A/N: Special thanks to Kanubunu on AO3 for beta-reading this chapter.

Chapter title again named for the Dostoevsky quote, "Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams."

Chapter 25: Love in Action

I don't even attempt to sleep that night. I spend much of it as I suspected I would: sitting in front of the fire in a dissociative state, dread slowly suffocating me with all the weight of a witch being pressed to death. In the hour before dawn I find myself walking towards the family wing on autopilot, so distracted that it's only when I arrive in front of my mother's door that I realize I'm too early to collect the others for morning training.

The faintest light is just beginning to creep in through the windows at either end of the hall, painting the floor blood-red. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning, Pops used to say, and in this moment that feels ominous. I suddenly feel small and scared and lost in the face of what will happen today. I desperately wish Tor or Liam were here to give me comfort and advice, to tell me that it will all work out and to help me handle Ian; hell, I even wish Zoso were here, even if all the comfort I'd get from him was the certainty and pride in his voice when he'd say something like, My apprentice can survive anything. For a moment I miss them so much it aches.

My ears pick up on a gentle creaking from my mother's room, and I close my eyes and listen. The wooden creak of a rocking chair, the soft clack of knitting needles, sounds that have grown familiar over the last months. I reach for the handle of her door, for a second living in the fantasy of asking my mother for advice on my relationships like any other person, but then I hesitate. I'm the head of the family, the person keeping them in this castle and the rest of Listenoise at bay. Should I really put this on her? Is it right to show any of them the weaknesses of the one thing keeping them safe?

The rocking inside pauses. Even at too advanced an age to safely shift, the lycanthrope sense of smell remains strong- perhaps moreso, as the other senses dull.

"Hello?" My mother asks. I wince at the volume even if logically I know it shouldn't be enough to wake anyone.

"Just me, Mum."

"What was that?"

"Its just-"

"Just come in, dear. I can't make out what you're saying."

I step in and quietly close the door behind me, but let my boots thump the ground so she can track my approach. Her room is small so as to be easier to get around, and a door in the corner connects to an antechamber shared by Elaine and Arran next door. I glance to it and wave a hand, and a shimmer of light crosses it as a silencing spell falls into place.

"Just me, Mum." I repeat as I sit in the armchair across from her.

"Faolan." A small smile breaks her face, but it almost instantly falls into concern. "You're up early. Did you not sleep well?"

I don't sleep most nights, I think bitterly, but the thought gives me pause, because until this week I actually have been falling asleep most nights after cuddling with Rum, even if only for a few hours. Another thing to miss.

I realize that I've let silence hang too long. "Uh, no. Not at all really. I've been…"

The frown-lines on her face deepen when I trail off. "What's been troubling you? And don't try to deny it. A mother knows when something is wrong."

I only blink in surprise, anxiety curling through the back of my mind. Has it really been so obvious? I expected Rum to notice, but I didn't want to worry the rest of them… I take a moment to pick my words.

"I'm finally going to see Ian today, after all these years, and when I do… Things are different now. He's my little brother. He's always come first in my life, since I was thirteen years old. The last time I had a lover, and I couldn't put him first, it didn't last. And this time…."

My mother squints at me. "You think Rumple needs to be put first?"

I huff a bitter laugh. "No, I don't." His self-loathing would never allow it. "But he deserves to be. And I want to, that's the problem. Not- that came out wrong. It's not just him. There's Graham, and there's our routine, our sense of… I don't know. The last eighteen months have been better than the last ten years combined." I flash a rueful smile. "Well, maybe not the whole eighteen months. He stressed me out at first."

For a long time there is only the creaking of her rocking chair as she stares into the fire, contemplating my answer. "I may be old, but I still remember what love looks like. That man makes you happy, Faolan. I see it every day. I know how much you love your brother, but relationships are a road that runs both ways, and he's old enough to know that."

"I burned that bridge first. I can't expect him to just forgive me."

Her brow furrows. "What happened?"

I stare down at my hands. "He was in pain, Mum, and I couldn't do anything to help him. Hells, I couldn't even stay and bear witness to it, so I just- I just walked away, when he was like that. I have to make that right with him, no matter what it costs me."

There's a bottomless sadness in my mother's eyes. "Oh, my little girl. Who taught you that your happiness could only be measured in the happiness of others?"

I flinch like I've been slapped. A second later I regain my voice and protest, "You don't understand-"

"I understand perfectly, dear. You understand me when I say this: you cannot continue to trade your happiness for your brother's. You will only end up miserable, isolated, and resentful of him."

The words seem to echo around me, and I stand abruptly. "I- I have to go. Thanks for the talk-" I'm already edging my way around her chair to flee the room, but she reaches out and takes my hand, holding me in place.

With infinite gentleness, she says, "I know I don't have all the answers, dear. I know it won't be easy. I just want you to be happy." For a minute my panic and dread melts, and I just want to cry. She pulls me down into a hug and I set my head against her shoulder, tempted to crumble into her but painstakingly aware of how much weight I'd be leaning on her frail body. When she finally lets me go, she adds, "Whatever happens, we'll be here for you when you're ready."

I have to swallow the lump in my throat. "Thank you, Mum."

Watching the kids as we train is a new kind of torture. Phelan, my right-hand man, my heir, who looks so much like Tor that I try to re-memorize his face in case this is the last time I ever see it. Bethany, fearless and determined and mischievous. If I have more time with them I should take her as an apprentice, but her future is frighteningly uncertain, and I don't know if any of them will have any kind of control over it if I'm not here.

