AN: Here we go. Epilogue time. It's been a while in the making, but I hope you all enjoy the last chapter. I had a hard time wrapping everything up, hence the length, but I didn't want to split it up and make anyone wait any longer. So, here you go!
Isle of the Lost
Epilogue: A Once and Future Dream
"Excuse me, if I could have everyone's attention for a minute." David managed to stop the conversation of everyone in Granny's, there to celebrate his and Snow White's son, minus the pomp and circumstance.
"This coronation ceremony is something we've looked forward to for a long time. The arrival of our new son has been the cause of great joy for our family," he continued. "And we hope you can share in it as we name him for a hero. Someone who saved every one of us."
Here he paused and met his daughter's mildly confused eyes. Next the former prince's gaze swept over the small gathering to find Rumpelstiltskin, who sat closely with Belle and looked back at David with a growing sense of understanding. Beside the couple were Wendy and Peter, quietly observing the scene.
"Someone who we loved, and he loved back," he finished, leaving Mary Margaret to complete the honors while he rested a supportive hand on her back. She looked down at the sleeping bundle in her arms lovingly before addressing everyone else.
"People of Storybrooke, it is our great joy to introduce you to our son, Prince Neal."
Peter glanced at Rumpelstiltskin discreetly, and saw him casually lean his chin into his hand. But the way he momentarily closed his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, betrayed his emotions.
There was a part of Peter, wedged down in the unmarred corner of his heart, that wanted to…lay a hand on the man's shoulder; to tell him without words that he was now able support him in what little way he could.
But it wasn't his place. He hadn't yet earned the right, not since he let the Witch live.
His thoughts were interrupted by a small hand slipping into his, lacing their fingers together. He looked over and found deep blue eyes shining with happy tears, and a gentle knowing smile that warmed him better than she knew. He gripped Wendy's hand tighter and raised the back of it to his lips.
Then Granny broke out the champagne.
"So what are you doing now?" Wendy asked the blonde, then took a sip from her glass. It was sweet and fizzy, and for that the alcohol slid down her throat pleasantly.
"Pulling my weight at the nunnery, gettin' to know my sisters again," Tinkerbelle sighed. "Blue hasn't gone easy on me. That's for sure."
"She's training you up again?" Wendy raised a brow.
"If washing dishes and folding clothes is considered training, then yeah," the fairy muttered.
"Relearning control takes discipline," the young woman supplied. "I imagine fairy magic is no different."
"It's this land, it makes fairy magic…complex." Tinkerbelle carded a hand through her bangs, which she was allowing to grow out. "As if it wasn't enough…but anyway. How're you adjusting?"
"Fine, I suppose," Wendy replied. She glanced over to where Peter and Hook were talking quietly, the latter with a glass of whiskey in hand. She added in a drawl, "Since no one is trying to kill us anymore, we can finally move on."
Tinkerbelle tilted her head with a quirk of a smile.
"If I remember right, you wanted to travel when all of the revenge battles and magic slinging was over."
Wendy turned back to her, a small frown tugging at her lips.
"I finally have my family back…we can be happy here."
"You sure?" Tinkerbelle asked. Perceptive gray eyes looked the younger woman over. "I dunno. You're lookin' a little dull, my friend."
That got Wendy's frown to curve into a smirk.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you wanted me gone."
"Don't be dumb," Tinkerbelle rolled her eyes, but Wendy grinned as the fairy gave her a look that implored her to be serious now.
"You'll always have a home here with your family. But what is it you want, Wendy?" she asked. "You are living in real time now. You'll only have a precious few years 'til that young body of yours starts falling apart."
Wendy rolled her eyes.
"I have more than a few years until that starts happening."
"Still, I would invest in moisturizer."
"How long is it before fairies start getting wrinkles?"
"Longer than humans, I guarantee it."
"Must be all that dust you lot inhale to preserve yourselves."
"Have you always been this snippy, or is this Pan's influence on you?" Tinkerbelle asked.
Wendy rolled her eyes, but she smirked as both went back to sipping their champagne.
After a stretch of silence between them, Wendy eventually sighed and shook her head. It wasn't that she didn't like Storybrooke, but there were still those who were afraid of Peter almost as much as they were afraid of Rumpelstiltskin, or Regina. She, more than her brothers, still often got the evil eye from some whose children had once been taken by the Pied Piper, and that was understandable (even if those children had by now reunited with their families).
But if they just gave it enough time, maybe that could change. Maybe they could belong here, if it meant keeping her family together.
