When Dorothy and Mercy caught up on Sybil's rescue party, it was already too late. They arrived in the middle of the fight, finding the Lost Girls in an affray with the Lost Boys. Without Peter around, it was Felix who was in charge, and when he had heard the girls had wandered onto boy territory, he hadn't thought twice about gathering his troops to kick them out.
This was an unplanned, roughly put together war waging party meeting a group of poorly organized boys, and Mercy stood in the middle of it.
"Try to keep the girls from getting hurt," she gave her orders to Dorothy who nodded and did as told.
Mercy felt Peter's presence before she saw him. Her arm reached out on pure instinct – instinct and maybe a little bit of old habit – and caught an arrow right before it hit Peter in the chest, to both their surprise. She dropped it as if it burnt her hand, scared of herself and her lack of control over her own body.
When he looked at her, he sported a smile – not his usual boyish grin she learned to be wary of, but a genuine, stunned smile, as though he couldn't believe she had protected him from that arrow after all the efforts she had put into hurting him today. She sneered and walked away with a scoff, not realizing that she arrow had been shot by Sybil herself, who stood meters away from them, seething angrily.
"I knew it!" she yelled over the crowd, pushing past a few Lost Boys.
The fight was a pitiful one, if you asked Peter. Both girls and boys stood their ground and neither gained nor lost land to their opponents. Actually, it resembled more a pirate brawl than a real fight that he would become a part of. He refused to have any part in this and was quick to grab Mercy's arm and hold her back.
"Let them have their moment, don't bother," he told her.
She shook him off.
"Since when do I take orders from you?"
Once upon a time, she had, but it was a long time ago.
"Take it as an advice."
She hated to admit it, but he was right. And when Sybil had made her way through the crowd, standing, breathless, before Mercy and Peter, she wore a winning grin.
"I knew it! You haven't turned your back on him-" Sybil accused Mercy, pointer finger poking at her shoulder. "You say you hate him but you leave camp for days at a time, disappearing without a word and without a trace. No one thinks anything of it, but I know…"
"Sybil, stop," Mercy said calmly, gently moving away her finger.
"You sneak off to see him! You are an insult to everything you claim to stand for! When have you ever cared about us?! How long have you known he kept a girl prisoner and hid it from us?"
"I said: stop it!" Mercy raised her tone.
"I have had enough of your betrayals. You're not my leader anymore, you're nothing!" she spat out. "You and this vile snake deserve each other, if nothing else! I cannot believe how long you've managed to have us fooled!"
She kept going on and on, unaware of her hysterical tone, or the frenzied looks she sent Peter and Mercy, hands gesturing madly around while holding her weapon. Sybil didn't realize the impact her words had on Mercy.
Peter had half a mind to step between them, grab that disrespectful girl and teach her a lesson. The perplexed look in Mercy's eyes and the way she hollowed out her cheeks, breathing only through her nose – he knew and recognized those signs, bracing himself for what was to come.
"We won't follow you anymo-"
Sybil was projected backwards, hitting a tree and then falling to the ground, holding her left cheek with both hands.
"Quiet!" Mercy screamed at her, eyes blazing with a kind of fire that usually glowed blue.
Some girls who saw what happened gasped and stepped back, momentarily stopping their assault on the boys. The second Mercy realized what she had done, she froze and stepped back, watching in horror as Sybil scrambled to her feet, gathering what little dignity she had left after the pathetic scene she caused with her ludicrous accusations.
"See!" she exclaimed, pointing at Mercy but looking at the girls. "I knew it! She doesn't care about us! She doesn't care if Pan keeps a girl prisoner!"
Peter sniggered and leaned against a tree, picking at his nails as if he wasn't standing in the middle of a clan fight. It gained everyone's attention, boys and girls alike pausing for a moment and staring at Pan in incomprehension. Mercy didn't seem to hear it, she was still processing what just happened and what she had done.
"What's so funny?" Sybil barked with her usual bite, sneering at him.
Peter's eyes rose to meet her, and he saw her swallow thickly, balling up her fists, blinking too rapidly for someone who tried to appear confident. He walked towards her until his very proximity affected her.
"You want the girl?" he asked Sybil, standing close enough that he could feel her ragged breathing and hear the mad thumping of her heart. She was scared. "Be my guest. Have her."
With a flick of the wrist, the caged opened under Wendy's startled gaze. Hey eyes drifted towards the twin cage next to hers, the one where her brothers were kept.
"Go on. You've come all this way, don't let it be for nothing," he urged Sybil, watching her shake as she walked past him, a smirk on his face as he glanced at Mercy who stood still, watching the exchange, vaguely aware of her surroundings.
Sybil joined Wendy and extended her hand, offering help to get out of the cage. But Wendy shook her head in fear, eyes wide, fingers hooked around the bars of the cage.
