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Killian Jones made his trek through the treacherously thick, lush jungle of green, brushing branches aside with his hand and hook. One of Pan's, the demonic boy's, Lost Boys had told him to meet him at a certain spot in the jungle, claiming that there was something to discuss. It's a gut feeling, to Killian, that this has something to do with Pan, perhaps a threat the demon's had his Lost Boy pass on. He couldn't give Killian the message himself, oh no, the pirate would never hold his breath. The ruthless tyrant was as much a hard thing to catch as he was unpredictable and heartless. That demon always had appeared before the pirate when he least expected it - usually when Pan wanted to form a deal, never the other way around.
If there's one thing Killian Jones wouldn't miss about Neverland, it was being ruled by that little demonic...thing.
Just in time, the honourable captain of the Jolly Roger reached the spot where that Lost Boy...Felix had told him to meet him. There, the blonde-haired boy was already standing, something of a dark glint in his eyes that usually was seen when what he had to see concerned Pan.
As soon as Killian reached the spot, maintaining a fair distance between him and Felix - although not too great a distance - the Lost Boy got straight to the point.
"I'm warning you, Hook, don't cross Pan!"
How it happened, Killian didn't know but one minute he was in a bitter row with the reckless fair-haired boy and the next, they halted their jabbing insults when they heard voices coming from a tree behind the bushes. Both glanced at each other, sharing a look of confusion before both started forcing the jungle's debris out of the way, as silently as they could manage, to see what was going on.
What they saw made them gawp like two guppies: there Pan was, a tormentor, a commander who did as he pleased, an uncontested leader it usually seemed, who was impossible to vanquish; whoever dared cross him, suffered. A demonic boy who thrived on his own power, so much so it could one day be his downfall, was standing in front of a girl who had her back against a tree. The girl Killian had come to know as Wendy Darling was stood against the trunk of the tree with one of Pan's forearms above her head, his other arm against her lower back, pulling her closer to him. His knee was pushed between her legs and his lips...were connected with hers! But it looked too intimate and rough to be just a kiss. It was more! If that was enough to shock both Felix and Killian, then worse was to come.
Suddenly, as soon as both started making passionate, almost animalistic, noises, they started moaning each other's names - only it wasn't the names 'Peter' and 'Wendy' that came out of their mouths. The names that escaped were 'Malcolm' and 'Evanna'.
What was that all about?
Killian looked over at Felix, asking with his eyes if he knew anything about this. Felix merely shrugged, clueless himself and equally stunned, but he did a better job of hiding it than the pirate.
The pirate walked away because he knew that it was intrusion and Felix walked away because he didn't want to know what that was about and didn't have a death wish.
Both walked in different directions, too bewildered to continue their earlier argument.
Killian stumbled back through the jungle with a jumble of thoughts whirling a torrent in his mind. Since when did Pan become Malcolm? When did the girl become Evanna? Their voices sounded too...caught up in the moment for it to be a trick of some kind. Even Felix hadn't seemed to have a clue what that was all about. The pirate didn't know what was more puzzling; Pan's strangely sincere kindness, gentleness, tenderness towards another being or the name they'd called each other - names that were completely different to the ones he thought they had.
However, despite his confusion, Killian still couldn't take that threat Felix had given him from Pan lightly. He may not have got to give his answer to that threat, but he'd definitely walked away with something.
The knowledge that the boy, whoever he was, honestly, Killian didn't have a clue anymore, might not be so heartless after all - as the demon had everyone believe.
~ * ~
She hated Neverland like she, as a kid, never believed she would. The island was shady, eerie and capricious. Emma swore, as she walked through the untamed, wild jungle of green, one more tree or if she saw one more smirk splitting from ear to ear on that Pan’s face, she’d go insane. She dreaded it – going insane – and she didn’t know whether to be scared or disappointed by her experience in Neverland. It was nothing like she’d dreamed it would be as a kid.
God, if she was scared and disappointed with her experience, then how would Henry be feeling? He loved every single fantasy character that belonged to Disney, all except the villains, of course, and seeing the more twisted, realistic version of the almighty Peter Pan must’ve been a great blow for him.
Just thinking of her son in the hands of that fiendish boy made her restless, filled her with an uneasiness even worse than the island and Pan himself had altogether. Despite the knowledge that Pan had captured Henry, Emma somehow knew that her son would beg her not to kill him. She didn’t know why, it was just a hunch.
