Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"What did you want to show me, Henry?" Wendy asks, as she slides into the booth across from Henry, the familiar bustling of Granny’s diner and the clacking of Ruby’s heels filling her ears, as the wind continues to howl fiercely outside, and the rain comes down in unrelenting, hellishly icy sheets.

Henry grins at her, and slid his big book, the one she’d seen him toting around town for the past several weeks. She hasn’t asked to take a look at it yet, but she’s been meaning to; Wendy’s always loved a good story. Always.

Earlier that day — in the morning, to be precise, on the way to school, with Ruby walking with her — he’d ran up to her, looking excited, and had told her to meet him at the diner after she got out of the school. He hadn’t even given her time to protest; he’d been running back to his school before Ruby could comment on the strange happening.

"You can’t tell anyone," Peter tells her, laying a hand on the book before she can open it and take a look at what he’s been so engrossed in for the past weeks, splays his fingers before she can even touch the old-looking thing she’s just itching to get her hands on.

"I won’t."

(a truth.)

"You have to promise not to call me crazy," he says.

"I won’t, Henry."

(again, a truth.)

"Don’t tell my mom I told you any of this, okay?"

Regina always finds about Henry’s adventurous escpades, no matter what precautions he takes, no matter what measure he goes to, to make sure his musings — whatever they may be; she hasn’t spoken to him, really had a conversation with him, in some time — go unnoticed by his vicious mother.

“Wendy,” he says, his eyebrows rising upwards, and she raises her hands in defense.

"Okay, okay, I promise."

(a half-truth, because she knows that she might not be able to really keep this secret.)

Henry slowly removes his hand, and tells her to go to back forty-seven. Wendy looks up at him, eyebrows raised, but he only urges her on with an impatient look and a wave of his hands, so she does what he wants her to, wishing she could examine the pictures on the pages she flips past quickly to find the ever-so-important-page forty-seven.

Henry’s an odd boy, but he’s kind. Has a good heart, and Wendy’s known him since he was a baby — even babysat the kid before, several times, actually.

(it’s the only reason Regina’s never really said anything nasty to her.)

Wendy finds page forty-seven, and stops. A picture of a girl with blonde, curling hair in a white dress, with pale skin, and bare feet is on the page. The girl across from Henry, who has now escaped the booth, probably in favor of asking Granny for some cocoa. Alone, she begins to read.

It’s about a girl, she learns. About a girl from London, the London she’s never seen, never known, who went to a place no girl had ever gone before, according to the story book. It was a place called Neverland. It was where boys were taken — Lost Boys, she learned as she read on, losing herself in the story, despite the ebbing feeling at the back of skull, despite the ominous feeling weaving its way around and down her spine, slowly, towards her tail-bone.

Her curtain of dark hair hides her intensely focused eyes as she takes in every word, every bit of the illustration as her eyes and mind move to their own accord, ignoring her bodies silent (sudden, unexpected, unwanted, seemingly unfamiliar) pleas for her to get out and begin to run through the storm raging ferociously outside, to her home.

The boy in charge of the island, she reads, is an immortal boy. Goes by Peter Pan. He is drenched in the same green that stains the jungle, she notes. He is an evil thing, a demon — apparently. The boy was King of Neverland, and had cast the girl out soon after her arrival.

But the story tells her, as she flips a page, that she came back to Neverland. Or he brought her back — it wasn’t determined, sadly — for someone she’d tried to save. It didn’t matter; the book continued on, telling her that the girl had been dropped rather unceremoniously out of the sky, and into the ocean, and had washed up on shore, right at Pan’s feet in a heap of white, sopping night gown, tangled curls, and wide eyes.

She reads on, despite the ominous feeling slowly coiling itself around the bones of her arms and legs. Finds out that the girl spent most of her time running, running from the boyish cruelty of the Lost Boys, spent her time lashing back at them. Spent her time running from him, the Pan, Peter Pan. She read of the girl’s defiance, of her courage, of the nights she spent all alone, save for a fairy, named Tinker Bell (who looks familiar to her, in the illustrations, but she can’t place the face — they all look vaguely familiar, like they were from a dream she once had, but she doesn’t think about this, because she’s too busy reading), who arrived in the girl’s early years trapped in Neverland.

The book says that, over time, the monster with a boy’s head on its shoulders — a devil, with a soul blacker than soul, and a heart twisted beyond recognition, who wears the mask of a daring (smirking, arrogant, she thinks, idly, mildly surprising herself) boy — begins to feel, feel with his mutated, cruel heart. Begins to feel for the girl.

