The land above the beanstalk, held up by fluffy, harmless-looking clouds, reminded Charming of how he'd felt when he'd been plucked from the farm and dropped into a world full of palaces and arranged marriages. It had dwarfed him then and it definitely, literally dwarfed him now. They hiked around the estate to the gardens in the back where the remains of the endless bean fields were now reduced to rows and rows of eroded soil. The boys held hands and formed a chain to avoid falling down into the trenches.
Emma and Henry had to stay in this land. It hit him like a slap in the face, a mixed kind of slap.
"Charming?"
"There aren't any beans on this end," he said to Snow.
"Then Emma and Henry..."
"I wanted them to be here. I don't think I could have gone without them," he said with a sheepish shrug. "But I'd wanted her to choose it. She's...she's not really into things she didn't plan on happening."
"You noticed that, too?" she gave out a silent laugh.
"She won't...is she going to want a throne and a crown and to do all of that? Don't get me wrong, I think she'd be great at it, but..." Had he taken her happiness as abruptly as Regina had taken all of theirs? He knew how it was to be in a world that, for all its benefits, was not a world you chose. To resent the kingdom, to resent them for being royalty—he had to stop his feet from shuffling down into the trenches and searching for beans instead of searching for Bae.
"We'll figure it out," she said. "Come on. Let's go along here." Rumpelstiltskin searched several paces in front of them, alone, but well within their line of sight. Regina took the children and Greg and veered off from the treasure room to some kind of parlor. "Where to?"
"They should have been looking for the beans, although I don't know how they would have climbed up here," he thought out loud. He and Snow had done this several times, bounced one idea off of another, no matter how basic or absurd in hopes they could build off of each other until they'd reached the right answer. "Say they get up here, never mind how..."
"They'd have gone to the field and then...I'd have said they would have tried the treasure room for something that would do the same thing. I don't know if we would know something like that if we saw it, or if we would notice something was missing, but we might as well try."
The treasure room glittered with towers of gold coins, jewels and odd trinkets—a bigger, shinier version of the pawn shop in Storybrooke, he thought with a smirk. It had no organization, no categorizing of what belonged where.
He began sorting through a bureau of some sort, coins flowing out of the drawers when opened like a waterfall. It all belonged to Anton of course, rightfully, and it helped renew his faith in things being able to turn out right that the big guy just wanted to farm and have friends.
"Hello? Hello?" he heard below him, below...
"Snow." She closed the lid to a treasure chest and hurried over to him. "Help me with this." Picking up a scepter, she cleared a tile on the floor and found a second one. He drew it back above his head and slammed it into the floor. Snow followed suit. He sent the scepter down again, then she did. At last through a tiny dust cloud they saw movement down where the floor had been.
"Snow?" he heard the voice again. Sinking down into crawling positions, they lowered their heads to the hole in the floor, their foreheads touching. A woman's face became clear, eyes almond-shaped and a lip-sealed smile.
"Mulan?"
The boy fairy kept staring at him, having Slightly cup his cheeks and turn his head this way and that, analyzing, reading something in the pores and bones. Why, Bae didn't know, but then the fairy held out his tiny hand and placed it on top of his own. When he did that, the world began to blur in front of him, fading away into a blue-black abyss. Every muscle felt thousands of pounds. Fight it, fight it, he willed himself, his eyes struggling to focus. The fairy's little hand had seeped into his forearm, the fingers wiggling around under his skin like chiggers. Screaming, Bae flung his arm out in front of him, sending Peter Pan whirling into Slightly.
"Sir! Sir, are you all right?" Lips tightening and eyes narrowing, Slightly drew his arm back and backhanded him. He collapsed right onto his tailbone, hard enough to make him fear it was broken.
"That'll do," Pan said.
"We're s-sorry we keep failing, sir. It, it won't happen ag-again," Slightly stammered.
"Patience, Slightly. Good things come to those who wait. This one, he's close to the right one. Close. There is some connection. It can almost work."
"If I'm not the one you want, let me go!" Bae bellowed, hustling to his feet to stand face-to-face with Pan and Slightly, his fists clenched to white-knuckle lengths.
"Twin!" Slightly called. They both showed up, they always did. They could never tell the twins apart and as far as Bae knew, they had never even bothered to learn their names. They mirrored each other, arranging their cloaks and the vests and blouses to reflect the other one. "Take him back and put him with the others." To Bae, he jerked the boy by the chin. "You're here because Peter Pan requires you to be. You will defend the island fight for us should anyone come to upset our plans. And if you're insolent again, just remember you don't need all your fingers to be able to fight."
The twins each took an arm and dragged Bae back into the depths of the cave with the other boys, thirty or so boys close to his age, mostly brunette, their faces tear-stained. They threw him down onto a gravelly section of the ground and dusted each other off in front of him. Bae swore to himself he would not spend another moment submitted to the scrutinizing eyes of Peter Pan and his flunkies. On his hands and knees like an animal, he moved an inch per minute, his fingertips on the cold, moist rock. Having been rounded up and dragged through the cave enough times, he knew where the darkness took over the mouth and no one would be able to see him.
Huddling behind a boulder, he watched the Lost Ones out in the field harass each other and take turns jumping into the air.
"Can't do it, Tootles?" they teased.
"No, only Peter can fly," Tootles sighed.