Back where they’d decided to set up camp for the night, Hook stood watch. She’d told him she needed to go for a walk and he’d let her, just warning her to be careful. How could she not be cautious in a daunting place like this?
On her walk, she tried to clear her head, tried and tried to stop her heart from sinking at the thought of Henry gone, captured and not knowing what was happening to him at that precise moment.
Suddenly, the sound of a young voice unfamiliar to Emma’s ears snapped her out of her thoughts.
Following the sound of the voice, the woman came to a small clearing, catching sight of the white ribbon of moonlight gleaming in the nearby running stream. Next to it, a young girl with wild honey-brown hair was sat with her white nightdress (something that didn’t look very modern at all) spread around her in some sort of circle, making it evidently clear that she was sat on her legs by the stream. She had to strain her eyes but Emma soon noted the flowers gathered on the girl’s lap and her lips were moving, like she was talking to someone.
Emma followed the girl’s brown-eyed gaze and instantly, her eyes widened and she retreated back into the shadows slightly. Pan!
Hatred constricted the woman’s heart just seeing him and she gritted her teeth. There he was: leaning against a nearby tree, arms crossed with an arrogant, haughty smirk tugging at his lips.
“Such a proper little girl, you are. All these years in Neverland – and you’re still full of morals,” the boy said to her.
“Some of us have a conscience, Malcolm.”
Malcolm?
“That’s not true.”
“Enlighten me, Wendy.”
Emma’s eyes widened even more – if at all possible. Wendy was a character part of the story of Peter Pan, even though that was all it was – a story, which seemed far-fetched now. Being as Peter Pan turned out to be a twisted demonic boy, Emma had believed that the girl in the story perhaps didn’t exist. Yet here she was before her eyes, talking to the boy who was holding her son captive. The more impulsive, heroic, maybe, side of Emma wanted to jump out of the bushes and run the boy through with her sword there and then. But the more sensible side of her knew that wouldn’t be possible. She’d seen and heard of his power; he was just as powerful as he was cunning, so running him through wouldn’t have been manageable at this moment in time. Maybe, if she listened in, she’d here about Henry, maybe even where they were keeping him and what Pan was planning.
Wendy shrugged.
“I just know, and I know you. I know you feel remorse – some of the time. And I’m only Wendy Darling around everyone but you, remember?”
Without warning, the boy cocked his head and strode forward.
Emma’s worry for the girl quickly abated a little as Pan sat next to her, watching her as he rested his arm around her shoulders.
“Are you tempted, Evanna?” he asked quietly, his eyes searching the girl’s face intensely, as if the answer was already written there.
Evanna? Wait, hadn’t he just called her Wendy a minute ago?
“Tempted to what?”
“You know what,” Pan snapped impatiently. “Are you tempted to leave…with them?” Despite the venom and impatience in his voice, shockingly to Emma, Peter Pan – or Malcolm, whatever his name was – sounded almost vulnerable.
The girl…Evanna…or Wendy, whatever her name really was…didn’t reply, deciding to fiddle with the flowers on her lap instead.
It looked like her silence was really trying Pan’s patience, as Emma caught him frowning, his green-eyed gaze darkening slightly.
“Evanna!”
“What?”
“You can’t leave.”
“We both know I can’t. Even if you did let me, it would be risky.”
“Is that the only reason you’re staying – because of that deal and the price that came along with it?” Even though his tone was angry, enough to disguise the hurt and vulnerability, Emma also sensed the bitterness in it that sounded something close to betrayal – almost. It was also the neediness in his voice that reminded Emma he was still a boy and that alone was enough to convince her to listen even more intently.
The girl looked up at him, a soft smile on her lips, which matched the sigh that escaped them as her hand raised to his cheek. Pan leaned into her touch, very much like a purring cat being made a fuss of.
“No,” she assured him, “That’s not the only reason.”
A smile, joyful, satisfied, relieved, even, formed on the boy’s lips that had not long before been stretched into his usual smirk. He took the hand that had been cupping his cheek and kissed it. Emma couldn’t help but notice how surprisingly gentle and soft Pan’s movements were. It was almost like he was a completely different person when he was with that girl.
What he told the girl next only added to the confusion Emma felt inside.
