For a few moments, the world was blurry, tinged in grey. Wendy blinked into the dimness, struggling to remember where she was, when she was. Nestled under piles of blankets, the day before came back to her.

She remembered it all.

You don't need to doubt that I loved him.

She felt her heart being mended as he had uttered those words. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, even if she could only see part of his face. His sincerity held her there.

I was just as much his parent as you were.

They had both been Gavin's parent; that connection was undeniable. She felt that connection now, like a golden string, tethered between them, glowing.

Know that every time you think of him, I'm thinking of him, too.

Tears had prickled her eyes when he said that. He seldom spoke about Gavin and she doubted that he would talk about Gavin more now. But it had been glorious to hear another soul speak about her child. She wasn't the only one who remembered him. Someone still loved him just as fiercely as she had.

She shifted in her bedroll, now feeling empty without Pan beside her. But, she was no longer cold. She craned her head to look out the small flap of the tent. Outside was grey and unwelcoming, but they would have to be on the move soon.

There were other mansions to get to. Her brother was still out there, waiting to be found.

Groaning, she sat up and pushed the blankets off of her. Immediately, the cold bit at her. She scrambled to wrap herself in a wool blanket before stumbling out of the tent into the clearing. She blinked for a few moments in the brightness. She paused. The familiar howl of the wind was gone.

"I got my powers back this morning." She whipped her head around to find Pan tending the fire, hunched over its burning coals. He was right. Overhead, the familiar dome towered above them, staving off some of the elements.

"Morning?" she questioned. It was strange to look at him now. Pan had held a large space in her memories of Gavin and it had broken them into sharp, jagged little pieces to think that he had never cared, but now, her heart didn't squeeze in her chest looking at him. The sight of him was almost soothing.

She tried hard not to think about how she should feel boiling hatred looking at him. She didn't have the energy quite yet to contemplate that.

Instead, she sat down on a log by the fire and allowed Pan to hand her a bowl of hot porridge. Steam rolled off it, gently caressing her face. He had put brown sugar that now melted into the blobs of porridge and there were even dried berries on top. This was the best meal she would have until they got back to civilization.

"It's half past noon," he told her, handing her a spoon.

"Half past noon?" she asked, incredulous. "Why didn't you wake me?"

He gave her a warning look. "You needed the sleep." He shrugged. "So did I. I was running on fumes yesterday."

"When do you want to leave then?" It was so strange to have such a normal conversation with him when he had held her so gently and spoken to her so tenderly the night before.

He shook his head. "We're not leaving." He continued on despite her look of surprise. "You're recovering from hypothermia. I'd like not to tempt fate. Now eat," he ordered. The look he gave her told her not to argue. He seemed more aware now that she could very well die, but he wasn't very good at making sure he did it nicely. His help was crude, but not wrong.

She put a heaping spoonful in her mouth, not minding at all that it burned her tongue and throat on the way down. It was sweet and hot and comforting. She ate the whole bowl in a matter of minutes. Pan took the bowl from her and gave her another, again with brown sugar and berries. She hadn't even realized he had packed such delicacies.

She ate another bowl after that one and then three generous cups of tea. Pan sipped on his own absently. She watched him the whole time. He had circles under his eyes, just like she was sure she had. He hadn't shaved in nearly a week and had started to grow a scruffy beard. She was not too proud to admit that he was handsome. Perhaps even more so now that he looked several years older. He had grown into his features, the high cheek bones and strong jaw. Even those ears that had once seemed too large for his head seemed to suit him. His hair had somehow become even darker. If one did not look carefully, they might have thought his hair was black. But she was careful; it was a very dark brown.

He was otherwordly, but he looked more human. Perhaps it was because he looked so haggard or perhaps it was because he had given her comfort and care that she had never expected from him.

She stared a long time, half caught in his beauty, half waiting for the loathing and revulsion to come. But as the moments passed by and the food in her belly made her drowsy and her eyelids heavy, she started to believe that the waves of hatred might not wash over her. Sleepily, she wondered if this was a good or bad thing.

Her head became heavy and it was hard to hold it up. The fourth time she almost fell over, Pan stood and took her by the elbow and led her to the tent. He helped her slide back into her bed roll before heaping more blankets over her. He disappeared for a moment and she thought he had left her to fall asleep, but he came back with a cup of tea. He gave it to her gracelessly and she downed the entire cup in three big gulps.

