⁵ ➡️ • ariel •
e stood to the side of mary margaret and david who sat on a fallen log keeping a close eye on their daughter. regina had claimed that if emma had magic inside her, it would be in their best interests for her to control it. thus a magic lesson between the two had ensued.
"focus. concentrate." the skilled witch was instructing her student.
emma didn't look away from the unlit campfire: her current challenge. "it's of kind hard when you're talking in my ear."
her legs feeling tired, e decided to sit on the wet forest floor. she found a broken twig and began playing with it - her boredom overruling her body. the leaves were pulled off one by one, torn apart and sent flying in the wind. although, when she snapped it in half, gaining everyone's attention, she dropped it back on the ground. doing nothing was something she should be used to but she had an unquenchable urge to do anything; anything except sitting quietly.
"hey." a whisper to her right alerted her that someone was trying to speak to her. she lifted her gaze to find david and mary margaret staring at her.
she lifted a hand in an awkward wave, "hey?"
the parents sent her comforting smiles. after her revelation of her past, the two were determined to speak with her. their parental instincts were driving them crazy and if they didn't talk to her soon, they would probably go mad with guilt.
david moved away from his wife to create a small space in between them. his head nodded to it as a silent indication that it was for her. "come sit with us?"
she hesitated for a few seconds - unsure whether spilling her feelings to these strangers was the best thing for her. a meltdown with tink was plenty of emotion for one day. "uh, no, it's okay. i'm fine here."
he smiled at her again, "i know you are but i'm sure a log is more comfortable than the floor. and," he glanced to his wife who finished his question for him.
"we were wondering if you wanted to talk to us? when you told us about your past, we couldn't help but worry. and emma went through a similar thing. she spent her life thinking we abandoned her. only when she found out the truth was she able to find any sort of closure."
e had to admit that her interest was peaked. she wanted to know more about emma and her life, but she was waiting for them to get off the island before she probed her for answers. the main question she had in mind was how she found her happiness. how, through everything she had been through, she still managed to find her happy ending. "you sent her through a magic portal to give her her best chance. so i've heard." she paused to take a deep breath - talking about her past wasn't something she found easy. "my parents left me on the side of the road in a forest. that's not similar. that's not giving me my best chance. no, that's cowardice. leaving a newborn baby to a dangerously unknown fate. it's the exact same as leaving all your problems in the past and running as fast, as far, as you can." by the looks on the two's faces she had clearly made them uncomfortable.
the king and queen watched carefully. they knew, in her current condition, it would be hard to speak to her without her thinking they were insulting her or being harsh. it was what they went thought with emma after she broke the curse; her barriers were up and it would be tough to break them down.
mary margaret decided to speak up first, "maybe what you think happened isn't what actually happened." at the girl's confused glance she quickly delineated her statement. "well, emma thought that we abandoned her but that wasn't the truth. what if your parents didn't leave you? what if that's just what you've grown to believe?"
it did seem like a reasonable excuse on her birth parents behalf. the two strangers before her seemed more open to exploring more motives than she was. all her life she had grown up believing in the heart-wrenching stereotypical 'two people couldn't handle parenthood and ditch baby' cliché - never once had she thought about the possibility of there being more than the one explanation. "do ever regret it? sending emma away for twenty eight years?"
once again, the married couple shared a look similar to their previous one. both had parallel thoughts, both knew of the struggles of the other. both knew sending their child away was the hardest decision of their life. and the two both knew that having their youngest daughter ripped away from them was the worst moment of their lives.
