Chapter Text
The garden hums before it wakes.
It isn’t a sound so much as a vibration that threads through everything—the slow exhale of irrigation systems stirring to life beneath the soil, the flutter of vents adjusting temperature, the sigh of leaves brushed by the first curl of ocean breeze that slips in from the cliffside. Even the koi seem to feel it: a soft ripple of orange and white beneath the pond’s still skin, a brief shimmer before they settle again.
You stand at the edge of it all, pruning shears in one gloved hand, half-empty basket hooked over your arm, the faint scent of wet earth clinging to your sleeves. Morning light filters green through the glass panels of the arboretum dome, slicing across your face in soft, fractured bands. It smells of moss and fertilizer, faintly metallic from the filtration systems that hum behind the walls.
Your day has barely begun, yet already the world hums like a machine pretending to be a forest.
Working here means learning to love that contradiction. The air is too clean, the trees too obedient, the koi too symmetrical—every leaf, every ripple, a curated imitation of the wild. Scientists designed it, engineers maintain it, and you keep it alive. You’d laugh about it if it weren’t your job to make the illusion convincing.
It’s good work. Steady. Quiet.
You know every square meter of this garden: the curved bridge over the pond, the pale bark of the cloned birches that never shed, the wide glossy leaves of the tropicals lining the irrigation trenches. You know which flower scents hide in the humid air—night-blooming jasmine, cultivated orchids, the faint citrus of engineered hellebores that never wilt.
You even know the music of the facility itself: the subtle pitch-shift when the vents recalibrate, the occasional sigh of the filters flushing.
If you close your eyes, you can almost forget you’re on an island built from concrete and surveillance, owned by a corporation that trademarked half its oxygen.
Almost. The island might be tropical, but your work never takes you past the managed greenery; the outer jungle is too wild, too unpredictable, best left untouched.
You lean your hip against the railing and glance up toward the canopy dome. The artificial sunlight pours down at a perfect 24-degree angle—a calculated imitation of noon. It warms the back of your neck. Humidity beads against your collarbone. For a moment, you simply breathe.
Then the comm on your wrist vibrates.
A message. Short, clipped—the kind of tone that always means extra work.
“Collection: orchard sector. Two of the hybrid mango specimens. For Mr. K.”
Of course.
You exhale, brushing a stray curl from your temple. The assistants never bother with names anymore. Just initials. Just orders.
Kavalier wants fruit. Again.
Sometimes it’s mangoes, sometimes lychees, sometimes something rarer—fruit that doesn’t even belong in this climate, yet somehow he insists on it. The requests come at odd hours, delivered by whichever assistant has survived the day. You’ve never met the man himself. Not properly. You’ve seen his face in news feeds, that brilliant, infuriating smile beside the Prodigy logo. You’ve seen his name printed on everything from the security gates to your paycheck.
But here, on Neverland, he’s more ghost than man.
Rumors fill the gaps: bare feet on polished floors, pajama hems sweeping past a lab doorway, a boy-shaped shadow reflected in the upper galleries where no one without clearance ever goes. But never him. Not really. Sometimes you wonder if the facility invented him to keep everyone obedient.
Still—orders are orders.
You hike the basket higher on your hip, tug the gloves snug, and start toward the orchard. The air thickens as you leave the koi pond behind, the scent shifting from damp moss to the syrupy sweetness of overripe fruit. Leaves crowd close above you, overlapping in layers of impossible green. Somewhere, a cicada clicks rhythmically, part of the automated pollination system.
When you reach the mango grove, sunlight glints through the canopy in broken mosaics. The branches stretch higher than they should—engineered for yield, not convenience—and the fruit gleams gold-orange against dark leaves. You’ve climbed these trees a dozen times before.
Boots braced against the trunk, you pull yourself upward, hand over hand. The bark feels warm beneath your palms, smooth in the way only fabricated wood can be. Resin scent clings to your fingers as you reach the top and settle onto a branch wide enough to sit.
From here, the garden spills open beneath you. The waterfall glints at the far end, a narrow ribbon pouring into the pond below, its mist catching sunlight into a faint prism. Ferns crowd the edges, wide and feathered. Beyond that, the facility’s outer walls fade behind the veil of green. For a moment, the illusion is perfect: you could be anywhere but here.
You pick two fruits carefully, nestle them into your basket, and—because the air up here feels clearer—let yourself pause. Legs dangling, you close your eyes and breathe in the scent of wet leaves and ozone.
