Chapter Thirteen—"Names Have Power"

They greeted dawn with another argument. Emma's head had been pounding so hard that she could barely sleep, but she'd tried not to wake the other two while she lay there standing at the trees. They'd stopped near the tree they somehow kept wandering by, just to keep the stupid thing in their sights, so Emma stared at that as light started to trickle into the forest, wondering what the heck kind of magic could keep them trapped like this. For the first time, she really regretted not accepting Regina's offer of lessons. Every other time Emma had needed to use magic, there had been a more experienced magical user along, someone who she could help. Regina was always able to handle the fine points, the parts of a spell that required skill and finesse, while Emma provided raw power.

But now there was no one else to depend upon. If someone was going to beat this magical mess they were in, it was up to Emma—Emma who couldn't keep her temper under control, and when she could, found herself snogging Hook. And then she'd think about Neal and feel guilty, which made no sense at all. What the hell was her problem? She was even angry at herself for that, and Emma hated being out of control like this. Knowing that magic had done this to her made things no better. She still wanted to kiss and/or kill Hook and kill Robin despite the fact that the poor man hadn't ever done a thing to her. She barely knew Robin Hood, and yet the urge to claw his eyeballs out with her fingers was almost overwhelming.

"Did you have to start tromping around so loudly before the sun is even up?" Robin demanded now, lumbering to his feet and kicking Hook awake.

"Ow!" the pirate yelped. "What was that for?"

Emma knew what the answer was before Robin replied: "Because you've gotten us lost."

"I've gotten us lost?" Hook snarled, rising to glare at the outlaw, even as he brushed leaves off of his leather coat. "Your pathetic tracking skills are what is responsible for our current predicament. If you had listened to me in the first place, we would have avoided this section of woods entirely!"

"And taken months to get there. I'd rather walk in circles," Robin shot back.

Frustrated, Emma interjected before they could come to blows. Again. "In case you've both forgotten, we're currently doing just that. So shut the hell up and stop fighting. I'm not breaking you up again."

"Says the woman who kisses with teeth. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a cannibal." Robin's smile was wide and nasty. "Not that Hook wouldn't look better with half a face."

Emma ruthlessly repressed the urge to tear Robin's grin off. "Enough!"

But it wasn't. The boys kept arguing, leaving Emma to start desperately reaching for magic to quell whatever it was that kept them fighting with one another instead of their common enemy.

"I'm not one of the Witch's slaves," the girl snapped, glaring defiantly at Bae and Prince Philip.

Her long dark hair was tangled around her face, with the ends of a thick braid dragging on the ground, and her hands were bright red, burned, a little puckered with blisters. Yet her pretty features were animated by fury rather than pain, and she glowered at Balefire as if daring him to contradict her. I wish David was here. He's so much better at calming down frightened people. Or crazy people. Frankly, he wasn't certain which category the girl fell in.

"I didn't say you were," Bae said cautiously, but the look on her face only grew more poisonous.

"You didn't have to!"

Apparently saying hello was code for calling someone evil these days, but he bit back the urge to point that out, instead turning away from the girl with long, tangled hair. Bae beckoned two of his officers forward. "Go find the other prisoners. Bring them here."

The courtyard was probably the best place to gather the people that the Witch had locked up, and it would keep the majority of Bae's people away from any additional booby traps in King Stefan's castle. His father was prowling around the edges of the courtyard somewhere over to the right, hopefully finding and dismantling whatever nasty magical surprises the Witch had left behind, but that didn't cover everything. Not every trap had to be laid with magic, and Bae wasn't going to take any chances of his soldiers falling into a pit or something equally unpleasant. Either way, Bae figured that he was going to be stuck with this girl in the meanwhile. She seems like a lot of work. Sighing, he tried to smile at the girl, who had started glaring at Philip while Bae was giving orders.

"So, you have a name?" he asked her, trying not to sound impatient. Or confrontational.

"Do you?" she shot back.

