A/N: On a Peter Pan rampage ;) Had a bit of writer's block for She's a Lady, so I just wrote this down really quickly for a bit of fun :P What do you think so far? This chapter's not particularly exciting, it'll get better, I promise -_-" Please enjoy! ^-^

Jax Hull was in a foul mood.

That very morning she had been given an English assignment that demanded research of a popular fairytale. Following that, the students were required to analyze the fairytale and explain its significance in today's world, then to be delivered in an oral three to seven minutes long.

Most of the other kids in the class had been reasonably neutral about the entire affair. It'd be alright, they thought. A trip back in time, perhaps, going back to the days where it was OK to read fairytales. A few kids were even excited- finally, an excuse to indulge in childish pleasures once again!

Jax was not among those children.

Jax hated fairytales. It seemed a little unfair, seeing as she had never actually read any. Or perhaps she had. She couldn't remember anything from her childhood, let alone little things like fairytales. Regardless, she couldn't stand them. The idea of pulling wool over children's eyes and telling them fantastical tales about worlds that didn't exist… if there was one thing Jax hated, it was lying. By the time she had rediscovered fairytales, she was far too old.

At least, that was what her mother had told her when an eight-year-old Jax ran over to her with a box of books, and Chelsea Hull was always right.

Jax had never been a fan of fiction. Ever since the age of six, when she had officially become 'too old' for fairytales, she had read historical recounts and watched many documentaries under the careful eye of her mother. It didn't make much sense to Jax at first, but once she grasped it she was intrigued. Then one day her cousin had sent her a book for her birthday. It was a fairytale, but Jax couldn't quite remember what it was called now. Mrs. Hull had been disdainful upon seeing the book but agreed reluctantly to let her daughter keep it because it was, after all, a gift. That night, when Jax opened it, she was deeply disgusted. The very idea of ageless children flying about defied reason, and she did not like reason to be defied. She handed it back to her mother and they never spoke of it again.

Come to think of it, Mrs. Hull and Jax rarely spoke even now. As Jax grew older and older, Chelsea had less and less time to see her daughter until she began going to work very very early and returning very very late. Jax's wellbeing had become the task of Harriet the maid, and Jax had thought of Harriet as her mother for quite some time now. If it weren't for the photos on the mantelpiece, Jax was quite sure she would have forgotten Chelsea's face by now. Harriet was her mother now, and it was Harriet that greeted her stormy face that afternoon upon her return from school.

"What's the matter, deary?" She enquired, closing the door behind her young charge quietly.

"Stupid English assignment," She growled unhappily. "We have to research fairytales. Can you believe it?"

Harriet hesitated, knowing full well Jax's aversion to fairytales. "That's a shame," She said carefully.

"It's a pain in the… neck," Jax caught herself, eyeing the sixty-something maid cautiously. "I hardly have a choice though," She added pointedly, then sighed. "I'll be in the study. Call me when dinner's ready, will you?"

"Of course, love. Don't get too worked up, now."

Jax smiled fleetingly over her shoulder as she made her way up the staircase. "I try, Harriet. I try."

Once upstairs, Jax slammed the study door shut with a kick and a frustrated sigh, tossing her bag down unceremoniously before leaping into an office chair and spinning over to the curtains, which she abruptly tore open. Sunlight flooded the room, and a satisfied Jax pushed herself over to the desk where she turned on the monitor with a gentle kick. She whistled quietly as she waited, trying to distract herself from the task ahead. She couldn't quite describe why fairytales got her so worked up, but she couldn't help herself.

She had a long way to go.

Once the computer was started, Jax began the gruelling task of picking out one infuriating story. She typed the hated word into Google and was greeted by a myriad of responses. She was tempted to just go straight to fables- it wouldn't be hard to explain a deeper meaning in that- but her teacher had beaten her to it and asked specifically that there be no fables. Jax could deal with fables. Just not fairytales. Please, not fairytales. She scrolled down a few pages lazily, but the very titles of some of the stories threw her off. She read the first page or so of a few, but quickly got annoyed and abandoned that story in favour of something else. She spent a good hour trying to be positive, but ultimately gave up after the hundredth crappy story. With a frustrated sigh, she stood and made her way back downstairs again. Harriet was in the kitchen cooking a roast that already smelled amazing.

Harriet looked up and saw her young charge and smiled. "How'd you go?" She asked politely.

Jax sighed and slumped in her chair. "They're just so stupid," She complained childishly. "I'm sure there's a reasonably good fairytale out there somewhere…"

"We may have one or two left on our shelves here," Harriet said thoughtfully. "Would you like to have a look?"

Jax sighed. She didn't really want to do the assignment at all, but she nodded once and ran a hand through her unruly dark hair. "Sure."

Whenever Harriet moved, she never really walked. It was more of a shuffle, really. Her old little feet moved at a small distance and in such a way that it appeared that she was bobbing up and down as she moved. Jax followed her tight silver bun through the hallways until they arrived in the over-crowded, little-used library. They wordlessly panned out, searching the shelves for any fairytales, but just as Jax had suspected, there were none there. If there ever had been any, her mother had probably removed them when she deemed Jax too old to read fairytales.

Harriet was still hopeful. "Maybe the attic," She speculated, absently looking up at the roof as she spoke. "Your mother got rid of plenty of things, but she could never bring herself to throw them out. She's a hoarder, she is." She chortled a little to herself. "You could find a fair few things of interest besides fairytales up there, I wager."

"I'm sure," Jax said absently. She wanted to tell Harriet that she could just check in the school library the next day (seeing as its organizational skills passed Jax's own by far) but she couldn't bring herself to deny Harriet.

