Chapter 8: I am a Lost Boy

"I am a lost boy from Neverland Usually hanging out with Peter Pan

And when we're bored, we play in the woods

Always on the run from Captain Hook

Run, run lost boy

They say to me

Away from all of reality."

Ruth B., Lost Boy. (2015).

"Harley Quinn, do you pledge to honor our rules and to be a part of Neverland?" Peter's kind eyes blazed with emotions. "Do you promise to fight pirates, to never grow up and to believe in magic and fairies?"

Some of the younger Lost Boys giggled and despite the numbness in her soul Harley felt herself smiling. Everyone who belonged to Neverland was standing below her and Peter. They were perched high up on the platform where he and Wendy slept.

She could make out the faces of people she already knew. Wendy stood next to Jodie and was beaming. Jodie was not. Porter grinned up at her, obviously happy. Kaitlyn and Kurt waved at her.

Peter and Wendy had asked her last night, had promised to look out for her. Promised she could be part of a family.

Harley felt like her insides had been replaced with pure darkness. The kind of darkness that swallows you whole and leaves you with nothing left.

And yet.

In the worst moment of her life Peter and Wendy had stood by her side, had comforted her, had promised to help her.

Jodie and Porter had gone on to Neverland without them, taking the silent fairy girl with them.

Harley had stayed on the ground, crying and barely holding herself together. The couple had let her cry, had comforted her where they could.

Then they had literally picked her up from the ground.

While walking through the streets of Gotham men and women alike had come from the shadows, had tried hurting her, one man tore at her shirt, one tried to punch her in the face without hesitation.

Peter and Wendy had fended them off and when one woman sprang at her, screaming obscene words Harley had knocked her out.

The pain in her fist had felt good and she'd felt more like herself again.

Once safely inside Neverland, Peter had told her she could become a part of Neverland if she liked. If she wanted, they would become her family.

As she had lain in the semi-darkness of the tent next to a snoring Jodie and a smelly Gracie she'd realized she did want to become part of the Lost Boys.

She wanted a place to belong.

Peter had informed her of the way things worked. That there was an oath she would have to agree to in front of everyone. That there would be one part in it that was a for the kids and she'd just have to go along.

"I do."

She remembered the last oath she had given. In a setting similar to this one.

"Lost Boys!" Peter called out. "Please welcome our newest member, Harley Quinn!"

Harley was surprised by the uproar and the joy in which everyone of them, except for Gracie, yelled and cheered, obviously happy for her to be there. Gracie jumped up and down, her dirty fairy wings flapping excitedly.

"Harley has been singled out as a target." Peter spoke and a hush fell over the large factory. All the jokes were over now. He was all business and Harley felt calmer and less ashamed when he spoke about her situation like this. "Which means, we all must keep a close eye on our surroundings."

More than 50 faces looked up at him in trust and confidence and that's when Harley realized, Neverland wasn't just a family.

It was an army.

"If anyone looks at you for longer than usual or makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, report them to your leader."

"Gracie makes me feel uncomfortable!" Aiden called out, obviously jokingly and while some of the others laughed, the little girl sent him a death glare, which made Harley smile.

Peter sighed and then looked at the older Lost Boys. "Be prepared to fight when you leave Neverland with Harley." He explained. "Be vigilant, everyone. More than usual. Get to work!"

They all began to go to the places they were assigned to and Harley turned to Peter with a shy smile.

"What happens now?"

"Follow me."

They climbed down the ladder together. Peter going first. Jodie and Wendy waited for them at the bottom. Wendy was smiling and Jodie looked as if she'd just smelled something rotten.

"Welcome to Neverland!" Wendy beamed and hugged her tightly.

Harley closed her eyes for the briefest second, letting herself feel safe in Wendy's embrace.

"Thanks." She stepped back, feeling embarrassed by her emotions.

"Because you saved Jodie and Aiden, you will be put on Rung Six." Wendy explained and led the way to the golden ladder Harley had seen in her first night in Neverland. The one where all the names were written.

And there it was, in elegant, curvy writing she saw her name on Rung Six.

Harley Quinn.

