Questions

                                    

                                          
When her heartbeat at last slowed to a more reasonable pace, she stood and left the tent herself. Her eyes skirted over the camp, made damp and dreary by the heavy fall of the heavens. It was quiet, with only a few of the boys venturing out from the safety of their nice, dry tents. It was beautiful. There was no sign of Pan, something that in equal measure disappointed and relieved her. A promise was good. But even if he really did change his behaviour towards her, that would have to be explained to the Lost Boys – a task she found almost more daunting than hanging over the edge of a cliff. Yes, hello boys. Remember when I told you your leader was an evil weasel hell-bent on murdering me? Well, now we're...something. I don't know what. Stop laughing, Xavier. At least with the cliff, it would have been over quickly if she'd fallen.
                          
Still, she had promised some sort of an explanation the night prior – or at least promised to tell them where she was. She caught sight of Arthur trying to start up a fire – not only had the rain cooled the jungle immensely, she could tell even from here that he'd gotten caught in the downpour. A fire would help him dry much more quickly. She walked to where he knelt, and the two hoods watching him work proved to be Felix and Loto. A loud snore from nearby told her at least one of Arthur's tentmates was still sleeping. "Playing in the rain, Arthur?" She asked brightly as she approached. Arthur looked up with a warm smile.
                          
"Taking a morning walk – the storm came up out of nowhere, so I figured I might as well take my yearly bath while I was at it." Sarah laughed, and knelt on one of the nearby logs. It was too damp for proper sitting, but she didn't mind if her knees got a bit wet. It was then that she noticed Loto was staring at her. She raised an eyebrow.
                          
"Where have you been?" He demanded. Normally if a Lost Boy didn't return to camp, it could only mean one of two things: they had been banished, or they had died. The latter was more usual, and usually followed the former in any case. Not to mention, the timing of her disappearance and Pan's frighteningly dark mood were too close to be a coincidence. He eyed the Lost Girl with suspicion, trying to work out an answer he felt was in front of him but couldn't quite piece together. Sarah shrugged sheepishly.
                          
"Oh, you know." She tried. "Around." Arthur raised one brow. She had promised to tell them where she'd been, she realised, but – she glanced over to Felix. He was carving away at something, looking for all the world as though he weren't even listening to their conversation. Sarah suspected that was a front. She didn't know the extent of Felix's knowledge about what had passed to make her disappear, but something told her it was wider than she might wish.
                          
"More to the point," Loto interrupted her musings. "What did you do? Pan was –" Watching him as she was, she caught the silencing look Felix shot to her questioner. That was odd. What was Pan, while she was gone, that had Loto so worked up and Felix playing coverup? She filed that tidbit away for later. Perhaps she could wheedle an answer out of Felix, or more likely out of Xavier. For once his big mouth might come in handy.
                          
"I didn't do a thing." She told him breezily. It was close enough to the truth. "Just needed to get away for a while." Loto narrowed his eyes. He could tell there was much more to the story, but he couldn't think of a way to draw it from her. Maybe he'd try to get Xavier to find out later. There were times his rival's big mouth annoyed him, but perhaps for once it could be useful.
                          
From the corner of her eye, Sarah saw that Felix was watching her now. She shifted on her log. Had Felix known, or at least suspected, that Pan's behaviour was not an act after all? If he hadn't, that would mean he'd been willing to help Pan trick her, and she wasn't certain how she felt about that. On the one hand, it shouldn't surprise her. His loyalty to Pan was unquestionable, and it wasn't as though they were friends. Even so, that Felix would care so little about her feelings in the matter tugged at her strangely. There was also the chance he didn't know that Pan was serious, and that right now he thought she had fallen for his tricks just like "everybody" else, whoever they were. That didn't sit well with her either, nor did the unquiet nag in the back of her mind that suggested whatever she had thought she'd seen or felt, this really was all still just an act.