Remember Me *Book 3 Of The Remember the Rules Series*

The World You Put on Pause

I had almost expected to be scared when the shadow took off. My fear of heights had never abated, and it didn't help that the thing carrying us would have gladly dropped us to our doom from the stratosphere if it had been given the chance.

I expected to cry, to clutch at Peter and the shadow until my knuckles turned white and we both bled. I expected my screams to mingle with Tommy's, a melody of terror from one who had never flown and one who hated to fly.

The reality was a little bit different.

There was no way for me to bring myself to be afraid, not when I knew we were going home. Not when I knew that the shadow had no choice but to obey my deepest desire. The cool night air whipped across my face refreshingly, starlight glittering in the sky above and the sea below. I was weightless; we all were. In the darkness, the shadow seemed to vanish, leaving the four of us suspended in the air as we zipped to Neverland.

Nothing mattered; even Tommy was silent in the face of the magic that wasn't really magic. There was no screaming; the only melody was the sound of wind whipping past us, and the peals of laughter from the boys.

I laughed elatedly too when the familiar sight of the mountain came into view. We're home, I thought as we touched down seconds later. The embers of a campfire still smoldered a few feet away, and the tide hadn't come in yet, leaving the footprints that had been made by the boys so long ago (and yet, only an instant ago) visible.

I allowed myself a moment of nostalgia for the brothers I had lost before kicking the sand, destroying the memory of people who had, for all intents and purposes, never existed. Then I turned to Tommy, the only newcomer among us, and spread my arms with a wide grin.

"Welcome home. We're going to have a lot of fun."

"I'm excited." He sounded shy, but sincere, which was surprising. Felix had probably talked to him. When I glanced over at him, I noticed a crab on the sand. It wasn't moving, which was unusual. Then, the instant I blinked, it skittered away. Just like I did. Dead, and then not dead.

I blinked hard as the world spun, swaying a bit on my feet. Peter was there in an instant, a hand on my shoulder to steady me.

"Felix," he said, his I'm-in-charge-listen-to-me Pan voice coming back in full force. I hadn't heard it in so long; it soothed now, instead of grating on me the way it used to. "Take Tommy and get him into a proper change of clothes. We're starting over again."

Felix cracked a grin. "We'll get it right this time," he said confidently before leading Tommy toward camp.

Then Peter and I were alone on the beach, and I could sit down without showing weakness. Then, in a puff of green smoke, we weren't on the beach anymore. I felt my bodyweight sink into something soft. A bed. When I looked around, I remembered where we were: the cave that Peter had brought me to when he'd showed me my past. The hourglass was gone, but everything else was exactly the same as it had been when I'd been here the first time.

He answered my question before I even asked it. "My room. It's the one place on the island that no one knew about but me. Until you."

I didn't know what to say. Luckily I didn't have to. He sat down across from me and got right to the point. "You died, love."

"I know." It was all sinking in slowly, but the weight of the words hit me hard.

He looked at me. "We can't save you a second time. You shouldn't do something like that again."

"I know." But I probably will.

"But you probably will," he said wryly, not looking upset in the slightest. In fact, he looked proud. I nodded, and he grinned.

"I had the feeling. I'm not going to ask you not to." A little bit of Pietro shone in his eyes for a moment. "Just be careful."

And maybe it was a little bit of Rose that made me respond with "I'll do my best."

A swirl of green fog appeared in his hand. When it cleared, a single red blossom sat in his palm. He tucked the lily blossom behind my ear gently, letting my hair fall beside it.
"My queen," he whispered reverently.

I flushed and smiled down at the green comforter. "Does that mean you're my king?"

His hand kept its position, resting lightly on my cheek. His fingers barely touched the petals. "I may not have a kingdom, per say, but I think the queen of two realms deserves a crown at the very least, don't you?"

"I don't want a crown," I said quietly. It was hard to look straight at him. "I don't want to rule. If I wanted to rule, I would have stayed in Camelot."

"If you wanted to rule, you wouldn't be a Lost One. I wouldn't want to love you," Peter admitted. He touched the flower gently. "This is your crown. It's what will separate you from the boys, what marks you as mine."

"That... sounds nice." That sounded really nice, actually. "I'm proud to be yours."

"I'm glad you came to your senses, then, because I've been proud to be yours for a long time, love." Peter touched his head to mine gently. "It's good to be able to call you my queen."

I couldn't tell how long we stayed there, just breathing each other's air, reveling in the fact that we were alive. A little older, yeah. That had been unavoidable, for as long as we'd been away. His voice was a tiny bit deeper, my hair a little longer, but we were home. We were here. We weren't ever growing up.

I didn't know which one of us closed the gap, but there weren't sparks. Only the people who hadn't actually experienced True Love magic thought that being in the vicinity of the person you love was like fire. People who didn't know made it seem like something intense, something that could burn if we weren't careful. It wasn't anything like that. Kissing my soulmate wasn't anything like fire or electricity; my nerves weren't live wires and my blood wasn't boiling in my veins. I just felt... complete. Everything was right with my world.

"You're not allowed to leave my side again," Peter said when he pulled away, after however long it had been. "When you fell, I was..."

Terrified. The word hung between us, unsaid but understood, and for the first time in my hundreds of years of life, I whispered those two words.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't do that. You know better," Peter chided me gently. There wasn't any anger in his voice; he understood exactly why I'd said what I had. He sighed, sounding resigned. "We should go back. Thomas hasn't been initiated."

I looked down at our hands, which had laced themselves together at some point. "I don't want to. Not yet."

Peter chuckled. "Only because I love you."

The words didn't come as a surprise, and there wasn't any pressure to repeat them back, either. So I didn't.

He already knew, anyway.



Consider that the end. There's an epilogue, that'll probably be up in the next few weeks. Then.... it's over. I hope you guys liked this chapter, I thought it was a nice ending. :)