Disclaimer: Not mine
A/N: I'm starting to realise that this story is going to go on too long unless I start being stricter with myself. The problem: I don't know how... Well, I'll try not to write anything unnecessary.
III
Alix stood outside her door, stamping her feet in the cold. Every now and then she could see her dad peering at her through the curtains, but she ignored him. She had told him she was meeting a friend to go to the library, which was sort of true, but now it just looked like she was hanging around for nothing.
"It wasn't a dream." She muttered, "It was real, he exists. Oh please don't let it have been a dream."
"Don't let what be a dream?" Came a voice from behind her, and she almost jumped into the air.
"Peter, damn it!" She shouted, "Don't creep up on me! Did you fly? I bet you flew."
"No, I don't fly during the day." They boy told her, grinning, "But I learnt how to walk silently in the forests of Neverland. And some things you just don't forget."
"So you got back home safe?" She asked, and he nodded. She started walking and he followed her, not bothering to ask where they were going, "Good. Don't the people you stay with check on you in the night?"
"They check on the little one's sometimes, but not anyone older than ten." He grinned, "Sometimes we all go out on adventures, where we explore the parks. Some of my friends like to buy drinks, and drink them, but the drinks are too expensive and taste funny."
Alix laughed and shook her head, marvelling at his innocence. Then she was reminded that this boy had killed pirates, and had to fight for his survival, and it occurred to her that maybe he wasn't completely innocent.
"So, where are we going?" Peter asked, looking around the road they were walking up.
"Ever been to a library?"
III
He had, it turned out, but none as big as the library they were in now. He had only ever been to the small library his school offered, and only ever went on there to hide in the stacks and talk to Tinkerbell.
But this library didn't seem like the place you could have a quiet conversation with a fairy. This library bustled.
"It's so big." He told her as they walked in.
"I know, it's a really good library. Come on, over here." She led him over to a desk where a young woman sat, reading a book, "Excuse me miss, I wonder if you can help me?"
"Of course." She put down the book and peered at them, "What do you need?"
"Um, where do you keep the local newspapers?" Alix asked, suddenly looking nervous, "And how far back do they date?"
"Well, we have the hard copies of all the papers from the last fifty years, but if you need anything that predates that, we have a huge collection of newspapers scanned
onto the computers. I don't even know how far back they span. And you can check out specific things."
"That's exactly what we need." She smiled, "Where are the computers?"
"Over there." Just as they turned to leave, the woman called out, "It's funny, we don't get a lot of kids looking at the newspapers. I was just wondering why?"
"It's for social studies." Alix lied quickly, "Very important work."
"It's a shame; no one ever looks at them just out of interest." She shrugged, "Well, no one normal anyway. But you two look normal. You kids be good, ok?"
They agreed they would, and made their way over to the computers. It was true; they did look like normal kids. Peter wore a pair of straight leg jeans and a black t-shirt, a blue sweater tied around his waste, while Alix wore a pair of baggy jeans, a red t-shirt with a fake baseball team on it and a dark green army shirt. They could have been two normal teenagers doing research for a social studies project. No one could have guessed they were looking for hints of the life of the boy's long dead love.
"Ok, we don't know how old Wendy was when the book was written, so let's just look at articles from the last hundred years?" Alix said, sitting in front of the computer. Peter sat down next to her, a look of excitement forming on his face.
"And you're sure this computer will tell me about Wendy?" He asked. He often used computers at home, mainly for writing up homework and playing games, although occasionally he had tried the internet, and found himself completely lost.
"Nope, but it might." She shrugged, "If she's been mentioned in the newspapers at all, we'll find her. This paper is only for the local area, and if it was anything like it is today, it'll pretty much mention everyone."
She opened up the Search engine and typed in 'Wendy Darling, Wendy Moira Angela Darling'.
"Just in case it has her down as either." Alix explained, and pressed search. Two titles came up, and Alix stared at them in surprise. They were headlines. One read 'School girl wins young writers competition' and won read 'Lord Byron marries daughter of Banker.' "Let's read the one about the school girl first." She said quickly, moving the mouse, but Peter grabbed her hand, shaking his head.
"The second one." He said quietly, "We'll read the second one."
