"Our itinerary," Pan said, slipping the paper across the table to Wendy at breakfast the next morning.
They sat at the small table by the windows, looking out onto the sea below, dotted with white caps. A cruel wind blew against the island, bending the bare trees in its gusts. Dark grey clouds hung over them, foreboding and ominous. Wendy was glad to be inside, with a bowl of piping hot porridge, a steaming cup of tea and a heavy, warm sweater.
She looked at it, silent, and scanned the page. Peter's flowing script outlined the next four days (two additional days because Pan felt they needed longer to "relax") detailing meal times and activities. "A spa trip… high tea…the theatre…horseback riding." She looked up from the page. "Horseback riding?"
"You go down the cliffs to the bay and the guide talks about the natural history of the island," he explained, cutting into his sausage. He took a bite and looked at her expectantly. The guided talk was something she would normally find incredibly interesting. He didn't have to point out to her that he knew that.
She looked back down. "You booked a music room?"
"Piano."
"I figured, but what will you do?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps, I'll listen. Perhaps, we should spend some time on our own."
She nodded briefly before turning back to the sheet. "Cards… trivia night?"
"Indeed," he said. "We're both highly competitive and intelligent. We should be able to snag top three at least."
"I'm not from here," she said. "I don't know any trivia about the Enchanted Forest."
He shrugged. "You'll get by."
She gave him a long look, truly considering how she should respond. Waking up that morning had been painful. She had spent the first few moments of wakefulness, stretching and burying herself deeper under the covers, only for her blood to turn to ice the very next second upon remembering that nothing had been solved with Baelfire and nothing had been solved between her and Peter. No solutions had been reached, no problems had been fixed. She shot up in bed, ready to jump out and—
—and what?
What could be done?
There was nothing to be done except try to accept the situation, accept the crap hand she had been dealt.
Which meant that she had to figure out how to live with the crap hand she had been dealt and she had realized that going catatonic and constantly being cruel was not the actually "accepting the situation". At least, they weren't the healthy, adaptive ways of accepting the situation.
Figuring out what that looked like had remained a question as she and Peter had gone about their morning routines before finally settling down for breakfast.
"This all must be expensive," was apparently the way her mind wanted her to respond. Thank you might have been a better route, but her brain was not cooperating this morning.
He looked at her, clearly assessing and, after a long moment, said, "I have the money. Ill-gotten as it is, it makes sense to spend it on something that might help you." She frowned. He spent a large chunk of his time ruminating on his past these days, but she had been too angry with him lately to ask what he had made of all of it, where he stood. If she were to be generous, the comment could be construed as a way to make up for what he had done to her, if that was even possible.
She chewed her lip, unsure how to respond and awkwardly came up with, "The itinerary looks good to me." She passed it back to him and quickly ate a heaping spoonful of her porridge. Pan took the paper from her and folded it neatly before slipping it into his pocket.
"Thank you for the approval."
XXX
"The nature of the sedimentary rock encourages formation of fossils. Does anyone know why this might be?"
Wendy practically buzzed sitting next to Peter. She was the only person on the horseback riding expedition that cared about the content of the natural history tour, but remained just as reluctant as everyone else to answer the guide's questions.
The guide, a woman in her sixties, with greying hair pulled into a tight bun with glasses that kept sliding off her nose took a disappointed look around before saying, "Sedimentary rock is formed by successive layers of deposition that harden into rock. When organisms die, they can become sandwiched between the layers and become fossils."
Peter looked around at the two other couples on the trip. They all sat around a fire pit at the bottom of the cliffs, the horses tied up at a set of stairs that appears to be chiselled out of the rock. A couple in their sixties sat together, sipping on the tea that had been served to them when they had arrived at the bay. Another couple, perhaps a decade older than Peter and Wendy appeared to be, sat by themselves, quietly talking, ignoring the lecture the guide was giving.
The base of the cliffs jutted out at sea level, creating a strange walkway where one could walk right from the cliffs out into the ocean. The water lapped at the edges, warning everyone not to get too close.
"Now, because this island is composed largely of sedimentary rock, here at the base where the rock is chipped away by the elements, fossils are uncovered nearly daily. They illuminate the kinds of flora and fauna that used to inhabit this area tens of millions of years ago," the guide explained.
