Chapter 5: A Belief


She's like something out of a story.

Rumplestiltskin is motionless, sat on the ground, his back against a tree, his legs crossed, his hands clasped in his lap, and she doesn't know he's here. Since he's not allowed to make a sound, he can't let her know she isn't alone either, but then, Rumplestiltskin's not sure he'd know what to say even if he could speak.

"I have a treat for you," Felix said while Rumplestiltskin was still gaping at the dagger held so loosely in the Lost Boy's hand. He'd wanted to turn and watch Bae's soldiers—and where did his boy get such allies?—tie Pan up, coating him in squid ink—but the last command Pan had given him was to leave the clearing unseen no matter what happened. Of course, he'd predictably said nothing about having handed the dagger off to a new owner.

"Pay attention!" Felix snapped, and Rumplestiltskin had been able to do nothing else. He'd seen the tension evident in every line of the Lost Boy's body, cording every muscle, gritted through his jaw. Felix has been in Neverland longer than anyone save Pan, and anything in him outside of loyalty to Pan has long since been pulverized and forgotten. "You're to return to Deadman's Peak and stay there. You'll find a place to be still and quiet, you won't speak a word, you'll wait for Pan to come for you, and in the meantime, Pan has arranged for you to be rewarded for your cooperation."

Inwardly, Rumplestiltskin snarled and screamed and denied everything. Outwardly, he simply turned and walked away, marching himself to his own new prison, finding a spot of ground in which to rot away, and placing himself there.

And then he waited, his mind fixated on every second, every look, every detail of his boy.

His precious Bae. His son. Grown up and hardened in a way different to the scars Pan inflicted on him while he was a Lost Boy. He's a soldier. A warrior. Everything Rumplestiltskin took on a dark curse to prevent him from becoming.

And he came back for his papa.

He came back. Walked right into Pan's domain.

Rumplestiltskin would be torn between wanting to hug his boy and to shake some sense into him if he could think of anything outside the betrayal that carved new lines through Bae's face.

Betrayal. Rage. Disappointment. Rumplestiltskin's seen it all on his son's face before, but it never stops hurting.

The only thing that could have distracted him from the look and smell and reality of his boy is a command from the dagger—or, apparently, the arrival of a young woman so beautiful she belongs to song and story.

Felix escorts her to the hill and pushes her away from him with a sneer twisting his lips. "Don't let her leave this hill," he says loudly, backed by the dagger in his belt, and Rumplestiltskin's mind clicks furiously through options.

Not that he has any. The dagger keeps him trapped, motionless, mute, helpless to do anything but try, fruitlessly, to figure out what Pan's plan here is.

Because as beautiful as this woman is, as tiny and harmless and sweet as she looks, Pan never gives a gift without sliding poison through it and following it up with a dagger through the ribs.

And in Neverland, nothing is ever what it seems.

Since he hasn't been commanded not to use magic, Rumplestiltskin casts a spell to dispel mirages.

The girl doesn't waver. Her eyes are still unearthly blue. Her hair still hangs prettily around her shoulders. Her hands remain steady on the book she clutches close. And her expression remains wary, observant, and open.

She doesn't look evil.

But then…Rumplestiltskin doesn't carry his curse on his skin here either.

"H-hello?" the woman calls. "Who's there?"

Rumplestiltskin rubs his thumb against his fingers, the only move he's allowed to make.

"I know someone's here," she says, and despite the tremor to her voice, she's so brave, straight-backed and ready to face whatever awaits her in the shadows.

Belle, Rumplestiltskin thinks. This has to be the girl his son can't leave behind. The woman he'd do anything to save. The one who's been there for Bae, who's brave enough to venture into a whole new realm for him, who's come to help save the papa Bae no longer wants anything to do with.

So maybe she isn't a trick. Maybe she's just the salt for his open wounds.

The woman's eyes narrow, her mouth pursed thoughtfully, before she offers a smile Rumplestiltskin can see in her profile as she looks back and forth. "I won't hurt you," she says in a softer voice. "I promise."