"No! No, don't take me. I can't leave my little brothers! Let me stay with them! I'll stay here," she begged, huddling at the far end of the cage, out of Sybil's reach.
"What are you waiting for?" Peter mocked Sybil now. "She's right there. Take her."
Letting his mockery get to her, Sybil reached further forward and managed to grab the girl's dress, yanking it towards her.
"Come with me! You'll be safe with us," she promised, but the girl fought back, ripping her dress out of Sybil's claws.
"No! I want to stay with my brothers! I won't leave them! I'll come if they can come too!"
Sybil froze, highly aware of the utter debacle this supposedly quick and easy rescue mission was. Everybody's eyes were darted on her, she could feel the heat rise in her cheeks; she could feel Dorothy's smug smile in her back, and Mercy's disappointed and sorry look drilling in the back of her head.
"Come now! You can't stay in that cage. Your brothers can't come with us, they belong here."
"They belong with me! I'm their family!" Wendy suddenly shouted, surprising everyone, including Pan, with the vehemence in her voice. She had been so shy and demure up until now. Then again, Pan hadn't tried to rip her away from her siblings.
"Don't be silly-"
"Don't touch me!" Wendy screamed, making Sybil back away finally.
Peter took a few steps backwards until he stood next to Mercy, who was still frozen on the spot. Their eyes were still trained on the scene unfolding before them. Sybil's defeat was complete and she was only beginning to see it.
"Isn't that what you wanted, Mercy? The girl is all yours, all you need to do is take her."
What was he doing now? Pretending she knew about this? Why would he do that? Allowing her to gain back her girls' trust and give her an argument against Sybil's accusations? She couldn't take the girl now, even if she wanted, even if she had known about all of this and had assembled this rescue party herself.
"She doesn't want to," she hissed between her teeth, just loud enough for him to hear but none of the girls.
"That hasn't stopped you from taking in the girls I had the Shadow bring to you. Do you think they wanted to?" he asked, torturing her. She hated that it was the truth. He was offering her a way to fall back on her feet and discredit Sybil, but how could she accept it? Her grip on her own arms made her knuckles go white. "I took them from their homeland just like I did to you. Wendy is an exception, I didn't even bring her here, she followed when I took her brothers."
"Stop it," she whispered, closing her eyes. She could still feel his hot breath, his words echoing in her mind.
"She came here willingly, I didn't take her. Why so hesitant to take her back to your camp? I'm doing this for you."
No one could hear their exchange but soon the curious stares would morph into wariness, she couldn't keep dragging out the conversation. He's doing this for me. No!
"You and I have radically different definitions of 'willingly'," she told him. "This has lasted long enough!" she suddenly shouted, gaining everyone's attention and walking to the middle of the crowd they formed. "It has to stop. Sybil, I will deal with you personally later. Dorothy, lead the girls back to camp. Wendy will stay where she wants to be, with her brothers. I will not force her to come with us against her will."
So much for Pan's generous offer to take up the mantel of the bad guy so that she wouldn't have to. This girl wanted to stay with her family, therefore she would stay. It made no sense to force her to follow them to the Lost Girls' camp. It was meant to be a place of safety, a haven, not another prison.
After this cold shower and harsh defeat, the girls didn't have any fight left in them to oppose their leader. Sybil had managed to talk them all into following her and it had turned out to be a terrible idea and a source of trouble for Mercy. Guilt-ridden and ashamed, the girls fell in line and followed their second in command without another word, going as far as to drag Sybil back when she tried to challenge Mercy one last time. Out of patience, Mercy cast a spell on Sybil to make her fall asleep.
Pan watched them all go, pleased to see Mercy's authority restored, and self-satisfied about having had a hand in it, even if she didn't follow his lead and take Wendy to appease the minds of her troops.
"Send them away," Mercy told him – or rather demanded. Peter smirked, crossing his arms and waiting for her to say please. His breath caught in his throat when she disappeared from her little spot and reappeared right under his nose. "I said send them away."
Her voice was cold as ice and let no emotion whatsoever transpire. Knowing when not to push his Mercy's buttons, Peter did what she wanted.
"You heard her," he told his boys. "Go back to camp. Resume your normal activities and wait for my return."
They were much quicker in obeying their leader's orders, but then again, they were too scared of him to even think about defying him the way Sybil had defied Mercy. As soon as they had cleared their close vicinity, taking their prisoners with them, Peter broke the tense silence that had settled between Mercy and him.
"It's just you and me now, love."
"You're a despicable person, I hope you know that," she spat in his face.