And Graham. He's still quiet, still reserved, but under it is a growing self-confidence that fills my heart with pride. What will this do to him? As long as I live I'll find a way back to him, but I can't imagine Rum will be at my side when I do. I can't imagine I'll be there for him in the same way if I'm always trying to keep Ian from throwing himself into death's jaws. I can't be everywhere at once, and the instinct to prioritize my baby brother has been carved into my bones since I was a child, so deep that I don't know a world where I defy it.

After training I command Skriker to guard the family and walk to the library like I'm walking to my execution. I spin Thanatos' ring around my finger neurotically as we go, Padfoot practically glued to my leg for either protection or comfort, I can't be sure. Rumple is sitting against my desk when I arrive. He gives me a gentle, encouraging smile as I cross to him, but bone-deep worry lurks underneath it as his eyes flicker over the bags under my eyes and the stress that I'm sure is written plain on my face.

"Ready?"

I run a hand through my hair. "Will I ever be?"

There's the worry again, and the depthless compassion. He offers his arm and sets his hand over mine when I take it. "One step at a time, Ellie."

The purple-black smoke of his magic wraps around us, and when it clears we stand in the circle of the Venedotian's Standing Stones, the countryside blanketed by a thin layer of snow that makes me blink in the blindingly-bright light of day. Rum steps forward and waves a hand, and a gust of wind clears the snow from the stone circle on the ground and off the top of the obelisks. I stare at them, wary of further tampering even if some part of me would be grateful for the delay if it means I could just breathe for a minute.

"Ellie?" Rum repeats, hand out expectantly, and I snap back to reality.

"Sorry." I pull my journal from inside my coat, flip to the page where I've copied the counter-rune for the trapped stone, and hand it over.

I watch Rum draw the new rune like it isn't really happening in my life, like it's something I'm seeing play out on a distant stage. I don't know how I feel anymore except overwhelmed, all the guilt and panic and dread that has been slowly building now blurred together in an indistinguishable energy that has my nerves and my self-control hang by a thin fraying wire; if I knocked shoulders with someone on the street this very moment, I don't know if I'd butcher them on the spot or dissolve into a sobbing mess on the ground.

I pull my focus back to Rum as he finishes the rune and sets his hand on the stone, bracing for impact as the carvings light up red. Then the light fades without incident, and Rum looks downright proud as he steps back to me.

"Brilliant work, dearest."

"...Thanks." I take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "We should light it up."

But neither of us moves. I look over to Rum and find his expression suddenly grim, pensive. He catches my gaze and debates telling me something for a long moment.

"There's something you should know." He hesitates again. "Peter Pan is my father."

For a second I only stare at him. "Your what? You can't be serious." But everything on his face says he is, and my mouth drops open and then closes with an audible click of teeth. "How the hells did that happen? I thought he was, like, fifteen? I mean, I guess that's not impossible, but still-"

"He wasn't always fifteen. He was just a man before he…" Something goes through him, almost a shudder of pain and revulsion that tells me how complicated it must be before he lamely finishes, "...Left."

I take his hand. "What happened?"

Again I watch him debate it for a moment, and then his shoulders tense and his eyes unfocus as he sinks into memory. His hand tightens almost painfully around mine as he snarls, "My father was a swindler and a coward. He drank, gambled, stole. His reputation alone ruined anything good that came along. But… he was all I had, and I was so young. I thought he could be different, better. That if he had the chance, he could be the man, the father I needed him to be."

I grip his hand, for a minute drawn back to my pre-teen years, when I first began to realize that we were actively watching Darius Jones struggle and fail. He was my father, so I held out hope that he would do better; he was our father, so I grew to resent his repeated failures to be a competent parent or provider. And that was at eleven, twelve. I can't imagine what it must do to a child at half that age, and with no siblings to lean on.

Rum continues, "I made a wish and the Blue Fairy came to me. I thought that if we could just start over somewhere no one knew us, we could be happy. He could be better. So she gave us a magic bean to open a portal." A small bolt of indignation shoots through me. Another bean? All I went through to get even one, and that bitch is just handing them out like candy? "My father brought us to a land he had dreamed up. The magic of the portal made it real, in a way. Neverland."

Dreams are a Netherworld, where the children of Nyx rule. I worry the bottom of Thanatos's ring with my thumb, wondering if and how the realm will interact with the ring.

He's quiet for long enough that I again prompt, "What happened?"

He looks down, hand tightening around mine again. "His childhood dreams didn't include a son."

The weight of the situation settles over me. Gods, he was just a kid. And then to have the same thing happen with him and Baelfire…

Is this how it always ends, then? No matter what we learn, how much better we do, are we doomed to repeat the failures of our parents? Darius walked out on us, and I did the same to Ian; Zoso hid so much of himself from me, and now I hide so much of myself from my family. Or is it that we doomed ourselves, condemning ourselves to their mistakes through our desperation to avoid them? Rum shattered his leg to be able to stay with his son, and that plunged him into a position where he had so little power over his own life that once he did have it he couldn't give it up, not even for his son. I was so desperate to see Ian again that I bound myself to the Dark One who killed Zoso and maimed my brother, and now I don't know if I can let him go, or if it will even salvage my relationship with Ian if I do.

