|| This FF uses characters and themes from the original book, the Disney version, and another live action version where Peter was a blonde (not Hook) I do not own any of the characters besides my OC Kate and the general plot||

Ch 2

She woke up to the strangest sight, thick gnarled roots curled around a dark ceiling. She let her eyes adjust and slowly lifted herself onto her elbows. The room around her was empty, but full of such an assortment off odd objects that it took her a moment to realize that she was in a large room under a tree. She took a deep breath, sitting up all the way and running her fingers through the fur blanket that pooled around her bare legs. 'Where on earth am I?' she thought 'I should be dead right now, but instead I am sleeping in Davey Crockets underground lair.'

Slowly she rose from the bed, her legs so shaken she had to cling to the wooden wall for support. Whoever brought her here had dressed her in some strange Native American dress that was made of some kind of soft fabric. She loathed dresses, but seeing that there wasn't a dresser around anywhere she felt she had to deal with it for the time being.

Keeping her mouth shut, just in case the person who brought her here was some kind of crazy murderer, she made her way up the only steps. The long dark hallway the met her sent chills up her spine as she began to tiptoe her way through the thin passage, a glimmer of light shining like a beam of hope at the very end. When she got out of here she was going to make a run for it, maybe try to get a not stealing job, anything was better than being kidnaped again.

Fresh clean air blew through the tunnel and washed across her face as she climbed out, dirty fingers clutching at grass for the first time in her life. Her eyes grew wide at the world that blossomed before her. Massive trees flew up to the sky, their old gnarled branches thick and welcoming to all the vines and plants that clung to them for the best sunlight. All sorts of flowers and strange leafed plants covered the soft spongy ground that felt wonderful on her bare feet.

All she could do was stand there and stare for the longest time, her mind trying to take it all in. She had seen trees in London, but none like these, nothing so old and grand. She could have stood there for years and still not be able to fully appreciate the forest that loomed before her, but loud joyous shouts could be heard in the distance breaking the sweet silence. Fear welled up in her chest and she bolted without thinking, her feet flying over the ground at an alarming speed.

Her sudden burst of adrenaline began to wear thin, and as her pace slowed she remembered that she had absolutely nothing to eat for who knows how long. How had her captors kept her alive if she was not awake to eat? She looked down at her still thin frame, completely bewildered. Her musings were cut short when a loud cry rent the air "SHE'S GONE!" it cried.

'Get yourself together Kate' she chided herself, her hand over her pounding heart. What if they were like some crazy woodland dwellers that kidnaped young girls for sport. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to calm down and think on the situation. "I'll just hide, then they will think I got eaten or died. Then I can find help" she said, scanning the forest around her.

Kate soon found herself a nice little place to hide, a very small cave that could just barely hold her. It was covered in the front by thick swaths of plants. She curled up and prepared to wait, her stomach twisting with anxiety and hunger.

"Where is she?" Peter said, dismayed. They had only left for a quick romp and thought she would stay asleep like she had been for the past two days, though they were showed wrong. "Let's start a hunting party! We will find her Peter" Slightly called out, ready to do anything that even hinted at a new adventure. "We don't want to scare her" Nibs said, looking at the others. "Let's just spread out and find her, she can't last out there very long on her own" Peter said, taking flight immediately. The other boys scrambled about, leaving off in all different directions.

Kate was feeling worse and worse as time wore on, her eyes were drooping, and she could no longer lift her arm any further than her knee. "I need food" she mumbled to herself, fear gone and replaced with a desperate need. She slithered out of her hiding place and dully looked around till a sweet scent wafted past her nose. Her stomach knotted again and she lumbered off towards the smell, the faint calls of the boys lost to her.

Peter dipped in below the trees and landed on a branch, looking hard at the tangled forest below. On his belt was a potion the Indians had given him to pour down the girl's throat. It was what kept her alive these few days and she needed it twice a day till she got some real food in her stomach. Peter didn't want to think about how he had been late on giving her the second dose. He was about to take flight again when he spotted her shuffling towards a large berry bush, slow but determined.

Kate grabbed a handful of the succulent looking blue berries and shoved as many as she could into her mouth. In the future she would return to this bush to saver them more. Right now she just needed sustenance and this was it. Mouthful after mouthful was piled away till her shrunken stomach could take no more and she nearly threw them all back up. She took no notice to the boy wearing a strange green leaf covered outfit crouched in the tree above her as she curled up at its roots and went to sleep.

Peter scratched his head, not really sure what to do next. He didn't want to wake her so suddenly after her first meal in ages, but this wasn't exactly the safest place in the whole forest. If she got eaten by a bear he would never forgive himself. With a resigned sigh he flew down, gently shaking her shoulder and stepping back a little. He didn't want to get smacked, she had more energy now than she did the last time he woke her up.

Kate instinctively lashed out, her fist slicing through open air. "I knew you were going to do that" a male voice said humorously. She opened up one eye then the other and gasped. She had been kidnaped by wild forest people. The guy that stood before her was adorned in some kind of leafy shorts that seemed to be made of vines and other types of plants. The rest of him was bare and covered with filth and his curly blonde locks were tangled with leaves.

