Author's Note: First I want to explain something for those who encountered a bit of a blip regarding this chapter. You see, I wrote this chapter, uploaded it to ff.net, had a couple hours to think about it, and decided that I absolutely HATED it. So I deleted the chapter and rewrote it from scratch. I like the new version much better, but I know I confused some people who received alerts from ff.net that a new chapter had been posted, but then it didn't appear, as well as some people who actually saw the chapter before it vanished. Sorry for the confusion, folks.
To anyone who was concerned that Chapter 8 was the end, noooooooo, there are at least 2 more chapters after this one. (I say "at least" because my chapters sometimes run long, and end up getting split.) There's still plenty of things that need to be cleared up.
I know that some of you are upset that Peter became a boy again. To you, I can only say ... trust me. :)
Thanks again to all who have reviewed. I must admit that reviews make me write faster. :)
Now for a warning for our less intrepid readers: Did you think the angst in previous chapters was too much? Bail out now! The next couple chapters are even more angsty. Things will get better eventually, but first they're going to get considerably worse. Consider yourself warned. :)
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Wendy's health declined rather rapidly after Peter's departure. Her cough grew steadily worse, though Dr. Carew still insisted it was but a cold. He recommended that the delicate Wendy be protected from outside germs and contagion by staying as much as possible inside the house, and keeping the windows always shut. Aunt Millicent dutifully latched all windows in the house and pulled all of the thick curtains securely closed against any potential drafts.
Though his welcome there was decidedly forced, Dr. Carew visited the house once each fortnight to see whether Wendy's situation had bettered.
With each visit, however, her situation had instead worsened.
As time went on and Wendy's cough did not improve, she grew increasingly weak and felt always tired, and so took to spending a great deal of her time in the sitting room, lying wanly upon the divan, while Aunt Millicent read to her.
For indeed Aunt Millicent's concern for her niece's health now quite banished her concern of an overactive imagination. If stories might comfort poor Wendy, then Aunt Millicent would read her stories. They had begun working their way through Rudyard Kipling's oeuvre, and found themselves to both be enjoying The Jungle Book most wonderfully. Aunt Millicent read aloud surprisingly well, astonishing even herself with her unexpected dramatic flare.
Where once Aunt Millicent had pressed Wendy to eat very little so as to remain ladylike and elegant, she now fretted over Wendy's refusal to eat anything whatsoever. Wendy's appetite, it seemed, had quite utterly fled. Aunt Millicent watched her niece with worried eyes, not knowing what she might possibly do to help the girl, but fearing the worst.
Dr. Carew continued to visit, though his treatments offered Wendy little relief. He speculated that perhaps Wendy had contracted some disease from the absent young man, Peter, who had lived some time on the streets of London among the thronging poor and unwashed, who carry so very many diseases.
Of course, if Aunt Millicent had been given any remote idea of how many of London's thronging poor, unwashed, and ill citizens Wendy had spoken with during her searches for Peter on Oxford Street and in Whitechapel, that elegant lady would have fainted dead away. And so it was a kindness that Wendy had never told her.
And so time flew, and Dr. Carew continued his attentions to Wendy's health, despite his lack of success in the treatment of her growing illness.
And if during his visits Dr. Carew's hair was sometimes slightly longer and more wavy than was fashionable, Wendy in her fevered mind thought nothing of it, unaware that the man cut his hair afresh each morning to rid himself of the long, curling tendrils which mysteriously grew anew each night while he slept. At any rate, Wendy was too ill to pay the doctor close attention, Aunt Millicent did her concerted best to never look at the gentleman while she tolerated his visits in the house, and Lottie would have considered it impolite to notice.
It is true that Dr. Carew did offer Wendy some relief, for the morphine he had prescribed did indeed reduce her coughing, as well as easing her chest pain and leaving her less anxious and more able to relax. And under the influence of the morphine she often dreamt marvelous dreams, filled with the most wonderful adventures.
