and since last that we parted, and last that I saw him
down by a river, silent and hardened
morning was mocking us, blood hit the sky

and I'm sorry, young man, I cannot be your friend
I don't believe in a fairytale end.

.

In a stroke of breathtaking irony so profound it made her wince, Emma had discovered that she hated Neverland.

"Out of curiosity," she growled, swatting at a low-hanging vine, "is there anything in this damn place that isn't trying to kill us?"

"I'm reasonably certain the beach has no personal vendetta against you," Hook replied dryly, and she glared at him. "But then, it was high tide."

"Screw that beach," she said, with altogether too much feeling. "There is no reason for a crab to ever be that size."

Hook, to his credit, at least attempted to hide his laughter.

She was trying. She really was.

He had, in a show of rare grace and tact, not brought up anything regarding the previous night's conversation, or, indeed, given any indication that it had happened at all, but she still felt uncomfortably… exposed around him. It would have been easier if she'd thought he felt the same vulnerability, but he didn't seem to mind the fact that she apparently knew more about him than anyone else alive.

But it was different. He had been abandoned by his father, she had been abandoned by a lover; Hook's situation could only ever happen once, but Emma's —

She couldn't run this time.

"I think we should take a break," Mary Margaret said, glancing up. "It's almost noon."

Hook paused, looking around critically, before nodding. "Not a bad idea," he agreed, albeit with some reluctance, like something about it was bothering him but he wouldn't say.

"What is it?" she asked in a low voice, startling him a bit. She had to admit, something did feel off, and the fact that the group had been forced to — for reasons involving covering more ground and the desire for everyone not to kill everyone else — split into two didn't help. Little though she liked Regina and Gold, she would have felt safer with one or both of them there.

He glanced at her. "Something isn't right," he murmured.

Emma looked around, up into the trees and through the forest, but it was so thick that all she could really see were shadows, and the silence and the heat were so oppressive that — she paused.

The silence?

"Where are the birds?" she asked slowly, and Hook turned to her, something approaching horror passing over his face.

"Move," he hissed, motioning for Mary Margaret to join them. "There should be a stream not far from here, we can get our backs to it — " but it was too late.

They appeared all at once and out of nowhere — clearly having realized the group had wised up to their presence — a small cacophony of young boys and girls in warpaint and tattered clothes, wielding an array of weapons from knives to swords to bows; one girl, who Emma found herself perhaps unreasonably wary of, had a long, thin tube that looked familiar, something she'd seen in a documentary somewhere.

Darts, she thought distantly. Hook had said the Lost Ones used a variety of deadly poisons, like tribes in rainforests with their blowguns and poisoned darts, could kill a grown man in less than an hour.

And all she had was a thick knife. She pulled it out and held it in a reverse grip, mind going back to the times she'd been homeless, living on the streets, sometimes in worse sides of town, where it was steal to eat and fight to live; kill or incapacitate.

Mary Margaret had drawn her bow, but they were surrounded and — and — and they were children, just children.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hook draw his sword, subtly stepping around so he was the third point of a triangle with the two women, and, for a moment, nothing happened.

And then he showed up.

He was small, wiry, twirling a wicked-looking sword in one hand and wearing a wicked grin, eyes locked on Hook — and that, more than anything, told her who he was. He couldn't have been more than twelve.

"Well, this is interesting," he said cheerfully, starting to circle them like a vulture, or maybe a shark. "Captain Hook returns to Neverland. Did you kill your crocodile after all?" he asked mockingly.

"What do you want?" Hook countered, tense but otherwise (outwardly, at least) unafraid.

"You're in our territory," Pan replied, and Hook tilted his head.

"Are we?" he asked evenly. "You'd claim territory this close to the beach?"

"I claim all of Neverland," Pan snapped. "It's mine, and you're trespassing. What brings you here?"

"A lovely jaunt through the woods," Hook answered coldly, and a bit nastily. "It is such a nice day."

"Ha-ha," he deadpanned. "I meant, what brings you back to Neverland? And off your precious ship, too, I wonder if anyone's there guarding it…"

He didn't rise to the bait. "I'm not a particular fan of growing old and dying," he said, still cold and vaguely mocking. "Wanted to celebrate my victory eternally."

"You're lying," Pan said, matching Hook's chilly tone. "What are the women doing here?"

"Well," Hook laughed, sounding much more like himself, "that's something you're a bit too young to understand." Both Emma and Mary Margaret glanced at him without amusement, but she had to give him credit — he wasn't giving any ground, and seemed to have no fear about Pan knowing it.

