Author's notes: Takes place about five years after the end of s6, one year after the unification of the realms at the end of s7. I'm obviously taking liberties with characters and events. The timeline is not necessarily consistent, due to various time travel effects and magical curses distorting everything.

They told me to just write everything down and they'll sort out the magical bits. I'm not sure what "everything" is supposed to be, or whether this will actually work, but hey, I'm not a warrior or a witch or a savior, so this is me, doing my bit for the cause.

Not that I'm a hero, either. I'm a selfish second sister in a fairy tale no one's heard of. But you can guess how it goes: three sisters set out to seek their fortunes, and the blessed third sister shares the last of her bread and money with the first homeless beggar she meets on the road. Who turns out to be a good fairy in disguise.

Naturally.

Well, excuse me for being task-oriented. Like no one else has ever hurried past a beggar without meeting them in the eye. If you're honest, you know you're probably among the selfish majority. Two out of three, right? Now imagine if you were all turned into stones — as we were, for our lack of charity, while our dear little sister went home with a sack of gold eggs and a magical crock-pot.

But fate's a funny thing, and the joke's on her: she was slaughtered along with with the rest of our village when they refused to give up Snow White to the queen. I was cursed at the time and couldn't do a thing about it. Not that I could have done much besides die with her. Still, I remember. I forgot for a time when the Dark Curse me took me here to Maine, but then... everything changed. And changed again. Years of keeping my head down, staying away from trouble — ended when trouble came knocking on my doorstep halfway into year one of the United Realms.

"Please, I need help," gasped Trouble, half tumbling inside the moment I opened the door. He was a young man, tall and pale, draped in an absurdly medieval cloak. He brought with him a whiff of bad barbecue, and suddenly I couldn't breathe.

It was the smell of magic and smoke and charred flesh, and everything came back to me. I had been stone, but everything else had burned.

The stranger stared at me, desperate eyes searching for... for what, some spark of recognition? "Roderick's mother... you're Roderick's mother."

"Uh..." Before I could deny it, my son had crept up behind me to see who was at the door. I pulled my thoughts together despite my racing heart, reminding myself we were safe in Storybrooke, and stood my ground. "What do you want?"

Roddy tugged at my shirt. "Mommy? Who's that?"

I pushed my son back. "Back to bed, sweetie. Just a visitor..."

The stranger pasted on a pained smile and looked past me to my son. "Hello, Roderick. We were in preschool together last year. Don't you remember? I'm Gideon."

"You can't be!" squeaked Roddy. "You're too big."

I admit, I boggled as well. But the face was familiar, and maybe... yes, maybe it was Gideon Gold. Who had no business showing up at my door, unless—

"Magic," explained Gideon. "Time distortion. When I say 'last year', I mean it was last year for you. It was longer for me. A lot longer."

Magic. Of course it was magic. I glanced down at Roddy's puzzled face. "It happens like that sometimes, sweetie. Mommy stayed the same age for twenty-eight years during the first Dark Curse."

Gideon's smile softened, and he looked like he wanted to cry. "Time plays tricks on us all, Roderick. You don't remember, but we were once children in a dark realm together."

Oh, hell. Maybe some things are better forgotten. Was this Gideon the same Gideon who had once charged through Storybrooke on an unholy mission to kill the Savior? He had vanished, only for a baby called Gideon to show up in the librarian's arms. Magic, you know? Not that I do know, but all's well that ends well, isn't that what they say? 'They' being the rulers of this town, this kingdom, this life. But here he was, all grown up again. The last I had seen of him, his parents had taken him off to travel the world with them.

His parents. Now there was a thought. I waved Gideon inside, and once the door clicked shut behind him, I hissed at him, "What's going on? Why are you asking me for help when your parents are—"

"They're dead."

"What, both of them?" I asked, my mouth running ahead of my brain. "Oh. Um... I'm so sorry..." I grabbed for Roddy's hand, not sure he should be hearing all this. "Is there something after you?" I looked uselessly at the window, seeing nothing but my own reflection. I wished I had a gun or a crossbow or a sword. I dragged Roddy with me to the kitchen, where I went for the biggest knife I had.

"No, no, we should be safe." Gideon limped after me. "Fairy wards... should keep her out."

