Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BETRAYAL
Getting back to the ship with Baelfire is no small feat. Emma has to convince the boy to step through the strange mirror, which seems to take forever. He eventually entertains her story that she got to Neverland via a different realm, and his interest in seeing if The Dragonfields of Zorn are real place, rather than lore, is finally enough to get him to follow.
Though there's a moment after stepping through when she is terrified that he won't.
She's not allowed to look back until she's out of the strange labyrinth of mirrors, that's the rule according to Belle's books. It takes all of her willpower, though, not to just check when she can only hear her own boots against the ground. There is nothing but silence as her companion until she steps out into the desert, bathed in moonlight.
"I don't see any dragons," comes Baelfire's voice from beside her.
Emma almost weeps.
"You will. Stay close. I gave my talisman to my traveling companion. We may have to run."
"I'll manage," he says with a weariness beneath the boasting in his voice, "I've been running a long time."
Me too, she thinks, but instead she draws her own sword and they set out together as the sand begins to undulate and ripple like water.
They do end up running most of the way, ducking and weaving and being thrown about, reaching the shoreline as the sky begins to turn from black to a royal blue. There's an empty rowboat at the edge of the shore where the tide is retreating and Emma remembers Neal rowing her and Regina to Skull Island.
"You're strong," Baelfire compliments her strokes.
"Not in the ways I should be," she answers.
"You came all this way to get your daughter. And you risked your life for me, a stranger."
Emma shakes her head, grimly responding, "I've always been better at saving strangers. It's the people I love that I fail."
"It's the people you love that can hurt you the most," Baelfire states sagely, sounding far older than his physical years.
His words turn out to be prophetic as they reach the ship, hauled aboard by Mulan, and the teen sets eyes on Killian. Perhaps it was the darkness or that the Jolly Roger still bears the colors of the Royal Navy on its hull that Baelfire failed to immediately recognize the ship of his stepfather and betrayer. Or maybe, given the long and strange route, he had ceased to consider the possibility.
His sword is instantly drawn and piercing dark eyes set upon the Captain and Emma with a snarl of, "LIAR! You said you weren't working for Pan!"
"I'm not!" Emma defends.
"And I'm not working for that demon child, Bae," says Killian.
"Don't call me that! You're not my father! You're a dirty pirate who beats up cripples and breaks up families for sport!"
"Baelfire-"
"YOU SOLD ME OUT TO THAT 'DEMON CHILD'!" the boy screams. "Do you have any idea what he does? Do you even care? I trusted you!"
He turns to Emma again, his expression cold. "And I trusted you. Do you even have a daughter?"
"Yes," she cries.
"I want to see her," Baelfire demands.
But, of course, he can't. And she can't explain that her daughter is dead, that he's dead, and that she's trying to take their souls back with her.
"Please, Baelfire," she tries, "remember me."
A final, desperate move, she takes the swan keychain returned to her by Mulan and holds it out.
"You gave this to me. You said it represented our life together."
His expression is momentarily curious and he takes the chain, examining it, then with a spiteful look, chucks it overboard.
Emma lets out a scream and throws out her hand, the instinct to do magic that doesn't exist here. When it hits the dark water, Baelfire vanishes without even a wisp of purple smoke. Hysterical, Emma ties to jump into the sea, but Mulan holds her back as Killian orders his spooked crew to weigh anchor and make haste before the eminent sunrise traps them here.
A cloud of poppy dust takes Emma into a dreamless sleep.
AN: You didn't think she would succeed, did you? Mwahahaha! Kitsowitz might play fast and lose with the "pure of heart" shit, but I don't. Emma should have known better.
To Mir who asked me about writing a Harry Potter fic and anyone else wondering after my rant: I left the Harry Potter fandom a long time ago even if sometimes respond to Potterheads on tumblr and Twitter. I don't think I ever posted any HP stories, those that I started ending up aborted on hard drives of computers past. I don't think I could stand to get reinvested in that hot mess of cliche shippiness, teenage pregnancy, and perpetuation of intolerance that Harry Potter became. I know there were some pretty good stories that addressed what went horribly wrong that came out in the years shortly after the final book, before I stopped reading HP fanfiction. And some that were just AU goodness. I think most of them were posted at Portkey and FanfictionAlley. Whenever I recommend HP fics, I always say The Draco Series by Cassandra Claire and The Paradigm of Uncertainty Series/Sirius Series by Lori; I think they are the two most iconic HP fanfictions and you can't consider yourself a true Potterhead fanfiction lover if you haven't read them. PoU ended years ago (not fully formed in the last chapters), and I have been in and out of a number of fandoms since, but it remains the Secretariat at the Belmont of fanfictions, leading the rest by so far they don't even register in comparison to how unnaturally good and published novel-like it is.