and the clock struck twelve
- part one-
On occasion, dreams revert to little more than orange pumpkins and glass shoes remain lost.
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"Boy, why are you crying?"
—J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
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The rain pelted down on his skin in icy, stabbing rivulets, and yet Peter barely felt it. After all, how could one feel a fleeting sensation that paled by far to the pain ruthlessly tearing apart his own chest?
Heedless of the jagged sections of wood threatening to carve bloody lines into his remaining hand, Peter continued his desperate pounding on one of the small serving doors that were tucked shallowly against the castle wall. Despite the chilling temperatures of the damp air, sweat from his exertions sickeningly drenched his back and plastered his hair to the nape of his neck.
But thus far he had spent hours in this single spot, and those hours had trudged by with no response. Whether the residents inside were content to pretend that the thumps of his fist were imaginative figments, or if the storm conquering the skies outside in a war waged with thunder and hail masked his comparably insignificant sounds, Peter knew not.
He only knew that he had awoken within the castle's infirmary, disoriented and frightened, the evening before.
He only knew that, while the sudden introduction of a crippling, mangled stump where his left hand had once been was devastating, it was inimitable to the distress that had seized him upon realizing that the infirmary was lacking one crucial presence:
That of his best friend.
"Emma!" he yelled, disregarding the sharp stab of pain his raw throat elicited in protest. Where his memory lacked in the exact count of how many times he'd screamed that name in the vain hope she would hear him, his aching vocal chords served as a reminder. "Emma, just come out! Just let me talk to you—apologize—anything, please!"
He rested his head against the doorframe, watching as water dripped from the edges of his hair, pooling on the stone steps below. An ashen face, beleaguered by a splattered mixture of tears and rain, reflected distortedly up at him from within the puddle. It was a boy's face, but without the cocky smirk and laughing eyes…he barely knew it to be himself.
"Please," he whispered brokenly, although it was so very silly to even entertain the notion that his murmured supplication would succeed where his shouts had failed.
The serving door suddenly swung ajar, the outer handle mercilessly crushed into the wall; Peter leapt back hastily to avoid his face being a recipient of the same fate.
"Boy, I daresay that's quite enough." It was a maid, her reproving face peeking out from beneath a white cap. Her finger wagged at him, as though he were a child guilty of some insignificant misdemeanor. "You're making a terrible scene out here, carrying on like this. You should leave."
Peter shook his head rapidly, body tensing at the inconceivable suggestion of departure.
He couldn't. Not without Emma. Not without seeing her.
"Please," he rasped. "Please, I just have to talk to her—have to apologize—just one minute, please, just give me that!" The words that had become a pleading mantra in the last hour had long since become incoherent to his ears—meaning was absent and in its place he only heard the despondency within them.
"I'm sorry, lad," the young maid said. Though her face retained its firmness, her voice was not without a distinct note of sympathy. "But my lady was clear in her instructions…you were to be evicted with provisions for your travels just as soon as your convalescence was completed. And by my recollection, you were returned to health the preceding day and given funds to hasten your leaving."
There was a ragged laugh, one harshly discordant note that would have made a musician's sensibilities recoil in distaste. "You mean this?" Peter yanked a pouch from the depths of his pocket, flinging it blindly at the slippered feet of the maid. The clank of coins was audible. "Take it, spend it, toss it—I don't bloody want it. An audience with your princess, that's all I ask!"
Her features beset with the stirrings of exasperation—for Peter was known for nothing if not his stubborn perseverance—the maid bent and retrieved the discarded riches with a little sigh. "A foolish thing to do," she chastised, extending the pouch towards its proper owner.
"Then you won't help me?" He made no move towards the maid, the gold holding no earthly attraction for him—for what was wealth when there was no-one to share it with, no conspirator to whisper about fanciful dreams that could be fulfilled with it?
"Aye, that'd be about right."
Making a vague sound of frustration, Peter spun towards the looming walls of the castle, eyes desperately scanning for the window he knew to be hers. After all, how many times had he stood vigilance outside of it, anxiously waiting for her to communicate whether she would be free to play that day?
But this time, Peter dreaded that no matter his wait, Emma's beaming visage would not appear at the window.
"Emma," he cried urgently, resuming his hopeless entreaty. "Emma, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please! I have to see you—I have to tell you—"
"I've told you, lad, you need to leave—"
"What is all of this ruddy noise?" Someone shouted, smothering Peter's own supplications with a booming resonance that far exceeded his own.
A portly, sour-looking woman descended the short set of stairs, her coming heralded by the annoyed bang of the door. "What is this?" she snapped, eyes roving over the helpless maid and the pitiful creature shouting to the high heavens. "What in the blazes do ye think yer doing, emptying your lungs at such a deafening volume, eh?"
