Hey,
Thanks for reading. I'm so pleased I could update so quickly, although it should be noted that after next Wednesday, I'm going skiing so I doubt that I'll be able to update until Christmas Eve- sorry. I was so thrilled by what happened in the last chapter, but was equally sympathetic and devastated for Henry 😥
Ok, so I've decided to update on my profile that I will splitting this book into two parts. I dislike opening books with hundreds of chapters, particularly if they are around 2000s words a chapter, so I decided to include a sequel. It isn't necessary for you to have read this book, but it certainly helps. It begins as they bring Henry to the camp and follows Tiger Lily trying to help Pan and Henry as she decides what to do: follow her love for Pan or do what is right?
The sequel (whose name I haven't decided) will be released before Christmas and I'll put a notice on my profile and in this book. You'll be able to find it through searching or through my profile.
As always, please vote and comment.
Enjoy,
Annabelle_the_reader
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I woke up the following morning alone. Peter had woken up early and was talking with the Felix, probably about the current circumstances, like whether I would be able to love him enough to locate the owner of the "Heart of the Truest Believer", leaving me alone that particular morning.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, before sadly flopping my hands back onto my lap. I wanted to join Peter and talk and laugh and plot and do mischievous things, but I knew that I couldn't. Huffing, I decided to get a little revenge plan on Peter that I knew would work a treat.
Grinning mischievously, I slipped one of my usual animal skin dresses and, in order to keep myself warmer (which wasn't much of a problem in Neverland), I put Peter's long sleeved shirt over the top, rolling up the long sleeves. Once I had changed, I made my way towards breakfast.
I casually glided into the seat besides Patrick, Jack and Andrew, who were beginning to tuck into their breakfast, smiling and laughing with each other for a moment.
'Is that Peter's shirt?' Patrick asked me, frowning at it as I glided onto the seat opposite him and beside some of the other Lost Boys, an extremely confused expression plastered across his face.
'Yeah.' I admitted blushing a little as I pulled the long sleeves back down and over my small hands and rested my chin on them. It smelled like Pan.
'Hey, I thought I was the only one who was allowed to share clothes with you!' Jack joked beside me, nudging my side as we giggled together. In return, I nudged his right shoulder as a punishment for being so cheeky about us and my unconventional relationship with my former husband, Peter.
'Did you see Felix and Peter before they left? Do you think they'll be able to find them? Do they think there's no chance of me working it out. Do you think they'll be ok with the situation?' I asked as casually as possible, trying to hide the obvious panic in my ranting tone, once Jack, Andrew and Patrick had stopped almost crying with laughter.
'Yeah, but we only saw Peter... He told us to tell you that he loves you and that he is sorry that you couldn't be there for that particular meeting.' Andrew shrugged, shovelling food eagerly into his mouth and smiling to himself at how adorable the pair of us were together.
'Aww.' I cooed, my smile widening at how much I missed and cared for Peter, despite all of his constant, massive flaws. 'He's so adorable, I miss him so much.'
'So you tell us regularly, you better not turn him into a grown-up, at least only after we find who has the Heart of the Truest Believer.' Patrick teased me, sending me a cheeky smile which I just scowled at in return.
'Oh!' Andrew exclaimed, suddenly remembering something. His eyes squinted together, fitting the parts of the memory until he had something that actually made sense. 'He also told us that he wanted you to know that he kissed you goodbye, but didn't want to wake you up.'
'Aww.' I repeated and Jack rolled his eyes at me teasingly.
Jack smirked into his dinner, alerting me and the other Lost Boys that he was going to make another funny remark about our close friendship. I didn't have enough time to stop him before he murmured, 'You never kiss me goodbye in the morning.' Despite the fact he mumbled it, we all heard perfectly well and everyone around us roared with laughter, including me and Jack. 'I'm joking! I'm joking!' Jack chocked out between laughs, but everyone knew anyway.
'I really gotta stop eating with you guys when Pan's not here, otherwise one day I'll choke on my food and then I'll be dead.' I said dramatically, shaking my head as I continued to laugh at the Lost Boys and the fact that Andrew was laughing so hard that he had started snorting.
Peter suddenly emerged from the dense forest of trees, laughing with Felix and handing him a bucket of lukewarm water, before he spotted me. I stood up and began jogging towards him. He excused himself from their conversation and sprinted across the camp towards me as fast as he could, slamming into me and lifting me off the ground, spinning me around and around, delighted to see me.
