A/N: Well, my laptop is here! It's so much easier to type all of the chapters than it is to try and write them on my phone. Gosh that was so time consuming and irritating. Y'all better feel loved! Anyway, here's the head-turning/eye-popping chapter I promised!
Enjoy and lemme know what you think!
Present!
Arabella and Emma reached the rest of the group in no time at all. They all stood bunched together, shifting on their feet. The secrets must have made all uncomfortable, which was understandable. Across the stone bridge that looked out of place held a small area where Bealfire was contained in a cage.
"You save him," Emma instructed, "If you help save him and he says you're alright I will have no reason to not trust you, because I trust him. But don't take that lightly," She warned, "I always know when someone is lying. You can lose this trust just as quick as you've earned it.
Arabella nodded, walking down the small path and getting on her knees in front of Baelfire's cage, "Oh Bae," She breathed, "Look at you, you're.. all grown up."
"Arabella? Is that you? You've only aged, what, five years?" Bealfire questioned, surprised to see his old friend, "You still look so young."
"I aged another ten years in my time away from Neverland," She explained, "Shortly after I helped you leave, Pan sent me away. He brought me back for a while and then.." she paused, "He banished me."
"Banished you?" Baelfire questioned, "But you were his pet, why would he do that?"
Arabella sighed, the thoughts of the past causing her to freeze for a moment in time, "Baelfire I came to help Henry. I never knew he was you're son. My secret... my secret may just ruin every chance I have to help you."
Baelfire stared at her without blinking in his own contemplation, "I have to help my son, Arabella. You have to let me out. These people," He said, pointing over to the group, "They never fail. Even if a plan falls through we always find a way. It's kind of their thing," He smiled, still looking over at them.
"Bae... I know what Pan thinks my secret is. And he's wrong. He thinks I'm going to come in here and admit to them all that I have powers. He thinks I'm keeping that as my secret and it will ruin any type of trust they have for me."
"He doesn't know how you helped me?" Bealfire questioned as Arabella shook her head no, "If he knew that I had enchanted a cocoanut for you, he would have known that you know I have powers. That's not my secret, Bea. It's... much worse."
"It's okay, you can tell me anything. I know I can trust you, and i will make sure the others do too."
"I'm.. I'm Peter Pan's true love," she sniffed, trying to contain her emotions as the weight of the words left her lips.
"No," he whispered, eyes wide as the cage door opened, "How could he not know that?"
"I think he had his suspicions. I think he sent me away when he started to realize it. I was the only one who knew it for sure. Tinker Bell-"
"Tinker Bell showed you how to use the pixie dust."
Arabella nodded, "When I was here, and still so young, there was no love. It was when I came back that things.. things changed. After my body aged to that of a seventeen year old I came back, and for eighteen years I stayed in Neverland before Peter sent me away with his shadow."
"How? Someone like you?" Bealfire answered, still sitting in his cage, "Pan is the worst kind of evil."
"I know. I was.. I hoped I could change that."
"You never will," He said, exiting the cage as the others came over.
Immediately him and Emma embraced one another, causing Hook to turn his head away. After a few moments, Arabella spoke up.
"I really hate to interrupt this, but we need to get moving."
"Not so fast," Emma said, removing herself from Baelfire's embrace and staring at her sternly as if she were her mother, "You helped us save him, but there's one more thing," and she turned to Bealfire, "Can we trust her?"
Bealfire looked between Emma and Arabella. He knew that the others did not hear her secret, and that was the only thing that made him wonder if she may not be able to trust. After a few moments he sighed, "If it wasn't for her, I would have never escaped Neverland."
"Is that true?" Snow asked, taking a step toward the inner part of the circle they had formed.
"Yeah, she used her magic to enchant a cocoanut for me to catch Pan's shadow and send me home. I hid it somewhere in the cave I used to stay at," He said.
"You're little star map thing? Yeah we found that and hid it within the cage. We figured it would show the way home," Emma said.
"What I don't understand is," Bealfire started, causing Arabella to hold her breath. He was about to expose her, "Why do you want to save Henry? If you're secret is true, if you are Pan's true love, why don't you want to help him?"
The group gasped at the news and Arabella chose to respond before their profanities could start, "Love or not, I have to do the right thing, I have to help Henry," she said, looking at each of them in the eyes.
"Well, if anything we now have a weapon against Pan," David suggested, his attitude toward Arabella growing even more sour.
"That won't work," Arabella said sadly, "Pan doesn't love me. He banished me before he could ever fall in love. I think he sensed it," she said, partially repeating herself from earlier.
"Well, she's not lying about wanting to save Henry," Emma sighed, "For now we have to take a chance and hope it works. But if you fail us," she said, pointing at Arabella, "We will kill you."
Arabella knew the threat was hallow, but she nodded anyways. She wasn't lying to them, she did have intentions to save Henry. What they didn't know what that she had a plan to save both Henry AND Peter. I'm sure you could understand why she decided to keep that bit of information under her belt.
Past!
Arabella, who's body was still ten years old, was now out of Neverland for the first time in hundreds of years. It was weird for her to not be able to just imagine something and have it. Pan had to send her with provisions, money and two pieces of paper with instructions on them. The first one had directions on how to get there and the second had an image of the cottage for her to be able to confirm that she was indeed in the right place.
Looking down to the second paper, and then back up, she was able to confirm that she was here.
Arabella was under the strict instructions that no one was to know where she came from, who she was or that she was any way associated with Neverland or Peter Pan.
She took a few steps onto the property and was greeted by a stone statue of a man and a dog, both dressed in the finest of suits. Their faces, immortally plastered in stone, gave her the absolute creeps. Shaking her back a little, she balled her fists and kept walking until she met the door and knocked.
The woman who answered was elder and plump. Her grey hair was pulled back and mostly contained by a blue bonnet. A yellow apron was tied around her waist, the shawl around her shoulders a matching color of the apron.
"Ohh dear," The woman chimed happily, her smile causing her face to wrinkle, "An anonymous bird came saying that a poor young orphaned girl was coming. You need help learning to control your powers, yes?"
Arabella nodded, holding the sides of her nightdress that she had arrived to Neverland in. Pan had her change back into it so that she would fit in more with the people of the Enchanted Forest.
"Well, I happen to be quite skilled in magic. Don't you worry, child," the woman said, placing her hand on Arabella's shoulder and leading her into the small cottage, "Old Mother Hubbord is going to take good care of you."
A/N: How about THAT dearies? What a twist! In both past, and present! Favorite and review and tell me what you think!
I've had this story up about four days and I now have seven chapters, so that's promising. :)
-Marty
