A/N - We got to a hundred reads!! Yayyyy!!! I feel so special. :) Anyway, this chapter is just a filler really, so it's probably going to be pretty boring. And also very short, so if you read the author's note at the end of the last chapter, tell me which length of chapter you prefer.

~~~

When I woke up the following morning, I almost rolled over and went back to sleep. Fishing had been more of a strain on my body than I'd expected and it just seemed like a little too much effort to get out of bed and do it all again. I'd almost drifted off when, just like the previous day, two subtle taps sounded on the door.

Oh, right. I had to earn my keep. I forgot I had actually do stuff to be allowed to stay. I groaned. Normally, I wouldn't mind work, but I was just so tired and it couldn't have been past seven in the morning anyway. I don't know how all those teenage boys got up everyday at the crack of dawn. It's just not natural.

But regardless of the temptation to stay in bed, I answered the knock, knowing laziness would never get me anywhere. Plus, not helping out might aggravate the boys enough to finally actually hurt me, and that wasn't a risk I wasn't willing to take.

"Felix?" I was almost certain it would be him, but there was always a possibility that one of the other Lost Boys was playing a knock-and-run practical joke.

"Uh. Yeah. It's me," Felix answered and I huffed an internal sigh of relief.

"Give me a second and I'll be out," I called back in acknowledgement. There was no reply but I knew he would be waiting for me.

I quickly threw on a set of clothes very similar to the ones from yesterday and laced my trainers into place, before heading out the door to meets Felix. He was stood in exactly the same spot as before, though this time, he wore the same outfit as when I first met him in the forest; a heavy black cloak which exposed nothing but the skin of his neck and face. But he didn't have his hood up, so his hair and feather braid were still visible.

"Fishing again?" I asked.

"No. It's fruit picking today." He didn't look directly at me but his posture and tone were far less awkward than the day before. He didn't even stutter over his words.

I nodded. Fruit picking sounded much less strenuous than fishing, not that I'd predicted the physical taxation of yesterday's activities. But really, how hard could today be?

The answer was surprising. It was even worse than fishing. After just a half hour, my back was aching unavoidably from reaching up to the night branches to pull down the fruit and my fingers shook with the strain.

Just like yesterday, Felix had taken off in front and I had trailed behind, him leading me towards our destination. Though, this time, all though we left the camp from the same place, we took a very different route that meandered through the more dense patches of forest. We'd battled through - or I'd battled through; Felix didn't seem to have any trouble with the low hanging branches and irritating nettles - until the wood spat us out in a little clearing.

It was like a natural orchard, where groves of trees stood about in clusters of their same species. The sun managed to creep in just enough for the plants to be able to grow, but it was still dark enough that I had to pay careful attention to where I put my feet to make sure I didn't trip. None of the fruits on the trees looked familiar to me but then again, this island had mermaids and magic, so was it so surprising that it had its own specific fruit species?

"Pick the red ones over there," Felix had instructed me moments after we'd entered the clearing, and produced a wicker basket which he'd handed over for me to fill with the crops. I set off towards the trees he'd gestured at whilst he disappeared around the other side of them.

The fruits I was to pick were juicy and round, luxurious in their rich russet tone. They were studded with minuscule brown seeds and resembled a hybrid between a peach and a strawberry.

A while passed and the clearing became brighter and brighter as the sun travelled overhead, the shadows shortening as the day proceeded. My basket was almost full and I was having to work to fit every new fruit into it when Felix finally called for me to stop.

"Perdita?"

I followed the sound of his voice over to the other side of the trees and although I couldn't see him, I could tell he was just across from me.

"Yeah?"

"How did you end up here?" His tone was intensely inquisitive. It was odd that he'd spoken after so long in silence, but that seemed to be the way Felix worked; alternating between short conversation and hours of stillness.

"I don't know." Surely he knew that already though.

"You don't know? Oh." He seemed disappointed.

"No. Why?" What was he expecting?

"Well..." he hesitated as if deciding whether or not to proceed with his explanation. He manifestly resolved that he would as his next words came out in a rush. "It's just that you came here without the shadow bringing you and then Pan wouldn't tell us how or why and that makes no sense to me and it's just weird. And then he didn't even know your name and he always knows new people's names because the shadow never brings anyone that he hasn't heard about before. I suppose you could have come by portal but you didn't even know that magic existed three days ago and you seem just as lost as the rest of us so it just doesn't add up to me."

This was undeniably the most I'd ever heard the boy speak and my lips parted, jaw dropped slightly at the feat. I was thankful that I was hidden from him by the tree's voluptuous leaves because if he'd seen, it would have been mortified with embarrassment.

"I- I have no idea. Sorry. I don't even know my own name so I'm not surprised Pan didn't either. Perdita is just one that I made up."

Felix sighed. "I know."

Well if he knew, what was the point of this entire conversation. "Then why'd you ask?"

"I was hoping you were lying." His resonance made is crystal clear that that portion of our exchange was over but I wasn't quite ready to be done with him yet.

"Felix?" I asked, mirroring his earlier tone.

"Yes?" he responded, warily.

"What's 'the shadow'?" He'd mentioned it in his long speech about his me-related confusion and it had only just occurred to me to be curious.

"Pan's shadow," he answered simply.

"But how can Pan's shadow have brought all of you here? It's a shadow, for God's sake."

"It's not attached to his body. Actually, it's more like the embodiment of the island than his shadow. It seeks out the most vulnerable boys and brings them back here, to Neverland. There, they become the Lost Ones," he explained much slower than before. This concept seemed incredibly miscellaneous to me but I guess I knew so little of magic that it would be more shocking if all this had resembled normality.

"Oh." We were both silent for a few moments. I didn't pick anymore fruit, partly because my basket was full to the brim and couldn't cope with any more, but mostly because we could both tell that there was still more important things to he said. "Is that how Pan saved you?"

"Yes." It wasn't so much as a confirmation as a whisper on the wind, it was that soft. No extensive commentary on the awful terrors of his past, just one simple word. But somehow, that word held all the pain and secrets that I knew he'd never told anyone about. I gathered he wanted another subject change and felt it my duty to deliver one.

"What does it look like, Pan's shadow?"

"Looks a lot like Pan, surprisingly," I could tell he appreciated my change in conversation because there was a note of playful sarcasm in his voice which I hadn't heard before. "It's got no colour though. Just a silhouette with white eyes."

White eyes? Like the ones in the forest that I had seen in my first night in Neverland. The ones belonging to the thing had delivered me the odd poem. Could it be possible that Pan's shadow had found me and spoken to me in the middle of the night? This sent a shiver down my spine and I didn't even know why.

"Right then," Felix announced suddenly, "Let's go back," before striding off the way we'd come. Even though that meant the end of our conversation, I was glad. My back was really starting to hurt.

The day had been very much the same as the one before - just with fruit instead of fish - and the night proved no different.

Felix brought me a platter of meat that tasted like pork and we sat and ate it on our bench, not so much as a word exchanged between us.

~~~

A/N - Told you it would be short and boring. Tomorrow's will be better hopefully.