Ivy stayed behind with her sister, and Alice stayed with Ivy. The others prepared for a trip across the continent (to be funded by Belfrey's curse-granted wealth). Upon parting, Alice had healed Neal's broken wrist, the price of the magic being a promise to look after Rogers and Weaver.
"...and don't let them do anything stupid!"
"Yeah, no, I won't," Neal agreed, before stumbling after his father in a daze, shell-shock catching up to him once the adrenaline had worn off. He felt the world shift as they finally emerged from the weird pocket realm created by the mythical tree. The Garden of Eden tucked away somewhere beneath Seattle? Neal was still trying to get his head around that one.
Outside, the magical storm had subsided, leaving the sky a drab gray as the afternoon turned into evening. His inner tumult would take longer to settle. He had barely begun to rebuild his connection to this Henry, one who now remembered all that he had lost. Soon he would be in Maine, where another Henry lived, unaware of his father's resurrection. At least they had met before, however briefly. As for Emma... how would he face her? It was one thing for Neal to say they had moved on, but she was still Henry's mother. Both Henries, but only one of them acknowledged. Neal had no idea how to navigate the inevitable heartbreak.
Sleep overtook him before he could come up with any solution. His dreams provided no helpful insight.
The next morning they met at the airport, where magic proved a match for the TSA as far as their official identities were concerned. Once through the security lines, the group scattered to look for food, leaving Neal and Rogers to guard the luggage.
Rogers glanced at Neal, a question in his eyes.
Neal made a guess and shifted uncomfortably, but didn't say anything. As if they didn't have enough family issues on the table already.
Rogers awkwardly turned to look out the window. "Flying ships, eh? And not a pegasus feather in sight."
"The wonders of modern technology."
Rogers cleared his throat, his eyes meeting Neal's in their pale reflections. "But you've traveled a rarer road than that, aye? To hell and back, literally."
"Yeah, you could say that." Here it came. Time to play ghost-whisperer again.
"When you were there. Did you... was she... Milah...?"
Neal sighed and nodded, wondering what to say and what to leave out. "It's complicated. But yeah, we spoke, a bit."
"What did she say? Did she...?"
"Of course she remembers you." Neal suppressed a twinge of anger. He had thought to let it all go, but sometimes it wasn't easy. "Milah... Milah sends her love. She said, the years she had with you were the happiest of her life. She will always be grateful that you gave her the freedom she craved." He closed his eyes as he spoke, trying not to flinch, but maybe he failed, because Rogers was silent for a long moment, and his reply was pained.
"I'm sorry, Baelfire. I don't regret her happiness, but that it came at such cost to you..." Rogers sighed. "At the least we should have never have deceived you and your father. It was bad form, I see that now."
"Yeah, well. It was a long time ago. We're all different people now. Literally." Rogers wasn't the Hook that Neal had known before, even if they had a past in common. Neal didn't think Rogers would have sold him out to Peter Pan, nor would he have allied himself with Cora.
"Aye. A second chance. I'm happy for you, lad. You deserved better."
Neal shrugged, turning back to the row of seats where their luggage was gathered. Rogers drifted after him, but took a chair at the opposite end of the row. Neal watched him watching the crowds, and had the impression that he was looking for one face in particular. Well. Now was as good a time as any to ask. "So... you and my father, huh?"
Rogers shot him a startled glance. "Ah. Uh, what did he tell you?"
Neal snorted. "Not much. But I'm not deaf. Or blind. Does this mean you've been with my mother and my father?" Not to mention the mother of his son, in another timeline.
"...I haven't been with him." Rogers flushed as he added under his breath, "Yet. Though not for lack of trying."
Neal covered his eyes and groaned. "Gods. I did not need that image in my head."
"Come now, you've been around the block a few times yourself. Your father deserves some happiness in his life on his own account. All those years he was alone, as was I, but we decided to change that."
"You've hated each other for centuries!"
"Aye, we shared a hatred longer than most people's loves." Rogers shrugged. "But if we killed each other now, it would only leave a legacy of pain for our children, and that's not what anyone wants."
