Neverland boasted with its silence. Only the faintest breezes, the waters were usually still. The sun shone in a way that the Never Sea seemed more a mirror held up to the sky, polished tin. The main island looked the same from every angle, beautiful and conquerable from far away.
Killian knew up close proved a different story.
The journey through the portal had knocked everyone off their feet, but now they stood out in the middle of the wretched calm. He grabbed the wheel and hoisted himself up.
"Where is it? Where's Neverland?" Regina asked, her voice an inch from panic.
"You're in it, Your Majesty. Welcome to the Never Sea."
"That doesn't sound too optimistic," the man...Dan, David, he wanted to say, because no man should call the other "Charming." It was David, wasn't it, Swan's father?
"It's only despairing if you can't navigate it."
"How long does it take to get to land?" Emma asked, filled with the steady resolve of someone hell-bent on recovering what was hers and making others pay for taking it. He knew the feeling.
"A few days. Faster if we don't drop anchor. Now, if you will all spread out and make yourselves useful." They had all huddled near the helm, save for the Crocodile. Killian's eyes scanned the ship, promising the rest of him to have that man in his line of sight for the duration of the voyage. He stood with his hands on the rail, staring down the water.
Using hundred-year-old charts, traveling by night was faster since he had the stars to check his bearings. For too long the Jolly Roger had been quiet, and so he'd grown unaccustomed to the common shouting and murmuring of having a crew. Crew, he rolled his eyes, feeling calluses grow atop the calluses already on his hand. Not a one of them knew the bow from the stern. Desperate, he'd grant them that. Capable, he'd begrudgingly grant them that, too, but for the first time since the hospital, he felt weighed down by his own body. Legs and eyes heavy, back feeling like it would break, surrounded by the Never Sea, the Sea of Bland...
And Snow White herself, it seemed, suddenly at his side.
"When is the last time you slept?" she asked after a hesitant smile. Asking questions about yourself when you didn't like the answers wasn't really his cup of tea.
"Accompanied or alone?" he asked, flashing her a grin. Hoping that would get rid of her, he raised an eyebrow at an undaunted sweetness.
"I ask, Captain, because." She gritted her teeth at the title, just barely. "You could show me what to do and I could show someone else and we could take shifts. That way you could get some rest. Going onto one of these islands is not something I would want to do groggy."
"One of you at the helm. That makes about as much sense as letting a child operate one of those cars of yours."
"You have a crew. It would work best to take advantage of that, wouldn't you think?"
He'd avoided Snow in the Enchanted Forest, unable to truly pinpoint why. He didn't fear her, as he feared no one, but he found her neither pleasant company nor deserving of any wrath and so he'd tried to keep his distance, certain it had something to do with this persistent sweetness she wielded like a weapon. And mentioning having a grandson, even though he knew it before—a woman her age revealing she had a grandson was all sorts of unappealing.
"I do not have a crew."
Snow sighed, stepped up to the wheel, and adjusted the backpack strapped to her back.
"I can offer you two choices," she said. "In this bag is a drink called Red Bull. For emergencies. It will give you energy, keep you sailing the rest of the day and probably all night, and then just when we'll be so close to searching the island, you'll need someone to take the helm anyway because you'll be off in a corner getting sicker than a dog."
He laughed. "Spilling my guts does unfortunately happen once in a while, m'lady."
"From the other end?" There was a pause. "Your other choice is that you show me now, get some rest, and then be at your best when night falls and we'll need someone with experience the closer we get to docking."
Balancing the wheel with his hook, he faced her, meeting a silk-hiding-steel expression, willing him to feel the toll the last twenty-four hours at the helm had taken on him. With a muffled groan, he switched to his hand and used his hook to point out at the horizon.
"Port," he said to the left. "Starboard. A little notch can go a long way. Fairly intuitive." Of course, he had his own brand of a silk-hiding-steel expression, which he took the liberty of showing her now. "You find me if anything, even the slightest thing, changes."
Nodding, Snow manned the helm, breathing a little deeper than normal to settle nerves, and steered. He paused only a moment before stepping down into his cabin.
