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Once Upon A Different Time Episode 303 - “A Darling Daughter”

Once Upon A Different Time

A re-work of Once Upon A Time from the beginning of season 3.

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Catch up on previous episodes:

Episode One - “Return to Neverland”

Episode Two - “The Soul’s Desire”

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Episode Three - “A Darling Daughter”

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Neverland – Present

“There’s no use trying to run, kid.” Tamara’s voice was heavy and somewhat resigned; she sounded tired as she sat down in the shelter of a large, broad-leafed tree. She grimaced as she stretched her injured leg out in front of her and unwrapped the bandage to take a look at the swelling. It was worse than she’d hoped for, but at least it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Henry sat down a little way off, out of her reach but still within the warmth of the small fire that Tamara had built. The eternal night around them seemed to have become colder and darker in the last few minutes and he shivered, glad of the flames.

“I know,” he replied to Tamara. He was desperate but he wasn’t stupid. The shadows that had flanked them ever since they had arrived on the island showed no signs of leaving them and he knew that they could outrun him easily. Without Tamara’s threats… Henry shuddered again at the thought of what had happened to Greg. If the shadows caught him, he would meet a similar fate. Either that, or they would simply bring him back to Tamara. Whatever happened, escape was currently impossible, and Henry knew better than to attempt it. He was still working on a plan for getting away from the shadows and Tamara, but he had no idea where she was taking him or what would happen to him when he got there, or even why he was here. Henry flexed his wrists; Tamara had untied him once it had become clear that he wasn’t going to be able to get away from her or from their spectral escort in a hurry.

“Hey, kid.” Tamara tossed him a package of crackers and a bottle of water from her bag. “I don’t want you starving to death before we get there.”

Henry dug into the food gratefully. He was not so proud as to refuse sustenance from his captors and he was really very hungry, but one question remained in the back of his mind.

“Where is ‘there’?” he asked Tamara.

“Where we’re going,” she replied shortly. Henry rolled his eyes but she wasn’t looking at him, so the effect was lost.

“What is ‘there’ then?” he continued.

Tamara gave him an unimpressed look. “We’re in Neverland kid. What do you think?”

“My name’s Henry,” he pointed out. “And I know we’re in Neverland and I know you’re taking me to Peter Pan. I just thought maybe you had some more details.”

“All right Henry, I don’t know any more details. We’re going to Pan, wherever he might be,” Tamara said. She paused. “You’re a lot like your dad.”

The mention of his father riled something inside Henry. Why should Tamara get to talk about him so casually after what she had done?

“Why did you kill him?” he asked.

“Because he was in the way.” Tamara’s voice was brittle. “He’d outlived his purpose.”

“Just like Greg outlived his purpose?” Henry snapped sourly. “Is that what you do to everyone who’s no longer useful? You just let them die? What about me? Will you kill me when I’ve outstayed my welcome?”

Tamara pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh. “Kid, it’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that.”

“You don’t understand,” Tamara said.

“I’m in Neverland. I’ve been kidnapped by the person who shot my dad, apparently under orders from Peter Pan, who I always thought was a good guy…”

Here Tamara snorted. “You are seriously misinformed,” she muttered.

“…and I’ve got no idea why I’m here or what’s going to happen to me here. No, I don’t understand.”

Tamara looked at him through narrowed eyes.

“They said you were the truest believer,” she said cynically.

“I believe,” Henry replied, exasperated. “I just don’t understand. Why is this happening? Why did you have to shoot my dad?”

Tamara groaned and scrubbed a hand over her face.

“I have a mission, kid. I’ve been working towards this for as long as I can remember. And now I have this opportunity and I’m not going to let it go, and nothing is going to stop me or slow me down, and nothing is going to get in my way. Do you understand that?”

Henry nodded. He knew that mindset all too well, the idea of being so completely focussed on something that the ends always justify the means. He thought of Regina and her own single-minded determination, and he wondered if he would ever see her or Emma or any of his grandparents again. Presently his thoughts turned back towards Tamara and her dogged perseverance, calmly disposing of any obstacles in her path, and he thought about her words: you are seriously misinformed.

“So, if you agree that Peter Pan is not one of the good guys, why are you working for him?”

“Keep your voice down!” Tamara hissed, looking around at the shadows standing like sentinels between the trees around them. “Who knows how much they can hear?”

Henry just raised an eyebrow; at that moment he was not feeling exactly charitable towards his kidnapper. “At any rate, don’t you work for the Home Office, or whatever you call it?”

Tamara sighed. “Well, in for a penny, in for a pound as my grandpa always used to say.” She indicated for Henry to come a little closer and he obliged, still stopping a little short.

“All the fairy tales, all the stories, you believe in them?” Tamara began.

Henry nodded slowly. “My grandparents are Snow White, Prince Charming and Rumpelstiltskin. I believe all right.”

“Peter Pan is no different,” Tamara continued.

Henry gave his surroundings a cursory glance. “Since we’re going to see him I’d kind of gathered that.”

“The Darling family exist,” Tamara went on in a hushed undertone. “Wendy, John, Michael Darling, they all existed; they were the first contact between magical worlds and non-magical worlds.”

Henry gave another nod of understanding.

“The Darling family have been trying to get to Neverland for generations,” Tamara said. “I’m the last living member. My name is Tamara Darling, Michael Darling was my great-grandfather. I have to finish what the family started, and then you arrived and you gave me the perfect opportunity.”

“So I’m bait,” Henry said flatly.

Tamara shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time and I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Including using me as bait?”

Tamara ignored his words. “I have to finish what the family started,” she repeated.

“What did the family start?” Henry asked.

“The Home Office. Our mission has always been to destroy magic.”

“Why?”

“Have you any idea of the heartbreak magic causes?” Tamara hissed.

Henry nodded. “Yes. I nearly tried to destroy it myself once. But magic can do good too.”

Tamara shook her head. “Magic is the root of all evil.”

Henry didn’t have a response to that one, but he knew that it was nowhere near as clear-cut as Tamara saw things.

“We have to destroy magic and that will bring things back into equilibrium,” Tamara continued.

“You used magic to get here,” Henry pointed out.

“Sometimes you have to employ the enemy’s methods,” Tamara muttered.

“You’re making it sound like a war.”

“It is a war!” Tamara raised her voice involuntarily then looked around furtively at the shadows. They appeared to be out of earshot and paying no attention to the whispered conversation, and she continued. “Mary and George Darling set up the Home Office to fight a war no-one else believed existed.”

“But why?” Henry pressed. “Why do you think that magic is evil, and why were you so desperate to get here to Neverland, a place full of magic?”

There was a long pause.

“Vengeance,” Tamara said eventually. “Justice.” She paused. “There was a fourth sibling, older than the other three Darlings. He was adopted into the family. Peter Pan abducted him. Shortly after, he took Wendy Darling as well. Neither of them were ever seen or heard from again. That’s why we’re here. To avenge them.”

“So you kidnapped a child in order to avenge the kidnapping of a child?” Henry said. “Do you see what you’ve done? You’re no better than Peter Pan.”

“I have to do whatever it takes,” Tamara said grimly.

“I don’t think your family would be happy that you’ve just done exactly what was done to them in order to get revenge,” Henry retorted.

“That’s not the point,” Tamara hissed. “We’ll never know whether Wendy and Baelfire would have been happy because they were taken, they were stolen from us.”

“Baelfire?” Henry’s stomach was turning itself in knots.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t read any of the book, did you?” Henry continued. “Back when you first came to Storybrooke; you had to pretend that you didn’t know anything about it and that you didn’t believe a word of what my dad was telling you. But you really should have listened. My dad was Baelfire. That was his name before he came to the Land Without Magic for the first time.”

“What?” Tamara’s voice was somewhat strangled.

“Neal Cassidy’s real name, when he was young, was Baelfire. And I really don’t think that he’d be happy that you shot him and kidnapped me in order to avenge him.”

Tamara felt her blood turn cold in her veins and no more was said. She had been on her single-minded quest to rid the world of the magic that had caused her family so much pain, and she had not let anything dissuade her from her cause. In doing so, she had committed the very crime that her ancestors had sworn to bring Peter Pan to justice for – the loss of Baelfire. Still, she thought with grim determination, she had already come past the point of no return. There was to be no going back now. They could only continue on.