I pull Rum in, tap my forehead to his in wordless comfort. He brings his free hand up to the side of my neck, fingers threading into my hair as he holds me to him.

"That blue bug really has it out for you, huh?" I grumble, pulling back just enough to talk, hands still on the sides of his neck. It's not just a bitter joke; the suspicion and paranoia is plain in my voice.

"I've noticed."

"Any idea why?"

A sharp, dangerous look flashes through his eyes. "A few." He replies, bitter and short.

I file that away but leave it alone for now. After a second of contemplation, I say, "So, remember how I was planning on ripping your dad's soul out and keeping it in this ring if he gets in the way? You, uh, you still okay with that?"

"If you feel the need to, you have my blessing. He's earned far worse."

"Thanks, darling."

For a second his smile warms my heart, softens the hard-edged emotions there. He starts to pull away, but I hold him in place, sliding my hands up to cradle his face.

"Hold on. My turn to say things you should hear." He lifts an eyebrow and leans back into me, arms looping around my waist. "No matter what, remember that this was real, and that I care about you more than I'm able to say. I'm grateful for every moment we've had together."

"...You're worrying me again, dearest."

I kiss him, sweet and tender, trying to put all the other words I can't say into this one moment, cradling his face like he's the most precious thing in all the worlds. At first he melts into it, holds me to him like a drowning man to a liferaft, but he's the one who breaks away first.

"Don't." He looks scared now, and it makes his tone border on angry. "Don't act like we're saying goodbye."

I run my thumbs along his jaw, trying to memorize the feel of his skin under mine. Then I pull back and drop my hands to my sides, looking away. It's odd, unsettling even, how quickly I'm oscillating between crushing dread and a grim, almost dissociative acceptance.

"Let's light 'er up."

Worry and frustration war on his face, and he keeps glancing to me as we move to the center of the circle. I make a motion to burn away the remnants of moss covering the stone floor, revealing the carvings on it in all their glory. At the center the carvings converge into a circle just the right size for a hand, and I kneel and press my palm to it. Padfoot watches from a few feet away, stiff-legged and tense. Rum faces me and stretches his hand out towards the obelisk that powers up the array. He looks to me one last time, and I give a grim-faced nod.

A part of me can't help but watch in awe as his magic begins to surge through the air. My research suggests that these kinds of teleportation circles were intended to be operated by several mages, splitting the energy toll between at least three or four strong practitioners, if not one for every stone. Though I logically knew he could do it, I still marvel to watch him as I hear the power-stone behind me light up with a dull hum of energy. The next obelisk hums to life, then another, until in my peripheral vision I can finally see the carvings glow bright-green as each successive stone is activated.

A similar glow starts to spiderweb down to some of the carvings on the stone floor, and I clear my mind, sink into the flow of magic, and focus on Neverland: on the dreams of a selfish man, and Lost Boys, and my brother and the home we shared in the Jolly Roger. The carvings under me light up green, flowing along symbols to join others until the whole circle glows and pulses. The audible hum of energy builds until I can feel it vibrating through my chest, the light of the carvings casting the world in an unsettling eerie green. In the next moment the light flashes blindingly bright, and the lurch of a teleportation spell hits my body.

When the light fades we're standing on a beach, the runes of the teleportation circle burned into the sand by black marks flecked with glittering shards of glass. The trees are vaguely tropical but uncanny, not quite like anything I've ever seen, and after the cold of the Listenoise countryside the air here is cloyingly warm and humid. Something else hangs in the air, something reminiscent of the Netherworld magic I tap into when I draw on the Veil or the hounds, but softer-edged, more malleable. I touch the bottom of Thanatos' ring again as I turn in a circle to take it all in.

I blink at a distant mountain. "Is that a mountaintop in the shape of a skull?"

"Just as subtle as I remember." Rum grumbles, then adds, "If you want to find Ian before Pan finds us, we should move quickly. Adults won't go unnoticed for long on this island."

And just like that my anxiety snaps back into focus. I take a deep, steadying breath and kneel down. "Padfoot, here." The hellhound immediately turns to face me, and I set my hand on his head and open my mind to him. "Find him."

After thirty years I have nothing that would still offer him a traceable scent profile, but hellhounds are "creatures of Netherworlds and Underworlds", and I trust that the mark my siblings and I have left on each other will be enough to guide him. He stares hard into my eyes, searching, and childhood memories flash through my mind. Then lifts his head and sniffs the air, and I reach for teleportation magic and let my familiar's mind guide the destination.

Red-black smoke swirls around us and then dissipates, and now we're in the middle of a forest. I turn in a circle, brow furrowing. Padfoot paces, sniffing the air and then the ground. Rum and I both freeze when we hear distant young voices, and I shoot my hound a confused look for a second before I realize that I so often think of Ian as he was when we were teens. My bad, mate. I put a hand on his shoulder. "Not quite, lad. Look again."

This time I picture Ian as I last knew him: pirate captain, freshly bereaved, missing a hand and consumed by revenge. The memory of our parting plays unbidden behind my eyes, and I don't know if that's Padfoot's soul-searching or my own mind at work.

"Alright, let's try this again-"

"What do we have here?"

We whirl towards the voice. Floating in the air and then touching down in front of us is who can only be Peter Pan. The Boy King of Neverland really is just a teenager, spindly and brown-haired and brown-eyed, and I'm downright irked to see that he's a touch taller than I am.

