Title: Find a Way
Rating: M (no smut just yet though, sorry guys)
Pairing: Emma/Regina
Show/Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Warnings: None for this chapter, I don't think.
Author's note: This is a continuation, sequel if you will, for Price to Pay. You don't have to read it to get the gist on the story, or maybe you will, I don't know. I do have the whole story pretty much mapped out, though I'm not entirely sure how many chapters it will go on for. I'm aiming for ten(?) And why yes, this story is titled after Safetysuit's song and you should totally listen to it.
Here's a disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own anything but the writing (and even then it's not that good). This is just for fun. And any mistakes are my own because I'm lazy.
Summary: Emma had been left behind in Neverland, thought to be dead by those closest to her. Gaining an ally in the form of a spitfire fairy, she will stop at nothing to protect a certain little someone from Peter Pan, whose true motives are unraveling, and find a way home to Henry, to her parents. And to her True Love with whom the certain little someone has a connection with.
CHAPTER ONE
In a land where time didn't exist, Neverland was rooted not only in magic, but in a curse of its own. Much like the Dark Curse, people on the island didn't—couldn't—age. Once a dream formed in little boys' imaginations was now Emma's reality. She had no concept of time, not really. Not anymore.
The sun rose, it fell, and then it rose again.
But somehow, in the middle of it all, Emma could age. For the past year (and she knew it had been a year because she had kept count, as difficult as it was) she had aged accordingly. It wasn't all too visible, not from what she saw in pools of water, her reflection rippling.
But it had been noticeable in other ways, the one way she knew it to be happening, anyway.
The trek before her was long and daunting. She had spent months with Tink, following her around the island in order to find a way home. No magic beans, no portals. Every lead turned into a dead end and she just about had enough of the Shadow, the Lost Ones, and Peter Pan himself.
Grunting as she used a lowered vine to pull the weight of her body over a fallen log, she used her other to carefully hold the most precious thing against her chest.
Tink was a few feet ahead, walking as if her legs weren't killing her. And they probably weren't, Emma thought. The fairy always was calm and collected. It was odd, actually. But probably a fairy trait. Or something.
"Are we ever going to, you know, stop?" Emma asked, a hint of a groan in her words. She may be aging, but she would never exactly be grown up. At least not entirely.
Tink didn't respond immediately in words. She smiled at Emma's impatience and gestured ahead. "We can set up camp once the sun's rays have hit the—"
"Yeah yeah," Emma murmured, effectively cutting the fairy's sentence off. If she had to hear her talk about North and West and moss on trees and the sun's rays one more time she was going to lose it. "Just tell me when we can sit."
They walked in silence until Tink informed her that the sun had reached its appropriate height and that the shadows were growing, whatever the hell that meant, and they set up camp in the middle of a few tall standing trees. The area was pretty much covered by the towering upper branches and perfect to hide from the enemy. But they weren't worried, the Shadow didn't ever come this far around the island. Neither did the Lost Ones.
"What do you think he wants from my son?" Emma asked later that night when the pair sat around the fire, each holding a leaf of mixed berries. She poked around at her food before popping what she assumed to be a blueberry into her mouth. Or at least Neverland's version of one.
Tink, on the other hand, opted for the red berries. She gave Emma a smile, one that was sympathetic and one she had given her fellow blonde many times in the past. It wasn't the first time that question had come up. Lately, in fact, it had been coming up more and more frequently.
"We've been over this." Tink told her gently.
Emma automatically cradled the bundle in her arms closer. Sighing, she slouched, allowing her back to fully rest against the tree's trunk. "I'm tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop," she admitted. "I mean, this is all some intricate plan of his, isn't it?" She was met with silence and continued, "it just seems that way. I don't know."
Tink had gotten good at reading Emma, she knew that the woman barely opened up, and moved to sit up with legs crossed. She sensed the conversation was far deeper than the blonde made it out to be. As they always were, really. "Peter Pan can do much, Emma, but he cannot predict the future."
Emma scoffed. "Really? Because everything has played out exactly how he wanted it to." Tink didn't argue with that and, honestly, Emma had a feeling she was holding back in some way. "He already messed with Henry, if he thinks he can just—"
Cut off by a whimper, Emma lowered her gaze to the small bundle in her arms, the true source of her aging; her son.