Indeed even in her sleep, Wendy was a storyteller in her deepest and dearest heart of hearts. She had a rare and precious gift: she could tell stories that came alive. That was who she was, a storyteller. She had lost her stories for a time, her imaginative spirit dulled down by responsibility and politeness, but Peter's reappearance in her life had helped her to find her heart once more. Her stories had returned to her. And so even in her fevered sleep, even in the clutches of illness, she continued telling stories in her dreams.
She dreamt of a wolf who became her loyal friend and guardian, of a dark cavern through which a dangerous river ran filled with pale blind fish, and of Red Maggie the pirate queen.
"Didst thou ever want to be a pirate, me hearty?" Red Maggie asked her in her dreams, and Wendy flew into the air to battle the pirate queen who had been so impertinent as to question whether Wendy herself might be tempted to such a dishonorable profession as piracy.
But in the night, Wendy woke often from her dreams shivering, her nightdress quite soaked in sweat, and she lay upon her dampened bedclothes and looked with dark, fever-bright eyes toward the window, though it was thoroughly covered by thick curtains. She wondered if Peter had found Neverland again, and if all was well.
Just as she had said she would, she missed him terribly.
Time went on apace, and Wendy became at length confined to her bed. The coughing had grown so very much worse that she sometimes produced blood when she coughed. Her weakness too had grown, and she still could not bring herself to eat.
Wendy slowly grew ever more pale, thin, and frail. She looked quite another young lady than she had done when Peter had left her, her eyes now large and dark in her thin face, her hair grown dull and her skin so white as to appear nearly gray. She breathed only with difficulty, and was often wracked by coughing even despite the morphine.
* * *
It was during one of Dr. Carew's dreaded visits that Wendy made a most shocking discovery. The doctor had been examining her, pressing his cold disk to her back and telling her to breathe deeply, which of course led to a bout of coughing that left her feeling even weaker than she had before.
"Hmm," said Dr. Carew, touching his left hand to the skin of her forehead to analyze her temperature. But as he leaned forward to do this, Wendy saw that the sleeve of his other arm pulled back slightly from where it had covered his hand quite thoroughly in a rather unfashionable and untidy way.
But when that sleeve pulled back just the slightest amount, Wendy caught sight of the doctor's right hand, and saw that it was shriveled and shrunken, and she gasped.
"What is it, my dear girl?" asked Dr. Carew with his usual odious solicitousness.
Wendy looked up into his face, and into his piercing blue eyes, and stammered, "Your hand ... is cold."
Nodding sagely, Dr. Carew replied, "That is your fever, dear Wendy. It has worsened."
Wendy gulped and tried not to stare, and yet her eyes were wide and confused, which Dr. Carew noticed as he stood to leave.
* * *
"I am afraid her condition has worsened, Miss Tilney."
Aunt Millicent preferred to avoid the doctor's company as much as possible, but she did speak with him after each of his visits so that she might learn of any developments in her niece's now quite frightening illness.
"Is there anything we can do for her, doctor?"
Gesturing toward the stairway with a graceful and perfectly formed left hand, Dr. Carew explained, "I am afraid the young lady's fever has grown quite dangerous, and her eyes shine with a most worrisome confusion."
"But what can we do? Can anything be done?" Aunt Millicent was growing quite frantic with worry. She loved her niece very deeply, and felt rather responsible that the girl had grown ill while in her care.
"You might apply cool cloths to her forehead, and make sure not to light the fire in her bedchamber, but there is little else to be done for her."
As they continued to speak in quiet tones about the health of the dreadfully ill young lady upstairs, neither of them realized that the young lady in question had weakly struggled from her bed, asking Lottie to help her dress as quickly and secretly as possible.
"Turn out the lamps when I have gone," Wendy whispered to the maid, "and tell Aunt Millicent that I am sleeping. And fetch Harry!"
