Author's Note: I really am sorry that I was not able to get this chapter up sooner. The last chapter ended in a way that was open to interpretation. I am unsure if I should continue this story now. I'd appreciate feedback as to if I should keep going. At the end of this chapter, the story can end. I was just wondering if anyone wanted me to expand the story to explain how the Lost Boys grew up. Let me know.

Chapter Six

A loud sob like gasp escaped Wendy's lips as she began shaking uncontrollably and crying shamelessly onto Peter's chest with the thimble clenched within her hand. Peter could not tell if this were a good or bad reaction to his confession. He could do little else but run his hands smoothly over her back in hopes of calming her. Wendy raised her head slightly and buried her face in Peter's shoulder as she clung to him as if her life depended upon it. Peter's arms around her were like a rock inside the storm of emotion that she found herself.

"This is no dream Wendy," he said soothingly. "I'm here. It's Peter."

Her small, hopeful face looked up at him as if he held the key to her happiness. "You say so," she sniffed. "But I think it might be my biggest pretend." With that she laughed joyfully and began rubbing her tears away from her eyes.

"Then let me be that Wendy," said Peter as he laid his hands upon her waist. "So long as I can be with you."

"Oh Peter!" she cried with a brilliant smile upon her face. "If you were just a big pretend it does not matter to me. Only do not leave me alone again."

"I never truly left Wendy," he said honestly. "I just could not be by your side. But I have always been there."

Wendy wiped her nose against her small handkerchief. Her eyes traveled his face again but this time in a new light. No longer was she using her imagination to see what she hoped he was. She was seeing Peter as a man. The realization marveled her. Her hand came up to travel the lines of his cheek and moved around his face. She could feel Peter's hands clench and unclench on her waist and it made her feel strong. It had not fully struck her yet that she had so much influence on him.

"How you have grown," she commented as she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth.

Peter's right hand came up to claim her hand and held it, making lazy circles around it with his thumb. "Do you find me pleasing now Wendy?" he asked a bit of uncertainty. The changes that his body had experienced left him feeling somehow inadequate at times. There are more than a few times he had felt more awkward than comfortable. Smee had told him that his confidence would return when his mind had adjusted to the changes within his body.

Wendy found herself blushing under his gaze and his question. "You have always been pleasing to me Peter," she answered honestly.

"Do you think you could love me?" he asked looking at her in such a way that she could not turn away.

The mood had become so intense that Wendy began to laugh nervously to ease the tension. Her eyes glittered up at him as her laughter caused a smile to form on his face. "You, asking of love," she mused but there was no malice behind her tone. "Does love still offend the great Peter Pan?"

"It never offended me," he answered seriously. "It was fear."

"Fear?" she asked, her eyes filled with confusion. "What is there to fear from love?"

"Everything," his eyes spoke of untold trials as he looked away from her.

"Do you think you could love me?" she asked laying her hands beside the thimble around his neck. From the corner of her eyes she saw his eyes snap back towards her.

"I never stopped," he confessed.

The sudden straight, forward declaration was enough to render Wendy almost permanently speechless. The sincerity in Peter's face could not deny the utter truth of his confession. Fresh tears lit her eyes as she looked up at the beautiful man in front of her. A boy who had been so carefree and confident, had turned into a responsible and unsure man. She would never have foreseen this. What could change such a person?

Peter mistook her silence as apprehension and not happiness. So he quickly began speaking. "I have always loved you Wendy," he said in a tone that sounded very much like pleading. "Did you never see it?"

"How could I Peter?" she asked sadly. "Whenever I mentioned such a notion you shut me out. What was I supposed to believe?"

Peter brought her closer to himself and held her tightly. "I know I have hurt you," he whispered soothingly into her ear. "I know I have a lot to prove. I only ask you one thing." He withdrew enough to lift her face to his.

"What is it?" asked Wendy with an amount of fear in her eyes.

"Another chance," he answered stroking her cheek and wiping away her tears. "Will you give me one last chance?"

"Yes," she said faintly as she looked into his eyes. The intensity of his gaze made her blush and she looked away.

Peter sighed audibly, in relief. "You can never know how much that means to me."

Curiosity made her eyes reach for his again. Everything about him was such a surprise. It was almost as if this were some version of Peter in her mind and not the Peter that she knew. "I need to get to know you all over again Peter," she mused with a smile. "You are so very different."

Peter gave her a small smile as he reached for her hand again. "We have time for that."

"What do we do now?" she asked with a small smile on her face.

"I was hoping you would tell me," he said with a hint of teasing in his voice.

"I cannot tell you the future, Peter," said Wendy. She placed the chain behind his shirt again and began buttoning his collar for him. "That is what makes life so much more exciting." The smile on her face was breathtaking and he felt that familiar weakening of his knees at the sight of her.

"The first thing I feel I am obliged to do is deliver you safely to your home," he said offering her his arm.

