Time passed.
Snow turned into sleet that turned into rain. The ground slowly began to thaw, giving way to mud and the fresh smell of earth and new growth. Blowing winds were less and less biting as the days and weeks wore on and soon, Peter could smell the promise of spring in them.
Just as the winter melted into spring, the spell progressed as well. With structure dealt with, themes and motifs were discussed. Then opposing imagery was analyzed and soon enough, reversal spells were compared and debated over.
When Peter closed his eyes, he could see the lines of the spell circling in his mind's eye. He knew each verse, each stanza and word, each pause, off by heart and he knew that Wendy was the same.
As March began to come to a close, they were beginning to discuss what their next steps were now that they were nearing the end of the analyzing and researching their collection reversal spells.
"How do you write a spell?" Wendy wondered aloud after they had finished reviewing spells for the day. They were nearing the year anniversary of when they had first begun working together and the significance of it wasn't lost on either of them; how they had changed in a year, how long Wendy had been gone from her home, but most importantly, how much time Baelfire had left.
He knew that the uncertainty about her brother wore on her. He saw the tense lines in her shoulders and the calluses on her fingers from writing. When he found himself slipping into the past, he could see her slipping into the future. He could see the flurry of questions in her mind: Where is he? What state is he in? When will we find him? Will we be able to make the spell in time? Will we be able to save him?
"Your guess is as good as mine," he said, leaning back in the wing-backed armchair of the current mansion. They had less than half a dozen mansions to check and he was beginning to worry that his bet that his brother would be at one of them had been incorrect. Rumple was not bound to his mansions. The Dark One was free to roam wherever.
He didn't share this with Wendy though.
She propped her head on her hand, elbow on the table. "Like a story," she mused, almost to herself. "A fable, a myth, a fairytale."
He gave her a questioning look. Her gaze found his after a moment.
Shrugging, she said, "Problem pitted against solution; hero pitted against villain. One overcomes the other. Happy ending, what's meant to be done is done. Moral explained, lesson learned. Decorated with themes and motifs." She said it nonchalantly, but he could tell from how she rambled off her explanation as if she were speaking in jot notes that she had been thinking about this for a while.
"Do you want to write it that way?" he asked.
She gave him a helpless look. "Want isn't really the question. It's should or could."
He tried to make his voice soft, reassuring. "I don't believe magic follows a standard system. I think it works where it works." He realized after he said it that it wasn't nearly as reassuring as he was hoping it would be, but it was true.
She sighed. "What do you think?"
He let out a breath and turned to the window that looked out onto pastureland. Rolling hills of deep, slumbering green stretched out before them. Dotted out beyond them were trees with the barest hints of buds. "I think it's a good idea."
He turned back to find her staring at him, brown eyes dark and somber.
She nodded. "What's yours?"
"My idea?" he asked. She nodded again. "I haven't been silently mulling it over for the past week." He rubbed at his temples. "When I began using magic, I didn't follow any spells or guidelines. I learned all of that well after Neverland was established. So when I say it works where it works, I mean it. I had a clear vision, as corrupt as it was, and so do you. I have faith in that."
Her eyebrows furrowed together and he wondered if she might take offence that he had compared them that way, but instead, she questioned, "Faith?"
A small, sad smile tugged at his lips. "As you have believed in me, I believe in you."
XXX
When Wendy was first on Neverland, she counted the days. And once that was useless, she counted the years. The sun rose and set the exact same way on Neverland each day. The weather never changed, hot and muggy, the shoreline never moved and the trees did not grow and she did not age. She eventually stopped counting because it was useless; time never moved.
And for the longest time, time had not moved.
But now, she'd wake in the night, a pit in the bottom of her stomach, jolted awake with the terrifying knowledge that minutes and hours were slipping by her.
While the days on Neverland stretched on endlessly, monotonously, now there weren't enough hours in the day to get done what needed to be done. There were only a handful of mansions left and only a few months left to write an entire spell that was supposed to undo deep, dark magic to save her brother.
The homestretch, Michael would have called it.
And set her heart racing, its beat pounding in her ears, or the blood in her veins turning to ice. It was a deep gnawing, a terrifying shadow on the peripheries of her vision.
Soon, the end would be upon her.
What would the end look like?
She had told Pan months ago that she hoped this was a blip across the centuries, but what was beyond this? What would the next blip look like?
XXX
"You should write to Tinkerbell," Peter said one day over breakfast to Wendy.
Outside, a fine mist had settled over the forested area around their current mansion, making everything grey and blurry. He was thankful for his steaming cup of coffee and the roaring fire next to them in the library, warming them in the cold spring morning.
Wendy looked up from the bones of their spell, sitting cross legged in a worn leather armchair. They had just finished sketching out the barest of writing plans for it and Wendy was not yet satisfied that they should move onto filling it in a little more.
"We'll be passing by Pixie Hollow in a little over two weeks so you should send it soon," he continued.
She straightened and set the papers aside. She was getting restless, anxious that things were coming to an end soon and they would see if all of their work had been worth it. These days she was caught between desperately needing to be working at all times and finding it unbearable to look at their spell.
Picking up a pen and paper, she wrote a greeting to Tinkerbell and then paused.
"Even if I don't mention you, she'll know I'm not working alone," she stated.
He rubbed at his temples.
He was growing anxious, too.