Wendy can’t stop reading about the nameless girl, about how, over time, the girl began to care for him, too. It’s an intriguing tale, she thinks, not even noticing when Henry slips back into the booth across from her. She misses the way his eyes light up as she pours over the story —

— till blank pages meet her eyes.

(she hadn’t been aware of how her heart has been slowly slowly slowlycracking down the middle, won’t know it for a while longer, till her heart breaks in half, but for now, she feels nearly numb.)

Wendy looks up, frowns at the look on Henry’s face as she closes the book, slowly (not sadly no no it’s just a story isn’t it?), and slides it back over to him. His upper lip is stained with whipped cream, and she fights the urge to throw a napkin at him.

"Did you like it?" he sounds smug.

huh.

"Where’s the rest of it? she asks, her brows furrowed, her eyes falling onto the closed book.

(she really really wants to know how that story ended.)

"Remember what I made you promise?" he asks, leaning towards her, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper as she nods. "They kick in right about now. Okay, so here’s what I think."

"Go on."

"I think that this town is made up of fairy-tale characters. From this book."

Wendy feels her face scrunch up before she asks a quiet, “what?”. She doesn’t understand. Had she misheard him?

"Fairy-tale characters," Henry repeats, patiently, yet impatiently at the same time. "Here! Because of a curse! My mom did it, she made all of you forget who you were — “

"Your mother?

Regina did what now? Was this kid crazy? (was she really itching to sprint out of the building? yes, yes she was, and she tries to ignore the obviousness of her body telling her to listen up.)

"Evil Queen," he says, dismissively, and he seems to ignore the way her eyes widen, but doesn’t give her a chance to speak. "Anyway. I need your help. I’m going to find my mom, my real mom. Get her to help. Won’t that be great? Then you can all be free, then you call all have your happy endings — "

"I don’t understand," Wendy says, her brow still furrowed, her voice soft. "We — I’m not calling you a liar, or crazy, Henry," she says quickly, seeing his shoulders tense, "but — how are we all — "

"My school teacher is Snow White. And coma-guy is Prince Charming … or maybe not. I haven’t done my research good enough to say for sure." He prattles on, ignoring her incredulous stare. "And you," he says, after listing off all the characters he says he has confirmed, and he his next words are accompanied by a grin, “you’re her.”

"I’m who?" she’s trying so hard not to call him crazy. So, so hard.

“Her,” he says, with a roll of his eyes, jabbing a finger at the book’s cover. “From the story I just showed you.”

Wendy begins to shake her head. “Henry, I — “

i am not her, i do not know the boy in the pictures, i am not her, he’s crazy, he must be a lunatic, i’ve never been to a place called neverland —

"You’re Peter Pan’s true love," he says, matter-of-factly, and she blanches.

wrong, wrong, wrong, he’s got to be wrong —

"You’ve got to believe me, Wendy," he says, leaning towards her again, and she feels her mouth try to form words, but no sound comes out. "You just don’t remember, none of you do. And I haven’t seen Peter Pan around, so he must be going crazy, wondering where you are — "

"What’s with the blank pages?"

Wendy is trying her very very best to keep calm, but Henry’s craziness is  starting to get to her. She can see that this isn’t some joke to him, too. does he believe it? truly? it sounds like madness!

"You were ripped away from Peter," Henry says, but he looks like he’s just pulling a guess out of thin air, "everyone was taken here because of the curse. That’s all I know. Let me know if you know who you are, and remember not to tell my mom, okay?"

Wendy is speechless, her mouth hanging open, as Henry smiles, waves, picks up his book, and leaves her in her booth, all alone.

She’s not sure how long she stays there, but whens she blinks, seemingly after a long time of staring at where the book had been on the table, she finds that Ruby is leading her home, muttering about her having fallen asleep on the table .

Wendy barely even hears her as she is led through the rain towards her house.

i’m not anyone’s true love. i am Wendy, i’m normal, i live in this perfectly normal town. i am not a fairy-tale character. Henry is crazy. i am not a fairy-tale character. none of them actually exist. peter pan certainly does not exist. i am not his true love, there is no such thing…

Right? Right?

Nobody answers her questions. they leave her lying wide-awake, for several nights, haunting her. the answers never really come to her. the coiled, strange feeling around her bones doesn’t subside, not until she drifts off to sleep, at some ungodly hour in the morning, with one thought floating still in her empty head:

 what if I believe him, even if it’s just for a little bit?

what if I’m crazy, too?