"This boy was wanting to see the princess." The maid shrank back from the obvious wrath of the woman, whose slightly finer dress proclaimed her to be superior in rank. "He's been here all day, ma'am."
"The princess is currently fast asleep in her room," the woman snipped, leveling Peter with a look one normally attributed to a particularly odiferous collection of refuse. "And after such an 'orrible ordeal, she is certainly in no condition for visitors of any sort. Particularly not one of your misfortunate ilk, boy."
The curl of her lip as she regarded him told Peter exactly who she believed responsible for the traumatic events that had transpired within the depths of the forest.
A hard lump manifested in his throat. His fingers absentmindedly smoothed the bandage that snugly wrapped about his stump of a hand—had it really been only a short while ago that he and Emma had excitedly planned to depart for the seas, minds buzzing with imagined adventures they would embark on together?
And now what remained of that?
Emma obviously refused to see him…and whether it was a dismissal that stemmed from hatred, remorse, or something else entirely, the reality of the whole damn situation was this:
He had lost his hand.
He'd lost his dream.
And he'd lost his truest friend. All he had left of her was an empty window and an old forest that bore imprints of their feet as they ran and ran and ran.
"You're not wanted here," the unpleasant housekeeper said to him then, unknowingly echoing words that the orphaned boy before her was all too acquainted with. "You should go, boy."
Peter simply looked at that empty window.
(If he listened very hard, there might have been the resounding crack of something inside of him snapping into two ruined pieces)
Then he picked up the hefty coin pouch that had purchased a friendship (with the right hand, he must remind his invisible fingers. Not the left anymore).
And did exactly as he was harshly told.
(If he looked back, he trusted that the stars would keep silent about that little secret).
It was the first clap of thunder that roused him from his fitful sleep—it was the following flash of lightning that caused his heavy-lidded eyes to snap open.
The fretful back-and-forth pitching of the ship completed the disruption of his slumber when Killian Jones was successfully tossed from his musty bunk onto the hardwood floor, his stomach churning as violently as the stormy waves that strove to overturn the ship.
Damn.
Storms possessed the ungracious habit of interrupting the night hours and, if the raucousness of the one thrashing about outside was anything to go on, he held a fair certainty that the remainder of his night's rest was fast bidding him a somber adieu.
Still blinking the vestiges of sleep from his bleary gaze, he felt about drearily. There was a heavy clunking noise of metal meeting wood as Killian used both hands—one the sort made of flesh and bone and blood, and the other a startlingly wicked curve of metal—to brace himself and struggle to his feet.
Killian grimaced as he hopped haphazardly about in the cramped confines of his quarters, shoving on a rather patched pair of breeches (he was a lousy hand at the art of sewing) that he retrieved from the floor, tucking in a threadbare shirt that was uncomfortably stiff from repeated washings in the salt-ridden ocean, and did his best to one-handedly wriggle his feet into his mismatched boots. He felt rather like an intoxicated acrobat as he bustled about, compensating for the ship's rocking motions by leaning in the opposite direction and hoping he wasn't sent sprawling onto his arse again.
Blimey. Twelve bloody months aboard this seafaring vessel; one would think he'd be adjusted to these discourteous awakenings by now.
But it obviously wasn't so, Killian was forced to grimly admit to himself as he staggered in the direction of the stairs and the alarmed shouts that lay beyond them—typical of any time perilous weather arose. Despite his unfettered adoration of a tempestuous life dictated by the whims of the ocean, there was the occasional moment when his stomach and his sense of equilibrium missed the mundane flatness of land.
He muttered a heavy oath beneath his breath as the world nearly transitioned into an inverted one, for the ship lurched about with what Killian would have swore was gleefulness if the stupid thing had been an animated being. As it was, he still had his suspicions that the ship sought to get back at 'im for that tiny little nick he'd put in her railing his first day.
But if he was lamenting the conditions below deck, that opinion was quickly subverted when he finally emerged above into a world that was a nightmarish parallel of the one he'd become accustomed to.
It could be described in one word: wet.
Two if one begged for description and he was forced to toss in the identifying adjective of 'very'.
He nearly slipped when taking his first step, a combination of the water attempting to commandeer the deck in a veritable flood and frantic shipmates nearly bowling him over as they blindly followed the captain's shouted orders. In some bizarre paradigm of daylight, lightning lit the sky and stole away midnight, and the pound of rain upon wood overtook even the thunder.