Bae bit off a frustrated response. "Baelfire," he answered. "I'm one of the commanders in the army opposing the Witch."

"The hell you are," she snarled, long hair obscuring her face as she shook her head wildly. An angry swipe of her hands shoved it aside, and she winced as the burns on her hands made contact with her hair. "No one beats the Witch."

"Well, we're working on it," Bae replied with a smile and shrug, trying to be friendly. "No promises yet, but I think we did pretty good today. And this isn't our first victory, either."

"Rapunzel."

"Excuse me?"

She scowled. "That's my name. And you're either wrong or lying. That's how she got most of us, by having someone show up to 'help' and then trapping us. Ask anyone here."

Well, maybe that explained her hostility. Bae frowned thoughtfully.

"Then why would we come here?" he countered as reasonably as he could manage. "If she's already got you, why bother with another trap?"

"Because she's the Wicked Witch, and she likes her games!" But Rapunzel sounded a little more doubtful, and Bae figured that he was starting to win her over. A little.

"Well, this isn't one of them. Hell, I've never even met the Witch, and I'm sure as hell not working for her," he replied.

"You might not be, but he is," Rapunzel snapped, pointing furiously.

Pointing at Bae's father.

"What?"

The ricochet was deadly.

Desperate to stop the wild argument taking place between herself, Hook, and Robin, Emma reached for her magic. All she wanted to do was stop whatever it was that had a hold of all of them. There was obviously some evil magic at work that was making them violent, argumentative, and emotional. They'd been walking in circles for days—or was it weeks, now? Emma's sense of time had become distorted while they wandered—but someone neededto break that logjam. That meant Emma had to do something, so she reached for the magic that she often wished she didn't have, grasping it in her mental hands and pushing outwards. Immediately, her magic became a physical force, a shimmering white wind that ripped outwards from her, speeding at Robin fast and hard enough that it would inevitably tear him in half.

Nearly, anyway.

The outlaw's impressive reflexes saved him. Robin hit the ground a split second before the wave of magic flashed through the air, ruffling the forest-colored clothing he wore with the speed of its passage. Hook yelped and threw himself aside, too, and even Emma had to duck when her own magic bounced off some invisible barrier a hundred or so feet away, ricocheting towards the trio and making them all bury their faces in the dirt. After a moment, Emma started to bring her head up, sure that the danger had passed, only to swear as the power came back at her once more, a little bit weaker but still deadly.

"What the hell are you doing?" Robin demanded.

"I don't know!" Emma gasped. "I just tried to use magic to—"

"Emma, you have to stop this!" Hook cut in as the power bounced back once more, making them duck yet again.

"I can't!" Magic was emotion, Regina had told her once, and Emma should have thought of that before she acted in desperation. But she hadn't, and she couldn't, and everything was happening too fast—

Several agonizing minutes passed while the magic bounced back and forth, seemingly trying to kill them each time. Finally, the waves of power died down and Emma was able to stand up, looking around cautiously. "I think it's stopped," she told the others.

"About bloody time," Robin breathed, glancing nervously at the trees. "That was utterly…terrifying. I wasn't aware of the fact that you have magic."

Emma groaned. "Obviously it's not one of my better talents."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, love," Hook said, stepping up next to her with a smile. "You had to try something, and it was worth a shot."

"That's nice of you to say, but I was still an idiot." She grimaced, glaring at the tree Hook had carved the 'X' into. "And we're still stuck here."

Robin peered into the trees again, squinting at something only he could see. "Actually, I'm not so certain about that."

"What?" Emma and Hook both turned to stare.

"There wasn't a breeze before. I noticed it, but I was too angry to mention," Robin replied with an embarrassed shrug. "We were stuck in a bubble of the forest. Nothing left, nothing entered. We were trapped by magic as much as we were trapped by our own emotions."

"And you're saying that that's gone? The bubble?" Hook asked. But Emma got in before Robin could answer:

"I'm not angry anymore."

