It rained for years. It poured constantly, with little respite, apart from when the sun managed to break through the grey clouds but a heavy vapour would rise so that it made little difference if it was raining or not. The land became muddy, soggy and horribly humid and the Lost Boys were more often than not found sitting under their dripping tents, bored and miserable. They felt envious of the boys that Peter had sent home after Wendy had closed herself off, wishing that she had been the one to pick them instead, so Peter could send them away out of spite too. At least they'd be dry. But here they were with a leader who still laughed and played games but for all his efforts could do nothing about the weather. Those that had been there long enough knew not to question it but the newer members were growing restless and curious about the nature of their seemingly young leader and the girl who seemed the root of it all.

Terrible storms battered them for months after the separation and there would not go a night where thunder did not boom or lightening flicker as they tried to sleep. Felix had adapted a keen weather eye and he knew better then to ask how Peter was doing emotionally, he only had to look at the sky. He knew a little about the nightmares, early on Peter had shared a tiny amount of what he could remember but that had been years ago. He thought that Peter had a handle on them but now the island was literally shaking and drowning in his anger and sorrow. It had to change or they would find themselves washed out to sea.

The flooded stream around her cave rose, effectively making another island out of it so that you had to use a boat to ferry from her insular land to Peter's. She had some land to grow and catch food but soon it was not enough so every morning Felix, on Peter's orders, would send food on a raft over to Wendy, like he was trying to appease some angry goddess. He often wondered why Peter did not just starve her out but it seemed he underestimated Peter's depth of feeling and was secretly very rattled by it. If she relented and forgave Peter then things would go back to normal. At least that's what he hoped but it was humiliating having to act as a go between, like some surly Puck, and not for the first time he wished Peter had never laid eyes on Wendy Darling.

Lightening flashed, casting her room in an electric blue light and Wendy groaned and threw an arm over her face. She had spent years creating her surroundings but sometimes she could not keep his theatrics out of her skies. She used to be relieved at such displays because it proved that he could feel but now she was sick of it. After the separation she had welcomed the storms as the terrible commotions in the sky reflected her inner turmoil and she had wept as bitterly, as violently and thought that nothing could match the pain that she felt but week after week it raged with no sign of abating. Soon her hurt numbed, became quiet and inward growing until she had stared out of her window at the rain pelting against the panes and wondered how someone so callous and emotionally shallow could possibly produce such a show of unrelenting suffering. It was demonstrative and excessive, like a child throwing a tantrum and it seemed that Peter's could last for years.

The grief and betrayal had laid her low and she spent many weeks just staring vacantly out of her cave, watching the stream turning into a lake until she was cut off. It made her feel strangely content, the isolation, as if she was protected but she knew that Peter could encroach on her privacy at any time but as the weeks lengthened into months and he did not appear a part of her was relieved that he had respected her wishes. However there was not a day where Wendy did not think on the transgressions and betrayals that Peter had inflicted on her and soon she found her grief and sorrow solidifying into something hard. Now with nothing but time and solitude to be introspective Wendy observed her character and found it lacking, just as she looked upon Peter with a weary disgust. She had left Peter feeling ashamed of herself, for her acts of denial and was beset for weeks with a prickly self reproach, when she was not crying for Rufio and the loss of contact with her friends.

But there came a day when Wendy sat up and knew that she had a choice; she could either dwell on her perceived failings, wallow in her sorrow for how many more countless years she had left or she could learn from them and make something of herself. This was her life, though it was not one she desired but she did have an opportunity to change it, to shape it as she saw fit. She had no limits but that of her imagination and so as thunder rumbled one dull morning Wendy rose from her bed and faced a mirror.

"I am now thirty six years old and I have been here eighteen years. I was born at the turn of the century and I come from London. My family...my family," she hesitated, trying to recall their faces but only her brothers came vaguely to mind. She could picture a boy in glasses, the eldest boy, and a smaller boy clutching a teddy bear. Baelfire was just a name now, just a shadow of a boy who wore a red dressing gown that was still on the island. Her parents were no more substantial in her mind then smoke and so she left them alone, not wanting to drift apart what little memory of them she had. She focused on her brothers, squinting her eyes at her reflection as she concentrated.

"I have a brother called...Michael? And..." she desperately scrabbled for the other name. Joe? Jack? "...John!" she shouted and lightening flickered as she clapped her hands together in success. However it was a pyrrhic triumph because she knew that recalling her brothers should never be something she should fight to do. They should be the first thing she sees waking and the last thing at night and she knew that somewhere he brothers have not forgotten one single thing about her or their parents. It was a horrible sensation, knowing that you've willingly scrubbed away parts of your life. Sometimes it happens naturally, you just forget aspects of your past that once may have been important at the time but then new things came along to replace them. But that should never apply to beloved family and that was what Wendy had done.

