Chapter Text
They find Minerva’s castle hidden in the plains between Normandy and Brittany: an overlooked no man’s land after the 4th World War, that Minerva had slipped in and acquired for private property in the resolution of the carnage. Norman explains this as they hike their way through the coastal paths, to the looming mansion—a fortress, really—on the tidal island in the distance. The property itself is expansive, but sits on elevated ground, and along with the rocky outcrops and ocean-backed walls, which makes it naturally defensible. Within the walls there were the trappings of a small settlement started—perhaps the same size as Goldy Pond, including Bayon’s castle. While it appeared to have been lived in prior (“refugees,” Norman muses, “previously, it was a commune, and before, a prison.”) the scouts they’ve sent ahead deem it empty now. After they’ve used the pen to turn off numerous security functions, Emma announces to the children that they’re free to explore.
A whole town! Chrissy and Phil take hold of her hands and pull her through the rows of buildings, down long ornate hallways that make her dizzy from vertigo. Though moth-bitten and dusty, there are homey draperies on the walls, and there are all the basic amenities plus more. It is sunset when Emma and her train of children make it to the castle innards’ proper, and behind walnut double-doors caressed by gilded columns they find the original William Minerva’s study. Ray, Norman, and Oliver have convened inside, and the three look up at the sudden entourage.
They are in the clocktower, Emma notes, the highest vantage point the castle offers. The farthest wall is built entirely of multi-coloured glass, like the church windows in Ray's books, and the setting sun filters through to illuminate the room in a surreal mosaic of light. Through the clock hands Emma can see the entire settlement and the farming fields beyond.
The sea of children disperse with minimal amounts of complaint; they all recognize the glint in Emma’s eyes when she switches to business now, and few of them would volunteer to be bored to death. The poor handful that try to complain are easily bribed to leave with sweets and hugs from Ray and Norman, respectively, and within minutes Emma finds her legs free of swarming children. The weariness of the entire journey catches up to her, suddenly, and she flops dead-limbed onto one of Minerva’s dusty, velvet armchairs for two seconds before sitting up to face the three.
“So how long do we have to fortify,” Emma asks, “before people try to come after us again?” Though she tries to keep it at bay, she cannot stop the exhaustion from trickling into her tone.
“Hayato’s squad says maybe ten days,” Ray reports, but he is still grinning distractedly. Emma frowns.
“Did you find the treasury or the armoury? Is the kitchen really good or something?”
“Better,” Oliver says, and hands her a wooden, rich-feeling box. Cradled inside on red velvet are papers and an ornate scroll: the type she’d seen in Ray's novels about castles and knights and adventures. “You know how Peter Ratri burned all of Minerva’s documents? The papers he left for us, all the legal documents he prepared for us when we crossed over? His will?”
Emma’s eyes widen, already unravelling the scroll. William Minerva’s signature, true and genuine, marks the end of the document like the ‘X’ at the end of a treasure map; the promised reward at the end of the hunt. It’s truly Minerva’s will, and he is entrusting his dreams and plans and resources and all that he owns, to his cattle child successor. She rolls it back up, gingerly, like if she had handled it too roughly it would crumble to dust, and collects her thoughts as she stares at this piece of paper, their livelihood, in her hands.
Norman paces from behind the walnut desk to stand in front of it, facing Emma, backlit. “This settlement. The castle, the lands and buildings around it, the defences. Ten years’ worth of non-perishable food, over ten grand in resources, a fully-stocked armoury, and all his knowledge and connections in private journals.”
“It’s all ours,” Norman says grandiosely, spreading his arms out, palms up; and with the golden sunset and the curvature of the planet behind him, it feels as if he is holding the whole entire world. Then: he brings his hands together and reaches forward, and Emma has the poetic thought of him capturing all the sun’s gold light, when he clasps both his hands over hers and the scroll and looks her in the eye. “Yours.”
“W-what?” Emma stammers. “But you’re Minerva—the successor.”
Norman nods, unruffled. “Yes. And I’m giving everything to you.”