Yeah. The fairies. They didn't let me go, just because we were in a new land. I live under their roof, and I work at their food pantry and homeless shelter. I'm lucky my sins weren't deemed heavy enough to condemn me to a mind wipe and a pick axe.

"Right. Keep who out, exactly?" If it hadn't been for Roddy, I would have screamed the question. With a lot more curse words. As it was, I could only pretend it was just normal idle gossip. Well, random magical strangers-not-strangers and crises are normal for this town, but I don't usually get involved.

"The Evil Queen," hissed Gideon. I wondered if he was keeping a calm facade for Roddy's sake, too, because—

The Evil Queen!?

"There's only the Good Queen," I said automatically.

Gideon gave me a withering look. "Do you really believe that?"

I shuddered. Must he ask? "Not in front of Roddy," I mouthed at Gideon, making a futile attempt to cover my son's ears.

"Do you know the queen?" Roddy piped up.

"We've met," said Gideon.

"Is she scary?"

Gideon crouched down to meet Roddy at eye level. "A little bit, but you don't have to be scared. We won't let her hurt you." His voice caught oddly as he said that. He cleared his throat and stood up again, turning to me again. "Roderick's mother—"

"Yolanda."

"Ms. Yolanda, I apologize for disturbing you at such a late hour." He glanced at my son. "Your mother is right, it is past bedtime..."

This new grown-up Gideon lurked considerately in the hallway while I coaxed Roddy back into bed. By the time I was done, it was half past eleven. Honestly, at that point, I just wanted to kick Gideon out the door to go be Someone Else's Problem. But no. I had learned my lesson. Since I had no desire to revert to being a fairy's paving stone (and who would look after Roddy then?) I gritted my teeth and invited my intruder into the kitchen.

"Please, sit down. Are you all right?" I saw how his face creased in pain as he hobbled after me. "I can't offer you much. Water, milk, coffee, juice... animal crackers? Seaweed snacks? First aid kit?"

Gideon shook his head. He waved his hand over himself, orange smoke trailing from his fingertips. Then he collapsed into a chair and smiled weakly at me. "It's nothing. A bit singed, but I'll live."

I sighed deeply. Magic. I didn't have any. "Look, just because I live inside fairy wards doesn't mean I can... I'm not... Why don't you go to Mother Superior? She's powerful and has a whole gang of fairies at her beck and call."

"And she supports the queen." Gideon's face twisted again, and for a moment he sounded like the child I remembered, a child betrayed by someone he trusted. "She thinks this is good! That it's good that everyone has a happy ending, no matter that they had to be cursed into it."

"Oh." I poured him a glass of water. "Here. Stay hydrated. You know, I didn't think the Blue Fairy even liked the queen."

Gideon sipped glumly at the water, then shook his head. "She doesn't. But she said we finally had peace and happiness, and for the sake of the greater good, we should accept our fate."

"Oh, well, if it's our fate," I muttered.

"Fate is a trap!" Gideon's eyes flared in sudden anger. "I lost..." He clenched his teeth on the rest of the sentence. "Never mind. My mother used to say that we decide our own fates, but this is a curse. The decision was taken out of our hands. But Blue..."

"What did she say?"

"That Regina did it for everyone's own good. Never mind it was for her own good, really. She always wanted to be loved."

"Don't we all?" I couldn't help but scoff. I remembered my sister's fate. The queen wanted love badly enough to burn down our whole village. But that was then. No one wants to dredge up the past, not now that everyone's happy. "Well, she got what she wanted. Step outside these wards and you're up to your neck in love for the Good Queen. Smile! Bow! It's a good thing she's done."

Gideon shot me a look. "You sound bitter."

"You think?"

"But you live with the fairies. I thought..."

"Forgive and forget? Villains can be redeemed?" I rolled my eyes. "Sure, look at me, so redeemed... but I wasn't a royal enough murderer to be elected queen." I realized I had picked up the big knife again. I coughed and put it away in the drawer. "So, um, what about you? What do you think of our beloved overlord?"

Gideon dropped his gaze and fiddled with the edge of his cloak. "I don't want to hurt her. She was a friend of my father's, at the end..."

"But?"

