Chapter 37

The streets of London were grey and dark, roofed over with a forbidding mantle of fog, as the black cab wound its slow way through the heavy city traffic. Emma and Killian sat tensely on the edge of their seats, fingers nearly tearing the leather, as the oblivious driver rattled on about Chelsea's chances in the Premier League this year and why the bloody Tories were going all the wrong way about the austerity budget. He'd whistled when they'd given him their destination address in Kensington Gardens, but so far as Emma could tell, feeling the blue murder of Killian's stare on the back of his head, had not once attempted to run up the meter by taking them for a joyride in London's interminable roundabouts. Still, there was no way to make it faster. It had started to rain in earnest by the time they sloshed into the tonier postcodes and up toward the elegant brownstone mansion that Emma remembered, set back from the street by a hedge and garden gate. The lights were on in its old windows, giving an oddly cozy glow in the swiftly fading afternoon. Emma wanted nothing so much as to go in and be allowed to sleep a year, twenty, a hundred, a heroine in a fairytale indeed, but she already knew there was no time.

She stood in the dampness, shivering, as Killian settled their fare. How exactly this was achieved – she knew he likely still had some money, but didn't know where – was a mystery, but he had slipped into some kind of incomprehensible Irish brogue, turning up the charm and eventually getting the guy to drive away with a befuddled look on his face. Pirate. Now that Emma knew it was all real, she couldn't help but reluctantly admire the sight of a professional at work. Surely Killian hadn't lived over three hundred years as a dread pirate by being an altruist, and bamboozling London cab drivers was probably not even top twenty on the list of his most despicable doings. And anything, anything that got them closer to David was fine with her.

Yet even as Killian took her arm and started toward the house, Emma felt a sudden hesitation. "Shouldn't we. . . I don't know. . . call or something? We are just sort of, you know. Dropping in out of the blue."

"Later, lass. We can salve your tender conscience later." Killian's voice was grim. "We need to get to Neverland."

Emma paused, then nodded. They strode up the steps and rang the bell.

A long silence, until she wondered if the Darlings were even home. But just as she was about to hit it again, they heard footsteps. The latch clicked, and they found themselves face to face with a haggard, exhausted-looking woman, whom Emma belatedly recognized as Jane, Granny Wendy's daughter and the younger Wendy's mother. She looked at them as if not entirely sure who they were or what they were doing there, and then her face crumpled in relief. "Miss Swan," she said. "Killian. We had no way to contact you, we hadn't seen you in years, we didn't think you were going to come. Mother wanted. . . wants to see you both again. Very much."

Emma and Killian exchanged a stunned glance. Faced with such a heartfelt admission, it seemed doubly uncouth to inform her that they needed to use the nursery to summon up an extremely dangerous denizen of Neverland for their own purposes. What was more. . . it was Killian who finally put into words what Emma was afraid of. "Granny Wendy. . . Jane, is she. . .?"

"She's dying." Jane blinked hard. "It's not unexpected, you know. She's a hundred and two years old, and she's been sick. But I suppose I thought – all of us thought, really – that she would live forever."

Emma felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. How could they walk in like this, into the middle of the family's grief? But turning away from here, from her son, was equally unthinkable. Finally, feeling as out of place as if she'd driven up to a funeral in a clown car (not that far off, really) she stammered, "Can we come in, Mrs. James?"

"Of course, of course." Jane pulled the door wider. "You should have been in touch with Wendy, she'd have been happy to give you a lift from the airport or anything else you needed. She's upstairs with Mother, but I'll go and get her, she'll be so surprised. Wait here."

And with that, she hurried up the grand staircase, leaving Emma and Killian standing there as uncomfortably as a pair of high schoolers about to be put in detention. There was a hushed, still, funeral atmosphere in the house already; clearly, many of Granny Wendy Darling's countless friends and family were arriving to pay their respects at the end of her long life. Emma hadn't known the old lady well, and in fact had been intimidated by her; their last meeting had been when she ran here from the hotel in a panic, after the shadow kidnapped Killian. It must be very different for him. This was the woman to whom he owed everything, his life and education and job and place in this world, and he could barely spare her the decency of a proper farewell.