“But,” Emma starts, and Ray rolls his eyes.
“’I’ll just be mayor,” he mimics in a ridiculously accurate—multi-talented, Emma scowls—copy of Emma’s voice, “and I’ll make my own rules!’ Don’t pretend you’re surprised by this turn of events.”
“Emma,” Oliver says, placating, “we spoke before you got here, and we all agreed that you’d be the best person for the job.”
“You won’t be alone,” Norman says. “I’ll do whatever it takes to support you.”
Ray reminds her, “I’ll always be by your side.”
“Let’s make your dream come true,” Norman vows, and he’s still holding her hands. Ray reaches in, too, clasps his hands around both of theirs. Oliver smiles encouragingly from the side, and claps her’s and Norman’s backs. Emma holds the scroll and they hold Emma and Emma thinks: this is how the rest of her life starts.
It’s a dizzying thought, striking Emma like a shooting star. It hits her, at this moment, how they’ve done it, they’ve won, this land is theirs and nothing can break her family apart anymore.
Ray would tell her she is too easy, too quick to subscribe to success in a second of security. That’s not it: simply, she’s grabbed on and she’s never letting go. And she thinks, that if she doesn’t let go—and she vows silently that she never will—then Norman and Ray and Oliver and everyone will not either.
“Okay,” she nods, meeting everybody’s eyes in turn as she speaks. “Let’s do this. Let’s make our dream a reality, and make a world where the cattle children can be children without worry.”
They break apart from their huddle, and the sun sets over the grassy hills. Downstairs, a bell rings—that must be the dinner crew she trusted Ray to dispatch. As they head down, she vocalizes what had run through her head earlier, and to her surprise, Ray doesn’t shoot her down, just smirks, fond.
“So what’ll be your first course of action, Mayor Emma?” he asks, and Emma starts telling them all that she wants to do.
--
They self-organize into the necessary jobs, a process like second nature now after all these years. Everyone puts in the work; everyone helps each other out. Just like at Gracefield House, like at the B-20 shelter, like at Minerva’s compound, they develop systems and create fair chore rosters and help each other out and establish a functioning, self-sustaining society within the castle’s walls. They survive, like they always do, but—
Phil wants to ride a steam train. Thoma and Lani want to invent a new DEF engine for a Formula 1 racecar, then drive it. Anna and Gilda want to travel to Paris. Nigel wants to work at NASA. Carol wants to be in the movies.
Goddamn Emma is going to make sure her family achieve all their dreams and more. Survival had always been their mindset, but now that that’s in reach—and it is, Oliver and Norman have developed a 5 month accelerated plan to a sustainable city infrastructure, and Ray and Zach have set up an impenetrable defense—the children of Neverland can’t help but dare to look past it, look up. This is what they’ve worked for all these years; this is what they deserve.
Survival isn’t the same as living, and Emma is ready to do whatever it takes to make sure all of her family get to live their lives out to its fullest.
--
Survival isn’t the same as living, Ray logically knows, but the two have been synonymous in his head for so long that he forgets what it means to breathe and not have every breath be a reminder of life’s ticking clock.
Ray can see everyone dying all too easily. This used to keep him awake at night, insomnia cradling his thoughts in its wicked hands. Now, he finds himself lethargic and prone to taking impromptu naps, nightmares be damned.
There is a weird lightness that comes with waking up 10 hours past his alarm, poking his head out of his rental study-converted-to-bedroom, to find Emma and Norman’s house empty. A note, on the fridge, telling him they’ve gone to work, and then will pick up dinner from Pepe, no worries about cooking, Ray! It’s written in Norman’s doctor scrawl (the one he’ll only use with Ray and Emma, since he knows they can decipher it) and adorned with Emma’s little doodles. Looks like she drew him a bunny, today, though it looks more like Leuvis’ fucked up demon weasel minion. Cute.