"Hello, laddie. You really should've warned me you'd be visiting." It's said lightly, jovially, but a hard edge in his voice and his eyes betrays real hostility. He turns his gaze on me. "And you've brought a friend! Come to ask for my blessing? Second time's the charm I hear."

Padfoot snarls at my side as I take an aggressive step forward, and Rum grabs my hand without looking.

"Your actions have finally produced consequences for you." He replies cooly. "And as much as I'm going to enjoy what comes next, it'll be quicker for all of us if you just hand the boy over."

Pan cocks his head. "You'll have to be more specific than that. Which one?"

"Ian."

Fear shoots through me as Pan's brow furrows comically. This can't be how Rum finds out-

"Ian, Ian… I don't know a- what did you say your name was?" That part is directed at me.

"We didn't." Rum growls. Pan ignores him.

"Your middle name wouldn't be Davina, would it?"

My hands curl as rage and panic spike through me. "Shut your fucking-"

"I do know your brother." He's smirking now, eyes laughing as they bounce between us, miles ahead of Rum on this particular revelation. My blood burns ice-cold as it pounds through my veins. "And if anyone belongs here, it's certainly him."

"He's leaving with me."

"Oh? Who says he wants to?"

I stretch out my hand and pull the Veil over my eyes, Thanatos' ring practically vibrating on my finger as Netherworld magic surges through me. "If the next thing out of your mouth isn't his location, I'll deal with you now and find him myself."

Pan laughs. "I see why you like this one, Rumple. One of you has to have a spine." There's a boy's laugh somewhere in the distance, but closer now than they were, and a calculating look enters Pan's eyes as they flicker towards the sound and then back to us. "There's a beach a mile east of here. I was just on my way to meet your brother there. Feel free to have a chat. It won't change anything."

I narrow my eyes in suspicion as Veiled sight shows me the honesty of the answer and his impatience to get us away. He doesn't want us near those boys. Wonder whose kids he's got over there? For a second I debate investigating, but ultimately they're not my kids, and if they're here I can't rightly say they'd be better off elsewhere.

I put my hand on Padfoot's head. "You understand that?" He wags his tail encouragingly. "Get us close, but not in sight."

I hold my hand out for Rum with a questioning look, giving him the choice to come with me, or to stay and say anything he needs to. He takes it almost immediately, seemingly as eager to be away from Pan as Pan is to have us gone. One last teleport whisks us away.

We arrive in another area of the forest, but the trees are thinner here, and I can smell the salt on the air and hear waves not far off. Panic starts to rise again, and I grip Rum's hand and swallow it down. Padfoot looks from me to the direction of the waves pointedly.

"Give me some time to talk to him." I hear myself say. "Padfoot will bring you when we're ready."

"Of course, little wolf." He squeezes my hand once before he lets it go.

I walk mechanically towards the sounds of the ocean, forcing one foot after the other as gritty soil turns to sand under my feet. I step into sunlight on a small beach, the ocean barely forty feet away. A longboat is pulled up on the shore, and my breath catches in my throat to see the familiar silhouette of the Jolly Roger in the waters beyond it. Standing to the side of the boat, back to me as he looks out on the ocean, is a dark-haired man that I'd recognize anywhere.

"Ian." I breathe, and he turns, and he's right there, blue eyes and hard-edge confidence exactly as I remember, still wearing the same black naval coat, cutlass and parrying dagger on his hips. Gods, he's barely even aged; if it weren't for the subtle bags under his eyes and the way hardness just passively rests on his face, it could've been hours and not decades since we parted.

He stares back at me. "Davey?"

I don't register moving, but in the next instance I've crossed to him, started to reach out to pull him into a hug. He takes a half-step towards me, starts to lift his hand as well, and out of the corner of my eye I catch the glint of metal where his other hand should be. I don't know which of us hesitates first, but we both shy away, and then we're just standing there, silence hanging thick and awkward between us.

"What are you doing here?" He finally says.

"I came to help. I'm getting you out of here."

His shoulders slump. "You can't. We can't leave without Pan's permission, or at least his Shadow on our sail."

The world seems to freeze around me, my vision tunneling as I echo, "Permission?"

He looks momentarily embarrassed as he admits, "We run supplies for him. Mostly from the lands in this realm, but sometimes he wants things from the Enchanted Forest-"

"You can leave? You could leave this whole time?" Suddenly something is squeezing my chest, and I can't breathe deep enough to get any air.

"We're not just free to roam, Davey!" He defends. "That bloody Shadow would drag us back if we went off course, and even if it didn't, I'm not letting Pan have my ship!"

I stare at him through tunnel vision, mounting anger and frustration burning up my chest and spewing out my mouth.

"You could've sent a messenger or a letter or something! Godsdammit, Ian, I searched every fucking port from Gandvik to the Agrabah for you! I lost two good thieves and broke half a dozen bones for a bloody magic bean, I died three times trying to get to here, I- I-" My throat closes for a second as I picture Rum's face, and I shove the image away. "And you didn't even write? You couldn't even write?!"

"And say what?" He snaps. "The last time I saw you, you said, 'If you're going to get yourself killed, don't expect me to watch'. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? You walked away, not me!"

His words punch into my chest and carve out all of the fight, the anger. I deflate instantly.

