Gwen sat facing the concrete wall of her unpainted cell. She rolled her acorn in her hand. The Anomalous Activity officers had confiscated much as either evidence or contraband—her phone, the sketchpad, the tin can phone, and her emergency stash of pixie dust—but everything else they had deemed unimportant and left with her. Of course, they didn't find everything. Some things were good at hiding.
They had found and ignored the acorn. It wasn't magical in the least. It never had been. It had only been a token, a symbol, of something great and wonderful Peter wanted to give her. All its magic lived in the what it meant... and now, that was all the magic that Gwen had. Fidgeting with the tiny nut gave her comfort. She took it out and played with it in her restless hands whenever she started to worry about Peter. She had not seen him in eight days.
It had been easy for the black coats to round up the last of the lost children by the time Neverland finished disintegrating. The barren island offered nowhere to hide. Most of the children had made it off, pursuing the aviator and taking the seed-bearing sprig of the Never Tree with them, but not all.
It had taken two days to sail back to reality, and Gwen had spent those two days in the ship's brig with the other captured children. She told stories until she was hoarse, reassuring them with more conventional fairytales than the story of Margaret May. She told fairytales where the good guys always won, and everyone went home in the end. The black coats had isolated Peter, though. They wouldn't let Gwen see him. They wouldn't let her see Jay either. She almost asked about Lasiandra, but she didn't want to see her.
Gwen overheard only bits and pieces of news from those that guarded them. The lawyers had made it to the very center of the island with Lasiandra's aide, but when they found the tree and had their soldiers cut it down, it turned out to be nothing more magical than an ordinary old willow tree.
The ships docked on the shores of reality, as near to Lake Agana as the ocean came. The black coats loaded them into the police cars of their under-cover officers. It took an hour's drive before they reached the research facility where they then isolated Gwen.
On the first day in her cell, they sent a motherly white coat in to talk with her. The woman talked to all the children individually, but only Gwen understood that she was undergoing a psychological evaluation. Gwen said nothing inflammatory and nothing radical. She must have passed the evaluation, because on the second day they sent in one of the lawyers.
While he walked her through a short contract and explained exactly what she needed to sign and agree to before she could be released, Gwen imagined one of Peter's man eating trees mashing him up into plant food. As pleasant as the therapist, he explained her new anomaly reduction device and the infrequent parole meetings she would need to attend. None of this made Gwen feel better about him. She shocked him, at the end of their meeting, when she didn't sign the paperwork for her own release.
“You can't leave the facility until you sign this document!” he told her.
“You've made that clear,” she answered, inexpressive. “I'm not ready to leave. Set them on the table. I'll sign them when I'm ready.” She continued asking to see Peter. The officers never yielded on the issue.
On the third day, they offered to bring in her parents so she could talk to them. She declined the offer. She didn't want to have this conversation with her parents while in custody—they would have plenty of time to talk when she got home.
She didn't want to go back home, not like this. The inevitability of it made even the purgatory of the research facility seem preferable, at least for a while. Back to reality, time had started passing again. Her age was progressing again, day by day. Every morning she woke up a little older. The Anomalous Activity officers informed her of the date when she returned. Reality made it easy to count the days and keep track of them again—even though as the monotony of the research cell blurred days the together. Gwen sat through the mid-May days as they rolled toward summer on the other side of a concrete wall.
She had missed her entire junior year. The lawyer and therapist had both explained she still had options—she could repeat the grade, take summer classes to prepare for senior year, or study for and take the GED. None of her options appealed to Gwen while she sat listening to her own breath in the empty cell. She had left right before homecoming, and now prom approached while she sat detained out at Lake Agana.
She didn't mind. She'd detached herself from that world and felt that she shouldn't join it until she'd caught back up to it. She had spent nine months in Neverland? She wanted to spend nine months in this waiting room, letting her age catch up to her before she went back out into reality. She rolled her acorn from one hand to the other.
The world wouldn't wait for her, though. The days she spent at the facility were as wasted as those in Neverland, and not an iota as enjoyable. She needed to sign her papers and get on with her life. She would only wait until her emotions caught back up to her, until she remembered why she had always, in some corners of her heart, wanted to grow up.
Four days in, she got an unexpected visit.
The door to her cell swung open and, without any greeting, Andrew Hoek marched in with a short ladder and a toolbox. The engineer didn't so much as look at Gwen. The door closed behind him. He set his ladder in the middle of the room and climbed up with his toolbox. The cell's sole light fixture sparkled in his silver and black hair, and illuminated every stain on his grey coveralls. He looked at the light bulb a moment, took a hammer out of his box, and smashed the bulb.
“Yep,” he remarked. “Definitely burned out.”