Killian had yet to be in the midst of a howling storm of such proportions, and it'd have been a bald-faced whopper of a lie to deny any sliver of fear.
But he had nary an extraneous moment to dwell on his awe, or allow the fear to fester, for a gruff sailor was suddenly shoving a thick coil of damp rope into his hand (and hook) and braying an order to tie them to the mast as makeshift lifelines.
In terms of coherency, hurrying to comply with the command would be one of the final things Killian would ever recall about that night.
Because precisely thirty seconds later was when Killian's sempiternal streak of dismal luck decided to reassert itself, and the roiling waves rose up in unison to swallow the besieged ship.
There was sand against his cheek, and the smell of something overly sweet in his nose.
Killian stirred feebly, the iciness of his drenched clothing and the warmth of sunlight warring for mastery over his prone body. He coughed once—spewing a mixture of bitter bile and acrid seawater from his lungs—and struggled to reclaim the autonomy unconsciousness had stolen from his body.
His mind was little more than a muddle of memories—a ship. A storm. The burn of a blaze that scorched his skin. Tears, and sadness, and then his nose clogging with salty water and his mouth scoured clean by a deluge of the same. Everything was an indistinct mixture, as though same sadistic painter had decided to carelessly toss every bloody can of paint in his possession on a canvas and try to pick out shapes amidst the chaos.
A lulling wind swept over him then, the sensation of phantom fingers combing gently through his tangled hair achingly similar to a young girl's slim fingers that had playfully pulled and teased his unruly locks.
And then Killian jerked, a spasmodic reaction as he realized that someone's hands were trailing through his locks…and it was in that yanking way that she had forever indulged in when she had realized how much it annoyed him.
Killian nearly gasped in a mixture of surprise and an upwelling of emotion when he finally dared to look up.
Golden hair blended perfectly amidst the equally golden grains of sand, and green eyes framed by long lashes unblinkingly held his greedy gaze.
It was Emma.
His Emma.
An indistinct croak escaped his throat, raw from seawater and rendering him frustratingly unable to speak. As much as he dearly wanted to voice his jubilance at the sight of her, his sorrow at having left her so, his amazement that they had somehow found one another again…he couldn't.
So he instead settled for lifting one trembling hand, weighted down by both a waterlogged sleeve and his own irrepressible longing, and sought to touch her rosy cheek.
His fingers passed straight through her, falling damningly to the ground and feeling the grainy texture that overwhelmingly exposed the girl before him as a sham. The clement warmth exuding from her glowing figure, the fondness lurking in those green eyes—all false.
She wasn't real. Emma wasn't here.
The abysmal chasm in his chest, the one that had been carved there by a dainty pair of hands not too long ago (twelve agonizing months, four excruciating days, and eight lonely hours, by the last count), grew all the larger for it.
You're not real, he fought to say, mouth moving silently. And whatever you are—wraith, haunt, specter, insanity—how dare you assume her form.
But whichever it was, apparently no one had informed the ghost of his friend that she wasn't supposed to be there.
"What's the matter, Peter?" Her playful gaiety engulfed him, threatening to outstrip even the sun's endeavors to warm him. "Peter? Oh Pet-ahhh," she trilled out in a singsong, aping his brogue with as much piteous proficiency that she'd ever held at it.
His closed his eyes tightly, breathing harshly. Oh god, even her voice was that of Emma's—pert and lighthearted, always with that undercurrent of good-natured teasing. This was surely the product of the dangerous combination of delirium and an unbridled desire to do nothing more than wrap that girl in an embrace he would never allow to falter.
"Are you really just going to lie there, you great lummox? Goodness, it's so like you, isn't it. How many times would I come to our special place in the woods, only to discover you snoozing the afternoon away?" Not-Emma emitted a bright peal of laughter.
Killian heard it, his brain soaked it up like a starving man would devour a single crust of bread, and then promptly decided that the storm had done him in and he was in hell. After all, where else would such torturous delusions be originating from?
Where else would such a tantalizing creature be seated not a hairsbreadth away, with him unable to thread his fingers between hers, listening to her squirm with giggles as the callouses of his hand tickled the unblemished skin of hers?
"Oh, Peter." Now her tone had descended into something mournful, a sadness that ate through his body to the very dregs of his marrow. "Why won't you open your eyes and look at me? I've missed you so."
He fervently damned his eyes when they automatically flickered to obey, squinting them closed forcefully to compensate for the reflexive movement. After all, he had never before resisted the chance to gaze at the girl who had certainly emulated her mother's title of 'fairest in the land'.
