Emma didn't care how or what it would cost her, she was worried about only one thing.
"There has to be a way. We can't let them just take Henry!" She screamed trying to get free from David's arms.
"They've taken Henry?" Came Gold's voice, suddenly coming from behind them and Emma saw a flicker of hope.
"Yeah. You're the Dark One. Do something." David says, finally letting Emma go.
"Gold. Help us." Emma begged, not caring if she looked desperate, her son had just been kidnapped by a lunatic man and a crazy woman.
"There is a way. If we still have one last bean we can cross worlds and go after them." He answers.
"But how are we going to find out where they went?" Regina asks, venom poisoning her words, her temper always got a hold of her in these situations. Her worry converted to anger, an emotion she knew how to deal with.
"Leave that to me. I can get us where we need to go." Gold answers, not even a bit offended by her tone.
"Then let's do it." Mary Margaret sighed, nodding. It didn't escape Emma how all of them didn't hesitate in offering their help. They would be getting Henry back.
All of them followed Gold back to his shop so he could get whatever he would use to find out where her son was, and on the way, Emma couldn't let herself go of one suspicion.
"Why are you helping us?" She asks, in a low voice so the rest of the group wouldn't be able to hear her. Gold looked at Belle briefly, where she walked beside Mary Margaret, before turning to her again.
"Henry is Bae's son. I am doing this for him." At Neal's name, Emma's breath left her body, only now crossing her mind that the Dark One had done all that, planned a 28-year plan, to meet his son again, only to lose him right after reuniting with him. He didn't even get to say goodbye.
At the pawnshop, Gold took out a blank globe from his shelf and put it in front of them. He pricked his finger on the top of it and let a single drop of blood drip on the globe, making it glow and start to show a landscape.
"So? Where did they take Henry?" Regina asks, impatiently. Emma looked at the shop owner and was shocked to see that he was pale, an expression she had never seen on his face crossing his features. Fear.
"Neverland." Emma could guess that the place was not as happy as she remembered from the Disney movie, but for the first time, she didn't want to ask for more information from Gold, at least not now, when he could bail on them. That look of fear she had seen on his face meant he was having second thoughts about his offer to help and she didn't want to risk it. No, the information could wait until they got there.
And apparently, they would do so in a boat.
"It is an island, Miss Swan," Gold says, still seeming tense, and a quick look at Regina showed she also noticed the strange behavior. "We will arrive at the sea and then make the best plan of attack."
Maybe stealing a ship from the port wasn't exactly an act of a sheriff (or a hero or the Savior) but it was hard to find a medium-sized ship they didn't need to worry about the fuel, and they didn't have the time to find out who the owner was and ask for permission, every minute here meant her son was stuck in fucking Neverland with Greg and Tamara.
"Here." David says giving her the bean and Emma managed to take it from him without meeting his eyes. She threw the thing into the ocean and was still shocked to see the portal opening before her. Maybe magic was never going to be familiar to her.
"Think happy thoughts" Emma mumbled before the boat was sucked into the portal.
The travel was much bumpier than Emma thought it would be but they managed to get there without losing anyone. There being Neverland. Fucking Neverland. Her life was a joke.
"Believe me, this is a new one even for me." Regina says, suddenly at her side.
"What? Neverland is not on the list of Best Places to visit for vacation on the Enchanted Forest?" Emma says, her voice dripping with sarcasm but none of the humor in it. The sky was dark and the air was humid, not only from the sea, and she could feel some strange energy in there. Like when she was at the mines and she felt the air being sucked from her lungs.
Regina had said that, at the mines, it was the magic being drained, here she felt like it was griping on her, sticking on her skin and making it difficult to breathe but instead of the lack of it, it was from the abundance of it.
"You are feeling it too." Regina affirms more than asks. "Never felt anything like this before." She commented and Emma didn't know what to say. Or rather, there was nothing she could say. She didn't want to talk about magic, she didn't want to discuss this feeling in her gut telling her this place was dangerous, she just wanted to find her son, take him back home and drink some cocoa with cinnamon by his side.
"Why did you do it?" The woman's voice interrupted her thoughts, her voice low as if she didn't really want to be heard. Knowing Regina she wouldn't elaborate, but she didn't need to, Emma knew what she was talking about. Go back to help her, using her magic, which she had never used before (at least not on purpose), was a plan that could have easily backfired, and it would be easy to say that Mary Margaret's and David's speeches were what made her change her mind from running away using the bean, but the truth was simpler and more complicated than that.
"Henry had just lost his father, I couldn't let him lose a mother." She answers and left before the other could say anything else. She just wanted some peace, some time to get ready for the fight she was sure was coming, but destiny was not kind to her.
"Hey." Mary Margaret says approaching her new corner on the boat, David not much behind. Their eyes were downcast but Emma could already sense the pity on them. "What happened to Neal and Henry, it's not your fault." She says and Emma could feel her anger rising, not the hot thing she used to have as a child but the cold one she learned during her life. "You can't blame yourself."
"I don't." Emma says, her voice pure ice. "I blame you." It was easy for her to bury that part that felt bad at the look of pain they wore at her words. "All of this happened because I listened to you. You say good always wins? Well, it doesn't." She felt the truth in her words as she says them. She might have been born in a Fairy-tale Land but she was raised in the real world, and she told them so. "I didn't grow up in some fairy-tale land. My experience is different, that's all I can go on."
"And all we have to go on is ours." Mary Margaret rebuffed. "So if you would just let us share our wisdom…" And Emma really couldn't stand this tone of voice of hers, this tone Mary Margaret didn't have before, this tone Emma had wanted so desperately to hear when she was younger, but it was too late for it now.