Gwen continued to sit on her bed, but watched as he screwed in a new light, as if the task was standard maintenance. Without another word, he closed his toolbox, came down off the ladder, folded up the ladder, and headed back out the door. As he left, he slipped an envelope onto the table. The door closed and locked behind him. After a minute's hesitation, Gwen got to her feet and fetched the envelope: a letter from Jay.
Inside, she found six long, handwritten pages of apologies, praise of her character, and the nebulous offers only ever extended by well-meaning people who know they can't do anything to help. He encouraged her to sign her papers and come home, even if she was too mad to ever speak to him again. She read it over and over. Like the acorn, it became a comforting artifact.
She wasn't angry at Jay. She surprised herself when she realized she wasn't even mad at Lasiandra—not really. When she thought about everything, she didn't see how this crazy adventure could have had any other outcome. Everyone involved had been so jumbled and confused, so immature and uninformed, it didn't seem worth the discomfort to spend time angry at anyone. She felt drained of emotion, and did not desire to fill herself back up until she had pleasant feelings at her disposal. Life would progress as soon as she resumed it. Still, something deep inside of herself told her Neverland's dissolution had already torn a rift in her relationship with Jay that would never fully heal.
Jay had not meant to ruin her world, and as soon as he realized his disasterous role in that destruction he had worked to correct for it. He had never intended to wound Gwen, but her heart could not muster the strength to love him on his intentions alone. It was easier to forgive than to forget, and painful memories could haunt a heart harder than ghosts. It didn't matter anyways; he would be off to Maryland on his full ride scholarship in a matter of months. Jay was growing up—faster than Gwen, even as time began to to pass for her again.
The note expedited Gwen's desire to leave, but did not solidify it. She felt better, but still needed time, and did not intend to leave without seeing Peter.
When the fifth day rolled around, the Anomalous Activity officers sent in a familiar face.
The door squeaked open and the white coat therapist ushered a young girl in. “I thought you two might like to talk,” the therapist explained, before closing the door and leaving them together.
Gwen, lying in bed, sat up as a preteen girl came traipsing in. “Hi,” the girl announced. “My name's Barbra. It's very nice to meet you.” She twirled the glittering plastic bracelets on her wrists as she stood before Gwen, wearing a hot pink butterfly shirt and pair of tiny jeans.
At first, Gwen didn't even recognize her. The girl's sweet expression and polite voice jogged her memory, and Gwen realized that she would have recognized this girl had she only been in a calico dress and covered in daisy chain jewelry.
“Oh my goodness, Bard!” she exclaimed. “It's me, Gwen!”
Six months older and more entrenched in reality, Bard seemed a different girl altogether. Half a year was no short time to a child, and the seasons had steadily swept Neverland out from her mind. Still, the memory of Gwen sprung back to her as soon as she was reminded. “Oh Gwen! I haven't seen you in so long. I hope you have been very well and not at all sad. It was so sad, last time I saw you!”
“Yes,” Gwen agreed. “It was. But how are you doing? Have you been okay, Bard?”
She laughed, and Gwen realized the old nickname must have seemed an absurd relic from a time long since lost to dreams and dust. Bard—Barbara—answered, “I'm great! I'm really glad my mom let me come see you. Do you know I'm the only girl in the whole fifth grade who knows how to knit? I'm the only kid who knows how to sew, too—except for my friend Mia, but she's not very good at it. I have to help her thread her needles most of the time.”
Gwen smiled and nodded along, delighted to listen as her young friend regaled her with tales of elementary recesses, school friends, and weekend trips to the ocean with her parents. Barbara either did not know or did not care that she had been adopted by a family after half a century or more away from her own. She gushed about every aspect of her pre-adolescent life. She tried to ask questions too, but she seemed confused on the mechanics of Gwen's life, existence, and previous friendship with her. Neverland had ebbed away for her, out of sight and into a barely believable past. She had forgotten that paradise, and now rejoiced in the joys of family, growth, and learning which Neverland had held her back from.
After a while, the therapist returned and escorted Bard out. Gwen missed her company as soon as she stepped out. The cell became unbearably quiet in the absence of any conversation.
Gwen felt ready to go home. She knew how much was waiting for her, and at last she was beginning to look forward to it. When the therapist checked in on her next, she informed the doctor of this decision, but also gave her sole caveat: she would not leave without seeing Peter. The Anomalous Activity officers remained resolute—that was not possible.
Gwen waited another day, and another. She did not mind passing time for the sake of loyalty to a friend. She would not abandon Peter in this research facility. Piper had grown bitter and unpleasant in these circumstances, and Peter was every bit as contrary. She didn't know what would become of Peter, but she would not leave without him. Or, if Peter's own temper eliminated that option, she would at least not leave without saying goodbye.
Then, on the eighth day, they sent in Miss Sweet.