"I've spent enough time thinking about what I want," she said. "What we all need right now is stability."
The next day, Wendy took it upon herself to show her father around the town they would be living in indefinitely: past a number of shops, strolling through the park, and stopping briefly at the library to say hello to Belle, as well as show Garen the public library he was quite interested in.
"I have only ever read about this land," he said. "It would be fitting to learn more about it through its books."
"Well, you're welcome anytime," said Belle with a bright smile. "Would you like a library card?"
"What is that?" Garen asked dubiously. Belle explained to him that it was this world's way of keeping track of the books that she loaned out of the library, so they wouldn't be lost. She even explained how the computer behind the reception desk could identify each book just by scanning the ISBN number on its spine.
"Quite right," he said eventually, straightening his posture and giving Belle a rare smile. "You're a smart girl, to have developed this magic."
"Oh, I didn't invent the system," Belle said sheepishly. She handed him a library card with another smile. "But it does make things easier."
"It must be nice to work here," Wendy commented while she gazed at all the dusty books. She had always enjoyed them, even before she took it upon herself to protect her father's treasures.
Fondly she remembered the cabin Peter and the Lost Boys built for her in Neverland, how Peter had filled it with all her favorite stories in wall-to-wall shelves. Yes, that cabin had later become her prison for a short while, but in her mind it still remained a place where they shared some of her best memories of Neverland.
"I've always loved being surrounded by books," Belle said, dislodging Wendy from those memories. Belle had a thoughtful look on her face as she said, "It's like going to a new world from the safety of your mind."
"You're right about that," Wendy smiled, until an idea occurred to her. "Would you by any chance…ever need help with all of these?"
Belle offered a smile in return.
"Well, there are plenty in the back room that I haven't had a chance to sort through and put up on the shelves. I wouldn't mind having some help."
"That would be great," Wendy said gratefully. "Though I'm showing my father around town today—"
"Oh, don't worry. The books aren't going anywhere."
They went back to Granny's for lunch, and Wendy thoroughly enjoyed watching her father try to eat a cheeseburger while looking at it like the foreign object it was to him.
"It's better with ketchup," she offered him the ketchup bottle and bit back a grin as he stared at it dubiously.
"What is it made out of?"
"Er…" Funny. She'd never thought to ask.
"Tomatoes, I think," or so she remembered John explaining the first time her brothers took her to Granny's.
"Hmm." Her father looked skeptical, at least until he actually squeezed some of the condiment onto his plate and dipped a fry in. His eyes widened, blinked as he chewed thoughtfully.
"Told you." Wendy smiled in light of his obvious enjoyment. Well, obvious enough for her. Everything he did was deliberate. Still, she mused.
Just as she remembered, her father had always been a purposeful, meticulous man, even down to the way he ate and tried to truly savor something he didn't understand. But she realized then how new eating in and of itself must have been for him, being trapped in that place for so long.
And that thought made her realize that she had no idea what life for her father must have been like for…well, at least a decade going by time in the Enchanted Forest.
"Papa, how did time pass in…in the spell?" she asked tentatively. Garen sighed, wiping his mouth with a napkin before meeting his daughter's eyes.
After a moment of deliberation within himself, she got her answer.
"It doesn't."
Wendy's mouth dropped open slightly in surprise. "What?"
"I suppose it is like…being frozen mid-leap," Garen tried to explain. But his furrowed brows and the stroking of his short beard betrayed his struggle with it. "Like the words suspended on a page, there is no thought, no dreaming."
Here he paused, seemed to think about whether or not to continue. Eventually, he did.
"My last memory, before waking…or I suppose appearing in a strange land, was standing in our home, battling my own niece," he ended the last bit with a mutter. "At the very least there is this consolation for Zelena."
Wendy read the look on her father's normally reserved face. Or rather, it still was. He was the same as she remembered, but…maybe she had just grown up enough to truly see him.
"You feel sorry for her," she realized. Garen's gaze slid up to hers again, from where it had traveled to his iced tea.
"I too discovered magic at a young age, though younger than she. I met a man by chance as I was selling grain in the village square," he said. "That man claimed to be just passing through town, but even in my undeveloped senses of magic, I could tell that he was different."
Garen paused again, noting the intrigue and confusion on his daughter's face.
"Here, let us take a walk. I'll continue while we get a breath of fresh air."
Wendy agreed, and they paid for their meal before leaving the bustling Granny's in favor of walking leisurely down to the large park toward the center of town. In a way, being so out in the open gave them more privacy than in the crowded restaurant. As they followed the narrow path cutting through an otherwise grassy field, Garen continued from where he left off.