Most days now he switched back and forth between the past and the future (it was never the present these days). Half caught in the past, wading through frigid memories, murky and swirling with ghosts. The other half his mind drew up imaginings for the future — all the people he had wronged coming back to exact revenge were common, but that he could tolerate, that he could resign himself too. But most of all, he thought about what was beyond that. Wendy would leave him; she had to leave him.
"I wonder," she mused, softly, her voice drawing him back, "if I could be obtuse about it. That if someone intercepted the letter, they wouldn't know. Something only she would get."
He gave her an unimpressed look. "Writing in code?"
She returned his look with a sharp one. "Do you have a better suggestion?"
He rubbed his hands across his face, scratching his palms on his stubble before slowly lowering his head to the table. "No," he said, defeated into the wood.
"So dramatic," she muttered as he began to hear the pen scratch out on paper.
He remained that way until he felt a tap on his shoulder and straightened. Wendy pushed the paper across the table and he read it. It was brief.
He scrunched up his nose. "Mutual acquaintance?"
"It was the best I could do," she said.
He slid the letter back to her and she folded it up and put it in an envelope before scratching out the address and putting a stamp on it.
She looked down at it. "The second person to know that you're back," she declared.
She put it into her bag, carefully and then turned back to her work.
And Peter just stared.
Because Wendy was wrong.
XXX
Normally, when Wendy was wrong, Peter pointed it out quickly and was quite happy to do so. She had told him that her know-it-all attitude was also a trait that her brothers did not care for so he acted as if he was doing the world a service when he did it.
"See, I was right," he would say, pointing out the correct route on the map.
"I told you that it didn't use that wording," he would tell her after an argument over a spell.
"You should have listened to me," he would remark over dinner when she turned her nose up at the fish he was sure she wouldn't like.
But this time, he did not point it out.
He wasn't even sure if he was being slow about it because he didn't know if he even had the courage to tell her that this entire endeavour had started out as a trick, a trap to get both the Second Star to the Right and the Heart of the Truest Believer all in one fell swoop.
It was nearly the exact same ruse he had used to trap her on Neverland. Dangle the opportunity to save her brother in front of her if only she gave herself up.
It made him sick to think about it.
That he had lied to her. Intended to hurt her from the beginning. And now betrayed her trust by not telling her.
If he hadn't already not been sleeping, this would have kept him up.
Often, he found himself staring at her from across the table or at the back of her head as they rode or in the dim light of a dinner at an inn. He imagined telling her and he could imagine her face falling, the light going out from her eyes, how she would recoil from him.
"Where are you going?" she would ask him, voice suddenly breaking him out of his musings.
He would stare at her, stunned and shocked to find himself in the present.
"Just thinking," he would say, purposely obtuse and her brows would furrow, disappointed. He knew she knew he was often thinking of the past, but she had no idea what he knew the future held.
XXX
Ever since Wendy had written that letter to Tinkerbell, Pan had found something new to worry about.
She couldn't be entirely sure, but if he were anything like her, it was most likely about the future. What would it mean for someone else to know he was back? What would happen when the secret got out? Who would come for him? What would his life be like?
When she caught him in those moments when he was clearly dreaming up nightmarish futures, she wanted to reach out and hold his hand, wrap her arms around him and shush him. She wanted to quiet his thoughts and make him feel safe. She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be okay.
But she couldn't tell him that.
She didn't know what lay beyond this journey, what would happen when Tink finally opened that letter and understood what Wendy meant by 'mutual acquaintance'.
One night at dinner, she asked him, "Where are you going?"
He whipped his head around and stared at her. He seemed surprised to see her, as if he had forgotten where and when he was for a moment.
"I'm just thinking," he said. God, he used to be so much better at lying, she thought to herself.
"About the future?" she asked.
He gave her a wary look.
He didn't like when she worried about his worries. For a number of reasons: because he didn't like her telling him what to do, because she did had a tendency to sermonize, because he was becoming a martyr to his pain.
But when she worried, he worried. How could she not do the same?
He remained silent, face neutral.
She sighed, realizing that if she told him what to do, he was simply just not going to listen. She had only managed to convince him to take the sleeping potion once and had yet to be able to get him to eat a full meal, so telling him what do to do was not going to work.
"I like you best in the present," she said, softly, trying to reassure him as best as he could, to take him away from the past and the future that weighed so heavily.
On instinct, she reached across the table, needing to have his hand in hers, but just as her skin brushed his, he flinched away, almost recoiling from her.
Her heart dropped in her chest, a cold stone in the pit of her stomach and she took her hand back, trying to school her face so she didn't let on just how much that stung.
Sometimes, he allowed her to touch him, to lean her head against his chest, ghost a kiss over his cheek, but that was becoming more and more infrequent. He flinched away from her often and she was certain he wasn't even aware he was doing it. Which somehow made it worse.
"I'm a monster, but you've always treated me like a man." If his voice hadn't been so hard and cold, it might have been a compliment or thanks. But instead, it was an insult. How stupid could she be treat him like that? How gullible and foolish?
Again, she straightened, trying to pretend that it didn't hurt nearly as much as it did. "You're being cruel."
He gave her a look that reminded her that there was still power in him, magic flowing through his veins. Those icy eyes were an unnatural blue, glacial and frigid. It was like the universe was playing a joke, plopping this magical creature in a mundane dining hall.
"I am cruel."
And he was right. He was.
Cruel and kind, a walking contradiction.