She traced the elegant H with her fingertip, wondering if she should have asked to be called Harleen. Was she still Harley Quinn without her Puddin'?

But then again, she wasn't Harleen anymore, was she?

"This is for you, Harley." Wendy was beaming. "You've earned it."

Peter handed her a small, black box and when Harley opened it she was rewarded with a black, slim pistol.

"Thank you." She whispered as she pocketed it.

"Jodie will show you the ropes." Peter explained looking at the other woman with a smile. "She's agreed to take you on."

"Come on." Jodie muttered. "Let's get the girls."

Harley was responsible for Lauren, Rachel and Gracie.

It was three girls, one of them never uttered a word and the job should not have been that difficult.

"Get down from there! Be careful! No, Gracie, don't drink that!"

As it turned out, responsibility was not Harley Quinn's strong suit.

Jodie had gone ahead with Porter to "set up" and had left Harley alone with three little humans who didn't seem to understand the words no or shut up.

Gracie dropped the dirty water bottle she'd found back onto the dirty street and Harley sighed in relief. Rachel and Lauren were still balancing on an abandoned, dirty pipe that had been left outside near Neverland. The abandoned factories offered a lot of space and objects which were a dream in children's eyes, but Harley only saw danger and one of them lying bleeding on the ground.

She didn't want to disappoint Peter and Wendy on her first task.

And she didn't want to give Jodie any reason to be cross with her.

"Girls." She muttered. "Can we just go on, Jodie and Porter are waiting."

"No they're not." Lauren explained casually as she tiptoed across the pipe. "They're busy setting up. Besides this is safe."

"This is how we practice." Rachel agreed, also tiptoeing on the wobbly pipe. "Peter and Wendy said we should always practice to stay on top of our game."

Gracie looked at Harley as if she wanted to agree and the winged little girl elegantly jumped onto the pipe as the other two abandoned it. Gracie did more than tiptoe, she glided across it and Harley was frozen to the spot because it looked so hauntingly beautiful.

"We're ballerinas." Lauren explained. "Jodie taught us."

"Jodie?" She repeated, unable to keep her reaction to herself. "Seriously?"

As a dancer and former acrobat herself Harley couldn't picture someone with Jodie's body type being a ballerina.

"Yeah." Lauren giggled. "Even though she's fat."

Gracie pushed the older girl surprisingly roughly and Lauren lifted her hand to smack her. Gracie ducked.

"Hey!" Harley went in between the two girls. "Stop it!"

"She pushed me!"

"I don't care." Harley shrugged. "Come on, let's get going."

Gracie rushed behind her, a cheeky grin on her face and Lauren scoffed, before walking ahead. Harley turned around, the youngest girl with the fairy wings was behind her, she stopped every now and then, or began skipping, but she always caught up with them.

"Jodie said we're supposed to be like sisters." Rachel was walking beside her. She was just as tall as Lauren, but she didn't carry herself with the same confidence. "But Gracie makes that really difficult."

Harley didn't care about these problems. She missed her Puddin'.

But she had taken an oath, she had promised to be part of Neverland and she'd been told they were like a family.

"Sisters can be difficult." She said and was surprised at her calm and sane voice. She'd almost forgotten what that part of her sounded like. "But you have to stick together."

"Do you have sisters?"

Before them Lauren turned around to listen in. Beside her Gracie fell into step with her.

"Eh..." Harley reached up to touch her hair. "No." She finally said.

"Now you do." Rachel smiled up at her and Harley felt something inside of her stir.

Lauren scoffed. "She doesn't want to be our sister, Rach. She's only here because her beloved boyfriend abandoned her and she has nowhere else to go."

Gracie stiffened next to her and Rachel looked at her with a questioning gaze. Lauren had both of her hands on her hips and was staring at her in the challenging way only a pre-teen could.

Harley was ready for a come back, when a large man came out of one of the alleys around them, snatching Lauren and pulling her with him.

"No!" Harley charged after them, Gracie and Rachel right beside her.

For the first time since last night, Mistah. J and Jester and all that happened vanished from her mind as she rushed into the alley, everything inside of her screaming that she needed to get this little girl back.

Not this, not her, not now.

