Being pulled back from death was painful. Only slightly less painful than the immediate feeling after that. Peter screamed as he was pulled back into his physical self. He clutched at his chest, where the dagger that sank into it had been. He rolled on the muddy ground, cursing and shouting.
He could distantly hear voices in the background arguing. He recognized his brother's voice and Baelfire's as well. There were two other female voices that he couldn't quite identify.
He rolled onto his side and blinked. His vision was swimming and he felt his stomach lurch as he threw up onto the ground. He sputtered and gasped for breath. After a couple moments, he was able to take one deep, glorious breath. The ground seemed to solidify underneath him and now he could understand the voices around him.
"Your son is dying!" he heard a voice cry. It sounded insincere and he noted to himself that he could have done a much more convincing job. "Let me help you and I can save him."
He forced his head to turn and he looked at the scene before him. Baelfire appeared to be dying after resurrecting the Dark One and the Dark One was clutching his son. Belle, the Dark One's wife, stood by and watched, horrified. Before them all stood a tall, woman with queen-like features and an ethereal glow that he recognized immediately. This woman, like him, possessed a large amount of magic.
"Who are you?" Belle cried.
"I am Zelena and I am a friend," the woman said. This time her tone was much better. "I can help you."
"Please, anything," Gold begged.
"Your knife in exchange for your son's life," she said. She smiled triumphantly.
Gold took several moments to consider the woman's offer, which Peter thought was absolutely insane. What was there to consider? Give up the thing that controlled him for his son's life? It was an easy choice. Of course, keep the knife. The son had done his job and had brought Gold back. There was no more use for Baelfire.
But his idiot of a brother took the worst option possible. He relinquished the knife to Zelena. Immediately, she waved her hands and Baelfire was absorbed into Gold. One moment, Gold stood before them and the next Baelfire was there. Both men screamed in agony, twisting and turning. But the woman had kept her promise. Baelfire was alive, if that was what being alive really was.
Zelena laughed and disappeared. His brother, knowing that he was in grave danger now, also took off, leaving Belle and Peter alone in the field. He was not even sure if Belle knew he was there, curled on the ground. She fled almost immediately.
He turned over and stared up at the dark sky, filled with stars. He continued to take deep delicious gulps of air. He lay still, waiting for the pain to subside. Eventually, he stared up at a bright blue sky and he realized he must have fallen asleep. At this point, he felt he was ready to use his limbs. He very slowly hauled himself up off the ground and took a few shaking steps forward before he fell over. Again, he repeated this process several times, each time walking farther than before. Soon enough, he was walking out of the clearing and into the forest.
As he walked, his mind came back to him. He was now in the Enchanted forest with no star. His plan to create another Neverland had failed and he had sacrificed Felix in the process. It had been a waste. But he did not dwell on the fact nor did he allow himself to mourn. He may mourn later, but for the time being he had to find the few Lost Boys who had managed to escape Emma Swan and her companions.
He used his magic to find the remaining Lost Boys. Luckily, they were only half a day's walk from where he was. He turned up at their shack in the early evening. When they opened the door to him, they fell to their knees, praising him and his great power for he had returned to them. Normally, he would have basked in this, but it felt hollow. He did not know why he felt this way.
They brought him a chair and they waited on him hand and foot. The place was disgusting. Clothes and dirty dishes and all manner of things were strewn about. Cards and empty bottles of alcohol lay across the only table in the shack. There were beds with thin blankets and pillows near the back. He did not want to lay his head there. He found their fawning faces and grubby hands revolting and he snatched his hands away when they tried to grab at him.
"What will we do now, my king?" they asked him.
He took a long drag from the bottle of whiskey they had brought him. "We need a new Neverland," he said. Perhaps, once he reclaimed his realm he would enjoy the presence of the Lost Boys again. He would enjoy being King again.
"How will we get one?" one asked. He distantly recalled this one was called Jonah. He had been on the island for a couple of decades.
"The second star to the right returned to Meissa when the realm collapse," he said. "I know who she will return it to."
"Who?" another asked. He looked at this one, a new recruit. He did not recall this one's name.
