Chapter 38: The heart of the truest believer
Emma had her arms on the ship's railing looking at the island. They finally got there, she was closer to getting Henry back. Rose sat on the railing next to her and looked at Neverland too.
"We can't just barge in, Em." Said Rose with a side glance at her friend. "We need to think it through, or we might risk Henry's life."
Emma nodded and looked at the redhead with determination. At that moment, Mary-Margaret and David approached. She tried telling Emma how what happened wasn't her fault, but Emma wasn't in the mood for their Good speech.
"I don't. I blame you. All this happened because I listened to you." She got smacked on the back of the head and glared at Rose. "You say good always wins? It doesn't. I didn't grow up in some fairytale land. My experience is different, that's all I can go on."
Mary-Margaret tried to tell Emma to trust them, to listen to their experience, and Rose groaned. She knew Emma wouldn't go for that, after all they were the same age. How could they expect Emma to listen to them, if they didn't see that their paternal bond was practically nonexistent? They also had a vision of the world that was too simplistic, but Emma and Rose had grown up in a world without magic. They knew that life sometimes sucked and that you had to deal with it.
"How can you to be so, so." Stared to say Emma and Rose joined. "Infuriatingly optimistic?"
They turned to look at Rose, and she shrugged her shoulders.
"She is right. It's okay to be optimistic, but you can't lose sight of reality."
Emma nodded and told reminded them about how they lost Henry and Neal, how Rose still didn't have all her memories. Emma just couldn't be so optimistic, not with the life she had had.
Finally, Gold interrupted the family argument reviling his entrance. He told them how he alone was going to get Henry back. Neverland was dangerous and their ultimate enemy even more so. He couldn't risk the Charmings getting in his way with their ideals. No, he needed to get Henry back for his son. And as much as he knew that everyone wanted Rose's memories back, he knew that if Pan had anything to do with it, it would be more complicated than anyone could expect.
"Sorry, dearie, our foe is too fearsome for hand-holding. Neverland is a place where imagination runs wild. And, sadly, yours doesn't." He turned to Rose. "My firebird, by the next time I see you, I hope to have you back."
With that he let go of his cane and disappeared. Everyone looked at each other without knowing what to think.
"You know, he is not wrong." Everyone turned to Rose. "Emma, you are too focused on your past, that it blinds you to everything else. You won't' believe in anything that you can't see, even if it's right in front of you. Until you accept your past, you won't be able to move forward."
Emma frowned and looked away. She knew Rose wasn't trying to hurt her with her words. They were about to go into uncharted territory, they didn't know what they were going to encounter. They needed to get their heads straight.
"And you." Rose turned to Mary-Margaret and David. "Being optimistic is good. Having the hope that everything will get better is great. But you can't go on with just that. You need to accept that even if you are good or bad, live sucks. If you want things to get better, you have to fight for it."
They looked at her with wide eyes. Mary-Margaret wanted to say something, but David stopped her. He knew what she meant. You don't get most things in life by hoping that they'll happen, sometimes you have to take action. If he had left everything to hope and believe, he wouldn't have married Snow White.
Emma went inside to try and get some exercise and think. Mary-Margaret wanted to follow, but Rose shook her head. Emma needed a moment without them, so she could clear her head.
"Hook, do you have a map of Neverland? Weapons that we can use?"
"I'll see what I can find." He said making his way inside too. "Sheriff, why don't you take the helm in the meantime?"
"Hook has been here before, so if we know the layout of the island, and we are properly equipped, we can think of a plan to get Henry back." Rose told them. "In my expeditions, knowledge is crucial. You need to know where to go, where to dig, who you might encounter… Going into a situation without knowing anything is extremely dangerous."
Before they could start planning, the ship started shaking. Mary-Margaret went to help David steer the ship. Rose looked at the sky and knew that it wasn't a storm, so she went to the side and looked at the water. She was joined shortly by Emma and Mary-Margaret. Hook took back the helm and told them that they were being attacked by mermaids.
David started shooting harpoons at them and Mary-Margaret and Emma threw a net on the water, catching one of the mermaids. Rose turned to Regina.
"Throw fire at them!" Regina looked at her. "If they are water creatures, they won't like fire!"
Regina nodded and started to shoot fireballs at the mermaids. In a matter of seconds they were all gone, except the one that Emma and Mary-Margaret had caught. Regina used her magic to bring her aboard.
Hook wanted to free her, and David and Rose agreed with him. Regina on the other hand wanted to keep her as a hostage. While they were arguing, the mermaid reached for a shell. She started to blow on it, until Rose took it from her.
"What did you do?" She asked her with a frown.
A fierce storm began, and the argument about what to do with the mermaid started again. Regina wanted to kill her and David, after a first impulse, decided to side with Mary-Margaret and release her. Hook said to keep her aboard might give them a chance to survive. Rose shook her head.
"No. She is a mermaid. If the ship sinks she will get away without a problem."
The storm was getting worse, and they weren't reaching an agreement. The mermaid smirked at the humans' fate and turned to the redhead.