Wendy sat at the edge of her seat, hands gripping her tea cup so hard Peter was worried it might shatter. He could tell she wanted desperately to participate, to become engrossed in the lecture (hell, he was sure she had some corrections of her own to add), but she was still holding herself back.
"Over that way is a plateau where recent erosion has revealed a large number of flora and fauna right on the ground. So for those of you who would like to see, we can make our way across—"
Wendy tapped anxiously on the side of her cup, poised to get up and go. When they had arrived at the stables an hour earlier, Peter had half-expected her to turn around and go back to crying in their room. She was averse to the cold and seemed to be even more averse to his presence, but she got onto the horse and they made their way down the winding mountain path without much complaint. As the guide had begun her lecture, he had watched with fragile delight, as Wendy's eye lit up, focused on something. He caught a glimmer of Wendy, just Wendy. Not Wendy the older sister, not Wendy the researcher or even Wendy the mother. Just Wendy.
It made him wonder who he was. Just Peter. Or perhaps, just Malcolm.
It was hard to tell just who he was anymore. He had been so certain just a few short months ago. He had been Peter Pan, a king poised to take back his kingdom. Peter Pan, a powerful, magical being. Now, he found other titles for himself: monster, tormentor, failure. As evidence piled up, memories that had resurfaced, replaying in his mind, it was hard to disagree with it.
Was that who he was at his core?
Cruel and uncaring and detached.
Wendy's voice came back to him, the words pulling him deeper and deeper into his past.
"Anyone?" The guide's voice broke him out of his thoughts as he turned to see the guide staring expectantly at the group. Peter glanced at the other members of their party and none of them looked ready to move a muscle. He glanced at Wendy before standing and offering her a hand.
She gave him a wary look.
"It would be a waste of the money not to go and see the fossils," he said. She gave him one last long look before taking his hand and standing up and leaving her teacup on her seat.
The two followed the guide away from the hot tea and fire across the plateau. As they walked, the crunch of the stone underfoot weaved into the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the gulls calling overhead and the hollowing of the wind.
"So…" the guide began, breaking the stilted silence, "is this your first time visiting the island?"
"Yes," Peter answered and glanced at Wendy, who was normally the one to make polite, tedious small talk. "It's been very nice so far."
"Wonderful." A long pause. "Any special reason for the trip?"
Peter nodded. "Yes, my wife just needed some time to rest and relax. Get away from the stress of the day to day."
"Oh?"
"Yes, family drama, but isn't it always?" Wendy turned and gave him a look that told him he was walking on thin ice. He almost let out a laugh. This was familiar territory, comfortable, like settling into your own bed after travelling for weeks on end. "She's completely forgotten how to enjoy herself."
The guide nodded, but passed a wary look between the two of them over her shoulder, clearly not wanting to get into the middle of a marital argument. "I see."
He grinned. "It's not so bad. I knew I was marrying a bit of a stick in the mud, didn't I, honey?"
Wendy gave him a look that told him he was about five seconds away from getting smacked.
The guide stopped, turned abruptly and gestured down at the ground. On the ground before them was an imprint of a large fish-like skull, with a huge gaping mouth and cavernous eyes. Stretching out for several meters before them, was a long, snaking spine with ribs on either side, and two sets of long spindly hands.
Wendy's eyes widened and before she could catch herself, she exclaimed, "A mosasaur!"
The guide grinned. "Indeed!" She waited for Wendy to say something more, but Wendy had caught herself and held her tongue. The guide glanced at Peter and he motioned for her to keep going. "Would you like to know how it was discovered?"
Wendy looked at the guide and said reluctantly, with all her awe and excitement barely contained, "Yes, please."
"Well, earlier last year, we had a particularly bad windstorm and rocks from up the cliff fell and cracked the rock down here. When the staff came to check on the site, because we had already been using it to see smaller fossils, they saw pieces of the spine underneath and so they chipped it away and found this," she explained.
Wendy furrowed her eyebrows, looking down at the fossil. "Do you worry about the erosion?" she asked quietly, still hesitant to talk.
"Great question," said the guide encouragingly. Peter mentally made a note to tip her well later. "We've had some geologists and some paleontologists come in and survey it. They are concerned about the erosion and in the summer plan to take it out and have it shipped off to a museum for research."
Wendy nodded. "What luck that we get to see this," she breathed. "It's a marvellous specimen, but sad that you'll have to see it go."
The guide shrugged. "No one is much interested in the fossil part of the tour. The tea and biscuits after a long ride are the main attraction."
