Brave Reborn (OUAT/Peter Pan Fanfic)

Chapter 37

(Pan's POV)

I was holding her hand, begging her to stay. I cried while watching the light fade out of her eyes, her hand growing cold and stone like in my grasp. Her eyes were still blue like the ocean, shimmering and crashing beneath the sunset. Looking into her eyes was like looking through a fragile piece of turquoise sea glass, which laid in the sand glistening in the sunlight.

Her eyes have frozen over like the surface of a winter puddle, robbing them of their usual warmth. She was in there, I knew it, but it was like she just took a huge step back from life. I want to reach in and tell her it was not hopeless, but she would not believe me. I want to rekindle her heat but her insides are too damp with uncried tears. I always knew she had pain inside, but now it was visible on her face and I wish it would go away. I know that was a selfish want, people have a right to their pain, they do not ask for it—it just arrives like the gift you never wanted.

The blood did not gush in a constant flow, but in time with the beating of Merida's heart. At first, it came thick and strong, flowing through her fingers as they clasped the ripped flesh. After a few moments more the blood was still leaving her rapidly paling flesh, but the pulses were slower, weaker.

Every single second I shared with her passed across my mind. I could not make the tears stop, and all my regrets about what I could do to avoid this kept jumping out at me, making me feel guilty. I could not comprehend that she was really gone.

I felt it, building like an unstoppable snowball in the pit of my stomach. I could not concentrate on anything else that I did. The next step was my heart starting to beat harder and faster, adrenaline levels rise, my brain starts to fire out negative thoughts like an arrow. The negative thoughts kept coming like waves on rocks. I started pacing or moving around irrationally. The sweat has completely covered my body and my heart feels like it's going to explode.

I started to panic. I stare, unable to move, as blood gushes from her wounds. Then I come back to life and held to her.

"No," I whisper, feeling the blood soak my shirt. "Don't leave me! I mean it!" I keep shouting, gently shaking her.

I breathed in and out but air failed to enter my lungs. Starved for air, my heart raced at tremendous speeds, and my lungs shallowly rose and fell in time. I stood there for what felt like an eternity but was actually only five minutes. Satisfaction of security was nothing but a distant memory, and an invisible force crushed me from every possible direction. Each second submerged in fear made a permanent mark on my heart, and a vivid imagination made me wonder whether it was just my mind playing tricks or reality.

I held her close to my chest, with no strength to move. My shaky fingers finally come to stop after running restlessly through her messed up hair. I bite down on my lip trying not to burst into tears. This was not going to help, it's not going to change anything. My heart still would not stop racing fast, forcing tears to roll down my face.

Never again would I see her all happy and giggly, childish joy. Never again would she call at me an idiot when I supposedly did something dumb. She'd never smile. I could not comprehend that she was not still in there, and this was not just a sick joke. In my mind, I kept seeing her open her eyes and yell at me for crying over her. It was the worst thing in the world, and I still have nightmares about it.

"Merida? Can you hear me?" I whispered.

"Wha-what happened?" A voice whimpered.

I turned around, there was Hubert. A single tear slid down from his warm, blue eyes, followed by another one, and another one, until soon, a steady stream of salty tears flowed it's way down his pale cheek, releasing the sadness and sorrow that has been held inside of him but still he did not make a sound.

"Mor'du did this, didn't he?" He whispered.

I nodded my head. I then placed the frail body to her brother. He held her close, whispering into her ear.

"I'm going to kill that bastard if it's the last thing I do." he growled.

"Then do it," I stated blankly.

"What? Mor'du still here? And you did nothing?"

"No, I sent him to a realm far worst than death. A place where he could never even dream of hurting Neverland. That was what Merida might have wanted. Her death was entirely my fault. If I just left Skull Rock and not led on the fight, she—"

"Pan, shut up for a second and listen. This was all Mor'du fault. First he kidnapped my girlfriend, made me choose between her and my own sister, beaten you up, then he killed her. So don't you dare say that it's your fault, you idiot."

The very word, idiot, made me want to crumble. As much as I tried to hold it in, the pain came out like an uproar from my throat in the form of a silent scream.

"It should have been me," I sobbed. "I could have dealt with that rat's claws. She shouldn't have saved me. I just wanted her to be safe, even if it wasn't with me. She deserved so much more than this fate."

Breathy gasps reverberated through the cave. I was crying. Salty tears mingled with the blood and the oncoming wind whipped my hair around. I was alone, scared and devastated. My heart felt butchered, my love taken away bit by bit.

"I loved her," I whispered. "I loved her since the moment I first saw her, hand holding a sword, ready to fight with an idiot. She was something I never thought could exist for me. She was the best thing that has ever happened in my life, and I regret not telling her how I felt."

"Merida loved you, too," Hubert whispered. "I don't know if it was the kind that you desired, but she loved you. Besides me, she always thought of you first. Why wouldn't she, you had been more of a brother and best friend over the years here than me and my brothers combined."

"Hubert, in my time in Neverland, I have seen brothers forget each other's names. I saw them kill each other just for spite. But you? You traveled to another realm, changed into a bear, risked everything for your sister. If that was not a sacrifice of brotherly love, I don't know what is."

The silence of the cave made my blood as cold as the autumnal air that crept through openings. It was as if nature conspired to keep this in the dark, not daring to whisper the reassurance I craved. 

"I want her back," I sniveled.

"We all do," Hubert replied. "We are all going to miss her."

The emptiness in my heart, the numbness pounding my brain, the salty tears that flowed unchecked from my eyes, the sheer nothingness that now took hold of my soul threatened to engulf me entirely.

"I'm guessing that you want to have her buried in DunBroch," I softly asked. 

"No," Hubert replied, "I want her to stay in the happiest part of her life, in Neverland. She died for it, so she's going to rest here. Merida would have wanted that."

"I think I know a good place for her to rest. I can enact a spell so no one could ever bother her. Only we could see her."

Hubert nodded. His silent weeping was worse than a tantrum or screaming. His eyes welled up with the a sadness his young years should not possess. They showed his soul, aged by years of gritty work in a factory where he was no more than a cog made of flesh and blood—and all the more expendable for it. The silence of his cry was eerie like he had been forced to learn how to do this. What would it take to mend a soul as damaged as that and who would try?

I let Hubert carried her body the whole trip back to the tree house, with no breaks. Our feet dragged through the dirt and natural debris of the forest. I heaved my exhausted body through the towering trees, scanning for any sign of a trail. 

When we go to the mouth of the rock pit, I stopped, letting Hubert ahead. The sight that escaped my dry lips was slow as if my brain needed that time to process what had happened. My eyes remained fixed on the tunnel, on the exact tunnel that Merida was carried down.