Neal dropped his hand from his face and stared at Rogers. "And this" — he gestured vaguely — "is? Captain Hook and the Dark One sailing off into the sunset? Am I supposed to call you 'Dad' now? Seriously?"
Rogers looked mildly hurt. "I know I betrayed you once, Baelfire, but I truly did hope to look upon you as a son when I took you aboard the Jolly Roger."
Neal grunted. Then he remembered what else he had said back then, that Hook was just like his father. Which wasn't true at all in some ways, but all too true in others. "So, um, how did you come to end your feud?"
"Just as I took you in when your father lost you, there was a time he was there for my daughter when I couldn't be." Rogers grimaced at the memory. He continued softly, "With the existence of our world at stake, we were forced to set aside our petty enmity..."
Rogers explained how a desperate gambit to save their existence had transfigured their relationship. "Real, not real." He shrugged ruefully. "He spun lies into truth, one way or another. We were all made from wishes and illusions, but here we are, as real as anything. Call it magic, call it love."
"Magic can't make people fall in love," Neal said automatically.
"Nothing made me do anything." Rogers looked down to the suitcase at his feet, fiddling with the retractable handle. "Even with his fingers wrapped around my heart, I wanted— I don't know, but I felt something."
"What, paralyzing terror?" Neal shuddered, remembering the shock of seeing his father — drenched in dark magic — murder five people right before his eyes.
"More like peace."
"They say it's hard to feel anything when your heart's been ripped out."
"Aye, but..." Rogers shook his head. "Cora had my heart before. It was different with your father, it was more than that. Later I realized... Well, let's say in the end I knew his heart, and I wished for a place in it. That's all."
Either that, or the ex-pirate had a really weird kink. Neal tried to scrub that thought and sighed. "I guess the feeling was mutual. Things being what they are."
Things being so damned literal where magic was concerned. He tried to be happy for them. Gods. Alice was, wasn't she? Neal remembered her elated grin after she successfully pulled Rogers and Weaver back from the brink of death. She must have been rooting for them all along, even before they had left the wish realm.
Though this wouldn't be easy to explain to the other version of his father, the one who was presumably still in Storybrooke. With Belle.
We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, he told himself. Without burning it down, I hope.
After a night in a cheap motel, they drove up the coast from Boston in two rental cars. Weaver, Rogers, Neal, and Henry shared one, while Roni and Samdi took the other. Weaver wasn't entirely sure why Roni was there, but if it came to a fight with their other selves, he welcomed the additional firepower. Perhaps she was simply curious to see what might have been, had she cast the curse all those years ago.
"We passed it," said Neal, a few hours later. "Go back."
"You're sure?" asked Rogers.
"I've been there before. I remember."
"Storybrooke must be under a concealment spell," said Weaver. He went through the list of possibilities in his head and considered ways to get around each.
"Hansel's not a sorcerer," said Henry. "How would he get past the spell? Do you think he found Storybrooke?"
"Yes," said Weaver at once. Then he blinked, wondering how he knew. Had he Seen it? Then he felt the thread that held Hansel's name, the end vanishing into a fog. Guardian. Most of the time, the knowledge lay dormant in the back of his mind, but when he tugged on a name that had once passed through his hands, he could sense the soul. Concentrating on that awareness, he drove back and stopped the car where the tug was strongest. "Here."
The other car pulled off the road behind him, Roni and Samdi stepping out to join the group.
"There's nothing here," said Roni. "Just trees and the highway."
"And magic," said Weaver. He crouched down and laid his palm flat on the gravel by the road. "Can't you feel it?"
"Land Without Magic, my ass," grumbled Neal.
"The well ran dry in this world," said Weaver, remembering the legends. "But now that the Tree grows again, magic is returning." He glanced at Samdi, raising an eyebrow in question. Samdi's faint smile was confirmation enough that he was the one who had used Rumplestiltskin's bottle of True Love to jumpstart the process in Seattle.
"Is that good or bad?" wondered Henry.
Weaver straightened, brushing the dirt off his hands. "It's what it is. 'Good' or 'bad' depends on your point of view."
"Fine, but does that mean you can get us into this 'Storybrooke' place or not?" Rogers asked impatiently.
