11 years ago - Los Angeles, California
Lena pulls Buffy into the small hospital room as the blonde continues to scream in pain "Lena. It hurts!" Buffy cries as tears drip from her face, while she clutches her stomach.
Lena nods "I know my dear. Don't worry it won't be long now."
Lena quickly lifts the crying slayer onto the bed before turning to the door and letting a doctor and nurse in "Quickly!" Lena urgently says to the two "The child will be here any minute."
The two nod and quickly head towards Buffy, while Lena turns to the blonde and lets her clutch her hand "Ahhh!" Buffy screams again as another contraction hits her.
As the clock hits 8.15 the doctor turns to her "Big breath." He tells her "Breathe away. Breathe away."
Buffy continues to pant while clutching Lena's hand "Okay, here we go. You're doing great. Almost there."
Lena stroked the blonde's bruised face, she was still injured from the fight with the old vampire at the dance "Buffy, just keep breathing."
Buffy shakes her head "I can't." She cries.
"Shh." Lena soothes "You can do this."
"Your doing great." The doctor tells Buffy "Doing great. Here we go. Breathe. Breathe. Big breath. Okay, now big push! Big push."
Buffy screams in agony as she finally pushes, after what felt like eternity she flops back down against the bed not notices the lights in the room flicker.
The doctor stands holding the newborn "Great. Here we go. Beautiful."
Buffy hears the crying and her eyes widen, she slowly turns to the doctor and spots the baby in his arms "It's a boy, Buffy." He tells her.
Before Buffy can say anything Lena walks over and turns to the doctor "Give me the boy." She says, the doctor hands the baby over. As he does Lena turns to both him and the nurse "Leave now. Forget what happened here."
The two nods before simply leaving the room, Buffy looks over at Lena "Lean, please." She begs.
Lena sighs sadly "My dear, you and your watcher discussed this, it's not safe for him."
Tears runs down Buffy's face "Just...just let me hold him once."
"I'm sorry my dear, you know why I cannot do that. You have to let him go for now."
Buffy spots Lena raising her hand and her eyes widen "Lena no—"
But before Buffy can do anything Lena waves her hand and suddenly Buffy is back in her cell. Buffy looks down to see her stomach now flat with no trace of evidence of what had just occurred. Buffy takes a shaky breath before crawling into the bed and rolling herself into a ball as she cries.
2 years ago - San Francisco
Chris slowly walks into Buffy's cell after her fight to see her clutching a dislocated shoulder. "Buffy." He whispers softly as he approaches her "I'm so sorry, this is happening to you."
Buffy reluctantly looks over at him as he walks over to her and crouches down by her "Then let me out of here."
Chris looks down at the ground, a look of shame crossing his face "I'm sorry I can't do that."
Buffy takes his hand "Please, Chris." She sits up and places a soft kiss to his lips, as she pulls back she leans her forehead against him "You said you love me. So help me."
Chris stands there frozen for several moment "I'm sorry but I don't have a choice. Trust me if I could I would." He quickly places Buffy's arm in a sling and leaves the room.
As the door closes behind him, a smirk crosses Buffy's face as she pulls out a small metal knife she had taken out of Chris' bag.
Present Day – Neverland
"I hate portal travel!" Buffy yells as she holds onto the ship.
Finally the ship lands in water and leaves the portal "Bout damn time." Buffy says trying not to throw up. She takes a deep breath and looks over at the horizon "Let me guess we're not in Kansas anymore."
"Aya." Hook answers "Neverland."
Buffy continues to stare at the island ahead of them when Snow and David approach her "Hey." Snow says "What happened to Neal and Henry, it's not your fault. You can't blame yourself."
Buffy looks over at them slowly "Oh I'm not. I blame you. I should have listened to myself not you. I said two years ago that I would never let myself be fooled. And I'm gonna be perfectly honest...your naive to think the way you do."
"Buffy—" David tries but she cuts him off.
"Don't. Good doesn't all ways win if it did I wouldn't be the person I am now, Angel and Neal wouldn't be dead and countless others. I said two years ago that I would never let people in for this reason. I didn't grow up in some fairy tale, my experience it's a lot different. That's all I can trust, it's all I can go on."