"honestly, yes we do. but if we hadn't then there is a possibility we would be stuck in storybrooke with no memories always pushing each other away. and i thank emma every day for getting us out of that." mary margaret conveyed to her.
david gave his wife a tight squeeze with his arm around her waist as he kept his gaze locked on e. "sending our daughter away was the hardest decision we've ever made. but it was dire for everyone in the kingdom that we did, and that was our motivation. we couldn't be selfish. and now that the curse is gone, we can find our other daughter and be a family again. finally."
his last sentence made e sit straighter. she hadn't heard of this - a second daughter. emma had never told her she had a sister; understandably so since they were strangers. "i'm sorry. your other daughter?"
the smiles on their faces were more genuine now, albeit weighed down with sadness of the past. "yeah. emma's twin sister actually. after we sent emma through the portal, regina [as the evil queen] took our youngest daughter and sent her away. she told us that she used her magic to send her to a guard who was waiting with a bean. he sent her to another land and we haven't found her since."
her curiosity only grew at his introduction to their long lost daughter. granted, she wasn't insensitive, it was a terrible way to lose a child. however now she knew about the mystery child, she had to ask the gnawing question stuck in her head. "what's her name?"
mary margaret opened her mouth to answer but stopped short staring at e. she gawked at her as if seeing her in a new light; but - quick as the strange look came - it soon faded away. her shoulders shrugged sadly as she eventually began to tell her. "her name is-"
"sorry if i'm interrupting anything here." the three spun around to see hook approach them from behind. he glanced to e, speaking first to her. "my lady, could we have some privacy for a moment?" his voice was sickly sweet and so obviously fake but e got the hint that he held important information. and that he didn't trust her enough to disclose it to her.
she nodded once, pushed herself off the ground and pointed to emma and regina who stood by the now lit campfire. "yeah, i'll just be over there." as she got closer to the pair, she could distinctly hear regina thinly comment 'smoke' and knew she was interrupting another argument. "hey... you got the fire started then."
emma spun sharply to face her, excitement shining in her eyes. "i did it! i actually made a fire with my mind!" she grabbed e's arms to shake her slightly as she spoke.
and no matter how hard she tried, e couldn't stop the smile that snuck it's way onto her face.
it took a bit of convincing but e managed to press emma into agreeing to douse the fire and relight it again. just so she could watch her do it. they had spent the last few minutes doing so until movement to their side distracted them: david, mary margaret, and hook were preparing to leave. the pair stood and, with regina joining them, stalked over to the trio.
"where are you guys going?" emma asked. last she knew her parents were the ones insisting on the group staying together. her suspicions only grew as hook and david both answered at the same time with two different excuses.
"firewood."
"to get water."
their rushed state made mary margaret roll her eyes at them, exasperated at the two's inability to act normal while attempting to lie to to the other three.
e, emma and regina raised their brow at their panicked and evidently faked alibi. rolling her eyes, e sarcastically commented, "cause that was believable. what's going on?" she had quickly surmised it was something to do with hook sending her away but it was difficult to read them.
after a glance to her husband, mary margaret spat out, "neal's alive."
completely clueless as to who that was, e was forced to watch as emma stared back at her parents in a shocked sadness.
blinking away her tears, emma stuttered out a wavering reply. "neal i-is... alive?"
her mother smiled at her. "maybe," she looked to hook and david who were already staring at her, "sorry, she deserved to know." although she didn't sound all too sorry about spilling their secret.
regina broke her silence, speaking up after seeing emma considering the new information. "this is a waste of time. he's toying with us." all this fuss over a dead man was only delaying her son's rescue.
"i don't think so. look." mary margaret spoke and gestured to the crumpled branches and messy footprints. "more scuffling. someone was definitely resisting."
however it seemed that wasn't enough to convince the three. "how do we know that means... whoever you think it is?" e pointed out a hole in her theory.
but the mother was fast to shoot back a reply. "well, then someone was fighting for his life." at the shrug from the younger woman, she shook her head at her.
the ex evil queen was done with their theories and hindrances, "are you really going to fall for this?" emma sent her a lost glance which she scoffed at. "fine. you wanna follow the evil munchkin's dirt road? be my guest." and she pushed past them in an attempt to leave.
emma moved with her, stepping in front of her so she would stop walking away. "wait! where are you going?"
her son's adoptive mother glared at her, "to save our son."