London - Past

Wendy sat on the window sill of her bedroom, looking out across the city and further, off towards Neverland and Bae. "He's not coming back," her parents had told her when she had explained that Bae was gone and they needed to try and rescue him. They'd said some very uncharitable things about him taking advantage of their hospitality and then running away, and no matter how many times Wendy had tried to tell them that Bae hadn't run away, he'd been taken by the shadow whilst trying to protect them, she couldn't make them see. Still, they were correct in one respect: it didn't look like Bae was coming home any time soon. The shadow had brought Wendy back because Pan didn't need or want her. She was a girl, and he was looking for Lost Boys, one specific boy in particular. She wondered if that boy was Bae. At any rate, the shadow would not bring Bae back. But perhaps, if Wendy could get to Neverland again, then the shadow would bring her back to London again, and she could bring Bae with her. The only problem was getting the shadow to come back in the first place. Ever since it had taken Bae, it had not returned to the Darling house, despite her watching out for it every night.

"He's not coming back, Wendy."

John was sitting up in bed, hugging his knees.

"No," Wendy said levelly. "He's not going to come back. Which is why I need to go and get him."

"But how?" John's voice was forlorn. "The shadow hasn't been back since it took him. I'm starting to think that maybe Mother and Father were right. Maybe it was all just a dream, and Bae really did run away in the night."

Wendy shook her head. "A dream that all three of us had for so many nights, John? That's a more far-fetched idea than a shadow stealing children from their beds at night. We all saw what happened, and we were all awake at the time."

"Well, if it did happen, and if Bae really is trapped in Neverland, the fact still remains that we can't get him back." John was still melancholy, his tone disbelieving.

"There has to be a way," Wendy said firmly. "We just have to have faith."

"What are you talking about?" Michael had woken with the sound of their voices and was rubbing his eyes.

"We're planning to rescue Bae," Wendy said.

"Oh, good," Michael replied. "I miss him." He paused. "How are you going to rescue him?"

"We're not sure yet," Wendy admitted.

“You're not sure yet," John corrected. "I don't know, Wendy, I just don't believe it's possible."

"I believe!" Michael said, eagerly scrambling out of bed and going over to the window sill to sit with Wendy, who pulled him up beside her. "I believe we can rescue Bae! When do we start?"

"You and John won't be coming," Wendy said, ignoring Michael's pout on hearing that he wouldn't get to come on the adventure. "It has to be me, because the shadow will bring me back. And it has to be tonight."

"Wendy..." John began, but Wendy interrupted her brother.

"You heard what Mother and Father said last night. They think I'm now old enough to have my own room, and this is the last night that I'll be spending in the nursery with you two. If Neverland is the Land of Eternal Youth, I might be too old to go back there tomorrow. Whatever I do, I have to do it tonight."

“And what if the shadow doesn’t bring you back this time?” John asked. “Then we’ll have lost both of you.”

“You just have to believe in me,” Wendy said.

“I believe,” Michael muttered, his hands pressed up against the window and his breath creating a misty patch on the glass. “I believe.” His brow furrowed and his head turned on one side. “Look, Wendy…” he began, tugging on her sleeve nervously. “It heard you. It came back.”

Wendy looked out of the window and sure enough, the shadow that had taken Bae was floating outside.

“Michael, get back,” she warned, pulling him away from the window and setting him on the floor once more. “John, hide him, and yourself. I don’t want it to grab either of you when I let it in.”

“Wendy, don’t open the window,” John pleaded, getting out of bed and pulling Michael further away from the glass, towards the secret cubbyhole. “Please, you might not come back!”

“And if I don’t do it, Bae might never come back,” Wendy replied. “He went with the shadow to save all of us. It’s our duty to help him, to get him back! He’s part of our family!”

John looked back at the window, at the shadow that was watching them with its unnerving, unnatural eyes. How they could ever have thought that it was benevolent was beyond him. He shivered. There was something hungry in its gaze as it floated outside the window, never making any move to try and get through the glass but never showing any signs of giving up its quarry. It was not going to let a single pane of glass get in the way of its hunt. Like a bloodhound following a scent, it had been summoned and it was not relenting.

John pushed Michael into the crawl space and climbed in after him, shutting the door.

Wendy took a deep breath, and shoved the sash window up. A huge gust of air blew into the room, one that she was certain could not have been caused by the wind outside under the mild moonlight, and the shadow was borne inside upon it, hovering near the ceiling, looming above her and staring down with flickering eyes.

“I know what you want,” Wendy said to it, as bravely as she could, determined that her voice wouldn’t tremble. “You can’t have them. You’ll have to take me instead. Take me to Bae.”

The shadow ignored her and swooped down; Wendy stood her ground but the spectre flew straight over her, leaving her gasping for breath at the horrible sensation that it coming so close so fast had caused. It focussed its attention on the hidden door to the crawl space where John and Michael were hidden away. Wendy could hear their quick, frightened breaths through the wall and she wondered whether the shadow could hear them too as she ran over, putting herself between the dark shape and her brothers.

“You can’t have them,” she repeated, grabbing a hold of the shadow’s arm. It didn’t feel quite solid but not like walking through a shadow on a normal summer’s day either. There was a thick, almost liquidy substance to it, although Wendy’s hands were dry where they touched it. “Take me to Bae.”

Angered, the shadow rose up towards the ceiling, thrashing violently as it tried to rid itself of its unwanted passenger. Wendy held on tight despite being thrown around through the air.

“What on earth is going on in here…”

Wendy’s father’s angry voice faded out as he flung the nursery door open, the admonishment on his lips to his children for making too much noise in the middle of the night dying into nothing. When the powers of speech returned, his first thought was to intervene, his second to call his wife.

“Mary!” he shouted down the landing towards Wendy’s mother in their bedroom. “Alert the police!” He had no idea what the police could even hope to do against the abomination that was flying around the ceiling of his children’s nursery, but it was the only source of help that he could rely on. Knowing simply that he needed to stop the shadowy interloper, he rushed into the room without any thought or plan.

“No!” Wendy cried from her position, the increasingly frantic shadow still trying to loosen her grip on its arm. “I need to rescue Bae!” she continued. “I need the shadow to take me to Neverland!”

It was chilling, knowing that his daughter’s farfetched stories of malevolent shadows kidnapping the newest member of their family were completely true.

Just as Mary entered the room and screamed, fainting dead on the floor at the sight that met her, the shadow decided to cut its losses and it flew out of the window, Wendy still clinging steadfastly to its arm. It did not stop or try to throw her off as they flew towards the second star to the right, and Wendy did not see the horrified expression of her mother, father and brothers as they watched her fly away, until she was no more than a faint speck in the night sky, easily mistaken for a shooting star.

Enchanted Forest - Present

Neal stopped in his tracks and slowly turned full circle, carefully taking in every inch of his surroundings before he ended up facing in the same direction as before. There was nothing to see, at least, nothing that he was looking for. There was plenty to see if one wasn't looking for something. He had ventured into the part of the castle that was undeniably his father's domain, the West Wing filled with dark and dangerous treasures and the odd incredibly conspicuous gap where something should have been. Neal shuddered at the thought of what had been deemed necessary to take to the Land Without Magic. If there was anywhere in the castle where a way to contact Emma and Henry might be found, it was here, amongst the artefacts steeped in magic and mystery.

Still, his impromptu pirouette had not shown him what he had wanted to see.

"I know you're there," he announced to the seemingly empty air. "One of these days I'll catch you."

The feeling of being watched and tracked was weighing heavy on his mind and it had not let him go ever since that moment in the room where all his old things had been kept. He was certain that there was a shadow following him around, observing him from a distance, and he was beginning to feel rather a lot of unease about the situation. He was half-convinced that the shadow was his father, but his conviction was waning the longer that time went on. Surely if it was Rumpelstiltskin's shadow, it would have announced itself and made its intentions clearly known by now. Playing this game of cat and mouse as it was, it began to make Neal think that it was planning something nefarious. He wouldn't put anything past his father, especially when it came to self-preservation. Had Rumpelstiltskin sent his shadow to the Dark Castle to make sure that Neal didn't stumble upon something that his father wanted to keep hidden? And there was the small matter of the shadow, whoever its owner might be, not being attached to anything in the first place. In Neal's experience, unattached shadows had malevolent bodies and malevolent intentions, and the longer he went without seeing this particular shadow that was following him around, the more suspicious he became.

But even in spite of his natural aversion to all things remotely magical, he couldn't help but hope, fiercely, that this shadow was a benevolent one and that it could perhaps take him home. If Pan's shadow had been able to cross realms, there was no reason why other shadows shouldn't be able to. So his frustration with the unseen spectre stemmed in equal parts from suspicion and desperation. If he could only catch the damn thing, then he might be one step closer to reuniting with his family. As it was, he was stuck speculating.

Still, there was no use standing around and waiting for a shadow that evidently did not want to be found to show itself. Neal moved on along the corridor with a purposeful stride and the shivering sensation of unblinking eyes on the back of his neck that he chose to ignore. Perhaps he could lull the shadow into a false sense of security.