"Harley Quinn!" The man was large with broad shoulders, Lauren was pinned in his arms, a knife against her throat. She was crying. "Ain't you lookin' fine."

"Let the girl go."

"Aww..." He chuckled and traced a meaty finger along Lauren's cheek. "But she's so cute." He bit the air next to her ear, making the girl flinch.

"What do you want?"

The man laughed now. "What do you think? I want you of course, beautiful."

"Fine." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I'm here. Let the girl go and you can have me."

Gracie was directly behind her, Rachel was crying quietly, shaking like a leaf.

"Do you know who I am?" He asked with a grin that promised nothing good.

Harley went closer, she wanted to be ready to strike. She had to get Lauren out of his grip. His smell was overwhelming. Sweat mingled with whiskey and something rotten. She felt sick and couldn't imagine how terrible Lauren must be feeling.

"No." She said. "I have no idea."

"Oh Harley!" He laughed loudly and long and she realized the rotten smell was coming from his mouth. His teeth were stained dark. "I worked for Mistah J, waaaay back in the day!"

There were so many people working for him. In the club, around the house, business partners...she couldn't keep track.

"When you came into our lives, he fired me, because he didn't like the way I looked at ya."

She remembered then.

There had been two of his men who hadn't adjusted well to her presence in the house. One of them had flirted with her shamelessly and when her Puddin' had found out he had lost it.

That's my girl, you understand?! You don't talk to her, you don't even look at her, you fuckin' piece of scum!

He'd beaten him to a pulp and she had bandaged his bloody and bruised hands afterwards, as he repeated over and over again.

You're mine, Harley Quinn. You're mine. You belong to me, no one else. You're mine. Mine. Mine. Mine...

She'd kissed him, promised she'd always be his. She'd loved him so much for his possessiveness. She'd never felt more valued, more safe.

And now?

Now he'd just moved on? Forgotten all about her? Replaced her with the first woman he met? Over literally nothing?

"Such a pretty thing." The man in front of her groaned. "Always parading your body in front of us, wearing close to nothin'. A man can dream can't he? But no, J got pissed and kicked me out of the house!"

"He should've killed ya." She reached inside her jacket pocket, her hand touching the pistol Peter had entrusted her with earlier that day.

"Aw don't be like that Harley-Baby. We can have some fun, now that he's handed you off to the public."

Lauren had gone still in his arms, her eyes wide, staring at Harley pleadingly.

"Maybe he didn't." She said. "Maybe this is a test and whoever touches a hair on my head gets killed instantly."

He laughed loudly again, the stench coming off him in waves, each one more intense than the rest. Harley was glad she hadn't eaten breakfast, she would have puked her guts out otherwise.

"Right, Baby whatever you need to tell yourself."

"Let the girl go."

"Why?" He chuckled. "What's she to you?"

Harley pulled the pistol out of her pocket, pointing her gun directly at him.

"That's my sister, you piece of shit."

Lauren's lower lip trembled as she continued crying, Gracie leaned against Harley, peering around her hip, looking at the scene behind her.

On her other side, Rachel muttered: "Cool."

The man was unimpressed. He pulled the knife away and pushed Lauren to the ground roughly. She scrambled to her feet and ran behind Harley, hugging Rachel tightly.

"Fine, be difficult. See if I care. You're basically mine anyway, the Joker don't give a shit about you any more. It was only a matter of time till he got bored with you."

Harley knew how Peter and Wendy felt about killing people.

So she shot him in the once in the knee.

She enjoyed the wailing whining sound that came from deep inside of him and smiled.

"Come on, girls."

All three of them followed her immediately. Lauren wiped her tears away and sniffled once. There was no more straying from her, no climbing, no skipping. She led the way downtown and they each followed wordlessly.

As it turned out Jodie and Porter had set up a small stage. They'd brought microphones, a large speaker and a guitar. When the other four of them arrived Jodie said:

"Look after the money and keep an eye out for cops."

And then she and Porter began to sing.

Harley Quinn wasn't easily impressed, but she could hear and see clear as day how talented Porter and Jodie were.

The crowds came naturally. As if they were being pulled towards the group magically.