"And you're transparent," she bit back. "You're trying to push me away to punish yourself."
He stared back her, just as stubborn as she was, silent and cold.
She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, imaging she was a boulder. "Well, I'm here to stay." She considered it for a moment and then tacked on, "Asshole."
XXX
Wendy was contemplating a horse when Pan came to stand beside her quietly.
"What are you looking at?" he asked.
After dinner, he hadn't said anything, but she could tell that as the night wore on he had come to regret what he had said. His movements had softened, his mouth was no longer set in a firm frown and his eyes warmed.
She glanced sideways at him. "That horse looks familiar." She pointed at a dark brown horse across from them with a white star on its nose. She could have sworn she had seen it at an inn stable the other week, but couldn't quite decide if she was right or not.
He considered it for a moment. "All horses look the same to me."
"I hope not. You have two you need to keep track of," she retorted before turning back to buckle her saddle onto Ash.
"I know what Ash and Philipe look like," he told her.
"I'm glad," she said, unimpressed, over her shoulder.
He moved into Philipe's stall and put his own saddle on before loading up his bags. Once they were both done, they led the horses out of the stables, with Wendy taking one last look at the horse before turning back to the open road, the grey sky stretching out before them.
Pan touched her arm. "I'm sorry about last night, bird. I was needlessly cruel."
She looked up at him, beautiful and dishevelled, and for a moment she wished that life was different. That her relationship with Pan could be uncomplicated. They would have met in school, rivals at first, but would have grown to appreciate the other. Courtship would have been simple; he would have asked her father for her hand and he would have agreed. Life could have been so much easier.
"Do you think I'm stupid for treating you like a man?" she asked.
His face softened, sadness drawing lines across his forehead. "No," he said and she could tell by how he cut himself off he was considering if he should say something else.
"Go on," she said.
"I worry I've tricked you into it." He looked so lost. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him it would be alright.
"Well, if the last hundred and twenty years mean anything, you've done a pretty good job of the exact opposite," she said.
He didn't seem satisfied with her answer, but he didn't say anything more.
XXX
Time was pressing on her chest.
Wendy jolted awake, sitting upright in her bed, not knowing where she was for a few moments, just that time was escaping her, until she remembered that she was in Gold's mansion.
Even though things made sense now, it did not quiet the beating of her heart or smooth the rhythm of her breathing. Her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears, deafening in the large, silent room, draped in moth-eaten, gossamer curtains and faded, ornate paintings.
Throwing the comforter off, she threw on her slippers and robe before twisting and turning through dusty hallways to the library. She was already thinking of things she needed to write, what she needed to annotate and edit, the spells she needed to look at to help her write.
She swept into the library and came to the table she and Pan had been under the light of a large chandelier. The warm light fell on the table and illuminated it dimly. She could just make out the words from her papers and sat down and began to write furiously, her hands shaking and her heart thrumming loudly in her ears.
As she worked, she did not calm down. Thoughts raced through her mind, only half-understandable, strands of ideas slipping away from her as soon as she tried to focus in on any of them.
If anything, it got worse. She knew things were not making sense, that her breathing was short, her chest tight as her heart beat wildly inside her chest, but all she knew was that she needed to use all the time she had.
"Wendy," a voice called to her.
She jolted in her seat, pen clattering onto the table, whipping around to find Pan staring down at her, in his pyjamas that she knew he had not slept it.
She looked up at him, a train that was abruptly thrown off the tracks.
"What are you doing?"
She could barely hear him over the whoosh of the blood in her veins. "I'm—I'm working." She turned and waved her arm over the papers.
He picked up a paper and examined it before putting it back down. Turning back to her, he gave her a look that made her worry that she had, in fact, not been working.
"I'm working," she repeated, lump in her throat. "I'm working." She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince in that moment.
"Come on," Pan said putting his hand under her elbow, trying to ease her out of the chair.
But Wendy would not be moved. "No," she said, voice watery.
Pan looked down at her, grey and gaunt, the lines of his cheeks and jaw severe, his hair too dark for his pale skin and his ears too big for his head. He looked a wreck. But there was something in his face that let her take a full deep breath for the first time in what felt like forever.
"Time is…" she began, lump still in her throat, tears misting her eyes. She put her hand to her chest. "I can feel it right here." Pan continued to look down at her, his mouth turned into a frown only she would have noticed. "On Neverland, I had so much time. I repeated the same day over and over and now, now I can feel time move." She wiped quickly at a tear that had not yet fallen.
Peter leaned back against the table and looked at her for a long moment. He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs and then breathing out slowly. Belatedly, she realized that her breaths were no longer coming in short bursts. It was like she had just woken up. The haze around her now solidified into the library: the dusty dark wood shelves, the ornate gold of the chandelier above them, the worn chairs.
A long moment passed and she grew uncomfortable as she sat in silence with him.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked demandingly.
"I don't think I have anything comforting to say," he told her sadly.
Well, at least, he was honest.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked.
She could take a full breath now, but she could still hear the hammering of her heart, feel her pulse in her wrists and throat.
"I'm scared," she said after a long moment.
"I know," he said, crossing his arms. "So am I."
She gave him a long look before turning to look at her work. She was sure now, having calmed slightly, that in the morning her work would be the ramblings of a madwoman, gibberish scrawled across pages of notes.
"Pan," she said, still staring at the pile. "Be honest with me. Is it insane what we're doing?"
