· Chapter 13: The Girl With Blue Eyes: Underground
· Chapter 14. Recovery
· Chapter 14.2 Recovery some more
· Chapter 15: Trapped
Chapter 16: Filth
Chapter 17: Fairydust pt. 1
Chapter 18: Fairydust pt. 2
Chapter 19: The Mystery of the Dead Nun pt. 3
Chapter 20: The Mystery of the Dead Nun pt. 2
Chapter 21: The Mystery of the Dead Nun pt. 3
Chapter 22: Reflections pt. 1
Chapter 23: Reflections pt. 2
Chapter 24: Closing
Chapter 25: Felix is helping Pan
Chapter 26: Temporary Fix
Chapter 27: The Search Begins
Chapter 28: The Missing Pan
Chapter 29: Instincts
Chapter 30: Temperance
I’m having some dark thoughts again. Thus this came out. It’s really just a look into Pan’s mind while he’s dehydrated and delusional. Trying to get an actual chapter out very soon.
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His mouth was so dry. He wished he had pushed his pride aside and licked the water off his skin the last time Jones had thrown it at him.
“Drink up, boy,” he’d laughed, throwing a glass of the tainted-smelling liquid into his face, going on and on about how easy things would be if he’d just talk.
About what?
By the time the son of a bitch had retreated back upstairs, the water had absorbed into his skin and hair and he was licking desperately at pipes for just a drop.
His whole body was weak, infections settling in his more intimate areas. But it was the back and forth going on in his mind that homed his true agony, the uneven wavelengths of consciousness and unconsciousness bringing him nausea as death played his lifeline like a harmonica.
He remembered hearing once—maybe in school or from someone else—that the brain could exist up to ten minutes after the body dies, and it spends its final moments replaying memories that somehow stayed rooted.
But what he saw as his body—painstakingly slowly—shut down was not memories, but blurry forms of his existence.
Laughter. Felix in a hospital room. Tink forcing a coffee on him with a sharp smile. Lily winking at him as she designed the newspaper.
And then the sight of Wendy’s mass of curls, as bright and as blond as the sun itself.
She slowly turned to him, her features sharp, and smiled at him. He didn’t deserve that.
He was surrounded by darkness but glided through it effortlessly. He heard sounds, small whispers not unlike the wave lapping at the sides of the ship.
And then—
Stillness.
A flicker.
Where—
A voice.
Many.
Where am I—
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Pan tensed. Oh yeah, he was dead. He was in pure hell.
“What are you doing here?” Pan hissed as the last person he ever wanted to see faded into the shadows before him, the glint from the golden cane in his grip overwhelming.
Gold—Pan’s unfortunate half-brother—tilted his head. Pan caught the glint of glee in his whiskey eyes. Or perhaps that’s what he thought it was. All he knew from experience was that Gold enjoyed watching him suffer.
“Your body is shutting down and your mind is fading rather quickly with it,” Gold relayed evenly.
“You’re a fucking genius,” Pan spat. “And let me guess, your somehow able to get one last go at me before I’m out for good?”
Pan could still feel the pressure of anger that was constantly raving in his core, but as he imagined Gold’s response, his drying brain firing out various sceneries, he was desperate for some kind of comfort, some kind of assurance, that this man before him held something equivalent to empathy for his only blood relative.
Yet Pan couldn’t push such a scenario forward.
“Pan!”
Pan gasped, feeling nauseous once more and dropping to knees. The sound of waves lapping against the ship was becoming clearer again.
The head of Gold’s hard came smacked him hard on the side of the head.
“Pay attention or you’re done for,” the older man hissed.
Pan glared up at him, anger brewing in his gut.
“So now you want to help me? Now you give a shit?”
At least he could imagine the frown.
“I don’t need you! I can do this shit on my own so easily!”
To Pan’s surprise, that dry line stretched into something near-inhumane. He leaned in and Pan could see his own face in Gold’s dark, soulless eyes.
No, they weren’t Gold’s.
“No,” Pan breathed, pushing the ghost of the man farther back.
The image of him—blessedly—stayed crushed in Pan’s subconscious. It was still Gold who knelt before him, who’s breath was burning hot on his face.
But it was his father’s voice who spoke through his brother’s mouth.
“I’m not the one who’s dying.”
The ground gave in under Pan and he yelped as he plummeted into nothingness.
“And…”
Pan struggled to breathe as the darkness caved in around him.
“I’m not the one who’s dying alone.”
Pan hit something soft, the force of his landing shooting the air back into his lungs. With the intake of oxygen came a wave on pine and dust. He blinked and he was blinded by light.
Was he—
“You must have a death wish.”
Pan looked up, watching in fascination as August drank from the coffee mug he’d gifted him. He looked down at his own. Pitch blackness met him and there was a twisted sense of terror in the core of his heart.
“What do you mean?” Pan returned as he glanced anxiously out the window. It was just after 6 a.m., he recalled. The town had wrapped up its search for Jekyll and clearer heads had prevailed. Pan personally had drove him away. He knew he was long-gone, but Pan had the sickening feeling he might just return.
“Who invites a random guy into their apartment?” August chuckled.
One who is terrified to be alone, Pan thought.
He didn’t voice this however, rather turned a sharp, fake smirk on the man curled up on his couch.
“One that sees something they like.”
Yet the scent of pine faded and the back and forth of waves returned, August’s surprised intrigue fading.
Pan felt himself falling again, but the descent this time was calmer. He felt safe, but his heart was still heavy.
He was curled into a tight ball, the scratchy plastic of Felix’s spare sleeping bag hissing has he struggled not to cry any more than he had.
He heard the bedroom door ease open as Felix made a careful return to his room. His parents would call Gold if they knew he was here.
“Here.”
Pan looked down to see a wet towel in Felix’s hand. He could feel the warmth coming off it.
He sniffled, snatching it from his friend and scrubbing the dry, salty tears from his face.
Felix tilted his head, trying to pinpoint who had the wild boy he’d grown so acquainted with in such a state.
Pan did.
“I don’t get it,” Pan seethed as hot tears poured down his cheeks. “I knew her first. I loved her first. Why did she choose him!”
Felix flinched, concerned that Pan’s yelling would attract his parents’ attention.
“Maybe it’s not what you think,” he suggested, completely lost. “Maybe she—”
“NO!” Pan spat, his eyes—his very heart—hardening to coal. “I don’t care! Fuck them! I can do this on my own!”
He threw himself back, intending to bury himself in the sleeping bag and forget, but the floor gave way, the comforting space of Felix’s childhood bedroom began to fade around him.
He hit something hard and cold, the overwhelming terrifying smell of chemicals slapping his senses.
Pan struggled to sit up—to run as fast as he could—but he was shackled down by homemade restraints.
Nonononono…
“It’s okay,” Jekyll’s harrowing grin relayed as he tightened another belt around Pan’s wrist, the headboard pressing painfully into Pan’s back.
He could feel the leather’s burn against his skin and Jekyll’s tainted breath on his neck and cheeks.
Fuck the investigation. Fuck those dead girls. He wanted out.
He tried to open his mouth—someone in the inn would hear him—but Jekyll already had something stuffed in his mouth.
“You’ll like it.”
Pan squeezed his eyes shut, willing the nightmare around him away.
The heat was still there.
Jekyll’s putrid smell.
Maybe this was Hell?
Somehow the noise faded, like the sound of waves lapping against the sound at low tide.
Pan was so tired when he opened his eyes again.
But he was blessedly alone.
Cursedly alone, too.
It’s just a burn.
“It’s just a burn.”
Pan’s hand were shaking as he drove Tink to the hospital. This was his only chance to catch Jekyll once and for all. Tink was his type. She’d be at his mercy, and unbeknownst to her, Pan’s protection.
But, she didn’t know that last part yet.
He stayed with her until a nurse began to lead her into the infirmary.
“I’m sorry.”
The words slipped out. A flash of conscience?
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Blackness…
A tapping sound began to fill his senses once more.
Pan arched his neck back, glaring at the source of the sound.
“You don’t want to do things alone, do you Paney?”
Pan looked up, only able to see the glint of gold underneath a pair of perfectly folded hands.
“Yet you still shove away anyone who gets too close until they resent you.”
He struggled with the restraints as the familiar tapping of the gold-handled cane came closer, the sound as loud as thunder with each step.
As screaming.
“Perhaps…”
Pan froze, glaring at the man above him—the man who he unfortunately shared too much DNA with.
“Your subconscious is trying to tell you that you simply cannot fathom intimacy in any form—”
“Shut up! Just shut the hell up!”
“It’s okay.”
He looked up as tears streamed down his face.
Belle smiled back. Calm. Warm. Loving.
“It’ll get better soon,” she said. “I’ll talk to Gold.”
Pan broke away from the figments, scrambling desperately away.
He never wanted to hurt them.
He just…
“It’s okay,”
“I’m…” Pan pulled back, ashamed that his body had betrayed him, that he couldn’t give Lily what she wanted. She was kinder than she thought, more than she’d ever been to him at school.
“Hey, really,” she said, back in her underwear. “It’s okay.”
Pan gripped the sheets under him. He hadn’t been able to stop shaking. Her touch was soft. She could help him. She would, if he told her.
But his broken parts were sticking out. He pushed her back, willing to impale her with them.
They broke a part, Pan feeling more complete, but he was the one to leave this time.
And again, and again, until he saw the hurt in her eyes. He did nothing to amend it.
I just—
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
“Fine.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“And?”
He slipped, the weakness of his body crashing down on him like a tsunami wave against a lighthouse.
You can’t fathom proper intimacy.
But.
“But you crave it all the same.”
He pulled himself up on shaky arms. Before him were all the people who had some significance in his life. Felix, Tink, August, Lily. Behind them, but less in focus, Jekyll, Glass…and Belle.
Gold was in the forefront, staring at him with this dark blankness his companions shared. Hating him.
There was someone missing. Pan knew this but as his mind slipped away he couldn’t place just who.
One by one they turned from him, vanishing into the darkness.
“Wait.”
“It’s too late,” Gold sighed, the barest air of sympathy in his voice. “You pushed them away, and now you’ve lost them for good.”
Pan struggled to push himself to his knees, to glare at Gold one final time.
“You really never knew how to love anyone, did you?”
Pan bowed his head, the numbness he felt in his heart blessedly swallowing him.
“Just go.”
He could hear Gold respond to his demand, could hear the tell-all clinking of his cane as he too slipped away.
He truly was alone. He always hated the quiet, as always hated he small pitches of laughter that followed him. Hated its mocking embrace, promising him companionship just as empty as it.
He hadn’t wanted to die alone but maybe this was right.
He wasn’t good at loving people, even those he liked. He didn’t really know how to be…
Normal.
He’d successfully pushed away any and all people that might have cared about him. It would be an impressive feat, he thought, if the circumstances were different.
Pan curled into himself. Death wasn’t so frightening when you knew what to expect.
“Do your worse.”
“Peter?”
That voice…
Pan looked up. In the depths of the darkness was a ray of golden light.
No.
Not light … hair?
“Pan!”
Dead at him.
W—
“Wendy.”
I—
She too began to disappear into the dark, her light being smothered by the thick acidic shadows.
“Wendy wait!” he screamed, bursting painfully forward. Trying to grab her.
“Peter—”
Just there. Just out of reach. Just grazing her skin.
She turned and he could see her eyes.
His fingers grazed her. He could feel her.
“Wendy—”
Her hand snatched up his hand, gripping it so tightly it stung.
“I’m coming to find you.”
“Boy.”
Pan coughed, his mind and body bolting back into the physical world the second he felt the cool water on his lips. He drank it greedily, not caring about the man who was giving it to him. He coughed, nearly choking, but the water kept coming until his stomach hurt from it and his lungs burned.
