Author's Notes: Wow guys, it has been awhile, but I want to thank you for your patience! I'm sorry for leaving on the cliffhanger, but it was too good to resist! I really hope you guys like this chapter! Make sure to pay attention to this one because there are some reveals here! Without further ado, here is Chapter 9!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the OUAT characters, however the story is entirely my own : )
Chapter 9
Wendy stares down at him. She has never seen him asleep before. He looks so much younger, as though he is no longer carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His face is relaxed, his cruel smirk no longer gracing his lips. His golden hair is disheveled and his mouth is parted, inhaling softly and slowly. He looks like a child. A lost child.
Peter twitches in his sleep and begins to stir. His eyebrows and mouth turn down and his arms reach out, straining for something that only he can see. Without thinking, Wendy gently places her hands on his arms and pushes them back down on the bed. She grabs a cloth and dips it into a bucket filled with water that the Lost Boys had gotten for her before dabbing his forehead with the cool water, wiping away the sweat that has appeared on his brow. Peter moans.
When he collapsed on the floor, her heart had stopped. She stood frozen as her mind erased any and every thought until all that was left was him. The fear that Peter had died consumed her completely. She didn't want him to die. That was the only thing racing around in her head. He could not die.
The Lost Boys were upon him within seconds. Several of the older ones, including Felix and John, gently gathered around him and with a reverence that would not be seen amongst most children, lifted him delicately. They carried Peter solemnly out the door as though in a funeral procession, the younger boys trailing behind anxiously, leaving just Wendy and Michael to stand in silence.
Wendy stood there, as still as a stone statue, unfeeling and unmoving. She was numb to her youngest brother grasping her hand tightly, his small and sweaty palms clinging to her desperately. She could not offer any comfort. For the first time, her family was not the most prevalent thought in her mind. It was Peter. She reminisced about every cruel thing he had spoken, every wicked smirk he had given. Every burning touch he had taken.
She had barely heard Michael whisper to her in the silence of the empty room, with innocent eyes and quivering lips, "I don't want him to die."
Me neither…
Michael had eventually departed, leaving Wendy to wallow in her despair alone. After what could have been minutes or hours, she heard approaching footsteps and looked up with a dazed expression to see Felix standing in front of her.
"You should go see him. He's been asking for you." There was not an ounce of the anger she had seen earlier.
Wendy nodded. Her body felt as though it was moving of its own accord, her mind somewhere far away. She walked past Felix and briefly glanced into his eyes, feeling uneasy when all she saw was pity, for herself or Peter, she could not be sure.
When she entered Peter's house, most of the Lost Boys were already there, huddling around the large bed in the center with grim expressions on their faces. When she stepped inside the crowded room, all eyes turned to her and as one, they filed out, leaving just her and the still boy laying on the bed. Wendy took a hesitant step towards him, unsure of what to say. But she found that she didn't need to say anything.
Peter was fast asleep, his chest rising and falling steadily, wrapped underneath strips of white cloth soaked through with blood.
Something peculiar happened when she saw Peter lying there, helpless and vulnerable. A strange ache resonated from deep within her, as though it physically pained her to see him like that. The thought was ridiculous and she shoved it aside to be dissected later. For now, she just wanted to sit by his side and watch over him.
And there she was, several hours later, still watching over him. Wendy sighs when she looks out the window to see that afternoon light was pouring into the room, painting herself and Peter in a golden glow. She brushes a stray lock of hair away from his closed eyes and caresses his cheek gently without thinking. A small sound escapes his lips, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, but it spreads throughout her body and causes her to shudder. She immediately pulls her hand away.
Standing there in the middle of the room, Wendy was unsure of what to do. She wants an explanation. She wants answers. But another part of her wants to stay here. By Peter's side.
Another groan escapes his lips and she turns towards him, torn between staying or leaving. She clenches her fists. Peter will be fine. He is strong. This is what she told herself as she crosses the threshold, her steps steady and sure, even if her mind was not. When she reaches the door, Wendy hesitates for a moment, looking back to the boy in the bed, his skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat and blood seeping through the bandages, staining the white cloth red. He will be fine.
With a newly hardened resolution, she walks purposely to the one person she knows who can help her solve the mystery around Neverland. She barges through the door, not bothering to knock. She finds him sitting at his desk, pouring over maps of what Wendy believes to be the island. He looks up at her, seemingly unfazed with her sudden appearance.
"Tell me what is going on."
Felix does not say anything. The only sign that he even heard her is the clenching of his jaw. He turns around and gestures towards the bed.
Wendy sits down and stares studies him. Felix looks exhausted, as though the weight of time was pressing down on him. "First question."
