A/N: So, here's the resolution to that semi-cliffhanger from last time :) Plus, there is a certain character coming to a bit of a revelation in this chapter :) Also, thank you for the response to this story :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee and I do not own Peter Pan.

The silence was broken by the almighty splash that Nick's unconscious form made as it hit the water.

"What was that?" Sam asked, looking at his captain, who was still standing frozen on the water's edge.

"It came from the direction of the lagoon," Puck said, "Over there behind those large rocks."

From a few metres away, further up the beach, Jeff seemed to hear these words, and he suddenly glanced towards the lagoon boundary, a panicked expression spreading across his features as he slowly realised what had happened.

"Nick!" he cried, "Nick!"

He was met with silence from where Nick should have been, and somewhere in amongst the pain filled haze he was currently in, he knew that Nick had fallen into the water.

"He wasn't alone," Sam muttered to Puck, before turning to see what their captain was making of this revelation.

Except Hunter wasn't even listening to them, he was standing with his hand to his ear, as though he was trying to hear something in the distance. He was so focussed that he had not even considered finishing what would have been an easy victory against Jeff, since the blonde boy was injured and distracted.

"What is it, Cap'n? Sam asked, slightly worried about the lack of response from their captain.

"Quiet, fools," Hunter hushed the two pirates suddenly, and he sounded so fierce that he frightened Sam and Puck into silence.

That's when everyone on the beach, including Jeff, heard it.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Cap'n?" Sam whispered, finally understanding the reason for the paleness of Hunter's complexion and why he'd been frozen in place, just listening for the sound of the nearby crocodile.

Jeff was immediately forgotten as a greater danger made itself apparent to the pirate captain, and within seconds, Hunter had climbed into the rowing boat and was urging his men to row as fast as possible back to the boat.

The crocodile itself emerged from the undergrowth a few seconds later, and entered the water just behind the boat, chasing the pirates all the way back to their ship.

Jeff, meanwhile, had climbed, albeit slowly now, up onto the rocks again, and was looking down into the lagoon water. He was just in time to catch sight of one of Nick's arms disappearing under the surface.

Without thinking twice about his injury or anything else, Jeff dived from the rocks and into the water, just to the side of where Nick had been submerged. Upon entering the water, he looked around wildly for his friend, eventually seeing him, being easily pulled further underwater by Mercedes and Tina. Jeff swam over hurriedly, placing his arms around Nick's torso, and attempting to pull him from the mermaids' grip, but he was weakened from the gash in his side and the previous fight, and at first, the mermaids were winning.

However, as soon as they saw the blood staining Jeff's jacket and dripping into the water, Mercedes and Tina swam away in fright, leaving Nick in Jeff's arms.

With the last of his strength, Jeff dragged Nick through the water, and lifted him up onto the nearest rock, before clambering up as well and collapsing next to his friend.

After he'd caught his breath, Jeff checked Nick over for injuries, but the other boy appeared to be fine, just unconscious from the fall. Then Jeff turned his attention on himself; he'd been injured before, and he knew that this wasn't the worst he'd had, but he was lacking in medical supplies at that moment. He slipped his shirt over his head, and tore it into a long strip, which he then wrapped around his stomach as best he could in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

Once he was satisfied, he laid down on the rock and turned on his side to look at the brunette boy next to him.

Nick was lucky that even though his clothes were wet, the temperature of the water and the lagoon itself was high enough that he was unlikely to suffer any sort of adverse effects from his surprise fall from the rock.

Jeff's eyes wandered from studying Nick's face, up to his hair, which was sticking up in all directions, and Jeff had to fight the urge to run his fingers through it, and move the strands out of the way of his eyes. He then allowed his gaze to travel the length of Nick's body, and then back up to the other boy's face.

A strange feeling came over Jeff at that point, he felt as though he'd violated Nick's privacy by looking at him like that, but Jeff couldn't work out why. What was wrong about looking at someone else's body? In his mind, Jeff couldn't think of anything that made it wrong, but he just had this feeling that it was.

It was like the sudden realisation from earlier when he considered that he might not be a child anymore; it was like he knew that there was something more to life but no one had ever told him what. He'd been so set in the belief that he would stay as a child forever, that he'd neglected to learn about adulthood, and therefore he had no clue what that would entail.

Love.

That was what Jeff found his thoughts drifting towards. It had always puzzled him how, in fairytales, the prince would fall in love with the princess, but he'd never truly understood the concept.

He wanted to be loved, that he'd always known, but he'd assumed that was the child in him longing for the love of his mother. Except, now, he was wondering whether there was another type of love in the world, a love that wasn't the love that a parent has for their child. For that wasn't the love shared between the prince and princess in fairytales, was it? No, they had their own special type of love.