She handed it back to him.

"What time is it?"

He waved away her question. "Two, but don't worry about the time or the schedule. Just rest." She opened her mouth to protest, but he said, "I know your brothers aren't so cruel that they wouldn't want you to rest after hypothermia."

She looked at him surprised. He was right.

He let out a laugh. "A proud moment when I can stop you from demanding your way."

She shook her head and settled back down into the bed roll. Distantly, she wondered if he would join her in it that night. He was about to turn and leave when she blurted, "Thank you."

His eyes searched her face and she wasn't sure what he was searching for. He finally said, "It was the truth." His face was indecipherable and it most certainly was not the response she had been expecting.

"I miss him." She said the words quickly because she was afraid that if she didn't she wouldn't say them at all.

He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment and said, "Me, too."

She swallowed. "I wish… I wish we talked about him more," she rushed out. "I talked about him with Margaret and Tom and it was… healing."

He tilted his head. "That was who the letter was for."

She nodded.

"I wish we talked about him more, too," he said after a long moment.

It was her turn to pause. "Is that… is that why you bought the book?" She had never felt like she needed to be careful with her words around Pan, but each word made her heart stutter in her chest. It felt as if she was watching a fawn deep in the forest. Any sudden move or noise would scare it away.

He nodded slowly. "I suppose."

"I thought you were mocking me."

He shook his head. Pan mocked often, but right then he was the most sincere she had ever seen him.

For the first time she had ever known Pan, she felt awkward. How was she supposed to address him now that he had seen her heart?

"Could you read me one?" she rushed out at the same time that he asked, "Can I read one to you?" For a moment they were a jumble of words and then they stared for a long while. Pan nodded quickly and disappeared for a moment to return with the blue, embossed book. He sat down, crossing his legs, looking quite unlike the King of Neverland. He flipped through the pages until he found on about a princess who had to sew shirts out of nettles to save her six brothers.

It had been a long time since she had heard Pan read. It made her heart ache just a little bit less.

XXX

The awkward silences filled their time as they made their way back down through the mountains. They were weeks away from the next mansion. There were no pressing spells to debate or interpretations to bicker over. Instead, they spoke in small short sentences, waiting with bated breath for the other to respond. They recounted stories of Gavin to each other in voices just above a whisper, carefully creeping along eggshells they might break.

Wendy had never tiptoed around Pan before. She had always spoken her mind around him. She had never had any problem calling him on his shit and he had never had any problem responding to her in that frigid, distant voice. Where she gave him blazing fire, he met her equally with his ice. They had never been pleasant exchanges, but it was almost easy to argue with him; criticism and arguments were close to comfortable.

Vulnerable was not something she had ever wanted to be around Pan, but she had been unceremoniously tossed into it.

But if she was being honest, she had been walking over a precipice for months, overlooking a chasm of intimacy. She had peered over the edge so many times, teetering on her toes and now her footing had crumbled underneath her. She was stumbling into something new, something terrifying. She had left the familiar landscape of bickering and quips and had plunged into a place where she was open and vulnerable.

She kept waiting for the hatred to crash onto her and then she would desperately try to claw her way up and out. But even when she tried to pull at it, the anger, the hatred, didn't come. She spent hours of their time riding, staring at the back of his head, wondering what the hell had happened. She reassured herself that she hadn't stopped hating Pan… she just hated him less, perhaps.

Her brothers would have been horrified. Tink would have been horrified. She should have been horrified. She should have felt guilty, for allowing him to read to her, for accepting the tea he brought her every night, for the quiet, peaceful conversations they had. But she couldn't. For the first time ever, they were speaking freely about Gavin. They let out soft, surprised laughs when they reminisced, or cracked smiles they hadn't known were there. She was finally able to remember her child with the only other person in the world who could understand.

She had spent decades trying to hobble together memories of Gavin on her own. But they were meant to be laughed at and cried over and smiled about. Memories of Gavin were not meant to exist in isolation; they were meant to be shared.

Her brothers had been able to forge lives of their own and this had been hers.

