A.N. Hello again! I'm free! FREE I tell you! I am now as educated as I am ever going to be. That's….rather depressing when you put it like that, isn't it? Oh well.

I can't promise that this means the updates will come faster, to be quite frank I'm amazed they are still coming at all. I had no idea how much I'd fall in love with this story, or what an amazing response I'd get from all of you, so thank you again!

Very quickly, I'd like to apologize for something. I'm a stickler for correct grammar, and I know this sounds incredibly hypocritical because there are a million grammatical mistakes in one chapter of this story alone; that is what I want to apologize for. Looking back, I think I made the wrong choice in wanting to tell this story from Mary's POV. It's getting harder to keep it that way with all the story that needs telling, and she's been unconscious for a lot of it, the poor dear. It's too late to switch POV's now, though, so I ask that you be patient with me when the POV flies all over the place and it suddenly seems, in places, that Mary is omniscient. She's not. It is just the silly author trying to tell a full story in a constricting POV. There are also probably loads of tense issues as well, I've always been horrid at that. I don't have a beta reader, and I feel so guilty about making you all wait so long that I just type it and throw it up on as soon as it's done. You all deserve better, and so I apologize.

All right. Enough wibbeling. On with the show.

o.O

"That can't be all of it. You just aren't looking hard enough."

Slightly rolled his eyes at Nibs and tossed the few Cantananas he'd brought down on the table. Bruised and overripe already, his rough treatment of them wouldn't make much difference.

"You'll have to forgive me, Nibs. Obviously there's a Cantanana safe house somewhere that I am not privy to. Perhaps you would like to go and hunt it out. Go on, then, find where all the little fruits are hiding." Slightly roughly pulled a stool out from under the table and collapsed in it harshly. "I'll just sit here and starve."

"I don't appreciate your tone, Slightly." Nibs growled in warning.

Slightly looked up, narrowed his eyes, and gave Nibs a patronizing glare. "There's more about you that I don't like than your tone, so I guess that makes us even."

Nibs bared his teeth and went for Slightly. Grinz, having heard the growing fight inside, swung into the window he'd been repairing and got between the two fighting boys. "Now, now boys, don't make me take away your dinners over this," Grinz tried to lighten the mood.

"What fucking dinners, Grinz? There's no food left on this bloody island." Slightly kicked over the nearest stool to him and crossed his arms angrily over his chest as he leaned his shoulder against the wall.

"Sure there is," Grinz said, and strolled over to the table. He picked up one of the pathetic Cantananas, and tried to smile. "What do you call this-" the over ripe fruit began to gush out of the peel, letting lumpy blue juice run down Grinz's wrist. He winced. "…lovely…thing…"

Nibs snorted.

"I call it pathetic. I call it the end, Grinz. We've got to do something about this or we're all finished." Slightly stood up from the stool and paced.

"So dramatic, Slight. I always knew you belonged in the pictures." Grinz teased. "It's not as bad as all that, boys. Just go steal some grub from the worlders."

"We can't always "just go steal some grub from the worlders", Grinz, you know that." Slightly groused. "It's not that simple."

"Well, I suppose I can go get some," Nibs stood and looked out the window. "I haven't been there in a while."

Slightly looked at the other boys, incredulous. "Are we really talking about surviving like that? Because if you're serious, if that's your brilliant plan, then we might as well bugger off and just be worlders. That's where we'll end up if we rely on them for food and supplies. We can't just up and go there whenever we like, you know."

Grinz frowned at Slightly. "Well as long as we stagger who goes and keep track of how often, I don't see why not. We all know the danger, Slight. It's not as if we're going to be caught off guard by it."

"It's not only the pull of that place that I'm talking about," Slightly said, looking down at Grinz. "It takes lots of dust to get us there, yeah?"

Grinz nodded, agreeing. "Yeah, so?"

"And where do we get that dust, genius?"

"From the pouch under the-"

"No, Grinz," Slightly rolled his eyes in frustration. "Where does the dust come from. Like, where does it originate?"

"Why are you looking at me like I'm an idiot, Slight?" Grinz demanded, annoyed. "I know perfectly well that pixie dust comes from faeries, and-" Grinz stopped, suddenly understanding. "Oh. Right."

"Right. We'll run out if we aren't careful. And then we'll really be up shit creek." Slightly sat down on the stool again, sighing.

"So if we don't get our food from the worlders, and, according to you," Nibs said, pointing to Slightly. "There isn't much left on this island, what do you propose we do, wise one?"