Wendy humphed, pointing her nose up in a way that must have had social rivals and potential suitors quaking in their boots back in London. "It's very silly of them not to appreciate what they have mere steps away."
"Well, I'm glad that you appreciate it," the guide said warmly. "Now, if you'd like there are some other fossils I'd love to show you."
XXX
"I'd give you a solid C+," Pan announced to her abruptly over lunch.
Wendy stopped and stared at him, her spoon full of seafood chowder halfway between her bowl and mouth. "What?"
"C+, at being selfish," he said shortly. He reached forward and took a long drink of his wine. She had raised an eyebrow at him when he had ordered it and he had quipped to the waiter saying, "My wife, such a saint, doesn't think her own husband can have a drink with lunch on vacation."
She had snapped at him afterwards that this was not vacation and lunch had been silent ever since.
She furrowed her eyebrows. "I didn't realize that I was being graded. Or monitored."
"You're not worried about the C+?" he asked, sounding concerned and if she was more naive or didn't know him any better, she would have thought he was being sincere.
She sighed and looked out the window, down to the grey sea and buffeting winds. Inside, they were in the manor's main dining room, outfitted with creamy silks, warm chandeliers that twinkled with ivory marble and crystal. Other couples surrounded them, all quietly talking amongst themselves, the low hum of their voices a comforting background noise that she could fall into. "I suppose you would like to enlighten me."
He grinned and her heart stumbled. "Indeed, I would, my dear student." He downed the last of his wine, motioning for the waiter to fill his glass before saying, "Now would you like what you did wrong first or what you did right?"
She gave him an unamused look.
"Let's start with the good. You showed up," he said, holding up one finger. Dressed in dark colours, his dark hair and light eyes making him stick out like a magical sore thumb. She thought of Matthew, worried eyes wandering over to Pan. You might be able to overlook it once but… he's not—
Human.
Matthew had meant to say human.
It was hard to disagree with Matthew there.
But there was something so… earthly about Peter as he quipped about her inability to be selfish.
"—showing up to frivolous things is half the battle, so marvellous. You also didn't leave and that was great. Indeed, you even were your know-it-all self and talked to the guide about fossils," he listed, oblivious to her inner ramblings.
"I sense a 'but' coming," she said. She took a spoonful of her chowder and waited for Pan to agree. She glanced quickly down at his plate and noticed that though things had been touched, nothing really had been eaten. At least, not eaten well.
"You are correct. Your enthusiasm was lacking, you did not take full advantage of the opportunity, barely allowed yourself to enjoy what was going on and had to be coaxed by me and the guide to even go on the walk or even say anything," he said, lightly, with the tone of a teacher who was trying to find the kindest way possible to explain to a student that they had completely failed an assignment.
"I'm heartbroken," she said flatly.
He shook his head, wagging his finger at her, tutting all the while. "As I said, your enthusiasm was lacking and it shows even now."
She rolled her eyes. "So, what do you suggest?"
"As your tutor, I suggest you follow my lead," he said. "Tonight is the card games and this is something I personally enjoy. Once, lunch ends, follow my lead, mimic what I do and you should get a feel for being selfish. And then maybe your grade will improve."
XXX
"This is a store for formal wear," Wendy pointed out. They stood in the doorway of a large set of double doors that led into a large, carpeted room filled with ballgowns on one side and tuxedos and suits on the other side. It was something that she might have dreamed about as a child, beautiful dresses made for princesses right at her fingertips, but the delight she had hoped for did not come. Instead, all she felt was guilt, sitting heavy in her stomach, nauseating.
Pan stood next to her. "I have working eyes, too, so I am aware."
She looked up at him, shaking her head. "This is too far."
"Come now, as my pupil, you need to—"
"No, I'm not playing along with the charade any longer," she said sternly. She turned and made it several steps out of the door before Pan caught her by the elbow and turned her back.
"You agreed," he said, forcefully. She glanced down at his hand and he removed it gently. She looked around, but the long marble hallway stretching out before them was deserted.
"I said I would act like my life was my own, not that I would go shopping for ballgowns while my brother suffers without me because I can't do anything to save him."
"Exactly, you can't do anything right now, so—"
"No," she said, loudly enough that she worried the salespeople inside the store might hear them.
"The card game is a black-tie dress code."
