You guys are rocking my socks off, but couldn't help but notice that response is waning a little on this fic. Looking to do only a few more chapters here and I so badly hope you are all still liking it enough to hang around! :)
..:::..
Feel Again
Four
..:::..
When they all get up the next morning, Killian just assumes that Emma's quiet mood is a result of the night before. He doesn't regret it though, he knows that she's going to need a gentle push here and there to open up to him and he needs to be able to show her that he's not giving up. So to make his point, he sidles up to her as they're packing up camp, holding out a small pouch of berries, "Breakfast, love?"
But no matter how much he's told himself that she will come around and that he just needs to be patient, it still hurts when she shrugs, takes the pouch and turns away from him, wrapping up the last of their supplies.
He frowns but nods, accepting that today is just a hard day and moves to stamp out the fire before they begin what could possibly be their final day of trekking.
:::
"Emma, can I have a hand up here?" Snow calls down to her daughter. She is hanging from the branches of an overgrown willow tree, her fingers trying to braid the long flexible limbs with the rope they'd made from vine only days before.
From where they are seated they can see the Lost Boys' camp, their dirty feet trampling across the muddy ground as they chant in an unknown rhythm around an unlit campfire. It's the first time that they've been this close and Emma knows it's no coincidence that it's happened today.
Pan wants them to find him. For his own sick and sad reasons, he's ready to have them in his camp.
"Sure," she yells back, climbing the knotted tree trunk and crawling along to help her mother gather the rope they're going to use to lower themselves into what they've taken to calling the danger zone.
As Emma and Snow work their fingers around the strong vines, Tink makes her way around to the south of the camp to try and gain access that way. She had not originally wanted to help, but her near death experience and Regina's good will had persuaded the fairy to at least try to distract the king of the Lost Boys, allowing the others to smoothly enter the camp, find Henry and get him out.
It wasn't a plan without flaws, but in their desperation, it was all they had.
Killian stands at the base of the tree, feeding rope through his hand and hook to keep it unknotted, watching mother and daughter braid. He doesn't even notice when Neal approaches him until he's greeting him in hushed tones, "Hey Hook."
The two men haven't really had a chance to speak since they've all been reunited and Killian nearly drops the rope at the sound of the other man's voice, "Baelfire."
Neal sighs, but doesn't correct the pirate, there are bigger things at play here, "You and I both know that getting Henry is only half the problem solved here. How the hell are we getting off this island?"
Hook throws a nervous look over his shoulder, ensuring no one else can hear them. There is no reason to panic anybody when they're so close to their biggest goal, "Your star map."
"Don't give me that. We need pixie dust for it to get us out of here, the ship won't fly without it."
Killian nods, "Aye, and we have a fairy on our side."
Neal scoffs, "Hardly."
The pirate takes a look up at the Emma and Snow weaving the vines and thinks that they'll be okay without him for a moment, so he drops the rope he's holding, curls his hook around Neal's arm and walks with him into the forest a little. Where he can speak a bit more freely.
"Tinker Belle lost her wings because everyone lost their faith in her. Your attitude would do well to change very rapidly if your hopes of getting out of here are still intact."
Neal pulls his arm from the pirate's grasp, "Of course I want out of here. I'm just being realistic."
"Well you need to stop. This whole bloody place is run on imagination; reality is not an option."
Hook makes a move to leave and go back to helping with the rescue mission, but Neal reaches out, stopping him, "This is different. This hope in you."
He doesn't ask a question, but Killian hears it anyway, "She has changed many things within me."
Neal nods, blowing out a deep breath as though he's been holding is for a long time. "Okay," he says as he walks past Hook and out to the clearing again, "Okay."
:::
She knew she should have told them sooner. Knew it with every fibre of her being.
But god, the temptation to have Henry back was too much. It had been driving her every action, her every motion.
So when they had the signal from Tink, and Emma began lowering herself into the camp, she knew it was too easy. That Pan had wanted this to start with. It was like a giant game of chess with that boy and he was going to call checkmate soon.
Emma struggles against her binds, glad that she had been the only one to enter the camp outside of Tink. The rest of the group surely wouldn't have been naïve enough to stick around once they realised she had been taken. It gives her a strange sense of comfort to know that they're out there and free, that they still have a chance of saving Henry while she is there to distract Pan.
Her fingers scratch across the wood of the hollowed out tree she's been imprisoned in, trying to find a sharp edge to cut the ropes binding her wrists, but before she can get too far, she hears the sounds of footsteps coming closer and closer to where she is hidden.
"Emma, you must stop that. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to be so disobedient?" He moves in close to the tree, waving a hand over it, erasing a wall and allowing Emma to see more than just a small circle of the forest. "Too soon?" he teases.
But she isn't even paying attention because across the clearing, over by the now lit campfire, is a boy she recognises. A boy in a red plaid shirt. "Henry," she breathes.
Pan whips his head around and then back to Emma, "Uh uh. You can't have him. He's mine."
Her eyes flash to Pan's, his possessiveness only serving to infuriate her. "No Pan," her voice increases as she speaks, "He's mine!"
Something stirs in the air around them, something crackling and fierce. Emma feels it pulse through her, unbidden and strong, a complete product of her emotion at the time. She can almost visibly see the sound waves travel through the air, and far ahead of them, Henry turns around.
She barely sees his eyes widening, his mouth choking out a strangled, "Mom," before Pan waves his hand again and the wooden wall comes back into place around Emma.
She lets out a startled gasp at that burst of magic as she listens to Pan yelling at his Lost Boys about getting Henry far away from here. But suddenly the chase doesn't scare her, because she can see how this is going to end.
Concentrating the remaining tingles of energy running through her, she forces her binds undone and presses her face up to the hole in the tree where she can see out.
It all makes sense to her so suddenly. What Pan wants her, why he needs Henry.
He is a boy obsessed with power and to hold the heart of the truest believer and the heart of the truest love in his hands would be earth shattering for his power.
As the pieces continue to fall into place for her, she looks out over the camp, making sure the Lost Boys haven't taken Henry away yet. She's just beginning to devise a plan for escape when she notices a shadowy figure entering the camp. Hook.
She can barely make out what they're speaking of, something of a deal, it seems. Her life for his. And she wants to cry out to him that this is the worst idea he's ever had, but just as she goes to yell, Pan turns his back for a moment and in that moment Hook's face meets hers and he flashes her a secret smile and a quick wink.
Something to let her know that Pan will not win. He will not take them down.
And she can tell. She doesn't know how, but she can tell that the pirate is not just promising her Henry.
For the first time that day, she allows herself to feel an emotion other than loneliness. She relishes in it when her heart skips a beat.
:::