3.25 | No Way Out
"I know the fight is on the way
and the sides have been chosen."
Keep Your Eyes Open - NeedToBreathe
ADI FELT IT was appropriate to call herself an expert in death.
She had watched someone she loved die. She had killed many others. She had died - twice.
Alone in the darkness, she considered this, wondering how it was that she still had the ability to think anything at all. Something pulsed inside of her, but she knew it was impossible that she still had a heartbeat after all that time with poison lacerating her veins.
There weren't many stories about the afterlife that Adi knew of or even believed in, and she wasn't keen on finding out firsthand if she could help it.
Then the darkness began to fade into light. Her vision brightened until it hurt to keep her eyes open and she squeezed them shut, feeling the impossible pulse thrum in her fingertips.
The hazy outlines of some world returned, a dark sky blocked out by leafy branches, and for a moment Adi thought she was in some strange sort of afterlife that looked quite a bit like Neverland - that is, until Tootles' face came into focus above her, blotting out the foliage.
She blinked.
Adi supposed she could be named master of resurrections, too.
"She's awake," Tootles said over his shoulder to someone Adi couldn't see.
Jarred, she tried to ask, "What?" but it came out as a warbled choking noise instead. Then she turned to retch a mixture of blood and what she assumed was dreamshade next to the blood already staining the dirt.
He stared at her with mild disgust. "Did Slightly throw up too?" he asked over his shoulder again.
"Yeah," Ace called back with unmasked revulsion.
Adi sat up, which was considerably easier when there was no poison in her body. She ran a hand through her hair, and it came back covered in a fine layer of dust. Her mouth tasted like chalk. "What the hell is going on?"
"You passed out a little after Felix left. Still breathing, but not a lot. We all thought the three of you were...gone. Then something weird happened."
Though Tootles didn't elaborate, Adi could take a pretty good guess as to what that something weird was. The foliage around them had been restored to full life, had sprouted new leaves and grown new bark. The air smelled fresh, of pollen and spring.
"Oh," she said, which seemed to be a common reaction for the day. Then she blinked when it hit her: the returning life on the island meant one thing had happened. Part of her felt grateful, the other confused and panicked. "I gotta go."
Tootles jerked back from her, looking stunned. "Go where?"
"Can't tell you - you might follow me."
"What? Adi, you just came back from the dead. There's no way I'm letting you -"
"Letting me?" she interrupted with a snort as she rose, using his shoulder for balance. "Good one."
"Hey!" he replied indignantly, watching with a curious eye while she picked up her bow and quiver, both of which had been discarded a few feet away. "C'mon, do you ever stop?"
Adi made a noise with her mouth that sounded like pfft and said, "I'll stop when I'm dead."
"Yeah, well, mission accomplished!"
"I wasn't kidding – I have to go right now. Sorry, Tootles." She shrugged, gave him a quick wave, and vanished despite his sputtered, shocked sounds of protest.
Adi had a pretty good idea where she'd find Henry's family, and in turn, Pan and Felix. And due to her now rapidly beating heart, she could take a well educated guess as to what all of them were doing in Skull Rock together.
As Henry's heart returned to its rightful owner, Peter had to summon all of the remaining willpower in his (yet again) fading body to keep himself from collapsing on the floor of Skull Rock. Somewhere through the energy that deflated inside him like a balloon, he felt Felix catch him by the shoulder and force him to remain upright.
"I'm fine," Peter hissed. His eyes were glued to the family gathered around Henry, and found himself wondering if any of his Lost Ones would stand over him like that if he died - or came back to life. He would probably be finding out soon.
Felix arched an eyebrow but didn't press it, instead following Peter's eyes over to Henry and his family. "What next?"
"You were the one who convinced me to come here. You tell me."
Watching the boy made him acutely aware of just how little time he had left to drag himself out of the pit he'd thrown himself into the moment he returned the heart.
The good news: the air grew clearer, the stars returned. Giving the heart back to the Truest Believer did indeed revive the island - unfortunately, that left Peter in desperate need of another way.
There was, of course, the other way, but he had a feeling the person in question wouldn't exactly be jumping to his aid if he asked for her help.
Somewhere off to his right, Henry was standing, and the adults - all seven of them - seemed to have reached some kind of decision. Peter found himself wishing Adeline were there, but only so she could use her magic to help protect him from whatever horrible things they were about to do to him for trying to kill the boy.
