Lost and Found

Everything I've Ever Wanted

Pan's breath caught in his throat, and his pipes squawked. Someone was leaving Neverland. He hurried amongst the circle of dancing boys, heart pounding with the drums. He searched the crowd for a certain face, but not finding the one he was looking for, he raced to the ladder leading up to Y/N's treehouse. Nothing.

Back on the ground, he quickly found Felix, pulling him from the circle. "Y/N's gone." Pan hissed.

Felix shook his head. He knew better than to patronize Pan, but at the moment it was all he wanted to do. "I tried to tell you-"

"Shut up." Pan snarled. "I'll find her myself."

Pan made his way quickly to the beach, a sinking feeling in his stomach. She couldn't be gone. Not after everything that had happened. He threw caution to the wind, and doused himself in fairydust. He was going to have to fly if he had any hope of finding her in the great expanse of water.

Pan searched the dark ocean waves frantically from above, unsure as to why he was so concerned. There was a good chance that by now Y/N was dead, taken by the mermaids, never to be seen again. Felix had been right. Freedom had meant more to her than life. He could relate, he supposed. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a dark mass floating in between the tossing sea. It could be just another clump of seaweed, he had seen plenty of that, but figured he might as well be sure. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was the body of a mermaid. Her body.

Pan scooped her out of the water and into his arms, a surge of panic coursing through him at her limp body. Her head was tilted back, eyes rolled back into her head. He hovered in place, examining Y/N's body by the light of the nearly full moon watching from overhead. No. She couldn't be dead. It didn't make sense. There was no blood. Nothing could have attacked her, yet here she was, comatose in his arms. He twisted so more light fell on her body, and that's when he caught a glimpse of the thing he feared most.

Praying he was wrong, Pan fled back to Neverland, and landed on the beach, not even bothering to go to camp. Ever so carefully, he lifted Y/N's shirt so he could see her stomach. Veins pulsed a sickening black underneath the moonlight, contrasting dramatically against her skin. Dreamshade. She should be dead already. No. No no no no no. Peter pressed two fingers to her neck, searching for a pulse. A chant echoed in his head, a mantra repeated over and over. She can't be dead. She's not dead. She can't be dead. She's not dead. He breathed a sigh of relief he hadn't realized he had been holding when he felt a vein pulse beneath his fingertips. It was thready and weak, but there. He gathered the nearly lifeless body in his arms and again took flight, racing against time and nature to reach Neverland's remedial spring.

He lay Y/N down gently at the edge of the pool, and as he did so, she twisted and cried, writhing in pain. He knelt, lifting her head into his lap. Her body was shaking, and hastily Pan scooped water from the pool, lifting it to her lips. He carefully wiped away a drip of water left on her bottom lip, and watched as the poison receded from her veins. At a painfully slow pace, the color returned to her face, and her E/C eyes fluttered open.

Y/N coughed, struggling to sit up. "Where-"

"Careful. You might not want to overexert-" Pan was cut off as Y/N slumped back into his arms; she had passed out. He wasn't worried. She had pushed herself nearly to death just trying to cross realms. Doing it while poisoned by dreamshade... Well, at that rate she should've been dead long ago. She hadn't eaten a whole lot at dinner- only a couple bowls of stew- and had to of been tired from working all day to begin with.

Carefully, Pan ran a hand lightly through her tangled hair. He hadn't even noticed that his clothes were now soaked. He didn't care. He regretted it. Every word he'd ever said to her. She wasn't a monster. She was a beautiful, delicate creature. No. She certainly wasn't delicate. Y/N was fiery, strong, and clever. She fought back twice as hard as any of the boys, refusing to submit to any sort of rule. In his hurry to test her, to push her to the edge of her breaking point, he had shattered her. He had lost his own game.

---

It was near morning by the time Pan returned to camp, Y/N still passed out. He carried her to his tent and laid her in his hammock, covering her with a blanket made from a patchwork collage of animal furs. He sat next to her, watching her chest rise and fall with every breath. How long had it been since he had found her washed up on the shore of Skull Rock? Where they strangers even then? Pan wasn't sure that they had been. There was something so comfortably familiar about her, a type of magical draw that he hadn't been able to put aside. Perhaps that was what was so intriguing about her. She was, after all, part mermaid.

Outside, Pan could hear the rustles and chatter of the lost boys beginning to wake and get ready for the day. The delicate light of dawn was coming through the tent's tarp of woven pine branches, bathing everything with a soft green glow. Y/N shifted in the hammock, and Pan watched as once again, her eyes fluttered open.

"No." Y/N's voice was soft and laced with defeat. She sat up, moving carefully from the hammock to the floor and Pan made no move to help her. Her legs were bare except for the linen shirt that fell nearly to her knees. Her eyes were on the ground as she stood before Pan, shoulders slumped. When she finally met his acidic, green eyes, there were tears in her own. "Why?" Her voice cracked. "Why won't you let me leave?" She took a breath, trying to calm herself. "You have gotten everything you've ever wanted. Power, respect, and more. This whole place is bloody yours. So I'm begging you. Please let me have the one thing I need."

Pan uncrossed his arms, taking two strides forward so he was face to face with Y/N. "You're wrong."

"P-pardon?"

Pan shook his head, his voice nearly a whisper. "I don't have everything I've ever wanted."

"I- What? What don't you have that can't be obtained by the snap of your fingers?" Y/N's E/C eyes, full of dull hopelessness searched Pan's green ones that were as cold as ever.

Something there in those frosted eyes flickered. A glimpse of warmth tinted with sadness blossomed in his emerald irises as he spoke a single word that would change Y/N's life forever. "You."