She heard him inhale sharply. "Yes."
She leaned her forehead onto the table and groaned, her arms circled around her head.
"You can be dramatic after I elaborate," his voice came from above her, dry and grim, but it made something in her chest settle. Like falling into her bed back home, wherever that was. "I think it is crazy to write a spell from scratch, especially to undo the one Baelfire used, but I think the plan is sound. I think it's the best move we could make."
She raised her head, her chin resting on her hands flattened to the table. "Giving him my life will always work."
"No." A frigid wind whipped through her; his voice froze her down to her bones.
She sat straight up in her seat, unable to look away from him when he spoke like that.
She had half-expected to find Pan returned to his former glory; youthful, cold and powerful. Instead, she found him the same as before; shadowy and tired. But his eyes were a bright, electric blue. He was fully present in that moment, not caught in the past or future.
"That is not an option," he told her, his voice just as forceful and icy as it had just been.
She shook her head. "How much time do we really have left? How much time does Baelfire have left? A month or two? Weeks?" There it was again. Her heart picking up speed, beating rapidly against her ribs, threatening to burst out. The air being sucked out of her lungs, the tightness in her chest, slowly pressing in on her. "How the hell are we meant to finish the spell in that time? And then what? It just works perfectly?"
Pan took her hands and held them firmly in his, his skin cool and smooth against hers. "Wendy," he said, his voice catching her mind like the breaks being pulled on a runaway train, "I cannot promise you it will work, but if it does not, I will trade in my life for Baelfire's."
"No." She hadn't even realized she was saying it until she saw the look on Peter's face, bewildered and shocked that her voice was able to pierce through the heavy silence of the surrounding manor.
Her heart was going to jump out her throat and shatter into a million pieces on the floor.
"No," she repeated again, shrill and sharp.
She was horrified that she was reacting this way; it was crazy that she was reacting this way to Peter Pan, who had ruined her life and her family's and countless others. But her feelings were what they were and at the same time, she could not deny that the prospect of him giving up his life was also equally horrifying.
Peter sighed, shaking his head. "We're not getting anywhere with this conversation." He pulled on her hands, trying to tug her from the chair. "Come on."
She pulled her hands away. "No," she said for the third time, forceful, wagging her finger at him, "you do not get to change the topic like that." He looked back at her, tired, eyes still that bright, unearthly blue. "Giving up your life is not an option."
"It's my life. I can live it whatever way I want." He said it in the same haughty way as he had said it to her all those months ago, with the exact same arrogance and assurance but now in a voice that was exhausted.
Her mouth dropped open. "Don't do that. Don't flip your own words around like that." He gave her a warning look. "Your life is yours to live."
"I have lived my life for myself for the past four hundred years," he explained, his voice authoritative and assured, as if he were explaining the simplest thing to a child. She had thought that with all his ruminating on his wrongs that he wouldn't speak like this anymore, too guilty and full of shame, but it seemed that just because he felt that way did not stop him from thinking he was right about everything. "It's time I gave it to someone else."
Any moment now, her heart was going to fly out of her chest.
"Don't speak like that," she cursed, tears springing to her eyes.
"I caused it, I fix it," he said, calm and confident.
"No, that's not—no," she practically screeched, her hands balling up into fists, nails cutting crescents into her palms. "No," she repeated and repeated and repeated, the word filling up the empty mansion, piercing through the still night air and out beyond them.
"Wendy." There was that voice again, calling her back.
She only realized she had closed her eyes when she opened them to find Peter's face inches from hers. "Wendy," he repeated, and her body began to materialize around her, and she realized Pan's hands were on her shoulders, firm.
Her breath hitched in her throat, chest so tight she was sure she was going to burst. Her heart still slammed in her chest, threatening to break it open. And even though he had just terrified her, his face still made her heart slow and let her take a full breath.
She grabbed onto the collar of his shirt, bringing him even closer. "You are not going to do that."
"Think about how scared you are right now," he told her, voice self-assured. "Because that's exactly how I feel about you suggesting the same thing."
"Did you do that to get back at me?"
He shook his head. "No. I'm just as serious about it as you are."
"You're not doing it."
"And you're not listening."
She let out a ragged sob, shaking her hands fisted in his shirt. "How am I supposed to listen when you suggest something like that?"
He brushed away her tears, gently. "I'm trying to say that if this is how both of us feel, we should both agree not to do it."
She hiccuped. "But Baelfire," was all she could say, helpless, too far gone to be able to string a sentence together, but she trusted Pan enough that he would understand.
"We will look for a back-up plan as well," he promised.
She closed her eyes, tears leaking down her cheeks.
"Does that work for you, bird?" he asked, voice as gentle as he could make it, a little rough around the edges. He was still learning how to comfort.
She nodded.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He gave her a long, cautious look before pulling back, her hands slipping from his collar.
"Come on," he said, after a long beat. "Let's get you to bed."
"I don't want to be away from you right now," she said, eyes still watery, voice thin.
He gave her a wary look, seeming to consider what she was asking, but then nodded and helped her out of her chair. He turned and led her away from the exit and beyond that, her room. Instead, he turned and weaved through the stacks, moving quickly through dusty shelves until they came to the farthest wall of the library that opened up into a small seating area with a fireplace that burned softly with a set of chairs and a sofa, books scattered around it with a pot and the mug Wendy had given him for Christmas.