"we need to stick together." the blonde repeated her parents words.
it was a failed endeavour as she was simply laughed off. "no, we don't. you may be prepared to risk henry's life over some heartbroken fool's errand, but i'm not. i'm tired of waiting around." with a stronger determination set in her heart, the former villain left - on a mission to save the one person she loved.
the impact of her words was tough on emma. she was conflicted between joining her to save her son or leaving with her parents to save her son's father, her ex-lover. "what if she's right? pan could be lying."
mary margaret sent the others a look and they moved always from the mother-daughter duo to begin packing their belongings. "just because it seems too good to be true doesn't mean it is. don't give up. you owe it to henry to find out if his father's still alive, and you owe it to yourself."
they shared a smile before the daughter brought her mother in for a hug. mary margaret was shocked for a few seconds but she hugged her back.
"sorry to interrupt your moment but if we wanna follow the tracks, we should start out now." e's voice broke them apart.
the five of them all stood ready to leave the campsite, with mary margaret in the lead. e was stood next to emma who was still experiencing an internal battle: fighting off the urge to run after regina and focus purely on her son or save said son's father and her ex.
sensing something wrong, e engaged her in a conversation as they moved out. "why did you trust me?" emma sent her a confused look so she rephrased it. "when we first met, you asked me to help find your son. you didn't even know me. why did you trust me?"
emma's confusion drifted away into realisation, but soon swept straight back to confusion again. "i don't really know. i just felt like i could trust you. i'm glad i did. i'm happy you're on our side. wh-" she paused when beginning her next sentence, but shook her head and finished saying what had been floating in her head since the moment e agreed to help find henry. "why did you agree?"
a concentrated expression fixed itself on her face as she said, with a strained voice, "you remind me of me in the past. i wanted something from pan and was so determined to get it that i didn't think about the consequences of my actions. every day of my life i have to live with what i did. maybe this is my retribution." tink's encouraging words came back to her, 'it wasn't your fault', 'it was pan', 'he's the one who should have to pay the price'. pan would pay the price; she would ensure it.
mary margaret led them deep into the jungle, through trees and low-hanging branches. the trekked through wet mud and ditches until they came upon a clearing with a cave in it's centre.
"the tracks lead directly into that cave. that must be where pan is keeping neal." she informed the rest of the group.
they all examined the area; an empty clearing, cave, trees surrounding it. it looked any other part of the jungle. if pan was holding someone prisoner here why wasn't there any kind of protection detail.
asking the question currently on everyone's mind, david stepped closer to the cave. "if the cave is some sort of prison, why aren't there any guards posted to stop us?"
the only one to have had an encounter with the cave in his past, hook provided them with the knowledge he obtained. "because this prison doesn't require guards. echo cave."
they all turned to the pirate, e furrowing her brows at him. "you know it?"
he nodded once. "all too well. i lost half my crew inside those rock walls. the only way to rescue someone from inside is to reveal a secret."
his explanation of the prison did little to calm them.
emma raised her arms and dropped them back to her sides. "a secret? that's all?"
but, e gathered, it wasn't going to be that easy - as hook was about to tell them. "your darkest secret. echo cave derives its name from an old saying... 'the deeper the lie, the more truth in its echo.' the cave demands that you reveal a truth about yourself. a secret you would never admit to anyone."
e felt her heartbeat pick up. she knew what her secret was. she knew what the one thing she could never admit to anyone was. it was one thing she had never spoken about directly to anyone; though she and tink, who had been with her when it occurred, had referred to it many times. she glanced at the others around her and knew that whatever their secrets were: hers was worse.