"Please don't kill me, I am all for environmentalism and all that stuff!" she said, pushing herself away from him, her back hitting the tree. "I don't want to kill you, why on earth would you say that?" he asked, looking so truly puzzled that Kate faltered a little. "Well you stole me away and then hid me under a tree in the middle of the woods, I think I am entitled to say whatever I want." she said, using the tree to help her stand up.

"Girls are so strange" Peter said, floating up into the air as he laughed. Kate fell over, her eyes wide and her finger pointing directly at him. "How are you doing that? Wait no, people can't do that forest weirdo or not...I must have eaten some kind of hallucinogen berries or something!" she nearly cried at that thought of tumbling around the forest and seeing things that weren't real.

"It's called pixie dust, you should try it sometime" he said, sitting cross-legged in midair just in front of her. "Plus all you ate was some blue berries, nothing to make you sick" he laughed again, this girl was full of all kinds of strange ideas. "There is no such thing as pix-" A dirty hand clamped over her mouth. "Don't ever say that! If you do a pixie somewhere falls down dead" he sighed, how come no one knew this?

Kate pushed his hand away "If they are so real then show me one" she said, crossing her arms over her chest. Peter smiled and landed on the ground. "I can show you if you trust me" he said, Kate didn't trust that devious smile at all. Though something in her made her hand move towards his, a foolish thing to do in this sort of situation but Kate wasn't feeling very rational at the moment. In seconds she was in the air, the gentlest of jerks and she was going past the trees and into the open sky.

She inhaled deeply, the island was magnificent, it was like a paradise with a glistening ocean all around. "Welcome to Neverland" he said, flying higher. Kate clung to his entire arm now as everything grew smaller. "This can't be happening" she said, closing her eyes, only to open them and see nothing but clouds. "What I don't understand is why everyone who comes here just can't believe it" he said, looking over at her. "Why is it that people can't grasp the fact that this can exist" he turned towards her, floating down to the ground as Kate tried to think of a good answer.

"Because there is nothing like it...anywhere" she said, still in awe of the island. "It's just, people don't fly, and there aren't pixie's on earth and it's just-" she was at a loss for words and Peter just smiled at her answer. "My name is Peter by the way, hold on" Kate was about to introduce herself but was forced to clutch to his arm as he plummeted towards the ground again, right to the tree she had escaped from earlier.

'This all had to be some elaborate dream' she thought to herself, or tried to convince herself. She couldn't do it though, she knew that it was all real, but logic kept screaming at her that it was not. Peter landed outside and let out a shrill whistle that seemed to echo across the whole island. "I had all the boys out looking for you" he explained "It's dangerous out there if you are unarmed and well sick" he said, leading her back down that dreaded tunnel.

'Why am I going back to this place?' she asked herself, glancing up at Peter who was practically beaming. It was contagious and she couldn't help but smile a little, it wouldn't go away no matter how much she fought it. "Who are 'the boys'?" Kate asked, avoiding all of her more pressing questions. She couldn't exactly form them in her brain at the moment, there were too many.

"Why the lost boys of course, the ones who never wanted to grow up, they fell out of there prams as babies and were never found again. I am there leader Peter Pan" he said proudly. Something sparked in the back of her mind. She thought back and remembered going to the library at the orphanage and picking up a book that had that same name on the cover. She hadn't read it though and was now regretting it.

"You can sit here" he said, pretty much pushing her down onto the bed she was sleeping in before. He took a seat at a smallish throne, one leg draped over the arm rest. He seemed nice, but a little full of himself, like any boy or child. Kate shook her head. "Why am I here?" she finally asked, she really didn't know why some flying boy would bring her to this place. "I found you, and you were almost dead so I decided to save you...no one needs to die that way" he said, pulling out a flute and playing with it.

Kate put her head in her hands. This was probably better than dying a very slow death, but it was all so much. She was the last person that should be allowed to be in this place. "Ok, but why were you in London in the first place?" his beaming face grew somber and he looked down at the floor. "Something is wrong in Never Land, We are all ageing" he seemed pained "I am the boy who never grows up and look at me" he stood and looked down at himself.

"You don't look much like a boy" she admitted, he was getting closer to being a man. She could tell this disturbed him. "No one believes in me anymore and the magic is starting to break. I was looking for an old friend that might have been able to help. She used to live in that house you were sleeping in." He said, sitting back down. Kate frowned; she had taken someone else's place by accident.

"I'm sorry you didn't find what you were looking for. You can send me back if you want" she said, the thought of leaving this place sending a pang through her heart. It was so wonderful, minus the strange boy and his 'Lost Boys'. "I don't want to send you back; if you want to stay you can stay. Of course you have to become a Lost boy...I mean Lost girl." he corrected himself. "Unless you want to be a pirate, or and Indian"

Kate thought on this, she didn't want to steal anymore. She had done too much of that to last a lifetime so being a pirate was out of the question. An Indian would be cool, but they had a lot of strange customs. "What does being a Lost Girl entail exactly?" Kate asked, Peter smiled, and the sound of the boys yells echoing through the nearly hollow tree as they began to enter.

"You will soon find out"

|| *falls over* two chapters in one day. I don't know if anyone reads this but I like writing it so that's all that matters, even if no one reads my drivel. Yay for having no confidence in my writing.||