I laughed at him while he spun me in the air, eventually placing me gently back on the ground and beaming down at me. 'Is that my shirt?' He chuckled, pulling at some of the material near my shoulder, then putting his hands around the back of my neck.
'Yeah,' I blushed a light shade of pink, suddenly remembering that I had put it on.
'Well, you look adorable, Tig, you're lucky to get away with it though.' He teased, brushing his lips against my own as he spoke, teasing me a little.
'Not as good as you do, Peter,' I smiled, pecking his cheek daintily.
'I missed you, Tiger Lily,' Peter admitted softly, moving his hands from around my neck to around my waist, pulling me closer to him and making me giggle as he did so.
'I missed you too, Pan,' I whispered back, just audible enough for him to hear me and kissed him tenderly on the lips.
'Oh, by the way,' he broke the kiss suddenly, looking into my eyes. 'I want my shirt back,' he smiled down at me.
'No, I don't think so,' I disagreed stubbornly, shaking my head to emphasise this and thus making our noses brush lightly against each other. His shirt was surprisingly comfortable and smelt a lot like him.
'Oh dear, well if seems like I'll just have to find another way of getting it off you then, huh?' He smirked teasingly, as he rubbed his right thumb up and down the middle of my back, but I refused to give in and accept his challenge.
'Good luck with that,' I scoffed confidently, raising my eyebrows and making Peter laugh hysterically again. 'It smells like you.'
'Not as much as I smell like me!' He teased. He flicked his head towards the breakfast queue and let me go, grabbing my hand instead. 'If you get to keep my shirt, then I can to kiss you whenever I want.' He dragged me gently behind him and I laughed.
'Whenever you want? Two is all your getting.' I asserted teasingly.
'Two?' Peter scoffed, his arm gripping my waist tightly as we made our way through the camp towards the queue of Lost Boys waiting for breakfast. 'At least ten.'
'Oh no!' I lightly punched him on the arm and he swayed slightly, knocking me around teasingly. 'Three.'
'Nine!' He exclaimed, offended at my reluctance to kiss him, even though he knew I was only joking.
'Five.'
'Eight.'
'That's not fair!' I moaned. 'I went up two, so you have to go down two. Six!'
'Eight.' He grinned as he turned to face me with excitement.
'C'mon!' I groaned, pouting. 'You have to meet me half way.'
'Seven... Final offer.'
'Seven,' I agreed, jogging besides him to stay close to his left side, before turning to walk backwards in front of him. Peter raised an eyebrow until I stopped him walking by putting my hands on his chest, causing him to freeze and stop breathing, just like every time before.
I kissed his neck, bringing him back to reality as his hands securely returned to my waist and kissed me gently on the lips.
As I pulled away, I said, 'Now it's six.'
~
A few hours later, I was causally talking to Felix, Andrew, Jack and Patrick about their hunting trip, which Pan refused me to go on. We were sat with our backs to the logs by the fire, laughing and talking about their experiences hunting as they told Jack and me how absolutely hilarious it was.
Peter sauntered past in frustration, looking rather angry about something. Felix glanced at me pointedly, biting his lip awkwardly. Knowing what this meant, I politely excused myself from the Lost Boys and headed towards Peter.
'Hey, Peter, what's wrong?' I tried to wrap my arms around his waist from behind, but he leant out of my touch, as if it was poison to him. I knew this action usually cheered him up when he was angry or annoyed and he usually softened to me after this, making me wonder whether I was part of the reason for his anger. I was confused and slightly hurt, but said softly, 'Peter...?'
'What were you doing with them?' He asked suddenly, kneeling down and watering something that they were growing by the camp. I had no idea what in Neverland that seemingly exotic, spindly, green plant was, except that it was edible and delicious once it had been harvested and cooked.
'We were just talking,' I said as calmly as possible, trying to avoid adding any suspicion to our innocent discussion about shooting.
Peter laughed. 'C'mon Tiger Lily don't you think you deserve to just tell me the truth? They don't "just talk", what did they want, Tiger Lily?' He got up to gently fiddle with something growing up a stick, making me feel bored just watching him.
