Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time, Peter Pan, etc.

Title from J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy.

Summary:

Storming Neverland is sure to be a whole lot more complicated when the Jolly Roger's makeshift crew doesn't even know each other, let alone this Henry they're supposed to be rescuing.

OR: teen!Emma is 97.6% sure she's dreaming, but hell if she wouldn't do all sorts of stupid stuff to impress teen!Regina.

"Peter Pan kidnapped my son. Peter. Pan. Kidnapped my—"

"Miss Swan!" barked Regina, startling Emma out of her pacing. "The last thing I need at the moment is more of a headache. Either shut up and help us devise a plan, or have your meltdown below deck."

Neverland loomed ahead. Supposedly, anyway, if Captain Hook's navigating was to be trusted. On the deck of the Jolly Roger, Gold and Regina were bickering about something while Charming sharpened his sword and Mary Margaret tested the tension of a worn bow she'd found.

Emma huffed, "You want a plan?" She marched over and snatched a piece of parchment from Gold and a pen right out of Regina's breast pocket. She aggressively pinned the paper to the mast with a dagger. "Here's the plan:

"ARRIVE ON NEVERLAND

"RESCUE HENRY FROM PAN

"GO BACK TO STORYBROOKE

"LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER FFS"

For a moment, everyone else simply stared at the large block letters of the exalted Savior's four step plan. Then Regina scoffed, "And how, exactly, do you intend to accomplish those goals, dear?"

"Well, we can't really know until we get there and see what we're up against, can we, Madam Mayor?" But, squinting at the nearing island, Emma blurted, "Fuck, you're right. We're going to have to turn ourselves into kids or something, aren't we?"

Regina had stopped listening after "you're right," but Gold muttered, "Excuse me?"

"To get onto the island." Emma was pacing once again, though more agitatedly than before. "Only kids are allowed in Neverland. We've gotta become kids."

"We do not need to turn ourselves into children," Gold denied emphatically.

Emma wasn't listening.

"Why does everything have to be so complicated with you people?"

"Sweetie, I don't think…" Mary Margaret tried.

"Slay a curse,…break a dragon,…relive teen angst…"

Again, Gold insisted, "Miss Swan, I assure you—"

"How do we even do that? Magic anti-aging cream? Or—"

"Swan, adults can—"

"—or just: Abracadabra, let's all be fifteen again!"

There was an explosion of light and smoke. As it cleared, fifteen year old Emma Swan looked around and coughed, "Toto, we're not in homeroom anymore."

"David! Take over as first mate," Emma shouted to the blond boy across the stern. She tossed the rope she'd just untangled over its hook and jumped down the steps to the lower deck. "Snow, once you've finished collecting those arrows, I need you to keep watch and shout if you see any movement on or off the island, okay? Okay! And, you! You focus on keeping that shield up, home-slice," she told the smallest of the three boys as she passed him at the prow.

"Rumplestiltskin," he reminded her.

"Oh, believe me, I so haven't forgotten."

She'd laughed when he first said the name, then been mystified by the terror on everyone else's face. It was just a name—a dumb one, at that.

She slowed as she rounded to port side and asked, "Yo, you good without me for a few minutes, Killian?"

"Aye, Captain," he called back gleefully.

"Stop calling me that," she ordered. "You're the one sailing this thing." Then, much more politely than her previous commands, she requested, "Regina, walk with me?"

Emma had found very early on in this strange adventure that walking with Regina was calming. She had a hard time sitting still while she thought, and she'd said as much to the brunette. Instead of telling her to stop fidgeting or calling her a spaz, Regina had offered to take a walk with her around the boat. It was the first time in years that anyone had made an effort to accommodate Emma, which only served to strengthen the already inexplicable connection she felt to the other girl.

The ship wasn't massive; they walked close enough to brush shoulders intermittently. Emma's knuckles skimmed soft skin exactly once before she shoved her hands into her back pockets to stop herself from doing something stupid. There was no denying that she had a special preference for Regina over the other members of her teenaged "crew."

