Ch.44: The Heart Of The Truest Believer
The Jollyroger finished its course from Storybrooke to Neverland soon enough and Katherine saw an island up ahead.
“I assume that’s it,” she said.
“Aye,” Hook said. “Neverland.”
Regina approached Hook where he was steering.
“Why are you slowing down? In case you didn’t know, my son’s life is in danger.”
“Oh, I know, my hotheaded Queen. My plan is to bring us to the far side of the island, link up with the widest part of the river. Then we sail right through and take him by surprise. The irony.”
“What irony?”
“Oh. I spent more time than I care to remember trying to leave this place and to kill Rumpelstiltskin. And here I am, sailing right back into its heart with him as my guest of honor. It’s not quite the happy ending I was hoping for.”
“Greg Mendell said something funny to me. He said I’m a villain. And that villains don’t get happy endings. You believe that?”
“I hope not. Or we’ve wasted our lives.”
Katherine was staring into the open water, when Snow and Charming came up to her.
“Hey,” Snow said. “What happened to Neal and Henry, it’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself.”
She looked at her.
“I don’t. You say good always wins, but I didn’t grow up in some fairytale land. All I can go on is my experience. It’s way different than yours.”
“And all we have to go on is ours,” Snow replied. “So, if you would just let us share our wisdom—.”
“I appreciate you trying to make me feel better about the situation we’re in, but I don’t need your wisdom. All I want is to do good and get Henry back for myself and Regina and everyone else. Besides, all of this is happening because I broke the curse. Nothing enormously bad was happening before I broke the curse. Then I broke it and everything has all gone wrong. I should’ve left town and gone back to where I came from. I could’ve gone to New Orleans and asked for a second chance.”
“You’re right. Then you’d probably be together,” Snow replied.
“We are going to get our family back,” Charming assured her.
“How can you two be so infuriatingly optimistic?” she inquired.
“It’s who we are,” Charming reminded her.
“Why? Ever since you got your memories back, your lives have sucked.”
“What is this really about?” Snow inquired of her.
“I lost Neal and Henry and countless others before and in Storybrooke,” she answered her.
“Katherine, the minute I let go of the belief that things will get better is the minute I know they won’t. We’ll find Henry,” Snow assured her.
“No, you won’t,” Rumple said, standing not far from where Hook was steering.
“Well, that’s a good use of our time. A wardrobe change,” Hook commented, since Rumple was now wearing what he used to wear before Storybrooke.
“I’m gonna go get Henry,” Rumple stated.
“We agreed to do this together,” Regina reminded him, standing not far behind him.
Katherine went to stand not far from Rumple, an old lamp in hand.
“Actually, we made no such agreement,” Rumple replied.
“Why are you doing this?” Katherine asked.
“Because I want to succeed,” Rumple replied.
“What makes you think I’m gonna fail?”
“How could you not? You don’t believe in them or yourself. Only what’s been shown to you. When have you ever taken a real leap of Faith? You know, the kind where there’s absolutely no proof. I’ve known you some time Ms. Pierce, and sadly, despite everything you’ve been through, you’re still that bail bondsperson. Looking for evidence. Well, dearie, that’s not gonna work in Neverland.”
She looked at him.
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Or you just need someone to tell you what that is. Sorry, dearie. Our foe is too fearsome for hand-holding. Neverland is a place where imagination runs wild, and sadly, yours doesn’t.”
A moment later, he was gone.
Meanwhile, The Lost Boys found Greg and Henry. Greg had thought that home office would have a way of getting him home, but he was wrong. One of the shadows ripped his shadow out of him, killing him, so Henry ran until Pan got him, though at the time, Henry thought he was a Lost Boy that escaped from the others.
Katherine was in the bunker, sitting down, when Hook walked in.
She looked at him.
“Don’t let Rumpelstiltskin get you down, luv.”
“What do you want?”
“To give you something. You know, Baelfire and I spent a lot of time together for a time.” He pulled out a sword that was still in its sheath and went to stand in front of her. “This was his.”
“I didn’t realize you were sentimental.”