Jones finally pulled back and took a seat on a barrel as Pan continued to come to. He could feel his kidnappers eyes on him, but the devil-may-care cockiness he’d stay firm to suspiciously missing.
In fact, he looked rather nervous. Pan, as the signals in his brain began to reactivate, that perhaps Jones was caught and his days—hell, the next few minutes—were numbered.
But why would Jones give a doomed man water? Why wasn’t he attempting to end him?
Jones stayed quiet for a while, slowly rubbing his hands together, his glassy blue eyes staring into the dark.
Pan shook his arms to get movement back in them, his brain heavy.
Jones leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.
“She’s really something, isn’t she?”
Pan tensed, knowing good and damn well who he was referring to.
“Where is she?” Pan rasped.
And there it was. That damn fucking smirk.
“Fast asleep,” he replied, the spirit of a wink in his voice. “She needs it.”
Pan sudden felt like he’d swallowed a vine of thorns. “What did you do to her?”
Jones laughed, the sound wet and sultry, like the air after a storm.
“Oh, what I did to her,” Jones hummed as Pan’s eyes narrowed.
He knew that look. He’d seen it more times than not. Had it on his own face once or twice.
Pure, non-concentrated lust.
Those sounds he heard earlier, could it have possibly been Jones…and Wendy.
Pan had to jerk his head away, unable to look at him as he processed the thought.
“You sick fuck.”
Jones’ smirk vanished with a sharp twitch, his eyes darkening.
“Does she know anything?”
“I have no damn idea what you’re bloody talking about!” Pan hissed, pulling against the rope.
Jones rolled his eyes. “I’m tired of this—”
“I know shit and so does she!” Pan spat, his annoyance of the situation and hate for Jones bringing him a dose of adrenaline. “I don’t know what batshit idea you have about me, her, any of this fucking shit but his has nothing to do with us! Now let me out of this shit so I can properly beat you motherfu—“
Pan was silenced with a swift slap to the face. His whole body jerked to the side.
He panted lightly, the force having drained him once more. He could blame his weakness on his dehydration and captivity, but in truth, he was in shock.
Wendy…with Jones? Why would she? How could she?
Why did he care?
Jones scrubbed a hand over his face, yanking Pan back to attention.
“You swear she knows nothing?”
Pan glared at him, no longer able to speak on his or Wendy’s defense.
Jones’ eyes narrowed and he stood.
“Very well then.”
Pan tensed.
“No wait—”
“Enjoy the quiet boy, it’ll be the last thing you ever hear.”
“Don’t—”
“And,” Jones said as he headed up the stairs, that god-awful smirk returning to his tone. “No hard feelings on Miss Darling?”
Pan grit his teeth, fighting the urge to scream.
No one would hear him.
The darkness Jones left behind seemed so much deeper now.
In laughter in the walls, how did gold die? I don’t think I saw it in any of the three chapters besides the knife being in the mattress. Did he fall on it? 
Hi, so in Chp 2, Belle and Gideon find out he used the knife to kill himself after his son, Baelfire, died in a car accident.
It was sometimes easy for Belle to forget that her new home was haunted.
There were days when Rumplestiltskin—the self-proclaimed “residential haunter” of the salmon-colored mansion—would be jumping off the walls, moving things, bringing chaos and excitement into Belle and her son’s life.
Then there were days like today when he’d go oddly quiet. Belle had woken up that morning to no Rumplestiltskin. None at breakfast, none when she saw Gideon off, and none now with her having more free time than she’d had in weeks.
Though she cared for Rumple very much, she took immediate advantage of his absence.
She went through the budget for the town library that was set to open in another week, unpacked her last box in the living room, and got the kitchen cleaned…all in less than thirty minutes.
She leaned back on her couch, listening to the clock hanging over the fireplace.
“Wow,” she muttered aloud. After being a mother for nearly 18 years and living in a haunted house, she’d grown completely unaccustomed to quiet time.
“Um…” she hesitated, double guessing when she’d ever get a moment like this again, a moment just to sit back and breath.
But that novelty quickly wore off.
“Rumple?” she called out, preparing for him to suddenly appear behind her or jump onto her coffee table…something!
But Rumplestiltskin did not appear or attempt to scare her.
Belle hummed, worrying her lip. Where was he?
With a determined hum, she began her search, going up the bedrooms and even checking the closets, on the way down she did the same until finally she stepped out into the garden.
Belle addressed the area, scrunching her nose at the dead vines on the fence. She hadn’t touched it since she moved in being that it was far too cold to begin cleaning up, and she was certain that Rumple would give her grief when she began.
She walked around the small space, mulling over her ghostly housemate’s antics.
The last few weeks had certainly been an adventure, truly the most interesting few weeks of both her and Gideon’s life so far.
Knowing Rumple’s life before his unfortunate death had softened her to him, and him to them in return it would seem.
Sure he still played his little tricks but he was finally allowing them to settle in and get comfortable.
But Belle had also noticed that he seemed to keep them at arm’s length as well.
He never officially joined them for meals, and the first time Belle asked him he looked shocked enough to die all over again. Instead he’d levitate peas or shuffle around silverware, hiding his true feelings behind harmless chaos.
She moved a stone with the toe of her shoe, mulling over where her residential haunter could be.
Her eyes landed on the dusty basement windows—the one room in the house she hadn’t touched yet.
Snapping her fingers, she ran back inside to find the key Mary Margaret Nolan had given her the day she moved in. It fit in the lock perfectly but Belle grunted a bit to turn it.
She had to force her weight onto the door to get the thing open and nearly tumbled down the stairs when it finally swung open.
She spat when she walked into a cobweb, waiving away dust and the smell of age as she carefully made her way down the skeptical wooden steps.
“Rumple?” Belle called down, her voice echoing off the gritty walls as she felt for a light.
She found the end of the steps—thankfully without falling down them—and squinted into the dark, just able to make out a few objects.
She stepped around carefully, hands reaching out to graze along what felt like furniture until blessedly she felt the coolness of a glass lamp shade. She eagerly groped the lamp until she felt pull string, and with a tough the room was illuminated in a gentle but useful light.
She blinked, letting her eyes adjust, and after a moment she gasped at the objects before her.
It was like she was in a dusty museum full of treasures. Furniture and lamps, and so much more that Belle just could not see from the lack of light.
She looked around and spotted the windows. They were caked in a thick layer of dust and dirt, the thinnest slithers of light struggling to escape.
Belle sidestepped a few crates and removed her cardigan, using a table against the wall to lift herself up so that she could clean the glass.
After a great deal of effort, the glass was clean enough so that she could see better. As she eased herself off the table, she felt paper crumple under her palms. She looked down and to her delight, the table she was on was overflowing with an old tea set and…books!
She brushed off her hands, eagerly examining the piles before her. Dickens, Hugo and even an older copy of Shakespeare poems! Some were unbound, as if someone were trying to prepare them?
One book towards the end seemed to be in the roughest state of all. It’s spine a strip of cloth and Belle couldn’t even make out the title on the overly worn cover, though she noticed that the spine was held together by some new thread.
She carefully picked the book up to look at the pages, hoping to gain some sort of insight of what the book was about when a cold presence suddenly washed over her.
“Careful dearie!”
Belle jumped back, knocking into the table behind her and causing the porcelain on it to clatter. She visibly paled when she heard one of the pieces hit the dusty floor.
Rumplestiltskin stepped to her side, taking the crumbling book from her hands much more gently than she thought he would.
“You’re holding one the first copies of La Belle et la Bête!”Rumplestiltskin growled. “It took me months just to stitch the pages back together.”
“I’m…I’m sorry,” Belle gasped, overcoming her shock quickly to address the damage she did to the porcelain tea set.
A lump formed in the throat when she found the cup she caused to fall on the ground, a very small but noticeable chip in its rim.
“I’m so sorry,” Belle said, cursing her unyielding curiosity. “I chipped it…”
She tensed when Rumple squatted down to her level, addressing the cup in her hands with a blank expression.
“You…you can hardly see it.” She offered with a strained smile.
Rumplestiltskin met her eyes and caught the fresh terror there. Though it pleased him he could make her feel such fear despite their month-long acquaintance, it did concern him just a bit. Did she really think he’d rage over a cheap tea set? Sure, it was bothersome that she stumbled into his sanctuary…but it wasn’t all his now anymore…
“It’s just a cup,” he assured, taking the thing out of her hands and avoiding how he almost…almost…felt the heat from her skin. “Worth nothing really. I don’t even have the full set any more.”
Belle visibly sagged in relief, picking herself up as Rumplestiltskin placed the cup on the table.
“What is all this?”
Rumplestiltskin turned to acknowledge the relics of his past, years of toil gathering dust or rotting right in front of his eyes.
“What’s left of my shop.” He answered, leaving her side to flick a cobweb from an old spinning wheel.
“Shop?” Belle gasped. “You had a shop here?”
“No,” he laughed wetly. “In town. They moved all this here after I…”
Belle worried her lip, know his next words.
“You…fixed things?” she said, rushing to change the subject.
“Fixed, appraised, some might even stole,” he giggled, though the humor wasn’t in his voice. “It was an antique shop with a pawning theme. When people couldn’t pay back what they borrowed for their items, I sold them. Some would call that theft.”
Belle shrugged, not wanting to comment on how a bit unfair that seemed.
“Is that why you came down here?” she inquired. “To remember?”
Rumplestiltskin blinked, a flash of who he used to be running before his yes.
Mr. Gold, the pawnbroker who owned everything in Storybrooke from the properties to everyone’s first born. The monster. The friendless fiend who’d watch parties and get-togethers at the diner from his car. Who had all the wealth in the world but no one to share it with.
Someone his own flesh and blood tried to forget.
“Rumple?”
He glanced back at her, those soulful blue eyes easing away his less savory thought.
“Not much to remember,” he sighed, walking past her.
Belle’s mouth went dry as she tried to find the right words to comfort him, however it was painfully obvious that their experiences with loneliness were painfully diverse.
The loneliest time in her life was during her pregnancy with Gideon and right after he was born. Will’s paternal instincts just wouldn’t turn on and her parents, thought accepting of her new role, were silently disappointed.
By the time Will left for good and Belle began online classes and a part-time job to support her new baby, she’d been able to accept her new role as a teenage mother.
And she’d never truly been alone, but judging by Rumple’s demeanor and the Nolan’s insight on his previously life, he had been.
She looked around at the objects that had filled his life, that brought him company when people could not.
She smiled fondly at the books, wondering how many hours he spent caring for them, if the words from the words managed to tame some of his time.
Her eyes scanned to the spinning wheel, wondering what he created from the antique.
“What do you think about bringing this upstairs?”
He stared at the old spinning wheel, disgusted.
“Why?”
“It’s beautiful. It’d look great in my library,” She shrugged. “Plus, it was yours, and … this is your home too.
Rumplestiltskin scoffed, his gaze softening when his back was to her. “Do what you wish.”
Belle smiled, noticing the change in his tone. She got him this time.
She looked around the basement, noticing several other pieces that would fit in other parts of her – their home.
She’d volunteer Gideon to help her fish them out later, but for now she’d start small.
She turned to make work on the spinning wheel but noticed it had vanished. A moment later, a loud thump above sent a shower of dirt and dust on her.
“Wouldn’t want you to say something, dearie!” he called from upstairs—her library.
When Gideon's friend's are in danger, he uses magic to protect them.
Based off a prompt I received A LONG time ago.
[A03]
Age of the kids: Around 4
-.-.-.-.-
Gideon wanted to be a hero, plain and simple.
Since he was old enough to comprehend the words his parents recited from his storybooks, he wanted to be one.
Sometimes he would pretend to be like the ones in his books. Neal and Robyn, who more or less lived a second life in his home or in the sanctuary of his mother’s library, would play along and the roles would switch daily.
