Wendy Darling

Love. There was that word again. Peter looked down at Wendy’s thumb as it stroked across the back of his hand. “I did ask Tobias,” he admitted. “He said … he loves me. I don’t know if I believe in love, though. I mean, my parents were supposed to love me, right? But they abandoned me. So that makes me think … there’s no such thing as love. Or … love is only lies. Like, you hear all these stories about love and see it in movies, but it’s never like that. You said you love me, but then you left me too. What if … what if Tobias leaves me? Hook, too. He wants to be my dad, but he could still leave. Everyone could still leave. I don’t … I don’t like thinking of it. It makes my chest hurt. I just get so … scared.” He wrinkled his nose, not wanting to admit it, but this was Wendy and she was back and holding his hands and apologizing to him.

“I don’t want to lose Tobias or-or Tina like I lost everyone else,” Peter admitted quietly. “I’m afraid to ask Tina where she disappears to because I think she’s going to say she wants to leave … I don’t want to hear her say that.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to hear Tobias say he loves me only to find out it’s a lie. I don’t want to be Hook’s son and then get left behind again.” He swallowed hard, feeling the tears burn his eyes.

Wendy knew that was what Peter was scared of. She knew that, she had learned that lesson the hard way, and it was a lesson that everything that had happened between them since then had continued to reinforce. It hadn’t been made better by the fact that in every previous conversation they’d had about it, what she said and argued had been clouded entirely by her own opinions and judgements, by her personal stake in it. But things were different now. This wasn’t about them, and it made it easier for her to see things clearly.

“I should never have left,” she replied, looking down at their hands. “Not like that, at least. I thought I had to choose, you know? That I had to stop being who I used to be in order to become who I want to be. And I thought that I was fine with that, but then... Then I went to London. And in London, everything was different. I didn’t have to be so... Responsible all the time. I could make mistakes, and do stupid things, and play, and have adventures. I could be both the new me and the old me. It was so much fun. Feeling so... Carefree again.”

Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Peter again, shrugging softly. “My point is... Maybe we could both get a little better at not seeing things so black and white, Peter. Maybe I can both grow up and stay young at the same time. Maybe Tina can have a life outside of you and still be a big part of yours. Maybe... Maybe if we stop being so obsessed with how we think that things should be and just accept them as they are, then we’ll be happier, and it won’t hurt so much. Maybe we’ll both be less scared then.”

Sit down. Wendy wanted to sit, so Peter sat down immediately, pulling her down onto the grass with him. He gave her hands a squeeze, watching her face and wondering if she really didn’t need a doctor. She said she didn’t, and he was inclined to believe her (because it was Wendy), but still. She was acting really weird.

“Hey, Wendy-bird,” he said gently, not entirely sure what to say or what was happening. “I really don’t like what happened last time we talked. I really do want to be friends still.” He looked down at her hands, wondering what she would say if she knew about all the confusing things that were happening lately. “So much has happened and I don’t really know how I feel. Hook wants to be my dad, on paper, for legit real, and … that doesn’t make any sense. I really freaked out. Tobias kissed me and said it was a game, but he really likes kissing me so I kissed him to make him happy and that made me feel kinda funny. Tina’s been acting weird, like disappearing a lot. And I keep losing my phone.” He looked up at her, wondering if she could help him with any of this. She was always so good at helping back when they were kids. “Everything’s really confusing right now. And … I really miss you.”

Wendy barely registered what was happening until she was suddenly sitting on the ground in front of Peter, his hands squeezing hers, listening to him talk about what was going on in his life like that was a completely normal thing for them to do. But the thing was, even though they hadn’t spoken to each other at all since that big fight they’d had, sitting here talking to him did feel completely normal. It almost felt more normal to her than anything else had in her life since she’d gotten back from London.

“I miss you too,” she started, figuring that it was the best place to start. Even if she hadn’t actually realised how much she missed Peter until now. “I’m really sorry about all the things that I said to you. Because I still love you and I care about you so much, you know? Your friendship means a lot to me.” Wendy smiled softly, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, trying to figure out the right thing to say next. Maybe there wasn’t a right thing. She was already saying a bunch of things that she wouldn’t normally say. “And he cares about you too,” she continued. “James, I mean. Hook. And Tobias and Tina too. But I think that maybe sometimes... I don’t know, maybe sometimes they’re a little scared of telling you the truth, because they don’t want you to react badly. I mean... Look at what happened with us.” She took a deep breath. “Have you asked them? Like, have you asked Tobias why he likes kissing you? Or have you asked Tina where she disappears to?”