"Wendy," he told them. They all erupted into shouts, demanding they go after her immediately.
"Shut up, you fools! We can't just take it from her," he said. "She must give it up willingly."
"Then how will we get it?"
"I know that she is going to be looking for her brother, Baelfire, soon. The star will lead her to the last place he truly was and there I will meet her and offer my help in exchange for the star," he said.
"And then we return to Neverland!" they cheered.
"No!" he said. "I will need something else from her, now that that damned boy Henry Mills is on Earth." He paused and thought. He grabbed for a paper and pen and drew a rough map. "That will take me some time to get so meet me here," he said, circling a place on the map. "In about seven months." They all stared at the map, wide-eyed. Then a grin grew across Peter's face. "And then we will return to Neverland."
The Lost Boys erupted into cheers again. But still their joy did not reach him. He did not enjoy their praise and worship. It did not reach him anymore and he hated that they were in his presence. He left them abruptly that night, leaving them to their drinking and violence.
He wandered through the night before he created a small room for himself in the forest, with lush furniture and luxurious sheets. The creation of the space left him feeling weary, but he ignored the feeling. It was only because he had just come back from the dead; his magic was not waning.
He fell into the bed and slept for days.
XXX
"It's been too long," Wendy said one day at dinner. John and Michael looked up from their soup and considered her warily. "He said it would be a few weeks. It's been a month."
"Bae never said specifically how many weeks," John tried to reason.
"You know this is more than a few," Michael said. She appreciated her brother's bluntness in that moment. "If he had gotten the Dark One back, don't you think he would have sent some sign?"
John rubbed at his temples. "What do you suggest?"
"One of us has to go out and look for him," Wendy said.
John gave Wendy a worried look. "And that person would be you?" He did not sound pleased at the prospect.
"No," Michael said.
It was an eerily familiar scene: Wendy wanting to go after Baelfire and John and Michael being decidedly against the idea.
"I have the second star to the right. I'll find him easily," she tried to convince them. She wasn't entirely convinced herself, though.
"I could take the star and go," John offered. She had to stifle a scoff at the idea of proper and poised John going traipsing out into the unknown.
She shook her head. "It is mine and mine to use."
"We almost lost you once trying to bring back Neal. I don't want to lose either of you," Michael said, softening. She sucked in a breath. It was a terrifying prospect, to consider leaving her safe and warm home with her brothers to venture off into the unknown.
But she was still the big sister. She was still supposed to be the grown-up and she was responsible for her family. Her actions had been what originally tore them all apart; she knew she had be the one to bring them all back together.
She swallowed down the fear rising up in her and thought of Neal. Whatever had happened was bad. He would have sent word to them by now if he could have. It didn't matter how scared she was, her brother was out there in danger and she had to get him back.
Two days later, she was packed and ready to go in the early morning. She packed warm clothes, food, a tent and bedroll and all the money they could spare. Her brothers stood in the same place they had a month and a half before as they had wished Baelfire and Belle goodbye.
She hugged them tightly, trying to remember how they smelled and felt, committing it to memory. She pulled back from them and kissed their cheeks. She would miss them.
"I'll send an update as soon as I can," she promised.
"If anything bad happens, I get to say I told you so," Michael said dryly. A laugh bubbled up out of her throat and for a moment her anxiety subsided.
She turned and fished the star out of its velvet bag. It glowed brightly in the grey morning. She released it into the air and it glimmered and winked as it whirled around in the air, before finding its path. She set out, just like a hundred years before, following the second star to the right, leaving her two brothers and home behind to find Bae.
XXX
It was half a day into her journey when the star began to flicker out. She was slow to think about what it might mean, just watching it flicker, confused. Suddenly a thought burst through her mind and she nearly screamed. Baelfire was what her heart desired most, but with the star no longer shining and leading her forward, it must mean that there was no more Baelfire. The star fell slowly back into her hand, cold and dark. She began to weep atop Ash. She barely realized that she had slipped off Ash until she felt the skirt of her dress being soaked through with mud. She knelt on the ground, weeping bitterly. Ash nuzzled her head, his breath barely a comfort.
