Who: Peter Pan and Emma Swan What: Running into each other Where: Local grocery store When: Early December Rating: Low/None Status: Complete
Going grocery shopping was Peter’s favorite way of distracting himself from doing this actual studying. Finals were coming up next week and Peter wanted to avoid doing any actual studying at the moment. He would regret this later, but for now he was going to help his procrastination by buying food to fuel his studying later. Peter rarely ever made a list of things that he needed and instead wasted his time by going up and down every aisle just to see if he needed anything in there. It was probably the worst way to shop, but it suited him just fine. Right now his cart had some chips, red bull, cereal, and some produce.
As he turned around the corner to go into the frozen food section he crashed right into someone’s cart. Thankfully nothing broke in his cart but he instantly leaned over to check the other cart. “Sorry about that! They totally need mirrors to go around the corners. Is everything fine in there?”
“Gah!” She knew she wasn’t paying attention, she did that a lot while wandering the aisles of stores, considering meal options and what Neal might be able to cook or if there was something they should try. Right now it was also a large problem of ‘what would that taste like with honey’ or ‘can I put that in ice cream’ which usually led to Emma buying a lot of things that she really didn’t need or wasn’t going to eat.
“No, nothing broke.” The lid to her margarine came off and her bananas were absolutely bashed now, but hey, she was mashing those anyway. She just reached in to move the frozen pizza and the frozen meat away from her fruit -because Henry needed healthy things, “We’re good, all casualties have been accounted for.”
“Oh good. I would feel awful for being the cause of mass casualties,” Peter admitted with a laugh as he leaned back and out of the space of the woman’s cart. He honestly didn’t care much about how his groceries looked, but he did make sure to check if anything had broken. Luckily everything seemed safe and sound.
Once that was out of the way he turned his eyes over to the woman and paused as he looked at her face. “You look familiar,” he blurted out because that’s just how his mind looked a lot of the time. He couldn’t quite place his finger on why she looked familiar, but it was on the tip of his tongue and he just couldn’t make the pieces connect.
“Well, since I’ve avoided being splashed across the media, I’m going to offer the Ranch for troubled kids or the Net, because lets face it, most people you meet around here, you talked to online first.”
Which was decidedly true and maybe a little pathetic but really, if not for ValarNet would they really know what the hell was going on in this place? She envied people who stayed off it just a little, but then she considered how much she’d have missed and retracted that mental thought.
“I’m Emma Swan, hi.”
“Definitely not a Ranch. Not really my style although could have been something useful to me in the past,” Peter dismissed that idea quickly. It could have been something he would have gone to when he was growing up in the foster system, but unfortunately that kind of thing didn’t exist for him back then. When she mentioned the Net though he wondered if she was talking about Valar Net or not.
“Ah yes, we have spoken on Valar Net. I’m Peter Pan,” he remembered her name instantly. It wasn’t every day that someone not in his Dreams posted about Neverland. He had been curious about her and Neal who was apparently his grandchild in some weird version of Neverland.
“Oh,” and okay, Emma had some conflicting feelings about that revelation. Because sure, he looked nothing like the demon child that had stolen away her son and tried to use his heart for his own gains, but still. Neverland was still a stinging memory of a lot of things, and Pan had been the reason why she lost so much time with her family. Even if she was reconnecting in the Dreams.
“Well, um… this is awkward. But… hello, in person. And everything.” Probably helped that Peter looked nothing like the one she dreamed of, “Sorry, I have some bad memories of Neverland.” Not his fault, but something she still needed to work through.
“Like I said, your Neverland is definitely not my Neverland. I’ve never been an evil person. Well, Captain Hook would probably beg to differ since I did cut off his hand, but whatever,” Peter waved his hand as if he was physically dismissing that idea, “I’ve only had dreams about helping the Darling children come to Neverland and that sort of thing.” He had to admit that he was a little curious about how bad it had been for them in Neverland.