Alix reluctantly dragged the mouse over to the second headline and clicked it, bringing up the full article.
Today a large reception turned up to see the marriage of Lord Charles Byron to Wendy Moira Angela Darling, the daughter of a prominent banker, George Darling. Lord Byron has recently become quite a public figure, turning up for many charity events in the local area, and no one had failed to notice that in recent months he has often been accompanied by the young Wendy Darling.
Wendy, aged twenty three, was born in 1882, and it was her father who opened up the orphanage, 'The Lost Boys' ten years ago.
The wedding took place in the local park, and was an open event for all to attend. It was commented upon by many how charming Wendy looked, and how handsome Charles looked.
Some of you may recognize the young bride's name, which is not surprising. The young heroine in the new book, Peter Pan, by J.M.Barrie was named after her, as he is a friend of her family, and many of the children in the book are based upon Wendy's many siblings. Wendy herself has had some works published, but is now, presumably, settling down into her new role as wife.
The article then went off into a description of the wedding. Alix could tell that the writer was not very interested in the story, but then, who would be? Some big wig Lord gets married, not exactly a page turner. But then again, the article had unearthed so many treasures. Wendy had known J.M.Barrie, and had told him the story, and he had adapted it and published it. It also gave them a year of birth, and a new name, Wendy Moira Angela Byron.
And of course, was the greatest treasure of all. Two photographs. One of the smiling couple surrounded by their family, and one of Wendy standing alone, in a simple dress with a pretty sash.
"That's Wendy then." Alix whispered, looking at the photos, "She was..."
"Beautiful." Peter finished, his eyes locked to the computer screen, "She was beautiful. And old."
"Only twenty two." She corrected, "That's not old at all, that's young. My dad would say that she's still just a girl. My brother's older than her."
"Just look at her eyes, she's old, an adult." He looked at the photo of the couple, "And he's the man she decided to spend the rest of her life with. He's nothing like me!"
Alix couldn't help but laugh slightly at the arrogance of that statement, "How do you know she was looking for someone like you? Maybe one Peter Pan was enough for her."
This statement appealed to his vanity, and he nodded, still looking at the man, "Does she look happy to you?"
"She looks happy." Alix said quietly, not knowing what Peter wanted to hear, "He looks happy to, the man she married, Charles Byron. I think they were very much in love."
"Is ten years a long time to wait for someone before giving up on them?" Peter asked, as if the answer had no relevance to him.
"It is if you know that they're not going to come back." She told him, the busied herself on the computer, printing out two copies or the article, giving one to Peter and keeping one for herself "Ok, now lets look for Wendy Byron, shall we?"
A number of other articles came up, and they read them all. Most were just mentions of her and Lord Byron attending charity events, but a few were just about the family. Wendy had had two children, a son named Charles, after his father, and a daughter named Jane. Lord Byron had bought the Wendy house off George Darling, who had bought a bigger house for the orphanage, and the couple and their two children had lived there for the entirety of the First World War. Then, presumably, the two children had moved home. There was an article on Jane's marriage to a man named Edward Masters, and another on the birth of their daughter Margaret. Charles, Wendy's son, was killed during world war two, and it also mentioned the bombing of the old Darling house.
"They moved away after that." Alix whispered, "I never wondered about the people who lived in my house when it was bombed. And to think it was the infamous Wendy Darling and her husband."
"I need to go toilette." Peter said suddenly, standing up, "Print out all those articles, I want the photos."
There were so many photos. Even as she grew old, Wendy had been stunning. But, as she had grown older, she had lost the look of happiness in her eyes that she had had on her wedding day. She began to look tired and sad, and Alix couldn't help but feel that she had made the wrong decision. Alix first noticed the look in the photos that had been taken after her children had grown up. It occurred to her that without the presence of childhood in her life, Wendy had withered away.
Alix printed out all the articles twice, and then clicked on the next one. She read the headline, and a gasp escaped her mouth.
"Oh no." She breathed, her eyes wide, "Oh please no."
'Wife of Lord murdered by escaped prisoner.'
She had known Wendy was dead, there was no way she could still be alive, but murder? She had only been sixty seven, which wasn't as old as some people thought it was. She had still had plenty of life in her. They had found the prisoner and he had been put back in prison. Alix checked the date of the article. In was written in 1949, over fifty years ago. How was she going to tell Peter?