She glared at him and even though she had seen that earthly Peter before, now she saw Pan, cruel, uncaring and detached, replaced before her eyes.
"I'd like to remind you that your brother is also suffering somewhere out there, too," she said through gritted teeth.
He stared at her a long moment, eyes searching her face. Before, he would have had something snappish to say. Something along the lines of, "I don't care about that half-wit brother of mine. He got himself into this mess on his own." But instead, after a pause, he said, "I can't help him right now and neither can you."
"But this?" she said, gesturing at the store.
"It's supposed to help you."
"I spent over a century on your godforsaken island looking for my brother, thinking my other brothers were dead. My whole life I've been living knowing that something worse is happening to my brothers as I go about my day. How could you think that I would ever be okay with this?"
Pan looked down at her, hands in his pockets, with that blank expression that was so familiar to her now. In that moment, it was hard to set aside all the hurt he had caused her, how he had ripped up her life. It was hard to be in his presence, like needles under her skin.
"I'm going," she told him and turned on her heel.
XXX
Peter had always known that what he had done to Wendy had hurt her. He had told her on multiple occasions that he was fully aware of the damage that he had done to her life; he cringed as he recalled himself saying, quite triumphantly, to Wendy, "I'm not stupid. I just don't care."
So, as he had started to unravel, the harm he had done to Wendy wasn't a surprise, but it was an abstract thing. She was not on Neverland, no longer held captive and it was possible for her to be with her family (albeit without a vital member). It was hard to see day to day exactly how he had hurt her.
But standing outside of the store, he saw it. In the flash of her eyes, the wavering of her lip; she looked so old then. He could see not just the years she had lived, but the years she had missed. Holidays with her family, time spent with her parents as they grew old, parties and weddings and baby showers and funerals; all chances to live and grow, to become more than just a dutiful older sister.
After she left, he went and had a drink in a smoke-filled lounge with dark wood walls and deep burgundy leather chairs. He ordered a whiskey and sank into the chair to sink back into contemplation.
In the early days, fear used to grip him when he thought of Neverland, of Gavin, of all the things he'd done wrong. His chest would tighten and he could barely take a breath. Every muscle was so tense, every nerve so electric he could barely sit still. His thoughts had been a terrifying jumble of things half remembered, hazy memories of horrors. But now, it was like sinking into research. Research that was heartbreaking and scary, but research nonetheless.
He sipped his whiskey, contemplating his old life before eventually making his way back the room.
It was blue hour by the time he arrived, and the room was bathed in a cold and uninviting light that he had always found distasteful. After parties on Neverland, he would wake up hungover just as the day was turning into evening and found it hard to slip back into that world. He crossed the room and quickly lit a fire in the fireplace and set a few candles to burn before turning to contemplate the lump of Wendy on the couch.
He closed the distance between him and the couch before hovering by her side. After a long moment, he sat on the end and shook her shoulder gently. She turned and gave him a cold look before sitting up.
She still looked old, decades held in those dark eyes.
"I've lived a long time knowing that what I did to you was wrong only in an abstract way," he began. Her eyes flicked up to his as he continued, "I'm having to learn what it looks like in a concrete way and it's my fault that I'm still playing catch up after so long." He thought of the time they had gotten trapped in the illusion manor, how scared she had been, the terror that had gripped her and how stupidly long it had taken him to realize why she was so upset. "I'm sorry."
The word hung in the air, heavy with significance, a glimmer of the future. He had only truly apologized once before, after, again, not seeing how he had affected her.
"There's a line between being a little selfish and living life your way and being frivolous and insensitive," she said.
He nodded. "I'm learning to walk that line, too." He sighed. "We don't have to go to the card game. This whole endeavour was to relax and take some time off; not to add stress or go overboard."
She paused for a moment and considered. "Before Neverland, I was a card shark."
XXX
With the large windows cracked open, shoes tossed on the floor, a sharp breeze whipping through her hair, Wendy sat on the bay window seat across from Pan, feet dangling over the edge. Pan shuffled their winnings around, eyebrows furrowed as he divided it up equally before handing over Wendy's half to her. She took it and thumbed through the bills, proud.
"You weren't lying before," he commented.
She gave him a reproachful look. "I don't boast."
He grinned. "No, you don't."
