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Chapter Text

Emma’s lips meet his slowly, gently, and he can feel the burst of magic as his memories return to him.

He remembers.  His whole life is in his brain, from the wolves that raised him to the couple that taught him to speak like a human to the Queen tasking him to kill Snow White – Emma’s mother – to the arrival of the curse and everything in between.

He was around magic enough to know what this means, and he wishes the weight of his realizations didn’t send him stumbling back out of her arms.

Emma is his True Love.  It is the most startling and wonderful thing he has ever realized.  That this amazing woman, this princess, could be his mate?  That the curse, the curse meant to rip away the happy endings, could give him his?  There are no words to express his utter joy in this moment.

So he settles for something easier, when she asks if he’s okay.

“I remember,” he says.  He can hear his own damn smile.

“Graham?” she looks concerned and of course she has every right to be, he just fell away from her and is now talking about remembering and he’d barely slept and he’d been feverish all day and he went to a ten year old for advice…

And all he can do is say it again as he draws himself back up to his full height.

“I remember.”

He so wants to say he loves her but it’s too soon, much too soon, that would just make her run.

“You remember what?” she says.  She’s backed away again, and he advances on her, needing to be close to her.

He cups his love’s face gently and feels a tear fall from his eye.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and her smile is so bright and gods he feels so much, even without his heart, and he leans in to kiss her once more because he needs it, needs to feel her lips on his and not have a flash of his memories.

Their lips are about to touch when the pain hits.

His heart.  He knows it’s his heart and he knows it’s the end and he can’t even make a sound as Emma calls to him.  He hears her calling his name and he wants to tell her he loves her before it’s too late but the world around him is fading out and he can’t get the words out; the pain is too intense.

Oblivion comes and it is not nearly as sweet as he’d believed it would be before the curse, when all he wanted was for Regina to decide she was done with it and kill him already.

...

He groans as he comes to.

His mind is quickly firing questions at him in confusion.  Is this the afterlife?  Did Regina stop?  Did I somehow live, despite her not stopping?

“Well, well, if it isn’t Regina’s Huntsman, awake at last,” a voice says from somewhere nearby.  He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, instead trying to place the voice, because he knows he’s heard it before.

“Open your eyes already, Huntsman, I know you’re awake!” the voice sneers at him after a few more minutes.

Ah, yes.  He remembers now.  Jafar, the royal vizier of Agrabah.  He’d visited Regina’s palace on more than one occasion to consult the genie in the mirror – Sidney Glass, Graham realizes – about finding a different genie.

If he remembers correctly, Regina could pick and choose some of the people who came with the curse – and she hadn’t wanted this bastard anywhere near her fake little empire.

That, of course, begs the question where he is, so he does comply with the man’s request and opens his eyes, if only to see his surroundings.

Oh, well this is just wonderful, he thinks, realizing he’s in a cell in some sort of cavern.  It could be worse, he supposes.  At least as long as he’s here, he won’t have to deal with Regina.

“How did you escape the Land Without Magic?” Jafar asks, drawing his attention to the man.  He’s all in black, looking especially ridiculous with the giant shoulders his outfit has, and his cobra staff…  Or maybe it just seems that way because Graham’s been in the Land Without Magic for 28 years and no way in hell could anyone get away with that outfit there.

“I don’t know,” Graham answers with a shrug, “It felt like she was squeezing my heart to dust and I woke up in this quaint little cell you’ve placed me in.”

Graham takes a moment to look down at his own clothing.  The black leather top and pants he’d been forced to wear so often as one of the Queen’s men.  That could get uncomfortable if he’s in this prison for any length of time.

“Interesting,” Jafar mutters.

“Where am I, anyway?” he asks, curiosity getting the better of common sense.  The man has him prisoner, he’s not likely going to appreciate being questioned.

“You’re in Wonderland, Huntsman.  One of the more intact magical realms since your Queen cast the curse.  Very few people were taken.”

“Wonderland?” he repeats, incredulous, not bothering to say that Regina isn’t his Queen.  If he gets technical, Snow is his Queen, as Emma’s mother…  But in his mind, Emma is his Queen.  She is the only royal he would follow without question.  The only one that he would do anything for.  He is fond enough of Snow, and she would have his loyalty, as she always had, but she would never have it to the degree that her daughter would.

How the hell did I get to Wonderland? he thinks, trying to figure it out.  He comes up with no satisfactory answer.

At least he’s not dead.  If he can escape, he can find a way back to Storybrooke.

A way back to Emma.

Chapter Text

Alice picks up the bottle and put it in her bag.  They’d been lucky to find a market that stocked clearly labeled food stuffs.

You never knew when you would need to grow or shrink in Wonderland.  Sometimes it was the only way out of a sticky situation.

So she’d procured a bag and is now stuffing it with as many supplies as she can.  They’d managed to find some money on their journey, which the Knave is in charge of – and he doesn’t look happy each time she picks up another object and puts it in the bag and he has to hand another coin over to the vendors.

“Bloody hell, Alice, how much do you think we need?” he says as she picks up a piece of shrinking mushroom.

“Better safe than sorry,” she says, deciding it will be her last purchase, if only so that he doesn’t complain too much.

“Safe would be if you did what Cyrus said in his note and just left him.  I’m sure the Rabbit wouldn’t mind taking you to Storybrooke, it could be a fresh start for you.”

“I don’t want a fresh start,” she snaps a little, “I want to be with the one I love.”

“There’s an evil sorcerer after him, we saw that at the TumTum Tree, and the Red Queen has his bottle!  It would be suicide to try and take it from her!”

“He and I buried it once.  If we can find him, we don’t need the bottle, as long as I don’t use my wishes.”

“Bloody hell, Alice…  Okay, so how do we find Cyrus?”

“We listen.  Someone in Wonderland must know something.”

…

Graham isn’t sure how his cell remains illuminated, as there are no torches or candles or windows or even cracks in the wall.  But it’s always bright as day inside.  Which is okay, most of the time, but does make it hard to sleep.  It’s most likely magic, he knows, but he prefers to think of this as a normal prison rather than an enchanted one.  A normal prison he should be able to escape.  He has little to no chance in an enchanted one.

He’s tried finding the lock on the bars a million times, hoping he could pick it, so he could open the door (he has no idea what part of the bars the door is even in, but there must be one, he was placed into the cell somehow, right?), so he can make his escape.  He’s found nothing.  He needs to get out before he can even start making his way back to Storybrooke, but he’s almost given up trying to get out.  Almost.

Right now he’s hoping to befriend the people who bring him food, in hopes that one of them might know magic and be able to get him out that way.  He’s not fond of magic, but if it’s his only option…

So far he hasn’t had much luck.  One person brought him a change of clothes, so at least now he has a loose fitting tunic and trousers instead of all that damn leather that Regina had taken far too much delight in forcing him to wear.  He doesn’t know what happened to the old clothes.  He takes great pleasure in imagining them burning, but since leather doesn’t burn…  Well, it’s just a silly fantasy anyway.

The person who’d brought him new clothes hadn’t been back since, and he’d had to start earning trust all over again.  It was especially frustrating with his old anti-human sentiments starting to peek through.

On the bright side, Jafar hadn’t been back to question him since he first woke up, and he was being fed well enough.  He was eating better than he had many a year growing up in the forest, when overhunting and drought and other such things prevented food from being plentiful.

Still, even if Jafar hadn’t been back, he was keeping Graham a prisoner for a reason.  With the questions he’d had the first day, Graham was willing to bet the bastard wanted to get at Regina for some reason.  Which he could live with.  Theoretically.  As long as he wasn’t to become the bitch’s slave again in some sort of deal.

He’d learned to keep time by when food would show up, every twelve hours on the dot, the meals meager, but nutritious – but he has long since lost track of how many days it’s been.

He wonders about Storybrooke, about the curse and if it’s broken, he wonders how Henry is doing…  He wonders how Emma is doing.  His heart, somehow restored to his chest, aches when he thinks that she must believe him dead.  Even if he does manage to get back to her, will she accept that he’s real?

Even if she does, will she still want him?

It may have been True Love that had broken his curse, but Emma wasn’t the type to forgive and forget, and he had…  Well, there’s no other way to put it but “died in her arms.”  That had to have hurt her, more than he can imagine.  Especially given that she’d just given him a second chance after finding out about what he was forced into by Regina, and didn’t know it had been really and truly forced on him.

He is alone in a cage in Wonderland and the only thing keeping him from going insane is the memory of the smile on Emma’s face as he leaned in to kiss her again.  If he manages to get the chance he will do anything to get it back there, as often as it can be.  If anyone in the world deserves to smile like that, it’s Emma Swan.

…

Alice is still having trouble sleeping, Will knows, and his concern for his friend keeps him up longer than he should be too.  He’s long since given up trying to stop her worrying.  He usually only ends up digging himself into a hole where she’ll question him about Anastasia, and he isn’t ready to talk about it yet.

He won’t admit it, but he really does want Alice and Cyrus to be reunited…  He wants to see his friend happy.  His nature, however, is to be pessimistic, and he hates Wonderland, he would rather be home in bed in Storybrooke.

He’s still not sure what he ever did to Regina to get cursed, now that he’s seen how mostly untouched Wonderland had gone, but he can’t bring himself to be bitter about it.  Storybrooke was comfortable, even if no one really knew he existed – well, except Sheriff Swan, and Sheriff Humbert before her, thanks to his curse personality getting in trouble quite a lot.  He’d had sticky fingers.  There wasn’t much else to say, really.

Well, except the part where he’d decided to vote for Sheriff Swan before any of the stuff with the fire and Gold…  Ironic as it was, Sheriff Humbert had been the closest thing he had to a friend – he barely knew the man, of course, but everyone else ignored him and the Sheriff was usually fairly nice about the whole “under arrest” business – and with the fact that he got arrested often came meeting Deputy Swan when she joined the force – and she wasn’t as nice as Sheriff Humbert about it, ever, but the Sheriff had chosen her to be Deputy…  Which meant she was next in line for the job, and Humbert had wanted it that way…  And that alone had pretty much guaranteed that Will would vote for her.

The fact that she rescued Regina, he couldn’t care less about.  He’d almost wished, at the time, that she’d let the witch burn – although he couldn’t bloody figure out why, back then, seeing as under the curse he didn’t even know Regina.

Standing up to Gold?  Again, he couldn’t care less.  The man was intimidating, and sure, it swayed a lot of people, but he’d already made his decision and, well, he didn’t particularly give a damn if Sheriff Swan had started a feud with the most powerful man in town (he was fairly sure she hadn’t).  It wasn’t like Gold would know who voted for her and come after each of them personally.  Besides, Gold had been her backer and wanted her to win, and she had, so he had voted on the right side, hadn’t he?

Not that any of it mattered now.  That was Storybrooke.  This is Wonderland.

There is a slight rustling in the nearby bushes, and Will and Alice both shoot up, ready to fight.

It’s just the White Rabbit, though, and Will is almost disappointed as he sits back down.  A fight might’ve gotten his mind off things, helped him sleep better.

“There you are,” the rabbit says, “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Why?  Did you hear something about Cyrus?” Alice asks.  Her face lights in a hopeful smile.

“Maybe,” the rabbit nods, “There’s a network of caverns out in the West that is being used as a prison.  There’s only one prisoner, a man no one knows much about, according to the people who deliver food.”

“You want us to break into a prison – which could just be a genuine prison – to rescue a man no one knows much about – who could just be any man who actually deserves to be locked up?  Bloody hell, Rabbit, are you out of your mind?”

“Will, there are no prisons in Wonderland.  You remember how Cora dealt with crime.  Off with their heads and if she was merciful maybe they’d live through that and she would use her magic to bind them to a certain location.  Like the Hatter to his house.  If you can call that mercy.”

“That was Cora.  We’re under the Red Queen now.  Not the same game.”

“I have a good feeling about this,” Alice says, shaking her head, “We have to at least look around.  If you’re right, you’re right, but something tells me there’s more to this place – and whoever that man is, Cyrus or not – than meets the eye.”

…

“Hello,” Graham says as the girl with food comes in.

“Huntsman,” she addresses – they never ask his name, just call him by his title – “I’ve a message for you.”

“Who from?” he asks.  He can’t think of anyone he knows in Wonderland.

“The White Rabbit,” the girl says.

“I don’t know any White Rabbit,” Graham informs her.

“But he knows ‘bout you.”

“So what’s the message?”

The girl, a plain, slight thing with medium-colored brown curls down to her shoulders and eyes to match – who, if he knew about the humans of the Enchanted Forest at all, would have become an old maid or a tavern girl in that world, being too weak for real work and not pretty enough for the tastes of most men that she could be a wife who didn’t work for a living – bites her lip and then meets his eyes.

“His friends, Alice and the Knave of Hearts, are looking for her beloved.  He’s going to get them to come get you out of here, but he needs you to help them in exchange.”

“Why does he need me for that?”

The girl slides the tray of food through the bars to Graham.

“You’re the Huntsman.  Everyone knows you’re a brilliant tracker.  You might be able to find where Alice’s love is being held.  Even if you can’t, Alice could use all the help she can get, he says.”

“So he thinks it’s a good idea to spring a prisoner of a powerful sorcerer?  I don’t see the wisdom or the incentive in my getting involved in this plan.”

He wants to get out, of course he does, but if he ends up on the wrong side of Jafar he may end up dead rather than back in Storybrooke.  He wants to get out on his own terms, not someone else’s.

“He told me to tell you that if you help them…  He’ll use his abilities to take you wherever you want to go.  He can make portals, you know?  To any world, any time…  You want to get out of Wonderland, don’t you?  It’s no secret you didn’t come here on purpose, you were found unconscious in the middle of the Tulgey Wood, when you should’ve been wherever the Dark Curse took you.”

“Who are you?” Graham asks.  No one in Wonderland should speak like they know so much.  As far as he knows, Regina had no quarrel with anyone in Wonderland – except for Cora, who she’d had killed and brought back to the Enchanted Forest anyway – that she’d have included any of it in her curse, meaning people there should have remained unaware of it.  Jafar knowing, he understands; a few of the man’s visits had come during preparations.  But just the common folk?

“My name’s Mariana,” the girl says, a quiet whisper.

“And what do you know of the Dark Curse?”

“Same things everybody knows,” Mariana shrugs, a surprisingly graceful motion, “The Evil Queen cast it as her ultimate revenge on Snow White, taking most of the Enchanted Forest with her.  Including, I would assume, her most feared servant – The Huntsman.  You.”

“The Huntsman is feared in Wonderland?” Graham asks.  He’s never even been to the strange world before.  Heard tales, yes.  Fought some of the Queen of Hearts’ men when they’d found a way to the Enchanted Forest, of course.  But why would any of that make the people of Wonderland fear him?

“Well, Cora’s men brought back tales of you.  Honestly, they were all cowards anyways, ‘cept the Knave.  But I figure you had good reason to work for the Queen, if the Rabbit’s willing to trust you now.”

“She tore my heart from my chest,” Graham growls.  It’s a sensitive issue.

“Just the Queen of Hearts did to the Knave, afore Alice got it back,” Mariana whispers, her eyes wide.

 “Okay,” Graham nods, accepting her explanation, but not necessarily sold on the offer yet, “Can the Rabbit’s portals go to the Land Without Magic?”

“Of course!  Where do you think Alice came from?”

“And if I help this…  Alice, and the Knave, the Rabbit will take me back there?”

“If that’s what you want, I’m sure.  He’s got a good heart.”

The entire offer sounds too good to be true – like he’s being handed an escape and a way home to his family on a silver platter – never trust a silver platter, he remembers one of the movies Regina had bought for Henry saying – he’d seen it the one time she’d let him watch over Henry because she wanted to torture Snow for the day – that had been one of the better days, actually, getting to bond with the boy, who was seven at the time.  He doesn’t remember seeing Henry that happy before or since – until Emma came, that is.  Never trusting a silver platter is good advice, he thinks – but if this offer is genuine…  Well, genuine or not, it’s giving him a flicker of hope, hope to see his family again.  Emma and Henry.  His love and her son.  He hopes that when he and Emma are reunited – he has to think “when;” if he thinks “if,” it hurts too much – Henry will accept him as a father-figure.  He already loves the boy like his own son, he always has, even if he shouldn’t have, barely having been allowed around him by Regina (once she had him babysit, once, and she had been less than pleased to find they had bonded when she returned) and not having his heart.  But even heartless he had been able to feel for the boy, just as he had for his mother, and he attributes it to Henry being a part of his pack, even if he hadn’t known at the time.

All he’s being asked is to help a woman find the love she’s separated from – it doesn’t seem a bad proposition.  If he wasn’t a prisoner already, he’d agree to it in an instant, knowing how it feels – trapped in Wonderland, away from his family.  But there is still that part of him that’s not sure freeing one prisoner to find another won’t just bring more danger on all their heads.  The things he’d heard of Wonderland back before the curse were never flattering.  It was always considered a dangerous place.  Much is possible, in the realm, but that comes with problems.  Running around with an escaped prisoner would probably only make the dangers that – Alice and the Knave of Hearts?  Was that really the entire rescue party going up against Jafar?  Two people?  They truly could use all the help they could get, couldn’t they? – were facing even greater.  The only world more feared than Wonderland, more dangerous, is Neverland, ruled by that psychopath Pan.  He’d been lucky; the wolves had protected him from the Shadow the one time it had tried to come for him.  If they’re to run around the second most dangerous of all the realms, they should do their best not to attract even more danger – that’s just logical.

Ignored as he mostly is in this cell, he knows he’s a prisoner for a reason.  People like Jafar, they don’t keep prisoners for no reason.  He knows that well enough from his time under Regina.  Every prisoner she ever had, there was a reason behind it.  Belle?  To be used as a bargaining chip against Rumplestiltskin if need be.  The woodsman?  So she could send his children into the home of the blind witch.  Prince James?  To use him against Snow.  Always a reason.  He cannot believe otherwise.

The offer is so, so tempting, though.  A portal is exactly what he needs and it’s just being offered to him, barely any strings attached.  Help people on a quest, that’s not even a string.  It’s all the potential problems their freeing him would cause that truly makes him hesitate.

Perhaps he is overthinking things.  He wants to get out.  This is a way out.  Danger is nothing to him.  He’d gone through many a danger just trying to survive his childhood and now he had something greater than his own survival on his mind – getting back to his family.

…

Alice pauses as she and the Knave reach the mouth of the Western Caverns.  The Rabbit had gotten lost again ages ago, but they’d still managed to find the right place with a little luck.

Supposedly, the Caverns were a labyrinth, but no matter which tunnel you chose, you always wound up at the cell in the end – getting out was to be the hard part.  That was according to the young woman who supposedly was currently bringing the prisoner food, anyway.

She hadn’t answered when Will had asked who the prisoner was, why he was being held.

Alice didn’t particularly care that the girl had no answer for the Knave.  She’d rather settle her own curiosity than be told things.  Especially in Wonderland.

“Ready, Knave?” she asks, gesturing to the Caverns.

“It’s not going to be him,” he mutters, but nods anyway.  Alice takes the lead, walking straight in with determination.  She can hear him complaining under his breath behind her, but she ignores him.  She’s used to his attitude by now.

They walk for quite a while, or so it feels like, before they finally find the cell.  The man inside is lying on an uncomfortable looking slab of rock, arm thrown over his forehead.  He’s definitely not Cyrus, the Knave was right about that.

Of course, he’s several minutes back so he’s not yet able to talk about having told her so.

The prisoner sits up and looks at her.  His eyes are dark blue, and they hold both kindness and sadness.  His brown curls are a mess, though his scruffy beard doesn’t seem too out of control for a man who’s been imprisoned for who-knows-how-long.  She has to wonder how long, too.  It can’t have been too recently, if the locals aren’t afraid to gossip about him enough that the Rabbit would get word and think maybe it could be Cyrus.

“Hello, Miss,” he says.  He has what sounds to her like an Irish brogue.  That makes her wonder what world he’s from.  Hers?  Wonderland?  Someplace else?

“Hello,” she smiles, “Why have you been locked up?”

“I don’t really know,” he frowns, “I was dying, in my world…  Then I woke in this cell.  I’m told I was found out in the Tulgey Woods, unconscious.  I was…  I was questioned, a bit, when I came to, about how I even got to Wonderland, but…  I don’t even know the answer.  All I know is I should be dead, I felt myself die, but…  I’m alive.  And here.  I used to work for a woman who…  Well, the man who questioned me the first day knew her and they weren’t exactly friends – but I didn’t work for her by choice and he knows that.  Hell, she’s the reason I should be dead, she was murdering me.”

Alice frowns.  That sounds horridly unfair.  She will get this man out of here.

She walks up to the bars and starts looking for a lock.  She can hear the Knave’s muttering getting closer behind her, but she doesn’t care.  Even if he is probably going to advise they just leave this man.

She’s intently checking the bars when the Knave’s footfalls and muttering stop.

“Bloody hell!” he swears, loudly.

She looks back and he is staring wide-eyed at the prisoner.

“Sheriff Humbert…” the Knave says, “I thought you were dead!”

Chapter Text

She’s intently checking the bars when the Knave’s footfalls and muttering stop.

“Bloody hell!” he swears, loudly.

She looks back and he is staring wide-eyed at the prisoner.

“Sheriff Humbert…” the Knave says, “I thought you were dead!”

“Jack?” the man appears incredulous, “Jack Hertz?  How are you here?”

“Seriously?  How am I here?  You’re gonna ask me that?  You’re the dead man!  There was a funeral, I remember.  I made sure to behave extra well for Sheriff Swan that day.”

“Emma got my job, Regina didn’t take it from her?” the man asks.  Alice stops studying the bars for a moment.  The two men clearly know each other, even if the man in the cell called the Knave by a strange name.  That fact intrigues her, even if she doesn’t know what in the world they’re talking about.

“Well, there was an election and Regina backed Sidney Glass, but yeah,” the Knave nods.

“And is Emma alright?  Is she safe?  What about Henry?”

 “Last time I saw Sheriff Swan she was nearly runnin’ me down with her car, so yeah, I’d say she’s alright.  I don’t know about the boy.  I never was particularly social with Snow and James’ crowd.”

“The curse is broken, then?”

“Of course it’s broken, I would’ve thought I was insane when the Rabbit asked me to come help Alice if it wasn’t.”

“No need to get so up in arms, Jack, I haven’t exactly been in Storybrooke in…  Well, you probably have a better idea how long it’s been than me.”

Alice turns back to the bars on the cell.  Their conversation is interesting, sort of, but makes about as much sense as every other time the Knave starts talking about that other world he’d been in.  He still hasn’t explained what a Care Bear is.

“Wait a second; if you know about the curse, you must’ve known it was broken.”

“No,” the man vigorously shakes his head, “It was broken on me…  Separately.  Emma kissed me, and-”

“True Love, eh?” the Knave interrupts, “Shame you had that heart attack.”

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” the man lets out a growl.  Alice is surprised at the sheer animal-like quality of the noise.

“There was an obituary…”

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” the man insists, “I didn’t have a heart to have a heart attack.  The Queen took it from me in the old world.”

“Regina had your heart?”

“And crushed it.  I know she did, I felt it.”

“Bloody hell,” the Knave’s eyes go wide, “That woman is mad.”

“Apparently it was a family trait,” the man laughs darkly, “She had a pirate come here to Wonderland to kill Cora – her mother.”

“Would you stop chatting and help me find a way to get him out, Knave?” Alice asks, finally fed up with how useless he’s being.  So he knows this man.  They can catch up later.

“Why don’t we just give him some of the supplies you bought?” the Knave suggests.  Alice feels her cheeks redden; she should’ve thought of shrinking him down and then having him grow back to size as a solution first thing.

“Right,” she nods, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small piece of mushroom and a drink me bottle.  She hands them through the bars to the man.

“Eat the mushroom, come out here, then drink from the bottle,” she instructs.  He eyes the food warily but shrugs and takes a bite.

Alice has never watched someone else shrink before and it’s a surprisingly fast process.  It always felt so much longer when she did it.

In moments he is full size again, on the proper side of the bars.  He hands the mostly full bottle back to her and she puts it back in the bag.

“I’m Alice,” she holds out a hand for him to shake, “You?”

“Graham,” he takes her hand, “Just Graham.”

“We’re trying to find Alice’s love, Cyrus,” the Knave informs Graham as the three of them start walking towards the exit, “I’m finding a way back to Storybrooke as soon as that’s over.  You want in?”

“I did a lot of horrible things when Regina had my heart,” Graham says, his tone cautious, “Helping someone find their love is a good way to start making amends.  And if you’re going to offer me passage home…  Of course I’ll help.”

…

Night is falling as Graham and his new companions exit the caves.

“We’ll have to find someplace close by to camp for tonight,” Alice says.

Camping, eh?  He hasn’t slept under the stars in a long time.  Somehow, even in this most unnatural world, the thought of being out in the wild gives him a simple form of happiness he hasn’t felt in a long time.

It’s comfortable.  It’s familiar.  It’s who he was before Regina interfered.

It wasn’t that he had expected them to have a roof over their head, but he hadn’t really thought about what that meant.  About being, living, outside again.

He’d missed that ever since he’d spared Snow.  During his time in this cage, though, it wasn’t the wild that had called to him; he hadn’t given his old world a second thought.  No, it had been his family that consumed him, this time around, and he’s not sure what to make of this change in his own nature.

Or the fact that he likes it.  He likes that Emma and Henry have changed him.  They’re his pack.  They’re his everything.  Perhaps it’s his curse side shining through, but he would give up the woods forever if they asked – the funny part is, he knows that Emma would never ask that of him, and he’s still more than willing.

They find shelter under a very tall mushroom and both Alice and Jack start setting up their own areas to sleep.

“We’ll have to get you a weapon,” Alice says once he sits in the grass himself, “Are you any good with a sword?”

“I’m better with a bow or a dagger,” he states simply.  They always came more naturally to him – they were hunting weapons.  Practical weapons.  Not like a sword.  A sword was unwieldy and really only good for silly human things like duels.  Daggers and bows were purely human as well, but they were much more useful.  They’d always been like an extension of himself.

“You know, Sheriff, that doesn’t surprise me,” Jack laughs, “The bow thing.  I remember that night before you died, your darts game at Granny’s…  Gave me chills.  You’ve got good aim.”

“You were there, that night?” Graham asks.  He doesn’t remember that.  Of course, most of that night is overshadowed by the memory of kissing Emma that first time, when he couldn’t put it into words when she asked why he cared.

It was one of the best things that had ever happened in his life.  Even if the curse’s hold on him hadn’t started to fracture with it – he thinks it didn’t break fully because it was over too soon, because she was so pissed at him, perhaps because it was stolen, not given to him freely – it would have been one of the best things that he’d ever experienced.  The chocolate and cinnamon taste on her perfect lips, the softness of her skin…  The only thing better was when she’d kissed him and broken his curse fully, when he’d seen how she fit in his arms, when he’d been able to realize that they belonged with each other.

“Well, I left before the thing with Swan happened.  Only heard about that the next morning at breakfast.  You really throw a dart at her head?”

“You really try and steal a stuffed Care Bear every day for twenty eight years?” Graham throws back at him.

“It was Funshine Bear!”

Graham raises an eyebrow at Jack’s poor defense of his actions.

“The curse made me very passionate about Care Bears.  I had all the other ones.  And yes, I know it’s odd and creepy, but we can blame Regina for that, okay?  I have seen the error of my ways, thanks to your girlfriend.”

 “Would someone explain to me what a Care Bear is?” Alice interrupts, though Graham had already opened his mouth, about to correct Jack.  Emma isn’t his girlfriend, not technically.  Almost, she almost had been.  And he loves her, more than anything.  But they’re trapped in separate worlds and if Jack’s reaction to seeing him – and words about a funeral – is anything to go by, Emma believes he’s dead.  He cannot claim her as his girlfriend.  It’s not fair to her – perhaps she’s moved on, in the time he’s been gone, found someone else?  True Love or not he could never blame her if she did – and it’s just not the truth.

“They’re a brand of…  Well, children’s toys, I suppose,” he says, to answer Alice’s question.  It’s the easiest way he can explain it.  Even if it does leave out the greeting cards (which were in abundance at Mr. Clark’s Pharmacy), and the television specials (even once Emma came and time started moving again, Storybrooke’s few TV channels were limited and trapped in the eighties).

“Children’s toys?” Alice looks highly amused at this.

“Soft toy bears with singular defining personality traits,” Jack says, sighing, “For example, Grumpy Bear.  Rather explains itself.”

“You two are going to have to tell me more about this curse,” Alice says, “half the words from your mouths don’t make any sense whatsoever.”

Graham nods, understanding where she’s coming from.  It was a strange thing, the curse.

“Later,” Jack says, “Right now we should just get some sleep.”

The ground is hard, but Graham doesn’t care.  He’s slept on worse.  He’s used to discomfort.

As he starts to drift off, Emma and Henry flash across his vision.

I’m coming, he thinks.  He will see them again.  He will make sure of that.

…

Emma knows she’s dreaming.

She knows it for one simple reason – Graham is there, standing next to the well that promises to return what’s been lost.

Funny, that’s exactly what she’d been wishing for when August made her drink.  She’d gotten Henry’s book back instead.  Not that she thought it was because of the well – at the time, or even now.  August had admitted he’d had it, meaning he’d placed it behind the tire to her car.

Still, just after she and Mary Margaret had gotten back from the Enchanted Forest, she’d secretly slipped back out to the well and tried again.  Just in case the magic Gold had unleashed…

But of course it hadn’t.  And she should’ve known it wouldn’t have, shouldn’t have bothered trying, should’ve known that nothing would change, that she still wouldn’t have him.  Should’ve been happy with what she had.  But she had tried anyway, because if she was really going to have to accept that she was some fairytale princess…  All she had wanted, in that moment – and it was a very weak moment – was her happily ever after with the man she loved.

He sees her and his wonderful kind beautiful smile lights his face.

“Emma,” he says.  His accent curls around her name just the way it always did – and funny how she can’t quite remember what it sounded like when she’s awake, but here in her dreams it’s spot on.

“Graham,” she lets his name slip out.  Her voice cracks a little from her emotions.  The sadness, from having lost him, the pain of seeing him again and knowing it isn’t real, especially with everything that’s happening in her life lately…  There’s so much going on in her heart.

He frowns, probably from hearing her emotional stress so blatantly.  There’s something nice about the fact that her being upset makes him upset.  Even if – she has to keep reminding herself of this before she loses sight of it and gets too happy about having him back – it’s just a dream.  And if she’s dreaming him, of course he’s going to be upset that she’s upset.

“Are you okay?” he asks, about to take a step towards her.

Finally she can’t help but throw herself into his arms.  It’s just a dream, anyway, so it doesn’t matter how ridiculous she acts, right?  And him asking if she’s okay is just the breaking point.  She hasn’t truly cried since the night he’d died, but she feels his hands rubbing her back as the sobs rack her body.

“It’s fine, I’ve got you, everything will be fine,” he murmurs into her hair, “Tell me what’s wrong.  We can figure it out.”

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out.  He stops, and cups her face, making her look him in the eye.

“Emma, you have nothing to apologize for,” he whispers, wiping away her tears.

“It’s my fault you’re dead!” she says sharply, biting her lip when she realizes how harsh it came out.  Some confusion lights behind his eyes but it’s gone in a moment.

“No, Emma,” he kisses the top of her forehead, “Don’t you ever blame yourself for that.  No one would have believed me, no one.  And you still freed me from her, from the curse, before that.  She killed me, not you.  I don’t ever want to hear you say you’re responsible again.”

His hands fall back to her waist and she buries her head in his shoulder.

“I miss you,” she whispers, “I need you.  Henry’s dad is back in my life because he’s Gold’s son and I just…  I wish you were here.  To hold me, for real.  To listen to me…  Mary Margaret and Gold both have accused me of still being in love with Neal and really…  I just want you back.”

“I miss you too, princess,” he holds her tighter, “And I promise you – I’m coming home.  I’m coming back to Storybrooke.  We will be together again.”

She smiles despite the fact that she knows it’s just a dream, despite the fact that he can’t come home, despite the fact that he called her princess.  From him, that feels affectionate, rather than an unwelcome reminder of her title.  And even if it is way too girly for her tastes, the fact is, him having given her an endearment makes her feel…  Special.

“I think his fiancée is hiding something, I think she may have killed Pinocchio, he was trying to warn us about a woman and…” she confesses – calling August Pinocchio feels odd on her tongue but Graham was gone before August ever got there – since she needs to talk to someone who’ll listen and as long as she’s got him here, she figures she might as well, “That’s why Mary Margaret-”

“No,” Graham interrupts, “If you think that woman is bad news, there’s most likely something to it.  You have good instincts.  Snow did too, but obviously she’s letting the fact that Henry’s father is involved cloud them.  Back home, good people didn’t leave the ones they had children with.  She may know that’s not the case in the Land Without Magic but she’s clearly not thinking about that.”

Emma blinks slowly, pulling back and looking him in the eyes again.  His expression is painfully tender.

“You believe me?” she asks.

“Always, Emma.  I always believe you.  Even if I don’t always show it.”

“Even about the wolf in the road?” Emma raises an eyebrow.

“Okay,” he chuckles, “I didn’t believe you about that, when it happened.  But I believe you were telling the truth about it now.  And I always believed you about Dr. Hopper and the files.  Unfortunately, it was your word against his, and I did have to do my job.”

“Oh is that why you offered me a job even after arresting me twice?  As an apology because you knew you were in the wrong?”

“No,” he shakes his head and kisses her nose, “That was because I wanted to spend time with you.”

Emma feels herself blushing.  This version of Graham her subconscious has presented her with is surprisingly straightforward.  She…  She can’t even imagine the real him saying that.

“I love you, Emma,” he says, looking her directly in the eyes, not even blinking, “I have from the moment I met you.  And I’m going to find a way home.”

God, she wants to wake up.  It felt like he was telling the truth.  She’s not sure how much more of that she can take, knowing that it’s not real.

“I love you too, Graham,” she replies.  Normally she would never admit that.  But it’s a dream, it’s not really him, and she may never have another chance to say it.  That really depends on if she ever dreams of him again.

She couldn’t tell him for real, so she had to tell him here.  She’d missed her chance in reality and it had eaten at her soul.  She wasn’t going to miss that chance now.

That incredible smile is on his face again, just like the one he had that night in the station – and oh, how it hurts – and once again he’s leaning in to kiss her – no, no, no, her sense of déjà vu is far too strong, this has to stop! – she closes her eyes and begs to wake up – there’s not a dead weight in her arms, his lips are on hers and oh he feels so real, so warm, so alive – she changes her mind, she begs never to wake up – and then the weight of his lips is gone and she knows if she opens her eyes, she’ll be alone.

…

Will doesn’t find it a surprise when he wakes in the morning and he’s the last one up.  He does find it a surprise that while Alice is practicing her sword skills on their shelter mushroom (again; that is also not a surprise) the former Sheriff is cooking some…  Well, it looks a bit like squirrel.

Does Wonderland even have squirrels?  He doesn’t know, but whatever it is, Graham has it roasting over a small flame.

“You can cook?” he asks.  He never would’ve expected it.  Under the curse the man had practically lived at Granny’s diner during mealtimes.

“Yes, Jack, I can cook,” Graham rolls his eyes at him, “This is not my first time living in the wild.  I can do this much.  Stick me in an actual kitchen and I’d be useless, but this is fine.”

“It’s Will, actually,” he corrects.

“Sorry,” Graham says, “Should’ve asked before I just started calling you by your curse name.”

“I don’t hate it,” Will shrugs, “Here in Wonderland most everyone just calls me Knave and being Jack is definitely a step up.  I just thought you might want to know.”

Even Alice just calls him Knave most of the time.  Sometimes she’ll slip, but it’s rare.  He’s almost a little offended by it.  They’re supposed to be best friends.  She should be able to call him Will.

An oddly sympathetic look crosses Graham’s face for a moment, but it’s gone almost as fast.

“You never wanted the title ‘Knave of Hearts,’ did you?” he asks, some barely concealed pain in his voice, looking back down to the…  Well, Will’s going to keep thinking of it as squirrel until he’s told otherwise.  Not normally something he’d eat but at least he’s heard of it being eaten.

“Of course not,” Will says, “But you sound like you know what that’s like.  Why did you choose your curse name when you introduced yourself to Alice?”

“Because all I had in the old world was my unwanted title.  The Queen’s Huntsman.”

“That was you?”  Things are certainly starting to fall into place now.  The tales about the Huntsman’s ruthless and unfeeling nature…  The fact that Graham said Regina had taken his heart…  He should’ve seen it before.

“That was me,” Graham nods, rotating the little spit over the fire, “She hired me to kill Snow White.  When I didn’t, she took my heart.  But I’ve never regretted it.  Never will.  My family wouldn’t even exist if I had actually killed Snow.  I’d go through it all again just for them.”

“Cora’s the one who took mine.  I don’t even remember why anymore.  At least she didn’t behead me.  She was fond of that little trick.  Alice retrieved it for me, but a lot of the damage was already done.  My love was gone, I was rather hated.  You’re lucky, I think.  When we get back to Storybrooke, you know, people missed you.  Granny closed down the diner for two days after word got out you died.  No one really talks about it, but…  You had friends.”

“They didn’t remember who I used to be.”

“Granted.  But you’ll still have Emma and the boy, won’t you?”

“Hopefully they’ll accept me, yes.”

…

According to Alice, they’re headed to the nearest town to find him a weapon.  Graham’s glad of this.  He feels wrong without one.

Jack – Will – whatever – has been oddly quiet since learning Graham was the Huntsman before.  He understands, and appreciates, that it’s not being held against him.  Because Jack, apparently, knows what it’s like, to lose all your feeling, all your free will.

He’s specifically avoided telling the man just how horrid Regina had been, though.  No one needs to know that his dignity had been stripped of him as well as his will and emotions.

Well, eventually Emma will need to know that.  But that is mostly because she already knows some of it and he needs her to understand that it wasn’t his choice, that if he could’ve ensured it somehow, she would’ve been the only woman he ever got anywhere near, that it turns his stomach, how Regina used him.

No one else needs that knowledge, however.  Henry, especially, should be preserved from it.  Regina may not have been the best mother in the world but he knows Henry still loves the woman and he doesn’t want to disillusion the boy.

Henry is too good, too full of optimism and love.  He will not destroy that just because of what he went through.  He knows all too well what it is to not have that.

In his own childhood, with the wolves, despite the love he did have for his pack, he had basically been Henry’s opposite.  Whereas Henry sees the good in people, the light, he always saw the darkness.  He hadn’t been a hopeful child, but a practical one.  And that was how he’d survived, really.  Accept that people are dark, and you’re on guard for them, prepared when they try to harm you.  That had been how he lived his life.

Until he met Snow.  That young woman, who he now hopes will someday be his mother-in-law, had changed a lot of things for him.  She’d made him see that people could be good.  He thinks Henry must have inherited his unfailing inner light from his grandmother.  Emma has a bit of it too, he knows that, he had seen it there, below the surface; it had been beaten into submission by years in a cruel, cruel world, but it was still there.

When he gets back to her, he will do his best to make sure that light is healed.

By accepting Snow’s light, he had condemned himself to losing his heart and while he can’t regret that – there would be no Emma, no Henry, if he hadn’t – there is still a part of him that will always be bitter.  He’s not sure how he’ll handle being in the same town as Regina, probably having to interact with her because of the connection to Henry.  He will find a way, he will have to find a way, but it will not be easy.

Love never is, of course, and he would be a fool to think that settling back into Storybrooke and being a family with Emma and Henry would be.  Especially if there is any truth to what she’d said in that dream he’d had last night, about Henry’s father being Gold’s son.  That will complicate things so much further, since it means the man is probably back in the boy’s life.

He’s not sure how that dream had happened, but he’s glad it did.  Being able to see Emma, to hold her, even if it wasn’t real, was something he’d needed sorely.

He will deal with all that later, he decides, shaking his head to pull himself out of his thoughts.  Wonderland is a dangerous world; he has to remind himself of that.  It would not do for him to be wrapped up in his own mind if anything happened.

Chapter Text

Emma’s eyes flutter open and she looks to the clock.  4:30.  A little too early to be up yet.  Absently, she touches the shoelace she wears on her wrist.  It came from his boot.  She’d told Gold she hadn’t wanted his things but the man had left the jacket in the station and secretly given the box to Mary Margaret so she could go through it at her leisure.  When she’d seen his boots…  Something inside her had clicked, and she’d taken the lace.

God, that dream had been wonderful, but it had been torture at the same time.  Why had she dreamt him promising to come home?  She knows it can’t be.  The dead don’t come back.

Well, apparently the only doctor in town is Frankenstein, but from what David and Henry told her, he isn’t really any good at bringing people back, so she isn’t about to hire him for it.

She turns back to her pillow and lets out a scream.  She thought she had stopped dreaming about him ages ago.  Not loving him, she would never stop loving him, but the dreams had been so consistent at first and they had eventually died out.

The scream turns to tears, remembering the look on his face as he told her never to blame herself, and then the feel of his lips.  She had loved him so damn much, even if she’d never admitted it, still loves him so damn much, and he’s gone, out of her grasp forever.  And he had been there in that wonderful awful dream looking at her like he felt the exact same way and promising to come home and it was just too much.

The creak of her door is quiet, but obvious, and she looks up to see David.

“It sounded like you were crying,” her father says awkwardly, “I came to see if you were alright.”

Oh, this is so weird, but she shakes her head no, not trusting herself not to break down even more if she tries to speak and he quickly sits next to her and wraps his arms around her, letting her cry into his chest.

It’s awkward.  She’s uncomfortable.  But it’s 4:30 in the morning and she dreamed about her dead almost-boyfriend telling her he was coming home and she doesn’t give a crap how awkward it is because she needs to let this out and if David wants to be there for her…  He is her father.  She needs to start letting him in sometime.

He breaks the silence after a few minutes.

“Why?” he says.  That’s all.  One simple word.

“Graham,” she whispers, “He was there and he…  He told me…  He told me he was coming back to Storybrooke.  Back to me.”

“You and Graham…  You were together?” he asks, the confusion obvious in his voice.  He hadn’t been part of her life yet then, not really.  He wasn’t even seeing Mary Margaret at the time.

“Not technically,” she shakes her head, “we kissed twice…  He remembered who he really was.”

Somehow that detail is all the more painful to admit to her father.  Like it would be one thing to say she had loved Graham…  And it was another to admit that love had broken a curse.

David clearly stiffens when that hits him.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” is all he offers, after a too-long moment, with a kiss in her hair topping it off, “Graham was a good man.  He saved our whole family.  I would’ve been proud to call him my son-in-law.”

“Our whole family?” she asks with a sniffle, ignoring the son-in-law comment.  Love able to break curses or not, she had not been at the point where she was ready to consider marrying him.

“Yeah,” David confirms, and she can almost hear him nodding, “he was hired to kill Mary Margaret, but he let her go.  Then when Regina put her under the sleeping curse, she was going to have me executed, but he helped me escape so I could save your- uh, so I could save Mary Margaret.  If it wasn’t for him, we never would’ve been able to have you, and, by extension, you never would’ve had Henry.  So yeah, he saved all of us.”

Of course he did, she thinks, almost half-laughing to herself.  Henry had told her about the Mary Margaret thing back when he died (“Graham was the Huntsman.  She took his heart when he didn’t kill Snow White.  Emma!  She must’ve crushed it ‘cause he was starting to remember!” he’d said, when he heard it was a heart attack.  She’d lost track of how many times in the following two weeks he’d said something to similar effect; he’d only finally stopped with the accusations of murder once she’d won the election).  Just her luck.  She falls in love with the most wonderful man she’s ever met, who it turns out is apparently a brave and selfless hero, and he dies in her arms before they really even get a chance to start.

“He said he was coming home,” she tells him again, somehow, against all her instincts, burrowing further into David’s embrace, “He kept saying he was coming home.  Why would I dream that?”

David doesn’t say anything to that.  She’s glad.  He’s not offering false comfort saying that maybe there’s some magic they don’t know about, not apologizing – he’s just there.  And that’s exactly what she needs.

…

The next time they pass one of the trees with their many wanted posters for the Knave of Hearts, Will is surprised to see a second poster, with Graham’s face, right next to the one with his own.