It was a suffering, to be sure, being forced to listen to a voice that he would never again actually hear. If he opened his eyes, if he allowed himself so much as a quick glimpse of her, Killian was all too aware of the fact that he would lie on this godforsaken stretch of beach so long as this echo of Emma inhabited it as well.
He darted his tongue out, wincing as he tried to wet his cracked, salt-dried lips. "Go…'way. Go…away."
There was a startled pause, followed by a delicate huff of a very displeased pseudo-girl.
"That's not very nice, Peter. Not nice at all. What in the world possessed you to say such terribly unkind things?"
For the first time, Killian knew with a stark certainty that this was most definitely not Emma. Her tone was too formal, her manner too stiff.
When the Emma he knew grew angry, her prim royal manners were the first thing to be tossed out the window. The second thing being tossed, in those such cases, were usually her fists.
He was, after all, well versed in the kinds of bruises those deceptively thin little hands of hers were apt to elicit in playful scuffles or admonishing smacks.
This girl, whoever she truly was, had somehow captured all of Emma's iciness without bothering to embrace the passion for living that she could never quite conceal.
"Not…her. Not…Emma," he managed to whisper, even the barest attempt at utilizing his vocal cords sending a burning sting searing along his throat. He broke off with a short cough, almost missing the austere reply.
"Is that so?" Not-Emma propped her hand upon her knee, resting her head deftly upon it as she surveyed him with lackluster green eyes. "Whatever makes you think that?"
"She…didn't come with me. She's safe at home."
"Safe is a relative term, wouldn't you agree?" the lookalike inquired enigmatically. "Perhaps she's all the worse for your departure. Perhaps when she reached those sweet little fingers of hers into your chest and ripped out your sweet little heart, something ugly happened to her own."
Killian snorted derisively—a sound which quickly morphed into one of pain as attempting to move proved to be beyond his muscles' current abilities. "That's jolly nice and all," he groaned thickly. "But a tad redundant, seein' as she's not actually here and you're most definitely not her."
"As usual, Peter, you're spouting a half-truth." She sounded solemn as she referred to his habit of spinning her elaborate tales of his deeds and adventures, all traces of amusement devoid from her words. "I am indeed Emma, just…just not as you know her."
A heavy sigh rent the air between them, carrying with it a chilling, funereal quality that made Killian impulsively shudder.
"I am…the Emma that would have resulted without ever having seen your light, experienced your friendship." There was a soft touch upon his cheek—a torrid human flame against the ocean-cooled pallor of his face. "I am the Emma that might very well come to be, if loneliness and heartache is allowed to shape her future. I am what you fear she might become." She withdrew her hand, studying it idly with latent interest. "My, your mind works in very extensive ways, doesn't it? Drink in a little seawater, and your analytical imagination becomes a thing to be marveled at. Poetic too."
He commanded his body to lie still, to not reach out and yank Not-Emma in a desperate hug against him. He would not use her as a substitute for what he could not have, and she would be a poor imitation of the real thing.
"You…she…didn't want me." He repeated the words that had become the sustaining chant that had prevented him from leaping right off the blasted ship and swimming the distance back to the kingdom, back to Emma. That had stilled his restless feet from trekking all the miles of desert and swamp and forest if only to collapse at her feet and shamelessly beg for even a scrap of her favor.
He'd already sullied his dignity once, stranded in the rain, crying her name ceaselessly in the vain hope of reconciliation—and it had all been for naught. "She's not my concern any longer—and contrary to your delusions, she's probably a sight more well off in her posh castle, surrounded by people who can…who can look out for her."
"You are very sure of that, Peter. So very quick to believe such a thing."
"Because it was true. I allowed her to get hurt." All of the things he had repressed these endless months, that he had determinedly banished to the darkest corner of his tired mind, were now surfacing with an alarming rabidity. "I was supposed to protect her, and I…"
Emma crying out as a hulking monster swiped at her. Peter's heart nearly coming to a stop as her blood splattered crimson upon the tree branch.
He flinched and pushed the unbidden thought from his head. He couldn't dwell on it now.
"Hm." The low murmur was an indiscriminate noise, hovering somewhere between pity and agreement. "And yet it is you on this beach, with your pathetically missing hand and shattered soul. This could have been avoided had you remained and fought for her, for yourself. A future together, even."
"I couldn't."
A derisive laugh. "No, Killian — that's your name now, isn't it? — you didn't. But then, her stubborn refusal to see you lent a convenient excuse for cowardice and guilt, didn't it? And now you're here. Have you quite finished punishing yourself yet? Found whatever elusive repentance you feel you need to seek?"