“We’ve been torn apart for too long, Evanna. I won’t lose you again.”
The girl moved closer so her head rested on his shoulder, the flowers forgotten.
“I know, Malcolm. I won’t leave you again, you know that, not when there’s absolutely nothing posing a possible threat to us anymore.”
They both closed their eyes, content, and had they been anyone else, Emma would have thought them a sweet couple.
But Emma would not let what she’d just witnessed alter her opinion and impression of Pan – not until she got her son back, at least. She had to keep her heart steeled, only succeeding in doing so by convincing herself that Pan was cruel, vicious, manipulative. Just because he showed one person the more tender side of him did not mean he would show the same to anyone else.
With that in mind, Emma retreated, heading back to camp, refusing to believe Pan was anything but a monster. However, she had no doubt that there was a part of him that was humane, no matter how small. The only thing that stopped her from clinging onto that spark of hope for the mysterious boy was that strange conversation she’d heard between him and that girl.
Maybe it was a trick to deter her and the others from their goal to save Henry. They were Peter Pan and Wendy Darling – they had to be. When they called each other Malcolm and Evanna, it had to be a farce.
Peter Pan and Wendy Darling couldn’t be just their false identities to fool people – it had to be the former – surely…
~ * ~
Baelfire didn’t recall the treehouse he and the others had just come across – despite being a part of the Lost Boys for a while. But of course, that was quite a while ago and the hellish island they were on never failed to surprise anyone, it was always a lot bigger than people thought and it answered to Pan like it was his kingdom. He never did seem surprised when the island would change suddenly – or so it seemed it changed.
“Let’s go inside,” Snow suggested. “Maybe there’s something in there that will help us find Henry.”
Bae nodded and started climbing the ladder, Emma following close at his heels. Snow and Charming, her parents, stayed at the bottom to keep watch in case the boy decided to make a sudden appearance.
So they had someone to keep watch, and that they were Henry’s biological parents, wasn’t the only reason Bae and Emma were the ones to climb the ladder. Emma had told Bae, in secret, that Killian had run into Felix and the two had heard an odd conversation between Pan and a girl on the island – she’d told Bae he didn’t say much more than that and of course, Bae said he’d go with her to see if they could find out what Killian had meant. Emma didn’t want to tell the others, she figured they’d advise against it, finding out too much about the enemy. To Emma, any information was vital and Bae seemed to be, at the moment, the only other person she could confide in, someone who’d once been closer to Pan than most of them had ever got.
Once he arrived at the top of the ladder, through what appeared to be a trap door, into the small, cozy little treehouse, he froze.
Even from behind the screen, he could see a dresser, curtains, a bed with white sheets and red cover on top. It felt awfully familiar and, after quickly rummaging through the memories in his mind, Bae came to realise why: the warmth and tenderness of the atmosphere replicated that of the home of the Darling family. At the memory of the only ones he was ever able to label his family, a jolt of pain, loss and regret bolted through through his chest like forks of lightning in the midst of a thunderstorm.
However, he quickly found himself in astonisment, making him unable to move – not even when Emma climbed up the ladder from behind him, consequently colliding with his back.
“Neal,” the blonde-haired woman hissed.
The stunned man looked unfazed by her tone and didn’t budge.
Two people were sprawled across the bed, both of which Bae recognized instantly. One of them was, without a shadow of a doubt, Pan while the other was a young girl with honey-brown curls. Bae would recognize the girl anywhere: his friend, a sister at heart, called Wendy Darling.
The sight of her threatened to knock the breath out of his lungs; he’d thought she would be dead by now and never thought for one second he’d find her in Neverland. Bae wondered what she was doing on the island, if she’d been there all along, if she remembered him, if she came for him. All of those questions that whirled a torrent in his mind made him feel like a boy again, tears threatening to burn his tired eyes as an ache formed in his chest.
Emma looked over his shoulder, watching the pair on the bed. It was a strange, near enough foreign, sight for her brown eyes to witness.
The sheets were draped over Wendy’s (or Evanna, maybe, if that was actually her name) body, though she was practically laying on Pan (or Malcolm, Emma didn’t know what’s what anymore) rather than the bed.
Pan was laying with her in the sheets and neither seemed to be wearing anything. While Pan's hair looked...well...tousled and damp with sweat, Wendy's hair looked untouched although her skin was glistening with a fine sheen of it like his.
