Well everyone, this is it. Please, please let me know what you thought, I would love feedback. Working on something new already!

May 1985

The old woman's fine white hair danced gently in the warming breeze of early spring morning. She walked slowly and deliberately leaning heavily on her walking stick. Her arthritis had been paining her greatly for the entire week but this was a trip that she would not miss for anything. People greeted her as she passed as through her many long years she had become somewhat of a celebrity throughout London. It was a few miles to the River Thames but even at 93 she would walk the entire distance, it was important to her. Though age had slowed her body she was pleased that her mind seemed no less sharp than it did that cold November night so very many years ago.

She smiled as she enjoyed the sights on her long walk. London had changed so much but yet so little in 70 years. She had watched the beginning and end of two great wars, new buildings towered over ones that had seemed impossibly tall in her youth, and advancements in practically every facet of everyday life. Yes, 70 years of watching the world change had been invigorating. In the deepest place in her heart she knew that some of these changes had been helped along by those she would never forget.

70 years ago to the day an extremely injured, poisoned and tattooed woman dressed in the strangest of clothing had appeared quite out of nowhere at the King George Hospital. They didn't know how she had been injured but given the poisoning it was just assumed that she was another victim of the war. The woman offered no alternative so the nurses just shook their heads and lamented that the fairer sex was now a target. For a time there was even rumors with the staff of a new poison the enemy was testing that this woman had been the first experimented on. The physicians had been certain she was to die given the extent of her illness and the hundreds of men they were also treating a day but miraculously every morning a doctor or nurse would come in with a new creative idea on improving her health. A new medical procedure here, an herb that had never been used for medicinal purposes there. One poor American doctor was even inspired to come to London to help with her failing heart. Slowly, her lung healed and the poison was diluted from her blood under the ministries of the many caring for her. Advancements practiced and perfected on this strange unknown woman saved the lives of countless soldiers. Every night she had gone to sleep with a prayer of thanks for the lost boys and Summer Wind who she knew were working tirelessly back home.

She had finally been allowed to return home after 3 months of healing. She trembled as she made the trip back to her family home in Kensington Garden Park. Her jumbled brain kept trying to process what her heart already knew. She was back in London and Neverland was again lost to her. Time flowed differently in Neverland than it did here. So while she had been in Neverland for nearly 2 years she had only been gone a handful of months here. It had been enough time to lose her job and again have to worry about mundane things such as funds to keep her home. The feather still laying on the nursery floor was the only thing that betrayed the banal nature of her home.

One evening she finally had the courage to unpack the bag of belongings the hospital had sent her home with. The only things she had kept on her possession at all times were the rings she would never remove. She wept over her ruined wedding gown. The delicate fabric stained with her blood and remnants of the poison that sent her here. Her tears increased as her fingers splayed over the heavy brocaded velvet of James coat. She went to lift the garment to inhale his smell one last time. She gasped at the weight of the coat, her now clear mind comprehending what she had not on the beach. Hefting the clothing onto her bed she sagged to the floor as fistful of gems spilled from the pockets. All the gems and jewelry he had once offered her along with his heart had been brought in offering for her marriage to another man. A single necklace would afford her a lifetime of comfort and freedom. She thanked the man she loved second most ever through her sobs.

Shortly after the wars end John and Michael returned from combat. Michael was rightfully repentant and confessed the most conflict he had seen was that of his superiors at the billiard tables. John came home with a cane and the love of his life. The beautiful nurse Wendy had seen in her first vision of the injured John had brought him back to life both body and soul. They celebrated their marriage that following spring. John and Michael would ask for many years where Wendy had come across so much wealth in their time away. Wendy would tell them she fell in with pirates and they would both huff in frustration at her insistence on telling stories.

In the Second World War she had become a champion of children and assisted in protecting thousands of Britain's youth finding safety from the bombs that ravaged their city. It was out of this tragedy that she had decided to open her home to orphans of the war. Her generosity, kindness and love had earned her the name "Granny Wendy" on the lips of hundreds of children of whom she saved. With her strong will and focus on educating her children she helped nurture some of the greatest young minds of the 20th century. Schools, hospital wings and even a street had been named for her and she found herself still having to turn down invitations to be honored in one fashion or another. None of this had ever interested her. What Wendy truly wanted she knew she could never have again. It made her sad, but old age had a way of acting as a balm against the terrible ache of youth.

