When I Needed to Believe in You
A Peter Pan Fanfiction
"I'm old, Peter," confessed Wendy, wringing her poor hands with their long, grown-up fingers helplessly. "Ever so much more than twenty."
There was naught but bewilderment in his eyes, unblinking.
"I grew up a long time ago."
"You promised not to!" cried he.
"I couldn't help it." For once, she could not be proud she'd done it a day quicker than strictly she needed to. It felt so untrue to him now, even if she was too old to be properly heartbroken over him. "I am a married woman, Peter."
Oh, if Peter had only looked sullen or jealous, she might have consoled herself he was not so remarkable as her childish memories made him out to be, only an ordinary boy after all! She could, too, have thought – perhaps rightly enough – it was all only his own fault for not alighting on the church and forbidding the banns if she mattered so much to him. But there was none of that. His features, beautiful and guileless features so suited to his little frame and enteral baby's teeth, were tragically stoic.
And all he had to say was, "No, you are not."
"Yes," breathed she, her voice a little raspy. "Yes, I was married in white with a pink sash. Oh, and Slightly and his Lady-wife were there. Did you know he is a Lord now, that he has got himself a title?"
His shining eyes said what his mouth had no interest in saying, Who is Slightly?
Wendy shut her own eyes to block out the gleam of his and breathed in. It was just as well he did not recollect him. To be sure, Slightly did not remember Peter, either, so far as Wendy was able to discern, and fair was fair.
Opening her eyes again, she whispered, "The little girl in the bed" – who he had taken up for Michael – "is my baby."
"No, she is not." But Peter's face betrayed him here, and it was clear he believed – if he did not understand – she was Wendy's baby.
And so arrived the most wretched moment of Wendy's life. Peter – dear yet, even if not quite what he once was to her – was drawing his dagger and walking towards the bed with it upraised!
Poor Wendy went white and swallowed hard. She had to believe Peter Pan would not harm Jane; this was so much more difficult than believing he would rescue them from the pirates. There was that look in his dripping eyes.
Did he even see Jane – what was visible of her – as a part of Wendy, or only as the byproduct of someone who had taken Wendy away forever in his absence?
She wanted to believe the dagger would not be plunged. Still, she had seen him whip Slightly and had held his hand back when he would have stabbed poor Tootles with an arrow. He was wild and heartless. How could she think of trusting him with a little girl's life? Her little girl's life! But Jane could crow, better than her mother's grown-up throat could manage – and any child who could crow as Peter himself did must have met him in their dreams, if not yet in person, and some part of him must know it.
She thought of his faithlessness to poor Tinker Bell, so long forgotten. During the last spring cleaning, he had not mentioned Tiger Lily, and Wendy suspected he did not remember her any more than he did Hook.
Anyone who could forget someone who loved them so well...
Wendy would have lunged forward then and torn the dagger from Peter's hand, no doubt frightening him and making the whole situation so much worse, when a memory stirred and stayed her feet upon the carpet.
Whenever he had forgotten her, all he needed was to be reminded again.
He'd said as much himself.
If you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying, "I'm Wendy."
She had, and in his way he did always remember again.
She was grown up, but she was still his Wendy. This was how she knew. Knew she did not need to take the dagger. Knew he loved her well enough, despite boyish selfishness, never to harm what was precious to her.
She believed in him.
He put the dagger away again. The enemy in the bed remained unstruck for no better reason than she was Wendy's, and it was hopeless anyway. And he sat down on the floor and sobbed.
Wendy put her hands to her mouth and fled the room.
But there was joy as well as bitterness in her tears. As miserable as she was she could not comfort him, the way the girl version her so easily would have done, she was relieved beyond expression she still knew him, that he was still the same boy she had always believed in and always would.
It was the ultimate test of belief, and she knew in her heart she had passed and would never be so tested again.