Levi didn't sleep at all that night.

The darkness seemed to stretch out forever, yet was so close about her that she felt as if she were suffocating. She could hear the breathing of her new roommates all around her, but that didn't help- she kept imagining the sound was of Death, coming down to claim its stolen property. Every shadow, every whisper of wind, was the grasping hands of a thousand undead spirits, unwilling to let her go free if they could not.

Before that long, lonely night, Levi had experienced only one such night that came close. She had been camping with her cousins and on a midnight bathroom trip had fallen and twisted her ankle. She'd waited there all night for someone to find her, terrified that a bear would come along and decide he wanted to eat an eleven-year-old.

But that night, alone in a hammock amidst a crowd of other girls, Levi confronted her own fears without ever stepping out of her bed. Once she drifted to sleep and dreamed that her mother had found her and was chasing her down, screaming that Levi had destroyed their lives.

Levi had never found death to be a big deal. On one hand, she didn't think she would ever cross over that boundary, and on the other it was just the way things were.

But now she was terrified. She was supposed to be dead, and the knowledge chilled her. What was worse was that she was a hair's breadth from the border between Life and Death, indeed she was balancing right on it. This little bubble of unreality kept her breathing.

When the sun finally peeked over the edge of the eastern horizon, Levi had never felt so relieved in her entire life. The light banished her childish (to her mind) fears, and she was free to wander about the settlement. When the other girls were just beginning to stir, grumbling about lack of sleep, Levi was already up, dressed, and looking for something to do.

"Levity!"

Levi didn't pay attention the name. She hadn't gone by Levity since she was five.

"Levi, wait!"

This time Levi did stop her flight towards the mess hall and turned in midair, impatiently pushing her windblown hair away from her face. "Knuckles! You seem very good at finding me."

Knuckles was rather out of breath. She stopped and drooped, it seemed, and sucked in great breaths of air. "Peter sent me to give this to you." She fished a scrap of crinkled parchment from her pocket and waved it in Levi's face. Levi snatched it and unfolded it, quickly reading the message and relaxing greatly that it wasn't bad.



Levi, I need to speak with you later today. I'm busy all morning with the Council, but right after dinner (or lunch, as you modern people put it) I'll be at the top platform waiting for you. Don't bring anyone else- it's a rather crazy load of information I need to dump in your lap (so to speak) and I don't want to frighten the others any more than needed.

Come prepared for a long, disturbing, and probably extremely odd and awkward conversation.

Yours in unreality,

Peter Pan



Beneath Peter's name was a tiny inked hand print, which Levi took to be Tinker Bell's. Levi sighed and stuck the message in the back pocket of her jeans. The other girls had explained the clothing system to her the night before (toss it in the wash, put on something that fits) and she was determined to hang on to her own clothes and wash them herself. She didn't want to wear what some other girl had worn the day before. It made her feel weird.

Of course, Levi was uptight for the rest of the morning. She kept wondering what on earth Peter wanted to talk about, although she had an eery feeling it had something to do with the strange feelings she'd had when their eyes met. Nothing could keep the thoughts out of her head, not even the crash-course in fishing that Knuckles gave her.

Eventually she decided to forget about it until the time came to meet Peter. Let sleeping dogs lie, Levi.





* * *





Peter was laying on his back, arms under his head, and he was watching the thin cover of foliage above him sway with the afternoon breeze. This high up the wind should have been much faster, but it wasn't. Something about the Fae magic wrapped a protective cocoon around the Lost settlement, guarding it from extremes in the weather.

He heard branches crack and leaves rustle and Tink gave a small cry of warning. He smiled grimly to himself, knowing it was Levi. But he made no move to stand and greet her- he wanted a motherent longer to gather his thoughts, think about what he was going to say.

"You wanted me to meet you?"

Peter sat up, sighing. He stood, turned, and offered a lopsided smile to Levi, who was standing near the edge of the platform with a piece of crinkled yellow parchment in her fist.

"Yes, I did. Adjusting to your new life?"

Levi nodded warily, unsure. Peter gestured for her to come closer and take a seat. She did so, keeping her gaze on him but careful not to meet his gaze with her own. Peter did the same, not wanting to repeat the creepy encounter of the day before.

"What did you want to speak with me about?" asked Levi, sitting on the rough platform cross-legged. "You've already creeped me out quite thoroughly, what else are you going to drop in my lap?"

Almost without thinking Peter sat crossed-legged in the air, about two feet above the floor. He only did it because he abhorred being tied down by gravity, and because he had a splinter in his leg and didn't want to get another.

