Chapter Six: Safe House

Merida had had time to think about what had just happened. Jim wasn't who he claimed to be, Hook was trying to recruit her, and Peter was flying away with her safely in his arms…for now.

She looked down and realized that they were flying past her house. Why wasn't she going home? Peter seemed to sense her question.

"It isn't safe for you to be at home. You'll have to stay with me for a while." Merida was going to protest, but what he said made sense.

"Will Jim come looking for us?" Merida knew the answer, but she needed to hear him say it.

"More likely than not." Peter said. He sounded irritated, but not with Merida. She felt so guilty. If she had just listened to Peter's warnings in the first place, they wouldn't be in this mess.

"Why didn't you tell me that he was a pirate?" Merida asked. She genuinely wanted to know; Wouldn't it make sense to tell someone that they were dating an evil pirate guy?

"I didn't know that he was a pirate." Peter spat the word. She wondered what had made Peter so bitter about pirates. He seemed to be friends with Captain Jack, but then again, Jack wasn't the bad kind of pirate.

"What did you think he was?" Peter tightened his grip on her.

"I just thought he was a bad guy. He wasn't always like this…" This peaked Merida's interest.

"What do you mean?" Peter rose a bit above the tops of the trees.

"Jim Hawkins used to be a nice guy. We were friends once." He was flying slower now, lost in thought.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. One day, he just disappeared. He showed up again around the time that you did, and he was… different." Merida thought about this. It made sense: Good people could go bad, but there was usually some kind of reason for it.

"What do you think happened?"

"I don't know." Peter said. He sounded genuinely confused. How long had he been friends with Jim? If they were as close as Merida guessed that they had once been, then wouldn't Peter have noticed some kind of dark side?

They flew in silence for a few minutes, Merida thinking about what she had just heard, and Peter… Well, probably thinking about the same thing.

"There." Peter said. Merida looked up, but she couldn't see anything.

"What?" She asked.

"Do you see it?" Merida looked around. What was she looking for? Peter laughed quietly.

"You're tired, aren't you?" He asked.

"Maybe a little." She mumbled. Merida figured that she had a right to be tired; It had been a long day.

The two landed on something in the trees. Merida tried to look around, but she was so tired that she nearly fell over.

"Come on, let's get you up to bed." Peter said, walking her through a door.

Merida was a little fuzzy on what was going on. They must be at his house. Peter walked her up a staircase, and then through a door. He sat her down on a bed.

"Goodnight, Merida."

"Goodnight, Peter."

Merida woke up feeling well rested. She sat up, and then froze. Where was she?

"Oh." She said out loud, getting up. Peter had brought her back to his house so that she would be safe.

She looked around the room. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but it probably wasn't this. The floor was made of cherry wood, and very clean. The walls were a cream color and one of them was made entirely of glass.

She looked out the window and laughed once. The house was literally in a tree. She looked over the room again. There was a bed, a nightstand, and a hook with her bow on it. There were also three doors against the walls.

The danger that Merida was in suddenly hit her. She tried to push it back and went into the door that she thought was the closet. There was no use dwelling on it when nothing was happening immediately.

She was a bit surprised that all of her clothes were already there, but she grabbed some clean ones and looked in the mirror.

She was still wearing her costume, which was ripped to shreds, her feet were black because she had been running around barefoot, and her hair looked like more of a monster than usual.

Merida walked back into the bedroom and walked through another door. Thankfully, it led to a bathroom.

It took her about an hour to get the tangles out of her hair. Once she was as clean as possible and freshly changed, she walked back into the bedroom and sat on the bed. After a few minutes, there was a knock on her door.

"Merida? You awake?"

"Yes. You can come in, Peter." Peter walked in and smiled at her.

"Looks like you've already found the closet and the bathroom." Merida looked up at him.

"Yeah." Peter looked her over.

"Well, you're probably hungry. Let's go have some breakfast and then you can go on an official tour." Peter smiled at her, and she smiled back. At least she could count on Peter to make her smile when they both knew that she was in danger.

Peter walked with her down the staircase again. Now that Merida was fully awake, she could see that the staircase twisted up the entire house, and like her room, the other rooms had similar flooring and coloring.

They had to walk down two floors to get to the kitchen, which was on the first floor. Merida briefly wondered how many floors this house had.

"So, what do you want to eat?" Peter asked, sitting on top of a counter.

"I don't know, what have you got?" Merida had to suppress a smile. She doubted Peter had any real food.

"Uhh…" Peter said, throwing his refrigerator doors open. "Milk, berries, chocolate cake…" Peter smiled at her. "I can also make ramen."

"I think I'll just have milk and berries." Merida said, sitting down. Peter poured Merida a glass of milk and got her a bowl of different kinds of berries.

"What about you?" Peter hadn't gotten himself anything to eat.