Closing the door behind him, he did eye his bed over in the corner, but instead found himself pacing the floorboards with his hand rifling through his hair since it had nothing else to do. Bloody hell, he couldn't do this. He could not be these people's...he was so tired no word seemed to match the blurred image his brain had concocted. Killian was not someone used to being needed, wanted, on occasion, but not needed, not integral, not so damned necessary a boy's life might depend on it. And they hadn't even reached land...oh, that would be a bloody show, all right. Snow and the Queen wore heels and the Crocodile, Most Powerful Being With the Most Emotional Baggage, had been rendered a cripple once again. And as Captain, it would be up to him to determine how to deal with all of that. He couldn't do it. They were all stark-raving mad to even entertain the idea that he could.
He himself had to be mad to have turned the ship around and gone back in the first place. Why? Why, why, why deliberately step into a trap? Milah-he snapped his eyes shut and conjured her image, the years, decades, centuries, requiring more and more effort to do so. Determined, romantic Milah with glass-green eyes spent the beginnings of each night chatting with the ceiling about when the best time to go see her son was, Killian staying still so not to interrupt her fantasy. Always formulating a time within the year and then always changing her mind and deciding to prolong it. He'd deduced he would be damned if he did and damned if he didn't join in the plotting with her. If he did, he would be feeding her lies and introducing her to what could only be a son's rejection. If he didn't, she called him an unsupportive cad during some passionate fit and then, after having stormed out for a half hour, would crawl back in and curl up in his lap. The fantasies were her way of justifying her decision, he knew, and he was her decision, so he refused to interfere.
Did she not deserve avenging anymore? Was time finally wearing down on him so hard he had put everything on hold for this debacle of a rescue?
Stopping mid-step, he slid his hand out of his hair and inhaled. He wished for the, what was it, morphine, they'd given him at the hospital. Cleared his head right away. Sighing, he kicked off his boots and unscrewed his hook, letting his coat slump to the floor in a heap.
Fretting about it all would do precious little now. That would unfortunately be as cleared as his head would get for now.
Killian fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
No dreams, good. He hated dreaming, especially about the past, when one could only watch like a hapless babe as the unspeakable unfolded around him. However, waking up in Neverland was far from ideal. Taking his hook from one of the drawers in the bulkhead, he screwed it back on, shaking his head with a laugh that Snow had indeed been right.
He checked his pocket watch. Four hours? Scrambling up, he threw on his boots and coat and ran to one of the portholes. Still light, but twilight here saw its share of dangers, even out in the Never Sea. With an inhale, Killian stepped outside with an easy, unrelenting swagger.
David at the wheel now, he noticed, everyone but Regina in sight. He meandered down the deck, rehearsing just how he would tell them all to brace themselves once night officially fell, when a most unladylike "damn" nicked his ears.
Swan sat on the steps, eyes zeroed in on the small, rectangular contraptions everyone in her world had, the thing with all the numbers on it. Smirking, he crossed over to her, resting his elbow on the railing.
"And just who did you plan on calling here?" He smirked when she rolled her eyes at him, one part pleased he'd ruffled the swan's feathers and one part pleased he remembered using the device was called "calling."
"I was trying to find a picture."
"They hold pictures?"
"Not here, they don't." She stood up, stuffing it in her pocket. "So what's Neverland like?"
"What's Neverland like?" he scoffed. "What a loaded question, Swan! And here I was beginning to think you didn't like my company."
"We need to know what we can expect." He did want to ask if she had her gun on her, but felt inquiring about it now wouldn't give him a straight answer. "I wish I'd had my wallet on me," she sighed to herself.
"You can't pay off the dangers here, lass."
"No, I'd...I'd wanted a picture of Henry," she said. Ah. That made sense.
"Ask the Queen. I'm sure she might have one you could borrow."
"She's stuck on a ship with everyone she hates and hasn't killed anyone yet," Emma scolded. "I think I'll give her her space."
"Point taken. Where is she, anyway?"
"Making dinner." He laughed. "No, really. She's sadly pretty good. Are you going to tell us what to expect or not?"
