Wendy sits in the window bay overlooking the street. She runs her hands over her skirt, touches her sleeves. There are no secrets hidden there now; the time for secrets is done. She rubs absently at her knee, the pain almost faded. She folds her hands into her lap, but they immediately want to fly away again. It’s an effort to keep them still.

It’s been two days since she returned from Neverland with Jane. Two days, and she still hasn’t found the right words to speak to Ned. She’d told him that she’d found Jane lost among the trees, a half-truth, letting him assume she meant the park. She had not had to pretend to be exhausted, or terrified. She had been all of those things, her emotions catching up to her all at once—fear and grief, but also joy at having Jane home. It had left her drained, and she had pled for time.

Part of her wants to lie sick in bed like when she first returned from Neverland all those years ago. Let fever wrack her. Let her loss manifest physically. But she is a mother now; she has responsibilities, and she cannot hide from them.

Wendy had promised, if Ned would give her a little time to recover herself, she would tell him everything, which she fully intends to do. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t afraid. She and Ned have always been partners, but now she sees suspicion and doubt in his eyes. And Jane—she can’t quite read her daughter’s expression; she only knows that it hurts to look at her in a way it never did before.

That isn’t even the end of the lies and half-truths piled up against her skin, weighing her down. She must think of her brothers and her father-in-law. The story Wendy holds in her mind is that Jane crept out of the house at night, intent on having an adventure all on her own. But then she’d gotten confused and uncertain how to find her way home, and she’d been afraid of getting in trouble, so she’d hid until Wendy had found her. It makes her daughter sound flighty and foolish, two things which Jane is not, but as much as it pains her, Wendy is certain that her father-in-law especially will believe it. Girls are fanciful creatures after all, without much sense in their heads, no matter what their age.

Her brothers might have more doubt, but their own determination to forget might save her for once. It will be easier for them to swallow her lie than accept the truth.

Which only leaves Ned. At the end of the day, Wendy doesn’t truly care whether or not her father-in-law or her brothers believe her. The belief and trust she wants is from Ned.