The silence had gotten onerous by the time they finally heard a step on the landing, and Emma's old college roommate and friend, Wendy James, appeared at the top. Clearly, she had been keeping the vigil at her grandmother's bedside; her hair was loose, her face pale and her eyes shadowed with weariness and grief. But when they fell on the visitors, they lit up like the sun. Totally without ceremony, she ran down the stairs and threw herself into Emma's arms.

Stunned, Emma could think of nothing to do but hug her back. She had completely forgotten what it was like to hug, or have physical contact at all, with anyone who wasn't David, and she surely hadn't expected such a warm welcome. After all, she was the one who had cut Wendy out of her life, thrown her generosity back in her face, stubbornly repelled all of her friend's attempts to make contact or revive old ties – the only time she had, in fact, was just after David was born and she was in danger of going completely broke and sleeping on a gunnysack by the river. She'd let Wendy pay for the South Boston apartment, then gone MIA again. And as she stood there, holding onto her, Emma felt a sudden sense of shame. As if her walls were slowly melting, flooding her out, drowning her. First Killian, and now. . .

"We didn't think you'd make it," Wendy said. "And with. . ." Her eyes performed a curious flick to Killian. There was surely something more than slightly strange about them turning up here, together, in distinctly couple-like fashion. Wendy knew Killian was a friend of her grandmother's, of course, but all she knew him as in relation to Emma was her one-time history professor. Emma had never told anyone who David's father really was. Not until Mary Margaret and Gold.

"Dr. Jones," Wendy said now, startling Emma, who'd never heard him called that – even though, she supposed, he was. "We didn't think you were. . . I mean, we had heard. . . "

"Aye, lass," Killian himself interrupted tersely. "It's a bloody long story. This isn't the way we meant to do it, but it's what it is. We need to speak with your grandmother, at once."

Wendy blinked, then nodded. Without another word, she led them up the old staircase, wood creaking under their feet. Intervals of drowned light slanted through the ornate windows, and Emma found herself searching for familiar scenes or patterns, here in this house of the very family that must know all there was to know about Neverland. Had Granny Wendy been there herself? She must have been. Had she known Pan, had Henry somehow been there before as well? In a land without time, it wouldn't matter when he'd been created, would it? How dangerous of an enemy was he? She shot an apprehensive glance at the stump of Killian's left arm. Would Henry recognize David as the brother he had been trying so hard to contact through dreams, the brother he had wanted for whatever sinister reason, and keep him safe? Take him into the Lost Boys or something? But if he went in there, would he ever come back out?

At that moment, Emma's crowded, clamoring thoughts were interrupted as they reached a heavy oak door and stepped through it, into a bedroom that smelled of medicine and sterility and sickness. The curtains were drawn, the lamps lit, and there were some four others present – Jane's elder daughter Moira, her husband, their son Jack, and another Darling relative Emma didn't know. At the far end, a tiny white-haired figure, fragile as a doll, lay propped against a heap of lacy pillows and heavy quilts.

Killian stopped short, making a muffled noise of agony. Emma glanced at him, but his face was turned away, his eyes as dark as a stormy sea. His voice sounded quieter and more tentative than she'd ever heard it when he finally pulled himself together enough to speak. "Wendy."

The old lady didn't answer, looking as if she had been struck by lightning. For a moment, Emma was afraid that the shock would cause her to expire on the spot, which was certainly not a desirable outcome for any bedside visit. Then in a faint whisper, Wendy Darling said, "Killian."

"Granny?" The younger Wendy glanced worriedly between them. "If it's too much. . . I can. . ."

"Nonsense," Granny Wendy snapped, with a fair simulacrum of her old feistiness. "I'm going to die soon enough, but it won't be thanks to him sauntering in here devil-may-care, seven years after vanishing off the face of the earth. I don't know what you think you're playing at, but – "

And then, she caught sight of his missing hand. Her mouth shut with a click. The silence that towered over the room was hideous. Finally, in a voice that would have caused even Catholic-school nuns to tremble in terror, she breathed, "What happened?"

