Peter slowly marched through the forest, carefully avoiding any rock or tree root that might be in his path, as he made way for the beach. The day hadn't started yet, and as was his habit since he near death experience, he went to sit on the beach right before sunrise. He enjoyed the quiet of it, the peacefulness.
He could have simply appeared there, but since the accident, he tried to be gentle with himself. Using magic tired him like it never had before, and perhaps it wasn't a bad thing – he had always tended to abuse it. His body needed rest to recover. His right leg was on the mend but even after three months, it hadn't fully healed yet, and running simply wasn't an option yet.
Still, every morning, he created a blue flower for Mercy. His dear, wild, precious Mercy. She couldn't see them, nor know that he still made them for her, but he couldn't stop even if he tried. This was his love. This fragile little flower was the embodiment of everything he couldn't find the courage to tell her, and it always had been.
He had nearly gone mad when he had woken up from his slumber and found out she was still unconscious. In one last effort, he had used what magic he could still summon to heal her wounds – and there were so many too. Her right arm was raw and bloody, as if the rocks had torn the skin from her muscles. Her ribs were shattered, her lip split, her ankle twisted, two of her fingers and her nose were broken. There was so much to heal, yet he could only tend to her body, and not her psyche.
Like the Sleeping Beauty, Mercy lay in a bed in the highest room of their tree house. Unmoving, unresponsive. He hadn't really spoken much to anyone since he woke up, Peter couldn't find the energy to tell anyone what happened on the mountain, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.
To everyone's utmost surprise, he let Dorothy and Felix run most operations while he contemplated the vastness of his solitude and stupidity. He could have prevented the dreadful events that led to their demise. He could have, if he had been braver. If he had understood where she came from, and hadn't proved so selfish.
Neverland had always been his kingdom. And now, for the first time, Peter knew what Mercy had felt all these years, knowing that she was trapped here – whether it be because of his own volition or the Spring. Because without Mercy, Neverland well and truly was a prison to him.
Maybe it was finally time to act instead of making empty promises whose deadlines were so far into the future that any number of unexpected events could jeopardize his honoring them. It barely took any effort at all to lift the veil draped over Neverland and let people go. It was a relief, actually. Like a weight lifting off of his shoulders.
A great deal of the Lost Girls left immediately, as well as a few of the younger boys. Although, a handful of girls remained behind because they couldn't leave without knowing if Mercy would make it. As for the older Lost Boys… most of them couldn't even remember what it was like to live elsewhere, and had no desire to find out. They had been here for so long…
At least, it was their choice to stay. Mercy would never get that luxury, even if she came to again.
When his feet touched the fine sand of Neverland's beach, the sun was already appearing on the horizon. It didn't feel like a new day; more like Peter was trapped in an endless loop.
He fell on his knees and closed his eyes.
"Mercy… Please, come back."
"He's not getting any better," Felix sighed, rubbing his face as he paced in front of the girls.
Dorothy sat down on a tree stump and joined her hands under her chin while Winnie leaned against a tree, arms crossed.
"We can see," Dorothy said with only a tinge of exasperation. She couldn't very well shake of years of hatred for Felix in a few months. He was, after all, quite annoying when he wanted to. "What is there to do about it? He's his own man."
"Besides, we don't know how he'll react if we try to say something," Winnie quickly added, before Felix had a chance to snap at her friend. "He's grieving."
"It's a little soon to grieve!" Dorothy grunted. "Mercy's not dead yet."
Winnie sighed and looked at her with sad, hopeless eyes.
"It's been three months, Dorothy. Her body is healed, yet she won't open her eyes! Who's to say how long it will take if she is to wake up?"
"I don't care!" Dorothy stood up. "You two should go back to the Enchanted Forest and live your life if that's what you wish. I'll stay here and watch over them. Make sure Pan doesn't do anything foolish while Mercy isn't awake to stop him."
Felix and Winnie shared a look. Everybody knew they wanted to leave, but a sense of loyalty and duty held them back. For how long, though?
"We won't abandon them, or you, or anyone else," Winnie argued.
"It's not like we're losing time," Felix scoffed. "Time doesn't move here, or have you forgotten?"
"If I have forgotten?" Dorothy repeated. "I am a hundred and fifty-three years old. I have not forgotten that time doesn't move, you absolute cretin!"
"C'mon, there's no need to insult each other!" Winnie swiftly stepped in between her friend and her lover to stop things from escalating.