Neal had discovered an awful lot during the couple of days that he had spent at the castle, and he wondered dryly how much of it used to be human. The candelabra and the carriage clock looked particularly suspect to Neal's eye, but maybe he was just being influenced by too many Disney movies over the years. And even if the objects had never been creatures of flesh and blood, there was always the distinct possibility that they had undergone a magical makeover of sorts and were now used for a purpose entirely different to their intended one. It was in many ways a double-edged sword. He had not really spent enough time around his father's magic to have developed any kind of instinct for these things but although every nerve was screaming at him to leave well alone, he couldn't help but wonder if the next supposedly benign and useless trinket might provide him with exactly what he was looking for.

He gingerly placed his hand over the knob of the nearest door; it was not locked, nor even closed fully, standing just ajar, but Neal was still nervous about any and all doors in this part of the castle, or rather, what might be behind them. It opened silently, and Neal gave a start to find that the room was not, as he had first suspected, unoccupied. Mulan and Aurora were standing in the window together.

"Oops, sorry..." Neal made to back out of the room awkwardly, and Aurora just burst into a fit of the giggles.

"It's all right, I should probably go and check that Philip hasn't been attacked by any sentient kitchenware," she said and she left Mulan with a fond smile; Neal took a step back to allow her to exit the room. So far he had not had any trouble with feeling like he was a third (or in this case fourth) wheel. None of his three saviours-turned-companions were overly demonstrative in their affections towards each other, indeed it had taken him a while to realise that they were in a relationship, but on occasions such as this he was reminded that he was an unintentional observer.

"You look confused," Mulan said from the window.

"Hmm." Neal's voice was non-committal. "It was just a bit of a surprise when I found out about you all. I had assumed that Aurora and Philip were engaged."

"They are," Mulan pointed out levelly, "but this is a slightly different relationship."

"I'd gathered that." Neal shrugged. "It's not my place to pass comment on other's people's relationships. Yours are looking far more successful than my own at the moment. If you love each other, then why should anyone else judge?"

Mulan smiled. "I hope everyone sees things in the same way that you do," she said. "I love Aurora, and Philip loves Aurora, and she loves both of us, and that should be all that matters. But I can foresee some problems when we eventually reach her home."

"I don't know. I mean, Aurora seems like she could be pretty fierce if she wants to be."

Mulan laughed. "She is. She looks so delicate but she's steel on the inside."

Neal came over and perched in the windowsill beside Mulan. "I think you should be all right," he said. "Better than you'd be in the Land Without Magic at least. I haven't been a part of this land for a long time and most of the things I remember about it are the bad things. But there's one thing that is a constant throughout all the fairy tales, and that's the importance of love."

Mulan's brow furrowed. "Fairy tales? Tales told by fairies?"

"No, it's sort of complicated. In the Land Without Magic, they see the Enchanted Forest as a make-believe, fantasy place. You, Philip and Aurora, you exist over there as characters in books and movies, no-one knows that you really exist over here in this world."

"Movies?"

"They're... ok, too difficult to explain, you'll have to take my word for it, but they're really good. At any rate, the thing that's always stressed in these books is that love conquers all. Now, no-one in the Land Without Magic really believes in fairy tales and they don't tend to set much store by love, but I know that here, it's a heck of a lot more important and taken a lot more seriously."

"True love is the most powerful magic of all, in all its forms," Mulan agreed. "I can see why it doesn't have as much presence in a world where magic doesn't exist. I suppose that to us the two are so intertwined that it seems strange to imagine a place where they aren't. But doesn't love transcend all boundaries? It doesn't change between realms. Magic might not exist in the Land Without Magic, but surely true love does."

Neal nodded sadly. "Yes, it does."

"So if love transcends all boundaries and is the same in all worlds, maybe this is how you could get back to your son..." Mulan tailed off, staring hard at the dark far corner of the room, past the shelves of potion and lotions. "Did you see that?"

"What?"

"I think something moved over there." She turned away but her expression still remained uneasy. "Probably just a shadow."

"Hmm." Neal didn't make any other comment, but continued to glance into the corner where Mulan had seen the shadow, more convinced than ever that the thing was following him, biding its time for some reason as yet unknown. "I love Emma and Henry but I don't think that love's going to be enough to get me home."

"Perhaps not," Mulan conceded. "But if you love them and they know that, then surely they know that you would never stop trying to return to them until you succeeded?"

"I know. But I still want to send them some sort of message. They don't even know if I'm alive or not."

They fell silent for a moment, then a smile broke over Mulan's face.

"I think I know a way," she said. "Follow me."

"Ok... What are we doing?"

"Sending a message," Mulan replied. "Via the only method that transcends all realms. True love."

Neverland – Past

The journey to Neverland this time around was nothing like her first excursion there. Before, Wendy had been mesmerised by the shadow and the sensation of flying, swooping and whirling in the air. She had felt so young and carefree and she could quite happily have done it forever. But it was different now. The shadow flew straight, with grim purpose, no detours. It had a job to do, and Wendy’s insistent grip on it was slowing it down, but it had decided that trying to free itself would waste more time than continuing onwards with its unwanted passenger would. The air was colder tonight and Wendy shivered against the wind chill that she was flying through, her fingers red where they dug into the shadow’s arm, but in spite of her discomfort she refused to relinquish her hold. She was on her way now, it would only be a matter of time before she and Bae were reunited, and then should could bring him back home to his family. She had to stay positive; there was no use getting cold feet now, however chilly her toes might be on her flight. She had to stay strong for John, and Michael, and their parents.

As dawn was beginning to break behind them, Wendy knew that they were nearing their destination, although the sky that they were travelling through remained as dark as ever, showing no signs of becoming a morning. Squinting, Wendy could just about make out the shape of the Neverland isle beneath them and at that moment, the shadow tried once more to throw her off, no doubt attempting to dump her n the sea and wait for her to drown before they reached land.

Wendy clung on for dear life, ignoring the shadow’s cold, spidery fingers yanking at her hair and trying to prise her hands away from its spectral form. She closed her eyes against the wind as it jerked violently this way and that, and only opened them when she felt a sudden drop in their altitude. The shadow, no longer trying to get her off, was nosediving towards the island at incredible speed; it was hoping to crash her head against the rocky side of the mountain in the centre of the island and finish her off once and for all. Wendy gulped. She had to time it just right: too soon and she would fall into the sea, too late and she would end up on the rocks anyway. She had to aim for the thick forest canopy which might stand a better chance of breaking her fall.

She let go of the shadow, as close to the mountain as she dared, and she continued to tumble head over heels towards the ground, landing heavily on the damp leaves. It was a painful landing, but she didn’t think that anything was broken, and she got to her feet tentatively, testing out each of her limbs in turn to assess the damage. She ached all over but her injuries were all superficial, some bruises and minor cuts that would stop bleeding of their own accord. She looked around at her immediate environs. When she had come to Neverland before, the shadow had taken her directly to one of the Lost Boys’ camps, but now there were no Lost Boys to be seen, nor was there any sign of Bae. She looked up at the starry sky above her, but there was no sign of the shadow either. Perhaps it had gone to warn Pan that she was on the island.

Wendy’s first instinct was to start running and keep moving, but on the other hand, being discovered could prove quite advantageous to her. If the Lost Boys were despatched to find her then she might find Bae amongst them, and then all they would have to do would be to find some kind of escape route. In the absence of Pan’s shadow, this might prove easier said than done. Truth be told, Wendy had concentrated most of her plan on getting to Neverland and finding Bae, not on what came after. She had assumed that the shadow would return her to London, but now that she was separated from it, she wasn’t so sure.

In the distance, a horn sounded. That would be Pan, summoning the Lost Boys. His shadow had obviously broken the news. Wendy set off through the dense jungle, making no attempt to hide or flee, and soon enough, she heard the rustle of movement in the trees beside her. When she looked, though, she found nothing there. The noise came again on the other side, and then again behind her, but she still could not see the shapes of boys moving swiftly through the undergrowth.

“It’s me, Wendy,” she called; they knew her by name from the last time that she had been in Neverland. She didn’t receive a response but the noises around her grew ever louder and closer, seeming to completely encompass her until she was certain that at any moment, the boys would suddenly jump out of the trees to scare her. No boys jumped from the trees, and what happened was far scarier than their attack would have been. Instead of the boys, several shadows slipped through the overhanging branches. Unattached shadows like Pan’s was, with their staring yellow eyes all fixed upon her.