Perhaps it was selfish, but she couldn't bring herself to stop. She wanted to listen to stories she had never heard about Gavin or stories she had reminded herself of a thousand times. She wanted all of it.

Cheers to living your life the way you want. May you always remember that your life is your own.

She had unwittingly taken Pan's advice.

Her life finally felt like her own.

XXX

Peter wasn't exactly sure when the tentative peace that had blessed him would fracture— he knew it would, inevitably— but he wasn't going to be the one to break it nor was he going to worry about when it would eventually break.

The first little while when they read, their words had been halting. The calm that had fallen over them was tentative and fragile and he was sure it would break, even if he wasn't sure he wanted it to. He had drifted through those times in that strange existence, thrust into a new reality: he had cared for her with hands as gentle as her own, had comforted her and had apologized for hurting her. He had always imagined that if he had ever spent time caring for anyone ever again (which he figured was unlikely) that it would be tiresome or boring. But when he had cared for Wendy, it hadn't been. It had simply just been what he had to do, as demanding and urgent as his next breath.

They didn't speak about how truly shocking it was that he had done that beyond that first conversation the morning after. What was there to say? He had done it and he should have been disgusted with himself. Peter Pan, King of Neverland, with followers and power galore, might have imploded at the very thought. But Neverland was a long way off, his powers were dwindling and his followers, the few that were left, were irksome. He had come back to a world with nothing, but Wendy's self-righteous sermons and haughty opinions in it. And he had missed that world when Wendy had withdrawn herself from him. He wouldn't soon forget the weeks that he had spent missing her presence, half-furious with her and half-terrified for her. He had spent far too long in that frigid silence to be furious with himself that he had cared for her.

Of course, he had cared for her.

She was Wendy. A self-righteous, prim and proper, know-it-all with the sharpest mind he had come across in ages. The only person who tolerated his presence. Mother of his child.

Wendy.

Felix would have been horrified. He should have been horrified. But the horror never descended on him. He simply couldn't bring himself to care.

His life was his own and he would do with it what he pleased.

So he would enjoy the quiet conversations he had with Wendy over the campfire, watch how the light danced in her eyes when she spoke about their child.

He had missed her. He wasn't about to shun her simply because someone he had murdered might disapprove.

He wasn't stupid though. He wouldn't delude himself into thinking that this would last long. He figured his senses would catch up to him or, more likely, Wendy's would at some point. She was too high and mighty to continue acting nicely with him. It was only a matter of time before he did something she disapproved of, earning himself a sanctimonious lecture. He would bite back something that would throw both of them into a rage and that would be that.

He would go back to seething that Wendy, moralizing and full of unwanted lectures, brought him even a sliver of pleasure. She would probably find someway to punish herself for allowing him so close.

But the peace remained.

Every morning, he waited by the fire for her to come out of the tent, sleep still in her eyes, wrapped in blankets, with her hair plastered to her face. He told himself, Today is the day. Today she'll walk out and you'll hate her. She'll be bothersome and things will be back to normal.

But that day was never today. She would walk out of the tent and take a seat across from him, picking up her waiting bowl of oats or broth. She might comment about the weather or worry about one of the horses. And he would wait, skin tingling and muscles tense, to roll his eyes at whatever she said, but it never came.

She even began giving him unwanted lectures again. But he found if he listened carefully, as he did when she gave her opinions about spells and incantations, her thoughts were quite sound, albeit unasked for. He was mildly annoyed at that, but that was all.

"When we get back, we should replace the horses' shoes," she told him over breakfast one day. He looked over to Ash and Philipe at the edge of the clearing, tails swishing and eating out of their grain bucket. Overhead, the sky was its usual grey and the trees outside of their dome bent painfully in the wind.

"We replaced them just before we left," he said.

She hummed. "Replace every four to eight weeks. Six on average," she recounted. He wanted to tell her that he knew this. Had been riding horses before even her grandparents were born. "It'll be three when we get back and the terrain's been really rough. And besides, Philipe is walking funny."

His eyebrows furrowed. "He is?"

She nodded quickly. "Front left. Watch for it when you go out." She took a large spoonful of oats into her mouth. She swallowed quickly and said, "I checked his leg and shoe when we got here last night, but I couldn't find anything."

"Oh."

