“Your parents didn’t love you,” Jake’s harsh hiss makes me tremble and I worry more as Peter’s stance hardens, “No orphanage would take you,” Jake takes another step and Peter takes one forward in challenge. I grab out to him, trying to stop him, but it’s pointless. “No one could ever want you.”

“Wendy wants me.”

Jake’s laugh is pure evil as he stumbles to the side and barely catches his footing. When he does, he takes another drink off of his flask, studying us closely over the top in the darkness.

“Funny thing,” he slurs, gesturing towards the two of us. “Your shadow seemed to be under the same impression. That is, until I convinced him otherwise.” My eyes widen as I look up at Peter, but he doesn’t give any inclination that he’s phased.

“Amusing really,” Jake continues. “Watching a shadow slowly die. Bringing it fully into the light until there is nothing left. Nothing but the truth.”

Something in the room changes. A darkness begs to be let in. And it isn’t from the man across the room. A man that has threatened to take what I don’t want him to since we first met.

It’s from the boy that stole my heart. The one that showed me unconditional love, maybe for the first time in my life. The boy that helped me believe in magic when I desperately needed it to save me. When I needed him to save me.

“Wendy would never leave me,” Peter insists, and my heart aches. “She’s going back with me. To Neverland. We’ll be happy there, and…”

“Right,” Jake laughs and my stomach grows sick knowing the truth that Peter doesn’t. But he feels it, the change, the inevitable reality that I have been trying to hide these past few weeks we’ve spent together.

I can’t go back. Michael needs me. Peter does too, and Lord knows how much I need him. But Michael may need a kidney transplant. His wounds are getting worse, not better. Maybe, one day, I could return, but not right now. Not when I’m needed more here. By my brother’s side.

Peter turns to look at me, as if questioning what I never thought he would. What I hoped he wouldn’t, at least until we had a little more time together.

“Well? Tell him the truth, Wendy,” Jake slurs, coming a step closer. “Tell him, he’s wrong. You won’t return to Neverland. There is no such thing as fucking magic.”