The two men step up to the tree and take down the other’s poster to look at.

Wanted: The Huntsman, the poster in Will’s hand reads, Attacks on the Queen of Hearts’ men, fugitive from justice, crossing realms without a permit, and various crimes committed in the name of Queen Regina of the Enchanted Forest.  Preferably with head.

“Public Nudity?” Graham reads aloud from the poster in his hands, “Apparently you were tame in Storybrooke.”

“He claims that one was not his fault,” Alice laughs behind them, “That he was tied to a tree and stripped.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining that I never had to deal with that,” Graham says, sounding as dead serious as Will’s ever heard him, then looks back at the poster, “Wanted with or without head?  My, you made enemies.”

“Yours says ‘preferably with head,’” Will informs him, “Good to know you’re more valuable alive than I am.”

They place the posters back.  There’s nothing they can do about them.

“So you were saying the Red Queen has Cyrus’ bottle?” Graham prompts them as their group of three continues walking.  Alice had been explaining everything that they’d gone through on their quest so far when they’d come across the posters.

“Yes,” Alice says, “I think we should find a way into the palace, but the Knave thinks it would be suicide.”

If Will’s not mistaken, he catches Graham flinch when Alice calls him the Knave.  Did that unwanted title business really mean that much to the other man?

“I think,” Graham starts, “the best bet would be for one of us to go in, and the others to stay back.  So I’ll do it.  I’ll go in to try and get the bottle.  If I fail, you two can go on without me.”

“Sheriff,” Will protests, “You’ve got to get back to Storybrooke, to Emma.  If you fail in that castle, you’re likely to end up right back in the cell we found you in.”

Graham smiles, and he figures it’s from the concern.  When you’ve been heartless, having someone express concern for your well-being is rare.  Especially someone who barely knows you.

“Emma thinks I’m dead,” Graham says, “Much as I want to get home to her, my getting recaptured is not the worst setback in the world.  I might be able to get home to her even if I do; I’m sure my imprisonment had something to do with either using me against Regina or giving me back to her, and she’s in Storybrooke.  I should be the one to try and get the bottle.  I’ve been dying to act against an evil queen, no pretense of being on her side for my own well-being, for years now.  Any one is as good as another.”

“You,” Will says, “Are either very brave or very stupid.  I’m not sure which.  You’re making a lot of assumptions about why you were in that cage.”

“No I’m not,” Graham shakes his head, “I was interrogated my first day in there, about how I got here from the Land Without Magic, and I’m not valuable as my own person, not to anyone but Emma.  I’m just the Queen’s Huntsman to these people.  Getting at her is the only reason they’d want me.”

Will laughs at that.

“Oh, come on, Sheriff, I told you, people in Storybrooke did value you.  Maybe you just didn’t see it about anyone but Emma, but it’s true.  I bet no one even knows I’m gone.”

“Even if you’re right, this isn’t Storybrooke,” Graham points out, “Here in Wonderland, I’m not the beloved Sheriff.  I’m just the Huntsman.  Only valuable for my connection to Regina.”

…

It had taken him time to convince the others, but Graham stands at a servants’ entrance to the Red Queen’s castle, about to head inside to try and find Cyrus’ bottle.  Alice had provided him with a detailed description, so he knows what he’s looking for.

“Jack,” he addresses the other man, needing to get this out before he goes in, “If something goes wrong in there, if I get captured…  When you get back to Storybrooke, tell Emma I’m alive, tell her I’m in Wonderland, and tell her I’m never going to stop fighting to get back to her.”

“You’re kidding me, right?  She’ll kill me sooner than believe me.  And if she does believe me, she’s just going to drag me back here to get you herself.”

“Please, promise me you’ll tell her.”

“Alright, I promise,” Jack nods.  They shake hands and Graham knows that Jack is telling the truth.  He will tell Emma.  If she believes, that’s another story.

He heads inside.

It would have been nice, Graham realizes quickly, if they’d managed to find a map before he’d come in here.  Not that he’d be looking for a giant “x marks the spot” – just, castles are often full of twists and turns and odd passages.  He hadn’t even learned all the ones in Regina’s palace and he’d been caged there for years.

He keeps to the shadows, though, and after what feels like an eternity, finds the throne room, coming in a side entrance.  It’s not empty, the Queen is there, and so are some servants, and he manages to hide himself behind some of the drapery.

Who knows?  Perhaps she’ll say something and give away the location of the bottle.

He can’t see, but he can hear, and when the Queen says, “There’s a thing called the front door, darling.  You really must try it sometime,” he’s worried that she somehow sensed him.

“I thought making our interactions secret would be more to your liking,” Jafar’s familiar voice says before he can even mentally curse himself out, let alone move from his hiding spot like an idiot.  Apparently she was not addressing him.  That’s good.

“After all, secrets seem to be a habit of yours,” the sorcerer continues.

The Queen murmurs something he can’t quite make out, and he hears the servants retreat.

“There’s nothing more important, between two people, than honesty,” Jafar says, “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Graham closes his eyes.  His enemy, the man who had him caged, and Alice’s enemy, the one who has Cyrus’ bottle, and most likely Cyrus himself, are working together.  This is good to know, but will make things infinitely harder.

“What’s this about?” he barely hears the Queen whisper.

“Why didn’t you tell me Alice brought a friend to Wonderland?” Jafar asks, “This Knave of Hearts?”

“Because it was an inconsequential detail.  He’s nothing but a cowardly thief.  He’s of very little concern to us.”

“Actually, he’s caused a great deal of trouble, so I’d say his presence is of great concern.  Why did you bring him?”

“Because it wasn’t quite as simple as sending Alice an invitation.  Otherwise you’d have done it yourself.  I needed someone that Alice trusted.  That someone happened to be the Knave; he’s served his purpose.”

“And now his purpose is done.”

“Precisely.”

“Then there’s no issue.  Eliminate him.  Remove him from the playing field.”

Graham gathers multiple things from the conversation, and he’s not sure which is most important.

First, they know he’s escaped (the wanted posters are proof of that), but they don’t know he’s working with Alice and Jack.

Second, somehow, Jack was tricked into bringing Alice to Wonderland – “cowardly thief”?  Graham knows the man is more than that just from the years spent under the curse, and they’d had the same interactions every day for 28 years – and he’s seen the friendship between these two up close for days now; he knows that the man would not have brought Alice into a trap if he’d known it was a trap.

Third, they want Jack out of the way, which means they want Alice to be on her own, in her quest.

He knows he was supposed to try and find the bottle, but this information presses on him.  He has to warn them.

He manages to retrace his steps to the exit of the castle and makes a run for the spot where they’d agreed to meet.

…

“Jafar and the Queen, they’re working together,” Graham pants, resting his hands on his knees.  Alice pulls out a canteen and gives him water, which he gladly drinks.

“You’re sure?” she asks.  When the man had come running to the meeting spot like there was a fire at his heels, she’d thought for sure he’d managed to find Cyrus’ bottle.  If he had, he hasn’t produced it yet.

“I was in the throne room, I overheard them talking,” he explains, lowering the canteen from his lips after a long gulp, “They’re definitely working together.  And Jafar wants the Queen to eliminate Jack from the equation,” he nods towards the Knave.

“He wants me to get desperate and use my wishes,” Alice says.

“There’s more,” Graham says, holding up a hand, “Jack, what convinced you to come help Alice?”

“The White Rabbit,” the Knave answers automatically, “He told me Cyrus was alive and Alice was in trouble and we needed to bring her to Wonderland so that…  Wait, why are you asking me that?”

A pained expression crosses Graham’s face and Alice watches in shock as he turns and punches the nearest tree.

“Graham, what’s wrong?” Alice asks, “The Rabbit is my friend.”

“Your friend or not, he’s working for the Queen,” Graham growls, “She got the Rabbit to get him so that someone you trusted would get you.  It was a trap to get you into Wonderland.”

“Bloody hell,” the Knave says beside her, “Alice, if I’d known-”

“It doesn’t matter,” she interrupts his apology, “It’s better this way anyway.  When you rescued me, I was about to go through a procedure that would have erased my memories of Cyrus and Wonderland.  Even if it was a trap, you did me a favor.  I know that Cyrus is alive now, and I won’t stop fighting for him.  And if it wasn’t for us, Graham would still be in that cage, instead of on his way to finding his way home.  We just have to be more careful.”

“That Rabbit was going to be our ride back to Storybrooke,” the Knave gestures between himself and the other man, “Now we’ve got nothing.”

She bites her lip.  If Jafar and the Red Queen are after the Knave for helping her, they’ll go after Graham as well.  She won’t, she can’t be responsible for either one getting hurt.

“You don’t have to stay,” she says, reluctantly, “I’ll continue this journey on my own; the two of you find the Rabbit and get him to take you home.”

The two men exchange a look.

“No,” Graham says, “You got me out of that cage, I owe you.  I’m not deserting you, no matter how much I want to get back to Emma.  You’ll find loyalty is important to wolves.”

“I’m not leaving either, Alice.  You’re my best friend,” the Knave says, “And I would be too guilty to enjoy any of Storybrooke if I just left you all alone in Wonderland.  Wouldn’t even be able to look at a s’more.”

“Or your Care Bears collection?” she teases.

“That’s not complete anyway,” the Knave shrugs, “Never did manage to get Funshine.”

“Did you ever think about paying for it?” Graham suggests.

“Why would I do that?  The other nine came free with the curse.  It wouldn’t be fair to pay for one.”

Alice laughs at that, and the two men join her.  Graham’s discoveries certainly make their hopes bleaker, but at least they’re prepared, now.  They know that there will be attacks on the Knave coming.

…

“Sheriff?” Will asks.  The two of them had split off from Alice to lead the Collectors away.  Now, they were on their way back to meet her after just barely avoiding capture.  He’d heard the Collectors drop, but Graham had stopped him from backtracking to see if it was Alice who’d done stopped them, with the reasoning that Alice knew the meeting place and hadn’t been behind them.

“What?”

“What were you talking about loyalty and wolves for, earlier?  How was it relevant?”

“The reason I didn’t have a name in the old world,” Graham says, “is because I was raised by wolves.  The humans who gave birth to me left me to die in the woods.”

“You’re joking,” he says, but Graham quickly shakes his head.

“There was a human couple I lived with some winters, my mother took me to them when it got too cold for me to be in the woods, but they…  They were murdered when I was about seven,” Graham says.

“So the reason you keep saying that no one but Emma cares-”

“Is because that’s all I’ve ever known.  It’s the truth of my existence – the boy raised by wolves doesn’t even count as a human.  Pathetic for crying over my kills, for caring more about the pure animals of the forest, who die in honor so I may live, than about the members of my own species, the other humans.  Little more than an animal myself.  I saved Snow and James both and was still left at Regina’s mercy right up until the curse took the land.  I don’t know if they thought about rescuing me and decided it wasn’t worth the risk or wasn’t possible or if they just completely forgot I existed, but I know what it felt like.  I was nobody again.  Rather…  I was still just nobody.  Until her.”

“You’re saying not once, between the couple who took you in in winters, and Emma Swan arriving in Storybrooke, did anyone care about you?”

“No…  That’s not quite true,” Graham says.

…

“Boy,” the woodsman’s wife calls, “You know you’re always welcome to stay.  You don’t have to keep going back to the woods just because the weather is warmer.  We could give you a name, start teaching you a craft…  Take care of you.”

He smiles wide and runs back to hug her.  The Blackwoods have been nothing but kind to him.  He thinks maybe he can find a way to be a family both with them and the wolves.  He doesn’t want to leave the wolves, not forever.

His mother’s familiar howl sounds from the forest and he lets go of Mrs. Blackwood’s skirts.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he smiles up at her, “But mom’s worried that I’m not home yet.”

“Alright,” she smiles back, ruffling his hair.

In the morning, he comes out of the woods only to find a large crowd of the townsfolk gathered outside the Blackwood home.  He stays at the edge, wondering what’s going on.

After a few moments, a girl, with pretty brown curls and intelligent blue eyes, spots him.  She is dressed as a noble, in a frilly pale blue gown.

“Did you know them?” she asks.  He nods.  The Blackwoods are the only humans he’s every actually spoken to and he’s scared.  This girl’s accent is funny.  Different from theirs.

“I don’t recognize you,” she says, “Where are your parents?  Are you new here in Avonlea?  It’s my uncle’s kingdom, but I’m here a lot.”

“My family,” he starts, tentatively, “is out in the woods.  We move around a lot…  We’re around here every winter.  Why…  Why is everyone here?”  It’s not normal for wolves to be nomadic, but his family is.  He doesn’t know why.

“The woodsman,” the girl says, “He was found dead this morning, Mama says he was stabbed.  And his wife’s missing but there’s a lot of blood.”

He blinks, trying to understand.  He was just here yesterday.  They were fine.  They were going to take care of him.

“But…” he lets out, “they were fine yesterday.”

“Well, it’s not like they got sick,” the girl says, “Some horrible person did this to them. You don’t look well – I’ll get my mother,” she turns to leave but then seems to think better of it, turning back towards him, “I’m Belle, by the way.  I’ll be right back with my Mama to make sure you’re alright.  Don’t go anywhere.”

The girl leaves, and he runs back into the woods before she can return.  Whoever had hurt the woodsman and his wife was a monster – how could humans do that to each other?  His heart hardens.  He’s better off with the wolves.

…

“Guard her with your life, Huntsman,” Regina hisses as she leaves the cell.  After the pirate incident, the Queen was apparently not taking any chances with this prisoner.

He turns to look at her.  Something about her blue eyes and dark hair is familiar.

“You’re that boy,” she says, after staring at him a good long while.  Her accent strikes him.

“Belle?” he asks, remembering the little girl who’d told him about the deaths of the only humans he’d ever cared about.

“Yes,” she nods, “I never got your name.  You ran off.  I told you not to run off.”

“I…  I’m sorry,” he smiles at her, “You’d just told me that two of the people I’d cared about most in the world were gone.  I ran.”

“And now we’re both prisoners of the Queen,” she sighs, sadly.  He wonders how she knows that he is not here of his own free will.

He does not say anything, only nods.

“Could you…” she starts to ask, “Does this castle have a library?  I was hoping maybe you could bring me books.”

“I don’t know,” he tells her, honestly.  If there is one, he’s never seen it.

They are both quiet after that, for what feels like a long time.

“My mama looked for you,” she whispers finally, “Some of the other children said that you were a…  A wilding.  I’d never seen her so determined as she was to find you after she heard that.  I think she wanted to take you in.  Maybe if she had, neither of us would be in this mess.”

“Maybe,” he agrees, “but I think…  If I was not in this mess, the world out there would be in more of one.  Queen Regina would have more power.”

He knows it’s true – if he hadn’t spared Snow…   And who else would have?  Those other huntsmen, they wouldn’t have cared that she was pure, honorable, like the animals.  They would have seen Regina’s offer and taken whatever they wanted.  At least, though he wasn’t taken in by Belle’s family, he knows some good came from that twist of fate.

“That makes no sense,” the young woman says.

“Because you don’t know my story,” he leans up against the wall, “Nor do I know yours.  What use does Regina have for you?”

“She wants to use me against my love,” Belle starts.

…

“Regina had a prisoner, a princess named Belle,” Graham tells him, “She was always kind to me.  I don’t know where she was in Storybrooke, but before the curse, she was my only friend.”

“Well,” Will says, “maybe when you get back to Emma you’ll be able to find her too.”

“Maybe,” Graham nods.

Chapter Text

“Look, I’m not sure about dangling him over a cliff,” Graham glances at Alice, “But we should confront the Rabbit.  He could be working for the Queen under duress.  There’s a chance he’d be willing to give us information if we just asked.”

“And that information could be false, or the Queen could find out and hurt him and us, and about a million other possibilities.  Stealth is the option we should use,” Will says, “Not letting him know we’re onto him – he might slip naturally.”

“It will also take longer, giving Jafar and the Queen more of a chance to find us, get rid of you, and try to make Alice desperate.  They’re hunting us.  I should hope I know enough about predator behavior that you’ll trust me on that?”

Will sighs.  Graham has a point, the faster they’re out of Wonderland, the better, but things aren’t always so straightforward here.  If you’re hunted, it’s not just a couple people after you – it’s the whole of Wonderland.  There’s always someone who’s willing to pay for your head, and just about everyone else is more than willing to deliver.

That makes trust a pretty big issue, as a matter of fact.  You really shouldn’t trust anyone.  But he owed Alice a debt, for getting his heart back – and the (former) Sheriff of Storybrooke owed her a debt as well, now, for getting him out of that cell.

Owing a debt was a pretty good establisher of trust, at least, if that debt was not monetary.  Monetary debts were bad for trust.  Life debts were much better.  While neither his nor Graham’s debt to Alice is technically a life debt, they’re as good as.

“That’s just it, Graham, you’re used to hunting, not being hunted.  Even in Storybrooke, you were the Sheriff, not one of the criminals.  You haven’t been on this side of things before.”

He assumes Graham’s never been on the outlaw side of things, anyway.  Perhaps before he’d been found by Regina and had his heart taken – Will really doesn’t know.  He doubts it, though.

“I didn’t claim I had.  But I should think that someone who has been a hunter, for all his life, would know how to avoid being hunted,” Graham says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Boys,” Alice interjects, “It doesn’t matter if a hunter or a thief is better at not being hunted.  What matters is we make a decision about the Rabbit and find Cyrus.”

“Right,” they say in unison, nodding.

“Jinx, Sheriff,” Will smirks.

“Not the time for games, Jack,” Graham shakes his head, “And no, I’m not going to owe you a Coke for speaking out of turn.”

“Spoil sport,” Will laughs.  He has to admit, it’s not bad having the former Sheriff around.  He doesn’t question his references to the Land Without Magic the way Alice continually does.  Rolls his eyes every once in a while, sure, but at least he gets them.

Alice raises her eyes at the two of them.  Right.  Decision about the Rabbit.

“Pretty sure I’m outnumbered two to one here and confronting him won,” Will says, “At least that’s how it would work if we put it to a vote.  So let’s…  Find the Rabbit.”

…

Cyrus presses against the wall, hiding in the shadows, hearing a guard coming.  They rush past him, without noticing, and he’s relived.

He follows the directions the old man gave him, to the exit of the stronghold.  He regrets that his fellow prisoner gave up the chance to escape, but there’s nothing he can do.  The man did it for his sake, and he is grateful.

When he reaches the outside, he finds that he is on a strange mountain top.  Between him and the rest of Wonderland is a valley shrouded by fog.  It’s probably dangerous in there, but he has no choice.  If he wants to get to Alice, he has to go through it.

“Alice, I’m coming for you,” he says.  In the distance, he sees the light shining from his pendant, magically showing him about where she is.  He smiles.  They’ll be back together soon.

…

She sends David away after about ten minutes, but she knows there’s no point trying to get back to sleep.  So Emma gets dressed, and is headed out the door by the time the clock says 5.

It doesn’t take long for her to arrive at the Storybrooke Cemetery and find his grave.

Graham Humbert, Beloved Sheriff.  It’s a simple stone.  Not even a set of dates mark its white granite surface – of course not.  He’d been frozen in time for 28 years.  A date of birth would be pretty much impossible.  And a lie, at that.  She’s glad that the lie of the curse doesn’t touch his stone, at least not to that extent.

“Hey,” she starts, squatting down in front of the stone, “I know I don’t visit near enough.  Life is…  Pretty crazy, you know?  I’ve missed you, though.  Every single day.”

Emma pauses, biting her lip, reaching out and tracing the letters of his name.  She imagines he’s in front of her, waiting for her to go on, that it’s not cold hard stone under her fingertips, but his hands, callused but warm.  Somehow, this vision of him is quieter than the one from her dream, doesn’t feel as real as that one.  She doesn’t know why the two visions feel different.  She just knows they do.

“I’ve missed you, and your stupid handsome face, and your stupid dorky jokes…  No, don’t deny it, they were so bad,” she laughs, having visualized him in pretend indignation, “But I loved every second of it.”

She sighs, withdrawing her hand and rolling back on her heels.

“It’s probably too much to hope that the dream I just had was magic and somehow it was your soul there, telling me the things I needed to hear…  But I wanted to thank you anyway.  It hurt, a lot, dreaming of you after all this time.  But it was perfect.

“Also, I, uh, I think you made David’s night by making me cry.  I let my father hold me because of you, Sheriff!” she accuses, smiling at the Graham she’s visualized in front of her.  If she concentrates on his smile, on the guilty grin that lights his whole face, even his eyes, she can almost forget where she really is.

“He, um…  He said that he would’ve approved of us.  The other day, he was talking about…  Maybe I could have a happy ending if we went to the Enchanted Forest, and…  Honestly I think if you hadn’t died he’d be shoving hints about making an honest woman out of me down your throat.”

Emma stops talking, remembering the feel of his strong arms holding her in the dream.  What beautiful torture that had been.  The way she just fit there, like he was made to hold her.  Maybe he was – True Love’s Kiss spoke volumes, after all.

“He would be shoving hints down your throat, right?  You wouldn’t have tried to rush things on me, marry me before the curse was even broken, would you?” she asks, laughing, not serious, not even hoping for an answer, just trying to distract herself, to remember him.

“I miss you, my Huntsman,” she whispers, standing, “I wish you hadn’t left me, but I know you had no choice.”

Emma closes her eyes, letting the memory of his arms envelop her again.  After a few moments, something nudges against her leg.  It’s the white wolf she hasn’t seen since his death, with one black and one red eye.

She holds her hand out for the wolf to sniff, and after a second, it bumps her offered hand, petting itself.  She strokes the wolf tentatively.

“Don’t suppose you want to try and solve a mystery with me, figure out what happened with August and the mysterious ‘she’?” Emma asks the wolf.  It licks her hand, seeming almost excited.

“Okay, then, Wolfie, let’s go home,” she scratches behind the wolf’s ears and starts to leave the cemetery, the wolf trailing at her heels.

It’s still before 6 when they get back to the loft, and no one else is up.  Or at least, no one else is showing signs of being up.  She’s not sure if David went back to bed or if he’s just hiding out somewhere.  So Emma sits, curled up on her bed, with Henry’s book, finding the Huntsman’s story – Graham’s story – easily.  The wolf lies next to her, nose in her lap.  She hasn’t really read it before, just skimmed it, but she’s got nothing better to do for a while yet.  Sure, later Mary Margaret and David wanted her to investigate Regina and the bean fields and whatever, but for now, she has time to read the story of the man she had fallen head-over-heels in love with.

Her Sheriff, her Huntsman, her Graham.

He’d been both Sheriff and Huntsman, at the end, he’d been whole, and he’d thanked her for it.  He’d been about to kiss her again.

Both parts of him had loved her, apparently.  He had barely known her and he’d loved her with everything.  It’s huge and scary and wonderful and awful.  It’s the kind of love Emma Swan had never dared dream she’d know and she’d lost it before it had begun.

Something in her heart breaks even further than it already had just from his death when she learns he was abandoned, and raised by wolves.  Just like her, he’d grown up believing his parents hadn’t wanted him, although in his case it was more than likely true.  She hadn’t fully understood the significance of the wolf with its head in her lap.  It’s more than just Graham’s friend; it’s his only family, and that is so sad.  She strokes it, glad that it seems to have chosen to stay with her for the time being.

How is it that she and her Huntsman were broken in such familiar places?  How could fate or destiny or Rumplestiltskin (he’d predicted she would be savior, he’d basically played matchmaker to her parents if she’s reading this book correctly, is it really too much of a stretch to assume he’d had some hand in Graham’s life too, even if whoever wrote the book didn’t know that?) or whatever have designed two such perfect pieces and then torn them apart so cruelly?  He would’ve understood her, known exactly why this whole “being a family” thing is so hard for her, why she can’t really deal when Mary Margaret pushes her about it!  He would’ve been at her side, helping her through this, they would’ve been figuring it out together.

Where is the justice that such a good, honorable man is the only one who didn’t live through the curse?  Where is his happy ending?  Henry had said they would all be restored, so where is it?  Even bringing Regina to justice for what happened to him wouldn’t be enough – and she’d promised Henry that she’d have mercy on the Evil Queen.

The wolf seems to sense her distress, licking her hand again.  She smiles weakly down at it.

“Thanks for making me crash that night,” she whispers, tangling her fingers in the thick fur around the wolf’s neck, closing the book and setting it aside, leaning back into her pillows, “I would’ve left if you hadn’t.  I don’t even want to know…  What things would’ve been like, if I’d left.  Never would’ve found my family without you…  Or the love of my life.  So thanks.”

…

“You and Cyrus aren’t going to stay in Wonderland after you’ve rescued him, are you?” Graham asks, as he bends down to examine a set of tracks on the ground.  They’re definitely rabbit tracks, but if they’re the White Rabbit’s is another matter altogether.  Alice had mentioned that the Rabbit’s home was nearby, but that didn’t mean that the Rabbit himself was.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Alice says.  There’s hesitation in her voice.  She probably doesn’t want to go back to where she’d come from – between her and Jack he’d gathered she’d been in a mental facility because of her stories about this world.  He understands why, this place is strange and would sound insane to someone who’s never experienced it for themselves – even he used to think the tales of Wonderland told in taverns were exaggerated by travelers, trying to make things sound more exciting and foreign than they were.  He knows better now.

“Maybe the two of you should come to Storybrooke,” he suggests, “It’s not that exciting in itself – at least, it wasn’t when I was last there – but there’s a whole modern world you could explore outside of it…  If the curse is broken like Jack says, I mean.  No one could leave before the curse was broken.  Or, you know, maybe you won’t want excitement anymore, and that’s fine too.  I just think staying in Wonderland would be a bad idea, with the Queen and Jafar after you both.”

“That sounds…  Nice,” Alice says.  She’s obviously distracted, so he decides to leave it at that, studying the tracks.  They’re fairly fresh.  No more than a few hours old, at most.

He follows the tracks as far as he can, and they stop at a little house.  It’s a cottage, white and stone with a thatch roof.  Small, too small for any of them to go inside, at least without any of the size-changing mushrooms that they’d used to get him out of Jafar’s prison.

“Is this…?”

“The White Rabbit’s house,” Alice confirms, “I’ve been here before.”

He falls back to where Jack is standing, about 10 feet behind.  He’d been on the lookout for anything following them.  They’d been lucky, since the other day, when they’d outrun the Collectors in the forest, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t be cautious.

Alice crouches down and knocks on the door to the little cottage.  A few minutes pass.  They’re a tense few minutes.  If the rabbit isn’t here, what can they possibly do?

A White Rabbit indeed comes out, dressed in a white suit and a bowler hat, with pink glasses.

Wonderland is strange, Graham thinks.  At least the animals in the Enchanted Forest had been mostly normal.  None of this wearing clothes and living in houses and talking that’s apparently quite common for the creatures around here.

Well, actually, “strange” is probably an understatement with this world.  The Enchanted Forest had had magic, it’s true, but Wonderland seems fueled not just by magic, but by whimsy.  He’s not sure magic and whimsy are a good mixture, not sure in the slightest.

Not that he’s a particular fan of magic anyway.  There must be good it can be used for (True Love’s Kiss, whispers a little nagging voice in his head), but he’s so used to seeing the bad, thanks to his time as Regina’s captive.

“Alice,” the Rabbit says, with a sigh, “What are you doing here?”

“We know you’re working for the Red Queen,” Jack says, “so where’s Cyrus?”

“I don’t know,” the Rabbit says, “I really don’t.  As far as I know, the Queen only has his bottle, not him.”

Graham’s not sure about the others, but he believes the Rabbit.

“Sorry about this,” Alice says, grabbing the Rabbit and sticking him, though he’s squirming to get away, in her bag, “But when we’re done, those two at least are going to need you – and we can’t have you running off to the Queen on us.”

“How many times are you going to do this to me?” the Rabbit pokes his head out of the bag indignantly.  Graham laughs a little at the sight.  It’s certainly strange.

“This is the last, hopefully,” she says, “But right now I’m keeping you close.”

“Do we actually have an idea?  About anything?” Graham asks.  If they just wander Wonderland aimlessly, they may never find Cyrus.

Alice plays with the red gem around her neck.

“This pendant is magical,” she says, “It connects our hearts.  I’m not sure how it works…  But it will guide us together.”

“True Loves always find each other,” Graham nods, thinking about Snow and her “Charming,” Prince James.

“And that means we’re getting you back to Storybrooke,” Jack says, clapping him on the shoulder.

…

David sits on the stairs in the loft, holding Emma to him.  Her hands are buried in the thick fur of the wolf that had appeared at her side this morning, after he’d held her the first time, when she’d dreamt of the Huntsman.

All Emma’s wounds seem to be re-opening.  That dream had hurt his little girl so much she’d admitted to him that Graham was her True Love – no wonder she seemed to have such a hard time accepting her fairytale heritage, having had True Love die in her arms.

And now, she’s lost her first love for the second time.  The first time, he’d just left her, but this time, he’d apparently sacrificed himself for Henry’s sake.  That has to hurt Emma so much.

He wishes he could take his daughter’s suffering away, shield her heart from the pain, but he can’t.  All he can do is offer silent comfort.

The wolf whines, placing a paw on Emma’s leg.  David watches as she starts stroking the wolf gently, instead of just clinging to it like a lifeline.  The change in her demeanor is slow, but as she pets the wolf, she becomes visibly more collected.

“We have to tell Henry,” she whispers after a few minutes.

“Granny’s watching him at the park,” he nods, squeezing Emma’s shoulders.

…

Cyrus isn’t sure how long he’s been fighting his way through this strange dark forest, but he’s tired when he finally reaches the outer edge of it.  He slumps in the grass, trying to catch his breath.

He closes his eyes to rest – not the wisest idea in Wonderland, but he needs to.  He’s been avoiding Jafar’s men and the Red Queen’s since he got out of the fortress.  He’s barely slept – this forest hadn’t seemed like the proper place for it at all.

“Cyrus!” Alice’s familiar voice calls.  He thinks he must be dreaming.

“True Loves always find each other, what did I tell you?” a man’s voice, one he doesn’t recognize, says.  He snaps his eyes open.  There she is, his love, alongside the Knave of Hearts and a man he doesn’t know, who he assumes is the one who’d spoken.

“And how many times have you been separated from Sheriff Swan to know that firsthand?” the Knave asks the strange man, who practically radiates the magic of the Enchanted Forest – not in the sense of someone who uses it, but of someone who has had it used on them far too often.

“Just this once,” the man says, “But Snow and Prince James, they’ve been separated so many times…  Their ability to find each other again is legendary.”

Alice ignores the two men at her side, coming to him.  He cups her face, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips.

“We have to get out of here,” the Knave says.  Alice pulls him to his feet.

“Can you travel realms without your bottle?” she asks, clearly worried.

“Traveling between realms, with you, my Mistress, should summon it to us, why?”

“Because it’s time for us to get out of Wonderland,” she says, pulling a struggling White Rabbit out of her bag, just the same as she had on the day they met.

“Storybrooke, here we come,” the Knave smiles, as the Rabbit starts digging.

It takes a moment, but the portal is formed, and the four of them follow the Rabbit through.

Chapter Text

David is pulling her to her feet, Emma realizes, her head still foggy from the explosion of magic that diffusing the trigger caused.

Loup (she’d decided to call the wolf that earlier and he didn’t seem to mind) is barking a little ways down the corridor, obviously anxious, but at the moment, her whole body hurts and she can’t quite concentrate.

“We did it,” she says, relieved, as Regina picks up the gem.

“Yes, we did,” the Evil Queen smiles.  For a moment she can almost ignore the pang of guilt in her gut for helping the woman who killed Graham instead of just making an escape.  She did this for Henry.

“Gotta hand it to Henry, he’s right about a lot of things,” David says with a smile.  There’s that guilt again, burrowing into Emma’s soul; the guilt that Graham had told her in her dream he never wanted her to have again, the guilt of not having believed him, just because he was saying Henry’s fairytale theory was true.  The guilt of not having saved him when she probably could have.

“Yes he is,” she says, not letting that feeling get the better of her.  She can’t let that feeling get the better of her.  Graham would not want her to.  It’s hard, but she manages to shove it aside.  God, that dream had opened the wound up so much.  She’d just gotten to the point where she had accepted she couldn’t have changed it, but then seeing him, being in his arms; that had brought everything back to the surface.

Loup is still barking, more frantic now, but she’s still catching her breath.

“Isn’t that right kid?” she starts to ask, turning to where Henry should be.  He’s not there.

“Henry?” Emma calls, walking further towards where he last was.  Mary Margaret and David had been holding him when she’d started trying to help diffuse that thing.  He should be right here.  Where is he?

“Henry?” Regina calls behind her.

She and the others go even further towards the exit.  It’s dark, suddenly – she would guess because the shockwave of magic knocked out the lights or something – so she pulls out a flashlight.

“Henry?”

His backpack is on the ground, torn in front of her, and Loup is there too, what looks like a chunk of someone’s pant leg on the ground in front of him.  Emma runs to the backpack, examining the tear.

“Emma what is it?” Mary Margaret asks behind her.

“They took him,” she declares, standing.  It’s the only explanation.

Loup takes off running and she follows, trusting the canine’s sense of smell.  David and Mary Margaret and Regina are all at her heels.  The wolf leads them out of the mines, and as far as she can tell they’re headed towards the docks.

“Emma, you don’t even know where you’re going!” Mary Margaret calls after a while.

“Doesn’t matter, I have to find him.  I’ll track them down in hell if I have to.  And the wolf does know,” she responds, nodding towards the animal.  She trusts it implicitly.  It had nearly led Graham to his heart, after all, and it shouldn’t even have known where that was.

At the edge of the docks, Greg and Tamara – the left leg of his pants obviously the source of the fabric Loup had torn off – have Henry between them.  Greg throws something into the water and a green light shines from it.

“The last bean,” Regina says, “They’ve opened a portal.”

They all start running, shouting Henry’s name.  They have to get him back, they have to.

She’s seconds away from being close enough to grab Henry when Greg and Tamara jump, taking her son with them.  Loup skids to a stop and David grabs her arm to stop her from following as the portal closes below.

“No, no, no!  We have to follow them!” she yells, struggling against David, who’s wrapped his arms around her completely, holding her back, “There has to be a way!”

“Not only do we not know where they went, but Hook stole the last bean!” Regina says.  The Queen sounds just as distraught as she is but she can’t take the moment to appreciate the other woman’s suffering.  It’s over Henry, the one thing they both care about.

“I don’t care!”  She struggles against David some more.  Apparently over the past few hours, since waking up, she’s gotten used to the feeling of her father holding her, because there’s a certain comfort in it despite the situation, but she won’t stop struggling against him.  Not now.  That means giving up.  She can't give up; she needs to get Henry back.

“Without it there’s no way to follow!”

“There has to be.  We can’t let them just take Henry!”  Everything in her is breaking at the thought of losing her son.  She lost Graham; she lost Neal twice; she can’t lose Henry too.  He’s all she has left.

“They’ve taken Henry?” Gold’s voice comes from behind them, and they all turn to look.  He and Belle – she’s not sure how it happened, but that’s definitely Belle, not Lacey, Lacey wouldn’t have covered up in that thick blue coat – are standing there, infuriatingly calm.

“Yeah,” David says, “You’re the Dark One.  Do something.”

“Gold, help us,” Emma asks.  Henry is his family too, his grandson, maybe, just maybe that’ll get him to help…

“There’s no way,” Gold informs her, dashing her hopes, “I spent a lifetime trying to cross worlds to find my son.  There’s no way in this world without a portal.”

“So that’s it?  He’s gone forever?” Regina asks.  Gold says nothing.

“I refuse to believe that,” the Queen turns away from them.

Belle seems to notice something and walks carefully past David and Mary Margaret, causing them all to turn.  There is a ship on the horizon, coming closer to town.

“What is that?” she asks.

“Hook,” Emma realizes.  He’s coming back.  For whatever reason, Hook changed his mind about leaving.  If he gives back the bean…  They’ll have a way to Henry.

They head down to the part of the docks where he’d had his ship, arriving just as he makes to disembark.  She’s not sure how he’d tied the Jolly up so fast, gotten it docked, all on his own, but that’s not something she’s about to question.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Emma asks the pirate instead.  He’d left, been selfish, just as she’d always known he was – and yet he was back.

“I’m helping.”

“Well, you’re too late.”

“Am I?”  Not for Henry, she thinks, but doesn’t say.  She’s still too busy questioning his motives.

“I thought you didn’t care about anyone but yourself.”

“Maybe I just needed reminding that I could,” he pulls out a small leather pouch and hands it over to her.  As usual with him, she gets the feeling that he’s trying to impress her or flirt or form a connection or something.

She dumps the contents of the pouch into her hand; it’s the last bean.  It’s their ticket to Henry.  It’s a miracle.

“Enough waiting around, let’s go,” Regina says.

“Go?  Where?” Hook is obviously confused by the Queen’s statement, “I thought we were saving the town.”

“We already did,” David tells him.

“We need to get Henry,” Emma explains, “Greg and Tamara took him through a portal.”

“Well, I offer my ship and my services to help follow them,” Hook says.

“Well, that’s great, Hook, but how will we track them?” Regina asks.

“Leave that to me,” Gold says, “I can get us where we need to go.”

“Then let’s do it,” Mary Margaret nods.

Emma follows Hook and Regina onto the ship, Loup at her heels.  She and the others start following the pirate’s commands, getting the ship ready to sail.  After a few minutes, Gold is onboard as well, but not Belle, which surprises her a little.  The couple was usually inseparable, except during that brief period when Belle had no memories.  And Belle was brave and knowledgeable and would probably be an asset on this rescue mission if she came.

“So, are you done trying to kill me?” Gold asks Hook.

“I believe so.”

“Excellent.  Then you can live.”

Emma and the others gather round the two men.  She rests a hand on Loup’s head.  The wolf’s presence is helping her stay strong.  He can track, pretty well – she’s not sure how they would’ve known Greg and Tamara headed to the docks with Henry without him – and hopefully that will cut down on the time they spend looking for Henry so they can get him and get home.

Gold uses magic to make a strange white globe-like object appear.  Emma watches as he pricks his finger and then lets a drop of blood fall onto the sphere.  Swirling red begins to form some sort of map on the globe’s surface.

“Where is that?  Where did they take Henry?” Regina asks.

“Neverland,” Hook answers after a moment.  Emma sees a hint of fear in the pirate’s eyes.  Okay…  It didn’t seem like such a scary place in any of the versions of the story that she’s heard…  Then again, she’d never heard of Captain Hook being handsome, or the Huntsman having his own heart ripped out because his attempted deceit didn’t work (somehow, she always assumed he got away before the Queen figured out about it not being Snow’s heart), or Snow White living as a bandit and being best friends with Little Red Riding Hood, or Prince Charming actually being a shepherd…  She knows the stories she learned growing up aren’t the most accurate things in the world.

She gives him back the bean, and he throws it out into the water.  It’s time to set sail.  They’re going to save Henry.

…

They’re at the docks, Graham realizes, as they tumble out of the portal.  Sailing away from town, towards what looks like a giant portal on the water, is a pirate ship – that would normally alarm him, but he has other things on his mind.  Finding Emma and Henry, mainly.  Then finding his brother, since he knows the wolf is in Storybrooke.

Next to him, Alice and Cyrus are embracing tightly, clinging to each other as though their lives depend on it.

They aren’t saying anything.  He knows they don’t need to.  They’re just taking a moment, a moment to be happy.  They’ve found each other despite the odds being stacked against them.  He can only hope his reunion with Emma goes so smoothly.

A bottle that appears how Alice described for him when he went to go find it in the Red Queen’s palace – it’s shaped much like a vase, flared top and bottom with a round middle, decorated in a metal-tone color he can’t quite place at the moment – maybe dark gold? – a red and blue painted flower pattern around it – is at their feet, and Jack picks it up, turning it over in his hands, obviously waiting to give it to the pair.

“Huntsman?” the familiarly accented voice comes from behind him and he turns to see Belle, smiling as he does so.  He is glad that the first person he’s seeing on his arrival back in Storybrooke is a friend.

There are tears in her eyes, and he wonders why.  She was always a strong one.  He doesn’t remember her crying once in Regina’s prison.

He doesn’t get a chance to ask what’s wrong, though, as she rushes over and gives him a hug, surprising him.

“Is this your Emma?” Alice asks.  Cyrus’ arm is still around her waist, but they too have turned to face the newcomer.

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “This is my friend, Belle.  Belle, do you know where Emma Swan is?”

Belle pulls away, staring up at him, her eyes wide.  She opens her mouth as though to say something, but she can’t get the words out.  Instead, she points towards the pirate ship on the water, just as it drops through the portal.

“Where are they going?  Why?” he asks, running a hand through his hair, confused.  Emma wouldn’t just jump worlds for no reason.  Even if she did believe in her heritage now, which she must for the curse to be broken, she had always been so firmly rooted in this world.  He suspected, despite the cruelty it inflicted, she thought of it as home.  And home…  Home was something that Emma wanted more than anything; that was one of those things he just knew about her, right from the start.  That’s not something she would just leave behind.

“Henry, the boy – he was kidnapped, taken through a portal – I don’t know what world they went to, but Rumple must’ve figured it out, they only had one bean.  Huntsman, I was told you were dead, how…?”

“Please, call me Graham,” he says, not wanting that old title anymore; his brain, however, is jumping into worried overdrive, even as he says it, hearing that the boy he loved as his own was taken, and he continues, “I don’t know how I’m alive; that’s a mystery for another day.  Do you…  Do you know a way to find out what world they went to?  I need to follow.  I need to help.  I need to get Henry back!”

“I don’t know a way to find out, I’m sorry,” Belle says, “Why do you need to be there?  I wanted to go and help too, but Rumple trusted me to cast this spell to protect the town.  There must be something you can do in Storybrooke, instead.  Then you’ll be right here waiting when everyone gets back.”

Graham takes Belle’s shoulders in his hands, looking her square in the eye.  He wasn’t ready to talk about this with the majority of the people of Storybrooke yet – he’d been reluctant enough to tell Jack, though he’d had to, he’d gotten himself into that mess, talking about wolves and loyalty – as he has a fear that everyone will reject him when they learn the truth – but Belle is asking a question he can only truly explain with his wolf instincts.

“Do you remember what you told me all the other children said, all those years ago?  That I was a wilding?”

“Yes, of course.”

“They were right, Belle.  I was raised in the forests by the wolves,” he admits, “Emma is my mate, and that makes Henry a part of my pack.  I need to go protect my pack, do you understand that?”

“I do understand what you’re saying,” she nods, “But there’s no way to know where they’ve gone.  And no portals to get there, they had the last bean!”

“Maybe there is a way, at least to know where they’ve gone,” Alice says.  Graham looks over to her.  She is looking at Cyrus.

“If it wasn’t for Graham, I probably would’ve had to use at least one by now anyway,” she says, softly, barely more than a whisper, “having his help got us out of a few tight spots.”

“Wishing for knowledge is tricky,” Cyrus warns.

“Didn’t you warn me all wishes are dangerous?”

“I did, because they are,” Cyrus admits with a nod, “But wishes for knowledge are a different kind of tricky.  The strings attached can’t be turned around to actually harm you, but…  There’s always a catch with wishes.  Always.”

“Can you think of a better option to find out what world they went to?”

“No, unfortunately, I can’t.  As I’ve always said; mistress mine, thy will is mine.  But you must be careful,” he cups her cheek.

“I will, I promise you.  I wouldn’t even be considering this if I thought there was another way.”

Graham turns to the White Rabbit, who’d clearly been about to sneak off.  Once they have the knowledge all they need is the portal, and the girl from when he was in the cage had promised the Rabbit’s loyalty if he helped Alice, which he had.

“I heard you can portal to any world?” he asks.  The Rabbit jumps, startled, but nods.

“There are a few I haven’t tried,” the Rabbit admits, “But yes, any world.”

“I wish to know what world the boy was taken to,” Alice says.  There is a rush of magic from Cyrus, and a few moments pass before Alice speaks again.

“Neverland.”