And that’s, well—them, in a nutshell. Norman and Emma. Emma and Norman: finally, finally in a relationship. They’re cute. Ray has spent three years tiptoeing around Norman’s crush, another two years comforting Emma that her life’s love was dead, and now that they’re actually alive and finally safe Ray had threatened hell and high waters for one of them, either of them, to finally just make the goddamn move.
And from there it’s smooth sailing. Don builds the happy couple a house, Ray moves in downstairs because if no one’s around to take care of these two geniuses, they may as well die from overwork or food poisoning before all of Emma’s dreams can come true.
And her dreams are coming together, spun to life impossibly fast. The settlement planning is miraculously on track, not to Ray’s credit. Last week, while finalizing some important treaty details, Ray had accidentally zoned out for the latter half when overcome by a wave of exhaustion. He didn’t realize till he’s asked for his opinion, and Emma prompted, “I think it’s good. What does Ray think?” Ray swore because shit, he never used to zone out like this, he didn’t know.
But. Emma was nodding. Norman was nodding too. There wasn’t time to go over it again, not if they wanted to beat the Ratri’s working against them. He said, “yes”, Emma beamed, the treaty went through smoothly, and Ray felt spacey the rest of the whole day.
See, Ray trusts Emma’s judgement now. Has trusted it since Goldy Pond, maybe earlier. She’s got Norman with her to make her plans come to life. Norman’s back from being Minerva. Neither of them need Ray to curb their illogical decisions anymore.
Emma and Norman are happy. They’re going to Zach and Pepe’s for dinner, so Ray doesn’t need to cook anything for them, and the thought of cooking for himself makes him queasy. Work will be fine. Oliver is there, if they need a third opinion; Zach has proven himself more than competent at leading the defense squad on his own.
Ray goes back to bed. He wonders what it would be like to sleep and not wake up.
--
Emma’s tired from a long day, but is overall happy with their progress. Every night she dreams of the world they’re going to make, and every day she looks forward to seeing it come true in daylight. There’s something missing, though, from this community they’ve created.
They are holding a town hall after dinner, and Gillian is the one who brings it up.
“Hey, hey hey. Do we have a name for this place yet?” she asks, gesturing wide circles with both her hands to redundantly indicate said place.
“Oh,” Emma says, pausing from where she’s standing at the head of the table. “I hadn’t thought about that.” She turns to Norman, Ray, and Oliver, who all shrug or offer no suggestions, either. “Well, does anyone have any ideas?”
They go through a number of names. Emma vetoes the first few (Land land, courtesy of a snickering Thoma, and Castle-y Castle, courtesy of a high-fived Lani) while Ray vetoes the next one (Emmaland, which is offered rather genuinely by a shy Nalia and it touches her heart).
“Minervaland? Or, No-Normanland?” Cisco volunteers, and Norman blinks rapidly while Ray says that they are vetoing “all name-plus-land combos, altogether, no exceptions whatsoever.” He hastily snaps on that last part to cut off Hayato’s yell of “Rayland!”, though Emma notes his flush, amused.
“What about Neverland,” Phil says, quiet but not at all shy, the past 4 years of turmoil having hardened his skin to armour and his mind to a knife too sharp for a 9-year-old child. “Like from the books Mama read to us: of a safe haven for children, where they never had to grow up.
“I know—I know that’s what the demons wanted us to be. But to them we were cattle, not children. Let’s reclaim our right to happiness: this is a place where children can be children.”
And all at once Emma hurts for the childhood she could not give back to Phil and his contemporaries; to all the children too young to remember anything but turmoil, war, fear, and running. Her childhood is painted in sunshines and tag games and warm smiles; Phil’s had been about danger and deceit lurking around every corner and in every misstep. It hurts like a physical pain, like the dagger stabbed in her gut and twisted, but Emma forces herself to shake it away because all she can do in atonement is build them a future.
They’ll grow up. But they’ll still be happy children at heart.
“Okay,” Emma nods, and looks around the room, meeting as many eyes as she can. “Hands up for Neverland?”
Her family raises their hands in concurrence, and Emma beams.
