26. Minutes

Cecil, a glint of gold. Beverly, a glint of green.

She'd worn green earrings during their final dance. She'd taken them off when they'd gone to bed.

And at the deathbed of a year, the day his life had once been celebrated, Beverly Penn had become miraculous. Before Gabriel's poison could take root and sink her down, she'd flown, and taken him along.

What makes stars shine?

Had it been at the dance floor, amid all those arrows of light? Had his truth been her miracle? That she'd made a thief a giver? That she'd made a magpie a man? That she'd given herself wings?

Laughter? Happiness?

Had it been when she'd touched his face, her body cuddled cozily under his, and smiled as if he were the most wonderful thing that existed?

How did she shine so bright that her own star now refused to lighten up?

Are you happy, Beverly?

"Take one. You shouldn't leave without a harness."

"Beverly, no."

"There are two earrings for a reason, one for you, one for me."

"They're yours. You earned them. You told me once I was not a thief, I won't steal from you."

"Don't be like that… This isn't a theft, there are two earrings, and I'm giving you one. I'll be fine with just one. If you go back to New York empty-handed, you may never be able to return here."

"Is there nothing else we can use?"

"Look in the chest. Maybe there's something new there. Last I checked, these earrings were all I found."

"If I find nothing else…"

"You'll take one earring. I won't argue with you."

She didn't understand. These weren't just earrings.

These earrings were to her what Athansor had been to him.

Her own mother had given up her harness to warm her husband up. To allow herself to feel him and let herself be felt. Beverly's eyes darkened in a silent plea.

Petes, Pete…

He understood. Nodded.

"Alright. I will. Your word is gospel, Beverly."

At last she smiled. "Always."

Athansor…

What had become of that stubborn white horse? Was he planning to fulfill his dying wish?

Peter.

What had Pearly's heaven looked like? What visions had he gotten from that tray of gems?

Do it slowly… Use the knives…

Why had he preferred, once, to kill him with those knives? Did he so long for that flash of light? A white blindness to claim his vision. So that he believed he had reached some sort of ethereal space, for just a second…

Death was not a glint of white, Peter Lake now knew, but a veil of darkness. Black nothingness. A dream, faceless, devoid of thought.

He could have slept for all eternity and still woken up believing he had merely spent a day in death.

The sky, this place. Not even this was blinding white. Neither was it fulfilling enough to be the end.

Beverly had been right about the afterlife being an ocean, about stars being the dead, but she hadn't taken into account that stars fade, too. This was no end…

Yet again, Peter Lake thought of the imposter in his dreams. The turned little head. The hand to the moon.

Questions to questions.

I'm alright, Peter Lake.

Beverly was no question.

He wished she had more people to talk to. She couldn't remain lonely in the afterlife.

Thank you for coming for me.

She'd been compelled to steal… He was her theft. She'd saved him.

This woman. The pianist, with her gentle eyes. Her conversation. The laugh he once had, resurfaced in her presence. Her thoughts, her arms, looped around him. Her pale shoulders, sprinkled with water drops of pink and red, rising, dropping.

The belief that perhaps he was worth more than Pearly's stolen jewels. Because he mattered to someone good, and that was worth the world. That meant everything.

You're worthy of love. Remember that.

Peter Lake now sank his hands into the chest, diving into all that colorful fabric. Beverly stood, clad back in her green gown, one earring unclasped, fingers waving in anticipation as they wrapped around it.

"I don't like this dress," she murmured. "It's too flamboyant. And these sleeves are wildly impractical."

"I admit that it doesn't quite fit the occassion."

She chuckled a bit, without much mirth. "No, not in the slightest..."

"Why do you wear it, then?"

"It was given to me, when I sank. Like these earrings and this tent. And most things matter… I must believe this matters."

He loved the way she thought. What conclusions she reached.

"Do you like the way I look?" she asked, suddenly.

"I do."

"You don't prefer me any other way?"

He could imagine. He looked at her.

I love you.

Three days, invisible, touching a shapeless face. Screaming into ears that never listened. She'd been alone her entire life, but in death she had found an even graver and scarier solitude.

