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“—they randomly dropped like rocks pretty much at the same time, and you’re telling me that you aren’t sensing anything weird?”
Emma squeezes her eyes, mumbling her disapproval at how much her back aches after the impact, and she’s quick to recognize the voice as David’s. He sounds a little pissed off. Probably with good reason, the last thing that everyone needed was a fresh new portal to—
Shit, the portal.
She immediately shoots up, looking around for a sign of danger and half-expecting to have landed in some new dystopian reality that will make her regret ever considering Storybrooke ‘too dangerous’ for her son, but the only thing that she finds are her parents looking at her half-way between relief and worry, trying to keep her from jumping on her feet.
“Are you alright?” Mary Margaret asks, touching her arms in that motherly way that still feels a little weird on her skin, but Emma is soon distracted by Hook grunting on her right as he sits up too, Regina gruffly making sure that he can hold himself up.
That’s when Emma realizes that they are on the Jolly Roger, with Lost Boys all around them, some curiously checking out what the fuss is all about, most of them keeping a good distance.
Time travel, Emma remembers, probably about at the same time as it starts sinking in for Hook too, judging by the look on his face.
They are on their way back from Neverland. Back in time. Which also means—
“Bae,” Hook calls out, sounding just as ecstatic as Emma feels when she turns around, in time to catch Neal’s surprised frown.
“Yeah?” he asks, slowly and a little warily, but when she bursts out into a sudden laugh his attention moves to her. She doesn’t give him time to ask much of anything though: she quickly twists her full body in his direction, and although her position doesn’t allow her much room for a good sprint she manages to launch herself at him pretty effectively, probably moved by force of enthusiasm alone.
He catches her, because of course he does, hugging her back before he even tries to get a word out, and Emma only grins wider, tears swelling up in her eyes as she keeps trying to pull him closer even with no space left between them.
(Is this real, can’t help wondering a little, sceptical corner of her mind, fear’s claws trying to pull her back in anticipation for the blow that will announce that it was all a cruel trick, but most of her can’t think beyond the present moment.)
(He feels real.)
“Hey, you okay?” Neal asks, worriedly rubbing her back, and Emma only chuckles quietly, a few tears leaking out when she squeezes her eyes and forgets to push them back.
(It doesn’t matter, she can hide in his shoulder.)
She manages a nod, and she gets the distinct feeling that everything is spinning around her: either she’s just struggling to wrap her head around this – she’s back in time and he’s alive –, or she’s about to implode from forbidden time travel.
(That’s fine, there are worse fates.)
There are hands tentatively reaching for her back, probably her parents’, and that reminds her that she should be giving an explanation, that they have things to worry about— because if they really went back in time, they aren’t letting things work out the way they did the last time she lived them.
“I mean, not that all the attention isn’t flattering, but am I missing something here?” Neal asks, and Emma hears Hook scoff in response.
“You have no idea, lad.”
She draws in a steadying breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she presses her forehead against Neal’s shoulder before starting to pull away. He immediately follows her lead, but she doesn’t go particularly far: by the time she’s stopped moving, she’s pretty much still in his lap.
“Emma?” David asks, his open palm resting against her back. “What’s going on?”
She exchanges a look with Hook, mostly to remind herself that she isn’t the only one with this crazy story in her head, and she feels overwhelmingly thankful that he followed her out of the diner.
“This is going to sound a little insane,” Emma warns.
“To us?” Regina asks, sceptical. “What could possibly sound insane to us?”
“Just wait and see, love,” Hook mutters, which earns him a pair of raised eyebrows from Regina.
Emma sighs, shaking her head slightly and taking a quick look around: Henry doesn’t seem to be on deck. Did he take a nap before or after they supposedly trapped Peter Pan? Or both? Is her son currently stuck in a little magical box?
“We’re from the future,” she ends up declaring, because she has never been much of a fan of not getting to the damn point. Looking at everyone’s faces, though, she kinda wonders if she should have sugar-coated it a little bit more.
“That’s not possible,” Regina argues, after a pause.
“Time travel cannot be done,” Gold adds, slowly. “It’s a rule of—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Emma intervenes, impatiently. The sooner they accept this, the sooner she can ask about Henry. “Someone’s cracked that code apparently, the point is, we are from the future and there are a few things that we’d—” She falters for a moment, her eyes darting to Hook and finding that they definitely see eye to eye on this. Her fingers curl around Neal’s shirt, and he probably notices. “That we’re fixing,” she concludes.
Gold is a smart man. His eyes narrow noticeably, and Emma knows that he isn’t far from figuring it out.
“What things?” he asks, between gritted teeth, and Emma swallows heavily.
“Have we already trapped Peter Pan in the box?” she deflects, quickly. Gold takes notice, but he doesn’t point it out.
“Yes, we have,” Mary Margaret answers, still looking like she has an hard time processing this.
Actually, no they haven't, but before Emma can point that out Regina chimes in. “How did you even do this?” she asks, eagerly. “You’ve just discovered that you have magic to begin with—”
“We fell into a portal, we didn’t make it,” Emma explains, with every intention of quickly moving on from this line of conversation because the last thing that she’s worried about right now is the how.
“Pardon me,” Hook intervenes, raising his good hand. “But you fell into a portal. I heroically jumped after you to make sure that you wouldn’t wound up in any trouble.”
“Which makes you even dumber than I am,” she replies, unamused. Then, she turns to Gold. “We need to let him out,” she says, and, to his credit, Gold hears her out before screaming in outrage. “That’s not Pan. He switched bodies with Henry, right before getting sucked in. He’s going to start snooping around Regina’s stuff and—” She gives an helpless shrug. “It’s gonna be a mess. We have to switch them back and trap Pan for real.”
