A/N: I'm obsessed with S3. Love the love triangle between Emma, Neal, and Hook, and super excited to see some Regal Outlaw. I also hope to see Rumple make the ultimate sacrifice to save his family. Warning: violence and character death. This is probably going to be AU, and is un-betaed, so please excuse any errors. Reviews are welcome!
The moment Emma Swan gave up was truly extraordinary. Never did anyone think that she would. Giving up, after all, was never an option for her. This was Emma Swan: the fighter, the one with a good heart, the survivor, the child of the truest of love. She was the savior, she was the hero. But not anymore. The culmination of all the obstacles Neverland threw at her, the realization that she would always be a lost girl, an orphan, a sub-par mother, the loss of her love, not once but twice, the slight comfort she found in a pirate, the fact that her father had days to live, and the realization that Neal was alive, a captive of Pan, and that her own flesh and blood was staring at her with such disgust and contempt, was finally too much for her to handle. Outnumbered, wounded, with no aces up their sleeve, there was no other option but for the rescue party to admit defeat. There was no one to save the heroes.
So when Pan's boys divulged her parents and Hook of their weapons, trapped Regina with magical squid ink, revealed Neal hanging by his wrists from a tree, fighting weakly while screaming her name, and beckoned his Lost Girl forward, Emma stepped into the middle of the clearing, and threw down her sword. She felt the weight of the world on her shoulders, the eyes of her family upon her. She could still register Neal's muffled yells, though she refused to look up at him, the guilt of her brief relationship with Hook weighing heavily on her soul. Her head hung low, blonde hair obscuring her tear-stained face; the savior was vanquished. And Pan was utterly gleeful.
"Oh poor, sweet little Emma. Did you honestly think you would win? Nothing happens in Neverland without my knowledge and say so. I have been lord here since before your existence was even conceived. No one leaves without my permission. No one wins but me. My board, my game, my world, my rules. The only reason anyone here is still alive is because I allowed it."
Emma said nothing, but her shoulders shook as the tears she had tried to keep at bay escaped.
Like a lioness circling its prey, like a cat toying with its food, Pan began circling the disheveled Savior.
"You, Emma Swan, are nothing. You are an orphan. You are unloved. You are an unworthy mother. Just a few short days with your son was all it took for him to completely forget about you, the woman who abandoned him, who couldn't even love him enough to keep him. You have nothing to give. All you have ever done is run, run away from your problems. You are not a savior; you are a coward. And because of you, everyone will perish. First your lost love, and then your parents and your ill suited rescue party, that silly little fairy, and even this little one, who I found crying alone in the woods."
Neal gave an even more impassioned shout as Pan pulled a shaking Roland from his hiding place. The boy's wide eyes took in the scene, and from her vantage point, Emma could see his tears falling freely, and the mantra of "Daddy" from his lips. She let out a squeak.
Pan smirked again, adding insult to injury. "Are you ready, Emma? Are you ready to have so much innocent blood on your hands? Do you know what I'll do after I finish slaughtering anyone who had the unfortunate privilege of crossing your path? I will turn your son so evil that his name will forever be associated with darkness."
Emma was sobbing in earnest now, and had a golf-ball sized lump in her throat that she couldn't seem to swallow.
Unbeknownst to Emma, Pan took the time to scan the prisoners in his keep. Both Snow and Charming were livid, struggling to get to their broken daughter. Hook looked queasy, his gaze bouncing between the fair haired princess and the suspended man he considered a son. Regina too was fighting her bounds in earnest, the need to protect both the savior and the crying toddler, in addition to her own son fueling her efforts.
Neal, having managed to loosen his gag, grunted out, "You sick bastard. I'm gonna kill you, you hear me. Emma, Emma don't listen to him, you have to fight, Em. C'mon Em, I believe in you, I lo-." Neal's impassioned shouting was over before it began, his mouth magically shut as Pan's enraged eyes met Neal's. Turning back towards Emma, Pan smiled, knowing that Emma was now fully trapped in a despair of his own making, and that nothing or no one would be able to reach her. Excellent.
"Get on your knees, Emma Swan, and beg for mercy."
In the deep recesses of her mind, Emma recognized that this was very wrong. Never once in her life, not even after the incarceration, Henry's birth, or Mary Margaret's imprisonment had she just given up. She briefly wondered if she should struggle, fight the urge in her knees that wanted her to simply slip to the ground. It would be so easy. It was truly perplexing that she was even entertaining the idea of fighting back now, given that in addition to her tears, she also registered that she was crying out, making these pathetic noises, as she sobbed unabashedly. She felt Neal's piercing gaze on her, but she refused to lift her eyes from the ground in front of her. No, instead, Emma dropped to her knees, bending her head even more, so that a pale neck was exposed through blonde curtains of hair.
When her knees hit the ground, Pan observed how everyone's struggles to get free, from parents to pirates to evil queens, increased exponentially. They seemed to understand what Emma seemingly could not, that if she admitted defeat, on her knees begging for mercy before the lord of shadows, they would all be damned. Everything Pan worked so hard for was falling into place. With the heart of the truest believer secured, and the willing sacrifice of its mother, the truest product of love, his path to absolute dominion would be unchallenged.
