AN: Hi lovelies! Chapter Two is up. No Neverland yet, next chapter I promise. Just some cute Peter/Nibs fluff. And as of this chapter, this story is set about 2-3 years before Hook and his brother visit Neverland and about 3-4 years before Baelfire is born.

Also thanks to KerryResidentofEarth for following. Happy reading!

~Luna

Chapter 2

I didn't see Peter again for seven more years, three days after I turned sixteen.

My parents had convinced me to go to the city near the castle to help sell the pocket watches my father made. They figured being two years away from adulthood was old enough to make the thirty mile journey on foot through the darkest part of the forest. I didn't object much, I would be with people who didn't know me where it would be so much easier to be lost.

The road was unforgiving but as a boy it was undoubtably safer than if I had been female on the journey. The inns were few and far between, but the few I stopped at were jolly and filled with laughter. All sorts of people stopped at the inns, each with their own story to tell. Stories had always been my favorite since I was little. There was the giant slayer, the ones who had caught an eye of the Dark One Zoso and lived to tell the tale and some told of a land without color who would always be discouraged by the ones who said there was a land with too much color.

At last, I had arrived at the castle. It was like stepping into another land. Everyone was just so busy, as if none of their lives directly influenced anyone else's. It terrified me, the utter repulsion they had towards the homeless and the children running free without cares or parents. The closest inn had a very nice landlady who remarked that she was always glad to see "strapping young boys making their way in the world, yessir." I didn't bother to correct her.

She had given me her best room after all.

The room was just like home, not much but still cozy. There was the large bed, dresser, and chair but that's where the similarities stopped with my little attic. It was a great deal bigger, and even had wallpaper. There was an imported bamboo changing screen along with a small stool with a pitcher, towel, and wash basin on it. After general unpacking and organizing of papers for a stall, I changed, choosing the more comfortable light green vest and skirt I had brought. Once things were in a decent sense of order, I made my way out into the street to find my stall. It was in between a bakery and across from a blacksmith, which brought a decent amount of noise and mouth watering smells. The baker was kind, bit I felt that there was something off about blacksmith.

Two days after my arrival, I believed I had found Peter. The blacksmith had several boys in as his apprentices, ranging from nine to seventeen. The oldest was a boy with unruly brown hair and light green eyes. You could see lean muscles beneath his shirt and when he took off his shirt (which was most of the time) shiny scar tissue littered most of the skin on his arms and back. What tipped me off was the burn along his right shoulder, from when he accidentally fell into the cooking fire at my house when he was 6.

Three days later, I walked into the shop, waiting to get a new shipment my father had ordered. To pass the time, I watched the boys work. The littlest one was stoking the fire while the others hammered metal into the mold.

I didn't have to wait long until Peter came up to me, wiping his hands on a rag. "Well, what do you want?"

I had to stop myself from laughing. He had the exact same demeanor as when we were children. Although it saddened me that he didn't recognize me, he eventually would if I had anything to say about it. This gained me a quizzical but I eventually conveyed that there was a shipment waiting for me.

"Wait here," he ordered before running off, shouting at a boy named Slightly.

I busied myself with observing the shop. Smoke billowed in all directions, combined with disembodied shouts of the boys and clanging of metal on metal. Every minute or so, one of the boys get into a shouting match with the other. After a few unrepeatable words, Peter would intervene, shouting even nastier words. I smiled when I heard him use several insults I had taught him the night before our world were ripped apart.

Peter arrived with my order wrapped in a bundle of cloth and a logbook. "Here you are. What name should I put on the log?"

"Nibs Haven." I replied, laughing as his eyes went comically wide after he had only written the first two letters.

"Nibs, the valiant ogre slayer?" He asked with a smile playing on the corner of his lips.

I nodded, glad that he had remembered our little game. "And I must be addressing Peter, the nasty ogre."

He let out a barking laugh, one I hadn't heard in years. He then yelled that he was taking his break, and the twins were in charge. We walked out hand in hand, him insisting that he carried the package. We stopped at a tavern he knew of, where two orders of ale were placed.

"I thought I'd never see you again," I admitted once we sat at a clear table in the back corner.

Peter smiled. "I always had a plan to come get you, it just took longer than expected. But-"

"Peter Pan never fails," we finished together, breaking off into laughter.

I reached to my side and undid the dagger, handing it back to him. "I knew I could give it back to you someday, but I never found the right-"

A barmaid came with our drinks, setting them on the table. She lingered just a little too long next to Peter, shirt undone just past the acceptable limit and fingers drifting over his shoulder. Her breasts looked too high up on her chest, like she had just fixed her corset to be set a few inches above her actual waist. He didn't notice her advances, but I did. At once I became self conscious of my own bound breasts and grubby boy clothes.

