"Where did you live as a child?" Anamaria asked. She lay comfortably on the ground leaning against her Captain.

"London." Jack Sparrow had never told her anything about his life before she met him but it was different now. Now that he knew he could trust her and for the first time he realized that he actually wanted his friends to know his life, to know him. "I lived with my parents until I got pulled into Neverland and then they put me into a mental asylum."

"Oh." Ana said in confusion and shock. "But why…" She was horrified that people would do that to a child of their own. "Surely no dream c…"

"No." Jack interrupted her shaking his head. "It wasn't dreams by me and not only at night. It happened by day as well. I wasn't aware of the real world at all. They told me that I just sat on the bed and stared at the wall all day if I wasn't asleep. I sometimes woke up for short periods of time in order to be able to eat. My parents couldn't take care of a child like that."

He understood that too. If the worry for their only child wasn't enough to kill them, the mortification made the situation even more complete. His parents hadn't been rich but they weren't poor and they kept on trying to fit into the rich ton society. A handicapped, daft child would have only crippled their chances further. They couldn't have accualy done anything for their son anyways and Jack hoped that they had at least gotten the attention they desired. He never went back to them.

"Do you remember the nightmares I used to have when I was Peter Pan?" He asked Ana. His first mate nodded. They had terrified her. It had been very frightening to see that such a happy child could have such horrible dreams.

"They happened whenever I awoke in the real world." Jack told her. "I didn't remember the real world at all. Whenever I woke up, there were people there trying to feed me and talk to me and keep me awake and I could never tall what was happening." Ana nodded, her heart clenching at the thought of how terrifying it must have been for him to go through that almost every single night.

"But where did you live when you were a child? How did you grow up?" Jack Sparrow expertly changed the subject realized that he wanted to know about Ana as much as she wanted to know about him.

"I lived in Tortuga on a small fishing boat of my father's. Neverland only came to me in dreams. I think that I dreamed a day a night and when I went to sleep there, I woke up here. It wasn't the same for me as it was for you it seems. Even in Neverland I knew that it was a dream. Waking up in the real world was what I expected to happen." Ana told him.

"What about John and Michael?"

"My brothers?" Ana confirmed with surprise. "The truth is I don't klnow who they were. Some lost boys I suppose. And I don't knopw why they came with me of all people. Perhaps I dreamed them up. I am an only child and I had often wished for brothers and sisters when I was younger."

"And now?" Ana laughed.

"Now I'm happy. I'm part of the best pirate crew in the Caribbean."

"Perhaps in the world?" Captain Jack Sparrow asked slyly.

"Perhaps." Ana pretended to think about it then nodded even though she didn't know if her Captain could see it and whispered "Definitely."

"I should take you to see Tigerlilly." Jack mused out loud after a couple of minutes of total silence. "She'll be happy to see you I think."

"Oh!" Ana hadn't even remembered Tigerlilly before Jack had brought up the subject.

"She's all grown up now with children of her own." Jack informed her. "She was always like a sister to me."

"Oh." This time it was a sigh of relief to know that there was no competition. Even though Ana hadn't really remembered Tigerlilly before, she now recalled a young girl their age who had quite happily played with Peter when they were younger. "Sure. I'd like that." She told him.

"Ana, why did you leave Neverland?" Jack Sparrow asked suddenly.

"I had to." The conversation had shifted somehow, becoming serious, very important and as Ana sensed, crucial in a way she could not yet understand. "Almost the same way that I knew I had to come, I knew I had to leave. I'm not sure that I can explain it any more then that. Like instinct or a sixth sense, when you absolutely know that you need to be somewhere. I knew I had to leave, that I couldn't stay there forever. Neverland wasn't meant for me and I needed real life. I was growing up there, taking on responsibilities and something in me, the adult perhaps knew that it was time to go."

She kept on talking trying to put her feelings into words, knowing without knowing why that she must make him understand and so scared that she couldn't.

"But why did you take the others with you?" He whispered.

"I…" Why had she done what she did? It hadn't been on impulse, there had been a reason behind it all.