"But this curse needs to be broken. Even if people are happy now — it was imposed on them. This unification of realms is creating a vortex of magical energy that is distorting reality..."

I don't remember the rest. All technical details and magical theories. It sounded serious, so I nodded and made agreeing noises when he paused for breath, while I thought about the queen's luck in having well-placed friends. My older sister hadn't been so lucky. She had been shattered, poured into the gravel fill to fix castle walls broken during the war. So much for her redemption. At least I was alive to complain about it.

"...spatial dimensions compressed dangerously, potentially creating a singularity," Gideon continued with his explanation. Then he stopped and stared at me. I think he suddenly remembered I wasn't a magical scholar. He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. "Sorry."

I waved a forgiving hand. "It's all right." But I did wonder. "Why did you come to me, if you knew I couldn't help you with the magic?" Then I realized. "No, you didn't come to me. You came to Roderick, didn't you?"

Gideon didn't deny it. "He doesn't remember, and perhaps it's better that way, but I let him down — badly — and I... I swore I wouldn't, not again. I just wanted to see that he was safe."

"You said you were children in a dark realm together."

He swallowed and nodded stiffly.

"That must have been before..." Before I adopted Roderick, I meant. At the time, I hadn't asked too many questions about his past. I assumed Mr. Gold had inherited all the babies from his mother — the notorious Black Fairy and kidnapper of infants — somehow (I definitely hadn't wanted to ask him about how that went down) and I volunteered when he was looking for homes for them.

"Yes."

"So does that mean," I ventured, thinking about it, "that he was grown up, like you were, and then... what, turned into a baby again?"

"It's complicated," said Gideon, who looked to be on the verge of tears. I looked away discreetly as I waited for him to compose himself. "Time is broken here. All the curses, Zelena's time travel spell, the Black Fairy's magic, the magic of the dream realm and the dark realm turned the order of space-time into..." He gestured, but I was no more enlightened.

"You mean time isn't what it used to be."

That won a small snort of laughter from him. "You could say that. Anyway, my father went back to the dark realm to a point before fate tied everything into knots, and sent us to himself at a different point. The hard part was to keep reality from collapsing when he did that, but whatever else he was, my father was good at managing complex spells."

Yeah, ok, I wasn't going to argue with that. I mean, his father is — was — the Dark One, whose mad schemes spanned centuries of magic and manipulation. As they say, practice makes perfect, and he had plenty of that.

"Because of that, the things that happened in the dark realm also didn't happen."

"If you say so." I was too tired for this. Trying not to yawn in his face, I told him, "Look, you can crash on the couch for tonight. Tomorrow..." Yes, what about tomorrow? Then inspiration hit. "There is one fairy who might be willing to help you."

Tinker Bell lived under fairy wards and was supposedly a member of Blue's do-gooder cult, but Tink's always been a maverick. With Roddy tagging along (I didn't want him out of my sight in case the Evil Queen tried something), I took Gideon over to her cottage just before daybreak. It was a Sunday, so we didn't have to worry about school or work. Not that she was best pleased to answer the door at such an ungodly hour, but she eventually invited us inside with only a token obscenity or two. Gideon mollified her by conjuring up fresh coffee and cinnamon rolls (along with a hot chocolate for Roddy.) Sweet boy. Guess he got that from his mother.

Once we were settled around Tink's kitchen table, Gideon launched again into his long convoluted technical explanation of everything wrong with our world today.

Tink listened for about fifteen seconds before she cut him off. "Yes, yes, I know."

Gideon blinked at her. "Oh."

"It's a cheat. A lie," snapped Tink. "And that's no good for anyone, including Regina. It has to end."

"And I'll help you end it, Uncle Gideon."

I nearly choked on my coffee as the new voice broke in. I spun around to see a scowling teenager looming darkly at the edge of the kitchen. It was Henry. Not Henry Mills, but the younger version of him who had grown up in the alternate Enchanted Forest. Mr Gold's — Rumplestiltskin's — grandson and Gideon Gold's older brother's son from an alternate reality.

Dramatic entrances must run in the family.

Gideon stared in shock.

"I read about you in a book," said Henry, putting enough emphasis on book that we knew he meant one of the fancy illustrated tomes that magically contained our stories.

"You're the other Henry," I babbled. "I thought you were close to the queen."