"I was chosen to learn and serve under Merlin. But instead of becoming his true Apprentice, I instead succeeded my predecessor, Jacob Grimm, a fellow sorcerer who learned from Merlin long before me. His brother ended up taking up the Author's pen," he said, an informing lilt on the end of it. Wendy nodded slowly.
She had vague memories of Garen teaching her legends nearly as old as time, about the man who drank from the Holy Grail and was blessed with immortality. None of this answered her earlier question, but her father had never told her anything about his childhood, or anything of his life before marrying her mother. Let alone that he'd known Merlin.
"Well, Grimm became my mentor, and I was very fond of him…but when he eventually passed on, I became the next Keeper of the Books, Guardian of the Written Word," he continued. "I tell you this because I…left my sister behind to shoulder the family burdens on her own, with my father…I was young, and selfish, and full of pride that someone like Merlin would find worth in a miller's son."
Wendy blinked, looking up at him in new interest. She'd heard stories from Regina about what her aunt had become, but Wendy hadn't thought about what that must've meant for her father and Cora as siblings, since she's never actually met the woman in person.
Why is there so much I still don't know about my own family? she thought. And John and Michael! They'd been so very young when they were all separated…but he could've told her and Michael at least some of this, surely…
It was an uncomfortable weight on her mind, one Garen must've seen on her face when he let out a long sigh.
"My father was a hard, demanding man. Cora also became hardened to the world, and learned to take what she wanted. She taught her daughters the same, unable to show the love or support she never received."
Wendy walked thoughtfully alongside her father, begrudgingly thinking of her cousin in light of that. She'd never before considered what made Regina…well, Regina. But…she supposed (with a sharp tinge of sympathy) that trying to change after being raised by someone like Cora was…admirable.
"Not that I'm not grateful, but…why are you telling me all this now?" she asked. "Why couldn't you have told me—told all of us sooner?"
She could have avoided Regina all together, from the very beginning. And how much had her mother known? Or did he keep things from her too, she wondered.
"I…"
The uncertainty in his voice halted her thoughts. She looked up, marveling at watching her father struggle for words to say to her. The last time she'd seen that kind of vulnerability in his eyes, they had just lost John and Michael to the ogres (or so they'd thought at the time).
"I failed you…and your brothers," Garen admitted. His voice was soft, but even with the cold wind whipping around them, she heard him all too clearly. They slowed to a stop in the middle of the path, and Wendy watched Garen's shoulders tense, his brows furrow as his eyes darkened with rare emotion.
"I failed in my promise to your mother, to protect and guide you as I was supposed to," he said. "Because of my failure, all three of you suffered alone…with that demon pretending at being a child."
Wendy frowned, taking her father's hand in both of her own and earning his gaze on her. Blue eyes as bright as her own.
"It's true. He hasn't always been kind…but he never hurt John or Michael. He's saved me, and cared for me, and has tried to earn back the whole town's trust by helping to save it," she said. Her eyes implored him to hear her, to trust her.
"If David and Snow White can forgive him, if even Regina can allow us to live in peace, then why can't you?" Wendy asked. Garen's eyes hardened, but he let her speak.
"He's not Pan anymore. He doesn't have a throne, and doesn't need one," she said. "He's just trying to be…Peter."
Garen squeezed her hands, covering them with his own.
"And who exactly is that?" he asked, taking her by surprise. "Do you know?"
"Of course I do," Wendy shot back, recoiling as she took her hands back from his grasp.
Yet her father's eyes searched hers deeply.
"What do you even know of his past?" he calmly replied. But that calm, systematic firing at her life choices only evoked the memory of long grueling hours under his strict training and household demands.
And those same feelings of aggravation she felt then: the fear that she would never measure up to his standards, and a silent desperation for freedom that led her to Peter in the first place…well.
It all caused the well of anxiety blooming in her stomach and catching in her throat—one that made her turn and walk away from her father before he could see her frustrated tears.
"I know him better than I ever knew you."
"You know he's even angrier at me now," Peter teased as he played with a strand of her auburn hair. He continued reading a book with his free hand while they lay in their small, but cozy bed. Wendy sighed into his chest, closing her eyes.
"I don't know if I'll ever be able to make him understand," she murmured.
"I doubt you could make him do anything."
Wendy scoffed, "This from the king of manipulation."
Peter's mouth tugged at a smirk, but he lightly pinched her side anyway. He enjoyed the way she squeaked and flinched, but he jerked a little when her small hands slid under his shirt.