“I’ll come too,” Jack offers.  Graham is almost touched by the sentiment, but he’s almost positive it’s just about the debt from finding out the Queen and Jafar were after him speaking, not any real sense of loyalty.  The man had expressed his desire to just be back in Storybrooke already too many times for him to think otherwise.

He still can’t quite find it in himself to believe that anyone but Emma, Henry, and Belle actually cares about him.

“We’re all going,” Alice says, “I heard about that place from my cousins, before I returned to Wonderland the first time and met Cyrus.  It’s dangerous.  We’re a team.  There’s no sense in splitting up now.  Rabbit, dig your hole.”

“You just got here,” Belle says, causing the Rabbit to pause instead of following Alice’s command, “You’re sure you don’t want to get a change of clothes or an extra weapon or anything?  Rumple’s shop should have something.”

“No,” Graham shakes his head, “Henry’s more important.”

Alice takes the bottle from Jack, putting it in her bag, the Rabbit starts to dig, and suddenly there is yelling coming from the direction of town.  Excited cheers.  Graham looks up to see the Dwarves, Archie Hopper (Henry had said that the man was Jiminy Cricket?), and the Mother Superior running towards them.

“They did it!  They saved us!” the cheers are coming from Leroy, he realizes.  Saved us?  What the hell happened before Henry’s abduction?  In fact, who the hell abducted Henry?  There’s so much he doesn’t know.  Maybe he should pause for a moment, gather the facts…

No, no, there’s not time.  The Rabbit and the others have all already gone through the portal.  It’s open because they’re waiting on him.  He has to go.

“Go,” Belle says, pushing him towards the “Rabbit hole,” “Find Emma and save Henry.  You deserve your happiness, just as much as anyone else, so if they’re it…  Go.”

As he gets ready to jump, the last thing he hears is Dr. Hopper’s voice calling “Sheriff?”  Still, he has to go, he can’t stay and deal with any confusion, a prospect his Storybrooke side bristles at, leaving the townspeople worried for any reason…  He feels sorry for the fact that Belle’s going to have to deal with even more, since he’s been spotted by Archie at the least and he’s supposed to be dead, but his family is at stake.  He doesn’t have time to delay.

…

The ship is slowly but steadily approaching the island, and Emma rolls up the sleeves of her turtleneck (so she can see the shoelace on her left wrist, mostly, the part of him that she carries with her all the time; if he’d lived he’d be right by her side on this journey to find Henry, she knows that without a doubt, but as it is…).  She stands at the rail.  Loup is at her side, standing on his hind legs, resting his front paws on the railing.

Mary Margaret and David walk up to her.  She’s not sure where this is heading but right now…  She doesn’t want them.

“Hey,” Mary Margaret says, in what sounds like a comforting voice, “What happened to Neal, and Henry…  It’s not your fault.  You can’t blame yourself.”

This isn’t what she wants to hear – she doesn’t want to hear anything, she just wants Henry back – she wants Graham back too but since that’s never going to happen, she just wants Henry back – and it makes her angry that Mary Margaret is trying to act like she knows how the world works so much better than she does.

“I don’t,” she says, moving one of her hands to Loup’s head, scratching the wolf behind the ear as she gathers her strength to stand up to her mother; she looks straight at Mary Margaret and continues, “I blame you.”

She’s being harsh, she knows that.  But Mary Margaret didn’t listen to her about Tamara, and she’s the one who insisted that instead of escaping they save Regina, which is why Hook stole the bean in the first place – and if Hook hadn’t stolen the bean, Henry wouldn’t have been taken.

“All this happened because I listened to you,” she says, “You say good always wins?  It doesn’t.  I didn’t grow up in some fairytale land.  My experience is different.  That’s all I can go on.”

“And all we have to go on is ours,” Mary Margaret says, “So if you would just let us share our wisdom…”

“I appreciate you trying to be parents,” Emma cuts her off – it’s true, there is a part of her that does appreciate it, “But we’re the same age.  We have equal amounts of wisdom.  And all I want is Henry back.”

A little voice in her head nags that she’s being too tough on them – on David, especially, since he doesn’t pressure her – he followed Mary Margaret over to her, sure, but he’s been quiet, and before this whole mess with Henry getting taken he was actually being a pretty great dad, just holding her when she needed it – but she can’t stop herself now.

“I should never have broken the curse, I should’ve just taken Henry, and-”

“You’re right,” Mary Margaret interrupts, “Then you’d be together.  We missed you growing up, Emma.  And it haunts us every day.”

“And that’s why we’re here now,” David says, “We don’t want you to have to go through the same thing too.  And you won’t.  We are gonna get our family back.”

“How can you two be so infuriatingly optimistic?” she’s snapping a little, lashing out, and she knows this, but today has been emotional hell.  She should be allowed to lash out.

“It’s who we are,” David tells her, when Mary Margaret seems lost for words.

“Why?” she asks, “Ever since you got your memories back, ever since you remembered that you’re Snow White and Prince Charming…  Your lives have…  They’ve…  Well, they’ve sucked!”

“No,” David shakes his head, “We found you.”

“And lost Henry!  And Neal, and countless other people!”  She doesn’t say his name; with David, she knows she doesn’t have to, not after what she revealed to him this morning; with Mary Margaret, well, she just doesn’t want Mary Margaret to feel even more sorry for her than she obviously already does.  She doesn’t need Mary Margaret’s pity.  She’s not a pathetic little girl, pining over someone lost so long ago that everyone else has moved on.  She’s worried about Henry.  That’s it.  At least, that’s all she can let on.

“Emma, the minute I let go of the belief that things will get better is the minute I know they won’t,” Mary Margaret says; David puts his hand on Mary Margaret’s shoulder and she continues, “We’ll find Henry.”

“No, you won’t,” Gold’s voice comes from behind them.  Emma turns to see the pawnbroker has apparently changed into a more fairytale-like outfit than the suits she’s constantly seen him in since her arrival in Storybrooke; the long leather coat he’s in stands out.

“Well that’s a great use of our time,” Hook remarks, sarcasm biting through his tone, “A wardrobe change.”

She knows the two men don’t like each other, and the change of clothes was odd, but Neverland’s supposed to be a jungle and a suit in the jungle would be terribly impractical, she knows that, but…  Seriously?  Sniping like that?  They can’t work together civilly?

“I’m gonna get Henry,” Gold declares.

“We agreed to do this together,” Regina says.

“Actually, we made no such agreement,” Gold says, although Emma’s pretty sure there was an unspoken agreement.

“Why are you doing this?” Emma asks him.

“Because I want to succeed,” his tone is pointed; he thinks she’s going to be a hindrance.  Her, specifically.  As if she wasn’t angry enough already.

“What makes you think I’m gonna fail?”

“How could you not?  You don’t believe in your parents, or in magic, not even yourself…”

“I slayed a dragon, I think I believe.”

“Only what you’re shown, dearie.  When have you ever taken a real leap of faith?  You know the kind where there’s absolutely no proof?”

Her mind leaps to that night in the station, kissing Graham, trusting him with her heart, letting him into her walls, but she says nothing.  Loup lets out a piercing howl for no apparent reason, and Emma wishes she knew a little more about communicating with wolves, though Gold looks at Loup like he knows something about what the wolf is trying to say.  If it was anything in her defense, Gold ignores it.

“I’ve known you some time, Miss Swan.  And sadly, despite everything you’ve been through, you’re still just a…  Bail bonds-person.  Looking for evidence.  Well, dearie, that’s not gonna work in Neverland.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Well you just need someone to tell you what that is.  Sorry, dearie.  Our foe’s too fearsome for hand-holding.  Neverland is a place where imagination runs wild.  And sadly, yours doesn’t.”

Before she can say anything, Gold spins his cane, letting go of it, and when it drops to the ground, he’s gone.

…

“Careful,” Alice warns, grabbing Graham as he stumbles out of the portal.  There’s a vile looking bush that he’d nearly fallen into.

If she had to guess, based on what Wendy told her, before she went back to Wonderland to find proof it was real for her father and met Cyrus the first time and then lost him – she’d say it’s dreamshade.

She’d always gotten along well with her younger cousins.  They’d been more open to her stories of Wonderland and magic than anyone else, and fortunately her aunt and uncle hadn’t minded her telling them.  Unlike her father, they felt it was harmless creativity.

So when her then recently-adopted cousin Baelfire had disappeared, and Wendy had written her, telling her about Neverland, and how Bae had gone to protect her and John and Michael, she’d paid attention.  The girl had been able to describe the world in such accurate detail that Alice had known it must be real, just like Wonderland.  She’d never had a desire to visit – it actually sounded quite dreadful – but she’d believed in it.

One of the things Wendy had mentioned was the dreamshade plant, which secreted a deadly poison that the Lost Boys coated their weapons with.  The thorns, the oozing black liquid – this bush is basically exactly what Wendy described.

“Thanks,” Graham nods, looking at the bush warily.  Even if it’s not dreamshade, it still appears that it would be painful to get caught in.

“So this is Neverland?” the Knave asks, looking around, “Bloody dark around here.”

“It’s because the realm is dying,” Cyrus says, sounding thoughtful, “The magic is running out, for some reason.  I would assume Pan’s been using too much of it.”

“Realms have a limited supply of magic?” Graham asks.

“Not usually,” Cyrus says, “Wonderland has the most that’s being tapped into, with the most varied results, and some realms have none at all, but the realms that do have it generally have unlimited magic, but limited uses and users for that magic.  Neverland, on the other hand, was always different.  It was supposed to be an escape for children, not a place anyone was meant to live, so while the magic had limitations – you can’t fly without pixie dust, for example – they were less than other realms.  Pan changed that by choosing to stay, refusing to grow up.  The power of Neverland corrupted him somehow.  That’s all I know, and being trapped in my bottle, I’ve had a lot of time to learn about magic realms.”

“My cousin, Wendy, she told me everything she knew about this place – she didn’t know much about Peter either,” Alice says, “Except he was collecting Lost Boys – looking for a specific boy.  The Truest Believer.”

“Henry,” Graham says, “That’s why Henry was taken.  That boy has more unshakable belief than anyone else I’ve ever known.  Pan must think…”

Alice doesn’t know how to reassure him.  She doesn’t know enough about this world, or Pan, or even Henry, to say anything reassuring.  Everything she knows is secondhand.

“Even if we don’t find the kid, we’re not the only rescue party,” the Knave says, “There was everyone on the ship, too.  So…  Odds are, he’ll be fine.”

Graham nods at this statement, and Alice is glad that the Knave managed to cheer him up a little.

“We should get out of this spot before the Lost Boys find us,” the Rabbit, who’s been unusually quiet, suggests.  At least he’s not dashing off to go back to Wonderland; she’s going to assume he’s behaving because he’s sorry about dragging her into a trap, or at least about getting found out.  Whatever the reason, at least they’ll have a way out of this world when the time comes.

…

From where they’d arrived in Neverland, they’d decided to go south – or at least they think it’s south, it’s not like they have a compass – looking for a beach or something – a landmark basically, so they’d have a point of reference later on when they started searching more actively – and after walking for a while, Graham and his companions arrive in a clearing.

There’s a burnt out fire, and…  Two bodies.  A man and a woman.  Their clothes are from the Land Without Magic – the man’s pants are missing a chunk of fabric, for whatever reason – he wonders if these are the people who took Henry.  If so, who killed them?  He can’t have just missed Emma again, right?  Not that he’d expect Emma would kill them – arrest them and drag them back to Storybrooke would be more her style – but Gold, Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, whichever he was going by now, he’d been in the rescue party, according to Belle, and Graham is sure Regina would have been too (much as he hates her, he can’t deny that she cares about Henry in some way…  It’s a twisted, possessive way, but it’s still there), and it would definitely be either Gold or Regina’s way to do something like this.

These two bodies, he assumes they must’ve been the kidnappers, as he can’t figure out any other explanation for their presence on the island; he also assumes that they must not have known who they were working for – if they had they likely wouldn’t be dead.  The fact that they are implies there was a betrayal involved; most probably, they learned they were working for Pan and tried not to hand Henry over – maybe he’s being generous, thinking that way, but it’s the only logical explanation that leaps to mind, unless Pan’s more of a demon than anyone thought.

“Was it the Lost Boys?” Jack asks, “If Pan’s as bad as any of us have heard – it would make sense to say that it was his followers that did this, right?”

“Or Pan himself,” Graham mutters.  He starts to examine the man, to look for a cause of death…

There’s no external evidence.

“It might have been magic, actually,” he corrects himself, “There’s not a mark on this one, at least.  Still probably Pan and the Lost Boys, though.”

“Not a mark on this one, either,” Cyrus says from by the woman’s body, “But I can tell you how she died.  Her heart was ripped out and crushed.”

Graham looks to the genie.  Apparently magic leaves traces, and Cyrus can sense them – he’d tried to explain that on their walk, but it had been rather confusing.

“This one too?” he asks.  Heart-crushing was so Regina – he knows that from personal experience – that he’d almost bet that they had indeed just missed Emma again.

“No,” Cyrus shakes his head, “That one’s shadow was ripped from him.  This one…  Someone healed her from a wound, and then they pulled out her heart after that.”

Graham thinks about that.  So the Lost Boys and Pan must’ve gotten to these two…  Ripped the man’s shadow away and gravely wounded the woman…  And then left the area, the rescue party coming upon the clearing before the woman was dead or could escape.

He starts examining the ground, looking at tracks – there are tracks all over the place, though there’s only one set of adult-sized tracks anywhere that can’t be accounted for by the two bodies, Jack, Cyrus, Alice, or himself.  They’re male, so given how the woman died, he assumes they’re Gold’s.  Finally, he makes out Henry’s tracks (they must be Henry’s; they’re fairly small and definitely from a pair of modern sneakers), running, and a bunch of other tracks following, larger, but not quite adult…

“The Lost Boys were chasing Henry,” he realizes.  This is bad; he’s never heard anything good about Pan and his followers.  Not in the stories back home.  Not in what Alice has shared that she was told by someone who’s actually been here, and certainly not in what Cyrus has figured out while they’ve been walking, something in the air telling the genie about the island’s magic and what’s going on, which isn’t much.  The stories from the Land Without Magic were different, but he’d yet to recall one of those that was accurate in any way.  If Pan wants Henry, if he was right assuming Henry was this “Truest Believer” that Pan was after…

No.  He can’t afford to think like that.  Henry will be safe.  He’ll find a way to make sure of it.

In the distance, a wolf howls.  He knows that howl.  It’s his brother.  Good.  Emma is in good hands, until they find each other.

He listens to the sound of the howl, trying to determine what his brother is saying.  There’s never really an exact translation from wolf to English, but he can usually figure it out well enough…

“Stop fighting?” Graham translates quietly.  He shakes his head.  That can’t be right…  He needs context.  With Henry on the line, who would stop and argue?  Perhaps Regina, but the boy is so important to her that he doubts it.  Over Henry, yes, he certainly knows Regina would fight Emma over Henry.  But with the boy in danger?  No.  She’d put their quarrel aside, like she did at the mines, at least for the most part.

“Let’s go,” he says.  They’ll follow the tracks as far as they can, and if they can’t find Henry that way, they’ll figure out a new plan.

…

“We don’t have to do it this way.  I can fix the Jolly Roger.  My magic is powerful enough, we can execute the pirate’s plan,” Regina offers as they step out of the lifeboat onto Neverland’s shore.

“Sneak attack?  Let’s not be naïve, save your magic.  We’ll need it later, because Pan already knows we’re here.  It’s time we stop running.  Gold was right.  This land is run on belief.  All of us have been too busy being at each other’s throats to be believers,” Emma says; David sees she places a hand on the wolf – he’s noticed that she uses the wolf as an anchor when she’s gathering strength, and he wishes he understood the connection there, but so far she had offered no explanation for the wolf’s presence – before continuing, “I was as wrong as anyone else.  But it’s time for all of us to believe.  Not in magic, but in each other.”

“You wanna be friends?” Regina scoffs, “After everything that’s happened between all of us?”

“I don’t expect that.  I know there’s a lot of history here, and a lot of hate-”

“Actually, I quite fancy you from time to time, when you’re not yelling at me,” Hook interrupts.  David would turn to glare at him, but Emma goes on with her speech before he gets the chance.

“We don’t need to be friends,” she says, ignoring the pirate, “What we need to know is the only way to get Henry back is cooperation.”

“With her?  With him?” David asks.  He can’t help but be skeptical.  Regina has caused so many problems for them over the years and Hook cooperates with whoever he thinks benefits him the most.  If he thinks that’s Pan at any point, David is sure he’ll switch sides in an instant, “No, Emma, we have to do this the right way.”

“No, we don’t.  We just need to succeed.  And the way we do that is by just being who we are.  A hero, a villain, a pirate!  It doesn’t matter which, because we’re gonna need all those skills, whether we can stomach them or not!”

“And what’s your skill, savior?” Regina asks.

“I’m a mother.  And now I’m also your leader.  So either help me get my son back, or get out of the way,” Emma declares, turning and walking into the jungle, her wolf companion at her side.

David can’t help but smile at his daughter’s declaration, despite the situation, as he draws his sword and goes to follow.

His little princess, his baby girl, is, to him, quite obviously a born leader.  She was the only one who kept a level head during the storm.  She’d figured out it was fueled by their anger and she’d forced them to come together and stop it.

He hates not having seen her grow up, but he is so proud of the woman that she turned out to be, despite all the hardships he knows that world had thrown at her.  He may not know what those hardships were, not all of them, but he knows it wasn’t easy, she’s made that much clear.  And still, despite that, she’s a natural.  She would make a great Queen, if it was at all possible for her to have her birthright, her kingdom.

He has absolute confidence that they’ll get Henry back, just from Emma’s sheer determination bringing out this new side of her, her innate royalty.  He may not like the methods she’s suggesting, but he’s going to put his trust in her anyway, and follow her lead.

Chapter Text

“Up here,” David calls back to Emma and Hook, who’ve fallen behind; he assumes the pirate is the reason for this, as Emma has been entirely concentrated on Henry, “We made it.”

“Pan’s lair should be just right…” the pirate starts, when he reaches the ledge.

“Where?” Regina interrupts, “All I see is jungle.”

“Aye.  Dark Jungle,” Hook confirms, pulling out a telescope, “It’s, uh, grown somewhat since I last stepped foot in Neverland.”

“So this nature hike was for nothing,” Regina complains.

“Hook may have led us astray, but…  At least we’re in a good position to start combing the jungle,” David decides to look on the bright side.

“Not exactly,” Hook says, “The Dark Jungle’s the last place you want to set foot.  We’ll have to go around it.  In order to do that we’re gonna need our strength.  I suggest we make camp.”

“You want to sleep while my son is out there suffering?” Regina protests.

“If you want to live long enough to save your boy…  Yes.”

The pirate has a point; they’ll be no use to Henry dead of exhaustion.  Reluctantly, David sheathes his sword and follows.

…

They’ve been walking for quite some time now, and it strikes Will how impressively Graham can track.  Better than the Lost Boys, apparently, because Henry’s trail had split from theirs a while back.  According to the former Sheriff, the boy had fallen, and someone else, not one of the pursuers, had helped him to a parallel trail.

That worried all of them, when they found out.  That there was someone, not a member of either rescue party, yet not among the Lost Boys, just roaming the island, seemed too good to be true.

Will can’t help but wonder if it’d been a Lost Boy waiting in some sort of trap.  Instead of just chasing the kid, gain his trust and then deliver him to Pan.  He is sure the others share that opinion, even if none of them have said it.

“No…” Graham says.  They’re at a cliff, overlooking the water…  It’s a pretty high cliff, and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to escape to.

“What?” Alice asks, “Did the Lost Boys catch up to him?”

“No,” Graham stands, his expression pained, “He and the other person he was with took a running leap.”

“He jumped off a cliff?  Into the water?  From this height?” Will completely understands why Graham is unhappy.  The odds of survival had to be miniscule.

“If it helps,” Cyrus interrupts, “Someone used pixie dust around here recently.  It’s still in the air.”

“So, what, they bloody flew away?” Will asks.

“And if the stories back home are anything to go by…  He was with Pan.  Who else would just have a handful of pixie dust?” Graham says.

…

Emma tries to sleep, Loup curled into her side, but she can’t.  She hears the most awful crying.  It sounds like children.  If it wasn’t for Hook’s stories about how bad Pan’s followers are, she would assume it was the Lost Boys.  But it’s so loud and it’s not disturbing the others for whatever reason, so…  She guesses it’s magic.

She pulls out the sword she was given and heads towards the noise.  Even Loup is out cold, and she’s alone for the moment.

“You hear that too?” a boy’s voice comes from behind, startling her.  She jumps, turning.

“You’re Emma, right?” he asks.  He’s a teenager…  Probably one of the Lost Boys.

“I wonder why they can’t hear the crying,” he continues.

“Who are you?” she asks him.

“Oh, did I forget to introduce myself?  I’m Peter.  Peter Pan.”

She turns her sword and rushes him, pinning him to the tree he’s standing in front of.  This is the little bastard who took her son.

“Where’s Henry?” she asks.

“You’ve got fire,” Pan smiles, “I like fire”

“Where’s my son?” she demands again.

“Henry’s still alive, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Why the hell’d you take him?”

“He’s a very special boy, Emma.”

“I know.  That doesn’t answer my question.  What do you want with him?”

“I came here to see who I was up against.  The Savior.  Gotta say, I’m not disappointed,” he’s infuriatingly calm despite the fact that her sword is shoved up against his throat.  She knows that she’s not going to use it – yet, at least, but that’s because he has Henry and if she kills Pan she’s a little worried she’ll never find him – but no one should be so calm when they’re so threatened.

“What do you say now?  You gonna tell me how I’m never gonna see Henry again?”

“No.  I’m going to help you find him.  I’ll give you a map,” Pan offers.

He’s not lying.  She lets him down so that he can get this map or whatever out.

“A map that will lead you straight to your son,” he continues, holding up a parchment.

“If this is some kind of trap,” she warns.  Pan laughs at that.

“I may not be the most…  Well-behaved boy on the island, but I always keep my promises.  The path to finding Henry is on this parchment.”

She lowers her sword the rest of the way.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“See, it’s not about finding Henry,” Pan says, “It’s about how you find him.  And, Emma?  You’re the only one who can.”

She takes the offered parchment and unfolds it.  It’s entirely blank.  There is definitely not a map on it.

“It’s blank.”

“You will only be able to read that map when you stop denying who you really are.”

That’s… Confusing.  She looks back down at the map for a moment, and when she looks up again, Pan is gone.

…

They come across a small clearing, but there is a large fire going within.  Graham puts out a hand, warning the others to stay back, then draws his bow, silently entering the glade.  They can take care of themselves, he knows, but if it’s an enemy, he wants the element of surprise on their side.

He lowers the bow upon his realization that it’s Rumplestiltskin.

“Rumplestiltskin,” he greets.  There’s something off about the man, something he can’t quite put his finger on.  Something besides the clothing change and lack of cane, which is, in itself, jarring.  He looks like the man from Storybrooke combined with the imp from the Enchanted Forest.  Graham supposes that’s less unsettling than if the man looked entirely like the imp again.  Just seeing him around Regina’s palace had been bad enough back then.

“Huntsman,” the Dark One turns around, greeting him with a toothy smile, “I wondered what had gone wrong.  Have you been in Neverland all this time?”

“What are you talking about, ‘gone wrong’?” Graham asks, shaking his head.  He studies the man.  Something is off…

“You died.  Under the Queen’s curse.  You remember, don’t you, dearie?  Being Sheriff of Storybrooke?”

“I remember,” Graham affirms.

“The curse had a little…  Proviso.  Anyone who died while it was still in place should have been revived back in our home world,” Gold explains, “When Snow White and Miss Swan came back from accidentally being trapped there, and you were not with them, I thought something must have gone terribly wrong.  So I’ll ask again.  Have you been in Neverland all this time?”

“No,” Graham answers, filing the fact that Emma and Snow had accidentally been trapped back in the Enchanted Forest somehow away for later; he’ll get the story eventually, and it certainly doesn’t matter at the moment, “I was in Wonderland.”

“Annoying little world,” the Dark One shudders, before a thoughtful expression appears on his face, “But then, however did you get here?”

“I returned to Storybrooke, first, with a little help from some people I met over there,” Graham explains, “When I heard Henry had been taken, I found a way to figure out where, and a way to get here.”  He doesn’t specifically mention Alice, Cyrus, or Jack coming with him, or how they’d helped him find out what world to go to, for a reason.  The Dark One loved gaining power, and he won’t be responsible for the man knowing about the presence of a Genie.

“You found a way to cross worlds that quickly?”

“A portal maker owed me,” Graham shrugs, leaving most of the details out; it’s not as though they matter, “Where are Emma and the others?”

“I left them all aboard the Jolly Roger, dearie.”

“Why?” Graham can’t see a reason that Gold would leave the rest of the rescue party behind.  He doesn’t know who’s in it, but he assumes at least Emma, Regina, Snow, and James, all of whom are more than adept at what they do (much as he hates Regina, he can’t deny her skill at magic, or at least at using magic to get what she wants).

“Because they can’t do what needs to be done,” Gold says, “I’m here to lay down my life for the boy.  They’ll just get in my way.”

“That’s why Belle was so upset when I arrived in Storybrooke,” Graham realizes, “You said goodbye to her.”

Gold nods.

“There was a prophecy.  The boy will be my undoing.  The only way to save him is for me to die.”

“Undoing doesn’t have to mean death, Gold,” Graham points out, “It could just be the loss of your powers.”

“Optimistic, are we, Sheriff?”

“I only care for Belle’s sake.  Losing you would devastate her.”

“She would come to see the monster eventually if she doesn’t, and then she would leave me.”

“No.  I know her well, from when she was prisoner.  She sees the monster.  But she also sees past it.  To the man you could be, given time.  She would not leave you.”

Graham knows he is ignoring the implications of the fact that Gold is willing to lie down his life for Henry; that that dream he had, with Emma, somehow it must have been real, since she’d said Henry’s father was Gold’s son.  That’s the only reason he can think that the Dark One would care so much about the boy.

“Perhaps you’re right.  But it doesn’t change anything.  I must do this, for the boy.”

“For your son’s sake?” Graham asks.  He might as well test the theory.

“Now how do you know that?” the fire flares up and the Dark One suddenly looks rather menacing and Graham realizes what he hadn’t been able to put his finger on; the man’s shadow is gone.

“I had a dream,” Graham backs away a little, “I talked to Emma, she told me.”

“Baelfire’s gone,” Gold says, calming, “Saving his son – I have to.  No matter the cost.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.”

“Yes, it does.  You want to help?  Find the others and help them, dearie.”

…

Regina grabs the map out of Emma’s hands.  The wolf growls at her action, but she quite obviously ignores it.

“There’s not a map on here,” the former Queen insists.  David doesn’t like wherever it is she’s going with things, “That doesn’t mean it can’t lead us to Henry.”

“I thought we decided that using magic was a bad idea,” he reminds her.  He doesn’t know why he expects her to listen, but it’s worth a shot.

“For once I agree with the prince,” Hook says.  He turns to look at the other man.

“Well I told you we were getting along,” the pirate offers as an explanation.  He rolls his eyes and turns away.

“What the hell are you doing?” Emma asks.

“A locator spell,” Regina explains, “This parchment belonged to Pan.  It’ll lead us to him.”

She waves her hand over the parchment and it starts to glow, and float away.  They watch as it heads towards the Dark Jungle.

“So it appears that we will be venturing into the Dark Jungle after all,” Hook says.

“You mean the place you told us never to set foot?” Emma asks, her voice flat.

“That’s the one!” Hook confirms cheerily.

“Well Emma,” Regina starts, “You said you wanted to be the leader.  Lead.”

David looks at his daughter.  She doesn’t say a thing, just starting into the jungle.  The wolf whines, and for once doesn’t follow her, lying on the ground, head on its paws.  This doesn’t seem like a good omen, not in the least.

Still, he doesn’t have the luxury to choose the way the wolf does.

They follow the map for an hour or two – time is hard to judge here on the island – when Emma and Regina come to a stop at the head of the group.

“Wait,” Regina says, “He’s there.  Pan.  I can feel his smugness.”

David pushes past the former Queen and draws his sword.

“Shall we?” he asks, though it’s not really a question, “While we still have the element of surprise on our side.”

Pan’s camp appears deserted when they enter, and David gets a feeling that something is wrong.

“There’s no one here,” Snow points out, “Maybe your spell was wrong, Regina.”

“Yes, blame me.  Again,” Regina spits bitterly.

They walk further into the camp.  David is checking an oddly placed blanket to see if anything is under it, like a trap or something, when Emma speaks.

“Guys,” he turns to look at his daughter when she says this, “Hold on.  Is that…” she’s looking up the next ridge within the camp, where someone is standing, back to them, “Henry!”  The clothes are right but something isn’t and David knows what when, as Emma runs towards the figure, the rest of their group following her, the figure turns around, revealing himself to be Pan.

“Hi Emma,” Pan says.  They all come to a halt.

“Where the hell is Henry?” Emma demands.

“You broke the rules,” Pan says, “That’s not fair,” he’s walking around on the ridge, above them.  They’re in a small valley, David realizes.  This is bad, if the Lost Boys attack, they’ll have the high ground, the advantage…

“Bad form,” Pan continues, “I expect more from you Captain.”

“Aye,” Hook says, “And you’ll get it.”

“Give Henry to me,” Emma orders.  She may be a natural leader but dealing with enemies is clearly not her strong suit, David sees.  Right now, Pan has every advantage except numbers, and how far can the Lost Boys be?

“Can’t,” Pan says, “Don’t you know?  Cheaters never win.”

He stops circling them with that.  A bunch of boys with torches, arrows, spears – they appear from nowhere.  He knew it.  He readies his stance to defend, and behind him he hears Snow ready her bow.

“Watch out for their arrows.  They’re laced with dreamshade,” Hook warns.

The boys attack, and David deflects several arrows aimed at himself easily.  One of the boys takes aim at Snow, and he reacts on instinct.

“Mary Margaret!” he yells, pushing her out of the way.  The arrow glances past his side and he grips it in pain.

“David?” she asks, obviously concerned.

“I’m good,” he tells her.  He’s not actually sure if he’s good right now, but there’s more important things to worry about.

“Behind you,” he warns, and his wife quickly turns and uses an arrow to pin the offending Lost Boy, about to fire on them, to a tree.

He gets back into the fight, defending but not harming, when suddenly Emma has a Lost Boy pinned nearby.

“Where’s Henry?  WHERE IS HE?” she yells.  There’s a moment of dead silence, the fighting stopped, and then she releases the boy.  She looks like she’s in shock.

“Emma, are you alright?” Snow asks her.

Again, for a moment all is silence, and then Pan gives a piercing whistle.

The boys all dash to his side.

“Remember what I told you,” Pan says, looking to Emma, “That map will show you where Henry is only when you stop denying who you really are.  I’ll make sure to send Henry your regards.”

Pan and the other boys run from them.

…

Alice sits next to Cyrus, leaning her head on his shoulder, relaxing for a moment, as Graham starts the fire and the Knave tries to crack open the coconuts they’d managed to get out of one of the trees.

“Pan wants to know what brings you to the island,” a voice comes from behind them.  She turns to see the source.

The speaker is a teenaged boy, blond, with a scar on his face and a dark brown cloak he’s trying to hide in the shadows of.  He carries a club and she knows that Wendy mentioned him in the letter but she can’t think of his name.

“I don’t think that’s any of Pan’s business,” Graham snarls at the boy.

“Everything on this island is Pan’s business,” the boy replies, startlingly calm, a chilling grin on his face, “This is Pan’s island.”

“We’re just passing through,” Alice lies quickly.

“No one just ‘passes through’ Neverland,” the boy says, “But I’ll give you a tip, if you’re really not going to state your business.  If you’re here to go against Pan…  Don’t bother.”

“Why not?” the Knave asks.

“Because Peter Pan never fails,” the boy says, then fades back into the forest.

“Well that was comforting,” the Knave mutters.

“It was just a mind game,” Cyrus says, “‘Peter Pan never fails’?  It’s obvious that Pan is a little full of himself, but I don’t think we have reason to worry, not until we’re facing him directly.”

“We’re probably going to face him directly,” Alice points out.  If, as they suspect, he took the boy…  There’s not likely to be a way around it.

“True,” Graham says, “But that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it.”

…

Emma is back to trying to figure out the map, leaning against a tree as the others work around the camp.  Loup is lying over by the fire.  She wonders if the reason the wolf didn’t come with them when Regina used the tracking spell on the map is because he knew that they were walking into trouble, or if he just didn’t want to follow Regina, since she murdered his brother.

Mary Margaret and David come up to her.  Just like on the ship, she senses a conversation that she has no interest in coming her way.

“Don’t let him shake your confidence.  We all have moments where we think we couldn’t prevail,” Mary Margaret says.

“She’s right,” David agrees.

“Guys.  Not now.  Please,” Emma says.  She needs to put a stop to this.  She needs to focus on the map.  She needs to get Henry.

“Emma, wait,” David says as she starts to walk away, but he doesn’t really follow her as she goes over to a log to sit.

She’s looking at the map and Mary Margaret does approach her, without David this time.

“Please talk to me,” Mary Margaret says.

“There’s nothing to talk about.  We had our chance and we lost, I lost,” Emma tries to brush her mother off.  This is such a bad time for all this bonding that Mary Margaret is trying to do.

“Then you have to keep fighting,” Mary Margaret says.

“You heard what Hook said, Pan is a…  Demon.”

“And you are a-” Mary Margaret starts to yell.

“I’m what, a savior?” she interrupts, “‘Cause if that were true this map would’ve shown us the way already!”

Mary Margaret appears stunned at this.  They’re both silent.

“Maybe who you think you are isn’t who you really are,” Mary Margaret says softly after a moment.

“What do you mean?” she asks.  She’s still a bit angry, but this almost sounds like something that could lead to unlocking the map.

“Sometimes we think we know ourselves, but…  We need a push to show us the reality,” Mary Margaret says, “That boy with the knife.  You stopped fighting him, why?”

The question hurts.  That boy…  He had reminded her of herself and it had been all too painful.  And now Mary Margaret wants her to revisit that?

“‘Cause he was… just a boy,” she tries to shrug it off.  Play it like it’s because he was a kid.  He was barely older than Henry, anyway, the excuse should work.

“No,” Mary Margaret says, “It was something else.  I saw it in your eyes.  Why did you stop?  Why?”

“Because when I looked at his face I saw me,” Emma says.  She knows Mary Margaret won’t drop it until she hears the truth.  She has to get it over with.

“Go on.”

“That look in his eyes.  The despair.  I had it.  Back when I was in the Foster System.  Just a lost little girl.  Who didn’t matter.  And didn’t think she ever would.  A little girl who cried herself to sleep at night ‘cause she wanted her parents so bad,” Emma is starting to cry now and Loup gets up from his place by the fire, coming over and resting his head on her legs.  The truth is, even after Henry came and got her, she still didn’t feel like she mattered, not until Graham…  Not until he’d chosen himself and her at the same time…  Not until he looked at her with so much love and thanked her, even if she hadn’t understood why…  Then, in that moment, she’d realized that she mattered to him and it was so perfect – and then he’d been ripped away from her.

“And could never understand,” she continues, “Why they gave her up.”

“And then you found us,” Mary Margaret says, “And it was too late.”

“It’s just,” Emma tries to explain, “On this island…  I- I don’t feel like- A hero or a savior.   I just feel like- What I’ve always been.  An orphan.”

“Emma.”

“What?”

“Look.”

She turns to see that the map is appearing on the parchment.  She grabs it, not understanding.

“What happened?” she asks.

“You accepted who you are,” Mary Margaret says.  Her voice is sad.

“I’m sorry,” Emma says.  She knows that hearing what she felt, that she felt like an orphan, had to hurt this woman who is technically her mother.

“It’s okay.  It’s the truth,” Mary Margaret says, “You were an orphan.  It’s my job to change that.”

…

He’s lying at the base of a large tree in the camp, trying to sleep.  He’s been depressed ever since Pan tricked him.

Still, he has faith that his moms are coming and a feeling of something else, too; he’s heard a wolf’s howl a few times and he knows that it’s Loup, with Emma, but there’s something about hearing it that makes him feel better in a different way.

He can’t put his finger on it, though.  Just a feeling that he’s gonna be safe.

Pan makes a cawing sound, like a crow, and though Henry tries to ignore it, he’s apparently not allowed to.

“Wake up,” Pan says, “Catch.”  The older boy tosses an apple at Henry as he sits.

“I don’t like apples,” he tells the older boy.

“Who doesn’t like apples?”

“It’s a family thing.”

“Well don’t worry,” Pan bends down, so that they’re level, “They’re not for eating.  It’s for a kind of game.  A really fun game,” Pan points the crossbow in his hands at Henry, “I call it target practice.”

He wants to run when Pan explains the game to him.  He, Henry Mills, is supposed to shoot an apple off of Felix’s head?  With an arrow – already a deadly enough weapon – that’s dipped in poison?  He’s never done archery before.  He’s only even used wooden swords.

But if he runs, he’ll just get dragged back again.  He can’t escape.  He has to be rescued.  That means he has to play along.

His Grandma is a good archer, but he’s never gotten the chance to see her in action.  He needs to think harder, figure something out.  A crossbow…  Granny uses a crossbow, right?  He’s seen that.

For some reason, a memory pops into his head.  Sitting at Granny’s one day, long before the curse was broken.  Watching Sheriff Graham play darts and wishing that he could ask him to teach him.  His mom never would’ve let it happen, though, so he’d stuck to watching.  Sheriff Graham had always hit the bullseye.  Every time.  It made sense once Henry figured out that Graham was the Huntsman; he was the best in the Enchanted Forest.  He never missed.

That’s exactly what Henry’s got to do now.  Emulate the father-figure he always wanted and not miss.

Everyone is chanting at him to shoot, and he starts to aim.  An idea quickly pops into his head, though, and he turns his aim from Felix to Pan, letting the arrow fly.

Pan catches it just before it hits him.

…

“Emma,” Regina hurries up from behind her; Hook is leading the way to Tinker Bell, and Regina has been pretty vehemently against this plan for no obvious reason, “There is another way.”

“Is there?”

“Magic.”

“Didn’t we just go through this?” God, it seems like Regina can’t listen for anything!

“I’m not talking about my magic.  I’m talking about our magic.”

“I am not interested,” Emma stops, turning to the former Mayor.  She did magic with her at the trigger only as a last resort.  She’s not going to do magic with Graham’s murderer again.  Not unless it’s the only option she has left and right now, it’s not.

“One thing I learned is it always comes with a price,” she continues.

“Well…  Sometimes not using it comes with a price too!” Regina protests, “I bet you and I combined are strong enough to overpower Pan.”

“What if we’re not?  I’m not gonna take a chance on that.  We’re talking about Henry’s life,” as she speaks, Mary Margaret comes up next to her.

“I’m aware of that.”

“I know you don’t like this plan.  Let’s just see it through.  Let’s at least see if we can find…  Tinker Bell,” Emma says.  She’s not crazy about the plan herself – the fact that they’re looking for such a well-known fictional character, and one that is portrayed as Peter Pan’s best friend, at that, is still pretty hard for her to wrap her head around – but it’s the best they’ve got.

“Oh, you think it’s the best plan because your boyfriend came up with it?” Regina scoffs.

“My boyfriend?” Emma is confused for a moment, she doesn’t have a boyfriend, her heart is Graham’s, and he’s definitely not here to have come up with the plan – and then she realizes what Regina means, “Hook?  What’s your problem?”

“She just lost Neal,” Mary Margaret adds.  She’s grateful for the defense, even if it assumes her feelings for Neal are a lot stronger than they actually are.

“Sorry, I’m,” Regina actually apologizes, though there’s no sincerity in her tone, “I’m just worried about Henry.”

…

“No one’s home.  Come on up,” Hook calls down the ladder.  David rushes to get up there.  If Tinker Bell has pixie dust…  Pixie Dust can do about anything.  Hopefully it can heal him from the dreamshade poisoning that arrow inflicted on him.

“Where would it be?” he asks the pirate, looking around the treehouse.  They have to be discreet about this, since Snow and Emma don’t know he’s hurt, but they have to find it.

“She wouldn’t leave dust just lying around, mate,” Hook scoffs.  David starts checking around.

“It’s not here, I promise,” the pirate says, “I’m sorry.”

David refuses to accept that, crossing the room to some shelves and starting to dig around as Emma arrives at the top of the ladder.

“It’s pretty bare,” she says, “Reminds me of someplace.”

“You’d think a treehouse would be more cheery,” Snow says as her head pokes in.

“Where I used to live, that’s it,” Emma says.  She walks outside.

David continues searching for the pixie dust.  He needs it; it’s his only option.

“Because it’s just a place to sleep,” Snow says.

“What would you know about that?” Emma asks, coming back inside.  David continues his search.  At the very least, there might be a clue to where the fairy is.

“I didn’t always have a canopy bed in a palace,” Snow informs their daughter, “I had a place like this too once.”

“You did?” Emma sounds genuinely interested in Snow’s story and David smiles to himself as he searches.  His girls are bonding.  It’s a glimmer of good in this God-awful place.

“A tree stump,” Snow confirms, “When I was running from the Queen.  Believe it or not I understand this Tinker Bell.  The real question is why does she have a ladder?  Fairies can fly.”

He comes across a handkerchief that looks oddly familiar.

“Guys, I found something,” he turns to the others and holds it out, “It’s a handkerchief.”

“That’s Regina’s!” Snow grabs it out of his hand, “How did it get here?”

“She was tracking us, watching Regina,” Emma says, matter-of-fact.  It is the only explanation.

“But if she’s been watching her…” Snow says.

“Then we’re in the wrong place,” Hook finishes.

“Regina,” David realizes.  Tinker Bell will be wherever the former Queen is.  They have to find them.  He knows where Regina stayed behind, but if Tinker Bell was tracking her, she might be in trouble; and much as he hates the woman, she does care about Henry, who in turn cares about her.  For his grandson’s sake, he has to worry.

…

“We can’t just keep going through the bloody island with a fine-tooth comb,” Will says, “It’ll take us forever to find the boy that way.  We need a plan.”

“You’re right,” Graham agrees with him, “I think…  We should try and find the other rescue party.  Go along the shore until we find where they’re anchored and then track them down from there.”

…

They had finally found Tinker Bell, and Regina said she was fine.  Which left one question.

“Is she going to help us?” Hook is the one to ask it, as Emma lowers the sword she’s been given.  She’s not really a fan of the weapon, though, and secretly wishes that…  Well, shortly after getting her to use the magic dream-catcher on Pongo, Gold had taken her aside and offered her a dagger, saying it had been the Huntsman’s – Graham’s.  Just like the rest of his things, back before the curse was broken, she’d refused it at the time.  Now she sorely wishes she had that instead of Neal’s old sword.  She’s used swords before and of course she can, but they always feel unwieldy and unnatural to her.

“Well, look who the Queen dragged in.  Hello, Hook,” the fairy says, looking the pirate over.

“Lady Bell,” he smiles.

“She’s not gonna help us,” Regina answers.

“Why not?” Emma wants a reason.

“Tink,” Hook says, his tone clearly trying to appeal to the fairy, “After all we’ve been through together?  A little assistance?”

“She doesn’t have any magic,” Regina explains.

“No…  Pixie dust?” David asks.  He seems nervous.  It’s odd, it’s not like the plan hinged on the dust.  That was just a thought Hook had about flying in.

“Not even her wings.”

“How?” Emma asks.  She’s never heard of a fairy losing their wings before.

“I guess people just stopped believing in me,” Tinker Bell says, “And even if I wanted to help you, he’s too powerful.”

“But you know where Pan is,” Mary Margaret points out.

“Sure.  But it won’t do you a bit of good.”

“Let us be the judge of that.  Does he trust you?”

“Can you get us inside his compound?” Emma asks, seeing where Mary Margaret is going with this.

“Maybe,” the fairy crosses her arms, “Why should I help you?”

“Because I believe in you,” Mary Margaret says.

“Just get us inside and we’ll take care of things from there,” Emma adds.

“And what’s in it for me?  Other than a death sentence from Pan when you’re gone, with your boy.”

“You can come with us,” Emma offers.