“I’m not. I just thought you could use it where we’re going. To fight.”
He opened up a bottle of rum and poured them both a shot.
She looked at him.
“Thanks.”
“To Baelfire.”
“To Baelfire,” she said, and they both drank to it.
Hook sat across from her.
“How long have you known him?” she asked.
“Long enough to know I miss him too.”
There was a crash from above.
“What was that?” she asked.
He got to his feet and headed out of the bunker to go check it out.
Regina went over to where Charming and Snow were trying to steer.
“What the hell are you two doing?”
“Trying to keep it steady!” Snow informed her.
“Hold on!” Charming said.
Hook came up from the bunker and Katherine followed.
“Prepare for attack!”
Regina looked at him.
“Be more specific!”
“If you’ve got a weapon, then grab it!” Hook ordered.
Katherine grabbed part of a rope to hang on.
“What’s out there? A shark? A whale?”
“A Kraken?” Charming questioned.
“Worse,” Hook replied. “Mermaids.”
Charming, Snow, and Katherine looked down into the water and saw them.
“Mermaids?” Katherine inquired. She’d never heard of mermaids as being something bad to come across.
“Yes. And they’re quite unpleasant,” Hook informed her, as he steered.
“You think?” Regina said.
“I’ll try and outrun them,” Hook said.
“How many of them are there?” Katherine asked.
“I will not be capsized by fish!” Charming said.
Charming put something in the launcher and fired at one.
“Katherine!” Snow said, and went to help Charming by grabbing a net.
“What are we doing?” she questioned, but followed her.
“We’re fishing.”
She helped Snow get the net over.
A moment later, Snow said, “We caught one!”
“One? There are dozens of them,” Regina replied. “Enough of this.” She made a ball of fire appear in her hand and began throwing it at the mermaids until they fled. “There. They’re gone.”
“Not all of them,” Katherine said.
“What about that one?” Snow asked.
Regina saw the one that they had caught and magically made the net and mermaid appear aboard the ship.
The mermaid tried to get loose, but couldn’t.
“Get that thing off my ship!” Hook demanded.
“No!” Regina replied. “Now we have a hostage.”
“I hate to say it, but I’m with Hook,” Charming told her. “Those things just tried to kill us.”
“And perhaps we should find out why,” Regina replied.
“How? By torturing her?” Snow asked.
“Well, if need be, sure,” Regina replied.
The mermaid used a shell to blow into.
“What the hell is that?” Katherine asked.
“A warning,” the mermaid said. “Let me go. Or die.”
On one side of the island, Rumple found the aftermath of what had happened.
On the other side, Henry was still running with Pan even though he still didn’t know he was Pan.
“What is this? What did you do?” Charming asked her, knelt down with the seashell in hand.
“Let me go,” she replied.
“Not until you tell us. Or we make you tell us,” Regina commanded.
“Threatening her isn’t the way to motivate her,” Snow told her.
“Well, I’m all out of fish food,” Regina replied.
“Doesn’t matter if you get her to talk. You can’t trust her. Mermaids are liars,” Hook informed them all.
“Maybe they’re just scared of Pan. If we let her go, maybe they’ll be on our side,” Snow suggested.
“Or maybe she and her friends will come right back to kill us,” Regina replied.
“I don’t need my friends to kill you. You’ll kill yourselves. Now, let me go.”
“What the hell!” Charming said.
“It’s a storm,” Hook said. “She called it. Don’t let her go. She’ll swim off and leave us all to die. At least with her, we’ve got leverage.”
“Stop the storm. Then we let you go,” Charming said, a sword to the mermaid’s throat.
Regina knelt by Charming and the mermaid.
“That’s more like it, Charming. Filet the bitch.”
Snow and Katherine were silent, watching the scene.
Charming stepped away.
“No. We’re not barbarians.”
“What we’re going to be is dead,” Regina said.
“Hold on, I’m gonna turn around,” Hook announced to them. “I’ve outrun many a storm.”
“Make it stop. Or die,” Regina threatened her.
“We’re not killers,” Snow said.