The day Alex Boyer—the preschool bully and, in the mind of the four-and-a-half-year-old, Gideon’s worst enemy—pushed Gideon and his friends to the last straw, Gideon truly tried to be a hero.
It was a normal day, as it had been for the past three months since they had started kindergarten. Because Robyn couldn’t walk, she couldn’t do the thing Gideon and Neal would usually like to do, like swing or play on the slide. However, they spent their earliest years using their wits and imaginations to play together, so doing so in a different environment wasn’t much of a stretch.
They were playing in the sandbox, a slow and not too exhausting task that involved itchy legs and grit-filled shoes afterwards, but it was still something they could all do together.
They were having a great time until Alex Boyer came along to cause trouble.
Alex always reminded Gideon of an angry pig due to his thick nose and boorish attitude. He was a typical bully, and Gideon’s parents said that meant he should always try to be nice to him.
“Sometimes mean people just need a bit of love,” she would say with a wink his father’s way. “It always works.”
However, to Gideon’s young mind, he didn’t think Alex wanted to be friends. He was always taking Neal’s cookies at snack time and refused to help clean up after play time. Not to mention he was always calling Robyn really dumb names. The names weren’t creative nor very hurtful, but they were a jab that made his friend feel just a bit more outcasted from the other children, and Gideon did not want to be friends with someone like that.
Neal groaned when Alex approached, knowing good and well their calm break was about to be over. They had complained to the teacher before, but the young, fairly inexperienced women waved it off as play and had yet to deal with him.
“What are you weirdos doing?” he inquired cruelly, jumping into the box and causing their sculptures to collapse.
“What does it look like?” Robyn growled.
“Zip it wheel chair.” He responded.
“Alex, go away.” Neal warned him calmly, the aire of a leader in his tone.
“You don’t own the sandbox, Nolan.” Alex fought, kicking the bucked in Neal’s hands away.
Gideon glanced nervously around for one of the teachers, noticing instantly that they were busy with another student. She wouldn’t be coming to save them after all. He felt Neal moved and turned around just in time to see him standing to Alex’s height.
“Leave us alone.” Neal warned calmly. “You do this all the time and it’s not funny. If you want to play that’s fine but stop calling us names and kicking away our stuff.”
“Stop calling us names!” Alex mocked.
“Cut it out!” Robyn yelled from the ground.
“I’m not talking to you wheel chair!” Alex yelled, kicking a wave of sand into Robyn’s face.
Gideon felt his whole body run cold at the site of Robyn arching down and shouting out in distress. For a moment the world around him seemed to slow, the only thing in focus was Neal’s panicked expression as he knelt to help Robyn rub sand out of her eyes.
The young Gold turned up to his friends’ tormentor. The piggish boy was actually smiling about what he had just done, as if he somehow thought he was going to get away with his cruel actions.
A thick heat began to thaw his shock, filling him with a familiar tingling sensation that he instantly recognized.
He wasn’t allowed to use magic outside of the house; that was rule one in the Gold family rulebook.
But Gideon knew—or at least his father always said—that some rules could be broken when circumstances called for them.
And this situation certainly called for a bit of rule-breaking.
He jumped up, sand trailing down his corduroys as magic sparked through his small fingers.
Just as Alex turned his way, Gideon held his hand up to the boy’s face, the idea of just what he wanted to do to him running though his mind.
When the bully shouted out in shock, Gideon knew his spell had worked, but a new fear set in. He had never used magic like that before, and he only wanted to make Alex stop, not hurt him.
The bully dropped his hands from his face and revealed the effects of Gideon’s spell: Alex’s face was covered in boils, his nose as puckered as a pig’s—in fact, that’s exactly what Gideon had done.
Alex acted like a pig, and that’s just what Gideon had turned him into.
The other children soon noticed the commotion and watched in astonishment as their classmate panicked over his sudden change in appearance. Most, not realizing the full intensity of the situation, were laughing at him.
Gideon glanced down at Neal and Robyn. They had recovered from Alex’s cruelty quickly and were now struggling not to laugh at how their rival’s downfall. They couldn’t hold back any longer when the boy went squealing into the school for help, and soon Gideon was laughing too.
For a moment, he was one among his peers, a true hero in their eyes like the heroes his parents about read to him. He had used his powers to help his friends and teach Alex Boyer a lesson once and for all. He felt like—he had stopped evil in its tracks and now everyone could live at peace.
Or at least they were going to until the stern, tight-haired principal came bounding out, her hard eyes finding Gideon instantly.
“Gideon Gold!”
“Uh oh.” Neal whispered.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Half an hour later Gideon he was sitting in the principal’s office between his parents as she gave them all the third degree. Beside them were Alex, his face restored to its original form by Gideon’s father, and Alex’s grandmother, a stout but glassy-eyed women who didn’t seem to know quite where she was.
“We don’t tolerate bullying of any sort at this school,” the principal explained.
“If magic was involved, it must have been an accident,” Mr. Gold tried to explain. “The spell is undone now and there shouldn’t be any lasting damage.”
“And we’ll pay the cost for any…lasting effects.” Belle added.
Gideon sighed as his parents and the principal continued. He was going to get additional lecture from his parents when he got home, but he was glad Alex was finally getting reprimanded for his wrongdoings.
“And because of that, I’m going to have to suspend Gideon for the rest of the semester.”
The principal’s proclamation brought Gideon from his musings.
“What does suspend mean?” Gideon asked. He felt like he may have read the word in one of his books, but he couldn’t be sure.
“It means, young man, that you won’t be allowed back here for the rest of the year.” The principal explained before his parents could.
“What!” the little boy exclaimed. “What about Alex?”
“Alex, of course, will get the help he needs because of your stunt, and will continue here.” The principal continued.
“That’s not fair!” Gideon exploded. “He hurt Robyn and Neal! He’s been hurting them for weeks and no one was doing anything about it.”
“He what?” Belle gasped, glancing at the boy who was now smothered in his grandmother’s side.
“He’s been calling Robyn names and taking Neal’s things! He hurts the other kids too!”
“If that’s the case, Gideon than you should have told the teacher or me.” The principal pointed out.
Gideon groaned irritably. He could feel that tingling again, only this time it felt like it was trying to spread past his controlled fingertips.
“Gideon,” his father whispered. “It’s okay.”
The gentle statement from his father soothed Gideon’s agitation enough for the magic to die down.
“Regardless, I can’t allow Gideon to continue here.” The principal continued with an air of finality. “If he did this to one student, I don’t want to begin to imagine what he could do to another if he felt provoked.”
“That will not happen,” Belle tried to assure. “Give us the weekend to help him understand the error of his ways.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gold, but it’s for the safety of our other students.”
When the principal remained silent, Mr. Gold stood and held out his hand for his son.
“Come on Gideon, it’s time to go home.”
Gideon restrained angry tears as he took his father’s hand. This wasn’t fair! Heroes weren’t supposed to get punished when they did the right thing! The villain was supposed to be defeated and the world was supposed to be better for it! That was how the story was always told!
He glanced back at Alex and glared at him as he turned from grandmother’s side and stuck his tongue out.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The next morning Gideon awoke on his own accord, the bitterness he had felt from the day before still as new, even with the smell of his mother’s pancakes reaching his nose.
A soft but familiar knock echoed through the room, and Gideon threw the covers over his head just as his dad walked in.
“Hey Gid,” Rumplestiltskin greeted as he took a seat behind the lump of blankets. “How about you get up son?”
Gideon tightened into a ball. He didn’t want to get up. Didn’t want to talk about yesterday.
Rumplestiltskin sighed. He always knew the day would come when he’d have to lecture Gideon about the use of his powers, but he always thought the talk would come when the boy was much older, and not so soft and innocent to the world.
However, Gideon wasn’t like most children, magical or not. He had history with magic in his past life, and if he let this one incident go unchecked, it could stir but bad memories and habits that would follow him into adulthood.
“Gid, I want you to know that your mom and I are very proud that you stuck up for your friends yesterday,” he smiled slightly when Gideon loosened under the covers. “But you have to understand that there are times when you just can’t use your powers.”
“Even when someone’s being hurt?” Gideon grumbled. “When you tell the people who are supposed to help but they don’t.”
Rumplestiltskin shrugged. “You got me there.”
“I didn’t want to do it, Papa,” Gideon muttered, squeezing the corner of his pillow. “I just wanted him to leave us alone. I just…wanted to be a hero”
“I know, m’boy,” Rumplestiltskin agreed. “I know what it’s like to want to protect the people you love with every fiber of your being. But sometimes magic isn’t the answer.”
Gideon didn’t answer. The boy was too young to comprehend just why what he did was so wrong, even if he understood that what it had certain consequences.
“People like us,” Rumplestiltskin said as he soothed the boy’s hair. “We have a special ability to help people. But, even when we don’t mean to, we can hurt them too.”
Gideon sniffled as his response.
“And sometimes being a hero means letting the villain walk away,” Rumplestiltskin explained. “Because sometimes when you see them again, they want help,” The Dark One smiled when his son smiled in agreement, and helped him sit up. “So how about after breakfast, we go over to Alex’s house and apologize.”
Gideon made a face.
“He knows to be nicer to you, so how about we give him the benefit of the doubt?”
Gideon released a great sigh. “Fine.” He bounced off the bed and followed his dad down the stairs.
“But I still wish I could have turned him into a real pig!” he muttered naughtily.
Also, this is my longest chapter to date at 23 pages and +9000 words, beating my record from chapter 13!
-,-,-,-,-,-,-
“Speak up, kid.” Sydney yelled through the phone.
Wendy pressed the diner phone as close to her face as she could. Her cell phone had died as soon as she left the library, and despite Storybrooke’s vintage look, it did not have payphones around town, thus she had to rely on Granny’s charity to complete the next step of her mission.
“I asked if you kept any notes on a story you worked on?” Wendy said as loudly as she could without attracting attention.
“Depends on the story. Which one you looking for?”
Though she trusted Sydney’s ability to keep silence, she didn’t want to get him too involved in case this all went south. He’d been damaged enough because of her.
“One from about…twenty years ago?”
She pulled the phone away from her ear when Glass burst out laughing.
“You want me to find notes from a story from two decades ago? What the hell have you gotten into now?”
“Research purposes.” Wendy stated vaguely.
Sydney chuckled again. “I don’t have a memory that far back, kid. Is Pan involved in this research of yours?”
“No.” Wendy huffed. “This is all me.”
“Heh, that’s unusual.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to remind her boss that every case she had worked on had started off as a solo project before Pan stuck his head into it. However, she needed to stay focused on Tink and push her frustrating counterpart into the furthest part of her mind.
They shared a few more words before Wendy hung up with a heavy sigh. A dead end. She leaned against the counter and put an strike across Glass’s name.
“Everything work out?” Granny inquired from across the counter.
“Not really.” Wendy replied, pulling her bag to her shoulder.
Granny leaned in closer. “Are you working on a new story?”
Wendy glanced behind her to see a few other diner patrons who were hungry for new news to feed their gossip groups until.
“N-no.” Wendy concluded. “Just…needed to make a phone call.”
“Hmm, right.” Granny hummed, unconvinced. “So you weren’t just changing details with Pan?”
“Poppycock.” Wendy muttered under her breath, easing out from behind the counter and leaving the friendly diner before Pan could be mentioned again.
-,-,-,-,-
“That’s him.” Graham pointed at a grainy photo on the police station wall. The man in question a curly mustache that reminded Wendy of Clark Gable.
“The sheriff before you.” Wendy nodded.
“Yep, old Holmes. Three terms unopposed.” Graham said before taking a bite out of his sandwich. It was his lunchbreak and he was working through it to get the paper work on Jekyll out before the end of the day. Wendy felt guilty about taking away the only free time he’d had, but he really didn’t seem to mind.
