Luke Jonathan Connelly was born to Lily and Fergus Connelly on the most unexpected of nights, three weeks early from when he was expected.
Rain splattered against the windowpane in bucket loads, rattling the already fragile frame loose from it's hinges. Sirens blared in the distance, haunting echoes of plane blades whirring through the dark sky.
"They're getting closer," Lily panics, choking on her breath as she labors to endure the ruthless contractions in her abdomen.
"I know love, I know, just keep breathing," her husband tries to soothe, unable to keep masked his own unease. This is his first child, and his young wife has only just entered her twentieth year. They had planned a hospitalized birth, doctors and nurses present. Here they hadn't even a midwife!
"No!" she wails, throwing her legs over the side of the bed in a last ditch effort to escape from the second floor room of which she resided. "The bloody planes. We have to get downstairs Fergus." She reaches for him desperately as he realizes he has no choice but to help his wife down. It was no longer safe up here. Well, it was technically no longer safe in Europe.
Adolf Hitlers movement was spreading across the map like a forest fire, unrelenting and unforgiving. His regiments were bringing nations to their knees one raid at a time, and the terror of the war had reached the Highlands at last.
The window continued to pound harder. Lily screamed a piercing scream.
"What?!" Fergus holds her as she collapses.
"I saw something in the window." Sobbing she turns into his chest, only to jerk away in response to the next set of contractions.
The window jerked once more before the glass exploded against the impact of a dark, flying object. The frame fell to the ground with a thud, and the shadow of a child fell from the entryway. Lily finds she cannot breathe, her suspicions confirmed as she breaks free from Fergus' grip, against his frantic pleading. He lets her go when she shouts a name, when she clutches the child and repeats to him 'wake up!'.
"You know this lad? How did he make it to the window?" Fergus stares, suddenly realizing the child is wearing a costume of foliage, a small dagger hanging off his hip.
"Peter, wake up." Sitting up in her arms, he rubs his head, turning suspiciously towards Fergus a few feet away.
"Who's he?" Peter points, one hand reaching for the dagger.
"My husband," Lily pats his shoulder. "Help me boy. My child is coming." Fergus ignores Peters protective glare as he rubs his head, helping pick up his wife to escort her downstairs. She cannot make it down without another set of painful spasms throwing her off. Fergus nearly drops her when Peters feet lift off the ground to help lift her so.
"How long was I away this time? I come back and you've got husband," Peter questions innocently, "and you're to be a mother!"
"Tell me I'm no seeing a flying lad," Fergus mumbles to himself.
"You are love," Lily looks at him apologetically, and Peter realizes this part of her life might have been left out when getting to know each other.
"I haven't had a visit from Peter in 4 years," she explains to him. "He used to come to my window at night. To hear stories." Peter smiles at this, setting her down.
"What's happening to your world?" Peter asks, unable to contain the question any longer. Blood drips down from two cuts at his temple, to which he smears out of his eyes and back into his curly wet hair.
"War," Lily answers as a ball starts to rise in the back of her throat. "We're being attacked." Tears brim over Peters eyes when he sees his sweet friend Lily begin to sob. "I fear for my child," she weeps. Then she begins to scream, and Peters eyes widen in fright, tears blurring his vision when they spill over. He cannot move from his spot, afraid he's done something to hurt her.
"He's comin!" Fergus announces, moving from his place between is legs to order Peter about. "I need water lad, now, can you do that?" he looks at Peter as though the baby would not live otherwise.
So he nods and his feet somehow unstick from the ground. He brings the man a basin filled with rainwater. "Blankets now," he says to him, not looking up this time as he's focused on his wife. Peter tries his best to ignore her painful cries as he searches the house for blankets.
He had only seen Lily a week ago. The skies were blue in Scotland. Now they were red, and she'd grown four years. She'd become a woman. It takes him five minutes to find a blanket suitable enough for a newborn. As he turns to rush back to the front room he realizes he no longer hears her screams.
"Lily," he gasps as he takes in the sight. Fergus had just sliced through something long attached to the writhing, gooey child's belly. Lily was unconscious. "What are you doing?" he demands as Fergus wraps the wailing infant in the blanket.
"I had to cut the cord," he explains, cradling his son in his arms for the first time. "Lily," he nudges her gently, and she opens her tired eyes. "Meet your boy, Luke," he holds the tiny baby up to his wife arms and the pair tear up together, sharing a tender kiss of which Peter does not understanding the meaning. The sight made him uncomfortable.
The sirens were only meters only and the rain did nothing the mast the putrid smell of the gas. Suddenly Lily opens her eyes wide in realization, attention snapping to Peter who stands timidly by the the fireplace. He certainly had picked the wrong time to come hear a story.
"What is it?" Fergus asks, thrown off by her sudden revelation.
"Take him," she begs of Peter, voice cracking and soul weighted with the decision to give up her baby. "Take Luke to Neverland, where he'll be safe from this madness."