"What do you mean?" Mercy gasped, shaking her head. Tears were already welling up in her eyes and a knot in her throat made it harder to breathe. Her thoughts ran a mile a minute, trying to connect the dots but afraid of the conclusion she would draw.

"You know what I mean." Defeat. So much defeat in his tone and the slump in his shoulders. "You were on your deathbed. I didn't have a choice, I had to bring you to the spring."

"No," she whispered, softly. "No."

"You wouldn't wake up, you wouldn't open your eyes... I found you lying in a pool of your own blood and a bush of dreamshade. The black magic was seeping up your veins as if replacing the very blood you were losing." His hands shook as he re-lived the memory, eyes closed and features twisted in pain. "I couldn't lose you…"

"No," Mercy hiccupped before falling back on the ground, one hand covering her mouth. "No, Peter. No, no, no…" A litany of nos fell from her lips and she shook her head, in disbelief. It couldn't be. He was lying. He was lying again to make her stay without a fight. He only wanted her to stop fighting.

"When you woke up the next day, I was so relieved. You didn't remember a thing, not even getting hurt in the first place, and I-" He swallowed thickly. His mouth was dry and his palms clammy. "I didn't tell you then. I don't know why."

"You had years to tell me, and you still didn't!" she accused him, raising her voice though it was breaking now.

"I didn't want to take that away from you, not yet at least… It drives you, this… this hope. I couldn't stand being the reason you lost it. Therefore, I kept the truth to myself – no one else knows but the Shadow." Who conveniently couldn't speak, Mercy thought. "Maybe… maybe I wouldn't have to tell you and destroy that part of you… Maybe you would choose to stay of your own accord."

She didn't know what to say. Her heart had stopped its mad frenzy and now stood still in her chest. Her breathing settled down and a sense of calmness replaced the panic that had overwhelmed her only minutes ago.

"You should have let me go. Even if it was in death, at least I would have left this wretched place."

The words came out without her consent, tumbling from her lips. Her throat was so constricted that it hurt to speak and it was a wonder she could speak at all. Those were words of spite and anger – words she didn't truly mean, and regretted instantly. Peter's expression fell, and his eyes shone with the reflect of the moon.

"I couldn't. Just like you can't leave Neverland, I couldn't let you die."

"Why?!" she burst in anger, standing up and towering over Pan's figure, still kneeling in the dirt. "What superior power forced your hand in that decision, please enlighten me because I have no idea what could possible make you think you have any right to decide for me!"

Peter stood up, now facing Mercy. They were only inches apart though they had never been farther away from each other than right this second.

A lump was stuck in his throat, but he swallowed it and met her maddened gaze. If looks could kill he would be a dead man by now, but even Mercy did not have such power. An amusing thought occurred to him: with or without magic, Mercy had always held the power to destroy him.

This thought – this untimely, ludicrous thought was all it took for the dam to break and the truth to spill out.

"Love."

First denial, then incomprehension, and finally disgust. Those were the emotions Peter read in Mercy's eyes when he told her the truth, at long last. He hadn't expected her to return his feelings, or even to understand them – after all, he had been her tormentor for so long. What took him aback though, was the sheer force of her rejection.

Literally.

"Liar!" she yelled at him, and before he could even think about answering, he was sent back with such tremendous force that he felt his bones crack upon hitting a tree that stood a few meters behind him. The air was knocked out of his lungs so fast he gasped for breath.

Mercy had no intention of letting him do so, and yet another blow of pure rage in magic form hit him in the chest, sending him right through the tree and into the next one. The rumble of the broken tree falling and hitting the forest ground shook the earth and sent off every bird in their vicinity, but they knew no one would come for them.

Every soul on this island knew better than to step between them.

"Don't use words you don't understand!" she sat at him, now standing before him.

Peter was panting against the tree, his entire body hurting and pulsing from the strong blows inflicted upon him. It wasn't so much the rough bark of the tree and his shattered ribs that hurt, but the look on Mercy's face. There wasn't a shadow of a doubt that she believed what she said. She truly did not think him capable of grasping the concept of love. At all.

Who could blame her?

Right now, her whole world was shaking, Mercy stood on unsteady grounds and she chose to blame him for it. It was his fault after all. He couldn't deny it. He tried to make it better, but he only managed to post-pone the inevitable.

She was going to rain down on him with the force of a thousand raging storms. He was the one who opened her eyes to her own strength. He was the one who showed her how to tame it and use it to her advantage and against her enemies. And now… she was going to use it against him.

Her ultimate enemy.

He pulled back from the tree with a slight grunt and fell on all four, taking in sharp breaths of air before looking up to meet her vengeful eyes. The scar on her face stood out as she glared at him. He remembered the day he gave it to her in vivid detail – one of his most shameful moments. He hadn't meant to – but once more, he had hurt her.