She grinned back, remembering the night. When they had arrived, it was patently obviously that this function was an event where it was expected that wives (or pretend wives, in Wendy's case) would be elsewhere. There were only a handful of other women in the room as Wendy and Peter were sat at a table that consisted almost entirely of older men. For a moment, she wondered if she would remember the game well enough, still be able to bluff like she used to, read people as easily as she had a century before. But once the cards were in her hands, it was almost as if no time had passed at all. Almost.
She had never had a playing partner like Pan before. A simple glance between the two of them and she knew exactly what his hand was like, the bluffs he was calling on the other players, his upcoming strategies and he could tell hers with just a look.
A rush of heat flowed through her meeting his eyes across the table. Her heart raced the entire evening, hands almost shaking with the excitement and exhilaration. Was it perhaps cheating a little bit to play this way? Maybe, but she was having a far too much fun to care.
She leaned back against the cool glass of the windows, thankful for the cold wind against her sweaty skin. Her bun was coming undone, curls sticking to her neck, the dress Pan had charmed into ballgown far too heavy on her now. "I forgot what it felt like," she said.
He looked at her for a long moment and she got the distinct feeling he was seeing through her. "I get flashes of you, sometimes, of what you were like before Neverland," he said, after a long pause, his voice serious. He shrugged, his eyes slipping from her face. "Who you were before, I suppose." His eyes came up to meet hers again. "It wasn't a flash tonight. You were just here. Who you are, after Neverland."
She considered him, tracing the lines of his face, his jaw, his shoulders and arms in the dimness of the alcove. Outside, the moon was obstructed by clouds and everything was bathed in a blue light, cold and shadowy. She wondered briefly how he saw her, what she looked like to him, what she looked like when she was living her life for herself. The only way she had ever seen herself was as someone who took care of others, who saved others, sacrificed for them. A means to an end.
"And?" she asked.
"And what?"
"How does it look on me?"
His gaze fell heavy on her, warm and tingly. "Good."
She brushed lint off of her dress that wasn't there. She paused for a long moment before saying, "Sometimes I forget there was a 'before'." She shook her head. "I didn't even think there was going to be an after."
She glanced up at him. He was looking at her but he was faraway in that moment. The look on his face, the circles under her eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks. She wondered if there would be an after for him. "You hide the guilt well." He gave her a confused look, broken out of his thoughts. "You don't manage it well, of course," she said, gesturing at him, "but you're not trying to get rid of it, begging for forgiveness, you're just… living with it."
He gave her a grin. "Observant."
She chewed the inside of her cheek. She wasn't too naive to think Pan would talk about that at all with her. She trusted that there was more going on beneath the surface.
XXX
They fell into a routine.
A leisurely breakfast in the morning. Sometimes, they were silent. Both of them had a lot to think about. Sometimes, there was idle chatter. Winding, unhurried conversations about books they had read, plans for the day, observations from the day before (did you see that couple at dinner last night?).
After breakfast they would meander down to the first activity of the day: a morning of playing the piano for Wendy and shopping for Peter, a tour of the library. Then off to lunch with more conversation, still relaxed, but sometimes stiff, stilted. The reality of the day had settled in, that all these activities were meant really as distractions, a way to pretend what was happening wasn't. Peter saw Wendy's eyes like a hawk on his meals, counting the bites he had taken, or rather, the bites he hadn't taken. His words ghosted over the apologies she deserved, wary of all he hadn't done to earn the right to apologize. Conversations tipped over Baelfire and his dire situation, Peter's wrongs, the brothers Wendy had left behind, the future… their relationship.
Then another activity followed by cat naps in their room, sometimes falling asleep on the couches, other times on the bed, separated by a wall of pillows. Only to wake up to prepare for dinner and another event.
This all passed in short moments, in blips. One scene flowing into the next and incrementally he watched her slowly settle back into herself, into a life of her own. She reminded him about his manners, pestered him about eating, corrected tour guides and allowed herself to enjoy the moments she had.
It was a comfortable existence. But the existence wasn't an honest one. They both waited with bated breath, on tiptoes, waiting for the reckoning, to go back to reality.
Their lives couldn't be vignettes of leisure activities, full of the tinkling of wine glasses clinking, the glow of chandeliers, the low rumble of voices and laughter, the smell of smoke and sea breezes. Peter didn't deserve it and Wendy deserved more.
Peter knew his luck. It would shatter so—
"A favourite expression of my father's was 'still waters run deep'," Wendy told him from across the dinner table, smashing his thoughts into pieces.
