Work Text:
"I think I've torn my trousers again."
Wendy looked up and smiled. "That's okay, Neville, do you want me to mend them for you?"
"Would you?" He offered a shy smile in return and sat down on the stump beside her, jutting out his left leg and revealing a large hole just below his knee. "Playing tag with the other lost boys down by the beach again," he explained with a sigh. "I almost caught Peter, too, but they're just all so much faster than me."
Wendy pulled out a needle and thread from her pockets and eyed the hole. "Easy enough to fix," she said, and got to work.
"I think I remember my mum mending my clothes," Neville said after a moment.
Wendy's eyes shot up at him. "Really?" It was quite rare for one of the lost boys to mention his mother, let alone with a clear memory.
"Yeah, when I was a baby I was always falling off of things."
Wendy laughed lightly. "Well, I guess she took good care of you since you ended up okay. Did you... run away too? Like the other boys?"
Neville looked down at his right shoe, away from where Wendy was sewing. "Not from my mother," he admitted after a moment. "My mum and dad went into a hospital when I was very young. They didn't even remember me anymore."
"That's terrible, Neville." Wendy bit her lip. "And you had nowhere else to go?"
"I didn't like my grandmother," he told her. "She smelled like fish sticks and tried to make me take dancing lessons."
"So you ran away?"
"I did. But I like it here. Peter is the best friend I could ever have."
Wendy tied off the thread and surveyed her work. "There. All fixed."
Neville looked down at it and then gave Wendy a radiant smile. "Thanks, Wendy," he said, and then stood up. He hesitated for a moment, as if there was something else he wanted to say.
"Is there something else, Neville?" she asked gently. "About your mother?"
"I think I used to be a wizard," he said, and then darted out of the hole in the tree, calling for Peter that he wanted another chance to catch him.