It had made him wonder if he was cursed too. If maybe he was destined to always hurt the things he loved most. He couldn't count the scars on Mercy's body, and most had been from him. She was a fighter in her heart and soul, and sometimes their training sessions didn't end well. She never showed weakness, she never backed down and always jump on her feet to keep on fighting right away. Did she feel the pain at all or did her hatred for him supersede everything else?

When she placed her foot on wet ground and slipped that day, Peter saw his sword come down in slow motion. The vision of the tip of the blade slashing through Mercy's smooth, perfect skin and nearly depriving her of her eye was etched in his memory.

Naturally, he had offered to heal her, but she had refused. She wanted to remember the lesson she learned that day.

"Stop looking at me!" Mercy snapped suddenly, breaking Peter out of his reverie.

He didn't see the kick coming but he sure as hell felt it when her foot landed in his stomach. He had a feeling of déjà vu – Mercy looking for a fight, attacking again and again until he returned her blows. It was her defense mechanism, her way of avoiding certain conversation with others or herself.

He stayed on the ground.

"You disgust me! Do you hear me?! I loathe the sight of you, my skin crawls in your mere presence," she spat at him, pacing before him. Mercy stopped in front of a tree and waved her hand upwards, magically slicing off a branch and catching it as it fell. As soon as her fingers wrapped around the base, it changed into a curved sword, the tip of which she pointed at Peter's throat. "You're just a selfish, lonely little boy who toys with other people's lives to fend off boredom. I despise your very existence and I wish our paths had never crossed."

"Then kill me."

It had come out all croaky and wrong because of the blows his body had sustained, but it worked in taking her by surprise and shutting her up.

There it was – her chance. The opportunity of several lifetimes. The window so many of Peter's foes have been waiting for, for years. And she didn't take it. She could have ended it there and cut off his head. Something deep in her bones told her that he wouldn't have fought it. It would have been over so quickly too. Her hand would not move though. She was petrified, her eyes couldn't look away from Peter's anymore.

Oh, she had spent countless hours wondering how, when and where she would end Peter Pan's life and free herself. Now she knew it was never an option – freeing herself. It was out of the question. But even then, when she still had her hope and no idea that her life was tied to Neverland, she couldn't come up with a plan. She never really, seriously thought she would be in a position to kill him.

But most of all, she never really, genuinely, wished for his death. No matter how long she had been here and would remain here, no matter the hurt and the despair, she knew in her heart and soul, that the only reason why it pained her so much to be on Neverland and constantly at war with Peter, was because she cared for him.

"Kill you? And then what?" Mercy asked when she had gathered her thoughts. "It would be a mercy to kill you. I don't want that. I want you to suffer as much and as long as I will have to suffer because of you. You condemned me to a lifetime of prison here."

"Neverland is not a prison!" Peter barked back. "It's my home. It's your home."

"It is my cell."

"Better to be reign in hell than to serve in heaven."

That he would still try to bargain with her sent her in a state of fury never before seen. Mercy's mouth twisted in rage and she strode forward to grab him by the collar and teleport them both elsewhere. When they reappeared, she pushed him back with disdain, making him fall again and hit the cold, rocky ground this time.

"Where are we?"

"It doesn't matter. We're on Neverland. We'll always be on Neverland, because you made sure of that, didn't you, Peter?" Mercy seethed, making no effort whatsoever to appear cordial or even just show an ounce of respect. "You ruined my life and you don't even seem to take it seriously. I suppose it's not a big deal to you, you ruin people's lives every day. You abduct children from their beds, you break up families, you cheat and lie and trick your way to your own selfish goals."

"Those children have no prospect; they have freedom and immortality here!"

"If, and only if, they do as you say. If they are silent and obedient, right? Either too young to question you or too frightened."

"Did you forget how they get here? They come to me, Mercy. Like you came to me that day. You also heard my flute, remember?" Peter pointed out, rightfully so. That was a power he didn't have control over. He couldn't make someone hear the flute, it only worked on those who don't feel at home and yearn for something else.

"Says you. Why would I believe anything you say?"

Even she realized how utterly stupid that sounded. She knew the flute's powers, and she knew it was the plain truth. Peter could not control it. It was made from his special thinking tree, and its magic came from the core of Neverland. He didn't have more control over it than he did on the spring.

However, reason did not prevail over her feelings at the moment. She simply couldn't hold back anymore. She felt the raging storm of long held-back emotions swirl inside of her, her finger tips prickling slightly, telling her to use her magic, to spend that pent-up energy that brewed in the pit of her stomach like a sickness. A sickness she needed out of her system.

The news had crushed her. Knowing there was no way out for her broke something. It snapped the thread that used to hold her together.