"We go through with our plan, and get Peter and Mary together."

The three Lost Boys jumped at the unexpected voice. Grinz recovered first.

"Teak! Where's Pan? Did you watch him, what did he do to Hook? Was it horrible?" Grinz grinned excitedly.

Teaken's face shadowed. "Yeah, it was," he said quietly.

"What's up, Teak?" Nibs asked, frowning.

Teaken snapped out of his dark memory. "Pan's on his way back."

"Took him-"

"-Long enough." The twins said as they entered the room.

"Look, we don't have a lot of time. He was just behind me, and I flew like hell to get here ahead of him." Teaken bent over the table, and the other boys gathered around the table to listen. "I wanted to be able to warn you-"

"Warn us?" Nibs interrupted quickly. "Is Pan hurt?"

Teaken searched for his words carefully. "Not…hurt…exactly,"

"Aw, what the hell is goin' on? Just spit it out, Teak." Grinz smacked his hand on the table impatiently.

"Pan's…gotten worse. We need-" Teaken raised his voice to counter the immediate response of the other boys. "We need to get him to Mary tonight, alright? So-" Teaken cut off as a bright ball of light zipped past his ear and lit on the center of the table, screeching warnings. He immediately turned to the window. "Shit, he's here." He turned back to the other boys and Tink. "Listen, listen! This is important. Do not, under any circumstances react negatively to Pan, or do anything, absolutely anything, to annoy him. Am I understood?"

Before the other boys could nod or agree, a swift breeze was felt as a body flew into the room at a haphazard speed. Pan skidded to a stop in front of the table, and stood for a moment, breathing harshly in and out, as if he'd been running. The boys, taking Teaken's warning to heart, didn't make a sound. They all just stared.

Peter was a bloody mess. Only small patches of clean flesh could be seen; his torso and arms were covered with dark spatters of mud and blood. His breeches were ripped, hanging precariously low on his hips. They had been too small for him for a while now, but the extra growth outside of Hook's ship had done them in. He had a dead animal tossed over his shoulder, and the look on his face when he'd flown in had been positively manic.

He now only looked confused. Pan moved forward and tossed the animal onto the table. The Lost Boys all jumped. "What's the matter with all of you?" Pan demanded.

"Nothing, sir," Teaken responded quickly. "Just…just happy to have you back, I suppose."

"Right," Peter said in his new baritone voice, still giving skeptical looks to the boys who continued to stare. "Clean that, and get it cooking. I'm going to clean up. We've reason to celebrate tonight, Boys!" Pan crowed loudly and flew out of the window.

The boys all looked at the dead animal, and then at each other. No one knew exactly what to say.

"What the shit happened to him?" One twin finally demanded.

"Yeah! He was normal when we left him," the other said. "Well, maybe not normal, but not like that."

Teaken sighed and sat down, running his hands over his face. "I…I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You were bloody there weren't you?" Nibs demanded.

"I saw it, yes. But I don't…understand it. It's part of the magic loss, I guess."

"You guess? Teaken, Pan managed to age about 5 years in less than 3 hours. I reckon that's more serious than something to guess at!" Slightly said, his face panicked.

"Is it-"

"-going to happen to us?" the twins asked, looking wide-eyed at Teaken.

"Could it happen to us?" Grinz said, looking suddenly as panicked as Slightly.

"I don't think so," Teaken said quietly, remembering what had transpired to make the change in Peter. He shivered slightly, not being able to imagine any of the Lost Boys with that same blood thirsty gleam in their eyes.

"Oh, good." Grinz said in relief, sitting down next to Teaken.

"How does he know?" Nibs said angrily. "How could he know?"

"Yeah," Slightly said, still jumpy. "He doesn't know any more about what's happening to this island than we do. For all he knows, he could turn into an eighty year old prune tomorrow."

"Hey, if Teaken says we're going to be ok, then that's good enough for me, all right? And it should be for you too." Grinz said defensively.

"Well why listen to what Teaken says-"

"-Unless he knows something he isn't telling us." The twins accused, turning towards Teaken.

Teaken raised his head and looked at their accusing faces with narrowed eyes.

"Teak," Grinz prodded gently. "It might be important, whatever you know. You should tell us. We're all in this together, you know,"

"Or we thought we were," Nibs growled. "Maybe being Pan's favorite means getting to survive with him, while the rest of us shrivel up and die like the worlders."

Teaken scowled and immediately stood, walking to Nibs and standing face to face with him. The two stared at each other in intense silence, until Teaken shook his head and jumped out of the nearest window, swinging himself out of sight on the branches of the tree.