So Peter Lake stared at the pianist, in this gown she disliked, one earring unhooked from her ear, dark red hair bundled at her back. Her features were relaxed, but her brow had shadowed with a subtle self-consciousness.

Did she mean to ask if she looked dead? If, in life, she had been more alluring than she was in this instant?

I'm what you get, of all people in the world.

"I'm lucky to have you here now… To see you to begin with. You're the same you, in every color. Red, and blue, and purple, and green."

"The same me…"

"Yes."

My miracle.

Beverly looked down at the green lace wrapped around her wrists.

Peter Lake waited for her. But when the time came, all she said was:

"I love you."

Blue eyes latching back to his. Like the hands of a clock, setting sharply into place, crossing out a spent minute and pointing towards the new ones ahead. She said this so quietly and so unexpectedly that he shivered.

We have nothing but time.

"I love you too," he replied.

He was moving, somewhere. His chest. A numbing rumble of thunder…

Very good…

Peter Lake accepted her earring and ensconced it within one of the slim-walled pockets of his vest.

They returned to the world, arm in arm.

Fly on down, Peter Pan…

He trembled when she beckoned him into the waves. When he joined her under the surface and felt the glittering starlight nibbling at his face.

Her hand. He clung to her madly. He was terrified.

Fly on down.

But what more could they live through? They were stones dropping into the sea. No one could ever find them.

Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading.

Hello! So, I had a crazy week, with lots of things to turn in, and it was my best friend's birthday last Saturday, and I also had the chance to go out more with friends despite all the things I had to do, sooooo yeah. I return to you now, with another chapter. A little bridge to segway, again, at long last, into the search for Cecil.

I take my sweet time getting to plotpoints, just because I like to linger, even moreso now that I'm back in Peter's little head, and I love to make him question everything (questions to questions, all that - also, I noticed while I wrote this that I make his interpretation of this death shift from positive to negative a lot, and I feared that this would be a continuity error, but then again, I do believe, given how Peter's character is like in the movie, and also given how I have made Peter out to be in my re-interpretation, that he tends to go back and forth, to doubt and re-doubt, because his life is insane from the very beginning, so I think it does make sense, for his perspective on this afterlife to change continuously, so yeah, I hope I'm not mistaken or overlooking a massive error, I just want to keep going and return to Cecil, cause I lowkey miss him and I admit I have kept myself away from him for a long time and I'm the only one to blame for this, for lingering this much on Beverly's ghostly journey and Peter's reunion with her, so... sorry XD). But yeah, at this point in time, I want to move forward and get these two lost souls back to the city.

The main thing I wanted to do with this chapter was explain that Peter will have to share the harness with Beverly and take one of her earrings, which will definitely not result in any problems XD Like, at all.

Also, Peter will get his own harness eventually, I promise, cause if you've seen the movie, you know there is a particular object that dates back to the very start of his life, that he uses as weapon against Pearly at the end, and that shines. Yup. If you know you know.

(Also, again, when I think about the way I have interpreted the light motif in the film, I sometimes think I made things even weirder than they already were, but I hope I can make my "harness" theory work - that light connects all things and the way souls travel is by glinting shiny objects and moving from place to place, and from realm to realm).

Also, I hope the end of this chapter wasn't cheesy or redundant or anything. I just thought of adding a cute little hesitation in Beverly, now. Because she hasn't seen herself in days, and she just had two moments of intimacy with Peter where she was not really bothered about her physical appearance or anything. I think that her self-consciousness makes sense now, as she puts on the green gown (I have made art of Beverly in green, by the way, in case you wanna know how I envision her dress out to be, the drawings are on my Instagram, _elevenofspades :3 ), and remembers, once again, now that she's not embraced to Peter, that she is in fact, a spirit now. That she's dead.

So at first I thought "why am I making her suddenly shy, given what she and Peter just did?", but looking back on it, I do think it makes sense. I hope, at least. As you know, I put a lot of care into this story. I care about these characters, and the film they're from, and I wish to give them a proper re-interpretation, and good dialogue, cause, yeah. I care about them, and about what I write.

Thank you, as always, for reading. See you again soon. Here's your hug. *hug*