"Levi... first of all, there are a few things I've got to tell you about why I saved you that night."

Levi wondered why he spoke of the incident as if it had happened aeons before rather than a mere day but did not interrupt.

"I'd been on my way to your window."

Levi was taken aback. She blinked and gave Peter a look of utter confusion. Peter sighed, smiled vaguely, and pressed on.

"I've been watching you for a year of your time- it's great fun, watching you dance. I wanted to bring you here for a visit, but I wasn't sure that you believed anymore. No one else does at the age of fourteen."

"Believe in what?"

Peter gestured expansively at the world around him. "This. In a fantasy place that only children could go to. Where mermaids and fairies really exist. Almost everyone forgets about this place by the time they turn eight."

"Forget? How can you forget a place you've never seen?" asked Levi, both confused and intrigued.

"I told you this place is on the border between Life and Death- which is true. However, it's also the place where children dream. The sleep so deeply that they come here and have adventures, and upon waking believe them to be real. But time makes memories fade, and when innocence begins to be replaced by reality... their memories of this place vanish." He shook his head sadly. "It's a strange thing, to forget..."

"They come here?"

"Yes and no. It's confusing. Call it astral projection- they only come here mentally, and those of us who live here can't see them. But moving on.

"I liked to watch you dance, but I thought you might still somehow believe, if only slightly. You were-and are-rather too innocent to not."

Levi shook her head. "I believed with my heart, but my mind didn't. And if I ever came here like that, I've forgotten. Anyway, keep talking."

Peter nodded and acquiesced to her request. "I was going towards your house, to watch you, but I was distracted by the storm." He smiled apologetically, hazel eyes dancing with mirth. "I was playing in the lightning. Anyway, I saw the crash, and I went to catch you. I was as surprised as you by the whole thing, more so that it was you of all people. The rest you know."

Levi nodded, not really understanding but wanting Peter to continue. "Ok, but what else do you want to talk about?" Her voice dropped to a cautious whisper. "Did it happen to you too?"

Peter floated down to the floor and stared at his hands. "Yeah," he murmured. "I told Tink about it and she got spooked, so I thought I'd try to figure out what happened."

Tink gave a soft tinkle and alighted on Peter's head, braiding her long hair and jangling away in her own tongue.

"She says you look like someone from before, which makes no sense," said Peter by way of translation. "She won't tell me what she means."

Levi watched the fairy calculatingly, wondering if Tinker Bell knew what Never-Land had been before Peter's memory.

"How long has Tink been with you?"

"Oh, always," said Peter casually. "She's my chum." He tilted his head and Tink fluttered off, then landed on his shoulder. She stuck her tongue out at Levi, then made herself comfortable in the few locks of sandy hair that spilled onto Peter's shoulder.

"As long as you can remember, huh." It wasn't a question. A vague suspicion was taking root in Levi's mind.

Peter raised an eyebrow, wondering where this was going. "Aye. What're you getting at?"

Levi shook her head. "I don't rightly know myself. But it seems to me, if Tink is such a great friend of yours, that she would tell you what happened before all this, if it's true that she remembers."

Tink's golden glow faltered and became a sickly greyish yellow color, the fairy equivalent of the blood suddenly draining from their face in horror. Peter's eyes went from Tink to Levi and back again in blatant confusion.

"Never mind," said Levi suddenly, waving off her previous statement. "Anything else?"

"Why did you run away from home?"

Levi froze. Her heart skipped a beat and stomach clenched."Wh- what do you mean?" she stammered. Don't hyperventilate, she told herself.

"You had a pack full of clothes and supplies, and you were going pel-mell across that bridge as if your life depended on it," said Peter. "I know what a runaway looks like."

Levi took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. "It's a long, ugly story," she cautioned, not really wanting to talk about it but seeing that Peter wouldn't let her leave until she told him.

"I've plenty of time," Peter replied easily, leaning back on his elbows. "Go ahead, let it rip."

Levi nodded uneasily. "My dad left my mother and me about three months ago. I don't know why, but I do know my parents were arguing a lot. Anyway, Mother started drinking a lot and being pretty ornery. She was suspicious of everybody. Anyway." She took a deep, sustaining breath and forged ahead.