“Where is he now, exactly?” Wendy inquired. She hadn’t told Graham why she was looking for the ex-sheriff, and hopefully he wouldn’t be too concerned. It was best she kept her mission for Tink’s origins from as many people as possible.
“In the cemetery now.” Graham answered. “He passed away a few years ago.”
“Shit.”
Graham coughed, preventing his last bite of sandwich from going down the wrong pipe. “Pardon?”
“No, no sorry.” Wendy sighed. “I just…really wanted to meet him.”
Graham looked the journalist over suspiciously, but had too much going on to worry about her sleuthing.
“Just one question: is Pan involved in…whatever you’re doing?”
“No.” Wendy replied, annoyed.
“Alright.” Graham shrugged, turning back to the computer. “That means one less crisis this week.”
Wendy chuckled and took Graham’s dismissal has her cue to leave.
She crossed off his name from her book and hoped that her visit to the convent would be more successful.
-,-,-,-,-
The nunnery seemed much friendlier than the ones back in London, brighter with the colorful lights of the stained-glass windows bouncing off the.
Yet there was this air of dread around Wendy, like the walls were ready to push in and crush her to dust. She wondered if this was what Tink had felt during her time here, or if her own newfound claustrophobia was arising once more.
The apprehension clung to her bones as she followed one of the nuns to Mother Superior’s office. From the brief moment Wendy had laid eyes on the woman in blue, Wendy was more than certain that she wasn’t very nice. Anyone who could make someone like Tink La’Belle cry was certainly a monster.
The nun turned to her when she paused, giving her as small smile that indicated for her to do the same. She knocked on the door and a muffled response allowed the nun to enter.
“Mother Superior,” the nun greeted. “A young lady is here to see you.”
“Yes, yes let her in.” she spoke, sounding annoyed but willing.
The younger nun turned to Wendy with an apologetic smile and stepped aside to allow her entrance. Wendy breathed out nervously, watching as the door closed behind her, leaving her with a possible enemy.
“What is it?” the mother sighed impatiently, her head lifting from the paperwork she was scribbling on. “Oh, you again.” She said with a gross whine. “You didn’t bring that hooligan with you, did you?”
A definite enemy, then.
Wendy cleared her throat, as well as clearing any rude comment that was threatening to come up.
“No, it’s just me. My name is Wendy Darling. We didn’t get the chance to introduce ourselves after you upset my friend.” Wendy snarked. It would seem she didn’t clear everything away.
Mother Superior’s eyes bowed into a hard glare. “What do you want?”
“I want to know about what you might have seen the night Tink La’Belle was left on the convent doorsteps.” Wendy stated confidently, keeping eye contact with the spiteful nun.
A flash of blankness ran over the nun’s soft features before they hardened again.
“Why on earth ado you want to know any of that?”
“For the truth.” Wendy said. “There’s something else to this simple abandonment story and I intend to find out just what it is.”
“And splay it all over your pathetic paper?” Superior snipped.
“The only person who will ever know about any of this is Tink.” Wendy clarified. God forbid if anything got back to Pan.
The nun’s face paled slightly, and Wendy could see the wheels spinning frantically behind her eyes. With a blink, she was back to her passive, professional facade.
“I told the police years ago everything I knew and saw.” She stated, looking back down at the paperwork. It was the way the pen shook in her hand that gave Wendy the indication to push forward.
“I know you were young at the time,” Wendy pressed on more softly. “But if you remember anything—a mysterious person wondering around, a sound, someone coming by later—it would help—”
“I have nothing left to say!” Superior shouted, her façade dropping and crumbling into shards before Wendy’s eyes. “Now leave, or I’ll call the police!”
“Fine!” Wendy yelled back, her own patience slipping away. “Then you can explain to them why you keep harassing Tink to the point where she’s considering getting a restraining order against you!”
The rage vanished instantly from the Mother’s face, a wave of despair washing over her instead.
“She said that?” she inquired, her voice wretched.
For a brief moment Wendy almost felt pity for the nun. It would appear that despite her harassment towards Tink, there was a part of her that generally cared for her.
Then she recalled Felix holding her sobbing friend and the rage resurfaced.
“It was indicated.” Wendy replied simply. “Maybe, when I tell her the truth about her abandonment, I can mention that you’re the reason I found it and that you helped me.”
For a moment Wendy thought she had her. The head nun seemed to contemplate what she was saying, mulling it over to an accepting extent.
Then, she disappointed Wendy by bending over her paperwork once again.
“As I said, I have nothing to say that I didn’t report to the police all those years ago.” She stated more mechanically. “Now please, excuse yourself.”
Wendy actually twitched. Really, the nerve of this woman! She was sly, Wendy would pay her that compliment. She thought of a way she could make her say more. She could reveal what Tink told her, about why she had refused to return to the convent.
That place was never a home.
But as Wendy mulled it over (and as the words hung on the very tip of her tongue), she decided against it. That was something Pan would do, and do with pleasure if she had to guess. Pan wasn’t here, she didn’t have to handle things his way.
She was Wendy Darling, and she was clean.
“If you happen to remember anything,” Wendy said with sarcastic politeness. “Just call the paper and let me know.”
The head nun flinched but did not answer, and Wendy pressed no more.
Stomping out of the convent, she slashed Mother Superior’s name off her list and hummed when she saw her next—and last source.
Mr. Gold.
-,-,-,-,-
Mr. Gold looked up from his tedious paperwork when the door opened, cursing that someone would wonder in this close to lunch time. He had planned to close shop early so that he could visit Belle in the hospital as he had done since her rescue. His agitation stilled some when he saw that it was Wendy Darling, Belle’s savior.
His savior.
“Mr. Gold,” she greeted, an air nervousness in her voice. “May I talk to you for a moment?”
“Miss Darling,” Mr. Gold returned, smiling whole-heartedly rather than with his usual sarcasm. “Please, come in. Would you follow me to the back?”
Wendy nodded, glad for the privacy. The shop itself reminded Belle of her grandmother’s house: a fire hazard with its antiques but strangely inviting. It had the stale smell of dust just overpowered enough by the smell of strongly brewed tea.
Mr. Gold guested to a small, rumpled cot for her to sit, and in a moment he pulled a whistling teapot from a small hotplate.
“Milk, sugar?” Mr. Gold inquired as he set out an additional teacup next to his own.
“Just a dab, if you please.” She answered, pulling out her notebook.
He handed her a cup and took a seat in a rough desk chair across from her. Wendy noticed that his own teacup had a chip in the rim.
“Belle’s doing.” He indicated when he caught her gaze. “The first time she entered my shop, I shocked her as she was admiring a stack of books. I don’t know why, but I fell for her rather quickly after that.”
Wendy smiled at the fleeting love story. Five minutes in his shop, Mr. Gold had revealed more about himself than Pan had in the month and a half she’d known him.
“However, I’m sure you didn’t come here to hear me drawl on about my past. What can I do for you, Miss Darling?”
Wendy took a sip of her tea before she answered (it was a bit too strong for her liking but still much better than the bagged stuff she’d had to sip on during her stay in Storybrooke).
“Actually, it’s your past I’m inquiring about.” Wendy stated, pulling out her cellphone for the pictures she took in the library.
Mr. Gold’s calculated expression bowed into calm curiosity. “Is this about Pan?”
Wendy felt she would have to start introducing herself with “Hi, may we talk, and no this is not about Peter flipping Pan,” for now on.
“No, it’s about a mutual friend of ours, Tink La’Bell.” Wendy showed him the grainy picture of the cross she took in the library. “I know it’s a long shot, but I was curious if the police asked you about the cross she had with her. I would have brought it with me but…”
Mr. Gold peaked over the top of her cellphone. “But this is a silent angel mission for you?”
“It is.” Wendy confided. “I’d just like to help her find some kind of closure. Do you have any idea if someone around here had one like it, or maybe if they got it from here?”
There was a comment in his smile that Wendy wanted to hear, however his attention returned to her cellphone a moment more before he handed it back to her.
“I recall Miss La’Bell’s abandonment quite well,” Mr. Gold reminisced. “Sheriff Holmes came to my shop the day after the incident to ask me similar questions like the ones you’re asking me.”
Wendy frowned, sensing another dead end.
“Let me guess, there was nothing you could provide him.”
“You’re quick to reach the worst conclusion, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold teased before turning to a nearby shelf. “I cataloged the item during the 24-hours it was in my possession so that I could do extensive research to find its origins. Thusly, I came to a few conclusions to satisfy the sheriff.”
“Could you share those conclusions with me?” Wendy asked hopefully.
“Would you like the answers I gave to the sheriff or the information I found afterwards?”
Wendy’s heart pounded with anticipation. This was the best, and so far only, lead she’d gotten and it would seem it could lead her to all the answers she was striving for.
“In order, please.”
Mr. Gold pulled out a small card and low and behold there was a picture of Tink’s half-cross attached to it.
“I discovered that the cross was Italian-made, and 30% silver.” Mr. Gold relayed.
“Italian-made? Does that mean that it didn’t come from Storybrooke?”
“Perhaps. Usually when something that wasn’t made here on the mainland cycles about, it comes through my shop. Not to mention the second half of the cross was never found, so Miss La’Belle was definitely brought here from outside of Storybrooke.”
Wendy nodded, a dead-end seemingly upon her.
“At least, that’s the information I gave the authorities.”
Wendy breathed in. He knew something no one else did. Another secret keeper, too much like Pan.
Although, Pan’s secrets stemmed were more personal, while Mr. Gold’s more than likely stemmed farther. He had stakes in Storybrooke, as Pan and several others had warned her. More than likely anything he was about to tell her could land him in legal trouble. Then again, this was all off the record. What the police didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
“What else did you discover?”
Mr. Gold ran the tip of his tongue over his lip. “A great deal of secrets, all of which stem back to the very place Miss La’Bell was dropped off at.”
“With all due respect Mr. Gold, I get enough of the vague allusions from Pan. Could we be more direct with each other?”
Mr. Gold smiled approvingly. “In all honesty, there are a few details I can’t reveal.”
“For legal reasons?” Wendy sighed. “I promise you, this all off-record.”
“For business-related reasons, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold corrected. “I made a deal with Miss La’Bell’s abdicator.”
Wendy paused, the meaning of his words sinking deep into the liner of her brain, infuriating and intriguing her all at once.
“You know who did it, who abandoned Tink?”
“I do.” Mr. Gold stated, his tone leveling when he saw Wendy’s gaze darken.
“You’ve known all this time and you told no one? The authorities, Tink? She has the right to know! You should have told her!”
Mr. Gold barely flinched when she yelled at him. “You’re right.” He agreed.
“Then why? What kind of deal did you make with her parents that would prevent you from giving her the information she deserved?”
Mr. Gold looked down at his ring, the strange blue stone reminding Wendy so much of Belle’s eyes.
“As I said, I can’t reveal the details of the deal I made.”
“Even to the person it affected most?” Belle barked, rage boiling inside her. Tink had a hole in her heart because of her parents, a hole Gold could have filled long ago. Instead he had used Tink’s pain as a bargaining chip against the people who had caused her so much pain. He used people to put himself further on top.
Just like Pan.
Just like his brother.
“I didn’t see it before.” Wendy muttered, shaking her head. “I didn’t see the connection, the part of you that he wanted to keep buried.” She lifted her head and met Mr. Gold dead in the eyes. The slight flinch he let off from the heat of her gaze only dulled her rage slightly.
Very slightly.
“I see it now. You’re both cut from the same cloth. You’re both horrible, selfish people”
Mr. Gold surveyed the young journalist, startled by her fire yet excited to feel the licks of her flames. Despite what Pan thought, Gold had indeed been keeping tabs on his much younger brother on and off since Belle’s disappearance. He knew about his shenanigans he pulled for the sake of journalism, about the lives he’d helped destroy. About the battles with his demons and recklessness and close calls. He even knew about Jekyll and August and all the bouts of filth in-between.