Luckily, Lottie had extensive experience with hiding Wendy's more inappropriate adventures, having covertly scrubbed many a soiled dress when the young lady returned from Oxford Street or Whitechapel, and so Lottie simply smiled and nodded, pleased to be of service to a lady who had been so consistently kind and respectful toward her.
* * *
When Dr. Carew had finished his rather stilted conversation with Miss Millicent Tilney, he took his discreetly wrapped payment from the table near the door, and he left. His carriage awaited him, and so he climbed within and knocked upon the ceiling, signaling for his driver to take him home.
He did not notice the carriage behind his own, which followed at a cautious distance. And, having never paid any attention whatever to Miss Tilney's servants, he would not have recognized the driver even if he had seen him.
Harry kept the doctor's carriage always in sight, as Miss Darling had instructed him, and followed the fellow with some satisfaction, for even Miss Tilney's servants had disliked the unpleasant and seemingly disingenuous fellow upon first sight.
* * *
When at length Dr. Carew's carriage came to a stop at a respectable-looking home in Kensington, Harry too stopped in the shadows some small distance away. Within the carriage, a fevered, trembling Wendy watched the doctor alight from his carriage and enter the house, closing the door behind him. One of the ground floor windows became subtly illuminated, a sliver of light escaping through a slight gap between the curtains.
"Wait here, Harry," Wendy whispered softly, and then cautiously crossed the street to stand in the darkness below the illumined window. The space between the curtains was so thin that she could see little, and so she instead pressed her ear to the glass, hoping to hear something useful.
It could not be Hook! Surely she must have imagined it. Hook was dead! And, at any rate, he would not be in London! She was quite certain she must have been imagining the resemblance. Her mind was often dreadfully muddled with the fever, and so she needed to learn more, to learn if it had been only her mind, or if this man could truly be the dreaded pirate she had known in Neverland.
Desperately fighting the weakness of her limbs which urged her at each moment to sink upon the ground, fighting the shivering chills that attacked her despite the raging fever, Wendy stubbornly held her ear against the window.
"Now, good Dr. Carew," the man said, and indeed his voice did sound less genteel and more of an arrogant growl, his voice deeper and less fashionably charming. "Dr. Carew, what are we to do about my hand? As such a skilled and educated doctor, I have every confidence that you know precisely what to do."
It sounded as if Hook, for she now was sure that it must be he, were pacing back and forth across the floor, in some agitation.
"Tell me, my dear Dr. Carew, where I might have fashioned a fine hook for myself, for I find this wretched hand quite useless to me now."
A moment passed, with footsteps the only sound. Wendy felt an almost overwhelming need to cough, but pressed her hand tightly over her mouth, for she felt certain that Hook would kill her if he knew she were there. Her body shook with the silent coughing held within by her restraining hand, but Wendy found that she felt no better afterward. Her chest was paining her, and she felt increasingly weak from standing so long, but she would not leave until she knew as much as possible about what Hook was up to.
"No answer, Dr. Carew? You are such a disappointing conversationalist."
Who was Hook talking to? Was he talking to himself? Or was the real Dr. Carew held prisoner inside? Wendy turned her head to peer through the tiny gap between the curtains. She saw Hook, still dressed in clothes quite similar to her father's, and any other modern gentleman's, his hair somewhat in disarray as if he had been combing his fingers through it. She could now see that it seemed rather longer than usual, and quite wavy.
Hook paced into and out of her vision repeatedly, grumbling darkly to himself and gesturing occasionally with the glass goblet he held in his hand, as if he had been drinking brandy.
"And, good excellent Dr. Carew, I hold you personally responsible for the fact that" -- and here Hook's voice rose to a roar -- "PAN IS GONE!" And with those words, Hook furiously threw his brandy glass across the room so that it shattered, slightly jarring the curtain so that Wendy had a marginally better view of the room.
But the slight movement of the curtain was enough. For Wendy saw, propped in a corner of the room, the person to whom Hook had been speaking.
It was the corpse of a long-dead man, his putrid, discolored flesh rotting and horrible.