"He does know what's going on," Nibs said ferociously, looking after Teaken.

"If it was important, he'd tell us. He's only trying to protect Peter-"

"And we're trying to protect ourselves!" Nibs growled back, shoving Grinz hard enough to make him stumble into the wall.

"Stop this!" a tiny voice ran out. A pink light suddenly lit the room as Tinkerbell decided enough was enough. "Listen to yourselves! You can't let this break you apart! Lost Boys never break apart, remember?" Tinkerbell flew around the room, stopping in front of all of their faces. "You play together, you fight together, you hunt together, you fly together," she stopped in front of Nib's face, pleading with him. "you live together-"

"Yeah and it looks like we're going to die together too, doesn't it?" Nibs spat, palming Tinkerbell out of the way. She squeaked and plummeted out of the air, Slightly lurched forward and caught her.

"Nibs, you little bastard, why don't you take it out on someone your own-"

But Nibs was already long gone.

Grinz sighed and shook his head. He pulled out a short dagger from his belt, and walked towards the table. "I 'spose we'd better get this bastard cleaned. We aren't supposed to 'annoy' Pan, right?" Grinz grimly set to work.

Slightly made sure Tink was all right, then pulled out his own dagger to help.

"We'll go-"

"-Start the fire pit." The twins said, and jumped out of the window to climb down to the pit.

Tinkerbell wrapped her little arms around herself and flew up through the canopy. Sniffing delicately, she wiped a few sparkling tears from her cheeks and looked up into the night sky. Please, she thought. Please let help come soon, in whatever form. Please save them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Teaken sat on a branch outside of my room. He'd been there for a while I supposed, but I'd only just woken up again. He was dozing against the side of the tree, his back resting on the trunk next to my window. In spite of my confused state, and my need to know just what the hell had been going on, it was calming to watch him sleep. I didn't guess he got a lot of that lately, or maybe even at all. After all, did children ever willingly sleep when there wasn't an adult to tell them when bedtime was?

That got me thinking of my little brother, and I was surprised to feel a small pang in my chest. I missed him. Miracle upon miracles, but I did. I couldn't quite convince myself that I missed my wretched aunt, but my brother could be awfully cute sometimes.

The smell of cooking meat wafted up through my window and to my nose. I think that is what had actually woke me in the first place. My stomach rumbled quietly, but I couldn't bring myself to wake Teaken just yet. I could see in his sleeping face, the child that he had been for so long before the magic had begun to fade. The little Lost Boy was still there, just beneath the surface. I wondered how long he'd been grown up, well, grown older, I supposed. As boys, as far as I was concerned, never truly became 'grown up'.

Remembering the first night I had met him, I guessed he'd probably have to have been grown for a while to be able to manipulate my age group, like he did. And also to be able to dance like he did, and to-

My face heated up. Now I had to know. In fact, it was time to get a few things straight.

"Teaken,"

"Mmmph,"

"Teaken."

"Grrooawrry,"

"Teaken!"

"What? What, where?" Teaken startled awake and nearly fell off of the branch he'd been sleeping on. I laughed quietly as I looked up at him from my spot, leaning on the window sill. "Mary," he smiled. I'd missed his smile. "You're awake."

"Astute." I congratulated him.

"And back to normal." Teaken smirked and turned towards the window. "Welcome back, smart ass."

I grinned.

"How are you feeling?" Teaken asked, looking pointedly at my hand.

I held it up, still smiling, happy with its slow, but steady healing. "Getting better."

"Glad to hear it."

"I have a question."

Teaken mockingly snapped to attention.

"Come in here."

Teaken cocked his head at me. "That was not a question. That was a request."

"Well now it's an order, smart ass, so get in here and then I will ask you the question." I was feeling rather feisty. I don't know why, perhaps it was because I was just so happy to see him in circumstances other than my own or his imminent death.

Teaken chuckled and ducked his head, hopping down into the room. He spread his arms out. "I'm here. Fire away."

"How did you know how to kiss me like that at the club?"

Teaken faltered, his arms dropping to his side slowly. "What?"

"You heard me."

"But, I don't…understand. How did I…?" Teaken was stalling. He knew this was dangerous territory.

"You and the other Lost Boys are supposed to be young for eternity, aren't you?"

Teaken hesitated, looking for the trap that he knew had to be there. "Yes…"

"And you've only become older recently, right? Because of the fading magic and the loss of faeries?"

