"The Blue Fairy," he muttered breaking the silence in the car as they got closer and closer to the town line, "you knew her?"
She nodded sadly, remembering that terrible fact, feeling horrible she'd forgotten. "Ruby introduced us," she explained. "She helped me set the cloaking spell and keep the town under control after you'd gone. She was my friend." And it just seemed like a horrible mistake. Why would anyone want to kill someone as kind as her? What was the point?
"Are you alright?" he asked gently. She appreciated the words, she wasn't great or good, but she couldn't allow herself to feel bad, not right now, not with the town being threatened again. For now, she needed to be okay, just alright. That was all she could expect, and he seemed to understand that.
"I'll be fine. But are you?" she asked, glancing over at him and the box he'd placed on the seat between them. "Can you handle this?" He said nothing, just stared ahead at the long road as he drove. It was answer enough for her, and it was worrisome. "You should let them take care of it," she muttered.
"Take care of what?" Avoidance, another bad sign. She wasn't going to joke or try to fool herself, she knew why they were here, and she knew that there was no chance of Peter Pan coming away from whatever he was planning alive. But that didn't mean she wanted him to be the one to enact that plan! The last thing he needed was to look back on this moment years later and be haunted by his actions, questioning his motivations.
"The box," she stated, playing along with his game. "Pan. You should let Emma take care of him."
"He's my father, Belle." She could hear the warning in his voice, the strain in his tone as his temper started to rise. She knew the argument, it was a fair one, but that didn't make it right.
"And that is exactly why you should let them handle it. If you kill Pan it's murder not justice."
"Henry is her son," he snapped quickly, "and the Blue Fairy was your friend. Who among us has no motive to want Pan dead!" Another good point. Everyone had been harmed and hated the legendary boy in one way or another. If he hadn't taken Henry then she wouldn't have spent a week of her life facing sleepless nights without him. And the pain that he'd caused now and in the past, made her absolutely furious. If they wanted someone who hadn't been touched by Pan then they'd have to take time to locate someone with the courage and proper skill required.
She leaned her head back against the rest as she watched the line come into view. He wasn't right, but he wasn't wrong either. And neither was she. There was no good way to do this, no way to make the right thing good. There was no answer, other than to just follow through and deal with the consequences as they came. She took a deep breath and glanced back over at him. She might not have been right, but she wasn't wrong. He was too emotionally involved.
"At least promise me that we'll decide as a group the right way to do this and you'll go along with whatever they decide." He didn't need to move a muscle for her to see him throw up a stubborn wall and refuse to acknowledge her request. Giving up control of a situation, especially one he felt responsible for, was not in his nature, it went against everything that he'd ever done in life. But this was a new life, a fresh start, and she didn't want him to do something he'd regret before they even passed the beginning. "Rumple," she reached across the space and grabbed his hand off the steering wheel. "If they want your help give it, but please let them handle it. Let Pan out of the box, but don't let him have the final say over your life. Don't let him make you do something that might darken our future. Please!"
The words were the key. He didn't ease at her blatant reminder, but he did allow the stubborn chip on his shoulder to fall away and consider it as he kissed the back of her hand. "I'll try," he muttered begrudgingly. It wasn't the answer she wanted, but it was the best she was going to get out of him. She couldn't ask more than that.
"I'll be with you the entire time," she assured him as he parked the car. The Charming's stepped out of the car and gathered around the bright orange line as they filed out of his car.
She thought that once she got to the line his comment about wanting to come here because it was safe would make sense, but looking around the shrubs and long road where she'd been shot that horrible night, she couldn't say it did. "I don't understand," she muttered as he threw the shawl around his neck and held his cane secure in his fist, "why are we here?"
"There's no magic beyond the town line," he explained striding toward the small family, "if we release Pan outside Storybrooke, he'll be powerless to fight back." And if magic was all he had in his arsenal, then their deaths would be prevented. It was safest. He was about to cross that dreaded orange warning and frankly she was about to grab him, when Emma barred his path.
"Uh-uh," she insisted, throwing a hand up in front of him, "I'm doing this." She was relieved. All he needed to do was open the box, but it still didn't sit well with him she could see that.
"I can cross the line and retain my memories," he argued.
"It's not about that," she corrected. "There's no magic over there, all due respect, the real world is my expertise." He looked uneasy at the statement, but Emma had a point and she suspected that he saw it. He just didn't like it. She drew her gun and stepped over the line in a manner that made her look almost too confident and betrayed her nervousness. They weren't the only ones on edge here, she could feel the tension thick in the air. "I'm gonna deal with Pan on my terms," she insisted, as if trying to make the action she was about to perform better in some way.
