Edit (12/29/2011): Changed the summary.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of the franchises Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. But I own Alice. I also don't own The Second Star to the Right, which is, in fact, included in the Return to Neverland soundtrack, and I'm using the version by Jesse McCartney. If you don't know why, it's because he voices Terence in the Tinkerbell movies. I'm sorry; I think I might include a song for each chapter. I also don't own The Sleeping Beauty.

Brace yourselves; there are talking fairies in this chapter. (And for those who shun the Tinkerbell franchise… brace yourselves twice as much. Sorry, but I'm just a Jesse McCartney fangirl, so I couldn't resist putting Terence here.)

The story so far: Alice missed the company of girls her age, so Peter took her to the Piccaninny Tribe to meet Chief Tiger Lily. That's pretty much it.

Expecto - Thanks again for reviewing! I'll try my best to update as soon as I can. :3

Redrum

Summary: Alice is a teenager with normal teenager problems, except that she's another one of Wendy's descendants who get whisked off by Peter Pan. Will he be able to make her forget about Matt? Peter x OC, present generation. Disney-verse. Expect love triangles.

Chapter 6

Terence

Peter was the first to awaken the next morning. When he opened his dark eyes, the first thing he saw was a sleeping girl beside him. Alice. A smile formed on the boy's lips and he propped himself up so that he rested on his elbow. He reached out, and with his free hand, stroked the girl's brown hair. The action seemed to awake her for she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Good morning, Alice," he whispered with his usual charming smile. (A/N: Dammit, Peter. Dammit.)

"Peter…" she murmured, slowly blinking her eyes open. Suddenly she shot up and looked around in panic. "I stayed the night out again! I have to change—oh my God, what if—"

He looked at her, and after struggling to stifle his laughter, he said, "You're bleeding a river, Alice."

As planned, that comment set the young girl freaking out and rolling around in the sheets to look for her stain. To her surprise, there was no stain at all. Alice immediately turned with her suspicious eyes to the red-haired boy who laughed as though he had just bested Hook and his entire crew for the umpteenth time.

"Peter!" she whined, throwing herself on him. "You do not joke about those things! It's embarrassing as hell!"

But when she quieted down, she realized that she had her arms around the boy. Both cleared their throats in embarrassment and turned away, ears and cheeks burning red.

The awkward moment was interrupted (thankfully) by a series of loud crashes just outside the tent, followed by several footsteps and marches. Peter and Alice left their tent as well to see what had made the noise. To everyone's surprise, the source of the sound was a broken music box—as though stepped on by an elephant.

When one Native American tribesman stepped forward and picked up the box, they saw a pixie lying on the ground. Alice approached the fairy and the tribesman gave her the music box. Upon a closer look, she found that the fairy was male. This was very peculiar—she had never seen a male fairy before (not that she had ever seen a fairy before she met Tinkerbell). She'd had the assumption that male fairies were human-sized creatures that supposedly drank blood, lived in forests and sparkled under sunlight, all thanks to mass media.

The pixie was out cold, so she carefully picked him up and placed him in her open palm. She scrutinized the little winged thing and saw that he was actually quite handsome, with dirty blonde hair under a little beret made from an acorn. In his hands he held two small pouches kept closed by a tiny rope.

She turned to Peter. "Is it… dead?" she asked unsurely.

"No, he's just…" Peter trailed off. "We'd better take him to Tinkerbell. C'mon!"

Alice nodded and grabbed the broken music box. When the green-clad boy approached her, she let him carry her in his arms as she cradled the fairy in her own arms. She could feel that Peter was in a hurry in his flight—the winds were stronger and they arrived after a short time.

As Peter took the pixie to Tinkerbell's room, Alice borrowed the music box and observed it in her room. It looked expensive—the kind you could find in antique stores and little kids couldn't touch because their parents would have to pay for it if it broke. When she opened the mahogany box, an anthropomorphic butterfly raised on a dainty round platform, yet it did not spin. Normally the music would play when it spun, but the butterfly merely sat still.

She nearly dropped the music box when Peter spoke. Alice didn't know how long he had been in her room, but she was definitely surprised when she learned of his presence.

"He's a friend of Tink's," the boy said, breaking the silence. "Apparently, he's been bringing things for Tink to fix since… since who-knows-when." He seemed different—perhaps he was jealous of this new fairy?

"So that's what Tink's been doing when she's not here!" Alice exclaimed. "She wasn't hanging out with fireflies. She was fixing things!"