"You should pay more attention to your horse," she told him, eyebrows raising pointedly. This would have been the point in the conversation when he told her to butt out and that she didn't have the authority to be telling him anything about his horse, that even if she spent the rest of her life riding, she still wouldn't have put in as many hours as he had. But she paid particular attention to the beasts and when he began to lead Philipe away from the camp that morning, he found she was right.

Indeed, it did appear that Philipe was favouring his right over his left front leg. They would arrive back in the resort village the next day and he would take the horse straight to the stables and get him looked at. His horse going lame was the last thing they needed. He was glad Wendy had noticed it.

That night over the campfire, they took turns reading from the storybook. They would often debate about the themes brought up in the stories, what character represented what vice or virtue. Their conversations would weave in and around Gavin's life, sometimes commenting on his own childlike interpretations or wondering why his favourites had been his favourites.

It was hard to ever think of a time when they spoke about something like that… something so mundane. But mundane as it was, the conversations gripped him and pulled him into Wendy's mind. He discovered, unsurprisingly, that he liked her interpretations of those myths and fairy tales just as much as he liked her interpretations of spells and curses. Her mind was a glittering star in the sky that he couldn't take his eyes off of.

XXX

"I feel like all of this is wrong," Wendy sighed, staring down at the library table covered in books and pages and scribbled notes all in preparation for the next mansion. Peter turned from where he leaned against the table next to her. They had spent the last several days compiling every spell related to illusions that they could get their hands on in preparation for their next mansion. Though the pile was large, he was not optimistic about it.

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what else there would be. This is what we have." He considered the piles of spells: spells about how to make illusions, spells to protect against them, spells about how to break them. Everything that either he or Wendy could think up, they had compiled. "You're worried because we don't know enough about the mansion," he finally said, flipping through her chicken scratch notes. He glanced quickly down at her hands, covered in ink, parts of her fingers bruised from holding the pen so long. He wondered briefly if she was punishing herself for their… closeness. Betray her brothers in one sense and give unwavering loyalty in another.

"That's exactly why I'm worried," she said. She turned and slumped back into the wing-backed chair before the fire, rubbing at her forehead. This last mansion had been sparse. It was small, shoved in between the jagged foothills of the receding mountains, a six hour ride from the nearest town. All around them was silence, the terrain dusty and barren. The area was no one's first choice and it had clearly been close to Gold's last choice. Even the last mountain mansion, though destroyed, had been large and sprawling, its bones hinting at destroyed opulence and luxury. This mansion instead was comfortable, exquisitely constructed, but everything was made for necessity and nothing more. There were no sprawling gardens or empty ballrooms filled with cobwebs. Peter had hardly needed to snap his fingers before undoing the charms that kept the doors and windows sealed. Consequently, the library was a small room with barely a dozen shelves stacked with disintegrating novels. They had exhausted everything in the first couple hours of arriving.

But they had lingered, dumping out all their notes and the books they travelled with onto the sturdy work table, cast in the dying light of the small fireplace, to pore over all the information they could gather for the next mansion. Peter had kept tabs on his brother over the years. The Dark One was easy to track, even if he thought he wasn't. But there were very few places that Peter knew little about. The next mansion and the mansion in the mountains had been the ones he knew the least about and their last mishap had cost them dearly. Neither of them were about to let that happen again.

Wendy had decided if they didn't have much information about the mansion, they would use every bit of knowledge in preparation for it. But even as she compiled notes, organizing and reorganizing them into piles by spell type, then by the amount of energy they would use, then by author, she still was not satisfied. His days were once again filled with easy conservation about spells and words and metaphors. They went back and forth for hours on end: Was the wording of this spell too broad? And what of this metaphor in that spell? But her eyes were heavy and her movements were slow. "Perhaps, because we know so little about this one, that's where Baelfire will be," she had said, tossing herself into studying. She had said the exact same thing last time, but he wouldn't dash her hopes again. He couldn't bare to see that look on her face a second time.

Once she finished with the unknown around the mansion, she moved onto compiling every single bit of information about the potential spell her brother had used to destroy his life and his father's. He knew well enough not to tell her that it was hopeless; there was no way she was going to solve her brother's predicament in the week and a half they had before the next estate. But that didn't stop her from studying late into the night and waking up early in the mornings.

