Darling Ellie

Chapter 35

Ellie

The kiss was so perfect that I didn't notice when Peter's magic swept us away. I didn't notice when the soil beneath my feet turned to sand. When the shouting around us turned to silence. When the cool breeze on my skin turned to hot sunshine. The only thing I noticed was the absence when he pulled away. The unfathomable longing that the separation of our lips brought. He tucked my wind-swept hair behind my ear, the touch of his fingertips of the skin of my neck sending tingles around my body. He leaned in close, like he used to, I felt his mouth pull into a smile. I felt his warm breath on my ear.

"Close your eyes." They fluttered closed almost involuntarily my body bewitched by him.

By his voice and his hands and his magical touch. He swept me up in his arms and cradle carried me.

Just what are you planning? I held a handful of his shirt, my other hand pressed against his back.

I could feel the muscles of his shoulders moving with every step. He was stepping up. One, two, three.

We were on level ground again and he finally stopped. Leaning close his breath and voice again caressing my ear and down my neck he whispered,

"Now open." My eyelids fluttered lazily open, my eyes adjusting to the light.

I gasped slightly. A large room sprawled in front of me. The entire front wall was just windows. On one side of the door was a breakfast bar looking out onto the beach. Looking out onto our private paradise.

On the other side of the door an easel sat in the corner, surrounded by canvases, a box of props and a set of shelves filled with all types of art supplies. The wall near the breakfast bar was entirely bookshelves. The only break was a door which I assumed would lead to the bathroom. In the centre of the room sat a low table surrounded with soft cushions and behind that a beautiful dusty rose chaise lounge. But the main element of the room. The focal point. A large fourposter bed. Swaths of chiffon hung as a canopy across the top, sheets of it gently flowing downwards in curtains around the three exposed sides. It was perfect. It was so uniquely...ours.

Peter slowly set me down and I was still silent, utterly speechless.

"Do you like it?" He asked quietly.

I turned around slowly, he looked calm, but I could see the worry in his eyes. Disappointment that I wouldn't like it, fear that I wouldn't like it.

"Peter, it's...it's so..." My hesitation looked like it was crushing him when really... "I could never find the words to describe how perfect it is. I could try, I could search for years, study every language and there still wouldn't be a phrase for how happy I am."

He smiled and let out a breath of relief. But he looked conflicted. He walked slowly over to the chaise lounge and sunk down into it. I walked over slowly and sat on a cushion at his feet, my hands on his knees.

"What's wrong?"

"I just," He paused, "Well I...I've been thinking that as much as you love this, as much as I want to give you everything I have to offer and more, I feel like you should probably hate me."

I was stunned into silence. "Ellie you should probably hate me, I've been on my worst behaviour. I'm Peter Pan for God's sakes, I'm not something to love."

"When?" Was all I could say. "When were you on your worst behaviour?"

"Since the beginning and really thinking about it. I'm no better than Daniel."

"Don't say that." I gasped. "You're nothing like him."

"But I am. Shadow brought you here. I hunted you down, locked you up, isolated you. I had my boys beat just because you wouldn't tell me your secrets. Secrets I had no right to know unless you said so. I kissed you without your permission and then used your feelings against you. I broke you heart and then I wasn't there when you needed me." His eyes were on the floor.

I reached up turning his face towards me. Breathing deeply, I though carefully about what to say. My eyes locked with his.

"Yes, shadow brought me here, yes you had the lost boys hunt for me, yes you ordered them to hurt me, yes you hurt me," his face fell, "but you know it was wrong. You knew that this reputation you had built for yourself, as a villain, was wrong. You kissed me that first time and I hated it, but then suddenly I didn't. Every time afterward I didn't hate it, I never told you not to. You used my want for you against me, but it felt like a game, a game where at first, we weren't playing with love. At first you were playing with me, and I think I knew that. I don't think I cared. But once I started to develop feelings for you, you could see that, and the game changed. You never tried to take advantage of me the way he did. You stopped him, you were then when I needed you most. This guilt you feel right now proves to me that you would never hurt me again. That you're different. He feels no remorse and that makes you different. But right now, you feel that because of your dark past you are not worthy of love."

"I'm not." He whispered turning away.

"That's bullshit," I gripped his chin turning him back to face me, forcing him to listen.

"If there are no words to describe how perfect this place is then there are certainly no words to describe how I feel about you. There is no way to describe how alive you make me feel when you kiss me. There are no words to describe the mischief you ignite in me when we play our games. Now way to describe how safe you make me feel when you hold me, when you pull me away from my nightmares. Most of all I will never find a way to describe how much I love." his eyes came alive.

"Because I do. I love you so much it hurts. It's this pull in my chest when I'm not around you. It the longing I feel whenever we pull away. It's the need to be with you that's always been there. I used to think it was because you were so hypnotising, and this was Neverland. I never thought it was real. Now I know. I love you and there's no coming back from that. I can't change that." We sat in silence for a moment.

I could feel every second pass. I could see the memories of our time together dancing in his eyes.

"When I first found you, I felt it. That pull in my chest forcing me to find you. When you came to Neverland all I could feel was you. Your presence so overpowering nothing could compete. You intrigued me. I told myself it was just because you were a girl, and I was a boy, but it wasn't. That day at the beach when you went under, I knew something was different. Every day since then my want to be with you grew stronger and stronger. I almost couldn't stop myself on full moon. Then I went and ruined it with Alice. I told myself I was building this for her. Yet every day I found myself putting more of you in it. More of us. It was for you. It was always for you because I love you." Even he seemed shocked.

"I love you and I never thought that I was capable of that, but I was. I am...and I love you." I sat very still for a minute before moving up onto my knees and pressing my lips against his.

It sealed everything. That one kiss sealed everything we had just said to each other. Marking it in eternity because that's how long we'd have together. We would have eternity.