"He's looking for the music box."

She closed the box. "He's awake already?"

Peter nodded and led her out of the room and into Tinkerbell's. Alice approached the hollowed tree trunk where Tink glowed. The male fairy was on Tink's bed; he also glowed and he was conscious, but only barely.

'The music box!' the male fairy called out upon sight of the box. He attempted to get up, but Tinkerbell shook her head and flew toward Alice.

'Don't get up, Terence,' she told him. 'You have to rest.' The green-clad pixie turned to Alice and spoke (or rather, rang), 'Alice, set the music box over there.' She floated past the human girl and pointed to a table in the corner of the room.

Alice's eyes widened. Before this, she could only hear ringing whenever Tink spoke, even though she always somehow understood the fairy. Now she was actually hearing words—actual English words. She meant to reply to the pixie, but all she could manage was a squeak.

Tinkerbell seemed too worried about the other pixie to actually work on the music box, but she glanced at Alice with pleading eyes. 'Watch over Terence, will you?'

The girl nodded obediently and looked at the fairy lying on the small bed. "I've never seen a male fairy before, y'know," she started in an attempt to spark up a conversation with the fairy. "I always thought they were pretty… umm, well… gay." Bad idea.

'We're called sparrow-men,' Terence replied with a pained grunt. 'Male "fairies" don't exist.'

"Oh, sorry."

'It's okay,' he said. 'None of us sparrow-men ever leave Pixie Hollow, let alone Neverland, so I guess humans wouldn't know about us. Only Peter Pan's seen us.'

"I see," she murmured. "So," she continued in a whisper, a knowing grin appearing on her face, "you like Tink, huh?"

The sparrow-man was caught off-guard with her comment and quickly looked around in a panic. 'W—what makes you say that?'

"I can see it in your eyes," Alice giggled, "especially when you look at her."

'She's… different from other pixies.'

Her smile widened. "I like you, Mr. Sparrow Man. I like you a lot. The name's Alice. Alice Carlisle."

'I'm Terence. It's nice to meet you, Alice. I'd offer a hand for you to shake, but—'

"Honey, it's okay," she laughed, "you're already injured enough as it is. I don't think you'd look as cute as you are right now if a giant hand went to shake your own little arm there, no offense."

'None taken.'

"Uhh… Terence," she mumbled, shifting awkwardly. "Do you sing?"

'Wha?'

"No, cuz—" She cleared her throat. "—you have the same voice as this really popular—andohmygodreallycute—singer where I come from…"

'Uhh, well—'

"Please," she begged, "c'mon, I'll start for you. This should be pretty easy. It's a lullaby my mom learned from my grandmother."

"The second star to the right
shines in the night for you—"

She stopped herself when she noticed the sparrow-man just staring up at her from Tinkerbell's bed. He gave her an incredulous look, as though wordlessly telling her that there was no way he would sing for her.

'I know we're called sparrow-men,' he sighed, 'but that doesn't necessarily mean we actually sing or anything. How about I just whistle for you?'

"Yea—no." She shot him back the same incredulous look and, ignoring the rest of his pleas and complaints, began singing again.

"The second star to the right—"

She groaned. "Honestly, if you're not gonna sing with me, I'm gonna start rapping right now and there's nothing you can do about it."

'What?'

Alice took a deep breath before she began again. She had to play a beat in her mind and tap on the hollow wood to get started.

"Ready, here we go
Dream your way to the stars in the sky
You and me, me and you on our way to the top
Spread your wings, we can fly to the stars in the sky
To the left to the moon is the star on the right
And I can meet you, I can meet you, I can meet you…"

"And that's where you come in," she said. When she received no reply, she groaned in exaggerated exasperation, before lighting up again. "Have I told you how much Tinkerbell loves it when I sing?" she teased. "I'm sure she'd love it even more if you were the one to sing to her."

Terence looked up at her—he was interested in what she had to offer. 'I'm listening.'

"Can you imagine the panties dropping—I mean, don't—don't you hear how hot your voice is?" she asked. "Y'know, the guy with the same voice as you—he's got millions of girls swooning over him. With a voice like that, you'd definitely be able to catch the heart of a certain little pixie I know."

The sparrow-man cleared his throat nervously and glanced past Alice's shoulders. He worried if Tink might hear them from the table in the corner, though judging by the random clangs from that general direction, the tinker-talent fairy was too busy to hear just about anything. Then he shifted his gaze back to Alice.

'Alright, fine.'