"Those pipes, those bloody pipes," she muttered, looking back at the decision her younger self had made in a moment of great weakness and wished that she could go back and snatch the panpipes away from her. She would tell her that an eternity of grief was worth it if you get to remember why you hurt so much in the first place. She loved her family and remembering why would have been worth all the sorrow. She had searched through drawers for an old journal she had used to write about her family but it was gone and she knew that Peter must have taken it at some point. She had cried and raged bitterly about the theft but going back and demanding it back would be what Peter wanted. She would not give him the satisfaction.

Wendy sighed, staring at herself and not for the first time felt incredibly restless, like her very cells were itching to move but couldn't. She was stagnant, stuck in this young body while her mind was racing ahead and it always left her with a sense of great dissonance. She should be older, she should be rounder, softer, fuller and maybe even taller but she never changed. She only had to guess what sort of woman she would have grown up to be now. In her thirties would her hair have subtle streaks of grey in it? Would she have stretch marks and scars? Would her hair be a totally different colour? Would she wear make up and cover herself in jewellery or would she be more demure? Would she still be kind? Funny? Strict? Loving?

"Would I have a job?" Wendy asked her reflection and it nodded back at her. "I would, they told me so." An actress on the side but her main responsibility would be taking care of orphans, possibly running a house. She very vaguely remembered that her mother would take in strays and she would find the parlour occupied with cats that her mother had been too soft hearted to refuse. Would she be equally as compassionate? She imagined it, how the property would be so full of children that she would need to move into another to house her own family.

All girls...

"All girls with blonde hair and green eyes," she whispered and her gaze flicked to the crib still standing at the end of the room. When Peter shared her bed she had been careful to keep it hidden but now his rather delicate sensibilities did not matter. Only what she wished and dreamed about mattered and here she did not have to be devoid of them, in fact she was blessed. She may not be able to get pregnant, not in a place where time stood still. She could not really take care of orphans or share a house with a husband and girls in London but here...

"I am queen. This little island is mine and I'll do as I please," she said quietly and then ran to the window and threw it open, her restlessness driving her almost mad. "YOU HEAR THAT? THIS IS MY ISLAND AND YOU'RE NOT WELCOME!"

Thunder boomed in answer and she could feel it shaking through her. Rain lashed at her face, soaking her hair in seconds but as she closed the window and stepped back she was dry and smiling and the sky outside was now blue and spotless. If you concentrated hard you could hear a distant pattering and rumbling but it was far off and unimportant.

Peter was patient, it was one of his finest attributes and he had honed it over many many years. He had been waiting for the Heart of the Truest Believer for centuries and has done so with a steadfast resolve, knowing that one day his time would come. That day was fast approaching and the years that he had endured would finally be worth it. However the owner of the heart wasn't even born yet so his restraint was not as tested as it could be. But as he found himself waking alone, spending month after month with bored boys and a sullen Felix he experienced a restlessness that he had felt only once.

He had lasted just over a year after banishing Wendy from Neverland before he could take no more and flew to the boarding school she had been shipped off to. He had done so because he missed her, there's no point denying it, though he had been careful not to show it because the feeling was as alien to him then as this gnawing regret was to him now. He would not admit it but as the weeks passed and she did not return he sunk lower and lower into a feeling that was so utterly repellent and he could do nothing to contain it and now it was visible for all to see. He wanted to ignore the storms and rains, wanted to brush it off but it was one of those unlucky side effects of being master of Neverland; whatever he could not control in himself was reflected back in the land and right now he was practically on his knees begging.

"This can't continue..." he muttered in self disgust and was yet again secretly bewildered that she could have such an impact on him. He prided himself on his sense of control, not just of himself but over others but this was such a mockery. She unknowingly had him clutched in her hand like a ragdoll and could shake him whenever she wanted and he hated it. She had called herself his weakness but it was only now that he saw how true it was. He had purged himself of all things that could hurt him, that could make him feel small or vulnerable but now he was suffering by his own actions.

"I should just rip it out and be done with it..." he grumbled, feeling his heart beating in his chest steadily. He had considered it but the truth was he hated the feeling of being heartless. It was a hollow, bleak existence and though he knew the pain would stop he was not a coward. He could face his mistakes but he didn't have to admit complete defeat.