"Haven't you heard the saying, 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer'?" retorted Henry.

"She is her own worst enemy at the moment." Tink sighed in weariness and disappointment. "I had hoped that she had changed, but..."

"She murdered my grandparents in cold blood," snarled Henry. "And when I confronted her, all she had to say was that it had been a 'mistake'. She is the same heartless villain she's always been."

I raised my eyebrows at that. "Then all the rumors about how you two hugged and made up? All that about how you had her at sword point, but her love turned your hate into forgiveness...?"

Henry scoffed. "It's what she wanted to believe. She didn't even feel bad about killing them. She only felt bad that a person who looked like her son could hold her to account."

"Still, I'm glad you didn't," said Tink. "For your sake."

"I realized it was a trap," muttered Henry.

"What do you mean?" asked Gideon.

"I remembered that I tried it before. I was about to kill the Evil Queen, to save my mother and avenge my grandparents..."

"What happened?"

"My sword froze in the air. And then the Evil Queen stole my mother's heart. She left without another word to me. My mother." Henry all but spat out the last word. Tears streaked down his face. He wiped them away savagely. "She can't even stand to see me now. Apparently, I'm not 'real.' But real or not, I couldn't let the Evil Queen steal my heart as well, so I pretended to forgive her before she could work her sorcery on me."

"I'm sorry," said Gideon softly.

Tink rose from her seat and moved to comfort Henry with a hug. "You did what you thought was right. The problem is that Regina did get Emma's heart. This new curse, the Light Curse, is partly powered with the Savior's magic, making it nearly impossible to break."

"Sounds a mess," I muttered to Roddy, who was getting bored. I distracted him with his favorite plastic pullback airplane, taking turns rolling it around the edge of the table.

"Some of it's my fault," Tink admitted, releasing Henry. The latter moved quietly to get himself breakfast as Tink explained, "Back in the Enchanted Forest, I tried to help her. I thought pixie dust was the answer."

Gideon gave her a sharp look. "Fate magic?"

Tink nodded. "I tried to steer Regina toward a kinder path by finding her a soulmate. She refused to risk meeting him, but the damage was done. Between my meddling and Rumplestiltskin's, Regina got the idea in her head that magic was the key to her happiness."

"That's why she cast the Dark Curse, isn't it?" Everyone in Storybrooke knew the story by now. The Evil Queen cursed us all just to make Snow White miserable.

"But it didn't bring her the happiness she expected. So then she got onto the Author to write her a happy ending, and then Dr. Jekyll's serum to get rid of the part of herself that was making her unhappy..."

"Did it work?" I had to ask, not being close enough to the queen to know already.

Tink shrugged. "Yes and no. The Author wasn't much help, and the Evil Queen (the part of her that revels in the name) loathed her better self."

"But...?"

"The old Author was replaced by her son Henry, who loves his mother and believes the best of her. And she reconciled with her darker half." Tink grimaced. "Which means that anyone who manages to slip through the cracks of the Light Curse, any possible opposition to her, is faced with the power of the Author and her own dark side."

"I can attest to that," said Gideon. "While Good Queen Regina rules us in her benevolence, the Evil Queen strikes down her enemies from the shadows."

"Yeah." I had had my own encounter with her. They say that Regina was freely elected. Bullshit. A brainwashed vote isn't "free." And for those of us who were free, voter suppression won the day. A funny thing happened on the way to the poll — I never got there. Somehow I got the impression that it would be hazardous to my health to cast my ballot against her. An impression delivered by someone who was very very determined to be loved for her kindness.

Very determined.

Someone with enough divination magic to screen the negative votes before they were cast.

"The Evil Queen wants to be loved just as badly as Regina's lighter side does, only she's even less scrupulous about how she gains that love," said Tink.

"And both delusional," Gideon added in a pained voice. "I know... I've seen how darkness and power can twist someone's idea of love."

Well, that sounded agonizingly personal, didn't it? Somewhere around this point, I had to help Roddy to the bathroom. By the time we got back, they were discussing possible allies.

"Zelena is with her muggle husband in San Francisco, along with her daughter," Tink was saying. Muggle was the term popularized by Regina's Henry for natives of the Land Without Magic. "Which means Alice and Rogers are there, too. But there's no point troubling them. They're part of the curse, and if they come back here, they'll do whatever Regina wants."

