Belief Extraordinary

Promise

The camp was silent when they returned. With no one in a celebratory mood, most of the Lost Boys were tucked away in their tents. Only Felix sat watch, carving away in his place by the lone lit fire. He glanced up as the two appeared in the center. He narrowed his eyes at first, squinting to assess the situation in the dim light. To his surprise, neither of them looked angry. Neither of them were sulking either. That surprised him, though perhaps with the unusual way Pan had been acting since Sarah went missing, it shouldn't have. He stood, stretching, and ambled over to greet them. When he raised an eyebrow, Pan looked away. He hadn't exactly thought through how to rectify what he'd told Sarah with his need to maintain his status as the Lost Boys' untouchable leader.

But Felix only glanced towards Sarah, who watched him with a cautious eye. "Been a while, Lost Girl." He mused. "I was starting to think you'd died." To his surprise, Sarah smiled.

"No such luck for you, Felix." She told him primly. "You'll just have to accept that I outmaneuvered you." Felix snorted, an amused smile playing in his eye. She was oddly cheerful, he thought, but at least peace seemed to be restored in the camp. With a nod to Pan, he ambled off towards his tent and bed. The tent two down from his rustled, and he was almost bowled over on his way by a speeding red-haired bullet that burst in an excited frenzy from the flaps. Three other, quieter figures followed.

Xavier skidded to the dirt as his target disappeared before him, reappearing in a moment behind his back. Standing up, he gaped. "You have magic." Sarah grinned. "Since when do you have magic?" To knock him from his stupor, Sarah grappled him to the ground. She hadn't realised just how much she'd missed these boys. Arthur glanced to Pan, who, though frowning, gave the slightest nod. Arthur pulled the two apart, staring at Sarah a long moment before saying at last,

"I'm never playing you in any hiding game again." He tried to look stern, but at Sarah's sheepish grin they both soon broke into a laugh. "Good to have you back, Lost Girl." And it was. He clapped her warmly on the shoulder, pleased both that his friend was safe, and that their leader seemed to have finally left the warpath. Sarah glanced over at the other two figures who'd come out to investigate. Nibs gave her a nod with a lop-sided smile. Rasheed peered at her intensely. He was always observant, but tonight in particular he seemed to be searching for something. Whatever it was, he seemed to find it.

"It was quiet while you were gone." Rasheed informed her. When she raised an eyebrow, he shrugged. "Quiet is not always nice." With a snort, she walked over to knock his head lightly, ruffling his hair as she did so.

"I missed you too, brat." He scowled. Pan scowled too, annoyed that she was so happy to see these Lost Boys when she'd been so unhappy to see him. And if she'd missed them so very much, why hadn't she come back to camp sooner? He knew why, of course. The problem was that they really were too much alike, and he should have known that her pride would keep her away whatever she felt towards the other inhabitants of the camp. He watched as, laughing, she sent them back to their tent, telling them she'd answer their questions in the morning. Then she turned, meeting his gaze with an unreadable look in her own. "Goodnight, Peter." She turned away from him then, walking towards her tent.

Pan appeared before her, frowning. "And just where do you think you're going?" Sarah blinked. She gestured towards her tent, confused as to why he was asking a question with such an obvious answer. Pan's jaw clenched. "I don't think so." For all he knew she would step into that tent and disappear back into the jungle, hiding out for days or even weeks until he stumbled across her again. Sarah's eyes hardened. There he went, ordering her around again as though nothing had happened between them. Maybe nothing did. Her mind needled. If it turned out that everything tonight had been a ruse as well, she decided, she might just give in to her dark side, just for a bit, to kill the boy standing in front of her.

"What do you mean, you don't think so?" He could hear the storm brewing in her voice. On one level it excited him – after all the gross, soft feelings he had felt over the days she was missing, the prospect of a real fight was appealing. On a deeper level, however, he knew that starting a fight with her now would be a terrible move. He leveled her with a serious gaze.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight, Lost Girl." He took her hand, dragging them both in the direction of his tent. Sarah's heart began to race. He didn't actually intend that – she glanced at his face. He did. She planted her feet outside the entrance.

"I'm not going in there." She told him firmly. Pan frowned.

"I don't see what the problem is. You've slept in there before, haven't you?" Sarah winced at how loud his voice sounded. Did he want the entire camp to hear him? Her eyes flickered from boy to tent and back again.

"Not with," She coughed. "Not with you there." She didn't think she had, at any rate. It occurred to her now that she hadn't thought to ask where Pan had slept the night she'd stayed in his tent. She'd assumed since he wasn't there when she woke up that it had been elsewhere, but perhaps that had been too trusting of her. A flush crept over her face. Lacking interest in...more typical intimacy, as she did, sleeping beside someone was the most physically intimate thing she could imagine. She didn't think she was ready to take that step with Peter, not when only this morning she'd been cursing his name. She pulled her hand free.

Pan let it go, but his eyes narrowed. He was uncomfortable with the way Sarah was looking at him, scanning his face as though trying to figure something out. "What are you doing?" He snapped at last. Instead of wincing as she normally did, she smiled. A genuine smile, one that twinkled softly all the way to her eyes.

"You're afraid I'm going to disappear again." Did she have to sound so amused? He was about to bite back, tell her fine, disappear into the jungle again, see if he cared, when she picked up his hands in hers. He looked from their hands to her face, where a glimmer of amusement shone in her eye. She spoke quietly. "I, Sarah Everett, promise you, Peter Pan, that I will still be here when you wake up in the morning." She squeezed his hands in hers before she dropped them. "Goodnight, Peter." Though her voice was soft, her words were firm. He watched as she walked to her long-abandoned tent, slipping through the flaps and out of sight.

Everything was just as she had left it, yet it felt a great deal different than before. Her much-abused pajamas still sat in the corner, her pallet lay untouched. Yet as she sat down on it to slip off her boots, she came to realise what was different. The tent had not changed, but she had. She had sworn, in this very tent no less, that she would never see Pan as anything but a monster. She hadn't forgotten what he'd done. She knew to brush it all away would be foolish, to pretend it couldn't happen again naïve. But she felt, deep within, that there was more to Pan than either of them had known. And somehow, some way, that more was starting to come out. She smiled as she sank onto the pallet. After days on ground and in trees, even very friendly trees, it felt like feathers. Yes, she mused, drifting off to comfortable sleep, Pan had surprised her, and she suspected himself as well. This was not, she wagered, how he had meant his game to go.

"Goodnight." Pan whispered, when she was already too far-off to hear him say it. His hands buzzed where hers had been as he grudgingly entered into his own tent. He surveyed it, eyes falling to an object on the floor. He bent slowly, picking up Sarah's knife from where he'd thrown it to the ground a few days prior. He brushed the dirt away and tied it carefully to the tent pole above his pallet. He slept better that night than he had in many, though still not well. Now that she was back, tucked safely in his camp where he knew that he could find her, the dark and needling parts of his mind pricked up again. He was Pan, they told him, the fearsome leader of the island. People cowered at his name, and he had done the stuff of nightmares. But Sarah made him someone else, as well. He didn't know how he could be both. With an angry punch, he rolled over on his pallet. This was not how he had meant this game to go.