Set Your Sails...to Neverland || Peter Pan, OUAT

Chapter 12 - Strange Surroundings

- - -

The next time I awake, there's a tinkling of keys on the other side of my door; I sit up, swinging my legs down to face the visitors straight on. I take a deep breath as I watch the gap between the door and frame increase. I slowly raise my head as I see who it is; the nurse from earlier, and by my guess, Regina Mills. The nurse leaves and Regina stays behind.

"You requested to see me?" She asks, her hands folded in front of her.

"Yes. I'm asking if I can be released. Sooner, rather than later, preferably." I answer boldly.

"Oh..." She says and is quiet for a moment. Her eyes flit as she thinks, dragging the moment out.

"Because you see, I don't know what I did exactly," I speak up.

"Well, you did steal from me, but without intent to hurt me."

As she says the last few words, it all comes rushing back, and the pieces fall into place...Snow White, Prince Charming, the Dwarves, the Dark Palace, the Enchanted Forest, rescuing Red Riding Hood, being put in the dungeon, the curse...

"You. You're the..." I stutter.

"I'm the what?"

"...the...the Evil Queen..." I whisper.

She's shocked by my answer, but she looks behind as if to check that no one is there and then she sits down next to me, her voice low to reply, "How do you remember? I took away everyone's memories."

"What you just said... I never intended on being and was never meant to be, in the Enchanted Forest. I barely even knew that it existed. I remembered what I was doing before arriving there and only forgot what happened to me while I was in your land. My memories triggered easily."

She's speechless. There is no trace of an answer on her face, but finally, after a few hesitated sounds, she musters up a question, "How long did I imprison you for?"

"Two weeks...I had three days left."

"I should at least leave you in here for the rest of that time. I must remain true to my word."

I sigh with exasperation, "No...I need to leave, now."

She shakes her head, "I can't do that."

"Why? Do you understand who I'm dealing with? If you think that you're the..."evilest" one out there, you're wrong. Peter Pan is. He looks like a boy but he's most definitely not. He hides who he really is too well," I say, desperate and scrambling for appropriate terms.

"Why does that have to do with your need to get out of here so quickly?"

"I have to get back to Neverland before his Shadow comes and terrorises the town. I'm not going to let some kind of dark being destroy it and take innocent children from their homes," I answer, anger and bitterness building up inside me.

Then, she begins to laugh, as if I said something hilarious. I frown and wait for her to stop laughing. "Oh my dear, you can't leave. There's no magic here."

My spirit drops. Heavy and simple, like a rock. I close my slightly open mouth and slowly look to the ground. I can see her looking at me with sincere pity – she wasn't like that one bit in the Enchanted Forest. Why and how had she changed so drastically from the stone-cold Queen I met briefly?

"Three days, then you can come out of this cell," she says before she leaves, locking the door.

- - -

For the rest of my time there, I eat the flavourless food – bread, and water. I study the map, to see if I can make sense of it, and I hum a lot. Mainly sea shanties, folk songs, tavern songs, and sometimes Pan's pesky pipe song. I have to stop singing it – if I can't go back, I have to forget. If I'm going to be completely honest with myself, I'm going to miss Neverland; no matter how much I hate Pan's ways, it was fun. No rules, and complete freedom of movement, within the island at least, and Pan wasn't all bad. He did save my life once and left me to rest and recover, and he let me show him how I have fun and he let me do things the Lost Boys weren't allowed to do. I truly think he needed, and needs, someone who has the same...maturity of thoughts as he does, ironically. That must be why he let me do a lot of things without supervision. I work similarly to him, and because he knows himself, he can trust me.