"So what do you suggest?" asked Gideon.

"There is one realm that evaded the new curse. One I never thought to see again." Tink sighed. "Neverland. It has its own magic, its own power to shape reality. Perhaps we will be able to use that. With Pan gone, there's one person left there who may help us. I never thought to see her again, either, but needs must."

"Who?" asked Henry.

"My mother."

Fascinating, I know, but I managed to curb my curiosity. I wished them the best of luck in Neverland, but it was time for me and Roddy to head home, my duty of charity fulfilled.

"Thank you, Roderick's mother — I mean, Ms. Yolanda." Gideon grasped my hand for a hearty shake.

"Yeah, no problem."

Ha. If only. I barely got out the front door when an arrow whistled past me to explode in a shower of black sparks. I caught a glimpse of the archer and his companion before I flung Roddy back inside, then followed and slammed the door behind me. "They're here! The Evil Queen and her outlaw!"

Gideon was already casting a spell. "That was dark fairy dust."

"Where the hell did she get... never mind." Tink grabbed a velvet bag out of a drawer and fumbled for the contents. "My wards won't hold up against that. We have to go. Now!" She hurried everyone out the back door, Henry pausing just long enough to snatch up his backpack.

Now maybe you think I'm stupid for following them, but really, is it any smarter to stay in a building that's being bombarded by dark magic? So yeah, I scooped up my son and joined their impromptu backyard party.

Gideon was the last out. He gave me and Roddy a look. "She's after us, not you. I'll distract her. You get yourselves to safety..."

Like I said, a sweet boy. "But what about you guys?"

Tink answered that question by tossing something into the grass. Something that blew up into a swirling green whirlpool of light. Ah. Some things you know what they are the first time you see them. This was a portal... to Neverland?

Yeah, no. I headed for the side gate. Only this was the moment Roddy lost his grip on his toy airplane. It bounced once, twice, on the ground, then tumbled toward the green light. Next thing I knew, my son had slithered out of my arms and was running as fast as his little legs could carry him after his airplane. Damn fast, that is.

Of course I went after him, and that was that.

Neverland was aggressively balmy after the biting chill of early spring in Maine. Pity we couldn't have stayed at the beach we landed on — it would have been easier to explain that to Roddy as a day trip. Instead, Tink led us along a line of cliffs to a gaping hole in the rock. Her (estranged) mother lived in a cave.

Because of course she did.

"Oh, good, you remembered to bring a child this time," said Tinker Bell's mother without preamble the moment she saw us.

What the fuck!? I shoved Roddy behind me and glared.

"Relax, I mean him no harm," she said to me. "I'm Tiger Lily. I'm on your side."

"And what about him?" growled Tink. She eyed the smirking youth who had come up behind Tiger Lily. "Whose side is he on?"

"Tink, I know we've all had our differences, but it's past time to set them aside," said Tiger Lily. "In fact, long past time, longer than you know, so let's cut to the chase. He's here by my invitation."

"Hello, Tink." The youth grinned. "You should know by now that Peter Pan only has one side — his own. But don't worry, our interests align. For now."

Peter Pan!?

Beside me, Gideon raised a flare of magic. "Stay back!"

Pan laughed. "Hello, grandson. Are you going to be as tiresome as Rumple? Is this any way to greet your family?" His gaze swept to include Henry. "Aww, and here's widdle Henry."

Henry let his backpack slide to the ground, drawing a short sword from it in one practiced motion. "I've heard of you. You've never been family to us."

"Malcolm! Stop antagonizing them. This is pointless."

"But it's fun."

"Don't make me regret letting you out of that cage," snapped Tiger Lily. "Henry. Over here. Put the book with the others." She led him to where half a dozen stacks of identical books covered the cave floor.

Time really does play tricks on us. Turns out the queen's curse fucked us up even worse than we knew. All of us who thought we were free of it were in fact trapped in a bubble of time, batted back and forth from future to past and back again. But Neverland is outside time, maybe outside reality itself. So Tink and company have been making the trip here for... well, count the books if you want to know how many times.

"Chronic hysteresis," grumbled Gideon. "I can't believe I didn't realize."