"Why are your hands so cold?" His question was cut off into an involuntary laugh when she found his sensitive sides. "H-Hey! What're you—"
"Why are you so cripplingly ticklish?" she countered as she rolled over him, and managed to pin him down by straddling his waist as she continued her playful assault. Soon though, Peter was able to grab her wrists and sat up, making Wendy sit back on his thighs.
His eyes narrowed at her as she failed at holding back a few giggles at his expense. She bit her lip, but her eyes were not at all repentant. Peter smirked.
He sat up a bit more and stole a kiss that didn't quite stifle her laughter. At least until his hands wandered up her smooth thighs and under the skirt that had ridden up earlier. He heard her breath hitch and felt her body give under his touch, felt her fingers slide through his hair and grip tight enough to make a low moan rise up in his throat. His lips trailed to the corner of her mouth, jaw, and down her neck, to all the places he knew she craved.
It wasn't long before Peter lost track of time, and the world around him as her touch continued to blur out everything but her—what it felt to have her in his arms, knowing she was the only one who could do this to him. To set him ablaze, make him feel more powerful than he was, while at the same time being at the mercy of her touch, and all that being with her allowed him to feel.
No longer a boy, but a young man on his way to relearning, once again, what it was to be a man who loved a woman.
She stroked his cheek afterwards, ran her fingers through his sweaty hair again as they caught their breaths.
"Peter?" she asked eventually. He raised his head to meet her thoughtful, curious gaze. Inwardly, he smirked. Uh, oh. I know that look. He braced himself for whatever it was that she was going to ask.
"I know you weren't always Peter Pan," she said, but didn't continue right away. He guessed out of reluctance, maybe fear of what he would say, or how he would react. "Who were you before?"
He let out a long, heavy sigh. He knew this would…well, he'd hoped it wouldn't. But he supposed there was no avoiding it anymore.
"Well…"
He still hesitated.
She soothed her other hand down his arm. "I understand if you can't…tell me yet. But, it's okay."
She wasn't running, wouldn't run from him. He knew that. It was just…hard.
He'd been hiding himself for so long…he didn't know if he could give up that last game piece. It was the only one he had left.
His mouth worked to speak, but every time he would pause, and rethink what he was about to say. Wendy was patient though, and she stayed quiet while he thought hard.
Eventually, Peter was able to start. From the beginning.
"I grew up poor…a very, very long time ago," he admitted. His thumb traced the curve of Wendy's hip so he could anchor himself, and her, for the rest of it. "My father was…a drunk. My mother a seamstress who made barely enough to have us survive. When I was fifteen, she set up my marriage with the baker's daughter."
Peter predicted the way she stiffened slightly, but she soon relaxed and continued her ministrations with his hair.
"What was her name?" she asked quietly. "Your mother's name."
He hadn't spoken his mother's name in…what seemed like a lifetime ago. It came out to nearly a whisper without meaning to, reminding him of that lifetime where warm blue eyes greeted him every morning with a hot breakfast waiting for him.
"And…the baker's daughter?" Wendy asked more tentatively. Peter looked up at her then, mentally shaking himself from his thoughts.
"Laela," he said. Factually. Not overly tender, but not cold either.
"She was…reserved. Soft-spoken, but kind." Much like Wendy had been, in the beginning, but her sense of wonder about the world and her love of adventure made her daring in a way that his first wife had never been.
"Rumple was born…maybe five years later. It was hard for her to have kids."
"So…what happened?" Wendy asked slowly.
"Father tried to spend her dowry on drink the moment my back was turned, and he was never sober enough to come near Rumple," Peter said wryly. It was the one thing Laela had ever put her foot down on.
"The only honorable thing he did was die in the ogre wars. But in that time, all the able men in villages were meant to go to war…so I did too," he shrugged, but Wendy saw the weight of that time in his eyes. "I returned to find my wife gone. Died of a fever that'd swept through the village. Rumple had been in the care of my mother…but she didn't last long after I came back."
Wendy slipped the bed covers more comfortably over both of them, and tucked herself close to his side. He wrapped his arm tightly around her, on instinct. This was…unexpectedly difficult.
He hadn't thought that talking about this with her would actually get to him.
"The ogres just moved onto the next villages, but their retreat seemed pointless when most of us had already died trying to drive them out," he said. "If I hadn't left…maybe things would've been different. Or maybe they wouldn't have. But I knew…"
He'd looked away from her while he spoke. Even though she'd seen him do horrible things, and probably guessed that the history between him and Rumple was…complicated, he still didn't want to see her eyes change when she looked at him.