Snow sighs "And all we have to go on ours. So if you would just let us share our wisdom—"
"Look, it's nice that you guys wanna try and be parents. But your wisdom applies to your world, look around we're not there. I'm what? 4 years younger, but I've got more than enough wisdom...Let me make one thing clear, all I care about, all I want is Henry back.
David tries to speak "Buffy, don't worry we are going to get our family back."
Buffy turns to them angrily "God you're not even listening to me! How in the hell can you too be so infuriatingly optimistic?"
"It's who we are."
"Why?!" The blonde yells "Your lives suck, so just join us in reality."
David tries to speak again but Buffy turns "I need some air." She pauses "I understand were outside, but not that kinda air, inside air." Before either parent can something Buffy walks off only to come face to face with Gold "Oh, great just what I need. What is this? Your Darth Vader outfit..." Buffy says gesturing to the new clothing "Gotta say, it fails, you really could use the mask."
Gold rolls his eyes "Your hilarious Miss Summers."
Buffy shrugs "I try. Now what's why the costume change?"
"I'm gonna get Henry."
"We agreed to do this together." Regina reminds him.
Gold interjects "Actually, we made no such agreement."
Buffy raises an eyebrow "You wanna get to the why your doing this?"
"Because I wanna succeed."
"I haven't failed before...I'll admit some people consider dying failing but still. What you're issue?"
"Well Miss Summers, you're unpredictable. You're the slayer and with all the things that have happened in the past few months all the loss, the darker side of the slayer could take control at any moment. The demon essence in you can be unpredictable, and in a place like Neverland, even more so. So I'm going to do what needs to be done, before you lose control. It's inevitable."
Gold spins the cane in his hands and as it falls to the ground Gold suddenly disappears.
Buffy pulls herself up again, as she continues to do pull ups in one of the rooms in the lower deck in hopes of distracting herself.
As she continues she hears the door open, slowly she lowers herself back down "Oh. Don't stop on my account." The pirate says as he watches her.
Buffy rolls her eyes "Do you ever shut up?" She says before jumping down and grabbing the scythe before taking a seat "What are you doing?"he asks her.
Buffy sighs "It's called a distraction. Or exercise, try it some time, then maybe I won't knock your ass out so quickly like last time."
Hook chuckles "Well when your opponent has the strength of ten men it can be slightly more difficult to keep up." Buffy just turns back to the scythe and continues to sharpen the blade "Don't let Rumplestlitlskin get you down, luv." He tells her.
Buffy scoffs "I've dealt with worse. Now what do you want?"
"To give you something." He says as he walks over to one of the cupboards "You know, Baelfire and I once spent a lot of time together. This was his." Hook says as he hands her a small sword.
Buffy looks down at it for a moment "I have my slicy toy."
Hook chuckles softly "Yes. Well think of this as an last resort."
"I didn't figure you for the sentimental type. Crazy, kind of a man whore yes but sentimental nada."
"It's because I'm not. But like I said, a back up. Although with that beauty I doubt you'll need it." He says gesturing to the scythe.
Buffy arches an eyebrow as he then hands her a shot glass "Yeah no." Buffy says "No. Buffy and shots big no no."
Hook chuckles but continue to pour the rum into her glass "Just this once. For Neal."
Buffy clinks her glass with his flash "To Neal." She says before downing the drink, straight away "Ewwyuck." She says as she shakes her head and makes a disgusted look on her face.
"Diving into the history into one of my exes is not exactly something I do, cause most of time I realise that they have done a lot of bad crap, but colour me curious." Buffy says as she and Hook sit opposite each other "So how long were you and Neal...chilling out together...is that term?"
Hook sighs sadly "Long enough for me to know that I miss him, too." The two sit there in silence for a moment before Hook looks up "Seems my curiosity gets the better of my as well, Luv. What exactly was the crocodile speaking about?"
Buffy looks up at Hook slowly "Nothing that matters."
Suddenly the ship shakes violently Buffy turns back to Hook "Tell me that is does that all the time, because it's showing that things are going very top of the day well."
"Unfortunately not."
"What the hell is going on?" Buffy asks as her and Hook quickly come up the stairs, as the boat violently shakes again Buffy groans "I take it back, portal travel good. Boat travel not good."
"Prepare for attack!" Hook warns them all as he takes control of the ship back from Snow and David.