“Boys?” she began, fear choking her voice in her throat. Where these the Lost Boys’ shadows or something else entirely? Had Pan turned the boys into shadows somehow? For the first time since arriving on the island, Wendy thought that running would be an excellent idea, but all her escape routes were blocked by these silent spectres. She ran at the nearest shadow but like Pan’s, it was solid. She was surrounded.

“Boys?” she asked again, hoping that perhaps she could reason with them. The shadows did not reply; they gave no indication of having heard her at all.

“Bae?” Wendy tried. She hoped that he was not one of the shadows, but she had to try and get through to him, even if he was. “Bae, it’s me, Wendy! Where are you?”

There was no response, and Wendy knew in her heart of hearts that she had not expected one. The shadows made no move towards her, but they did not retreat either. They appeared to be waiting for something, keeping her contained until reinforcements arrived. Was Pan himself coming?

Presently Wendy heard the sound of footsteps coming through the trees. Unlike the vague noises of movement prior to the shadows’ arrival, these were definitely made by people tramping through the underbrush, and sure enough, the Lost Boys appeared on the scene a few moments later. Against all the odds, Wendy was heartened to see that they were still alive and they had not become the grim spectres that they walked past in order to approach her. Not a one of them spoke to her, although she could see the melancholy looks on their faces as the two eldest boys came forward with a rope and began to bind her hands together. She was being taken prisoner, taken to Pan…

Neverland – Present

“David! David!”

David jerked awake from the doze he had fallen into beside their small fire whilst Snow kept watch. It had taken a long time for sleep to come, his mind full of worries about Henry and Emma, and to only a slightly lesser extent the other members of their rescue party, and he was momentarily disorientated on his sudden return to consciousness.

“What’s up?” he whispered. Snow was listening intently, her hands paused in the motion of sharpening one of her arrows, and she slowly turned to him.

“Something’s coming,” she hissed, and then David heard it too, the soft sound of feet moving carefully over the forest floor, wishing to avoid discovery.

Keeping her movements measured and quiet, Snow picked up her bow from where it lay next to her, ready for action, and she notched the arrow, standing up and taking aim through the trees. David also stood, drawing his sword.

“I think it’s coming from over there.” Snow indicated a patch of trees off to her left, and David followed her around the log they were camped alongside to get closer to the rustling noise.

“You know, I’m rather disappointed.”

David and Snow both whirled round on hearing the voice behind them, and Snow shot on instinct.

The person who had spoken was a boy, sitting cross-legged on the log that they had just left and looking for all the world as if he had been there the entire time. Snow shivered at the thought, in a place as creepy as Neverland, he probably had been. He had caught the arrow an inch or so before it hit his chest. He raised one eyebrow at the projectile and snapped it in two before jumping off the log and coming towards them. David could see other boys hiding in the trees all around; they were surrounded.

“The famous Snow White and Prince Charming,” the boy continued. “Tales of your exploits even reached us here in Neverland. Although I must admit that I was expecting someone more… impressive. As it is, I’ve got a school teacher and a…” he looked David up and down “…whatever it is that you do. How long is it since you really did battle with that sword, Prince Charming? Aren’t you worried that you might be a little rusty?”

David moved the sword, itching to swing it, and the boy shook his head. “I really wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The other boys hiding in and between the trees moved, and suddenly Snow and David found themselves with several spears and arrows aimed at them.

“I’ve just realised that I haven’t introduced myself,” the boy said. “My name is Peter Pan, and as you can see, I’m in charge of things around here.”

“So what happens now?” Snow asked. She had not lowered her bow despite the myriad other weapons around, and she kept her arrow trained on Pan.

“Well, I could advise you to give up now and go home, but where would be the fun in that? Also, I believe you are currently without any means of leaving the island, if the state of the good captain’s ship is anything to go by. So, since you’re going to be with us for a while, I think it would be more interesting if I just let you be and watched you struggle with your hopeless task, looking on as you get further and further away from your goal and you slowly spiral into despair.”

“What have you done with Henry?” David asked through clenched teeth.

“Oh, nothing yet. I’ve got something very special planned for Henry. I’ve been trying to get my hands on him for what feels like centuries. He’s a very unique boy,” Pan said. “One of a kind, I would say. He should be just what I need.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Snow snapped. “What do you need him for?”

“Well, to stay young forever, of course. Neverland requires a lot of maintenance, a land fuelled by belief. What better fit than the truest believer of them all, Henry? It’s going to be spectacular to witness. Almost as spectacular as your pathetic attempts to rescue him. Face it. You’re adults. Grandparents, even. And this is a game for children. The odds are against you, and you have no way of turning the tide. You don’t understand how we play, but you’ve jumped straight into the middle of the game anyway. It’s your move, but you’re playing to lose.” Pan gave a nasty smile. “Just remember that I make the rules. You’ll never find Henry. In fact, you’re losing him as we speak. Do you think he’s not wondering where his rescuers are? And the longer it takes you to find him, the more time is ticking away, the more he’ll start to believe that no-one has come after him, and that his family doesn’t care about his fate, and when that happens, well, he’s already mine, and it’s too late for you. But it’s so amusing to watch you try, and I like to be entertained. So have fun on your journey. This is Neverland, after all. Everyone has fun here.”

He left them then and made his way towards the nearest boy concealed behind a tree, thrusting the broken arrow towards him. The boy looked like he’d been handed a poisonous snake for a moment but then tucked the arrow into his belt and followed Pan into the darkness. Snow and David remained with their weapons ready for a long time after they were certain that the other boys had gone from their hiding places, and finally Snow lowered her bow.

“Well, that was encouraging,” David said drily. “If it really is as much of a race against time as he made it out to be then we have to find Henry, or at least send him a message, as soon as possible.”

Snow nodded and they put out their fire before beginning their walk through the trees again, this time keeping an eye out for armed boys as well as eerie shadows following them about.

“One good thing happened though,” Snow said eventually, “which makes me think that we’ll be able to beat Pan at his own game, maybe.”

“What’s that?” David sounded far from convinced.

“That boy has one of my arrows now,” Snow said. “If Henry sees it, he might recognise it. It’s got white swan feather fletches, and I don’t see any white swans on this island.”

“He’ll know you’re here.” David smiled. “Come on. Let’s find him.”

Neverland – Past

No-one spoke as they made their way through the trees. Wendy was already hopelessly disoriented but the Lost Boys seemed to know where they were going. She noticed that each boy was being trailed by a shadow, and in the rare moments when the silver moonlight managed to break through the trees, it was clear to see that the boys themselves did not cast any shadows. Wendy wondered how the dark shapes had become detached, but when she thought of the uncanny strength of Pan’s shadow, she shuddered and decided that she’d rather not know, and she concentrated on surviving the coming confrontation instead. The one thing that gave her courage was that Bae was not amongst the boys who were escorting her to Pan. Although, she didn’t know if that meant that he had escaped or if he had met a fate even worse than that of the Lost Boys around her.

They walked straight past the small camp – long since abandoned – where the shadow had taken her the first time, and continued on towards the centre of the island. Wendy could hear rushing water, and she guessed that there must be a waterfall nearby. Sure enough, when the leader of the group parted the overhanging vines in front of them, they revealed a large lagoon in the shadow of the mountain with a cascade feeding into it. There was a big rock in the centre of the lagoon, in the chilling shape of a skull, and Wendy could see light and movement through the large eye holes.

A fleet of coracles was moored at the water’s edge closest to them, and the Lost Boys began to enter the small boats in pairs, casting off from the shore and paddling towards the skull rock at the centre. Wendy slipped as she was climbing into her coracle, her bare feet sliding on the wet pebbles at the water’s edge, and one of the Lost Boys grabbed her and helped her into the boat before she could fall into the water.

“Don’t want to give the mermaids any fodder,” he said grimly, before beginning to row away behind the other boats. Wendy looked down into the water to see dark shapes moving beneath the calm surface. There was not enough light to make out much detail but Wendy could see long, flowing hair and powerful fish tails. They were circling under the group of boats like sharks or other sea monsters ready to strike at the first sign of trouble, and even though she had not seen them up close, Wendy could already tell that mermaids were not the sweet creatures of fairy tales that she had always been led to believe.

When they reached the rock, two of the Lost Boys lifted her bodily out of the boat whilst the other younger ones rushed to secure the vessels. From inside the skull, Wendy could hear drums and pipe music, and it gave the night around her a haunted air.

They entered the hollow rock through one of the gaps where a tooth should have been, and Wendy looked around at what was obviously Pan’s prime base of operations. The only illumination came from a single lantern in the large cave, but it seemed to be emitting far more light than a solitary candle should have done, and the stark light threw grotesque shadows over the walls of the cave, unnerving Wendy more than the sudden appearance of the spectres in the forest had done. It was impossible to tell what was a natural shadow and what was moving of its own accord. The music and movement stopped once the Lost Boys entered with Wendy, and all the eyes within the cave turned to the new arrivals. There were several ledges and sills within the rock with more boys perched on them, but there was no sign of Bae anywhere. Whilst Wendy was grateful to know that he had not been made into one of Pan’s reluctant lackeys, she was still worried as to what had become of him.