Killian cringed. Neither the handsome, urbane, sophisticated academic or fearsome rogue pirate were anywhere to be found; he looked as intimidated as Emma had ever seen him. Not looking at Wendy, in fact looking intently at the handsome rococo ceiling, the chairs, the windows, his feet, anywhere except her, he mumbled, "I lost it."

"You lost it? You lost it?" Wendy attempted to push herself upright on her pillows. "As if your hand was a dog that ran out of the house one morning and got run over by the mailman? You have a very queer definition of lost indeed, Killian Jones, and if you think that I'm going to leave it at – after you promised – "

"Aye, I promised her, didn't I?" Killian's head jerked up. "Tink? She was the only one of the fairies who was even remotely convinced that I'd do as I said and mend my wandering ways. She was the one that I promised not to turn back into Hook, who gave me my hand back in the first place, turned the Roger into a portal so I could leave. She was the one who made it possible for me to come to you, to this world, and you took me in when I bloody didn't deserve it. I know. Because you wanted to prove a point after what I did to you. Because of Bae. Now it's all twisted back in on itself like an ouroboros. Bae's there. So is my son. We need to go back there. We need to go back to Neverland."

The hush that followed this outburst was almost palpable. The rest of the Darling family had gone pale. It was Moira who finally turned to her grandmother. "It's true?" she said, half an accusation and half in befuddlement. "All the stories? They're all true? It's. . . it's real?"

"Yes, of course it's real," Wendy said, irritated. "Who did you think was trying to steal Jack all those years ago – the Prime Minister? I'm dying, I don't see any need for gimcrackery and flimflam. Killian, it's about bloody time that you introduce yourself as who you are. I don't suppose I should have kept it secret this long, but nothing to be done for it now."

Killian flinched. Emma could feel the tension coursing through him. Then, as if making up his mind, he spun around and flourished a deep, dashing bow to the gathered Darlings. "Captain Hook, at your service."

Strained breathing was the only sound. Then at last Jack Banning, Wendy's teenage great-grandson, stepped forward. Instead of shock or disbelief or skepticism, the look on his face was utter triumph. "I knew it!" he crowed. "I always knew! Back when you fought the shadow off for me, when I was five. I said you were a pirate. You told me a story about Hook in Neverland. And I said that Granny Wendy was the real one. I knew it! I knew it!"

He began to skip around, fists pumping the air, before being restrained by his mortified mother, who clearly considered such behavior grossly inappropriate for a deathbed vigil. Yet Wendy only smiled approvingly. "Yes, you did, child. But I very much doubt it's what you think. Killian – you were there, weren't you? After the shadow stole you. How on earth did you make it back?"

"It's. . . complicated."

"Why am I not surprised? Well then. The Roger, what happened to her? Still in pieces?"

"I. . . no. I got her back, all right. Sailed her here. Anchored up in the Thames."

"Well then. You could, I presume, make use of that?"

"I'd rather not, really."

"Oh?" Wendy Darling arched an eyebrow. "And why would that be, pray?"

"I. . . may have angered the mermaids, after they helped me salvage her. Considerably angered them. Completely by accident and through no fault of my own, mind."

The old lady emitted a snort that was three times her size. "The more things change indeed, Killian Jones? It's one of the enduring mysteries of the universe that you ended up in a post which requires you to think, because for the life of me I can't see that you do it very often. So then. You need the shadow to come here? And hope you can snatch onto it and hold on all the way to Neverland?"

"Aye," Killian admitted. "It's not much of a plan, but it's our only one. Our lad, David. He's – "

"Yours?" Wendy's gaze turned sharp and appraising. "You and Miss Swan have a son?"

"Yes," Emma said, seeing it best to bite the bullet. "We do. And we'll stop at nothing to save him. We have to get him back. Please."

The old lady's eyes turned almost sympathetic as they lingered on Emma. She had a distinct feeling that Wendy was about to say something else, and that she wasn't going to like it. But instead Wendy merely thought for several moments, then arrived at a decision. "You," she said. "Help me to the nursery."