She races through everything she has ever wanted to ask since she arrived on this island. The shadows, her nightmares. Everything. But what came out of her mouth surprised her. "Is Peter going to be all right? What happened to him?" She flinches at the concern in her voice and the tension in her words.
Felix visibly winces, as though the thought of what injured Peter physically pained him. "He will… recover with time. He just needs rest."
She glares at him and his vague answer. "Felix, that's not an answer. I want the truth. All of it."
He drags his hands through his hair, frustrated. "There are things I cannot say-at least… not without Peter's permission."
"Why," she shouts, growing exasperated. "Why do you all blindly obey Peter? Why do you care for him so much?" She thinks back to when he collapsed by the door. The Lost Boys had cared for him and lifted him with such reverence. They had all grown solemn and silent. The boys who spend their hours fighting and yelling and laughing had turned silent.
Felix stares intensely at the ground, refusing to meet his gaze as he whispers, "He saves us."
"Saves you from what?"
Felix lifts his gaze to look at her, his slate eyes cold and hard. "The shadows."
A shiver runs down her spine from those two words. The shadows. Cautiously, she says, "Felix, what can you tell me?"
He sighs in resignation. "I'll say what I can." He pauses a moment to breathe deeply, as if bracing himself for what he was about to do. He was dancing on a very fine line. A very dangerous line.
"There is not much that is known about Peter Pan. He trusts no one with his secrets and he has told me little. What I do know is that he is very old and very powerful. He was the first person on Neverland. I was the second. I do not know how I got here or why-no one does, and Peter does not tell any of us. We have no memory of our life before Neverland. This island slowly takes away your memories of everything you once were."
A faint smile pulls at his lips as he whispers, "I do have one memory, but it is faded and I'm not even sure if it is real. But I remember long, golden hair and a soft voice singing."
Wendy does not urge him to continue his story about Peter. She knows that wherever Felix has gone within his mind, she should not disturb him. The room is silent for another moment until Felix seems to remember where he was and shakes his head, ridding the whispers of sweet lullabies and soft caresses from his mind. His gaze hardens once more.
"A couple decades ago, Lost Boys began to go missing. They were disappearing and no one could find them. Then, one day, Peter and I were by the shores of Mermaid Lagoon, searching for mermaid scales… when we saw them. The shadows."
Wendy sucks in a breath. "What happened?'
Felix chuckles darkly. "What do you think? We fought them off. Tore them to shreds until there was nothing left of them. But Lost Boys were still going missing and Peter and I scoured the entire island in search of them and the shadows. It was only several days later when we realized what the shadows were." Felix stops, unable to keep out the emotion thick in his throat.
"What were they, Felix?" Wendy urdges, needing to know the answer that has been clawing at her for days.
Felix's eyes bore into hers. "Lost Boys. The shadows were Lost Boys."
Wendy gasps, but Felix continues. "There is a darkness here, Wendy. Something vile and wicked that is corrupting the island and Peter cannot stop it. It has been turning Lost Boys into dark shadows and there are more every day. Neverland is dying."
Wendy flies from the bed, placing her hands on her hips indignantly. "Why can't you leave? If Neverland is dying as you say, surely you all need to get off the island. There must be families that miss you dearly. You could go back to your homes."
He laughs darkly, no humor in his tone. "You don't get it, do you? We can't go back to our families. We don't remember them. And even if we did, all of us have been here for hundreds of years-there would be no one who would even be alive to remember us!"
"You're centuries old," she whispers. She cannot wrap her mind around the idea of someone living for such a long time. How could a person stay young for that long?
"Felix," she hedges. "You said that Peter is the first person to ever step foot on Neverland. How old is he?"
He shakes his head. "I told you, I don't know. He never tells me anything about his past. But if I had to guess, he must be countless millennia old."
Countless millennia. Peter has lived for thousands of years. How is that even possible? It couldn't be. It shouldn't be. It is against all rules of nature. "How?"
Felix rolls his eyes, clearly annoyed with how oblivious she was. "Have you not realized it by now? Can you not tell what this place is made of?"
She stays silent.
He sighs. Felix leans toward her and speaks slowly and clearly so there could be no misunderstandings. "Neverland is magic. It is at the very heart of the island and it flows throughout everything, even the smallest insect. That is how we stay young forever. The magic within this place keeps us from ever aging. It is how Peter is so old, yet looks no more than seventeen."
Wendy hesitates. "Peter has a… connection to the island."
Felix shakes his head, cutting her off from finishing her thought. "I don't know and even if I did, I would not be allowed to tell you. What I can say is that he is connected to Neverland in a way that I will never understand. It is why I know that he will not die from his injuries."