More and more he was realizing, he feared her disappointment almost as much as losing her.
"I knew I wasn't ready to be a father. I wasn't ready to grow up, and have those responsibilities that made my father give up on himself."
Peter sighed again. He told her how he failed at raising Rumpelstiltskin, how they came to Neverland, and how he abandoned his own son to get the freedom he wanted.
"I didn't understand back then…it wasn't responsibility that made my father useless," he said. "It was his selfishness…and my own, that made me what I was."
And he truly had been a monster. Probably still was, in some respects.
For the first time in a while, he chanced looking up at Wendy.
Her expression was…sad. But she looked like she was processing everything he'd said, trying to connect something in her own mind from it to find everything he hadn't said.
"Well…now you know," Peter said, "everything."
His gaze was pinned to the far wall, but Wendy could feel how tense he was despite his outward calm front. She knew the question he was asking.
Did it change anything?
Did it? She wasn't sure. She'd always known that his past—whatever happened to make him the Demon of Neverland—wouldn't have been a happy one. She'd known for a long time that Rumpelstiltskin was Peter's son, had pretty much figured it out while on the island with Rumple and Neal. She'd long wondered who his mother had been. What that woman must've been like, and if Peter had loved her once…though that wasn't something she could hold against him.
"It's about what I expected," Wendy said, making Peter scoff lightly.
"I'm not excusing what happened, the mistakes you made then." With that she earned Peter's attention. "But…they were mistakes. I know you regret it. I can see it every time you look at him."
Peter's lips pursed, but he said nothing. She took that as allowance to continue.
"Thank you for telling me," she said, and squeezed his hand. Although he refused to show it, she knew it had been hard for him to confess the things of his past; that this was his way of giving to her as much as she had given him.
As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself…Papa was right.
Wendy finally…knew him. All of him, even the darkest parts that he'd meant to shield from her, and everyone. The weight of it didn't scare her or disgust her, as both her father and Peter likely thought it might.
It made it real.
Six months later, Wendy found herself surrounded by more books than she could count in the back corner of the town library. Because of the curse, she hardly knew how old they all were, but by the fine layers of dust collected on their covers, they might just have been brought over from the Enchanted Forest, or perhaps even from other worlds. Or just as likely, somehow magicked from an Earth library.
Wendy hadn't the slightest idea how that curse of Regina's worked, but it somehow got them all to a land without magic…or at least, a land where magic could be extremely temperamental.
With these thoughts in mind she carted the heavy old tomes through the aisles and shelved them according to what sections they belonged in—a system she'd spent weeks committing to memory and now could probably find each with her eyes closed.
She looked down at the call number taped to the spine of the book in her hands, and sighed when she realized where it belonged.
"There's no way," she muttered to herself as she craned her neck up to the top shelf. Of course.
"Where'd I put the step-ladder?" She didn't see it anywhere, though she cased the aisles for a good five minutes looking for it.
Eventually she gave up and returned to the shelf with a huff.
Tested the wood of the bottom shelf with her foot, which just so happened to be clad in a black, three-inch heel.
Seems sturdy enough.
But she really had to stop taking fashion cues from Belle if these were the kind of situations Wendy got herself into.
She hesitantly looked around, but she knew the library was mostly empty. She could hear Belle up front, speaking with someone, but that meant she was busy and wouldn't chastise her for what she was about to do.
She got no farther than the second self, straining to slide Doyle's The Sign of Four in its place between A Study in Scarlet and A Scandal in Bohemia, before she heard a dark whisper in her ear.
"Well aren't you a naughty girl."
She gasped in fright (surprise), of course immediately losing her precarious footing with a shriek as she dropped to her impending death (or at least a sprained ankle).
Or would have, if her laughing lover hadn't caught her by the waist and under her arm, pulling her securely to his chest.
His laughter was cut short into a yelp though, when a sharp heel drove into his foot. Quite an accident on Wendy's part, but right now she wasn't all that sorry about it.
"That's what you get, you jerk!" but she laughed, despite herself.
"What on earth happened?"
That was Belle, hastening over to them in detective fiction.
"It appears your assistant needs more training," Peter smirked as Wendy disentangled herself from him and glared over her shoulder. She straightened her clothes and faced her friend with an apologetic sigh.
"Everything's fine, honest," she said. "I was just—"
"Falling, as it appears." None other than Robin Hood appeared at the end of the aisle, with his son's hand in his as he smirked. Wendy rolled her eyes, but she smiled at her old friend and ruffled Rowland's hair affectionately.