And so they made their way up to the attic. The roast lingered in the back of Jax's mind, but Harriet waved her hand dismissively when Jax brought it up, claiming it would be 'fine'. Disappointed at her failure to divert Harriet's attention, Jax followed the little maid up the not-so-loved wooden staircase that went up into the roof and into the attic.

When Harriet turned the light on, the first thing that struck Jax was the modern-ness of the attic. It was just like the rest of the house, white walls with black edges. Well, the walls were white once upon a time. The dust had since stained them, or what little of them that Jax could see. Boxes crowded every square centimetre of the floor and crawled up the walls. There were no windows into the cramped room and it took some time for Harriet and Jax to pick their way through to the middle, at which point Harriet began scanning every box with her surprisingly brilliant eye to find anything that might help. Jax suggested unpacking the boxes, but Harriet didn't want to be the one cleaning it up afterwards and added that there was far too much stuff for them to unpack anyway. Harriet got right into it, crawling around on her hands and knees and peering over boxes to see what was scribbled on them. Jax searched half-heartedly and uncertainly, until finally…

"Here we go!" Harriet grunted from behind a tower of boxes. Her little arms reached over the tower, holding another box. Jax hurried over to her- as fast as she could hurry in the labyrinth of boxes- and took it from her, setting it down unhappily. She had really hoped that they would never find that box. Not for the first time, she speculated over her childish hate of fairytales (almost a contradiction) but she couldn't help it. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like an impulsive fear than a hatred, but she'd rather not dwell on it.

Back to the task at hand, namely helping Harriet clamber over the box tower and then relocating the fairytale box amongst all the other boxes.

They brought it back downstairs again and set it down on the table. Harriet then vanished back to the kitchen. With a reluctant sigh, Jax began sorting through them. They had the same titles as the ones she had seen before: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast… She held a particular disdain for those stories. She hated how it was always the woman that needed saving. Jax was a strong feminist and could hardly stand the weak female character in all these stories. With an exasperated sigh, she tossed them aside carelessly until she got to the bottom of the pile. She almost overlooked it, but eager on finding at least one partially good story and getting this rotten assignment over and done with, she pulled it out and examined it. It was very old and very dusty, but once she had blown all the dust away she saw a dark green leather cover and two gold inlaid words on the cover. A red feather served as an underline to the words:

Peter Pan

Jax's feminist side twinged at the typically male name that served as the title, but curiosity urged her to open the front cover. On the first page was a brief handwritten message to her.

Dearest Jacqui,

We couldn't make it to your birthday this time, but we hope you enjoy this gift. Tommy loved it when he was a boy and now it's yours.

Much love, Carla, Fred and Tommy xxx

Her cousin and his family. They must have given it to her a while ago. The first thought that came to Jax's mind was why her mother had never let her keep it, seeing as it was, after all, a gift. Jax absently waltzed back into the kitchen, flicking through the pages quickly. She did not read the sentences in full, but caught words like 'Peter', 'Neverland', 'fly', 'Hook'. She sat down at the kitchen bench and continued swallowing little snippets of the book.

Imagine Harriet's surprise. "You found one?" She asked politely, hiding her shock.

Jax shrugged. "No guarantees," She reminded the maid, but she didn't sound too convincing.

Harriet craned her neck and read a sentence or two. She smiled. "Ah, Peter Pan. I loved that book when I was a child."

Jax flipped back to the front page. "It was given to my for my birthday, apparently," she explained. "From Carla."

"Ah, yes," Harriet sighed wistfully. "I remember. It was your sixth birthday, if I do remember correctly. Your mother didn't like it and you weren't too fond of it either. You hardly noticed when she packed all your things away, in fact."

Jax's ears pricked up. "'Packed all my things away'?" She repeated questioningly.

"Why, yes!" Harriet nodded. "When your mother thought you were too old for fairytales, she just packed away all your books, including that one. You never said a word!"

Jax couldn't remember any of it. She turned back to her book, mind reeling with questions she'd like to probe her mother with if she ever actually saw her again. "Huh."

Harriet smiled. "Looks like you're enjoying yourself there, sweetie."

Jax poked her tongue out jokingly. "It's just for English," She mumbled, but she didn't sound very convincing.

Dinner passed uneventfully. The normal chatter ensued as they ate- school, life, gossip. Harriet told Jax all about her exciting adventures down to the market and back and in return Jax told her about what an idiot her Maths teacher was to think that the Spartans were from Rome. Jax had begun learning things like that when she was little and, now at fourteen, was very intellectual for her age. Harriet enjoyed having conversations with her.

Once dinner was finished, Jax went upstairs for a shower and eventually bed. Harriet smiled when she saw the book tucked under her arm but said nothing apart from 'goodnight'. Sure enough, when Harriet went out a few hours later to turn Jax's lights out she was sitting up in bed and reading Peter Pan. She looked neither particularly delighted but she didn't look absolutely disgusted either. She smiled to herself as she turned the light out and moved back out to the corridor.

Jax listened at the door keenly. Once she was sure Harriet's footsteps had faded downstairs, she raced back to bed and dived under her blanket, flicking on a torch and continuing on with her reading. She was scribbling down notes for her assignment as she did so and had been through a fair few pages already. She couldn't say that this book had changed her view on fairytales forever, but she was ultimately surprised to find that she was sort of enjoying herself. The book was absurd (though not quite as absurd as Alice in Wonderland, she had to admit) but somehow it fascinated her. Perhaps it was because, as far as she knew, she had had no proper childhood. It made her wonder what being a child forever would be like. It intrigued her.

Finally, her eyelids drooped and her head hung low until at long last she fell asleep, sprawled across the pages of the first fairytale she had read in a very, very long time.

If she had known what was to follow, she would never have fallen asleep.