In the first thirty seconds or so after appearing—or regaining consciousness, or…whatever—on an apparent pirate ship, Emma had instinctively appraised the other teens.

There had been Rumplestiltskin, a small, mousy-looking boy with light brown hair and a thick wool cape, whose forest green tunic, brown pants, and untied boots were rattier than anything even she had ever owned. Unlike Emma, his boots seemed to be loose due to broken laces and not as an aesthetic choice. He was the first person in a long time to trigger her pity.

Then David, a handsome blond with similarly threadbare clothing. His white tunic and blue-gray pants were carefully patched, though—poor family, but loving parents. He didn't have that abandoned look that Emma, in well-worn jeans and a white Hanes t-shirt, surely shared with the first boy. Lucky.

In stark contrast, two dark-haired kids: beside David, Snow, a pretty, porcelain-skinned girl in a Victorian-esque golden dress; and, up at the wheel, Killian, a clean-cut boy in a navy pea coat and off-white leather pants. Everything about them screamed money, and Emma's nose had wrinkled almost instinctively.

And, then…and, then there'd been Regina.

Regina, who'd stepped out of the shadow of the mast like the girl appearing at the top of the stairs in a romcom and suggested, "I believe we may be on a quest together."

Regina, who, when the preppy boy had swaggered down to join them on the lower deck and introduce himself as, "Killian Jones, future Navy man, at your service," had raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Navy man, hm?" she'd asked. "Don't you suppose someone should be sailing this ship, then, dear?"

That easy way she wielded authority had sent him scampering obediently back up to the wheel. It had also sent a whisper of recognition through Emma's bones, which was strange because nothing about Regina looked familiar. Not her face, the riding boots, the white blouse, or the brown vest, and definitely not the tan leather pants.

Familiar or not, she'd had the rare gift of Emma's full attention. Maybe she'd sensed how uncommon that was, because her eyes had stayed on the blonde as she'd pointed out a thick, yellowed paper in explanation of her initial inference.

"This parchment seems to indicate that this ship is on a course for Neverland to rescue someone named Henry."

"Pretty and smart," Emma had flirted, and Regina had blushed.

That rosiness had so distracted Emma that it'd taken her a few seconds to actually look at the…parchment, apparently. Parchment covered in her own handwriting. Meaning she, at some forgotten point, had not only known why they were there but also taken the initiative to write it out. Which, ultimately, was why she'd ended up in charge. That, and…the other thing.

Point being, Regina struck her as special, which was why Emma delegated tasks to the others and chose Regina as her company and confidant when she needed to take a walk.

"I still don't understand why I'd forget writing this," she said, pulling the folded parchment from her pocket and absently rolling it into a tight tube. "Or why any of us would forget how we ended up here."

Regina shrugged awkwardly. Most casual gestures seemed endearingly awkward on her, actually. "Magic can be fickle and unkind," she offered.

Right. Magic. That would be the other thing.

To say Emma had reacted poorly to the whole magic-is-real bit would've been an understatement.

When Killian had mentioned it, she'd brushed it off as a joke, because, well, obviously. But then she'd gestured up and down at Snow's ridiculous dress and asked about finding her something more practical to wear. And, in sync with the motion of her hand, pale smoke, almost the color of the dress itself, had wrapped around Snow. When it'd cleared, the dress had been replaced with off-white leather pants and a short-sleeved, brown tunic.

"Oh, god," Emma had breathed, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. "Oh, god, oh, god. This is totally whacked. Get it together, Swan. This is not real. You're just dreaming. It's not real." She'd about jumped out of her skin when a hand landed gently on her shoulder.

Regina had smiled softly at her. "Swan?" she'd asked, "Is that your surname? Lovely. Look at me. Breathe, Emma. In and out. Yes, just like that. A ship is a terrible place to have a panic attack. Breathe."
Once her pulse had stopped pounding in her ears, Emma had frowned, embarrassed. Dream or not, she didn't like showing weakness, and she especially didn't like being coddled. She wondered, though, if that had been Regina's way of thanking her for defusing Snow's crazy stepmother confusion earlier.