"What did you—oh. I'll be damned." Robin's grin was lopsided, but his eyes were brighter than Emma remembered seeing them. "You're right. You did it, Emma. Your magic freed us."

Before she could reply, Hook's right hand wrapped around her waist, and Emma found herself swept up into a passionate kiss. Her emotions running high, she returned it with gusto, wrapping her fingers into the front of his leather coat and holding on tight. The last few days had been an emotional roller coaster, full of terrifying ups and downs and unexpected jaunts to the left. After all that, Emma just wanted something normal, something familiar, and if clinging to Hook made everything better for a few moments, she figured that the universe might just owe her a moment or two.

The kiss took her breath away, and Emma smiled as she pulled back, looking into Hook's eyes. Her heart did an odd stutter, and she pushed aside her doubts. Hook—Killian—was a good man, and he'd stood by her through thick and thin. He'd even crossed worlds to bring Emma and Henry back to the Enchanted Forest, and she was attracted to him.

"I told you not to be too hard on yourself, Emma," Hook smiled.

"Sorry about the last few days," she murmured in response.

"Oh, there's no need for that," he grinned cheekily. "I wasn't objecting to your advances, love. I just wanted to make sure you were yourself when you were making them."

"Right." Suddenly embarrassed—Robin was clearing his throat with increasing volume and her face felt like it was on fire—Emma pulled back. "Let's go rescue Regina, huh?"

Both of his moms had been gone for three weeks, and Henry was starting to get very worried. Spending time with his Grandma Snow was good and all, but he really wanted to be along on the rescue mission that had gone after Regina, not sitting in the Dark Castle and waiting for Emma to get back. But Emma had absolutely refused to let him come along, even though she'd let Hook go, and Henry was certain that he would be far more useful than the pirate would, particularly on a quest that probably depended on knowledge of the Enchanted Forest. Henry liked Hook, but he knew that he'd have been a lot more help to his mom than anyone wanted to admit to.

Unfortunately, the only one in the entire castle who seemed to think that Henry's opinion mattered was Belle. Grandma Snow was always so busy, sorting out one problem or another, but Belle tended to stick to the library when she wasn't solving problems, digging through books and researching…something. But at least hanging out with her made him feel useful. Belle accepted that Henry knew things about the Enchanted Forest, and happily took him on as a research assistant. She hadn't told him exactly what she was looking for yet, but Henry knew she would in time. So far, Belle had only told Henry that she was looking into the ancient history of magic, and had sent him looking for a pair of books up on the second floor when the Blue Fairy showed up.

"Hello, Henry," Blue said quietly. Still, the sudden sound of a new voice made Henry jump. He hadn't expected to see her, and almost fell off of the ladder he'd been perched on. The chief fairy chuckled softly. "Watch out, there."

She had a wand in her hand, Henry noticed, and was probably poised to catch him if he had taken a tumble. He smiled. "Hi."

Excited to see a new visitor, Henry scurried down the ladder, jumping to clear the last few rungs. Although most people had seemed happy to see him, everyone but Belle still treated him like he was a little kid. He was thirteen now, not eleven, and Henry knew that made him almost a man under the old rules in the Enchanted Forest.

"I wanted to welcome you to the Enchanted Forest," the Blue Fairy said with another gentle smile, sitting down on a nearby couch and gesturing for Henry to join her.

"Thanks." It probably wasn't polite to question a fairy, but Henry couldn't stop himself from continuing: "So, what are you doing here? Grandma Snow says you've been really busy. Sorry if it's rude to ask."

Blue laughed again. "I don't mind. I have been very busy, and that's actually why I came to talk to you."

"To me?"

"Of course."

Henry peered at her curiously. Was he detecting an odd edge in the Blue Fairy's voice? "Why me?"

"Because you're important, Henry. Very important. I know that Pan told you that, and because of how he tried to manipulate you, you are rightfully concerned. But Pan was right about some things, Henry."