It wasn't like Dorothy to lose her temper like she did nowadays, but they tried not to hold it against her. Mercy wasn't just her leader, she was her friend. And her friend wasn't waking up. They were powerless, and it killed them. But most of all: it killed Peter.
The once mighty king of Neverland was but the shadow of himself. As for the Shadow, it hasn't been seen in a while – perhaps it had something to do with Peter's refusal to use magic. He hadn't summoned it, so it didn't come back from wherever shadows live.
"I need some air!" Dorothy finally decided, turning on her heels and stomping away in a most childish manner for a hundred and fifty-three-year-old.
She couldn't help it. She could have screamed. She couldn't do anything to help. So she walked away, despite knowing that that won't help either. She marched right out of the camp, heading nowhere in particular, so long as it was far from the camp.
She never expected to bump into Peter, he hadn't been seen in two days. She certainly didn't expect him to fall back. Somehow, he had always been this strong, unmovable figure that terrified all living things on the island. And now…
She sighed and offered him a hand to help him up.
"I won't ask where you were if you don't ask me if Mercy's woken up," she told him.
Peter refused her hand and stood up on his own, ignoring the pain in his leg. Sometimes, he wondered if there was any injury at all, or it the pain he felt was only a physical manifestation of his aching soul.
"Out of my way," he grunted and walked past her, not without bumping into her shoulder.
Dorothy smirked, glad to see that some things never change.
"If you're returning to the camp, try and convince Felix and Winnie to leave. Their constant optimism is making me sick."
Peter didn't answer at first, and kept walking, until right before he was out of eavesdropping.
"You and me both, Dorothy."
Peter didn't say a word to Felix and Winnie when he arrived at the camp, nor to anyone else for that matter. They all stared at him as he walked towards the big tree in the middle of their camp and painstakingly climbed up the ladder to Mercy's resting place.
He hadn't seen her in three days now, which was too long a time in his own opinion. He hated it at the camp, but he came back for her. Otherwise, he would have exiled himself, or walked into the sea to be dragged to the bottom by the mermaids.
When would this pain end? He was king no longer, for what was a king without his queen? For the thousandth time since he woke up and was told that Mercy hadn't, he opened the door to her room, bracing himself.
The bed was empty.
"Where on earth could she have gone?!"
While Peter continued to shout at all the Lost Boys and Girls about their inaptitude and lack of attention, Felix stood back.
"I guess the king is back," he whispered to Winnie, not mad that his days of ruling were over. Wearing the crown was a tedious and thankless job.
"Don't laugh." She nudged him to reprimand him, although she was smiling herself. "He'll put the entire kingdom upside down to find the queen."
"I actually look forward to it."
Peter screamed some more and ordered everyone to go look for Mercy. She couldn't have gone far, she hasn't moved a muscle in three months! Although Peter's healing hands might have something to do with her sudden disappearance.
"Search the forest! Search the beach! I want no stone left unturned, do you understand me?!" Peter yelled with such fury in his eyes that a collective shiver ran down everyone's spine.
"Finally," Sybil's voice suddenly broke Winnie out of her thoughts. "Things are back to normal."
The search party left hours ago, with no sign of getting any closer to finding Mercy.
Then again, Peter had had time to think about what might have happened. If Mercy woke up alone in her room, she might have been disoriented and scared, and surely confused to wake up in the middle of the Lost Boys' camp.
After their accident, they merged the camps, there was no more war between boys and girls. And after a good fraction of them went home, this camp was more than big enough for all of them. But she didn't know that. To her, she woke up on enemy ground, and the first thing she would do in that situation, was fleeing.
Where to? The Lost Girls' camp, was his first thought. But who knew how long she had been gone? Maybe she had already gone there by the time the search party arrived, which would have given her ample time to understand that it had been abandoned and was now empty.
She would need to find shelter… The Skull Rock, maybe? Nobody had set foot there in a long time, it would make sense to go there. Perhaps too obvious a hiding place. The Echo Cave would drive anyone crazy if they stayed longer than a minute. Where else then? The mountain was but a pile of rocks now, their former meeting spot was completely destroyed.
But what if…?
Yes, Peter knew he had to be right. There was no other place. There was no time to waste now, and so he dashed off into the forest, almost flying between the trees and over the uneven ground, forgetting the pain in his leg as he got closer, he knew it in his heart, to his Mercy.