“That’s right.  Home,” Mary Margaret confirms, “That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Okay.  Listen closely.  Pan trusts me, he’ll let me in.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll leave a way open for you.  But you’ve only got one shot.  So you better have a good plan.”

“Thank you.  We will.”

…

She sits at the fire, Mary Margaret next to her.  They’ve made a small diagram on the ground, and it’s time to go over the plan.

“This is where they’re keeping Henry.  Pan’s compound,” Emma says, using a long stick as a pointer, “According to, uh-”

“Tinker Bell.”

“Yeah, I know.  Still weird to say.”

“Tink is fine.”

“Not sure that’s any better,” Emma shakes her head; she’ll never get used to this fairytale thing, “Anyway, she says that there are sentries positioned across the front, which is why we’re gonna come in through the back entrance here.  She’s gonna talk her way in, once she makes sure the coast is clear then we are going to sneak on in.”

“You’ll still have to deal with any Lost Boys once you’re inside.”

“I think we can handle a few children with pointy sticks,” Regina says.

“It’s not the sticks you need to worry about.  It’s the poison they’re dipped in.”

“Dreamshade, Hook warned us,” Mary Margaret tells the fairy.

“Good.  Because one nick, and you’ll spend the last-”

“Poison sticks equal death, we got it,” David interrupts.  His tone surprises Emma.  He sounds almost eager to change the subject.

“Now, when can we put this rescue mission into action?” he continues.

“I’m ready to go,” Tinker Bell says, “Just as soon as you tell me the exit plan.”

Emma looks around to the others.  That is something she didn’t think about.  Did any of them?

“You do have an escape plan, don’t you?”

“It was more of a…  Last minute trip,” Mary Margaret says nervously.

“If you don’t have a way off this island then none of this matters!”

“We’ll figure it out,” Regina defends.

“You’ll figure it out?  No one comes and goes from this place unless he allows it.  This is a waste of time.”

“When it comes to family, we always find a way,” David asserts.

“You don’t get it.  Here, let me show you something,” Tinker Bell reaches into her bag and pulls out a watch, “You know what this is?”

“Yeah, a watch,” Emma answers.  How is it important?

“I got it from the people who brought your son here for Pan.”

That triggers Emma.

“Greg and Tamara?  Where are they, why’d they give you that?” she asks, angry, standing, ready to hurt someone – preferably that bitch Tamara for making everyone think she was being a crazy jealous ex.

“I got it off the girl’s body.  Spent half the night cleaning the blood off it.  And the other guy?  Well, there wasn’t enough left of him to find anything useful.  This is what Pan does to people he employs, what do you think he’s gonna do to you?  I’m not sticking my neck on Pan’s chopping block without a way off this island.  You figure that out, you know where I live,” the fairy stalks off.

“Where the hell is she going?” Mary Margaret asks.

“I’ll get her, bring her back,” David starts to follow.

“Don’t.  She’s right,” Emma says, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, you never break in somewhere unless you know the way out.”

“And where’d you get that, in bail-bondsperson school?” Regina asks, voice laced with sarcasm.

“Neal taught me that,” Emma says, feeling oddly defensive of the skill.

“What about you, Hook?” David turns to the pirate, “You got off this island before.”

“Yes,” Hook admits, “Aboard my ship.  Which would require some form of magic to create a portal, which…  I got from Pan.  In a deal I don’t think he’s ready to repeat.”

“So no one’s ever left the island without Pan’s permission?” Regina asks.

“One man,” Hook says, “Her partner in crime, Neal.”

“How?” Emma asks.  Maybe, just maybe, it’s something they can use.

“Maybe we can find out,” Hook says.

He heads off, and they gather up a few of their things to follow.  Loup, as he has been lately, stays behind, guarding the camp.

…

When they come across the lifeboat on the Neverland shore, Will sees real hope in Graham’s eyes for the first time since they arrived on the island.  The footprints, at least here on the beach, are clear, and Will understands that the other man is looking forward to seeing Emma after so long.

The former Sheriff has gotten the least sleep out of the whole group, taking the most guard shifts when they’ve tried to camp, his worries about the boy obviously eating away at him.  Will is hoping that getting him to Emma will soothe him somewhat; the man is far too stressed for his own good.

“I’m coming, Emma.  Just like I promised,” Graham whispers, so low that Will almost doesn’t hear it.  Promised?  How could Graham have promised Emma he was coming?

Graham leads the way back into the forest, determination in his stride.

…

“Hook,” Emma calls back to the pirate, who is still outside of the cave, “What is this place?  What are we doing here?”

He walks over to a torch on the wall that she can just barely see – even with Mary Margaret’s lantern, it’s far too dark in this cave – and begins trying to light it.  After a few unsuccessful attempts by the pirate trying to strike up sparks on his hook, David joins him and uses a lighter on it.

There are drawings all over the walls and a little bit of furniture and Emma realizes why the pirate led them here.

“Neal.  This is where he lived,” she says.

“Aye,” Hook confirms, “Baelfire spent some time in Neverland as a boy.  This was his home.”

“So…  You think he may have left a clue as to how he escaped from here?” Mary Margaret asks.

“Well, let’s hope so.  Or we’ll be lost just like he was.”

…

David stares up at the star map that Emma had found.  The pinpricks of light on the ceiling are almost eerie.

“How can you be so sure it’s a map?” Snow asks Hook.

“There was a short time in Neverland when Baelfire was aboard my ship,” the pirate explains, “I taught him to navigate using the stars.  What you’re looking at is the fruit of my labors.”  The pirate sounds almost proud of Neal – Baelfire – whichever.  Hook seems to flip-flop on which to call him, Emma and Snow stick to Neal, and Regina tends to call him Baelfire.  He’s not sure which he’s leaning towards.

“Then you can read it,” the former Queen says hopefully.

“Sadly, no,” Hook surprises him.

“I thought you just said you taught him how?” David asks.  If Hook taught – Neal.  He’s going with Neal – if Hook taught Neal how to make the map, then shouldn’t Hook be able to read the map?

“Yes, but I also taught Neal something else.  The key to being a pirate.  Secrecy.  The best captains conceal their maps in code.  He was an apt pupil.”

“So you’re saying the only person who can read this map is Neal,” Snow asks for clarification.

“Which means the only person who can read it is dead,” Emma says, obviously disappointed, turning and leaving the cave.

She’s running, and Snow follows her, and he follows Snow.

“Emma, wait!” he calls.

“Now is not the time,” she says, but she comes to a stop.  There’s desperation in her eyes and it hurts him to see her in so much pain.

“I can’t even imagine the sadness you must be feeling,” Snow says to her.

“I’m not sad,” Emma corrects her mother; David wonders briefly what’s going to happen here.  She’d made him swear not to tell Snow the truth, about her love for Graham, to let Snow live in a little bit of a fantasy world where Emma’s happy ending was still out there, but now Neal is dead as well and he knows they would communicate better if Snow knew.

“I’m pissed,” Emma continues, “Yes, Neal just died.  But I lost him years ago.  All that time…  Thinking that he didn’t love me, only to find out that he did, and it was too late,” – she’s starting to cry, and he knows that she’s bending the truth and it hurts him that she would lie just because Snow wants to comfort her over this – “I can’t even tell him how angry that makes me.  Or how much it hurt when he left.  Or how terrified I was when he came back because…  I knew, the moment that I saw him that I never…  I never stopped loving him.”

Emma starts to run, with that, and David needs to follow – she had explained, to him, after her dream, that Neal had been her first love and she still had traces of feelings for him, and he understands that, but now she’s acting like her love for Graham, for the Huntsman, which he knows is stronger, never existed at all.

He turns to Snow for a moment.  His wife looks upset by this turn of events, and he wants to comfort her too – but he’s dying.  When Snow loses him, she’s going to need Emma.  And if Emma doesn’t tell Snow the truth, she’s going to resent her mother for going on about her loss of Neal, for being blind to her actual feelings.  So he needs to go after Emma.

“Let me talk to her alone,” he says, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He catches up to Emma quickly, finding her on a fallen log.

“Why are you still pretending like this?” he asks, sitting next to her.  She swipes at the tears she’d forced herself to shed, “Mary Margaret deserves to know that she’s hurting you worse by the way she assumes you and Neal were…  You know.  True Love.  ‘Never stopped loving him’?  Emma, you’re making it sound like Graham never even existed.”

“Because I have to,” she says.

“Emma, if something happens to me on this island, Mary Margaret is going to need you.  And if she tries to compare your situations, you’re going to get angry with her eventually for not knowing enough about you to realize that Neal wasn’t it for you.”

“Nothing’s happened to you yet,” Emma shakes her head, “and I can’t…  If I correct her now, she’s going to lose focus.  We have to stay focused on Henry.  So I am going to deal with this until we’re all home safe, and then I will tell her.”

“Emma…”

“She should know anyway!  If she’d just bother to think about it, she’d know.  She’s the one who dragged me away from the hospital, she stood next to me at the funeral, hell, she’s the one who convinced me to try letting him in.  But, no, just like everyone else, she’s completely forgotten about him.  I told her what he kept saying about remembering after we kissed!”

He lets Emma rant.  She’s upset, and he gets that.  He’s sure she’d feel a lot better if she just told Snow the truth, but she’s already ruled that out, apparently.

“I’m going back to Mary Margaret now, she was pretty upset too,” he says, after Emma’s rant is over and she’s silent for a moment, “I won’t tell her, because it’s your decision.  But please, think about it.”

…

There is a rustling in the brush, and Graham readies his bow.  Something is coming.  Alice and Will have their swords, and not for the first time he wonders if they maybe should’ve taken Belle’s advice and gone to Gold’s to get a weapon for Cyrus.

Still, they’re ready for-

It is his wolf brother, stepping from the woods and giving him a canine grin.

“Brother,” he puts his weapon away and kneels down, scratching the wolf’s ears, “Why aren’t you with the rest of the pack?”

He had expected the wolf to stay by Emma’s side.  She was their pack’s alpha female, after all, and it had no way of knowing he was even alive, let alone in Neverland.

It licks his hand then whines.

“I appreciate that you missed me, but why aren’t you with Emma?”

The wolf lets out a series of barks, which Graham does his best to try and understand.

“You were guarding their camp when…  Henry’s father…  Showed up at camp with Henry…  And then Pan came and took them both away?”

His brother licks his hand again, which he takes as a confirmation of his translation.

“That’s impossible, Gold talked like his son was dead,” he shakes his head at the wolf.

“You can talk to wolves?” Alice asks.

“Somewhat,” Graham shrugs.  He doesn’t have time to get into the story now and if she wasn’t listening when he told Belle about his upbringing, well, he doesn’t see a need to get into it.  But it would’ve been pretty hard growing up if he hadn’t been able to communicate with his family.

The wolf nips at his wrist, a sign of impatience.

“How did you even know I was here?” he asks it.  The wolf whines, a small one, and as far as he can tell, it just means “instinct.”  There’s nothing he can say to argue against that.

“He can lead us to the others,” Graham informs his companions, standing, “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“We need to send a simple sign, a sign that we’re coming,” Emma says.  David understands that she doesn’t want Henry to lose hope, but he’s not sure what to do.  If they could get something into Pan’s camp they could just get Henry and then find their way out of Neverland, couldn’t they?

“Yeah, with Lost Boys running around, trying to kill us all?” Regina asks her, just as skeptical of this idea as she has been every other.  Honestly, the former Queen has not been much help on this rescue mission.  She’d gained them Tinker Bell’s trust, somehow, it’s true, but she’d also gotten them into that trap with the map and she tended to complain about every single plan that was not hers.  And all of her plans were incredibly repetitive: magic in, get Henry, and magic out.  No matter how many times Hook said that Pan would have security measures against that, or that randomly magic-ing around the island would be a bad idea, Regina just kept going back to it like if she said it one more time it would suddenly be considered brilliant.

“Maybe it’s time we use that to our advantage,” Snow says.  She has that tone in her voice that always lets him know she has a plan.  He loves it when Snow uses that tone.  Her plans usually work very well.  He has a lot of fond memories of her battle strategies during their war against Regina and George.

“How?”

“Follow me, I’ll show you,” Snow leads the way out of the cave, Regina close behind.

“Swan,” the pirate stops Emma as she turns to leave; David pauses, hovering a little.  He doesn’t like how Hook looks at his daughter.  He knows she’ll have none of it, but he still wants to be around to back her up if the pirate is too stubborn.

“What?  We’re wasting time.”

“I, uh…  I just wanted to let you know that I do know what it feels like to lose hope.”

“I know what this is,” Emma says, “This…  You…  You know, trying to…  Bond with me.  So save your breath.  I’m not in the mood.”

She goes around the pirate, who looks upset by the total shutdown he’s just received.  David knows that she doesn’t need any help dealing with this but he decides to say something to the other man anyway.

“Let me give you a bit of advice, Hook,” he says, “She’s never gonna like you.”  He won’t say anything about how Emma’s heart belongs to another – that’s not any of Hook’s business.  Knowing that, however, does make him confident that she won’t fall for the pirate, confident enough to tell the man off – a part of him knows that he’d be telling the pirate to stay away from her even if he didn’t know what he does about her feelings and the Huntsman and all of that, because she’s his daughter and he has to protect her from miscreants like Hook (the logical part of his brain says she’s an adult and he doesn’t have to protect her from the trash, she can take care of herself, but it’s outweighed by the part of him that remembers carrying her in his arms to the wardrobe to save her life).

“Is that so?” the pirate asks, a cheeky grin on his face.  Oh, David wants to punch the man for that, for assuming that he can win Emma.  Instead, he’ll settle for tearing Hook down.

“Well, how could she?” he asks, “You’re nothing but a pirate,” he turns and walks out of the cave.

They head back to their camp, Snow grabbing vines from the trees along the way.  When they get there, she explains her plan, giving Emma and Regina some of the vines she’s grabbed to weave a trap with.  The wolf is missing and he sees Emma’s worried, but it is a wild animal and it probably hasn’t wandered too far.

“A trap?” Regina scoffs, even as she does what Snow’s asked, starting to work the vines into rope, “That’s your plan?”

“The Lost Boys wanna come after us, we need to go after them.”

“You really think a Lost Boy is gonna betray Pan?” Hook asks, taking a swig of rum.  David brings some more vines over to the women.

“Thanks for the advice,” Snow brushes Hook’s statement off, “David?”

“Yeah?”

“We need more vine.”

“On it,” he agrees, even though he’s just given them more and apparently they’re going to need an almost unreasonably large amount of the stuff.  He heads towards the forest.

“You’re coming with me, pirate,” he orders.

“Why is that?” Hook asks, not moving.

“Because we need more rope,” Emma says, coldly, not taking any of Hook’s nonsense.

“If the lady insists,” Hook bows to Emma before finally coming with him.  If there’s one good thing David can say about the pirate’s little crush, it’s that he’ll do as Emma tells him.  It will probably only be that way until he gets what he wants or she finds a way to force him to give up on her, but for now, it’s an advantage.

David starts grabbing low hanging vines from the trees in the area as they walk away from the camp.

“What would you like to yell at me about now, Dave?” the pirate behind him asks once they’re out of earshot of the women.

“Stay away from my daughter,” he warns.  Emma has enough to deal with without the pirate’s obviously unwanted attempts to woo her – she’s still in such grief over the Huntsman (and to a lesser extent, Neal) that David is sure she has no interest in the pirate – and David won’t stand for Hook continuing to try.

“Well, she can take care of herself.  She doesn’t need your parenting, which is a good thing,” the pirate mutters.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re gonna die in a day or so anyway.”

“Nothing I can do about that, but if I do die-”

“When.”

“It’ll be in helping my family.  And that’s something someone like you can’t understand.”

“What if I told you there’s a way to save you?”

“I’d say no,” he doesn’t even hesitate with his answer; maybe, maybe, if they could get Henry and then get the cure, without putting his grandson at risk of being taken by Pan again, he’d go for it, but if it would put him before Henry? – never – “Because anything that takes us off course of saving Henry is selfish.  But of course you would think that was the way to go.”

“Bugger off.  What, you think I’m being selfish?  I’m risking my life for all of you, every moment I’m here aligned against him.”

He wants to laugh at the self-righteous tone he’s being hit with.  How dare that pirate act like he’s being oh-so-noble?  Everything David has seen the pirate do has been in an attempt to connect with Emma.  He’s not here out of the goodness of his heart, or because it’s the right thing to do, or because he regrets working with Greg and Tamara and then taking the last bean, which had led to this situation in the first place.  He’s here because he sees Emma as a prize and this as the competition for her heart.  It’s disgusting, and David will not have it passed off as an act of decency.

“Please.  You’re not here out of any nobility.  You’re here for Emma.  And let me tell you something else.  You’re never gonna get her.” – he knows he’s dying and can’t stop her from it; he knows that even if he wasn’t dying he couldn’t stop her from it, since she’s a grown woman who makes her own decisions; he’s sure, though, that the strength of the feelings she had revealed having for Graham will stop her from it.  He was a far better man than the pirate could ever be, and to find happiness again with someone so much less worthy of her – she would never allow herself to do that, would she?  Happiness again, yes, but with such a cad?

Though, David isn’t above admitting that there’s a part of him that hopes she settles for Henry being her happiness rather than finding a man – she’s his baby girl, after all; she always will be.

“What, you’ll see to that?” Hook sneers at him, interrupting his thoughts, “Well it’s a good thing you’re gonna die, then.”

David sees red and takes a swing at the pirate, and his vision goes to black as he fades out of consciousness.

…

“A sextant?” Emma asks, incredulous, “You’re telling us about this now?”

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Regina adds.  Emma wants to scream at the woman about her superpower, but it tends to go on the fritz when she’s emotional – and after the dream about Graham, followed by Neal’s death, followed by the town nearly getting blown to bits, followed by her son getting kidnapped and dragged to Neverland, she’s too emotional to have a leg to stand on.

“Oh, you don’t,” Hook says, “But I’m not.  It’s the best hope yet we’ve had of an exit plan, and don’t forget, we’re gonna need one.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Emma asks.  If this can help, they should be going, not standing around and discussing.

“Emma…” the pirate comes closer to her; he reaches out with his good hand like he wants to put it on her shoulder, but thankfully he doesn’t touch, “You were right.  We need to get that message to Henry.  Every day, without hope, is a day closer to becoming a Lost Boy.  Your father and I should go.”

He takes a long length of the rope they made for the trap to use on his climb up the mountain with David and starts to head off.

She exchanges a look with Mary Margaret.  Hook and David, working together, without complaint?  Something’s not right there.

“Hook’s right,” David calls from over by his and Mary Margaret’s tent.

“Uh, you wanna split up?” Mary Margaret asks him, confused.  Emma is confused as well.  He hates Hook, and he just…

“It’s the last thing I wanna do, but…  There’s a chance he can get us home.”

“Okay,” Mary Margaret accepts.

Emma is still confused as David turns to her.

“Emma, while I’m gone, just…”

“Listen to my mother?” she jokes.  He laughs with her.

“Be careful,” he finishes.

“Always am.”

“And when you send that message to Henry, add something to it for me, would you?” he asks.

“Mm-hmm,” Emma nods, waiting for it.

“Tell him…  Tell him Grandpa loves him,” David says, then wraps her in a bear hug.

“Oh, um, okay,” she agrees, thrown off by the show of affection.  He usually keeps his distance unless she really needs comfort.  That was basically…  She thought they’d worked out a system, an unspoken agreement on how their father/daughter relationship worked.  He doesn’t push, or impulsively hug, or anything like that, and she lets him in when she needs someone to lean on…  It had seemed to be working.  Random hugs were not their thing.  She could live with that, because she wasn’t a touchy-feely person.  And she had thought that he could live with that, because he understood that her past had made it hard for her to let people in.  Thought he had accepted that she couldn’t and wouldn’t really be a touchy-feely person.  Ever.  She has a vague idea that maybe someday she’ll get comfortable with the whole idea, but she doubts it.

And yet here she is, in the Neverland jungle, receiving a crushing hug from her father the shepherd-turned-fairytale-prince – yet another thing she doubts she’ll ever get used to.

“Good luck,” she tells him; she feels safe for a moment, and she smiles.  It’s the safest she’s felt since…  No.  She won’t compare this to that night.  David is going to be fine and come back.  This won’t be the last time she’s in her father’s arms.  Not like with…  No.

“Yeah, you too,” David says, then turns to Mary Margaret.  She doesn’t want to intrude on their moment, but something is up with David – she’s not sure what it is but she just knows that something is up – so she listens discretely as she goes back to working on the ropes they’ve been making.

“You all right?” Mary Margaret asks him.

“Yeah, I just- I’ve gotta go,” he says, wrapping her in a hug as well.

“Mmm.  I’ll see you soon,” Mary Margaret says.

“Well, you know Neverland’s a dangerous place, and, you know, you-  You just never know what’s gonna happen-”

That…  Why does he keep talking like that?  Like they shouldn’t expect him to survive?  First he’d told her that if something happened to him, Mary Margaret would need her…  Now he’s telling Mary Margaret that Neverland’s dangerous and you never know what’s going to happen?  Something is off with David.  His optimism, it’s like it’s gone – and no matter how infuriating it might have been, the fact that it can just go away worries her – what happened to it?

…

“We shouldn’t just…  Waltz into the camp,” Jack says, “No offense, Sheriff, but if no one prepares them at least a little, you could give someone a heart attack- Uh, bad word choice, but…”

Graham almost laughs at Jack’s attempt to backtrack from the words “heart attack;” it may have been his official “cause of death,” but that wasn’t enough to make it taboo.  He’d only gotten defensive about it when they were first discussing what happened because he had felt a need to clarify that it hadn’t been natural causes, to clarify that he’d been murdered – there had just been something in him that had needed to place the blame on Regina, where it belonged.

“Well then, you should go in first and prepare them,” he suggests.  Emma knows Jack, and Graham is certain that she will listen to him, not automatically discount him as some form of magic trickery.

“Oi, why me?” Jack asks.

“Because these people know you?” Alice suggests, apparently having caught on to Graham’s notion.

“And what do you want me to say, ‘Hey, Sheriff Swan, I brought your boyfriend for ya, special delivery’?”

Graham gives Jack a half-hearted push, enough to show his annoyance, but not enough to send him into the foliage where something dangerous might lurk.

“Definitely not that,” he shakes his head.  No matter how many times he’s corrected Jack that he and Emma are not technically boyfriend and girlfriend, that his “death” had come before they’d had a relationship to label in such a manner, the thief continues to insist on using the terms.

“Why don’t you simply tell them that they were mistaken about Graham’s death?” Cyrus asks.

“Oh, they’re never going to believe that, Swan was there when it happened,” Jack shakes his head.

“And in all likelihood the woman who attempted to murder me will be among them as well,” Graham sighs.  He’s not afraid of Regina, not now, not while she doesn’t have his heart, but he knows, logically, that she’ll be a problem.  She doesn’t like losing and not only had she failed to kill him, he was going to be with her worst enemy’s daughter, assuming Emma will have him.  From the dream he now knows must have been real thanks to his encounter with Gold confirming the detail about Henry having been fathered by the Dark One’s son – in which she had said she loved him – he has high hopes that she’ll have him.  If she was willing to say that, and that she wished he was there to hold her, he doesn’t think it’s too much of a stretch to believe she’ll accept him as her partner.

Accepting that he’s alive, and that he’s not an illusion…  That is a different matter, one he hopes having Jack prepare her will help with.  Elsewise, he wouldn’t have asked.

“Okay, the part of my wording you didn’t like there was ‘boyfriend,’ right?” Jack asks.  At least that much has gotten through to him.

“Yes,” Graham nods.

“How about I just say ‘Sheriff, I found something that belongs to you’?  I mean, her True Love is something that belongs to her, right?  Technically?”

“It’s…  Better…” Graham reluctantly admits.  He’d rather not be referred to as an object, as something that Emma owned, since that’s how Regina had always treated him, as an object, a body, a plaything, less than human…  But just coming out and saying “Graham is alive” would probably earn Jack a punch to the face when Emma thought the man was toying with her emotions during an already hard time, with Henry taken.

“That’s what I’ll use then,” Jack nods.

His brother, at the front of their group, stops suddenly, sitting.  They’re not at a camp yet, so Graham can’t figure out why…

Then he sees a glint of golden hair shining through a small gap in the trees.

Emma.  She’s right there.  It’s time.

…

The three of them have just gone off to get more vine, each in a different direction, to make rope for their trap for one of the Lost Boys – David and Hook took a little too much with them for Mary Margaret’s plan to still be carried out with what they had left – when the noise starts in the woods nearby.  Emma turns, grabbing her sword, and waits to see who it is.  Maybe it’s just Loup finally coming back from wherever he’d disappeared to when they were off at Neal’s cave, but she thinks the wolf shouldn’t make quite so much noise.  The more likely option is that it’s Pan coming to taunt her again.

“Who’s there?” she asks, taking the most threatening stance she can.

To her utter surprise, it’s Jack Hertz, one of the petty criminals around Storybrooke, who steps out, his palms open in a sign of surrender.  She hasn’t seen him since the night the wraith came, when she nearly ran him over while she was driving back to the city hall after dropping Henry off at Granny’s inn so that Ruby could take care of him.  He’s got his standard jeans and gray top and black leather jacket on – she would almost guess that he hasn’t changed since the night she almost hit him, an idea she writes off as highly improbable – and she wonders how he’s not burning up in the heat of this insanely tropical world.

“Sheriff,” he grins at her, “I found something that belongs to you.”

Emma lowers the sword somewhat.  He’s the last person she expected to see in Neverland.  His face doesn’t even make sense for a trick, at least not that she can think of.  And found something that belongs to her?  She’ll admit she’s curious.

“There’s a missing persons report out for you from just after the curse was broken, Jack, how did you get to Neverland?” she asks, wary.  There weren’t any portals, right?  That’s why David hadn’t been able to come rescue her and Mary Margaret.  Why they’d had to fight their way home.

“Same way I left Storybrooke in the first place, the White Rabbit made a portal and I took it.  Spent some quality time in Wonderland, found what needed to be returned to you, got back to Storybrooke just as you were leaving, and followed.”

“You found something of mine…  In Wonderland?  That’s impossible.  I’ve never even been there,” Emma shakes her head.  The fact that the White Rabbit apparently is real and makes portals is something she is not going to deal with at the moment.  That is fairytale crap for another day.

Loup comes out of the foliage and sits, looking happier than she’s ever seen him.  The wolf’s presence gets her to put the sword away completely.  She’s still confused, but she trusts Loup enough to realize the weapon isn’t necessary.  He must’ve…  Gone and found Jack elsewhere in Neverland and led him this far.

“I know that.  Doesn’t change the fact that it’s yours.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Jack.  Nothing of mine could get to Wonderland if I’ve never been there.”

“Why don’t I just…  Go…  Bring it out for you?” he points back in the direction from which he came.  Emma is unsure, but after a moment she nods her agreement.

Jack retreats into the trees and-

Graham.

Her eyes must be playing tricks on her because it looks like Graham that has stepped out of the jungle and is standing next to Loup.  He’s dressed differently than she’s ever seen him, in a loose-fitting, long-sleeved white top and fairly loose pants, but…

No.  No.  It can’t be him.

“No,” she says, shaking her head, “No, this is all a trick of Pan’s.  You’re not real.  You’re dead.  You’re not real.”

“Emma,” he says – his eyes look almost pained by her saying he isn’t real – and he takes a step towards her.  She can’t bring herself to raise the sword on him, and she can’t bring herself to run, either; she’s stuck where she is, confronting this torturous apparition.

“No, no, no, you’re not real” she keeps muttering, her head still shaking; this is Pan’s cruelest trick yet and…  Jack was an illusion too, one that came with a really weird story, and…  And that wasn’t really Loup, Pan had kidnapped the wolf and magically made a doppelganger and…  She’s backing away slowly, but he keeps coming, and then her back is pressed against a tree and she can’t back up any farther.

He stops advancing when that happens, and appears thoughtful for just a moment.  She can see when the idea comes to him and then…  He reaches out and gently takes her left wrist, the one that she wears his shoelace on, in his hand.  His skin is warm and she feels an almost-pleasant fluttering in her stomach from the contact.

“Emma, I’m real,” he whispers, “I can prove it.”

She watches as he guides her wrist and places her palm against his heart.  It’s an echo of that last day, outside of Regina’s when he’d come out from talking to Henry, before they went chasing after Loup.

“See?” he says, looking into her eyes, letting go of her hand, allowing her to leave it there or take it away; she leaves it, not quite because she believes, but because she wants to believe more than anything in the world, “It’s beating.  It’s real.”

Those are her words.  She said them to him, not to anyone else, even when she’d been forced to recount the day, she didn’t tell anyone that.  Pan…  Pan couldn’t know that, right?  No one…  No one but him could know that.

She looks away from him, momentarily, at her hand, where it’s resting against his heart.  She wonders why her want to believe is stronger than her logic and why she doesn’t just move her hand away but the fact that he’s using her words gets to her in a way she can’t quite explain, not even to herself.

“Graham?” she breathes after what is, at most, a second, meeting his eyes, allowing herself to smile.  If this is him…  If it’s really, truly him…

“It’s me, princess.  I’m real, I promise,” he smiles back at her.

“But you…  You died,” she lets the fact that he called her princess slide, although it reminds her suspiciously of the dream she had just before finding Loup; she’s starting to honestly believe that it’s him.  She’s not entirely sure yet, but there’s a feeling in her heart, a warm and almost-pleasant ache that believes him and wants to drag him down into a kiss.

“I know.  I remember that.  But then I woke up, in a cell in Wonderland.  I made friends, they got me out of there, and we got back to Storybrooke just in time to see you go.  When I heard about Henry, I had to come.”

She steps closer to him, away from the tree, still leaving her palm where it is, and he puts his hands on her waist.  She reaches her other hand up, feeling his scruff under her palm and then moving upwards to tousle his hair gently.

“I don’t understand…  You woke up in Wonderland?”  He feels real enough, and when he moves one of his hands from her waist to her face, she leans into it.  This instinctual move on her part is what finally makes her believe – this is Graham.  She’s Emma Swan, she has her walls to protect her and she just…  She knows that if he was an illusion, she wouldn’t be reacting this positively to him.

“I did.  I don’t even know how long I was in that cell, but then one day Jack and Alice showed up…”

“Alice?  In Wonderland?  I am never getting used to this fairytales are real thing,” Emma laughs, allowing herself to be honestly happy for a moment (only a moment; Henry still needs saving, after all), shaking her head.

“She’s actually from the Land Without Magic, if it helps,” Graham chuckles softly, “And honestly, I don’t think she’s yet been prepared to meet the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.”

Emma wraps her arms around Graham’s shoulders, pulling herself closer to him, as close to him as she can, leaning her head into his chest, placing her ear against his heart.  The beat is soothing, calming; it fills her with a simple joy she thought she’d never feel.  He brushes his thumb along her lower lip, his callused fingertips tickling her cheek.

“It doesn’t help in the slightest.”

“I was afraid it wouldn’t.”

He’s smiling down at her and suddenly she’s nervous, she needs to say something, to fill this momentary silence so that he doesn’t hear the pounding of her heart in her chest – it’s going like she’s running for her life and she can’t let him notice that.  She heads for the first topic that her mind lands on, which happens to be her father.

“You know my dad is going to freak out when he sees you.  He knows I’m in lo-” Emma cuts herself off before she can say the word “love;” she just got him back, it’s too soon to say that word, so she corrects herself, “He knows how I feel about you.”

“Does he now?” Graham’s eyes twinkle in amusement, “Well, it’s a good thing I saved his life once then.  He can’t kill me for wanting to pursue his daughter.  After we get Henry back.”

“You bet after we get Henry back,” Emma says sternly – much as she loves Graham, it’s actually a welcome idea to put their relationship on hold until after they’re out of Neverland.  It’s refreshing, after all the flirting Hook is doing.

“However,” she continues, “I would like a kiss now…  And there may be a pirate you have to scare away from me with a possessive boyfriend act.”

“That does not sound like the Emma I know,” Graham raises an eyebrow, “Are you feeling alright?  Because under normal circumstances I would assume you would be able to shut him down yourself and get very upset if I tried to pull a possessive act.”

“Normally, yes, but he hasn’t taken a hint yet.  Earlier he was trying to bond with me about losing hope, and I just…  I’ll admit it.  I need your help with him.  Now about that kiss I asked for?”

“Whatever my love desires,” he agrees, and then he presses his lips to hers.  It’s sweeter than the kiss stolen on the sidewalk outside of Granny’s, less testing than the kiss in the station.  They are sure of themselves, this time, both of them, completely sure that this is completely right.  Emma feels almost like she’s going to explode from her happiness; there is a feeling of warmth and rightness that starts in her heart and spreads through her veins like a wildfire.

He has one hand running through her hair and the other on the small of her back, pressing her so close to him that she can feel his heart beating.

It beats in time with hers, and for the first time in a long time, Emma Swan feels almost whole.

Chapter Text

“Can we come out yet?” Jack’s voice calls, “Or do you two need to get a bloody room?”

Emma laughs again – this is the most she’s laughed in a long time – at this reminder that they’re not technically alone in this stupid jungle, and steps back from Graham, taking his hand in hers.

“Come on,” he calls back to the spot that he came from.  Jack steps out first, followed by a somewhat-exotic looking man, with tan skin and dark hair, and a woman with long, darkish-blonde waves of hair.  He’s got no apparent weapon on hand and his clothes seem to be dark leather pants but a comfortable, lightweight looking white top with a seemingly silken red vest with an ornate gold pattern; there are shackles around his wrists for some reason and Emma wonders at them but won’t question.  She has a sword strapped to her back, a dagger at her waist, and her clothes, a short dress, tall boots, and a purple leather vest over it, give off a tough, yet feminine vibe.  If this is Alice, Emma already likes her more than the little girl from the cartoon.

“Well, Sheriff, you know who I am already,” Jack smirks.

“Hard to forget a man who won’t give up on stealing Funshine Bear no matter how often he gets caught,” she says wryly; back before the curse broke, he’d definitely been one of the more entertaining criminals she had to deal with.  It hadn’t even surprised her that much when she’d seen the missing persons report that had been filed while David was in charge was filed by the woman who ran the toy store, Clara Drosselmeier.

“Ha-ha.  Very funny,” he rolls his eyes, “Anyway, this is my best mate Alice, and her…  Cyrus.”

“Don’t forget me,” a voice calls, low to the ground, and Emma is shocked to see a White Rabbit in a white suit and a bowler hat.

“Oh my God.  I am meeting Alice and the White Rabbit.  This is not real.”

“You’ve…  Heard of me?” Alice asks.

“There’s a book,” Emma smiles, “And, as I told the Mad Hatter, I’ve read that book.”

“Emma,” Graham says, sounding concerned, “When did you meet the Mad Hatter?”  She wonders if he knows just how insane Jefferson is.

“That is a long story, Graham,” she squeezes his hand, “Now come on, let’s go back to the camp and…  Regina.  She’s gonna kill you,” Emma’s good mood crashes to the ground.

“She already did that once,” Graham shrugs, “She doesn’t have my heart anymore.  I’m not afraid of her.”

“You should be!  It’s not like your heart is the only way she could kill you!  Worse, she could try to take it again!”

“You have magic, don’t you Emma?” Cyrus interrupts, “Can’t you cast a protection spell on Graham, so Regina can’t use her magic against him?”

“I- I have magic,” she admits, “I’m basically made of magic or something like that, because I’m a-”

“A product of True Love,” the man nods.  She wonders how he knows, but now is not the time to question that.

“But I can’t use my magic.  I don’t know how.  I have, a couple times, but…  Watching a dog’s memories of a murder isn’t the same thing as protecting Graham!  The last time I used magic to protect something…  Cora and Regina blasted right through the barrier spell in seconds.”

“Cora?” Alice, Jack, and Graham say, shocked, in unison.

“Emma, Cora’s dead,” Graham says with a squeeze of her hand, “She has been since before you were born.  Before Regina cast the curse, she sent a pirate to Wonderland to kill that witch, he brought the body back.”

“No, it was an act,” Emma explains, “Cora was pretending to be dead.  She shielded a portion of the Enchanted Forest from the curse.  Long story short, she and Captain Hook got to Storybrooke, she turned Regina to her side, she got the Dark One’s dagger, and she tried to kill Gold.  We were protecting him so that Cora couldn’t become the Dark One, since that’s about the worst case scenario in the world.”

“How did you stop her, if your protection spell failed?” Alice asks.

“Mary Margaret…  She used this candle…  Gold was dying, see, because Hook poisoned him with dreamshade.  So Mary Margaret found Cora’s heart and used this candle to curse it so that Cora would die in Gold’s place, and then she tricked Regina into putting the heart back into Cora’s body.”

Graham’s brow furrows.  She wonders what he’s thinking.

“Good for Snow,” he says, after a moment, “She never was good at dealing with threats to her family.  Taking action like that…  Good for her.”

“Try telling her that; she still feels guilty about having tricked Regina into killing her own mother.  If she hadn’t, we’d all be dead, but of course that doesn’t matter to her.”

“She’ll come ‘round eventually,” he says, “And since Regina ordered her mother dead in the first place, we won’t let her bully Snow with that.”

“Okay, we’re getting away from the point, which was that I can’t protect you from that bitch,” Emma reminds him.

“I can teach you to control your magic, at least for that much,” Cyrus offers.

“My lessons so far have been from the Dark One, do you really think you can get me to do what he can’t?”

“For this much,” the man nods, “I think I can.  True Love is the easiest magic to work with, and since Graham is yours…  It’s a matter of combining your own magic with the magic the two of you create together.”

Emma looks at him skeptically.  She knows magic is about emotion, but there’s so much at stake here.  Losing Graham if this doesn’t work is a huge risk that she is not willing to take.

“Come on, Sheriff, you’ve got to try,” Jack says.

“Okay.  What do I do?” she asks nervously.

“You want to protect Graham.  That’s what you should focus on.  Any emotion you can latch onto as long as it regards protecting him; love, fear of losing him, anger at the one who hurt him.  Love is preferable, of course, because it’s the strongest.”

Emma tries to empty her mind of everything but protecting the man next to her, but poor Henry keeps popping up in her thoughts.

“I can’t clear my mind,” she says, after a few unsuccessful attempts.

“I didn’t ask you to clear it,” Cyrus says, “I asked you to focus it.  From what Graham’s told us, your son has been taken, I don’t expect you’d be able to clear it if you tried.  Just focus on what you want to do with your magic.  The other thoughts, let them come as they will, but don’t latch onto them.”

She tries again, closing her eyes.  Surprisingly, Cyrus’ advice works, and since she’s not trying to empty her mind, she can focus.

“Now you want to visualize a cocoon around him, one that will protect him from Regina’s magic.  Keep that image in your mind’s eye.”

“I’ve got it,” she says after a moment.

“Keep the image in your head no matter what,” Cyrus emphasizes.  She hears movement and whispering nearby, and then Graham is kissing her again.  She kisses him back, but she keeps the image of the cocoon around him in her head as best she can.  Finally, he lets go, and she opens her eyes.  There’s a shimmering silver aura around him for a moment, but it fades.

“That should do it,” Cyrus nods, “Although I’d learn how to actually do these spells if I were you, so that you don’t rely on the True Love’s Kiss shortcut.”

“Right,” she agrees, a little breathless.  Graham is protected.

“Back to camp?” she suggests.

“Lead the way,” Alice smiles at her.

…

Graham is not shocked to see Snow and Regina already in the clearing when they arrive; the looks on their faces upon seeing him, Jack, Alice, Cyrus, and the Rabbit, on the other hand, are almost comical.  Not quite.  Snow’s expression is so wide eyed that he knows he’d laugh under any other circumstance, but Regina has murder in her eyes.  She flicks her wrist in his direction and-

Nothing happens.  He’s not choked, not thrown against a tree, nothing.  Emma’s magic – their magic, he corrects, it was the kiss that activated the spell – is working.

“I found us backup,” Emma announces, standing firm, her hand in his, before either of the other women can question, “And an exit plan.  If you go get Tink we can go as soon as David and Hook get back.”

“Miss Swan,” Regina states, “I don’t know what you’ve found, but it is certainly not backup.  Dead people are not backup.”

“Good thing I’m not dead then,” Graham growls.

“But you…  We buried you!” Snow blurts out.

“I told him that, ma’am,” Jack smirks, “But, here we are, freshly escaped from Wonderland.”

“Wonderland?” Regina glares at the other man, “You, Knave, should have been in Storybrooke.”

“Oh, he was definitely in Storybrooke,” Emma says, “I had to arrest him all the time.  That’s part of how I know this isn’t some trick of Pan’s.”

“I have keys to Granny’s to prove it,” Jack says, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket and dangling them in the air.  Then he looks at them for a moment before holding them out towards Emma, “Could you maybe return them for me when we get back?  Say they were dropped off at the station or something?”

“Do I want to know why you have them?” she asks as she takes them from him.

“Probably not.”

“If you’re really Graham,” Snow says, “What happened the last time we saw each other?”

“I had started to get flashes of my memory,” he says, “And I remembered standing over you with a knife, like I was about to hurt you.  Only it was in a forest, and you had longer hair.  So I went to your classroom and asked if we could talk.  I told you that I thought we knew each other and you didn’t understand that I meant from another life.  I asked if you remembered how we met, and you didn’t.  I told you I couldn’t remember when I met anyone from Storybrooke.  You tried to brush it off, say that’s just life; that things get hazy.  I asked if I’d ever hurt you.  You reassured me that I hadn’t and asked what was going on, so I asked if you believed in other lives – you thought I meant like heaven, but I meant past lives.  Then you seemed to get it, assumed I’d been talking to Henry, even though I had no idea about his curse theory at the time.  You explained it to me and then were quick to say it made no sense.  And I told you that you were right, and you still seemed concerned over me, you checked my temperature.  Told me I was burning up and that I should go home and get some sleep.  I told you that you were right and then I left to go see Henry.”

“He’s right,” Snow says, turning to Regina, “That’s exactly what happened.”

“I don’t care if he can tell me every conversation we ever had in exact detail!  That cannot be Graham, because Graham is dead.  I killed him myself!”

“And the only reason I never arrested you for that is Henry!” Emma yells; he squeezes her hand gently and feels as she relaxes slightly, “Look, I don’t care if you believe it or not, this is Graham.”

“And what proof do you have of that?  Wishful thinking?”

“When you love someone you don’t need proof,” Alice interrupts.

“You can feel it,” Cyrus adds with a smile.

…

Snow has seen many things over the years, but a dead man appearing, alive and well, his hand in her daughter’s, with a group of new friends, in the middle of the Neverland jungle, has to be among the strangest.

The Huntsman’s death had been tragic, and Snow-as-Mary-Margaret had been there for Emma the entire time she’d mourned the man.  They’d been drawn to each other, Mary Margaret hadn’t been blind to that; no one in town had.

But after the election, his name was never spoken again.  Not by Emma, not by anyone.  His jacket was kept in the station (Mary Margaret never quite understood why, according to Emma, Gold had put it there), but his name was like a taboo.

And gradually, he had faded from Mary Margaret’s mind.  When the curse was broken, Snow had remembered the poor kind Huntsman briefly, saddened that he didn’t live to see Regina’s defeat, but it hadn’t been more than a passing moment – she had more important things on her mind, having her family back together – and then she’d been trapped in the Enchanted Forest with Emma, with Cora in pursuit of them, with Captain Hook and Emma obviously sharing some level of attraction (nothing substantial, she was always sure, but there nonetheless), and any further thought of Graham had been forgotten.

And now here he is, holding hands with Emma, looking at her daughter the way her Charming looks at her.

So far, he has explained all he can, waking up in Wonderland, traveling with Alice and the Knave to find Cyrus, returning to Storybrooke at the exact wrong moment, the encounter he’d had with Rumplestiltskin once he was here on the island.  Regina had scoffed, asked if they were really going to listen to these obvious lies, and run to get Tinker Bell in hopes that the fairy had a way to prove that she was right, even without having magic.