"You've told me enough, I'd have to be awfully dense not to know that by now," he chuckled, still not realizing she was past the point where she would even remotely enjoy his jests.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you? You kept this girl here, masked her presence so I wouldn't feel it," she accused him, hissing each word, scrunching up her nose in disgust. In disgust of him. "After all these years, just when I think I have moved on from what you did, you come back, you torment me and undermine my authority."
"On what ground do you accuse me of these things? I just helped you silence that unruly girl of yours! And I only tried to reach out to you, I wanted to talk-" he started, quickly shut off by Mercy's firm hand.
She held up a hand and closed her fist, Peter's throat constricting under an invisible pressure.
"Enough with your pathetic excuses! I've given you more time than you deserve already, and you've told me nothing worth my while," she seethed, angry tears bubbling in her eyes. "I have done nothing to deserve such cruelty. I have been nothing but a good little soldier to you and received nothing in return. What more could you possibly want? What more do you want to rob me of?"
"Mer…cy," Peter choked out, clawing at the invisible hand holding his throat.
He never taught her to do that.
"I have had enough of it, Peter," she said, voice breaking mid-sentence. One tear ran down her cheek reddened by anger. "I will not suffer more of your sick mind games."
She released him before the lack of oxygen made him lose consciousness and Peter coughed and cleared his throat, rubbing it slightly.
"It's important, Mercy. You have to listen to me, or you'll never know peace," he told her, voice raspier than usual.
"Peace? I haven't known peace in so long I wouldn't recognize it if it slapped me in the face," she laughed, getting slightly hysterical now. "I long to forget. I just… want… to get you out of my head."
And my heart.
"I have watched you walk away without doing anything once, I will not do it again," Peter warned her, stepping closer. "I haven't stopped you then, don't count on me to make the same mistake twice."
Drained of her energy and will-power, Mercy sighed and wiped away her tears. He didn't deserve them anyway, and she still had a lot to do before being able to call today a day. Looking back on it, she had given him too much time and energy already, losing herself in his little games and whims without reason. It was over.
"Letting me go was perhaps the only good thing you ever did, Peter."
When she opened her eyes, her head was pounding like nothing before and she vaguely registered that she was not lying on the ground of a battlefield like she expected, but on something cushiony.
She was lying on a bed. A bed that did not belong to her, but whose owner she knew well. Although she rarely came here, she would recognize this place in an instant: Peter's quarters. Something wasn't right. Despite her aching head, something felt amiss, and she had the immediate urge to get up and out of here before he found her lazying around in his bed.
"Don't move."
She froze when Peter's voice pierced through the shrill whistle in her ear. What on earth had happened to her? Blinking slowly, Mercy finally managed to lean up a little to try and find where the voice was coming from. She hated when Pan talked to her while being hidden in some dark corner.
He was sitting at the foot of the bed, his back turned towards her. Even from behind, she could see how tense he was, the way his shoulders squared and the fact he didn't look at her were a testimony to that.
"You never listen, do you? I told you to be careful! I told you not to die, and you went ahead and you just-" Pan didn't seem to find any colorful enough way of saying what he wanted to continue his sentence. "You just needed to listen to me, just this once…"
"I'm alive, aren't I?" she countered with a groan, the hammering in her skull making her question her own argument.
He scoffed, turning around to glare at her, his eyes so black Mercy wondered just what exactly she had done to justify such ire.
"No thanks to your diligent following of my advice. You're lucky I found you…"
Since when did Pan worry over her like this? He knew she could handle herself, and this wasn't the first time she got hit on the head too hard. Why was this different? She simply didn't know on what foot to dance around Peter these days. Something had thrown her off her rhythm and now… now they kept bumping shoulders and stepping on each other's toes.
"Can we delay the lecture until my head stops pounding? There's a whole marching band in my skull," Mercy complained with only slight exaggeration to get him to calm down. "Did we even win?"
"Of course, we won. Was there ever a doubt?" he scoffed, the hint of offense in his voice showing Mercy that he was already letting his anger come down.
There was a heartbeat. They merely stared at each other in silence, acknowledging that something bad nearly happened today, and maybe Mercy really was lucky.
"I really did scare you, didn't I?" she asked softly, momentarily forgetting about her headache. She studied Peter's features, the slight twitch in his eye, the knitting of his brows, the pinch of his lips. Was there something he didn't want to tell her?
She thought Pan would never admit to being scared in front of another breathing creatures – if he so much as admitted this to himself. Yet, he nodded, slowly, barely visibly, but he nodded.
"I'm sorry," Mercy whispered, now sitting on the bed. "I'll be more careful."
"You better be!" Peter replied, laughing nervously, arms crossed.
He moved so suddenly that Mercy didn't see him approach – her perhaps she was just out of it because of the head blow. Peter was standing in front of her, one hand reaching out to grab her chin and make her look up to meet his determined gaze.
"Because I'm not done with you, Mercy."