"Unlike you, I didn't make a career out of scaling castle walls," she remarked. He shot her a wry glance.
"No," he agreed. "You were a very successful cheater in that regard."
"Cheater?" Peter questioned over her indignation. Belle also looked both amused and curious.
"It wasn't cheating," Wendy said, a playfully haughty tilt to her chin, "It takes no small amount of skill to use concealment spells."
"Oh, sure," said Robin. He gave a teasing grin as he grabbed his son's hand, preventing him from running off down the long aisles by himself. "A lot of work that is, being invisible around unsuspecting palace guards."
"So you did become a little bandit," Peter remarked. The rumors his shadow had collected had been true after all. He had mostly left her alone after they parted ways the first time, but couldn't resist checking up on her now and then. After a while, he'd been too distracted with finding the heart of the Truest Believer that he'd allowed Wendy to fade out of his priority, a stray thought that lingered in the back of his mind. He unknowingly allowed her to fall into Regina's hands…but perhaps if he hadn't, they wouldn't be here together now.
He curled his fingers through the ends of Wendy's hair to punctuate his teasing. His arm around her was a bit of a possessive move as well, in light of how familiar the thief thought he was being.
Wendy crossed her arms, but she glanced back at him with a look of amused tolerance. He really was impossible.
"Not a bandit per say," she argued, ignoring Robin's amused cough. "More, a trader and acquirer of…certain goods."
"Well, she certainly helped me acquire a lot of goods for the less fortunate, so there is that." Robin shared a brief knowing smile with Peter and Belle, chuckling when Wendy rolled her eyes, and eventually gave into Rowland's impatient tugging on his hand. He and Belle returned to the front desk to ring up the book his son had chosen, which left Peter to watch, bored, while Wendy continued her task of shelving books.
"I'm actually…happy, for him and Regina," she admitted in a lowered voice, just in case Robin and his son were still in the library.
"Can't say I get what he sees in her." He tapped his foot a little impatiently, but Wendy seemed oblivious to his annoyance.
"Well, much as I hate to admit it…she has changed." She paused in her task for a moment as she thought about something.
"I knew how much he cherished Marian, though," she said.
"Ex-woman?" Peter said, though he didn't much care about the thief's past one way or the other, just where it crossed with his woman.
"His wife," Wendy corrected. "I met her once…she was much like him. Honest, generous, kind."
But she was obviously not here, Peter mused, and the just and honorable Robin Hood wasn't looking for her, which could mean only one thing.
"Plague?" he flippantly guessed. Wendy sent him a baleful glare and set down the book she was holding.
"Stop it," she warned. "I haven't had many friends in my life, but…after I lost my father, he helped me when no one else would. He never betrayed me, and never asked for anything in return."
Never…hm.
It wasn't hard to read a meaning between her words that made Peter bristle a little, but he supposed it was deserved.
"It happened after I'd already gone to confront Regina. There Robin and I parted ways for the last time," Wendy sighed heavily. She briefly recounted the story Little John had told her shortly after arriving in Storybrooke with the previous year of their memories wiped.
An old enemy of Robin's, a formerly rich and now desperately vengeful one, had finally tracked him down. He'd stolen into their home while what forces he had left kept Little John and the rest at bay, and threatened Robin in front of his family. It was a messy brawl in the close quarters of their tent, but Robin had bested the man. Unfortunately, he'd let his guard down long enough for him to recover, renewing his assault while Robin was preoccupied with calming his son. Marian had stepped in to save her husband, and had paid the price.
Wendy remembered the muted sorrow in Little John's eyes when he told her, his regret that he hadn't helped his leader and friend enough. But she could see the heaviness in her friend being lightened, a little at a time, and wondered if that was because of Regina.
If it was, then she really couldn't hate her cousin anymore. Perhaps she hadn't for a while now.
At Peter's sigh, she was taken out of her thoughts.
"That kind of thing happens," he said, "when you make a name for yourself out of cloak-and-dagger games."
The sharp rebuke for making light of the man's pain was on the tip of her tongue, until she noted his rueful tone and the regret darkening his eyes. Then words escaped her entirely.
He drew near her, not quite tentative in picking up her hand, but he didn't meet her gaze.
"I knew that when I cast the curse," he admitted, "that thieves and liars don't get happy endings. I knew it when I woke up in that damn forest, alone…but I'm too stubborn, you know. I wouldn't have stopped looking for you."
By the end of it his voice had tapered off, but she still heard him clear enough.