“Well well well, if it isn’t the Darling daughter.” It was Pan’s voice, Wendy recognised it from the first time that she had been to Neverland. She held her chin up, determined not to show any fear to her captor, even though she could not yet see him. Suddenly, a rope dropped from somewhere near the ceiling and a figure could be seen swarming down it; it was Pan. He jumped the final couple of feet to the floor and clapped his hands, and the rope receded back up without any kind of outside influence. He came over to Wendy and stopped, regarding her with scrutiny, head on one side.

“I was certain that we’d got rid of you for good,” he said conversationally. “As I recall, you weren’t very enamoured with the place on your first visit. It was a surprise to find you so eager to return. I wonder what could have caused this sudden change of heart.”

“I have come to find Bae,” Wendy said firmly, her jaw set to try and mask the quivering in her voice. “Where is he?”

“A rescue mission?” Pan scoffed. “How very noble, especially for a girl. But, how do you know that Bae wants to be rescued? He seemed almost as eager to get here as you were just now.”

“Bae came here to protect his family,” Wendy said boldly. “You took him from us. And girls can be just as dangerous as boys.”

“You’re tied up,” Pan pointed out. “And you’re wearing a nightie. Much like my maiden aunt. Hardly dangerous.”

“And the mermaids in the lagoon outside that your Lost Boys fear so much?” Wendy said. “Aren’t they female?”

For a split second, Pan narrowed his eyes and Wendy knew that she’d caught him out for a moment, but only a moment. His previous demeanour quickly returned.

“Mermaids are a brutal species unto themselves,” he said. “But I have no use for girls on this island. It really is most irritating the way you insist on returning.”

“I’ve come for Bae,” Wendy said. “Let him go and I won’t come back here again.”

Pan appeared to consider her proposition for a moment before shaking his head.

“No, you see, then there would be no repercussions. You’re trespassing, Wendy Darling, and you need to be punished. I can’t just let you go free.”

“You let me go before.”

“Yes, but last time you were invited, you see. No-one asked you to come back. In fact, I don’t think even Bae asked you to come back for him, did he?”

“I don’t know, you took him away from us,” Wendy said through gritted teeth.

“Well, was he shouting ‘Wendy, Wendy, please come and rescue me?’ before he left? If not then he didn’t ask you to come back for him.”

“He was saving my brother, our brother! Family!” Wendy exclaimed. “But you don’t care about families, all you do is rip them apart!”

“Me?” Pan looked shocked. “I don’t take boys from their families, Wendy. I liberate them. You’ve seen Neverland. It’s a paradise. No rules, no responsibilities. I take them from their boring lives and I bring them here and I make them into my own family, a better family, where no-one has to be an adult ever again.”

“You make them into your slaves!” Wendy retorted. The Lost Boys remained silent, standing like sentinels around the cave.

“Nonsense,” Pan said. “They’re happy to be here, aren’t you, Porky?” He jabbed a plump boy, who looked as if he wanted to be anywhere in the world apart from Neverland, in the ribs, and the boy made no reply. “See,” Pan continued. “He loves it.”

“You’re mad,” Wendy said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Far from it,” Pan replied. “I just help people to see the truth, that there’s far more sense in staying here with me than in being at home with their families.”

“What have you done with Baelfire?” Wendy pleaded. Her own fate was up in the air, but she had to find out what had happened to Bae, if he was safe and more importantly, if he was alive.

“Well, it’s quite interesting that you should mention him.” Pan’s face took on a ponderous aspect. “He left. Quite some time ago, actually. Yes, apparently he didn’t want to accept my generous offer of a place in my little family of Lost Boys here. He’s gone. Vanished. Vamoosed.”

“Where is he?” Wendy screamed. Pan shrugged and spread his hands.

“I don’t know where he is. Have you considered the possibility that maybe he didn’t want to be part of your family either?”

Wendy shook her head. “Bae would never abandon us like that. He would do anything to protect us. He did do anything to protect us.”

“Well, as you can see,” Pan continued blithely, “he’s not here. He left. Such a shame that your paths didn’t cross, really. And such a shame that you won’t be able to pass the message on to your brothers. I wonder if they’ll come looking for you? It would be very amusing to collect the whole set, so to speak.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Wendy asked. She could feel her bravery waning, but she was determined to keep showing a courageous face to Pan.

“No, what a thing to suggest! I’m not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway. But you could prove useful in the future, I suppose. Bait for traps, target practice. We’ve all got to survive here, after all.”

Wendy saw movement out of the corner of her eye. One of the Lost Boys was inching closer and closer towards the mysterious lantern in the centre of the cave. Although he was out of his sight-line, Pan sighed and snapped his fingers, and a shadow flew across the cave, grabbing the boy and lifting him high into the air. Wendy could hear his choked screams getting fainter and fainter; the shadow had a hold on his neck and was slowly squeezing the life out of him. Wendy had to look away, nauseated, as his desperate noises became gurgles, and his body hit the ground with a dull thud.

“If anyone else tries anything stupid,” Pan said, indicating the light behind him without averting his gaze from Wendy, “then you know the consequences. Now…” He clapped his hands twice and the Lost Boys and other shadows began to move from their positions around the cave. “I think we need to take our new guest to her accommodation. Be careful now, we wouldn’t want to hurt her too badly. Yet.”

Neverland – Present

“I can’t do it.”

“Yes you can. Try again.”

“I’ve already tried about twenty times, Gold, and I can’t do it! Stop pushing me!”

“How else do you plan on learning, dearie?” During the course of the exchange, Rumpelstiltskin had remained so calm and annoyingly serene, and Emma took a surprised step back to hear the anger in his raised voice now. His dark eyes flashed with something dangerous, something magical, and she half-raised her hands in defence, although against what she did not yet know.

“How do you plan on learning anything if I don’t push you?” Rumpelstiltskin asked again, no longer shouting, but still incredibly vehement. “What will you learn if every time you can’t do something, every time you find something difficult, you run away? Your magic could be the difference between life and death and I won’t always be there to take over when you throw in the towel because something’s too hard for you!”

“Don’t you lecture me about running away!” Emma screamed. “You know nothing about the things I’ve had to run away from! And you’re one to talk, you ran away from your own son!”

“And I spent three hundred years regretting that decision and trying to find him again, only to lose him for good! Your son is out there, my grandson, the only part of Bae I have left, and you can’t give up on finding him because it’s too damn difficult!”

“Shut up!” Emma yelled, clenching her fists, and the shrub beside her burst into flames. She jumped sideways in alarm. “Gold! What the hell?”

“That was you, dearie, not me.” He was calm again, or at least as calm as the glittering imp ever was. “Put it out now, we don’t want anyone knowing where we are.”

“There’s no water!” Emma said frantically.

“It’s a magic fire, dearie, use your imagination,” Rumpelstiltskin said sweetly.

“I don’t know how!” Emma let out a long howl of frustration, but when she opened her eyes and unclenched her fists, the shrub was still burning.

“Yes, you do,” Rumpelstiltskin retorted. He was standing with his arms folded, watching the scene with something akin to amusement. “Think about what you want to do and put all your will into doing it.”

Think about what you want to protect. Again the words floated back to her, and Emma held out her hands towards the fire, focussing all her energy into the image of the flames dying back until there was nothing left but smoking leaves. To her amazement, the blaze lessened and lessened until only a flickering embers could be seen, the faintest wisps of white smoke twirling and eddying around her fingertips.

“I did it,” she said, her voice equal parts proud and disbelieving.

“Yes, you did.” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice was neutral but when she turned to look at him, he was grinning broadly and bobbing up and down on his toes. “And that’s the purest magic I’ve seen for a long time, Miss Swan.”

Emma looked at the smoking bush and then down at her hands.

“What the hell just happened?” she murmured. “And how do you know that it was me?”

“Magic runs off emotions,” Rumpelstiltskin explained. “The tone of mind determines the colour of magic.”

“What, like a mood ring?” Emma asked.

Rumpelstiltskin considered this comparison for a moment before shrugging. “In a manner, I suppose. Anger, fear, hatred, conversely happiness, courage, love… All these things allow you to cast. Control your emotions and you can control your magic.”

“So the bush was my anger?”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. “And putting it out, that was a positive emotion. You can tell by the colour. So pure and white. So shiny.”