"How did he get those wounds?"
Felix clenches his jaw and looks away from her intense gaze. "That, I am not allowed to say and neither are any of the other Lost Boys."
She wants to scream in frustration when another thought occurs to her. "Felix, why was I brought to the island? I am not a boy."
He shakes his head. "I'm not sure. I have been wondering about that myself for the past few days and I can't seem to find any reason why Peter would want you on the island-he is the one who chooses what boys come to Neverland. But I don't know how he does it."
Wendy feels a glimmer of hope. "But there is a way on and off the island?"
"Of course, but Peter is the only one who knows how to do it and can." Felix can already see her mind working with ways of escape for her and her brothers and he instantly stops her from formulating any plans. "But you cannot leave!"
She crosses her arms over her chest and raises her brow in skepticism. "And why not?"
"Because you need Peter's permission to leave the island and that is the one thing that he will never give you."
Confusion knots her brow. "Why won't he let me leave?"
Felix clenches his fists. "Because," he grinds out. "He has grown… attached to you." He spits the words as if they were poison and cause him physical harm to say.
"I don't understand…"
Felix runs his hands through his hair in frustration. "What do you not understand? Peter will never let you go. He has claimed you as his. You are his new shiny plaything that he does not want to give up."
Wendy is lost in a daze from those words that have made her body quiver. He has claimed you as his.
"My brothers and I have to get off this island. We have to get back home," she whispers, more to herself than to Felix.
"Until Peter no longer wants you here, you are trapped on this island."
Wendy lifts her head and stares into slate eyes that yield no compassion. "And if you try to escape, we will all pay dearly for it."
Wendy did not know what Felix meant when he said that the Lost Boys would be punished for her leaving. But all plans that she had been creating in her mind vanished almost instantaneously. She could not hurt the Lost Boys. She has grown to care for them, more than she would like to admit. Their boisterous laughing and unwavering curiosity has carved a path straight to her heart and she could not imagine ever causing any of them harm. But still, the thought of staying on Neverland makes her stomach knot and her body curl in on itself, hiding from whatever lurks out in the Neverwoods beyond the safety of the encampment.
She has always been wary of Peter ever since he found her in the middle of the clearing from what feels like so long ago. But now she knows that there are far worse things that roam the island, more monstrous and evil than Peter could ever be. And they used to be human.
Wendy puts her hand to her mouth to cover the sob that escapes her lips when she thinks of the fact that those terrifying shadows used to be boys. How did they become that? Who could do such a cruel thing to such innocent children? It sickens and terrifies her to know that her brothers could become like that. Could turn into such twisted monsters. Her desire to leave the island has never been stronger than in that moment from the desperation she feels to save her brothers.
But it's impossible. Felix said so herself. The only way to leave is to get Peter's permission. He has claimed you as his. Why does she keep thinking to that? Those words continue to swirl around her head endlessly and any time she decides to consider them, her stomach flutters and her palms moisten in nervous anticipation.
Wendy pauses on her careless wandering when she notices the sun has begun to set. She sighs and turns in the direction of Peter's home, hoping that when she arrives, he will be awake so she can finally see his emerald eyes and charming smile once again. The thought startles her. More and more thoughts like these have begun to surface and they frighten her more than they should. She cannot be caring about Peter. She must get home to her family. She should not be spending her days lost in fantasies of her and Peter. Even if they are entirely tempting.
She reaches the door and feels the urge to knock. What if he was awake and did not want to be disturbed? What if he was undressed? Images of last night floated into her mind of silver moonlight shining down on smooth and muscular skin that she wanted to map every inch of with her fingers. Wendy shakes her head. She was being ridiculous.
She opens the door and steps inside.
Her heart stops. Her breathing stops. The whole world stops. Then, it restarts. But slower this time, as if everything were moving through water.
Peter is still sound asleep. His bandages must have been changed while she was gone because no longer are they stained with blood. His lips are slightly parted as he breathes deeply and soundly.
He is completely unaware of what stands beside his bed. But Wendy is.
She sees the shadow. The one that brought her to Neverland. She sees the glimmering dagger it holds in its hand. She sees the wide, sinister grin it gives her. And she also sees the shadow turn to Peter and plunge the dagger straight into his chest.
Author's Notes: Don't hate me guys, but it's another cliffhanger! But I hope this chapter was worth the wait! I really loved this one and I hope you guys loved it too! Please let me know what you think! I am always open to hear your thoughts and opinions and they give me more motivation! So keep it up! Hopefully I will be able to post the next chapter faster than this one, so hang in there! Thank you to everyone who has continued to read this story! It means so much to me! Until next time!