He walked around the couch and sat down, slowly, carefully, a deer who stumbled upon another soul in the forest. She worried he might bolt at any moment, flinch away from her as was the norm these days. He glanced quickly over his shoulder at her before turning back to face the fire.
She came and and stood at the couch, looking down at him, bathed in the dim light of the fire. He stared back at her, solemn and unreadable.
She and Pan had touched before. Fingers brushing quickly when passing books back and forth, hair tucked behind ears, hands ghosting over each other. Mundane, commonplace. Less intimate than others; desperate hands over each other's skin, kisses that left her breathless, arms and legs intertwined, bodies melting into the other. Rare, and blissful.
But all of that was reactionary, without intention or thought. It was simply instinct.
This was purposeful, done with enough sense to know what it meant when Pan lay back on the sofa and allowed Wendy to lay her head on his chest and twine her legs with his, hands slipping up around him while his arms fell along her back as he pulled a blanket over the two of them.
She took a long deep breath, her heart slowed and exhaustion began to weigh heavily on her, now calm. She was at rest now; she hadn't realized how much she had been craving feeling Peter's body against hers. How much she had wanted to feel his chest under her, his legs twining with hers, to feel his muscles under her hands, the warmth of him, the smell of him, piney and fresh.
"John kept it together fairly well after you imprisoned me," she said after a long moment, not mincing her words to shield either of them from the truth of the past. "He worked obsessively, but he wasn't nearly as self-destructive as Michael or my father."
Pan ran his fingers idly up and down her back.
"But he said that once the television was invented, that became a crutch for him," she continued, recounting a dinner conversation from what felt like ages ago, but really was more like eighteen months. "He said he watched to forget and feel comforted. He called his favourites his 'comfort shows'. And so ever since the fifties he had a comfort show of the decade."
Pan's fingers wound gently into her curls, his other hand resting on her back.
"He said his favourite was a very long-running one. Doctor Why."
Pan choked on a laugh. "Doctor Who," he corrected.
"Cut me some slack," she said, lips turning up into a grin.
"He said he also liked one about a pair who solved mysteries. The X-Files."
Pan hummed. "This tracks for John."
"Anyway, my point is that I wish I could watch a comfort show now," she said. "And that I miss my brothers."
"I know," he sighed. "I'm sorry you don't have either."
"Mhm." She didn't trust her voice.
"Would you like me to tell you about a few shows I think would be your comfort shows?" he asked.
"Please."
"Well, there's Grey's Anatomy. It's a medical show that follows the lives of medical interns."
And Pan explained Grey's Anatomy to her. And Friends. And Downton Abbey. He spoke steadily, calmly, his voice soothing something fluttery and scared inside of her. She listened with her eyes closed, luxuriating in the rumble of his chest against her, how it reverberated through her body. She melted into him, finding grooves and curves in each of their bodies that seemed to meant for the other.
She fell into a soft sleep, his voice still tethering her loosely to consciousness. The fire dimmed even more, falling into embers, its crackling a distant background noise to Peter's voice that held her in a dreamy state, as she had been when her parents had put her to bed during their parties. Half-awake, hearing everything, comforted not to be alone.
She only half-noticed when Peter began speaking less and less frequently. She didn't mind, barely was even aware that the only sound was the crackling of the embers.
"You're supposed to hate me," Peter whispered into the dimness.
"I know."
XXX
Wendy scared the crap out of Peter.
She had never done that before.
Annoyed the crap out of him; of course. That was just a fact of life.
He slept shallowly that night, despite the warm comfort of Wendy on top of him. Heart hammering and breath shallow, he had laid awake the rest of the night wondering how the hell he had gotten to the point where Wendy terrified him.
He disentangled himself from her just as the sky outside faded from deep, dark blue into a promising purple. He charmed himself a pot of coffee and fully intended on dutifully ignoring every thought in his head, but he had gotten caught on her. Or rather, how his heart stuttered and his stomach dropped when he looked at her.
If he was being honest, being scared of her had crept up on him. He supposed he had been too preoccupied with what he'd done and what he was going to face that he hadn't noticed how terrifying it was that she nagged him about how much he ate at dinner or how many hours he slept, how horrifying it was that she always found a way to touch him, squeeze his hand or brush his hair from his forehead.
Last night, when she held his gaze as she settled on top of him, each groove of her body fitting perfectly into his, it dawned on him, each clue from the past falling into place. A petrifying realization that made him want to pull back immediately, flinch away from what he saw in her gaze.
Falling asleep, he finally understood what she had said to him all those months ago on the island.
I'm supposed to hate you, she had said. And he had thought it was patently obvious. Yes, of course. That is what you are meant to do and are currently doing, he had wanted to say to her.
But that was not what she meant.
And that was fucking scary.
XXX
Peter spent a lot of time in the next week contemplating the back of Wendy's head, wondering just how he had gotten to this point.
He wasn't sure what cruel joke the universe was meant to be making, because he had done nothing to deserve to be… well, there wasn't really any other word for it, was there? He didn't deserve to be loved the way she loved him. With all the belief that she had in him, with all of her passion and compassion. With all of her heart.
It was terrifying to be given something so precious so freely.
It was a million dollar cheque that had accidentally been mailed to him, a diamond that someone had confused for a lump of coal. It was not something he was meant to have and his knee-jerk reaction was to rip up that cheque, to toss that diamond in the fire.