"Why?" Wendy encouraged. Her own voice was soft, and she held his hand with both of hers. He took a long moment to answer, but she was a patient person.
"With you…I'm home. I don't need to be anywhere else."
Despite the promise they'd made, he didn't mind if this nowhere town was where they lived the rest of their lives. Despite his restlessness, the lingering feeling in his bones that begged the question, Is this it?
It didn't help that her brothers knew what he and their sister had talked about so long ago now.
"I wish you would take her away from here," Michael confided in him. Peter paused, brows furrowing as he set down a heavy crate of mayonnaise jars.
"That's a first," he remarked. Michael gave him a withering glance.
"Don't be an ass." Peter smirked. Once upon a time, Michael wouldn't have dared speak to him like that. While the change was slightly refreshing, it still raked against old sentiments. Then again, he wasn't used to seeing Michael, a man in his own right, and John nearly, if still a bit lacking in maturity.
"Why? You're all finally together," Peter asked. "Your long-lost father seems to think, apart from me, all is well in the world."
"People still stare when we shop for groceries. And Granny's is the only restaurant that'll even let her in, let alone you," Michael pointed out. "No matter what we do, people'll still talk about you, and her for defending you. There are too many people here who won't see you as anything else but Pan."
Peter could admit, all that was true. He tried to protect her from most of it, but she'd had to develop a thick skin while he allowed them to lock him in jail. He couldn't shield her from it then, and he knew it hadn't been easy for her to still feel alone in a town of relative strangers.
"I can't," Peter said eventually. He couldn't separate her from her family again. Wouldn't, if that wasn't what she wanted.
"Look," Michael sighed. He leveled with him. "In her heart, my sister's always been a free spirit, even if propriety and her responsibilities hadn't allowed her to be…"
Peter watched the young man become a boy again, if only for that moment when he sat down on a wood box and looked down at his hands.
"I just want her to be happy."
"You think she's not happy here?" Peter asked. Michael looked up, finally meeting his gaze.
"I don't know. Maybe…maybe there are things she wants to do first."
Peter sighed, and released her hands.
"Anyway, I thought we were going to lunch," he crossed his arms again. That's why he was here in the first place, taking a break from unloading crates for that old hag who still pressed her luck with him every time she barked out orders in his direction, like he was some kind of menial laborer.
She was just lucky Michael was there to mediate.
"I know. I just want to finish this before we go. I'd hate to leave the cart just sitting here—"
By the time Wendy turned around, her cart was curiously missing.
"Wh—" She searched her surroundings, and eventually saw the cart tucked neatly in the back corner of the library. She returned to Peter, who by now looked both mildly smug and still impatient with his arms still crossed.
"Can we go now?"
Wendy huffed in defeat, allowing him to wrap his arm around her shoulders and steer her toward the front desk to let Belle know she was taking her lunch break.
Peter looked back once, feeling briefly as if there were another presence in the building…
"Peter?"
He searched the silent shadows for a few seconds longer. With a quick squeeze on her shoulder, he shook his head and led her out.
Belle continued organizing her files after they left, not seeing the figure that silently unwrapped himself from a cloaking spell that silenced his movements as well as hid his form. His daughter was right when she said it took a good amount of precision to control, and even more to conceal his aura from both her and Pan's detection.
Garen plucked The Speckled Band off the shelf, having already devoured the prior nine Sherlock Holmes stories in his now abundant free time. This one, he knew from a previous Wikipedia search (it had taken him months to figure out the confounded technology that produced so much information), was about a rather controlling, vindictive father and a child—a young woman—desperate to escape him.
Perhaps his situation was not so extreme, but he wondered what it took to turn a child desperate. For the first time in years, he wished he could speak with his sister.
What did it take, Cora?
Wendy's eyes were wide, full of wonder.
"Papa…what is this?"
She'd followed him into the dimension that held his library, at his request, and he'd unlocked the Pagemaster's chamber. Inside was a long table with several books laid out, each unique cover encased with the glow of the magic preserving it.
"It is true that each world overlaps slightly, but as you know their interconnected paths are difficult to travel." Garen folded his hands behind his back and reviewed a lesson she'd long ago learned. "Save for those few magical beings capable of traversing them, there are fewer ways to portal jump. Objects, like Merlin's Hat, the magic beans entrusted to the giants, the Author's pen, and the Pagemaster's books. The books in this room are what I have been charged to protect, more than anything else in this place."
"They're portals," Wendy realized, her eyes widening even more as she looked up at her father. He nodded in confirmation.