"Swear you allegiance to me, little lost girl, and I might even show you benevolence and spare these young one's lives," Pan declared as he swept his hands, gesturing to a silently crying Roland and an eerily evil looking Henry.
Emma opened her mouth, but let out no sound.
"Try again, love."
She swallowed, willing the lump to recede. And as she tossed back her hair from her eyes, she saw it. Well, them, really. Rumpelstiltskin, with black warrior paint over one eye. Mulan, wielding her sword, which repelled even the strongest of magic. A hooded man with an arrow strung into an ornate bow. And behind them, several burly warriors, armed to the teeth and ready to fight. All it took was one second, Rumple's minutely inclined head telling her no, for Emma to grab onto that infinitesimal but indelible glimmer of hope.
Licking her quivering lips, and raising a hand to wipe away tears, Emma emitted one raspy little word. "No."
Pan lost his smirk, his fiery eyes taking in Emma's submissive stance. "No? No you say? Oh little Emma, have you still not learned?"
He lifted her body into the air as if it was a rag doll, and slammed her into the nearest tree. "There." Another tree met Emma's bruised back. "Is." Flying across the clearing into another branch, Emma saw the rescue party get into position. Several lost boys on the fringe of the clearing had been knocked out with poppy dust. "No." Emma's forehead met the tough bark of the tree that Neal was suspended from, and she caught his worried gaze. "Hope." Pan finally dropped Emma's bleeding, broken body in the center of the clearing.
Emma could sense the impending darkness at the edges of her vision, but spitting blood, she managed to eke out, "there is always hope."
A sharp slap to her jaw sent the Savior sprawling to the ground, green eyes fluttering closed as the battle against unconsciousness was lost. "Silly Emma. I always win."
To say Peter was surprised to suddenly see a thick arrow piercing his chest, right through his heart, would have been an understatement. "Sorry mate," said the hooded archer, "but I'm afraid this time you lose."
The clearing was eerily silent as Robin Hood's merry men and Mulan carefully took care of the rest of the Lost Boys. Robin himself rushed to his son's side and swept little Roland into his embrace. Henry remained rooted to his spot, shaking his head as he awoke from a daze.
Rumple sauntered into the middle of the clearing, meeting Pan head on. With a wave over Emma and Henry, he transported them to the edges of the clearing, into the waiting arms of Regina, Snow, and Charming. Another wave brought his son, Hook, Robin, and the rest of the rescuers to the edge as well.
"This ends now, Peter."
The blood dripping from Peter's wound was as black as his soul, and in the distance, no one could mistake the pained shrieks coming from Pan's own shadow as it met its demise.
Despite his fatal wound, Pan still managed a jibe. "Does it now Rumple? It's hard to believe that a coward is going to defeat me." Peter coughed a bit, swaying on his feet.
Rumple just smiled, unperturbed, as a different shadow descended into the camp. It was his own, and it brought with it a dagger.
"Well dearie, you better believe it, because I will do anything for my son, and if that means giving my own life, then I will do so. It seems that Miss Swan was right all along. We don't get our strength from power, but from love."
Pulling out a vial that gleamed pink, Rumple poured the contents onto Peter's open wound. Pan let out a howl of pain, falling to his knees before the Dark One. Rumple took hold of his dagger, and placed it into Peter's dying hands. With the words, "this ends now," Rumple guided Peter's hand and the dagger into his chest, straight into his heart.
The effect was instantaneous. Pan let out an unearthly screech as boils began to appear on his skin, and his body slowly started to disintegrate until he was nothing. Rumple, dagger protruding from his chest, sank to the ground. No one moved, for they were all too stunned, until Neal screamed "PAPA!" and rushed to his father's side.
But before he could remove the dagger, Rumple grabbed his wrist. "No Bae, leave it. If you keep it in me as I die, the power behind the dagger will be vanquished."
He coughed up a bit of blood, meeting his son's teary gaze. "No more Dark One."
Neal was stunned. His father had risen to the occasion, and given his life to save not only him, but everyone on the island. Leaning close to his father's ear, Neal whispered "I should have believed in you Papa. I am sorry. I love you, so much." Rumple smiled, one of the first true smiles he ever emitted, and reached to caress his son's face.
"Go live your happy ending now, Bae. You are truly free."
Rumple's eyes fluttered, but he hung onto life for a few seconds more. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out another vial of True Love, and a compass. Fixing Neal with an intense gaze, he spoke his final words.
"Pour this potion onto Charming's wound. It will heal. The compass will guide the ship back to Storybrooke. Never break in anywhere without having an escape plan. I taught Pan that. Now take it, and go home." With that, Rumple's eyes closed permanently for the first time in over 300 years.
Neal tore his gaze away from his father's body, stoically meeting the eyes of the other adults in the camp. In a gruff voice, he announced, "I'm done with Neverland. Let's go home."