Chapter 11



Warm, yellow sunlight spilled over the edge of the earth, poured through the single window and onto the face of a pale, drawn teenage girl. She winced and opened her eyes at the visual onslaught.

"Huh? What-" She sat up, and pressed the heel of her hand against her side, hissing softly in pain. "My kingdom for a Motrin," she muttered, lifting the hem of her shirt to examine the crude bandages over the arrow-wound. She was surprised she was even alive- she had been completely prepared to meet her end. She'd done it before; death wasn't that impressive once you've already experienced it.

"You're sitting up. That's good."

Levi looked up. Peter had flown in through the window and was picking twigs out of his hair. She was in his chamber, where she'd awoken that morning... how long ago was it?

"You've been in and out of senselessness for over a month," Peter explained, seeing the confusion in her eyes. "You're actually lucid for once- that's great."

Levi nodded absently. "Did we win?"

Peter smiled grimly and nodded. "The pirates are gone for good."

"And Tink?"

The smile vanished, replaced by a dark scowl. "She'd dead," he said harshly. "Killed her myself, in fact."

"She tried to kill me." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, she did."

Levi chewed on her lip. "How many died in the battle?"

"About fifty of ours- the same for the redskins and mer-folk."

Levi nodded again, absently wondering what had happened to her new friends; if they had lived through the battle to rid their world of the wraiths known as pirates.

"You scared me, Lyris- we almost lost you more times than I care to mention," said Peter gently, sitting in the chair that had somehow ended up there in between Levi leaving for the battle and waking from her sort-of coma.

"Really?" Levi asked dully.

Peter watched her with an inscrutable expression in his normally crystal-clear eyes. "Yeah, we did. You pulled through, though."

"Obviously."

There was a long, rather tense silence during which Levi stared at her fingernails and Peter found his boots utterly fascinating.

"Lyris- I'm sorry."

Levi looked up, wondered why he kept calling her that (even though it was her name) and gave him a questioning look. "For what?"

"Staying."

Levi's heart clenched, memories flooding her mind of that terrible morning so long ago, when she had left her soul behind to save one that she wasn't even sure existed.

"Peter..." ^Piotr,^ some distant part of her mind said sharply, "I don't blame you for that. You had to- and me... I had to go."

"What do you mean?"

Like before, she didn't know what to say, how to tell him what had happened. It was almost funny- she never could voice the really important stuff properly.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Remember how fast we were aging? How much we were all changing?" She tried to ignore the fact that it rhymed and sounded utterly ludicrous.

"Of course." Now he was really confused.

"I-" she chewed her lip, and finally just pried the words out with a mental crowbar. "I was scared for more than me," she said. ^Say it out loud, moron,^ she scolded herself.

"I still don't follow you," Peter said, brow knitting. "Phineas?"

Lyris let out a short, barking laugh. "Not by any means." She sighed heavily. "I never said, because I knew if I did, you'd come with me, and that you were needed here even more."

Peter didn't say anything, just stared at her blankly. Levi shook her head. "I... was with child, I guess you could say..."

There was a crash, a whoosh, and Levi stared in shock. The chair was in a heap on the floor and Peter had vanished.



* * *





Peter stared at the ground, jaw and fists clenched. "Why did she never tell me?" he said. He was rather confused about why her words cut him so deeply, but cut they did.

^She never gave me a chance- she just left. I know she had to, and that if she tried to stay I'd have pushed her across the Boundary myself, but... I would have gone. Nothing was more important...^

More important than what?

"I had to stay," Peter said finally, staring sightlessly at the carpet of green that lay beneath him. He was at the snow-line of the tallest mountain, staring down at the island. "She knew it. And she-" he took a deep breath. "She was doing what she felt was right, I guess."

But it still hurt.

Lyris had left three thousand years ago, at least in Other World time. The child would have been long gone, dead- Levi could be her own descendent, for all they knew.

For half an instant he thought that maybe, through some unimaginable stretch of luck, the child had been one of the early ones brought here. But no... the only ones left of those were Slightly, Nibs, and Tootles- it was a silly idea. He was thereafter completely deflated.

"If it makes you feel any better," said a bitter feminine voice, "I died a week after she was born."

Peter jumped. Levi landed silently beside him, looking caught between the physical pain of her wound and the intense emotional hurt of seeing Peter run away like that, away from her.

"She?"

Levi nodded and sat beside Peter, wrapping her arms around herself. She was pale and windblown from the fast journey over the island. "A little girl- I named her Autumn."

Peter swallowed hard and stared down at the ocean, trying to figure out the source of this unknown ache.

"Phineas promised to take care of her, but- I was so scared," she whispered brokenly. "I knew I was dying, and I knew I wouldn't see her grow up... that Phineas was all she would have. I was so scared for her... lost in that strange world. And besides, how could Phineas care for a week-old child?" Tears were sliding down her face, but she didn't notice. "I just wanted to live, be to able to be her mother... but I was sick, and no one could help. So..."

Peter didn't say anything. He just pulled her close and let her cry.

Half an hour later Levi had calmed down but was still hiccuping, and Peter didn't know what to think beyond mentally insulting himself for being such a great bloody idiot.

"I'm sorry for reacting like that," he said finally. "I just..."

"It's okay," Levi murmured. "You have every right to get wound up over it."

There was a long, stretched out silent moment, in which both considered the lives they might have had and had subsequently lost. How things should have been. Friends, family- all gone into the mists.