Ash stood beside her until she ran out of tears. She sat quietly, on the side of the road, in the middle of an unknown realm. She felt desperately alone. She felt like she had on Neverland. She had failed her brother a second time.
She took in a shaky breath. It was time to turn back, return home without her brother, and this time it was permanent. She stood up and as she prepared to mount as she felt a prickle on the inside of her palm. She unfurled her hand and the star shot out quickly, newly alive and glowing brightly. Still confused, but hopeful nonetheless, she grabbed Ash's reigns and urged him forward, galloping after the star.
XXX
The star flickered out every few hours. The first couple of times it happened, Wendy had to take deep breaths to reassure herself that this did not mean Baelfire was dead.
Sometimes, it only flickered out for a few minutes and then sometimes for a few hours. She tried to rest, but the hours were agonizing. She kept her eyes on the star the whole time, waiting and willing it to come back to life. The star will come back, the star will come back, she repeated it over and over to herself. She felt the terror bubbling up inside her and it took all her willpower not to dissolve into tears as the hours stretched on.
Around this time, she began to money run out. She hadn't counted on being on the road so long. She began rationing it. She couldn't afford to stay at inns anymore. For that she was half-grateful. The leering eyes of the men at the inns, their low voices and wandering hands scared her and always had her looking over her shoulder. John had warned her how dangerous it was for a woman to be travelling alone. For a long time, she had lived as her own person. She had forgotten how much her gender had held her back. She tried to remind herself that she had faced more formidable foes (Pan, of course), but he was not like that. He hadn't scared her like that.
But still she missed the warmth of the fire at the inns and soft bed. She slept outside in a tent she had reluctantly packed, which now she was grateful for. Spring was just beginning to come into full force and the ground was still muddy and it rained often. But she had no other options and her bedroll was almost warm. But the flickering of the star made it difficult to sleep. When she was able to sleep, it was not a good sleep. She would wake herself up from a shallow sleep, reaching out to check on the star. The constant anxiety, sitting like a pit in her stomach, made it hard to eat. The food she packed, dried meat and fruit, tasted like dust in her mouth. There was little incentive to eat.
The days dragged on. Rain came and it did not stop. She followed the star as it pranced about erratically, leading her deeper and deeper into the wilderness. The trees were thick and the smell of moss permeated the air. The rain fell in sheets. When she was able to find shelter for herself and Ash, nothing ever fully dried. She was soaked through to the bone most of the time.
At some point, she belatedly realized she didn't know where she was on the map. No matter, she told herself, the star will lead me to Baelfire and everything will be set right. Perhaps a Wendy with a good night's sleep and a full belly would have told her that she wasn't thinking straight.
Her world had been so small for so long and now it was wide and confusing and the forest looked the same every which way she turned. She wondered if she had been walking in circles for days, the star turning her around and around.
Sleet started to come down in heavy sheets. Winter still had its claws in spring. She still urged Ash on. She was chilled to the bone, but as long as the star flickered, she knew couldn't give up on Baelfire.
Soon, she realized that her eyes were drooping and after the third time she almost fell off of Ash, she clambered down and walked beside him. They both trudged through the sleet and the mud together. It was at this point that she started considering the ground, covered in moss. The moss looked soft and green. She thought of the beds she had slept in at the inns, her bed in her house and even her bed in Neverland. She wondered if the moss felt the same way. As she started to slow, Ash whinnied and shoved her with his snout. She shook herself. She had to just keep going. The star that day was brighter than usual.
Hours passed and the trees began to disperse and grow thinner and sparser. She continued on through the forest, half delirious. Her vision swam and she was unsure if the star had started to flicker again or if it was because she could barely keep her eyes open anymore. She was too cold and tired to let herself worry about the flickering star. She just had to keep moving forward.
Soon, she felt as if someone was walking next to her. She figured it must be a hallucination. Her brain was too muddled to be concerned. The figure slipped in and out of her vision. Eventually, she pulled enough concentration together and turned to look at her hallucination. She didn't know what she was expecting.
When she looked up to see the face, she screamed.