Wendy nodded as she allowed him to lead them back onto the path. He picked up her dropped parasol and shook the water out of it. "Oh Peter!" she exclaimed as she jumped in front of him in delight. "The boys will be positively thrilled!"

"Do you think they will be disappointed in me?" he asked apprehensively.

"Why would they?"

"I am not the way they remember me."

"I think they would be more agreeable about the way you are now," insisted Wendy. "They have grown now. They cannot conduct themselves like they did when you were with them in Neverland."

"Have they forgotten me?" asked Peter.

"Forgotten you?" asked Wendy as her eyebrows knotted. "How could they have ever forgotten you?"

"Nibbs could not even recognize me," said Peter as he managed to hold in his pout.

"Maybe it was that you were so physically changed," mused Wendy as they walked. She clung to his arm comfortably and walked closely with him. "He was questioning me rather thoroughly about you last night."

"About me?" asked Peter in surprise. "Did you know it was me last night?"

"Your eyes," she said tilting her head to look at him. "They have not changed. Your presence was as overpowering as it always was to me. I just could not be sure."

"I will never be able to hide from you will I?" he asked with a grin.

The grin was as infectious as it always had been and Wendy found herself smiling back at him. "No, I don't think that is possible."

"What shall we play this time?" asked Peter playfully. "Will you be Juliet? Cinderella while I scour the countryside for you? Snow White, trapped in her glass coffin awaiting her true love's first kiss? Or would you become a fierce lady pirate who writes about her many sea adventures?"

"I would be Wendy," she declared proudly. She laughed at his questioning face as they approached the streets. "Wendy who waits for her hero, Peter Pan, to come back to her."

The two people shared a warm smile with each other as the orange rays of the sun shone through the gardens. Everything seemed in total harmony as they made their way, calling a cab and paying no mind to everything around them.

The cab ride to Wendy's house in Bloomsbury was a quiet one. Both were hesitant to trouble the other. From time to time, their eyes would lock and they would smile warmly towards the other before looking away. The silence was not awkward. Both were in quiet contemplation within themselves. Wendy's thoughts were in a jumble as she tried to get over the supreme shock of Peter's sudden reappearance in her life. Her dreams had only been limited to the child Peter was. She had envisioned his return and the heartbreak it would cause when he would see that she had grown up and his rejection that would break her. Though she had wished in the deepest recesses of her mind that he would have stayed to grow up with her, she was still very dumb founded with it. The blunt reality of this situation had rendered her speechless but her keen mind was still racing. Looking over at the man sitting across from her, she felt a wave of warmth. The missing part of her life was finally put together, making her feel whole.

A great part of Peter's mind was trying not to push Wendy. His natural instincts were to grab a hold of her and kiss her. Kiss her and hold her until they were forced apart. The loving smile on her face made him feel everything to an extreme degree that he felt his heart about to burst. It was something similar to his reaction when she had kissed him on the Jolly Roger. That sudden burst of energy that had blown his enemies away was bubbling forth as he replayed her simple and shy statement. She did not prefer to be a princess in a fairy tale. She liked the life before her; a life that she foresaw with him in it.

Their quiet time in the cab would not last forever, he realized. He couldn't help it. Slowly and so as not to alarm her, he bent forward and grabbed a hold of her hand. The white gloves that she wore were small and he wondered if she had any ink stains from the stories she must write. Stains or no, he wanted to be able to hold her hand without the hindrance of gloves. He seemed to concentrate deeply as he looked at the contrast of their hands against each other.

Wendy made no move to take her hand away from his but instead watched him with a smile upon her lips. Slowly her free hand went up to carefully take off his hat so that she could gently run her hand through his hair. His hair was not as bushy as it had been but the color was the same. That dirty blond hair that was never tamed was not neatly combed back and manageable. She could not feel the texture of it but she knew that it would be soft. Her finger slowly came around and began to lightly trace the features of his face. She did not know where her boldness came from. Maybe it was the immense curiosity that she felt. Maybe it was just that it was her chance to actually touch him again when before she had been too shy. Before, they had not touched too much, but they had invaded each other's personal space more than enough times.

"Do you," said Wendy nervously. "Do you ever think about our last battle against Hook?"

"Often," he said a little too briefly. His lips tightened into a thin line but his touch remained gentle.

Wendy could see the flash of anger and hurt in his eyes for a moment before it was pushed away.

"He had almost won," said Peter. "He knew just how to say the words that had rung so true to my heart."

"What were they?" asked Wendy curiously. "When I saw you fall to the deck, it was the most frightening sight."

"Even more frightening than when Hook had his hook at your throat?" asked Peter.

"Yes," she answered in a soft whisper. "You are incapable of unhappy thoughts."

Peter couldn't help but laugh a little at that. Things were so different from how Wendy saw him. He was her hero still. Would he disappoint her when he told her he was only human? "I suppose in a way I was," he said thoughtfully. His eyes returned to watching her lips intently.

"Do you think your reaction will be similar to the last time?" asked Wendy shyly.