"I know. I know, and I'm so, so sorry. I've regretted it every day. Hell, I regretted it the next morning, but when I went back…"

"What, that supposed to make me feel better?" He asks coldly. "I needed you, Davey. The most I've ever needed you, and you just left. "

"I know. I'm sorry." I don't know what else I can say, not when we both know that words can't possibly make this better. There's a flash of irritation on his face, so I add, "I'm here now, and I'll do whatever it takes to-" To make up for it? I can't make up for, and I won't endanger Rum or Graham in trying. "-to keep you safe."

"Whatever it takes?" He repeats, a whisper of a hard challenging edge in his voice, and I immediately regret it. "Even if it's killing the Dark One?"

Protectiveness flares white-hot in my chest, and I fight it back down; the snarled No that threatens to leap from my mouth isn't going to help me convince him.

"Trying to kill him is the only thing putting you in danger! Gods, just look around. Look where it's gotten us. And you want us to try it head-on? That's a death sentence and you bloody well know it!"

"You can't die." He counters.

"You can!"

"If that's what it takes. I'll die for vengeance."

"No, you won't! I didn't spend thirty years getting here just to watch you get yourself killed."

"Then don't watch!"

I only stare at him, biting back words that I know won't help, my panic rising as I try to think of some way to talk him down when I barely know this hate-fueled version of him. We're having the same argument as when we parted, over and over and round and round, and despite how familiar that is I feel like I'm looking at a stranger. He's within arm's reach of me yet somehow he feels miles away, still no closer than the distance that separated us for thirty years.

"You can't kill him." I try to reason.

"If I can get my hands on Dreamshade-"

"If? It's been thirty years, Ian! If you don't have it yet, what makes you think we can get it now?"

"The Shadow doesn't let us get close. It's one of the few things Pan has to hang over my head. But now that you're here, you can hold it off long enough for me to collect a sample."

"No." I say immediately.

"Because you can't or because you won't?" He challenges, and I hesitate to answer. I know I won't, but I also have no idea if I even can. Ian reads my hesitation and presses, "You have an idea, don't you?"

"I don't know if it'd work. It's a long story, but I can pull out a soul- or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it- and put it in this ring." I hold up my hand pointedly. "But that's souls, not shadows. I was going to use it on Pan in case killing him would destroy the island."

"It's the best option we have. We have to try-"

"No, we don't!" I'm so frustrated that I'm nearly shouting now. Why can't he just listen for once? "I'm not going to be apart of this, Ian. I'm not going to do anything to hurt Rumple, not even collect that fucking plant-"

"Rumple?" He cuts in, and it's like a switch has flipped, because everything in his face and voice are suddenly cold and hard. "You're on a first-name basis with the bloody Crocodile?"

My stomach drops and doesn't stop, opening a bottomless pit of fear in my gut. I swallow hard, consider lying even though I know I've already given too much away.

"He's here."

"What?"

"He came to the island with me. I couldn't get here on my own, I needed his help-"

"Why the hell would he help you free me?"

I look away as guilt claws at my insides. "He doesn't know who you are. He knows I'm here for my brother, but he assumes you're a Lost Boy."

Understanding dawns on his face, and then- and it turns my stomach to see- excitement.

"And he trusts you?"

My skin starts to crawl. "Why the hell does it matter?"

"This is our chance, Davey! You can get close enough to dose him with Dreamshade-

"Absolutely fucking not!"

"-and we'll kill him while he's weakened."

"No!" I snap. "No way in hell!"

"Davey, please. We could do it, together. This could be my best chance. If you won't stand against him, fine. Just get me Dreamshade, get me close enough, and then get out of my why. After that I'll go with you, but I'm not leaving without what I came for."

"No, Ian." I repeat. "Please, brother, just come home. Just put this on pause for one day. I'm not asking you to do anything but step through a portal. After that we'll both do what we have to do, but at least you'll be out of Pan's reach."

"Do what we have to do?" He repeats. "And what is that, exactly? You'll finally help me?" I stare at him in silence, because we both know that isn't what I said. "You'll just keep fighting me on this, won't you?

"I'm trying to keep you alive!" I shout.

"I hoped that if I ever saw you again, you'd finally back me. That you'd get over this- this cowardice and see how much I need this. When have you ever been scared to kill someone?" Grief and bitterness war on his face. "You've changed."

"You haven't!" I snap. "Thirty fucking years, Ian, and you're the same short-sighted person with the same suicidal goal! Don't you want a life after this? Don't you want a chance at happiness someday?"

"My chance at happiness is dead!" He screams. "The love of my life, murdered in front of me! I don't need happiness as long as I get satisfaction-"

Only the familiar-bond with Padfoot gives me a few seconds of warning that they're approaching, drawn by our shouting. I immediately start to backpedal, eyes flashing around as I desperately search for any way to avoid the impending confrontation.

"Ellie-?" Rum calls distantly, and Ian's mouth snaps shut mid-rant.

Padfoot bounds onto the beach, but Rum pauses for one second at the edge of the trees as his eyes zero in on Ian. "You." In a blink he's right next to me. "I wondered what hole you'd crawled off to. I see you didn't have the sense to die in it."

There's that look on Ian's face again that I saw when we parted, that all-consuming rage and hatred that makes him someone I barely recognize. On instinct I hold a hand out in front of Rum and the other towards Ian, trying to stop either from moving closer.

"Everyone just hold on-" I begin, turning sideways between them, eyes darting back and forth as I desperately try to gauge who I'll need to react to first. Rum's eyes are also darting, from me to Ian and back again. When understanding dawns on his face, anger flares to life with it.