"But…why are you showing me this now?" Suspicion crept into her tone, and his lips curved into a near smile. Realization seemed to hit her a second time, and she muttered her brothers' names darkly under her breath.
Garen interrupted her with a gentle hand under her chin, tilting her head up so he could see her eyes, so very like her mother's.
"I see your love for him," he confessed, "and his for you…I can't say for certain that I understand it, but…"
His tone was light as his eyes shone with amusement. "I suppose there are a good many things in this world that I don't understand yet."
It was all still so shocking that Wendy hardly knew what to say, but she didn't have to consider it long before he let his hand fall to her shoulder.
"I'm grateful for this second chance. With you, and John, and with Michael," he said. "Don't waste a second chance…with this love of yours."
Wendy bit her lip, and though tears burned in her eyes, she found her way into her father's arms. He held her until she had the strength to wipe the tears from her face and recollect her scattered thoughts.
"Will you share this with David and Snow White?" she asked eventually, and gestured to the seemingly endless row of portals behind her.
"Perhaps, if their desire to leave this place is true and justified."
"But people will soon realize that we've gone…"
"They will answer to me." His words were resolute, and though she worried what measures the others might take if they thought he was a threat, she knew he could protect himself, and their family.
"Be careful, Papa."
"Only if you promise me the same."
Peter was, in a word, exhausted.
It was late. His shift unloading at the docks (which started in the late afternoon, after he spent his mornings helping Michael with Granny's stocking) always had him out until most in the small town were already in bed sleeping. It sucked, and Wendy worried for him, but it was the only job offered to him. The only thing besides practicing magic that kept him busy, kept him from feeling like a freeloader in a house he knew was under Wendy's name even know they didn't really need the meager income he was bringing to the table.
He rolled stiff, sore shoulders and made his way through the dark house to his and Wendy's room. At this time of night, she was probably already sleeping. Also likely, especially with the light he could see from under the door, she could be waiting up for him, curled up with a book and ready to welcome him with a smile.
Neither sight greeted him when he walked in, though she smiled up at him.
She sat on the bed, a small bag at her feet. She'd changed out of what she'd been wearing this morning in exchange for a simple blue dress—
Oh.
Someday I'll have to figure out just what that curse is made of.
The blue dress. It hadn't been destroyed, after all this time. Or maybe that was just the magic of belief.
Her smile curved into a knowing grin.
"Ready when you are."
Garen sat with his boys in front of the fire, watching them try and teach him how to play a card game that seemed a lot like a gambling game from the old world. At least, they tried in between their arguing.
"I still don't know about this. We don't know when they'll be back!" John argued. He didn't much appreciate his big sister stealing into the night with barely a goodbye. He still claimed half a day was not a good enough warning.
"At least we know where they are," Michael offered with a smile.
"That's another thing! How do we know Agraba is even safe?" John grouched. The Disney movie had been fraught with evil sorcerers, magic sand dunes and flying carpets. Not exactly a calm looking place.
"There's no such thing as a safe place," Michael said sagely. "Besides, she promised she'd be back soon and tell us everything. Right, Papa?"
That interrupted Garen from his thoughts, but he smiled. He knew, at the very least, that boy would protect his daughter.
"Yes, son. She'll be fine."
Belle told him the next afternoon, that the girl was missing. Rumpelstiltskin hadn't thought much of it at first, until the letter he found in his vault that he was sure hadn't been there the last he checked. As it was, the vault was blood sealed…
And he knew exactly who it was from anyway.
He brought it to the back of the store with him after he flipped the "open" sign over. He sat in his large, leather chair and began to read.
Belle found him there later, still at his chair with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Dinner's ready," she said. He nodded.
"I'll be there in a moment."
"Something wrong?"
"No," he shook his head. Belle tilted her head at him with a small smile, wondering what was on his mind. He beckoned her over though, and she took his invitation to come sit comfortably on his lap, resting her head on his shoulder after a long day on her feet.
"I think I should call, Rumple. It's unlike her to miss work without saying anything…"
He wordlessly handed the letter over to her with a silent suggestion to read it, and smiled to himself as her eyes grew rounder the more she read.
"I think you'll have to find a new assistant."
See you later, Papa.
Thank you to everyone who has followed Isle of Thorns and Isle of the Lost. It's been a long time in coming, but I've enjoyed writing this story and these characters. I'm still debating whether to start a story centered on Jefferson and Grace (and of course a host of other included characters, and a possible love interest for our favorite hatter).
So if you're interested, let me know!