Emma paused and looked at Rumpelstiltskin through narrowed eyes. “Whenever I’ve seen you use magic, it’s always been dark-coloured.”

He gave her a mossy-toothed leer in return.

“There’s a lot of darkness in me, dearie. I’m not called the Dark One for nothing.”

Emma nodded slowly. “Regina’s magic is also dark-coloured.”

“Hmm.” Rumpelstiltskin looked away for a moment, pointedly avoiding her eyes. “Yes, Regina’s magic is dark-coloured. Dark magic. So was Cora’s. So was another of my apprentice’s. That’s the way I taught them. You teach what you know.”

“So why aren’t you teaching me dark magic?” Emma asked. “How come mine is so light when everyone else’s is so dark?”

“Because you have so much light magic from your heritage, dearie. So much magical potential waiting to be tapped, and that magic, once you have it under control, once you can bend it to your will and work alongside it… Oh, you’ll give me a run for my money as the most powerful sorcerer in all the realms. Now, try that spell again.”

Mutely, Emma obeyed, holding out her right hand with the palm up and then curling her fingers into a fist.

“What’s the difference between light and dark magic anyway?” she asked.

“What’s the difference between happiness and anger?” Rumpelstiltskin replied, his voice clipped. “Negative emotions are powerful. Explosive. Forceful. But they, like the magic they inform, will fade. Positive emotions endure, make for stronger bonds. It’s harder to learn light magic. Harder to teach. It doesn’t come as easily, but it’s stronger in the end.”

“What about true love?” Emma asked. “Everyone says that’s the most powerful magic of all.”

“And rightly so.” Rumpelstiltskin smiled, a genuine smile rather than a toothy sneer, and Emma could see the traces of Gold in his face now. “Love makes for golden magic. Bright and beautiful….”

He shook himself like a cat that had just sneezed and was attempting to deny the fact. “Enough of that. Has it worked this time?”

Emma opened her hand. Above her palm, a silvery compass needle was spinning, finally coming to rest.

“Perfect, we can continue on with the compass and follow your shadow.” Rumpelstiltskin set off through the trees without any further ceremony and Emma rushed to catch up with him.

“Hang on, hang on.” She came up beside him and fell into time with his brisk strides. “Earlier, you said that you wouldn’t always be there to do magic for me. That’s not the first time that you’ve made it sound like you’re not coming back from Neverland. Why do you think that this is a one-way trip for you? What do you know that the rest of us don’t?”

Rumpelstiltskin stopped in his tracks and sighed.

“You know,” he said suddenly with a suitably flamboyant gesture that Emma was just about getting used to, although she didn’t think that she’d ever be completely comfortable with it. “I don’t think you want to know.”

Emma just raised an eyebrow, speaking through her teeth as she tried to keep a lid on her worn down patience. “Try me.”

He gave another sigh; she wasn’t going to let him off so easily. Well, he had told her to be persistent with her magic, and she had never been one to let things go even without the magic.

“Many centuries ago, there was a prophecy. A seer told me that I’d reunite with Bae, that a boy would bring us together again. She also told me that the boy would be my undoing.”

Emma let out a long breath. “Henry. Henry is your undoing.”

She folded her arms, stance set, blocking the trail that they were following east to find Emma’s shadow and, by proxy, her son.

“How do I know that you aren’t finding Henry to do away with him?” she asked coldly. “How do I know that this eagerness, this willingness to sacrifice yourself isn’t just you wanting to get to him first to put him out of the picture to secure your own future?”

“Oh, the thought crossed my mind back in Storybrooke, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin snarled, and Emma felt heat prickle at the tips of her fingers. Looking down, she was not surprised to see tiny tongues of flame licking there.

“You’re a bastard,” she growled.

“I told you, there’s a lot of darkness in me. But really, Emma, think about it logically. Henry reunited me with my Bae. But Bae is now gone, lost to me forever, and the only way I can atone for everything I’ve done is to make sure my grandson, my last surviving relative, is safe. Bae’s gone. Why would I destroy Henry? It won’t bring my son back.”

Emma looked at him hard, the flames still warming her fingertips.

“I still don’t trust you,” she said after a long silence.

“Well, what’s new?” Rumpelstiltskin giggled.

“But you’re not lying,” Emma continued. “I know my self-confessed superpower can be off at times, but I’m pretty certain that this isn’t one of them. You’re teaching me the very things I would need to stop you. But be warned. I’m not going to hesitate to make you resemble that bush if I have to.”

“I consider myself duly forewarned.” Rumpelstiltskin bowed. “Shall we?” he added, indicating the trail. Emma nodded and continued the trek through the forest. She was thinking about Neal, about his antagonism towards magic and special powers; his understandable antagonism given everything that he had gone through. Thinking about his relationship with his father. If he was here now, how would he react to the knowledge that she had so much magical potential just waiting to be unleashed? Bright magic. Good magic. Not like Rumpelstiltskin’s. She glanced sideways at her companion, but she knew better than to ask his opinion on the subject.

Neverland – Past

Wendy was put back into a coracle and paddled away from Skull Rock with a small contingent of Lost Boys as a guard. Away from Pan's chilling influence, she found it easier to think and plan. She had no idea how she was going to get off the island, but before she could do that, she had to get free of the Lost Boys. It couldn't be impossible; Bae must have done it before, after all. She refused to believe Pan's assertion that Bae had abandoned her, John and Michael. He was on his way back to them, she knew it.

They were going in the opposite direction to the one that they had taken to arrive on the rock, moving further and further away from the jungle at the water's edge and rowing instead towards the waterfall that crashed down from the mountain. The mermaids were still swimming around the boats, hoping for a spill, and as they neared the cascade, Wendy saw a couple of them sitting on the rocks there. Although at first glance, they seemed to be humanesque, it was obvious once the boats came closer that Pan was right and they were truly a species of their own. Their fingers were webbed, and instead of clothing, the scales on their shimmering fish tails continued up over female torsos to the neck, and back down to scatter over their arms. They viewed Wendy with suspicion as the fleet of boats neared the waterfall and the Lost Boys began to fix covers over the little round vessels to keep them dry; as they passed under the falls the mermaids hissed at them. Wendy shivered and avoided their sharp gaze, not looking back until the boats hit the stark rock face behind the waterfall and the Lost Boys jumped out.

Although it looked like a sheer cliff face, once she was out of the boat, Wendy could see that there was an uneven path cut into the wet rock, and it was this that they were travelling up. Wendy didn't want to look down as they continued to climb up behind the waterfall, but she couldn't help herself and risked a small glance over the edge. They were very high up, and there were no handholds of any kind. Wendy felt dizzy all of a sudden and stumbled on the path before being hauled to her feet again by the Lost Boys around her. None of them spoke as they kept climbing higher, and Wendy knew better than to ask where they were taking her. She wouldn't receive an answer. She glanced over at the skull rock in the centre of the lagoon, and although it was impossible to see it clearly through the rushing water, Wendy could still feel its chilling and oppressive influence. She wondered at the significance of the lantern; she could just about make out the points of bright light coming from the holes in the rock, and her stomach turned when she thought again of the unfortunate Lost Boy.

"We're here."

The leader of the group stopped up ahead and indicated for the others to follow him into a crevice in the rock face; Wendy would never have guessed it was there otherwise and would have assumed that it was just another cosmetic feature of the cliff. There was no light inside the narrow passageway and she followed her captors blindly along the wet, uneven floor, listening to the water trickling down the walls. Ahead of her, one of the Lost Boys lit a torch, although by what means she did not know; Wendy was simply grateful for the light and chose not to ask questions whose reply she might not like. Soon, the tunnel opened out into a larger chamber, filled with small cages. There were no other people inside, but Wendy could see something that looked suspiciously like a pile of clean white bones in one corner. The place smelt of death; she remembered it from Great Aunt Ida's funeral.

For an awful moment she thought of Bae, and forced her mind away from that terrible fate that might have befallen him. She was going to get out, she was going to get home, and the family was going to be reunited. One of the Lost Boys went over to open the nearest cage. It was only made of wood and rope but it seemed to be a sturdy enough structure. Another boy pushed her forward and Wendy knew that she was expected to get into the cage. Meekly she complied, shuffling into the little box to spare herself the indignity of being manhandled inside, and the Lost Boys shut it up behind her. There was barely enough room for her; she had to curl up as small as she could. None of the boys said anything as the oldest fastened the cage tight again, but she could see one or two of them giving her awkward, sympathetic looks before hastily turning away in case any of their brothers in arms caught them at it. Once they had checked that the cage was fastened securely, they turned and left the cavern, filing back into the narrow passageway.

