This was how the tragedy happened.
Tinker Bell and Peter had been stuck in England since that night when they decided to find Wendy, which proved easier said than done. Much easier.
At first, it had been enjoyable. It was fun looking into all the windows and scaring the wits out of mean old grown-ups (any time it was a grown-up, Peter made an extra scary face, to punish them for the Wendy-thing) and sometimes he talked to the children. Mostly they were all boys, except for one girl just Peter's size named Julie. At first, Peter had worried that by talking to Julie, he was forgetting about Wendy, which might make her forget about him, but Julie hadn't really wanted to talk to him at all, so it was okay.
It was enjoyable for Peter, anyway. He noticed that Tinker Bell was uneasy, and grumbled a lot, but whenever he asked her she just got snappy. So he ignored it.
But, after a few days, it wasn't fun. It was cold in England - awfully cold. And there was hardly anything to eat. And there were much too many grown-ups. He hadn't killed as many with his breathing as he would have liked.
Two weeks after arriving in England, Peter and Tink landed for rest in an alley behind what Peter would later discover is a school. Tink happened to glance at Peter, and was horrified by what she saw. He was bone thin, shuddering from the cold, and his eyes were drooping shut. Why hadn't she noticed? Wendy wasn't a priority anymore. They needed to get home.
"Peter, that's it. It's too dangerous. Let's go back." Tink tugged on Peter's hair.
He opened his eyes. "N-n-n-n-oo! We h-h-have to f-f-find Wendy! She c-c-could have f-f-f-f-forgotten me! And P-peter P-p-pan never g-g-gives up!"
Instead of arguing, like Tink could have, she swallowed and told him to wait. She came back with proper warm clothes, which she'd stolen from a local shop (with a little pixie dust to help).
"I'm n-n-not w-wearing grown-up clothes, T-t-tink!" Peter whined.
"Fine, freeze to death," Tinker Bell retorted. "It's easy to forget a boy who froze to death." Tink knew that was mean, but it was be mean or let Peter kill himself with his stubbornness.
Peter put on the clothes.
The food problem was solved after several failed attempts to steal food. They would wait until a cart owner, selling meat-pies (which Peter discovered to be very delicious) and walnuts and such things, went on his dinner break. Most of the cart owners sat with the carts outside and ate, so Tinker Bell, since she was so small, would sneak onto the cart and grab the food.
And so began their life of crime.
The tragedy was on a day like any other. Tinker Bell and Peter were looking in windows (normally, they liked to do it at night, but Peter was getting more and more desperate to find Wendy, and didn't really care when he found her anymore). As usual, the window they were currently looking in wasn't Wendy's, but it did have a grown-up napping inside. Peter was making good use of the open window by throwing mud at the grown-up. One hit the bald man right on his shiny head, but he didn't even wake up. Instead of feeling pleased, Peter just through a piece at him harder and slammed the window.
"Next house, Tink!" Peter called. Tink was off in the distance, studying something. "Tink?"
"Check without me," came the reply. "I'll be there in a moment!" Peter shrugged and flew to the next house, which had a plastic flamingo in the yard.
Tink studied the thing caught in the tree, her little heart pattering with promise. This might be it.
The thing was flat and rectangular, and bigger than Tink. It was white, and at the top had a triangle engraved in it that pointed towards the bottom of it. An envelope.
But the most interesting thing on it was a name. Tink, like Peter, was much too proud to learn how to read, but she did know what her name and Peter's name looked like. And this thing had Peter's name on it.
Tink fluttered forward, but before she could grab it, the wind picked up with vigor. Tink grabbed onto the tree to keep from being blown away, but the mysterious envelope wasn't so lucky. It was un-wedged from the tree and flown threw the air into the nearby park. Tink followed it, sure it was going to help them.
Peter finished checking the flamingo house and flew to where he'd heard Tinker Bell reply to him. No one was there, but he could make out a faint light in the park -
- one that was suddenly smothered by a falling piece of wood.
Tinker Bell.
"Tink!" Peter yelled, flying through the air faster than lightning itself. "Tinker Bell!"
Tink, under the wood, blinked and groaned, struggling to breathe. She was broken. Her leg throbbed, she was dizzy, her chest hurt, and there was piece of wood digging into her side. Really digging into, she realized, when she placed her pretty, delicate hand there and felt something warm and sticky. Blood.
Fairies rarely bleed. They are tiny, so they have very little blood. They can't afford to bleed. They only bleed when they feel they don't need it anymore.
Even though Tink had died once before, she knew this was really it.
"Tink!" The wood was thrown off of her, and there was Peter, his face blocking out the sun. "Oh, Tink!" His little hand (which really wasn't little anymore, now that Tinker Bell thought of it) gently scooped her up.
"Peter…" she tried to whisper, but it hurt too much. She just coughed, wishing the snow would stop coming near her.
"Don't die, Tink! You can't die! If you get better, we'll go back to Neverland, I swear! You're my best friend, Tink. Don't die on me." Peter was babbling, his green eyes blurry with tears. A small part of Tink noted that Peter's voice was lower than usual, and that part overtook the rest of it. Peter was growing up. Her Peter, growing up.
But Tinker Bell ignored that, just like she was ignoring the horrible ache throughout her body - including her heartache. There was a message she needed to deliver.
"There… was a…. envelope… for… you…" she moaned. Her eyelids started to flutter closed.
"Tink!" Peter cried, louder now. "Don't worry! I do believe in fairies! I do! I do! I -"
"I'm bleeding…. No need…. Good-bye…" Then, just like that, Tinker Bell died.
"Tink!" His shout echoed through the quiet park. Peter stared at the little body in outrage. No. He was not going to just let her die. "I do believe in fairies! I do! I do! I do be -" Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching. Peter stopped, mid-chant and wobbled high into the air, Tink still resting in his palm. The snow covered the splatters of Tinker Bell's blood on the snow quickly.
A girl burst through, into the clearing. Peter only saw the top of her head, but she was almost grown-up. She was sure acting grown-up, just looking around.
"Hey!" A voice said, and a boy (well, he was basically a man) entered the clearing. "Are you quite all right?"
The girl nodded slowly. "I'm okay." Peter froze mid-air. The voice was so familiar. Could it be - he started to fly forward, but his thumb jostled Tink - who was now deathly cold.
Tink! Fury ripped through his mind. Was it too late? He flew down the ground as the two people left, not even bothering see if it was really Wendy. He just began to work on saving Tinker Bell's life.
Peter muttered the words faithfully until past midnight. When he awoke, Tinker Bell was gone. In her place was a pile of pixie dust, perfectly arranged into a star.
Peter kicked it and watched it fly.