Regardless, having magic, whether she knew how to use it or not, made Emma one of the most powerful members of their Breakfast Club approximation, so it pretty much cemented the leadership role she'd already been taking.

"Emma?"

Breaking out of her reverie, Emma shoved both the parchment and her hand back in her pocket. "Sorry," she said, angling her shoulders so she could look at Regina as they walked. "It's kinda a lot to take in."

"Of course."

"So, let me get this straight. I've apparently got magic, and someone was still able to jack our memories? Wouldn't I have stopped 'em?"

Regina frowned and glanced down at where Emma's fists disappeared within her pockets. Yeah, she was definitely looking at Emma's magical hands and not her ass. Definitely. No matter how fine that ass was.

"Magic comes with a price," she said warily. "Always."

"A price? Like dead presidents? Or—hold up, do you think I did magic and this was the price? We all got amnesia?"

"I am saying it is a possibility."

"Your own magic can fuck you up?" Emma snorted humorlessly. "That's so totally shady."

The girls' boots tapped rhythmically, the only sound below deck for several long moments besides the dull clinks and irregular creaking of the ship. Eventually, Regina said, "I think I'd prefer it to the alternative, in this case."

Emma nodded. "The devil you know, huh?"

"Something to that effect. Though you're hardly a devil, Emma Swan."

Deliberately casual, Emma scoffed, "Tell that to all the foster parents."

"Foster parents?" Regina asked, a furrow of genuine confusion between her eyebrows.

Legitimately not knowing about the foster system had to have been the most privileged life Emma could've imagined. Jealousy rubbed a little bit of that old bitterness into the set of her shoulders. "People who take in orphans," she explained, and she could hear herself being more curt than usual with Regina, but she couldn't stop herself. "Not like adoption, 'cause they don't keep you." Regina's lower lip twitched, and Emma couldn't tell if that fleeting pout was pity or hurt at her harsh tone.

She hadn't lied, but she'd avoided the subject of her parents up 'til then, so she wasn't surprised that Regina felt the need to verify, "You're an orphan?"

Not surprised, but not prepared for a heart-to-heart, either.

"No offense, Regina, but I don't really want to talk about this. Can we go back to the magic stuff?"

Regina didn't push; she simply apologized and agreed. For some reason, Emma had sort of expected to be given a hard time. She took the out, though, and asked, "So, does Pan have magic?"

"I couldn't say," Regina replied. "I don't know much beyond the myth. However, if what they say about Neverland is true, the island itself is highly magical. We should expect that Pan may be able to tap into those natural reserves. Some say he controls the whole island."

Emma kicked at a support beam. "And that's who we're going up against? Jesus, Peter fucking Pan. I thought he was a good guy." She stopped walking and blinked. "I mean, I thought he wasn't real."

With a sharp shake of her head, she started walking again. As did Regina, who was remarkably good at keeping pace with her. They were more in sync than Emma felt with anyone else on the ship. She could already tell that Snow and David saw the world as very black-and-white, and they probably wouldn't understand her shades of gray. Killian was alright, but his strong convictions about serving in the Navy didn't really jibe with Emma's general me-against-the-world outlook. And Rumplestiltskin was just weird as hell…

"What about this "Dark One" junk? Can you tell me about that? 'Cause the others seem all goody-two-shoes, but if we've got someone with a title like that on our team, are we sure we're on the right side of this?"

"The Dark One's magic is inherently…" Regina pursed her lips. "Well, it's dark, obviously. It renders him immortal and quite possibly the most powerful being in existence. As for the morality of an alliance with him—many a leader have employed his services.

"Though his power is certainly evil in essence, he is not aligned with any external agenda. He acts exclusively in his own self interest and will assist anyone with whom he can make a favorable deal, regardless of moral standing. I assume we must've made such a deal."

Emma was reminded of the fairytale and felt somewhat relieved that at least one thing about this insanity was consistent with the stories she knew. There was a weird quality to Regina's voice that worried her, though.