He looked up, jarred back into his temporary dream. "What?"
Wendy rolled her eyes. "I didn't realize you were so thick." She pointed her chin up at him. "What is going on in that head?"
Around them waiters dressed in tails swished in between tables, holding trays of glinting silver full of crystal glassware. The room was bright, sparkling in its opulence, full of the smells of rich foods. Another vignette, a snapshot. Temporary.
He considered her for a long moment. Wendy was always so easy to read; he had observed many times before she wore her heart on her sleeve and her expressions were sometimes almost comical when she was feeling something deeply. He supposed she didn't have the same luxury when observing him.
"I'm thinking about how this is all temporary," he said, serious, sombre.
She stared at him, narrowing golden eyes. She sat across from him wearing a soft pink silk dress. He had gotten into the habit of charming her dresses into something new for each new occasion. He might have scoffed at such a frivolous waste of magic, but knowing what he knew now, it felt like a penance to do that for her, an acknowledgement, an apology.
She tilted her head. "A blip across the centuries."
He looked at her, eyebrows furrowing together. "This is not a blip." You are not a blip.
She looked around the room, taking in the ambience, the opulence. "I actually hope it is."
He realized they were not talking about the same thing.
"When I was on Neverland—" she stopped herself "—When you had me imprisoned there, I didn't think there would be an end. But for this, I think there will be."
There was suddenly a lump in his throat and tears prickling his eyes and he didn't want to guess why.
"A happy ending?" he asked, swallowing the emotions he felt, stamping them back down where they came from, hoping Wendy hadn't noticed. He used to be so good at this. He used to know how to do this. He used to be so much more.
She shrugged and suddenly her eyes were on him and he got the mortifying feeling that he had indeed been right before: Wendy didn't have the luxury of observing him, she had the luxury of seeing him. "I think we both know things are not that black and white," she said, taking a sip of her wine.
"They used to be."
She nodded, humming into her glass. "Indeed, they did."
This conversation was making his head hurt. He told her so.
She grinned at him, a grin that made his heart stutter in his chest. "Me, too. We're not usually so obtuse with each other."
What a fucking difference some time off could make. She never would have spoken to him like that just a week ago. What a gift that she would talk with him like this.
"I'm glad you're not pushing me away anymore."
She sobered for a moment and said, after a long, searching look, "That's not the way I want to deal with this situation anymore."
There it was— the reality of the situation creeping in on both of them, the frost on the windows of a cheery, bright house.
What was beyond this moment, this blip?
XXX
"You can't be so morose when this starts," Wendy told Peter primly. They sat in a booth in one of the salons. The walls here were a deep mahogany, almost burgundy with everything adorned in leather and gold. If he had to guess, this was probably where he had his 'wallowing drink' just a few days earlier.
Now, the room was no longer filled with smoke but about a half a dozen couples all filing into their seats and a host with large cards propped up on an easel, shuffling cards in his hands by the bar, waiting for the trivia game to start.
He scoffed. "Talk about the pot calling the kettle."
Dinner had ended quietly, with spots of idle conversation here and there, but he had been stuck wondering about reality and when it would settle back in, when the consequences of his actions would descend upon him, when they would both realize what their pasts meant for them, when they would deal with the seriousness of Baelfire's situation.
Wendy sniffed. "I am acutely morose." She pointed a disapproving finger at him. "You are chronically morose." He had to give it to her there. She wasn't wrong.
"Fine."
"I've known you to be quite competitive and quite charming on occasion," she said. "I'd like you to be now."
"Since when have you ever wanted me to be those things?"
"Since you told me that this is about fiction books and I realized I actually might know something," she said. He had mentioned to her on the way down that the topic was fiction books and Wendy had done enough reading the past little while that she had a healthy idea of the current state of fiction in the Enchanted Forest. She also had a pretty good handle on magic and its history in the Enchanted Forest, but that was neither here nor there. "I want to win this, Pan."
"I'm aware," he said. He rested his chin on his hand and gave her an amused look.
"What? This is what you wanted, isn't it?"
"I suppose I didn't realize how intense you would be, bird," he joked back.
"Have you met me?"
He smiled at her and doing it, he realized he hadn't done that, hadn't smiled for so long. But he couldn't recall the last time he had felt this warm, this light, this safe. He had only felt like this in glimpses over the past centuries, moments fading quickly, full of… joy.