"Lyris... should we, you know, start over?" Peter asked hesitantly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know... us."

Levi looked up at him, uncertain. "Why should we start over?"

Peter shrugged helplessly. "With everything that's happened.... I just thought..."

"Hush."

Peter obeyed, looking at Levi with mingled confusion and amusement.

Levi sighed. "Idiot," she said. "I know I'm bad about saying it, but I love you- always have, always did. I never, ever, in all my time out Beyond, forgot you... I just misplaced things. And now..." She absently trailed a finger over Peter's jaw, the gesture at once familiar and foreign. "I don't want to waste time being silly," she finished. "We've been through a lot, yes... but all the more reason to stick together, so we can fix things, heal."

Peter reached up and caught her hand in his own. "Stop that."

"What ever for?" A teasing smile flickered across her face- Peter had missed that smile, he suddenly realized. Missed her.

"It's driving me mad, that's why."

"Really."

"Yes, really."

Levi would have replied, but Peter wasn't having any of it- he kissed her instead.

It was nothing like the brief kiss they'd shared before, when Levi had accused Peter of just trying to distract her (which he had been). This was filled with three millennia of unnamed longing. Untold centuries of pain without a source, suddenly healed.

Eventually, however, they simply had to come up for air. They exchanged goofy grins.

"It's been a long time," Peter said softly. Levi nodded absently. "Yeah."

They made as if to kiss again, but Levi jumped and let out a hiss of pain. "Um, ow," she said ruefully, pushing Peter's hand away from her bandaged side. "That's really sore."

"Sorry," said Peter sheepishly.

There was another long, drawn-out silence. Levi considered Peter's face, wondered why he looked different.

Something like a ghost of a childhood memory flickered in her mind. Place of Truth, her subconscious whispered. I gave it back.

"You're aging!" Levi blurted. "When I changed it, I fixed the kinked bit, and everything's the same again!"

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Levi said quickly, shaking her head. "It's a combination of fairy magic, time flows, and just plain science-fiction weirdness. The Fae kinked up the time-flows when they reversed your age and took your memory, and when you remembered things got out-of-whack... and then when you got shot and I turned it back..." she fished through her wispy half-memories of the incident, trying to figure out what had happened. Peter was staring at her like she'd grown another head.

"I fixed it," she mumbled to herself. "I think that you'll age back to what you're supposed to be, and then quit, and then age like you're supposed to- but you're the Anchor, I dunno if you'll Fade..." she chewed her thumbnail, lost in rather scientific thoughts.

"Lyris."

Levi looked up. "What?"

"Don't worry about it. It's not important."

"But-"

Peter pressed a finger to her lips. "Don't worry about it," he repeated. "What happens, happens- everything will work itself out."

"You never did care much for the big picture," said Levi huffily, although her eyes were filled with mirth. "Always thinking about the here and now."

"What's wrong with that?"

Levi laughed. "Absolutely nothing, but sometimes, Piotr, it's-"

"What was that?"

Levi blinked up at Peter in confusion. He was looking at her with the oddest expression imaginable on his face. "What're you talking about?"

"You said it."

"Said what?"

"My name."

Levi looked confused. "You're name's Peter, Peter."

"No- my name's Piotr, Peter's just the mangled Fae version." Peter bit his lip. "Why do you keep calling me Peter, anyway?"

Levi stared at him, unable to make herself form the words. ^Because I've gotten in the habit of trying to avoid who I really am, she thought. Because you're connected to it, and I feel like a great silly at the moment, but I'm scared that if I start calling you Piotr, it'll make everything really real.^

"I don't know," she said finally. "Just..."

"Avoiding the issue?"

She looked up at him. He looked to be caught between mirth and sadness, an odd mixture to be sure. "Yeah," Levi said softly. "I just... don't know how to react to finding out that I'm not who I thought, and..."

"It's okay," said Peter rather unconvincingly. "You'll get used to everything... eventually..."

There was another long silence.

"Will the Fae leaving affect how we fly?" Levi said absently, trying to break the sudden tension with nonsense. "You had Tink dump fairy-dust all over me to help me fly..."

"I guess so. We'll still fly, just... not have as much control as we do now, or at least until the Fae effects wear off," Peter replied. "It'll be weird to depend on the winds again."

"Yeah."

They paused, watching the island spreading out below them. Levi closed her eyes and took a deep breath, savoring the sounds and smells of her home.

Home. That word resonated within her now, as it never had before. Things like that happen when you realize how much you miss a place.

She opened her eyes and stood, still soaking up the world around her. "Well, whatever I call you, you're still the same person," said Levi. "And I'm sort of the same person. And Never-Land has changed, but it's pretty much the same."

She turned and looked at Peter. Understanding flooded his face.

"Let's go home."

Far away in cool waters of the lagoon, a pale blue water-dragon watched as two figures took flight from the pinnacle of the mountains. A smile spread across his reptilian face.

^The world has come full circle once again. It will happen in the future, and it has happened in the past, but life is a great sphere, and will once again come back to this one eternal moment. The one moment when all things had been reconciled and their hearts are at peace- for the Travelers are never at peace, save in this one, priceless moment where past and future meet and the Place of Truth is whole. And so I wait, silent, for the Travelers to lose their paths again, and seek the council of Time.

For all things seek their own.^

Janus turned and vanished beneath the still waters. Everything was as it should be, and he was going to take a long, well-deserved vacation.