Despite himself, a scoff builds low in his throat. In one way, she already has hurt him—has stolen how many hours, days, weeks, months, years with his boy when Rumplestiltskin should have been the one with him. In another, more immediate sense, there is nothing this fragile collection of skin and bone and beauty can do to him.

If even Pan hasn't been able to make him evaporate into dust, then what can one girl do?

"All right, then," Belle says before she straightens her shoulders. "I guess everyone plays games here. Is this some form of hide-and-seek?"

Rumplestiltskin feels himself go tense as she begins to roam the hillside. If she tries to leave…how will he stop her? He'll have to, he has no choice, but he can't move, so it will have to be magic, and he's rusty. It's been so long since he's been able to breathe, to think, without the haze of squid ink dulling him, and even longer since he's been free to use the magic that sings in his veins.

All magic comes with a price. There's no deal between them. However he stops her, whatever he does to keep her near him, it will have to be measured out sparingly. If Bae is ever to forgive him for this newest betrayal, Rumplestiltskin cannot have the blood of this girl on his hands.

Fortunately, Belle doesn't try to leave. Instead, she searches through the foliage, drifting here and there—Rumplestiltskin feels a cry trapped in his throat when she draws near the dreamshade bushes—gazing behind every obstacle she comes across, staying well back from the peak's edge that descends sharply and probably lethally. She is too close to the dreamshade bushes, making magic tingle uselessly in his fingertips, when she turns in her grid-like pattern of searching and sees him.

He can envision exactly what she sees: a gargoyle, perched atop a peak, fixed in place like stone, eyes reflecting the moonlight, so eerily still that he doesn't blame her for her sudden recoil.

"Oh!" she gasps. The book she clutches falls from her arms to land, rumpled and bent, on the ground, which distracts Rumplestiltskin for a moment. It's been ages and worlds since he's last seen a book so close. "You startled me," she says.

He says nothing. Of course.

Slowly, Belle bends and scoops up the book, then hugs it to her chest. "Are you…are you okay?"

In some dim part of his mind, he's aware that she's approaching him. That she is perhaps too brave, or just naïve. But most of him…most of him is caught marveling that someone cares about him. He's forgotten what it feels like to have someone ask after his wellbeing. It seems alien. So foreign that it's nearly incomprehensible.

He blinks when the scent of roses and ink wafts toward him, and then feels a sharp jolt to realize that Belle is now only a couple feet away from him. When their eyes meet, her form haloed by moonlight, his shadowed in the darkness, she smiles at him. A wide, happy smile that makes him realize just why his son is so intent on rescuing this woman. She's older than Bae, perhaps, by a few years, but her kindness is so obvious, so sweeping, that Bae wouldn't stand a chance against it.

"Hello," Belle says. She takes one step closer, then sinks to sit across from him, mirroring his pose, except instead of absent thread, she holds that book. "My name is Belle. Who are you?"

He still says nothing, but for the first time, he wishes he could speak.

"I think I can guess." Belle's eyes sweep over him, a once-over that has him stiff and uncomfortable. He's always hated being looked at too closely; his faults are never more than shallowly hidden, and always too easily exposed. "Are you…is your name Rumplestiltskin?"

Bae's told her about him. Rumplestiltskin hungers, sharply and overwhelmingly, to hear everything his boy's ever told her, even as his heart shrinks in his chest to know how she must judge him for the crimes Bae knows better than anyone.

Belle's brow creases. "Can you not speak?" she asks.

He can't. But he can use magic.

Hands still in his lap, Rumplestiltskin flicks a finger to the ground between them. Instantly, it is filled with a pile of sand, the cost of which is nothing more than a breath he doesn't need anyway. At Rumplestiltskin's direction, the sand moves at the touch of an invisible finger. He hasn't written so much as his own name in more time than he cares to calculate, but his mind, sluggish and tainted too long by squid ink, roused by the sight of his son, is awake and alive and moving faster than the flow of the tide. Letters spill from his fingers to his magic to the sand, and Belle lets out a delighted laugh to read his first words.