Hook had left with Tink, just as he assumed would happen and once Tiger Lily had found out who had killed her beloved she had followed them out of his realm in pursuit. It was ironic really, one sad lover on a quest for revenge chased by another. Once it would have amused him greatly to see the ripples of pain that his actions had created but now he could not care less. His plan had backfired and he was paying for it. It was a horribly helpless feeling and as it started to rain harder Peter got to his feet, teeth grinding and headed towards the only way into her cave without being detected.

The woods were dappled with late summer sunshine and through the leaves he could make out the sky. It was clear blue and not a cloud besmirched it. He allowed himself the freedom to sigh in relief. Constant rain could get you down no matter who you were so as he walked along the path his step had a spring in it, even as he stared around in confusion. He could hear laughter through the trees and followed the sound, stepping off the path.

This seems familiar, he thought but quickly brushed it aside. It was like any old wood you'd find in England, filled with oaks and birches but still something tight twisted in his stomach and his eyes snapped to every shadow or flick of a leaf. It got so overwhelming that he forced himself to stop, closed his eyes and squeezed his fists. He smiled.

"It's just a dream, her dream. Pull yourself together," he commanded and opened his eyes. He had promised Wendy that he would leave her alone but he made no mention of her dreams...

Peter walked on, following the sound of laughter but that tight ball of anxiety still settled in his stomach and he hated it because it was familiar and very old. He walked on and on, the woods as sunny and enchanting as ever but the laughter seemed further away, echoing strangely until he stopped again and looked back. He had passed that tree stump before and that chestnut tree. He was going around in circles. He was lost.

"No," he whispered and stared ahead, listening for the laughter like a predator sensing prey. He was not lost, he's never been lost in his life and he would not start now. This was probably down to Wendy, she could probably feel him in her dream and was punishing him for it. Peter laughed. "IS THIS THE BEST YOU CAN DO?"

"No men allowed," a voice said and Peter looked down in surprise. A blonde haired, green eyed girl was pointing a short, glittery wand at him. She had to be no more than four.

"I'm not a man," he asserted curtly and smiled winningly at the girl but she narrowed her eyes and poked him with the wand as if were a spear, a spear covered in colourful ribbons.

"No boys either!" she threatened and then ran. Bemused that he had been threatened by an imaginary child from Wendy's mind he followed after her, jumping over logs and rocks but the faster he ran the greater that pit of anxiety inside seemed to coil until when he finally burst out into a clearing he was almost overwhelmed to see her wonderful face. It was so intense that he did not take in what he was seeing until Wendy rose from her plinth and pointed at him.

"This is your dream? You're a may queen?" he asked, deeply amused as Wendy blinked in confusion. Around her throne were girls of different ages in all manner of fancy dress sat at white spread tables and eating jelly and cakes. Rule Britannia played overhead, echoing around them strangely. It looked like a picnic, a celebration and it was clearly an inverted version of his own camp. The little girl with the wand ran to Wendy and whispered in her ear as Peter waved a hand.

"Are these your Lost Girls?"

Wendy stared at him open mouthed, the garland like crown upon her head fading until suddenly the girls and the tables laid with food disappeared and he was standing face to face with her. Having her so close after so long apart made the cocky smile on his face drip away until he was gazing at her with a hungry longing.

"What are you doing here? Am – am I dreaming?" she asked and Peter smirked a little. God how he wanted her.

"Of course. It's quite revealing actually," he said, looking around the woods where she imagined her base camp to be. "You dream that you're like me."

"No! I dream that I'm the opposite to you! You can't be here! Get out! You promised me!" she cried out in desperation and Peter shook his head.

"I've stayed away from your cave, from your little island, but I said nothing of your dreams. You sneaked into my most private dream, why should I not pay you back in kind?" he asked and a small, very neglected part of his mind wondered why someone so intelligent would say such stupid things.

"So this is pay back for what I did years ago? You think you haven't hurt me enough?" she asked, tears in her eyes and she started to fade slightly, as if she was trying to wake up. Panicked he grabbed hold of her but his hand floated through her arm.

"No! Wait! That's not why I came here, I'm sorry," he confessed quickly and Wendy stilled, staring at him strangely.

"You're sorry? Is it really you or am I dreaming this?" she asked in quiet disbelief and he managed to smile.

"I'm real. I didn't come here to fight,"

"No but it just comes naturally to you," she remarked and crossed her arms over her chest. She was dressed as some fairy queen, all green lace and silks. She looked beautiful. But her pretty eyes were glaring at him. "So you invade my dream to apologise? Will you invade the next one to say sorry for sneaking in this one?"

"Only if you want me to."

"I think you know the answer to that," she replied darkly and Peter sighed. That inexplicable ball of fear – because that's what it was, no denying it – tightened and he cleared his throat.

"It's been some time now Wendy. Years. I've given you space, like you wanted but how long do you expect me to wait?"

