A Charming Knock Out (and Other Family Habits)
by misscam
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: For proudtobeasouper. Set some undisclosed time in Neverland after 2x22. Thanks to Angie for beta, as always.
II
Choices. It always comes down to that, Snow finds. Fate is simply choices made for you or choices presented to you as the only options. Choices.
Send your child away or see her killed by Regina or taken by a curse. Take an apple and a curse or your beloved dies. Lie to your beloved or see him killed. Choices. Snow has always made them, and she knows there is a pattern to what she chooses.
She suspects this choice will be no different.
"Give us Emma or we kill you all," the leader of this group of Lost Boy says again, and Emma would take another step towards him if Snow didn't have an iron grip on her daughter.
"That's not an option," Snow says firmly. Beside her, Charming nods while still clutching his sword firmly. It won't do much good, of course. Even if it is the dark of night, she knows that in the trees around them, arrows are pointed firmly at them. They're surrounded by Lost Boys, but at least these ones aren't Peter Pan's henchmen. No, these are simply lost children looking for a mother.
These are children who, by their own account, have overheard what Henry has said about Emma, and now they've come to find her. To be their mother.
Unfortunately for them, Emma is also someone's daughter and Snow is not giving her up again. Even if they are surrounded and outnumbered. Even if Regina, Rumpelstiltskin and Hook are all elsewhere searching for Henry so they won't come to the rescue. Even if it will kill her.
"Let me go," Emma insists. "They've seen Henry, they can help me..."
"No," Charming says. He looks sad. "Emma, it's too dangerous. You heard them. Henry is no longer with them."
"That's not your choice to make!" Emma says angrily. "You might be my parents, but he's my son."
"You're our daughter," Charming says, gazing at Emma with such love it makes Snow want to look away from the pain of it all. All he ever wanted was a family, and they never got to be one. All she wanted too, but fate wouldn't let them.
Screw fate, she decides. Screw the options presented. There is always another choice, and she will take it.
"Take me," she says, and both Charming and Emma look up sharply. "I'm Emma's mother, but as you can see, she's all grown up now. I can be your mother now."
The Lost Boy leader looks her up and down, as if judging her. Then he nods.
"Out of the question," Charming says forcefully. "I won't let you do that, Snow."
She turns to him, while still keeping a hand on Emma's arm. He meets her gaze as Snow smiles softly at him.
"You won't, will you?" she says softly and he shakes his head. She leans into him, ignoring the sounds Emma is making. "I love you, Charming."
"I love you too," he says, sounding slightly confused. But he does meet her soft kiss with equal tenderness, his lips lightly parted as they brush her. She lets herself enjoy it for a moment longer, feeling his hand move to her ear to caress it while his other hand lowers the sword.
Then she brings up her own hand, crashing the handle of the dagger into his temple and clocking him hard. He goes down, while Emma makes noise that is halfway between a stutter and a protest.
"What the hell, mom?"
"Look after him," Snow says softly, releasing her grip on Emma, who immediately goes to David's side and eases his head up. "Then find me."
Emma looks up at her, comprehension dawning. But before she can do anything, Snow has already stepped over to the leader of this small group of Lost Boys. He is looking up at her with awe.
As the boys pull her away, Snow throws one last look at her husband and daughter, seeing the gentle way Emma is now cradling David's head in her lap. And despite it all, she finds herself smiling.
II
His head hurts. His head really, really hurts and Charming can't bite back a groan of pain.
"David?" Emma's voice asks, and the worry in it makes his heart leap.
"I feel like I've been knocked out," he murmurs, trying to summon enough strength to open his eyes.
"That's because you were," Emma says drily.
"That would explain it," he says, forcing his eyes open. He looks up at Emma's face, realizing she's actually cradling him in her lap. He doesn't dare comment on it, but it still means more to him than she could ever imagine. It's still dark around them, so he couldn't have been out too long, at least.
"It was Mary Margaret," Emma goes on. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I was knocked out by your mother," he says and this time, he can see Emma bite her lip to keep from smiling. "It's a familiar sensation."
"She's done this to you before?" Emma asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Several times," he replies, easing himself up and touching his temple carefully. He's going to have an impressive bruise, he's pretty sure. "Did they take her?"
"Yeah," Emma says, her voice hard. "I can't tell where they went, it's too dark."
"We'll wait until it's lighter and then track her down," he says firmly. He winces as he touches his bruise again. His head is still pounding fiercely, but it seems to be diminishing slightly at least. "At least she'll be in no immediate danger."
"You should have let them take me," she says, not looking at him.
"Would you have given them Henry if they were asking for him?" he asks. She closes her eyes briefly as if imagining it, looking pained at the very suggestion.
"No," she finally says, sighing as if she knows what he's about to say next.
"Then you know why we would never have done that," he says softly. "Emma, we gave you up once to save you the only way we knew how and it nearly killed us. I would never give you up for anything less. Never."
A shadow of a smile seems to pass over her face. After a moment, she simply nods.
"I'll find Snow. I always find her," he goes on, warming to the idea. Another world with very different rules for magic, but this, this is almost like old times anyway.