"Just 'illusions'," she complained, air-quoting the word. "That can mean anything. Are you sure there was nothing more?"

"If I had more information, I would have already given it you," he told her. He folded his arms across his chest. "You are not delightful in this state."

She scoffed. "Am I delightful to you in any state?"

He paused to consider for a moment, tilting his head to the side. "When you read to Gavin, you were quite enchanting." The peace they had somehow stumbled upon in the mountains he remained the past few weeks. They talked about Gavin often; at least once a day, which was infinitely more than they had talked about him in the last eight decades since his death. He usually was able to drag her away from studying with a conveniently placed plate of bread and jam and an even more conveniently placed word about Gavin. She would scarf down the food eagerly as they recounted tales of their child or read from the storybook.

She straightened her back. "I know you bring him up to distract me," she said primly.

"You asked the off-topic question," he countered.

She huffed. "Well, if we're going off topic, can you look at the possible spells I've compiled for Baelfire?" She turned in her chair and rummaged through a pile of books stuffed with crinkled notes.

He wondered for a moment if she truly believed her would be at this next mansion. Wendy was endlessly hopeful, full of belief and love. But he wasn't quite so sure she was that deluded. He leaned over and pushed her hand away from the pile.

She straightened in her chair, a reproachful look on her face.

"It's late," he said, almost gently. "I'm sure whatever you've come up with is good. It has my approval."

"But—"

"You won't be any help if you're half-asleep when we get there," he told her. He found these days that if he thought in advance about her weaknesses as a mortal, they were much less likely to become a problem. She needed sleep, food, warmth. He could remind her of those things if it meant his life was easier. Certainly, no other reason. "I'm sure your brothers wouldn't want you so exhausted."

She gave him a disapproving look. "Another fun manipulative tactic you've come up with."

"It helps," he told her. "It's not my fault you're so stubborn."

She rolled her eyes. "Pot calling the kettle."

He waved away her comment. "Would you just get up and go to bed?"

She glanced at the clock across the room that was nearing on eleven-thirty. "We ride early tomorrow, don't we?"

To avoid more camping in the mountains, they would have to with the inn so far away and the weather so miserable. Outside the estate, the sky was still an unforgiving grey, the wind ripping through the cliffs and plateaus. It was hard to believe it was just the end of summer. Somewhere far off, where Wendy's brothers were, the wind was warm and gentle, whispering of cooler days, with the sun warming the earth.

"I'll make you a deal," he said, leaning back in his perch on the table. "If you go to sleep at a decent time tonight and tomorrow, we can stay and study an extra day. I'll go over your spells for Baelfire."

"Since when are you so concerned about my sleep?" she demanded, ignoring nearly everything else he had said.

"Since I realized how truly mortal you are," he said. He leaned closer, close enough that he could smell her lightly floral scent mixed with the heady red wine she had had at dinner. "I'd like not to relive our near-death mountain experience."

She tilted her head, calculating. He caught on her expressions sometimes and found himself pulled into the high society world of Victorian London. Wendy was pleasant and kind, but underneath her mind was sharp as a tack. She had a brilliant understanding of politics, how people operated to get what they wanted, all tied up in her deep empathy. If she had been less morally inclined, she might have made a rather powerful queen on Neverland.

"Missing your immorality?" she asked.

It was a strange question. And he didn't really know the answer. He still had his powers, but he wasn't sure if he was immortal anymore. He didn't feel immortal anymore.

"Experiences like those are why I avoided mortality altogether," he said. Her gaze was far too bright and illuminating for his comfort, but he wasn't about to back down from this.

"Quite bothersome to be saddled with a fragile mortal." Sometimes, he truly wondered if she was a telepath. It was so unnerving how she was able to guess blindly at his thoughts.

"Even more bothersome to be saddled with one who has no interest in her well-being," he said, calm and smooth as ever. Although the peace remained, they most certainly were not warm and fuzzy with each other. And although their conversations could sometimes be companionable, neither was about to forget the other's faults. Nor were they about to stop pointing them out.

Finally, she leaned back in the chair, her hair sticking to the back with static. Every morning Wendy appeared with her hair neatly done up in braids or buns and nearly ever evening, they would be in complete disarray. He wasn't sure at all how she managed her curls on the road. They seemed just as stubborn as her.