No wonder Pan looked so bored with us.

"But this is the first time they've been here." Tiger Lily nodded at me and Roddy.

"That was pure chance," I said. If Roddy hadn't dropped his toy, if it had bounced right instead of left, if I had caught up to him before he fell through the portal...

"Not even magic can eliminate the inherent randomness in the grain of the universe," said Gideon.

Tiger Lily explained for the n-th time the plan that they had concocted. They needed a Savior to break the curse, but the only Savior available had already been co-opted by Regina. Tiger Lily was trying to reconstruct an earlier Savior — her godson that she had failed to protect — by wishing really hard. Neverland, besides being outside time, is the only place where wishing really hard affects reality. Such as it is.

For that, she needed a child, because the magic of Neverland is tuned to a child's imagination. That's how we ended up sitting around reading stories about the Dark One to Roddy. Because Rumplestiltskin had once been a Savior, and Tiger Lily was trying to patch up his original fate that his mother had cut away.

"But my father is dead," objected Gideon. "Both versions of him died."

"Not quite," said Tiger Lily. "Your version died. The one that went to dust in the wish realm was only an empty shell housing the Darkness. The real Rumplestiltskin from that realm is trapped inside these books." She tapped the closest stack.

"Oh!" Henry blurted out. "So that's why..." He saw us staring at him and explained, "He made me help him with the books. He said at first he was looking for Belle, but later he changed and only wanted to trap everyone inside and torture them..."

Anyway, Tiger Lily had added in her own sequel where Rumplestiltskin reconnected with his lost Savior magic, and Roddy was supposed to clap his hands and believe in Light Ones. In a dream, because that was how Neverland's magic worked.

"You have to be Malcolm now," Tiger Lily told Peter Pan once Roddy had been lulled to sleep. "You were the one who gave Rumplestiltskin his name, so you have to be the one to call his soul back."

Pan made a face. "Backstabbing little worm."

"If you want to see Fiona again..."

Even when he's dead, everyone still tries to make deals with the fucking Dark One. Excuse me, the Light One. If you believe Tiger Lily's story. Anyway, she had (in one of the previous loops) learned how Mr. Gold fetched Gideon and Roddy and all the others out of the dark realm, and promised he could do the same for his mother — Malcolm's beloved and ambiguously deceased wife.

Optimistic of Tiger Lily to think that Gold — in any incarnation — would lift a finger for either of his parents other than to kill them.

So there he was, fetched halfway of the magical storybooks, crouching there in his Mr. Gold long-haired form while dressed up in all his evil wizard leathers. This was a Rumplestiltskin who had never been to Storybrooke. His right hand was still inside the page.

"Let go, laddie!" Pan tried to yank his son free, but Rumplestiltskin was having none of it.

"Never."

Everyone pulled harder. Rumplestiltskin finally came flying free, and that was when we learned that he had found Belle — a Belle who had starved to death three decades ago in the queen's dungeon in the wish realm. She was bound to work up an appetite in three decades, so we shouldn't have been so surprised when she lunged for Peter Pan's throat.

"Belle!" Rumplestiltskin got an arm around his wife — wait, were they married in the wish realm? — and she sank her teeth into his wrist. He pulled her back, probably not so much saving his father as keeping Belle from chewing on something nasty. "Belle, please..."

Magic went flying everywhere, except from Gideon. The boy could only stare with big round eyes, frozen in shock at his parents. The mad wizard and hungry ghost versions from another reality...

As for me, I backed away as stealthily as I could, Roddy cradled in my arms. He was so exhausted that none of the commotion disturbed his sleep.

Thankfully, getting a stomach full of Light One blood seemed to calm Belle's mind, and she looked more human and less like a skeleton with clothes. (Though if word of this gets out, I doubt anyone will ever trust her with the library children's hour ever again.) Tiger Lily explained the situation to them, while Rumplestiltskin and Peter Pan glared daggers at each other. Gideon was still all puppy-eyed at seeing his parents again. Henry paced from one wall of the cavern to the other, ducking his head where the ceiling was too low to stand, waiting for the Light One to get on board with the program.

Fat chance.

"You took her away from me and ruined my life," Pan was shouting at his son. "You owe me, you parricidal brat."