"Granny?" Moira looked aghast. "You're not supposed to be out of bed! The doctor says – "

"Oh, to hell with him. Interfering wanker. Make sure you tell him that I've instructed you not to sue if this should go inopportunely." Wendy pushed down the covers, and Emma could see that despite her bold words, the old lady had very little strength. Her thin wrists were trembling, but her face was firm and resolute.

Moira, young Wendy, and Emma all moved toward her at once, but Killian intercepted them. He strode to the bed, reached down, and let Wendy put her arms around his neck, lifting her easily against his chest. She looked as insubstantial as a wisp of cloud as he carried her carefully out of the room. After a pause, throwing a look of apology at the still-gobsmacked Darling family, Emma hurried to follow him.

Killian was climbing the stairs up to the third floor, reaching the top and turning down the corridor to the unused nursery. He pushed the door open with a foot, and Emma could feel the cold draft. The nursery was cool and dark, streetlights shining through the stained-glass window with its pirate ship worked in the arch. Killian carried Wendy to what must have been her old bed, when she'd slept in here with her brothers John and Michael, a century ago when they had all been young. It tugged painfully at Emma's heart to imagine it, looking around this place. Killian had once more said something about Bae, who must be Mr. Gold's son, the reason he'd agreed to help (that is, double-cross) them in fetching the golden egg from Maleficent. Had Wendy known him? How deep did all these tangled connections go?

"Thank you," Wendy said with a sigh, as Killian laid her on the covers. "Pull up that blanket for me, would you? It'll be rather chilly, especially when you open the window."

Killian complied with the first part, but looked leery at the second. "Open it? That's all? What makes you think that will – "

"Captain," Wendy said, in a voice that brooked no tomfoolery. "Who's in charge here?"

"It bloody well isn't me," Killian mumbled, but obediently went to unlatch the window, letting in a draft of cold, misty air. The sounds of London drifted up faintly, traffic and bells and the distant susurrus of rain, the whistling wind. He remained there for a long moment, breathing it in, as Emma watched him. In all the panic, the long voyage on the pirate ship, the uncertainty of their plan, she had almost forgotten that he was coming back to the closest thing he'd had to a home in – God knew how long. She thumbed the heavy silver ring on her left hand, thinking again how he'd offered to take her and David here, give them a place to live, a real home. It was a dream she wanted more than anything. But if they didn't find their son, it wouldn't matter.

Looking around at Wendy and Killian and their tensely expectant attitude, she frowned. "What? Is it about to come busting in through the window or something?"

"Not right away, dear," Wendy answered, eyes still on the blowing curtains. "But he will. I'm quite certain of that. Sit down. I have a great deal to ask both of you."

Emma stayed on edge, not wanting to let her guard down and have a cozy catch-up chat. Her mind was running with visions of David lost in some weird, dangerous netherworld, and with images of what they had left behind in Storybrooke. Were Mary Margaret and David Nolan all right? Had the defenses Gold had put up against Home Office even worked, or had that been a fraud as well? But Wendy was owed that at least, was helping them when she would have been perfectly justified in doing no such thing. After a moment, huffing out a breath that hurt, she perched awkwardly on Wendy's bed. "Yeah, okay. What?"

Only too late did she realize that it sounded terse to the point of rudeness, but Wendy didn't appear to mind. Instead, the old lady commenced firing a roulette of questions, wanting to know everything that had happened since their last fateful meetings. Both Killian and Emma did their best to answer, checking the window every few minutes, but the one subject that Killian seemed eager to avoid was what exactly he had done to get the mermaids (mermaids, seriously?) so enraged at him, and how that prevented them from sailing his ship back to Neverland. Yet the details washed over Emma, inconsequential. Would she just know it, somehow, if Storybrooke was gone? There were flickers of memory here and there, coming at her, torturing her. Like Emma Nolan was closer than she had ever been, but Emma Swan couldn't punch through the glass and join her. A turnover. What did a turnover have to do with it? Apple, something about an apple. . . eating it, forgetting. . . Snow White and Prince Charming. . . and yet just Mary Margaret and David, her geeky parents, her mom who had cried when she went off to college, her dad with his bad dad jokes who worked at the animal shelter and –

There. She'd had it. Just for a second, she'd definitely had it, and now it was gone again. Emma wanted to scream with frustration. She was closer than she'd ever been to finding her parents, but if she lost them like this, without a fight, then it would just make everything –

"Emma?" A hand touched her shoulder, startling her. "You all right, lass?"

