Wendy was not sleeping well. Although she was always exhausted from endless days of riding and researching, she always tossed and turned at night. She got precious few hours of sleep and woke up in the morning with a dull headache and crushing fatigue. She tried to reason that her terrible sleep was not because of her parents, but because she slept in the same room as Pan every night. However, her dreams were full of her mother and father and her guilt and grief. She wondered if she had deluded herself into thinking she was managing it well.

Many nights she just got too fed up with trying to sleep and instead read. She lit a small candle and strained her eyes to be able to make out words in the darkness. She knew that she wasn't actually getting anything out of her reading. It was just something to pass the time before her exhaustion threatened to crush her and she was able to fall into bed for a few hours.

Pan, on the other hand, slept very well. As soon as his head hit the pillow every night, he was out like a light. He slept like a stone until morning. She actually was quite jealous of him. He was not bogged down by regret or grief or guilt. For a few brief moments in the middle of the night, she wondered if it was better to live like him, with no real feelings.

She shook herself. She couldn't let herself think that way.

Apparently though, his sleep was not nearly as deep as she had thought it was. One night as she sat in her bed, candle in one hand and book in the other, she heard Pan groan.

She turned to look at him and found him glaring at her in the dimness. He narrowed his eyes and said, "You don't sleep well, do you?"

She stared at him. This was a vulnerability she thought she had been hiding well from Pan. She opened her mouth to respond, but he interrupted her. "It was a rhetorical question."

"Did the light wake you?" she asked.

He sat up in bed and shook his head. "No, it was the tossing and turning."

"Oh."

"You're going to be useless if you continue to do this." She wanted to protest, but he had a point. She wasn't going to be able to keep this kind of schedule up. But she couldn't see a way past what she felt. "I can help with it."

"No," was her immediate response. She wanted absolutely none of his help. They had made a deal about the star and that was it. She wanted nothing else do with him. She told him as much.

He rolled his eyes. "I've helped you outside of our deal. I helped you onto Ash today. And I cleaned out that bear claw scratch a few weeks ago."

She considered it as she put away the candle and book. "How will it work? Will I forget?"

"Forget what?"

She waved away his question. "Just… what's keeping me up."

"Why would you want to remember something that's so upsetting that it's disrupting your sleep?" She didn't want to forget her grief. She wanted to have the time to work through it, to get closure. She wanted to be able get to a point where she could remember her mother and father and it didn't pain her.

"It's just something I need to work through." This conversation was getting dangerously intimate. This was not something that she should want to share with Pan.

"Well, I'd prefer if you worked through it at a decent hour," he told her. "It won't make you forget anything. It's just a sleeping potion. I've given it to you before when—" He abruptly cut himself off before he said when she had gotten the potion, but she already knew what he was referring to. She remembered. After Gavin.

She thought about it. She didn't know if she wanted to accept this… almost kindness from Pan. She knew it was out of convenience for him, but it was a decent thing to do. She looked at him, searching his face for an indication that this was just a trick, but he looked sincere. Very tired and annoyed, but most definitely sincere.

"Come on," he said. "I don't have all night." He stood up and came to her bedside. Out of his hand materialized a vial of shimmering purple liquid. She hesitated.

She wasn't sure if she was ready to let this go. These sleepless nights were almost penance. It was what she should have been going through. She should have grieved her parents long ago, faced the fact that she had been the cause of their untimely demises. Sleepless nights were a merciful punishment.

"Couldn't you wear a sleep mask?" she asked. "Or ear plugs?"

"What is wrong with you? Are you punishing yourself or something?" She knew he meant it as a rhetorical question, but she couldn't stop herself from nodding. He gave her the strangest look. If she hadn't known him any better, she would have described it as pity. "What the fuck, bird?"

Yes, at that point she knew that this conversation was way too intimate. But she was sleep-deprived and full of sorrow. Her self-control was slipping when she blurted, "Sometimes I can't remember what my parents' faces look like."

She clamped a hand over her mouth as she said it. She was being far too vulnerable with Pan now. This was ridiculous. She felt just as silly as she had when she told him about how she spoke French instead of Latin. She glanced up at him, expecting to find a disinterested look, but she found none.

Instead, he looked down at her with eyebrows furrowed. His face was unreadable, but not faraway. He did not look distant. After a few moments, he said, "Sometimes I can't remember what my mother looked like, either."

Her breath caught in her throat. She had never been able to say what she had to Michael and John. She was afraid of what they might say. How could you forget Mother and Father? they would ask. But hearing Pan say it was almost… comforting.

Pan talked about his family even less than she talked about hers. Over the last century she had gathered bits and pieces. He had been young when his mother died. His father turned to drink. He had been responsible for Gold. It had been an unpleasant childhood. No excuse for his behaviour. But she had always gotten the sense that he adored his mother. What her brothers would have described as a 'mama's boy'.

She wanted to ask him how he dealt with it. Did he feel guilty that sometimes he didn't remember? How did he preserve her memory? How had he grieved her? All these questions flew around her mind until she stopped them abruptly. She forcefully reminded herself that Pan did not feel things the way she did. He did not feel guilt or longing. He probably did not sit around hoping to be able to remember his mother fondly. This was an untouchable man. Asking him those questions would have been useless. And as she reminded herself, stupid. Pan was the enemy.

I really am losing it, she thought. She knew now how sleep deprived she was. Wondering in the middle of the night if Pan missed his mother. Absolutely ridiculous. She was ashamed she had even entertained the thoughts.

She snatched the vial out of his hand and downed it quickly. She handed back the vial to Pan. He set it aside and gingerly took the book and candle out of her hand as sleep began to pull her under. He blew out the candle and she distantly heard him shuffle back to his bed.

Before she was completely pulled under, she managed, "Thank you." She meant it.