"That wasn't me. I let you live, didn't I?"

Pan spat at his feet, a gob of magic that sizzled when it hit the ground. "In a bloody cage, and only because you're even more of a coward than your counterpart and didn't have the guts to kill me."

"Rumple..." Belle hadn't let go of Rumplestiltskin since the two of them popped out of the book.

Rumplestiltskin's eyes softened for maybe a millisecond, then he was back in angry wizard mode. "You can't hold me to a deal I never made."

"Even if your papa means nothing to you, Tiger Lily is your fairy godmother." Pan sneered like only he could. "Be a good boy and trust that she has your best interests at heart."

"Really? The way she had my best interests at heart when she handed me over to a lying hateful coward, then never showed her face in the Enchanted Forest again?"

"I made a mistake, one I've regretted ever since. But this is a chance for you to start over as a family," Tiger Lily tried, but it was no use.

Tink sat down next to me, shaking her head. "I don't know how she ever expected this to work."

Gideon and Belle tried (failed) to play peacemaker, leaving Henry to join in with angry shouting.

"The Evil Queen has all the realms in thrall and you stand here squabbling. Break the curse first and mend your ties with your father later. A Savior isn't so selfish as to put his own problems above the greater good," Henry ranted. "As they say in the Land Without Magic, build a bridge and get over it!"

"Get over it!?" Rumplestiltskin seethed. "Throw me away, fob me off, leave my family to be eaten by ogres, leave innocents to starve in the queen's dungeon, call me a fake, that's all fine when I'm no one, but suddenly you need a Savior and you think I'm your man?"

"They need your help, Rumple," said Belle. He wasn't letting go of her, either, not that that stopped him being an ass.

"Oh, I know they need my help," Rumplestiltskin sneered. I could just about see the family resemblance as he faced off against Peter Pan. "I owe them nothing."

"We got you out," Gideon said sadly.

"And you're not my son." Some of his anger subsided and Rumplestiltskin didn't quite meet Gideon's eyes, but he stubbornly refused to give an inch. All this "Light One" business isn't worth jack shit when it comes down to it.

"But I am."

"Bae?" Rumplestiltskin staggered backwards in shock, almost taking Belle down with him.

"Yeah, it's me, Papa." A ghost manifested itself in a blaze of light that faded away to reveal an almost-solid body. "I mean, this form is made out of wishes, but it's me inside."

What did I say about dramatic entrances?

Gideon and Henry were equally stunned.

"...Papa?" Henry's strangled whisper was loud in the suddenly quiet cavern.

"Yeah." Ghostly Baelfire turned to Henry and smiled wistfully. "You're all grown up... I wish I could have been there for you." Then he sighed. "But that kind of wish doesn't work, not even in Neverland."

At that point, saving the world from the queen's curse took a backseat to a confusing-as-hell family reunion. Are you still related when you're from different realities? How did Baelfire also manage to be Neal, especially when both are supposedly dead?

"How can you even be here?" asked Rumplestiltskin.

Baelfire showed us his passport, issued by the Goddess of Mercy, with a seal from the Department of Lost Children. It allowed him to grant small mercies in aiding souls as they entered the underworld, or in threshold worlds like Neverland or the dream realm. He could help them with the pain of abandonment, with their fear and anger. He grinned wryly. "With all my experience, the application was a piece of cake."

All the blood drained from his father's face at that. "I'm so sorry, Bae."

"It's all right, Papa."

"It's not..."

"Listen, you came back for me. You gave up everything to save me. I forgive you."

"That wasn't me." Rumplestiltskin stared at the floor in shame. "I failed..."

"It doesn't matter. I saw the love in your heart, and that's the same in every reality."

No, wait, I think that line was from some mushy romance I read once. The point is, tears and hugs all around. Baelfire was there for his own son, who felt just as abandoned and betrayed by his mother.

"The Evil Queen murdered my grandparents, and my mother never even mourned their deaths," wailed Henry, clinging to the father he had never known before.

"Your mother... in a way, she never existed," said Baelfire gently. "Wishes are dangerous things. Someone makes a wish, and other people get hurt. You have to let her go, Henry. The Emma we remember is not who she is now."

"I don't matter, then."