"Please," Regina scoffed, raising her voice amid the whispers they had taken to conversing in. "He can't hurt us. Look at him." She jerked a hand in Peter's direction.
He was too shocked, too weak to be offended.
"Don't underestimate us," Felix warned her, but Regina merely rolled her eyes.
"We just got Henry back," Emma replied as she stepped forward with a hand twitching toward the cutlass over her shoulder. "Don't underestimate us. We're leaving, with or without your help."
Peter managed a smirk. "The threat still stands: no one leaves this island without my permission. You can't leave unless I let you."
"Well, mate, that's all well and good, but I'm afraid it doesn't look like you'll be lasting through the hour. And I suppose once you're dead, there's nothing keeping us here." Killian shrugged with a falsely apologetic smile and a touch too much of arrogance.
"There is something," Peter said easily, tightening his grip around Pandora's Box in his pocket and wondering if any of them had noticed it. "You just haven't figured it out yet."
A beat of silence passed through the room. Peter stood his ground although it felt as if his body was grinding to a slow halt; sweat was beading on his forehead for a reason he couldn't place.
"Wait," Neal opened his mouth like he was struggling to place his confusion into words. "Where is -"
A rustle of something that sounded like wind cut him off. Another bout of surprised silence fell over them, as they turned to see Adeline there, blinking and stumbling over her own feet.
"Adi?" she asked, pushing her short hair from her eyes. "Right here, and very confused."
Neal stared. "That wasn't what I was going to say."
Felix blinked at her in astonishment. "You aren't dead."
"Sorry to disappoint," she snapped. Then she pointed to Peter and raised her eyebrows. "He's about to be, though. So what now?"
"'What now' is you let us leave before this whole place falls apart," Emma chimed in, revolving her body so that she stood protectively in front of Henry, like she was afraid one of the three was going to steal him from her. "Henry did what you wanted. Now let us go."
"I suppose if I'm to die, then you'll never be able to go home," Peter said.
He wasn't entirely sure that was how it worked, or if he even had the power to decide that, but he was hoping the adults were too desperate to question it. They would do anything to get back to the Land Without Magic, and once their ticket back to their world expired, they were out of luck.
At least, that's what Peter was hoping they would believe. He, too, was beginning to grasp at straws – a sentence he'd never once imagined thinking.
Regina narrowed her eyes. "How do we know you're telling the truth?"
Peter shrugged with a mocking innocence only he could pull off. "I suppose you'll have to take the chance while you still have it."
"You suppose?" the queen repeated through clenched teeth, taking a threatening step toward Peter. Almost immediately, Felix and Adeline stepped in front of him.
"You'll have to trust us," Adeline said with a pointed glare. "As difficult as it might be."
"Suppose we trust you. Then what? Who's to say you don't just up and kill us the second you've decided you don't need our help anymore?" Killian bit out with arched eyebrows.
She leveled her brother with an even stare. "You of all people should know I'm a woman of my word."
In the awkward lapse that followed, Neal seemed about to burst with the question he never got out earlier. "Where is my father?"
Snow White nodded like she'd been thinking the same thing. Peter noticed a bottle of water on a cord at her waist that hadn't been there before. "We can't leave without him."
That much was obvious to Peter, but the urgency with which she said it put him off. He didn't think old Rumple was that important to them.
Adeline, too, apparently. "Why not?"
Pallid and looking hesitant to answer, Prince Charming replied. It dawned on Peter than he had just returned from an almost-death as well, but he looked worse for the wear than Adeline.
"He can find a way to permanently heal me," he said with a vague motion toward his midsection.
"Can he?" Adeline asked, unimpressed. "If you're willing to take that chance, good luck. I wouldn't trust that guy to tie my shoes, much less save my life."
"I don't have a choice."
"That's true." She shrugged. "How about this – you help us, and we give you the Dark One and a way off the island."
Charming considered this. "No more tricks?"
"No more tricks," Adeline promised. "Like I said, I'm a woman of my word."
"It's true," Tinkerbell interjected with what looked to be grudging agreement. "I believe Adi. It's Pan I'm not quite so sure about."
Looking surprised the fairy had even spoken her name, Adeline quickly masked her expression and tilted her head to glance at Peter. "He isn't lying." She paused to give him a calculating stare. "Right?"
Peter returned the look, though he was nervously fingering Pandora's Box in his pocket, out of fear or anxiety he wasn't sure. "Right."
"I believe them."