"I don't have the power, but those two can." Weaver nodded at Roni and Samdi.
"I can't go where I've never been, not if I can't see it," Roni protested.
Weaver stepped closer, lifting a hand towards her face. "Do you remember the spell of shared sight? I can show you the path." He kept Hansel's thread in the forefront of his mind. At Roni's nod of understanding, he reminded her, "You'll have to cast the bulk of it, dearie." His fingers brushed against her skin, and he felt her magic linking their thoughts.
Roni concentrated her power. A moment later, they were all enveloped in a cloud of dark smoke. Magic seized them, dropped them elsewhere.
Wood and tile replaced dirt and gravel beneath their feet, and the smoke cleared to reveal walls and windows and ceiling around them, an ordinary kitchen in an ordinary house. Less ordinary was the blood-splattered youth standing over the still form of a woman.
"Hansel!" Henry was the first to speak.
Hansel's startled glance flicked to Henry, and he lowered the long-bladed dagger in his hand. He turned, making a break for the back door. Weaver felt the flare of power as Roni magically lifted Hansel off his feet and slammed him into the dining table, sending both to crash against a wall. Rogers rushed forward to secure him, getting the boy facedown on the floor, disarming and then cuffing him.
Weaver's detective's instincts had already taken him to the victim, turning her on her side to try to save her life. By the amount of blood already puddled on the floor, Weaver suspected he was too late. Her throat was thoroughly mangled. Hansel must have stabbed her in the neck and hacked down through both arteries on the way out. It wasn't a technique Nick would have known, but Hansel had trained as a warrior in the Enchanted Forest. Weaver reached forward in an attempt to stanch the bleeding, but it was no use.
"Who is she?" asked Roni.
"Zelena," said Neal.
Weaver glanced up, startled by the edge of loathing in his son's answer.
"The Wicked Witch of Oz," growled Hansel, his head twisted at an awkward angle to glare at his victim.
"And Cora's firstborn," added Weaver, giving Roni a look. "Regina's half-sister."
"I don't have a sister!"
"You don't remember her," said Weaver, considering his options. It would take magic to save Zelena. Rumplestiltskin wasn't sure if he wanted that, but the detective had a duty to serve and protect. That meant he had to remind Regina. He let go of Hansel's thread and reached for Regina's, finding the knotted-off memory and untying it for her.
Roni's eyes widened. Weaver knew what she must be remembering: the sisters had met once, as children, when Cora brought Zelena out of Oz in order to save Regina from a magical ailment. Then Cora had torn them apart again, stealing their memories, since a bastard elder sister was not part of Cora's plans for Regina.
"I have a sister?" The knowledge sank in. "I have to save her."
Weaver stepped away to give Roni space to work. He turned to Neal and asked in a low voice, "You know Zelena?"
"Not in your timeline. But in the other one..." Neal swallowed, eyes shifting to sweep over the woman on the floor. "Yeah."
Weaver gripped his son's arm, steadying him. A memory clawed at the back of his mind. From the other reality, he realized with a start. Something dark and nasty and full of hate. What had she done? "Bae..."
Neal shook his head. "Never mind, Papa. Please. It's all right."
Too much darkness. Weaver shoved the echo of memory away.
His grandson crouched by Hansel's side. "Hansel."
"Henry. You remember."
"You left." Henry's face was twisted with all the things left unsaid. "Why?"
"I went to find them. I did it for you, Henry," Hansel said softly. "But this... this was for my father. I didn't want to get you involved." Then he raised his voice. "You won't be able to heal her. I put merasha on the blade."
Weaver gave Hansel a sharp look. Merasha disrupted magic and magic users, its effects lasting longer than squid ink, but the formula had been thought lost. Had their attempts to alter fate brought it back into the world?
"Damn it. He's right. Nothing's working." Roni looked at Samdi in a mute plea.
Samdi nodded, kneeling next to Roni. "I'll try." But magic was magic, and Samdi's attempts at healing had no more effect than Roni's. "She's gone. I'm sorry."
"Bring her back." Roni clung to the sister she hadn't even remembered until today as vehemently as if she could make up for lost time. "You always said you had friends on the 'other side'. Find her and bring her back..."
