Thank you so much to the reviewers. You all are awesomely awesome. : D You guys have made this a fun experience for my first fanfiction, and I greatly appreciate it. I'm sorry to say that my story is almost at it's end. It should be closing up tomorrow or the next. Hope you enjoy it though.
Chapter 12.
"I couldn't do it. I could not leave Jeanette and mother. How I wanted to stay, and never worry about everything ever again! Even now I desire it… not because I grow weary of my life here, but because I miss him so much. He taught me to fly, Nick, and how I long to just give in and fly away from it all. To finally be at peace. It seems that here, the only thing that might offer me such a sensation would be to die. But I cannot imagine dying and never seeing Peter again. He will never die, Nick."
"That is because he is a coward."
"He is not a coward!"
"The poor fellow is afraid of death!" Nicholas shouted, sending Wilhelma into a fit. "He is afraid of facing death and facing change. He does not wish to see everything around him change and watch as time takes its toll on everything. His only remembrance of time is watching you and Wendy and all that have left him to grow up. He is a spectator… a despondent fool trapped in his world of misery that is of his own making."
"Stop it! Stop!" I covered my ears. "It is not true. Peter isn't afraid of anything…"
"Take a look at the situation, Margaret! He let Wendy go. He let you go. He allowed love to pass him twice as well, for no other reason but because he did not wish to grow up. Would you not give up everything for those you love? Why, you did, Margaret. You might have denied him, but what good is love if you are the only one who makes the sacrifices, who is willing to risk everything for that one person?"
"Peter was willing…"
"He was willing to have you leave your home for him," Nicholas interrupted. "What did he give up, Margaret? He expects you to leave everything that is dear to you for him, and yet he is allowed to sit back and enjoy the same luxuries that were present before your relationship. Peter could not even allow you to go home to say goodbye, Margaret."
"He…"
"Do not defend him," Nicholas disrupted. "You know it is true. Otherwise, you would look me in the face and tell me that, but you cannot. That was all you wanted, Margaret. The chance to say goodbye to us. He could not even grant you that. What kind of love is that, may I ask? That he was so blind to the other love you possess in your life… is that the kind of love you wish to spend forever with?"
"Peter does not know."
"Exactly," Nicholas tilted my head up, making sure his words were heard and registered in my head. "Peter Pan is a child. He will never know or understand, nor does he have any desire to do so. He is content with being who he is, living the life he does, and you of all people should know that."
"You came," I breathed as we commenced through the forest, him dragging me about towards his refuge. "Peter… have you nothing to say on the matter?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know… how you feel."
"I couldn't leave you to Hook."
"Peter, I refuse to take another step until you explain yourself." I demanded, digging my feet into the ground and stopping us. "You didn't have to come back for me, but you did. People don't just go out of their way, swimming across the ocean onto a ship full of pirates for no apparent reason at all."
"Would you rather me leave you there?"
"Why must you be so unbelievably difficult!" I groaned. "I try so hard, you know, to get some sense out of your words but, try as I might, it is all nonsense. Why, Peter, I would expect this from a five-year-old. Might I get a sagacious statement from you?"
"I could not leave you to Hook," Peter shrugged, leaning against a tree. "He planned to hurt you. He wanted to… I couldn't let that happen to you."
"God forbid, Peter, I have tried my hardest with you." I put a hand to my forehead and dropped to ground. "But I do not see how anything can work. Near half the time we talk, we get nowhere, and when we do make progress, you have to go and act like such a child that we might as well be going nowhere."
"What else did you expect? It's not like I'm a grown-up. Not that I ever plan to be one."
"Must you be so mulish and obstinate?"
"Must you be so fickle?"
"See, we are getting nowhere." I sighed. "How I wish for a life I cannot have. Peter… you do things that… you make me feel like no one else. How I would love to spend forever with you, but not like this. I must grow-up."
"And you think that you are the only one that feels like that?" Peter stepped forward, his eyes bearing down on me hard as stone. "I can't fly anymore, Annie. I've forgotten the language of the fairies. Tinkerbell should have about figured it out by now, but eventually the Lost Boys shall know, and I will be ruined. I… I have forgotten. I'm forgetting everything. That is, everything…" he bowed his head to gather his breath before turning back towards me. "…except you."
In Peter's eyes came a new sentiment that had me topsy-turvy and completely uneasy. Suddenly his face seemed years older, and the boyish joy that was so apparent in his features were nothing but soft lines etched on his face. Even his whole being failed to glow with the magic that surrounded us and the enchantment of Neverland, and Peter Pan looked more foreign than a stranger from a far-off land.
My confusion only increased when he held out his hand, taking my hand within his and grinning in contentment. The overall sincerity of the gesture, as he brought my hand to his cheek and closed his eyes left me more breathless than a thousand passionate words of poetry could render.
Was this the same Peter who had sworn he would never grow up? Surely such an endearing sign of love could not come from a mere boy.
But he had came for me…
When I had needed him the most, required his presence to save me from a cruel fate, he had come. He had wrote that note…
With that thought churning in my sweet memory, and that note hidden in my nightgown, I joined Peter in a new world of rapture, closing my eyes and smiling with the most ease.
"You must come home with me, Peter." I said, still entranced in whatever it was the bound us together at this moment. "I left you once, and it near ruined me. I do not know if I can survive being separated from you again."
"I know I cannot live without you."
"Then you must come with me." I opened my eyes and saw his were still closed. "Leave Neverland, Peter."
"I will," Peter breathed, opening his eyes to find mine smiling at his. "I want to go back with you, Annie."