"You know. You can tell when I lie," Peter said. And that was true. She heard the familiar ring of truth in his voice. "I love you."

Mercy closed her eyes and bit her lip. It was too much. It was simply too much information for her to take in in such a short amount of time. Such core-shattering news that shook even her strongest beliefs.

She didn't do it on purpose. She didn't think. It just happened.

The surge of unleashed, raw magical power that came off her surprised them both. Peter barely had time to build up a magical barrier of his own to protect himself. The two opposite forces bounced off of each other, and this tremendous amount of unchecked power knocked them both over.

The earth shook and quacked. The rocky ground split up, right between their feet as they scrambled up and away from it. A rumbling crack, and the scar in the ground became a gaping wound, ready to swallow them.

"Mercy! Where are we?!" Peter yelled over the rumbling of the rocks. The mountains, they had to be in the mountains. But where exactly? He had never been here. This odd nook, like someone dug it out of the side of the mountain to create this enclosed space.

There was no answer.

His eyes roamed all over the place, but he couldn't find her. His heart was sent into a frenzy when he realized that she could be anywhere. She could be falling down side of this crumbling mountain and he wouldn't even know.

Soon, they would both be crushed under an avalanche of rocks, of swallowed by the widening crack in the ground, chewed up by its sharp rocky teeth.

Mercy had lost sight of Peter too. She had lost sight of a lot of things – herself included.

She didn't remember falling to the ground, but when she came to, her knees where cut open and bloody, so were her elbows. Her face stung on her forehead, and her head pulsed a little. Her ears rang and rang so loud she couldn't even hear the sound of her own frenzied heartbeat.

She couldn't hear the desperate cries and sobs falling out of her mouth either. Or the heart wrenching scream she left out as she curled in on herself. She ached all over, inside and out, yet she didn't care. She didn't feel. She didn't mind.

Around her, everything fell apart, and she knew it was her doing, that Peter hadn't caused this. He wasn't the reason why they would both end up buried alive under a pile of boulders.

Perhaps he wasn't the reason why she was hear either. She was so convinced of his guilt, his responsibility, that she never even looked in the mirror and took a good look at the person staring back.

She followed the sound of the flute. She came here because there was nothing for her in the Enchanted Forest, and if there wasn't anything for her then, there sure as hell wasn't anything now. After years upon years of fighting to get back, she forgot why she wanted to go back. And if that wasn't her goal anymore, what was left to fight for? What was left of her?

Could it be that she was responsible for her own demise and misery? It was all a blur when she thought back on the years she spent with the girls, away from the Lost Boys' camp and Peter's rough teachings. What if he was right, and she could – would – be happy here if she only let herself be. If she gave this place and its inhabitants a chance.

Mercy had accused Peter of breaking his word when he refused to let her leave Neverland after he lost their bet. But she was the one who broke it first, because she never even gave it a chance to win her over.

Winnie and Dorothy would be so disappointed in her. She had taught them and guided them towards a goal that was but a smokescreen, and she was no better than the very villain she had told them Peter was. She was an impostor, a fraud. She sabotaged her own life and exiled herself out of stubbornness and spite, at the expense of her happiness, and then she imposed her way of life to all these innocent girls.

Another sob pushed out of Mercy's throat. She was going to vomit. A dam broke, and feelings she had been keeping under watch and had put away in the back of her mind suddenly washed over her. All the hatred and disgust she thought were directed at Peter were really aimed at herself. She had let herself become a part of this island, and she had allowed Peter into her heart, even though it didn't line up with her plans of leaving. She deemed herself weak for that.

She put time and effort into punishing herself for this – by refusing to acknowledge any of her feelings, be it for this place or its king. She had stayed away from the one person she cared for – at least before meeting her girls – and she had allowed her affection to turn sour and become poison.

She had wronged so many people, including herself, and she had no idea how to make things right. How to give back what she had taken, how to mend the wounds she had caused. How to live on with this burden.

The sky, who had darkened a great deal when Mercy and Peter's magic had clashed, was now black and troubled with gray clouds looming over them. Her hearing had come back enough that should could hear the low rumble of a storm and roll of thunder.

It stuck so suddenly, Mercy was momentarily blinded. It hit right into the crack in the ground, and it was as if the core of the mountain shook and rumbled with the sky.

"Mercy!"

Everything happened in a quick succession of events. Peter called her name. Mercy looked around to try and locate him. The ground was ready to give in under their feet, but neither of them was going to leave without the other. When their eyes finally wound each other, thunder crashed again, and Mercy screamed, screamed, screamed.

Peter had been hit. She watched his limp body fall to its knees, then hit the ground. Her throat was sore and her chest hurt like it was wide open. She followed the movement of his body when the mountain opened up to swallow him, just as the rocks starting tumbling down from the top of the mountain and onto them.

What had she done?