“Yes, you are. And you’ve brought this death upon yourselves.”
“This is why we should free her,” Snow warned.
“That feel-good nonsense, Snow, might play in the enchanted forest, but this? This is Neverland,” Regina reminded her.
“Keep your grip, pirate!” Charming shouted, as the storm got even worse and Katherine almost lost her balance.
“It wasn’t me, mate! It was the ship! We’re taking on water.”
“Now may I resume killing her?” Regina questioned.
“No,” Charming told her.
“You kill her and her kind have a personal vendetta against us,” Snow warned her.
“Look, the Queen is right. They’ve already tried killing us,” Hook told Snow.
Regina magically turned the mermaid into wood.
“There. That should stop the storm.”
Katherine grabbed onto the closest rope, when a sudden huge wave appeared.
“What have you done?” she scolded Regina.
She went over to where Hook was and tried to help him steer the ship, though she had no experience with ships or boats. She’d grown up with them and had traveled in them, but she’d never had to steer one before.
“I thought you said you could outrun a storm.”
“This isn’t a storm. It’s a bloody damnation.”
Snow looked at Regina.
“Why would you do this?”
“You’re going to blame me?” Regina questioned.
“You turned the mermaid into wood.”
“I did something about it, which is more than what you can say.”
“Undo your spell. Bring back the mermaid.”
“And what? You’ll win her over with your rainbow kisses and unicorn stickers?”
“Considering that your plan failed, at least we can try.”
“Such a naïve princess!”
“And you are such a—,” Snow began, but stopped herself. Instead, she hit Regina.
“Is that your best?”
“Not even close. I’m so tired of you ruining my life.”
“I ruined your life?”
Regina hit her back.
Lightning almost hit the ship.
“Hey. Let the slags go. I need you at the mast,” Hook ordered Charming.
“Don’t call my wife a slag,” Charming said.
“Stop it!” Katherine yelled at Charming and Hook, as she tried to steer it, but it wasn’t working out very well on her own. “If you don’t stop fighting, we’re all going to die!” She went to stand on one of the ship’s ledges. “Hey! Stop! You need to listen to me!” she yelled at them, but they weren’t listening to her.
Suddenly, the storm got even worse and she lost her footing on the ledge and fell into the water. A part of rope went with her, too. After a few minutes, everything went black for her.
“Katherine!” Snow yelled, and that’s when everyone stopped fighting and looked over the edge to see if they could find her.
“Regina! Get her up here!” Snow said after a moment of not seeing her in the water.
“I can’t. not in this storm. I can’t even see her,” Regina informed her. “I’ll just bring up water and half her leg.”
Hook grabbed a rope and put it around his waist.
“She’ll drown. I’ll pull her up,” Hook said.
Once they had a hold of the rope, he dove into the water and, after a few minutes, spotted her. He made his way over to her and put an arm around her waist. Then he surfaced with her.
When they saw that he had her, they pulled on the rope, getting them to the ship.
Once they were aboard, he got the rope off himself and knelt by her, where she lay on her back. He could tell that she wasn’t breathing.
“No,” was all Snow could say, while the others were silent.
He bent down and kissed her, hoping it would work, and rested his good hand on the side of her face.
She wasn’t awake, but she did cough up the water.
Everyone sighed in relief, knowing that she’d be okay.
“That a girl, luv,” Hook praised, though he wasn’t sure if she could hear him yet or not.
Regina did the steering, while Hook stayed at Katherine’s side, waiting for her to wake up, as the sky cleared, signaling that the storm was no more.
“Wake up, darling. Come on, luv. Wake up.”
She soon woke up to see that she was back on the ship, Hook at her side. She assumed that he’d saved her life.
She slowly began to get up and he helped her.
“Thanks, but next time, listen to me when I tell all of you to stop fighting each other.”
“You’re welcome, luv.”
Meanwhile, Henry had mastered the ability to use pixie dust to fly, since he and Pan were on a ledge and didn’t have anywhere to go and nothing to use to help them except for the pixie dust.
