Snowflake (Peter Pan OUAT x Reader)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Your father pushing you to get married. You longing for nothing more than to find your true love like Snow did. Disappointed hope. Training and training with different weapons. Your hiding place in the forest. The ball with the mysterious, and then not so mysterious, stranger who kissed you and made you forget. The pouch Snow had given you after your last real chance for true love disappeared. Looking and hoping that someone in Storybrooke High School was your true love then being absolutely devastated when you found that was not the case. Depression. Stealing the Dark Curse because something compelled you to do it. Henry getting kidnapped. Pan-filled confusion. That first remembered kiss. That last sense-filled kiss where you had finally let go of all hesitations. Murdering Rumple but never being free of him. Finally breaking the curse.

You looked up to see Snow and Charming hugging, still trying to make some sense of what had happened. Snow glanced over and saw you, beckoning you into a group hug you numbly went into. "You did it, Stella! You broke the curse! You saved us!" Snow greeted you.

"Actually the two of you broke the curse," you reminded them.

"Because of you," Charming said. "We would not be standing here, together with you if it wasn't for what you did."

"Yeah, stealing the Evil Queen's curse was never a good idea."

"But you fixed it!" Snow said, a far-too-bright smile across her face. "You found a way to bring our memories back even as you were cursed. You brought us back."

"Breaking a curse doesn't bring people back from the dead. Rumplestiltskin, Neal, Tink, Felix, they're all dead because of me. At least, Felix is dead and I assume the other two are, unless Pan has designed some living torture for them somewhere on the island. And of course, I killed Rumple with his own damn dagger."

"Wait, what?!" Charming said, looking between Snow and you. "You killed Rumple?! So... that means that you're the Dark One now?!"

Snow and you nodded in unison as Charming ran his hands across his face. "But that's...you can't be...I mean..."

"Well, I am, and that's that. Nothing more to do about it. I was simply following Pan's orders," you choked out the words bitterly. Following your true love's command blindly. Well, he was still your true love but you were no longer going to just go along with whatever he said. And you had succeeded. But something was gnawing at you. This had been far too easy.

"That doesn't matter," Charming said. "We'll find some way to get rid of the darkness, together."

Snow clasped Charming's arms. "Where's Emma?"

"I-I guess she'd be back there where I left the rest of the...pirates waiting and ready," Charming motioned back the way he had come.

"Let's go," Snow was practically running down the path, dragging Charming with her, eager to see the daughter she had been separated from once again.

You followed more slowly, your mind running through the rest of the group. Regina had also been a pirate, as well as Hook of course. Rumplestiltskin was dead. Neal was dead, for real this time, probably. Henry! You stopped in your tracks. How had you forgotten?! Henry was the whole reason you had come to Neverland, to save your "little brother" and find an adventure of your own. But now, he was in a glass coffin, you laughed drily at the irony. Pan had had a lot of fun with that. Henry's heart, the heart of the truest believer, was pounding in Pan's chest. Now it would be fusing with Pan's body, bringing him unspeakable and unquenchable power, unless you were able to stop it.

You had told yourself before what was one lost boy if it meant the eternal life of your true love. But this wasn't any lost boy—this was Henry. You couldn't let him die to bring life back to Pan. Henry was the little brother you'd never had and the only reason you were here was to save him.

But, did you have to choose between them? You felt as if someone had ripped your heart from your chest, torn it in two, and asked which half you would prefer to keep. How could you decide? Two smiling faces flew before your eyes. Peter's smile, always with a mischievous hint playing at the edges. Henry's smile, sweet and loving, full of belief in you. You threw your hands over your face, trying to make the images disappear.

Then you looked up, your face hardening. Although it was true that you couldn't choose between the two of them, it was just as true that you couldn't let one of them kill the other. You could not let Pan get away with killing Henry. You had to stop him.

You heard footsteps on the trail in front of you and looked up to see a crazed Emma running towards you, the rest of the group not far behind. "Stella! Stella! Is it true that Pan has Henry's heart?!"

"Yes," you answered calmly, "and it's also true that we're going to get it back." You silently cursed, though. You felt empty without your cloak, the one you had had before the damn curse which had practically everything you could ever need within its pockets. Undoubtedly Pan had made great use of that. The one you wore now only had a few pockets, some of which you had added yourself to hide things from him, none of which had anything very useful.

"But how?" Regina said, her voice cracking. "Pan could be anywhere."

Now that you had made up your mind, the anxiety you had before disappeared, leaving you calm and collected while the mothers were frazzled. "We split up. I'll go to the Skull to get Henry, with Emma and Charming. Regina will take Snow and Hook, who should both know the island reasonably well."

"But you're the Dark One," Regina said, "And you're much better suited to attack Pan. Can't I go get Henry?" she whined.

You didn't have time for this. "Yes, I am the Dark One now, but you are much more experienced in ripping people's hearts out and there will likely be some spell on Henry's glass coffin which the Darkness can help me break."

"Glass coffin? Henry is in a glass coffin?! Why that smug little son of a bitch—"

"Yes, Regina, he copied you," Snow interrupted. "But that's not relevant. He's simply trying to provoke you and make you lose your temper and with it your senses. We need to try to keep calm if we want any chance to save Henry. Pan wants us to lose our tempers and our ability to think straight so that we won't be able to stand against him. I know that it is hard when you're so worried about him, but Regina, Emma, you need to keep it together for Henry."

As she then proceeded to work them through deep breathing procedures you couldn't help but roll your eyes. And yet, the curse had changed them a bit, especially so soon after they got out of it, that they couldn't keep a clear head when their tempers flared. Well, not that they usually did, they just usually did a far better job than this. You sighed. You didn't have time for this, either. Maybe you should just go by yourself and leave them to follow. You turned to check their progress and were confronted with a piraty, a real piraty face.

"So, not planning on distracting Pan the same way you did last time, love?"

"I'm not in the mood, Hook, and as I'm the Dark One now, it would be best for you not to get on my bad side."

"I'm simply wanting to make sure that you'll actually be able to follow through with it. After all, you failed terribly last time, what makes you so sure you'll be able to succeed this time, love?"

"Don't call me love," you said darkly, before realizing how he'd bother you about it. "And I know that I couldn't possibly fail twice, not when..."

"It's your fault that this happened in the first place. If it wasn't for you bringing the curse, we would not be in this position. Don't worry. At least one person will never forget that. Regina likely won't either, once the immediate problem is taken care of. Oh, and I will attempt to remember that only one person is allowed to call you 'love' and that it is not me." He winked. You gagged.

Snow was finishing up. "...and out. Alright, we're ready."

"Operation Henry is a go," Emma said. "Now let's go save Henry!"