The voice was small, out of sight - Peter had forgotten the very person they were all gathered for. Henry peered up at his family, and then at the three others across the room from him. Beside the adults, he looked smaller than his age.
"Henry, they tried to kill you!" Emma replied in an angry half-whisper. "How could you even begin to believe them?"
"Pan is the one who tried to kill me. Everyone else...they helped him out of loyalty, not because they wanted to kill me. Not all of them are bad people."
"Do you even hear yourself right now?" Regina asked in disbelief. "These are the people who took you from us, who tricked you into becoming friends with them, who tried to murder you."
"Yeah, Mom, I do. Isn't that what being a hero is? Helping others even when they do bad things?"
The queen fell silent. An uncomfortable ripple of quiet fell through Skull Rock as the rest of Henry's family measured his words.
"Fine," Emma said without bothering to convene with the others. Her teeth were gritted. "But if you try to weasel your way out of this, I will personally dismantle this entire island by myself."
"Sounds fair." Felix chuckled as he said it, probably because he knew as well as Peter did that the island would dismantle itself soon enough.
"I have an idea." Adeline, who had been twisting at the sleeve of her shirt, looked up at the adults without making eye contact with any of them. "It's kind of crazy."
"All of your ideas are crazy," Felix said flatly.
"Good point." She shrugged and turned back to Peter. "Remember the Neverland Shade? That really powerful shadow that visited us the time you tried to get me to stop the sand in the hourglass? The one that ruled the island before you? That probably still does?"
"I rule the island," Peter reminded her indignantly.
She raised a daring eyebrow. "How 'bout we let the Shade be the judge of that?"
He returned the gesture. "And how are you planning on getting it to come here?"
Adeline's confidence seemed to waver. "Uh..." Then her eyes flickered over to the hourglass in the corner, the same one whose magic she'd attempted to stop once in her life already. "Like this."
From the startling spark in her eyes, Peter could tell whatever plan she was formulating in that devious head of hers was going to be a dangerous one. He watched in equal confusion and horror as she marched up to the hourglass and leaned so close to it that her breath fogged the glass.
Perhaps, had he been back at full strength, had he been in control of the entire situation, he might have appeared in front of her and blocked her path to the hourglass. He would've stopped whatever it was she was thinking about doing.
But Peter was not at full strength. It felt like his mind was lagging five seconds behind real time, and the lapse between what he saw and what he thought was long enough to be disastrous.
And when Adeline pressed a hand to the hourglass, her blue eyes fixated on the sand as it trickled lower and lower, her mouth twisted into a frown while her nails drummed against the surface of the glass, there was a pause that took an eternity to pass, and even in all that time Peter didn't think to open his mouth before the entire thing shattered around her.
Adi didn't have a clue what she was doing.
To be fair, that wasn't an irregular occurrence, but even she was surprised when the glass started to rain down, showering her and those in the nearest vicinity with surprisingly sharp, golden hail.
Letting out a yelp of surprise, she revolved on the spot to cover her head with her arms and dug her teeth into her lip to keep from yelling aloud when a few shards of glass sliced into her skin. Blood beaded up along her arms, but by the time she stood, the pain was pushed to the back of her mind.
Partly because she'd literally just died and nothing could compare to that, and partly because it was now Pan's turn to cause her heart to nearly stop.
He swayed on the spot, looking dangerously unsteady and unnaturally white. But he didn't fall. Although his eyes rolled into his head for a moment, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain upright.
Regina looked personally offended that he wasn't dead yet. "How come everyone else has to die, and even when his source of life is taken away, he's still alive?"
Emma muttered an agreement with a roll of her eyes. "At least while he's here we can get the answers we've been looking for."
"Answers?" Adi asked from where she stood alone on the hourglass platform beside a sad pile of sand and broken glass. Answers were exactly what she'd been searching for her entire life - especially as of lately. "To what questions?"
"First of all, where my father is," Neal said again. He was looking at Adi like she should know, but upon seeing the (false) confusion in her expression instead turned his gaze to Pan.
For someone known for his cunning cleverness, Pan made the remarkably stupid decision to reach for his left pocket, from which Adi caught a glimpse of something deep red. If that was what she thought it was, they were going to have more problems than she could keep track of.
Pan's voice was quiet yet strong, not shaky like she expected it to be. "I've already told you – you'll know when I need you to know."
"Are you threatening me?" Neal let out a bark of laughter. "Pan, you're in no position to be making propositions - threats or bargains."
"Maybe not," he replied with a wicked smirk. "But I have your father exactly where I need him to be."