It was only once she was sure that the sound of footsteps had died away that Wendy chanced to look around properly at her surroundings. The boys had taken the torch with them and it took a while for her eyes to adjust to the outlines of shapes in the vaulted room, but it quickly became clear that she was completely alone. Wendy gave a small smile and looked down at her hands, clasped tightly together, and she opened her cold, stiff fingers to drop into her lap the wet flint that she had picked up when she had stumbled on the path up to the cavern. Wendy was good at concealment. She’d managed to hide Bae from her parents, after all, and what was a simple stone after that? It took her several attempts to get a good hold on it and get it into the correct position to saw through her bonds, and on more than one occasion she was tempted simply to give up. The rope that they had tied her with was strong and the flint was not particularly sharp, but maybe if she could just use it to loosen the knot enough, she’d be able to slide her wrists free. It was a slow and painful process, the rope was rough and it grazed her hands, drawing blood as she eased it over the soft skin, and it brought tears to her eyes. Finally, after what might have been an hour or might have been a day, her hands were free. Wendy flexed her wrists and assessed the damage; it would heal soon enough. She was not an overly tough child, she had never needed to be until now, and now that one layer of her awful situation had been solved and crisis was no longer quite so imminent, the pain made her cry. She wiped her face and the salt burned her wounds, but it also gave her the fire she needed to continue, picking up the flint once more and setting to work weakening the ropes that attached the door to the cage. She heaved her slight weight against the bars; with so little space it was hard to get much leverage, but she persisted. Desperation to be free was winning out over every other thought or feeling in her mind, and with a quiet exclamation of triumph, she managed to loosen one of the hinges. Maybe if she could just squeeze out…

It was easier said than done, especially as she could not really stretch out her limbs within the cage, but eventually she succeeded in getting one arm out, and once one was out, the rest of her body followed, if slowly and painfully. Free from the cage, Wendy looked around the pitch black cavern. She would have given anything for a light, but she could only walk through the darkness with arms outstretched until her fingertips brushed the cool, damp wall. From there it was just a question of feeling her way around until she reached the opening, which she slipped into. A small part of her worried if she had found the correct way out or if there were more tunnels and she was just going further and further into the mountain and towards unknown dangers, but she soon began to make out a faint sliver of something that looked lighter, and the odd twinkling of what could have been a star in the night sky, and the further she crept along the tight corridor, the more distinct the sound of rushing water from the cascade became. Once or twice, she slipped on the damp, slimy rock underfoot and scraped her already injured hands even further. Wendy blinked back tears; she could not and would not cry now, not when she was so close to freedom. She had no idea how she was going to get home, but she was formulating a plan, if she could just capture one of the shadows…

She reached the entrance to the tunnel and breathed in the fresh air, very welcome after the mouldy smell of decay that had permeated the cave, and she stepped out onto the narrow, slippery ledge that they had walked up. She was still concealed behind the waterfall, but she was cautious in her movements in case any of the lost boys should see her. Wendy glanced down at the trail in front of her, closing her eyes when the dizziness of the height became too much. There were still a couple of coracles moored at the bottom of the path. Excellent, she wouldn’t have to negotiate the water and the mermaids.

It was in that moment that Wendy’s heart began to beat painfully in her chest. There was no reason for the little boats still to be there after the Lost Boys had deposited her in the cavern. Not unless they had also remained behind the waterfall.

Wendy realised a split second too late that there were far more hidden entrances in the seemingly sheer rock face than she had been led to believe, as the Lost Boys, armed with spears and bows and arrows, came rushing out of the cliff onto the ledge in front of and behind her, blocking her route no matter where she decided to go.

“You didn’t think that you were going to get away that easily, did you?” one of them asked. Wendy thought of her aching arms and legs and bleeding hands; her escape had not been easy so far but it had been a piece of cake compared to the dilemma she now faced. She could not go up and down. The only way out was to go down the quick way.

Wendy took a deep breath and jumped off the ledge into the churning water below.

Enchanted Forest – Present

“Where are we going, Mulan?” Neal asked as he followed the soldier through the Dark Castle’s corridors towards their unknown destination.

“Here.” Mulan stopped outside a door at the very end of the landing on the second floor of the castle. It was in one of the parts of the place that was obviously not as well-used as the rest.

“I found it yesterday whilst I was looking around,” Mulan explained, “but I didn’t realise the significance or usefulness until our conversation just now.”

Considering that their conversation had been on true love, Neal was rather intrigued and slightly nervous about what Mulan might have found. His concern must evidently have shown on his face as she caught his expression and laughed.

“There’s no need to look quite so worried, I assure you.”

They entered the room; it was pretty empty apart from a few stuffed bookshelves and a very large wire cage in the corner by the window. The cage looked to be unoccupied, but on closer inspection, Neal saw a small white shape inside, perched on a branch. It was a dove, asleep, head nestled under one wing and feathers puffed up.

“Has it been in here all this time?” Neal asked.

Mulan nodded. “I think so. I think the castle must have made sure that she had enough food and water whilst she was in here during the curse. She seemed happy enough when I got her out yesterday.”

As relieved as Neal was that the dove was unharmed from her extended stay in confinement, he still didn’t see quite how it related to his current predicament.

“This is great, Mulan, but I think I’m missing the point slightly. Unless you’re suggesting that we use the dove as a carrier pigeon.”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” Mulan said excitedly. Neal just raised an incredulous eyebrow, hoping that he could convey his doubts in his friend’s plan without the need for words. Mulan sighed at his reserved judgment and continued her explanation.

“Birds carry messages,” she said. “Most birds can carry a simple message to within a few miles. Bluebirds are the best as they can repeat verbal messages. Other birds can carry written messages. But doves and pigeons, they’re different. When doves fly home, they aren’t flying to a place, they’re flying to their mate. They mate for life with such strong bonds, what they have is true love, just like we humans do.”

“Ok, I’m listening.”

“What are the chances that her mate is in the Land Without Magic?” Mulan asked. “This cage looks big enough to ordinarily house two birds. What if Rumpelstiltskin arranged things so that he had one half of the pair here and one with him, so that he could always send a message back here if he needed to?”

“Because true love transcends all boundaries and doves always fly to their true loves. If anything could take a message between worlds, it’s a dove separated from their mate. Oh Mulan, you’re a genius!”

“Thank you.”

Neal wondered where the other half of the pair could be; he hadn’t seen any sign of a caged dove in the pawn shop, which was where most of his father’s important possessions from the Enchanted Forest seemed to be, but he presumed that he had a home somewhere as well, perhaps the bird was there. It wouldn’t be free, because surely it could have already flown back to the Enchanted Forest to reunite with its mate. He wondered… For the first time, he couldn’t feel the creeping sensation of being watched, and he began to take heart from that. Neal did not trust his father with a lot of things. He didn’t trust him not to receive the message and immediately start trying to rip yet another world apart in order to find him again. He didn’t trust him not to do something completely ridiculous. But if Neal knew his father, which he was somewhat confident that he did, then Rumpelstiltskin would know that Neal would be fighting as hard and as ferociously to reunite with his own son as he had done to reunite with Neal. And his father had been all for Neal and Emma’s reconciliation, much to Neal’s chagrin at the time. Yes, if he sent a message and his father received it, Neal was confident that he’d pass it on. As for anything else he might choose to do, well, Neal wouldn’t be held responsible for that. Mulan opened the cage – it was fastened securely but not locked – and entered carefully, going over to the dove.

“Hello, my dear,” she said, stroking its soft plumage. “Are you ready to stretch your wings a little? You’re going to be going on a very long journey, but you’ll find your true love at the end of it.”

The dove cooed quietly and hopped onto Mulan’s hand, and she bore it out of the cage. The bird seemed docile enough, and together Mulan and Neal made their way back through the castle in search of pen and paper so that Neal could write his missive to Emma and Henry.

“It has to be quite short and to the point,” Mulan said as they sat down in the main hall. The dove had since left her hand and had flown over to perch on a suit of armour. “They can’t carry much weight.”

Neal tore off a tiny strip from the parchment he had found and wrote out a short message.

Emma & Henry. I am ok. In EF looking for way home. With friends. See you soon love Neal.

Emma would be able to recognise his handwriting at least, even if the message was slightly garbled.

It took a little while to coax the dove down from her comfortable perch on top of the suit of armour; it took all four of them, and in the end Philip had to resort to tempting her with tidbits from the kitchen. Even once she was happily nibbling on dried fruit on the table, the logistical difficulty of attaching the message to her in some way became apparent. They sourced some twine from somewhere and Neal held the dove securely whilst Mulan tied the little roll of paper to its leg.

“Do you know the way?” he asked the dove. He wasn’t quite sure why he was asking because he didn’t expect a reply, but given the important task that the bird was about to undertake for him, he felt it prudent to check.