“This is insane!” Tinkerbell intervenes, suddenly stepping forward. “I mean—” she scoffs, looking around with plain disbelief on her face, searching for support. “We can’t let him out. He’s too dangerous, we can’t.”
“He’s already out,” Emma reminds her, pointedly.
Tinker Bell opens her mouth to answer, but Hook beats her to it. “She’s telling the truth,” he remarks, gesturing in Emma’s direction.
Tinker Bell shoots him a glare. “Yes, because you are so trustworthy,” she spits out. She looks pretty damn scared as she looks around once again for someone to agree with her. She sets her eyes on Neal. “Bae—Neal, come on, you know Pan— we can’t let him out!” she pleads.
Emma turns to him, trying to swallow through the lump in her throat as she waits for him to doubt her story – and, well, she understands that it’s hard to believe, but the idea of him not trusting her still stings.
He stares at her for a few moments, thoughtfully.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound half as sceptical as she would have guessed.
“Very,” she stresses, keeping her eyes fixed in his. “I promise.”
There’s a brief pause, then he nods, turning towards Tinker Bell. “I believe her,” he simply shrugs, and Emma feels ridiculously relieved.
Tinker Bell lets out a bitter and frustrated scoff. “Of course you do,” she mumbles under her breath, throwing her hands up before stepping a little further from them.
“Alright, no, this is ridiculous,” Regina intervenes then, crossing her arms. Emma kinda wants to scream. “I would have noticed if something had been off with my son.”
“No offence, love, but if you had we wouldn’t have had half the problems we did,” Hook comments, because he has no self-preservation instinct left, apparently. Emma decides to intervene before Regina can throttle him.
“Look, the guy’s good, alright? He’s a good liar, and—and I mean, I didn’t notice either, not until it was too late,” she lies. “The point is, we need to take care of it, before he can do any damage.” A pause. “And he will do a lot of damage.”
She can feel Gold’s eyes piercing through her skull, but she keeps her focus fixed on Regina.
Regina stares at her in the face for a few silent moments, and Emma tries to mentally beg her to believer her, because that’s the point she’s at, apparently.
“Fine,” Regina eventually says. “I believe you.”
Emma draws a sigh of relief, then she turns to Gold, who nods, after only a moment of contemplation. Maybe, they can actually pull this off.
As soon as they’ve laid out their plan to keep an eye on Pan until they get to Storybrooke, then get Henry out, verify once and for all that it’s him – Gold assures that he can put him back in the box quickly and efficiently if it turns out that it is actually Pan, although Emma isn’t sure if it’s true, considering how things went South the last time –, and make the switch as soon as possible, everyone starts scattering around the deck.
Emma’s parents make sure to check up on her, to see that she didn’t crack her head with her random time-travel-induced fainting, Regina goes below deck to take the first turn of Pan-duty, and Hook is quick to pull Neal away with some excuse involving the sailing of the ship. Emma’s first instinct is going after them, because she isn’t really sure she’s ready to let him out of her sight without thinking that all this will turn out to be a trick, but she’s stopped by Gold, who takes a hold of her arm and mutely asks her for a one-on-one conversation.
She’s pretty sure that she knows what it’s about, and she doesn’t want to answer his questions, but sadly she can’t run away screaming either.
“What happened to him?” he asks, immediately getting to the point.
Emma briefly considers playing dumb and asking for a clarification, to buy herself some time to flee, but then she’d only end up getting on her own nerves. “I don’t think you want to know the details,” she says, quietly.
(She’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to tell them.)
“I believe I do.”
Emma briefly closes eyes, drawing in a small breath. “Fine,” she declares sharply. “Fine.” Dammit. “You sacrificed yourself, to stop Pan. It worked, but he had already cast a curse, so—” She makes some vague gesture as she trials off. “Regina had to send everyone back to the Enchanted Forest. Everyone but me and Henry.”
Judging by the way his face darkens, he doesn’t like where this is going. Emma knows that he moved mountains to find Neal, that he damned himself to save him in the first place, of course Gold wouldn’t have an hard time imagining him do the same for Henry.
“Neal thought— I guess he thought that between the two of you you’d find a way to get him back to us.” She shrugs helplessly, her eyes falling to the ground. “That’s how he died,” she adds, quietly. “Bringing you back.” She swallows. “You kept him alive, for a while, it’s just— he had to choose between that and giving all of us a fighting chance against the villain of the week, so— take a guess.”
And he’d better not ask for any more details, because she won’t give any. The brief explanation already made her heartbeat increase, her mouth running dry as she feels tears pushing behind her eyes. She automatically looks for Neal, and sure enough he’s still there, alive and talking with Hook.
Too bad her body doesn’t really feel like calming down.
“I suppose I’ll have to make sure that we all stay alive this time around,” Gold declares, clenching his jaw. Then his eyes seem to focus on her, and his expression softens. “Thank you, Miss Swan,” he says, she isn’t really sure if for the explanation or for the time travel, albeit accidental.
She nods regardless.
-
“So, Emma, can we— make some time to, uh, talk?”
They’re standing in the diner, celebrating that Henry is okay and free again and somehow nobody got hurt, and Emma has the strongest sense of déjà-vu – which she’d probably better get used to, as one of the only two people who has already lived an alternative future.
“Sure,” she answers, unable to keep a smile off her face. The idea of starting over is still pretty terrifying, but hell, there are worse things. “Did you have something in mind?”
Neal opens his mouth to answer, only to close it and raise his eyebrows at her. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, is it?”
She snorts, amused, shaking her head slightly as he matches her smile.
“Tomorrow here at lunch is perfect,” she declares
(Maybe they can make it work, this time.)