Snippet #2435559

"... as we need to make sure no police need to come to our home and take all of our Wonderland-- and Neverland, respectively-- artifacts away! You can't break your own rule!"

Wendy glared at Alice. "Yes, we have those rules, but exceptions are understandably made when you bring strangers off the street into our flat. Not that you're strange, Peter, but it's the principle of the thing. Where did you put the list of rules I made you? I need to add 'No inviting strangers off the street, especially men, to the flat.'"

Wendy looked at Alice expectantly but had no idea if Alice even knew where her list was. Of course Wendy had a back up copy posted on the inside of a kitchen cupboard, but Alice was supposed to keep her own copy so she knew not to do things like use all of the tea without getting more because she just had to have a tea party with all the animals and random people in the neighborhood! Wasn't right when Wendy got home and couldn't have a nice cup of tea to wind down, that was practically illegal. Or should be, anyway.

Reaching out her hand, she gestured to Alice to give her the sword. "And I'll thank you not to abuse my poor sword, Alice," she said, in a tone both serious and teasing. "It doesn't deserve that, and I can put it away now. Peter might be many things, but a threat to us he isn't. Especially," she said with a chuckle, "he isn't a threat to your virtue, which is one of the reasons you shouldn't invite strange men up here." It was true that Alice had a good sense of people, and that she would most likely never invite someone into the flat that would hurt them, but Wendy was a worrier and besides, Alice wasn't always in her head. Many times Alice left it, in one way or another, for better climates, and who knew who might take advantage of that?


"See, I need tae get home an' Ah have nae idea how tae go abit doin' it. Wendy says ye might know how, cause yoo've dain it afair?... Maybe you two coods come wi' me in th' end! Its much mair wonderful then this warld an' th' best part is ye ne'er hae tae graw up! Tell 'er Wendy, Neverland is beautiful ain't it?"

Wendy, getting her sword back from Alice, paused. "Yes, Neverland is beautiful. It's always an adventure because the island has a mind of its own. And Alice, I was telling Peter that you're very good at looking for ways to get to other places, so perhaps you know of or have heard of a way to get to Neverland?"

Now to broach the more difficult part of that question. Sheathing her sword--the sheath was in the hall closet for some reason, very bad form--she thought of the best way to answer Peter truthfully, but not too truthfully. With a sigh, she decided to go the coward's route for the moment and focus on what was important. "We'll talk about that sort of thing when we find a way to get there, Peter, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's not impossible that we'll find a way, but it won't be easy, and who knows how it will work." She laughed a little, to herself, at Peter's statement that you didn't have to grow up in Neverland. Did Peter not realize that he had grown up already?

Sobering, she suddenly knew that she had to at least see Neverland with Peter, get him settled there, to make sure than in going back as an adult he didn't become something he wasn't prepared for. Adults in Neverland were, after all, the enemy, and there was no crueler irony than Pan going back only to become a sort of horrible pantomime of Hook. She knew Peter had no idea that being trapped with children on an island that actively worked against you could drive one mad, and that many of the pirates including Hook had succumbed to that weakness. It was a very specific hell, and one she would sentence no one to, most of all the boy who had found such joy there in childhood.