Okay so like nearly every radio station is playing Metallica and after the fourth time of hearing Enter Sandman I want someone to rumbelle / swanfire / papafire the hell out of it please and thank you.
They think they are safe.
“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
Dark One’s might not need to sleep, but Rumplestiltskin always slept curled around his wife. It made him more human and he was very much a family man these days. Everything was peaceful in the master bedroom, not even Belle’s slight snores disturbed the air. Down the hall, in the largest guest room, Neal and Emma slept soundly. It was their first Christmas since their reconciliation, and Neal’s return to the land of the living.
As with families across the world, they were splitting their time between parental units. The 25th with The Gold’s, the 26th with The Charming’s. Henry was also there. For this Christmas all the Gold family were under the one roof, if just for one night. He too was sleeping soundly, in the small guest room that was always ready for him, whenever he wished to stay.
Which left only little Gideon. His mum and dad had tucked him in, and he curled up on his side, clutching his pillow tightly. His beloved stuffed dragon had fallen to the floor. Over in the corner, his window rattled, but he didn’t stir, the toddler slept on unaware of the wraith at the window. The window opened, the protection spell flared and then fell silent in defeat as the dark of the night, seemed to pour in the child-sized gap.
It materialized into a human shape – a shadow, and Gideon awoke with a start.
Take my hand … off to never-never land
In the master bedroom Rumplestiltskin woke in a cold sweat – something was wrong. He jumped out of bed, suddenly desperate to check on his son. Dreams of battles fought and won, playing in his minds eye, battles that could so easily have been lost. The sinking feeling in his gut got worse, when he saw the light seeping from under Gideon’s door.
He pushed open the door and saw twisted sheets, an empty bed and an open window. His agonized scream woke the house as in the sky a star twinkled. Peter Pan always wins.
Well dammit you’ll just have to fix it.
Rumplestiltskin woke in a cold sweat with his heart pounding. His eyes snapped open, certain he would see his son’s empty bed, that he had collapsed to the floor at the agony of losing his child – again. Instead he was looking into the eyes of the very son, he thought he’d lost.
“Wake up papa! It’s Christmas!” Gideon exclaimed happily and Rumplestiltskin felt the bands around his heart ease.
It had just been a horrible dream courtesy of the sandman.
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There fixed it 🙂
Naturally that isn’t how I would like to fix it because my brain hates me like that. My brain is asking questions like “how did Neal come back to life?” “what happened to Hook?” “how did Gideon get rescued from the Black Fairy/deaged to a baby?” “how did Emma and Neal get back together?” “how is Peter Pan not very extremely dead?” essentially “how do I get from the end of 6A to this?”
It makes me ponder all sorts of things, and imagine a Neverland 3A adventure that is a lot darker and a lot deadlier. I liked Peter Pan as a villain and with his history with Neal and Rumple, I feel like there was more to explore. Now with the revelation about the Black Fairy … the shadow and the magic of Neverland raises more questions with me.
From 6×10 transcript:
“There are realms of dark magic beyond even my reach, where my mother would lurk in the shadow.”
“Where has she taken him?”
“I don’t know. But it’s a place of immense dark power. Time runs differently there.”
Where did the shadow of Neverland come from originally? Where did it get it’s dark power, the power to ‘stop the clock’? Inquiring minds want to know.