Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

PART II

CHAPTER TWENTY

DISENCHANTED

The Wardrobe had taken them just beyond the border of Camelot. Hopefully, if they took the route that Emma vaguely remembered, they could find the Prometian Flame without running into Princess Fire Crotch on her magical methadone quest... which, really, they shouldn't, since the mouthy little quasi Scotswoman who had more embarrassingly distracting hair than Snow White and Hook combined wouldn't reach this kingdom for another six to nine weeks.

None of them wanted to deal with adding any local malcontents to their group, particularly since Merida, last time around, got kidnaped and dosed by "Arthur" into blabbing why they were all in Camelot. Sadly, strong women in this world seemed to fall under only two categories: shifty murderous psychopaths with sparkly bling who kidnapped and tortured people and brawling loudmouthed idiots in burlap and leather who got kidnapped and tortured.

Emma supposed that she was one of the few who'd straddled that divide... and in doing so had kind of sucked at both stereotypes.

Though she had done okay with the fashions... even if the Enchanted Forest garb was never her thing and she never got used to how uncomfortable it was even using magic to try and make it less torturous.

If they were lucky, they wouldn't have to attend any Camelot balls, though at least, Emma supposed, she wouldn't have to deal with Regina turning into a giant doofus over somehow never being forced into dancing lessons by her ball-crashing mother... which just seemed completely absurd and had to be revisionist history related, because that made zero sense!

About as much sense as those stupid willow-wasp or whatever the hell they were called things that were buzzing unhappily in the bag Neal as carrying - protection against Farquaad's dark magic if he did jump out of the undergrowth and try to mind-whammy them.

"How exactly do those things neutralize dark magic?" Hook asked, poking at the bag.

"Hell if I know," shrugged Emma. "Must be some kind of super light magic booster. If Artie tries to attack us with dark magic, we can throw them at him."

"Then what?"

"My guess would be run away," answered Neal, adjusting his cape against the growing chill of the evening. "We should probably make camp soon. It's getting dark."

There was still some snow on the ground yet, several months earlier than in the previous timeline's journey here. And no doubt there were Camelot scouts lurking even after dark.

"We're almost at the spot with the Flame," Emma discerned as she looked around. "How about you two make camp here? It's just up ahead. I don't know how long it'll take me, but I'd rather not wait until morning and risk being found before I can get it."

"You're sure you can get this ancient fire thing?" Hook prompted. "I wouldn't trust whatever the Crocodile said."

"I have an independent source of information," said Emma, though she had to admit being uneasy since it had turned out Merlin was being manipulated by his former presumed protégé the whole time since being the one who activated the "Holy Grail" and forged it into its current weaponized form had bound him to it and made him dark magic's bitch after the Dark One was created from it... or, at least, that was how Emma figured it.

"Be careful," Neal prompted, laying a hand on her arm and adding so Hook couldn't hear, "You don't know what you'll face this time."

"It can't be worse than what I faced in Purgatory," Emma responded, handing him her pack and then heading off into the dusky forest.

With a sigh, Neal began gathering broken branches from the area to start a fire. Being left alone to baby-sit Hook was not how he'd be planning his day when it started at Granny's.

Of course, there were a lot of things he'd never planned in his life that just seemed to be the universe laughing at him.

Like being sent back to the land of the living to play sidekick to the woman who'd broken his heart into a million pieces in life and then proceeded to stomp all over those pieces after he'd died.

It was hard being in love with someone you knew didn't feel the same. Neal had never stopped being in love with Emma, all those years between Portland and Manhattan, but it had been clear to him that she'd not felt the same, that whatever feelings she might still have had were tainted and twisted by anger, betrayal, and hate... while she'd even then been warming to Hook, sending him flirty looks, smiles, and the deep sort of gazes they'd once shared.

Neal hadn't stopped loving her, though.

It had hurt, but Neal had decided long ago that he owned that love, and Emma hadn't the right to take it away, even as she'd let him die twice without any mourning, had left him in death while sacrificing every promise she'd made to save another not remotely deserving of such devotion or forgiveness.

You are what you love, not what loves you.

And maybe that was pathetic, but it's who Neal had always been, no matter what name he'd gone by.

Of course, by that logic, Emma was what she loved, and that was a whole lot of messed up shit -

Just like the pirate who seemed to think he could just slink off into the woods.

"Where are you going?"

"To take a piss. What's it to you?"

"In the direction Emma went?" Neal countered. "You are not going after her to provide pointless and self-defeating back-up again! She doesn't need your egocentric heroics."

"She could get ambushed!"

"She has magic and she'd end up having to use it to save your stupid ass. Sit down!"

Hook glared but obeyed, muttering something offensive.

Neal sighed and used his lighter to ignite the fire before taking a seat across from the grouchy and infatuated pirate who still seemed convinced he could win Emma over... or back... or something.

Ugh. He really didn't need this. He didn't need Emo Hook and Emo Emma making him crazy!

Emma had said she was in love with him now, had always been and just repressed it or whatever, but Neal looked at her and saw a desperate and confused woman who was just as afraid of being alone and prone to guilt-tripping over other people's assholery as she'd ever been - and prone to fixating on the people whose guilt she was assuming.

Purgatory had run her through the ringer, and made him the focal point of her self-recrimination.

His own experience... well... it was a lot of purging of childhood shit with his dad, the streets of London, Neverland, and New York. And, of course, his guilt at trusting August and leaving Emma - which added up to never knowing his son.