"We already took so long to get out of the mountains. Can we really afford another day?" she asked.

"A day won't make a difference to Baelfire right now, but it may to you," he said.

She shook her head. "A day while I rest and he lives in agony." Her face fell and she looked incredibly alone for a moment. His hands twitched at his side, fingers aching to reach out.

"You'll never make any decisions if you keep thinking like that." She didn't look up. "Useless martyr mindset."

Her eyes slid over to him. "Read over my spells."

"Then go to bed," he told her.

She considered him for a long moment before rising from her chair. She quickly gathered the spells for illusions into a large pile, bundled them up and then slid them into their charmed bag. She quickly took a biscuit from the table and wandered off out of the library and toward her room.

Watching her go, he wondered absently if she still hated sleeping in these mansions as she had before. He wondered if she felt less alone now.

XXX

Peter finally dragged himself to bed just after midnight. He had gone over Wendy's compilation of spells for Baelfire and for someone who had started learning about magic only a few months ago, what she had come up with was impressive. Her interpretations were thorough and well thought out, not to mention diverse. She followed every idea to its natural end and the same amount of effort into each other. She was able to connect ideas across similar spells, picking out similarities in word choice or imagery.

Truly, if she had ever had powers or if she had been willing to join forced with him on Neverland, she would have been completely unstoppable. He snorted. She already was unstoppable.

He creaked up the steep stairs, turning around and around several times as they wound up into the tall, thin house. Outside, he could only make out the distant shapes of mountains and shrubby trees in the near complete darkness. Everywhere they went these days, there was a faint howl of the wind through the mountains. He caught himself sometimes, thinking he was hearing Wendy's screams that day in the mountains. It had been so long and hollow, piercing through him so sharply that his blood had turned cold.

Those hours that followed after the imp had been terrifying. He hadn't known whether she would live or die. Something inside him twisted as he thought about it now; that she may have died thinking he never cared for Gavin.

The more he turned over the memory of that night, the more it burned that she had thought that at all. How could she have ever thought he didn't care? That he hadn't loved Gavin as much as she did?

He ascended the remaining steps and turned down the hall towards their rooms. The wood floor creaked underneath his weight, the floor cold in the mountain climate. The hall was dimly lit with only a candle at an ornate glass table that must have been meant to hold a flower vase of some sort. It case a shallow light as he walked down the hall.

The shadows stretched before him, long and spindly in the little light from the candle and the grey light from outside. The walls pressed in tightly on him as he came to Wendy's door. No light leaked out from under her door so she was at least attempting to sleep.

He paused.

Wendy wasn't stupid. Nor was she prone to indulging in gossip or rumour. She wouldn't have believed he didn't care without reason. He blinked in the dimness. And he had given her many reasons to think he didn't care. Not just his flippant comment to Margaret.

He was quick to tell her he always felt nothing.

He was quick to say he cared for no one but himself.

And… he had been the one to value his power more than Gavin.

If he was being honest, which he often wasn't, it was truly a miracle that Wendy had believed he had ever cared to begin with. It was probably that stupid belief in his humanity that had her convinced for so long.

Your way of life, what you created, that's what killed Gavin.

Was he really to blame? Had he ever actually cared for Gavin? Had he ever been good to Gavin?

Something cold and hollow filled him.

He shook his head, dispelling the thoughts. He had loved Gavin, still loved him. He had given the child everything he could have wanted or needed. And Gavin had been happy. He was cared for and loved by both him and Wendy.

He shoved away every lingering doubt as he entered his own room. He quickly stripped off his pants and sweater before washing up quickly and changing into his sleeping clothes. He clambered into bed, tugging the ornately decorated burgundy comforter over him. He decided that if they ever did find his brother, he would compliment him on his exquisite taste in mattresses and bedding.

He shifted in bed, settling into the down of the mattress and curling in around himself.

It was ridiculous to even think he hadn't done a good job parenting Gavin.

Of course, he had. He excelled at nearly everything he did.

But the doubts remained, slithering into his mind as cold, slimy tendrils. They were hard to catch, hard to push out, coating his hands into their oily film. He was supposed to be good at clamping down on anything that threatened his near-perfect control of his emotions, but that night he struggled.

And he found it difficult to sleep.