Philip had already opened the window and Neal let go of the dove, throwing her out into the warm mid-morning sun. She wouldn’t be back; what reason would she have to return if she had reunited with her true love in Storybrooke? Neal leaned heavily on the windowsill, watching the white shape vanish over the horizon.

“It’ll be all right,” Mulan said beside him. Neal nodded. Even if his message never made it to its intended recipients, he was no worse off than he had been before. Now assured that he had given Henry and Emma hope of seeing him again, Neal returned his attention to his other pressing task. He had to find and entrap that errant shadow and use it to get home.

Neverland – Past

As she fell, her limbs flailing hopelessly, Wendy heard the commotion break out above her and saw a couple of loosed arrows fly past her. Then she landed with a splash and thrashed to the surface. Wendy could not swim, not much more than a gently bobbing in the sea, and she swallowed several mouthfuls of the freezing water before she managed to open her eyes and take another gasping breath. She risked a glance upwards; the Lost Boys were no longer aiming their weapons at her and were rushing down to the water’s edge. Wendy began to dog paddle awkwardly towards the boats, but she could not have gone more than a couple of feet when she felt something deceptively strong snake around her ankle. She had a split second to catch a final gasp of air before it yanked her under the surface.

Below the water, the mermaid who had hold of her gave Wendy a sweet smile which quickly became a terrifying leer, and she pulled Wendy further down towards the bottom of the lagoon. Just then, a flash of scales swam past and the mermaid was smacked in the face by a fast-moving tail, leaving an angry red mark on the pale skin. The mermaid hissed and looked around for the culprit, but she still did not relinquish her hold on Wendy’s ankle. The attacker returned; her tail was that of a stingray and she smacked Wendy’s captor around the face again before grabbing one of the drowning girl’s injured wrists and pulling hard. Wendy felt as if she was being torn in two, and she was becoming increasingly light-headed. She felt another set of arms come around her waist and tug her away from the other two warring mermaids, and she was on the verge of giving herself up for lost when she broke the surface again and choked on her instinctive intake of breath. The mermaid who had hold of her waist looked concerned, head on one side.

“Are you all right?” she asked, before levering her tail out of the water to slap an advancing mermaid with the fin. “Take a deep breath, you’ve got to trust me.”

What other choice did Wendy have? She filled her lungs as much as she could, gagging on a mouthful of water, and the mermaid dived under the surface, taking Wendy with her. She was swimming furiously down to the bottom of the lagoon, and for a moment Wendy thought that she had indeed been lulled into a false sense of security. Then she levelled off and swam onwards with powerful thrusts of her tail, fins flapping so fast and the water rushing past them so ferociously that Wendy was almost convinced that they were flying. She couldn’t hold her breath much longer; her chest felt like it was about to burst, and she let out a stream of bubbles, inadvertently gulping in a lungful of water. She spluttered, but the mermaid’s hold on her was tight and unrelenting.

Wendy could feel herself losing consciousness. Even if the mermaid was going to get her to safety, she didn’t know if she would live to see it. Surely they had reached the edge of the lagoon by now, especially with the speed that they were travelling at. Vaguely, something in the back of her air-starved mind told her that the water in her mouth tasted salty, unlike the fresh water of the lagoon…

When she came to, Wendy realised that she was lying on a sandy beach somewhere, and she opened her eyes to see a weak morning sun beating down on her. She couldn’t be dead, she reasoned. She ached too much for that, and her chest felt like it was on fire. Gingerly she looked around. The mermaid was lying next to her, eyes closed but obviously breathing, and Wendy got a closer look at her saviour. She was a lot younger than anticipated, she could not have been much older than Wendy herself, and her tail and body were covered with scales of a rich, jewel green colour. Her hair was bright red. Wendy touched the mermaid’s arm gently.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

The mermaid groaned. “Never doing that again.”

Wendy looked around. “Where are we?” she ventured. The mermaid shook her head without opening her eyes.

“Don’t know. Somewhere that’s not Neverland.”

Somewhere that was not home, either. Although there was not much to see, Wendy knew instinctively that she was nowhere near London. Was she even in the same world as England was? She turned her attention to more immediate concerns.

“Thank you,” she said to the mermaid. “You saved my life.”

“I could save you. I can’t save the others,” the mermaid replied despondently. “The shadows, you see…. And the one who got away, he wouldn’t come near the water.”

The one that got away…. Bae. Bae was all right, and he was trying to get home. Now all Wendy had to do was get home herself.

“I’m Wendy, by the way,” she said.

The mermaid at last opened her eyes and smiled. “Ariel.”

Neverland – Present

Tamara had not spoken since Henry’s revelation that Baelfire and Neal were one and the same. Henry couldn’t say that he was particularly sorry about that, but it would have been interesting to know what she was thinking. He didn’t ask, though. He wasn’t that concerned, and he knew that he didn’t have much hope of trying to sway her from her mission of destruction. He added a couple more sticks to the fire and stirred it with a slightly too-bendy twig.

“How long are we stopping for?” he asked eventually. Although his mind was still wide awake and churning over everything that he had learned in the past couple of hours, he knew that his body was tiring.

“Until we’re summoned,” Tamara said. Her voice was neutral, as was her face. She was completely unreadable, unlike Regina who had always worn her heart on her sleeve. Did Tamara feel remorse for what she had done, or in the end did she not care; was the mission for the greater good so important to her that she felt that shooting the very cause of that mission was worth it, as long as she achieved her goal?

“How do you mean?” Henry asked.

“Pan’s sending an escort to guide us the rest of the way,” Tamara explained. Henry looked around at the shadows that were hovering between the trees around them.

“And the shadows aren’t escorting us?”

“Too slow,” Tamara snapped. “Too slow, too stupid, too full of magic. We’re going to need human help for the rest of the journey.”

“How do you know he’s sending someone?” Henry persisted.

“Because that’s the plan! Listen, they’re coming now.”

Sure enough, Henry could hear the sound of several sets of footsteps marching through the forest and converging on them from several different directions at once. He listened to the noise getting closer, and he wondered what kind of people he was about to meet given his intensely magical surroundings. He was quite surprised to find that they were just ordinary boys when they appeared, dressed in clothes suitable for hunters living in the depths of the forest. They were all quite young, with some no older than Henry, then going on to late teenage years. These must be the Lost Boys. None of them spoke for a long time; they simply stared at the other two humans in the clearing, until finally one, the oldest and obviously the nominate leader, stepped forward.

“Pan’s expecting you,” he said gruffly.

“I know,” Tamara replied, her voice calm. “He sent you to guide us to him.”

The Lost Boy nodded and Tamara got awkwardly to her feet, leaning heavily on Henry as she did so. Even after she was vertical, she still kept a tight grip on his shoulder. As she had said to the shadows before, she was not letting the boy go without a fight. Now that he knew the whole story about her, Henry was not too shocked at this. He was her lynchpin.

As they continued to walk through the woods along faint trails that no-one other than a Lost Boy would be able to find, Henry briefly considered making another run for it. The boys probably wouldn’t be as fast as the shadows were, but unlike the shadows, the boys were overtly armed with all kinds of nasty-looking weapons. For now, Henry decided that it was probably safer to go along with it. Perhaps once they reached Pan, Tamara would make good on her desire to kill the boy who never grew up.

Suddenly, the Lost Boy who was leading the procession stopped. From his position near the middle of the group with Tamara, Henry could see that he was examining the bark of the nearest tree carefully. He strained to see; the boy was using a broken arrow to scrape something off the bark. Henry’s brow furrowed. It looked like make-up, lipstick, and it was obviously not meant to be there. Who would have lipstick in Neverland? Unless someone had brought lipstick to Neverland….

A new spark of hope ignited in Henry’s heart. Only one person of his acquaintance would bring lipstick to Neverland, and his heart skipped again when he focussed his attention on the arrow that the Lost Boy was now studying intently. It was one of Snow’s arrows, he recognised the fletching. Snow and Regina were in Neverland. Henry didn’t care how one of Snow’s broken arrows had ended up in a Lost Boy’s possession, nor why Regina’s lipstick was smeared on a tree. All that mattered was that they were there. They had somehow found out where he had gone and they had come after him to rescue him.

“What’s got into you, kid?” Tamara asked, one eyebrow raised. Henry’s face had broken into a grin with his new realisation, and he quickly dropped the expression, trying to appear more scared and sombre. It wasn’t hard; even with the revelation that he was not alone here and help was somewhere on the island, however far away from him, he was all too aware of his very immediate predicament.

Still, he knew that all was not lost. He just had to keep believing in his family, and they would come to rescue him.

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