"Don't assume that you're the ones in power here," she said ardently. "The three of us are in charge even when everything falls apart. Neverland is still our home - we get to call the shots."
Emma looked to be on the verge of forming a fervent reply, but stopped abruptly as a loud roar ripped through the cavern, shredding the air like a knife.
Unlike last time, the Neverland Shade, the island's protector and true ruler made a grand entrance rather than slipping quietly into the room like the last time she had encountered it.
Then a voice that sounded like a thousand at once and dropped five octaves rang out, jolting chills down Adi's spoke. "Do not make false claims, Adeline Morris," it said. "Do not pretend that you do not know how Neverland is ruled."
Of course she knew how it was ruled. But that didn't mean Pan had no power.
Fighting the urge to shudder from the edge to its tone, she chanced a glance up to see it hovering in the empty expanse of one of the skull's eyes, nearly invisible against the night. "And so why do you think I called you?"
It moved closer. Henry's family, although seeming to be in shock at the fact that a shadow could speak, took a few steps back as a collective unit. Beside her, Felix tensed.
"I believe you're seizing the opportunity to take leadership of Neverland in the wake of Peter Pan's death."
Pan snorted but - amazingly - remained silent. Perhaps if he had been his normal self, he would've said something about how there was no way a girl could rule his island.
Adi was momentarily glad he wasn't his normal self.
"I thought you'd been watching us?" She arched an eyebrow. "Because you should know better."
"I saw the desire for power in you years ago, Adeline Morris. I doubt even someone like Peter Pan could quell that fire."
Unnerved by the continued use of her full name, she stared at it with a clenched jaw. "He couldn't. Your point?"
"I stopped watching."
"You should've paid attention," she replied with a wry smile. "I might be selfish, but maybe not as much as you may believe. I'm here to save my friends - not Pan."
The shadow was silent at that, and Neal took the chance to speak with it. "Will you help us?" he asked, calm despite the intense golden glare the Shade fixed him with. "We need to get off the island."
"I'm aware," it replied coolly. "But at the moment, although it pains me, I owe my assistance to these three. If the island dies, I die, and I have no intention of doing so."
"Really?" Adi deadpanned as more of a statement than a question. "You hate Pan. I'm assuming you hate Felix and me by association. Why do you owe us your help?"
"Because, Adeline Morris, you said your intentions are to help your brothers - the true owners of Neverland."
Pan sneered. "And what would that make me?"
If the Shade could form discernible expressions, Adi figured it'd give him an unimpressed look. "An intruder who took more power than he should have."
Felix's hand tightened around his club, like he was planning on baseball batting the shadow into next Tuesday, but Adi shot him a warning glance and a single shake of her head. If he did that, they wouldn't live to see next Tuesday.
Despite Pan's impertinence, she could sense they were making progress. Violence - especially considering the fact that his club would pass right through the shadow's ghostly form anyway - wouldn't work in their favor this time around.
"If he's an unwelcome intruder," Killian cut in with narrowed eyes. "Why haven't you gotten rid of him earlier?"
The Shade paused. "In being the first to treat Neverland as a home, a place to be conquered and ruled over rather than a sanctuary for visitors in dreams, Peter Pan ripped the island from the Dream Realm, and in doing so, tied himself to its life force."
Henry, who had been quiet up until now, tilted his head to the side. "There's a Dream Realm?"
"Yes; one that used to be home to Neverland, along with many other frequent destinations of dreams - particularly children's - but that was ruined the moment he arrived."
"So," Adi said hesitantly, wondering if she was thinking the same thing as everyone else. "What realm are we in now?"
"Neverland's," the shadow answered simply.
"How is that possible?" Regina demanded. "Realms don't just pop up out of nowhere."
"Magic can make almost anything possible," Snow reminded her quietly.
Adi blinked - she'd almost forgotten she and David were there. Tink, too, but she was hanging back at the edge of the group, silent and watching the conversations with constantly shifting eyes, like she wanted to listen but understood that it wasn't her fight to lead.
The Shade continued, undeterred. "Neverland forced its way into a realm of its own, and that was the act that ultimately doomed it."
"You're saying..." Felix was a lot paler than his usual self. "There's no way out?"
"You've put up a valiant fight, but truly, you have been doomed from the start."
"Hold on!" Adi demanded as she remembered something. "Time out. I thought only Pan was dying. Now you're telling me we are, too? You are? Can shadows even die?"