Blinking and swallowing hard, she looked up into Killian's dark, concerned face. She forced in another breath, trying to slow her rapidly pounding heart. "I'm fine."

He nodded reassuringly, then leaned in and kissed her quickly. It was such an easy, natural thing to do, the kind of simple gesture you'd make when someone you loved was hurting, that it tightened her throat past speech. She remembered again that she was, in fact, engaged to him, that assuming survival and success, they were going to be married someday. It was such a strange, simple, wonderful thing that she almost couldn't believe it. She squeezed his hand, staring up at him. For the first time ever, at last, forever, she had to say it aloud. Her voice was hoarse, but heartfelt. "I love you."

An extraordinary change smoothed over his face. The way he looked at her – like there was no one else, here or ever. Like she could feel something lighting up in a place that had been so long dark. They took unspeakable strength from that moment, however small and short it was, and she could feel it in them both. Then Wendy said suddenly, warningly, "Killian."

Killian turned away with a start – then stared. Emma saw it as well. It wasn't yet dusk, but the nursery had suddenly grown very dark, and the lamps had gone out. It felt alive somehow, creeping, sinister, the curtains flapping madly, the wind very cold, a breath of pure and perfect darkness. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. This is it.

Apparently, Killian sensed the same thing. "Oh bloody hell, here we go," he hissed, moving to put himself between Emma, Wendy, and the window. "Lass, this is going to be a – "

"Hell of a rodeo?" Emma finished wryly, jumping up to stand beside him. "Yeah. I kind of got that impression."

Any further attempts they might have made at talking strategy, however, came to a very, very emphatic halt. Completely on its own accord, the window flew back against the jamb with a screech of hinges, and something dark and terrible roared through like a tornado – which, for a dazzled moment, she thought it was. Then she made out the rough shape of a boy, the burning white eyes like a demon's, the way it was lunging at Killian, and threw herself at it.

Emma lost track of everything from there. It was a howling, jumbled mess, as she grappled to get hold of the slick insubstantial fabric of the shadow and it writhed like a serpent, as she tore into it with claws and even teeth; if they had successfully lured it here after all, there was no way, no way she was letting it fly back to Neverland without them. She wrapped arms and legs around it, thought she felt Killian struggling to grab her – he had only one hand, he had to go either for her or the shadow, and he wasn't going to let her go, refused to let them be torn apart again – they were whirling above the bed like a dervish, she saw Wendy just below them, the old lady's fragile hands raised as if in futile defiance, and the shadow swooping down on her as well –

And then, in a maelstrom of swirling, snapping blackness, Emma felt her feet leave the floor, hurtled head and shoulders through the window and out over the glittering twilight of London, the pinpricks of streetlamps growing smaller and smaller as they rocketed upwards, her ears popping and her hair lashing her face. She could still feel Killian clamped in a death grip around her waist, like a lead weight pulling her down, and kicked and struggled to keep hold of the shadow. In very, very different circumstances, she might have enjoyed this demented aerial thrill ride through the city, soaring over the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, so close she thought they were going to snag on the top, wondering how no one could possibly see them, or if that was part of the magic as well. Then they were rising, rising as if fired from a catapult, up through the clouds – she was instantly drenched to the skin, but they were still going, up where the stars shone lucent, second to the right, she squinted and tried to make out which one it might be, but they were traveling far too fast to tell. They kept on blasting through the night. She had done it. They had. They were going to Neverland. To –

At last, as suddenly as they'd shot up, they began to tumble. Faster and faster, head over heels over head over heels through miles of empty sky, as Emma tried to scream but thought her lungs had been crushed out of her body. Only darkness, only falling, madness, until –