"Is there a "but" coming?" she prodded.

"No, not a "but," per se…"

"You can be straight with me, Regina. You and me, we got each other's backs, alright?"

Nodding slowly, Regina glanced around and lowered her voice. "The Dark One's essence is tied to a dagger. Whoever possesses it controls him."

"Woah, that's kinda shady," Emma muttered.

"According to all my history books, Rumplestiltskin has retained possession of his dagger for centuries."

The implications of that weighed heavily on the two girls. There were two methods of getting the Dark One's help, and they had no way of knowing which they'd employed.

"Yo, you don't think we stole this dagger thing and were using it to make him help us, do you?"

"I hope not, because I have no idea where we'd have been keeping it."

"Well, shit."

Emma stopped abruptly and turned on her heel. She took three steps in the wrong direction, then pivoted again and took six more the way they'd been going before. With a quarter-turn to the left and a grunt, she kicked the hull. Then she completed the rotation so she was facing Regina, who'd observed the erratic behavior with wide, uncertain eyes.

Walking wasn't going to cut it. Emma needed to pace. "Just, just give me a minute," she told Regina, as she did just that. Small, frantic orbits, so tight she almost made herself dizzy.

"This is whack," she eventually blurted. "Even for a dream, it's totally insane."

Regina merely hummed in agreement.

"I mean, if the whole magic thing wasn't enough—we have no idea what we're up against, except that it's maybe some demon version of Peter Pan. Plus, we don't know who we can trust. That's pretty terrifying if you think about it.

"What kinda lunatic storms an unfamiliar island—a whole island, not, like, the fifth floor of a high-rise!—to throw down with an opponent they know nothing about, backed by total strangers, all in the interest of saving someone they've never met? Who does that? It's basically a suicide mission. Why should I risk my life?"

There was a long silence before Regina whispered tightly, "I understand why you'd feel that way."

"But that's the kicker!" Emma laughed humorlessly. "I don't. Yeah, it's insane, but somehow this feels like the most important thing ever."

"For me as well," breathed Regina. "It's as if my soul demands it. Though that may be because…" She bit her lip nervously. "Henry is my father's name."

Emma skidded to a halt.

"What? Regina, why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I feared that no one would wish to help if they knew that all this is probably my fault."

"Why would you think—? Listen, I'm sure it isn't your fault, and, even if it is, that won't stop me from helping you. Like I said, I got your back."

Regina smiled tremulously. "Thank you, Emma."

Conversation lapsed for a while as they both dwelled on the situation and all its complexities. Aside from the island they were approaching, there was no land as far as the eye could see—only endless waves. On all sides, the pale blue of the sky met the green-blue of the sea with such finality. Somehow, Emma just knew that nothing else awaited beyond that horizon. The only way out was through Neverland.

"I still don't like it," she said, "—charging blind into this, this great unknown."

Regina moved to stand in front of her and reached out to wrap her small hands around Emma's upper arms. Her eyes flashed, dark and serious, and her voice took on an authoritative quality.

"I know—somehow, I know you are capable. I believe in you, and, together, we are going to…to succeed."

In that barest of hesitations, Emma wondered if the words she had expected, and yet couldn't pinpoint, were the same words that escaped Regina. The force of those unknown words, almost as much as what she'd actually said, finalized Emma's decision.

"Alright. Tell the others to get ready. We're going to save Henry."

For the first time, an enormous, unencumbered grin bloomed across Regina's face. She rocked indecisively on her heels, then popped up to give Emma a kiss on the cheek and was gone before the blonde could even begin to blush.

Emma realized there wasn't much she wouldn't do for a smile even half as bright as that grin.

I know Neverland's been done to death, but I don't think I've seen this particular AU. Which is not to say it hasn't been done, obviously, but I recently found a rough cut of this (still pretty rough) first chapter while going through my old hard drive and figured I might as well post it. Pretty sure it was written way back when they just set sail on the show. I'll continue it if there's enough interest, so feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading!