Neverland. An escape.

She had saved the potion because she did not know of the consequences, she did not know how long it would be until the boy came and she didn't know if she would love or hate living there.

As it turns out, she loved the island and the boys and she had fallen in love with the boy leader who had proven, just as Hook said, to have the heart of a boy who could not love her as she desired and as she loved him.

So she wrote a little letter which she sealed with a kiss, drank the potion and got comfortable upon her bed—she would be there for a while.

Felix was not the first to notice the absence of Tiger Lily, but he was the first to voice his concerns. Peter had been the first, but he was most certainly not going to be the one to bring it up. He was still bitter about the night before.

"Well go wake her and bring her down if you want to play with her!" He exclaimed. "I don't care what you do, just leave me out of it!"

Felix knew something was wrong between the two and decided to take up Pan's "order" and went to her little home himself.

"Felix, you mustn't say anything," The right-hand knelt beside a pale and deathly looking Pocahontas, taking her hand and feeling a shiver run down his spine at the cold. She looked so miserable, so helpless. He had to find Peter- "Please, please, don't bring anyone else into this. It wouldn't work. I don't want to burden you any longer."

"So you decided to kill yourself instead?!" He exclaimed.

"No, not kill; apparently, it's taking a bit, but eventually, I will fall asleep. It was not a very certain concoction," She smiled weakly. "I fear that even when I do wake, it will be only to greet death a little while after."

"Now, don't go saying stuff like that, Tiger Lily," He said. "You're strong, you'll get through this. I can go to the fountain and bring you back, Peter will-"

"I'm sorry," She whispered. "But this is something that can not be cured by the fountain."

In spite of what she wanted, word spread through out the camp and, by extension, Peter who refused to see her though the boys kept insisting that he read the letter she had written him. The whole island became a thick jungle, lacking the one person it needed to care for it.

On the last day in the last hour of Tiger Lily, Princess of Neverland, the stubborn Peter Pan finally went to her with tears in his eyes which he hid from his boys and grasped her hand. She slipped the letter to him as their fingers intertwined, her hold so weak in his own. She smiled despite the pain that was overwhelming and looked into his beautiful eyes for as long as possible, the world growing foggier.

"You stupid, idiot girl." He whispered almost affectionately.

She shook her head and with her remaining strength, murmured, "After all we've been through together, on my deathbed, all you can say to me is that?" Her eyes clouded over and the caressing of her hand by his thumb which he had not noticed until then ceased.

It was upon that day that Peter Pan's heart grew dark and twisted. He sealed her dying body in a tomb in the Echo Cave and let the island run wild without care as he had become. He no longer allowed children on to the island, for they reminded him too much of she who had loved them so dearly and who had told him of how, when she figure out how to leave, would fall in love and begin a family of her own.

The boys could no longer go to the beach where Lost Things lay, for it reminded him of the time he had spent searching for them with her. The places she had created became desolate and fell to ruin. The boys played darker games now, as they had no one to care for them and did not take a second thought as she would have. No stories were ever told of her after that.

Peter became obsessed with her; wanting her, needing her, willing to give up everything for her, but he was forced to be patient. He had to wait for the boy who matched her sketch to come and wake her from her sleep so that they could be together again. Not only would said boy restore magic, he would restore theirmagic. The magic that had escaped him so long ago.

Yes, Peter Pan loved Pocahontas stronger than any man's love for a woman and it would be by this love that anyone ended up surviving this story at all.

This chapter is dedicated to Honeydewmelon56, Superdani4ever, HerimoneandMarcus, Lionsandtrolls and MaddQueen, you're the best!