Chapter Text

---

then

---

 

Wendy scrambles to her feet, unable to stop her limbs from shaking as she slumps against a tree, trying her best to keep her sobs muffled. The trees, the leaves — the smell, the feel of the place — it was all so different. Different. She thinks this might be the Enchanted Forrest, the one Peter told her about once, the one Hook had mentioned on more than one occasion. And it’s all different. It’s wrong. Wrong.

Wrong, because she’d been in Neverland for so long. Wrong, because, like a poison, Peter had seeped into her veins, been pumping through her heart and her blood for so long —

Peter.

He hadn’t even been on the island when she’d opened the little pouch Hook had given her, before he’d left, a while ago. Left her alone, with the Boys, with Pan, but that was okay. It was fine. Because he had given her away a gift, before leaving. He’d given her a magic bean, something that could take her away from this place.

Wendy remembers, remembers the way he’d looked at her. He had pitied her, given her a magic bean, one he hadn’t told anyone about. Told her that she could escape Pan, if she really wanted to. Told her to save it for the most needed time, though.

So she’d waited, and waited, till an overload of tears, cruel words, calls of her name and bird, and bruised wrists had sent her sprinting into the jungle. Peter had called after her, but he hadn’t gone after her. No, she’d felt him leave, leave the island. From time to time, he does that. Leaves, for only a few hours. But she had been so sick, of everything, so she’d done what was intended of the bean.

Wendy had left. And Peter probably still hadn’t returned.

Wendy begins to move, stumbling over unfamiliar roots, foreign twigs underfoot stinging her bare feet, but her skin is tough from a century of being in Neverland. She easily ignores all of this, and continues on, trying her best not to think of what Peter’s reaction will be when he find out she’s not there anymore.

After a few minutes of stumbling along, she falls, in the middle of a dirt road, as the sun rises, and she laughs — hysterically, with tears in her eyes, trailing down her cheek, clutching at her own sides as she sobs through her laughter — at her imaginings of Peter finding her gone.

Because, after so long, she is free.

(or is this because her is heart breaking, because she knows a part of her wanted to stay?)

---

When Peter arrives back in Neverland, with a smirk on his face, white teeth glinting in the moonlight, his thoughts are all on Wendy. (still.) He’d been remembering everything he’d said, everything he’d done to her, before he’d left. He’d let her run away, into the jungle, because he’ll just find her later. Pin her to a tree, kiss her, and secretly secretly secretly hope that she doesn’t know he’s still trying to figure out how to say I’m sorry darling, with words, without it sounding like a lie, a trick of the voice, one he’s perfected over the years.

The island had whispered to him, whilst he was away, off in another world. Something had happened, silently, while everyone else was  asleep. The whisper had cut his visit to other worlds short, for it had crawled under his skin and festered there, till he had been forced by his own, malicious, beating heart, to return to Neverland.

Peter’s mind had strayed to Wendy, even before he’d come back, and he was dying to kiss her, kiss her till he bruised her lips so they were blue. Wanted to let his itching fingers wander down her middle and up her dress, wanted to make her scream and writhe, but first, first, he had to find her.

Peter goes to her house first, the tree-house he’d made for her, because it’s more likely that she crept in, when no one was looking, and had crawled under her covers, and turned off the light. But when he enters the house, he sees that the covers are still neatly made and flat, left right where she’d put them this morning.

Nothing in the house is out of place, nothing at all. It’s just as she left it, when she had rolled out of bed, naked and sore, with bruises blossoming all over her body from the night before. Just as he’d left it, only an hour before she had risen from a restless sleep.

Peter dismisses the whispers of the island inside of him, curling around his veins, simmering inside his bones. He tries to, but when he leaves, and begins to search, orders the island to help him find her, and finds nothing, he cannot feel Wendy anywhere —

Panic begins to rise up inside of him. He rouses the Boys, demand that they find her, drag her back to him when they do, and they all scurry off, in pairs (because Wendy can easily claw out the eyes of one Boy), none of them seeing panic creeping into Pan’s features. None but Felix, who had stayed behind, his typical smirk gone. His expression is void of amusement, it’s gone sullen.

this isn’t good, no, not at all.

Hours pass. Only hours, but it feels like years to Pan, who’s yelling. Brooding. Storming off to be alone.

(there isn’t a sign of her anywhere.)

Peter halts, on the edge of the tree line. He feels the Boys’ eyes burning into his back, their own expressions mixed with fear and apprehension. No one has even gone before, not without Pan’s permission. And certainly Wendy hadn’t had Pan’s permission to go anywhere but the island.