"I appreciate you trying to be parents. But we're the same age. We have equal amounts of wisdom." They might know about ogres and sword-fighting, but Emma knew about abandonment, betrayal, and despair. "And all I want is Henry back." David wasn't looking at her and Mary Margaret looked as if she had ripped her heart right out of her chest. "I should never have broken the curse. I should have just taken Henry, and…"
"You're right." Mary Margaret says, surprising Emma. "Then you would be together." She says, and now Emma was the one that had to keep her eyes on the sea. "We missed you growing up, Emma. And it haunts us every day."
"And that's why we're here now." David says, his presence always seemed to grow when talking about Emma, Mary Margaret, and giving speeches, and Emma didn't want to think about the meaning of that. "We don't want you to have to go through the same thing, too. And you won't. We are gonna get our family back" Emma wanted to explode, how could they be so in tune with each other all the time, how could they keep their heads raised after what she said?
"How can you two be so infuriatingly optimistic?" She says, her anger hot again, but not even that seemed to get them to back down.
"It's who we are." David says putting his arm around Mary Margaret like it was natural.
"Why?" Emma asks, anger and frustration fused into one. "Ever since you got your memories back, ever since you remembered that you're Snow White and Prince Charming, your lives have…Well, they've sucked!"
"No. No, we found you." David answers, seeming to not understand from where she could have taken the idea that their lives were anything but perfect.
"And lost Henry. And Neal. And countless other people." She raged back.
"Emma, the minute I let go of the belief that things will get better is the minute I know they won't." Mary Margaret says, her voice leaving no room for any kind of argument, but Emma was nothing but stubborn. "We'll find Henry."
"No, you won't," Gold says, suddenly appearing out of the underdeck he had been hidden for the last minutes of their sailing. "I'm going to get Henry." He finishes and Emma frowns while she got closer to him.
"We agreed to do this together." Regina says, confusion in her voice.
"Actually, we made no such agreement." Gold answers, not bothered.
"Why are you doing this?" Emma asks, frowning even harder.
"Because I want to succeed." He answers, cruelly.
"What makes you think I'm going to fail?" Emma asks, indignantly. Unintentionally, she had started to think everyone viewed her as the Savior, in fact, she got so used to Henry saying he believed in her that she was shocked to remember that some people didn't. And wasn't that a scary thought?
"Well, how could you not? You don't believe in your parents. Or in magic. Or even yourself."
"I slayed a dragon. I think I believe." Emma says desperately trying to prove him wrong.
"Only what was shown to you. When have you ever taken a real leap of faith?" Emma remembered when. Neal. But that didn't make her less suited to save her son. "You know, the kind where there's absolutely no proof." He says and there was nothing for Emma to say. "I've known you for some time Miss Swan, and sadly, despite everything you've been through, you're still just that bail bonds person. Looking for evidence." He elaborated, his smug face almost a target in Emma's mind. "Well, dearie, that's not going work in Neverland."
"I'll do whatever it takes." She says seriously, she couldn't deny his words but this she could guarantee.
"Or you just need someone to tell you what that is." It was like a slap to Emma's face because he was right, she couldn't jump in the dark and hope for the better. It wasn't what she learned her whole life and she doubted it would happen any time soon. "Sorry, dearie. Our foe is too fearsome for hand-holding."
"And who that would be?" Emma asks just to see his smug face drop. It isn't as intense as what happened in the shop but Emma could sense the fear in his eyes. She recognizes an emotional wall when she sees one, and Gold was clearly trying to keep himself composed. "You know who we are facing." She continues, not asking. "Who ordered Greg and Tamara to take my son, Gold?" The silence seemed to stretch for hours but it is actually only a few seconds.
"Pan." He says and Emma had to scoff, what had she expected, really? But still, Gold says that name with something in his eyes, but not the same fear she saw before.
"What? Captain Hook's too good to kidnap children?" Emma says with sarcasm, just to break the tension that the unknown of the previous name had caused.
"Nothing is above that pirate." And there it was, the fear. His voice was pure venom and disgust, more than she had heard even Regina's do, but his eyes told of fear, pure terror.
"Captain Hook is not real." David says with a scoff, making her turn to him in shock.
"That's usually my line." She says, frowning.
"Captain Hook is a legend." Mary Margaret says, frowning too, her mind trying to wrap around the implication of what Gold had just says.
"More like a children's story." Regina complemented, getting near them. "He's just something parents tell their children to get them to behave, 'don't get close to the docks at night or Captain Hook will get you.', that kind of thing."
"Every kid in the Enchanted Forest heard a story about him, no matter where they lived. It's something passed through generations" David finishes, and now Emma had to get through the fact that even the Fairy-tale Land had fairy tales.
"I can guarantee you, dearie, Captain Hook is very real." Gold says, clenching his jaw, and Emma had the momentary satisfaction of seeing the others having to deal with the fact of something they thought wasn't real, was actually true. "And you don't want to cross paths with him. Pray that Pan is the only demon you face in this place."
"You are scared of them." Regina says, being the only one daring to say out loud what was crossing everyone's mind. "Both of them."
"Yes," He admitted, surprising Emma, "And you can only imagine what this means to all of you." At that Regina seemed to stand straighter. "As I said, if you want to go on, fine, but here's my advice: Don't buy another fight you can't win. Don't get close to Captain Hook." He moved as if to walk closer to the edge of the ship so Emma stopped him before he could leave, however, he was planning to do so.
"Do you really think I can't do it?" She asks making sure no vulnerability was evident in her voice.
"Neverland is a place where imagination runs wild, and sadly, yours doesn't." He says turning his cane and making it rotate a few times on the deck before it fell. When Emma looked up, Gold was gone.