And he knew about the impact the young woman before him was having on him. He had seen it in the way he had carried himself in the last few months. Even when he was bruised and cut up from his recent horrors, there was still some sort of light over him, and Wendy Darling was always by his side to cast it.
He hadn’t seen him so alive since…well, Belle.
“No, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold finally spoke. “You’re quite wrong on that note.”
“I doubt it.” Wendy hissed, grabbing her purse and standing.
“Where are you going?”
“To find Tink and tell her everything you’ve told me!” Wendy barked. “It’ll hurt her, but she had a right to know.”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Darling.” Mr. Gold sighed, reaching under the counter and pulling out a small box.
“So you’re going to tell me who they are?”
“No, I can’t do that.” Gold stated simply, pulling a small brass key from the box. “But perhaps, Mother Superior can.”
“I’ve already talked to her—”
“You spoke to her, but you didn’t get the truth, I’m sure.”
“What do you…”
Mr. Gold reached out for her hand and curled the ancient key into her palm.
“Go back to the convent and search her office. You’ll find all you need to know.”
“But…”
“I can’t say anymore.” Mr. Gold stated firmly, turning to retreat into the back room. “I must ask you to be off now, Miss Darling.”
Wendy groaned. This mysterious-town cliché had gotten old fast.
“What if she won’t talk to me?”
“Trust me, Miss Darling, once you find what you’re looking for, she’ll be singing like a bird.”
Wendy glared at him as she stuffed the key into her pocket.
“I barely trust Pan, why would I trust you?”
“Because you don’t have a choice. You’re getting desperate, and one thing I can recognize is a desperate soul.”
“I am far from desperate, Mr. Gold.” Wendy commented, turning on her heel. If he thought he could manipulate her with mixed metaphors than he would be sorely disappointed.
Pan couldn’t, and neither could his much older, much calmer brother.
But as she stormed out of his shop and headed back to the convent, she did hope whatever Gold wanted her to find would lead to the end of her current case. She wasn’t desperate, but she didn’t have a single straw left to grasp.
-,-,-,-,-
It sickened Wendy to think so, but she wished she had called Pan to join her—at least on this part of her mission.
Judging by their experience with August Booth and his vicious feathered pet, Pan was much more knowledgeable in these sorts of misadventures.
And as the minutes ticked until it was quite enough for Wendy to sneak back into the convent, she wished more than ever that he was here with her. Yelling or cursing at her, soothing and reassuring her that she had nothing to worry about. Taking the blunt of their horrors and fears from her.
It sickened her to have become so dependent on someone like Pan, who frustrated, hurt, and comforted her all at once.
God she needed therapy.
Finally, the young nun from earlier left the convent, locking the doors behind her as she whistled her way to the living quarters just behind the garden. Wendy scurried to the door, searching for a key under the worn map and in the bushes near the door. Though a quick look around the grounds indicated that there were no cameras around to worry about, there was still the grinding fear of being caught that she had yet to shake during her time as a journalist.
Pan would bite her head off if he were here.
Wendy rolled her eyes and searched for a window. She’d probably go straight to Hell for breaking into a nunnery, but she would risk damnation later if Tink received some kind of peace.
She shoved her hands in her pockets to keep them warm, her knuckles grazing the key Mr. Gold had bestowed upon her earlier. She had no idea what it would open, or even if what it revealed would do anything for her current case, but she had a hunch that Mr. Gold hadn’t given it to her just to get her out of his shop.
A thought came to her as she examined the key: it was old, much like the door leading into the convent. She turned back to the door and tested her hunch, her stomach flipping with joy as the key turned easily in the door lock. She pushed the old door opened, the aging squeak barely startling her. With a shaky breath she snuck into the nunnery and closed the door carefully behind her.
The walk to the head nun’s office felt shorter, as if time were working with her to ensure that she didn’t get caught before she found what she was looking for.
Her door was locked, as it should be during the night. Yet Wendy could feel the doorknob buzzing with all the secrets inside the quaint office. Carefully, Wendy inserted the key into the ancient key hole and the door opened with ease. Mr. Gold have given her a skeleton key. Either he was indeed a persistent ally, or a misleading enemy.
Wendy turned on the light and wondered where to go from there. The key couldn’t possibly unlocked everything in the room, could it? There was only one way to find out, and Wendy nervously began searching.
She started with the cluttered shelves, searching for anything that screamed TINK. Mostly she found old religious texts and old financial records that were probably too important to be boxed up in an abandoned library for snoops like her to find.
This was becoming frustrating. What was she even supposed to be looking for? Every mystery book and movie she had consumed often indicated that this part was easy, that the answer to her problems would jump out in front of her. It was an overused but very convenient plot device.
She couldn’t have helped but think that Pan would have found it by now.
As she mused on the thought, her cellphone buzzed against her hip. She quickly grabbed it to put it on silent and stared at the unknown name in her inbox.
Find what you’re looking for yet?
Wendy’s jaw slacked. Pan? She texted back.
No Larry King who do you think?
“How did you get my number?” she muttered aloud before texting the same question.
Not important. Have you found what you were looking for?
Wendy wanted to argue on the breach of her security, but decided that if he was curious about her mystery hunt, maybe he could give her a pointer or two.
Not yet. I’m in Superior’s office looking for clues.
You broke in? Now THAT’S my girl!
Wendy rolled her eyes. Don’t call me that.
I’m coming over. This is too adorable to miss.
“No!” Wendy exclaimed, tensing at the echo of her own voice before typing again.
Don’t. This is stressful enough!
She waited for a response, but none followed. She cursed Pan and herself. She was going to get caught and more than likely thrown into a cell with him!
She had to make a quick decision before he showed up. She could either ditch her mission altogether and run, or she could push through just long enough for a miracle to happen.
Her phone buzzed once more and she pounced on it before the buzz finished.
Check the drawers. There’s always something in the drawers.
“No bloody duh.” Wendy spat at Pan’s text before rushing to the head nun’s desk. Like the doors, the locks were ancient, leaving Wendy to wonder if the desk had been part of the property from the beginning.
The contents of it were scarce, full of old receipts, office supplies and little toys no doubt confiscated from unruly children.
Then there was something that stood out: a wad of blue silky cloth. It was too much of a coincidence for Wendy to pass up. She picked up the mass and instantly felt the added weight of whatever was wrapped up. Her heart pounded in anticipation for the reveal, and by the time she unraveled the object, the answers to a 20+ years case was almost solved.
In her hand was the other half Tink’s cross.
Mother Superior’s cross?
She moved the heavy, smooth metal in her palm, glazing over the jewels and the jagged edge where the cross must have broken off.
Mother Superior had had it all along, had had it lying in a drawer to gather dust while she belittled Tink. Wendy moved the cool metal to her chest, trying to possibly envision what her friend had gone through, how relieved she must had felt when she was able to leave it behind.
She had the other half of the cross, she had the keeper to Tink’s past, but she still didn’t have a motive. A “why?”
Unless…just possibly…
“What are you doing here?”
Wendy turned to face the head nun, her eyes roaming over her robed form, no doubt having been asleep just moments before. Her eyes widened when she saw that Wendy was holding the cross.
“Give me that!” She commanded, stepping forward.
Wendy scurried behind the desk, using the ancient relic as a border between them.
“You know something.” Wendy accused. “You know who abandoned her.”
“I’m calling the police.” She said, though made no move to act on her threat.
“Good, call them!” Wendy exclaimed. “Tell them you lied to them over twenty years ago, why you withheld evidence.”
Mother Superior lunged at the desk and snatched the cross from Wendy’s hand, the whiplash causing her to send the broken edge into her palm.
Wendy gasped in pain, clenching the end of her sleeve into the bloody streak. Panic began to consume her, the fear of a repeat of her last two brush with death a rising possibility.
“This was none of your concern to being with.” The head nun growled. “Everything was going as it should be.”
Wendy took the blue silk cloth and wrapped it tightly around her hand. “How…how was anything going well?” she panted, stalling long enough for Pan to arrive. “Do you know what you put her through? What you took from her?”
The head nun seethed, squeezing the cross tighter in her palm. “I did everything possible. I kept her close, kept her safe. I gave her everything she needed.”
“Except the most important thing a mother should give their child,” Wendy seethed, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction when Superior’s expression paled. “Love.”
Mother Superior looked her over. “No…how…” her expression darkened. “Gold told you, didn’t he?”
“No,” Wendy sighed. “Honestly, I’m just connecting dots at this point. And…she has your nose.”
The head nun blinked, panic rising in her eyes. “Are…are you recording this?”
“No.” Wendy sighed, flexing her fingers. “Like I said earlier, anything you tell me will only go back to Tink.”
“Get out.”
“She deserves to know the truth!” Wendy pleaded.
“You have no proof now.” The head nun fought, shoving the rest of the cross deep into her robe pocket. “I’ll deny everything, and nothing will change.”
“Yeah it will.”
Mother Superior shot around just as Pan breezed around the corner, his lips curved in anticipation.
“Rule one of journalism: lock the damn door after you break-and-enter.” Pan said with a frown Wendy’s way. A small smirk followed. “Unless you were just hoping I’d show up.”
“Yes, the same way I hope for appendicitis.” Wendy snarked, hiding her secret smile behind her bandaged hand. “I’m kind of busy here…”
“Yeah I heard,” Pan threw back. “And I think Graham, Sydney and, well damn, all of Storybrooke, would like to hear too.”
Wendy watched the head nun’s back tense. They had her in a corner, and while this was hardly the way Wendy had wanted this to go, it was working as things had to be.
“Please,” Wendy beseeched once more. “Tell us the truth. We can help.”
“Or we can expose you.” Pan shrugged. “Just spill it.”
Mother Superior sent a deadly glare Pan’s way, but when he smirked back at hwe unfazed, she plopped down in her chair, defeated. She scrubbed two worn hands over her face, covering her eyes for a moment before turning to Wendy once more.
“You swear you’re not reporting this?”c
“Okay,” Wendy sighed, pulling out all the evidence she had gathered. “You’re Tink’s mum. You staged her abandonment and subsequently adopted her.”
“Yes.” The head nun admitted quietly.
“Shit.” Pan mumbled.
“Fine, I get all that.” Wendy nodded. “But the real question is why? Why go through such an elaborate setup for a baby you wanted to keep? Why never tell her anything?”
“Because I would have lost everything I had ever worked for.”
Wendy glanced at Pan who was staring at the head nun in a very queer way. It concerned her really, but she couldn’t focus on him right now.
“What do you mean?” Wendy inquired.
“I…was a lot like her.” Superior said, rubbing her hands nervously together. “I was abandoned, and someone took me under their wing.”
“You call humiliating and berating someone taking them under your wing?” Pan seethed.
Wendy held a hand out, warning him to stay put. “I can handle this.” She said, turning back to the nun. “Continue.”
“The nun before me groomed me to take her place when I was eighteen. About a year before, I went on a mission trip to Italy and…” she paused, her eyes searching the past for the more intimate details. “I met a man…”
Wendy nodded, assuming that the man in question was Tink’s father.
“He said and did things that…” she smiled fondly, “that went against everything I had ever known. I loved him, I really did…”
“Yes, lovely, I’m sure the sex was great but on to the post-baby abandonment already.” Pan intervened.
“Pan, shut up.” Wendy snapped.
“She’s stalling!”
“She’s telling a story, zip it!”
Pan rolled his eyes and slid down the wall, muttering something about idiots and exhaustive details.
“Okay, you met a man and got pregnant.” Wendy said, eager to speed the story along but wanting to do so in a more professional matter. “What led to you keeping Tink?”