Looking at her then, he couldn't shake the feeling that foreshadowing was real. Who else would it have been to make him feel this way? Wendy, who had quite literally dropped into his life, and had spent the last century pushing him, without his or her consent or intent, into—into humanity.
For a moment, he felt he needed to get on his knees and thank her, thank her for everything.
"I'll put aside the moroseness," he assured her. "For you."
She gave him an approving nod before turning to the host who cleared his throat for the room's attention.
XXX
"The author is Elza Elwin—"
"Wrong," Pan said, none too quietly, turning to Wendy conspiratorially.
Covering her mouth with her hand, she turned, trying not to laugh. "Rude," she managed out, trying to chastise him.
He raised his eyebrow at her. "Hypocrite." And she was. She had called out, "That's not right!" too loudly after an egregious answer and everyone's heads had whipped around to stare at her.
"You meant to do that, I didn't" she explain, trying to justify herself. "I mean, seriously, Pan. I'm not even from this universe and I knew that the series was The Willows."
He gave her an exasperated look and shook his head. "You keep telling yourself that, bird."
She gave him a sour look that was far from sour and took a long sip from her wine.
After three glasses and a full dinner, the room was beginning to get warm, but she wasn't going to complain. Her limbs felt light and she could only feign being annoyed with Pan; playfully pretending she was upset with his sarcastic comments about other players and admonishing him with a laugh when he cut them to the quick. Her chest felt light from all the time she had spent laughing, trying to hide her giggles under her hand, in Pan's shoulder.
When Pan had proposed these activities to her, the only way she could have imagined enjoying them was if she forgot about everything for a few moments; if she couldn't quite remember where Baelfire was, if she was hazy on how long it had been since she had seen her brothers, if she couldn't recall how she had me Pan. But as she sat there, poised to ding the bell to answer the next question from the host, she remembered all of it. Nothing had slipped her mind. She knew all of it, she still felt the same about it all, but life felt fuller than just those things.
Her life was her family, but it was also this moment; the trivia game, the way the wine tasted, light and fruity, the warmth of the room, the dark windows with the ocean outstretched before them, the soft, buttery feeling of the booth, the solid heat of Pan next to her, the smell of his cologne.
Life was larger and fuller than she had thought it was.
"In which year did Hal McMahon publish his debut novel?" the host said, his voice bringing Wendy back from her thoughts, and before he was finished the sentence Pan was dinging the bell, aggressively.
"1763," he chimed.
The host tilted his head towards him and said, defeatedly, "Correct." He turned and added another point to the score board for Wendy and Pan, who were far and away in the lead, but that didn't mean that they couldn't continue to leave everyone in the dust.
She suspected the host didn't like them very much.
"Thank you, Charles," Peter crooned, loudly enough that the host could hear, his voice honeyed, but with a grin that was all teeth. She turned to grin at him and something shifted when she looked at him. He looked as he had decades and decades before, the Boy King of Neverland, doing what she had asked of him, competitive and charming all at once. Not two different beings replacing the other, but a whole being, a walking contradiction, an optical illusion, flickering. It made her heart ache, pushing itself against her chest, threatening to come out and right into Pan's hands.
Her heart was his, simple as that: Peter, who was beautiful and wicked and cruel, uncaring, and detached, deeply emotional and intelligent, charming and stubborn, someone capable of evil and someone capable of tenderness and kindness, all at once. He was who he was, and for some cruel and wonderful reason, unfair as it was, she wouldn't change a thing about him, even if she could.
She reached out and tucked a strand of dark hair behind his ear, admiring the silkiness of it, before resting her hand on his lower back. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She took a breath in, smelling the leather of the room, the wisps of alcohol, Peter's scent, feeling the booth under her, the wood of the table, hearing the rumble of other team's conferring about answers, the wind outside.
She didn't mind if this was a blip across the centuries.
She had this moment with Peter, a moment across years and universes. There was nothing she could do to fix or solve him; there was nothing she should or would do to fix or solve him. She felt what she felt and there was nothing to be done about it but to live in this blip across the centuries.
Pan wiggled his shoulder and she turned to blink up at him.
"Getting tired, bird?" His stubble brushed against her forehead as he spoke.
She shrugged. "Just enjoying the moment."
"Good, because we have a game to win."
XXX
They did win, obviously, because what else was going to happen?