"Oh, I ate chocolate cake earlier." Peter said, smiling. Merida smiled a little. She was glad that Tiana had taught her how to cook, because Peter needed some serious help. How was he even alive?

Merida sighed. She had to know if she missed any updates on Jim.

"Has anyone found him yet?" Peter's smile faltered.

"No." He said, looking at her. "But if anyone hears anything, they'll come tell us." Merida sipped her milk.

"How do we know that he won't come here?" Peter laughed.

"Because he can't!" Merida looked up at him, and Peter straightened up, putting his fists on his hips. "Only people who can fly can get up here." Merida pulled her eyebrows together.

"What?" Peter laughed again.

"Well, you were pretty tired last night, so I don't expect you to remember." Merida put the last of her berries into her mouth.

"Remember what?" She asked.

"The outside of the house. We can go see it when you're done eating." Merida drank the last of her milk.

"I'm done." She got up and Peter walked her out the front door.

They were standing on a porch which seemed to circle around the entire house. Merida put her hands on the rails of it and looked down. The porch was hundreds of feet off of the ground, and there were no stairs leading to it.

Merida leaned back against the rail and looked up the side of the house. It was the same color as the tree trunk that it was built on and it stretched up three stories. There was an outdoor staircase twisting around the house which seemed to mirror the one inside. The walls were dotted with big windows, and, as far as Merida could tell, the roof was flat.

"See, no one can get up here unless they can fly, and I'm pretty sure that Jim can't fly."

Merida relaxed a bit. Peter did have a point, you would have to be able to fly to get up here, or have someone fly you up.

"Alright." Merida said, and Peter smiled at her.

"Now you can see the rest of the house." Peter said, and he took her back inside.

Merida wasn't exactly in the mood for a tour, but Peter seemed to be pretty eager about it, so she tried to keep up with him.

The first floor was the kitchen and dining area. It had the same flooring and wall coloring as all of the other rooms she had seen, and the furniture was a few shades lighter than the floor. There was a hat rack by the door, holding various hats, including Hook's.

The two walked up to the next floor, which looked like a loft.

"This is where I keep all of my hunting stuff and random things that I find." Peter said.

Merida walked around, looking at the shelves. Some of them had things like bows and knives, but others had objects on them. Something shiny caught her eye, and she walked over to it. It looked like a thimble, but it must have been really old.

"This is where all of the arrows are, so if you ever need them, now you know where to find them." Peter said, steering her towards the opposite wall, which was covered with labeled drawers. Merida looked at all of the labels. Sleep, explode, net, normal…

"Who did you say makes all of your arrows?" There had to be at least forty different kinds of arrows on this wall alone.

"Hawk Eye." Peter said. "You haven't met him before. He's a jumper."

"A what?"

"A jumper." Peter said. "Hawk Eye is part of a team called the Avengers. Everyone on that team is able to jump from their universe to our universe." Merida's eyes widened.

"How?" Peter smiled at her.

"Well, I don't really know how it works. They built a tower in their universe for them to live in, and there's a portal in it that leads to ours. The same thing happened to Alice Liddell, except the portal that she came through was a rabbit hole."

"How on earth did she fit through a rabbit hole?"

"The White Rabbit is kind of big…" Peter said, thinking. He looked a little bit put off. Was he afraid of the White Rabbit?

"How come no one told me about this?" Merida wondered out loud.

"We aren't supposed to talk about it, it's dangerous for people to cross into a universe that they were never a part of." Merida looked at Peter.

"Then how come you know about it?" Peter looked down.

"A long time ago, I used to have one, but Hook broke it somehow. Now no one can get back inside." Merida looked down. She knew how it felt to be away from home. Peter looked up and smiled at her.

"Come on, we still have two more places to go."

They walked up the staircase into a circular room that Merida recognized: This was where her bedroom was.

"My bedroom is the one closest to the stairs, and yours is next to it, so if you ever need anything you know where to find me." Peter said. "You've already figured out your way around here, so we're going to move on."

Peter took her up the staircase until they reached a glass door.

"This is the best part." Peter said, and he opened the door.

They walked out the door onto the roof. Merida looked around and smiled. The roof was level with the tree tops. Scattered around the roof were maps, telescopes, mats for lying down, and books. She looked at Peter .He was holding his hands behind his back, scuffing his shoe on the ground.

"I like to look at the stars." He said, and looked up to see her reaction. Merida smiled at him and looked around. When she had arrived to her house, it seemed to be a reflection of herself. That meant that either Peter did some serious cheating, or this was really a reflection of himself.

"Your house is amazing." Merida said, smiling.

"I'm glad you like it." Peter said. "And you can come up here whenever you want."

"Thank you, Peter, for everything." Merida said. She knew how dangerous it was for him to keep her in his house, even if no one could get up here.

"It's no problem, Merida, it would be worse if something happened to you." Peter replied very matter-of-factly. "We just have to lay low for a while." He said, and Merida nodded.