I feel like I should insert another disclaimer in here so...

I don't own Peter Pan.


The air feels muggy as I shift around in my chair. Even this far into the prison, I can still hear the hushed echo of Screeching Jane. There are no clocks in here. I've checked three times now, hoping that with every glance around there's a way to mark how many minutes have passed has magically appeared. I have no such luck, so instead I count each of Dr. Black's breath. Inhale. One. Exhale. Inhale. Two. Exhale. All the way up until I lose count around one thousand.

It takes one thousand breaths for him to speak. One thousand breaths for him to look up from the paper he's scrawling across. One thousand breaths to notice me. I've begun to think he didn't even know I was here. The fogged up version of me probably wouldn't have been aware. This fogless version of me sits in tense pain, waiting, waiting, and more waiting.

I count his breaths, anticipating for when I can leave and reunite with my green savior. I left him in his office, his words telling me to go, his eyes begging me to stay. His goodbye kiss is at first sweet and gentle until it's wet and hard, and it takes Hale clearing his throat to break us apart.

"For fucks sakes, Cullen. She'll only be gone an hour."

Edward smiles at me, ignoring the orderly I've come to hate just a little bit less, before leaning in for another kiss. It reminds me of the night when he stopped asking to kiss me. When he took my lips with his because he knows just how much I want it too. I love how he can be both sweet and demanding. How he charms me with his dulcet tones of affection and tender caresses across my hands, my face my arms, my back. How he possesses every twist of my hips, every moan that falls from my lips with his commanding grip on my body.

During the night, when all the patients have gone to sleep and the orderlies have slithered their way back to where they came from, he comes to me, to my bed, pulling me to my feet and down the hall until we're locked away in his office with only the fire and the waving ocean in the distance as company.

We sit on the worn leather couch, telling stories, laughing at how Jessica and Lauren bicker, cooing over Rosalie's growing tummy, hummed to sleep by Screeching Jane's ever-present howling. But it's the nights he pulls me onto his lap, his lips insistent on my flesh, his words begging me, "Please, Wendy. Please make us both feel good."

Over and over until finally I comply after relentlessly teasing him just because I can, and when we're boneless, breathless, panting into each other's necks, smiling at the brief freedom, laughing at the mess we've created in our clothes, we hold each other until the sun comes up and we have to restart our day of pretending to swallow cocktails and secret conversations behind closed doors.

When Hale grows too impatient, done waiting for our tenderness to end and eager to leave the office he obviously doesn't feel very comfortable in, he grabs my arm, yanking me—albeit gently—from my green savior. It doesn't matter. He could have only touched my elbow with his fingertips, Edward would have still pushed him against the wall, his arm lodged up against Hale's throat, his face snarling in anger as he spits out, "Don't you ever touch her again."

Hale puts his arms up in surrender, choking out words around his closed up throat. "I won't. I'm just trying to do my job."

"Remember to keep your job away from her."

Edward steps back, ignoring the way Hale gasps in air, and takes my hand, bringing my palm to his lips. "A kiss for the road, Wendy."

I tuck it safely in the right-hand corner of my mouth. "I'll be right back. Good—"

He jerks me toward, pressing our foreheads together. "Never say goodbye."

"Because goodbye means going away."

"And going away means forgetting," he ends on a whisper, watching helplessly as I leave behind Hale.

"Isabella?"

I glance up. One thousand. "What did you say?"

Dr. Black's stare is as neutral as the colors in his office. "I asked how you were."

"Good."

"I heard you've been making some new friends."

"Yes."

"Things are going well then with them?"

I think of my green saviors last kiss still safely tucked in the right-hand corner of my mouth and smile. "Yes."

"Your memory has improved so much from that visit a few weeks ago, so I assume we've found the right cocktail mix."

I itch to pat my pocket where a plethora of candy sits. "Yes."

"Tell me, Isabella, do you ever think about home?"

The smile drops from my face. "No."

"Not even about Emmett."

I stay silent.

"I'm just wondering with your newly found clarity if you remembered what happened back at home.

Blue. So much blue. "Stop."

"Let's talk about Emmett. You couldn't before, so I'm wondering if you can now."

Red. Sticky, sticky red everywhere. "Stop it."

"More specifically, Isabella, let's talk about the day Emmett wanted to leave you."

Screaming. So much screaming. I couldn't stop screaming. "I said stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" I can't stop screaming.

"Isabella…"

I don't know what he says next. I don't know what he does when I tune him out. I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the tears falling down my cheeks, remembering my sweet face brother and wondering when he'll visit me next. Emmett. Emmett. Please come. Please come and take me from this prison. You promised. You never break your promises. Until everything goes white. Or dark. I can't be too sure.