"Be more specific." Regina demands.
"If you've got a weapon, then grab it!" He yells.
Buffy looks down over the edge at the waters "What's down there exactly, Jaws? Octo-shark?"
"A kraken?" David asks as he and Snow come to stand by Buffy.
"Worse." Hook tells them "Mermaids."
Buffy raises an eyebrow "I'm guessing their not the singing, hair brushing type."
"Afraid not my dear. They're quite unpleasant."
Regina continues to looks around at the mermaids as they attack the ship "You think?"
"I'll try and outrun them."
Buffy tries to count how many their are but there are too many "That's a lot of tail-y scale-y women. Wonder who pissed them off, they look like Dawn on a Monday morning. You didn't flirt with any of them did you, Hook, that tends to make a girl angry."
"Your Hilarious." Hook says sarcastically as he keeps ahold of the wheel.
"I will not be capsized by fish!" David yells, as he runs off Snow turns to Buffy "Buffy!" Snow yells before running to the other end of the ship, "A net? Are you losing it, what are you doing?"
"Fishing"
Buffy sighs before lifting the net and tossing it into the water "This may not be the best plan! There's dozens!"
"We caught one!" Snow yells to everyone.
Regina walks over "One? There are dozens of them."
Buffy nods "See she agrees with me."
"Enough of this." Regina says before creating a fire ball, she tosses fire at the mermaids causing them to quickly scurry.
"There. They're gone." Regina says.
Buffy shakes her head and pulls the net upwards "Look-y we got one left."
Regina waves her hand and suddenly the mermaid is lying in the middle of the ship.
Hook glares at Regina "Get that thing off my ship!"
"No." Regina says calmly "Now we have a hostage."
David intervenes "I hate to say it, but I'm with Hook."
Buffy chuckles "That's was fast. Must be true love." She mumbles under her breath making a mental joke to tell Faith once they got back and also to tell them that she was alive.
"Those things just tried to kill us." David continues as he walks over.
"And perhaps we should find out why."
"How?" Snow asks "By torturing her?" She says in disbelief.
Buffy sighs "Hate to admit it, it's an effective technique."
Snow turns to her "San Francisco?" She mouths.
Buffy simply nods before noticing the mermaid grab the seashell next to her, suddenly a loud blaring noise comes out of the shell, Buffy kicks the shell out of the mermaids hand and grabs the scythe off her back swinging it around before holding it against the mermaid's neck "What did you do? I'd suggest you'd be truthful."
"A warning. Let me go...or die." Buffy tilts the scythe placing the blade of the axe against the mermaid's skin more "Huh?"
"What did you do?!" David yells.
"Let me go." The mermaid says politely, Buffy presses the blade harder against the woman's skin "You didn't answer the question."
Regina glares down at the woman "Tell us, or we'll make you tell us."
"Threatening her isn't the way to motivate her." Snow argues.
"Tell that to your daughter, who currently has a blade to her throat. Plus, I'm all out of fish food."
At Regina's comment Buffy lowers the scythe and backs away taking a deep breath as she tries to bury the anger, which was rising up for some reason unknown to her.
"Doesn't matter if you get her to talk." Hook says, drawing Buffy's attention "You can't trust her. Mermaids are liars."
Buffy takes another deep breath before finally rejoining in the conversation "Of course they are. Everything from my childhood seems to be the opposite in real life."
"Maybe they're just scared of Pan." Mary Margaret realises "If we let her go, maybe they'll be on our side."
Regina interjects "Or maybe she and her friends will come right back to kill us."
The mermaid smirks "Oh, I don't need my friends to kill you. You'll kill yourselves. Or..." She glances over at Buffy "...her kind tend to enjoy killing very much. Especially here, the true darkness comes out here. So she'll kill you all. Now let me go."
Buffy clutches the scythe in her hands but suddenly a loud thunder storm begins, "What the hell?!" David yells in confusion.
"It's a storm. She called it." He realises as he glares at the mermaid "Don't let her go! She'll swim off and leave us all to die. At least with her, we've got leverage."
David grabs his swords and hold's it against the mermaids throat "Stop the storm, then we let you go."
The mermaid merely grins and shakes her head.
David moves closer and presses the blade more firmly against her throat causing Regina to chuckle "That's more like it, Charming. Filet the bitch."
