Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 4 - Throwing Rocks

The next morning we came up with a plan to get into Pan's compound and save Henry, but when Tinker Bell realized we didn't have an escape plan off Neverland she called it quits until we found one. 

         I. New quest - find a way out of Neverland before Tinker Bell would help us save Henry. 

David asked Hook how he got off the island and he confessed that Pan had given him a portal and the only person who had ever left the island without Pan's permission was Emma's partner in crime, Neal. He also mentioned knowing of a place where we may find a clue as to how he did it. 

We hiked through the jungle, found Neal's old hideout, and went inside. Neal's hideout was in a cave, and once we were inside it was pitch black. Hook lit up the cave using torches on the walls to reveal tons of drawings on the walls. We began looking around for any sign or clue of a way off the island. Hook hoped there would be a clue as to how Neal - Baelfire - had gotten off the island without Pan's permission somewhere inside this cave. 

Hook and Emma were having a talk about Neal's drawings when Emma dismissed him and his efforts to bond with her. The drawings on the wall, I had overheard him telling her, depicted people Hook knew well - his lost love, who had been like an aunt to Baelfire, Milah, who had been Neal's mother and a dear friend of the pirates, and Baelfire himself. I reached out a hand in a comforting gesture, casting one last long look at the drawings on the wall before continuing the search.

Hearing Killian's stories of Neal, seeing his secret cave home here in Neverland and all these drawings made me realize there was more to Neal than the wrongs he'd done toward my sister. I found myself a bit sad, actually, now that he was dead and I hadn't gotten the chance to get to know him better. (Well, Neal was at least presumed dead - He'd been shot by Tamara and fallen through a portal, sure, but I had noticed that people from the Enchanted Forest seemed to be more resilient, able to heal quicker and handle more than people from the Land Without Magic, so maybe he had been able to survive). 

Emma asked David to hand her a candle and he lit one of the coconut candles that had been sitting on some rocks. Emma found the top half of the coconut and asked Hook to snuff out the lights. When she combined the two pieces the top with the holes in the coconut reflected on the cave ceiling like stars, revealing a map to home, if we could figure out how to interpret it. It was beautiful and ingenuitive, and I knew I never would have thought of something like that. 

Hook explained he had taught Neal to navigate with the stars, along with the key to being a pirate - secrecy. Only Neal could read and decipher the map to get us home. Emma got emotional at the mention of Neal's death and left the cave, David and Snow chasing after her. I gave it a few beats before following everyone out. I noticed Snow and David talking near the entrance but Emma was nowhere in sight, so I decided to try and find her.

I did find her, further down and off the path and she was pissed. She was angry at Neal for leaving her, making her believe he didn't love her just for him to enter back into her life and leave it all over again. I handed her a rock and asked if she wanted to let off some steam and she threw it deep into the jungle. I offered her another and she threw it, and we repeated this again and again until we heard a yell from Regina with a warning about almost taking off her head and we both laughed as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. 

It might not have been some grand speech about hope, but it was something.

Regina walked up to us and asked if she could have a few words alone with my sister and I left the two women to talk, heading back toward the cave. I had told Emma, as she was throwing rocks, of my theory on people from the Enchanted Forest being more resilient than people from back home, but she had just said she wasn't sure if that was better or worse.