"He is my father," he reminded her, attempting to use the same poor logic he had with her only moments ago.
"It's my hunch!" Emma fought back. "If I fail you're welcome to pick up the pieces." That thought was exactly what scared her most about this event. She suddenly had a terrible feeling that keeping his hands clean in an affair like this could be a lot more difficult than she'd planned. Maybe they should have risked taking the time to find someone else or some other way to do this. No one here could do this with a clear conscious in the end. One way or another someone was going to walk away different from this experience.
"Emma..." Mary Margaret looked as if she was thinking the same thing. But they'd both been brought up in the same life style, strange as it seemed from this land. They both had been taught that sometimes, with great evil, there was no other option than to remove it…for the good of the town. But that didn't mean she couldn't wish there were other options. "Be careful," she commanded in the end. Emma offered a small nod, took a stance and threw a glance at Rumpelstiltskin. She was ready. Was he? Pan or not, hurt and pain aside, he was still his father. They would always remain bound by blood, watching his execution couldn't be easy. Why hadn't she thought of this before now?!
He waved his hand over the box. A red jewel on top glowed for a second before rising and freeing what looked like red dust into the atmosphere. He reached out, set the box over the line and before she could panic about whether or not he would listen and come back, he was at her side. It was a reluctant step, but he'd taken it. So far everything was working according to plan. The dust seemed to grow and hover there on the ground, then it settled, and what looked like a teenage boy came into focus laying on the ground dressed in green. Emma tensed, aimed her gun, and everyone took a collective step back as the boy seemed to suddenly become aware of his own presence and stand up. She followed suit, holding his hand for support, but also, she had to admit, grasping his shoulder hoping that she might be able to stop him in some way from getting involved. He said he'd try not to. But a "try" was not a promise. And with the dead angry look he had in his eyes, the grip he held on her hand, she was suddenly reminded that the beast was still alive somewhere within him. And he was fighting like hell right now not to give himself over to the darkness and take care of things himself.
"I'm right here," she muttered in his ear, low enough that no one could hear, hoping somehow it might give him something more to grasp. But she wasn't sure he heard her. All he did was stare at Pan as the boy looked around the trees, confused. Her grip tightened when he turned to look at the four of them across the line. But he didn't look cruel, or evil as she expected. He looked scared. He looked...
It was a trick. That look was a manipulative trick to gain sympathy, it had to be. With the run around he'd given them in Neverland, the way he played off people's emotions, surely he wanted them to feel bad for him and to save him. Suddenly she found herself relying on his grip to keep her own instincts in check as he turned to face Emma and her gun.
"Mum!" the boy said with a mix of relief and surprise in his voice. Mom? Another trick?
"What?" Emma questioned for her.
"What are you waiting for?" Rumple hissed beside her, "Shoot him!"
"Don't!" Pan cried, looking between his son and Emma. "Please," he begged, "I'm Henry!" Henry? No. He couldn't be Henry. Rumple was right it had to be a trick. Henry was off safe somewhere. Probably with Regina. She'd seen him get off the ship. The boy was stalling. "Pan...he switched out bodies!" he went on desperately as if his life depended on it, then again, maybe it did.
"You expect me to believe that?" Emma retorted.
"Don't listen to him," Rumple interjected with pain in his voice, "this is another one of his tricks."
"No, it's not!" he argued back almost like a...
Like a child. Like a twelve year old boy, instead of a man hundreds of years old trapped in a boy's body. Was he really that good at trickery? Would they see through it? Because she honestly wasn't sure if she could. "He did it right before Mr. Gold captured me in the box, I swear!" He made a motion to step forward, but Emma stopped him as she'd stopped Rumple from crossing the line. However she still didn't shoot him.
"Don't come any closer!" she insisted, but still didn't shoot. Was she falling for it? Or just having trouble figuring out what was happening just as she was?
"Shoot him!" Rumple growled again. But still, she didn't.
"Maybe he's telling the truth," she muttered. "Maybe that's why I can't shake this feeling that something's off about Henry."
Something off with Henry? He'd seemed fine to her. He'd smiled on the dock, he'd talked when they'd been in the shop. He did seem different, less happy, more tortured, but she'd chalked it up to the traumatic experience. Was it more? Could it be true? Had he come back looking older because of what he'd gone through? Or because he was older? Her mind recalled his eyes, the aged look in them. That had been the look she'd expected to find on Pan, she just hadn't realized it until now. But it could be anything. The boy really could be traumatized! And Pan could be playing a trick, or he could be telling the truth. She wasn't sure what to think!
