Chapter 27
"Did you hear that?" Emma asks, stopping the gang in their tracks.
"Are you kidding me? It's us walking, Emma. How many times do I have to tell you that?" Regina asks, already annoyed from the people she has to be with.
But in the close distance, another crack of leaves sounded off. And considering none of them were moving, or were where the sound was coming from, all of them sprang into action.
Lost Boys come out from every direction. Emma held out her sword, but none of them came towards her. None of them even moved. They just stood there, almost in a trance.
"They're there to hide your tracks from Pan." A girls voice says.
"Who's there?" Regina asks.
A body comes out of the shadows, showing a red haired girl with a smile on her face. "Hi." She says, "I'm Ariel."
"Tinkerbell." Another voice comes out of the shadows. Her blonde hair in a bun at the top of her head.
Both names were familiar in fairy tales. Tinkerbell was Peter Pan's fairy- that wasn't a good thing- and Ariel was a mermaid.
"Ladies." Hook greets. "Last time I heard was that you, my dear fairy, had gone rogue with the rest of the fairies."
"I had." She admitted. "And I still am, I guess. As long as I'm here I still have the death thoughts and all of that. The only way I stay slightly sane is because of-" She stops mid-sentence and looks down. "There's a flower."
"And your wings." Hook whispers.
"Taken away. Because I was turned rogue against my will."
He looks over to Ariel next, who shys behind Tink because of the way he looks at her. Hook always scared her. "And you? How are you walking on land?"
She holds her hand up to the bracelet.
"She managed to leave before the whole island was taken over." Tinkerbell fills in for her. "She came back years later, desperate for my help."
"What did she need your help for?" Mary Margaret asks.
"Help for Neverland." Tinkerbell answers again. "It didn't work."
"Obviously." Regina mumbles.
"Is anyone else wondering about the abundance of lost boys around us?" Emma asks, still holding her sword out to the young boy, staring with blank eyes. In fact, all of them were staring as much. Not moving, just staring. It's creepy as hell, if she's being honest.
"I told you before." Tinkerbell says. "Pan is smart, but not that smart. When a huge amount of people are in one spot, they can't tell who's all there. That's why we bring these boys around with us everywhere."
"What's wrong with them?" David asks, waving a hand in front of an unblinking eye.
"Nothing."
He raises his eyebrow to her, but she just shrugs.
"What is the point of this?" Regina asks irritated. Emma sends a pointed look to her, but she didn't see. The woman was staring with narrowed eyes to Tinkerbell and Ariel with her arms crossed across her chest.
"We're here to help you." Ariel says. "To both stop Pan and to get your son back. But, if we do that, we need your help with something too."
Emma glances over to the rest of the gang before warily asking, "What is it?"
"To fix Neverland. Bring it back to how it was before Mal- Pan came."
"How could we do that?" Mary Margaret asks, and Regina just rolls her eyes.
"They want us to kill Pan."
"Uh," Ariel smiles sheepishly. "Not exactly."
❧
Henry could only watch as the lost boys danced to the sound of Peter Pan making music into his pipe. Well, that's what he guessed it was. He couldn't exactly hear it.
He thinks Pan is irritated that he can't, but what is he supposed to do? What does he even do to make himself listen to it?
Pan and the lost boys were so ingaged in what they were doing, that he managed to sneak back into the woods. It was dark out, but it was always dark out here. There's no light, he's starting to miss the Storybrooke sunshine.
With being away from them, he finally allowed himself to think of the girl in the woods. Pan seemed surprised he was alive, but didn't question it. Henry was still afraid that Pan held some reading mind ability, and some way he knew that Pan wasn't supposed to know of the girl. He didn't even get to see her.
Though Pan was insanely creepy, he knew he wasn't the creepiest thing here.
The creepiest was his shadow. He's never fully seen it- for who can see a shadow? But he could somehow know it was there. The shadow would watch him when he's alone, but not right now. Henry felt a different presence.
The presence he felt before.
"Hello?" Henry calls out softly. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She didn't answer, but he could hear a shifting of foot that caused a crack of a twig.
"I'm Henry, if you didn't already know." He laughs quietly. "Thank you for saving me."
"Who are you talking to?" A voice asks, and Henry quickly turns around. He's faced with Pan raising his eyebrow in question.
To give her a leave, Henry quickly broke into a coughing fit. He had hoped she got the message and ran away, but he would never know.
"You okay?" He asks.
"I don't think you care." Henry says back. "Considering you were the one who made one of your lost boys to arrow me in the leg."
"It wasn't to hurt you." Pan laughs. "It was to show you can do anything when you put your mind to it. And you healed yourself."
Henry nods, just to let him think that he was the one who did it. It suddenly made sense why he didn't question it before then.
"Who were you talking to?" He repeats.
Henry gulps, trying to think of the quickest thing he can. "A deer."
"A... Deer?"
"Yeah, and you scared it away." He gives him the best angry look he can before walking away.
Pan only followed. "It's not safe to stir away from the rest of the boys."
"It's not safe to be with the boys." Henry fires back. "Just leave me alone."
"I can't do that, Henry. I need you to help Neverland."
Henry stops walking, allowing Pan to go on.
Peter Pan smirks in which Henry cannot see. "I'm guessing you've seen the way Neverland is now. It wasn't always like this. It used to be better."
"That's weird to think of." Henry comments.
"I guess so. But I need your help, I need it to bring back Neverland how it used to be."
Henry turns around to look at the taller boy. "What could I do?"
"With your heart, Henry. You have the heart of the truest believer. I need you, Neverland needs you. To bring back magic."
Before he can respond, something comes out of the sky and falls to Pan's head. In a slightly comically way, he grunts and slumps to the floor. With second looking, Henry saw that it was a big rock.
Another thing drops from the sky. This time, a person.
Henry knew it was her. He didn't know how, but the aura she led off was the same as the girl who saved him.
He looked at her, her long, blonde braided hair down to her ankles. The big blue eyes, he knew which fairy tale she was. Though confused why she was on Neverland and saving her, he didn't ask her the questions flooding in his mind.
Because she talked first.
"You weren't actually believing that crap, were you?"