And then, in a blaze, she saw it. Out of nowhere, almost literally, sketched into existence with broad bold strokes like an illuminator's quill, a glittering sea unfolding like sparkling fabric far below, a crown of mist, a tropical green island that climbed from lowland jungle to snowy mountain peak, palm trees swaying, a rainbow daggering through a roaring waterfall. Beautiful as it was, there was no way to slow their fall, and they were going to hit that ocean and sink like a stone – that was, if the impact didn't kill them outright, which from this height it very well might. But then she felt Killian clawing at her again, ripping her loose, wrapping his arms around her – and then someone else was pulling at her as well, shifting her weight and momentum, she couldn't hold on anymore, she was falling –

Falling –

Falling –

That alone wasn't the problem. It was very nearly peaceful. As peaceful as it could be when you were facing imminent death. It was only when they hit the ground that it caused all the grief.

Light. That was the first thing she felt. Warm, hot, scorching in fact, beating on her face like a drumbeat, pulling her up from the depths of the soft darkness that had enveloped her. She was unable to comprehend it. But whatever it was, it was insistent. It was dragging her up, up and up, to –

Groaning, Emma opened her eyes.

She was lying spread-eagled on some sandy white beach, ice-blue breakers lashing the shore with a distant thundering sound, and the light wasn't, as she'd thought, sunlight. It was a ball of brilliant white starshine glow about the size of her fist, which had apparently been sitting on her chest and doing some nefarious Neverland activity while she was non compos mentis. She raised a hand, trying to swat it like a fly, but it reversed with an angry buzzing sound, shedding some kind of sparkly dust, and turned bright crimson. Blasted little –

"Easy there, lass! Easy! You chase her off, we're done for!"

Emma froze, then sucked in a gasping breath of both confusion and relief. She spun around, head reeling, just as Killian's hand caught her wrist, pulling it sharply away. Her instinct was to struggle against him too, but she forced herself to stop. Then something Killian had said back at the Darling house hit her, and she turned back. "Don't tell me," she panted. "This is Tinkerbell."

The bright ball of light buzzed angrily again.

"She doesn't think much of your manners either," Killian translated dryly. "And seeing as she already tried to kill me when we landed here, I'd say you got quite the better of the deal – oh all right, you bloody pixie, you didn't try to kill me, you were just teaching me a lesson – and is a temperamental little ball of mischief with a capacity for spite five times her size, we had better be careful. We have no chance of finding the Lost Ones if she buggers off and leaves us here."

The fairy buzzed again, threateningly. Emma stared at it, still gaping. It was one thing to have accepted, on an intellectual level, that everything she had thought was just a story was in fact real. It was quite another to fly from London, crash-land in the middle of a magical realm where you never got any older, and see your fiancé, who was actually Captain Hook, conversing fluently with a fist-sized ball of light and talking about finding Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. She was tempted to pinch herself, but didn't think it would do any good.

"Which we would completely deserve if she did, especially in my case," Killian finished up, looking resigned. "Being a stupid lunk-headed idiot with no capacity for – you know what, no. I'm not insulting myself for Emma's behalf, Tink. Just tell us. Have you seen him?"

The ball of light remained silent. Emma had the distinct impression it was sulking.

"I'd forgotten what contrary little things fairies could be," said a third voice. "That is the one part about Neverland that Mr. Barrie got right. Foolish man, I told him the rest, but he did not think it was at all suitable for children."

Startled, Emma turned to look over her shoulder – and beheld none other than Granny Wendy, sitting in the shade of a palm tree, as regal and unruffled as if she hadn't just been on a time-and-space-bending sojourn at the age of one hundred and two. She still looked frail and pale and slight, but the balmy, salty tropical air seemed to have done her the world of good; her eyes were bright and sparrow-like in her wrinkled face. "Looks quite a bit different from here, I must say."

"Oh, God." Emma shook her head. "We didn't mean to bring you here."