The head nun was quite for a moment, a myriad of emotions swimming through her deep brown eyes.
“I told…Tink’s father…” she grimaced, as if the mention of the man left a bad taste in her mouth. “But he wasn’t interested in being a father, and I had no choice but to return to the states.”
“And no one noticed you were pregnant?” Wendy questioned.
“I spent most of my time in confinement, praying.” Superior admitted, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “By the time it was time for her to be born, we went into hiding, to this cabin just outside of town…”
“Shit.” Pan cursed. “The one that Gold owns? Is that how your arse got caught?”
“I…do you really need to know all that?”
“We can get to that.” Wendy promised, more in Pan’s direction than in Superior’s. “What happened then?”
The Mother’s back remained straight, her expression blank. “That’s it really. I gave birth to her in the cabin and later I took her to the convent to be found. All staged. And you know the rest. Are we done?”
Wendy stared at her for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around her tale.
“You’ve given us the bare bones of your tale, but nothing else. No motive no real reason why you did the things you did.”
“What more do you want?” Mother Superior groaned, sounding more tried than irritating.
“I want…answers!” Wendy said. “I want something meaningful to take back to Tink! I want her to know why you would keep her for a week and then just…dump her. Why you shamed her and forbade her from doing normal things. Why you—her mother—would put her through all you did!”
“I didn’t know how to be a mother!” Mother Superior yelled, her voice breaking with a sob. “I had my entire life planned out, I didn’t know how to fit a baby into all of it.” She took a long breath and straightened her spine once more, the blank veil of emotion she carried so perfectly falling over her face. “I did the best I could to give her a good life.”
“No,” Wendy said. “You did the best you could to cover your arse so that you could keep face.”
Superior glared at Wendy, but the young journalist gave her no room to cut in an argument.
“After you left yesterday, she told me about how you made her feel. About how you made the only home she ever knew feel like a prison. It was heartbreaking. And you have the nerve to try to drag her back here.”
“She’s living in sin!” Superior protested.
“She’s living with someone who loves her more than anyone else in this whole damn world!” Pan barked, stepping beside Wendy.
“Peter…”
“He has never, would never, do anything to hurt her, unlike you.” Pan growled, eyes aflame. He smirked then, enjoying the way the head nun paled. “I think you know that, and I think you’re jealous. She loves him and she’ll never love you. Not then, not ever.”
“I don’t have to listen to this any longer.” The head nun decided, standing up and heading for the exit. “I answer to one higher power, and he will judge me righteous!”
Pan stepped in front of her, not necessarily blocking her escape, but his presence was enough to stall the nun.
“Righteous?” Wendy gasped behind her. “I may not know much about God, but I’m sure using his name to judge your deceitfulness is blasphemy.”
“Everything I did was for the benefit of everyone!” Superior argued. “He will see that! I did it all in his name!”
“God is not your scapegoat!” Wendy yelled back. Despite her current hatred for the pious nun, she couldn’t help but feel something equivalent to pity for her. It certainly couldn’t have been easy to get pregnant so young and then subsequently abandoned by the child’s father. She had just never tapped into her maternal instincts. Maybe with help, she could have.
“I do care for her Miss Darling, whether you,” she glanced to Pan, “or anyone else thinks so or not.”
“Is that why you gave her the other half of your cross?” Wendy inquired, pointing at her protruding coat pocket. “So that she would know that you loved her?”
The nun looked down guiltily. “The cross was an accident. I had bougt it in Italy…with him. I meant to throw it away but it had slipped my mind. The night I faked Tink’s abandonment, the chain I had it on broke and it shattered against the concrete. I had put one of the pieces in her bassinet and by the time the police came it was too late to hide it before it was documented in their report.”
“Oh my god you’re the worse.” Pan groaned.
“The bottom line,” Superior continued, unperturbed, “is that all of this will be resolved when Tink rejoins the convent for good.”
“Oh, you plan to tell her everything if she does?” Wendy inquired more sarcastically than she meant to. “Or would that risk your position you ditched her for?”
“I suppose that’s really up to you.” Superior replied icily. “You can tell Tink all I’ve told you tonight and destroy all I’ve managed to build.”
“Bitch we just might.” Pan muttered.
“But,” the nun contemplated with a small, eerie smile. “Without a recording, she won’t believe a word you tell her, and I’ll deny you ever being here.”
Wendy gripped the table to prevent herself from diving at the nun. Cunning witch! She glanced at Pan who gave her an “I fucking told you so” look and she wished they were on a higher floor so that she could jump to her fate.
Still, Wendy refused to let the nun have the last word. She straightened her coat and gathered her things, ready to leave on a final note.
“Who do you think she’s going to believe, Mother Superior? Someone who’s actually taken the time to earn her trust, or the woman who mentally and emotionally broke her for years?”
The head nun’s satisfied smile vanished, and her mouth fell as she searched for a retort.
“My advice is to talk to her first.” Wendy said as she stepped out of her office. “It might take a while but she’ll forgive you.” She motioned to Pan. “She did him.”
“Hey, watch it.” Pan warned only for Wendy to breeze past him unperturbed. He followed her with one last dirty look at the nun.
They made it out of the convent without incident, but neither of the journalists looked or spoke to each other until they were walking the quiet streets of inner-Storybrooke.
“Well you just barely screwed that up.” Pan teased, his spirits lifting
“I was doing fine long before you poked your nose into it.” Wendy miffed.
“Please you were bored to death without me.” Pan chuckled, and then nodded to her bandaged hand. “Not to mention you get cut up a lot worse when I’m not around.”
Wendy rolled her eyes. True, she had missed his accustomed presence today, but she had been doing a lot better on her own than she thought she had. No panic attacks, no shadowy figures crossing her path. She had been fine, abet a bit lonely.
“Well, I thought you needed more time to recover from your little tantrum yesterday.” Wendy spoke, keeping her eyes straight ahead.
“Oh, I see.” Pan scoffed. “Get a good night sleep last night, Wendy? Oh wait, no you didn’t.”
Wendy skid to a stop and shot around to the jeering boy. “That’s something totally different.”
“You’d be surprised just how much it’s not.” Pan argued.
“Fine with me.” Pan grumbled, and the two slipped into silence again.
They were close enough to town that they could see the ever-present light of Granny’s diner twinkling in the night. Despite how lively the restaurant still seemed to be, the rest of the town seemed too quiet, too peaceful despite what had happened—and was still happening—around it.
“I wonder what she’s going to do.” Wendy pondered aloud. “Will she tell Tink anything, or will things go back to being the way they were?”
“You should have recorded it.” Pan shrugged. “Then the bitch couldn’t hide anymore.”
“Actually, I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”
“You’re glad a whole day of work was for nothing?” Pan scoffed.
Wendy stopped and turned to Pan, sighed exhaustedly. “I’m glad that Superior now has the chance to come clean without the threat of blackmail hanging over her head.”
Pan observed her, taking in her nobility and strength, but quietly judging her obscene sense of justice. She didn’t know how twisted the head nun really was. She didn’t know at all.
“This was never my story to tell.” Wendy continued. “I shouldn’t be the one to decide where Mother Superior’s secrets get thrown around. She knows we know, so maybe that will give her enough of a push to tell Tink the truth.”
“Maybe.” Pan muttered, a small pearl of rage growing in his belly. But Wendy was smiling, satisfied with her days work, and he held off.
It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know everything.
“Well,” Wendy sighed. “I think I’ll head home, try to sleep.”
“Yeah.” Pan muttered, his hand sliding deeper into his pockets.
“Goodnight.” Wendy renounced, giving him a light nod before turning away.
Pan nodded, watching as she clipped to the apartments, safe and smiling whole-heartedly for the first time in weeks.
“Fly, fly, little bird.” Pan muttered before turning in the direction of the Mirror. As he walked, he fished deep in his pockets of his coat to pull out his cellphone.
Before him was a recording app with all thirteen and a half minutes of his and Wendy’s conversation with Mother Superior saved.
Rule one of journalism may have been to lock the door after breaking and entering, but rule two was to always have a recorder going.
Pan weighed his phone back and forth in his hands, readying himself to give into his dark urge to put it on tomorrow’s front page.
The idea that Tink deserved better was what was stopping him.
Wendy thought that the Blue fairy was also a victim in all this, but she was way off from the truth. She witnessed a mere moment of Tink’s pain brought on by the holy horror. Pan had witnessed years of it.
Once, during his first week of school, when he didn’t have Felix or anyone else to call home to, he witnessed her cruelty first-hand.
It had been an early release day, but it could have been the end of the world and Pan wouldn’t have thought different. He was numb from the excitement of classmates. All he had to go home to was a stolic brother and a quiet, dusty house.
He was ready to walk back to said quiet, dusty house when someone bumped into his shoulder and changed the course of his overly quiet life forever.
“I completely forgot about the early release day.” Tink La’Belle (who at the time wasn’t the quite confident young woman she was in later years) gasped as she and Felix Croft pushed past the exiting bustle of students. “I forgot my clothes…”
“It’s okay,” Felix (who at the time was unblemished by scars and loss) assured, and Pan watched as he rubbed a hand comfortingly over her back. “We’ll sneak through the woods and then…”
Felix suddenly stopped when a blue car in desperate need of a paintjob on the hood breezed into the school parking lot, narrowly missing the bike rack.
Pan divided his attention between the pinch-faced nun who stepped out of the car, and the way Felix Croft’s hand waved up and down on Tink La’Belle’s back. The motion was therapeutic in a way Pan didn’t understand, and it numbed him all in the right ways. When the door to the nun’s car slammed and she started screaming, the peace he felt was shattered, and he was thoroughly pissed from the interuption.
“What are you wearing?” Mother Superior demanded, marching up to Felix and Tink while many of the other students looked on.
Pan hadn’t been sure who she had been yelling at. Both Felix and Tink were dressed rather appropriately for the cool Autumn weather, right down to the jeans and boots.
“I…snagged my skirt.” Tink said quietly, a sound that didn’t suit her loud, confident nature.
“Doing what?” the nun snarled with a glare at Felix.
“Please don’t do this.” Tink begged, and Pan could feel the heat of her mortification even from his place on the steps.
“Get in the car now.” The head nun snarled, grabbing Tink by the wrist before she had a chance to protest.
The small utter of discomfort caused Pan’s stomach to turn, and a small but fierce flame to flicker in his chest.
“You’re hurting her!” Felix had yelled after them.
“You stay out of this!” the nun growled at him, bundling Tink into the passenger seat before stalking to the other side.
Students muttered their condolences as the car drove off, but Felix didn’t utter a word. Didn’t even seem to breath.
Pan rolled his eyes at the boy’s love-struck agony (it would be many months before Belle would enter his life and fill him with the same pain), but he licked his lips as an idea filled his mind.
The following morning, the Daily Mirror ran a story on the second page about how the head nun of the Sisters of Saint Melissa’s car had been completely vandalized. Torn tires, key marks in the paint, and—as the mechanic would later explain—pieces of an Apollo candy bar in the gas tank.
While Pan chuckled about the small act of revenge he performed on Tink’s behalf, it also filled him with resentment for the head horror.
Wendy had said that this was Mother Superior’s tale to tell.
She was dead wrong.
It was his, and Felix’s, and anyone else who had to witness the head nun’s cruelty.
Pan didn’t blame her for her ignorance, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him from giving the icy bitch what she had coming.
He made a turn to the Mirror, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that—for whatever damn reason—he should feel some kind of guilt for what he was about to do.
-,-,-,-,-,-,-
Despite another restless night, Wendy felt more blissful when she awoke the next morning than she had in weeks. She had accomplished something big yesterday with only a slight interference from Pan. She felt more confident now, braver. She was going to be okay, and the idea was enough to make her sob.