"This is Ian?" He demands. "This is your little brother? Killian Jones?!"

Ian flashes him a sharp mocking smile. "Didn't you know I had a sister? Surely you've heard of the legendary Davey Jones."

Rum steps forward and grabs my wrist, pulls my attention fully onto him. "What is this? Why did you bring me here?"

I know where his mind has gone: that this is a plot against him, instead of one that simply used him.

"Not what you're thinking. I needed you to get here, that's it." I put steel into my voice, both explaining and warning when I add, "No one's getting hurt today."

Ian stares at me. "You're just going to let him put hands on you?"

Rum laughs, an unhinged, deranged cackle, hand going from my wrist to the base of my neck as he says, "I've done far more to your sister! And that's not to mention the way she puts her hands on me-"

"Rum!" I snap as I jerk away. I watch the fire flare on Ian's face. "Don't-" I command, but he still tries to lunge past me. Without thinking I grab him by the coat with both hands, spin, and all but throw him back the direction he came from. He stumbles, his hand already going to the knife at his hip as he whirls back to face us.

"What are you doing?!" He roars. "I've waited decades for this!"

I stay planted between them. "Don't do it, Ian. You know how this fight ends."

"It ends with him dead!"

"No, it doesn't. I won't let you hurt him. Do you understand me? It's not fucking happening!"

He stares at me for one heartbeat, two.

"No." He mutters first, realization dawning on his face, almost instantly replaced by horror and revulsion and a deep, visceral rage. With all the hatred I remember from our parting argument, he snarls, "Are you in love with him?"

My nails dig into my palms, and I swallow both my bone-deep agony and flickering anger. Coldly, calmly I reply, "Lay a hand on him, little brother, and we'll all find out."

"Him? Him?!" He roars. "The man who cut off my hand?! Who killed Milah?! How could you do this to me? How fucking dare you do this-"

Shame and guilt and defensive anger flash white-hot in my chest, and my mouth starts running ahead of my conscious input, all of the pain and vitriol of the last decades finally exploding out.

"You know what he's never done? Swung a weapon at me, thrown me out of our home, fucking disowned me! I've spent thirty years trying to get you out of here, and have you even thought about me once?!"

"After everything you've done, you're trying to guilt me? Everything I said that day was true! My brother is dead, and you are never there when I need you! Have I thought about you? Every bloody day I think about you, and I wonder when you became a bloody coward too afraid to kill one man!"

He takes a threatening step forward when he says it, motioning with his hook towards Rum; I match his step without thinking, blocking his path. This isn't happening, some distant part of me thinks. This can't be real. He was supposed to see reason. He was supposed to listen.

He reads my movement as reciprocal aggression, and he spreads his arms. "Go on then! Hit me! Spell me!" My hands flex at my side, and he drops his hand back to his knife and stalks closer. "We both know you can't."

This time he tries to brush past me. I grab him by the shoulder with one hand and hold him in place. Fear and white-hot pain are a roaring, violent storm in my chest. This isn't how it was supposed to end. This isn't the future I paid for in blood and tears.

"Don't." I warn again, voice shaking. In the back of my head is the distant instinct, He needs you, protect him, he's all you have, and I try to hold onto it and keep myself still, because I know I won't forgive myself if I take that final step.

He looks at me for a second, sharp and evaluating, and we've been through so many battles and bar-fights together that we both recognize the moment of knife-sharp tension that hangs in the air in the seconds before violence. I brace myself for a brawl, for the kind of knock-down, drag-out fight that we haven't had since we came to an age where physical fights had real implications.

"Have you told him?" He seethes, and for a moment I blink in confusion, so sure that this was about to escalate that I don't immediately comprehend what he's asking. "Did you give up immortality for him?"

"...No. No, I needed it to get here."

His expression is unreadable when he says, "Good."

His arm moves in a blur. I brace for the impact of a punch, and then white-hot agony explodes across my chest. I stagger from the pain as much as the impact, my hand instinctively replacing his on the dagger. My hand hasn't closed on it, my mind hasn't completely registered it, before he's grabbed the hand I had on his shoulder and is trying to wrench Thanatos's ring off my finger.

It takes one, two heartbeats of trying to yank myself free before I realize I should've seen this coming. The ring is the only weapon in his reach that he might be able to use against Rum; if he thought he could draw his sword fast enough, he might have taken my finger or the whole hand rather than grapple for it like this. It's what I would have done.

Then Ian is picked off his feet by an invisible force and slammed into a tree. Padfoot rushes to my side and plants himself between us, and I only realize that he'd been barking when it transitions into a deep-chested growl. I can barely breath, my lungs unable to expand enough to get any air down, every few shallow breaths nearly doubling me over with wet, hacking coughs that fleck the ground with blood. My vision tunnels, my head so light that I'm fighting not to pass out. I hold myself up with one hand on Padfoot's shoulder, unable to bring myself to let go of the knife with the other; only logic and hard-won experience keep me from ripping the blade out when every breath around it brings a fresh spike of agony. Rum and Ian are arguing, shouting, but I can only catch snippets.

"How's it feel," Ian is snarling, "Watching the woman you love die?"

"You're the expert on the subject, so enlighten me: does it hurt more or less than killing the only person who gives a damn about you?"

