Neverland. Emma is in Neverland. Neal could scarcely believe it. Why? How? He had instantly recognized the foliage of the island, his home for well over a hundred years, maybe even two hundred. How long had it been anyway? In a place where you have no future, the days pass by in a blur. Time had been stopped for so long that the rush of it when he ended up in the Land Without Magic had been a shock to his system. Watching himself age, hearing his voice change, becoming an adult. It had all been so strange.
And now Emma was there. Why? He could see her searching for something out there in that dark forest. What could possibly have led her to that frightening land?
He stepped away from the man who called himself Robin Hood, away from the woman who called herself Mulan. He needed space. He needed to figure out what on Earth he was going to do. He had little idea of how to get back to Storybrooke. He had even less of an idea on how to get to Neverland. And that was if he even wanted to go there. Which he didn't. But he may have to. He had spent so long trying to escape. Did he dare go back to try to rescue Emma?
"My real debt is to your mother." Robin Hood's voice came from not far away and Neal whipped around to face him.
"You knew my mother?" He barely remembered his mother. She had abandoned them when he was still yet a boy. He thought her dead until he found himself in Neverland and found otherwise. It had been hundreds of years since he had seen her.
"Aye, indeed. Your father may have spared my life, but I suspect it was your mother's doing. He had me trussed up in the dungeon and she came in and freed me.
"My mother?" He waved an arm around the castle. "Was here?"
"She was. A lovely young girl, too, very sweet. I was surprised, frankly. I wasn't quite sure what she saw in the Dark One." He paused and raised his hands upward, palms facing toward Neal. "No offense."
Neal shook his head. "None taken. But I don't know what woman you're talking about. My mother died many years ago. And I don't remember much of her at this point, but one thing I remember is that no one would have described her as sweet."
"Oh but she was…brought me water, let me go. I tried to take her with me, but she refused."
"Definitely not my mother. She was not exactly the mothering type, you know? She sucked worse than my father, if you could believe it. Upped and abandoned us when I was eight." Memories…things he'd rather forget. He had never quite been able to believe his mother loved him and was coming back for him, despite what Hook had told him.
"Small woman? Brunette? Even shorter than your father…sorry."
Neal let out a small huff of laughter. "No need to apologize. My mother was taller than my father, so it wasn't her. They didn't part on good terms as you can imagine, so finding her here would be quite the surprise." That was putting it bluntly. He was pretty sure she had died long before his father had found himself in possession of such large castle. But that meant…"So you're saying he had a woman at this castle?"
"Aye. A rather young woman, beautifully dressed, obviously of noble bearing. The way she tried to protect him, well, I assumed she was his bride."
Neal shook his head. "I can't imagine anyone willingly living with my father. What was her name?"
"Alas, she never introduced herself to me. But I seem to recall his saying her name during one of their shouting matches. They fought a lot…"
"Now that I could believe," Neal said with a faint smile gracing his face.
Robin nodded, an answering ghost of a smile on his face. "Her name sounded like Belle."
Neal choked. Belle…the woman he had heard his father make his dying confession to. The hero, the woman who loved an ugly man. Emma had explained to him, sometime later, that the woman had lost her memories but that before her accident, it was obvious she had been madly in love with his father, and he with her. He never met her, though he saw her briefly as some weird alternate personality. His "new old girlfriend" Emma had called her, as she grimaced.
"Belle?" Neal and Robin whipped around to face Mulan, who had suddenly found herself interested in their conversation. "How do you know Belle?"
Neal stared at her for a moment. "You know Belle too?"
Mulan nodded, the movement quick and efficient. "She saved my village from the Yaoguai."
"The what?" Neal asked. He had absolutely no clue what she was talking about. He had been gone a long time, a dreadfully long time, and it seemed even longer right then.
"A fearsome beast…which turned out to be nothing but a man cursed to be a beast. You met him…Phillip."
"She saved my life," Robin said, holding his hand over his heart. "She kept a different beast from ending my life and leaving Lady Marian alone and our child without a father. Without her I'm sure I would not be here today."
Neal watched Mulan's narrowed gaze look back and forth between the two men. "She told me, the last time I saw her, that she had another beast to face. I have not heard of her since. I assumed the curse had taken her to your land."
"It did."
"So you're saying the beast she had to face was Rumplestiltskin?" Mulan shook her head. "I never would have let her go if I'd known where she was headed."
"I don't think it would have mattered," Robin said. "I was sure she was involved in him."
"Here?" Neal asked. He knew that his father was involved with someone named Belle in Storybrooke and he had been surprised to find out she was a beautiful young woman. But to find out that their relationship went further back, to the time in the Enchanted Forest before the curse struck? That was unexpected.
"Aye, as I said she freed me."
"And saved me."
"And she loved my father? He was a sadistic bastard!" Neal exclaimed, accompanying the words with a flourishing hand gesture reminiscent of his father's old flamboyance.
Robin nodded. "That he was. But I'm positive he loved her."
Neal heard his own father's words echoing through his mind. I'm full of love. Perhaps if he ever made it back to Storybrooke, he'd have to find out more about this woman brave enough to face his father in his own lair and fall in love with him.