The pregnancy came as a shock initially and it was only when she began to show that she realised she was aging—growing, her body catering to the small little life it grew.
At three months old Emma was sure he was the most beautiful baby she had ever laid eyes on, excluding Henry, because it just didn't seem fair to compare the two.
With a wisp of dark brunette hair covering his head, his eyes were a brilliant sea blue while his skin tone reminded her all too much of his other mother's. He was the perfect mix of them both, a child conceived through a powerful bout of magic—True Love.
Emma knew it was True Love, it was the only thing that made sense.
What didn't make sense was the fact that Regina was her True Love. Or maybe it did, maybe it always had made sense. But even after a year it was still a confusing and sore topic for her.
All she knew was that there wasn't anyone else but Regina that could possibly be her son's other biological parent. Not only had she not slept with anyone else, but the baby shared her genetics. While she was still trying to figure out how her other son's adoptive mother was her True Love, she knew that the son she held in her arms was the product of it.
And, like Regina had once said, with anything good came someone bad who wanted it.
Emma allowed the baby to grasp onto her smallest finger and smiled in a momentary lost thought as his whimper subsided and his eyes shut sleepily.
The pregnancy had been difficult, but maybe that was a pattern with her. One in a prison, the other on a magical island. She was just lucky and grateful that she had Tinker Bell by her side the whole time. The fairy had actually been the one to deliver the baby in the dead of night when the little guy decided he wanted to be born in the middle of a Lost One's attack. She had also been the one to soothe Emma's pain and heartbreaking cries as it became too much to bear.
Yes, she had spent many nights crying. It was all too familiar, being pregnant and alone, left behind by the one person she wanted to be with most. She wasn't in a cell anymore, but the island was her prison now.
The name had been harder to choose because she wanted it to mean something and a part of her really wanted Regina's approval, too. Which was stupid, probably, because it was doubtful she would ever even see Regina again. And it was even more doubtful that Regina would realise that she had another son out there, one biological to her and conceived in pure love.
In the end she had chosen the name Sawyer. Partly because she enjoyed the character of Tom Sawyer and could connect to the con artist in a way that kind of comforted her. Or maybe it was because she had seen one too many episodes of LOST (and the irony was kind of perfect) but really, it came down to the fact that she had used the name as an alias in the past.
Emma Swan had become Emma Sawyer on more than one occasion. During her early thieving days, during her days as a bail bondsman—person—and it had never really left her.
So her son was named Sawyer. Sawyer Nolan Mills. Nolan after her father and Mills because she had never wanted it to be anything but. He was a Mills, even with her family's chin.
Sawyer dozed back off to sleep peacefully, comfortably situated in his makeshift carrier. It was made out of Emma's old jeans, she had fashioned the one good pant leg left and found thick vines to act as a support handle which now sat snugly around her neck, holding him to her.
She cradled him in her arm, an action which lulled the baby into a deeper sleep, and almost having lost track of what she had been saying, placed the leaf containing the berries onto the ground beside her so she could run her fingers across the top of his head.
"If he thinks he can touch a single hair on his head then he is sorely mistaken," she finally spoke out. She was mesmerized by the little life in her arms and, God, she never thought it was possible to love someone so much.
There was her love for Henry which would never be matched, but the raw animalistic need to protect that came when her baby was threatened, was something else. It consumed her entirely, swallowed her whole.
After being left behind (and she had come to realise that it was just a misunderstanding, nothing more; she was thought to be dead) there had been a sense of nothingness. But Sawyer became her reason, he reignited every fire Neverland's waters had fizzled out. She would find a way home, for him. Emma would do whatever it took to find a way back to Storybrooke. Back to Henry, back to her parents.
Back to Regina.
The flickering light from the fire illuminated Emma's sad look as she thought of the woman, thought of Regina as she gazed at their son. Without her it felt as though a piece of her heart was missing. It was awfully cliché but she was beginning to learn that everything cheesy and cliché-type was indeed true. They came from fairy tales, lives once lived. It had been there her whole life, that hole, and the only time it had disappeared completely was when she had been with Regina.