As she locked up her apartment and headed to the Mirror, she wondered if Mother Superior had contacted Tink yet. No doubt her name would be brought into it, and Wendy was prepared for the backlash. She hoped whatever happened, her friend could finally get the closure she deserved.
There was something off in town as Wendy got closer to the paper. People seemed to be sending her side-glances behind their freshly printed papers. Wendy assumed it was about the Jekyll story and ducked her head. She hoped Pan hadn’t added any extravagant details for shock value.
The unnatural feeling followed her into the Mirror, which was unusually quiet for a Monday morning.
It wasn’t until she saw Glass, Felix, and a sobbing Tink in Glass’s office that she realized something was horribly wrong.
Two very distinctive thoughts ran through her head at that moment:
Tink knew, or something had happened to Pan, as he was nowhere in sight.
They all turned to her when she barged into the office, searching their faces for answers.
“What’s going on?”
“Like you don’t know!” Tink screamed at her, causing Wendy to flinch from the unexpected reaction.
“Know what?” Wendy gasped, reaching out to Tink.
“Do not touch me!” she yelled, snatching away from Wendy. “Stay the hell away from me!”
“Tink calm down.” Felix tried to sooth.
“No!” Tink fought. “What she’s done is lower then low. She does not get a pass on this!”
Felix pulled her back, trying to put some distance between the two women. Glass stepped forward, a hand on his lower back to steady himself.
“What’s going on?” Wendy begged him.
Glass held up the latest addition of the Daily Mirror. The moment she saw the stolid, gray image of Mother Superior she knew what had happened.
HEAD NUN OF CONVENT REVEALED TO BE MOTHER OF BABY ABANDONED IN 1991
Wendy’s name was under the headline and Tink had her scapegoat.
“I trusted you!” she sobbed. “I told you all of that in confidence and you published it like—like some kind of bizarre tabloid story!”
“T-Tink,” Wendy gasped, the paper rattling in her hands. “I swear I didn’t—”
“I thought you were different, that you knew how to separate your job from the rest of the world.” Tink hiccupped, pulling from Felix’s protective grip so that she could step up to Wendy and look her straight in the eye. “But Pan got to you. You’re just as filthy and selfish as he is. More concerned about a few seconds of glory than people’s lives.”
Wendy’s chest constricted with the weight of Tink’s words—her very misguided, hateful words.
“No, Tink, please that’s not—”
“Save it,” Tink sneered, stepping around her. “I’m done with you.”
Wendy couldn’t speak, couldn’t move as she heard Tink leave the office, Felix following her without so much as a glance at her. The moment that followed was quiet, yet bizarrely peaceful, like the few seconds right at the end of a horrible storm that had devastated the world around it.
It was Glass who pulled her back into the storm, and Wendy felt the air scorch her skin.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, having to sit on his desk due to his still-injured back. “This was the research you were doing all day yesterday?”
“It wasn’t…I didn’t…”
Glass cursed and threw the paper on the floor. “We’ll be lucky if she or the convent don’t sue. Did you get any recordings or video? We can avoid slander at least.”
Wendy began to shake her head until a thought occurred to her.
“Pan might.” She said quietly, her strength slowly rebuilding after Tink had drained it from her.
“Shit!” Glass exclaimed. “I knew you hadn’t done this all on your own.”
Wendy’s head shot up to stare at Glass, another, much more different bubble of hurt filling her chest.
The entire town thought she was glued to Pan’s side. She couldn’t even screw up without them somehow thinking he had a say in it.
It was time to rip herself from him, or perhaps just rip him a part in general.
“Where does he live?” Wendy inquired calmly.
“You’ve been here all this time and haven’t figured out where he lives?” Glass remarked off-handedly.
“Tell me his address please.” Wendy pled more urgently.
Before Glass could respond, the office phone began to ring. He cursed and reached out to put it on hold.
“You know what, fine.” He grumbled, scribbling something out on a sticky note before tossing it carelessly Wendy’s way. “I have to deal with damage control. Just…don’t kill him before I figure all this out.”
Wendy barely managed a nod before she turned to leave the office, the note crumbling into the center of her pale, shaky palm.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do to him when she saw him, but she knew she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she saw blood running down his traitorous face.
It took her half an hour of stomping through town and having people jump out of her way before she found the first story apartment. It surprised her that it was in the building in front of her own, and that Pan had never mentioned their close proximity before.
Another thing to add to the list of reasons he was to die today.
“Peter Pan!” she screamed as she banged on his front door. “Open this bloody door!”
She continued to bang on it, unperturbed about the neighbors or what people passing on the street may think. When he didn’t answer, she stepped aside and tried to look through his curtained windows. She could see a slither of a kitchen through the cloth, but no Pan.
Frustrated, she stepped down and search for a rock or something she could use to break the window. Just as she was knuckles-deep in dirt, the door opened. Her glare melted instantly at who was leaning against it.
“A-A…uh, Mr. Booth.” Wendy swallowed, heat numbing her cheeks at the site of the shirtless man with a coffee cup clutched in his hands.
“August is fine.” he smiled, sleep still present in his deep blue eyes. “Winry, right?”
“Wendy.” She croaked, trying to wrap her head to what was going on. “I’m sorry to…disturb…um…I’m sorry…is Pan here?”
August turned just enough so that Wendy could peek into Pan’s apartment. Just ahead she could see what she assumed was Pan’s bedroom, as she saw a figure in bed and his long, pale arm sticking out from under the covers.
“I can wake him if it’s important.” August stated.
Wendy watched the tantalizing movement of his body as he breathed peacefully, sleeping away as if he hadn’t just destroyed several lives.
The rotten bastard.
“It’s fine, I’ll wake him.”
August stepped aside as Wendy barged into the apartment, watching in mixed horror as she grabbed a stray pillow from the end of the bed and began mercilessly beating Pan until he startled awake.
“Shit.” August laughed into his coffee.
“The fuck!” Pan slurred, shooting up and rubbing his eyes. “Wendy?”
“What the actual bloody hell is wrong with you!” Wendy screamed so loud the giant fuzzy cat in the corner of the room scurried away in a frenzy.
“In general?” Pan yawned, the thin sheet covering his waist sliding further down as he stretched. “August, you still here?”
“Yep.” The man in question responded from the living room.
Wendy’s face heated from the sheer absurdity of all that had happened in the last half hour. It was almost too much to bear, especially when the person responsible cared so little that he had spent the night in the throes of passion with another person. She wanted to scream or cry or break something, anything to get the horrible feeling of failure and hurt out of her system.
She grabbed the pillow she had been beating him with and raised it over her head again, ready to destroy him once and for all.
However, Pan’s phone began to vibrate on the nightstand, and he held up a finger to stall her.
“Just a sec,” he said answering his phone. “Hello?”
“Are you bloody kidding me!” Wendy yelled at him, slapping him on the shoulder with the pillow.
With a flick of his wrist, Pan wordlessly tore the sheet from his waist. Wendy gasped, covering her face with the pillow to block her view of Pan’s parts, her face hot enough to boil water on.
“Alright, repeat that.” Pan asserted with a slight smirk.
As the blood rushing through her ears began to slow down, Wendy shifted her attention to the man chuckling over his coffee. He winked at her when he noticed her gaze, and Wendy blushed all the more.
With her anger cooling, she now felt a bit embarrassed that she had stumbled into such an intimate setting. It was odd seeing Pan with someone who just the day before had been held for suspected murder, but it was more odd to see him with someone who he had insisted he had no current attraction to. Wendy could only wonder the circumstance that had seduced August Booth in to Pan’s bed.
“Astrid, slow down.” Pan demanded over the phone.
Wendy turned just enough so that she could see his face, using the pillow to block out his parts. She watched as his confused look melted into astonishment.
“What? When?”
Wendy gulped. Something was wrong.
“Damn…yeah, sorry for swearing, whatever.”
Oh, that he would apologize for.
“I’ll be there soon.” He said, hanging up and standing.
Wendy looked away, listening as he frantically opened and closed drawers.
“Come on, we’ve got to go.” Pan said over the rustle of clothing.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why—”
In a flash, Pan had her facing him, his hands gripping her shoulders like he was trying to hold her together.
Then Wendy saw it, the rare emotion of guilt in the depths of his green eyes. It was just a twinkle, like the life of star, but it was there all the same, and it made Wendy’s stomach turn with anticipation.
He was trying to hold himself together.
“We’ve got to get down to the convent.” Pan croaked, his hands fidgeting on Wendy’s skin. “Mother Superior was just found dead.”
-,-,-,-,-,-
Okay, I mean to have this out sooner but I totally changed the ending at the last second (the other one was just confusing and kind of boring to me).
I have two ideas for the next couple of chapters, but I must flesh them out first. Not to mention it’s my last semester of college and I have to focus on my studies if I’m to graduate without incident.
Also, I have a side project with this story I’m working on 😉 as well as chapters to my other works. But I shall update soon I say!
Pros of going home for the summer: free food (when someone goes bloody food shopping), free wifi (when someone plays the bloody bill) and my cats (no problems here they’re perfect).
Cons of going home for the summer: You lovely people get a chapter I finished at 4:30 in the morning because I can’t sleep with all these damn people going in and out of the living room I sleep in :) This is really just an idea I was tinkering (pun intended) with when I first began writing this story, so I thought now would be the time to incorporate it into the fic.
P.S. I’m sure some of you have heard of the wildfires in Greece. If you’d like to help, please try sending money and supplies to the Greece Red Cross.
-,-,-,-
The sound of muffled yelling greeted her as she reached Tink’s floor. Her defensive instincts broke through her tiredness and she readied for a fight. As she turned the corner she was surprised to see Felix standing outside the door, pacing in small circles and chewing on one of his thumbnails.
Wendy’s heart ceased its pounding when she saw that he wasn’t in fight-mode like her, but her spine remained straight as she edged closer. They exchanged worried glances, the yelling behind Tink’s door becoming more audible.
“We’ve been through this a thousand times, just leave me alone!”
“How dare you raise your voice at me!”
Wendy tensed at the sound unfamiliar and gritty female voice. Tink Le’Belle was beloved around town, even by Granny who was the closest thing to a rival she had. Who could she possible have as an enemy?
“I will raise my voice at whoever I want to! I’m twenty-three years old and you will not ever tell me what to do again!”
Wendy glanced at Felix, hoping he could relay an explanation to the commotion, but he looked too nervous to answer questions.
“You’re living in sin with that boy!”
“Not this crap again!”
“Oh God.” Felix moaned.
“Should we…intervene?” Wendy inquired as the two women continued to yell at each other.
“Absolutely not.” Felix sighed. “My presence just makes things worst. Not to mention the last time I got in the middle of them I had one of my worst seizures to date.”
“Who…” Before she could finish her question, the door burst open and a woman in a blue convent outfit stormed out of Tink’s apartment, causing both Wendy and Felix to jump out of her path. She spared a look Wendy’s way, but she paused to full-on glare at Felix, as if everything that the loud conversation that had occurred in Tink’s apartment was somehow his fault.
Felix matched her glare, his sharp jaw clenching in an unforgiving line. He’d always looked so fragile to Wendy, pale and lanky. However, compared to the woman in blue, who’s eyes were as hard as diamonds and spine as straight as a telephone pole, he seemed unabatingly powerful.
With a loud huff the woman stalked down the hallway to the stairs, leaving behind a confused Wendy and a seething Felix, who burst into Tink’s apartment as soon as the woman was out of sight.
Wendy paused to listen to Felix’s muffled apologies, her heart clenching when she heard a muffled feminine sob.
“She’s always doing this.” Tink cried quietly.
“We can still get a restraining order.” Felix returned soothingly. “She can make sure she never comes near you again.”