"We can fade." Sounding like it had expected that, the shadow nodded. "In the slow end of the island, Pan is the first of many to fall. His death doesn't instigate Neverland's demise, it simply foreshadows it."
"Pan is the warning sign," she clarified, her throat constricting. Then she turned to him, hoping he noticed the unintentional sparks flickering along her clenched fists. "Did you know? Is this another secret you kept from me this whole time?"
"No," he whispered, and if she didn't know better, she'd think he sounded apologetic.
Felix had the same blank expression as she had on, but his eyes were molten with betrayal, fear, anger, desperation. Adi understood.
As if sensing this, the Shade said to the two of them in what she considered a mildly sympathetic tone, "Places in illegitimate realms with stolen magic were never meant to last."
That didn't make her feel any better - in only brought back the doomed from the beginning issue.
A silence fell over them, one that even the adults didn't take advantage of. Adi remembered all the lies she had been told, the ones she'd believed and the ones she'd refused; she remembered everything she had been guided and forced through, all the things that made her into her. And she remembered her brothers, back at camp, mourning over what might become of her and Felix and Pan, terrified and disoriented.
She opened her eyes, blew out a breath through clenched teeth, and steeled herself. "Okay," she said, her voice tight. "How do we fix this?"
Pan burst out in laughter. For someone so hell-bent on saving himself, he was finding her determination remarkably funny. Perhaps the slow creep of death into his soul was making him delirious.
Rolling her eyes, she turned to him, a little satisfied to see he was pale and shaking. "What?"
"You heard the shadow. There isn't a way around this."
"I thought you would do anything to stay alive?"
"There's nothing left for me to do."
"No," Adi spat, shaking her head. "I will not accept that. I'm not going down without a fight." Then she spun around to look at the Shade once more and asked again, with more force, "How do we fix this?"
It hesitated. When it spoke, it sounded disjointed, as if each voice in the millions it sounded like it had decided to use a different pitch. "Are you sure you want to know, Adeline Morris?"
She grit her teeth and tensed. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want an answer."
Was it worried she wouldn't be able to handle it? Did it think that if it told her there was no answer, no way out, that she would simply lose it? What terrible - or perhaps impossible - thing would be able to save them?
"Neverland is decaying because it is in an invalid realm of its own. But if it were to be in a different realm, it may have the capacity to live on despite being forced from its original home."
Felix had swung his club off of his shoulder and was now leaning on it like an old man a cane. "So you're saying...we move Neverland?"
"Essentially, yes."
The adults, who had decided against speaking for the past few minutes, suddenly seemed unable to keep a cap on their words any longer.
Regina chuckled. Henry looked confused, like he was attempting to solve a math question in his head without a calculator. Killian had on his usual mask of indifference.
Emma, lip drawn between her teeth, said, "That's impossible. Now that we've established that, will you help us find a way home?"
"I cannot," it told her tonelessly. "There simply isn't enough magic left in this realm to do so. My sincerest apologies."
The Shade cast one last look around the room as if attempting to seal everything in its memory, met Pan's eyes for one uneasy moment, and then floated away from the ground in a motion so fast Adi nearly missed it.
"Wait," Adi called after it. "You didn't answer all of my questions!"
It paused in its movement, glancing back down to her. Up there, it looked a million times more intimidating. "What else is there to ask?"
Knowing she was fighting for nothing, giving her best efforts in vain, she held her head high and stared it right in the face. "What happens if we find a way to bring Neverland somewhere else? Does the island live? Or die? Do we live? Do we die?"
"If you manage it," it replied, "all current inhabitants survive, but the magic that keeps all on the island young forever will fade. You will age."
"And Pan?" she continued, taking a step forward. "What happens to him?"
"He will live," - the words sounded bitter - "given that you find somewhere to go in a timely manner. He and Neverland are bound after what he did. Save the island, he lives. But once he is gone, he cannot come back in the same way that you did."
Again feeling privileged that she was allowed to escape from death's clutches for the second time, Adi nodded and pressed her lips together into a thin line. "Thank you."
The Shade turned once more and began to rise back toward the night, but moments before it disappeared into the dark -
"Wait," she said again, softer, almost like she didn't want it to hear her. It did. Then she gestured to Henry and his family. "What about them?"
Its voice hung heavier in the air now. "I cannot help you anymore."
Then the Shade was gone. Its eleven intruders were left among the shattered remains of the hourglass, shrouded in the eternal night and the wretched promise of their oncoming demise.