Now Alice was telling them of her previous trips to Wonderland while they waited, of her father and his disbelief, and how she’d gone looking for proof and met Cyrus while on the run from some of the Queen’s men (she didn’t say which Queen, when Graham asked, as apparently Wonderland had more than one).  Of how they’d been separated and she’d thought him dead until the Knave showed up to rescue her from a mental institution that her family had sent her to because they didn’t believe her stories of Wonderland.

And Snow is trying to pay attention, honestly she is, because it sounds fascinating, but she can’t stop thinking about the things Emma had said, the way she’d talked about Neal and how she’d never stopped loving him – and yet, the way she’s being with Graham, more comfortable, more relaxed than Snow has ever seen her, despite the fact that Henry is alone out there (as soon as David and Hook come back, they’re going to Pan’s camp; the White Rabbit can make portals and that means they have a chance to get out of here), is enough to suggest to Snow that perhaps Emma was not being honest with her.  And that pains her, thinking that her daughter, her friend, would lie to her about something so big.

“Emma?” she interrupts Alice’s tale of getting out of the mallowmarsh, “can we talk for a moment?”

Emma seems reluctant to let go of Graham’s hand, glancing at it in hers briefly like she’s afraid that he will disappear, but nods and stands, and Snow leads her to the far side of the clearing, where they can talk without being overheard.  Emma very obviously positions herself so she can see the others, Snow notices, but she won’t comment on that.

“Emma, I thought you loved Neal,” she says.  She doesn’t disapprove of Graham – he’s a good man.  But she needs to understand what’s going on.

“Part of me,” Emma nods, “A very small part of me.  He was my first love, and…  He’s the reason I have Henry.  But Graham…”

“But Graham what?”

“I told you already, back…  Back when he died.  When we kissed…  He remembered.  I didn’t know what it meant back then, but now?  Come on, Mary Margaret.  You know what breaks curses.  So you know how important he is to me.”

“Why couldn’t you just say that, instead of making me look like a fool?”

“Because we’re supposed to be focused on Henry.  Correcting you about my feelings was the last thing I needed to be doing!  I was just going to play along until we all got home safely, and then I was going to tell you, I swear.  You can ask David, he knows.”

“You told David how you feel about Graham, but not me?” Snow feels a little betrayed; she’d always been closer to Emma than David and yet he’s the one who got such a big truth – and he didn’t even tell her.

“It was…  We were still in Storybrooke when I told David, Neal was still…  I had a dream about Graham and he comforted me.  And I told him not to tell you because you wanted to believe that I still had a happy ending out there and if you’d known…  How I feel about Graham…  I was trying to be nice.  To let you have your optimism.  And then everything just went straight to hell and it was the wrong time to tell you.  David even tried to get me to…  Have noticed he’s acting weird?”

“Well,” Snow stops to think about it, “He does keep talking like he’s going to die.”

“Yeah.  He told me I should tell you about Graham because if something happened to him, you’d need me, and he thought I’d resent you if you kept assuming…  You know.  About Neal.”

“He…  During the fight.  An arrow glanced off his side.  He told me the jacket took all the damage, but…  You don’t think?”

“Dreamshade?  Maybe, but why wouldn’t he just tell us?”

“For the same reason you didn’t tell me about Graham – he would want to keep the focus on Henry.”

…

David knows that what Hook did saved his life, even if he can’t leave Neverland now, but he’s not sure he wants to admit that when they get back to camp.  Should the pirate’s admittedly selfless deed be acknowledged?

Yes.

Was he entirely sure that it was truly a selfless deed?

No.

Pan may have offered the pirate Emma on a platter if he were to kill David, but he knew – and the pirate would know too – that if Emma even suspected what had happened, she’d never go for Hook’s advances.  But saving David’s life?  That might earn her respect and they both know it.

He’s so caught up in these thoughts that when they get back to the camp he almost doesn’t notice that Regina is missing and there are four extra people and a rabbit in a suit with Emma and Snow.

It is Hook’s cry, “who the bloody hell are they?” that makes him pause and take in the sight.

And it is the Huntsman, standing next to Emma and the wolf, bow drawn, ready to defend, that makes any thought of acknowledging Hook’s help fly from his mind.  The Huntsman was dead.

“King James,” the man smiles at him, and lowers the bow, tipping his head in respect.  His eyes flick over to Hook for a moment and then, with disdain, he adds, “Pirate.”

“Just call me David, please,” David says, not sure what’s going on, but more than pleased by this turn of events.  He wonders about Graham’s attitude towards the pirate, but thinks that Emma must’ve mentioned the man’s attempts to woo her.  If someone was as aggressive towards Snow as Hook is towards Emma when she was uninterested, he’d be scornful of them.

“Who the bloody hell are they?” Hook repeats.

“Hook,” Emma smirks, “This is Alice, Cyrus, Jack, the White Rabbit, and Graham.  The White Rabbit makes portals, which means we have a plan to get out of here, so Regina is getting Tink.  Sorry that your plan with the sextant didn’t work out, but we found a better one.”

“We didn’t find it anyway,” the pirate says, a low growl.  Now would be the perfect time for David to create a lie, like they were ambushed by Lost Boys and Hook pushed him out of the way of a dreamshade arrow, but he doesn’t bother.

“Graham, how did you get here?” David asks, ignoring the fact that their plan is apparently a portal-making rabbit (something about that and the name Alice in conjunction tickles at his mind, but he doesn’t care at the moment), “Besides, I’m assuming, the rabbit making a portal.  You’re supposed to be…”

“Six feet under in the Storybrooke cemetery?” the man finishes, “I know.  As I already explained to Emma and Snow, after Regina crushed my heart, I woke up in a cell in Wonderland.  When we got here, to Neverland, we had a run-in with Gold.  He explained that it was a side effect of the curse that I didn’t die.”

“Well, I’m grateful for that,” David smiles, “It would have been a shame if you had been the only one not to live through the curse.”

“Thank you, sir.”

All the weapons are away by now, and David doesn’t miss how Emma snakes her arm around Graham’s waist and the pirate’s eyes darken at the sight.  Oh, yes, he’s very pleased at this turn of events.  Emma gets her happy ending back, and there’s nothing the pirate can do but watch.

Chapter Text

“David?” Snow says, “Emma and I want to talk to you.  Now.”

He looks between his wife and his daughter.  Emma reluctantly lets go of Graham when her mother speaks (he would be reluctant to let go if he were in her position as well, if he’d thought Snow was dead for so long and then gotten her back); it seems that the two of them genuinely do have something they want to discuss with him.

The three stand off to the side of the camp; he doesn’t fail to notice that Emma positions herself so Graham, the wolf sitting at his side, is in her line of sight – and he is so, so happy for his daughter, that she got her Huntsman back, but the fact that she doesn’t trust he won’t just vanish if he’s somewhere that she can’t see him breaks David’s heart.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Did you lie to Mary Margaret about that arrow from the fight with the Lost Boys?” Emma asks.

“What?” he is too stunned to form a coherent response; somehow, his girls have guessed his secret.

“Did you lie to me about the arrow?” Snow asks.

“I-  Yes,” he admits softly.  There’s no point denying it now.

“David!” Snow lets out a soft cry, “I understand that Emma didn’t want you to tell me about her feelings for Graham.  But you’re dying.  How could you…  If you had just dropped dead, and I…  I told you how devastated I’d be if anything happened to you, how I wouldn’t be able to move on, how you are my home” – Snow’s eyes dart quickly to Emma, and then a point behind him that he assumes is Graham, since it’s where Emma is focused as well, and then they’re back on him – “David you should have told me!”

“Actually…” he starts to confess – might as well get it all out now – “I’m not dying anymore.  The sextant-  It was a lie.  Hook made it up to get me to-  There’s a spring, up on Dead Man’s Peak.  The water cured me.  So I-  I won’t drop dead on you.  I can still help save Henry.”

“But?” Emma raises an eyebrow.  She’s so perceptive sometimes, and it makes him so proud (who’s he kidding?  She’s his daughter, and she’s a wonderful woman, and he is always proud of her – even the fact that she’d been so strong about losing Graham had made him proud when he learned of it, no matter how much his heart had broken for her in that same moment).  At the same time, her perception is forcing him to admit things that will only hurt them all, and there’s a part of him, a small part, that wishes she wasn’t quite so acute.

“But,” he hangs his head, “The cure only works while I’m in Neverland.  If I leave – I’ll die.”

“You weren’t going to tell us that, either.  Were you?” Snow looks betrayed and he understands perfectly.

“You deserve better than staying here dodging Lost Boys, Snow,” he says, reaching out to take her hand.  He tries not to let it show how it hurts when she pulls away.

“There has to be hope,” Emma says.  This surprises him.  She is not an optimist, never has been since he’s known her.

“Hook…  Hook doesn’t know everything.  There has to be a cure, something more permanent.  I know there’s not the option of the candle like there was when Gold was poisoned,” she continues, “But there has to be hope.  I just found my family, I can’t lose either of you again.”

“No, Emma,” David places a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, “You need to get Henry back and get him out of here.  Whether I can leave or not.  It’s not worth the risk of Pan taking him again if you stay.  You need to take Henry and Graham and the others and go.  You don’t need me.”

“Yes I do!  You’re my family.  Family means no one gets left behind.”

…

“Who are you?” the pirate looks at Graham with disdain as Emma and her parents have a heated, yet hushed, discussion.  Graham doesn’t want to take his eyes off of her – he hasn’t seen her in so long, and he just wants to drink the sight of her in like water in the desert – but clearly, he’s going to have to converse with this man.

“Name’s Graham,” he says, putting on the gruffest attitude he can manage, trying to show the other man that this conversation is unwelcome.

He has no interest in hearing what a man who’s been pursuing his True Love has to say.

“Swan mentioned that,” the pirate says, “I meant who are you to the royal family?”

“That is a complicated matter,” Graham laughs a little, “I saved Snow and David’s lives a long time ago, before the curse.  Was forced into servitude as the Queen’s Huntsman.  Then…  During the curse…  Well.  I met Emma.  Gave her a job.”

“Then you’re Swan’s employer,” the pirate says.  There’s hope in his voice – Graham recognizes it for what it is, this pirate, this Hook, still wants Emma and is hoping that Graham means nothing to her.

“Not for a long time now,” Graham shakes his head, “And even back then, I was never just her employer.  We were drawn to each other, from the moment we met,” he smiles, remembering that night, leaning up against her car, trying to talk her into staying, at least for the night, just because something in him didn’t want to see the enchanting blonde go, “Emma…  Emma is the love of my life.  She and I are True Love.”

“You’re a rotten liar, mate,” Hook takes a drink from his flask, “I can read Swan like an open book.  She’s been in love once in her life, and her love was Baelfire.  Son of the Dark One.”

Graham sees sadness flicker across the pirate’s eyes at the mention of Henry’s father, but it’s gone quickly.  Too quickly for him to even try to make sense of.  Not that it matters anyway; as far as Graham is concerned, the pirate is little more than a guide through Neverland, someone who knows the island well – though Alice’s knowledge is useful, it is also secondhand and slightly limited; Hook has actually lived here before and Graham knows that is a good thing, a strength, something that this ragtag rescue party sorely needs.

“I’m not lying, mate,” he hisses, angered at the man’s presumption to know Emma – some perception may have granted the man some insight, but she is a complicated woman, layered, and skilled at hiding parts of herself away; he himself had learned to read her emotions quickly but he would still never presume to know all there is to know about her, to be the world’s foremost expert on Emma Swan.  He looks forward to learning more after all this is through, to being able to discover every facet of her brave, strong, beautiful soul.

“I was suffering from the curse, without my memories, just like everyone else,” he explains after a moment – it’s none of the pirate’s business, but he can’t just let it go, “But when we kissed, I remembered my true identity, my past.  True Love’s Kiss.  There is no argument you can make against that.”

“Aye?  Then what, exactly, separated you?”

“Regina,” Graham spits the Queen’s name darkly.  He looks back to Emma, who is heading back towards him from where her parents stand; they still seem to be in a heated discussion but she has bowed out, and he stands, hoping to signal to Hook that their conversation is over, and meets Emma in the middle.

He wraps his arms around her, just holding her for a moment.

“What’s going on with David?” he asks quietly.  He knows that whatever it is, it had upset her.  He can see it in her eyes, could see it in her posture during the discussion.

“He says he can’t leave,” she sighs, her head on his shoulder, “That he got hit with a dreamshade arrow and Hook got him a cure but if he leaves the island…  The cure stops working.  And…  He dies.”

“I’m so sorry, Emma,” he holds her a bit tighter, “For you to have barely found your family and to lose your father so soon…  It must hurt, and I can’t even begin to understand how much.”

“There’s more,” she sighs, “Mary Margaret is saying that-  She’s saying that if David stays, she stays.  He’s trying to talk her out of it, but-  He’s not having much luck.”

Oh, he thinks, his heart constricting painfully at that news – Emma had always believed herself to be abandoned, and she’d just found them, and now they were both planning on leaving her again, on actually abandoning her…  He knows the pain of abandonment firsthand, and the fact that she’d caught a glimpse of the family she’d been meant to have only to be forced to lose it again – he hates it.  She deserves so much more.

He wants to tell her everything will be alright – but those would just be words, empty promises that he cannot keep.  So instead, he remains silent, holding her as long as she needs.

…

“Where are you taking me?” Henry asks, angry, as Pan shoves him into a boat waiting on the shore.  He knows his moms are coming for him – he can feel it – but he’s worried that they won’t be able to find him if Pan keeps moving him around the island.

“I told you, Henry, we’re going to save magic,” Pan says, smiling at him, as he gets into the boat himself.  The older boy starts rowing, and after a while, a giant cave that looks like a human skull comes into view.

“Skull Rock,” he whispers, remembering the stories from back home.

“That’s right,” Pan says, “The source of all Neverland’s magic is inside.”

“I’m not going to help you,” Henry shakes his head; magic just causes pain – the curse, his mom getting sent to the Enchanted Forest, everything that happened with Cora, Storybrooke nearly being destroyed…  Sheriff Graham…

No.  Henry has no desire to save magic.  He won’t help save it.

…

After Regina and Tink had arrived at camp, they’d packed up and headed for Pan’s.  Regina is still trying to convince everyone that Graham isn’t real, but Emma doesn’t care.  Even Tink believes that he isn’t a trick.  David had found an extra dagger that Cyrus could use, so they’re all armed and ready.

“We’re here,” Tink announces after a time.

“No need to harm any of the Lost Boys if we can’t help it,” Alice says, “Right?”

“Yes, perhaps Emma could use magic to have them fall asleep,” Cyrus suggests.

“Miss Swan’s magic is completely untrained and I doubt she could perform even such a simple spell correctly,” Regina says.  Emma is a little offended, but since she’s actually not skilled at magic, and Regina insulting her is nothing new, she doesn’t really care.

“I’ll do it,” Regina continues.  When Cyrus smirks at that, Emma wonders if it was a plot to get Regina to do it all along, so that the Evil Queen wouldn’t harm any children if it wasn’t necessary.

“It’s done,” Regina announces, and they all follow Tink inside.  There are many boys passed out, but as they look around, it becomes clear; Henry and Pan are not among them.

“Hello?” a voice calls from somewhere past the bushes.  It sounds like a young girl’s voice and Alice – Emma sees Alice freeze for a moment before running towards it.  They all follow.

There are two cages, in a small clearing just off the camp.  The girl who had spoken is in one and they can’t see into the other.

“Wendy,” Alice breathes, then heads for the cage and cuts it open.  The two hug tightly.

“Alice?” the girl says, “What…  What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Alice asks, holding the younger girl by the shoulders, “You said that Bae let himself get taken to protect you!”

Emma’s brain is sent spiraling off in a million directions at that; Bae?  That’s Neal, she knows that, and she knows he’d been in Neverland.  But he’d gone to protect someone?  And…  Wendy?  In Neverland?  Would that be…  Wendy Darling? Neal had gone to Neverland to protect Wendy Darling?  Who…  Somehow knows about Alice, the same Alice as Alice in Wonderland?

“He did,” the girl nods, “That’s why…  We wanted to get him back, to save him.  After he told us his parents had died…  We were the only family he had, Alice, you know that!”

“Who’s in the other cage?” Jack asks.

“I don’t know him,” the girl says, “He’s been unconscious as long as he’s been here.”

Graham heads over to the cage to take a better look, and Emma goes with him.  She knows she doesn’t need to but…  She does anyway.

The sight shocks her completely.  It’s impossible.  Then again, so is the man at her side.

“Neal?” she breathes.  Graham looks between her and the cage.

“Henry’s father?” he asks quietly.  She’s not sure how he knows that but she’d guess it’s by her reaction; she and Graham were always in tune.  She nods quickly and he cuts open the cage then returns to her side, putting an arm around her waist.  For a long moment, Neal doesn’t stir, and she almost can’t tell if he’s alive or dead (she’d believed him dead, but really, why would Pan cage a dead body?) – and then he takes a deep, shuddering breath, clearly waking, and she pulls herself as close to Graham as she physically can – she is suddenly insecure, feels the need to have the man she actually loves close to her to show Neal how much he doesn’t matter to her anymore.

“Emma?” Neal’s first reaction is all smiles and she feels as Graham pulls her ever-so-much closer and somehow they’re both real and alive and she just doesn’t want to deal with any of this even though she has to.

“Neal,” she acknowledges, keeping her voice free from emotion.  He clambers out of the cage and it is only then he seems to see Graham.  His eyes narrow at the arm around her waist, but he says nothing, looking around to the rest of the rescue party.  When his eyes land on the girl next to Alice, they light up.

“Wendy?” he says, and the girl looks up.

“Do I know you?” she asks.

“It’s-  It’s Baelfire,” his smile turns into a frown, “What are you doing here?”

“She came to rescue you, apparently,” Alice says, crossing her arms at him.

“You’re…  Alice?  Why are you here?”

“She’s here for the same reason as the rest of us, rescuing Henry,” Emma says.  Graham gives her a minute squeeze. “How are you alive, Neal?  Tamara shot you.”

“Right, well…  I fell through the portal and I woke up in the Enchanted Forest.  Phillip, Aurora, and Mulan were there and they treated my wound.  So I went to my dad’s castle and…  I managed to use some artifacts he left behind to find out you were in Neverland, so I knew Henry was in trouble and I tricked the shadow into bringing me here.”  He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s staring at Graham’s arms around her, but he doesn’t say anything, and that, at least, is a comfort.

…

Alice is just finishing tying the hands of the last unconscious Lost Boy when the man that Graham confronted in the clearing shortly after they arrived in Neverland appears at the camp.

“Gold,” Emma says with a nod from her place guarding a few of the younger boys with Graham (according to Regina, the younger the boy, the sooner he’d wake from the spell).

“Where’s Henry?” the man asks.

“We don’t know,” Baelfire – she has a hard time seeing the boy that her aunt and uncle adopted in the man who is before her, but she can’t bring herself to call him Neal, the new name he’d given himself at some point; despite the way he’s changed, somewhere in there is still her cousin, or she hopes so, anyway, because even though she’d only met Baelfire once, briefly, he’d been…  He’d been strong, and honorable, and there was something about this grown version of him that is so much less; maybe she’s not being fair to him, it’s been a long time since he was a teenage boy, he’s older than she is now, but this difference about him nags at her – speaks, “Pan’s missing too.  But if you think I’m letting you anywhere near him-”

“Gold is here to save Henry,” Graham interrupts, “I know when a man is willing to sacrifice his life for what’s right and your father is.”

“Your father?” Wendy questions, “Bae, you said your father was dead.  You told mother that both your parents were dead!”

“I didn’t want to admit that they’d abandoned me.  But look-” Baelfire turns towards Graham, “He’s not here to rescue Henry.  There was a prophecy that the boy who led him to me would be his undoing and Henry is that boy.  You don’t know him like I do; he’s here to kill Henry, not save him.”

David and Snow level their weapons at the man at that, while Regina creates a fireball in her hand.  Alice rolls her eyes.  They’re all being overdramatic.  Surely they could just talk this out?

“You’re wrong,” Graham says.

“Graham,” Emma says, placing a hand on his shoulder – Baelfire and the pirate both bristle at every little gesture of affection that Emma and Graham share, for whatever reason – “You know I trust you- But I need to know why you think we can trust Gold with Henry’s safety.”

“You know I ran into him before I met up with you,” Graham says, “He told me about the prophecy, and that he’d left the rest of you so that he could sacrifice himself for Henry.  For that one’s sake,” he gestures to Baelfire, “He had no reason to lie to me about that.”

Regina puts out her fireball but stares down the man, “Tell me how the Huntsman is alive,” she says.

“The curse, dearie.  You should have read the fine print.  Anyone who died under it would wake up, intact, back home.  Something went wrong with the ‘back home’ part of it, but other than that-” the man shrugs, “There was no place for death in the little cursed kingdom.  There was enough suffering without it.”

Chapter Text

“Gold,” Emma approaches the pawnbroker/Dark One as David and Mary Margaret argue with Regina about waking one of the older Lost Boys up in order to ask about Pan’s plan, Alice, Cyrus, and Jack try to find out if Wendy knows anything – Alice isn’t letting Neal anywhere near her cousin, even though he and Wendy had been happy to see each other – and Graham, the White Rabbit, and Tink are reasoning with Hook about the fact that his ship won’t be able to come through the rabbit hole, “David…  David was poisoned with dreamshade.  That’s the stuff Hook used on you.  Do you know of anything other than that candle that could cure him?”

“Once we got back to Storybrooke, I could concoct a potion for him, yes.  If he has enough water from the spring on Dead Man’s Peak to last him at least a day.”

“Name your price,” Emma states, ready to pay just about anything to keep her family intact.

Gold smiles eerily, “Perhaps just a lock of hair from you and your Hunts-”

“You’ll do it for free,” Neal interrupts, “Because I asked you to, and because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Apparently there is no price for your father’s cure, dearie,” Gold says, his eerie smile turning tight in an instant.

“Thank you,” she says, trying her best to look grateful; she is, and she doesn’t want to seem otherwise, not when Gold is the only one with the ability to heal David.  She doesn’t want to alienate the man – he is the Dark One, after all.  Then she turns to Neal.

“If you’re trying to impress me, or win me back or something, it’s not going to work.  I’m with Graham.  End of discussion.  I mean, if you’re just being nice for the sake of being nice, thanks.  But it’s not going to change anything about how I feel, so if that’s what you’re trying to do, forget it.”

“Emma, who the hell is that guy anyway?” Neal asks, “I never saw him in Storybrooke.”

“That’s because he left Storybrooke shortly after I got there,” Emma bites her lip, hesitating, not wanting to talk about Graham dying in her arms – it is still too fresh to think about and it makes her just want to curl up in Graham’s arms and cry – because she’d believed he was dead for so long, she’d thought she’d lost him, and he’d been alive the whole time and they’d lost so much time they could’ve been together with him being stuck in another world – and that would not be productive in the least, “He was forced away.  Regina…  She did something to him and…  He wound up in Wonderland.  Now he’s here.”

“Who is he?” Neal repeats.

“He’s…  He was Sheriff, before I was.  And he’s the Huntsman who spared my mother’s life, so…  Kind of a huge part of the reason I could even be born.  And he’s the man I’ve chosen, so that should be enough for you to leave it alone.”

“Is he going to be good for Henry?”

“Let me put it this way,” Emma sighs, “For our son’s entire life, he was there, watching him grow up.  He…  He was the closest thing to a father Henry had back then-  Henry was devastated when Graham-  When Graham left.  And the whole time, Graham didn’t even have his heart, wasn’t supposed to feel-  But he got from Wonderland to Storybrooke, found out Henry had been kidnapped, and immediately crossed worlds again so he could help find him.”

Neal looks like he’s going to say more, but Emma shakes her head and turns away, back to where her parents and Regina are arguing.

“Is there a way to find out without waking one of them?” she asks, “A tracking spell or something?  You did it before, with the map.  Admittedly, that was a bad idea, but there’s no Lost Boys available to ambush us this time.”

“Yes,” Regina admits, “I could track Pan using the map again.”

“Then that’s what we’re doing.  Hook, Tink, Alice, Cyrus, Wendy, Jack, and the White Rabbit can stay here and guard the Lost Boys.  Mary Margaret and David?  You two need to go up to Dead Man’s Peak and get at least a day’s worth of water – Gold just told me he can make a cure.  The rest of us will follow Pan and get Henry back using Regina’s spell.”

…

Inside Skull Rock, Henry is staring at a giant hourglass.  It’s running out.  Pan said it was the time left until magic is gone.

He still thinks that’s a good thing.

He’s not as against magic as Greg and Tamara had claimed to be, he’s not.  But he doesn’t see any reason that he should listen to Pan and save it.

Pan keeps saying he’ll be a hero if he does – and he does want to be a hero.  Just not like this, not by just blindly listening to someone tell him that his heart is special and the key to saving everything.

“If you don’t save magic,” Pan says behind him, “When this time runs out, every world that has magic will be destroyed – and your Storybrooke will be the first to go, with everyone in it.  You don’t want that, do you?”

That-  That can’t be true.  Can it?  Henry doesn’t want to believe that, doesn’t want to listen to Pan at all.  But should he take the risk?

“Tell me more?” he asks cautiously, “About what I’d have to do…  And the price.  Magic always has a price.”

He hasn’t changed his mind, not yet, but he needs to consider that what Pan is saying might be true.  And if it is, he needs to know what will happen.  About what needs to be done.

…

Regina’s tracking spell had lead them to the Neverland coast.  Henry was nowhere in sight, nor was Pan – in fact, all Graham could see was Skull Rock, out across the water.

“He’ll have taken him across,” Gold states, rather calm.

“Then we should follow,” Emma says.  They should, but there’s not exactly a boat.

“You think?” Regina says.  Graham doesn’t like that he has to work with her, but Emma was their leader, and she had asked him to come with her group – and as that was the group going to get Henry, she couldn’t have left the Queen out of it if she’d wanted to – and he was glad to be working with Emma.  Glad that she thought him valuable enough to come on this part of the mission – or maybe valuable was the wrong term for it.  Either way, he was glad to be at Emma’s side.

“Pan didn’t exactly leave a boat,” Neal points out.

“Really?” Emma states, her tone dry, with a slight hint of anger – Graham knows Emma’s anger well, himself, so he can hear it easily – “Because, you know, it completely would have made sense for the guy who kidnapped Henry to leave a boat so that we could get over there and stop him!”

“I didn’t think he’d have left it for us.  More for Felix,” Neal explains.  He doesn’t sound apologetic, more condescending, and Graham isn’t sure whether he wants to punch the man for taking that tone with Emma, or laugh at him for thinking it was a good idea to.  She’s already angry and if she notices – as Graham knows she will – it’s only going to make things worse.

“I know you didn’t just talk to me like I’m an idiot who couldn’t catch your meaning,” Emma turns her head to glare at her ex, “Because I understood perfectly when you said it.  But if Pan is the demonic mastermind that your father and Hook claim, then he would’ve considered that maybe we’d find the damn boat if he left it for Felix.”

“Enough,” Gold says, “We don’t need a boat.”

“That’s right,” Regina says, and flicks her wrist.  He’s seen her travel this way a million times; he’d always considered himself fortunate that she’d never dragged him along anywhere via magic.  Sent him places, forced him to go torment the villages, yes, but she’d “allowed” him to find his way there on his own.  Sometimes he’d even managed to delay some before she’d get antsy and start the torture with his heart.  Put off the inevitable of the horrific tasks she’d assigned.

The shift is sudden, jarring, and Graham can’t help but think that, yes, he was right to have considered himself fortunate in regards to having not traveled by that method before.  But they’re just outside the foreboding cave now, rather than across the water, and that is a good thing.

They head inside.  The lights inside the cave – lanterns suspended all ‘round the walls and moonlight flooding in through a hole in the roof – are bright.  There is a winding staircase made of the same stone of the cave; this place seems both natural and unnatural at the same time, a strong contradiction that chafes at him.

Gold leads the way towards the stairs, but as his foot lands on the first one, he vanishes.  Neal runs to where his father had stood, and nothing happens to him.

“It was a trap for Gold,” Emma says, “Whatever happened to him on that step was just for him.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Regina states, but there’s no conviction in her tone and he knows she believes it too – she’s just being difficult because that’s how she is.

“We have to keep going,” he states.  This idea is met with a general nodding from Neal and Emma, and a minor, unintelligible grumble from Regina, so he knows that, while not much of a plan, “keep going” is the only plan any of them actually have.  They can’t worry about Gold yet.  Not with Henry still in danger.

…

“Alice,” Wendy tugs on her sleeve.  The two cousins have caught up as best they can; apparently Wendy has been trapped here in Neverland for the past 100 years, and somehow, she claims that John and Michael are in Storybrooke, waiting on orders from Pan.

“What is it?” Alice asks.  She can hear the worry and urgency in Wendy’s voice.  Something is wrong.

“Peter- Peter told me about a trap he was setting.  That if they followed him- If the Dark One was in their party- Rumplestiltskin would be magically sent to his thinking tree.  Unable to escape on his own.”

“Do you know where that is?” Alice asks, concerned.

“I do,” Tink looks at her, “It’s the tree that used to produce the most pixie dust.  All of that’s stopped, now.”

“Take the Knave and go see if you can help?” Alice suggests.

“Got it,” the fairy nods.

…

The four of them head up into the rock, and Graham is relieved to see Henry is alive and well when they reach the top.

“Henry!” Emma calls out; the boy turns around to face them and Graham’s relief turns into pure terror; Henry holds a heart in his hands.  Henry would never take someone else’s heart – meaning that is Henry’s own heart.  It glows, a strange golden glow that he cannot even try to interpret.

“Sheriff?  Dad?  You’re alive?” Henry says, eyes widening.  Graham tries not to focus on the fact that Henry noticed him first – though it makes him almost happy, the worry he has is too intense to let that emotion through.

“We’re alive,” he says carefully, “Now please, Henry, think what you’re doing.  Put that back in your chest and come home.”

“Pan said if I don’t save magic, home…  Home will be destroyed.  With everyone in it.  I can’t let that happen,” Henry shakes his head.

“Pan was lying,” Regina says gently, “The only thing that can destroy Storybrooke is the trigger.  There’s nothing else.  Now do as Graham asked and put your heart back where it belongs.”

Pan has been suspiciously quiet, standing by a large hourglass on a pile of skulls, and the demon-boy smirks as though he’s found an argument.

“Henry,” Pan says, “Think about it.  If they’re supposed to be dead…  What do you think is keeping them alive?  Magic.  And when time runs out…”

Graham sees that Henry is torn and he can’t think of anything to say to reassure him – neither can Emma, apparently, since she’s being far too quiet; then he sees her glance over to him and knows that Pan is playing on one of her subconscious fears as well (not that she would choose him over Henry, not ever.  But she would be devastated if she was to lose him again by something preventable – not that this would be something preventable.  Henry is the choice here.  For all of them.  Easily).

“That’s not true,” Neal says, “I don’t know about that guy, but I’m alive because of good old-fashioned Enchanted Forest medical care.  No magic.  Kid, he’s playing on your fears.  Don’t let him get to you.”

“And my dying would be worth it if it means you keep your heart,” Graham adds after a moment, “I lived a long time without one, Henry.  I never want you to do the same.”

“Please, Henry,” Emma says, “Don’t listen to him.”

It is an agonizingly long moment, Henry looking between them and the hourglass, when finally, finally Henry pushes his heart back into his chest and runs to them.

The boy runs right past the outstretched arms of all three of his parents and tackles Graham himself firmly in a hug, surprising him, nearly knocking him off balance.

“Good to see you, too, Henry,” he chuckles, “But I think your parents feel a little ignored.”  The boy releases him and nods, going first to his father and then each of his mothers in turn.

“Where’s Gold?” Emma asks, holding Henry close to her, “He tried to come up here first and vanished, where is he?”

“The Dark One?” Pan asks, “I sent him to my thinking tree.  He’s a little tied up right now.  But you don’t just get to take the Truest Believer back to Storybrooke.  His heart will be mine.”

“Like hell it will,” Emma states, pulling Henry even further into her embrace.  Graham pulls them both into his arms as a display of protection and solidarity.

“What makes you think you can stop me getting what I want?  This is Neverland,” Peter threatens.

“You said it didn’t matter if I found Henry.  You gave me the damn map so I could find him.  Face it, Pan, I won your little game,” Emma spits.

“Really?” Pan questions, “Because without the Dark One, you lose your father.  You don’t think you can afford to go off and rescue him, do you?  That hardly sounds like a win to me.”

“Henry comes first,” Emma says, quietly, barely loud enough that Graham can hear.  Then she straightens in determination.

“Regina, get us out of here!” she orders.  The other woman waves a hand again and they’re back on the beach across from the rock.

The five of them start running.  They have to get back to the Rabbit and the portal before Pan catches up.

…

Tink may be the quietest fairy that Will has ever met; she doesn’t say much to him as she leads him through the Neverland jungle, trying to see if the two of them can manage to rescue the Dark One.

“Will Scarlet, wasn’t it?” is the first thing she says to him, after they’ve been walking for twenty or so minutes.

“Yeah,” he nods.

The fairy stops, turns, and slaps him.

“What the bloody hell was that for?” he asks, “We’re supposed to be finding that thinking tree thing Wendy told Alice about, not slapping each other!”

“That was for Silvermist,” Tink explains, “She told me what you did to her.  I had lost my wings already, but I hadn’t gotten to Neverland yet.  And she was upset enough to cross worlds just to yell to me about it.”

“I’ve apologized to her,” he says, “Alice needed her help.  I wouldn’t say we’re on friendly terms but I did admit I was awful.”

“Sure you did,” Tink says, rolling her eyes, then she starts walking in silence again, at a swifter pace this time.  As they arrive in a small clearing, she stops again, pointing at the tallest tree Will has ever seen.

“That’s the tree,” she states, just as there is a flash of light and Rumplestiltskin appears at the bottom of the tree, its vines wrapping around him.  Tink rushes in with her dagger, clearly going to cut the vines holding Rumplestiltskin to the tree, and she is grabbed by them too.

Will approaches more slowly.  How does the tree know to grab someone?  That is the first thing to determine.  It won’t do anyone any good if they’re all caught.

“It senses regrets,” Rumplestiltskin says, as though reading Will’s mind.  Regrets.  Will has plenty of those.

“We might be screwed, then,” he tells the man.

“No, dearie,” the Dark One shakes his head, “It senses feelings of regret.  In our hearts.”

Oh, Will realizes, casting his eyes downward, looking at his chest.  He’s the perfect one for this job, because his heart – his heart is realms away.  The tree won’t even register that he exists.

He heads over to the tree, picking up Tink’s dagger from where she dropped it on her capture, and starts working, cutting at the vines that hold the fairy and the Dark One in place.

…

“Rabbit, dig!” Alice orders, seeing Emma’s group running towards them with a young boy she assumes is Henry.  They need to get out of Neverland as soon as they can, and this is the last group to return.

“Pan is right behind us!” Graham yells up to them; he then picks up the boy, who has tripped in his haste.

David pulls his sword and stands at the border of the clearing, waiting for them to pass.  Alice sees in his eyes that his aim is to hold off Pan for as long as it takes to get everyone else to safety, to keep the demon teenager away from the portal.  Hook, too, has pulled his sword and is standing at David’s side – a surprising show of loyalty, considering that pirate allegiances tend to be with whoever has the power, and this is still Pan’s island.

“Next stop, Storybrooke!” the rabbit announces, jumping through the portal.

“One at a time!” Alice reminds everyone; climbing out of the rabbit hole will be difficult if multiple people go all at once.

“Henry, go,” Graham says, giving the boy a push towards the portal, “We’ll all be right behind you.”

The boy nods, jumping into the rabbit hole without hesitation.

…

Belle is sitting in the diner, reading, trying not to concentrate on the fact that it’s been nearly a week since everyone left and she has no answers to all the questions she’s been asked – least of all, “what was going on, was that really Graham we saw?  How?” – when the floor starts to rumble.  Everyone is panicking as a hole appears in the floor.  Everyone, that is, except Belle herself.  This is just like at the docks.

She sets her book down as Henry appears, pushing himself up, out of the hole.  She helps him out as best she can, then hands him off to Granny and Ruby, who give the boy a warm hug in welcome as they await the arrival of everyone else from the rescue.

A young girl is the first through; Belle isn’t sure who she is, but she appears to be wearing a nightgown, and like her hair hasn’t been taken care of in a good long while.  The girl looks a bit wary to accept Belle’s help out of the portal, but she does, and Granny finds a seat for her at the counter.

The diner remains quiet as people come through the portal one at a time – they’re coming in quick succession, but it’s still a suspenseful process.  No one knows who all will even make it home.

When the portal finally closes, everyone from the first group and everyone from Graham’s group has come through.  Plus, Henry, the girl, and Neal – who, much like Graham, was meant to be dead – are all there as well.

Everyone in the diner is taking turns welcoming various members of the rescue party; Graham seems a little overwhelmed by Ruby, Granny, Archie, and the dwarves, all of whom appear to be saying “welcome back Sheriff,” at once – not an organized once, either, but a jumble of voices and handshakes and hugs, and he looks stiffly uncomfortable while Emma – Belle doesn’t really know all Sheriff Swan that well, but Graham had mentioned the blonde was his True Love – is trying and failing to be crowd control, pushing the others back away from him.

“I told you we’d see each other again,” Belle says, taking Rumple’s hand.

“You did,” he smiles, “Though I doubt the fight is over yet, we’ve bought some time.  Henry is safe.  The princess and the huntsman have been reunited.  For now, dearie, things are fine.”

Belle smiles as Rumple kisses her cheek softly.

“I promised to make a potion to cure David of a nasty poison,” he states, “I must get started on that.  But you stay, enjoy the moment.”

…

“Everyone!” Granny announces, “There’s going to be a welcome back party for all of you right here tomorrow night.”

Emma mocks a shudder as she leans her head on Graham’s shoulder in the booth they’re sharing with Alice and Cyrus (Jack has pulled a chair over from one of the tables and is also sitting with them).

“Ugh, anything but a party,” she says under her breath, “Last time we were preparing for one of them, Henry and I walked in on Mary Margaret and David in bed together.”

Graham laughs and holds her tighter.

“If I can get my old place back, you and Henry are welcome to crash there until the party is over.  Or longer,” he offers, turning his head and placing a kiss in her hair, “You won’t walk in on them there, unless they’ve broken in.  In which case, I’ll have to arrest them for trespassing.  Breaking and entering, too.  And any other charges I can come up with, because that would just be inconsiderate of them.”

“Your old place?” Emma asks warily, ignoring his (awful) joke about arresting her parents.

“She was never there,” he says, a whisper in her ear so that no one else can overhear, “that was always at her place or at Granny’s.”

Emma nods, believing him.  Her lie detector isn’t going off, and beyond that, she trusts him.  He’d hidden…  That…  From her, yes, but now that she knew – knew that he had been cursed and that he hadn’t wanted it – now he has no reason to lie about if it had ever happened in his apartment.  Besides, “always at her place or Granny’s” sounds like something Regina would’ve done in a clandestine relationship.  The woman is (was?  She’d been slightly better while Henry was on the line, but it remains to be seen if she’ll stay better) self-centered enough that it makes sense.

“Gold told me he got rid of your stuff,” she warns him, “There’s a box of it, and your jacket, at the station, but I don’t know about any of your furniture or anything.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he says.

She smiles.  They’ll figure it out.

Chapter Text

Graham runs his fingers through Emma’s hair as he lies next to her, trying to sleep.  Her parents had offered to allow him to stay in the loft until he could talk to Gold about his apartment – David and Snow have been much more accepting of him than he ever would’ve guessed.  David especially.  He’d assumed that the king wouldn’t think him worthy of Emma, but he actually seems delighted with the arrangement.  Perhaps not the sleeping arrangement, but the relationship itself.

He knows that it’s not likely to last, but everything seems perfect right now.  Seems being the operative word.  There is no such thing as perfect.

This night, however, is damn close.  He has been reunited with Emma, Henry is safe, they are all back in Storybrooke, just as they were always meant to be – for if not for Storybrooke, he would have been an old man to his love, should they ever have met, should he have survived that long.  Not only that, but he would have been even more Regina’s slave in that world than he’d been in this, and Emma would have known of the terrible deeds he’d committed her whole life long.  How would she ever have seen him as anything but a monster, if they’d been in that world?  No, Storybrooke had been their destiny.  There is some guilt in him for it, but he is grateful.  Not for the 28 years of misery, but for the chance to form a real relationship, to fall in love and be loved in return.

They have talked for hours.  She had curled into his side and told him everything that had happened since his death.  The election, Mary Margaret being framed for the “murder” of Kathryn Nolan, her run-in with Jefferson (soon, he thinks, he will have to take a trip up to the mansion on the hill in order to “talk” with the Hatter), Henry’s falling under a sleeping curse and the breaking of it – and the Dark Curse – via True Love’s Kiss – he’d always known she truly loved her son.  Her time in the remains of the Enchanted Forest – his heart ached to hear about the ruin of the place that had been his home, but he is more glad that Emma is safe than anything else.  Taking Gold to find his son; the unfortunate turn of luck that Gold’s son had been Henry’s father.  Defeating Cora.  Pinocchio’s sacrifice trying to warn her of a woman (she’d already mentioned that in the dream, but this time she has gone into more detail about who Pinocchio was, how Gepetto had sent him through the wardrobe to be her guardian, how he’d tried to get her to believe).  The destruction of the bean fields – he is slightly glad of this, because if he’d come back to Storybrooke only to find it deserted, he would have had no idea where to find her – though the idea that Regina had destroyed the hard work of the giant and the dwarves just because she didn’t want to lose Henry does make him angry.  Their shared dream – he’d interrupted that story with finger over her lips and a whispered “I know” and told her of the day Alice and Jack had found him in the cell and how he’d had that dream with her that night.  She’d held him closer and tried to hide her smile.  Then she’d told him of Henry’s kidnapping in greater detail than he already knew and the things she’d seen in Neverland before their reunion.

He’d responded in kind, telling her about Wonderland – waking in the cage, spending countless days there.  Adventuring with Alice and Jack.  Sneaking into the Red Queen’s palace.  Finding Cyrus and returning to Storybrooke mere moments too late.

After bemoaning the irony, Emma had started to explain her time with Neal to him.  He’d stopped her once more.  He didn’t care about her past with Henry’s father.  Yes, it had shaped her, and lead to the birth of the boy he loved as his own.  But that was the past, and he knew it pained her.  He wasn’t going to force her to talk about it.

“Graham,” she had whispered, “I…  I loved him, back then.”

And he had known that this made her nervous because she was admitting to him that she had had feelings for someone else but he knew Emma and he’d had a good idea before he ever kissed her himself that Henry never would have been born if she hadn’t loved his father, or believed her feelings to be love, anyway.  So he’d said the only reassurance that came to mind.

“I don’t care if I’m not the first.  As long as I’m the last.”

And here he is, with Emma in his arms – and this, just this, manages to be the most intimate thing he has ever experienced.  They haven’t even made love – her parents are just the other side of the door, really, and it’s ridiculous but it made them self-conscious enough that all they’ve done all night is talk – but…  There is no rush.  They have all the time in the world to be together.

…

“Morning handsome,” Emma says with a yawn, seeing Graham is already awake and looking down at her with love-filled eyes.

“Morning princess,” he says, leaning in and giving her a kiss.  She nips at his lower lip playfully and then pulls back.

“We have to talk about the fact that you keep calling me princess.  I don’t care if it’s my title.  You find a different endearment.  Princess is off the table.”

“Emma,” he leans his forehead against hers, “To me, you are more than just a princess.  You are, and always will be, my queen.  My mate.  My one love.”

“Then you better listen to me about not calling me princess,” Emma laughs.

“Noted, my darling,” he kisses her cheek; Emma smiles happily, her eyes fluttering closed again.  This moment – she’d never expected she’d have anything like this moment, not ever.  Not after losing him, anyway.  Now she has him back, and she isn’t ever letting go.

“Graham-” she whispers his name, nervous, “I want- I want to be with you.  Forever.”

“You have me forever, Emma,” he holds her tighter; “I’m yours.  Always.”