Shocked at the sight, the frail Wendy gasped, her last bit of strength deserting her as her illness overtook her stubborn determination. With a small cry of distress, she fell insensible to the ground, shivering unconsciously, her body drenched in an unhealthy sweat.
* * *
Hearing a sound from without, Hook frowned and narrowed his eyes, cautiously pulling aside the curtain barely enough for him to peer outside. But the surrounding area was too dark for him to see anything, and so he walked toward his door, a revolver in his left hand.
Just as Hook opened the door and stepped onto the narrow stoop to look about for what had made the mysterious sound, he spied Wendy collapsed and unconscious upon the ground. He recognized her immediately, of course, and an enraged growl emerging from his throat as he took a step toward her, cocking his revolver.
"Miss Darling!" another man called in distress at that same moment, running across the street toward the front of Hook's home.
Stepping out of the light and back inside his house to quietly close the door, Hook went once more to the window and watched with cruel and dangerous eyes as Wendy Darling was carried away.
* * *
Poor Harry found himself quite panicked and confused after carefully laying the limp Miss Darling within the carriage. Should he take her immediately to the hospital? Or should he return her to Miss Tilney's home? Unaccustomed to making such decisions without direct instruction from his mistress, Harry resolved that he should take the young lady back from whence she had come, and then ask his mistress for further instructions.
* * *
Aunt Millicent, of course, was quite beside herself when Wendy was brought into the house even more pale than usual, her dress drenched with not only her own sweat but also the moisture of the grass upon which she had fallen in her faint. She had not even known that her niece had left the house! And what had the girl been thinking, to leave in her condition? It was scandalous!
Aunt Millicent asked Harry to take Wendy to her bed, where she was lain with great care and concern. She still had not wakened, and her breathing was harsh and labored, her body wracked by painful coughing, and her skin as heated as if a fire burned within her. The poor girl tossed her head upon the pillow in distress, speaking occasionally in delirious bouts of mad mutterings.
"It's Hook!" she moaned. "Not a doctor! Not a doctor!"
"But Wendy," soothed Aunt Millicent gently, applying a cold cloth to her niece's fevered brow, "we simply must call a doctor, for you are quite ill."
In fact, Aunt Millicent had sent an urgent message to Dr. Carew that his services were most desperately needed, but he had -- rather oddly -- not replied.
"It's Hook," moaned Wendy deliriously. "Dead man! Terrible dead man!"
Aunt Millicent watched the girl in horrified worry. "Harry! Go to the Darlings' residence and ask where you might find their family's physician! Dr. Carew has not replied, and Wendy needs help immediately!"
Harry was gone almost even before Aunt Millicent had finished her sentence.
* * *
And so it was that Wendy was visited by Dr. Woodhouse, who had long been treating the Darling boys for their frequent and numerous scrapes, bumps, and bruises, for they were a most energetic brood of scamps.
Talking briefly first with Aunt Millicent in the drawing room to learn of Wendy's symptoms, the white-bearded, thin, most remarkably tall Dr. Woodhouse grew more and more grave. "Cough?" he verified. "Loss of appetite? Fever? Night sweats? Chills? Loss of energy?" And then he shook his head, looking downward at his hands. "It sounds as if it may be the consumption, Miss Tilney. I shall not know until I have examined her, of course, but it sounds gravely serious."
Aunt Millicent, it must be admitted, felt rather faint upon hearing this, but she encouraged the doctor to go upstairs to examine Wendy, and then sank down into the nearest chair, barely looking where she was, her hand lifting to anxiously finger the cameo at her throat as she tried desperately to control her mounting fear.
When Dr. Woodhouse slowly descended the stairs once more, some time later, Aunt Millicent stood, watching him anxiously for some word.
"Miss Tilney, I am afraid I have very unfortunate news. It is indeed the consumption, and it is very advanced."
"What does that mean?" inquired Aunt Millicent in a quavering voice.