Did you come with Baelfire?

"I did," she says. Her eyes fly up from the sand to latch onto his so suddenly he'd startle if he could move. "Baelfire has spent nearly a decade in our world trying to find help. He came to my father with his request, but when Papa turned him away, I decided to go with him. We found a royal couple willing to lend their aid, and a man with a portal that could bring us here. Baelfire has spent his whole life since escaping here trying to find you. That is…" A sliver of doubt dulls the sheen of her eyes. "If you are Rumplestiltskin."

I am.

She smiles at him, and it takes the same price from him as the magical sand: it takes his breath away.

"I'm Belle," she says again. "And I'm so happy to get to meet you. You have no idea how much Baelfire loves you."

Rumplestiltskin's eyes fall away from hers. Whatever love his son managed to retain for him after the Dark One, after nearly starving in the Land Without Magic…well, Rumplestiltskin knows it must have died when Pan made Rumplestiltskin blame his own son for his crimes.

"He's here," Belle blurts, her eyes wide. "I should have said that right away. He's all right, or he was the last time I saw him."

He's looking for you, Rumplestiltskin writes. You shouldn't have come.

"No, no," Belle shakes her head, "he's here for you. Trust me, Rumplestiltskin, I've spent the last year with him, and his every thought, his every concern, is for you. How to get back here, how to find you, how to rescue you, how to take you safely home—how he hopes you're well, and how he worries for you. He doesn't speak about that as much, but I can tell. It's obvious in his eyes every time he's silent too long."

I don't deserve him. Rumplestiltskin wipes the admission away nearly before it's finished forming, but Belle reads it anyway.

"You're his father," she says. "You gave up everything for him."

Rumplestiltskin lets out his scoff in the form of a cough of sand floating up in the air. But before Belle can do more than wave it away from her face, he writes, Why did you come with him?

Belle tilts her head as she studies him. "Because," she says, slowly, "I wish someone loved me as much as you both each other. And because he deserves not to be alone." When Rumplestiltskin flinches, she leans forward. "And because the thought of a father, alone and missing his son, being trapped in this terrible place thinking he'd been forgotten was so terrible that I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try to help."

And now you're separated from your father.

For the first time, her open kindness goes shuttered, her mouth twisting. "My father told me that if I left with Baelfire, I shouldn't come back."

He can do nothing but stare. Only when she begins to shift, as if uncomfortable at his gaping—and of course she is, who would want to be stared at so openly by the Dark One?—does he write, You must love Bae a lot.

Her flicker of sadness disappears, or at least is hidden, though Rumplestiltskin wonders if perhaps her openness is its own form of a mask. "I do," she says, her voice soft. "It's funny. He's not that much younger than me—or, well, in some ways, he's a lot older than me—but there's something about him that makes me…I want to take care of him. I want to protect him from all harm. I want to make sure he's never afraid or hurting again." Her cheeks flush, so vibrant, so alive, in this dead place, and she bites her lip. "That probably sounds foolish."

Not to me, Rumplestiltskin writes honestly. I don't understand how anyone could not love Bae.

Belle's laugh is shaky and almost surprised. "Me neither," she confides, and in that instant, Rumplestiltskin knows that he will do anything he can, everything he must, to reunite this woman with his son.

Baelfire deserves to be loved. To be cared for. He deserves everything, and this woman is good and kind and sweet and willing to risk her own life for him.

Dagger or not, no matter what Pan says or does to him, Rumplestiltskin vows that he will bring his son the love he deserves. No matter what the cost.


When the fight's over—when Pan is bound in ink-coated ropes—when two more warriors lie dead in the sand—there's no sign of his papa. Bae calls for him, searches for him, but gives it up when Pan sneers at him and says, "You're wasting your time looking for a coward."

"What deal did you make with him?" Bae demands, but even before he's done voicing the question, he's already shaking his head. "Never mind. Just tell me where he is."