As their lips meet in another kiss, Emma allows her hands to rest on Graham’s bare chest; her left lies on his strong and steady heartbeat while her right traces his defined muscles.  His hands are running along her body as well, and she is long since ready for them to take the next step in their relationship; before the dreams of him had mostly stopped, after his “death,” many of them had been painful visions of “what-could-have-been.”  Now, she craves skin on skin and the knowledge of being loved by him so much that she allows her mind to get ahead of them and-

“Emma?  Graham?” Mary Margaret’s voice calls through the door, “Gold dropped off some things for the two of you to take to Alice and Cyrus, said he wanted to talk to you later.

“I think that means it’s time we got up,” Graham sighs, releasing her lips and kissing her cheek again.

Emma wraps her arms around Graham’s neck.  She’s not ready to let him go just yet.

“Shower with me?  Please?” she asks.  She wants him, so badly, and if she’s honest – having him back still feels like a dream.  And if it is – even if it’s not – she needs as much of him as she can get.

He smiles at her suggestion, that gorgeous smile of his that sets her heart racing every time she sees it.

“Whatever my love desires,” he whispers, pulling her close once more.

…

Alice walks quietly down the stairs of the bed and breakfast.  Though she is still uncomfortable with the changes she’d noted in Baelfire’s nature, he had told the woman who ran the inn, Granny, that he’d get his father to pay for rooms for herself and Wendy, and even Cyrus.  And Graham’s friend, Belle, had been lovely, going out and finding changes of clothes for all of them.  There is still much for them to learn about this time, this place, but for now, all they can do is learn as they go.  Alice has always fancied herself a quick study, and Wendy is a bright girl.  Cyrus knows more about this place than either of them already, just by his sense of the magic in the air.  Although that only helps him determine things that actually have to do with magic – and he says he knows more about the Dark Curse that created this place than anyone would ever want to – not with other things, like the strange horseless carriages (apparently called cars?), or any of the other technologies that had evolved or been developed since she and Wendy left this world.

The first thing they need is a plan to find John and Michael – to tell them that Pan no longer has Wendy, that they no longer need to follow his orders.  But Wendy had explained that John and Michael had grown – so how on Earth are they to recognize them?

The Knave had said that they should wait until tomorrow to start looking, since there is the party tonight, and he thought that they should get a little more used to Storybrooke, a little more settled in, before searching the place for her missing cousins.  But how could she possibly rest easy, knowing that they were out there, under the control of such a monster?

The short answer is – she can’t.

And she had seen a map of the town in the lobby – perhaps she can use it to find an area where the boys might believe they could remain hidden.

…

As he waits for Emma and Graham to appear for breakfast, David starts to flip through the box of things for Alice and Cyrus that Gold had dropped off with his cure.  True, it isn’t any of his business, but the Dark One was being rather generous at the moment.  He’d said that the price for these things was already paid.  But it all seems to be legal documents, most of which are not filled out.  The things that they’d need to “exist” in this world, perhaps?

The wolf had spent the night on the couch, and Henry had gone to Granny’s with Neal.  David does not want to think about what Graham and his daughter might have spent the night doing.

He may approve of their relationship – it is True Love, and Emma had been so hurt and alone without Graham, so how could he not? – but that doesn’t mean he’s entirely comfortable with it.  That’s his baby girl.

So when they both come down the stairs of the loft with wet hair after he only hears the water run once, he does his best to ignore it.  They could’ve…  Taken turns without turning the water off.  Unlikely perhaps, but he’ll choose to live in the delusion for as long as he can.

“This box is from Gold for your friends, uh, Alice and Cyrus?” he addresses Graham, gesturing to it, “it looks like a lot of legal documents to make them exist in this time period.”

“Right,” Graham nods.

“And-” David looks at Emma, “He dropped off the cure for me, too.  Not dying anymore.”

“David, that’s great!” Emma smiles and, surprisingly, gives him a hug.  It’s not long, and it’s probably just because she’s happy that he’s going to live – and happy for other reasons, too, like having Henry back and not being in Neverland any longer and her True Love being alive – but it’s still a hug.  Initiated by his daughter.  He can count on one hand the number of times in his life that he’s been so happy.

“Snow made waffles,” he nods to the two plates that are still set out for his daughter and the huntsman; Snow had made the breakfast, eaten quickly, and then gone off to see the dwarves about what had happened in town while they were gone – it’d only been a few days, and really, they deserved some time off, but apparently she wants to make sure that everything had gone smoothly since they’d stopped the trigger.

He can’t blame her; she was raised a princess and has an obligation to her people.  The dwarves were the ones she trusted most whenever she was away, and she had been away, if only for a few days.  This meeting with them will likely only take twenty minutes or so.

“Where is Snow?” Graham asks, as though reading his mind.

“Meeting the dwarves,” he shrugs, “In fact, I’m going to see if I can catch up.”  He doesn’t want to leave his family – but his daughter deserves some alone time with the man she missed so much.

…

Graham carries the box of documents in his arms as Emma leads the way to Gold’s; there’d been a note asking them to get Alice, Cyrus, and Wendy to fill out as much of the paperwork as they could and then to bring it back to Gold’s shop when that was over – because he wanted to speak with them, and to deliver the papers back with him so he could “make them official” – since, as a lawyer, he can apparently do that.

And with their help, the three newcomers had managed to fill out most of the paperwork – so now they were off to the pawnshop.

Though it has been too long since Graham was last on these streets, he still remembers each one – as Sheriff, he’d known the town like the back of his hand.  Those memories are still there – but it’s almost like a new town, now that the curse is broken, and Graham isn’t the Sheriff anymore – that’s Emma.

“Good morning,” Belle smiles at them as they enter the shop.

“Hey,” Emma acknowledges the other woman with a nod.

“You’re a very lucky woman, you know,” Belle smiles at Emma, “Graham’s a good man.  Regina used to have him guard me, we talked quite a bit.”

Emma looks a bit surprised by this knowledge, but says nothing to that effect.

“Trust me, I know how lucky I am to have him,” comes out of her mouth instead.  He just wants to hold her and promise he’ll never leave again, but the damn box…

“Rumple’s waiting in the back,” Belle says, pointing, “Go on ahead.”

The first thing he notices is that his jacket is on the man’s desk.

“That was at the station,” Emma says, her tone pointed, “Why did you take it back?”

“First things first, dearies,” Gold states, “They’ve done as much of that as possible?”

“Yes,” Graham nods.  As he goes to set the box down, the Dark One makes a gesture with his hands, and the box vanishes in a puff of smoke, leaving Graham holding a large envelope instead.

“Shortened the process time,” the man shrugs, “That’s everything they’ll need to exist in this century, in or out of Storybrooke.  As for the jacket-”

“Why did you take it back?” Emma repeats her question.

“Because while I was making your father’s cure, it occurred to me that even though we are all back in Storybrooke, Henry is not going to be safe from Pan forever.  Not yet.”

“What does that have to do with my jacket?” Graham asks.

“As your beloved princess knows,” Gold states, “There is no magic across the town line.  And, unless they take a very special precaution, anyone who crosses the town line will revert to their cursed personalities, forgetting their true selves once more.  I made a bit of potion, and placed it on the jacket.  That way, as long as you’re wearing it, the two of you will be able to take Henry and leave town should Pan become a threat again.”

“What’s the price?” Emma asks warily.

“The price for this is simply that the two of you keep my grandson away from Pan.  No matter what.”

…

Seeing Graham back in his old jacket almost brings tears to Emma’s eyes.  She has to turn her head, even, feeling that distinctive prickle, her pride not allowing her to let him see her cry, not yet.

She’d thought he was gone forever.  But he is at her side, in his old leather jacket, almost as if he’d never left.  It’s like a miracle.

He reaches his hands into the pockets and frowns, pulling out an envelope.

“You never…  You never found this, huh?” he states sadly, offering it out to her.  It’s his handwriting, and the outside of it simply reads “Emma Swan.”

“No…” she shakes her head, “I never checked the pockets.  Never had a reason to.”

She accepts it from him, hesitating only slightly.  Her hands shake a little as she opens it.  She wants to know what he wrote, but at the same time…  She’s scared of it.  Letting her emotions in is still new territory for her.

She pulls a sheet of paper out and starts to read.

My dear Emma,

It’s strange the things you find when you’re not looking for them.

I’ve been drifting through my own life, cut off from feeling for others or letting them feel for me.  I wasn’t looking for anyone to snap me out of this lonely existence – or didn’t realize I was – until I met you.  And what a curious person to bring this all to light.  You too go through life at a distance from those around you.  It’s ironic, or maybe fitting, that we’d get close to no one, except maybe each other.

The difference is, you do it by choice.  And I can’t think of a sadder reason to love someone than because they also cannot truly love.  And yet…  Well, maybe those aren’t words for a letter.

You may be my only chance to feel again, to fill this void where I can never be sure a heart did once beat, and I wonder if I might be your only chance to tear down those walls you’ve built around yourself.  For both our sakes, I hope that’s not the case.  But if it is, my greatest wish is that we be together.

Yours,

Graham

She takes a deep breath.  One of her tears manages to slip out.  His words are beautiful, perfect.  The letter is so…  Honest.  Heartbreakingly honest.  His greatest wish.  Being together was his greatest wish.  She wasn’t used to the idea of being wanted like that – she wasn’t really used to the idea of being wanted at all.  Not after her childhood, not after believing for 28 years that she’d been tossed out on the side of a freeway.  Knowing the truth now didn’t make that go away completely.

“When did you write this?” she asks quietly.

“Right after Henry and Archie got caught in the mines,” he admits, cupping her face and wiping the errant tear with his thumb, “Remember after we got them out, and we…  We hugged?”

“Yeah,” Emma nods, too quickly.  Her heart is racing and she needs to get her emotions under control.

“When you were in my arms,” he says, “I felt-  I felt right.  And I knew.  The instant you let go.  That all I wanted…  All I wanted was to never have to let you go ever again.  But it was too soon, we hardly knew each other, and the curse…  The curse still had a strong enough hold on me that I couldn’t leave Regina-  So I wrote the letter.”

Emma wraps her arms around his neck, holding him tight.  The fact that something so small had been strong enough to make him feel, without his heart, only proves how strong their love is.  It cements in her mind that she’s making the right choice, being with him.  That they belong together.

“I’m glad it’s you,” she says, fitting her head into the crook of his neck.

His grip around her waist tightens and she knows it’s a silent invitation to say more.

“I didn’t believe in True Love and fairytales and all of that, when we met,” she says, “And I’m glad that-  That if that’s my life now-  That you’re the one I’m meant to be with.”

“I’m glad it’s you too,” he whispers.

…

Henry had enjoyed spending the night with his dad, and his morning with Regina, but it is after lunch and now he is going to be spending time with Emma and Graham.

He thinks his dad seems really great, honestly, even though his mom made it pretty clear when she explained why she lied to him that she doesn’t – but Graham had been there his whole life, and looking back, he’d been a lot sadder when Graham had died than when he’d thought his dad had.  He feels a little guilty about it too – he feels a little guilty about a lot of things.  All along, a part of him had been blaming himself for what happened to Graham.  If he hadn’t started talking about the curse…  If he hadn’t been trying to break it…  Graham wouldn’t have died.

But now it turns out that Graham hadn’t died, he’d just been transported to another world or something like that – and Henry is looking forward to lots of cool stories about Wonderland – and the feeling in his heart is like he has two dads as well as both his moms.

He’s not going to kid himself – he’d thought there was a chance that his parents were True Love and would end up back together.  But he remembers how sad Emma was when Graham died; she’d tried to be strong, but he could tell.  And Graham had told him that he’d started remembering because he’d kissed Emma.

He had been ignoring those facts in favor of the idea of a happy ending, of being a normal family.  He had been kidding himself – he could never have a normal family.

Graham made his mom happy.  His mom made Graham remember.

That was a happy ending.  Having both his moms, and his dad, and his step-dad.  And his grandparents.  Just… having everyone.  Safe and sound and home.

He’s waiting for them in the diner – and when they walk in, he can see what he should’ve seen back before Graham had died.  The way they are together is a lot like his grandparents – just not quite as obvious.  It’s visible, but not as much.  But neither Emma nor the huntsman-Sheriff that he’d grown up around were particularly open people.  They were different in public than they were alone, he thinks, remembering the day that Graham had babysat him, the difference in the Sheriff that day compared to all the other times they’d interacted.  He’d been cool that day.  They’d laughed together and he’d made the Sheriff watch a bunch of movies with him…

It’d been what he’d always imagined having a dad would be like.  A lot more than what hanging out with Neal was, weirdly.

“Hey mom!” he calls over to Emma from his booth – actually, he’d chosen the booth he was in on purpose.  He remembered that on Emma’s second morning in town, this is the booth that Sheriff Graham had been in.  It had been the Sheriff’s usual booth, if he remembered right.  Now, he figured it could be their family booth.

“Hey kid,” Emma slides in next to him, while Graham sits across the booth.

“Will you tell me about Wonderland?” he asks Graham as soon as they’re sitting there.  He even bounces a little in his chair.  Neverland had been awful, if he was honest – but that didn’t dim his curiosity about other worlds.

“What do you want to know?” Graham asks, even as he signals Ruby to come over.  Henry’s eaten, but he should’ve considered that didn’t mean that they had.

“Everything!” he says excitedly.  Graham and Emma order some grilled cheeses and milkshakes quickly, and when Ruby’s gone, Graham leans back on his side of the booth, obviously thinking.

“For a long time, I didn’t see much of Wonderland,” he admits after a minute, “When I first woke up, I was in a prison cell.”

“Why?” Henry is confused.  Who would put the Sheriff in a prison cell?  He was one of the good guys.

“The man who put me there knew who I was in the Enchanted Forest,” Graham explains, “I don’t know what he wanted with me, but I assume it was some attempt at having a way to do business with Regina.”

“But Mom would’ve thought she killed you,” Henry points out.  He’s still confused.

“And I told him that,” Graham says with a nod, “But I was still stuck in that prison until Alice and Jack found me.”

Henry bites his lip.  He’d figured out from the book that Mr. Hertz was the Knave of Hearts.  He wasn’t more than a few passing mentions, but he was there.  He was even in one of the illustrations of Robin Hood’s gang – that’s how Henry had figured it out.

But in the book, the Knave still seemed to be without his heart when the curse was cast.  Alice – he figured it must be the same Alice – had gotten it from the Queen of Hearts, but it had never gone back into Mr. Hertz’s chest.

“What happened then?” he asks, deciding against prying into the matter.

“They busted me out, and we went on a journey to find Cyrus.  He’s Alice’s True Love,” Graham states with a shrug, “Wonderland was…  Whimsical.  And a lot of the wildlife will eat you as soon as look at you.”

“Did you meet the Cheshire Cat?  Or the Caterpillar?  Or…” Henry is trying to list as many characters from the story as he can; unfortunately, the only other characters that he can think of off the top of his head are Alice – who he knows Graham met – and the White Rabbit – who, again, he knows Graham met – and the Queen of Hearts – and that’s Cora – and the Mad Hatter – and that’s Grace’s dad.

“Sorry, Henry,” Graham shakes his head, “Didn’t meet any of them.  Did hear quite a lot about the Caterpillar, though.  I’m told he’s not one you want to cross paths with.  He’s in control of the dark side of Wonderland.”

…

Will is almost 100% certain that he’s a third wheel around Alice and Cyrus now, but she’s his best mate and neither of them really know anything about the modern world so he can’t just leave them alone.  Sure, there are other people around who could help them, but he feels a certain obligation to them.

He’s showing them, and Alice’s cousin Wendy, around Storybrooke.  He’s not the best tour guide the world has ever known; his life during the curse had been very limited as to where in town he went.  But this is a world that he knows and they don’t.  It’s one of the few things he can do to help them settle in.

They’re currently browsing the shelves of the toy store; Wendy is fourteen and appears that she couldn’t care less about any of the stock, but since Sheriff Swan had mentioned while they were in Neverland that the store’s owner had filled out a missing persons report for him, he had decided that he should really let the woman know that he was fine.  Now, he is stuck at the counter because apparently Ms. Drosselmeier was really Mrs. Drosselmeier and she’d told her husband all about the “loveable rogue who’d been so obsessed with getting his hands on Funshine” and wanted the two of them to meet.

He’s not sure whether to be flattered or freaked out by it, but he knows he should be polite.  The woman had cared enough to report him missing.  That had been surprising, and it had kind of meant a lot to him.  Even if he couldn’t feel that meaning, he knew it was there.

“Knave?” Alice calls.  He looks over to where she’s standing.

Oh, joy.  She’s found the display of Care Bears.  This cannot possibly end well for him.

He heads over to her.

“What is it?” he asks.

“None of these are labeled ‘Funshine,’” Alice says with a nod at the display.  He looks it over quickly.  The distinctive yellow bear with its smiling sun belly is missing.

He shouldn’t care, but a part of him does.  It’s the personality that the curse imposed on him, Jack Hertz, shining through, and Will knows that.  But after 28 years of trying, and all the teasing he’s gone through from Graham and Emma, he is disappointed that Funshine is no longer available.

“Jack,” Mrs. Drosselmeier calls, finally coming out from the back room, a man who looks rather like the life-size nutcracker she’d had on display with her, “This is my husband, Hans.”

“Nice to meet you,” he rushes back to the counter to shake the man’s hand, “Clara,” he smiles at Mrs. Drosselmeier, the most charming smile he can manage, “I notice you’ve sold the last Funshine?”

“You are so predictable, dear,” she shakes her head, “And no, I haven’t sold it.”

The woman walks back behind the counter and pulls out a package, wrapped like a Christmas gift.

“Hans and I discussed it, at length,” she pushes the package towards him, “28 years’ worth of perseverance deserves a reward.  True, it’s a little unconventional to reward a man for trying to steal from you – and since we’re no longer cursed there was always the chance you’d no longer want it – but it’s yours, if you’re still interested.”

If he still had his heart, he’d be touched.  He needs to fake that, at least, since Alice doesn’t know that he’d wasted her gift of getting it back for him.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, ducking his head, accepting the package.

“Don’t mention it,” he’s told; he heads back to the others, box in hand.

“Shall we get on with our tour?” he suggests.

…

Belle is standing at the diner counter with Ruby, watching the crowd of the party.  Rumple had excused himself early – most of the town was still uncomfortable with him around – but he’d told her to go ahead and stay with her friends.  A slower song is playing, and Snow and David are leading the dance floor, Ella and Thomas and their daughter all together nearby – even one of the dwarves – the one she’d met in the tavern, Dreamy, she thinks he goes by Leroy here? – and one of the fairies seem to be together.

No one, though, looks happier than Graham and Emma.  They aren’t truly dancing, not like the others, but they’re standing there, just off the side of the dance floor, his arms around her with her leaning back into him, swaying in time to the music.  They look so natural together and Belle finds herself so happy for her friend, that he could find someone so perfect for him-  That there was a family in the cards for him-  His words about being raised by wolves had stuck with her – the poor man never had a human family before and she knows that of all the people in the world, he deserves one.  Emma too, from what she’s been told, by Rumple and Ruby and some of the others, had a hard life.  If the two of them can find happiness together, they should take it.

Henry, she sees, is sitting in a group with a few other children – she’s met them at the library, Hansel, Gretel, and Grace – and he, too, looks happy.

Almost everyone seems happy, actually, and it is such a drastic change from the past week, the anticipation of not knowing if their friends would make it back, not knowing if the boy would be alright, just not knowing.

This is a good day.

Chapter Text

He has his reasons for what he'd done, for bringing Alice back to Wonderland in a trap at the behest of the Red Queen and her vile ally.

Layers of reasons, really. To the eyes of those using him, it was about keeping his hostage family safe – and that is one of the most important of all the reasons, the one he will cite if Alice ever asks why he betrayed her. But through the girl's travels across Wonderland, as a child and as a young woman, he's come to care for her, that inquisitive adventurer. Alice is his friend, has been his friend for a long time, is practically a part of his family herself. He feels terrible enough that it was him that she followed to Wonderland in the first place, when her coming to the realm had only ever caused her trouble – her father’s disbelief and her loss of Cyrus and now, well, being hunted down for the wishes she has not made. She may have followed freely but it was still his own fault, for letting himself be seen by the child.

And so there is another reason: he wants to help her, to see her happy. If anyone could possibly beat the odds and rescue Cyrus, it was, is, most certainly her, given the right help.

Using the Knave to bring her back to Wonderland wasn't technically his idea, but Will Scarlet's loyalty to her made him an ideal choice. The wanted thief may not have the strongest moral code, but he cares, about Alice and her happiness if nothing else. Acts like it’s just gratitude for her retrieving his heart from Her Majesty – and no, that is no secret between the two of them, no matter what they might think; everyone knew that the Queen of Hearts had lost control of the Knave at a time when Alice was around – but he has always seen their bond as something deeper than that, more like family, a brother and sister to each other despite being from different realms and different times. It’s the main reason he’s ever put up with Will at all, that friendship.

Still, he knew they would need more help. More than just himself, especially given his double agent status. But who in Wonderland would? Lizard, probably, she was always sweet on the Knave – but that’s assuming she can be found easily. The Cheshire Cat has changed, gone even madder than he ever was. The Hatter is disappeared to that Storybrooke place where the Knave was, and, with the curse that had kept the Rabbit out broken, most likely reunited with the daughter he’d been so desperate to get back to they all considered him Mad, so therefore probably unwilling to come back to Wonderland to help, no matter how friendly he’d once been with Alice. The Dormouse is halfway asleep at the best of times, and he hasn’t seen the March Hare in years. And the Caterpillar? He wouldn’t ask that gangster if it was the last option in all the realms, and even if he did, the Caterpillar would hardly be inclined to help the Knave – especially without getting anything out of it himself, and the Rabbit has nothing to pay him with.

So when he heard tell of what prison the Huntsman – no one knew how the man was in Wonderland instead of the curse-made town, particularly since no portals had yet been able to reach it when he arrives (they’ve tried, the Hatter and the Knave weren’t the only ones taken, some of the missing are actually missed), but anyone well connected enough knew it was so, and though he might currently be a pawn there are few residents better connected than the White Rabbit – was placed in, he made a decision, and set his own plan into motion. Offered – even if by proxy – passage out of Wonderland to the imprisoned stranger, implied to Alice that there was a prisoner who might be Cyrus.

The plan had worked exceptionally well. The Huntsman— He might be rumored and feared, told of as ruthless and unfeeling, but given the familial connection of the witch he had worked for in the tales, the fact that it was Her Majesty’s daughter, it had seemed rather probable that those stories were of a Heartless One, with no choice. If that’s the case, well, Alice is the only person he’s ever known that managed to befriend a Heartless One, so he wouldn’t put it past her to do it again.

And what the rabbit sees of the man, as he keeps an eye on Alice's group from a distance in order to fulfill his role as a spy, only confirms his suspicions; the Huntsman protects Alice and Will, is kind to them both, is a good person. The fabled “monster” was clearly a creation of the Evil Queen, not the truth of who he is at all.

Of course the plan had certainly not been hindered by Cyrus escaping his own captivity.

As much as he wants to protect his family, Alice asks him to take the group of four to Storybrooke, and as much as he knows he will have to return and face the music, he does it – and then he stays, takes the group to Neverland when the Huntsman asks, stays further, helps even more people get from Neverland back to Storybrooke.

(It’s the right thing to do, and he promised the Huntsman his services for helping Alice and the Knave, and it delays his going back to Wonderland and facing judgement while soothing the ache he feels from having betrayed his friend in the first place. Doesn’t make it right, but makes it better, more bearable of a deed to have committed, at least. He could have explained to Alice what happened, but she would have insisted on finding his family and freeing them, prolonging her stay in Wonderland and putting herself in even more danger than she’d already been. He won’t be responsible for that if he can help it.)

And then – and then… And then there is nothing more for him to do, no way to put off the inevitable further. Oh, he could see if the Hatter, a realm jumper like himself, would be willing to put him up for a while. But that would be running, and his family needs him. He at least has the somewhat plausible excuse that Alice had been holding him captive, stuffed him in a bag again, as a reason he would've helped the group when he is supposed to be a spy, though he does not think it will buy much mercy if any at all.

So he returns to Wonderland. He has to. He has a responsibility. He will go back and he will stand with his family and he will fall for them if he has to.

For too long upon his return, there is no sign of trouble. But then, as he is about to enter his home, to hide away and await judgement, he is lifted bodily from the ground, suspended in the air by magic, turned to face his captor---

Jafar.

"You are going to take me wherever it is you took Alice and her genie," the sorcerer commands.

He had known he was coming back to capture, had resigned himself to the fact that he would most likely die. Had forced himself to bring Alice into the trap, against his care for the girl, against his instinct to protect his friend.

But he isn't quite ready to lead this villain straight to Storybrooke. He thinks that under the reign of Snow and James, most of the town would fight. But it doesn't mean they should have to. And perhaps if he stalls, Alice and Cyrus, at least, might be able to get out of town, go someplace in that world where they cannot be followed as there will be no easy way to track them, no magic outside of that town.

So when he digs, he does not make a portal to Storybrooke.

He makes a portal to Neverland. It isn't a lie – he had taken Alice and Cyrus there. Just because they aren't there anymore does not change that fact. It won’t work as a stall tactic for long, but maybe it will give him time to make an escape from the sorcerer and leave him to rot in the Dark Jungle? He’s hardly the most optimistic creature in Wonderland – is rather in the running for most pessimistic – but even he can hope for the best. On occasion.

As soon as they arrive, they are surrounded by Lost Boys, Pan directly in front of them.

(This was a terrible idea, wasn't it?)

…

Finding the Darling brothers is meant to be the town's priority, for the moment. Most are still wary enough of outsiders that the two would be cause for concern even if they weren't under orders from Peter Pan. The fact that they are? All the more reason to find them. Emma knows this.

And yet, while her position as Sheriff is a reason that she should be out there searching, she isn't. Because… Not because she doesn't care, she cares, she does, not just about the fact that they are a danger to her son, but also cares that they're being used by an actual literal villain when they don't have to be, cares that it's the right thing to do to find them. No, the reason that she isn't searching is not that she doesn't care.

The reason that she isn't searching is that putting all their resources towards one goal is a good way to get blindsided. The search has volunteers, good volunteers. She’s pragmatic enough to know that, especially in this curse-created town where it seems like every time they turn around, something has gone wrong. Better to have eyes on more than one situation at a time.

And so Emma's priority is something else entirely.

It's making sure that life goes on as normal as much as it can, it's actually running the Sheriff's Department, and it's… Bringing Graham back into the town after their time apart.

Which is how she finds herself in a position almost unfathomable, finds them both standing in the office that's hers but used to be his as she hands him the deputy badge he once handed her. The role reversal is offsetting, like déjà vu – which she doesn’t even believe in, despite everything she’s seen in the last few months, been forced to believe in the last few months – but not quite, a scene she knows but a different take, the same and different all at once.

"This… This feels weird," she admits, voice soft so as not to break the dreamlike quality of the moment, delicate as glass. His fingers brush hers as he takes the offered badge, sending heat through her nerves, sparking like lightning, that feeling more like magic than almost anything she's felt since she started to believe.

A huff of agreeing laughter is his response; what else is there to say? It is weird, standing like this, a mirror to that day so many months ago.

(The earth doesn't shake when he puts on the badge, not like it did when she took it; she wasn't expecting it to, no matter how familiar this feels. That quake was either coincidence or the curse starting to break, and neither is something likely to repeat anytime soon.)

"You forgot to offer dental, Sheriff Swan," he smiles and teases and she can't help but smile back. The time they lost hurts still, but at least they’ve found each other again. At least it's so easy to let things fall back into place between them, despite her walls and despite the experiences they’ve had apart from each other and despite the fact that it really shouldn’t be, by any logic.

"Kind of figured you knew the benefits, Humbert." She shrugs, plays it off like she's teasing right back. Realizes that she can't call him Sheriff anymore, not technically, but calling him deputy sticks in her throat, doesn't quite feel right. He must notice, but he doesn't say anything to make her feel self-conscious. Instead, he walks to the boots kept behind the desk, his boots, picks them up and looks at them with an exaggeratedly critical eye.

"I seem to have lost a lace somewhere." She rubs at the item in question where it rests around her wrist, deciding how to answer.

"No, it’s not lost.” She hesitates, but holds out her wrist so the lace is visible. She hasn’t exactly been hiding it, but he hasn’t exactly asked, either. “I took it, to- To keep you close. To remind me. That someone could- Choose me.” The emotional stuff isn’t her strong suit, never has been, but she feels the need to tell him, to let him know how much he meant, how even though her every instinct had been to bury that hurt deep and refuse to think of him, she hadn’t been able to do that, not completely. How she couldn’t make herself forget, how she had made herself remember instead. “You were the first, you know. Even Henry only came and got me because of the curse. Because he believed I was the Savior.” She knows there were other factors to Henry’s decision, the fact that he felt unloved with Regina a major part of it, but the fact of the matter is, he knew nothing about her except her name and the fact that she’d given him up for adoption. Henry didn’t choose her for herself, because he simply didn’t know who that was, who she was – he chose her for the idea and hope that she could make things better, somehow. Mary Margaret had let her in because of Henry, not because of herself, not at first, anyway, even if they had bonded quickly. But Graham? He had seen who she was, been able to read her quicker than anyone she'd ever met, understood her so thoroughly, and still decided it would be a good idea to give her a job. And then they’d gotten to know each other even better, and he had- Chosen himself and her at the same time. Not because she was the Savior, not because it seemed like she was good for Henry, but because she was Emma.

He replaces the boots where they were, pulls her into his arms, and like always with him the contact is so right that it threatens to overwhelm.

“I’m not giving it back. You’ll have to get a new one.”

“I think that’ll be acceptable,” he murmurs, a hint of tears threatening in his voice, “You were the first to choose me, as well.”

(She thinks back to the book, only days ago when she still believed that he was gone forever, reading his story as it was recorded within and realizing the similarities between them, the brokenness they’ve both carried with them. She thinks back to the letter, yesterday, the letter he wrote after the mines, after he gave her the badge that she’s now given back to him; maybe fitting, that we’d get close to no one, except maybe each other. Yes, it is fitting, isn’t it? The way they line up, impossible odds beaten just by their ever meeting, the unknowing princess and the man who sacrificed his freedom to save her mother’s life.)

“As long as we’re in agreement,” she returns, burying her face in his shoulder to hide her smile.

They’ve chosen each other. That’s what matters.

…

Alice isn’t sure, yet, how she feels about Storybrooke. She’s barely been in town a day, of course, and that’s hardly enough time to form an opinion, especially considering her time has been consumed by worrying for John and Michael more than anything else, even when getting a tour, even when trying to enjoy the party thrown for everyone’s safe return from Neverland. But, if she’s honest with herself– her initial reaction is that it is unfathomable to her in a way that Wonderland never really was.

Fascinating things abound, from the little box with moving, talking pictures (telly, Will said, didn’t he?), to the larger ice-containing box that she’d seen when they’d stopped at Will’s apartment briefly, to the treat called a “s’more” that she had been made to try when the “welcome back” party had somehow moved from the diner to the coast by the light of the stars and a fire (look, Alice, I already told you, it’s biscuits and chocolate and toasted marshmallow and you have to taste it to understand). And the people seem happy enough, despite the explanations she’s been given about the town existing due to a curse meant to tear away everyone’s happiness and families and love.

For all that the place is strange, far removed from the English countryside in which she grew up, she thinks that maybe it’s the sort of place she can grow accustomed to, eventually. Others have, after all – Will had wanted to get back here, been vocal about it early in their quest, and she’s told the Hatter has made a life here as well. Graham had seemed to miss the place, once he joined them, although he was probably, if she’s honest with herself, missing Emma more than the realm itself, missing Emma the way that she had missed Cyrus so long.

(But the town’s strangeness breeds a particular and peculiar brand of homesickness like she’s never felt; this world she’s suddenly been thrust into is more foreign to her than even Wonderland ever was. She’d gone there for the first time as a child, after all, and with a child’s imagination it had been easy to accept that other world as real, easy as breathing. This place and time, for all that it’s less fantastical, less magical, than Wonderland, is almost harder to believe in. But England has not truly been home in a long time – no, her home is side by side with Cyrus, wherever they might be, from their hiding place in the Outlands to any adventure they can think of, from Wonderland to Storybrooke and anywhere else life might take them. The homesickness will fade, she’s certain. She’ll miss her father, and even somewhat the sister she’d just been getting to know, but she has missed her father her whole life, even when she was in the same realm, the same home as him, and Storybrooke is a chance to be someplace new, with Cyrus, someplace where no one is outright hunting them, and someplace where they have friends who will help them – for Will is her best friend, and then there are newer friendships to consider, people like Graham and Emma who they haven’t known long but who are already well on their way to being more than just acquaintances. And this is a place where no one will accuse them of being crazy, of making Wonderland up, and she can’t say that she will miss being hurt like that, can’t say that she will miss not being believed in.)

So instead of thinking about her sudden and new situation, this world she finds herself in with the people she cares about most at her side, instead of letting that strange homesickness weigh her down, she throws herself into the search for her cousins.  John and Michael need to know that Pan no longer holds Wendy, and it’s doubtful that he would tell them such a thing himself, when they are in Storybrooke and not Neverland, where they could theoretically escape his influence if he no longer has his leverage.

(The fairy known as Tinker Bell is pessimistic about Wendy’s loyalties, with her brothers still under Pan’s sway, but Alice trusts her – she hadn’t needed to tell them about the trap with the thinking tree, after all, and she had anyway, even though there was no guarantee that they would be able to escape Neverland with the boy they came for, no guarantee that they would succeed in any way, going up against the ruler of that place. And unlike with the man who used to be, claims to be Baelfire, she can still see the girl she knew shining brightly inside the Wendy that she sees now – spirit dimmed from being in that hopeless, dark place, but still perseverant enough to fight against the shadows.)

She helps Wendy and the woman known as Granny to coordinate the search; Wendy knows her brothers best, and Granny knows the town. She feels useless sitting with them and the map and using the so-called "walkie-talkie" (yet another of the new and fascinating things of this time that seems like magic but apparently is not) to relay locations they’ve narrowed down to the volunteers like Will and Cyrus and Baelfire who are out there actually doing something, but Wendy had asked her to stay, said that she’d feel more comfortable with someone she knew, and of course she’d given in. How could she not, knowing that the poor girl has been a prisoner, kept separate from her loved ones, for interminable time on that horrid island? Even only having been there a few days she still feels an enduring miasma of darkness, lingering just beyond the edge of the happiness and excitement that has prevailed amongst most everyone they’ve met since coming back from that place. The dark side of Wonderland is nothing compared to that perpetual night, that jungle.

She does not voice the fear she feels. That there will always be one more quest standing between her and Cyrus finally living happily ever after; first it was finding him, after believing him dead and giving up hope. Then it was helping Graham to find the taken child, because he helped her find Cyrus and because it would help reunite him with the one he loves, with his family that thought him dead the way she had thought her genie was, because she had decided to help him however she could when she found him in that cage, her heart aching at the parallel in their stories. Now, it's to help find John and Michael, her cousins.

But what happens then? They hadn't defeated any of their enemies. Not truly. Taking Cyrus out of Wonderland would slow Jafar down, but ultimately he would be on their trail again, though the Red Queen was unlikely to leave her realm just for whatever it was that Jafar promised her in partnership, leave Wonderland without someone on the throne, allow someone else to take her kingdom in her absence. And taking Henry out of Neverland would slow Pan down, but those words that the boy with the club had said to them, Peter Pan never fails, they ring through her head and while Cyrus is probably right that they were a mind game, there is a certain sense of foreboding. Of something dark on the horizon.

“What about this place, this- Troll bridge?” she points to the location on the map; it’s in the woods, secluded enough. A good place to hide, as long as it’s not heavily trafficked. And the R is scribbled onto the map, the word had been Toll, at some point, but the change doesn’t indicate that whoever made it thought too positively on the location. Might be unpopular, particularly as she doubts there are actual trolls in Storybrooke. How could they have blended in during the curse that they’ve been told of, the time when no one remembered there was anything magical to speak of?

“Maybe,” Wendy nods, “Though I doubt they’d want to stay in the woods after having spent so long in the Neverland jungle- Peter was harder on them than me. The cage you found me in was- A more recent development.”

“It’s not the most private location in town,” Granny shakes her head, and for a moment Alice is discouraged by the reaction, “But if anyone’s likely to be out there it’s Snow and Charming, and the two of them were in Neverland when those boys you’re looking for would’ve had to get here to escape notice.”

Well, then. Maybe it does hold promise.

…

It’s the library where Belle finds herself, rather than on the search for Wendy’s brothers.

If she’s honest with herself, she hadn’t felt she could be useful in that endeavor. For the time they were all cursed she was locked away in the hospital’s secret asylum, and since then she has done very little to make herself a part of the town, made a few friends but mostly stuck close to Red and to Rumplestiltskin. And some of that is Lacey, she knows, that new persona whose actions taste like bile in her throat when she thinks of them – but even though Lacey has a personality that is distinctly different from her own, memories of a life in Storybrooke, Lacey’s so-called memories aren’t as concrete as anything else in her head, more like an outline to form the personality around than actual false memories. A rough sketch, not a portrait. Not a whole other life, like she’s heard some of the others call theirs.

So, feeling useless on that project, she had undertaken on a different one: researching the two villains they are most likely to face in the coming days, Pan and Jafar.

The stories in this world are… Less than accurate. Almost as soon as they’d become friends Red had sat her down and made her watch that…  Cartoon that claimed to be her own story. Terribly incorrect, that, about the only thing it got right was her love of reading.

But not every book in her library is from this world. She’s found quite a few tomes and spellbooks tucked away, and there must be some sort of record that they can use to their advantage, so they might know their enemy.

Pan is the easier to find mention of, in the books from home. Peter Pan, the Piper, the Shadow; by any name, by any guise, Neverland was stealing children for centuries. But that is something they knew, as is the fact unmentioned by the books that he was looking for the Truest Believer – and they know who that is, don’t they? Henry, the boy they’ve just rescued from that realm, he is Peter Pan’s goal. Because – Neverland’s magic, fueled by belief, is running out?

And none of that helps. There are stories of children stolen in the night, children lured by music that only those that felt lost could hear, children of any age disappearing and it being blamed on that demonic bogeyman.

But nothing on how to fight him, what his weaknesses might be.

Jafar, on the other hand, takes all morning for her to find even one reference to.

And that one reference is a bit more promising, for all that it took her longer to gather – the knowledge that the serpent staff he carries is the source of at least half of his power; though no mention is made as to the why or how of it, the book in question, a listing of powerful users of magic dating back more than a century, is in Rumplestiltskin’s own handwriting, and if anyone would know it would be him – but all the book says, in cryptic notation, are the words "I told her he was a poor choice of an apprentice." It may not be a clue to what Jafar wanted with Graham, what he wanted with Cyrus (and if the newcomer to town knows what Jafar wanted with him, so far he is not so forthcoming on that count), but it is a clue as to a way to make him more manageable of a threat – get the staff away from him. How that might be accomplished isn’t clear, but they still have opportunity to prepare, no matter how much time feels like it’s ticking out.

…

“Why didn’t you ever put it back?” Cyrus asks, the question stopping Will in his tracks; he should have known that the genie would figure it out sooner or later, that he’d wasted the generosity Alice had shown in getting him his heart back.

He’d been hoping for later. Much later. Potentially never, later.

“Is now the time to be discussing this?” he knows he’s deflecting instead of answering, but he doesn’t think that Cyrus is likely to understand his reasons. Alice might, if he framed the heartbreak he never wanted to feel as something similar to what she went through believing that Cyrus was dead. But even that is…  Somewhat doubtful. The pair of them are bloody hopeless romantics, always looking for the best in everything and everyone. “Alice and Wendy will be telling us the next place to look any minute now.”

They’ve been roaming a housing district that Granny said was partially abandoned for the last hour or so; Hansel and Gretel had apparently snuck around without being noticed almost the entire curse, until Emma showed up and it started to splinter and the two kids got reunited with their father with the newly-elected Sheriff’s help.  Will hadn’t even known that this part of town existed. As good a place to start as any, even if it has turned up nothing.

“From what I saw, you and Graham seemed to have developed a respect for each other rather quickly, a bond. And the only ways I can see you’re similar are that you were cursed to this world…  Or you both lost your hearts. But he has his back now, and you…”

“Never told him I had mine back in my chest. That I lost it, sure, even that Alice got it back from Cora. But I didn’t lie to make him think we had something in common, if that’s what you’re saying.” Because it feels like an accusation, and, okay, maybe it’s a little merited, all things considered, but – he hadn’t lied. He may be a thief, he may be a less-than-stellar person, he may have referred to himself as a bad guy when he was apologizing to Silvermist, trying to get her to let him go so he could still help Alice find her genie – but he wasn’t about to lie to the man who arrested him for trying to steal a damn Funshine Bear for 28 years straight. After all, the Sheriff had seen him plead his false innocence enough times to know when he’s full of it.

(Not to mention the fact that some-bloody-how he’d found he respected the man, some of it left over from the curse and actually being treated with dignity and kindness despite being a petty crook, and some of it new, from learning of their similarity, how they’d both been forced into doing terrible things because someone else literally held their hearts, could command them or kill them on a whim and they’d be helpless not to follow the orders no matter how much they tried to fight it. So, really, it’d been a combination of the factors that Cyrus is talking about having created that new friendship that’s almost unsettling to him, the thief and the Sheriff.)

(And not to mention, if there’s one thing he’s boasted for a long time, he may be a thief – but he’s not a liar.)

“So answer the question. Why didn’t you ever put it back?”

“I knew what I’d feel if I did. Didn’t want to feel it. Kept putting it off. Got used to the empty, after a while. It was easier, feeling nothing.” And then along had come the curse and he hadn’t remembered that there was anything missing, and barely a day after it was broken the White Rabbit had come and dragged him off to Alice to help her get Cyrus back. And she’d promised him a wish for helping in her quest, acted like she thought a bribe was the only way to get him to help.

(And, to be honest, it probably was the best way. He hadn’t wanted to be back in Wonderland, at all, ever again. Storybrooke is downright luxury compared to that place, curse to rip away happy endings included. But Alice is his best mate and he might have given in and helped even if the wish hadn’t been in it for him. It just would have taken a lot more of yelling at himself not to leave her alone in that damn place. He did owe her for stealing his heart back from Cora, after all, even if – no, especially since he hasn’t used it properly. She’d held that over his head too, said it was his turn to help get her heart back, and he might not have liked the tone she took but he still knew she was right. Thing is, he wouldn’t have followed the Rabbit at all for anyone other than her. He hated Wonderland too much to get dragged back for anyone else. But for her, for Alice? He’d go to the ends of all the realms.)

The walkie at his hip statics before Cyrus can respond, Alice’s voice coming through, sending one of the other groups to the Troll Bridge – Hook and Ruby are Team Three, if he recalls correctly – he and Cyrus are Team One, and he continues to listen as those two acknowledge their new assignment, until finally-

“Team One? Granny thinks the cannery might be a good place for the boys to hide.”

“On our way,” he confirms, before indicating the direction they’ll be going to Cyrus with a tilt of his head. There will be time to discuss his lack of a heart later, since he can’t imagine that it’s been dropped this quickly, but for now – for now there’s more important things to do. Like finding John and Michael, so that Alice will be satisfied enough to take a break from the sudden constant questing she’s doing – must find Cyrus, must help find Henry, must find John and Michael, the non-stop searching can’t be good for her stress levels, especially after having been in that damn asylum with her spirit broken (he’d seen her there, heard her call him not real, watched her willing not to fight, and he’d hated it, hated that place, just for doing that to her – hadn’t needed his heart for that). She needs to let herself breathe, and the sooner they find these missing cousins of hers the sooner she’ll be able to do just that – even if he has to get Belle or Ruby or somebody that infectiously cheery to force her to. Even if he has to ask them nicely.

…

Henry knows he’s supposed to stay with his grandparents, after lunch. Emma and Graham are busy at the station, and his dad is helping with the search for John and Michael Darling, and his other mom has a research project she’s working on with Gold at his shop, something they won’t talk about, or at least won’t talk to him about. They’d probably told someone what they were doing, though, because otherwise an angry mob might have formed at the suggestion of them working together on something. He’s not oblivious enough to think that most of the town trusts either one of them alone, let alone both of them together.