Which meant she had escaped.

Truly, this time, she had.

(Peter leaves, since she’s not on the island. He starts searching, because his heart is pounding erratically against his ribcage. It’s screaming at him, that everything that’s happening is his fault. He’d made her cry, he’d laughed, cruelly, spit words at her that she should be used to by now. But she’s gone and it’s his fault and he wants to kill every single thing he sees. but he doesn’t.

Instead, he searches. but he doesn’t find her in time.)

---

Wendy picked herself up from the middle of the road about two hours ago, and now, she’s been walking for that long. In which direction, she doesn’t know, and where to, she knows even less, but all she cares about is that she’s not in Neverland anymore. The trees that tower above her aren’t from the jungle, from the wood that makes up Pan’s bones. The air is clean, sharp, and cold as she walks on, her eyes darting to and fro, because he’s got to have noticed that she’s gone by now, right?

Or —

Or, maybe he’s forgotten about her. Glad to be rid of her, perhaps.

After all, he could never feel for her as she does for him. Because she loves him with all her heart, devil-boy-monstrosity or not, (it was all unintentional, she swears it), and now, by now, he at least should’ve figured out that she disappeared.

Wendy crumpled to her knees, her knees buckling from underneath her, and she’s suddenly trying to hold back tears.

what have i done? did i do this right? was it wise to run, to escape? why do i regret this? i shouldn’t, i’m free —

What if he hadn’t even cared? What if he —

Distant, distant screams cut off her thoughts, distract her from the hot tears threatening to spill down her cheeks (she will not cry will not cry because of Peter Pan) as she turns her head, her brow furrowing as her bones scream at her heart. She squints, thinking that she must be mistaken —

But, no.

A thick, colored smoke is billowing towards her. The distant screams she’d heard are swallowed up by the massive cloud, and she wants to get up and run, run for her life, but her heart is in pieces, inside her chest, and she can only hunch over on herself, squeeze her eyes shut, and wait for the fog to get to her.

Her heart pounds in her ears as she feels it getting closer. Wendy begins to feel tears slipping down her cheeks, as she inhales a foul, musty scent from the air, and she sits up, and before she knows it, her legs are carrying her — carrying her faster than she’s ever run before, maybe even faster than how she’d run in Neverland —

but then the smoke clouds her vision, and she’s choking — falling — plummeting towards the ground, with Peter’s name on her lips as everything goes black, before her head can collide with the dirt road below her bare feet.

---

now

---

 

Peter looks around at the remains of the Enchanted Forrest, goes from place to place, looking for a sign of life (but there is none). His shadow hovers behind him, stays silent, as ever, as he surveys the damage.

The curse just happened, he can tell. The land is void of its people, as far as he can see, and somehow, he knows what happened here. That stupid, vengeful, envious queen had swept everyone away, had she? Well, it didn’t matter to him. Curse or not, he had his Wendy-bird to find.

Words rested on his lips, his tongue, swirled inside his mind as he searched and searched and searched. There were so many things he could say to Wendy, things he could say. Lies, truths, half-truths, white lies. But his heart was winning, in this case. His beating, blackened, twisted heart demanded that he tell her the truth, because she cared for him, because he’d found himself a Wendy a century ago and now he’s lost her.

He finds a dirt road, and begins to follow it. His shadow drags behind, but he ignores it, his eyes darting to and fro, wondering if she could have been swept up in this. He doubted it, he really did, though. Or, perhaps, he only did because he didn’t want to actually think about what had happened to her, if she had been caught up in this curse, in this queen’s personal vendetta against her stepdaughter.

If she had, the queen was dead, if he ever found her. He knew little of the curse, but he kept up with the goings-on in other worlds to know enough.

He walks along, until his foot steps on something that certainly doesn’t feel like a rock. He goes past it, without thinking, but then stops.

His heart takes control, as black and twisted and disfigured as it is, makes him back up, makes him crouch down in the fading afternoon light to see what it is that he stepped on.

Dread seems to glue him to the spot, as he picks it up, and holds it between his skeletal fingers, feels his expression harden, morph into one of rage, before he makes a fist around the object and screams her name, to nobody and nothing in particular.

it was a thimble — her thimble.

the one he’d told her to keep to herself when she had tried to give it to him, before she had disappeared.