"How should I know?" Pan replies. "I'm not in control of him, not anymore. If I were you, I'd be worrying a whole lot more about magic's effect on him rather than mine."

"Stop trying to make me doubt him!" he shouts. "Just…just let me have him. You don't want him. You tell him that all the time. So give him to me."

Pan looks thoughtful for a moment. "Fine," he says with the suggestion of a shrug. "If you can convince him to leave with you, no matter what the obstacle, you can have him. But you're assuming that I'm going to let you go…"

"I'm leaving here no matter what you say or do," Bae growls. "Now tell me where you keep your prisoners."

The smirk that curves Pan's lips up into a lopsided sneer is so familiar, so enraging, that Bae's hands actually tingle with the desire to strangle this demon in boy's clothing. "All right," he says easily. "I'll make you a deal, Baelfire. I will take you to my prisoners—I'll even open the cages for you—and in return, you promise me a future favor."

Bae smiles mirthlessly before he reaches out, with tingling hands, and curls his hands into Pan's leafy shirt. Hauling him up close, Bae realizes that he's taller than this boy, that he looks older, that for once, he is not just a scared little child facing a nightmare. For once, he's not afraid of Peter Pan.

"Here's my counteroffer," Bae says through a smile. "You take me to your prisoners, open their cages, let us go—and I won't kill you with my bare hands."

"Ahh." Pan's eyes flutter closed, his mouth half-open, as if he's drinking in the moment, savoring every second of it. "There he is: the son of the Dark One."

And he knows Pan's playing him—that's all Pan knows how to do—but Bae can't help the way he pushes himself away from Pan, his hands falling loose and empty to his sides, his face widened in an expression of horror.

He may not be a child anymore, but he's still just as helpless before Pan's games.


The poor man doesn't look comfortable at all. Belle bites her lip as she studies Rumplestiltskin out of the corner of her eye. He sits with his spine perfectly straight, his legs crossed in front of him, his hands hidden in his lap. The only flickers of movement she can see in him are the fidgeting motion he makes with his thumb and forefinger and the way his eyes continuously slide to her and then, almost guiltily, away again.

"Baelfire didn't tell anyone about what you are," Belle says softly, not wanting to scare him. "He only talks about you as his papa. But…there are hints in his story. And when we asked the Blue Fairy for help, she confirmed that…well, she told us what curse you're under."

As stiff as he is, Belle can see his every muscle tense beneath the black leather he wears. His fingers fall as motionless as the rest of him.

"It's the dagger, isn't it?" she asks quickly. "Does Pan have it? That's why you're not allowed to move or speak?"

His eyes narrow, but this time, he doesn't shrink from her gaze. He looks as if he's trying to intimidate her through expression alone, and Belle has to bite her lip to contain her smile. Baelfire sometimes wears that same expression when he's hungry and tired and upset.

"If Pan has it," she nearly whispers, "we can try to get it back."

Rumplestiltskin rolls his eyes and looks away, the pile of sand before him poofing up with what she's already learned is meant to be a contemptuous air.

"Fine," she says archly. "I suppose we could both just sit here instead. Wait for Baelfire to come rescue us. Stall until Pan can see the pay-off for whatever his plans are."

No response.

And why should there be? He doesn't know her. He's vulnerable, nearly defenseless in front of her. And he hasn't hugged his son in ages and ages. She can hardly blame him for not trusting her immediately, particularly in this place where nothing is as it seems.

Belle softens and reaches out toward him. The way his eyes flinch breaks her heart and she lets her hand fall to land between them, just beside the sand that is his only way of communicating.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I just… I want to help you."

Tell me about Bae, he writes. There's a pause and then a single word appears, alone: Please.

She can tell, somehow, just how much that word has cost him.

"Baelfire," she says. "He doesn't know how to drink tea. He guzzles it straight down, though not before adding an unholy amount of sugar. You know, the first time we met, when he was trying to find help to come rescue you, he dropped my teacup. It chipped. You should have seen his face—he felt so bad. It made me want to soothe all his worries. Here." She brightens, remembering that Pan never took her pack away. After setting her book beside her, Belle rifles through the pack and pulls out the cup wrapped in one of her scarves.

Gently, moving slowly, Belle scoots closer to Rumplestiltskin, sitting beside him rather than across from him so that she doesn't disturb the sand, and sets the cup in his hands.

His quiet intake of air is like an explosion in the stillness.

She imagines this is the only thing of his son's he's touched in hundreds of years.

"This cup," Belle says softly. "I couldn't bear to throw it away. I've kept it all this time. It makes me think of him, and of how desperately he wants to save you—so much that even a cup matters to him because it might mean the difference between winning aid or losing it."

Bae. Rumplestiltskin doesn't write the name, but he mouths it, in the manner of a drowning man catching tiny sips of air, and Belle feels her heart twist into some new shape within her heart.

"He blames himself, I think," Belle murmurs, "for what's happened to you. If he hadn't used that bean—"

The sand turns red and violet as the whole of it is shaped into a single word: NO.

"I know." It's instinctive, the way she reaches out and pats his arm, and she almost regrets it at the way he stiffens and stares down at where she touched him. Almost, but not quite, because there's something in his eyes, when he looks back up at her, that mesmerizes her.

"I know it's not his fault," she says. "And it's not yours either."

His lips twist into an expression so scornful that Belle lets out a startled laugh.

"It's not!" she says. "You love him. He's your son. Of course you'd want to do anything you possibly could to save him. The Blue Fairy shouldn't have given such massive responsibility into a child's hands, and Pan shouldn't try to steal anyone he takes a liking for, but none of that is your fault."

Who are you? he writes in the sand.

Belle blinks. "I…I'm Belle. I told you that."

No. Who are you? Why did you come all the way to Neverland? Is there an understanding between you and Bae?

Her hands fly up to her cheeks as Belle feels a hot flush steal over her face. "No!" she says. She shakes her head too, though she's not sure why she feels so vehement about this. "No, of course not, he's… He's so old, in some ways, I know that, but he's also a child in others, and I…I just…"

You love him.

"I do. But not…I don't want to marry him."

Rumplestiltskin regards the sand for a long moment before more words appear. Bae's mother was killed by pirates when he was very small. The mother he found in the Land Without Magic was taken from him too quickly.

Another blush turns her cheeks hot. "I think Baelfire cares more about his father than any absent mother."

When he turns his face toward her, his large eyes study her, so careful, so intent, that Belle can't breathe. Even through the leather that covers him like armor, he radiates heat.

"I came here because I wanted to reunite him with his father," Belle says as firmly as she can when her lungs refuse to inflate. "And because…well, truthfully, I wanted to be a hero. I figured, do the brave thing and bravery would follow."

And how's that working out for you? he asks.

She smiles, noting the way his fingers trace the rim of the teacup, infinitely gentle over the chip. "I'm getting there," she says. "But…I was going to tell you about your son."

Settling herself more comfortably against him—leaning her shoulder against his and hoping he knows he can lean back should he grow too exhausted with his stiff posture—Belle cradles close her book on Neverland and begins to spill out all the stories she can of a dedicated son for his hurting papa.


The cages look exactly like Bae remembers. His heart is pounding in his chest, the humidity almost choking him as he pants for air, while the warriors slowly lower the three woven boxes.

Three. Part of Bae's mind whirs through possibilities for who might be here besides Papa and Belle—a Lost Boy being punished, or Tinker Bell being strung up after whatever truce she made with Pan unraveled, or even Captain Jones or his paramour, the one Bae never could bring himself to tell Papa about back when he still visited him. Most of his attention, though, is caught up in trying not to envision all the ways this could go wrong.

"Tick-tock," Jefferson says behind him. "Come on, Baelfire, let's get them and go."

"I know," Bae says, and drawing up his arm, he brings his borrowed short sword down on the cage's lock.

It doesn't break.

Something in Bae's mind, however, shatters, and before he knows it, he's pounding on the lock, yelling, screaming, tearing the cage to shreds the way he should have done all those eternities ago.