That's when it occurred to Jeff; the prince and princess loved each other in the same way that parents and other married couples loved each other. It was that sort of love.

Jeff sighed, remembering suddenly that Nick had told him that it was possible for him to find himself a prince, and he realised that maybe he could share that sort of love with another boy. Jeff smiled happily at that thought.

Next to him, Nick had yet to wake up, and Jeff decided to pass the time just looking at his friend, but he still had a strange feeling inside of him every time he saw Nick, or touched him.

It was an odd feeling, not unpleasant, just something that he'd never felt before.

He reached up and brushed some of Nick's fringe out of his eyes, and suddenly froze when he realised what he was doing. Slowly, he lowered his hand, his mind racing as fast as possible as he tried to work out what was happening to him.

He already knew that he wanted to spend as much time with Nick as he could; he wanted to always be with the other boy, and hold him close. Wait, hold him close? Jeff didn't understand what that meant. Maybe it had something to do with the strange spark that he felt every time Nick touched him? Or was it similar to the comforting feeling he'd felt earlier when he'd been holding Nick's hand?

He didn't feel like this around the Warblers or Sebastian, nor did he feel like that around the mermaids or the fairies, and he was friends with them, so did this go beyond friendship? And what was it that was more than friendship?

Jeff knew the answer immediately, yet he still wasn't expecting it.

Love. Love was more than friendship, wasn't it?

Slowly, Jeff considered a new idea, one that frightened him slightly.

Was he in love with Nick?

And what did a person do when they loved another, but the other didn't know? Jeff very well couldn't blurt it out or just tell Nick without knowing the other boy's feelings as well, because if Nick didn't feel the same, then their friendship would be awkward, wouldn't it?

No, Jeff was just going to have to hide how he felt for as long as he could, either until he found out how Nick felt, or his own feelings disappeared.

That thought itself was mildly disappointing, but Jeff couldn't think of anything else to do. He was confused by his own feelings as it was, and nobody had ever told him that it was possible to fall in love with someone himself, so he was completely lost in his own oblivion.

"Jeff?" a slightly disorientated voice from beside him suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

"Nick?" Jeff turned around to see his friend sitting himself up and looking around at the lagoon. "Oh, thank goodness that you're okay!" He shifted over on the rock and hugged the brunette tightly, wincing slightly as his stomach injury got crushed.

"Jeff, are you alright?" Nick drew out of the embrace and only just seemed to notice that Jeff's chest was bare, while his stomach was swathed in layers of dirty cloth. "I saw you get hurt, oh, Jeff, it's not serious, is it?"

Jeff felt rather pleased at Nick's concern for him.

"It's just a scratch," Jeff said, waving Nick's worries away; it wasn't really a scratch, but Jeff didn't want to admit that he was hurt. "It's just bled a lot."

Nick nodded slowly.

"If you say that you're okay," he said, not looking entirely convinced.

Jeff laid his hand over Nick's and tried to ignore the shock of electricity that ran up his arm at the contact.

"I'm fine, honestly," Jeff said, also trying to ignore how close Nick was to him now. Nick was leaning in, getting closer, and Jeff didn't know what to do; he felt like something was about to happen, something that should have been happening, but he didn't know what it was. He leaned in a bit as well, wondering whether Nick was just going to hug him or something like that, but it was so unknown that Jeff panicked a little.

Nick, however, seemed to sense that Jeff was uncertain about what he was about to do, and even though the other boy had instinctively leaned forward as well, Nick couldn't just surprise him like that. Yes, he had just been about to kiss Jeff, completely unexpectedly, it wasn't what he'd planned, but he'd just been so concerned about Jeff that it had seemed like the right moment. But Nick couldn't see Jeff reciprocating with something he didn't know existed, and Sebastian's words were echoing around his head still, so he quickly changed his mind and hugged Jeff tightly again.

Jeff started in shock when Nick suddenly hugged him, but he understood quickly; of course, Nick had only been going in for a hug.

Their embrace was halted by Nick's sudden gasp.

"Jeff, have you seen the sea?" the brunette asked, lifting his head from the blonde's shoulder to look out across the lagoon.

"Huh?" Jeff said, also looking up, "Oh dear."

They were still perched on the same rock in the lagoon, but around them, the tide had risen and the rock was not looking quite so large any more, since almost half of it had been submerged already. The beach in the distance, where they'd first arrived that morning, was almost completely swallowed by the water, and the waves were reaching the first few trees at the top.

The only way out now was to swim or fly, but the shore was too far away for them to swim to without tiring, and anyway, the current looked too strong for them to battle through.

That left flying.

"We could fly?" Nick suggested, but Jeff shook his head.

"We're both too exhausted," he said.

And it was true, for when they tried to will themselves up into the air, they could not manage it.