"Swan, trust me! Once the sun sets, you'll see all manner of trouble. But we have a few minutes." He leered at her, hoping for a change of subject. "What do all your stories say you can expect?"
"Well, it's an island with Lost Boys, Indians, fairies, guys with hooks...am I close?"
"More or less," he said. "As long as we're in the water, it'll be the mermaids that'll cause the most trouble. Land, however. Land is something else. It's everything you said, vicious beasts of every shape and size, the Lost Ones, the indigenous peoples, only about a quarter or so of whose tribes like me...but that's not the worst of it."
"Then why don't you tell me the worst of it?" she challenged, folding her arms. That face. She could end whole wars with that face, so severe, so chilling.
A pall fell over the ship. Sunset. His eyes darted out towards the water, looking. Now hadn't been the time he'd wanted to address much of anything. Perhaps the rushed version could cover a little.
"The worst part of Neverland," he breathed, "is Neverland. It's one of those places that learned too well how much better it is to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. It pulls out all the stops if it wants you to stay, quite the seductress, really. The flowers open up and give off their scents right when you pass by. There's snow, just the right texture, piles and piles of it in some places, but the air never grows colder and it's not cold to the touch. It can be beautiful. And it can make you forget so well you aren't even aware you're forgetting anything."
He backed up, a twinge startled that she hadn't already done so, her stoic face giving way to something akin to fear.
"Why didn't you say any of this before?"
"Because there are other things to worry with now. And rest assured." He threw out a smile. "A mother's love trumps anything this place can do. I highly doubt you'll forget your boy any time soon. Happy thoughts can go a long way here." He'd wandered back closer to her.
"But he can forget me..." she whispered, so softly Killian felt it would be an invasion of privacy to respond to it.
"Pardon me." Rumpelstiltskin on his ship. If he concentrated on that too long, he seethed. How smug, standing there with that bloody cane always in hand. "You wouldn't happen to have any enchantments already on this vessel, would you, besides the invisibility?"
"Fastest ship the likes of you will ever come across," he growled.
"Yes, that's dandy, but I was hoping for something more along the lines of a shield."
"Shield?" Emma asked, weaving between them to the rail. "What's out there?"
They looked out on the water, a full moon overhead. It reflected in broken pieces along the rising waves, like a path of stardust. Spray shot up, breaking the surface, followed by a long black fin. Others surfaced after it.
"What are they?" Emma asked, horror washing away a burgeoning smile. Perhaps she'd taken to heart the island's abilities. What was often the most beautiful was often the most deadly.
"Dolphins," Rumpelstiltskin answered her. "Feeding. Tell her, Captain, just what happens to feed on them."
Killian paused, not liking the idea of being the Crocodile's prop for his little speeches.
"Why, mermaids, sir," he said with mock congeniality. Craning his head until he could see the wheel, he called up to David. "Keep her steady! Stay clear of the starboard side!"
The Jolly Roger made a sharp turn, sending the sound of rushing water into the night.
Another noise answered it, a high-pitched squealing wail that ran on forever, followed by a series of clicks.
"The hell..." he heard Emma trail off. Silence again. Not even the Jolly Roger itself dared to break it.
"Hook..." David called from the helm. Killian held up an arm, waiting.
Another wail answered the last one, this one a broken hooting wail that sounded even closer to the ship. Regina tiptoed up the steps to the deck, opening her mouth to ask what the noises were until she stared out at the dolphin pod, their movements more scattered, more frantic.
The ship rumbled in spite of the still waters.
"I'm coming up!" Killian shouted to David before glancing back at Rumpelstiltskin. "If you're so keen on a shield, now may be the time to act." Water crashed onto the steps. "Get away from the rails!"
If he knew how many, that would help.
"I don't suppose you have a..." David began, stepping back from the wheel.
"An armory? Back table in the cabin. Do help yourselves."
They propelled themselves onto the deck, flopping blue creatures twice as long as a human. The moon shone down on a small crest centered on their skulls. The glint of their enormous fish eyes chilled his bones. Three of them, six webbed hands stomped along the slippery deck. For a split second, no one moved.