On the other side of the island, Rumple was sitting on a log, when he sensed a presence watching him.
“Come out and say hello, dearie.”
“Hello, Rumpelstiltskin. Pan welcomes you to the island. He wanted me to tell you he is excited to see you again.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he is.”
“He wanted me to let you know you’re welcome in Neverland for as long as you wish to stay. With one caveat.”
“There’s always something with him.”
“If you’re here for the boy, well, that makes you Pan’s enemy.”
“Then nothing’s changed.”
“If you go against him, you will not survive.”
Rumple chuckled.
“Well, the question isn’t will I survive, because we both know I won’t.” He stood up from the log. “No, no. The real question is how many of you I take with me.” He grabbed a hold of the Lost Boy’s cloak at that last part.
“So, is that your answer?”
“That’s my answer.”
“Well then, I suppose that means I’ll see you again in less friendly circumstances.”
“Count on it.”
Rumple began to walk away, but the Lost Boy said, “One last thing,” stopping Rumple.
Rumple turned around to face him again.
“There’s something he wanted you to have.”
The boy tossed a voodoo doll on the ground by Rumple and Rumple knelt down and picked it up, remembering a certain time.
“Oh…”
“Isn’t it funny?” the boy said. “The things we haven’t thought about in years still have the ability to make us cry. See you around, Dark One.”
The boy walked away.
Soon, they reached the island and left the ship.
“We don’t have to do it this way,” Regina stated. “I can fix the Jollyroger. My magic is powerful enough. We can execute the pirate’s plan.”
“Sneak attack? Let’s not be naïve. Save your magic. We’ll need it later, because Pan already knows we’re here. It’s time we stop running. Gold was right. This land is run on belief. All of us have been too busy being at each other’s throats to be believers. I was wrong as anyone else. But it’s time for all of us to believe. Not in magic, but in each other,” Katherine announced.
“You want to be friends?” Regina inquired. “After everything that’s happened between all of us?”
“I don’t want or expect that. I know there’s a lot of history here, a lot of hate,” she replied.
“Actually, I quite fancy you from time to time, when you’re not yelling at me,” Hook confessed to her.
“We don’t need to be friends. What we need to know is the only way to get Henry back is cooperation,” Katherine continued after side glancing at Hook when he said that.
“With her?” Charming questioned. “With him? No, Katherine. We have to do this the right way.”
“No, we don’t. We just need to succeed. And the way we do that is by just being who we are. A hero. A villain. A pirate. It doesn’t matter which, because we’re gonna need all those skills, whether we can stomach them or not.”
“And what’s your skill?” Regina asked her.
“I have many skills. I’m a former mother and I’m descended from Travelers, which are a form of witches, so I’ve got magic of my own. And once I know my enemy, both his weaknesses and strengths, I know how to be several steps ahead. And after what happened back there, I’m also your leader. So, either help me get your son back or get out of my way,” she answered, and then took out Bae’s old sword from its sheath, as she walked away.
Charming took his sword out and he and Snow followed her. Then Hook gave Regina a look, as he followed. Then Regina finally followed, though she didn’t like being led or told what to do.
Henry and Pan landed back on the ground in the jungle.
“See? If you believe, anything is possible.”
“You couldn’t be more right, Henry.”
“How…How’d you know my name? I never told you.”
“Let’s make it a game. A puzzle to solve.”
“You lied to me. You are a Lost Boy. You work for Pan!”
“Not exactly. I am Peter Pan. But you told Greg and Tamara that magic is bad, that you’d help them destroy it. Why?”
“Because I needed their help. And it is so much easier to get people to hate something than to believe.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“For quite some time, I’ve sought something extremely important. Something more elusive than the greatest of all mysteries.”
“What?”
“The heart of the truest believer. And when you took that pixie dust, Henry, and jumped off that cliff, you proved yourself.” He went over and knocked on a tree. “You are the lucky owner of that very special heart. And now? You, and it, are mine.” He took out his sword and raised it to the sky. “Come on, boys!”
The Lost Boys came out and surrounded Henry.
“Let’s play,” Pan said.
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