“Huh? Uh, I don’t know. I just put it in the washing machine,” Peter said, looking down at her hands as they moved up and down his chest. It felt nice, giving him a weird sort of fluttery feeling in his stomach. He reached up to take her hands to stop them, not sure if he liked it or not. He wasn’t sure about anything regarding Wendy, and her acting like this was really confusing.

“You’re acting really weird, Wendy. Are you sure you’re not sick? Maybe I should take you to the doctor?” He didn’t know where the doctors were but he could figure it out. Maybe. For a brief moment he wondered if he should find Hook and get his help. He quickly shook off that thought.

“No, I don’t need a doctor,” Wendy replied automatically, even though she wasn’t sure of that at all. She didn’t even look up at him at first, her focus entirely taken by the fact that he had taken her hands to stop them from moving, and how the feeling of his skin against hers made her feel all kinds of things that she hadn’t felt about Peter in a long time. Or maybe she had, but she’d just been repressing it all this time. Maybe she’d never know.

Looking up at him, Wendy blinked a couple of times as she at least tried to make sense of all of this want that she was suddenly experiencing, but to no avail. There might have been some sensible part of her brain that was telling her that this was a bad idea but it was quickly overruled by whatever id had possessed her. “Can we sit down? I think I need to sit down.”

Peter looked back at her when she spoke again, watching her warily. Something was wrong? What was wrong? When she stumbled forward, he caught her arms instinctively. She didn’t feel well? Worry hit him before he could stop it, and he peered into her face. “Are you sick?” He moved one hand to her forehead to feel for a fever, like she often did in the past when he or one of the Lost Boys didn’t feel well.

“Do you need some medicine?” he asked, trying to think of what medicine to give her. There were so many. What did she always give them back when she was Mother? It was really sweet and gross but they had to take it if they wanted to feel better. What was it called though?

Every nerve in her system reacted to Peter’s touch, even if all he was doing was putting his hand on her forehead to check for a temperature. Which was a totally normal thing to do that had no emotional implications at all, and yet it caused a tidal wave of feelings to wash over her that she was wholly unprepared for and completely ill-equipped to handle, even under normal circumstances.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head slightly. Wendy watched as her hands moved slowly up and down his chest, following some impulse that she couldn’t explain to herself even if she tried, and all she could do was think about the fact that the fabric of his shirt was so soft beneath her fingers that it was almost fascinating. “I’m not sick. I---I think I need to... Uhm... I need to... Wow, you’re like really soft, how’d you do that?”

Peter was skipping along looking for Tina and Tobias, having lost them again somehow (how did he keep doing that? He could’ve sworn they were right behind him). He stopped abruptly when someone ran into them, about to shout indignantly when he saw who it was.

“Oh. Hi Wendy,” he said, looking away from her. Seeing her again just brought back their last conversation (read: argument), and he didn’t like thinking about that. Or her. It hurt too much. He noticed people acting erratically around them, but he didn’t know what it meant. He just thought that they were drunk, probably. It was getting later in the afternoon and people drank more during that time, right? It seemed like it at least. He expected Wendy to make some excuse to leave, but he wasn’t going to leave first. He had every right to be standing here.

Wendy’s brain was short-circuiting. It was Peter. Peter was here. Peter was standing in front of her. Peter was standing in front of her and it was awkward and her heart hurt just looking at him but he was so close and his skin looked really soft and... Wait, what?

“I---” she started, shaking her head to herself, which only made her dizziness worse. She had a protocol for this, didn’t she? Her and Lily definitely had a protocol for how to deal with running into Peter. She couldn’t remember the protocol, but she could remember that she had one. What was the first step again? She couldn’t even remember the first step.

She took a deep breath, struggling to form even one cohesive thought in her head, especially when Peter was standing right in front of her being so painfully Peter and just... “Something’s wrong,” Wendy mumbled, stumbling forward and steadying herself against him, her brain still grasping at straws trying to figure out what was happening. For a few seconds, she simply stared at her hands as they sat against his chest. “I don’t feel so well.” 

In fact, she had intentionally only had one cocktail because she wanted to keep her wits about her, and she didn’t want to feel like this, so why was this happening?