"Back." Came a voice from behind her, he had returned. He picked up the stack of printed articles and began riffling through them, smiling at the photos, "These mine? Oh, that's a pretty picture of Wendy when she one the young writers competition, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." Alix agreed, "Peter, you should read this one."
She pointed to the screen, and he moved over to have a better look. There was a minute of silence as he read it, and she saw his jaw clench, his eyes narrow.
"I'll kill him." Peter whispered, and there was so much anger and hatred in his voice that Alix shuddered.
"This happened over fifty years ago, and he was already in his forties." She explained, "Time has already killed him."
"That's not good enough!" The boy shouted, and stood up, his hand reaching for his waist. He looked down in confusion when his hand only grasped at the material of his t-shirt. Alix supposed that once upon a time, a knife had rested there. There were several shushing noises from around them, but Peter just glared.
"What can we do about it? Go back in time? He's dead Peter, and even if he hadn't killed Wendy, she'd be dead too by now. Life goes on." She stood up and looked him in the eyes, "You've never suffered a loss before, so I understand that this is hard, but there's nothing you can do. I'm sorry that you've lost Wendy, I really am, but don't get angry at me."
"I'm not angry at you." He said quietly, sitting down, "I'm angry at myself. This is my fault. If I had come back and stayed, it would have been me who married Wendy, and then it would have been different. And if she had still been murdered, then I would have been able to avenge her."
"So it's over now, you've found out what happened to her." Alix sat down next to him, picking up her pile of papers, "What are you going to do now?"
"I'm not sure. I'm not ready to go back to Neverland. And I'm not sure if Neverland will want me back. I'm too grown up, but still not grown up enough." He frowned, tracking his words, "That didn't make sense, I can't explain it."
"I understand." She assured him, "You don't have to go back now. Look, it says here that Jane had a daughter called Margaret, who was born in 1933. So I think she'd be...seventy something? Seventy one, that's it. She'd still be alive, maybe we can track her down, get her to talk about Wendy. She'd be able to tell us so much that these articles can't. I mean, we were lucky to get all of this. If Wendy hadn't married such a public figure we'd still be lost, but there's so much more we can find out. What do you think?"
"Margaret..." Peter tasted the name, looking at a photo of Wendy, by now looking quite old, with her hand on the shoulder of a little girl. She wouldn't be a little girl anymore; she'd be an elderly lady. Alix was looking at him with her grey blue eyes, half questioning, half hopeful. Tinkerbell would be annoyed, but recently the fairy had mellowed, and Peter knew she would not argue, "I'd like to meet Margaret. Should we go to see her tomorrow?"
"Peter! I'll need to find out where she lives first." Alix sighed, shaking her head, "You're so impatient. I'll try and find out where she lives tonight, but I might not be able to find her for ages! Unless...can you find her?"
"How can I find someone if I don't know where they live?" He asked.
"Oh, never mind." She sighed again, and then looked at the clock, "Oh dear, the library will be closing soon. I'll just print off the rest of the articles, we can read them later."
There weren't many left, just a few on her funeral, and an obituary. Alix quickly searched for anything on Jane and Margaret, but there was only one on Jane, and none on Margaret. She gave one pile of papers to Peter and put her own in her bag. The two left the library, unsure on whether or not it had been a success.
"We know a lot about her life now." Alix said as they walked towards her house, "I think she was happy."
"Maybe at first." Peter shrugged, "But not near the end. Growing up was never for Wendy, I knew that. She may have wanted to grow up, but there was always a child in her heart. She should have stayed with me. Or I should have stayed with her, and we would have stayed children in our hearts forever."
Alix didn't know what to say to that, so she stayed quiet, and they walked in silence to her house.
"Do you have a phone where you live Peter?" She asked when they reached her front door.
"Of course." He replied. Did she think he lived in the Stone Age?
"This is my number, phone me tonight, ok? I'll tell you what I've found out about Margaret." She scribbled down her number on a piece of paper and handed it to him, "And don't forget."
He laughed and agreed he wouldn't, before saying goodbye and walking away.