"Fine," Pan replied, glancing around to the Lost Ones, "if you won't tell us when we ask nicely, we'll have to get a little… mean."

Shit, Emma thought. Here it comes.

"When I give the word," Hook murmured, "run, back to the beach."

"Yeah, that'll work," she replied desperately, eyes still on the girl with the blowgun.

If he had anything else to say, he didn't get the chance to say it; Pan gave a signal, and all hell broke loose.

Emma made straight for the blowgun — arrows they could handle, swords they could deflect, but poisoned darts were something none of them were prepared for — narrowly dodging the first one she shot at her. She spared only a second's glance behind her to make sure it hadn't hit anyone (it hadn't), and lashed out with her knife, catching the bamboo rod around the middle and nearly knocking it from the girl's hand.

Brawling was something Emma was intimately familiar with, and she knew one very important thing: people who fought with ranged weapons didn't do well in close quarters. With that in mind, she crowded the girl, too close for her to shoot her darts, slashing at her hands and only missing by a margin when the girl leaped to the side.

She was forced to duck when the girl, clearly desperate, swung the blowgun itself at her head; she came up with her knife right past her hand and jerked it sharply to the side, finally succeeding at what she'd come here to do — the blowgun split down the middle and fell out of her hands.

But she had underestimated the girl's desperation, and gasped when she felt a sharp pain in the side of her neck.

The girl had pulled out one of her darts and stabbed her with it.

Emma staggered backward, ripping the dart out and throwing it aside, but it was too late — pain, the likes of which she'd never experienced, threaded across her nerves, chased through her body by a slower-spreading and much more alarming numbness.

With what strength she had left, she decked the girl across the face as hard as she could, dropping her like a stone, and stumbled around to face her teammates.

Just before she fell, she met Hook's eyes, and mouthed one word.

.

He turned in time to see Emma jerk a dart out of her neck, and his blood ran cold. For a moment, he was completely frozen — dangerous, with Pan so close — as she knocked out the girl she'd been fighting and turned to him, already staggering, face white. She met his eyes and mouthed something with two syllables.

Henry.

The sound that came out of his throat wasn't human; it startled Mary Margaret, who turned in time to see Emma collapse, and she made a similar noise, foregoing the fight entirely and running to her daughter's side in open panic.

Killian knew the poison on those darts, knew how fast it would kill, knew how painful, knew her fate.

But he never went anywhere without at least one ace up his sleeve.

He slashed upwards at Pan with all his strength, startling the boy and breaking his sword in two, then cracked him on the head with the hilt to stun him, and ran to Emma's side.

Likewise, the Lost Ones made for their (temporarily) fallen leader, giving them a moment's reprieve.

"Emma, Emma," Mary Margaret was crying, "look at me, Emma, sweetie, wake up, Emma, wake up."

He tugged at his necklace, at a tiny vial hidden behind the skull; the antidote to the poison on the darts was made from a plant so rare that it might have been extinct, and, as far as he knew, only one dose remained in this world or any other.

"Here," he snapped, shoving it at Mary Margaret and looking behind them, to where Pan was beginning to stir. "Pour it in the wound, then get her to the ship."

Mary Margaret looked at him, eyes wide and wild.

"It's the antidote, it's all there is," he hissed. "If you don't give it to her now, it won't be enough and there isn't any more. Take it."

She snapped out of it and snatched the vial, opening it with visibly shaking hands and poured the clear liquid onto the tiny puncture — surrounded by a spreading circle of bruising, and then blackening, flesh — on Emma's neck. It didn't seem to have an immediate effect, but then, it wouldn't.

Right?

The last dose of this he'd used, he'd gotten there faster, it hadn't been…

"Can you carry her?" he asked in a low voice, hand tightening on his sword.

"Can has nothing to do with it," she replied firmly. "I will."

"Get her to the ship," he repeated, glancing back at the Lost Ones. "I'll meet you there."

For a second, their eyes met and he could see the realization fall over her face; he schooled his into blankness.

They both knew it was a lie.

"Hook, we need — " she started fervently, but he cut her off.

"Go," he hissed, helping her pull Emma's limp form onto her back. "I swear, I'll meet you on the ship."

He heard and felt the approach of the now-undoubtedly-infuriated Pan and turned as he rose, sword lashing out, but the boy had anticipated this and ducked under it, coming up to stab him with a small dagger. He almost managed to dodge it, but took a glancing blow across his side.