The mere mention of Pan brought back horrible memories, made Henry think of time spent floating in red smoke, screams echoing all around himself in an empty cage of nothingness. Worse than his time in Pandora's Box, however, was the memory of believing, of being tricked into thinking he could save magic when all Pan had wanted to do was save himself. Henry had been willing to die to be a hero, and Pan had used that. Pan had used him, had manipulated Henry into tearing his own heart out. And then Pan had tried to kill his family and friends.

Henry swallowed hard. Of course, the Blue Fairy wasn't Pan—she was good and always on the right side. Even though he knew she wasn't perfect (Henry had read too many stories to think that even the Blue Fairy was beyond reproach), Henry wanted to trust her. She'd helped his grandparents so many times that he had to believe in her.

"What was Pan right about?" he asked cautiously, and was rewarded by a gentle smile.

"Your heart is special, Henry. You are the Truest Believer. Pan wanted your heart in order to prolong his own life, but it really is so much more," the Blue Fairy replied. "You really are so much more."

"Like what?"

Trying not to feel excited, Henry sucked in a deep breath. He'd once said that he'd been waiting his entire life to be a hero, and he had—but he had also learned the hard way that wanting to be a hero only caused trouble. In Neverland, he'd rushed straight into Pan's hands. Henry came from a family of heroes and sorcerers, but he wasn't a foolish boy any more. He wouldn't let himself fall into that trap, no matter how exciting it sounded. Having the Heart of the Truest Believer had only gotten him into a world of trouble in the past, and Henry wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

"Your heart has extraordinary power. The Heart of the Truest Believer holds inside one of the most powerful magics to ever exist, and there are many who will try to take it from you."

Henry felt his eyes go wide. "Other than Pan?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And that's why you're here. To warn me." Henry swallowed again, feeling cold inside. When Pan had told him that he could be a hero, Henry had wanted so badly to believe him—but he'd learned that the world didn't work like that. He was probably too old to be afraid, but a part of him was downright terrified.

"Indeed I am. You've always been a bright boy."

Henry tried to smile at the compliment, but the expression felt empty. "So, what do I do?"

"Pan sought to use you to grant himself eternal life, but there are others who would do far worse. There is one in particular who would use your heart for great evil, to grant herself dominion over all the realms, beginning here in the Enchanted Forest." The Blue Fairy looked away for a moment, swallowing. "And she will stop at nothing. Even if that means trapping you and keeping you away from your family. Or even killing you."

"Will she use me against them? And who is she?"

"The Black Fairy."

Henry's eyes went wide. "You gave her wand to Mr. Gold—I mean Rumplestiltskin—to stop Pan. I thought she was dead."

"Alas, no. And she will try to use you against your family and friends, Henry," the Blue Fairy replied sadly. "If we can't keep you away from her."

"What do I have to do?" he asked again, his voice growing stronger.

Henry wasn't going to be used against his family. Not again. Pan had lured his family to Neverland and had played his infernal games with them. They'd been in constant danger because they'd come to save Henry, and he wasn't going to let that happen again. Not if he could do anything to stop it. This time Henry would save them. He wouldn't make them save him. Henry felt himself sitting up straighter as resolve banished his fears.

"We have to take you someplace safe, and we must do so now."

Bae turned back to stare at Rapunzel, gaping. "What are you talking about?"

"There's no magic left in the world," the girl replied in a snarl. "Except that of the Witch. Every magic user works for her."

"Oh. Um. I think you've got that wrong." Unable to help himself, Bae snickered, trying to imagine his father subservient to anyone—let alone a green-skinned witch. It boggled the mind, but Rapunzel only looked offended by his laughter.

"No, I don't," she snapped. "It's not my fault that you have no idea what's been happening here. The world changed while you were all gone. All magic comes from the Witch now. Everyone knows that, and you've let one of her creatures in!"

"Okay. I think we need to straighten some stuff out." It really wasn't funny anymore, so Bae turned and raised his voice. "Pop, you want to come join us over here?"

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Merlin," a voice whispered in his mind, soft and worried.