--
It’s dark outside when Ray wakes from his impromptu mid-morning nap.
The evening chatter and toil has been replaced by the listless sounds of the night; all quiet whooshes and indiscriminate clatters from the murky dark. The wind blows a high-pitched whistling tune through the window where he’d left it open a crack, and the sound fragments his thought trains like a spider web. Tch. He should close the window, Ray thinks, and doesn’t move.
He drifts fitfully in and out of consciousness before the dryness in his throat becomes too much to bear. When was the last time he drank some water?
It's 3:28 AM. Even Norman and Emma should’ve retired to bed by now, so Ray swears softly when he creaks open the study door and finds the living room lights still on. One of the loveseats has been deliberately shifted as to give its occupants a direct view of his door, and Emma and Norman curl up together on it. Ray pauses for a second to revel in the joy of seeing them like that: two halves of a whole so secure in each other’s love; his biggest accomplishment since entering the human world, he thinks, must have been getting the two together, finally. Emma seems to have drifted off, but Norman flicks sharp blue eyes up from the tablet in his hands to meet Ray’s in a staring contest.
Ray capitulates first with a huff, turning away and spinning on his heel for the kitchen. While he runs the faucet for the filtered water, Ray listens to tell-tale sounds of Norman maneuvering out of the loveseat and shuffling into the kitchen. He blinks sharply when the kitchen lights flick on, casting the linoleum into a brilliant fluorescent shine. Norman whispers an amused apology.
“Make some tea,” Norman suggests. “Jemima, Alicia, and the others came by to refill our pantry after supper; they found the blend that you like, y’know, the one that reminds us of the one that Mama made?” Norman says Mama’s name like he is fearless. Ray is trying and hopes he can do the same one day. His fingers find the tea Norman mentioned on autopilot while his other hand has already set the kettle on the stove. Norman watches and doesn’t disturb Ray’s thoughts.
“They asked about you. We said you were napping.”
Ray hums, trying for non-committal. He succeeds, mostly, because he is so tired. “What’d they say?”
“Well, at first they gasped dramatically and asked if hell had frozen over,” Norman says, because he’s a little shit and Ray’s family were little shits. He’s proud. "Then, they said, ‘good,’ and to tell you they said ‘hi’ after you’d gotten your well-deserved rest. Alicia said that you sleeping for once was definitely more important than setting up her Pokémon emulator.”
“Shit, right” Ray mutters. “I was supposed to help Alicia with her computer today.” He puts his mug back on the table a bit too hard to fake nonchalance. Some tea sloshes over the rim and burns his palm, but Ray doesn’t let go. Shit.
Norman notices, of course.
“Ray,” Norman asks, voice soft in the 3AM light. “Are you alright?” Ray appreciates the question. Knows that if it were Emma she would’ve demanded he tell her what was wrong, presumably so she could beat it up.
The sounds of the night stretch between them like delicate smoke trails.
Ray turns the question over in his mind. Thinks about meeting Norman’s eyes in a warfield, mouthing, promise to never lie to me again. Thinks about a ditto, in answer; thinks about holding Emma’s hand and vowing to live and protect his family. Thinks about blood and carnage beneath his fingertips and smiles that he will never see again, because he thought that just because they weren’t as bright they weren’t as important.
He thinks, just a few years ago they were storing water in mason jars like treasure and now he can run a faucet for his tea. Just a few years before that Mama had brought them tea on cold nights, rainy weathers.
The tea slowly loses its steam at his fingertips. Norman is still patiently awaiting Ray’s answer. Ray lifts his head, meets Norman’s tired eyes through his bangs. “I don’t know,” he shrugs. “But: is anybody?”
--
At 12, changing the world had meant survival. Staying alive past 12 years, escaping the farms, running fast and thinking faster. Perhaps, they would have to burn a few buildings, shoot up a few demons.
At 17, changing the world is not that simple, with farms and demons dismissed to passing night horrors, and instead having to face the human legal system instead. The one that demanded they be brought right back to orphanages and foster homes, separated, and scattered throughout the world.