The stories of Snow White and Prince Charming, her parents, now made sense. When they were separated from one another they acted as though it was the end of the world and it used to annoy her, kind of, but now she experienced it herself and, well, it was a horrible thing to be burdened with.
But coupled with the loss of Henry, it was almost unbearable.
The last time she had seen her son had been through a spyglass where she saw him in Regina's arms just before the Jolly Roger disappeared into a portal. And the time before that had been back in Storybrooke when he had been taken away through yet another portal.
She had always been too late.
Emma knew that he was safe, she could feel it. He was with Regina, with her parents. He was home, back where he belonged, probably in his room reading his comic books. It comforted her to know that, but it also hurt to know that he was without her. She knew that she wasn't the only one struggling with the separation.
Except for Henry it was much more than that, he thought Emma to be dead—they all did.
She wondered if they held a funeral back for her in Storybrooke. If her name sat carved into stone in a cemetery with an empty coffin beneath it.
"Neither of us would ever allow such a thing to happen, Emma. You know that."
Tink's words caused the corners of Emma's lips to upturn. They were so genuine and true that she couldn't help but believe them. And, as Sawyer's godmother, Emma knew Tink would do whatever it took, even if it meant sacrificing her own life, to keep him safe.
There was something special about the baby, they knew it. And Peter Pan wanted it.
"I know." Emma murmured softly. She was entranced, her fingers soothingly brushing against the hair on Sawyer's head. "But Henry was never the boy he wanted, you know that."
Emma was looking at Tink now and they shared a knowing glance. Though Tink would say that Peter Pan didn't have the ability to foresee the future, they knew otherwise. Maybe he didn't have the power himself, but he definitely knew what the future entailed.
Henry's kidnapping had been a ruse at best. One mapped out carefully in order to get both Regina and Emma to Neverland where the island's magic and their latent feelings would conceive a child through the most powerful magic of all.
That child—their son—would be the most powerful being any world had ever seen.
The whispers of this unnerved Emma whenever she heard them in the forest through the trees. How could something so small and so precious become so powerful? She thought about it daily but there was something else that bothered her - would he use these powers for good, or evil?
When raised in Emma's care the boy would grow up to be on the side of good, a powerful leader destined for greatness. But in Peter Pan's care, well, Emma really didn't want to think about it.
"Rest up." Tink urged gently. "I'll take the first watch. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
Emma nodded her gratefulness and allowed her body to get into a comfortable position, all the while being careful not to disturb the sleeping baby she held. It had been a year and yet she still wasn't used to Neverland's floor, not to sleep on at least. What she would give for a bed at Granny's and maybe a cheeseburger. God, a cheeseburger.
In front of her Tink disappeared in a flurry of sparkling green magic only to remerge when the smoke cleared as fun-sized with little wings fluttering on her back. She floated upwards, keeping watch on the skies and lands that surrounded them.
Emma allowed the sense of ease to wash over her knowing that, for now, they were safe. With a kiss to Sawyer's head her eyes came to a close and she nuzzled closer to her son.
"You are safe," she whispered to the sleeping boy in what had become a nightly routine. "You are loved, and you are good."
The so-called prophecy frightened her. The idea that Sawyer could potentially become more evil than the Dark One, Peter Pan and the Evil Queen combined, was terrifying. But Emma was comforted in knowing that her son was hearing her words and maybe internalizing them as he grew. She refused to believe in anything else because he was good. Her love would save him.
And as The Saviour he was the one person she really wanted to save.
"You are good."
The whispering murmur was barely audible as she drifted into a sleep, unaware of Sawyer's small hand touching her cheek and the sparks of blue magic that swirled under his fingertips and seeped into her skin.
A/N: Regina will make an appearance in the next chapter and, I don't know, maybe it's possible that she will find out that our favourite blonde isn't actually dead. I wonder how...? ;)
Also, the cover image for this took me about an hour because I couldn't figure out what to do with the text (no really, it was so frustrating). It took more work than the story itself, actually.
But, anyway, chapter two should be up in a week or so!