"Right…"

"So how did you learn to kiss like that?" I asked simply. "Were there ever like, Lost Girls?"

"No!" Teaken said immediately, almost in distaste.

"Well, then did you…like…with each other?" I ventured, knowing it would anger him enough to tell the truth. Or maybe that was the truth. Yikes.

Teaken sputtered violently, not managing to release as single understandable syllable.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," I assured him, trying not to laugh hysterically at his response. "Because I mean, if that's how it is, then…then that's how it is. And right on, you know?"

"No!" Teaken finally managed. "No, no, no, no, no! Never ever! Jesus," he swore, wiping his hand down his face.

I laughed at his outburst. "Sorry, I'm just trying to understand, here."

"Why, why do you want to know?" Teaken asked, looking at me. I grinned at his red face.

"Well, I'm just curious, I suppose. It's odd in my world for little eight and nine year olds to know how to french kiss a girl until she melts into a puddle," I stopped, realizing what I had just revealed. Great. The last thing he needs is an ego boost.

I didn't even need to look up to know that Teaken was smirking at me. I could almost hear it in his snicker. "Into a puddle, huh? Really?"

"It's just a figure of speech. I was exaggerating. Answer the question." I tried to turn the tide back towards him, but Teaken had seen his escape and was holding onto it for dear life.

"No, no, I'd like to hear more about this reaction of yours. Maybe, I mean, maybe the worlders just aren't as good at it as we are." Teaken bragged, swaggering forward towards where I was sitting on my bed.

"Oh, so, you mean the magic has some effect on you that makes you better kissers? I see, so it's really got nothing at all to do with individual talent then, does it?" Ha. That barb took the swagger out of his step.

"Well, no, I mean, that's not what I meant by-" Teaken fumbled with the new ego I had accidentally given him.

"Wow, well there's only one way we're going to know," I said slyly, standing and walking towards Teaken. He continued to fumble his ego, and his coordination as he tripped over himself taking a step backwards.

"W-what's that?" Teaken asked, grappling for a hand hold on the wall to right his stumble.

"Well," I said, coming to stand right in front of him. "I'll have to test my theory."

"Theory?" Teaken croaked. Oh he was so predictable. Just like the rest of them. This could be fun.

"Yes. That the magic is what makes you boys so talented. It's a good theory. But it needs to be tested in order to be proven. This is all very scientific."

Teaken cleared his throat. "Scientific. Right. Of course. Well, if it's in the interest of science, I suppose-"

"You're absolutely right. It will have to be done." I nodded, looking up at him.

"It will?"

"Definitely." It was getting harder and harder to hide my grin.

"Well, if you're sure," Teaken seemed to gain some more control on that ego of his as he looked down at me and smirked that lovely smirk of his.

"Totally sure. I'm going to have to kiss every boy on this island."

Teaken dropped his ego all over the floor. "You're what?"

I started to walk past him to hide my smile that had broken across my face. Hook, line, and sinker! I cheered myself. "And as I've already kissed you, I guess I'll start with the other Lost Boys, as they are here and so convenient. Oh Slightly! Grinz? Could you be dears and come here a mome-"

I stopped because my laughter was about to bubble out of me, and because Teaken had firmly taken hold of my arm as I had passed him. I let loose the restraint I had had on my laughter, bending over at the middle and gasping for breath. Teaken didn't seem to be amused.

"That, was unnecessary, Mary," he groused. "And not funny."

I was holding onto his arm for dear life now, as my laughter had left me powerless. My right arm curled protectively against my aching stomach, to escape any harm to my wounded hand, my left arm hung off his right shoulder as I struggled to remain upright. "Your face…so…funny! You thought…BA-hahahahahah!"

Teaken sighed and looked towards the ceiling as I set myself off again. "You know, you're never going to get the answer to your question this way."

I slowly got a hold of myself and stood back up, still using him for support. "An-answer? You have one, then?"

"Of course. And I imagine it would answer a lot of your other questions as well. As in, how did I know what club to find you at? And how I knew exactly who you were, and exactly how to deal with you?"

That certainly got my attention. Well. Just goes to show that when you mess with a male's ego, he'll go to any lengths to regain the power balance. "Well, you didn't exactly know how to deal with me, did you? After all, I freaked out and you had to come looking for me again," I stopped suddenly wondering. "But then…how did you know how to find me then…" I took a deep breath and stood back up, peering up into his face. "Ok then. Tell me."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A.N. Don't panic, I'm already hard at work on the next chapter, promise. -runs-