She read once that all children, except one, grow up — she spent her whole life believing it was him. Wendy is, physically, fourteen when she finds out it isn't. The century in the cage means she is really over a hundred.

Her brothers don't want to linger in Storybrooke. There are reminders everywhere — fairy tales that should stay fiction, boys whose eyes are forever hungry, familiar blood staining swords.

They usher her onto a plane with cricks in her neck and needles in her head. Polluted air feels thick and heavy around her. She supposes it's better than his knife at her throat and being yards off the ground in a cramped little cage. John buys her boots that make her feel claustrophobic after the years of bare feet and wild grass whipping under them as she runs the hell away from whatever monster is chasing her (him, the boys, savage animals, the Indians once). They've already forced her into jeans and a t-shirt with a long coat over it that Emma had given in that dreary little town.

She keeps her lips pressed together so it doesn't fall out that all her skin itches for the freedom of her nightgown.

"I thought it'd be different," she whispers. It slips out of the space in the corner of her mouth where there used to be a hidden kiss.

Michael puts a warm hand on her back. She almost flinches because human contact always meant gripping and choking and rough teeth inches from her throat in a growling mess. "It is, Wendy. But we're gonna be okay," he promises.

Home feels like wilderness and savage little boys now. At best, it is Tiger Lily's harsh friendship and the hushed conversations they shared in the cover of night as the silliest little boy ripped open pirates.

It scares her to know it will never be the comfort of her little brothers again.

They are halfway to London now and she almost purrs at the thought of the two little stars and the shadow telling her stories. John tells her they have not moved from their parents old house and she has never been more delighted.

Not in this world, at least. In another, she has been much happier — and much more miserable but what does that matter?

Her head lulls onto one of their shoulders and her mind wanders off to its home of a century. Tiger Lily laughs at the boy's foolishness as she slips her friend berries and meat from a tiny rabbit. Tinker Bell gives her news of the island's state and its master's will as she gives parched lips and a needy throat water. The king toys with her face and gloats of her brothers' successes for him and failures for her.

Wind cuts through her hair and slices her skin, she runs far away from the hungry pack of boys hunting her.

He's gentle tonight and takes her to see the fairies (maybe she'll get to see the mermaids — from a very far distance — tomorrow). She feels his gaze and they dance quietly on the ground. He's danced with her in the sky only once and she longs for it again.

Wendy knows not why but the dream becomes hazier as it continues and its weather is harsh.

London comes and wakes her suddenly, as if being born much too fast. They file off the plane, either John or Michael holding her hand at all times. "We can't lose you again." She almost rolls her eyes because she is still older than both of them.

Her heart feels low in her chest (it's as if it's dipping into her stomach) and the chunk of his is threatening to burst.

She faints and is hospitalized for three days upon trying to enter a cab.

She awakes to the excited news after suffocating hugs and kisses on the crown of her head.

"He's lost."

"I'm sorry, what?" She groans, her chest feeling slightly hallowed out.

"Pan. He's dead," John smiles too widely and, with that sentence, Wendy Darling's world falls apart around her hospital bed. She does not let her brothers know.

It's true. Neverland is not gone from her dreams, but it is empty. Lost Boys are gone. Indians are gone. Pirates are gone. Fairies are gone.

Attempting to suffocate herself with a pillow, she fully understands that Peter Pan is dead. The piece of his heart is gone from her chest. The piece he had deemed to blackened to survive inside him is missing. The constant second beating in her chest is silent.

Peter Pan is dead. The boy who would not grow up is dead.

She cries until her eyes burn too much to cry anymore but she never speaks his name.

"Lily, he's dead," she whispers. Her eyes close to feel his on her again. "Lily, he can't catch me anymore," she whispers. Her eyes squeeze tighter to remember the wind as she flew. "Lily, I'm not his prisoner anymore," she whispers. Her eyelids refuse to play the one time he kissed her as torture. "Lily, he'll never starve me again," she whispers. She wants to see the kiss. "Lily, he'll never hold me again," she whispers. What happened to her memory of the kiss? "Lily, he's dead," she cries.

Please don't tell her it died with him.

She can't live like that. How on Earth could she live like that? Neverland was as much a part of her as it was of him.

"Neverland is my home," she sobs.

She is determined to find the stars that night. She waits up for them. She searches the night sky for them. She prays for them. She begs him for them.

They never come.

"Wendy, we haven't been able to see those stars in ages. There's too much pollution to see them now," John tells her.

This world has ripped her Peter away from her.

"I want to move to Storybrooke," she says.

It takes time but she makes them agree and soon all her things are packed and their new dog is in a crate that makes her cringe because it feels like her cage.

Emma is so understanding that she almost feels bad for what she does in return. Then she remembers the hallow aching in her chest and the missing stars.

"Who killed him?" She asks too harshly.

Only Belle understands her aching as it turns out.

(Tinker Bell tries but she will never be able to know and Tiger Lily can only understand the anger.)

It is Belle she confides in about the night terrors of the dissonance between Neverland and this world and Belle who hugs her until it goes away. Then she is running in wild grass with messy curls in her white nightgown all over again. Sometimes he even smiles at her, leaning against a tree.

That's why she screams and screams with Tiger Lily's hand in hers.

None of them will ever make any of it go away though. Felix tells her once in a dream that Neverland never leaves you alone. It is with you always, haunting you in the darkest corners of your mind, reminding you of all you have lost there and all you have gained.

She was never a Lost Girl but she will never be an adult.

"Peter, you were the one who wasn't supposed to grow up." Her mind never truly leaves Neverland. There are always monsters and boys and him chasing her somewhere inside her. There are always bars of a cage printed on her spine. She never gets rid of the nightgown.

Wendy Darling keeps going back to Neverland for him, and so Wendy Darling is the one that never grows up.

reviews are love. give wendy some.