"That's not what I'm saying."

Meanwhile, in the other corner, Gideon was shyly making the acquaintance of his vampiric not-mother from the other reality. "We found a way to dispel Papa's curse. I'm sure we can help you, too..."

While Rumplestiltskin was holding Belle's hand and grumbling sullenly at Peter Pan, "Very well. But if you expect love and forgiveness from me..."

Compared to the family drama, breaking the queen's Light Curse was easy. Or so we hoped. As Neal carried on with his father-son bonding session with Henry, Rumplestiltskin turned to Gideon. Their initial wariness dissolved in a torrent of arcane technobabble. I listened at first, but once they began discussing the diagonalization of the reality matrix, third order matches on boundary conditions, narrative fields, and induced instability in the blah blah blahs, I tuned them out.

Undead Belle must have seen my eyes glazing over, because she tore herself away from Rumplestiltskin to come over to where Roddy and I were resting on a pile of animal skins. She gave us a brilliant smile, exposing the sharp tips of her fangs. I tried not to shudder. Then she asked me about the other Belle and Rumple.

I gave her the headlines that everyone in Storybrooke knew. She winced at the recitation of what seemed to be nonstop angst, but no, I assured her, things calmed down. By the time I personally knew Mr. and Mrs. Gold, it was mostly as fellow parents at the preschool my son attended.

That made her smile again. Her eyes strayed to Gideon and she sighed wistfully. "A son. I wonder..."

Meanwhile, Tink and Tiger Lily were huddled in the other corner, brainstorming what to do with the queen once the curse was broken. Pan listened in with a suspicious amount of interest. When asked, he claimed to be on board the redemption train and hoping for pointers.

And so it went, until Rumplestiltskin announced that it was time. He aimed his refurbished Savior mojo at the stack of books that Gideon brought him. Then he had everyone sit in a circle on the floor while he passed books and pens around, for all the world like Roddy's kindergarten teacher assigning an art project.

Henry toyed with his pen, frowning slightly. "Just like last time?"

"Ink drawn from your grief and anger," said Rumplestiltskin. "And your latent powers as a potential Author. But this time, I won't tell you what to write."

"Not even writers' guidelines?" muttered Tink.

"Write your own truth." Rumplestiltskin spun around, waggling a finger at each of us in turn. "All of you, children under seven excepted. This is how we break the curse."

Baelfire raised his eyebrows at his father. "Even me? You know they made me sign a non-disclosure agreement when I joined the Department."

"Fine, that's fine. You only need to write what concerns the living."

Baelfire flipped his book open to a shiny blank page. "This will help Henry?"

"That's the idea." Rumplestiltskin explained it as weakening the curse with competing perceptions so that the queen's desires no longer dominated everyone else's reality. Due to some magical trick, he could use the Author's books to pop the time bubble we had been trapped in. The backlash would break the binding between the united realms, freeing them to return to their natural orbits.

Which was fine as far as that went, until you remember that one of those competing perceptions was written by Peter Pan. Who was unlikely to have any of our interests at heart. It didn't take him long to write whatever he wrote. Faster than me, anyhow.

He slapped his book shut and beckoned to Rumplestiltskin. "Come along, Rumple, time to take me to your mother." At his son's disgruntled glare, Pan grinned. "You can trust me, laddie. I'll make things right this time around."

Was Pan lying through his teeth? Probably. Was it stupid to give him another chance? Probably. But Pan's never set entire villages to the torch, or taken up a heart collection, so if you ask me, he's as deserving as anyone. If nothing else, he and the Black Fairy will give the queen a run for her money. And if things get out of hand, his family have stopped them before and can do it again.

That's what I choose to believe.

If this doesn't work, we won't even remember. I'll wake up back home. Roddy will be safe. Happy, just like everyone's happy. Maybe that will be better. Maybe the price for breaking this curse is too high. I don't know. But I remember the smoke of a burning village. I heard the pain in Henry's voice. Is happiness worth forgetting our dead? The queen doesn't want us to remember. She's over all that, and so is her step-daughter, so we should be, too.

But I like to think that we're more than bit players in someone else's happy ending. I like to think that our thoughts are our own.

Well, that's it, then. If this works, that could be the end of our good life. Gods, I hope so.