"even if we spill our guts, how do we know neal's still alive in there?" she turned back into the conversation to hear david's question.
hook looked back at the cave as he spoke, "because this is what pan wants. he wants us to rescue him."
knowing he was right, e finally understood what pan's overall aim was. "he wants us to reveal our secrets because he believes that once we do, our secrets will destroy us." she shared her epiphany. and, she knew, their secrets would most definitely divide them.
but rescuing an innocent man was their main problem at the moment so, gathering her courage, e politely pushed her way past hook and through the cave's entrance. she stopped only once to take a deep breath before she continued her descent into their suspected destruction.
moving forward, the group came upon a ledge that dropped into a very deep pit. on the other end of the cave, locked in a cage and unreachable because of the gap, was who e instantly knew was neal. his cage was placed on a tall, narrow rock that reached the very bottom of the cave.
his head shot up as their footsteps echoed, eyes going straight to his ex-girlfriend, "emma!"
"neal," while neal's yell was loud enough reverberate against the walls, her whisper only just carried it's way to the trapped man.
her mother rubbed her back in comfort while both her and david began formulating an already failed plan. "it must be a hundred feet across."
david completed her train of thought, "even if we fashioned some sort of rope, there's nothing to attach it to. no way to swing over."
"so what do we do?" emma asked hook.
he focused on her while answering, "i told you what needs to be done. consider this the moment of truth, literally. now... who wants to kick things off?"
everyone shifted nervously, none all too eager to share their deepest secrets.
e hesitated before speaking, "s-so what? someone tells their secret and they sprout wings?"
the pirate shrugged his shoulders at her. "i don't know the particulars, only what i've been told."
"well, how do you know it'll work?" david pushed.
hook took a deep breath and turned to face neal. "there's only one way to find out, i suppose," he spun back to face everyone. after a second, he spat out, "i kissed emma."
their reactions were instantaneous. david blanched and, through clenched teeth, said, "you did what?". e's eyebrows shot to her hairline as she repeatedly glanced between the pirate and the mother.
whereas emma and mary margaret rolled their eyes - the latter placing a hand on her husbands chest, speaking firmly, "david, now is not the time."
the blonde lifted her gaze to hook's, "i already told mary margaret, so technically it's not a secret. but it was just a kiss. how's that your darkest secret?"
he took a breath to steady himself, not used to expressing his feelings this way. "it's what the kiss exposed. my secret is, i never thought i'd be capable of letting go of my first love... of my milah... to believe that i could find someone else that is, until i met you."
cutting through the silence, the ground began to quake and a large chunk of rock grew from neal's rock. it formed a partial bridge which informed them that hook's theory was correct.
david cleared his throat and turned to face his wife, eyes drawn to the ground. "uh... mary margaret..."
"no, no, no. me next." she cut him off, looking him straight in the eye. taking a moment to gather her strength she continued, "ever since the curse broke, since we found each other, since we found emma... and all of that happiness, there is something i haven't wanted to admit. our daughter is a beautiful, smart, amazing woman whom i love very much, and of whom i could not be more proud. but she's all grown up. and we don't even know where our other daughter is. we don't know what she looks like. we don't know if she aged normally- how old she is. and, as much as we hate to admit it, there is a huge possibility that we won't find her. and... as much as i wanna pretend i'm okay with that, i'm not. we missed it, david. what we have with her is unique, but it's not what i wanted. i wanted our family together. we were cheated out of everything... their first steps, their first words, their first smiles. we missed it all."
her husband was staring at her. tears had long since fallen from his eyes. "what are you saying?"
she smiled at him, "when we get off this island and get back to storybrooke, i want another go at it. i wanna have another baby."
once again, they held onto each other as the ground shook and the bridge opposite them extended towards them. e, hook, emma and mary margaret looked to david.
he smiled tearfully at her, knowing what he said next would break her heart. "nothing in this world would make me happier, and i know with all my heart that you would make..." he sniffled before catching his breath and finishing, "an amazing mother. but it can never happen... at least not with me."
mary margaret's relief soon vanished to be replaced with a scared confusion. "what do you mean?"
the prince, who was usually bold and always confident, was slowly breaking down. "when hook and i went to search for the sextant, he was really taking me to find a cure."