---

Wendy slowly approached Henry, who was pouring over his book, outside in the school yard. After the students had been dismissed for the day. (Again.) The book and its tale of Peter Pan, of the evil, twisted boy and the caring, nameless girl has been haunting her for days now, and she wants to talk about it — read it again. She doesn’t know why, but she feels like she has to.

"Henry?"

He looks up, grins, when he sees that it’s her. She kneels down next to him, near the doors of the school, and peers down at the story he was reading. It’s the story she wants to read, she finds. It makes her heart and stomach twist in an odd, painful way. In a way she doesn’t understand.

"I — can I talk to you? About this," she says, pointing at the book, and his grin grows when she does.

"So you believe it?" he asks, before she can speak, "have you realized that you’re Peter Pan’s true love?"

"I — "

"It’s fine if you haven’t," he says, quickly, "because I don’t think I would, either. But maybe if you believe, he’ll find you — "

"Henry!"

They both look up to see Regina coming towards them. She breifly flashes a tight smile at Wendy before turning to her son, who quickly gets to her feet. “Sorry I was late,” she says, leading him away from the London-born girl, shooting her a look over her shoulder as she she begins to him away. “Busy day.”

She hears Henry say something, and before they are completely out of earshot, Henry turns his head and throws a thumbs-up over his shoulder before she is left alone, standing by the doors of the elementary school.

Her insides feel hollow, but her heart thuds loudly in her ears.

Wendy tries not to let this get to her, that she can’t talk about this. Even though it’s crazy-talk, even though she can’t possibly be the girl from the story, be Peter Pan’s true love. From what she’d read, it appeared that he, according to many, could not love.

But the book had said that he had, slowly, come to care for her, slowly, but the story had been cut off by an intimidating amount of blank pages.

Wendy tries not to think about it, as she begins to walk home.

I’m just Wendy. I’m not anyone’s anything.

It’s not real …

… right?

---

 

Things begin to change, when Emma Swan comes to town. Becomes the sheriff, starts spending time with Henry. Henry, as time passes, only grows more convinced that she is the girl from the story, that his birth-mother is actually the savior. That everything in that book is fact.

Things change. Everyone changes, because of Emma Swan.

It’s nearly comical, how mad it makes Regina.

Wendy goes on, though, like she always has. But now, now, after Emma Swan being in town for such a long while, Henry’s stories grow doubtful thoughts in the back of her skull.

Wendy doesn’t push them away.

---

 

A boy is running towards her. A boy, wearing green, odd clothes is rushing towards her, from the docks. Wendy stops, squints at him, but doesn’t recognize him. Not really. Has another new-comer arrived then? Or —

Wendy takes a closer look, as he, in turn, gets closer to her. Covers the distance between the quickly.

No.

Her mind reels.

It can’t be.

But it is. He’s getting closer, and she starts to stumble backwards, because it;s him, from the story —

Wendy does not get the chance to run.

The curse breaks.

---

Peter stops, dead in his tracks, only yards away from the bird (his darling his darling Wendy), as something in her expression changes. Something flickers across her features, and suddenly, she’s on the ground, crumpled in on her self, and she looks like she’s going to throw up.

He is unable to move, until her head slowly rises, and her eyes meet his.

For the first time in twenty-eight years.

"Wendy," he breathes, something hot and stinging springing to his eyes, but he can’t bring himself any more than a step closer to her (he is not going to cry, no, no, no, Peter Pan does not cry).

Wendy is scrambling to her feet, and he thinks she’s going to run, like she always has (i said hateful things to you while my heart was calling out to you, asking you to love me because your name is scrawled out in blood, carved into my bones), but she’s crying, sobbing, as she stumbles to him, and before he can blink, before he can breathe, his arms are wrapping around her, tightly, and he’s murmuring all the things he’s wanted to say for her for so long (because without Wendy he’s found that time passes so much more slowly in Neverland) into the skin of her neck.

They are oblivious, to everything around them, as people run past them, and he pulls away, but still not letting go. His hand leaves her body, fishes around in his pocket, and he’s holding up a thimble for her to see.

(her thimble.)

"You — you — Peter — “

"I kept it," he says, trying to keep the pounding of his heart out of his voice (it makes it shake), “I kept it, all this time.”

His words sound feeble, they sound like it’s the least of what he could be saying, but she shakes her head, knowing that’s not it at all.

He’d kept it because it had been the only thing left of her.

(Besides her love. He’d always had that. Always.)

Wendy opens her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks, but he doesn’t let her speak.

His mouth comes crashing down on hers — it’s been twenty-eight years since he’s kissed her — and everything else fades away.

(he found her, he found her, her found her.)