"That's quite beside the point, dear," the old lady said composedly. "Spilled milk, open barn doors, and what have you. We really don't have time to sit about palavering, so if Tinkerbell would lead on, regardless of what she would like to do to the captain later, that would be lovely."

Killian threw a glance of considerable misgiving at Tink, but had to give in – it must have been the fairy who threw a handful of pixie dust at them, stopping them from being unceremoniously killed on impact, she must have some room to care after all. He knelt and hoisted Wendy up onto his back like a small child, then turned toward the fairy.

"Well, Tink," he said with a sigh. "Let's go."

They walked for most of the day. If that was even a useful marker of time in Neverland, which Emma had the distinct feeling it wasn't. They kept close to the shore, sometimes wading up to knee-deep in the water, as Killian said it wasn't safe to venture farther inland completely unarmed. But Tink led them to a cache of weapons in the jungle, and both Killian and Emma strapped on swords, the weight unfamiliar at her waist – but not in a bad way. Since Killian was still carrying Wendy, that meant the first line of defense, if they were attacked, fell to Emma. I just hope I don't lop my own head off.

It was starting to get dark by the time they reached the desolate, rocky cape of the island, the bloated sun splashing down in the waves in a violently vivid spill of red and gold and crimson, more colors than Emma had ever seen in her life. She was sweating like a pig, trying not to think about how thirsty she was. There was a freshwater spring where they'd made an impromptu skin out of some of Killian's leather, but he had warned them to be sparing with it. He was keen to stay out of the trees if at all possible. Nearly everything in there, or so he had informed Emma, could kill you without breaking a nail. Flora or fauna, it didn't matter. It was lethal.

Nice place. Clearly it was nothing like the Boy's Own paradise she had read about, but as Wendy had said, J.M. Barrie hadn't been interested in the more gruesome details. Wiping her forehead, Emma stared out over the rocky shore, the dark jungle, the molten sunset. She couldn't shake the suspicion that Tink might be leading them in circles – hadn't she, in the original tale, been Pan's ally, Hook's enemy? She cared enough about Killian to stop him from dying, but. . .

At that moment, down the beach, Emma caught sight of a dark figure. Alone, or at least it looked like it. Stumbling closer and closer. Coming. Looking. Hunting.

Her breath caught. She shot a frantic glance over her shoulder at Killian. He looked back at her grimly, then shook his head. "Emma," he whispered. "Emma, wait, that might be – "

Emma, however, didn't hear him. She wasn't going to wait to be made into lunch, hadn't come here to skulk behind the shrubbery and hope for a lucky break. It was time for drastic measures; she was going to tear through, with her bare hands, anything else that tried to keep her from David, and this had to be a Lost One, a member of Pan's gang. He could tell her what they had done with her son, or he could bite her. She didn't care anymore.

Her boots kicked up sprays of sand as she sprinted down the beach, fast and hard as she had in any of her crook-catching days. The guy never saw her coming. With a grunt of exertion, she flung herself onto his back and took them both down headlong.

He let out a squawk of shock, struggling. Yet there was something. . . familiar about the sound, and her raging blood froze. He was kicking and writhing like a landed fish, but her hands, her arms, all of her had gone completely numb as she shoved at him and flipped him over, onto his back on the wet sand, as the last of the sunset fell over his face, as he stared up at her and –

Emma felt as if she was about to faint. She couldn't process, simply had no idea where or why or how, or anything. But it was. It was. It was.

"Emma?" Neal Cassidy's face was a mask of shock. "The – hell – are you doing here?"

"I could." She tried to speak, failed. Swallowed something foul back down, still couldn't breathe, chest heaving. "I could ask you the same question."

"Emma!" It was Killian's voice this time, shouting from the bluff, and she saw Neal turn to stone. A second later, Killian was skidding down, still with Wendy clinging to his back, running toward both of them. "Emma, what are you – "

"He." Emma sounded as if she was drunk. There was a dull buzzing in her ears, a tuneless bell. "What is he doing here? Is this – is this Baelfire?"

Neal blanched. "Who the hell told you that name?"