I start to gasp for breath, fighting down the visceral animal panic that threatens to smother my mind. The knife has punctured a lung and undoubtedly severed major vessels, and though I keep the blade in to buy me precious seconds, it trades bleeding out quickly for slowly drowning in my own blood. I'll have to pull it out to heal it, but I'm barely standing as it is; if I pass out in the middle of this, I could bleed to death before Rum even noticed.

I grasp for a thought, a command, and Padfoot's growl tapers to a whine in protest. Then he caves, and I topple to my knees as he dashes away. I watch through blurry tunnel-vision as he pelts the few paces to Rum, barking his head off, jumping in front of and against the Dark One. Rum shoves him off with an annoyed sound, but Padfoot only relents a step, standing between Rum and my brother and barking so hard that his front feet threaten to leave the ground each time.

Rum finally relents and looks back, and his eyes widen to see me on my knees, pale and trembling and coughing red, one hand still locked around the knife-hilt in my chest as blood slowly soaks through my shirt. He spares the briefest glance for my brother, a flick of the wrist sending him flying through the air to bounce off another tree. Then Rum is kneeling at my side, an arm wrapping my shoulders to hold me up when a wet cough doubles me over. He's talking, but my mind is starting to lag behind the words, and he has to repeat everything before I can comprehend it.

"Breath. Breath, Ellie. I'll pull. Let go, dear, I'll pull- good, good. Stay awake. Focus. I'll count down. Three-" And he yanks it free without even starting two.

I scream. I pass out. I wake myself up coughing, my head against his neck, his hand hovering over my chest as magic slowly, almost reluctantly stitches flesh back together. He's never tried to heal such a severe wound on me before, and the magic of a Dark One crawls across my skin like it's being forced against its will to preserve life.

"Still with me?" Rum asks lowly, eyes and tone hardening with every second that drags me further away from death's door. He looks away, his hand leaving me for one second to wave it back in Ian's direction; I just barely make out the dull thud of a body hitting something, but Padfoot is only a few feet away now, blocking any chance I might have had of actually seeing my brother.

Rum's hand returns to my chest, and the wound is half-closed now even if I can still barely breath. I start coughing again even as I reach into my jacket, grasping with clumsily fingers for the magic bean in the inside pocket.

"What are you-" Rum starts, but I only hold up the bean in answer as I wheeze.

I give him a second to protest, but he only stares at it and then me with a growing coldness. I grip it hard in my fist. Corbin. Corbin Castle, I try to will it. Then I toss it the few scant feet I can manage, and purple energy begins to spiral out from it; my hellhound spins, anxious of the new magic, and I can finally see Ian picking himself off the ground. The portal expands, expands- he's twenty feet from us but only a few from it's edge.

Time seems to drag around me, miliseconds stretching on and on. My hand shakes when I hold it out, body and mind protesting as I pull magic from dwindling energy. I don't have the power for much, but he's right there, so close to the portal's edge that all it would take is one quick pull. Just one pull and then…

And then what? Leave the Jolly Roger and it's crew to Pan, and spend a lifetime trying to keep Ian and Rum from killing each other. Always have to hold Ian at arm's length, because I can't let him near Graham when he's demonstrated how far he'd go to hurt Rum. Where's the happiness in that future? Is there any room for forgiveness, understanding, or is it just this same pain, over and over and over again until one of the three of us finally dies?

Oh, the horror of realizing your mother was right no matter how much you needed her to be wrong.

I should be willing to make this sacrifice, to drag him home kicking and screaming if I must, to spend the rest of my life protecting him even if he hates me. I always thought I could take that trade, that I would. When did I turn so selfish? How did I become some creature that cares only for her own happiness?

Ian is on his feet now, taking a hesitant step towards us. I try to force myself to accept what comes next even if I'd rather take a dozen more stab wounds. Fire leaps to my call with eagerness, feeding on anger and pain, and a wall of flame races across the ground and jumps ten feet high, blocking his path to the portal. I can't quite make out his expression through the flames. I'm not sure I want to. Thirty years of heartache wasted on a man I don't recognize, who's still exactly the same version of him I last saw and who wants to be nothing else. A happy future sacrificed for him, and we can barely stand to look at each other. This wasn't how it was supposed to end, I think again. This isn't the future I paid for.

The ground drops out from under us, and then we're falling, falling, falling.

We appear next to the pond in the garden of Corbin Castle. "Library" is all I manage to choke out, my hand already going to the wound on my chest and pouring magic into it. Rum teleports us there, and when the smoke clears we're next to the armchairs in front of the hearth. I slump against the side of the chair as the wound on my chest stops bleeding; after a few heartbeats more I can finally get air down, and for several seconds I do nothing but lean my head back and suck in deep ragged breaths. The hounds- both of them now- huddle around me, whining softly, licking my hand with concern. It's only then that I realize there's blood running down my arm, shirt and flesh torn by Ian's hook during our momentary struggle.

Rum has taken several steps back, and as my faculties return I can only watch him wearily, still breathing hard, suddenly physically exhausted. I open my mouth to explain, to apologize, but only close it again.

"I should have known." He begins haltingly. "I should've Seen it."

"...This wasn't how it was supposed to go." My voice is thick and ragged from coughing.

"And how was it supposed to go?"

"I just wanted him back-"

"And then what? Sibling bonding as you try to kill me?!"