"You shouldn't have come back Spitfire." She looked at Rose intently. "We helped you once, we won't do it again."
Before Rose could ask her about it, the mermaid turned to wood. She turned and saw Regina with her hand outstretched. There was no time to argue, as an enormous wave was threatening to capsize the ship.
Neal and Mulan had reached the Dark Castle. After his wound had healed and Aurora had failed to contact Henry through their dreams, Neal decided to head to his father's castle in search of something to reach Emma.
Once inside, they saw that the castle had been ransacked. Neal realized that someone was still there, but before they could investigate an arrow struck just besides Neal's face. Turns out that Robin Hood had taken control of the castle after the Dark Curse. Neal told him who he was, and Robin let him look around. When Robin told them how he knew the Dark One, Neal was surprised that he survived.
"It was touch and go. But she was right, and he spared my life. I owe her a debt, but she insisted that I really owed it to him." Said Robin with a smirk.
Neal was curious about this mystery woman that seemed to have caught his father's attention, but he had more pressing matters to attend to. Robin told him that the place had already been cleared out by the time he got there, but Neal knew better. He picked up his father's old cane and started to twist it around.
In the corner of the room, a cabinet appeared. He opened it and started to look around. He saw a parchment and when he opened it, he couldn't believe his eyes. It was a portrait of a woman, a woman that he knew very well, after all she had spent two years in hell with him.
"Spitfire, seriously?" He sighed, shook his head and rolled up the parchment again. "I guess she would be the only one capable of getting the Dark one to feel something."
He kept looking and finally saw a crystal ball. He tried to use it, but nothing happened. Mulan suggested thinking about Emma and everything he felt for her. This time it worked, but what he saw didn't put his mind at ease. If Emma was in Neverland, it was bad. And for what Henry told him, Rose wouldn't have let Emma go alone. Emma in Neverland was bad. Rose in Neverland was worse.
On the ship tensions were running high and the storm was getting worse. Mary-Margaret and Regina started fighting and David and Hook followed not much later. Emma and Rose were left trying to steer the ship to no avail.
"We have to think!" Said Rose. "The mermaid is obviously not the cause for the storm."
Emma nodded and started to look around. Then she realized what was happening, what the mermaid said. She told Rose to try and keep the ship steady. Emma tried to get everyone to stop fighting, but they weren't listening. She finally jumped to the sea and that made the others stop. Unfortunately, a rope broke and a pulley fell to the sea and hit Emma, knocking her unconscious.
That made everyone work together to get her back. Once on board, the storm cleared, and they continued to sail to the island.
Once on land, they started to create a plan, but Emma took the lead before another argument could start.
"Sneak attack? Let's not be naive. Save your magic. We'll need it later, because Pan already knows we're here. It's time we stop running. Gold was right. This land is run on belief. All of us have been too busy being at each other's throats to be believers." Rose cleared her throat and Emma sighed. "I was as wrong as anyone else. It's time for all of us to believe. Not in magic, but in each other."
David and Mary-Margaret weren't too keen on working with bad guys, but Emma wasn't taking no for an answer.
"We just need to succeed. And the way we do that is by just being who we are. A hero, a villain, a pirate." She looked at Rose for a moment. "Whatever you are supposed to be in this world."
Rose huffed and crossed her arms. Mary-Margaret put a hand on her shoulder and smiled softly. It must have been hard for Rose, so close to getting her memories back, after all this time. She was closer to finding out who she really was.
"It doesn't matter which, because we're gonna need all those skills, whether we can stomach them or not." Regina questioned her skills, but Emma didn't waver. "I'm a mother, and now I'm also your leader. So either help me get my son back or get out of the way."
Rose put the two daggers Hook gave her in her boots and followed Emma. They were going inside Neverland, to get Henry back and to retrieve her memories. They might not be ready for Neverland, but Neverland was not ready for them either.
Rumpelstiltskin was sitting in a log, but he knew he wasn't alone. From the jungle came out one of the Lost Boys. He welcomed the Dark One to Neverland in Pan's name and warned him that if he went after Henry, he would become an enemy, and he wouldn't survive.
"Well, the question isn't, will I survive? Because we both know I won't. No, no. The real question is how many of you I take with me" He told the boy.
"Well, then, I suppose that means I'll see you again, in less friendly circumstances." Said the boy turning around.
"You told me about the boy. But you didn't say anything about his plans for Rose Red now that she is back." Rumpelstiltskin said watching the boy stop in his tracks. "I believe you lot call her Spitfire?"
Rumpelstiltskin watched the boy intently, gauging his reaction. He wanted to find out what really happened to his firebird all those years ago. But instead of answering, the lost boy threw a straw doll at Rumpelstiltskin's feet. He kneeled to pick it up and his eyes weal up with tears.
"Isn't it funny? The things we haven't thought about in years still have the ability to make us cry?" He chuckles and turns around. "See you around, Dark One."
Rumpelstiltskin, still on the floor didn't watch him leave, didn't notice the tension in the boy's shoulders and the anger on his face.