He turned, but it wasn't Rumplestiltskin who turned. It was a man within his memory, an action that took place hundreds if not thousands of years previously. He held a staff in his hand—or the man in his memory did—and leaned on it heavily as he peered at the slender woman who stood beside him. He was wearing a sword, too—one that was familiar to Rumplestiltskin, and not just the memory. Excalibur?

"You cannot do this alone," she said when he did not answer. Angular features made her thin face look even more wan in the fading light; no one would call Morgan beautiful, but then again, no one could call her fully human, either. They were, the both of them, partbreds and outcasts, though the foolish humans who sneered and called her "Fae" still revered him. And yet her beginnings had been far more honorable than his. How could anyone decry the love a fairy felt for a human man whilst half worshiping the offspring of a woman raped by a demon?

He scowled, the expression at home on his face. "I can. I shall."

"Merlin—"

"Not this time, Morgan," he cut her off, feeling old. "I am the last of my kind. Perhaps this is for the best."

"It isn't," his half-fae friend insisted. "Circe's actions brought death down upon herself. But what happened to Saint Germain, and Baba Yaga was horrible. Will you let them take you down as well? Will you too die to sake their lust for more and more magic, to have your powers broken up? You can do so much more than any mere human."

She all but spat the word, but then, the human witches and sorcerers that rose out of Saint Germain and Baba Yaga's deaths had long since labeled Morgan Le Fae as evil. He knew it was not so simple; Morgan had never fit in any tiny category they wanted to put her in. He had always known. So he relented and told her that which he had known would anger her:

"I won't be alone," he said softly. "Danns' a'Bhàis will stand with me."

Morgan's face darkened. "Her again."

He grimaced. No, this wasn't going to go well. Morgan had never trusted the Black Fae, no matter how close their relation. Truth be told, Merlin had never asked Morgan about the depth of her suspicions—some things were best left unasked. He'd been torn between Morgan and Danns for centuries. Today was nothing new.

"She is my friend," he replied mildly.

"More fool you. She'll betray you."

Morgan Saw the future sometimes, he knew. She wasn't a true Seer—after Saint Germain's death, the actual Seers amongst humanity had gone to ground, fearing to share his fate. More than two hundred years later, the Seers remained hidden, no matter how earnest Merlin's attempts to make their world safe had been. Morgan had been by his side for most of those battles; she was not as old as Merlin, yet she was almost as immortal as her relatives amongst the fae. He trusted her above all, and loved her dearly. But here he knew she was wrong.

"Pop, you want to come join us over here?"

Rumplestiltskin's eyes flew open. There'd been fae magic on the castle, and that had—that had what? He had no idea where that memory had come from, yet it felt so very real. Had he been standing upon that plain? Of course not. That idea was utterly ridiculous, and Bae was calling for him again. With an effort, he turned his attention to his son, twisted his mind back to the present. Names and faces still echoed in his mind.

Danns. A pale-faced woman with dark red hair, her features ones that both he and the memories knew. She had betrayed her friend. Old friend, she called him, calling to the memories lurking in his mind. She was beautiful and terrifying, and so very powerful. He—Merlin—had trusted her. He had never come back from that battle, though history would call it a victory. Tales said that Merlin had died a hero, vanishing in the mists until he would one day be needed again, but the tales were wrong. His friend had betrayed him, tortured him—

Rumplestiltskin had wanted a name. Now he had one. Danns' a'Bhàis. Dance of Death.

A/N: Thank you again to all my lovely readers! You're all the reason I'm enjoying writing this story so much! My questions this time around are: 1) Do you think Henry will go with Blue and 2) What do you think will happen once Emma, Hook, and Robin reach the Forbidden Fortress to rescue Regina?

Please do review, and stay tuned for Chapter 14: "The Heart of the Truest Believer", where Rumplestiltskin and Baelfire run afoul of some royalty, Emma and co. find Regina, Belle makes an important discovery, and the Blue Fairy is Up To Something.