"No!" I shoot too quickly to my feet, and my vision flashes black at the sudden movement; I sway in place, blindly grabbing for the back of the armchair to keep myself up. "That wasn't the plan. I would never-"

"Wouldn't and would never are different things, Ellyn!" He shouts. "So which was it? Look me in the eyes and tell me you never planned to!"

"I- I never planned to do anything. I considered it-"

"Oh, is that all?"

"-but I wanted to avoid it! I'm trying to keep him alive, dammit! Not wanting to kill you is what drove us apart, because I wouldn't support his bloody suicide mission."

"Then what was the plan? Explain it to me! Explain to me how else you thought this could possibly end-"

"I didn't!" I shout back. "I didn't plan that far out! I thought I'd throw you out of the Stones after you'd started it, or that I'd just leave you in Neverland, but I didn't know, and I didn't care. I was desperate. I just needed to see him again. Gods, it's been thirty years. He could've been an old man getting older every day, he could've been dead for all I knew. I was out of time, out of options. And the guilt, gods the guilt, it's been eating me alive for thirty bloody years and I couldn't fucking take it anymore! You have no idea what that's like-"

"I know exactly what that's like!" He screams. "I am the only person in the world who knows what that's like, and you lied to me! You used me!"

The burning guilt in my chest sparks defensiveness. "Used you? I told you from the beginning exactly what I was after! This was just business, remember? I needed you to get to Neverland and that was it, no greater plan, no big fucking scheme-"

"Then it was the only truth you've told!"

"No! I've told you, I've tried to tell you, this was real." I see the recognition and horror flash his face when he remembers what I told him at the Standing Stones, realizes why it felt like a goodbye. "I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did. Everything else- the rest of my past, what we had- that was all true. It was real. I swear, it was real."

"Is that supposed to matter to me?" He snarls. "It clearly didn't matter enough to you to change anything! If this was so real, so true-" He sneers the words, "-then how did it still come second to the brother who doesn't even want you?!"

A chasm opens in my chest, like something's already missing, like my heart's already been carved out, because I realize that we both already know how this ends. I can't even be surprised, because even if I'm living a nightmare, it's one I've seen over and over, one I've been dreading for months. I know, and I still try to fight it.

"Rum, please. I never wanted to hurt you." He only scoffs. "I- I'm-" I try to begin, and then terror floods through me, locking my muscles and squeezing my throat, because I almost said those three treasured, cursed words on which my immortality hangs. He knows it too, and his eyes blaze as he stalks towards me.

"You're what? In love with me?" He stops a hands' breadth away, somehow looming despite our similar heights. "Say it, then! Say I love you." I rock back on my heels, but he leans in until our noses are nearly touching, snarling, hands motioning wildly as he shouts, "Just say the magic words, Ellie, and I'll stay. Go on, say it!"

I open my mouth, stunned, and close it again. Vali's voice, an amalgamation of locked-away, purposely-buried memories, plays in my head: Just say it! Don't you want to? Don't I deserve to hear it just once? You'd be my wife but won't say 'I love you'?!

Frustration flares across Rum's face when I shut down. "What, cat suddenly got your tongue? It's easy. Watch." He takes my face in both hands, grip gentle despite how tightly every other muscle is wound. "I loved you." He snarls, and the outright anger melts into white-hot agony and betrayal. "I loved you the first day we stepped in this castle." Quieter, he challenges, "Just say it, Ellie, and I'll stay."

I want to, gods know I do, but he's not asking because he wants to hear it; he's asking because he knows exactly what it would cost me. No more second chances: not with Ian, not against enemies, not even just with accidents. For two-thirds of my life I've been able to bounce back from literally anything, and without it I don't know what life looks like except terrifyingly fragile and final.

Would it actually change anything even if I did say it? For a minute the temptation burns through the fear like a lighthouse through fog, because what if it could? Would it actually prove my intentions, would he actually stay, could he actually forgive if I just... But I don't believe it, can't believe it when guilt is raking red-hot claws through my insides. The pain and mounting anger in Rum's eyes tells me that he doesn't believe it either, that he knew how I'd answer and how much it'll hurt. As silence stretches I can only stare back at him, completely lost, mortally wounded. The chasm in my chest seems to physically burn. I look down, pull his hands off me, step back.

"You should leave." I say hollowly.

For two, three heartbeats, the only sound in the room is Rum's breathing, harsh and quick from shouting. When I meet his eyes again he looks absolutely gutted, absolutely furious. For one second, he even looks like he regrets it.

I stare at him in silence. I can't say it. I can't even ask him to stay, because it would be so much less than he deserves and so much more than I do. He waits one more heartbeat for me to say the words, to say anything, but I don't. I can't. The regret on his face is washed away by pain and anger, and he disappears in a cloud of purple smoke.

I can only sink into the chair and put my face in my hands.

A/N: Ah, the drama! The delicious angst! Don't worry, we'll see Rumple again soon.

Real talk though, one of my goals with writing a romance fic was actually having a reasonable and foreshadowed basis for the third-act breakup. I hope that it came across as pretty reasonable- or at least, in character- reactions by all parties to bad choices and circumstances.

I've been going back and forth on Pan's reaction to the situation. I couldn't realistically keep him out of things entirely, but given that he knows that Baelfire is somewhere on the island but out of his control, I think he'd want to get Ellyn and Rum out of there quickly, before Rumple finds out and takes away his only connection to the 'heart of the truest believer'.

I hope to have the next chapter up before the end of February.