"I hope so," answered Peter. He had thought about it often and the same lethargic smile would always creep onto his lips. His fingers came up to touch her lips. Two startling eyes looked up at her, their color so rich and deep that they seemed to change. Green turned emerald and then to the bluest sapphire she had ever seen. Those eyes were focused on her trembling lips as if they could speak to them. "You told me then that you hidden kiss belonged to me," he whispered. "Does it belong to me still?"

"It always will be," she answered firmly.

"No matter what?" he asked looking up, into her eyes.

Wendy let a moment pass; not out of hesitation but of the various emotions running through her. "No matter what," she confirmed.

A light smile came to Peter's face. It was not a smirk, nor a grin. It was just a heart warming smile that made the butterflies in her stomach flutter about. The smile that graced her face had just the right affect on Peter. He was lost to her and he knew he never did mind it.

"How glad I am to hear that," he said as he closed the distance between them. Wendy found herself closing her eyes in nervous anticipation for the feel of his lips upon hers. It was not disappointment but confusion that flooded her features when Peter's lips only touched the right hand corner of her mouth. Her eyes flew open and they seemed to ask him why.

Another warm smile ran across his lips as he lightly ran his finger along her lower lip. "There," he said stopping his finger where he had kissed her. "In the right hand corner," he said focusing on her mouth. "I hope that one day, the entire kiss will belong to me."

The familiar sounds of a carriage beginning to stop made them finally pull back from one another. Each smiled at the other with a sense of mischief and excitement before Wendy carefully replaced Peter's hat up on his head. Her hand lingered over his face briefly before she fully turned towards the door to avoid his eye. She tried not to blush under Peter's intense gaze. The practical part of her knew that now, they both had to conduct themselves the appropriate way. Yet, their relationship was based on the inappropriate in so many ways. It was going to be very hard to practice all the things engraved in her while Peter was around.

Wendy had a slight bounce to her graceful step as she ascended towards her front door with Peter. A brilliant smile radiated from her face and a great part of her felt as if she could drown in a fit of unnatural giggles. She seemed on air until she could fell the hesitation in the person beside her. Slowly she turned before ringing the familiar doorbell and gave Peter a questioning look.

"I…," said Peter uneasily. His body was stiff and he felt he could not move. "I am not sure I am ready for this."

"What do you mean?" asked Wendy curiously.

"It isn't that I do not wish to see the boys," he explained as his eyes swept the house he had watched so closely for so long. Wendy noticed that his accent faltered and she could hear his real voice now. It made her smile. Peter finally fixed his anxious gaze on Wendy. "I have waited so long," he continued. "I have lived for this moment but now that I am here… I know not which way to go or what to do."

"Do you feel this is the end of your adventure, Peter?"

Peter's eyes snapped out of his revelry to look at her as if the very notion was unthinkable. It lightened her heart. He shook his head. "No. This is the first of many things to come. I just hope for so many things."

"We all hope and dream," said Wendy with a twinkle in her eye. "No longer do you have to hope and dream alone. I will not leave your side." She held out her hand, offering him, her support and courage.

"Do you promise that?" asked Peter as he looked at her hand. He made no move to take it.

The look on his face made her hand tingle even though he had not even touched it yet. A slight shiver ran through her again. Only Peter had the ability to do this to her, she realized. Nobody else would have such a profound effect on her as he did and he had not even touched her in any way. Only his eyes touched her and she could feel them. She wondered if she truly had as much power over him that he had over her. Everything about him in youth had been refreshing and free. Now, as a man, he was almost overwhelming. She found she loved the change in him. The hesitancy that he was showing her now was proof that he had truly changed. It made her glow with pride. She was truly special if he allowed her to see this side of himself.

Pressure and responsibility. They may have been the most frightening things about growing up for Peter. A boy would not have to ever face such things. A man would. Now Wendy was here. As always, she was the beacon in this storm of emotion that he seemed to be caught up in. She was the only thing that made sense. Her smiling face and her absolute acceptance made him feel the weight of unworthiness even more. How fortunate for him to be blessed to know her. He only hoped that she could love him as well. The way would be her family, he knew. Wendy was loyal to her family.

"They will love you, Peter," she said almost as if she were reading his thoughts.

Peter shook his head again. "It's not their love I am concerned about having," he said with a slight grin at her startled expression. The old Peter seemed to resurface a little as he winked at her.

Time. That was what they both needed. When time had been too long for him, it now did not seem like it was long enough. Would there be enough time to show her just how much of the world she meant to him? Looking at her in that moment, he knew that they were both unsure of what was to come inside the house, through the door. One step of his journey was over and now he was beginning another. One hurtle had been jumped across, a higher was ahead. To be able to stay this close to Wendy, he would fly.

Peter reached out for Wendy's waiting hand and squeezed it tight."Lead the way to our adventure together, my Wendy," he said with the grin that she had loved as a child. The grin that she knew she would love until the end of her days.

Author's Note: There it is. I hope you like it.