But I couldn't feel bored or dismiss what he was saying, because he had used my full name instead of just "Tiger" or "Tig", something he usually only did when he was angry with me. An angry Pan was a dangerous Pan.
'We were just talking about how funny their time shooting was. They didn't want anything except to talk.' I convinced him as smoothly as I possibly could, trying to remain calm even though I was getting annoyed at his possessive and rather immature behaviour.
Ever since I stayed in Neverland with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, Peter had been suspicious of me talking to any combination of the Lost Boys, especially Felix, and I was beginning to grow weary of the fact that he didn't trust me enough to just talk. No matter how much I tried to convince him that we were no more than close friends, Peter was suspicious that Felix wanted more.
'Really?' He snapped angrily. He averted his attention from the random plant he was prodding and practically growled at me, 'You and Felix were flirting, weren't you, Tiger Lily?'
'I wasn't flirting with Felix and Felix wasn't flirting with me. What is your problem with me being friends with him? After everything we've been through and everything we've sacrificed to be together, I travelled through the realms to find you in your world, I left you to save your life and I gave up my magic to find you, why do you think I'd let my friends come between us?' I reasoned with Peter.
I had done nothing wrong, except Peter was accusing me of spending all of my spare time with Felix. This wasn't entirely true. I had spent a long time away from Peter and didn't want to cause him more pain, so tried to keep my distance from him as much as possible. Even so, it was no crime to have friends that were male, particularly as I was in a group of all male boys.
'My problem is that I think you like him, or at least he likes you. I don't know what may or may not have happened while I'm elsewhere in Neverland.' Peter bit back spitefully, folding his arms in front of his chest and challenging me to counter this. I frowned, perplexed at our situation.
'I'm not doing anything of the sort, Pan.' I said firmly, laughing slightly in awkwardness. 'I love you and I want to be with you, that's why I'm here. I can't believe you would think me so low as to fall in love and do such things with one of our friends after everything that happened between us.' I pushed my hair out of my eyes, looking intently at the ground to avoid meeting his gaze.
Unable to prevent myself from doing anything irrational that I would regret, I sharply turned on my heel and stormed out towards the sanctuary of our cabin, frustrated with Peter beyond compare. 'Wait! Tiger, please!'
Peter ran in front of me, his right hand in front of me to stop me in my tracks. I pushed past him fiercely and growled, 'I'm not hanging around so you can continue to accuse me and Felix of doing something we are not!'
'Oh come on, Tig, you can't tell me you don't see what I mean!' Peter yelled as he continued to follow me towards our cabin.
Lost Boys in the tents, clearings and forests were beginning to stop and look towards us in curiosity, trying to subtly trying to listen to what our argument was all about. I didn't mind them listening very much until I noticed that Felix, Andrew, Patrick and Jack were with them.
'It doesn't matter though because we're just friends, Peter. He doesn't have feelings for me because we see each other as nothing more than friends.' I protested, my face burning red.
'I highly doubt that.' Peter snapped back. 'I'm almost certain that he likes you and if I wasn't around you'd probably be helplessly in love with each other.' He fake cooed, pulling an aggressive, mocking face at me.
'Well at least Felix is sweet and caring and funny and kind and trusts me. If you weren't around, Felix wouldn't be standing here yelling at me about my friends!' I spat the words at Peter like venom, beginning to feel like he was starting to test my patience with his bold statements. What more did he want from me?
'Then why don't you date Felix instead?' Peter yelled all of a sudden, louder than he had been before and attracting the attention of the Lost Boys in the depths of the forests. We stood staring at each other as we tried to steady our heavy breathing. I almost gasped and I felt the Lost Boys around me stand stunned, Felix in particular who was looking between me and Peter in confusion and amazement. I had never seen someone so insightful and intelligent look more bewildered.
My voice was calm and collective, as I breathed out finally and much more calmly than before, 'No I won't date him, because I loved you.'
And then, having put my emphasis on the past tense, I moved through the clearing in the forest swiftly and confidently, knowing that Peter wasn't following me this time. Instead, he watched me go in dismay and demanded sharply, 'Where are you going?'
At first, I ignored his yell, but then a small smile played on my lips as I turned around, before yelling loudly and sharply, 'To find Felix!'
Tears flowed down my eyes as I walked away, slowly at first, before developing into a run, as if I was with Oliver again, running through the forest from the obnoxious boy I refused to believe was my husband again.