Wendy shrugged. "For as long as I need. You can't just apologise, even if you mean it, and then expect things to go back the way they were. You had Rufio killed. You lied to me. Sorry won't cut it. I feel sick looking at you," she confessed in a soft voice and he smiled and looked aside.

"I know. I've never had to deal with this before, a plan coming back to bite me. I had it all worked out, every little thing, down to the finest detail," he said, closing his eyes and imagining it. "I've been doing it for so long that I thought it was all I could do."

"But it wasn't always so?" she asked quietly and he opened his eyes and gave her a weak smile.

"Once...I miss you," he breathed quietly but Wendy was staring over his shoulder in horror. Peter spun around and that ball of fear that had been so tightly contained now unravelled and fear flooded through him. Standing in a golden beam of sunlight was a cradle but one with scissors hanging above it, like a nightmarish version of her feather mobile.

"What is that?!" Wendy hissed and eyed him furiously. "Is that you? Did you make it?! What kind of sick, twisted mind -"

"No...I never...It – it's a memory," he finally confessed and stared at Wendy with large eyes. Before he had trained his mind to contain his nightmares he used to see the horrible crib constantly, amongst other things but as the years went by he could never really remember what it meant to him. Wendy had been sucked into his nightmare once and now he suspects she had taken it back with her, like the nightmare had seeded itself unknowingly in her mind. She had no control over it, making the crib appear in her room once as she slept and he wondered what else she may have seen, not knowing the significance.

"A memory? What sort of memory is that?" she asked, shaking and Peter shook his head.

"It – it was an old one, my first memory, maybe. It was when...No, I can't. I want to wake up. You're doing this, you're pulling these nightmares out of me like you did before," he accused, focusing on her face rather than the horrors that probably lurked through the trees.

"What are talking about?" she asked, looking more concerned then she had any right to be. He had hurt her so much, took so much from her but he could still see that she loved him. Peter backed away from her.

"I've said too much already. I just want to forget but you won't let me," he stressed and something cunning slowly came over her features as she realised what power she now wielded over him. He had just handed her it.

"I'm sorry that these things haunt you, I truly am but stay out of my mind. I don't want to hurt you but I will," she warned sadly and that horribly helpless feeling he had once experienced as a child washed over him and he woke gasping for breath. The sky was practically trying to tear itself apart from the sound of it but the storm did not matter. She had bested him and now he had no other route to her.

"Damn it!" he shouted and the cave shuddered around him.

Another year past and over time Wendy became like a myth, especially to the newest recruits. Some mornings she would find little tokens and gifts that some adventurous boy had pushed out on a makeshift raft or leaf. She would find dolls, scarves and even rings but mostly she would get letters and notes and all of them consisted of the same message:

Please come back and stop the rain.

It was at these moments when she felt the most tested, aside from those glimmers she had of Peter. He usually had Felix deliver her food and though it stung her pride to accept she did so. You could not live on make believe food, not even in Neverland. Sometimes he would send her over trinkets and jewellery himself. Mornings would come, almost bright and dry, with boats piled with beautiful dresses and other clothes but Wendy pushed them back. Her forgiveness was not so easily bought, or so she thought. One morning boats full of books, music and newspapers arrived instead and Wendy had been deeply conflicted. She had an active and vivid imagination but she was starved for stories, music and want of news. He knew that and as she gave into defeat and emptied out the boat of its precious cargo the clouds above parted and the sun shined. The only thing he seemed willing to omit was the one thing she really needed: a cure. Wendy did not forget that as she curled into an armchair and cracked a book open.

He had invaded her dream only once and though she worried that he would do so again it seemed his unexpected fear of his past overshot his need to spy. Sometimes she would hear the music of Peter's flute and peek out before she could stop herself. Now he resorts to sitting on the other side of her lake and though Wendy had a whole other life she could not stop herself from observing him from a distance. She had not forgiven him or forgotten but she was curious about how he was. As she sat and watched she battled with an unwanted feeling, one that flared up in her at night when she was alone and made her cry. She missed him, despite the life that she had now substituted for him and his island. She missed him and nothing could really change it but she tried.

Wendy and Peter had once playfully made a suggestion that every year they would spend time with each other in their respective homes. During the winter and spring she would fly to Neverland and stay with Peter but then as summer arrived he would go back to London and live with her. It was an arrangement that never came to fruit but it was something that Wendy always looked back on thoughtfully. Now it was an unfulfilled promise made real, or as real as it could ever be and right now behind the screen in her cave it was mid summer in England, 1939 and war had just been declared, though you would never know it.