"Awesome," she chuckled. "Y'know, if you were human, I bet I'd have a huge crush on you. You're really cute, Terence. So anyway, I'll teach you the rap first. Don't worry, it's pretty easy to learn if you're up to the task…"

From outside Tinkerbell's room, Peter listened to the conversation between the girl and the sparrow-man. There was something different about how Alice treated Terence—something strange. It wasn't the same as how she treated Peter or Slightly or the other Lost Boys, and it almost reminded him of Alice's friendship with Tiger Lily.

He watched them through the curtains at the doorway, a smile tugging at his lips. Though he was jealous that he still wasn't the center of Alice's attention (he'd tried countless times to show off), he couldn't help but smile, seeing how happy she was with her new friend.

Suddenly, he noticed a pair of black furry ears bouncing past him and into the room. He did a double take and saw that a game of tag had forced Tootles to run and hide in Tinkerbell's room. The older boy followed his skunk suit-clad friend into the room and rushed to protect Tink's music box when he saw Tootles running toward the table in the corner.

"No can do, Tootles," he told the younger boy. "Tink's busy here." He glanced out the window and grinned at Tootles. "How about we go play outside?" Before the little boy could react, Peter lit up and floated excitedly. "C'mon, we can play that game Alice taught us! Heaven and Earth! It'll be fun!"

"That's no fair, Peter," one of the twins chimed in, poking his head in through the doorway.

The other twin poked in as well. "You can fly to Heaven whenever you want!"

"How about hide-and-seek?" Alice suggested. "Except everyone's blind-folded."

The four boys looked at her, their mouths wide open in awe and wonder. They yelled in excitement and ran out of the room in a flash, leaving with a sudden wind that surprised even Alice. Only moments after they left, the three other Lost Boys wandered into the room.

"Have you seen Peter, Alice?" Nibs asked. "He said we were gonna go make fun of the pirates!"

"Yeah, I heard they've got new cabin boys again," Slightly giggled.

Cubby shook his head. "Naw, Hook hasn't gotten any new cabin boys since after Jane left."

Alice couldn't help but chuckle at the three young boys. They were the older half of the Lost Boys and always seemed to be looking for trouble, much like the boys in her neighborhood back in America. "He went out to play with the others. Hide-and-seek with blindfolds."

In a strange rush of déjà vu, the three boys gasped like Peter and the twins did before disappearing with an odd breeze through the room. Alice merely cleared her throat and turned to Tinkerbell as she continued tinkering with the old music box.

"That's a pretty music box," she mused. "Not very old, but still kind of… rustic." She glanced at Terence. "Where'd you get it?"

'Some wind-talent fairies found it somewhere outside London,' he answered. Terence sat up, using his elbow as support, and pushed himself off the bed. He seemed a bit dazed at first, but he recovered and flew out of the hollowed-out tree trunk and toward Tinkerbell's work area.

The fairy gave him an odd, suspicious look to which he only grinned nervously.

'It wasn't Vidia, if that's what you're thinking, Tink,' he added. 'By the way, I came to deliver some extra dust, too.' Terence flew back to the tree trunk and emerged with his pouches.

"Dust?" Alice repeated.

'What we use to fly,' he explained. 'You didn't think Tink had an unlimited supply, did you?'

'Terence delivers dust from time to time, usually when he has something for me to fix' Tinkerbell continued for him, 'which is apparently everyday now.' She shot a suspicious glance at the sparrow-man.

'People have been breaking a lot of stuff, I guess,' he chuckled nervously, floating toward the music box. 'But this thing—it's different. It's not like those old pots and pans I usually bring.'

'It brings back old memories,' Tink finished cryptically.

"Hey, how come I actually understand what you guys are saying?" Alice asked. "I mean, before, it was just ringing, like a… well, like a bell."

Terence glanced at Tinkerbell and she glanced back before both looked at Alice. 'I don't know,' they shrugged.

When the silence settled, both Alice and Terence noticed a soft smile tugging at Tink's ruby red lips. However, the comfortable silence was short-lived when a loud crash from outside the treehouse, accompanied by an equally loud groan of pain and muffled laughter.

All three of them rushed to the window and looked down at the source of the noise. Unfortunately for Alice, a large branch was blocking the way and she had to go all the way down to the ground to see what had happened. Terence and Tinkerbell, on the other hand, were left alone in Tink's room.

'It's nice to see that even someone like her can still believe,' Tinkerbell giggled.

'Tink?' Terence murmured.