Pan's green eyes were wide open in the dim light provided by the little light in the treehouse, as a contrast to Wendy’s half-open, drooping eyes. He couldn’t have been wide awake though; he didn’t even seem to notice Bae’s and Emma’s intrusion! Yes, there was a screen shielding, partly, the newcomers from his view, but there was hardly anything that went unnoticed in Pan’s presence.
The boy looked, oddly, peaceful, quiet – contradicting the taunting monster Baelfire had come to know during his stay in Neverland. He was cradling Wendy’s head, gently running his fingers through her tresses. Pan’s eyes looked completely focused on the girl’s face and the look on his face was that of adoration and tenderness – a look Bae had never seen before on the fiendish boy-king’s elfin face.
Gently, Pan planted a kiss on Wendy’s head, holding her closer to him and she smiled, sighing contentedly.
Bae found himself unable to move; he just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Not only was Wendy alive, but she was there, with Pan – and he was holding her like she was his and he was hers to boot.
"...You put on quite the act tonight, Bird," he complimented - but what did he mean by that?
Bae only managed to dwell on it for a few minutes until eventually, Wendy spoke up, showing no signs of actually registering the compliment he'd just given her.
“Malcolm,” she began softly, sounding slightly irritated.
“Mm…Yes?” he answered, shifting slightly to get more comfortable.
“Is there really no other way? Must you kill him?” she asked and both Bae and Emma gathered that she was talking about Henry.
Pan – Malcolm? – seemed to glance down at her sternly.
“No, Evanna, you know there isn’t. It would’ve been a lot easier if there was and it would’ve saved me the trouble of having to deal with those pesky intruders. It’s too late to find another way now, I’m not risking anymore time. I am not losing you again and if losing this island also means losing you…no thank you.”
“It just…doesn’t feel right…” That was the last thing she said before drifting off to sleep, eliciting a soft chuckle from Pan (or Malcolm) before he dropped another kiss on her head.
Emma touched Bae’s shoulder – they had to go before Pan, or Malcolm, discovered them. Besides, this was an invasion of...privacy as we'll as space.
He agreed, but he was rooted to the spot. His heart felt like it was being ripped apart. He couldn’t reconcile it – the sight of Wendy Darling, a ray of sunshine from his childhood, in the arms of the heartless boy he’d learnt to loathe the first time he was brought to the island. Not only that, Bae didn’t know what to make of what he was hearing. Wendy had called Pan ‘Malcolm’, and Pan had called Wendy ‘Evanna’? What was that all about? What did that boy mean by ‘if losing this island also means losing you’? Was the girl now, somehow, tied to the island like he was? Bae just felt, a little, betrayed, like he didn’t know who the girl he was so fond of was anymore.
All of a sudden, in the dimly-lit room, Pan’s voice rose, yet still a whisper, even though it hadn’t looked like he’d seen them, and he didn’t look at them then, either.
“Go,” he ordered, “Leave – before I kill you.”
Bae swallowed hard as he saw Pan close his eyes, nose nuzzling into the girl’s hair.
The boy was letting them leave because, even though it wasn’t like him to simply let an intrusion go unpunished, if truth be told, Malcolm wasn’t planning on letting go of his girl for anything in the world again, he’d never let death tear them apart again. That was the one thing those intruders on his island could never know – let alone knowing the real names of the King and Queen of Neverland.
Just one look at them and Bae sensed it. He felt Emma tug on his arm, guiding him back down. They climbed back down the ladder and returned to find themselves under the gazes of surprised eyes of the others.
“What’s up there? Did you find anything?” Charming asked.
Emma glanced at Neal, not sure that she understood why he looked so troubled – but just because she couldn’t understand why didn’t mean she couldn’t sense it.
The man looks up, shaking his head, and replied, “Nothing…There’s nothing up there.”
He would have rather pretended it was nothing because he couldn’t fathom it. He couldn’t understand it – not now, not yet.
As they continued their trek through the jungle, in search of more clues, Bae thought back to his father – a dark heart, a dark soul – who’d ended up falling in love with a warm-hearted young woman with a kind soul called Belle.
That was when he wondered: did demons always end up looking up to angels? He also felt confused by Pan and Wendy’s conversation. Were Peter Pan and Wendy Darling who they really were? Or was there more to them than everyone believed?