"Dead is dead," said Samdi. "But perhaps... perhaps I can arrange for a rebirth." He reached over to snip a few strands of Zelena's hair. He affixed them to one of his poppets, then used Zelena's blood to draw a face on the blank canvas of the head. A pulse of magic enveloped them. The body on the floor disintegrated into a shower of sparks, and Samdi was left holding an infant wrapped in a conjured blanket of green wool.
It was different from the Dark One's magic, thought Rumplestiltskin, watching and noting the technique for future reference. He had only ever managed the opposite transformation, turning living people into dolls.
"This is her?" asked Roni as Samdi handed the baby to her.
"Indeed."
"Will she remember?"
"No. It will be a fresh start as for any newborn. But she lives."
Neal scoffed. "I guess she got what she always wanted, then. A do-over of her life. At least this way she can't drag the rest of us with her."
Weaver looked at Neal, but his son gave a minute shake of his head to the unspoken question. Weaver didn't push. He stood up and went to wash his hands, reminding himself that he didn't really work for the Seattle Police Department, even if Rogers was still standing guard over Nick, playing the cop's role with such conviction that no one questioned it. Never mind that Henry had taken on a regal air as he confronted the prisoner.
In the Enchanted Forest, Henry, as king, had ultimate authority to judge and pass sentence on his subjects. It was in that capacity that he now heard his friend's defense. He gestured at Rogers to allow Nick to sit up on the floor, while Henry sat on a kitchen chair as if it were a throne. Neal stood behind his son in silent support.
"Facilier restored my memories, but I didn't know how to do it for you," Nick said earnestly. "I would have tried, but I was afraid everyone would think I was crazy and lock me up somewhere."
"You killed those people in Hyperion Heights?"
"I executed them in the name of the king's justice," said Nick. "They were murderers, Henry! The blind baker was the Candy Witch. She killed dozens of children in Oz, and Doctor Sage was no better. She sold innocent girls to Gothel, knowing most of them would die."
"Executed without a trial," noted Henry in a low voice.
"No one else remembered," Hansel said. "How could there be a trial? I did what I had to do. If I'm guilty, then so be it. Sentence me as you will."
Henry shook his head slowly. "How can I? You're not even the guiltiest in this room." He glanced at Roni and Facilier, then at Weaver, then Rogers. "Captain Hook, wasn't it? A notorious pirate back in the day. You've taken how many lives? And the Dark One. And the Evil Queen. Even if you weren't the one who killed my grandparents, you have plenty of blood on your hands. Innocent blood."
Weaver met Neal's eyes, where he saw a mix of pride and regret. Our family went from spinner to Dark One, Lost Boy to knight, to king... nothing ever turned out as we expected, did it?
Roni made a sound of protest, then seemed to think better of it.
Rogers shifted uneasily, jarred out of his illusion. "Aye, that's so. I was a villain of the high seas for many years. Yet I am a father now, and a man of peace. I hope someday my good deeds may outweigh the evil."
Henry nodded. "This is a new world. It's supposed to be a new life for us." He glanced at Roni. "Another chance." He looked at Hansel again. "For everyone. I... I took an innocent life, too. We need to end this. So whatever anyone's done, no more. We can find a better way than death."
Hansel surged forward, only to be restrained by Rogers. "But Henry, the other Evil Queen!"
"She can stand trial for her crimes, once we catch her..."
"That's what I'm saying. I already did. She's in the trunk of my car, along with your mother. I found her, too."
"What?" Henry leaped to his feet, the chair falling over behind him. Neal reached out to calm him, but there was no stopping Henry's headlong rush out the door. Everyone else followed, Roni bringing up the rear, encumbered as she was with the infant Zelena.
Rogers fished a key ring out of Nick's pockets and tossed it to Weaver.
Weaver nodded his thanks, then glared at everyone to back away from the car and give him some space. They could all hear the muffled thumps and nasal cries now. Weaver popped the trunk. Two pale faces stared up at him, mouths covered with duct tape. Emma and Regina. "Well. That's a turn up for the books."