He had to get rid of it somehow, had to convince her out of it.
Of course, he couldn't come right out and say it, could he?
Did she even know she loved him? What would she even say if he told her to stop? I'll worry about I like, she might say and then turn around and continue on with her day.
And then there was the issue that despite the fact that the million dollar cheque was not meant to be his, the fact that he did not deserve that diamond, he still wanted it. Of course, he did. He would be stupid not to. Of course, he wanted to remain the way they were; where she laugh with him over dinner, poking fun back and forth at the other, where they would lounge in front of a fire with novels held lazily as they debated back and forth passionately about a theme or motif, where Wendy would lean her head on his shoulder, or brush her hands against his, or even fall asleep with him.
But he had nothing to give in return that would even things out. Nothing to earn the precious gift she had given him. It wasn't the existence he deserved. The life they were living right now, that blip across the centuries, was some mistake by the universe. His file must have gotten lost in the cosmic shuffle and someone lost track of what was actually coming to him.
And if he even wanted to do right by Wendy, give her a tiny bit back of what she deserved and send her on her way, he would fix the universe's mistake by himself.
XXX
Today's the day, Peter thought to himself as he watched Wendy unload the horses at their inn.
The blip across the universe was coming to an end and even though it crushed him, made him want to lie down on the floor, roll up into a ball and cry, he was going to do it.
"Are you going to help or just stand there?" she asked, turning and giving him an unimpressed look.
He finally was able to make his legs move and began to help her unload the horses. Once they were done, they made their way into the inn and booked a room. Wendy stood next to him, their arms barely brushing past each other as they waited while the attendant fussed behind the counter.
As he slid their key across to them, "I've also got a message for you, sir. Your friend, Jonah, will be around to see you later this evening."
Peter shook his head. "I think you've got the wrong person. I don't know any Jonah." He glanced down at Wendy who gave him an equally confused look.
The clerk shrugged. "Sorry, must have gotten the description wrong."
Before turning to head up the stairs to their room, he glanced back at Wendy, trying to communicate how weird that just was. She glanced over her shoulder and asked quietly, "Doesn't that name sound familiar to you?"
He shook his head. "Not at all."
While they set their bags in their rooms and had a quick dinner, Peter was on pins and needles. He had been mulling over his words for days now and was finally at the point where he was sure that he was going to be as effective as possible.
But he was not going to tell her until the morning. They were barely an hour's ride from Pixie Hollow and before they went down for breakfast in the morning, he would tell her what he had originally intended. That Tinkerbell was not the first person to know that he was alive.
But in the mean time, he sat on the edge of his bed, mute and terrified, as Wendy took out their set of maps and laid them out over her bed and stood with one hand on her hip and the other worrying her chin. The scene was so familiar to him; the plainness of the room with its white, unassuming bed linens, dark wood on the walls, Wendy with her hair in a braid wearing a plain grey dress, and a window letting in watery light from the moon outside. But he was in another universe; on the other side of the mirror, looking in. Perhaps, looking up from hell waiting for a horror story to play out.
And then suddenly, her voice broke through his thoughts.
"Something is bothering you more than normal," she said in her haughty way, a know-it-all who had never been wrong before.
He shook his head. "Just the usual," he lied.
She gave him an unimpressed look. "You used to be a lot better at lying." God, this was fucking awful. "Come on, out with it," she said, impatient, stubborn.
He glanced out the window. Perhaps, he could move up the schedule. But his heart thrummed in his chest and something sick and heavy grew in the pit of his stomach.
"I'm waiting," she said, hands on her hips.
He shook his head. "Sit down," he instructed, waving her to sit on her bed across from him. She gave him a suspicious look, but complied.
He took a deep breath that did not calm his heart or soothe his stomach. "When you sent that letter to Tinkerbell, you said that she'd be the second person to know I'm alive. You remember?"
He paused and Wendy nodded.
"Well, that's not true," he continued and he knew that there was a tremor in his voice, that his hands were probably going to leave sweat marks on the sheets, but he had already started talking and he couldn't stop. "I—When I came back, I sought out the Lost Boys first. And we planned, really, I planned to get the star from you and then also your heart. The Heart of the Truest Believer. So, I could get Neverland back."
Wendy's brows furrowed and her mouth pulled into a frown. And he sat there, waiting on a knife's edge, for her to explode, to yell and scream and curse him and, hopefully, leave.
Instead, she tilted her head and her eyes found his, gold and almost unbearable to look at. "Do you still want that?" she asked, voice low.
He scoffed. "No, of course not."
"And where are the Lost Boys?"
"I told them to get lost nearly six months ago."
"This isn't a very good apology," she told him, setting her shoulders straight and he saw a queen before him, regal and righteous.
"I—what?" he stammered.
"You haven't even said you were sorry."
"No, Wendy—"
"Are you not sorry for it?"
"Of course I am! I feel awful about it," he said, quickly, sharply.
"Then why don't you say sorry?" she demanded.
"Because—oh my God, you are impossible," he exclaimed, finally standing up from the bed, so annoyed he had completely forgotten that moments ago he had been ready to vomit from the terror.
"I'm not sure what you want of me in this situation," she said, her hawk-like gaze on him as he shook his hands, agitated. "Is this not an apology to get rid of some of your guilt before we see Tinkerbell?"
"No, it's not," he said and as he said it he knew his voice was too cutting.