Pulling her phone out, she scrolled to her text conversation with Lily and got about halfway through a message to her when she suddenly found herself colliding with someone else, having not been paying attention to her surroundings. "Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t---” Looking up, Wendy’s eyed widened when she saw who she’d bumped into. “Peter?”

oh great. of all the people that decided to show up now it had to be her, didn’t it? “don’t know and i don’t care” she shrugged “the ashleys and i may be best friends but we can split off and do our own things you know” she said rolling her eyes “don’t you have people to go babysit or some goody two shoes thing to do?

“No, it’s my day off,” Wendy replied with perfect deadpan delivery, the contrast to her usual tone making it clear that in spite of how it sounded, she wasn’t being serious. Her curiosity was peaked, however, by the other’s seeming indifference toward the whereabouts of her best friends. In her experience, the Ashleys were attached by the hip. “Uhm, really..? Because that is just historically not true. The four of you do everything together.”

“I hope you’re right. You probably are” Lily was probably worried for no reason. She hadn’t failed a test this semester so far after all. “I’m not sure yet. The Sex and Sexuality course sounds like it’d be interesting, but the Psychology of Learning class might work better with my other courses”

“Sex and Sexuality, huh?” Wendy questioned as they joined the line for the rollercoaster, raising her eyebrows suggestively before breaking out into a grin. “I’m kidding! That does sound interesting, but I don’t think you can go wrong either way. Although, if you want just a little more incentive, I’ll be taking the Psychology of Learning next semester.”

ashley hated these things, they reminded her too much of her parents elaborate parties that she loathed. she had wandered round bored out of her mind and decided to grab a drink and take a seat on the nearest bench. she was scrolling through her phone while the world passed her by at the festival and took a sip of her drink, having no intentions of joining in the festivities. 

When Wendy first spotted Ashley A, she had every intention of keeping her distance and leaving the other girl to her own devices. But the longer she observed, the more she started to think that the blonde looked less haughty and dismissive than she looked lost and out of place, and the part of Wendy that still held out hope for her couldn’t help but sympathise. “Hey,” she greeted as she took a seat next to her. “So, where are the other Ashleys?” 

“Obviously, but not as much as those three, I think that’s part of why they keep acting up, testing my patience and boundaries. I’m all for them exploring themselves and what they can do, but they need to do it in a more… how can I put this? Adult way? Yeah, they need to grow up, they graduate high school next month and this can’t carry on.” 

Wendy might not have known what it was like to become a parent to teenagers in your mid-twenties, but in more ways than one, she had been a parent to people not much younger than her for most of her life. She had parented the Lost Boys. She had parented her little brothers. In fact, she’d said very much the same things to Michael that Donald was saying to her now, and she had said the exact same things to Peter back in the day, before their paths had diverged so extremely that the chasm between them seemed unbridgeable.

“Funny, I keep saying the same thing to my little brother Michael,” she commented with a soft, sympathetic laugh. “He’s a senior in high school too. But... If you want, I’m happy to come around more often. Not just for tutoring but also for generally helping out. It’s fine if you don’t, I don’t mean to step on any toes, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to offer.”

“I had two exams last week. One I’m pretty sure I passed the other is a complete toss up.” If she got a failing grade she had a mind to go talk to her professor about it, but she was still holding out hope and crossing fingers that she wouldn’t need to. “How’s your psych classes going? I keep thinking I should pick one up next semester” 

“Hey, I’m sure you definitely passed both of them,” Wendy reassured her, knowing how easy it was to be hard on yourself, especially when it came to exams. In her experience, she always thought that she did so much worse than she did. “Psych is fun, even if I have tonnes of essays and lab reports to do. Although don’t let that discourage you from it! Which class were you thinking of?”

“No, it’s okay. It’s spring break, I suppose I’d have to learn to deal with them myself in time even when they don’t listen to me.” He rolled his eyes. “Even though they won’t admit it, I know they miss their mom.” 

Wendy nodded solemnly. Her heart hurt thinking about it, so she couldn’t even imagine what they must have been going through. “I bet you miss her too,” she replied, turning her head to look at him. “I’m really sorry. It must be hard.”

“Oh really?” she asked with an eyebrow raised. “Now this I am staying out late for” she took a long sip of the lemonade. For a moment she thought to ask if Wendy had seen Peter around out of habit, but caught herself before she did. This was a Peter free zone. 

Wendy smiled, even as she noticed the brief pause in conversation between them. It was very subtle, but she knew as well as Lily did exactly what it was that remained unsaid between them. It wasn’t like it hadn’t also crossed her mind to ask about Peter. But she didn’t. “So, how's school? The History department treating you well?”