Pan was a sore winner, of course. He held the trophy extra high and thanked the host profusely, making sure to linger in his victory. Wendy grinned beside him, not sure how she had ended up in that moment.
She held the trophy as they meandered through the silent halls, admiring it. It was nearly the size of her forearm, a golden chalice set on a block of wood with a gold plaque and had been engraved once the winners had been declared. Trivia Winners: Peter and Wendy, it read. Neither of them could decide on what last name to give so they instead just gave their names and pretended not to notice that the engraver found it incredibly weird that a married couple wasn't sure about their last name.
"You did a good job," she said, turning the trophy in her hands so it glinted in the light of the sconces in the hall.
"I'm very smart," Peter said. She didn't even have to look at him to know he wasn't joking, but she grinned anyway.
"I meant with the moroseness," she returned, "but you are very smart."
A pause. "You, too."
She glanced at him beside her. "The intelligence or the moroseness?"
He shrugged, his eyes clear and steady. "Take your pick."
She sighed and turned back to the trophy. They walked in silence for a long time before arriving at the door to their room. Peter unlocked it and held it open for Wendy. She stepped past him and put the trophy down on the entryway table before going to quickly change into her night clothes and robe. When she back out of the bathroom, Pan's jacket was shucked off, laying over one of the chairs and his cufflinks were on the coffee table.
She stared at him for a moment, sweeping over the lines of him, beautiful and graceful and lithe, ethereal but most definitely human. She loved how he looked, never tired of staring at him. She wasn't sure what it meant that her heart was his. She wasn't sure what to do about it or even if there was anything to do about it.
It was less tiring, accepting it, being able to live with all of her feelings about him. She didn't have to try to convince herself she hated him or forget what he had done to her. It just was. She lived with her feelings, moment by moment.
She came and sat next to him, pulling her knees up to her chest, quiet, before reaching over and looking at the room service menu. They only took breakfast in their rooms and that one dinner, but otherwise they hadn't indulged in room service and she was hungry.
"Do you want to order something?"
"Depends on what you want."
She paused and considered before saying, "Something greasy and salty."
He smiled and she wanted to make him smile like that for the rest of her life. "Because you're drunk."
She shoved him. "You had just as much to drink as I did."
His smile turned into a grin and he conceded, "Fine. Tipsy then."
They decided on fries with gravy and cheese curds which Peter told her were called poutine on Earth from Quebec in Canada that Wendy only vaguely remembered from geography lessons from eons ago.
When the food arrived, they placed the tray on the couch between them and ate from the bowl. It was salty and greasy and perfect. She hummed as she took a bite. "This is good drunk food."
"Ha!" Peter pointed an accusatory finger at her. "So you are drunk."
"Not drunk drunk, but perhaps more drunk than tipsy," she said.
He rolled his eyes. "You can never admit you're wrong."
She stuck her tongue out at him before taking another bite. "I've yet to be wrong."
He laughed. "Not true."
"Name a time."
"When you asked me if spells could simply be written?"
She leaned back into the couch and rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I still disagree with that one. It makes perfect sense to me that if spells were written in the past, they can be written now." And as she said it, her heart thudded in her chest and something clicked into place. Without saying anything, they turned to each other, understanding that they had both realized the same thing in that moment.
"Oh my God," she said, knowing exactly what Pan was thinking.
"It would be a long shot," he said cautiously, "but we have all the research we would need to be able to have a fighting chance."
"Our work wasn't a waste," she said and for a second, hope fluttered in her chest, fragile and small, but most certainly there.
"No, it won't be," Pan agreed.
She gave him a long look as he held her gaze. "Would you do it with me? Write a spell for Baelfire? There's no one else I would want to work with than you."
"You don't even have to ask," he said. "There isn't anyone else I'd want to work with either." Tears prickled her eyes and a lump caught in her throat. She didn't know how to say thank you, where to begin, but he held up a hand and opened his mouth, "No need to get all mushy on me, bird."
She shoved his arm. "I'll get mushy if I want," she declared before reaching over and kissing him on the cheek, making sure to linger, hands ghosting over his jaw, leaning into his chest.
When she pulled back, there was a cautious look on Peter's face, assessing her.
"What is it?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. I should have known you wouldn't listen."
She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, but Pan looked fragile in that moment and she didn't want to push him. Instead, she gave him a grin that she hoped he didn't see through and said, "Have you met me?"