"a cure for what?" she snapped. they could see she almost understood what he was talking about but it seemed she didn't want to believe what she knew.
e couldn't help but watch them. she had only ever seen one couple who loved each other as much as the two in front of her. she couldn't help but wonder if they had acted the same after she was taken. if they argued or fell out of love. she really hoped they hadn't; they deserved each other. just as mary margaret and david deserved each other. they balanced the other out. they needed each other. she had only been with them for a short time but she could already sense how close they were. however, listening to the two argue made her question if they would last their stay on the island. or if neverland would be the thing to break them.
"-i wasn't fast enough." she heard david say. tuning back into the conversation, she realised she had missed something important but summed it up when he continued spilling his secret. "i was hit. hook was able to find a cure, but it comes at a price. i can't leave neverland. if i do, i'll die."
not even the bridge could cure through the tension now created in the group. it grew more until it stopped about a quarter the distance away from their ledge.
hook turned to the remaining two left to reveal their darkest secrets: emma and e. "who's next?"
surprising all of them, e let out a large sob. the unfallen tears began running down her cheeks as her body started to shake. "i-i can't. it hurts."
her motherly instincts kicking in, mary margaret placed a hand under her chin to lift her head up. "what hurts?" she whispered softly.
"my secret." e whispered back. her voice was strained. "it's a... a part of my past i tried to forget but it keeps coming back to haunt to me. i c-can't say it. i can't."
emma joined them, hand on e's arm rubbing in soothing circles. "i know it hurts. the past will. but, e... that's henry's father. we need to rescue him. please. you can trust us."
she kept eye contact with her as the other blonde nodded slowly. it was always going to come to this. pan had told her. 'everything you've been avoiding since you arrived here' - it was all coming back and there was no way to run again.
taking a deep breath, she steadied herself and looked to the ground for any sign of comfort. finding none, she shook her head and began. "you asked me why i agreed so easily to find your boy." her statement was directed to emma, who - along with everyone else - was watching her carefully. "it was a month after i arrived on this island. me and tink had spent every moment together. we were really close. she was - is - my only friend. but one night, we were watching the stars when we saw pan's shadow bring in another boy. only i knew this boy. he was wearing a red scarf. this red scarf." she gestured to the scarf on her shoulders. "he was the boy that took me in. the one i saved. the one i made the shadow take me instead of. pan had gotten him.
"i told tink that we had to something. we had to save him; we couldn't let pan make him a lost boy. he was innocent. i couldn't stand back and watch pan turn him into a ruthless soldier for his pathetic army. so me and tink waited for them to fall asleep before we invaded his camp. we snuck in and found him. we thought we could just wake him up, he'd see me and come with us." she stopped for a moment to compose herself. the dried tears on her cheeks were constantly replaced with new ones.
"so far, it was good. pan didn't know we were there. the lost boys were all sleeping still. we woke him up. he-he saw me. and we got him to stay quiet and follow us." her voice was beginning to break now. both mary margaret and emma were tearing up silently. "it was when we were leaving, that everything went wrong. felix woke up. he was utterly devoted to pan and his success. so he woke the lost boys who drew their weapons on us. they kept us there while pan was called. in the heat of the moment, i let my emotions cloud my logic. i got my sword out and started attacking them.
"they fought back but i had more training than them. the father of the boy i was rescuing - he taught me. i managed to get us out of the camp. we ran with them following us, but all of a sudden, they stopped. they turned away and ran back to their camp. we didn't know why. until we turned to him. the boy we tried to rescue. he had an arrow sticking out of his side." they were all staring her in sympathy now. "they had fired an arrow at an innocent young boy. and we couldn't help him. even if we got the arrow out and stopped the bleeding, it was poisoned.