"Go away." With no other recourse available to his limpid arms and legs, he flung a hand atop his eyes. "I don't want to discuss this, least of all with you." There was nothing but hardness to his face. Gone was the mirth of past days, the mischievous grins of a period brought to a miserable finale. "It's been a year. One long, thankless year.…and all I really find myself wanting is just to forget every damn thing that's happened."
Not-Emma arched an eyebrow, smiling thinly. "Forget?" She climbed to her feet, wryly glancing beyond where Killian lay helplessly—perhaps to the sea, perhaps beyond that, to the kingdom where the flesh and blood reflection of this vision dwelled. "If that is indeed your desire, Boy of No Name, I fear this place might very well grant it. It's quite treacherous, you know." She traced her mouth with one thin finger. "And I do so loathe to disappoint."
And then she swooped down upon him, scarce allowing him even a startled blink, and pressed her fingers to his brow.
Killian was immersed in darkness once again, the memory of her slyly serpentine smirk imprinted upon his retinas.
"Helloooooo." A chiming voice tinkled above his head. Something prodded him impatiently, jabbing deep into his person.
Killian felt a bit on the weary side from this continual process of slipping between states of consciousness, but he obligingly peeked through tired eyelids anyways.
A tiny face, rampant with a sudden relief, hovered above him.
Come to think of it, that tiny face belonged to a tiny person with tiny hands, that she clapped enthusiastically together.
"You're awake!" The miniature creature warbled happily, fairly vibrating with jubilation. "For a minute there I really thought—but never mind about that. Better not to dwell on horrid, unpleasant things, isn't that right? I really do apologize, though, as it isn't usually this rough…but perhaps you're just a teeny, tiny too old for this? The others who come are usually just darling little things, precious babies and the like, but then again you do have a merry look about you and I can see why the island might have—"
"What island?" he croaked, eager to stymie the babbling voice that seemed in danger of never shutting up. "What are you on about, creature?"
"Ooooh! Creature!" the tiny person repeated shrilly. He could just make out the contortion of her blurred features into a sulky frown. "Well that's nice, Mister Rudeness. Keep it up—I'm in half a mind to leave you on this beach and see how you fare without the honor of my help!"
Trying to block out the stream of rants, and silently wondering at how such a diminutive thing could contain such fervor, Killian let out a shaky breath as he forced himself to sit up. The creature beside him had barely paused for air—it was possible she didn't need it, what with the way she was running her mouth.
"Beach?" he mused quietly, more to himself than his unwanted companion. "I'm not dead then? There was a storm…"
"Dead? Hah!" It appeared as though she had decided to abandon her pursuit of shattering his eardrums with absurd chatter. "What kind of idiot are you?" The cheerful, kindly personality she'd first presented herself as having had obviously been tossed into the rubbish bin as well.
The little female drew nearer to his face, propelled by a set of fluttering wings upon her back that blurred in the manner of a hummingbird's. When she spoke, her voice was incredulous. "Honestly, you dunce, as though Neverland would allow a child to be taken by the sea!"
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"Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again. Never is an awfully long time."
—J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
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Because over a hundred people have messaged, reviewed, and telephoned me (that was a very desperate best friend) for a sequel, I've been vaguely typing up ideas here and there. I truly loved how as time goes by ended (even if it was incredibly depressing), and I think it's suitable for a oneshot, but I was flattered and hugely touched by everyone's desire to read more of this universe's Killian and Emma.
If all goes as planned, there would be three sequels to as time goes by:
1) this story, wherein we learn the tale of Killian/Peter's time in Neverland with Tink and the Lost Boys, and his recovery from what happened between him and Emma.
2) Emma's side of the story during their time apart—because while Killian is off gallivanting in Neverland, she's bound to be suffering from her own repercussions from sending her best friend away due to the guilt of being the reason he lost his hand.
3) The actual reunion between grown-up Killian and Emma—I have a sneaking suspicion this is the one everyone is trying to make me write ;)
Here's the thing: these stories are not going to be full of happiness and sunshine. I can likely promise a happy ending eventually, but Emma and Killian live in a fairytale world inhabited by incredibly evil people and creatures, and there's a lot of angst and personal growth for them to sort through before they can ever be together. I didn't want to write a sequel where Emma and Killian are both just magically grown up and oh-look-they-meet-again-and-fall-in-love, because if I do the whole sequel thing, I'm going to do it right…as in fleshing out character development.
So I'll let you guys decide via reviews or messages or whatnot—knowing that I'm a pleasure delayer, do you me to just leave as time goes by as it is, or start trying to plow ahead on sequels? And if so, would you rather have them posted onto as time goes by into one obscenely long story, or as separate stories? I still haven't decided on what to do, so I guess I'll go with popular opinion.