"Miss Tilney, I am very sorry to tell you this, but ... your niece may not live through the week."
At which pronouncement, Aunt Millicent quite suddenly crumpled to the floor in a faint.
* * *
Peter, in the meantime, had returned to Neverland with Tinker Bell, and had been momentarily surprised to find the place entirely restored, as if nothing had ever gone wrong.
"Tink!" he cried joyfully as they flew over the island in great spiraling circles. "There is the waterfall! And the volcano! And the mermaids! And the fairies! And the Indians!"
Tinkerbell seemed to think he was behaving most strangely and making rather a big fuss over nothing. Peter would later learn that Neverland's other denizens, too, had no memory that anything untoward had happened to Neverland in the recent past. All was as it had always been.
Peter found that at the foot of his tree house he was joined by a loyal wolf who had been forsaken by its parents. "Who are you?" asked Peter. But the wolf had no name, only choosing to stay close to Peter and guard him against danger whenever the boy walked upon the ground, whenever he was not flying. For everyone knows that wolves cannot fly. Peter simply patted the wolf's fur and accepted him as a friend.
Peter quite happily settled back into the rhythm of Neverland, having many interesting adventures. Soon after his arrival, he explored the depths of a dark cave through which flowed a dark and mysterious river. Tinker Bell's light allowed Peter to see that beneath the surface the river was filled with pale blind fish which had never been touched by the light of the sun, and that the bottom of the river was carpeted with clean white bones. The cavern was an especially wonderful hiding place, and quite exciting to explore, particularly because of the constant danger of falling into the river and being devoured within three minutes by the voraciously carnivorous blind fish.
On his first day back, Peter excitedly went to call the mermaids, who came to him with much splashing and writhing in the water. They told him of the pirates, and their new leader, who was called "Red Maggie." And so Peter eagerly flew to the Jolly Roger, curious about this new pirate whom he intended to run through with his sword before she had even realized he was there.
And there were the pirates, just as Wendy had always described them, with the addition of a flame-haired woman whom they apparently called "Red Maggie." She was tall for a woman, and fine-boned, her skirts tied up with various cords to keep her legs free for fighting. She wore a sword at her waist, and her red hair hung down her back like a curtain of fire.
"Red Maggie?" Peter called with a laugh, as he soared in and out of the rigging, and all 'round the pirate ship.
"Who calls?" asked the woman in a growling purr. She turned her face toward him, and Peter saw that she wore a black patch over one eye, and that her cheek beneath the patch was marked with a wide white scar in a straight line almost to her chin. Aside from the scarring, she was quite beautiful.
The pirate queen drew her sword and followed Peter's flight with her eyes. "Would you be Peter Pan?"
"You've heard of me!" Peter crowed, quite pleased with this development.
"Aye. Ye are the lad who killed Captain James Hook, are ye not?"
"Aye, Red Maggie, that I am. I defeated him and he was swallowed whole by a crocodile. And I shall defeat you, as well!"
"Nay, lad, I think ye shall not. For ye have denied me my revenge against James Hook!"
"Revenge?" asked Peter. This was an interesting development.
"Many years ago, Captain James Hook and I battled fierce, and in that battle he did pluck out me eye," at which mention, the lady fingered the patch she wore. "He also scarred me face most terrible. And for this I must have my revenge!"
"Sorry. He's already dead. Too bad for you!" Peter gloated, swooping in arrogant circles, sometimes coming quite close to the lady pirate as he flew, sometimes tweaking a lock of her hair, sometimes walking across the top of her head quite rudely.
"Insolent lad! Ye have taken me revenge from me! And for this I shall hunt ye and kill ye dead!"
"Good luck!" cried Peter, laughing merrily. "You can't even catch me!"
"One day I shall, Peter Pan!" Red Maggie shouted. "One day I shall!" At which point, Peter soared away, bored with the taunting, certain to return another day to gleefully clash swords.