"tink told me about the fountain. with the water that could cure him. but it was too far away. we couldn't move him because of the bleeding. if one of us went to retrieve it, it would have been too late. the journey there and back was too long. we had no choice but to sit and watch him succumb to the poison. i held his hand and sang to him. a lullaby his mother sang to us. he died in my arms. he was eight."
nothing but the sound of the girls' crying and the bridge forming the final section could be heard. mary margaret and emma had encased her in a tight hug. the former knew all too much the pain of losing a child; even though the girl wasn't related to the boy she lost - the relationship between them was stronger than blood.
david and hook glanced at each other, unsure of what they should do. his wife wouldn't be looking for comfort from him after his secret and emma wasn't one to depend on others for support.
on the other hand, e was tremendously glad for the two females. their support was much needed. she had gone eleven years without speaking about his death. now the gates were open again and she couldn't stop reliving it in her mind.
clearing her throat, she pulled out of the hug and gently pushed emma towards the now complete bridge. "go and save your boy's father." emma gave her a final smile before stepping on the bridge.
e moved away from the group, who all watched emma and neal. she couldn't bring herself to look at them. all she could see was her 'adoptive' brother in his last moments. staring up at her with his bright green eyes.
she could hear pan's voice in her head. one thing she didn't tell the group was pan's direct involvement in his death. the day after he died, e and tink had dug a hole for him. they had gathered flowers and stones to decorate it. not long after the mock-up funeral had ended, e requested for some time alone. pan had appeared when tink left; taking his precious time to enforce upon her how his death was her fault.
he had told her how, had she left him in pan's care, the boy would be alive. but the fact that she took his fate into her own hands was the reason he was no longer with them. however, it was his parting words which stuck with her.
'you would make one hell of a lost girl.'
the group left the cave in a mess. all had been affected by their time inside. each secret had inflicted another crack on their already fracturing relationships.
it was still dark outside and the stars twinkled above them, as if they were laughing at their jumble of a rescue team. a young boy relied on them being strong enough to get him home and they were currently letting him down.
e was stuck in her thoughts. now that she had shared her past with these almost-strangers, she felt closer to them. but she also felt as though they held leverage over her head. she knew they would never; her brain was hardwired into thinking everyone was against her.
"thank you." she very noticeably jumped at neal's appreciative notion.
david, seemingly not as shaken as his wife or e, retorted, "well, don't thank us yet. we still have to save henry."
the pirate who was still dealing with his newly confessed feelings, informed him, "we found your star map, so the real question is, do you know how to get off this island?"
nodding his head, neal glanced at emma before redirecting his gaze to hook. "well, if we can find henry, i can get us home."
"let's go get tinkerbell and... retrieve the boy." hook said, looking to emma as he moved past her with david, mary margaret and e on his tail.
still gazing into space, e didn't notice mary margaret fall into step with her. "hey," the mother whispered to her. she could see the girl was still adjusting from to the memories coming back in full thrust.
the blonde nodded once in return, not feeling capable of talking yet - in fear of her cries escaping if she opened her mouth.
mary margaret sighed, knowing she wouldn't get much out of her at the moment. "look, i'm not gonna say i'm sorry for your loss because i know that's not what you wanna hear. but i know what you're feeling. i know that feeling because it's what i feel whenever i think about my daughter." her gaze flickered to the girl beside her who had turned her head slightly in emma's direction. "not emma. my other daughter. the one that was sent through a portal. see, it's been twenty nine years since that and i don't know where she is, who she is, how old she is now, what she looks like. i don't know anything about my daughter. she could be... d-dead and we wouldn't know. i can't bring myself to even say her name. it hurts." she used e's words from the cave. it was a tired attempt to get the girl to talk to her.
she gave it a few moments, gave her a chance to talk to her but after getting nothing, she decided to leave her. "i'll let you be alone for a while."
"edmund," a quiet voice stopped her. she looked over her shoulder to e who was staring back at her. "his name was edmund."