He had meant to say something, perhaps in reply or to change the subject. But when the tinker-talent fairy looked at him, he only smiled back at her.

By the time Alice reached the ground, she was out of breath and panting heavily. Nibs, who had already taken his blindfold off, came to her aid and let her sit at the base of the tree.

"What happened?" she asked between breaths. "I heard a crash."

"Cubby hit his head on the tree," Nibs said, stifling a laugh.

"I head my hit on the tree," Cubby repeated as he rubbed his forehead and walked dazedly away from the tree.

Moments later, Peter flew up from the trees and landed gently beside Alice. The twins emerged from the forest soon after with Tootles trailing behind them. Slightly, on the other hand, turned up from the other side of the tree base.

"That was so much fun!" Slightly laughed. "Thanks, Alice!"

"Thanks, mother!" the twins exclaimed in unison, each hugging the brown-haired girl from her waist.

Peter laughed along with the younger Boys. "Yeah, thanks, Alice."

"Hey, mother," Cubby called as he sat beside Slightly at the base of the tree, "tell us a story."

The other Boys echoed, "yeah, mother, tell us a story."

"Alice is a great storyteller, Boys," Peter bragged, sitting up straight and raising his chin proudly. "C'mon, Alice, tell them about Romeo and Juliet!"

She chuckled at the older boy's comment and thought for a moment. "I have a better story to tell you—about a princess locked up in a castle guarded by a dragon."

Alice took a deep breath, trying to recall the start of the story, and began telling the other children. "Once there was a king and queen who couldn't get a child even after many years of trying." She stifled a giggle after the word trying and recovered by clearing her throat. "But this story, in fact, starts with their eventual success in having a child. The entire kingdom rejoiced and celebrated the birth of King Stefan's daughter, Aurora. So at her christening, she was shown to the young Prince Phillip—who, by the way, is the hottest prince in Classical Disney—to whom she was betrothed."

'I'm sorry if I don't visit as often,' the green-clad pixie sighed apologetically to her friend. Tinkerbell sat on her bed where Terence rested.

Terence shook his head and smiled at her reassuringly. 'It's fine, Tink. I know you've got a lot of work here, and you can't really—' He glanced out the window, down at the group of children huddled around Alice. '—leave this place. But Pixie Hollow isn't the same without you…'

Tink turned to look at him. 'Terence?'

The sparrow-man caught what he had just said and cleared his throat, pretending to cough simply to cover his slipup. 'I—I mean, well, the other fairies are a lot quieter—sort of—and the girls, they miss you, Tink. We miss you. I miss you.'

'You're my best friend, Terence, and I—I miss you too,' she sighed, 'but Peter… he needs me.'

He smiled at her again—it was a sad smile but reassuring, as comforting as all his smiles. 'I understand…' Silence followed, but Terence broke it by suddenly laughing. 'Look at us,' he chuckled. 'I'm lying here after an accident and we're talking about—'

Tinkerbell laughed as well. 'Yeah.' Suddenly, she came up with an idea and her face lit up. 'Terence, since you're injured and all, why don't you stay here for a while?'

'But who's gonna deliver the dust throughout Pixie Hollow?'

'C'mon, you can't possibly be the only competent dust-talent in all of Pixie Hollow,' she joked. 'Besides, this way you can see how I'm doing out here. And Alice—' She paused. '—seems to get along with you.'

Terence raised his eyebrows at her. Normally, she would be green with envy when talking about any of Peter's girls. Or perhaps this one was not "Peter's girl." He didn't know, but he decided not to ask. He knew just how upset Tinkerbell could get when talking about Peter Pan, and how he himself envied the object of Tink's affection.

That evening, the sparrow-man decided to do as Tink had told him and see how she lived with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. He couldn't sleep anyway, so he might as well explores his best friend's home to see if it was as safe and comfortable as Pixie Hollow.

He got out of the bed carefully so as not to wake Tink who had fallen asleep at the side of the bed. He couldn't help but smile when he saw her sleeping on her arms, and he took the blanket and wrapped it around the fairy.

Choosing to save his dust for his flight back to Pixie Hollow, he walked out of the room and explored the hallway. He passed by a doorway that echoed with loud snores and low whispers. When he poked his head in through the doorway, he saw that it was the Lost Boys' room. The loud snores were mainly from the large Boy in a bear cub suit, though the other Boys snored as well. The whispers, on the other hand, came from the little boy in a skunk suit. While awake he never spoke, but he apparently talked in his sleep.