“So, please don’t base your opinion of me on someone that isn’t actually...me,” the whole idea of different versions of the same person was still a little much for Peter to wrap his head around, but he definitely wasn’t the Peter that she knew about.
And that was different too, Killian had plenty of reasons to dislike Pan, but it wasn’t for the hand thing. But it was true enough that not all places were the same, and Mary Margaret would likely laugh at the Disney version of Snow White. “Oh no, don’t worry,” okay, so her reactions were probably enough to worry about but, “I completely get that. The dreams… If I let them dictate how I feel I wouldn’t even be here anymore.” She’d have left when she found out about family.
“It just takes a little getting used to, sometimes.” With all the family and the chaos going around. “I mean, you really don’t look old enough to be a great grandfather anyway.” First impressions -from the dreams- weren’t always the be things to go with anyway.
“Thank god, because I totally don’t want to be a great grandfather anytime soon. I’m anxiously awaiting my twenty first birthday, so the less responsibility the better,” Peter pointed out with a laugh, “But, I’m glad that I’m able to set your feelings on a different course and hopefully I won’t ever turn into the douchebag that the one in your dreams is. These Dreams are the weirdest thing on the planet and as much as I’d like them to go away there are some parts that are fun. I mean, I can fly now.”
Flying had to be fun, Emma had to admit. Just the dream of the Jolly Roger taking to the sky had been thrilling, but she was probably better keeping both feet on the ground herself, what with babies and magic and the like. “I’ll bet that’s fun,” although she understood being in a love/hate relationship with the dreams.
“I know what you mean though, it isn’t all good stuff but… The bad never seems just as terrible after a while.” At least for some of them, Regina’s bad probably lingered just because it was constantly brought up. But Emma had a family and magic because of the dreams. She couldn’t really dislike them a lot. “So um… you’re still like… getting older and stuff? Because you know… Neverland, that whole ‘don’t grow up’ thing. It’s not affecting you or anything?”
Peter fully understood where she was coming from. He just didn’t let most of the bad stuff from the dreams affect him for long. Ever the eternal optimist. A bit of a curse for being Peter Pan. When questioned about his aging he furrowed his brow slightly, “I don’t know if it is affecting me or not. I mean, I didn’t dream before now so it was easy to age, but if it stops me in my twenties that isn’t too horrible. But I don’t think I would want to be forever young. Especially here where everyone else ages. Neverland seems to just be a standstill for everyone on the island.”
“Twenty would be a good place to stop aging,” although, Emma was past thirty and felt like maybe that was her life finally on track. Different strokes maybe. “Might not be a problem,” She shrugged, “since it’s the place that halts that. But yeah, the carry over can be strange at times.” Like the magic, she was definitely getting used to all the magic.
“You know, maybe some day I could hear more about your Neverland? I used to like it, the stories about that magical place where you can escape from too much worry, where there were mermaids and pirates and adventure.” Up until Henry was kidnapped, Emma had probably enjoyed Peter Pan the most of all the fairytale stories that Disney retold. After her dream/nightmare of Neverland, not so much. “Maybe it could clear the slate.”
“I wonder what else may happen. I don’t want to stop aging, but I wouldn’t complain if it happens. It would just be….really weird to wrap my mind around it,” Peter explained before he smiled at Emma’s comment about wanting to know more about his Neverland, “I would totally be up for telling you about Neverland. There are loads of adventures with the mermaids, pirates, and Indians. I hope it would help you appreciate it a bit more than the nightmare land you dream of. Just message me on the net sometime. I should let you finish shopping.”
It sounded like a good way to push through the Neverland memories at least, and she could maybe understand a bit better about different worlds, considering how well he seemed to like his dream land and how not scary and evil he seemed. “I’ll do that, definitely.” And Emma genuinely would. “Okay, well, you have a nice Christmas and well, I’m sure I’ll talk to you later anyway.”