"What do we do?" Nick asked, slightly fearfully, for the tide was rising particularly fast and was now just starting to get their feet wet. They scrambled further up onto the rock, bringing their knees up to their chests, and putting their arms around each other.

It appeared that that there would be no hope for them, until Nick caught sight of something drifting above the water towards them.

"I say, what's that?" he asked, pointing the object out to Jeff.

Jeff peered through the semi-darkness, and then gave a shout of joy.

"It's Thad's kite!" he cried.

"Do you think it could carry both of us?" Nick asked.

Jeff paused for thought, and then he shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said, "Thad and David tried and it wouldn't hold them."

"Then let us draw lots," Nick suggested, looking around for some seaweed that they could possibly use in the place of straws.

But while he was busy, Jeff had already caught the kite and was busying himself with the strings that were attached to it.

"No need," he said, causing Nick to stop his searching, "For you shall go with it."

"I'm not leaving you here, Jeff," the brunette protested, "I can't just let you stay on this rock by yourself, we shall have to wait for another way back to the shore."

"No, you have to take it," Jeff insisted, "I cannot have it on my conscience that I left you here, Nick."

"And you think that I can have it on mine?" Nick retorted.

"Look, Nick, if you take the kite, then maybe you can fly to the Red Indian camp, find the Warblers and send help with them," Jeff said.

"It'll be too late by then," Nick pointed out, "The tide is coming in too rapidly. Jeff, you're injured, you should go and find help."

Jeff smiled mischievously.

"Too late," he said simply.

Nick looked down suddenly and found that the kite strings had already been deftly tied around his waist and he was slowly being lifted into the air.

"Jeff!" he cried, reaching his arms out to catch hold of the blonde boy, but instead Jeff, in a moment of complete and utter surprise, pulled him back down for a second and kissed his cheek.

"Go to the Red Indian camp, Nick!" Jeff cried, releasing the other boy with a happy smile on his face.

"Jeffrey!" Nick yelled at the blonde boy, half in annoyance that he was making him leave him behind, and half because he was in shock at the fact that Jeff had just kissed him. Albeit, it was on the cheek, but it was a kiss, and it hadn't been completely initiated by Nick himself.

Progress.

Down on the rock, Jeff watched Nick's figure float away up towards the mountains; even if Nick had no idea where the Red Indian camp was, Jeff had faith that the kite would know exactly where to go. It was a Neverland kite after all.

Jeff tucked his head on top of his knees, which he had pulled up to his chest as he watched the rising water.

He'd just kissed Nick, well, on the cheek, and, in Jeff's mind, it was a thimble, but it was still something, and if the way that Nick had blushed in response was anything to go by, it appeared to be a good thing.

Jeff wasn't sure why he'd done it, but it had felt like the right thing to do at the time. Clearly this was another thing to add to the long list of feelings that were confusing him.

Now, back to more pressing matters, such as how Jeff was going to get back to the shore, and also find medical help for his injury. However, the night was starting to close in, and in almost no time at all, the rock he was perched on would be completely underwater.

Jeff could feel consciousness slipping away from him, and a cold feeling spread through his limbs like an icy fire. He couldn't find any resistance to fight it with, and it was using up the last of his strength to keep away sleep.

There was only one thought in Jeff's mind at that moment:

"To die will be an awfully big adventure."

It was silent in the lagoon at night, save for the constant splashing in the distance of the waves lapping at the shoreline. All the mermaids were asleep in their underwater caves, and even if Jeff had woken them, they would not have helped him.

Suddenly, a loud squawking filled the air, and startled Jeff back to a wakened state.

Behind him, sitting on her nest, was a Never bird.

Now, Never birds are odd creatures. They're over sized birds, larger than the average dog on the mainland, and covered in feathers that are more like large balls of fluff than anything else. They build their nests on water, and spend their days floating around from place to place. They can fly, but they often choose not to, in favour of just sitting in their nests and drifting to wherever they wish to go.

This particular Never bird had been observing from a distance the entire exchange between Nick and Jeff, and she'd always had a soft spot for Jeff anyway, so she came over to offer her services to him.

"What do you want?" Jeff asked, looking over the side of the rock and down to the bird in the water.

The bird squawked in response, flapping her wings in an attempt to get Jeff to understand her.

The blonde boy shook his head.

"I can't help you," he said, "I can't even help myself at the moment."

It wasn't until the bird actually flew off her nest and then pushed the nest nearer to the rock that Jeff realised what she wanted.

"Really?" he asked, his eyes wide with hope, "I can use your nest to reach the shore?"

The bird squawked an affirmative as Jeff carefully climbed into the nest, and then the bird flew down behind him and flapped her wings, powering the nest up towards the shore, and to safety once again.

A/N: Yay! They're both going to be okay :) Except, I'm sorry about the almost kiss! Next chapter, the drama with Sebastian will be happening...

Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought!