Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it.

AN: Oh my god, the reviews! I've never had my writing reviewed before, and when I read these, honestly, I got a lump in my throat and a huge grin on my face, and went around the house yelling, "I am the smartest person alive, and the greatest writer that ever lived!" Then my sister smacked me, and I lost my balance and fell down, and the cat bit my leg.

Anyway, here's a nice long chapter for you lovelies.

Chapter Seven.

Slightly and the other one-time Lost Boys crashed about the nursery. Their shouting travelled easily through the wall of Wendy's room, but she took pains to keep her voice down anyway. They sat close together on her neatly-made bed, and Wendy kept her eyes on the acorn across the room as she spoke.

"I'm so glad," John said at length, when she had finished her edited version of the events of last night.

She looked down at her lap, where their fingers were loosely entwined. "We're leaving tonight. And I – I don't expect I shall ever be able to come back."

"I know." And, incredibly, he was smiling sadly at her when she lifted her eyes. "I'll visit," he said, his voice in that moment more plaintive and affecting than he would ever have allowed it to sound with anyone but her.

"Today and every day," she said smiling, taking him in her arms like the child he still was. "Tomorrow night. We'll take you for a last adventure, and then you'll all be free of us both."

"Mother Wendy," he said, laughing a little into her shoulder, and she laughed softly too, knowing what he meant.

"What will you tell Mother and Father?"

She was glad John couldn't see her face. "I don't know. I really don't."

He responded more to the worried tone of her voice than to her actual words. "You could just go."

"No." She paused for a moment, then added contemplatively,  "I have to know this life's over."

"Wendy." His spectacle frames brushed her neck as he sat up, and she felt a sudden surge of hopeless affection for him. "You're not dying, you know!"

She wanted to laugh, or maybe to cry, or to hug her brother again. Instead she pressed his hand and said that she knew, and they sat together in companionable silence for a long time after, listening to the sounds of battle in the next room.

When their eyes were finally dried, they went in.

Much later, Wendy found herself standing before her parents in the drawing room. The very same room where she'd been informed of the existence of her kiss, so long ago now that it was almost frightening how close the memory seemed.

The sun was setting, painting the room orange where the lamplight did not reach.

"Mother," she said.

Then,

"Father," she said.

She'd had all day to prepare, yet her scripted words had fallen limply away and she had no idea how to begin. Her parents looked up at her from their seat; her long pause caused concern to grow and deepen on her father's aristocratic face until all she wanted was to run upstairs as fast as she could.

She breathed deeply, her fingers finding the neatly cut piece of corset lacing in her pocket.

"Mother, Father – do you remember three years ago, when the boys and I went away?"

"To Neverland, with Peter Pan," her mother replied promptly, at which Father gave her a distracted look and half a nod. The boys had told them all about it – all, that is, save the few events only Wendy knew about or knew how to tell – all save Peter and herself alone in the nursery, Peter and herself dancing in the air, and the exact feeling in her stomach when she lay helpless at his side on the deck of the Jolly Roger.

But what they knew they had remembered, and she was heartened by it.

"Yes, to Neverland. With . . ." She twisted the lacing, felt the edges begin to fray. "With Peter. Mother, Father – the fact is – that is . . . well, Peter's come back. He came back last night. And he. Well."

Mother's eyes widened. She stood, taking Wendy's free hand in both of her cool ones, and for the first time Wendy consciously noted that she was almost as tall as Mother now. She couldn't regret this; she was leaving with barely a moment to spare.

"Oh darling, he's come back to you." Mother said, her voice shaking. Father rose to join them, his face drawn and pale.

"Come back? Peter Pan? What do you mean by this?"

Wretchedly, she looked at her father. It was now or never. "He's come back for me. I'm going with him to Neverland, tonight, and I shan't be coming home again."

Wendy's mother's eyes filled with tears and she made a small choking sound. Father raised a hand to his lips, staring down at Wendy with pale, pale eyes.

"Wendy. Oh my darling, I knew it, I knew it when you came back and your kiss was gone . . ." Mother was saying tearily, and Father's eyes widened as if he'd just put the pieces together, and his gaze flickered to Mother's quite visible kiss, and Wendy suddenly saw so much that she'd never wanted to.

"He saw you last night, when you were singing. Didn't he." His voice was flat and resigned, and a hard lump came into her throat and for a moment all she could do was nod.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I must go," she managed, throwing herself into his arms. "It's just that I love him awfully, and there's nothing to be done about it -"

"Mary," Father said helplessly, holding Wendy close, stroking her hair with unconscious desperation. "She can't possibly . . ."

Mother spoke gently through her tears, but her voice was firm. "She can't possibly stay, George. You know she can't."

"But this is all . . . this is . . . well it's ludicrous, that's what it is . . ."

His voice died away, and Wendy disentangled herself from him gently. "I know it's hard to believe. And I know it's so sudden. And I know," her breath hitched, but valiantly she kept the sob down, "I know I've made a terrible mess of telling you. But I have to go, now, before I grow up completely. And I have to go quickly – I couldn't bear to have it drawn-out . . ."

She looked from one parent to the other as she spoke, and when she had finished Mother folded her in her arms, saying, "Oh Wendy. Oh my little Wendy, my little girl, my little darling girl." Father, uncharacteristically, and with an awful sound like a sob, put his arms around them both and held them tight. Then Wendy did break down, and she cried in her parents' embrace for a long time.