The next day, the Darling were joyous to find that their little ones had returned. The children were kissed, and fed porridge for breakfast, and were even told they could stay at the Gardens all day instead of going to school. John did take notice that it was Thursday when it should have been a Saturday, but Michael was too happy for porridge to give a fig about what day of the week it was. Wendy looked at John with a skeptical kind of glance, and he returned it briefly but with a stern shrug as if saying 'but even so, we get a day off of school', and that was enough for John to forget any strangeness in the happenings of February the 5th through the 9th. Michael, wrapped in about 20 layers of woolens, ran about the house excitedly with his kite in hand, while John readied his model ship to float in the Round Pond. Wendy only could think to bring a notebook, as she could still not shake herself from being in Neverland.

The sight of that sword piercing right through Peter haunted her still. The world had slowed as he looked down upon it with doomed realization. No, she could bear to think on it no longer. Her heart felt like lead in her chest. The pain was so uncomfortable she even considered playing it off as just a dream, but the sweet memory of Peter would not allow her such graces. She would be haunted by his death.

"Are you going to do homework at the Gardens, Wendy?" John asked morosely, eyeing her notebook.

"No," She sighed. "I'm going to write about Peter." Sort her feelings unforgivingly on an innocent sheet of paper more like, she thought.

It was warm for a February day, and the boys were happily occupied, although lonesome on account of all the children over eight years old being at school that day. Nana had come, and kept close to Wendy as she wrote over and over unspoken words to Peter Pan. Mother and Father Darling had already hooked each other's arms and began to wander on one of the many paths in the Gardens. With keen observation, Wendy saw that they walked on the Baby Walk, where at the end, Mothers would fold the paper boats with wished for children. If her mother were to fold a boat today, Wendy thought, she hoped she would finally have a sister. Wendy then began uneasily folding the papers in her notebook, but found that she had no talent in it.

With much effort and little success, Wendy fashioned something boat-like. It was a disastrous looking thing, with little chance for floating and made her way down the Baby Walk. The gravel crunched seriously under her shoes, and the sound of perambulator wheels followed her. It was unusual for a young non-mother to take this way, but it led to the little bridge, you see, and the moment she saw it her dream flooded her with recall. She even was a bit out of breath. Now, she heard the wind and it whispered her name.

"Wendy, Wendy!" It howled, and she could almost imagine it sounded like Peter.

Her legs sprinted towards it to the bridge from which she had leaned on the night before. Her throat already felt full of water as she looked below into the river, but it could not stop her from wondering if he was really there. Looking around to make sure that no one was watching, she bent over to spy if there really was a little island with Peter waving.

The island was there.

Peter was not.

It upset her more than it should have, so she looked again. Again.

After the third time, her eyes were stinging, and she threw her little boat into the river where it was promptly engulfed in its waves.

And so, went the. day at the park, and Wendy had not enjoyed it.

That night, the children came to their room to see that the window had bars on it. When they turned to ask their mother why, they saw her wring her hands anxiously. She avoided the subject all together and tucked them into bed, as if she, too, was all too happy to pretend that Peter had not let Wendy touch the very painted clouds on the ceiling above her head. There was a thorough shuffling and sorting of the children's thoughts that night, but Wendy objected, and insisted she would do it herself for once. Mother Darling smiled and said 'of course dear' as Wendy did the opposite and looked at her jumbled confused thoughts with utmost analyzation. Mother always had a way of making all bad memories fade into forgets right before bedtime, but this night, Wendy needed them as evidence. She was still not all too sure about herself, and certainly not about Neverland.

The nightlights were snuffed, the shutters were closed, and the children's breathing slowed to a sleep. Wendy fought sleep as long as she could, still entangled with facts and reasons why Peter Pan had been real, and then also the terrible countering emotions that came with that conclusion. But, sleep found her after all, and Wendy found with happy surprise that all was not lost. For a brief moment, right before true sleep, Wendy saw the shores of Neverland. But it was too late now, she had gone further into that very deep and empty sleep that most adults envy. By the time she awoke, she had almost forgotten about it.

Peter awoke in a place of glittering things. One would expect to be laying down and yawning when awake but Peter found himself standing, as if regaining senses after a bout of dizziness, but as his surroundings unfurled he found he was in a place completely unknown to him. Indoors, with the ticking of some clock behind his ears. At first, he seemed only a visitor within himself, and he heard a voice quite like his own but completely unpracticed say,

"What are these bottles, for, mother?" As he watched his hand finger a delicate faceted glass bottle.

"It is for beauty, my dear David." The mother responded. "Mothers need to be beautiful, as young men need to be successful." She said smiling. Peter felt his cheek being pinched by a delicate but firm hand and sourness settled into his gut. He was trapped inside of someone else, and panic softly settled into him. The ticking of the clock grew menacingly slower. There were thoughts in his head that were not his, but they parralled his own none the less.

I don't want to be successful, I want to be free.

Peter felt strange and trapped in this body. He looked down at his hands, and they looked his own but his nails were neat, and his knuckled unscathed.

"I'm not David." Peter forced through the boy. David's mind felt some small shock at its strange utterance but quietly receded. The mother turned to him with a sour smile which rid her of any beauty she may have laid upon it before. All of her ugliness showed in the scowl she besotted upon the boy David.

"I don't want you playing those ridiculous games. You know it upsets me, David."

"But I'm not! I'm Peter!" A hand flew itself to David's ear, and Peter felt the stinging ring of it.

"Don't you start that again you awful child! I don't want to see you unless you are a composed gentleman!" But her anger had not yet subsided and two more strikes hit the boys. Peter, being defiant in nature, raised a hand to stop the third, and David quietly whispered inwardly. You shouldn't do that… Then David receded completely. Where to, Peter did not know, but he suffered a full blow from an adult. A woman, but still stronger than he, it was all Peter could do to wrap his fingers together and strike back at her cheek.

"Ugh!" She cried disgusted. "My face, David! You little vermin!" A blush of red blossomed under her carefully painted cheeks, and her anger grew to a crescendo. Her hands wrapped around Peter's throat, and twisted his collar into a chokehold, dragging him into the hallway and pushing him into the room next door.

"I guess you will not be seeing your father tonight! I will send him away, telling him what awful seed he has given me. No supper tonight!" The lock of the door clicked shut and footsteps made their way away from the door.

Peter's teeth were clenched, and some angry tears left his eyes.

She's not all that bad… if you don't anger her. Whispered the timid voice of David.

"Not all that bad? Look what she's done to you!" Peter cried, carefully rubbing the soreness at his throat.

I barely feel anything. He responded. Then the voice went away, as if the soul had abandoned the body. When Peter clenched David's hands, they felt very much like his own. His anger ebbed, and finally the silence of the room, save for the muted ticking from beyond the wall, brought him back to his senses. Where was he, even? Peter could not recollect. Everything seemed made of feeling and instinct, but never memory. There was something terribly wrong about all of this, Peter felt he did not belong. He had never even heard of such a thing as two voices in one body.

"David?" He whispered. But the voice did not answer. Feeling for the first time alone, Peter recalled a feeling that things had definitely not gone how they should. He lay upon the bed, listening to all the foreign voices and noises of the inside of a house, and fell asleep dreaming that he was calling out to someone.