"If she didn't knock you out as often, maybe you wouldn't need to," Emma says with just a touch of sarcasm and he looks over at her with a smile. Emma definitely has her mother's chin, his forehead and the sass of both of them.
"I'll be sure to tell her that," he says lightly.
Emma nods, then sighs. He has to fight the urge to pull her against him. She looks so lost here in Neverland, this place of eternal childhood. Perhaps it's missing Henry or perhaps it's that she's never really had one, forced to grow up too fast. He is acutely aware of just what he and Snow lost when they sent Emma through the wardrobe, but what Emma lost, she mostly seems to hide from them. Only sometimes, like now, can he see the shadows of it and it makes his heart ache.
His daughter, Snow's daughter, and she never got to be their child.
"We will find Henry too," he goes on and Emma looks up at him. The look in her eyes is lost too, and he wishes more than anything he could chase it away.
"You sound like him," she says softly. "He always believes. I'm always terrified of breaking his faith in me. He looks at me as if I'm some sort of hero. I'm not. You guys are, even got the fairytale to prove it. I just survived."
"Emma," he says very gently, and then decides screw it, he's not fighting the urge anymore. Gently, he puts an arm around her and she stiffens, then leans against his shoulder. "You didn't just survive. You grew into a woman I'm so proud of. You've helped so many people, Emma. And quite frankly, I think breaking a curse and defeating a dragon qualifies as heroic, at least by fairytale standards."
The noise she makes against his shoulder might be a chuckle. He chooses to take it as that at least, daring to press a kiss against her head as well.
"Snow was a survivor too," he says after a moment. "When Regina set out to kill your mother, she had to live in the forest. That's where we met. She told me all she was doing was what it took to survive. But then she saved my life when she could have just walked away. She took a cursed apple from Regina to save my life when she could have let me die."
Emma seems to consider what he told her, and he lets her, not wanting to push it. Perhaps one day she'll be able to see herself the way Snow and he sees her, as she should be seen.
"Henry liked reading that story," Emma finally says. "Yours, I mean. Did she really knock you out the first time she met you?"
The thought of Emma looking up Snow and himself in Henry's book (even if at Henry's urging or with Henry) makes him strangely happy and slightly worried at the same time. He'll have to take a look at that particular section one day.
"She did," he agrees. "Gave me this scar and everything."
He brushes the scar lightly, for a moment remembering that bright day in the forest when he caught a thief and then got knocked out literally and figuratively. He's not sure he ever quite got back on his feet since then, since he's still on his knees for that particular green-eyed bandit.
"Given she did it the first time you met and it apparently is a habit with her, you really should have seen it coming this time then," Emma comments, and he has to bite back a very happy grin at the fact that his daughter is outright teasing him.
"She distracted me," he counters and Emma makes a slight face, probably remembering just how Snow did that.
"Or maybe you're getting old."
He pretends to give that serious thought. "I actually am a grandfather."
"There you go," she says. "Old man, over the hill, can't even dodge a blow from his wife."
"Kids nowadays, no respect," he shoots back and she makes the sort of smile he imagines would always have been able to get her out of trouble no matter what she had done if he had had the chance to raise her. "Your mother is a champion at knocking people out, I'll have you know."
For a moment, she looks like she's about to counter that with another teasing remark. Then her face softens. "Yeah, I know. She knocked out a guy holding a gun on me once."
"She what?" he says indignantly, the thought of anyone having a gun on Emma making his blood boil. "Who the hell had a gun on you?"
"Jefferson. It was during the curse," Emma says and with painful sharpness, he remembers what David Nolan was to Emma Swan during the curse – the guy who broke her best friend's heart and wasn't much help at all. "He was just trying to get me to believe in it and get his daughter back."
"I'm still going to punch him," he says calmly holding up a hand as Emma is about to protest. "Your mother got to knock him out, it's only fair."
Emma gives him a pointed look. "So she does the knocking out and you do the punching?"
"Yes," he says firmly. "Speaking of punching, I think I see the first light of the dawn on the horizon. What do you say we go rescue Snow, tell her off for sacrificing herself and then get back to the business of saving Henry?"
"I'd like that," Emma replies, letting him help her to her feet. "But how exactly are we going to do that?"
"Easy," he says, smiling as he takes a few steps forward and then looks down at the ground. Even in the very faint light, he can see the tracks. "I am an expert tracker and Snow is an expert at leaving tracks – especially when she wants to."
"That's well and good," Emma says, crossing her arms. "And when we find out where they're holding her, what do you suggest we do? Walk in with swords blazing, all heroic and fairytale and get ourselves killed?"
"I hadn't thought that far ahead," he admits, picking his sword off the ground. "I take it you have another suggestion?"
"Yeah," she says, and she looks so much like Snow when she had one of her great plans he can't help but smile. "I grew up in the foster system. Why don't we use something I'm an expert at – diversions, mischief and large groups of children together?"
II
The first light of the sunrise is sneaking through the tent's flap and crawling towards them, Snow notices. Around her, the boys are still sleeping, but she knows they won't be for long. They all clung to her during the night, but she suspects during the day they'll pretend they don't need her. That they don't need parents at all, that the magic of this place doesn't have a price.