David looks up at his wife and daughter before stepping back "No. We're not barbarians."
"What we're going to be is dead." Regina yells before turning to Buffy "You know I'm right."
"Hold on." Hook says cutting Buffy off before she can speak "I'm gonna turn her around. I've outrun many a storm."
Regina turns to Buffy "You can do it or I will."
Buffy's turns to Regina "I—I—"
"We are not killers!" Snow yells.
"Yes, you are. And you've brought this death upon yourselves." The mermaid yells.
Buffy is getting to the point where the anger is starting to boil over and as Snow and Regina argues Buffy moves to the mermaid and slams her head onto the ground "Listen to me now, fishy bitch, end it now. You said I'm a killer, you're right. Now do you really wanna test me."
The mermaid smirks "You're stronger than the last of your kind that was here, she started killing within the first hour."
As they ship gets worse it shakes violently again, causing Buffy to back away from the mermaid "May I suggest killing her now?!" Regina yells.
"No!" David and Snow yell "You kill her, and her kind have a personal vendetta against us."
Buffy interjects "They already don't like us very much. Pretty clear they aren't gonna be singing for us any time soon."
"No." Snow yells again "We're not doing this."
"Look slayer and the queen are right, they've already tried killing us." Hook says.
Before anyone can do anything else Regina waves her hand and suddenly the mermaid is turned into wood "There. That should stop the storm."
"Or the exact opposite!" Buffy yells as they spot a tidal wave heading for them.
As Buffy and Hook work to keep the ship afloat she turns to him "You're idea of outrunning a storm, is a hell of lot different from mine. As in, you don't."
"This isn't a storm." He argues "It's bloody damnation!"
"I'm never getting on a boat again." Buffy says as her and Hook continue to keep the ship going.
As lighting continues to hit the ship Buffy notices Snow punch Regina in the face, the two argue before Regina punches her back causing David to move towards them. Hook sees David move and grabs his arm "Hey, let the slages go. I need you at the mast."
"Don't call my wife a slag!" David yells before elbowing Hook in the stomach.
Buffy grabs ahold of the wheel as the two fight "Stop!" Buffy yells as the two pairs continue to fight. "Dammit!" She exclaims as lightning again hits the ship. She looks up and notices something odd about the storm "Is us." She whispers the herself as she realises what is happened "We're causing the storm!" She yells "So stop!"
When no one stops Buffy sighs and walks over to the two men, she grabs both of them and tosses them apart. When they both stand again Buffy kicks Hook in the chest sending him back down and then drops to her knees and swings her leg around, causing her father to drop to the ground.
"Stay!" She yells before walking over to the woman, she grabs Regina by the collar of her jacket and tosses her away before tossing Snow away "What is wrong with you all!" Buffy yells "We don't have time for this!"
Buffy sighs and gestures up at the sky which was slowly clearing "Told you so." She says simply before walking to the other end of the ship "It's like dealing with teenage slayers again."
"We don't have to do it this way." Regina says as the group walk up the beach "I can fix the Jolly Roger. My magic is powerful enough. We can execute the pirate's plan."
Buffy shrugs "And we can all do the snoopy dance, doesn't mean we should. Look your magic will be useful, save it. Plus Pan-orama most probably already know that were here and we ain't planning on leaving. My guess he's not exactly jumping with joy."
Buffy sighs and looks over at everyone "Look, we can't be at each other's throats. First it's a pain in the ass, but also it's gonna get us all killed... I'm wrong about some stuff as well, but if we're here...we gotta work together or at least tolerate each other."
"You wanna be friends?" Regina asks in disbelief "After everything—"
Buffy interjects "Yeah, I know that's no gonna happen. All I'm saying is we can't kill each other. Go ahead and be at each other's throats after this, with the amount of history and hate—"
"Actually, I quite fancy you from time to time, when you're not yelling at me." Hook says with a smirk.
Buffy merely rolls her eyes before turning to the others "Look I get you lot hate each other but we got no choice here."
"Working with her? With him?" David asks in disbelief "No, Buffy, we have to do this the right way."
Buffy shakes her head "No. We don't. The only thing we need to do is get Henry back, no matter what. So either help me get my son back or get out of the way." She says before grabbing the scythe off her back and heading into the forest.