Alix headed inside, calling a greeting to her parents. She made her way up to her bedroom, pulled out a piece of paper, took out all the articles, and started on a crude time line. Several hours later, she was still there, now with a calculator.
III
Peter arrived back at the Summers home at about seven. He strolled in to find Susan waiting, crossed armed.
"Where have you been?" She asked her voice dangerous.
"I went to the library." He answered.
"Don't lie to me Peter." She snapped.
"I'm not, look, this is the stuff I got off the library computer." He showed her the big pile of paper, but pulled it away when she went to take it, "No, mine."
"Don't act infantile, show me the papers." Susan demanded, and Peter complied, sort of. He took each paper and held it up for her to see, but held each one out of reach.
"See, library stuff." He said, pleased with himself.
"You're impossible." She sighed, shaking her head, "Peter, you know that you can't just go off and not tell anyone. We were all worried. Jack and Nick were about to go and look for you."
"I'm sorry. I promised my friend I would go and see her." He explained, although he wasn't sorry at all. He found that saying it made the adults less harsh on him.
"What friend?" Susan asked immediately. Peter got on famously with all the children in the house, but had made no friends out of it. Most the children he went to school with where 'problem kids' and many of them were socially inept at making friends, leaving Peter with no one to really call a friend.
"Just a girl called Alix; she's helping me out with something." Peter told her.
"Peter, is this a girl friend?"
"She's a girl who's my friend." He answered, looking bemused, "Like Jolie."
"Oh...well...ok." Susan shrugged, "Look, I'm glad you've made a friend, but when we expect you home at half three and you don't get home until seven, well...we get worried."
"Why?" He asked.
"Someone might have hurt you." She tried to explain. Sometime having Peter around was so difficult.
"People have always tried to hurt me, I can always beat them." And there it was, so innocently given, the first clue to Peter's life before he came to them. He was always so guarded about his past, and this was so casually said, it took Susan a moment to realise it for what it was.
"What do you mean; people have always tried to hurt you?" She asked, but Peter just shrugged, "Peter, who tried to hurt you?"
"Oh, they're all long gone now; you don't have to worry about them." He assured her, "I can't remember most of them anyway, I forget about them as soon as they're gone."
The words struck a cord in Susan's memory; it had been what Peter Pan had said to Wendy when he had taken her for spring cleaning the year after their adventure.
"Good." She muttered, looking down and frowning "That's good." She shook herself, then looked back up at Peter, "Anyway, dinner's ready, and if you apologise enough Laura might feed you. And Nathaniel's here."
"Really?" Peter grinned and hurried into the kitchen. There sat the tall blond boy, bouncing Abbey on his knee.
"Nat!" Peter cried happily.
"Hey Pete." Nathaniel grinned, "Not dead then?"
"Never." He then turned to look at Laura, who was glaring at him, "I'm sorry I was late home I went to the library with my new friend Alix it was for her social studies project."
He said all this very quickly, and Laura blinked in surprise.
"Social Library who?" She managed.
"Library, social studies, Alix." He repeated, "She needed help."
"Who's Alix?" Karla asked, her voice sounding strange.
"New friend." Peter replied, sitting down between Shem and Nathaniel.
"Go Pete." Nathaniel grinned, but the younger boy just looked at him in confusion.
"Is Alix nice?" Jolie asked from across the table. Peter frowned, he hadn't really thought about it. Was Alix nice? She was helping him, which was nice of her, but was she nice? He really didn't know her well enough to tell.
"She's ok, I think." He replied, "I can talk to her about things I can't talk to anyone else about."
"Shall I start feeling offended now?" Jolie asked. Beside her, Karla was glaring at him.
"Oh don't be offended, it was an accident really." He explained, "I thought she was someone else. Now we're friends."
"Is she your girl friend?" Abbey asked, giggling.
"She's a girl who's my friend." He told the little girl, "Why does everyone ask me that?"
Everyone laughed and started eating, leaving peter confused. Jack and Nick came in, and he had to suffer a few minutes being berated by them. Then Susan and Edith came in, and Edith gave him another telling off, until he was quite sick of it.
"Don't worry about it." Nathaniel whispered, "They'll start giving you freedom eventually. For now you'll just have to tell them where you're going to be."