But it's not Papa in the cage.

It's not Belle either.

Instead, huddled in on herself, arms drawn over her head to protect herself from Bae's assault—it's Wendy.

"W-Wendy?" he stutters.

Slowly, she drops her arms and peers at him. "Who—"

"It's me," he says, and he thinks of a warm bed, a table spread with food, an open invitation, the closest thing to home he knew in that strange land. "It's Baelfire."

"Baelfire?" she gasps. And then, as easily as that, she's in his arms.

She doesn't fit there the way she did when she'd wake him from his nightmares and rock him slowly back to sleep, humming a lullaby he didn't know but craved anyway. She's small, so fragile, almost brittle, in his arms, and Bae wants to kill Pan. Wants to sweep her away to where nothing can ever harm her again. Wants to shriek and cry and vanish into nothing because he didn't save her or her family at all.

"Wendy," he says, "what are you doing here?"

"I came to save you," she says, staring up at him. "We all did."

"All?"

And too slowly, too gullibly, he turns to see the two other cages. Shang and Mulan have pried them open, and instead of Rumplestiltskin or Belle, Bae sees two boys, one a teenager, the other a young man—one with glasses, the other with hair a familiar color—and he knows, for the first time, the full depths of his failure.

"John? Michael?" he asks, dreading the confirmation he doesn't need.

"Baelfire?" they ask, in unison, and then they're stumbling forward, and Bae finds himself in the middle of a group hug, and he wants to enjoy it, wants to savor being a part of a family again, but all he can think, all he can grasp, is that he sacrificed himself and his papa for nothing.

And his papa isn't here.

Then Jefferson and Mulan are both telling him they need to hurry, the squid ink won't hold Pan forever, the ropes they used to bind him in a boat aimed toward Skull Rock won't keep him contained for long, and he and the Darlings are being chivvied toward their fallback point.

But Bae can't leave. How can he, when he hasn't rescued his papa or Belle yet?

How can he stay, when he can't allow the Darlings to pay for his mistakes?

Again.


Pan stinks of squid ink when he materializes out of the foliage onto the hilltop. There's a sharpness at the edges of his usual smirk that, even after all these lifetimes, makes Rumplestiltskin's stomach tighten into a hard knot impossible to untangle.

"I love it when my bait is taken," Pan says, but his gesture to his shadow is impatient rather than gloating.

The Shadow swoops down from the night sky and catches up Belle against its cold darkness.

Rumplestiltskin wants to reach out and yank her free of that touch—wants to hold her close and raze the rest of this world with his unleashed magic—but instead he only sits there. Motionless. Voiceless. Helpless.

"Time for your next part to play," Pan says. He looks to his Shadow and commands, "You know what to do with her."

"Wait!" Belle cries. "What are you doing? Stop!"

Rumplestiltskin strains with every ounce of his willpower to break free of the dagger's hold, but he might as well have done nothing, which is all he accomplishes. The only tiny victory he managed to win here was sweeping away the pile of sand before Pan could catch sight of it, that and hiding the chipped cup. Not that it will matter if he's never allowed to see Belle again. Never allowed to hear any more stories of his beautiful Bae.

"Oh, don't be so scared," Pan croons to Belle. He doesn't quite touch her, but his finger rests a millimeter away from her cheek as he outlines the contours of her face. "The Lost Boys have been bored lately. A new diversion is just the thing. We won't hurt you. Not if you're a good mother."

Then he jerks his head at the Shadow and Neverland yanks Belle away, out of sight, to some new game Rumplestiltskin will never be a part of.

"Alone at last," Pan says as he turns back to Rumplestiltskin. "Come on, now, be honest—you're glad that I gave her to you, aren't you?"

"What?" Rumplestiltskin blinks up at him.

"Oh." Pan rolls his eyes and waves his dagger at him, pulled from some hiding place about his person. "You can move again, Rumple. Don't be dull."