When the frumpy lady with the horn-rimmed glasses tells them that last part, in flowery language that may have worked on normal 5-year-olds, if the Gracefield kids had been anything close to normal, Carol bursts out crying. Gilda is quick to pick her up and comfort her, leaving Emma free to snarl at the lady.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do, dear,” the lady says to Emma (and this time Norman tenses), adjusting her glasses and attempting to stand taller. The black-suited men also attempt to appear intimidating, but Ray had seen and felled wild demons, kept his family alive in the face of Hell, and seen truly dangerous maniacs. These men were kittens, at most, if not a passing fly. “Legally, all of you under 18 cannot be allowed free reign in our nation.”
“That’s a stupid law! We’ve been doing alright by ourselves for years now!” Emma yells back. Ray’s mind is already spinning, trying to calculate how many 18-year-olds they have; if there were laws on the number of dependents a parent could adopt; how many of them could claim blood relations to expedite the process.
“Unfortunately, only the mayor and the appointed legislature have the power to change the law, dear,” the lady is saying, “and as long as you are staying in this country, you’ll have to follow them. There’s a lot of paperwork and everyone has to vote—“ If Oliver and Sonia applied for the Goldy Pond children, there would be 2 leftover, Ray thinks, and reshuffles the children in his head.
“Fine!” Emma shouts, and Ray doesn’t even have time to do more damage control than tense. “Then I’ll become the mayor and make my own laws!”
The lady titters at that, and so does Norman, quietly, disguising it as a cough when Ray shoots him a glare. They’re laughing for very different reasons, though, and the lady doesn’t get to laugh for long, when they slip out of the facility in bright daylight, the next morning (to say Norman had not foreseen this happening would be a lie).
“Is this it, then? Am I mayor, can I just make my own rules?” Emma says, uncharacteristically uncertain. “Wow. That was a lot easier than remaking the Promise, did she know we did that?”
“It’s not as simple as that!” Ray shoots back, ready to drill a whole law degree into her head, but Emma’s smile doesn’t waver. Her family’s safe, free, and they have their whole lives ahead of them. They have plenty of time to learn how this system works, to be ready again for when the people inevitably come for them. In the meantime, they would look for a place to stay. A home to call their own, once again. Minerva had left them a castle, somewhere, further up North, Norman thinks. They'll head there, first. Norman and Emma will walk point; Ray starts to slow his steps to bring up the back with Zach but is stopped by a hand snaking around his inner elbow.
“That’s okay,” Emma says easily. She catches Ray just before he’s out of reach, looping her arms around Norman's and Ray's. “You guys can catch me up on the rest.”
And they do.
--
“Take care of them,” Mama had whisper-sung to Ray as her swan song, and Ray already knows how his whole life will unfold. Taking care of Norman and Emma is as easy as second nature, taking care of his family is something he has personally sworn upon in atonement for his early years. Now he inherits Mama’s dying wish, and it entirely aligns with his own life’s cause.
He knows this. He loves his family, that’s not something he questions any longer.
But it’s too easy to sleep instead, and what does that make Ray?
--
Minerva, the Mayor, and… the librarian? Their friend? And Ray’s fine with that. He doesn’t need to be more to be happy; the only problem is he thinks this makes him lesser. Norman pulls up that old proverb about fairness & different-height kids needing different boxes to see over the fence. What Emma needs, is different from what you need, Ray, and Ray scowls because Norman very carefully does not mention himself. The selfless prick. (This is a lie. Norman is the most selfish).
Emma needs the whole village. It’s okay to need only two people.
And Ray nods, but then he thinks about it and. He. Wants more. Phil, Zack, Anna, Alicia, Jemima. Lani, Thomas, Don, Gilda. Nat. Gillian’s baby bump. His family’s names become a mantra in his head.
“You’re right,” Norman laughs, and admits quietly, “I was thinking about myself.”
Ray frowns because when did Norman ever think about himself. Everything he does is for the children. For Emma, he tells Norman pointedly.