"Maybe that's what he wants you to think," Rumple argued, giving voice to her own thoughts, or one of them at least. "If he steps over this line we're all dead!" He made a sudden move for the line and she reacted just in time to catch it, to apply enough pressure to his shoulder to stop him in his tracks. His mind might have been made up but clearly not everyone's had been. She wasn't the only one having doubts and if they were going to do this they needed to make sure his claims were unfounded. Especially this one. If she didn't hold him back...who knew what he'd do.
"Alright," Emma muttered, confirming his thoughts but also hers. She was silly to have assumed this would be simple. "If you are really Henry prove it," she demanded. "Tell me something only Henry would know."
"I-I-I got trapped in the mines," he said desperately. "I tried to blow up the well. I like hot coco with cinnamon!"
"This proves nothing!" Rumple growled again.
"He's right Emma!" Mary Margaret reminded her. Both of them. To her, the information seemed too personal not to be true. Henry was Pan?! "Henry could have told Pan all of this in Neverland." Another fair point she hadn't considered.
"Pan might know facts," Emma confirmed, "but life is made up of more than that, there are moments. He can't possibly know all of them. The first time you and I connected," she informed the boy, her eyes never wavering, "you remember that? Not met, but connected."
Pan stared at the ground, as if thinking for a moment. Then he smirked and nodded his head eagerly, once again reminding her of a child more than willing to prove he could ride a horse on his own or even just pour tea without spilling. "Yeah," he breathed.
"Where was it?"
"At my castle," he answered, "right after you came to Storybrooke."
"And what did you tell me?"
"That I knew why you gave me up."
"Why?"
"Because you wanted to give me my best chance."
She didn't understand the conversation, the importance of the moment he'd described, but she did understand the meaning of Emma's lowering her gun and putting it away. He'd gotten it right and proved who he really was. Not Pan.
"Henry," Emma breathed moving toward him.
"Mum," he responded throwing his arms around the woman and hugging her.
"This is Henry," Emma stated as she held onto the boy that was, apparently, her son. Rumple eased. The steady force she'd been holding back disappeared as he released her hand and looked at the scene before him with confusion, but also the gentle eyes of the man he knew. "Promise you're not gonna incinerate us when we step over the line," Emma requested, looking at him. He didn't answer, but he didn't have to. Confused as he was, he knew as well as she did who the boy was. He wouldn't hurt him.
Emma stooped down to pick up the box still on the ground as Henry ran across the line and embraced his grandparents, who hugged him back just as eagerly as he did. She reached out and gave his hand a supportive squeeze before Emma handed the box to him.
"I'm sorry I doubted you Henry," he apologized, his voice once again the one that belonged to him and not the angry monster inside. "And I'm sorry I put you in this box in the first place."
Henry only gave a small snort and smile. "It's okay. I would have done the same thing."
"Come on," Emma smiled happily, as she escorted her son back down the road towards town. She could only imagine what the two of them had to talk about now that they were home. As she reached out and grabbed the crook of his arm she could only imagine what they would talk about once they got home! Today had certainly not gone entirely as she'd expected or hoped.
"He's all the way out here," David muttered holding his wife, "where's Pan?"
"David," she glanced over at Mary Margaret who was watching her daughter and grandson walk down the road not with happiness but a look of terrible shock. Instead of looking like she'd witnessed a miracle she looked as though she'd just seen a ghost. "If Pan switched bodies with Henry right before he was locked away in the box..." she glanced up at her husband with scared, worried eyes. She didn't need her to finish the sentence to realize what she'd just discovered, what she'd forgotten.
"That means Pan's been walking around as Henry since you got back," she burst out, glancing up at Rumple staring down the road, his face morphing back into anger again.
"And we have a very serious problem," he finished for her.
"Emma!" David called out loud enough to make the pair stop and look back at them. "Call Regina!" he ordered. "Call Regina now!"
It had been a long unexpected day...and it wasn't over yet.
Pretty straight forward chapter, not too much to say about it other than that it was fun to write Belle's inner turmoil here. Not just with Henry, but over what they were about to do with Pan. She gets it. She understands why it has to happen. Doesn't mean she's happy about it.
Thank you Grace5231973, Meredith Pechta, Onlyinyourdreams77, Sara K M, Deweymay, Galloper, Katido, and LaurieAHancock for your review on the last chapter. I know, it's all about to get sad. But I haven't let you down yet. Even though the worst is coming I've still got yet another awesome Belle/Neal moment for you and there is yet another chapter of fluff to come. Bittersweet fluff, but come on, we're Rumbellers...it's all bittersweet!