'Tiger Lily!' Peter was furious now, since I was disregarding his pain as it it was nothing and was ignoring him. He just wanted the truth from me and my undivided attention after he had waited for it for so long. I knew it made him uncomfortable when I was with Patrick, Andrew, Jack and especially Felix, but I did it anyway. I'm sure Peter thought that it was verging on selfishness.
Sighing heavily, I spun around. My eyes widened as Pan's fierce eyes met my own and I looked at him in shock at how angry he was.
'Tiger just stop it, ok? I know what I saw and I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THIS AGAIN!' He shouted in my face.
I kept walking backwards and tripped over in terror, flinching away violently as I saw his hand rise, but all he did was put it on the back of his neck stressfully.
Peter's face fell drastically as he looked down at me in shock, his eyes softening. He knelt down next to me and whispered gently to me, 'You thought I was going to hit you?'
I ignored him stubbornly, biting my lip to keep the tears and sobs in. His strong, large hand cupped my jaw and gently lifted it upwards, forcing me to look into his eyes. Despite him now being soft and gentle, I still quaked with fear and flinched under his touch, causing Peter more pain than he ever had under the assumption that I loved Felix.
'Tiger...?' He said softly, his eyes pained. I shook my head, still shaking in fear and rose to my feet, trying not to look at him as I did so. The forest was silent, people pretending to work, but watching out of the corners of their eyes.
Felix was the only one who was obviously intently watching us in confusion and guilt and Jack looked between us in shock, now terrified for me, his closest friend. If Pan had hit me, most of the Lost Boys would have gasped and if they weren't too terrified they may have intervened. But as he hadn't hit me, they all left us to our privacy. 'You know that I would never, ever hit you, right?'
'I thought I did, Pan, but you were so terrifying. I just didn't know what to expect.' I admitted quietly and his hand returned to my cheek, lovingly cupping it with his hand.
'I'm so sorry, Tiger. It's just that you spend less time with me and more with them and this whole former husband situation in which we both seem unsure and hesitant about our feelings is really beginning to affect me. I just get worried that I'll lose you, even after everything we've been through and you returning to Neverland to see me and our son is gone and.... I'm so sorry, Tiger.'
'I'm sorry for making you feel that way and I forgive you. Just give me some space, please?' I mumbled and Pan reluctantly nodded once. Sending him a small, playful smile, I spun on my heel to leave. Peter didn't follow me because he knew I wanted privacy and to talk to some friends and laugh. I knew that Peter also needed some space too, even if he wouldn't admit it.
'Tiger?' Came a voice beside me and my head snapped across to stare at Felix and Jack. Jack was smiling encouragingly at me, hating to see one of his closest friends crying. And Felix was silent, seeming to realise it was because of him. 'What's wrong?'
'Peter thought that I didn't love him anymore, that I loved someone else, but I still love him, Jack.' I said quickly, stumbling over the words between heavy sobs.
Jack paused for a moment, his mind replaying what I had said until he figured out what I meant exactly. He opened his arms and engulfed me in an enormous bear hug, rocking me slightly and kissing my forehead. He brushed away my tears and smiled down at me. 'I'm sorry.'
Felix gave me a little more fleeting hug, already knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask: 'Who did Pan think you had been flirting with exactly?'
At his curious question, I couldn't help but chuckle slightly at the irony of it, considering our close friendship. 'You, Felix.' I stated, making his eyes go wide and releasing me quickly from our hug, almost as if he was terrified.
'Oh.' He said quietly, realising that giving me such a hug wasn't appropriate, but he didn't care because I needed it. 'Well, I think we're both in agreement that we only see each other as friends, right?'
'Of course!' I gushed, excitement filing my eyes at the notion of being free from Pan's false suspicions.
For the next few hours, Felix left to sit by the river in self pity, hoping Pan didn't hate him forever, and Jack made it his mission to cheer me up. He ran along the massive clearing in the forest- pretending to show off his splendid sprint to me- then purposefully tip over, making me burst into fits of giggles. Whenever I did, he would collapse into laughter too.
I realised that day that I was still completely in love with Peter and not anyone else, even if the Peter I loved now wasn't the Malcolm I first fell in love with. But I decided that I would still rather have the ghost of his mouth than a kiss from Felix or Oliver or anyone else.