"The day I ran away, I got home from school and brought in the mail, like usual. One was from my dad. It was some divorce papers. Mother absolutely flipped. She was drunk at the time. Anyway, she-" She swallowed hard. "She blamed it on me. Kicked me around some. I don't remember all of it, but I remember coming to at the bottom of the stairs. I completely flipped. I just grabbed the important stuff and bolted. I didn't know where I was going, I just wanted to get away." She stared at her knees, unwilling to let Peter see the misery on her face.

There was a short silence that seemed longer than aeons; the air was choked with tension. Then Peter shook his head, sighing, and spoke.

"No wonder you left," he said softly. "Good thing I found you, huh?"

Levi didn't answer. She toyed with a lock of dark hair and kept her gaze downward.

"Levi, are you all right?"

Something about the way he said it, with that weird almost but not quite British accent, sounded weirdly familiar and yet not. She looked up at him, confused.

Their eyes met and locked- they couldn't look away even if they wanted to. Thoughts and memories not their own flooded into their minds.





"See that?"

"What is it?"

"I dunno..."

"Look! They're bloody everywhere!"

"What on earth-?"

"Let's go, we need to talk to Phineas."

"No kidding."



Words, images, thoughts, images, feelings- they raced through Levi's head. She was scared, but at the same time not. It was as if these things had been locked in her mind beyond her reach, and she had suddenly found the key.

Then the stare broke. Levi toppled backwards, quickly righted herself. She was close to hyperventilating with the shock of the experience.

This time, the sensations didn't vanish like smoke in a breeze. They stuck like rubber cement.

"Oh my..." Levi muttered, pressing her palms against her temples. "What was that?"

Peter shook his head, both to try and clear it and to answer Levi's question. "I don't know..."

Levi calmed herself, leaning on a tree limb to stay upright. She clutched the rough bark to try and keep her mind off the strange incident.

"They're memories, but... not mine," said Peter, utterly bewildered. "Who's Piotr?"

"She had my name," Levi whispered. "Lyris... and she lived here. In Never-Land. This platform..." Levi looked around her, looking like a lost and frightened child. "I- she- saw those sparks... but they were fairies, millions of them..."

"Where's Tink?" said Peter suddenly, looking around. The diminutive woman with the iridescent wings had vanished more surely than a snowflake in late July. There was no trace of her.

"I told you so," Levi said, shaking her head. "She knows, Peter, she knows what's happening- she's around to keep you in check. She's gone to tell the rest of them."





* * *





As it always did, the sun slipped from its zenith and fell behind the endless waters of the ocean. And as it always did, it bid farewell to the world with a brilliant fanfare of color- reds, oranges, pinks and purples. And then, at last, in disappeared completely. The moon rose over the eastern edge of the sea and the stars winked down from their roosts in the heavens. Darkness cloaked the earth.

Levi and Peter were on the beach, sitting on a boulder together, watching as the last finger of sunlight disappeared. Far out from the shore mer-folk were playing, and their laughter drifted to where the two teenagers sat, their clothes and hair flapping in the breeze.

But neither was paying any attention.

"It's strange," Levi murmured. "I'm Levi, and at the same time I'm Lyris. And I search these new memories, only to find that we look exactly the same. Why is that?"

"Do you remember everything?" asked Peter softly. Levi shook her head.

"It's... filtering into my mind slowly. I remember... playing in the jungle, the pet monkey, the fairies coming, our talks with Janus... but there are great holes. I don't remember the end yet."

Peter sighed from his toes. "I remember now. Piotr, Peter- same person. The fairies infested the entire island, claiming refugee status. The Elders told them to go and they wouldn't. We-" he shook his head, and he seemed filled with a great, terrible sadness. "We started dying. We didn't understand it, we'd never seen death before. Faster and faster- the young, the old, everyone. I remember... the fairies had somehow changed it, this pocket of youth. They broke the seal. They tried to fix it." He took another deep breath.

"They taught us how to fly better- we'd always been able to, but they showed us how to soar. Anyway, the Elders started sending us out, to the Mortal World. I wouldn't leave, though- didn't want to grow old, as the Council said we would. I stayed, when everyone else left. I-" his voice cracked and he cleared his throat before continuing. "You- Lyris was the last to leave. She promised she would come back, find this little island at the edge of the world again.

"The fairies sealed it up right after she left. They didn't know I had stayed. When they found out, they... made me forget who I was, everything that came before. Never-Land was what it had always been, but my people were gone... so I filled it up with innocents, as we had once been."

Levi nodded, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Yes... I remember..." But she said no more than that.

They spent the rest of the night there, watching as the stars wheeled and ocean waves crashed against the sand.