So, he’s with his grandparents. But as much as he loves Mary Margaret and David, he doesn’t like feeling babysat.

He knows what’s going on. No one says it, but he’d have to be dumb not to realize they’re worried about Peter Pan coming after him again. He gets it. He’d had nightmares about that island last night, about being back there, and it had felt so real, real like the burning room after the sleeping curse.

He’s scared too. Pan had tricked him into ripping out his own heart. That’s- Pretty terrifying to look back on, and it was only days ago.

But just because he’s scared, doesn’t mean he’s stopped wanting to be a hero. Bravery doesn’t mean fearlessness. And there’s got to be something he can do, even while being watched, right?

So, he might sneak out the back of Granny’s diner and into the library. The wolf follows him, like it has been all day, and he’s okay with that. It helps him feel safe and Loup’s presence isn’t as smothering as staying under the constant eye of his grandparents. He’s used to the library being abandoned, because it has been his whole life, but Belle is there, sitting on the floor with books spread out around her as she flips through them and takes notes in a little notebook she’s holding.

She’s the librarian, now, he’s known that vaguely but it hasn’t been long. Only since the curse was broken, and not including the time she didn’t have her memories.

“Hi,” he sits down just outside her ring of books, and she looks up to him with a smile and curiosity in her eyes. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m looking for information about Pan or Jafar. Some of the books around here are from the Enchanted Forest, and I thought they might help, but so far I haven’t found much.”

He nods, because he understands. Belle’s doing the same thing as he is, trying to help somehow. And he appreciates that she’s actually willing to tell him what she’s doing, instead of treating him like a kid who won’t understand.

“Can I help?”

He loves to read. Even before he got the book that told him about the curse, reading was always the best escape from the pain he felt, from believing his mom didn’t love him and from wondering if he was going crazy because it seemed like he was the only thing in town that ever changed at all, the only one of his classmates ever getting older, the only person that could see what was right in front of them all – that nothing was right with Storybrooke.

This might not be reading for fun, more like reading for a school project, but if it will help – he can do it. He will do it, if he’s allowed.

“Does anyone know you’re here, Henry?” Belle answers his question with her own instead of actually saying whether or not he can help. Of course she would. Belle’s perceptive, and he hasn’t been out of anyone’s sight since they got back, except to sleep. But he’d walked in here on his own.

“I may have snuck away,” he admits, sighing. He could have tried to lie, might have any other day, but right now he doesn’t have the energy. She’s probably gonna call someone now, and they’ll come get him and pick him up, and he’ll be back being babysat instead of potentially helping.

“I don’t have a problem with you helping me,” she starts, and she looks serious but her words make him smile a little anyway. “But before we start, we are going to call Emma and get her permission, and then we are going to call whoever is supposed to be watching you and let them know where you are so they aren’t worried. Fair?”

He thinks it over. It probably was pretty terrible of him to sneak off like he did, this soon after getting kidnapped. He hadn’t paused to consider the consequences, he’d just done it, and he didn’t mean to hurt his grandparents but- Yeah, he can’t imagine he didn’t at least scare them. Which makes him feel terrible, to realize. And what if they called someone else when they realized he wasn’t in the diner anymore? He doesn’t want to draw people away from their important stuff just by being selfish. That’s not what a hero does.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Fair.”

…

After nearly the entire day, it’s Tinkerbell and Baelfire that find John and Michael, in the end. Trying to sneak into the mines, for reasons unknown. The boys attempt to hold a gun to the two who find them, but Alice quickly places the walkie-talkie they’d both been taught how to use for this search in Wendy’s hands, and when her cousin calls out to the brothers – they hear.

The reunion takes place in the town square, Wendy reintroducing her brothers to Baelfire, the four siblings joining in a hug, a moment, and Alice thinks she should bow out, even if she is family, technically, it all feels like she’s an intruder, where she doesn’t belong, but before she can-

“And, John, Michael, you’ll never believe who rescued me from that cage! It was Alice, our cousin Alice! And she had that White Rabbit with her, the one she always spoke of in her stories!” the fourteen-year-old tugs on her hand, pulls her forward, and oh, it’s odd, to see the boys older than their sister, older than her. Younger than Baelfire, still, but it only serves to highlight the way things have changed for them, for all of them. Herself included.

“Hello, boys,” she forces herself to smile, “It’s been longer for you than for me, I should think.” Before she was placed in Bethlem, before she even went to Wonderland on the search for proof that lead her to Will and to Cyrus. But to her, that’s only a few years, if that. They have been in and out of Neverland for at least a century, didn’t bypass that time the way that she did. Have so many years behind their eyes that she will never truly understand.

(Wendy’s captivity must have started either before or not long after her return to Wonderland, judging by the fact that she’s the same age as when last Alice saw her, and when she came back having lost Cyrus her father was remarried and Millie was- the age she’d been when she first went to Wonderland, or thereabouts. She never did ask for the specifics. Time works differently between realms, she’d learned that, it was how the Rabbit could open his portals to her time or to Storybrooke or to whenever he wanted, really. He didn’t always have the best aim, since he never returned her to shortly after she left before. Months, the first time. Years, the second. But John and Michael’s captivity? When had that started? Had they known Millie, known about her return and her stay in Bethlem? Or had they already been gone as well?)

“What were you doing in Neverland, Alice?” the glasses he wears are the only way she knows it’s John that’s asked the question; so bizarre. To look at these men, and know who they are, and yet see strangers.

“I was helping a friend, one who helped me in Wonderland,” the simple explanation is all she’s willing to part with, for now. It would take ages to catch them up on everything that’s happened that lead her to be there in that dark realm. “Pan had kidnapped-”

“The Truest Believer?” Michael interrupts, and he sounds halfway like he’s about to panic; but why? The two of them are out of Pan’s clutches now, surely? They can run, if they really fear the battle that she’s fairly convinced is to come, all things considered, “There’s only been the one kidnapping, recently, and we know- We know it’s the right kid, the one he’s been looking for all this time. You were there to help the Truest Believer?”

“To help a friend rescue him,” she corrects; she hadn’t known Henry personally, yet. It hadn’t mattered. Her nature is to help people, if she can. She knows that. She’d learned to be a warrior and protect herself, and she’s good at it, but it’s helping she’s always done best. Helping Will get his heart back, helping Cyrus experience adventures outside the bottle, helping Graham out of that cage and back to his home and family, helping Wendy find her brothers again. Helping.

“Alice,” John groans, and it almost sounds like an admonishment. Does he really believe that it’s his right to scold her? No matter the years he has seen that she had not, she is a grown woman, makes her own decisions. Even Bethlem had been her choice, in the end. “Why would you get involved? Wendy told you about Peter in her letter, didn’t she? You would have been safe, but now you’ll be on his list-”

“I got involved because it was the right thing to do, John,” she stands strong, stands her ground, her spine steel, like her blade; she will not break from being chided like a child. Only losing Cyrus had ever broken her, and this- This is nothing, compared to that. “Because I could help. I am not afraid of villains, I have been standing up to them since the first time I stepped foot in Wonderland.” And though she may not have done much, as a child, there had been a reason the Queen of Hearts hated her enough to tell her men that she was a thief and a murderer, there was a reason that she had been branded the most dangerous criminal in Wonderland, a death sentence upon her head, when all she had done was pick a flower, when she had been a lone traveler only seeking to take back proof that the other world existed. “I will continue to stand up to them as long as I am able.”

(And now, all this time later? She’s even more likely to charge headfirst into a battle, if she believes in it. She cannot force others to suffer so she can be safe, cannot stand aside and allow people be hurt if she can do something about it. It goes against everything within her.)

“I will not be safe at the cost of anyone else. That’s who I am. Someone who fights.”

John looks horrified at the telling off. Michael still looks like he’s trying to not panic about her being involved in the rescue of the Truest Believer. Baelfire- Baelfire is hiding his face, like there is something in her words that reminds him of something of which he’s ashamed. Wendy… Wendy looks on her in admiration – and if she can inspire someone to be selfless and brave, then that is an accomplishment she will be quite proud of.

“Alice,” Cyrus lets out her name soft, almost a warning, “They’ve been prisoners a long time. It’s only natural they might still be afraid."

(Cyrus is the one who speaks to calm her, but it’s the Knave’s hand on her arm that pulls her away from the confrontation, forcing her to take a step back, the brother she’d found in Wonderland, her partner in crime because the best thieves never work alone – he’s the one that actually manages to calm her. As much sense as Cyrus’ words make, as much as he too has recently been prisoner for a long time and would understand them in that way, John’s words and tone make it hard for her to look at the situation with such rational eyes.)

“You think Pan is still coming?” she is quiet, now, forcing herself to be serene in the face of the anger she still feels at the way her cousins have reacted to the situation as it stands, “Fine. I don’t doubt you’ve reason to believe that. I think- I think I may believe it as well.” Does believe it. Doesn’t want to worry any of the others that she’s being paranoid. “If you’re afraid, why don’t you just run? Take Wendy and get out of this town. Into that world, where there is no magic, where he won’t be able to find you as easily. But if he is, I am going to stay and fight. Because it’s right, so I have to.”

(She hates to walk away from her family, but staying and fighting further will only be worse in the long run, damage any bond that might still be there. She doesn’t have to look to know that Cyrus and Will are behind her. Whether her cousins stay or not is up to them. She cannot force it, would not dream to. They must come to their own decision, and she must stay out of it until then.)

…

Somehow, despite the problem of the missing Darling brothers being resolved, Storybrooke’s tensions run even higher.

Graham may not excel at reading people, but it hangs heavy in the atmosphere of the town after the fallout, Alice walking away because her cousins disapproved of her choice to fight Pan. Most of the town might not know or care who she is – she’s barely been in town two days, after all – but it had been very public and worse; it had been about someone they all know to worry about. Neverland was the most feared of all the realms for a reason.

In the twilight, sitting next to Emma in the privacy of the cruiser, the worries of the town are palpable, but in a far more personal and terrifying way. Henry is the target, if the demon comes back, comes to Storybrooke in person to try and achieve his twisted ends. John and Michael had confirmed it as they told everything they knew of what Pan wanted.

(Immortality. He intended to use the Heart of the Truest Believer to gain some sort of immortality, to fuel Neverland’s magic for the rest of time. John and Michael had nearly gotten to Henry at the adoption agency when he was a baby, and if they had Pan would have raised the child like a lamb to the slaughter, to believe in him and be willing to die for him. The idea of the boy he loves so much living that life terrifies him more than he’d like to admit, even knowing how unfit a mother Regina was, how Storybrooke was never a place that a child should call home.)

And then the boys had talked their sister into packing a bag and leaving town, because they could, they could run from the demon that had controlled their life for so many years, and as much as Wendy had argued for them to stand by Alice and fight – the whole town had witnessed that, after Alice walked away, Wendy had argued that Henry was family and they should fight for him, had argued that Pan had kept them all afraid long enough, but her arguments had fallen on deaf ears – he could not fault them for that. More hands on their side would be good, but those three have been prisoners for so long that begrudging them their chance to escape would be impossible.

Even if the stakes had been different, in his prison, in his service, he absolutely knows that they’re lucky to so much as get that chance. He would have taken it, if he’d had a similar opportunity.

“I’m surprised he didn’t come today,” Emma voices, breaking him out of his thoughts, of cages and chances that never came. “While we were distracted. While he knew he still had agents on the inside.”

“There’s something brewing,” he agrees. Everyone had known it even before the results of the search confirmed it.

She reaches over, finding his hand. In the gesture, he feels what she cannot voice right now; whatever happens, in the coming days, they will weather the tempest together. All the crises and quests they’ve handled apart from each other – those have been hard. This? No matter what it is, no matter how drawn-out and difficult the fight, it will be the easier for having each other, for bearing the weight side-by-side.

“We should set up patrols, for overnight, get volunteers.” Belle and Henry had managed to find that when Pan left Neverland to steal away children, it was always in the night, without exception. Henry had been abducted during the day, but by proxy, by people whose goals were directly aligned against Pan’s, the destruction of magic. How he had convinced them that he was on their side was something they would never know, but it accounted for the discrepancy in the kidnapping.

“I think most of the willing volunteers have been working all day at the search,” he reminds, gently. Beyond the royal family’s inner circle, most of the town seems to carry on as though nothing has changed, in the breaking of the curse. As though Storybrooke is still… Storybrooke.

Though, the royal family’s inner circle is larger here than it ever was in the old world, even Doctor Whale seemingly on the periphery. Upon their return the man had stared at him unsettlingly, but said nothing – and he only seemed to be on the fringe at all because of Red, Ruby, who he lingered near at last night’s party.

“After the curse was broken, Michael Tillman said I could ask him for help, if I needed, since I helped him get his kids back,” she says. He remembers Tillman – the woodsman, the one that Regina held to get his children to go into the home of the Blind Witch and retrieve the cursed apple she had used on Snow. Banished to the Endless Forest, along with the children, after the deed was done. “I think he’d be concerned enough about Pan getting to them too. Jefferson – he was always watching the whole town anyway, during the curse, and Henry is friends with his daughter. If we can get Alice to talk to him, she said they were friends…” Alice had mentioned that, in passing, but Emma had told him about the man’s kidnapping of herself and Snow, and he doesn’t like the idea of asking for help like all is forgiven. Further suggestions are made slowly, a pause between them each, and he recognizes her hesitance for what it is – trying to decide who in town has the most reason and ability to help, who they know well enough. “Leroy and the other dwarves, maybe? Archie? I think David said Sean wanted to do more around town to help, but he might be making up for lost time with Ashley and Alexandra.”

“Let’s get started asking, then,” he agrees once she’s quiet long enough that she’s probably run out of names.

…

Will had known the Hatter was taken by the curse; before, however, the moment that Charming drops him and Alice and Cyrus off to see the man, directions to the house on the hill given to him by Sheriff Swan, he hadn’t known that there had been a bloody mansion involved.

(He’d volunteered to tag along on Alice’s trip to see if the Hatter could keep an eye out for Pan overnight so as not to be stuck back in the conversation with Cyrus about why he still doesn’t have his heart in his chest. Then Cyrus had volunteered too, because, well, the Hatter was considered Mad for a reason. Letting Alice go in alone? There wasn’t a chance in the world, no matter how close she’d thought them, no matter how good she was at defending herself, no matter how stubborn she’d always proved to be.)

A little girl answers the door – well, not little, definitely at an age that would protest being called little. Young. Not quite a teenager, probably around the age of the kid they just rescued in Neverland – and he thinks back to all the Hatter’s frenzied mutterings about getting it to work for Grace and thinks that maybe Jefferson will be better, now, if he’d got back to what he was trying to find.

“Hi,” the girl smiles up at their trio, a little wary, but mostly kind. Something in her eyes actually reminds him of Alice, a little. He hadn’t met her on her first trip to Wonderland; is this what she would have been like?

“Hello,” Alice greets, “We’re looking for- Jefferson. The Hatter, I hear that Jefferson is what he goes by here. And we were told this was where he’s been living?”

The girl smiles, nodding quickly. “I can get him,” she’s enthusiastic, even in the face of total strangers. More trusting than he would have been at that age, so soon after he’d run away feeling the guilt of Penny’s death. “Papa!” she turns back inside, leaving the door open as she calls and starts walking, “You have guests, Papa!”

Despite being uninvited, Alice steps across the threshold of the mansion; she’d done the same when she thought Cyrus was at the Hatter’s place when they first got to Wonderland looking for him, he remembers, but this is a very different circumstance and he wonders at the action. Is she really so comfortable with the Hatter?

Still, he exchanges a look with Cyrus and follows her. They’re all here for the same reason, after all, and waiting on the porch while she just walks straight in will get nothing done. It especially won’t protect her, if she needs it – although even he will admit that she’s more likely to protect them than the other way around. The Hatter and the Knave had never gotten along well, during that time when the Knave was the only identity Will really had in Wonderland.

He almost doesn’t recognize the man that appears at the girl’s summons. His clothes are darker, less flamboyant, his hair trimmed and neat, nothing out of place; only the high cravat to hide the beheading scar looks even remotely similar to how the man was in Wonderland, when he was making hats upon hats and rambling near-incoherently.

His eyes are far more lucid than they ever were there, though, and they flick between all three of his visitors before settling on Will himself.

“What are you doing here, Knave?”

“I’m her back-up,” he inclines his head in Alice’s direction. “She don’t rightly need it, much better with a blade than I’ll ever be, but they always say it’s the thought that counts.”

“Or safety in numbers,” Cyrus adds. “With your reputation for not being completely sane to account for.”

“That too,” Will agrees, though he wouldn’t have outright said it himself. Mad Hatter was more of a whisper behind the man’s back. To his face, it was just Hatter. Not that anyone would have briefed the genie on that piece of Wonderland etiquette, if they’d never met in that world.

“Hatter?” Alice speaks, and the man’s brow knits in confusion. “I know we haven’t spoken since I was a child, but I did believe we were friends, and Emma thought, if I asked, you might be willing to help keep an eye out for- For Peter Pan.”

The Hatter is studying Alice, looking at her closely, and Will can practically feel how uncomfortable it’s making Cyrus. But a few moments after she says Pan’s name, he seems to compose himself.

“Alice?” he asks, as though he can’t quite believe his eyes.

“Yes,” she agrees, “It’s me.”

“Papa, I thought you said Alice was a girl. Like me,” the child that must be Grace questions.

“I was, when I first went to Wonderland,” Alice is bright as she turns her attention from the father to the child, bright in a way that he hasn’t quite seen her be since getting her out of the asylum. Closer to the best friend he knew. “Younger than you, even. Then I went home, and grew up a bit, and went back. But I didn’t get to see your father on that second trip.”

“What’s this about Pan?” the Hatter interrupts, drawing Alice’s attention back. But Will still watches her, because he’s still sure she needs a break, is looking to make sure she doesn’t… Start to shatter. He’d seen her broken, in a way Cyrus doesn’t know to even look out for. She’d been holding herself together with sheer stubborn will ever since they arrived in Wonderland. He won’t let her run herself into the ground. After they’re done here, he may just bodily drag her and Cyrus to Tony’s and lift an unsuspecting wallet to pay for the two them to have a night out. He is seriously considering it.

“He’s after Emma’s son. We’re looking for volunteers to keep watch during the night, since that’s when Pan usually strikes. A lot of the people who would look have been out searching all day for my cousins, and it didn’t seem fair to ask them to give up their night as well. Emma said you watch the town anyway, so maybe if a friend asked, you might help. That’s why I’m here.”

“Peter Pan is after Henry? Papa, you have to help,” the girl turns wide eyes to her father, looks like a puppy in the way that she begs.

“I think I do owe you for keeping a madman company so often,” Jefferson’s agreement is soft, barely heard. A hand pets through his daughter’s hair absently, “And for helping him keep sight on what he was trying to get back to. If I see anything, I’ll call it in. And perhaps, sometime, you can come and explain to me why exactly you would return to Wonderland after getting out successfully. I always warned you never to look back if you got the chance to leave.”

“And it was, perhaps, the best advice about Wonderland I ever ignored, but if I hadn’t returned I never would have met Cyrus.” Her hand reaches for her genie’s and he clasps it tightly, a reminder Will doesn’t need that he’d done the right thing in following the Rabbit for the two of them. He couldn’t stand the decision he’d made at first, when there was no proof that Cyrus really was alive and it seemed like they were on a wild goose chase, when he felt like he’d dragged her back to feel that pain of losing her True Love all over again – except at the same time, he knew he couldn’t have just left Alice in bloody Bethlem, either. Would’ve brought her back to Storybrooke instead of letting her go back there, if the whole thing really had been fruitless.

But now? He knows that it’s one of the few decisions he’s ever made that he should be proud over. Would be proud over, if he could.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

…

There is no news from any of the overnight volunteers; the calm worries Emma more than anything.

It doesn’t feel right, hasn’t felt right, and while Pan might have told her that he always kept his promises and she could have Henry back if she managed to rescue him, she doesn’t actually believe it. Her lie detector had stayed quiet, like it was true, but the fact is? With his other favorite saying being that Peter Pan never fails, she’s fairly convinced there’s a backup plan.

And that’s what makes her feel like whatever it is that’s building, it’s somehow going to be… Disastrous. Possibly more so than anything else that she’s faced since coming to town. And that’s including the fact that she fought a dragon when there wasn’t supposed to be any magic in Storybrooke at all.

But it’s noon. It’s the third full day back. And so far… Nothing.

Until the station door opens, and instead of Ruby with the lunch delivery they’re expecting, it’s Ashley, Alexandra in her arms, looking scared as hell.

Which is probably not a good sign, all things considered.

“Ashley?” She’s quick to adopt her most soothing tone – they won’t get anything useful if the teenager is in a panic. “What happened, what’s wrong?”

“We saw them,” she lets out, and Emma can tell that she’s on the verge of tears; this isn’t good, is it? “Thomas- Sean and I were taking Alexandra and going on a picnic in the woods. There were voices, when we got near the well. And through the trees- I didn’t recognize the teenager, but it had to be Pan, it had to-”

“You said them,” Graham prompts, gently, and Ashley looks between them both. “Who was with him?”

“Thomas, his kingdom used to trade with Agrabah, and I wasn’t in the royal family long before the curse, but, there were times when it came up. And— Jafar was with Pan. And they were talking about- A way for both of them to get everything they wanted.”

Oh, hell no.

“Did you hear any of their plans?”

Ashley nods, looks like she’s about to burst into tears, “Thomas went to tell Snow and James, we heard- Pan wants to cast the Dark Curse again, they were talking about- About Jafar stealing it from Regina’s vault, and Pan casting it.”

(And if they couldn’t be stopped – then what would happen? If the town fights until the curse is cast and then they don’t get the chance to escape… Then it can’t be broken, can it? They’re going to have to hurry, to have any hope of fighting this threat, aren’t they?)

She looks at Graham, finds his eyes on her. They need to decide what to do with this information. Quickly. Not a moment to waste.

“You said Sean went to tell my parents?” she asks. If that’s true, it’s at least one thing sped up.

Ashley nods, holding her daughter a little closer. Emma thinks about what the curse was for the young princess, stuck without her True Love for 28 years, believing that she was going to have to give her baby up to Gold as soon as the kid was born. She’s sure it’s on Ashley’s mind too, those memories, that loneliness and hopelessness.

And if it’s really the Dark Curse they have to fear, then the title of Savior weighs heavily upon her shoulders once again. She’s the one who can stop it, her DNA written into the Curse itself. She just has to make sure she does a better job this time than last time.

“Okay. If Jafar’s part of this, Alice and Cyrus need to know – you said he was targeting them, right Graham?”

“He was,” Graham agrees, “I’ll call Jack. He’ll either be with them or know where they are.”

That’s one concern taken care of, at least, but there’s more to be done, and it absolutely does not help that her phone is ringing- But the caller ID says it’s Mary Margaret, so unless it’s like yesterday and Henry has given her and David the slip again, which it shouldn’t be, since he was supposed to be at the library with Belle – it had kept him out of trouble and feeling helpful yesterday, so it hadn’t seemed like too bad of an idea to let it happen again today – it’s at least a possibility to delegate more tasks.

“Emma?” Mary Margaret doesn’t even let her get in a word before she’s speaking, “Thomas said Ella went to tell you, he said that they saw-”

“Yeah, Ashley’s here,” she interrupts, quickly, they don’t need to rehash this fact. “Graham and I are trying to figure out what to do. In the meantime, I think you should call Regina and get her to make sure her vault is secure.” However much she might not want to work with the Evil Queen, necessity demands it; she’s the best one to try and keep Jafar away from the Curse, simply because she knows where it is. And having Mary Margaret call her at least delays having an actual interaction with the woman.

“Yes, of course!” her friend-turned-mother sounds almost frantic as she hangs up; of course, she has every right to be. This is not some sort of drill, it’s an actual emergency. Storybrooke seems to run emergency to emergency since the curse was broken, but that’s not the point.

She picks up the keys to the cruiser from the desk, knowing that staying in the station will not help at all, but not knowing where to head. There are villains in the woods. Okay. Well, driving out there and confronting them – assuming they can still be found at the well, and haven’t hidden away somewhere – is probably a bad idea. She’s still untrained in her magic, and Jafar at least is a sorcerer who must know what he’s doing.

Gold probably needs to know about this, since he’s the most powerful ally they’ve got, and she’s about to dial his store when she recalls the words he spoke only two days ago - the two of you will be able to take Henry and leave town should Pan become a threat again and, possibly more importantly, keep my grandson away from Pan no matter what – and she knows that it might just come down to that, to getting out of Storybrooke with Graham and Henry.

“Get your jacket on, Graham,” she orders, because that’s the only way he can cross the town line, and then she’s dialing the library instead of the pawn shop.

“Storybrooke Library,” Belle answers the phone, “How may I help you?”

“Belle, it’s Emma. I need to talk to Henry for a minute, and then I need you to take him back to the loft.”

“Of course, I’ll give him the phone right now.”

There’s a pause, and she can feel herself holding her breath. Every second that they waste is their window of opportunity growing shorter. “Mom?”

“Henry, Belle’s going to take you back to the loft. I need you to pack a bag. Just in case- They’ve spotted Pan, and Jafar, and getting out of town might end up being our only option.” She won’t lie to him, not about this. And they need to be ready, if the last resort ends up being necessary.

“We can’t leave Graham, mom,” Henry pleads, and if she wasn’t in action mode, she might almost be in tears from it, from Henry being so afraid to lose the man they just got back- It brings to mind how terrified he had been when Graham died, how he’d wanted to give up on breaking the curse just so no one else would get hurt, and she doesn’t need to be in that frame of mind right now, can’t afford to think about everything they’ve missed.

“We won’t have to, Gold thought ahead about that, Graham just has to wear his jacket and he can cross the town line, I just told him to put in on, he’s coming with us. And hopefully we won’t have to leave at all, but if we do, I need you to be ready.”

“Okay,” Henry agrees, “But we’re gonna try and stop them first, right?”

“Of course we are, Henry. That’s what we do.”

…

“So. That was Graham,” Will says as he closes the handheld device he claimed to be a telephone. “Jafar has been spotted out in the woods. With Pan. Since you two are known targets…”

He doesn’t need to fill in the rest of his sentence. Alice understands immediately. Since they’re known targets, Graham had thought they should be warned. It makes sense. More sense than the fact that Jafar is apparently with Pan. How would the two have even met? Unless by coincidence as they arrived in this realm, maybe? The idea doesn’t feel right, but it’s the only one she can think of that settles at all.

“We have to help,” she says. “It’s our battle to fight.” Jafar has been targeting them, not the rest of the town. They can’t just run away from that. He’ll be here because he thinks it’s where they’ve escaped to from Wonderland. She doesn’t know how he would have figured that out, when there are so many realms that it could have been, Agrabah and Oz and the Enchanted Forest that Will comes from and even her own time, and probably so many more that she’s never heard tell of. But it doesn’t matter, not really. He’s in town. The fight has arrived.

(Unless he’s here for Graham? He’d said that Jafar had been there when he awoke in the prison they’d found him in. But they have much less of an idea what his intent was, there, and how would he know that Graham had found his way home?)

“I was afraid you were gonna say that,” Will mutters, and she glares at the Knave for a moment; he knows her well enough to know that it’s no choice. But after a pause, he speaks again- “And you, Cyrus? You feel the same way?”

She looks to him, the man she loves, the one who has been in a cell under that man’s thumb for so long. He had expressed an understanding for why her cousins might run from Pan, and she realizes now that he might have been speaking for himself, as well. Worries, that maybe things have changed, that they aren’t as in tune as they once were. He isn’t a coward, but being imprisoned is worse than death to him, and that is what Jafar had done, locked him in a cage no better than a bottle. She understands that he might well be wary. She just – doesn’t know for sure.

“I do feel the same,” he agrees, and a knot of her tension washes away. “I’m just not sure what we can do to help foil him except remove ourselves from the situation. Alice, he can still attempt to force you to wish, here. Storybrooke has magic, within the town line. If we crossed it, then even your wishes wouldn’t work, because I wouldn’t be connected to the magic to grant them.”

His argument makes sense, it does. She doesn’t believe that there’s anything that can be done to her that would force her to wish, though, no amount of pain she wouldn’t suffer, for Cyrus. And at least if Jafar’s attention is on her, then it might buy time for others to come up with a plan, to stop him.

But she can see the fear in Cyrus’ eyes, knows how hard he has always worked to keep her safe, what he’d given up for their haven in the Outlands, the little home that it’s now looking like they’ll never see again.

And she doesn’t know how to reassure him.

“He needs my wishes. He can’t steal them, and he can’t kill me. Anything else, I can put up with.” They don’t feel like the right words, not at all. But no matter how she searches her mind to solve this particular riddle, she can’t find the right words. These, inadequate though they are, are all she has, and will have to make do.

“It’s your decision to make, Alice, I will always support your decision. But I would like to point out that just because you can deal with whatever he throws at you, doesn’t mean you should have to. And that I would hate to see you hurt because of me, because of someone after my power, again.”

“He wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for us. We brought him on this town. I can’t run, not when there are people we care about that are stuck here. Will can’t cross the town line, and Jafar wanted him dead for helping me find you.” This isn’t a fight, she knows, because he already said that he would follow her lead. There’s no need to argue with him. But she needs to know that he understands why she’s decided the way she has, decided to stay and help when they are perfectly capable of following his suggestion and taking the wishes out of Jafar’s grasp, just by stepping across the town line, and that would be a way of fighting, of protecting others from the sorcerer getting his hands on the power of having three wishes.

“Don’t make this about me, Alice,” Will’s tone is warning, and she looks back to him. Don’t make it about him? It already is, whether he wants to hear it or not.

“You’re my best friend. You saved me from Bethlem, gave me hope again. I wouldn’t have found Cyrus without you.” Wouldn’t even have known to return to Wonderland and look, would have let herself forget them both in order to live without that pain. “How can I leave you behind?”

Not just her best friend. Her brother, someone that believes in her. And that makes it all the more important she protect him. She can’t lose either of them, Will or Cyrus. Not now that she has them back.

“You don’t bloody owe me. More like the other way around, still. So If I’m what’s keeping you here- Don’t let me.”

How can he say that? How can he accuse that this is all about the repayment of debts, to her? How can he speak like he’s worthless, when he’s one of the few people in the world that she trusts?

“You may believe that Alice does not owe you, Will,” Cyrus speaks before she can, before she can protest his putting things into such apathetic terms, “But I’m afraid I do, for making it possible that we could find each other again. She’s right. We can’t leave you behind to face Jafar when he wouldn’t care about you at all if we- If I hadn’t been involved.”

…

Logically, David knows at least some of the reasons that Emma asked Snow to be the one to get Regina to secure her vault. It needs to be done, and the only person possibly better equipped to do it would be Gold, and the Dark One’s energies are probably best devoted elsewhere – they’ve got a powerful sorcerer and a demented immortal teenager on their hands, after all. Their own most powerful magic-user is going to be necessary, more than likely. Regina will be on their side, however reluctantly, because Pan is after Henry, and Snow will still be the one most prone to patience with her stepmother, as she always has been.

But, he’s less sure about the reasons why he’s the one approaching Blue. It had been Snow’s idea, for him to head to the convent and talk to the leader of the fairies. But Blue has always shown a clear preference towards the side of the family that’s actually royal, towards Snow herself.

Not that that fact prevents Nova from chattering away at him, as she leads him towards the Mother Superior’s office, but he can’t quite find it in him to respond beyond making a few sounds of acknowledgment where they seem appropriate.

There’s something wrong, in the convent, something dark, he can feel the chill on his neck, and—

The office door is ajar. Nova’s voice trails off when she sees it, and her cheery countenance turns to concern. Not fear, not yet, but she hasn’t seemed to pick up on whatever it is that’s stalking these halls yet. And a door ajar doesn’t necessarily indicate that there’s something to fear. It could be nothing worse than an ill-fitting doorframe.

(It’s not, though, is it?)

He puts himself in front, between Nova and whatever it is that awaits them, pushes open the door further, and-

Blue is in the office, but she’s not- She won’t be talking, anytime soon. She’s turned to stone, a statue looking towards the open door in what appears to have been abject horror. And that means it was either Pan or Jafar, their newest foes, which means they had a reason to target the Blue Fairy. She must have presented a threat to them, somehow.

“Oh, no,” Nova reaches out, almost touching her mentor’s stone form. She looks absolutely terrified, now. “I know this spell, it’s dark magic, considered by many a fate worse than death. If we had pixie dust, we could reverse it. But pixie dust is different than the fairy dust we can get out of the mines, stronger, and I don’t know where there is any. Neverland used to have it, but not since Pan got there. He took it all, dried up the supply. Once the realm went dark, it couldn’t produce any more.”

Add it to the growing list of things to be dealt with, then. Protect the town and defeat the villains and find a way to bring the Blue Fairy back from being turned to stone.

“I’m going to see Gold,” he tells the fairy. If anyone has a way to help, it’s him, and though the Dark One and fairies historically do not get along, maybe he’ll be willing to put aside the feud for now, like he did with Hook when they went to Neverland.

(He wants to tell her to call Emma and tell her about this development. But what’s the point, really? They know who they’re fighting, who had to have done this. There’s nothing to investigate, and doing so will only waste time they don’t have.)

He makes his way back out of the convent on his own, makes his way to his truck and to the pawn shop faster than the speed limit might technically allow. Emma and Graham and Graham’s friends from Wonderland are already there, and the atmosphere is… Tense, really.

“The best way to stop Pan would be to get the Black Fairy’s wand – I would be able to use it to summon our enemies to us. Unfortunately, that’s in the hands of the Mother Superior,” Gold is explaining when he steps up to the group. “However, the Blue Fairy is highly unlikely to give up such a powerful item just because I said it was necessary.”

“She’s not in any position to give anything up anyway,” David shakes his head. “Snow sent me to ask for her help. Blue has been turned to stone. Nova says pixie dust will reverse it, but she doesn’t know where to get any.”

“Tinkerbell has a vial,” Alice says, “Wendy gave it to her before she and the boys left.”

“Okay,” Emma says, “So that’s how you can help. Get Tink and get that pixie dust to the Mother Superior. See if she’ll give you the Black Fairy’s wand in return.” Alice is nodding and turning to go practically before Emma has finished speaking – does she even know where she’s headed, her two constant companions on her heels?  Well, at least they’re all willing to help, in this. He doesn’t have any trouble believing that there are those in town who would rather just ignore the fight that’s been brought to them, unfortunately. “Gold- Is that really the best information you’ve got?”

“It’s the most relevant information, dearie. We don’t yet know how desperate the situation truly is. We’ll have to wait until we know if Regina is capable of securing her vault before we determine anything else to do.”

…

Cyrus has been a genie for more than a century, has been in too many realms and seen too much magic – both since his transformation, and taught to him by his mother as a boy – to be anything less than wary in situations where he’s facing magic he’s never seen before.

The Dark Curse that created Storybrooke and permeates every inch of the town is the single most foreign magic he’s ever seen, and he’s been on edge since they first arrived in this place, before their brief stop in Neverland. Returning had only caused the anxiety to increase.

Oh, the curse is broken, that cannot be denied, but it still lingers on every person that it affected, every object in the town, every place they venture. He’d barely been around Will and Graham moments before they’d come through the portal, or he would have felt it on them even in Wonderland – he’d felt it on them in Neverland, but by then he’d been in the town, if only for a few minutes, to know that it was an effect of that place.

It’s the main reason he had advocated for crossing the town line and removing themselves from the situation. The only reason, even – he hates being imprisoned, cage or bottle matters not, and that he recently was is enough reason for him to desire nothing more than to fight back. That his captor had been intending to force Alice to use her wishes, had dragged her to Wonderland and put her in danger, is all the more reason that he aches to see the sorcerer defeated.

So, no, he doesn’t argue too hard against Alice’s decision to protect her friend, and to protect the town, the people who are only in danger because of the two of them. Pan may have happened regardless of their influence, but Jafar – Jafar is and has been after both himself and Alice’s wishes. His coming to the cursed town would have been unlikely, if they had not escaped his grasp in Wonderland.

Getting to Tinkerbell to ask for the fairy dust is easy – she’s found just outside of Granny’s, and that takes only a few minutes.

But instead of giving the dust to Alice, she insists on coming with them, as does the woman called Ruby – though, there is strength in numbers, as he told the Hatter last night, so he doesn’t think it’s too hardly inconvenient for them to join.

Besides, Ruby knows where the convent is, which is more than he can say for himself or Alice – and probably Will, since it hadn’t been included on the tour of the town he took them on only two days ago.

As soon as he steps into the building, he senses something else, though, something far less foreign than the Dark Curse – and yet, still something that makes him worry even more than he already was. The sharp inhalation of breath from Tinkerbell indicates that the fairy has sensed the same thing that he has-

“Pan’s Shadow. It’s here,” Tinkerbell says, breaking the silence their group has been in since they left the diner. Yes – that’s exactly what he felt. He closes his eyes, listens to the magic in the air around the building. The Dark Curse’s signature statics louder than anything else, makes it hard to concentrate, but he blocks it out because he has to.

“It’s hiding.” He can’t quite tell where in the building it is – not yet. But he can tell what its purpose is, “Pan left it behind to guard the Blue Fairy, stop anyone from actually saving her. I suspect it will be lingering close to where she is.”

“So what do we do?” Ruby asks, and it’s a valid question. Getting one’s shadow forcibly ripped out is allegedly a very painful way to die – according to the magic he’s felt in the aftermath, anyway, since no one who has had it happen has lived to tell the tale.

“The Shadow’s weakness is light,” Tinkerbell says, “There’s- Baelfire had a way to trap it, it’s how he got off of Neverland the first time. I don’t think we have the time to wait for him to get here and tell us what that was, though.”

No, they don’t, but if it’s been done before, and it’s magic, maybe if he gets close enough to where the Shadow hides he’ll be able to hear it over the Dark Curse? But if it isn’t magic, if it’s something physical, then he won’t, which – the odds are more towards the solution being magical, but there are still odds. It’s not certain.

And he doesn’t like the idea of risking Alice to his being unable to determine how Baelfire trapped the Shadow and if it’s something they can replicate. It may not be, even if it was a magical trap. It may have required a specific instrument they do not have, or-

(But she will never agree to walk away until he’s certain they have a way, will she? Unless he can somehow secretly convince Will to distract her and drag her away – the Knave would protect her, just as much as he would. But that would require finding a way to speak to him without her knowledge, and seems rather unlikely to happen.)

“We need to get closer,” he says, finally, “If whatever Baelfire did was magic, I should be able to sense it, as long as I get close enough. That will give us a starting place, at least.”

“Getting closer may well be suicide, you realize,” Tinkerbell eyes the binds around his wrists, and he knows that the fairy – wingless though she may currently be – knows exactly what they signify. Fine. They may not have said it outright, since their arrival in the town, and at least in his case it’s not entirely because the subject hasn’t come up (he’s been pursued for what he is far too long) – but it’s not as though the fairy can use that information. She, at least, will understand by his being out of the bottle that he has a Master – or Mistress, as the case happens to be – and beyond that, fairies and genie magic do not mix well. “Wishing it far from here would be more likely to work, with less chance of backfiring,” she adds, her tone pointed.

“And what good is wishing gonna do us?” Ruby rolls her eyes, “We should split up. Keep the pixie dust away from Blue for now. It didn’t attack Nova and David when they got close, maybe if a smaller group of us goes in without the one thing that will help, we can get close enough for you to do… Whatever it is you’re gonna do to determine how Neal trapped it before.”

But the woman touched by wolf magic doesn’t share the knowledge that the rest of them do, and Alice and Will look worriedly at him, not speaking.

They still don’t know what the consequence is for Alice wishing for the knowledge of what realm the boy was taken to, though he knows there must have been one, is certain of that much. Tinkerbell may be a fairy, may know how magic works quite intimately, but her assertion that wishing the Shadow away would be less likely to bear consequence than attempting to trap it somehow sounds too good to be true.

“This one’s your decision, Cyrus,” Alice says, finally, and they don’t have time for this, don’t have time for anything. Every second wasted can never be recovered.

It isn’t the first time since he became a genie that he’s longed for his mother’s guidance, her firm strength of conviction and her ability to see what path was necessary to accomplish what she wanted. None in Agrabah could rival Amara in her cunning and will, her clarity of sight.

But his Lost-and-Found stopped pointing years ago, and so he’s fairly convinced that she is gone, forever.

When he had stolen the water from the Well, and convinced his brothers to do the same, for her sake, he had been convinced that the end of saving her justified any manner of action on his part – it had been his actions that brought her to death’s door. And he had come to that conclusion in attempt to follow her example, as foolish as that attempt may have been, as much as his mother had been terrified when she learned what her sons had done to bring her back.

Another foolish attempt now will only lead to heartbreak, he’s sure.

He pauses, listens to the magic further, because he has to, he has to come to a decision quickly and if his mother can’t help him do that then maybe the magic in the air can. There’s a softer layer of something, bubbling under the static of the Dark Curse, and he swears it almost sounds familiar, almost sounds like his mother’s voice, even though it is impossible.

Whatever it is, it wasn’t left by an active spell. More like a relic of power, one with some measure of sentience. It’s the softness and familiarity that forces him to listen, to shove the wrongness of the Dark Curse aside and push away the signature of the Shadow and hear.

It’s a protection spell, he realizes, one specifically targeted at repelling the Shadow – and, more strangely, repelling it from him, in particular. Away from the genie, away from the genie, it murmurs, over and over. Jafar needs him alive for whatever his plan was, unless helping Pan in the re-casting of the Dark Curse has become the sorcerer’s intent in replacement of having lost him. But the spell – it isn’t Jafar’s magic. He’s felt that, heard that; Jafar’s magic is darker and louder, intent on harm. It feels almost more like the staff he carries, though Cyrus has not seen it show any measure of sentience before, let alone enough to try and protect him without its Master willing it.

“No wishing,” he says, suddenly certain. “We split up.” The Shadow is more likely to lash out when they get close to Blue with the pixie dust, Ruby is right about that, so he knows that to keep Alice out of harm’s way he has to keep her separate from the dust. “Alice, Will, Ruby. Get the rest of the fairies out of the building. Whatever it takes. Tinkerbell and I will get close enough to try and use the dust.”

It can’t go after him with the spell, and unless he misses his guess, it won’t go after the fairy, because Pan is fond of her, somehow, had allowed her freedom to roam wherever on Neverland she wanted without fear of reprisal. In helping the group to save Henry, she had crossed him, that much is obvious, and he does not believe that would be without consequence… But not that consequence. Not a death sentence. Not her. Too much history there.

“Mate-” Will starts to say something, but he shakes his head.

“It will work. But innocents cannot be where the Shadow might go after them.” Else it probably will, at least as some sort of hostage scenario. “We only have so much time. Get going.”

…

Snow has seen her step-mother burning with anger and rage many times. She has. A consequence of being at war with the woman for as long as she was, a consequence of her failing to keep that secret and not tell Cora about Daniel.

She still blames herself for it all, and likely always will.

But she hasn’t seen Regina like this before – angry, yes, but fearful, too. Regina never would have shown fear in their old lives, before the curse. Not to her. She’d been afraid for Henry in Neverland, but that had not combined with this sort of consuming rage, where she looks ready to burn down the entire world, friend and foe alike. There, at least, she had focused her anger on Pan.

“I sealed it off!” her stepmother says, half-rant, half-frantic. The mausoleum door had been closed when they arrived, but when Regina had opened it up, her father’s coffin had been pushed aside and the vault below looked a little like a whirlwind had gone through it – though even that had looked carefully constructed, to give them a mess to sort through to find out what was missing.

Thanks to Ella and Thomas’ warning, they already know what’s missing, don’t have to waste the time on an inventory. The Curse.

“After you used the candle on mother’s heart,” Regina looks at her, anger in her eyes, and, yes, Snow knows that’s her fault too. She had tricked Regina into killing Cora. She had made that decision. “After you did that, I made sure no one else would get in. It would have taken multiple sorcerers to get past those wards.”

“Maybe so, Regina, but it’s done. We need to focus on the next step.” Everything about this is her fault, really. If she’d never told that secret there’d have been no curse and they would all be home and safe. “For Henry.”