It always does, she has learned and lived. Eternal childhood has one too. Even as much as she would love to finally get to be a parent, she would never wish for this. She would want her child to grow up too, as Emma has.
She has managed to learn a few useful things, at least. Peter Pan himself has Henry, and there is a hideout in a tree somewhere on his island where Peter Pan likes to hide. They seem to like trees, this tent-like structure even built around one with the tree in the middle. The very tree she is chained to.
Now she just needs to get out of these chains and find her daughter and husband again – unless they find her first, she thinks just as she hears the ruckus outside.
The boys hear it too, waking abruptly. She hastily closes her eyes and pretends to sleep, as they all hurry outside and she hears their voices move away. There is another loud noise from another direction and she even smells fire.
Charming and Emma, she thinks and smiles.
"Shh," Charming's voice says by her ear and she nearly jumps out of her skin. "Which one has the key to your chains?"
"The red-haired boy," she whispers, tilting her head backwards.
"Be right back then," he replies quietly, giving her a light peck on the lips before vanishing backwards again. Straining her neck slightly as she looks backwards, she can see he's cut an opening into the back of the tent.
Emma must be the source of the diversion, she figures, and she smiles at that. Emma and Charming working together is worth the small hassle of getting (purposely) kidnapped.
It takes a few moments before Charming enters again, holding a finger to his lips. Some of the Lost Boys must be close, she figures, and remains silent while Charming opens the chains with the key. The moment she is free, he grabs her hand, and she follows him out. There is a rope coming down the cliff above them, the same cliffs that together with the trees hide the Lost Boy camp from view.
Good thing she purposely left a few tracks to it.
Charming has her climb first, and she doesn't fight him on that for once. Mainly because after knocking him out, she feels like she owes him an opportunity or two to be the protective one. Just one or two though. If he does it more than those times, she may have to even the score again.
The moment they're both up, Charming cuts the rope and grabs her hand again and they run. Downwards, away from the Lost Boys camp and into the jungle. Not aimlessly, though, she has the distinct impression he knows exactly where they are going. He keeps a pace she can match, but she's still breathless when after what seems like forever, he finally halts by a small outcrop of rocks.
"Emma will meet us here," he says, his breath slightly ragged.
She nods, looking at him fondly. "You found me."
"Did you ever doubt I would?" he counters, and she can tell he's fighting to keep from smiling.
"No," she says firmly and this time, he does smile. She steps closer and touches the bruise on his temple gently, and he winces. "But the knock to your head might have given you pause."
"I'm still mad about that," he informs her, and then he pulls her to him at the same time as she reaches for him and their lips crash together. He drops his sword and lifts her up after a moment, parting his lips as she tugs insistently at them. She digs her fingers into his neck to press him even closer, slanting her mouth across his. He moans at that, and she kisses him until her lips feel heavy and swollen and it's still not enough.
"I don't think that is how you tell someone off," Emma's voice says, and Charming's lips curve into a smile against Snow's. Gently, he eases her down on her feet again.
"Sorry," he says sheepishly as he turns towards Emma, who just rolls her eyes. "The diversion was as expert as you promised. No one saw you?"
"No," Emma says, but she can't hide the slight pride at Charming's compliment, Snow notices. "No one saw you?"
"No," Charming says. "I had to knock out one boy to get the keys to the chains – not as expertly as Snow does it, of course, but I managed."
She's clearly missed something, Snow realizes from the back and forth between father and daughter, and feels quite happy and only a little jealous because of it.
"Yeah, speaking of that," Emma says, stepping closer to Snow. "Don't ever do that again. I get why you did it, but I'm not losing you to find Henry again. I'll knock you out if I have to and I'm pretty sure I have the genes to do it well."
Charming chuckles, earning him stern stares from Emma and Snow both.
"Emma..." Snow tries.
"No," Emma cuts in. "Not up for discussion. That goes for you too, David. I am not taking any sacrificial bullshit from either one of you and that's final. Now let's get back to the Jolly Roger before we get ambushed again. The others should be back already."
With that, Emma stalks off towards the beach where they hid the boat. Charming looks after her with such fondness it makes his whole face light up, and then he turns an equally fond and loving gaze on her.
"What Emma said," he says softly, just a touch of anger in his voice. "You're far too willing to sacrifice yourself, Snow. You can't expect us to just let you."
Before she can say anything, he kisses her gently. Of course, he knows damn well what her defense would be – they've had this discussion before and probably will again. It always comes down to choices, after all, and she has a bit of a habit when it comes to choices.
"I love you," he says against her lips, kissing her once more before taking her hand. Together, they follow Emma into the bright morning of Neverland.
They are right, of course, Emma and Charming. She can't expect them to just let her protect them; she never has, in fact. They are who they are, Charming being equally protective just in a different way, and Emma being a mix of them both. Even Henry has so much of them all in him, of Charming, of herself, of Emma.
They're a family prone to protectiveness, sacrifices and knocking each other out, in fact – and she wouldn't have it any other way even if she had the choice.
FIN