Never Moon

part 20

 '"Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man."' 

-Peter Pan, "When Wendy Grew Up." 

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Several things had happened just now--all equally important to our story. All of them changed the way this battle would turn out.

Peter Pan woke up at the very bottom of his consciousness, impenetrable, cold darkness pressing down on his eyes, which strained for something to focus on. There was a tiny pinprick of light visible very far away; Peter somehow knew that the way to get to the light was treacherous, and there would be no turning back once he started.

So he sat back down, and, for the first time in his whole existence, thought.

He threw his mind into his thoughts and let himself be consumed. He let his emotions finally break past the wall that had stood, unyielding, for so long.

Something wound up in his chest and his life played out for him on the backs of his eyelids. Peter shied away from it, from himself--he did not want to see the havoc he'd wreaked, the bitter things he'd said and the childish grudges that had ruled his actions.

He saw Margaret, with her face so like Wendy's, only sharper, with darker eyes. He saw Bobby, who had saved him countless times (half of those times he'd needed to be saved from himself) and he saw Mikey and Strings, barely twelve when they'd come to him. He watched himself from afar, balanced on the crow's nest of Scott's ship, face expressionless and arms and face red with blood.

The pirates below leered and threw things at his past self, balanced on the crow's nest.

Peter knew what came next--he'd jump, hit the water, and sink. He wouldn't try to breathe, or fight, or fly, until Bobby (stronger, bigger, grown-up Bobby) saved him.

His memories afterward were hazy and unclear, thanks to the island doing its best to erase the trauma. It, however, could do nothing to reverse how they'd grown up, how they'd been shocked into realizing that it was not always fun and games.

Life hurts, Peter thought idly to himself. Even on Neverland.

Wendy's face swam in front of his eyes. Her stubbornness. Her vow to save the island, and how she'd let herself be tricked, how she'd pretended not to sense the danger that followed Peter like his shadow once had (he'd misplaced it long ago. He suspected it was right next to his lost youth). He remembered the times she'd pushed him back into his place. He remembered how she trusted him, how it'd given him power.

But mostly, he remembered the faraway, bittersweet look in her eyes when she wasn't paying attention, like she was trying to recall something she'd forgotten, or someone she missed.

He wanted to thank her. She'd stayed when she didn't have to, and she had put up with his childish nature and his arrogance and worked until the very end to save the island--to save him.

Peter opened his eyes and got to his feet again, squinting at the light. It was so very, very far away.

He knew that he'd have to go to it eventually. He didn't want to, thought--he wanted to stay right here in the comfortable, pressing darkness and not have to deal with whatever was happening outside. He wanted to keep taking comfort in his arrogance, give reason to his harshness, and excuse his rudeness. He could do that down here. Up ahead--up where the light twinkled at him, almost mocking--he wasn't so sure if the Peter he wanted to stay as would survive.

Very distantly, he could hear a scream. Wendy's scream, he thought, recognizing it. I wonder what's happening up there.

Peter distinctly knew that he was no longer in charge of his body; he'd let younger Peter in and had been pushed down to the darkest place not-him could find (which wasn't hard, as a lot of Peter Pan was dark).