The triumph on Pan's face told him everything, if the lancing, disproportionate pain in his abdomen hadn't: more poison. But at least, he thought, it probably wasn't the same one that was on the darts — like its antidote, it was too rare to spread around so carelessly.

Small favors; he had some time.

He glanced behind him — Mary Margaret had vanished into the trees, unheeded by the Lost Ones, who were all circling like vultures to watch the fight, cheering their leader on.

They always loved seeing him and Pan battle each other, especially when there was blood already in the water; they were feral, bloodthirsty creatures only a step removed from animals. He snarled at Pan, slashing wide with his sword and following through from the other side with his hook, in an almost-successful bid to disarm the boy — but his reflexes were sharp, and he caught the dagger before he it hit the ground, twisting it into the reverse grip Emma had been using and hacking at him again.

The pain in his side was fast getting worse, approaching unbearable.

If he couldn't end this now, he couldn't end this at all.

And worse, Pan knew it too.

He came at him again with the dagger, aiming for the heart, but Killian caught his arm with his hook and forced it away from him, lunging to run the boy through. It would've worked if he hadn't been poisoned, if he wasn't slowing down so quickly.

As it was, Pan had time to slip away, and with him went his last chance.

Killian staggered — no, he thought, it was too early, too soon, Mary Margaret hadn't had time to get back to the ship yet, he had to hold on… or at least hold them here.

"It's a coward who resorts to poison, you know," he sneered, trying to rile him up and ignoring the hypocrisy, and pressed his arm into his side, fighting back a gasp at the shock of blinding pain.

But he wasn't going numb, and while, immediately, that was a curse, it said good things about the long-term. All the truly deadly poisons attacked the nerves and shut them down; excruciating pain, he could live through, if the dose wasn't too high.

"Says the man with his dying breath," Pan countered, gloating, lording his power over him.

"So what happens now?" he asked hoarsely, trying, and failing, to rise to his feet. He shouldn't have made the attempt — it made Pan's grin widen.

"I'll start with a souvenir," he replied, and for one heart-stopping moment he thought he meant to take his other hand, but instead, Pan took his hook, holding it up for all the cheering children to see. "Guess you can't really call yourself Captain Hook without this, can you?" he taunted, kicking him in his wounded side and nearly pulling a cry of pain out of him. "Out of curiosity, what is your real name? Actually, no," he said, voice turning from mocking to cold. "I don't care to know. I want you to die without a name, no one left who remembers who you really were."

He spat at Pan's feet, a sad attempt at pride, falling forward to support himself on his right arm, drawing in ragged breaths.

They hadn't gone very far into the forest, and they'd made slow progress; Mary Margaret might have made it to the beach, or at least she had enough of a head start so they wouldn't catch up to her.

It would have to be enough.

Dimly, he heard one of the Lost Ones ask what to do with him; Pan smirked.

"Leave him," he answered, walking away. "Let the wild animals have a meal."

And for a moment that might have been a few seconds or might have been a few hours, his vision went black and he fell into blessed senselessness. When he came to, he was laying in the same place, alone, and the pain had only increased, to the point that it made him retch.

He made another go at getting to his feet, and succeeded this time, for a given definition of "success," using a tree trunk to drag himself into a semi-standing position.

He wasn't sure what had woken him up; maybe some deep, previously-untapped well of stubbornness, or maybe…

Killian had to know she was all right, she'd made it to the ship and the antidote had worked and she was alive and well and her last word wouldn't be her son's name in a forlorn whisper; he had to get to the beach, to the ship; he had promised. Even though he hadn't bothered with keeping promises in a long time.

But Pan was right: he couldn't exactly call himself Captain Hook without the item itself, which left him as nothing more than Killian Jones, and Killian Jones had always kept his promises.

Luckily, the trees were thick enough on the other side of the clearing for him to use them as a series of crutches, making a slow, faltering path toward the beach. It seemed like an exercise in futility.

It was well into the night before he was close enough to hear the waves breaking onshore, but the poison was — he couldn't remember which way it was to the ship, he could barely remember why it was so important that he get there — and the pain had gone past blinding and had reached the point that he almost didn't feel it anymore, like water so cold it burned.

I tried, he thought, the most pathetic two words in any language, I tried.

And he collapsed, falling forward and rolling several times, ending up face-down in grassy sand, and gave in to the black.