"Bae," Killian breathed. "You're all right, lad? You're not hurt?"

"I was better before I ran into you!" Neal sprang to his feet, brushing himself off in a frenzy. "What are you doing? How did you get here? Why did you bring her into this? You're just the same as you always have been, using people, destroying families! God, why won't you just – "

Killian appeared to have absolutely no pithy retort to hand. In fact, he looked as if Neal – Baelfire, was this Mr. Gold's son, was he?– had just stolen his sword and stabbed him. Emma felt as if she was falling down a long dark tunnel, as if she was a teenager and terrified again, that he'd left her, set her up with the watches and run, sent her to jail and shattered her –

Or was it marijuana, it might have been the fake pot bust – she couldn't remember, Emma Nolan and Emma Swan were battling harder than ever in her head –

And then Wendy Darling said, "Bae."

Neal's face, if possible, went whiter. He took several stumbling steps backwards, raised his hands to his face, dropped them. He opened and shut his mouth. He looked everywhere except her, them, staring out to sea, tense as a harp string about to break. Then he whispered, "Wendy."

Emma's head turned into a pivot as she whipped it back and forth between them. "What?"

"Bae," Wendy said again, very gently. She reached out a hand, her skin papery, almost translucent in the moonlight. "I'm dying, Bae. You don't need to do this. You don't need to keep me out, to keep all of us out. We're here. Listen to me. Look. Look at me."

Neal didn't answer. His shoulders were trembling. All of him was, in fact.

Emma still didn't feel as if she was breathing, as if something was jammed in her chest like a wedge of shrapnel, turning her light-headed, wounded, vulnerable, broken. Neal. It kept running through her head, like a small and painful electric shock every time. Baelfire. Mr. Gold's son. What were the odds – what were the odds – she'd known him in college, her college boyfriend – she was sure of it, almost sure of it, but still her mind kept insisting they'd been troubled kids on the roam together, robbing convenience stores until she had to go straight or get kicked out of school – she was struggling against it, choking, the memory, true or false or –

At last, with a small, strangled sound, Neal spun around. Wendy reached out for him, and he pulled her off Killian's back, into his arms. Holding the old lady close, he sank to the sand as if his knees had given out, cradling her as she reached up one hand to touch his cheek. His entire body was racked with the force of his silent sobs.

"Bae," Wendy murmured at last. "Bae, how did you turn into this?"

"How did I? How did – how did you?" Neal's voice was cracked and watery, almost a howl. "You were supposed to be safe! That's why I went! I wanted to keep you safe!"

"I am safe," Wendy said gently. "I've lived a good long life. It was my choice to come back here. Death is nothing to fear, sweetheart. Not for me. You've made your path. I've made mine."

Neal plainly wanted to say something else, but at that moment, a witchy glow fell over them as Tinkerbell shot through the trees like a falling star – until now, Emma hadn't even noticed she was missing. But the little fairy was rattling and shaking and almost screaming, clearly in the utmost of agitation, landing on Killian's shoulder and shoving at him, as he yelled, "Slow down, you silly bint, I can't understand a word you're saying! What do you mean, they – "

And then, watching him, Emma saw him freeze, the way Neal had on seeing her. Saw him turn to marble, bloodless, as if a blow had been struck to his heart. It scared her so much, at the thought of losing what she had only just come to terms with loving, that she rushed to his side, feeling as if she was holding him up. "Killian? Killian? What did she say? Killian!"

He shook his head, slowly as if he'd been concussed. His eyes were two bleak blue hollows in the skull of his face. Certainty settled into her stomach, freezing as a blade. "David. . .?"

Killian nodded.

"What?" Emma's voice was close to a scream, even as she saw Neal staring at them in a mix of confusion and horror. "Where is he? Where?"

"He," Killian began croakily. "He. . . was with the Lost Ones, Tink says. With Pan. One of them."

"He was?" Emma's world was turning to static.

"He was," Killian repeated, barely a whisper. "Until recently. The mermaids attacked Pan's boys. A bloody battle, out by the cove. And they. . . they took David. Took him down. He's gone."