Slowly, a limb at a time, Rumplestiltskin uncurls himself. Makes it to his feet. Stretches until he feels more like a ragdoll than a wooden doll. And faces, for who knows what time besides too many, his father.

"What do you mean, 'give her to me'?" he asks, enunciating each word clearly.

"I forgot, you can't help but be dull." Pan spreads his arms expansively. "I told you I'd give you a reward for playing along with my little game. And don't lie—you seemed to enjoy your gift. See, I can be more than the monster you insist on seeing me as. The thing is, Rumple, I don't really want you here. The best thing for everyone involved is for you to retrace that route through the stars and find yourself another world. One where you can do magic, feel powerful, live a long and healthy life. And to show that I bear you no ill feelings, you can take this girl with you. She's pretty enough—just your type, really, so much braver than you'll ever be, spirited and strong—and she looks young. Should still be fertile."

"What?" Rumplestiltskin repeats. He feels like he might throw up. Like he might back away until he comes to the edge of the cliff and falls backward, finally ready to discover the only way he knows to end it all.

"You can start over, Rumple. Make some new family. Try again. Baelfire's never going to forgive you—too many hard feelings, too much history, too many plans I yet have for him—but a new son. Maybe a daughter. Well, you could try something new. Start fresh."

"You…" Rumplestiltskin sucks in a sharp breath. "You want me to leave Bae here? With you?"

"It's not much different than what you almost did over that portal to the Land Without Magic," Pan says. He leans in, so close, too close. "You forget, Rumple—I know you better than anyone. We both know you were a knife's edge away from letting your son go to that magicless land without you. This time…you can do it. Be free of him. He just wants to take your power away anyway. Why waste your time with a man who wants nothing to do with you?"

"I will never abandon my son!" he hisses. "I will always choose Bae. So keep your gifts and your ultimatums and your poisoned words—I will always fight for him."

Pan sighs, his whole posture drooping, even his eyes falling closed. But when they open, there is a new coldness to them. "Fine. Fight with all the strength your little coward's heart can muster. But just remember—I gave you a choice, Rumple. You're the one who picked wrong."

And it's that voice, that lilt, the same one Malcolm used to use when playing Follow the Lady, when a customer chose the wrong shell to look under, that breaks the last of Rumplestiltskin's control.

The fireball he sends at Pan envelops him wholly, but Pan's laughter is the only result.

That, and the sinking feeling in Rumplestiltskin's chest that he only cast that inferno at him because he'd known it wouldn't work.

There's a reason, after all, that the Echo Cave never responded to his frequent assertions that he hates his own father.


Tinker Bell isn't happy to have a whole troop of soldiers, children, and Bae crash into her home, but she's the only hope Bae has. She spares him a hug when he reintroduces himself, a moment to smile and be happy that he's okay, and then she's back to stern looks and a shaking head and an insistence that no amount of squid ink will be enough to defeat Pan.

"He made a deal with Neverland," Wendy finally says. She sits squished between her brothers, a cup of water held in her thin hand, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, but when everyone falls silent and turns to look at her, she holds her head high. "I heard him and the Shadow talking. I think…I think the Shadow is Neverland. And it told him that his time is running out. That's why it's always night here now, why the Pixie Woods don't bloom, and why he can't fly anymore. Pan's dying."

His hand searches for something solid, but Bae can't find anything worth holding onto.

Pan's dying. He'll die.

But…that's losing, and Pan never loses.

"How is he planning to save himself?" he asks, and the smiles around him vanish.

"He needs something—the heart of the Truest Believer. If he can trade his heart for that person's, then he'll be immortal. And nothing will ever stop him."

"The Truest Believer?" Jefferson scoffs. "Great, I'll just rustle one of those up."

"Pan has a picture of him," John says softly. "He's sent us out searching for children who look like that picture." When he looks up, his eyes fall directly onto Baelfire. "The boy in the drawing looked so much like you that for a while, Pan thought it might be you. But it isn't. After a while, he started sending us out again."

"Could it be Papa?" Bae asks. "I…I don't know what he looked like as a child, but surely I look like him."

