I can see the gentle rolling hills and the still waters as the Jolly Roger approaches Storybrooke. Tinker-bell told me that in this little town, my brothers have been waiting for me, on a mission from Pan. This is all over, one hundred years of being in a cage, I can finally return to my family- or at least what is left of it.

Being in the open air and being free to move as I please makes me feel like I'm featherlight. No one is shoving me into a tiny cage or commanding me to tell stories or be anyone's mother anymore. I am free to be me, to be Wendy. This freedom makes me feel woozy with joy. I had lost hope that I was never going to get out of Neverland, forced to spend all time trapped in time with the Lost Boys and Peter. I had lost hope that I would grow up, and since my time with the Lost Boys, all I had wanted to do was grow up. To be an adult, to fall in love, to work, to be a mother, to grow old with someone. Those were the little daydreams that had gotten me through. The musings of what it would be like to have a job or to be someone's mother. Someone's real mother, not just to patch up wounds and have grimy, greedy, violent hands clawing at me for my attention.

It was all I had wanted when I returned to Neverland to seek out Baelfire. He had been, and still, was my family and he deserved a chance at getting to grow up, too. He was my brother and I was obligated to go and fetch him. I had had no fear going in to it. Peter had turned me away. He didn't want me and had let me go. Why would he keep me a second time? was my rationale, but I was wrong. He kept me and dominated my time. He claimed I was his and would always be his Wendy-bird. I never understood why he had wanted me the second time around. The Lost Boys would have gotten on just fine without me, and it wasn't like I was crucial to his life. There was no need for me.

Standing at the side of the ship, my knuckles turn white as they grip the railing, gritting my teeth and remembering my time on Neverland. Every waking moment had pulled at me, like the Lost Boys, tearing at my clothes, demanding my entire being, monopolizing my soul. But now, standing on this deck, being free of all that, feels like I'm flying. I appreciate freedom and family and hold them up as the most precious things in the world. I am never going to let them go again.

As we dock, the Lost Boys rush off the ship to wreak havoc somewhere in the town and for once, I don't have to follow them around and make sure they don't kill each other. I peer into the crowd searching for familiar faces, for Michael and John. Everyone moves around in a sea of unfamiliarity. Then I see him. A young man standing in the crowd, with glasses and a worried look. He could be my father at a young age. He looks like he's searching for someone- for me.

"John!" I cry as I bound down the plank to him. He sees me and his eyes show disbelief and utter happiness. I fling myself into his arms and he catches me, holding on tight, to make sure he never loses me again. Tears fill my eyes and I can hardly make out the slightly younger, slightly shorter boy standing behind him.

I disentangle myself from John and leapt to Michael. His cheeks are wet as I kiss them. "Michael," I breath. John comes and wraps his arms around both of us. We all collapse into a pile of crying and laughing and hugging. I feel like I'm dreaming.

"I can't believe it's you. It's really you," I kept telling them. I had thought I would never see them again. When I left for Baelfire, I had thought I could bring my family together, but it turned out, that I only brought them further apart. I want desperately to apologize to John and Michael, but I can't seem to push the words past the lump in my throat or even find them to begin with. I just hold them tightly, and hope that they can understand what I tried to do and maybe try to forgive me in some way.

I hear footsteps approach and I turn to look up at Baelfire, who is now Neal and is in his late twenties. He looks barely recognizable from the scrawny little boy who used to live in the crawlspace in my London home and who gave up his freedom to save John and Michael. He smiles down at me and I smile up at him. John and Michael notice him too, and I can see their eyes search for anything recognizable in his face, and then they see it, like I did. Those dark, kind eyes, the ones that compelled me to make him my brother. Baelfire may have changed his name, but he can't change those eyes.

"Baelfire," John says, disbelieving.

"It's actually Neal now," he says, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "I didn't mean to interrupt the family moment."

Michael shakes his head. "Changed name or not, you are our family." Then Michael and John both pull him down into our family embrace, all of us hundreds of years old, having lived wildly different lives, but still the same in needing our siblings, and we are still a family, whole once more. I feel tiny and small and precious in all of my brothers' arms. I can hardly believe this is happening. I had given up all hope that I would see any of them ever again. I blame myself for all of it, too. If I hadn't welcomed in the shadow, Bae would never have been taken, I never would have left and Michael and John never would have had to have been forced to work for Pan. We could have been a family and grown up and been so happy.

Through hiccups and tears, I relate this to all my brothers, who immediately dash away this observation. "You can't blame yourself for what Pan did," Michael tells me, rubbing my back.

"Yeah, and you were forced to work for Pan for us, too," John puts in.

"You came back to Neverland to save me," Baelfire says, wiping tears away from both his eyes and mine. "You are not to blame in any of this, Wendy." We all collapse back into the pile of arms and legs and hugs. Soon however, we emerge from our dreamlike reunion and we begin to try and grasp at reality.

"Where do we go now?" I ask John. John and Michael both turn to look at each other and then to Neal.

"Well, Mother and Father are gone," Michael starts off calmly. For a long time, I've known that Mother and Father have been gone for many years. Michael and John were only useful to Peter because they were young. My parents were grown ups and would have been useless to him, he wouldn't have preserved their youth. But hearing this, I feel my heart squeeze and immense sadness fill me. I try not to think about my parents very much, I knew my brothers were alive, but thinking about them never truly knowing where I had gone, or giving them a proper good-bye tore my heart apart. I blink back tears and nod. "So, after they were gone, we lost our house in London." Another thing I never got a chance to say good-bye, too. "We've been just living in condos in whichever city Pan wanted us in, but now…"

"Now, we can choose where we live," John explains. "And we were thinking, we've pretty much been completely immersed in magic for more than a century now, we could just live among those who also know magic." He says it with questioning in his voice. He wants to know if I'm okay with it. "So, we were thinking about settling in Storybrooke. Everyone here knows us and has been so kind. Baelfire is here and we can be a family. But only if you want to stay."

I look to John and Michael and Baelfire. I've only been in this town for a matter of minutes, but I've know the people for centuries. Tinker-bell, Hook, Ariel, Neal, John and Michael. There is no way I can go back to the life without magic, but here is the place where I can stay with my family and have a future. I'm safe here. I nod and smile. I've found my new home.

Soon, we begin to move again and stand up. We continue to talk over minute details- like maybe I should get out of this bathrobe and night gown that I've been wearing for ages. Bae says there is an old Victorian house for sale by the water that Michael, John and I can move into. There's a school where I can study, and John and Michael can choose whichever professions they'd enjoy. As we talk things over, Henry, Bae's son, which is astounding to me, as I still see Bae as a scrawny little boy stealing bread, comes over to us and tugs on his dad's hand, urging him to come with him.

He turns and smiles at me, but when I look at him, shock drenches me. His eyes, which had been so much like his father's, dark and kind and loving, now have a malicious and mischievous light to them. I only know one person whose eyes have ever looked like that. Peter. But it can't be. This is Neal's lovely caring son, the one with the heart of the truest believer. "Hello, Henry," I say, trying to cover my shock.

"So you're moving to Storybrooke, Wendy?" I smile and nod.

"I hope that's alright. And I'm so sorry I tricked you before," I say, trying to convince myself that this truly is Henry.

"It's alright, Wendy. You did it for your family," Henry says smiling up at me. He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. I'm overwhelmed by the feeling of Peter. I want to yell and scream. How can he still be tormenting me from here? He is trapped safely away in Pandora's Box. He is not in this little child. Peter is gone and I need to move on. I need to grow up.