A small smile began to form on Mrs. Darling’s lips. “I love you so much, my sweet boys…” She rolled onto her side and pulled her pillow close.

Peter sat there silently for a moment. There was something about the way he looked at her mother that made Wendy ache. He shouldered her grief like it was his own. Propping his elbows on his knees, Peter buried his face in his hands, pushing his fingers through his hair. He looked so small. Young and exhausted.

Wendy stepped carefully into the room. “Peter?” she whispered.

Startled, he looked up. The moonlight gave his surprised face a ghostly pallor. Streaks glistened on his cheeks. Peter jumped down from the dresser, quickly wiping the heel of his hand across his eyes.

For a long moment, Wendy didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t make sense of what she had just seen, or maybe she just didn’t want to. Hope had been ripped from her so quickly, she was still reeling. “What are you doing?” Wendy finally asked, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle.

Peter lowered his head. He flicked a glance back at Mrs. Darling before meeting Wendy’s confused stare. His shoulders rolled in an uncertain shrug. “Trying to help,” he said. His voice was low and hollow. Resigned.

Wendy’s brow furrowed and she gave a small, confused shake of her head.

He stepped closer and spoke quietly, so as to not wake up her mother. “I … after I brought you back, sometimes I would come and check on you. You know, to make sure my shadow hadn’t found you…” He rubbed the back of his neck. If the light were on, would she see him blushing? “One night, I heard your mom talking in her sleep. I thought … I thought that if I could speak to her with their voices, try to reassure her, she wouldn’t be in so much pain?” His brilliant blue eyes searched hers.

Wendy thought back to when she had first come back home, after Peter left her in the woods and she had been released from the hospital. She remembered how she’d thought she heard her mother talking to her brothers. She’d felt that same rush in her stomach, the desperate sense of relief.

“That was you?” she asked.

Peter’s eyes fell to the floor and he nodded. His mouth twisted into a grimace and a crease formed between his eyebrows. Everything about his posture looked like he was bracing himself.

Wendy pressed her fingers to her lips. Even then, Peter had been trying to look out for her, and her mother. He was always trying to take care of people, to ease their suffering and bring them happiness, whatever way he could.

“How do you manage it?” Wendy asked with a small shake of her head. “How do you take all of that on yourself?” She stepped closer, closing the space between them.