"Sure, you can fly," two of the Lost Ones said at the same time, the hoods of their cloaks moving closer together. Bae had sparred enough with other children in the village, wooden swords knocking against each other, to know when two were ganging up on another. Sure enough, Tootles snapped his eyes shut so tightly his head trembled and jumped into the air again.
"That won't do! What's the matter with you?" they laughed. "All it takes is faith and trust and a little bit of fairy dust!"
He watched them, watched the dark violet night pour more and more over everything until at last the Lost Ones ambled back to their treehouse and slid down into the trunk, knowing the children had cried themselves to sleep. Fairy dust. Lands with magic were nothing but trouble.
Dashing back to where the other boys were, Bae nudged the nearest three awake.
"Hey! Hey, wake up!" They rubbed their eyes and mumbled curses. "I know how to get out of here, but we all have to work together." Scrambling around, they roused each boy from dreams full of hugs, warm dinners, and soft family pets. They lined up, one behind the other, and followed Bae, moving where he moved, stepping where he stepped. Crossing the field back into the forest would be the most harrowing of the escape. They belly-crawled, one at a time, so from a distance their silhouettes could be that of a snake. Bae was everywhere—leading them to where he wanted them to stop and wait for the others, crawling with the more frightened ones through the tall grass, returning to the ones at the tail end and encouraging them.
Once again in the lead now that they'd spent hours worming themselves out of the cave, he tried to move soundlessly through the forest. He'd played hide-and-seek with Papa—with various people, he meant to think—in forests before, training your feet to step in ways so you didn't crunch the leaves or slip on dew. The cave had taught the younger boys to not be alarmed at spiders or roaches creeping around. He had no idea where Pan was. Don't think about Pan. Think about escape, he ordered himself. He held out his arm to motion to stop. The older boys held their position while he weaved through the trees to check on those in the back. A united front, good. Under different circumstances, a song might have livened them up, he thought. Something jaunty and fun that made work go faster. Like a sea shanty...only not. He shook his head. This land had nothing but disappointment in it.
A few yellow balls of light hovered over in the shrubs. Pulling two of the boys close to him, he gestured at them, fireflies from a distance, fairies to those who knew better. The fairies worked within the safety of the shrubs some nights, mixing paints together to ripen the berries the following morning. Around the shrubs, a shiny residue sparkled in the night.
"Fairy dust," he whispered to them. "We get some of that on us, think happy thoughts, and we'll be able to go."
"Think of happy thoughts?" one boy scoffed.
"Any happy little thought," Bae repeated. They were from the Darlings' world. Magic was novel to them. But...Pan was a fairy. Surely these busybodies here served him and wouldsnitch on all of them. He didn't want to think about what the penalty would be for trying to escape. "Mark. Mark. You still have your pocketknife?"
Mark, a year younger than Bae, had been procured by the Lost Ones a short time after they'd brought Bae to Neverland's main island. He'd flipped out the blade so fast Bae was sure it had been magic, but the Lost Ones had just laughed at him.
"Yeah, I got it."
"Cut me."
"Bae!"
"Cut me, I said!"
"Why?"
"A diversion." He pointed to the skin right above his eyebrow. Gulping, Mark nodded and, with expert technique, clipped Bae with the tip of the knife.
Inhaling, Bae ran out towards the shrubs, howling and squirming in every direction, watching the balls of light flock to him to investigate the commotion. The little tinkling sound of bells sounded like a language, but there was no time to try to discern any of it now.
"Help! Oh, help! It hurts! I'm bleeding!" he cried, feeling the wet, hot blood on the pads of his fingers. The fairies hovered around him, close enough to where he could see their addled faces.
The rest of the boys unleashed a battle cry of grunts and shrieks, charging all at once to the shrubs. They pinched handfuls of fairy dust and sprinkled it over their heads, on the tips of their noses. A few rolled around in it. Others were on their hands and knees circling their palms in it, shouting out happy thoughts of "Mother!" "Father!" "Puppies!" "Fishing!"
"Skating!"
"Sledding!"
"Parties!"
"Christmas!"
Each one shot off into the night sky, flying. Really flying. If their racket hadn't waked the Lost Ones yet, it would any second. Wiping the last drop of blood off his forehead, smearing red across his face, Bae dove into the fairy dust, just a little bit left for him. Last, he could hear footfalls in the forest. He heard swearing and groaning. He heard the fairies buzzing into the forest, their bell-like sounds faster and with more inflection than before.
"Happy thoughts," he said to himself, but...no mother, no father. The hope of he and his friends averting combat against the ogres had long fallen by the wayside, overwhelmed by worry and anger at magic, at power, at addiction. Was there nothing to be happy about? Would his own self-pity seal his doom in this wretched place? Family, he thought. Companions. The Darlings. Wendy. John. Michael.
Slowly, slowly, slowly his feet wavered above the ground, his body moving ever upward. As yearns for love grew stronger, he moved faster. Swimming through air, he kicked and found himself above the clouds, soaring and rollicking through a diamond sky. He had no idea how long he'd been gone or where he would land, but anywhere was better than here. Anywhere else could give him the chance at a family.
A/N: I really wanted to come up with an Enchanted Forest plot to show what Neal was doing with Mulan, Aurora, and Philip this whole time, but while the Neverland plot and the Storybrooke plot seemed to be writing themselves, I couldn't come up with an EF plot to save my life. So I wrote this chapter...and remember, it's happening concurrently with the previous one...to sort of showcase Bae a little bit. I actually do like the character and want him to find a happy ending, and it was a lot easier to get to know him as a kid than as an adult.