Michael married after the war also and Wendy became a Grandmother figure to both of her brother's children. She had truly lived a blessed life. She was pulled from her musing when she realized that she had reached her destination. The river flowed heavy and deep this year, swollen from a recent heavy rain. She hobbled to the edge of the walking path and reached into the bag slung over her shoulder. She drew out a cobalt glass bottle sealed in wax. Inside could be found a curled paper with words lovingly written; "Captain James Hook, a man of feeling" and a small length of rope tied into an infinity knot. Her fingers may be curled with age but she would tie that knot every year until the end of her days. Wendy pressed the bottle to her lips and gently dropped it into the churning water. She stood blinking back tears as she watched it travel down the stream to join its 69 brothers in the sea. She blew a soft kiss in its direction and turned to make the walk back home.

It was late afternoon before she made it back to her home. She had dawdled on the way, taking in the sights and sounds of her fair city. She smiled at the loud clamor of noise as she opened her front door. Children played in her parlor, studied for tests at her formal dining room table, pounded out lovely tunes from the piano in the drawing room. Her house was filled with life and love, the staff she now employed assisting the children with their endeavors through all corners of the house. It was a house of magic and she had seen to it that it always would be, even long after she was gone.

Dinner was its normal noisy affair, her many honorary children vying to tell her of their latest accomplishments. She smiled and laughed and endeavored to hear each and every one.

Once the plates were cleared and the children were being helped to bed by the staff Wendy made her way carefully up the stairs to her room. The door creaked softly as it eased open to the old nursery that was now Wendy's only private room in her home. She dressed for night and settled into her bed facing the opened window that twice had been the doorway to her real life. The room was now a testament to her life here in London. Pictures of her brothers and their wives, children and grandchildren adorned the mantle. Nearly every wall of the room was plastered with letters, cards and photographs from the children she had helped throughout her many years of service. The only reminders of her real home were the two garments hanging in her closet, an old red feather tucked into her nightstand and the two rings that were weathered with age and love. They had not left her hands since her return from Neverland. She gazed at them as she slid slowly into the sleep that promised her at least a glimpse of Neverland.

Softly, creeping into her dreams she heard a sound through her slumber. The lulling notes from a pan flute. Her eyes shot open and with a pounding heart she ever so hesitantly stood and crossed the space from her bed to the window. Hope thundered in her heart like a spring storm. It could not be, but then how could it not? She had dreamed of him so many times she did not trust her own eyes. There he sat as young and vibrant as the last time she saw him. Perched in the giant oak outside the window he smiled as she entered the casement.

"Peter?"

No words needed to pass between them. He drifted down to her and took her whizzed frame into his strong arms. There wasn't a word for the feelings that passed through her at that moment.

"But Peter I thought, I mean, isn't someone's life the price to travel back and forth to Neverland?" A slight moment of panic had overtaken her.

"Oh, my love, look just there." He turned her gently back toward her bed.

There she lay still. The Wendy aged 93 years still in her bed a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. Only the stillness of her breast betrayed that it was not in sleep that she lie but death. She turned back to Peter in surprise.

"I've died?" She gasped in understanding.

"No, oh no, my Wendy. You are reborn, free. Now, you can come home."

Wendy closed her eyes, tears dripping down her cheeks and let go. She felt the many years that had passed since their parting drift away like leaves in a breeze. When she opened her eyes she was the same Wendy that had stood on the beach on their wedding day so long ago, as young and healthy as he. She kissed him then as she would have had she been allowed her vows. Parting, they both laughed in delight, memorizing each other's faces once more with their fingertips.

Peter guided her to the window and still holding her hand he floated lightly into the air. Tinkerbelle whirled with pleasure in the sky. There he paused and held out his hand to hers.

"Come away with me Wendy," he whispered, echoing the memory of her youth "come away with me and we will never again grow up."

She turned to glace once more on her serene form. She couldn't help the pride and satisfaction that flowed through her as she beheld what her life had been.

"You know," she mused. "To die would be an awfully big adventure."

She lifted from the window frame into his arms, and holding him close said, "But to live, again, would be an even bigger one."

Hand in hand the darted off into the sky following the golden train of pixie dust toward the second star on the right.