* * *
If changes had occurred to Neverland since last he had seen it, and indeed they had, Peter did not notice, but blithely lived as if the Neverland had always been so, for indeed he did not remember that it had ever been different.
He did not notice that the stories Wendy had told him in London had somehow affected Neverland, for such an idea would never have made the slightest amount of sense to him. How could Wendy affect the Neverland? Of course she could not! And yet she had, and the proof was right before him -- in his wolf companion, in the pale blind carnivorous fish, and in Red Maggie -- though he did not choose to see it.
If he had cared to think about such things, Peter might have wondered how it was that Wendy's stories had healed him, and now also seemed to have changed the Neverland. Had she healed the Neverland just as she had healed him? How? And if so, why had Neverland died in the first place? Had that also to do with Wendy's stories? Had her stories somehow died, and taken Neverland with them? And then somehow returned it all?
Perhaps in fact it is best that Peter did not care to think about such things, for if he had he would most likely only have found himself in a dreadful muddle that would make him very cross. And Peter hated to be cross.
And so Peter did not think great thoughts, but instead went about his daily adventures, talking to mermaids, dancing with Indians, climbing trees, swimming down waterfalls, flying with fairies, and battling the pirates. All was quite as it should be. Peter had even found that the new pirate leader was a most enjoyable adversary, and he quite enjoyed their battles.
This Red Maggie was a brave and excellent swordsman, and her hair fanned out about her when she fought, making it look as if she were on fire. She was a worthy opponent, and her sword was quick and nimble. Though she could not, of course, compare to Peter Pan.
How could she? He was the best there ever was!
And yet, no matter how many adventures he had, Peter did not feel truly happy. It seemed that something was missing.
He told himself that it was Hook. Hook indeed was missing, and of course he should be, since he had been swallowed by the crocodile. Hook had been a fearsome foe, and so of course his absence would be noticed.
But Hook had been replaced by Red Maggie, who was great fun as well. And yet, no matter how many thrilling battles Peter fought against the new pirate queen, he still did not feel truly happy. It seemed that something far more important than Hook was missing.
"I miss Wendy," he whispered to himself one night as he stared up at Neverland's sky thick with stars. And as he said it, he suddenly knew it to be true.
But he did not want it to be true, and so for a long time he tried to deny it. She had refused to come with him, and he did not need her at all. She could stay in her stupid house in stupid London forever and he didn't care a single bit.
Now, Peter was exceedingly talented at lying to himself, which can be a rather useful talent, but even he could not deny the truth forever.
"I miss Wendy," he whispered sadly to the waves that crashed upon the rocks at the Mermaids' Lagoon. "I miss her."
It was true. He missed Wendy. And he wanted her back.
And so, when he at last ceased denying his feelings on the matter, Peter made a decision.
"Tink?" he called. "Tinker Bell!" When the fairy came racing to him and hovered before his face, he said firmly, "I am going to go back and make Wendy come with me." Tinker Bell made surprised but not entirely unsupportive noises. "Do you want to come?" Tinker Bell nodded, always excited for an adventure with Peter.
And so, right that very moment, Peter and Wendy lifted off the ground with determined expressions on both their faces as they flew away from Neverland and toward Wendy.
And as they flew, Peter said grimly, "I shall not return alone!"
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Author's End Note: You know, I thought about ending this chapter with Aunt Millicent fainting at the announcement that Wendy is dying, but I decided to take pity on you guys and give you something a bit more hopeful, instead of saving the Peter stuff for chapter 10. :)
More to come, most likely tomorrow. I'll probably finish the story this weekend.
You know, this has been a very difficult story to write, because it is very difficult to write dialogue for a Peter who does not know that he is Peter, a Hook who does not know that he is Hook (yeah, you'll learn about that in the next chapter), and a Hook who knows that he is Hook but is still pretending to be an Edwardian gentleman. I'm glad everybody knows who they are, now, because things should be a bit easier to write in these final chapters. Whew!