“For Emma,” Norman repeats, a lil wistful. "For you, too" (Ray scowls.) "But that’s really for me. I’m doing what I want, because seeing you guys happy is everything I need. I became Minerva because I wanted to be like Emma. And look what happened there."
He sighs. Ray lets him think for a minute about Minerva but not for too long because Ray wasn’t the only one who got lost in his thoughts nowadays.
(Isn’t this ironic, all Ray wants is for Norman to be happy).
“There’s nothing wrong with doing what makes you happy, Ray,” Norman says, gently, and Ray holds this truth in his hands like he can’t believe it’s been given to him.
Norman doesn’t let up, though. He ignores this truth wreaking havoc on Ray’s brains, rewriting everything he’s ever known, before giving him a whole new kindness, saying: “You don’t need to be anything more than yourself. Emma and I, we’ll wait.”
It’s startling similar to what Emma had told him, a few days before, red-cheeked from the winter chill when she’d found him taking refuge in Minerva’s abandoned library. He’d stumbled across it on a rare fit of energy that inspired a walk, having felt like he was buzzing out of his skin. Ray fell to the siren’s call of getting lost in a new fantasy world and he breathed and found, miraculously, he did not take every breath for granted. It was nicer than sleeping, and he didn’t feel as lethargic.
He liked books. He'd forgotten that, in the rush of setting up the world of their dreams, he realized.
Emma'd interrupted in the middle of his (fourth? fifth?) novel and flustered inside with a swarm of children, who’d pestered Ray excitedly for recommendations. Emma hadn't requested her own, after their siblings had cleared out. Instead, she'd dropped a wrapped tupperware at the desk Ray had commandeered for the little tinkering projects his hands had itched to do.
“I’ll always be by your side,” she’d said, and if it weren’t for the steely look in her eyes Ray would’ve thought she was mocking him for his dramatic line when they were just children fighting a centuries-old war. “Whenever you’re ready to come back to us, we want you there.”
Ray hadn't known how to respond. Evidentially, Emma hadn't either, because she'd grasped his hands and near-yelled: “Norman says I can’t punch anything to make you happier. We need to give you time and space, and I agree. But I want you to be happy, you know?”
And then she'd left, leaving Ray's heart feeling a little lovelorn and like it'd been through a whirlwind. Of multiple suns and maybe more than one cosmic force.
Ray found himself at the library again the next day, and the next, and the one after that. The packed lunches—not made by Emma or Norman, thank god, always Pepe or Gillian or Gilda—were dropped off regularly by one of them. Sometimes, like Norman had today, they stay for a chat and fuck with Ray’s heart.
Norman leaves soon after, looking sincerely regretful that he has to get to a meeting. Ray waves him off.
The sweet curry Pepe has made is one of Emma’s favourites, but it has diced carrots, which he knows Emma picks out religiously and sneaks onto his plate when she can (they weren’t picky much, during those two years.).
Hmm. The thought of cooking is still a bit much. But dropping by the farms on his way back, to pick up ingredients for another day sounds bearable.
--
Alone but not lonely, Ray sits in his library and makes a mental list:
Norman, alive, happy. Check.
Emma, alive, happy. Check.
His family, alive, happy. Check.
Himself? Alive. Happy? Getting there.
--
Emma lives on for everyone who cannot.
Once upon a time, back when a certain ash blond, blue-eyed boy had started the list, she could personally name everybody on it. They were her siblings; she’d once held hands with all of them; she could list the ways she loved every single one and they loved her back.
Now, the list rolls on, and on, and on—her world has expanded and with it the sacrifices she’s come to understand had been made. For every child that survived, there were thousands of years of predecessors who had not; for every child that survived, a demon child had likely not. To that she tells herself (and this voice in her head sounds like Ray’s): there are years of history, of reparations. She cannot make an exact science out of real, human lives.
That’s alright. She’s always been better at semantics anyways.
So Emma takes on the weight of the world and builds with her hands a new one that she sees in her dreams every night.