"They weren't thinking about it, wouldn't have been happy to stay sad as they were about you leaving. And then you asked them all to go with you. Why?" His voice was low and intense.

"They had to grow up too. Jack, I felt like the mother there. That was my role, remember? It was why I was there, the only girl on the island. It was a type of decision that a normal mother would make. I was a in no way an expert in normal home life, but even I knew that those children could not stay on this island being children for the rest of their lives. They also had to grow up, same as I did and I just made sure that they knew to do it." There was something different with his questioning then just curiosity, things that she was missing, connections that she wasn't making.

"You left me alone then." Ana felt cold hearing the hurt in his voice.

"I didn't m… I asked you to come with us!" She burst out remembering how that conversation went.

"I couldn't leave! Surely you understand that. I was the Peter Pan, how could I have left my kingdom?" He asked her bitterly and Ana winced suddenly understanding.

"I didn't, Peter I didn't think." Anamaria clasped a hand over her mouth in dawning shock and growing horror, hating the pain in his voice, knowing that she put it there, having just promised herself on everything in the universe that he could trust her and that she would never do anything to hurt him. Nothing like what Barbossa had done. The fact that she had done this long before he had even met Barbossa did nothing to ease the guilt she suddenly felt. She really had left him all alone.

Ana would have boldly told anyone she knew and anyone who asked both before and after the dreams stopped that Peter Pan belonged in Neverland and would stay there for all of time. Yet she had never even thought to think that he wouldn't have been able to leave the island nor that he would ever want to. She had offered him a way out with her and then left with the lost boys thinking that it was all ok because he had refused her gracious offer.

She had taken all of his friends away. Ana closed her eyes now and struggled to remember Peter Pan as he had been, not the boy that she had romanticized and then all but forgotten. She remembered how she had never seen him alone but always in the company of someone else even if it his fairy and if that he the case, then he was looking for human playmates.

In the evening he would sometimes lure a child or two to his very large bed under the guise of talking and playing and then let them fall asleep there. Ana had thought then that when Peter would let them sleep and curl himself into a free corner somewhere on the bed, he was just being nice by letting the boys stay there and not waking them up or too lazy to move them himself. Now she thought that he had done it so that he wouldn't be all alone when he awoke in the middle of the night from another nightmare, as though reassuring himself that there were people there for him. And she had taken that all away.

"I'm sorry…" She whispered knowing that it would never be enough yet still hoping. Tears escaped and slid down her cheeks. No wonder that Jack didn't trust people. Jack Sparrow turned to her and wiped the tears from her cheeks though she had no idea how he could see anything in the dark.

"It's alright." He told her softly and she marveled at the change in his voice. He didn't sound so hurt anymore. More like relived. "You really couldn't have known. I didn't speak up when I could have. Pride, you know. I've always been that way, I always needed people around me all the time. Hate to be alone." He shuddered atthe tmere hought of being alone. "I just needed to know why. Thank you Ana, for telling me."

"I'm so sorry." She whispered again and he silenced her by touching her lips and then leaned over to her for a light kiss.

The sun should rise on the truth. Jack Sparrow thought and the sun happily began her daily trek across the sky.

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meowbooks – thank you. I'm very glad that you couldn't stay away. I feel so special – I don't have the right words either to describe good work. Lol yes, you're right in ur comments, I agree. 8-)

Cal – here is the scene of Jack and Ana talking about the past. I really hope that it lived up to your expectations. Did you like it? I read you're review for chapter seven and then the one for chapter eight wasn't there right away and it was so late I had to go to sleep since I had to be up early the next day and I couldn't read it till late at night. Lol. I love you're reviews!

ellennar – wow I didn't think of it that way but it's a perfect comparison!

J.L. Dexter – wow. Thank you so much for both your observations (those gave me some ideas 8-)) and your suggestions on improving my writing. I use Microsoft word and if it catches grammatical errors it doesn't tell me how to fix them! It's so wonderful that you consider my story a worthwhile read. Thank you, I'm so ecstatic!