It’s peaceful. It’s yours.
Until the sound of footsteps breaks the quiet.
Not the heavy tread of maintenance, nor the clipped pace of security. This is lighter, unhurried—almost lazy. You crack one eye open.
Below, by the pond, a man walks barefoot across the grass.
At first you assume he’s one of the new techs. There’s always someone fresh from the mainland, always someone who hasn’t yet learned that the gardens are off-limits unless you’re tending them. He moves like he doesn’t know that rule—or doesn’t care. Loose shirt, pale linen trousers, curls tumbling messily over his forehead.
You’re about to call out the standard warning when he does something that freezes you halfway through a breath.
He pulls his shirt over his head.
The motion is unhurried, careless, the fabric catching briefly on his curls before dropping to the grass beside him. The muscles of his back flex, smooth and pale under the filtered light. He toes off his shoes—or maybe he never had any—and steps closer to the water’s edge.
You blink, caught between disbelief and amusement.
Is he seriously—?
You clear your throat and call out before you can stop yourself:
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you!”
The words echo across the small clearing, startling a pair of artificial songbirds from a nearby branch.
He stops. Turns, scanning the ferns, squinting into the light. Then his gaze tracks upward, following the sound until he finds you perched among the leaves. His expression shifts—confusion first, then faint amusement.
“And why not?” he calls back, voice carrying easily over the water.
It’s smoother than you expected. Young. Confident in that practiced way that says he’s used to being answered.
You shift on your branch, resting an elbow on your knee:
“Because the water isn’t filtered.” you reply, the grin already tugging at your lips. “Full of bacteria. And I’m pretty sure there’s a parasite in there that could crawl up a hole you wouldn’t be happy about.”
A pause. Then he makes a face—disgust and reluctant laughter blending oddly well.
“That’s horrifying.”
“Accurate.” you shoot back. “But hey, you could try it. Medical loves a challenge.”
His laugh comes quiet, genuine, low in his chest. He runs a hand through his curls, scattering droplets of light across his skin as he looks up at you. Something about the casualness of it—the unbothered tilt of his head, the small curve at the corner of his mouth—disarms you.
He glances up again. “Why are you in a tree?”
“Because our—” you catch yourself, the habit of anonymity too ingrained. “—because the boss wants his daily dose of vitamins.”
You pluck one of the mangoes from your basket, weigh it in your hand, and toss it down.
He catches it easily, one-handed. Smooth and practiced. Showoff.
He turns it over, thumb tracing the smooth skin as he inspects the fruit. “And what exactly does a fruit picker know about parasites?”
You rest your chin on your palm, feigning thought. “Because I’m not just a fruit picker.” you say, feigning offence. “The facility has a library, you know. Reading’s free—at least so far.”
He smirks. “So—a well-read fruit picker.”
You raise an eyebrow. “And what are you, then? Some new recruit who thinks lunch breaks mean pond swims? They fired people for less, you know.”
“Do they?” he asks, amusement flickering before he glances up at you again. “Do you seriously not know who I am?”
You squint down at him, playing along with this seemingly arrogant new recruit. “The Queen of England?”
That earns a laugh—half amusement, half disbelief. His grin twists, boyish but edged, the kind that almost dares you to keep going. He tosses the mango once, catches it again.
“I could have you fired for that, fruit picker.” he says lightly, almost teasing, though there’s an unmistakable edge beneath the words. “Maybe that’ll jog your memory.”
The pieces slot together before he even finishes.
The curls. The bare feet. The casual arrogance that hums just shy of charm.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
You school your face into something that is definitely not panic, and meet his gaze evenly, but your pulse is kicking against your ribs. “Maybe if your grace visited us lowly fruit pickers more often, I wouldn’t have the audacity to speak to you like this.”
For a moment he just stares, surprised, as if no one’s ever dared throw words back at him.
Then he laughs.
Not the cruel kind, not the polite kind—the real kind. Short, bright, almost startled. He shakes his head, curls bouncing.
“Thanks for my daily dose of vitamins.” he says at last, tucking the fruit under his arm. Then, as casually as he arrived, he bends, picks up his shirt, and strolls away barefoot through the grass.
You watch him go, shirt slung loose over one shoulder, sunlight sliding along the damp sheen of his skin. The waterfall hums behind you, the koi break the pond’s surface with slow ripples, and somewhere, the automated vents shift to mimic a breeze.
You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding—half relief, half disbelief.
You’re almost certain you’ll lose your job by morning.