Morning light filtered though the net curtain over the window, softly bathing the bedroom and waking her. Downstairs she could hear the girls talking and knew that they would be up soon to disturb the peace. Wendy lay on her front and watched the curtain lift in a breeze and settle, a rhythmic motion and she was almost pulled back into sleep when she felt his fingers tracing a pattern down her bare back and his breath played against the nape of her neck. She smiled, trying not to make a sound and bit her lip. He could surprise her sometimes, wake her up with a kiss or slip into her bed at night, too tired for anything else but the warmth of her body against his. He came back every year, at the height summer when the girls were home and as always she hoped that this would be it, this would be the year he stayed. But he never did.

"You go down," she mumbled, too tired to move and he laughed behind her.

"I just got here."

"Exactly," she replied smartly and then laughed when his fingers dug into her sides and she screamed, rolling into a ball and trying to get away. "I hate that," she moaned breathlessly.

"I know..." he said and relented his assault and Wendy turned on her back. He was gone, escaping downstairs before she could retaliate and she could hear the squeals of delight and excitement from down in the kitchen and his responding laughter.

Wendy closed her eyes, savouring the sounds and feeling of bliss that billowed through her. It was perfect, everything was just as she always dreamed...but it's just happening in my head...Wendy screwed her eyes up tighter, trying to banish the thought but it would not leave. It was one that plagued her, one that would not be overshadowed with the happiness and contentment she now felt, one that she had experienced for years now. This was the life she always wanted, with the man she wanted. Man, not boy. She was no longer stuck as a seventeen year old but as a woman in her prime, a woman in bloom and one that did not want to look in a mirror and see the truth.

Why should this be a lie and Peter's island the truth? Wasn't Neverland as much of a fantasy but one of his design? Here it was bright, changeable and happy while out there it was miserable, stagnant and gloomy. Compassion, love and family were paramount here and that would never be available out there, not with him. If she had to dream it into reality then so be it. And yet sometimes she could hear the distant rumbles of thunder and at night her room would flicker with blue light until she could take it no more and would leave her home and venture out of the cave, back in her true form. There she would listen to his sad music, music that had no effect on her memory any more, though she could hear every wavering sweet note of it. It was so sad, so lonely that her resolve to never see him again weakened and she was conflicted. He had promised her that she could not endure a lifetime alone but it seemed neither could he.

She was shutting herself away from him for a reason and it was not an act of punishment as he believed. The thing that she feared the most was not that Peter would be cruel to her, lash out or make her miserable but that one day she would find herself doing exactly the same back with equal lack of regard. The island was cursed and she did not want to wake up one morning and look on others around her like they were no longer people but disposable bodies easily replaced. She did not want to turn into Peter. She hated what he had done, the pain, torment and death he had inflicted. She hated his callousness and his ability to play people like there were no more than puppets. He did not care who he hurt or how much destruction he could spread, the capacity had been burned out of him long ago but still, still she hoped that he was not beyond saving.

The most cursed thing in creation...The warning that the seers had given her still circled her mind after years but also another saying about Peter: his heart was pure once.

Years ago she had decided that she would not return to Neverland with Peter because she did not want to watch him walk towards his own destruction but what was she doing now? Could hide in her own happy world while knowing at some point it would all crumble down around her? Could she sit back and do nothing as that happened? Who would save her and the things she loved? Who would save him?

She knew that there were tiny glimmers left of the person that he once was, painful shards that contained his awful past but along with it was his ability to really love. It was something she had felt once in his nightmare and sometimes she wished she had not been privy to it. She never truly believed that he had any real capacity for affection, nothing deep, but what she had felt had overwhelmed her in its magnitude and with it came hope. Something like that, something so vast did not just fade away or become smothered into complete submission. She believed that he loved her, in his way, but if he could just face his past, remember and accept what had happened then maybe he could reclaim what he once was. She felt the answer lay there, in his past just as once his salvation lay in the land of his birth. It was possible but a possibility of a hope was an awful thing to cling to...but also the best.

She did not have to concern herself with this but who else would? She could go back, forget him but she may as well ask to stop breathing. This was the right thing to do and this was the person she was. Someone who did not sit back and do nothing but fought for what she believed in. She just had to find a way and so she thought hard, trying to recall everything that Peter had told her or what she had accidentally found out about his past. Tink was gone with Hook and the mermaids stayed well away, the sea now as tumultuous as the skies. Felix would laugh in her face if she asked for help. Finally it came to her and she smiled.

"The Never Bird."

a.n:

I know this was quite fragmented but it was spanning a few years. Hope you liked Wendy's fantasy life, though it's really tragic at it's core. Never Bird next and the Darlings are approaching soon...