They finished dinner, and then Peter and Shem headed up to their room. Flinn, the boy they shared it with, normally hung out with the older boys, so they were alone. Peter pulled out all the paper Alix had given him, and started looking at them all. He really liked the article about Wendy winning the writing competition, and he liked the picture that went with it. It can't have happened too long after she had returned, because she still looked young. Her hair was pulled into two plaits, and she wore a pretty dress. She was smiling at the camera, looking quite embarrassed, and he couldn't help run a finger lovingly over her face.
"What's that Pete?" Shem asked. He had been mucking round on his guitar, but now he was looking over at Peter with curiosity in his eyes.
"Stuff for Alix's Social Studies project." He lied.
"Can I see?"
"Um...ok." He reluctantly handed over the paper, which Shem took.
"I can't believe girl's had to wear those dresses. Pretty much leaves everything to the imagination. She's pretty though." Shem riffled through all the paper, "Are they all the same girl? Yuck, look at her when she's old."
"Give them back." Peter said angrily, grabbing the paper. How dare he insult Wendy?
"Ok, ok. Sorry." Shem shrugged, "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, ok? You just shouldn't say that about...old ladies." He hated calling her that, but what else could he say? I'm in love with her? Yeah, that'd go down well. He took out the picture of her wedding day and looked at it again. She was stunning. He, reluctantly, picked up the picture of her and her husband, and began inspecting him. He might have been handsome, peter wouldn't know. He had fairly light hair, it was a black and white photo so he couldn't see what colour, and he was smiling. His head was slightly turned, and Peter could tell he was looking at Wendy out of the corner of his eye. She was looking at him completely, and her face was shining with joy.
It should have been me. The voice rose up inside him, but he pushed it back down. He took another photo, this one much later. Wendy was a middle aged woman, and it was a photo of her and her whole family at some event or another. Her two children, almost adults themselves, seemed uninterested in their parents. The boy, Charles, who looked a lot like his father, was smiling at a pretty girl, and the girl, Jane, was reading a book. Wendy's husband was talking animatedly to the man beside him. He had lost the smile on his face, and looked sharp and stern. Wendy, standing slightly behind her husband, was looking at him with a look of both sadness and disappointment.
This is the man you chose Wendy. Peter thought to himself. Isn't he wonderful? Aren't you so happy all grown up? Your children no longer want to hear your stories, your husband isn't the man you married, and you're all alone in a world of grown ups. Are you happy Wendy? You could have lived in the skies with me, and you chose this.
The bitterness of his thoughts surprised him, and he pushed them away. Unfortunately, all that meant was that he thought the sadder thoughts.
Why did you leave me Wendy? You weren't made for this. You were made for me. You were made to be my queen. And instead you had to live as servant to this husband, and these children. And your children grew up, and your husband grew away, and you were all alone, like me. We could have been together, but now... Now you're dead Wendy. And all I have left is a bunch of useless photos.
"Pete, are you crying?" Shem asked. Peter hadn't realised he was, and quickly rubbed his eyes.
"I wasn't crying." He said quickly, "Just something in my eye. I need to go do something."
He left the room and made his way down to the payphone in the common room. Some of the kids were watching T.V., but the payphone was positioned in a little mezzanine where you could almost have a private conversation. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and dialled the number. It rang several times before a female voice said hello.
"Hi, can I speak to Alix?"
III
Mike: Well, I do have an idea as to how Peter and Wendy get back together, but the more I think about it, the vaguer it becomes! It seemed like such a plausible idea in the beginning... No worry, Peter and Wendy shall be reunited.
Stefanie: well, it involves a piece of string, two Vegas dancers and an Eeyore pez candy dispenser... Only joking. Don't well all love an adventure?
MelissaAdams: I really can't explain why I love inflicting pain upon the characters I love, I really can't. There are gonna be a whole lot more Poor Peter's.
Kittybro: Wow, that's my first yummy! Yay! You get a cookie! As for the poor Peter...see above!
Ciara Lewis: Thanks for the long review, I love them! And I'm not a big fan of Peter deciding to grow completely up, or Wendy staying young. It's just not what either of them would do! But I think I have cleverly found a way around that. Or people will just say "that was stupid and unlikely" and throw stuff at me. Whatever.
Review!