And now he was here, in Camelot, a fairy tale disaster, the aftermath of Merlin creating the Dark Curse to move kingdoms between worlds 1,500 years ago (Land Without Magic time) and rid himself of immortality an the thrall of the "Holy Grail".

Seemed everything that went to shit all traced back to that guy getting thirsty in the desert. Camelot was just the most obvious direct connection to that metaphorical Garden of Eden apple-eating mashed up with some weird Old Testament slavery shit and Satan testing Jesus in the desert.

Basically, both God and Lucifer had a one-track senses of humor when it came to fucking with each other's creations.

At least, that's how it seemed to Neal who'd been given certain insight that others did not have.

But it was only certain insight. He didn't know what would become of Storybrooke or the people there if Emma succeeded - if they would return here or if Storybrooke would become real.

Nor did he know his own fate.

Neal didn't know if he had been given a permanent second chance, a chance to grow old, to watch his son grow up, or if his time on mortal ground would be up when Emma completed her divine mission.

Not to mention Emma's fate.

That uncertainty was rather aggravating, to be honest. Not that Neal wasn't happy for any chance to see the people he loved, but if it was going to be another brief glimpse of what could have been before being whisked away...

Neal sighed.

Like Emma, he hadn't worked through all of his issues. He was still angry and embittered that his story - where he wasn't just a plot device in his father's origin tale - had been removed from the Book by Isaac and not put back in by Pinocchio. It was nothing short of infuriating to have his life just be erased, all of his contributions, his struggles, his hopes and dreams - and failures - edited out, because he didn't fit a certain narrative.

Neal had shared many a drink and session of grouching on that subject with Rufus, the Thirteenth Apostle.

And the real Arthur too. That poor bastard! Groomed by Merlin to take over Camelot only to have Merlin turned into a tree by his ex-girlfriend which stuck them all in some sort of temporal limbo loop, but not before a nutjob prince from another land who'd infiltrated the Knights of the Round Table killed him... and then set about impersonating him, married his girlfriend, treated her like crap, abused his best friend, made them both loath him, then made Guinevere fake love him so he could rape her every night without her complaining and throw balls in honor of himself every Saturday.

If things had gone differently, if Merlin had never meddled, maybe Arthur and Guinevere could have lived happily ever after.

Or maybe they couldn't have, Neal considered grimly as he gazed into the fire.

Destiny was a bitch, and certain souls were connected in certain ways that no amount of free will and different events could alter completely.

Which boiled down to Neal knowing he'd been meant to die. Maybe his death could have been avoided if he'd gone to the front lines, which was the irony of it all. Maybe by following that path and looking boldly away when Death came for him he'd have avoided meeting an early end, but instead his father had taken the coward's way out and altered his path, made him a man running from death. He'd looked away in the Never Sea, and again when he fell through that portal, desperately hoped it wasn't too late or that he'd somehow made up for avoiding the path fate had meant to determine if he lived or died... but Death had come for him all the same and he'd finally accepted it, tired of the running, tired of the anger that it wasn't even his fault he'd been pulled from that battlefield and set upon a path not meant for him.

God had put him on this path, but it might just be a brief detour, a chance to play prophet, to set Emma on a better path toward her own destiny than she'd taken before - and then end up once more with his head on a platter.

It would have been nice, though, just to have a delusion of a happy ending.

Being the guy who never got the girl sucked.

Being the guy who only wanted to help people and ended up vilified by the villains really sucked.

And speaking of...

"How much of that have you had to drink?" Neal hissed at Hook who had to have some kind of bottomless charm on his flask the way he'd been guzzling it the past hour while they sat waiting.

"What's it to you?" the pirate hissed back.

"I'd rather you weren't drunk if we get ambushed by the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament posse!"

"I need something to take the morning edge off, so unless you have a pot of coffee handy, mate."

"Morning was twelve hours ago!"

"In Storybrooke. This bloody twelve hour portal lag is hard to acclimate to!"

"You've spent 300 years going to and from Neverland!"

"Yes, well, I happen to function better with a little rum in my system. Don't worry. I have catlike reflexes!"

The undergrowth rustled and Neal jumped up, his old cutlass drawn... while Hook tripped over the bottom of his coat and dropped his flask.

"Yeah, you're a real drunken boxing master," scoffed Neal as Emma returned looking rather pale.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

"Yeah, I got it," Emma answered, and cut off his next question, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Lovely," Hook declared, brushing leaves from his coat. "Now, hand over those wonderful puffed sugar things Belle packed. If I can't have coffee, at least I can dethrone this impostor king and steal his enchanted challis-turned-broken-phallus so I can get my ship back on a sugar high."

AN: "I don't want to talk about it" is code for "lazy writer who doesn't want to come up with a scene right now". Here's the dialogue from Adaptation:

Charlie Kaufman: There was this time in high school. I was watching you out the library window. You were talking to Sarah Marsh.

Donald Kaufman: Oh, God. I was so in love with her.

Charlie Kaufman: I know. And you were flirting with her. And she was being really sweet to you.

Donald Kaufman: I remember that.

Charlie Kaufman: Then, when you walked away, she started making fun of you with Kim Canetti. And it was like they were laughing at *me*. You didn't know at all. You seemed so happy.

Donald Kaufman: I knew. I heard them.

Charlie Kaufman: How come you looked so happy?

Donald Kaufman: I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.

Charlie Kaufman: But she thought you were pathetic.

Donald Kaufman: That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago.

Next up: Camelot.