"What is it then?" she asked, crossing her arms, voice growing harder.
"It's—why are you reacting this way? Why aren't you yelling?"
She shook her head. "I'm not happy, but I'm honestly not surprised. You told me you wanted Neverland and at that point I knew you had some ulterior motive. In hindsight, it makes sense."
"So, what? You're fine with it?" he demanded, palms open, completely bewildered and frustrated in a way that only Wendy could make him.
She rolled her eyes. "I just told you I'm not. I'm just accepting it."
"But you—when I did shit like this before, you would yell. And monologue and sermonize at me," he explained.
She let out a sigh, exasperated. "Yes, but you had no remorse then. You acted as if nothing was wrong. But now—" she waved at all of him "—you obviously know there is."
"Then what? You're okay with this?" he asked, words too jagged, too full of frustration.
Wendy shook her head. "Of course I'm not okay with it, but I'm accepting it."
"Really?" he said, incredulous. "You're just going to accept it?"
She threw up her hands in defeat. "What else do you want me to do?" And then it seemed to dawn on her. Her eyes widened for a moment and then suddenly the full weight of her golden gaze was on him, searing through him like the sun cutting through ice. She was looking right through him, seeing into his mind, he was sure of it. "What do you want me to do?"
He froze under the weight of her stare and her words.
"What was your intention with this?" she asked, demandingly, righteous fury beginning to burn in her eyes.
How was he supposed to articulate what he intended? How was he supposed to string the words together to utter the horrifying truth that tethered them together?
And because Wendy was stubborn, she simply just waited. Waiting for the once great Peter Pan, King of Neverland, who had an unearthly gift of the gab, who never seemed to stop talking about himself, start talking.
And because he was stubborn too. And because he knew that he was right, he met her gaze and finally said, "I thought you would leave."
"Why?" she asked tightly.
He shook his head, unable to understand why she couldn't get it through that thick head of hers. "Because what I did was heinous," he explained, voice rising in pitch, "I intended to kill you to get Neverland back."
She narrowed her eyes. "You already did that to me. Over a hundred years ago."
"And for some fucking reason, you seem to be fine with it," he snapped back.
Her jaw clenched and her back straightened, her chin tilting up; a ruler about to wage war. "I never said I was fine with it. I said I accepted it."
"You're splitting hairs, Wendy," he warned.
"No, thinking it is fine would mean I find no issue with it and think it is a totally permissible thing to have done. Accepting it means I accept that it happened, accept how I feel about it, and try to continue to make the best of what I have," she explained, her voice measured and her words clipped. Her eyes burned and it wouldn't take a genius to know that she was incredibly angry with him.
But he couldn't let her speak like that.
"How is that something you deserve? How is that fair?"
She let out a breath through her nose. "Deserve and fair aren't a part of this conversation. It's about what I have and what I want," she said. There were years and years in her eyes when she looked at him.
He scoffed. "And this is what you want?" he asked, gesturing between the two of them. Neither of them seemed to be prepared to say exactly what it was Wendy wanted, exactly what was between them.
"I'm not too scared to admit it," she told him, bold and stubborn as the day he had met her.
He let out a sharp laugh, teeth bared. "You sound like you have Stockholm Syndrome."
Wendy flinched as if she had been hit. "You don't get to say that to me," she said, her voice full of fire, righteous indignation burning through her. "I know how I feel. You don't get to say that to me because you hate yourself and you can't understand why I don't hate you.
"You're supposed to hate me," he repeated. "You should hate me. Any sane person would."
"You think I'm delusional? Why? Because I don't hate you anymore? Because I haven't left?" She shook her head in disgust. "It would be easier to be like you and wallow in the pain and push me away. I've done the hard work of finding the good in life and you act like I'm crazy. Because I have hope. Because I still believe in the goodness of life."
"You are crazy to believe there's anything good in me." He said it without a thought; it was a knee-jerk reaction, an instinct.
Wendy's face softened immediately. She finally stood and walked closer to him. "I can tell you what I see in you, why I believe in you, but I can't make you see or believe yourself." He couldn't bear to be looked at like that; with so much compassion and honesty. It seared through him, burning him up with shame and fear. His eyes fell to the floor. "You're going to have to do that on your own." Her hand reached out and he knew she did it without a thought; it was a knee-jerk reaction, an instinct.
He flinched back and she brought her hands up to her chest.
"Life is not a zero sum game, Peter. Punishing yourself won't earn you absolution," she said, quietly, her voice still full of her righteous fury, and even though she hadn't want to or intended to, she still was sermonizing at him because she was still Wendy. "Making me leave won't even things out."
He still continued to look at the floor, unable to meet her gaze.
"It will just hurt both of us," she said, finally.
His gaze flicked up to hers. "But it's the right thing to do."
Her eyebrows furrowed as her eyes grew darker. There was gravity in her eyes, pulling him in. "You promised you wouldn't leave," she said, voice softer, melancholic, a slight tremor no one else would have heard running through it.
He scoffed, pulling back from her. "You wanted me to leave," he accused.
She shook her head. "I never wanted you to leave." She inhaled quickly through her nose and pressed her lips together before saying, "Do you want me to leave you? Do you want to leave me?"
"Absolutely not," he said vehemently. He stepped back towards her, unable to help himself, unable to stay away from her when she was looking at him with those big, sad, brown eyes, her lips quivering. "Never," he promised her.