The mention of her grandson seems to pull Regina together some; just as she hoped it would. Henry being in danger had gotten her to work with the group on Neverland, and he’s still in danger now. Greater than ever, perhaps, with the Curse potentially being recast.

She’s taken by surprise when Regina teleports them to Gold’s pawn shop – where most everyone is gathered outside. Gold and David and Emma and Graham and Belle and Henry (Henry has a bag that he’s loading into Emma’s car. Why does Henry have a bag?) and the wolf; she doesn’t know who else is on their side, but she’d sent David to get the Blue Fairy, so she’s not sure why…

“It’s gone. I had enough wards on that vault to crush a sorcerer, even one of his strength. Someone else must be working with the two of them-” Regina says, and Rumplestiltskin looks fairly frustrated – which is quite an accomplishment, from all she’s seen of the imp since they first met back in the forest – but he says nothing to that effect, only shakes his head before starting to lay out a plan of action.

“If we can get the scroll back, Regina, you can undo the curse by destroying it.”

“And what will that do?” Snow is the one to ask the question; she has a feeling that Regina has some idea, and she has another, distinctly terrible, feeling that she’s not going to like the answer, but the words need to be said.

“It will take everyone in town back to the Enchanted Forest. Unless they were born here. If someone was able to cross the town line they might be able to escape into this world, but they would still forget Storybrooke had ever existed,” Regina is the one to answer her, and-

The bag.

Emma knew it might come down to crossing the town line and had Henry pack a bag.

And she’s going to lose her daughter, again, and her grandson too, and the two of them will lose Graham, and Ella and Thomas will lose Alexandra, won’t they? The little princess was born here. Just like Henry. They worked so hard to be a family, to help cage Rumplestiltskin so that Ella could keep her child, and they’re just going to lose her because of where she was born.

“Of course, getting the scroll back now hinges on Alice’s getting the Black Fairy’s wand from the Mother Superior,” Gold says, confusing Snow further. Surely, the Blue Fairy is on their side, “And if she can’t, anyone who can cross the town line still should. The curse cannot affect where there is no magic.”

Either way, her family is lost to her.

Your fault, Snow, she reminds herself, you couldn’t keep a secret. You got Daniel killed. You are the reason Regina turned into the Evil Queen. And then you didn’t even have the strength to do anything permanent about her when you had the chance.

The pronouncement leaves a lingering silence, and Snow takes a moment to pull her husband aside. “Why didn’t Blue agree to help you?” she asks, and David hesitates. He rarely hesitates with her.

“Pan and Jafar got to her first,” he says, “Turned her to stone. Pixie dust will help, Alice said Tink had some, so she and her friends went to try and get it.”

“It’s not fair,” she asserts, looking to her daughter and the Huntsman. Emma and Graham don’t seem to be saying goodbyes, yet, but if things are as bleak as they seem, no alternative that does not end in separation, she can’t see how that can last, “All of us fought so hard to find each other. And now- No matter what happens, Emma can cross the town line with Henry, and we- Can’t.”

And Graham, Graham fought harder than any of them can know, didn’t he? Died and crossed realms to get back to Emma and Henry. And he’s had days with them again. At least she and David have had a few months with them, though it will never be enough to make up for the years apart.

(Have any of them ever had a chance at a happy ending? The possibility of one? As Mary Margaret she had believed that even the hope of possibility was such a powerful thing, and she knows that letting go of hope is the worst thing she could possibly do, but that doesn’t stop her from wondering if happiness just isn’t in the cards for them, not for more than a finite amount of time, anyway.)

(At least Emma and Henry will have each other. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?)

…

Will has an inkling of what Cyrus was doing in splitting everyone up – getting Alice out of harm’s way, and trusting him to keep her there.

As though he could shift that stubborn girl if she set her mind on going back in once they got all the nun-fairies out.

And he would bet his entire Care Bear collection that Alice knows what Cyrus is doing too. And that she’s at least marginally offended by it (she is more than capable against a lot of enemies, after all). But he would also bet said Care Bear collection that she’s letting Cyrus put her out of harm’s way.

Which doesn’t exactly check with the girl he knows.

“You’re not doing what he specifically told you not to do and wasting one of those wishes, are you?” he asks, quiet so that Ruby doesn’t hear, even as they watch the convent from across the street. The Shadow shouldn’t be able to leave it during the daytime, Tink had said once Cyrus laid out his plan, because of it being weak to light. Doesn’t mean he’s not gonna keep an eye on those doors and make sure that Cyrus bloody does. He didn’t cross realms to help Alice find the genie just for him to sacrifice himself in short order.

“No,” she sounds halfway offended as she gives her answer. Fine. Just as long as she’s telling the truth. “I was just trying to figure out why he thinks that taking the dust close enough to be used when that thing is in there is a good idea. He said he wanted to try and sense how Baelfire trapped the Shadow before, but it’ll attack if they get too close with the dust and- I don’t understand it. There’s no logic.”

“Wasn’t a lot of logic to busting Graham out of his cell, either, but it worked out for us, didn’t it?” He’s still not sure what went through Alice’s head when she decided putting another wanted man on their team would be a good idea. He’s not sure he wouldn’t have left him there, no matter how much he might’ve sort of liked the bloke under the curse.

“I had to,” Alice says, softly, “He was like- Like me and Cyrus. Separated from his True Love. She thought he was dead. I couldn’t just… It wouldn’t have been right.”

As good a reason as any, he supposes, lapsing back into silence. Still not a logical reason, but if he’s honest, he’s worried about Cyrus’ decision too. Not that it’s entirely illogical to him, because he knows full well just how much those two care about each other. He’s seen it every time he sees them together and even when they’re apart.

Cyrus decided to protect her. He suspects that was all the reason the genie needed to go through with whatever scheme he was planning in there.

It isn’t actually all that long before the genie comes out with both Tinkerbell and the Mother Superior. Which, that it doesn’t take forever is a good thing, considering they’re probably on a time limit they don’t even know the full extent of, but Will finds it awfully suspicious that, at least in this, the day appears to have been saved with relative ease.

(Okay, the thought sounds paranoid even in his own head. But no wishing and still no hassle, even when Pan left his magical guard dog to stop specifically what just happened? Will isn’t stupid, no matter how many questionable choices he’s made in his life. There must have been some magic loophole that Cyrus figured out how to exploit with his genie-sense or whatever he wants to call it. But why not just tell them that going in? Did he think Alice was more likely to stay outside if she thought he was just magically casing the joint than if she knew he had a way past the shadow?)

“Cyrus has explained to me what you ask,” the Mother Superior addresses Alice once the group of three is with them, across the street. “That our resident Dark One needs the most powerful and dangerous wand any fairy has ever had. I have seen the threat we face with our own eyes, and I admit it is one to be reckoned with.”

The fairy looks Alice up and down, pausing in her speech. Will doesn’t interrupt, because the whole moment screams like it’s halfway ceremonial, but they don’t really have time for ceremonial, do they?

“You have at your fingertips the power to do almost anything, with those wishes you keep. And yet you’ve used them only for sharp edges and helping a friend in need. You’re a very wise young lady, when it comes to magic. Responsible,” with a motion of her hands, a wand appears, and is held out to Alice, “I would not trust the Dark One with this, would not hand it to him, even if it were my last option as I lay dying. Our history is too long and we have been at odds for all of it. He’s killed some of my brightest fairies, because it would hurt me to lose them. But you? I think I can entrust it to you, Alice, and you will be able to do the right thing.”

“Thank you,” Alice says as she takes the wand from the woman’s hands.

Now they just have to hope it’s not too late.

…

Graham is used to waiting.

Waiting, observation, patience – skills of a hunter, all of them. And despite all the pain that his past contained, he had those skills then and he still has them now. It’s not the sort of thing that can be unlearned, especially given his time in that cell in Wonderland, the endless months alone to sort through both personalities and both sets of memories and figure out who he is with all of it in his head.

He’s used to waiting.

But the wait for Alice and the others to return with word on if the Blue Fairy had been saved and, perhaps more importantly, if she had given them the wand that Gold needs in order to have a chance at doing anything about the threat they face – the wait he’s currently facing is harder than he ever believed any waiting could be.

(But the options for what will happen when they know that aren’t even real options, are they? Let Alice and Cyrus know that they have to leave town or they will be caught up in the Dark Curse. Find Ashley and tell her that if it comes down to undoing the curse Alexandra will be left behind, offer to take the child with them, because he knows that’s what Emma is planning to do – it’s the right thing to do, and beyond that, to not do so would be to leave a baby in the Maine woods, alone, forgotten, which he knows he could not stomach. Say goodbye. Get out of town, and be thankful that Gold enchanted his jacket so that he could while they still remember that there’s something to be thankful for, best case scenario.)

(Worst case scenario, they’re unable to get the scroll back, the only thing that’s different is that they might not necessarily forget Storybrooke after they leave. But would they be able to get back once the New Dark Curse was completed, once Pan and Jafar used magic to get their own happy endings, which will doubtless involve misery for everyone else? Would Emma be able to break it as she did before? That’s less than clear, and he dares not be the one to suggest such a potentially futile hope. Keep Henry safe. That’s their priority, no matter how all else plays out.)

The waiting itches under his skin, this time. Every second they wait is a second longer that Henry is in danger. His instincts scream out to protect his pack, his family, and the worst thing might be that even if they do get out, his brother isn’t as likely to be able to cross the town line. Even the best way this all plays out, the pack is fractured.

(But his brother goes home, to the forest they grew up in, and at least there’s that as a small comfort.)

But he’s used to waiting, despite discomfort, and so he does just that – he waits, an arm around Emma’s waist as his brother stands by Henry’s side. Emma’s head rests on his shoulder, and she’s silent – and he is silent, too, because that’s what she needs.

Finally, finally, the others arrive, and Alice pulls a wand from where it’s been stuck down her boot.

“She said she trusted me to do the right thing with it,” the girl explains, handing it over to Gold. “I don’t know how to use it, so I’m sure that the right thing to do is handing it over to someone who does.”

Gold turns the wand in his fingers, looks to be weighing it, before giving a sharp and satisfied nod.

“Those who can leave should get on their way out of town, now,” he warns, “And everyone else should be ready to say their goodbyes.”

Emma leaves his side, whispers something to Snow – most likely something about getting Ashley to the town line so they can make their offer to take in Alexandra – and Henry climbs into the Bug.

He should, too, but first he waits for his brother to trot over to his side. The wolf is intelligent, might not be able to converse in the human tongue but would understand the atmosphere.

Would know that they’re to be separated.

His brother whines, low and mournful, pressing his head into Graham’s hand. Yes, he can hear the goodbye in the tone. The regret that their pack had been broken apart so long, that he’d tried to help him get his heart back only to fail, that they finally found each other again and when they did the pack was larger, Emma and Henry a part of it and with them Emma’s parents – and that only lasted for three days.

Half the pack will stay in this world, and half will return to their home.

He stands that way, with his brother, until most of the others have scattered, starting towards the town line, and when it’s just him and his brother and Emma and Henry inside the car, he swallows back the lump forming in his throat and whispers, “goodbye, brother,” and the wolf heads back to the Storybrooke forest.

…

Though she hands over the wand, she doesn’t like the idea of splitting up – that Gold, powerful as he is, will take Pan and Jafar on, alone, even briefly, even if only to give those of them that are leaving – because it may be the only thing they can do – more time to get out.

Maybe it’s just… Maybe the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach is only that she doesn’t want to leave Will behind. If the curse is destroyed – even if it isn’t, he can’t cross the town line. It’s why she had argued that they should stay and fight, only an hour or two ago, when they found out the villains had arrived. He had rescued her from Bethlam, from the forgetting that she would have sentenced herself to. So maybe it’s just about the fact that she has done everything that she can – and it isn’t enough. If she and Cyrus don’t cross the town line, before the Curse is undone, then… Well, who knows? Her being his Mistress, and holding the bottle, should prevent them from being separated.

Should. There’s no guarantee. Not when it will apparently snap everyone within the town line back to the Realm they were born in.

Will saved her, and she can’t save him – though if they succeed he’ll be safe in another world, it would be the world that he had gone to Wonderland to escape in the first place, and she’ll never see him again; won’t even remember him. He saved her from the forgetting in Bethlem only for this to be the outcome: she and Cyrus will be left with false memories of this world, this time, if any memories at all – that had been less than clear.

And she tells herself that the gnawing hollow, scraping at her, is about that and only that. About Will.

But she doesn’t believe herself. Not really. In her heart – in her heart she knows what the worry is.

That even with the wand, the Dark One will not be a match for the combined powers of Pan and Jafar. That somehow, they will get the advantage over the sorcerer that her friends and allies claim is the most powerful in all the Realms. That he should be enough to win them the day – as much as undoing the Dark Curse before Pan’s repeat casting of it is winning the day.

Should. Such an innocuous word. Should. Assuming everything goes right.

You could wish, says a little voice in her head, as she ponders. She’s never- Never really been tempted before. Not like this. Ever since she became the Mistress of the bottle there have been moments, intrusive little thoughts that break in from time to time – a side effect, she thinks, of her decision not to use a power that wants to be used, wants to create havoc via unintended consequences.

You could wish, the voice repeats, you could wish the threat gone. Could wish for Will’s safety – in this world, the one he actually wanted to be in. You could wish.

She ignores the voice; wishes are not free. Magic comes with a cost. Wishing the threat away would just bring something else, something worse. Wishing for Will’s safety would only endanger someone else.

Wishing is not the answer.

She will not wish. Not for this. Not ever again.

She doesn’t like the idea of splitting up, but she does not protest Gold going off on his own, despite that. She’s too concerned with shutting out the idea of using a wish – too concerned with clinging to both Will and Cyrus as much as she can, as long as she can, too concerned with the fact that, if Gold doesn’t succeed it’s even more imperative that she and Cyrus cross the town line.

So, her best friend on one side and the man she loves on the other, she follows the main group back towards the center of town and the town line beyond it—

And isn’t surprised, not really, when their way is barred by their enemies, Gold at Pan’s feet. Is more surprised by the sight of the White Rabbit, suspended in the air at Jafar’s shoulder, just as much a prisoner as the man titled Dark One.

The Rabbit. He must be how Jafar and Pan found each other – must have taken Jafar to Neverland to throw him off the trail, and- and oh, she really did lead the sorcerer right to Storybrooke, didn’t she? She’d put her friend in the position that he even could be forced to lead Jafar right to them – not that she knew another way out of Wonderland, that they could have used, so that no one would know where they went. Not that they would have been able to get to Neverland and help Henry without him.

But, she thinks, this must be the consequence she knew would come, for using that first wish. The wish to know where Henry had been taken – of course the consequence would be to have Pan and Jafar able to form a team and terrorize the rest of them even more effectively.

And the rabbit is still a prisoner so that he couldn’t run off and warn them all earlier than they’d found out, most likely – still her fault.

A glance around reveals Emma has gotten out from her car, at the back of the procession, is stepping forward as though to try and do something. Her hands, balled into fists, are glowing, though considering she’d claimed not to have control over her magic, Alice would bet that she’s not doing that on purpose. She might not even realize.

(Graham and Henry, too, have gotten out of the car, but Graham is holding the boy back, away from the villains, doing his best to keep him from following his mother towards the danger. As though it will help. As though they can, any of them, be safe now.)

You could wish, the voice in her head repeats, more insistent now. Still, she shuts it out. Too late for that. The course is set; how it will turn out, she might fear, but at least she will know that she stayed true to her convictions. For however long that knowledge lasts – it is small consolation, but it is something. It is something.

“Did you all really think it would be that easy?” Pan asks, breaking the silence that has lasted what feels forever but is, really, only a moment. Easy? He thought that easy? Well, maybe it was. Maybe she still wonders what Cyrus had sensed in that convent, how he had managed to save the Blue Fairy so quickly, with so little fuss.

Maybe that’s what the hollow in her stomach had been – that it was all too easy. So, she resists the laugh that bubbles up inside her, the bitter laughter of loss. It will only serve to provoke.

“That I didn’t have a plan?” Pan continues, unabated by the lack of answer to his first question. “I never fail,” and though he’s speaking, still, Jafar’s grip on his staff tightens and she can only watch as he brings it around to point at Cyrus in a motion she’s seen before; she knew to be wary of Jafar on principle more than she had seen him in action, but he was hardly the only magic-user in Wonderland.

She knows what it looks like when one of them uses a focus to blast someone else with a spell.

But she has no magic herself, no way to protect Cyrus from whatever the man who held him captive for so long is attempting, and her heart freezes at the thought of losing him so soon, after having just gotten him back. No, she thinks, wants to scream, wants to curse at herself for that earlier thought of holding to her convictions and not using a wish; if she could have prevented this then she is at fault here too-

Except-

Nothing happens.

The staff is leveled directly at Cyrus’ chest, but no magic shoves him around, hurts him – no magic seems to happen at all.

Is it possible that The Land Without Magic has affected him, somehow, stripped him of his power? It seems unlikely, since Storybrooke is distinctly more magical than the rest of the world, from what she’s been told. But the only other possibility that she can think of is that Emma has somehow, unconsciously, accidentally, used her power to from a shield between those on their side and those against them. Could that be it?

No- No, Jafar is staring at his staff like something’s wrong, like he gave it a command and it didn’t obey. She’s just starting to wonder if that could be what happened, if the serpent staff could have just… Refused to cast… When Gold, on the ground, starts to giggle, cutting off whatever Pan is still saying about how he’s defeated them all soundly. He sounds half-mad, like some of those in Bethlem that she could hear from her own cell.

“She can still think for herself in there, you know,” the man says, sing-song. “Your interests were aligned before, and she deigned to let you use her power. But now they aren’t, and that staff was never anything more than a glorified prison cell.”

She? In there? A prison cell? Someone is—

The Dark One pushes himself to his feet, weak and leaning too heavily on his good leg – but obviously planning something. She sees, when his sleeves ride up, the magic-inhibiting cuff he’d mentioned intending to put on Pan while retrieving the Curse.

“Dearie,” he says, staring straight at the staff, “A little help, if you please?”

The serpent’s eyes glow in response, and the cuff falls to the ground. Gold snaps his fingers and Jafar is blasted back, losing his grip on the staff—which flies straight into Emma’s hands; the woman known in this town as Savior looks at it in something like confusion, weighing the golden serpent in her grip; the glow surrounding her fingers becoming more and more intensely white as she takes it, and, acting on what must be instinct, smashes the face of the staff against the ground.

The light around Emma’s hands flashes, and purple smoke pours from the caved-in serpent’s head; the smoke coalesces and solidifies before evaporating away, leaving behind a woman, standing tall and proud, anger burning in her eyes. She’s familiar somehow, Alice thinks, something in the set of her expression tickling and nagging, but it doesn’t quite click until Cyrus sucks in a breath next to her, and a single word passes from his lips, little more than a whisper – Maman.

His- Cyrus’ mother was somehow—

He must be so stunned. She remembers the way he’s always talked about the woman; usually he was silent on the matter of his life before the bottle, but she’s gotten glimpses all along. He had told her of the Lost-and-Found, the magic artifact that would always lead him back to the woman who apparently stands before them; how when it had stopped pointing he had assumed the worst. How in his childhood she had taught him small and simple magics, the kind anyone could learn.

He had so looked up to her. So truly and earnestly. Alice had known that just from the tone in his voice during those rare moments that something came up. And there she is- There she stands.

…

To be free of her prison is not what she expected.

She had taught her apprentice too much of her plans, had misjudged how she could mold him into the second sorcerer she needed to break the Laws of Magic, to change the past and save her sons from their fate – to make it so her boys never went to that damn well, much less stole its waters. Jafar had been an angry and desperate and neglected boy, ready to latch on to anything that Agrabah’s most feared sorceress could teach; she hadn’t noticed when he’d taken her lessons and example too far to heart – decided that while the spell they meant to attempt was too much for one of them alone, he didn’t need her, only her power. She would have been proud if she hadn’t been horrified.

Still, he hadn’t fully known what he was doing. Had he performed the curse to turn her into a staff correctly, she wouldn’t have had nearly as much awareness as she did. He had become cocky in his certainty that he was ready to leave her behind – hadn’t even realized that she was regaining control over her own power the longer he kept her and used her.

But, while staying by his side was not by choice, while she couldn’t break the spell on herself, she hadn’t minded doing his dirty work – which was lazy of him, using mostly her power instead of his own – because she still needed him to gather her boys back. Cyrus was the last, and when they did find him, someone else held power over him.

And while she understood from what she saw that Cyrus had feelings for the girl, Alice, it didn’t matter; she still had enough of a grip on her own power that once the spell was cast she would be able to break the Laws.

Change the past. Stop her sons from becoming genies. She wouldn’t be able to change teaching Jafar magic – because he would be able to break the Laws as well, and would almost certainly notice if she tried to strip that power from him – but she might be able to find a way to help Cyrus and his lady meet despite her most important change; she could watch, after all, and she has been consistently impressed by the girl, who had come to Wonderland and fought for him, ready to take on the whole of the world if it would get Cyrus back at her side.

But then Jafar turned away from her plan with a few well-turned words by Pan about how casting a Dark Curse would give both of them everything they wanted while making everyone else suffer.

And she would not lend her power to that endeavor, not with her Cyrus to be affected and miserable while his brothers languish in their bottles a world away in Wonderland. Casting such a Curse might gain Jafar the revenge he wanted over the Sultan, but it would certainly not save her boys.

And she would not lend her power to him with the intent of hurting her son. She would not. The Dark One was an opening – to help him was to do all that she could to give Cyrus a fighting chance to escape this thing, and to expect more for herself was foolishness.

But the woman the Dark One sends her prison to – she radiates power. Even the least sensitive must be able to feel that warmth, and it’s all Amara can do to identify that the power, pure and raw, and angry, and afraid; that power is the Truest power there is. Any sorcerer or sorceress worth their salt knows what the magic of True Love feels like.

And she barely manages to realize what it is – because when has it ever been driven by anger and fear before? – before she realizes what it’s doing.

Realizes that it’s doing what it’s best at – breaking a curse. The curse on her, the curse that trapped her as an inanimate object for so many years.

Freeing her.

So she will stand with her son and his allies against the apprentice she never should have taken on – for as long as they have left. The so-called Dark Curse isn’t acting fast, but… Pan already completed the spell work, from what she understands. It will gain momentum, soon.

“Is there a plan?” she asks, looking to the woman. She knows only a few people in the crowd on sight; Cyrus and Alice and the Knave and the Huntsman, she had seen all of them in Wonderland. The Dark One, too, she has knowledge of – he had lurked around all the realms, told her there was no point in pursuing her plans because he didn’t believe the spell would work, at least not the way that she wanted it to. Told her, though she hadn’t listened, that Jafar was a poor choice for an apprentice.

(The Huntsman had been of interest to Jafar because he had escaped this very Curse, this very town – Jafar had always worried about the casters of the Forest. Felt threatened by the Dark One the moment she told him the legend. He would be interested to know if they were as trapped as they ought to be, before he gained his world-breaking powers, as he had planned.)

(Just in case. And, perhaps, as a next target to conquer, once he had what he wanted from breaking the Laws? She had never quite puzzled all of his reasons out, and he had grown frustrated when the answer to how the Huntsman had arrived in Wonderland had been by dying. It hadn’t made sense to him – it still doesn’t make sense to her, but that’s neither here nor there.)

“Get the Curse back and Regina can undo having cast it,” the woman with short dark hair says, and Amara weighs her options. Pan has the Curse on him; Jafar had used their combined powers to steal it, and she had let him because she hadn’t seen a choice, but then he had handed it over. Were it still on her apprentice, she could easily summon it to herself – knows he still hasn’t warded himself against having things taken from him. That lesson he ignored, and if he hadn’t then she might still be a staff because the Dark One couldn’t have sent her to the woman.

But she doesn’t know if Pan has similarly failed to take such simple precautions. So – what other options are left to her? Attempt it anyway, not knowing if it will work. Perhaps… The Shadow responds only to Pan, but it can be influenced and confused. She might be able to work with that, if it’s nearby rather than still lurking about the convent. Get it to pick its master’s pocket for her.

Something else, might be possible – if any of these others have even half a plan. She could, quite simply, be a distraction. Flash and lightshow are not her specialty or her preference, but she is not incapable.

Then, the one answer that has been given, thus far, is hardly one. More of a goal than a plan, really. Certainly evidence that the “plan,” if there is one, is poor.

“And who are you?” asks the man at the side of the woman who’d answered her question – he’s blond and handsome, a knight if she had to guess.

“Amara of Agrabah,” her smile is the vicious one she’d perfected over the years doing whatever was necessary to achieve her goals, though he likely can’t see it at this angle, “Not that this is the time for introductions.”

And then, since there’s nothing to lose, she reaches out her hand, as though she’s grasping for something, and speaks the old Elvish spell of summoning. Elvish isn’t her favorite school of magic, but it is the hardest to ward against, and her most likely chance to get the Curse off of Pan.

Nothing to lose – whatever advantage, however slight, it might be possible to gain. She likes those odds, is betting on those odds— and it pays off. The tiny scroll stolen from Queen Regina’s vault flies to her outstretched hand, marking Pan as more of an amateur than she expected from his reputation. Elvish is harder to ward against, not impossible. He hadn’t bothered.

That cannot be the last of things. They are still in a standoff – even if she holds the Curse that is key. Jafar has yet to recover from being tossed aside like a ragdoll when the Dark One stole her from him, but Pan- Pan is still formidable enough.

…

When a Shadow appears, moments after the woman who appeared from Jafar’s staff summons the Curse away from Pan, Belle feels her heart leap to her throat. They have come this far and now—

But the Shadow that appears is not the one that she fears. It is not Pan’s Shadow, come to kill them all. It’s Rumplestiltskin’s Shadow, Dark One’s dagger in hand, delivered to its master.

But knowing that doesn’t ease her worry; no. No. She knows what he means to do in the moments before he does it. She can see it coming – and she can do nothing. She cannot stop as he embraces Pan and runs the both of them through, together. With the only weapon that can kill him.

The boy will be my undoing, he had said. Told her that saving Henry would be the last thing he did – and here his words come to pass. Not in the way that he expected, she doesn’t think, because he had seemed so certain that he would fail to return from Neverland at all. Still – there will be no coming back from this, will there? She cannot see a way.

She cannot stop it, and worse, she cannot say goodbye, the both of them dissolving into dust before her eyes in only moments.

And she cannot stop the sob that is wrenched from her, the one horrid, keening cry as she falls to her knees. They have to go, she knows, continue on to the town line where Regina is waiting, preparing to undo the spell, where those that can leave are going to leave. There is no time for her grief over what could have been, over a man who wasn’t good yet but had the potential to change for the better.

She had wanted so very much to see him live to be a better man. Instead she has watched him die, any chance to improve thrown away.

What kind of trade is that? The boy is only marginally safer now; what good the undoing?

Shouldn’t it have meant more than this?

Slowly a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders, squeezing, trying to be some comfort. As though there can be any comfort when she’s not even fully sure what it is she grieves; a man she could have loved? The person that he could have been? A relationship that will never be what it might have?

Once, she might have hoped that- That she could change him. That she could save him. That she could be enough.

That had changed, in Storybrooke. She hadn’t wanted to be his salvation any more – hadn’t wanted to be the only thing responsible for him being a decent human being. But she had wanted to believe he could, had been willing to cheer on a change in him. Isn’t that the thing you do, when you want to believe in someone? You hold out hope?

“Belle,” it’s Graham that’s next to her, her friend, trying to be there, even though she knows it cannot be easy for him to be so close to someone other than Emma or Henry. She might not know everything about him – but time spent in their shared prison, in Regina’s castle, where an outsider wouldn’t see him as a fellow prisoner the way that she did? That time means that she knows him well enough. Knows that connection with other humans is hard for him. That he’s trying, for her sake, should, perhaps, mean more to her than it does in this desolate moment. “Come on. Before Jafar recovers.”

It’s ridiculous; she doesn’t care if Jafar recovers. There’s nothing that he can do – not really. The dark cloud of the Curse is already on the horizon. They’ll all be trapped – or they’ll all be sent home. Him included. No third option, no other door for any of them to go through.

Still, she nods, letting Graham help her to her feet. Henry is waiting nearby, and wraps his arms around her waist the moment she’s up. It’s a sweet gesture, really, and she only wishes she could appreciate it more.

She shouldn’t be this devastated over something that was barely anything at all, but she is.

But— The attention shown her in this moment, snaps her back from whatever edge she was letting herself dangle from. Whatever’s left to be done – it’s not about her or her feelings, now. She’s stuck with either outcome. Curse or Home. It doesn’t matter; what’s done is done.

“What are you waiting for? All I can say is goodbye. Go. Quickly. Every second counts.”

…

Anyone who has the ability to cross the town line can do that leave to escape the undoing of the curse.

It is, in theory, how Emma will be able to stay in this world and take care of Henry. Because she was never cursed in the first place, something that, generally, he would assume is the only way anyone is going to be getting out of this mess. Which is… It's good. He knows it is. After all, if Henry can't come to the forest with the rest of them, it will be far better for him not to be left alone.

Just as much as he knows that his dad did something to let that Graham guy cross the town line with them; he knows how his dad thinks. It has been really, really, painfully obvious that the way that Emma and Graham care about each other is–

Well.

True.

Even if Emma hasn't said as much, because she wouldn't have, anyway. Not to him, even if she was willing to admit it to anyone else.

He wants to be happy for her. That she could find that – after everything that he knows she lost out on in her life. But he looks at the two of them, and Henry, and how they all click as a family, how Henry ran to that guy first when they got to Skull Rock, and he feels…

Hollow.

That could have been him, he thinks. If he hadn't been a coward. If he hadn't listened to Pinocchio. If he had stayed.

Except, of course, that he's not sure he would have stayed. If he'd known she was pregnant, absolutely. But even he can admit he'd had one foot out the door before Pinocchio had shown up and told him Emma was from the Enchanted Forest.

He can admit he might've ditched out on her before she figured out she was pregnant even if he never got that push.

And then…

Nothing would be different. Not for him. He would still be standing here, in Storybrooke, the father he never wanted to see again dead, Emma and his son family with another man.

And knowing, as he does, his father’s penchant for protecting power and the potential of it? A relationship like that? No- His dad knew that something like this might be coming. He would have prepared something, to make sure they couldn’t be separated.

Graham isn’t going back to the Enchanted Forest. That guy gets to stay with Emma and Henry. Whatever else there is to it, that happy ending is assured. True Love. The most powerful magic of them all, powerful enough to transcend realms- He knows what the Dark One had valued above all. Power, and the potential for it to be used in his own favor. Maybe that's impossible now, but he still would've thought ahead about this, would have realized Pan was still coming.

That’s just how his father’s mind had worked, since he got all that power of his in the first place.

And he…

He wasn't cursed. He doesn't have to go back either. Doesn't want to – he left for a reason. The thing is, that reason was his father, and that reason is gone now. No reason to go back and what reason does he have to stay? Henry will still be here, but if he understands it right, what's about to happen, then it will be as though there was never a Storybrooke to begin with. And if there was never a Storybrooke, then he might never have— would never have even known it Henry existed in the first place.

He's going to lose no matter what he does; he can feel it, in his head and in his heart.

If he stays in this world, he forgets. If he goes back – he might never see his son again, but at least he’ll remember.

(In this world – without his memories – what is there for him? A life with no one in it, no friends and no family, doing whatever he can to get by… Which works for him, but isn’t exactly a great life. In the Enchanted Forest – with his memories… Well, the people in this town actually mostly seem to like him. He can probably work that fact in his own favor, if he goes back, as well as whatever sympathy any of them are willing to give over his never being able to see the kid he just found out about again.)

(Well.)

(Thought of in those terms, he supposes the choice is obvious. Go back, and play the sympathy card for all that it's worth.)

…

Ella doesn't hesitate when Snow calls her, asks her to meet at the town line. It must be important– with the day being what it is.

She doesn't hesitate. Loads Alexandra into her car seat in the truck and gets Thomas and goes. If there's anything they can do in this situation, they have to try.

But they arrive before Snow does – though not Regina, who seems far more agitated than her usual.

“Snow asked us to come and meet her here?”

The woman known as the Evil Queen – with good reason, to Ella's mind, her various crimes against her own people well-known and documented, discussed as a matter of course throughout even other kingdoms for fear that she might try to conquer them as well, and no matter how forgiving Snow has been, it’s all still true – flicks her gaze over them when Ella speaks. She says nothing, for a long moment, before letting out a huff of breath sounds resigned… Though what to, Ella isn't sure she wants to know.

“Yes, I'm sure she did.” There is a touch of the woman's ever-present haughtiness in the words, but only that. Only a touch. “If it's any consolation, there isn't another way.”

“Another way to what?” Thomas asks, arm coming around her instinctively. But Ella's mind is already working out the puzzle of the words– and there's only one thing she can see that would cause Regina to try and console them.

If they have to be separated from Alexandra.

Because she wouldn't be consoling them, not really, no matter the fact that she’s said the words; just trying to talk herself into believing that being separated from Henry is the only option.

“Another way to not be cursed again,” the woman answers, rolling her eyes and looking away, past them, back towards the town.

She wants to play dumb, to ask why they would need to be consoled. To pretend, even for a moment longer, that she doesn't understand. But she can't—

She can't bring herself to do that. To act the fool, and hear her worst fears confirmed. For so long, she had fought, fought to be able to keep Alexandra, to be a mother. Fought Rumplestiltskin in their home world and then in this one, lost Thomas and been so afraid it would be forever, had the memory of Sean abandoning her just because his father said that he should – even if that was all the Curse. With Emma's help, she had managed to keep her baby and get her husband back. Their happy ending, being a family together.

And now it's being ripped out of her grasp again. Ripped away from all of them, those happy endings that Emma restored. Though, going back to the Forest might at least mean that most of the people here will be able to build their happy endings back, it won’t be that way for them. Not if her suspicions hold true.

She holds her daughter closer; it isn't fair. And of course, that was the whole point of the Curse in the first place, wasn't it? To drag them all to this horrid place, this Land Without Magic, where they would be without everything they held dear. And now it adds this one final slight, one last attack on their happiness, an attack they can apparently do nothing about.

She stays silent, stays still. She may not be able to cherish however much longer they have before things are done, but she'll see to it that those moments aren't wasted by arguing pointlessly with the witch before them. Nor by pleading pitifully for another way.

If this is it—

If this is the last time that she'll hold Alexandra in her arms—

She may hate it. But she also knows, if it is the case, exactly why Snow called her here. Alexandra may not be in her hands, after today, but she will very likely be in Emma's, and at least that's something. Some small reassurance in this all that her little girl will at least grow up loved and happy.

And that will have to be enough.

…

“When the Curse is undone– even if you do escape, you'll forget.”

“You mentioned that.” Emma tries to be casual, but this is… It's all quite a bit. She has to say goodbye to the family that she's just found, except Graham and Henry, and worry about getting six people across the town line – her Bug will not hold everyone, it just won't, and Alice and Cyrus can't exactly drive to get out themselves. Ashley and Sean have volunteered their truck, which already has Alexandra's car seat ready to go, but isn't it possible that will be erased with the town? All those concerns considered, she's not sure why Regina is repeating something they already know.

“I think I can– Create new memories to replace what you'll lose. Like everyone had under the Curse–”

“Everyone was miserable under the Curse.” As worried as she is about what losing all memory of Storybrooke will entail, she isn't going to let Regina just mess with their heads unchecked. She doesn't trust the mayor. Not that much. Not with Henry or Graham.

“They didn't have to be. That was my design. I could have made their memories good, if I'd wanted to. But it would have defeated my purpose in casting the Curse at all. Please, hear me out. This will be the last thing that I can do for Henry. Let me do what I can give you a good life.”

“It won't work.” Cyrus and the woman she had accidentally freed from Jafar's staff – Amara, she thinks she had called herself? – speak at same time; there hasn't been time for any sort of explanations since then, but it's fairly obvious in their reactions to each other that there's some sort of connection there.

“And why shouldn't it?” Regina asks, not even bothering to mask her annoyance at the interruption. Honestly, Emma is grateful for it; she doesn't know that there is any sort of polite way to say “Thanks for the offer, but stay the hell out of our heads.”

The two of them share a Look, one that eloquently states, even without words, do you want to explain it or shall I?

“There is no magic across the town line,” Cyrus states, his tone slow and deliberate; still, if Regina has caught onto this point she makes no indication. He only lets the pause rest long enough to illustrate that whatever he's saying should be obvious before he continues, “You would be trying to project your magic into a place that it can't affect, while you were being forcibly torn out of this world and sent back to where you came from. There isn't any sorcerer powerful enough to do something like that. And that's before taking into consideration that in undoing the Curse, you're relinquishing control over any aspect of it.”

“That said,” Amara turns her gaze on Emma, something calculating behind her eyes, “with a little help, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to create those new memories for yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

“You said yourself that you're made of magic,” Cyrus reminds. “You don't need an outside source of it to make things happen.”

“Magic is simple enough, once you know what you need. Power source, focus, intent. Price. If you can provide the power and the focus, I can help you guide the intent to create new memories for those of us who are leaving. The price is already covered by what we're leaving behind.”

“You're coming?”

“From what I understand, my choices are to be separated from all of my children again, stuck back in Agrabah without a way to get to any of them, my entire plan for finding them again rendered impossible, or to at least have one of them back. Neither is ideal, but I am not a fool.”

There's a story there, she's sure, and a long one from the sound of it. But it's one that she'll never get to know. And one that makes it clear what Amara means about the price being covered by what those leaving are leaving behind – the chance for their families to be whole again. She loses her parents. Graham loses his wolf brother. Henry loves Regina and Neal, even with all their faults he still sees them as parents, and she didn’t fail to notice that Neal is saying goodbye to the kid now. Alexandra loses both of her parents – will never even remember them. Alice had already left behind her father, but Emma has seen that Jack’s like a brother to her. Cyrus- Well. If her reading of that long story is right, Amara might be his mother, but he has siblings somewhere out there in the world too, and they’ll be lost to him.

“What would I have to do? How would it even… If we leave, and we forget, how would I even remember to keep the magic going long enough?”

“Well, that’s actually one of the benefits of using your power to create them. A spell cast by True Love… That’s unbreakable. Even if Regina somehow managed to make her version of your false memories stick, there would be the chance that you and Graham could accidentally break them, since they’d be a result of the Curse—” and the look that Regina shoots in Cyrus’ direction, so startled by his even mentioning that Graham is coming, makes Emma realize that she hadn’t known that Gold had done something to make that possible, had thought she would only have to give Emma and Henry new memories— “and True Love’s Kiss is, as you know, more powerful than that. And if you did remember at that point – what would it do but make you miserable? Remembering everything that you lost when the Curse was undone, and all the ways that what you thought was true was a lie? But if your power created the new memories… Then it would also reinforce them, every time that your emotions were enough that your magic might react to them.”

That's… A lot. And she doesn't know that she likes the idea of her own magic mucking about in their heads and better than the alternative, even if it is somehow more likely to turn out well for them.

But time is running out and so are their options. As much a she doesn't like using her magic in the first place, as much as she has no desire to even try it…

Well, when has what she wants ever really been a factor in how her life has turned out? Oh, Graham may have come back to her, somehow, but it hadn't happened until well after she'd given up hope – if her unvoiced wishes at the well could even be considered “hope” at all.

She shouldn't have to make this decision. Not ever, and certainly not in such a short amount time. That she does need to make it is only further proof of how much whatever powers-that-be in the universe decided to make her Savior must actively hate her guts.

But…

It's an uncomfortable decision. Not an impossible one. There is a difference, no matter how very slight.

If they're all going to lose their memories anyway, she'd rather have some influence over what they get instead than leave it all up to chance.

“What would I have to do?” she repeats, because – well. That question had gone ignored in all of Cyrus’ explanations as to why using her magic would be a far better alternative to letting Regina try. Not that she disagrees, but the selective answering does have her almost as wary as the idea of using her magic itself.

“She already told you, Miss Swan,” Regina answers, “You just need to focus your emotions and your power on the life you always wanted.”

-One Year Later-

The Land Without Magic is different, outside of Storybrooke. Louder and faster and bigger; the fact that this is New York City counts for something, probably, but even the London of Alice's time wasn't like this. And that had been something, in and of itself.

Will isn't sure, exactly, what is going on in the Forest or how much time he has, but he knows these facts: 1) Jafar is still a threat, working with the woman everyone has been whispering about, the witch that's been turning people into flying monkeys; 2) the royals are running towards desperation in how to deal with said villains; 3) something happened at the Dark Castle that Belle, who had found him and asked for his help finding Graham and Emma, refuses to talk about.

Not that he expects her to trust him enough to talk about it – even if she did have some lecture for Robin about being a hypocrite when she found out the reason Robin didn't like him, since everyone had pretty much stuck together when it came to rebuilding the forest, including him even to his own surprise – but it would be nice to know more, since he had to take her to Wonderland to find the Rabbit to even try to get here. His knowing the Rabbit is very likely the only reason she even asked for help, but he had to agree anyway; no matter how safe Alice and Cyrus should be, in the Land Without Magic, with altered memories so they don't know about magic, he thinks Jafar will try and get revenge for their thwarting whatever his old plan was, anyway.

He knows what he's willing to fight for. No matter what is coming, he can hold onto that, onto the fact that he's doing this for the right reasons.

For his best friends, his family.

(Maybe Belle didn't say anything about finding Alice and Cyrus. But he would lay money on the false memories keeping them close to the sheriffs, considering they'd all left town together.)

So here he is. Outside the door to an apartment that should be home to Swan and Humbert, with no idea how he's going to get through to a group of people who are going to see him as a complete stranger. Including the best friends he's doing this for, if he's right.

This is not, he thinks, going to go half as smoothly as getting Alice out of Bethlam did. And he thinks such with full knowledge that “rescue” was nearly a train wreck, and Alice mostly rescued herself. He just… Showed up, gave her a reason to fight.

He hopes Belle has ideas for getting them to remember – or at least to listen – because he really doesn’t. This sort of thing is not his usual activities, no matter that he did go get Alice and bring her back to Wonderland. Ask him to plan a heist? Sure. He can do that. Ask him to make people trust him and believe him about something that not only does he not have all the details about, but would sound insane to someone who doesn’t know magic is real even if he did have all of said details? He’s not a miracle worker. He’s just… Will Scarlet. Thief.

“You sure you shouldn’t do the talking?” he asks one last time before he knocks; stalling, yes, but he knows that they’re more likely to find Belle trustworthy than him. She has a sincerity about her that he knows he lacks. “You know more about what’s going on.”

“You have a better chance to get through,” Belle says, shaking her head. “I was close to Graham when we were both prisoners, and if any of their old memories and feelings linger it might help… But you were close to him more recently, in Wonderland, and Emma knew you better, of only because of the Curse. And if Alice and Cyrus are still anywhere near them? You’re the one they’re more likely to find familiar and not discount.”

Weak reasoning, to his mind. But he doesn’t have a better argument against it, does he?

Bloody hell.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing! He is- She should’ve gotten someone else. Anyone else. He has no idea what he’s going to say, how he can possibly do what needs to be done here. Convince them that everyone who went back to the Forest needs their help? That they’ve been talking about bringing Storybrooke back, despite the misery it caused the first time?

(He’s not supposed to know that part, maybe. Unlike Robin, no matter how close the royals seem to want to keep him and everyone else, he’s not on the war council. He hadn’t known enough about Jafar’s old plan to be any use in figuring out how to deal with the new one. But it’s not his fault if there’s all sorts of secret passages in the castle that he’s been asked to catalog for defense purposes – to stop people from getting in that shouldn’t be, because who better for that job than a thief? – and one of them happens to let out in the council room behind a tapestry that does not muffle the voices of people in the council room at all. Nor is it his fault if the people in said council room are discussing the stupidest idea that he’s ever heard.)

He’ll be lucky if they don’t call the cops before he can get a full sentence out. And then where will everything be? In the same position they are now, if not a worse one. But he can’t put it off forever. Eventually either he knocks, or someone leaves and sees him and Belle waiting around like creeps. Neither option is particularly appealing, but he knows which he’d rather.

So he knocks. Three sharp raps on the door.

And he waits.