There was a gentleman's top hat on the ground for people to give money. It flowed similar to the way it had in the club, even though Jodie wasn't all that pretty and definitively not dressed as Harley had been.

The girls sat down together and watched them. Lauren and Rachel sat close together, whispering. Gracie sat down beside them, but with distance and swayed to the music.

Other children sat down too, adults and teenagers stood around them, filming with their smartphones, nodding their heads appreciatively. Tourists took pictures and watched happily.

The way Jodie and Porter covered famous songs was undeniably beautiful. They took words others had written and made them their own.

Harley was jealous at the talent and hated herself for it.

Soon she was bored and sat down beside Gracie who was watching Jodie intently. Lauren and Rachel were still talking and giggled every now and then.

Her gaze was glued to the top hat with the money inside. She took her responsibility seriously. If the girls she was in charge of thought she was only here because she had no other option she could only imagine what Jodie thought.

She would keep this money safe if it was the last thing she ever did.

"You saved us."

The voice was sweet, not as high pitched as she'd expected, calm and clear. She said it as if she'd only just realized that Harley had indeed saved all three girls. Harley's head snapped around to the little girl sitting beside her.

Gracie stared at her with a vulnerable, open expression.

"Of course I did." She said simply. "You're my sisters."

The little girl with the broken fairy wings giggled and the sound reached into the cold dark pit that had become Harley Quinn's heart and warmed it, softened it, transformed it.

For the first time in years that felt like decades Harley truly believed she could love someone other than the Joker. Truly, unconditionally love somebody. Protect them fiercely with all she had. Die for them if she needed to.

"Thank you." Jodie said in a warm voice Harley had never heard from her before and interrupting the moment. "Have a great day!"

The crowd applauded and Harley was immediately brought back to her former, glorious life. The cheers, the applause. The world that had been hers. Gracie jumped up to join the others.

She shook her emotions off and joined Porter who was taking the money from the hat and putting it inside a secure bag.

"Let me help." She reached inside the hat.

"Don't!" Jodie snapped, her voice no longer warm, but as icy cold as Harley was already used to.

"She saved us today, Jodie." Lauren explained. "I got into trouble and she saved me. She's one of us."

Gracie nodded fervently and Rachel said:

"It's true."

Jodie sighed. "Fine, whatever. I don't care. We have to move, we've been here too long anyway."

They moved to a different location. Again, Harley was told to watch the hat and keep a look out for the police. Porter had the money in the inside of his jacket pocket.

This time the girls danced.

She was so impressed by how they used their entire bodies, how they were truly and rarely beautiful, in the way people, who did what they were born to do, were beautiful.

It made Harley long for more.

She rubbed her forehead. Neverland was a magical place indeed.

"It's crazy isn't it?" A voice next to her muttered. She turned and saw Porter next to her. "The talent they have when they're given a chance." He smiled and Harley smiled back because he had the kind of smile that was contagious. "I'm Porter, I don't know if we've ever been properly introduced."

"Harley."

He grinned. "Aiden is smitten by you."

She laughed and was surprised by how genuine the sound was. "Yeah, I like him too."

The little boy reminded her of her childhood, of friends she had played with, of carelessness and endless possibilities.

The two of them watched as the girls continued their ballet-routine. Porter's gaze was fixed on Jodie who stood before the girls and seemed to be instructing them with gestures.

"Is Jodie really a ballerina?"

"She was, yeah." He gave her a kind smile again. "It's a heartbreaking story. You should ask her about it."

But Harley had enough heart-break of her own at the moment. She didn't want to share anyone else's. So she watched as Lauren, Rachel and Gracie twirled and bent and seemed to fly above the concrete like little angels.

"Welcome to Neverland, by the way." Porter said. "I'm glad you're on of us Lost Boys now."

Harley kept her gaze on the smallest girl, the one who's voice she'd finally heard, the one with the broken wings. Tears burned in her eyes as she looked at Gracie and Porter handed her a handkerchief without asking her what was wrong.

Harley was glad for it.

She couldn't have explained the emotional turmoil inside of her, even if she'd wanted to.

I will always be team Gracie :) Any thoughts? Please review!