She let out a sob. "Then why bring this up? Why suggest it? Why suggest sacrificing yourself for Baelfire?" She brushed quickly away at her eyes and his hands ached to brush away the tears for her, to hold her.
"I don't deserve this," he said, trying to sound firm, to sound sure of himself. "You don't deserve this."
Her voice pierced through his head. "I already—"
"I know," he said, holding up his hand. "I know." He took a deep breath. This was absolutely not how he had planned this. But with Wendy, that was almost to be expected. "We're going to start talking in circles. We need to take a break."
She frowned, clearly not satisfied with where the conversation was going, but nodded nonetheless.
"Maybe we should—"
"Absolutely not," she told him, her teeth bared and her voice shrill and sharp. "If you think either of us are leaving this room right now, you have lost your mind."
And he hadn't lost his mind. And he didn't think either of should leave the room. Existence just felt prickly right then.
"Let's go to bed," Wendy said finally and then turned to find her bag, beginning to rummage through it to find her pyjamas.
And that was how he found himself, for the second time in the last two weeks, watching, half-petrified, half-awed, as Wendy very intentional came to stand at his bedside, putting out the candle next to his bed without a glance, and he looked up at her. Behind her, her bed was still full of maps and spells and all the other things she hadn't bothered moving.
This time, he was less cautious. He threw back the covers and motioned for her to lay down with his hand. She clambered onto the bed, draping an arm over his chest and a leg over his, as they lay together on the cramped, comfortable bed.
Wendy let out a long sigh and he knew he felt as she did; the world was less jagged than it was before. Everything was softer, warmer; existence was warm and safe.
He didn't chatter idly now, too drained to say anything. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes, determined to at least try and sleep if he was going to feel this comfortable.
"Do you want to know why Matthew really left?" Wendy asked into the dimness.
His eyes remained closed. "Why?"
"It wasn't because he thought I hated you," she said. She paused and he could almost see her face, eyebrows furrowed, carefully considering her words. "He said… he said he saw how I looked at you when I was on stage. He said that we both yearned, longed for one another. Cared for each other. And he didn't want to get in the middle of it."
He hated that it had been clear enough for someone to see. But each word, each admission soothed something in him, made the broken, splintered pieces inside of him begin to weave back together. Gave his life meaning.
He sighed, opening his eyes. "God, you scare the crap out of me."
Wendy turned to face him, propping herself up on his chest. In the dimness, he could just barely make out her features, but he knew her eyes were on him, serious and warm and earnest. With full knowledge and intent, on purpose, he tucked a stray curl behind her ear before cupping her cheek and pulling her towards him, kissing her deep and slow.
She melted into him, her hands fisting into the fabric of his pyjamas, trying to somehow pull him closer as his lips moved against hers, as his tongue met hers, tasting her, sweet and salty. His other hand settled on the small of her back, pressing her against him.
The kiss was long, unhurried. Neither of them were going anywhere. He luxuriated in the feel of her, his hands roaming over her body at a slow pacing, drinking her all in as her hands roved up and down his chest, one finally slipping underneath his sleep shirt and exploring his bare chest.
It did not become desperate and it did not go any further. There was no need. This was purposeful; done knowing full well they could do this again, endlessly.
As the kiss ended, she pressed a quick chaste kiss against his mouth and then along his jaw and his throat before finally settling back in his arms, where she was meant to be.
And that night Peter Pan slept well.
XXX
Wendy woke up with a crick in her neck and a wicked headache. Her limbs were heavy and nearly immovable as she reached a hand up and gingerly touched her head. She felt something slick and sticky smeared across her face and in her hair. She shifted and opened her eyes just a crack. She lifted her hand up close and in the dimness of the room, there was something dark and wet on her fingers.
Her heart beat once, twice, before she realized what it was.
Blood.
She sat up abruptly in bed, her body snapping into attention as her other hand reached out in the tiny bed for Peter. The space next to her was cold and empty and her heart stuttered in chest. She looked around wild and her blood turned to ice when she looked across the room.
It was empty.
Jumping out of bed, she flew to the washroom, only to find it in the same state: empty.
She put her hands against her chest and tried to take a deep breath, tried to think of what to do next.
Light. Light. She needed to be able to see.
Stumbling around the unfamiliar room, she was finally about to find a candle and a match. Gold light burst into the room and she looked around. The candle cast long shadows but she could now see more clearly.
Her pillow was smeared with blood as was Peter's but there was not a significant amount of blood. Not enough for him to— she didn't need to finish that thought.
She paced around the room, searching for something, anything. All his clothes were still there as were hers. Desperately, she clawed at her neck and found her locket still there. She opened it quickly and found the star was still there.
She came back to stand at the foot of her bed, hands shaking so badly she was afraid she would drop the candle.
He hadn't left of his own accord. What could it have—
Her eye caught on one of the many papers she had left strew on her bed. A small piece of lined paper in a handwriting she did not recognize.
She grabbed at it desperately and held the candle over it.
Come find what you lost.
—J
She cursed under her breath.
The horse she had recognized. The strange message for Peter from Jonah. She knew that name had sounded familiar.
He was one of the Lost Boys that had made it off Neverland.
The Lost Boys had come for their King.
Hello! I have not been consistent about updating this! I'm kind of bored with FF so if you'd like a more consistent posting check out my posting on AO3 where I'm much more consistent /works/4780286/chapters/67665100