Disclaimer: I don't own Peter Pan or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Paniacs like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.
Rating: T+
Spoilers: This takes place after the real story leaves off and goes completely AU from there, so shouldn't be many spoilers.
A/N: Sorry for the delay: I spent the last days with hot cocoa, looking over what I'd written over the last few days before that and wondering how it all went so bloody wrong. I'm hoping it was just a short-term case of the yips and with a bit of effort and a boost of self-confidence I can push past it. I don't know whether this chapter reflects an improvement or more of the same, but it's out there now and hopefully the next one will definitively improve.
Chapter Eleven: A New Proposal
Time passed. Time does that, no matter how bored we may become waiting for it to do so. Mackenzie managed to keep herself entertained. Her laptop was a big help, containing as it did her vast MP3 collection, a DVD player requiring only her imagination to play anything she wanted to see, several games, thousands of pages of pre-written stories, and the all-important word processing program. She also found her fit within the mechanism of the ship. While she would rather work on motorcycles and ATVs than comfort a bare-chested pirate captain while he shuddered out his night terrors she couldn't deny there was a certain appeal to the work. Or at least to the pirate.
She couldn't let herself think that way. This was not the kind of man you could take home to meet Mother. If she ever got home to see her mother again. Even if the path reappeared that was hardly a certainty. She was a prisoner here, no matter how loosely she was caged.
She didn't know exactly what to think about the time she spent holding him while he cried. It was one thing when it was genuine, but quite another when it was clearly put-on. She didn't know why he did that; no reason for it she could imagine, unless it was perhaps that he thought she wasn't paying enough attention to him at those times. Was it worse or somehow better when it wasn't real? At least he wasn't actually relying on her for comfort at those times but, what was he getting out of it?
He didn't sleep all that often, actually. She didn't, either, but she tried to catch her Zs while he did, so as not to disturb him. Most of the time she lay there awake, listening to the absolute silence of him lying there awake. But on one occasion she managed to slip off to sleep ahead of him.
She dreamt. She didn't often dream, not that she could ever remember, but this dream was quite common and most unpleasant, though it didn't qualify by any measure as a nightmare. As always, when the dream reached the part where it became recurrent, she soon realized that she was, in fact, dreaming, and tried to shake it off. And as usual, it wasn't so easily done. She was trapped, just as much as she was immobilized.
She was wakened by a touch. She lashed out reflexively, but he dodged and her fist did not connect. "Easy. Easy now. You were having a nightmare," he said.
"No. I'm just not someone who should ever be taken by surprise," she said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"You were having a nightmare. It's why I came over."
"No, I wasn't. Just… an unpleasant dream. And how did you know, anyway?"
"I couldn't sleep. Looked over here to see if I would be disturbing you if I arose. You were so bloody tense I thought you were having some sort of apoplexy, but then you started making little noises of distress and I realized you were dreaming."
"Oh. Wonderful. Well, it's over now. Thank you."
"What were you dreaming about?" he asked, sitting down next to her at the end of the couch.
"Nothing."
"Oh yes, of course."
"Nothing important."
"My dear, when someone like yourself has a nightmare, it is rather important."
"It wasn't a nightmare, and what do you mean, 'someone like me?'"
He gave her a look. "Well. Despite your rather ludicrous fear of water, which I am happy to see is fading nicely, you are rather an… aggressive individual."
"What?"
"You did just try to strike me in the face."
"You did just wake me up."
"Touché. Now, what did you dream?"
"Nothing important."
"Mack."
"Nothing. Just… a stupid dream I've had for a long time. It's not a nightmare, it's just uncomfortable."
"Tell me about it."
"Why do you want to know so badly?" she asked.
"I know a little something about the displeasures of recurrent dreams. Sharing them helps a little, believe me."
"You don't seem much helped."
"I am, though. I don't feel half so alone, now, even in the midst of a nightmare. I know you'll be there for me."
She didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
"Just tell me. It might help, and what could it hurt?" he said.
She sighed. "Okay, what the hell, eh? Well, first off, you gotta know a little history. I was the youngest of four kids, and by a long ways - so my parents were a lot older than me. A few months after I graduated from high school, a little over a month after my eighteenth birthday, my dad had an aneurysm - what I suppose you'd call an apoplexy or a brain storm. Doctors in my day and age are really good at saving lives, but they told us he was going to die. But he was tough, and he didn't. But living took everything he had, and he wasn't tough enough to shake off the after effects. He never walked or even sat up on his own again. For over a decade, he lived in bed, in his chair, and in his wheelchair. That was all there was. Then he died.
"Well, after a long time, after years of being his caretaker and horsing him around and watching him live in this living hell, I started having dreams. They were all different: I'd be at school, at work, grocery shopping, working at a freakin' garage sale. Then, all of a sudden, I would find myself down on the floor and unable to get up. My legs were too heavy, my arms were too heavy, I was just too weak. I know what it means. I don't want what happened to my dad to happen to me. I don't want to live like that. Knowing what it means doesn't make it go away. I still have them, irregularly, but not at all infrequently. I can't shake it off because I can't make the fear of that go away. It could happen because of high blood pressure, head trauma… there's a multitude of ways I could end up paralyzed. Worse, I could end up cognitively affected and not even be able to function mentally. I'm terrified of losing brain function but if I were paralyzed but still able to think, I'd still be able to work. Much as I fear paralysis it probably would be the better outcome for me than to lose my mind. Dad didn't have anything because his work was all physical - he was a grease monkey and he didn't know anything else to be, didn't even have any hobbies that weren't physical. I'd miss turning wrenches - hell, I do miss turning wrenches - but more than half of who I am is what I create in my head."
He reached out to embrace her and she stood up quickly and moved away. "I wish you'd let me hold you," he said, not sounding much surprised. "I could comfort you the same way you comfort me. I would like to do that for you. You are mother to me, I could be father to you."
"I had a father, thank you. He does not need to be replaced or succeeded."
He nodded. "Very well. I… have had an idea rumbling around in my head for a few days now, but I haven't said anything because I know you're not going to be well pleased by it. If you gave it a chance, you'd find yourself in more comfortable circumstances, by far, but I understand if you can't bring yourself to try. I simply realize now that I must put it forth and run the risk of you rejecting it so that I may have the chance to talk you around."
She turned and looked at him suspiciously. "What idea?"
"It occurred to me that perhaps it might be easier to sleep, and perhaps these dreams of mine might be less frequent, might disappear altogether, if I felt your presence more closely at night. If you, say, slept beside me."
Her first thought was to refuse, adamantly, but even as she had this thought a thousand others assaulted her and kept her from speaking. If it worked, isn't it kind of my duty? Wait, now, I don't owe him anything. He has left me alive thus far: Maybe I do. But that's going too far. That's putting myself in prime position to be… taken advantage of. Be honest now; don't you kind of want to be taken advantage of? Aren't you just being stubborn at this point?
"I… don't know," she said slowly. "I think we'd have to have some ground rules."
"Of course," he said, obviously pleased at her easy acceptance. "Now, I would like you to be close, perhaps touching, but that is all. A hand on the shoulder, perhaps, just so I can feel you there. You can set up barricades between us otherwise if you so wish it."
She nodded. "I… suppose I can work with that."
"Excellent," he said, and pushed himself to his feet. "I truly appreciate this, my dear. I don't know that it will work, but I think it stands a very good chance. I have suffered these dreams for an extremely long time now: putting them behind me will be exceedingly welcome."
