Neal Cassidy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
belovedson) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
entranceway2015-07-09 06:33 pm
belovedson) wrote in entranceway2015-07-09 06:33 pm
video
[Neal's not really one for broadcasting on the network much; too many years spent trying to go unnoticed probably, out of the public eye and away from whoever he'd been running from at the time. So while he's been in Wonderland for ten months, when the feed starts? It's only the second time he's purposely put up since he got to Wonderland.]
Uh, hey. [This is going to be awkward, isn't it? Maybe he should've stuck to text, but too late now.] So this may seem like something crazy to ask, especially since Wonderland is doing--whatever it does, again. [Rooms shuffling around, hills turned into valleys, who knows what else.] But I thought maybe we should talk about ways this place doesn't suck.
[No, he's not joking. Neal's got a reason behind this, even if he's not sharing it exactly.]
See, it's easy to complain about what's going on, and no one's going to blame anyone for it. But we're all stuck here regardless, so I just--I don't know. Thought that sharing the good things might make it a little easier. Y'know. While we're trying to figure out where all the rooms went.
[And what it might mean that for the second time, some event seems to be starting without any sort of announcement, and now outside of when everyone would expect it. Neal's figures someone else is going to have that covered anyway, like Emma or James, or one of those superheroes running around.
Hence the attempt at morale boosting, or whatever people want to call it. Honestly, Neal knows there are other people around in the same situation he is--not just stuck, but resigned to the fact that Wonderland is it. So why not reach out, try to find them, and commiserate?
He thinks over what he's said, then nods as if telling himself that yeah, the message is good, it gets the point across. Then he turns off the video in favor of sending out a pretty important private message. It's one he should have sent out sooner--much sooner--but for all the logic and good intentions, Neal's still carrying a lot of guilt over what Zelena made him do.]
[Private to Henry]
Hey buddy; you busy?
Uh, hey. [This is going to be awkward, isn't it? Maybe he should've stuck to text, but too late now.] So this may seem like something crazy to ask, especially since Wonderland is doing--whatever it does, again. [Rooms shuffling around, hills turned into valleys, who knows what else.] But I thought maybe we should talk about ways this place doesn't suck.
[No, he's not joking. Neal's got a reason behind this, even if he's not sharing it exactly.]
See, it's easy to complain about what's going on, and no one's going to blame anyone for it. But we're all stuck here regardless, so I just--I don't know. Thought that sharing the good things might make it a little easier. Y'know. While we're trying to figure out where all the rooms went.
[And what it might mean that for the second time, some event seems to be starting without any sort of announcement, and now outside of when everyone would expect it. Neal's figures someone else is going to have that covered anyway, like Emma or James, or one of those superheroes running around.
Hence the attempt at morale boosting, or whatever people want to call it. Honestly, Neal knows there are other people around in the same situation he is--not just stuck, but resigned to the fact that Wonderland is it. So why not reach out, try to find them, and commiserate?
He thinks over what he's said, then nods as if telling himself that yeah, the message is good, it gets the point across. Then he turns off the video in favor of sending out a pretty important private message. It's one he should have sent out sooner--much sooner--but for all the logic and good intentions, Neal's still carrying a lot of guilt over what Zelena made him do.]
[Private to Henry]
Hey buddy; you busy?
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You’re right. In a lot of ways, being here is easier. [Certainly Neal’s got all the reason in the world to prefer it, given his fate. But for someone who has a future back home, even one without his dad, Neal hates to see Henry agonizing this way.]
But just because things don’t look good back home doesn’t mean they can’t be better. Hook told me it turns out okay for you and your mom. [Happy had been the word, and Neal’s got no reason to believe otherwise.]
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Dad, it's not okay. I mean, Regina's fine. [He realizes that must be who he meant by 'mom.' So, it wasn't a lie. But not the whole truth either.] I think you should probably know this, because...I don't know. Because Rumplestiltskin's here, in Wonderland.
[There's a pause when he takes a deep breath yet again, but he has to get it out now.]
He was dying. I think because the darkness in him was finally too much. Regina told me it went for her first, but then Emma...
[He trails off, breath hitching a little.]
Emma tethered herself to the dagger and she...mom's the new Dark One, dad.
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But that would be too easy, too clean. Part of Neal almost feels like he should have realized it, because he’s seen so many times just how insidious that damn darkness is.
There’s no way though. No way for anyone to predict what had happened—no way for Neal to be prepared for the bombshell Henry drops.]
What? [God, it feels like he can hardly say the word. He stares at Henry, wide-eyed in shock and disbelief, and if it had been anyone else Neal would have flat out accused them of lying. Hell, he almost does it anyway, except Henry wouldn’t kid about something like this, not this of all things.
How could this have happened? How could everything have gone so suddenly wrong?]
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[It's the first thing he can think to say, because he's going to fix it. Emma's not going to be the Dark One ask long as Henry can do something about it.]
I can write other people's stories. I can write it so that she never becomes the Dark One.
[He's speaking quickly, as if he's trying to convince himself of it, that it's true, that it really could be as easy as that.
Even if he knows better. Even if he knows nothing is ever that easy. It's what he wants to believe right now.]
no subject
But he has long wanted to believe that things happen for a reason, and that even in the darkness, some small spark of good can exist. If his father hadn’t let go of his hand, Neal would have forever been Baelfire, dead and gone centuries before Emma had been born—and the son they shared never would have existed at all. Even in regards to his own death, Neal’s come to understand that by giving up his life, he helped stopped Zelena, who herself had been trying to undo the past regardless of the cost.
So as much as he wants to believe things can be so easily fixed, Neal shakes his head.]
You can’t, Henry. [He doesn’t know the details, not in full, but Emma wouldn’t have tied herself to the dagger without a damn good reason.] Undoing the past changes things. You said the Darkness went for Regina, right? So Emma—Emma gave herself up to save her. If you change that, something worse could happen.
[Although it’s hard to imagine just how much worse things could get.]
no subject
I have to do something! I already tried, I tried to bring you back with the ink and...
[He pauses, because he shouldn't have tried, he knows the rules about bringing back the dead, but he turns to face Neal, forehead creased.]
Maybe she's strong and she can beat the darkness, or maybe there's another way, but what if there's not?
no subject
No, he doesn't need to ask the question, or put Henry in any more pain for it. Bad enough that Neal's lived with a lifetime, several lifetimes of not being able to save his father from the same darkness that's taken Henry's mother now.]
There is, Henry. I know there is. [There has to be, and Neal needs to believe that as much as Henry does. He gets up to put his hands on the kid's shoulders, looking him dead in the eye.] Emma's gonna have everyone fighting for her: you, Hook, her parents, Regina. You'll find a way to save her. You're capable of incredible things; otherwise you wouldn't have the heart of the truest believer, and you wouldn't be the author now.
[He won't fail. Not like Neal had.]
You can do this; all of you.
no subject
Okay, dad.
[He believes him, the stuff about his heart, about being the author and everyone who wants to help; Henry believes his dad. They would all do this. Together.]