"It's not the Dark One," Michael says in a hard voice. "Pan doesn't see him as a threat."

"It's your son," Wendy whispers. "It has to be. That's why you're so important to him, Bae. It's why he's kept tabs on you all this time. Your son is going to be the Truest Believer."

"I don't have a son."

Bae hears his own words, the monotone rust, of his own voice, and winces at how stupid he sounds.

Of course he doesn't have a son. And now, even if he escapes this place and saddles some poor woman with all his nightmares, he'll never be allowed to have one. Not if it means saving Pan's life.

He'll never get to be a father.

It's not even something Bae's ever had time to consider, but there's a pinch behind his breastbone that makes him want to curl up over this newest, unexpected loss.

"How long does Pan have?" Bae asks.

"Years yet," Tinker Bell says when Wendy shrugs. "If Wendy's right about Neverland failing as he dies, that means Neverland will be sucked dry of all magic. There's still too much of it here for him to be on his actual deathbed."

"Years," Bae says bitterly.

"Shh," Mulan suddenly hisses. She speaks so rarely, carries herself so commandingly, that Bae finds himself falling immediately silent. And that's when he hears the silence outside. The silence all around them.

There's no sound at all.

No branches waving in the wind. No wind stirring the leaves. No war-cries from approaching Lost Boys.

Nothing at all.

"You hear that?" Shang breathes, loud against the hushed blankness enveloping them in all directions for all that it is nearly inaudible.

"Pan's here." Terror blanches Tinker Bell's face so white that she resembles a ghost. She reaches out and grips Bae's hand, hard. "Do you trust me?" she murmurs.

Bae stares at her. All he knows about Tinker Bell is that she appeared one day without wings, without magic, without explanation, that she was willing to hide him on the rare days he could escape Pan's clutches, that she never turned him away and that she offered him smiles when no one else on this island could do the same. He knows from Pan that she was sent here to try to earn her wings back by harvesting squid ink for whoever her ruler is, that she was abandoned and left for dead even after she sent back the ink, and that of the two fairies he's met, Bae would choose her over Rheul Gorm any day.

"I do," he says. "I believe in you."

Her smile is wide and blinding as she tugs him, and by gesture, all the other people, closer to the trunk of the tree that grows up through her bedroom. "Fairies used to tend to forests full of enchanted trees. Most of them have died out now, cut down for their magic or used for their world-hopping abilities or just drained dry of their magic, but here, in Neverland, if you believe hard enough…"

"You can make it true," Bae breathes.

"Everyone, find a tree," Tinker Bell commands. "When you find it, wrap your arms around it and wish—wish with everything you are—and I might just have enough pixie dust to hide us from Pan. It won't last forever, but…"

"It'll give us time." Bae nods. "Do it."

When they all slide down from Tinker Bell's tree and pelt toward the nearest trunks, Bae tries to stay near Wendy. He won't let her fall behind. He won't let Pan have her to torment again. He's there to steady her as she trips, to thrust her toward the tree that grows up from the packed ground, and he wraps her arms around the trunk himself before he turns to dive toward the neighboring tree.

He doesn't quite make it.

Pixie dust falls in glimmering sparkles all around them and the warriors, Jefferson, Tinker Bell, and the Darlings fade into the trees. There one moment, gone the next, and Bae's left alone, his hand still reaching fruitlessly for a nearby tree, wishing and believing and all to no avail.

Until something barrels into him from behind, something that stinks of squid ink, and when he spits leaves and dirt from his mouth, he finds himself looking up into the grinning face of Peter Pan.

"Gotcha!" the demon crows. "And that means you lose. Isn't that right, Dark One?"

And from behind Pan, with even steps, his papa steps into the moonlight, his face carved into a mask, dark lines drawn down over his right eye like talons have scored scars down his face.

"You can't run anymore," Rumplestiltskin says. There are no scales on his face, but the Dark One titters behind his voice. "Even the Land Without Magic won't protect you now."

"But I will," Pan whispers, and laughs at the fear scrawled across Bae's face.