"Why are you here?" He asked after taking a long sip.

"Watch business," I replied. "Father wanted me to take over, so I was sent to sell here." I paused before adding. "How come you never came back?"

"I wanted to, I truly did," he answered as the barmaid came round again.

I was absolutely disgusted with her. Yeah Peter was a pretty boy, but he was my pretty boy, even if he didn't know it yet. My skin crawled as she almost clung to him, asking if we needed anything else. She briefly flashed a glance in my direction, but only at my chest. My shirt had come loose, revealing the bindings. She smiled at me and her eyes seemed to convey that she knew my secret. I just rolled my eyes. The barmaid looked like high maintenance and the type to be clean at all times. And if Peter hated anything more than girls, it was high maintenance ones. Even though if be around a lot longer than her, I still wanted to rip her heart out right then and there.

After she left, he cleared his throat and continued. "Rumple made good on the apprentice threat. Ten years from the day we got here. I'll be in a job and grown before I ever had a chance to enjoy childhood. I'll be grown in five months, Nibs."

I nodded. We weren't supposed to grow up with out he other, but it seems neither had actually made good on that particular promise. Of course we couldn't stop the flow of time, but it was always a nice thought to have.

"None of the other boys at the shop had wanted to either," Peter continued, startling me out of my reverie. "Tootles has already made up his mind that he never wanted to grow past eleven. The boy's only eight and so much more determined than we were at that age." He chuckled.

I thought about telling him about the land I had heard of on my journey. "There's a place where time doesn't pass."

He looked up, intrigued. "Where?"

"We need a magic bean. But it's called Neverland. Children of different realms go there in their dreams, it's a land fueled by belief. We could take the boys at the shop as well."

Peter nodded throughout all of this. I could see the wheels in his head turning, as of working out all the potential steps of this plan. He always thought things through, but it was when he forgot a step when things went haywire. Like the time we planned to steal Rumple's sword but had forgotten the mushrooms needed to make his brother fall asleep.

"We'll leave tomorrow," he exclaimed, nearly jumping from his seat. "I'll gather the boys after we're certain this island is safe and you can meet me at the shop right before dawn. It's perfect."

I stood up with him and in his elation, he lifted me by my waist in a spin. I giggled, completely forgetting one very important part of the plan.

"Peter, we don't have a magic bean." I reminded him.

Smirking, he lifted a necklace from under his shirt. In a tiny vial, a bean no longer than my nail sat suspended, fat and glowing. "Yes we do. And even if we didn't, I'd be able to find one. After all-"

"Peter Pan never fails," I finished for him, rolling my eyes.

He smirked again at this. The plan was decided, we'd leave as soon as possible. The bar tab was paid and the two of us ran out the door laughing. We were children again, and about to be children forevermore. He walked me back to the inn, where we stopped outside the entrance. Just talking, saying nothing of importance really.

"And just how will we fuel the belief of the island?" I asked, almost rhetorically.

"I've got my truest believer right here," he laughed. "Anyone that believes we will meet again after seven years can keep one tiny island in existence."

With that he bade me goodnight, disappearing into the gloom of the night. My heart was beating in my ears and just being with him had made me feel giddy. Was this love? I dearly hoped it was. Even though Peter was oblivious and dense and more thick skilled than an ogre at times, he still was my best friend. I suppose my happiness was written all over my face as I entered the inn, because the landlady stopped me.

"First love?" She asked as I sat at the bar.

"No, but hopefully the one that lasts," I replied, drawing nonsense in the water rings left by mugs.

"True love?" She asked after a while, eyeing my with an odd glance.

I was taken aback. "I really wouldn't know."

She pulled out a vial of glittery green dust from her grubby apron pocket. The chubby lady who I had known for a week was giving me a bottle of pixie dust. I couldn't believe it myself as she placed it in my grubby palm. "I found my happiness long ago, hopefully it will help you find yours."

I thanked her profusely, before heading up to my room, which had a perfect view of the blacksmith. Praying hard I opened the window and released the dust, which was flung out into the air in a glittery mess. It writhed this way and that, before filing in through the door of the smithy and then up to a room where light cast a Peter shaped shadow on the curtains. The shadow fumbled and then opened the window, letting the green dust our into the night air, but most seemed to rest upon him. Shrugging, he turned off the light and then vanished from sight.

I flung myself backwards onto the bed, elated at the prospect. Peter was my true love and now I was certain I would follow him to the ends of the earth. Or even just the ends of this realm. After all, Neverland waited for us.