Terence then moved on through the hallway with two doorways at the end. He was about to choose between the doorways when a voice called out to him.

"Who's there?" Alice asked from her bed. She wasn't sure if there was really somebody there, but she had heard tiny footsteps. Perhaps it was a rat—she hated rats.

'Alice?' the sparrow-man murmured, peering into the room. He saw the figure of the human girl sitting on her bed, her knees against her chest. 'Why are you still awake?'

"I think I should be the one to ask that," she retorted. "After all, I'm not the one who got injured from delivering a music box."

'It was a huge music box,' he answered in defense. 'Huge for me, at least.'

Alice didn't reply and the silence took over. She stared at her feet and traced circles on her blanket. She felt Terence looking at her through the darkness and let out a sigh.

"I can't sleep," she said.

'Is there anything wrong?' He approached the bed and tried to climb the sheets.

When she saw the fairy struggling with the sheets, Alice pulled him up and put him beside her on the bed. "You can't fly?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

'I'm saving my pixie dust for the flight back home,' he explained.

"I didn't think you had a limited amount of dust," she murmured. "I thought you just made dust. I mean, Tinkerbell always seems like she has all the dust in the world. Or like she can photosynthesize dust."

'That's because I give her extra dust all the time,' he winked. 'When she's not around, I sneak in here and leave more dust, but don't tell her that.'

"That's really sweet, Terence. I wish more guys were like you…"

'Is that why you can't sleep? Because of a boy?'

She laughed. "Well, not exactly. But you could say I'm using this time to think about a few…" She paused. "… things."

It was then that Terence said something that would change the mood of the entire conversation. 'Is it Peter?'

Alice nearly choked on her saliva and coughed and cleared her throat. "Wh—wha—Peter? Why? I mean, what gave you that idea?" she stammered. She didn't know if she was turning red because of the absurdity of the idea or from lack of air because she choked.

'Lucky guess?' the sparrow-man teased. 'You look at him differently.'

"I wouldn't say I was thinking of just Peter," she mumbled, "but he definitely popped up somewhere there. Besides, I—I only look at him differently because… well, there aren't a lot of other boys here who are around my age. I'm a teenager; I have hormones."

'Do you like Peter?'

"He's really something. But I have a bad feeling about it… besides, he's Peter Pan—the boy who never grew up… and he never will." She lowered her head so that she and Terence were looking at each other eye to eye. "I don't want to meddle any further here in Neverland. I don't belong here, and I'm going to have to go home soon."

"Peter wants to make you stay, y'know," a voice suddenly said.

The two turned to the source of the voice at the doorway. Since it was dark, they couldn't see whom it was, but they could make out a pair of fox ears standing out in the darkness.

"Slightly?" Alice murmured.

"Tubby was snorin' so loud I couldn't sleep," he explained. "And when I saw someone outside our room, I followed 'im. Apparently, it was Tink's friend." (A/N: Slightly refers to Cubby as Tubby because he's in a bad mood, thanks to Cubby's snoring.)

"What do you mean Peter wants me to stay?" she asked.

The fox suit-clad Boy walked toward the bed. "Exactly that," he said. "When you tell him you wanna go home, he's gonna try to convince you to stay in Neverland. To tell ya the truth, I don't want you to go either, but…"

"I have to go," she answered with a smile, letting the Lost Boy sit beside her on the bed. She pulled his brown fox hood back and ran her hand through the Boy's messy blonde hair. "Do you wanna sleep here tonight?"

Slightly nodded and lay himself down on the bed. Alice let the Boy's head rest on her lap and she turned to Terence.

"So, what was Tinkerbell like before she met Peter and the Lost Boys?" she asked with a curious grin.

That awkward moment when you realize you've been on the same line for over a week but you could have finished the chapter with the same line anyways. No, I'm pretty sure that's just me. I didn't notice it was already on 11 pages since it still felt so short to me. Full of dialogue. But meh~

Anyway, I'm sorry again for putting Terence here and giving him and Tink the ability to speak (or giving Alice the ability to decipher what their tingling means). I guess I realized from the last chapter that Alice's best friend in Neverland doesn't have to be a girl (originally, it was going to be Tiger Lily, but I see her as a threat). It's going to have more consequences if Alice's best friend was Terence, so here he is.

I know I'm cutting back on the Peter x Alice action. I have to apologize for that. I promise I'll have some fluffy goodness soon.

But please, review, my pretties~

~ froggy