Wendy swallowed, feeling powerless, and for whatever reason, guilty. She was surrounded by so many mysteries and thus knew of no way to help anyone, especially the young woman who had been nothing but kind to her from day one. As she looked on at the comforting domestic scene in Tink’s living room, she wondered if she could help at all. Felix seemed to be giving her all the relief she needed because he whispered something into her ear and she giggled softly, the tears on her cheeks drying into the lines of her smile.
Wendy managed a small smile, but her heart remained heavy and her curiosity peaked.
Tink finally noticed her presence and sat up, wiping her eyes and smiling brightly.
“Hey,” she greeted. “How was your day?”
Oh god he’s dead!
You and Jekyll?
This is my business, my life! Stay the hell out of it you nosy pest!”
He’s my brother!
“Fine.” Wendy lied, holding her breath when she caught a phantom whiff of corpse and woods. “Is…everything okay here?”
Tink rolled her eyes. “Just some crap from my past I can’t seem to get away from.”
Wendy nodded. She could certainly understand that.
Tink stood, rubbing her hands together as she fell back into her usual mode.
“You want to order in? Or I’ve got a frozen pizza in the freezer…”
“Actually,” Wendy began, the subject she had wanted to bring up between her and Pan’s rescue from the evil turkey and the car ride pushing back into her attention. “I was thinking I’d use the rest of the night…to gather my things.”
“Oh…” Tink’s smile fell some, and Felix gave her an odd look.
“Yeah,” Wendy said, clenching and unclenching her hands. “I…had an experience today that helped me realize that I will be okay on my own. I think the bad karma’s left.”
Tink nodded, her smile sad but understanding.
“I hate to throw this on you now…” Wendy apologized.
“No! Not at all. This is a weekly occurrence.” Tink laughed, though the sound was strained.
A moment of silence followed, not tense but still unwelcomed. Wendy couldn’t understand why the lack of sound made her feel so nervous.
“I’ll pull the car around.” Felix suggested, bringing in just enough sound to ease the anxiety creeping through Wendy’s mind. When the door closed behind him, Tink stood and offered to help Wendy pack.
It took little to no time to gather Wendy’s toiletries (Wendy was ever the immaculate houseguest), however it took her and Tink a moment to find her clothes. The girls were about the same size and borrowed each other’s clothing, which only now had become an issue.
“I can just come back for anything I leave.” Wendy assured as Tink ruffled through her closet.
“No, it’s that lace shirt, the one you made yourself? I’ll never give it back if you leave it here.”
Wendy nodded. The shirt was one she made back during her fabrication phase that had somehow survived despite the frail fabric.
Wendy turned and began going through her drawers. Her hands scaled through a cluster of t-shirts until her fingertips grazed something cold. She held her breath, praying that she didn’t pull out something totally nonsensical like a gun or a sex toy. A quick peak assured her that it was neither of those things and she pulled the object out with a sigh of relief.
It took her a moment to understand what she was looking at. It was old and heavy, obviously some kind of silver that needed a good polish, with cloudy jewels running down the middle. It looked like an old cross, the ancient kind one would see in historic cemeteries, only this one was broken towards the bottom, as if it had been sawed in half.
“Please be careful with that!” Tink cried when she finally noticed Wendy. She took the object from Wendy’s hand, holding it close to her chest. “It’s really old.”
“I can see that.” Wendy said. “What is it?”
Tink placed the object on her dresser, running a finger down its cold metallic surface.
“It’s part of a cross my parents left behind when they gave me up.”
Wendy watched her friend, the information she just released hitting her immediately. Was there anyone in this town who didn’t have a horrible family secret?
The way Tink had said it however wasn’t necessarily sad, but accepting of the situation. Still, it made Wendy wonder what kind of parents could give up someone like Tink.
“I’m…sorry.” Wendy said, unsure of what else she could say. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s fine.” Tink assured. “It’s just…today brought up some bad memories.”
“That women…” Wendy led.
Tink rolled her eyes. “The head nun from the convent. Mother Superior. More like Mother pain in my ass!”
Wendy calmed a growing smirk. “Is she technically your mother, or…”
“Surrogate, but just barely.” Tink sat down on the end of her bed and Wendy took it as an invitation to join her. It was time for another story, it would seem.
“I was left on the doorstep of the nunnery shortly after I was born. According to my file I had some of my umbilical cord still attached.”
Wendy gasped. “Oh my.”
“The nuns took me in, raised me, and Mother Superior was there to monitor every waking second of my life.”
A dark thought entered Wendy’s mind and she hesitated only for a moment before voicing it.
“She didn’t…do anything to you, did she?” To her surprise, Tink snorted in response.
“Geez Wendy Darling, get your head out of the Twilight Zone. You’ve been spending too much time around Pan.”
“Tell me about it.” Wendy muttered. “But back to you, why was she here earlier?”
“The same reason she always stops by: she’s trying to get me to join the convent permanently.”
Wendy blinked, trying to envision Tink in the same stuffy outfit Mother Superior had been wearing instead of her ripped jeans and green tank top. It just didn’t seem plausible.
“At eighteen, any of the children who live at the convent get to choose to convert or go out on their own.” Tink explained. “I chose to leave, and she’s been trying to pull me back ever since.”
“Why didn’t you want to stay? Free rent, three meals a day. It might be a set routine but you’d never be without a home.”
“That place was never a home.” Tink said. “It was a building I lived in. Sure, there were good people in there, and I was never cold or hungry, but Mother Superior made it so constraining. I could never have friends or wear what I wanted. I couldn’t even watch TV or listen to music! I’m the only person in town who didn’t know who Lana del Rae was!”
Wendy chuckled but straightened up quickly. “You decided to leave and make your own decisions. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Well it…wasn’t just wanting to get out of the convent.” Tink said with a small smile. “It was the people I met, Lily Tirgress, Pan…and Felix.”
“Ah.” Wendy smiled. “You fell in love.”
“Well, not at first.” Tink scoffed, leading both girls to laugh.
“Well, details.” Wendy insisted.
“Let’s see…I was home-schooled up until eighth grade. I wanted to live during my last years of school, so I begged Mother Superior to let me enroll, suggested a “religious” presence might influence the other students.”
“Clever.” Wendy commented.
“Believe it or not, it was Pan’s suggestion, but that’s a different story. Anyway, I was enrolled into Storybrooke High and smoking cigarettes in the girls’ locker room by the third day.”
Wendy laughed. Her high school experience involved her eating lunch in the library and becoming a legend after she nearly set the home economics room on fire when one of the sewing machines started smoking.
“By the time graduation came around, I was ready to permanently transition into the real world. Felix and I even discussed getting a place together before…” Tink paused, a painful glint flashing in her deep green eyes.
“What happened?” Wendy pressed carefully.
“Felix had his accident.” Tink relayed, the words sounding heavy on her tongue. “His parents were killed and he spent a few months healing. It put a damper on our plans.”
Wendy thought about the scar that ran over Felix’s face. She had figured he had sustained it from an accident, but hadn’t realized the severity of it’s origins.
“Mother Superi-ass said it was God’s punishment.” Tink said, her voice hard as diamonds. “I was out of the convent in an hour.”
Wendy thought of something to say. She and her girlfriends back home never had conversations this deep.
“Things…seem better now.” She tested.
“They are.” Tink agreed, her spirit’s lifting. “I have a good job, a good boyfriend, and most days good friends when Pan isn’t being an ass. I have a good life.”
Wendy noted just a twinge of hesitation when she said the last bit, but her smile was convincing enough that she didn’t press for more. Then again, why would she press for more? This was Tink’s business, and details on her life should be given, not inquired upon.
Still, Wendy’s natural curiosity was peaked, and she needed to leave before she asked anything Tink wasn’t ready to share.
“You can keep the shirt.” Wendy declared. “Consider it a thank you for…everything.”
Tink blushed and nudged Wendy with her hip.
“Deal.”
-,-,-,-,-
“Wendy?”
Something was touching her hair.
“Wendy!”
Something was pulling it.
The intern journalist just up from her desk, her mind going into an instant panic before her blurry surroundings became clearer.
Pan was standing at her desk, hands shoved in his pockets, revealing his innocence.
“God your hair looks awful.”
Wendy sighed, her brain hardly awake to deal with his insults.
“Then I suggest you never cut yours this length. What do you want?”
“The janitor said you’ve been here since 4. Did Tink kick you out?”
Wendy shook her head as her heartbeat returned to its normal pace.
Upon her return to her apartment last night, she was met with instant regret with her brave decision to move back to her place. Every noise made her heart skip a beat and every shadow looked like it was coming towards her. She had kept all her lights on and had headed to the paper as soon as one of the janitors had come to unlock the doors at 4 a.m. She had meant to keep herself busy, but the second she had sat at her desk she crashed.
“I um…wanted to get started on the Jekyll story.”
“Already wrote it. Come with me to the printers, give it a look.” He stormed off before she could reply, giving her the chance to notice that his limp was nearly nonexistent now, though she could still see the ghosts of several scars he had accumulated in the last few weeks.
She followed him cautiously, recalling their last encounter. His coldness, and then his confusing revelation about Gold. Why had he done that, and what had he thought it would accomplish revealing to her?
What would it change between them?
She was barely in the room before Pan shoved a sheet of paper in her hands.
BODY OF FORMER MORTICIAN FOUND IN CAR
“Former mortician?” Wendy scoffed, her skin crawling. “That’s much too nice for what he was.”
Pan shrugged before busying himself with something. “Glass wouldn’t let me use “Ex-sociopath dead, good riddance”.”
Wendy hid a smile and read through the article, checking off the details in her head. It was cut and dry, omitting the details about how her and Pan were held captive in the car by a turkey. Coroner details provided that Jekyll had been killed the night he had held Wendy and Pan captive and that no fingerprints or other evidence had been found.
“Oh no.” Wendy gasped when she got to the third paragraph.
“…with Jekyll’s body being found on his property, Booth will be held for questioning...”
“Sheriff Graham doesn’t really believe he had anything to do with it does he?” Wendy inquired out loud.
“Would he be in an interrogation if he didn’t?” Pan snarked.
Wendy glared at him and laid the story down. “And you’re not concerned? You two were…” Wendy stopped herself. Assuming that anyone was anything to Pan was dangerous, and really just an argument-starter.
“We were what?” Pan smirked, his eyes filled with a dangerous darkness.
Drop it.
“Something.” Wendy breathed, the word flowing out so easily despite how hard she had tried to contain it.
The silence that followed her declaration was heavy, and shifted the possibility of peace for the two of them away.
Pan’s glare was strong, but he gave no comeback, no insult or jab to her person. Because for once (as far as he was concerned at least) she was indeed correct. But not about August.
She had used that same word when she described Jekyll. Something.
He was something with everyone in his life, even to those he deemed dearer to him then most (but they would never know it).
They weren’t lovers, or friends, and they sure as hell weren’t family. Those words were too personal. They were just something.
But you’re not just something, Wendy.
“If he’s innocent, Graham will snuff it out and he’ll be free.”
Wendy shook her head, the idea that he was still pretending he didn’t care astonishing her. She’d seen his vulnerable side enough times already.
Why is he still cutting me out?
“Whatever.” Wendy sighed, shoving the story back to him. “I have something else I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”
Pan paused, his stomach curling with anticipation. It had to be about Gold. Why the hell had he told her about him!
“Well?” Pan introduced, leaning against the desk casually while his heart drummed in his chest.
Wendy worried her lip, the subject she was about to approach having followed her home and distracted her from the darker parts of her mind.
“What do you know about Tink’s parents?”
Pan blinked, the question catching him completely off guard. When the hell had Tink told her about that? And how had he not known that she had told her? He realized he hadn’t spent a lot of time around them lately but…
“Why…do you want to know that?” Pan inquired quickly.
“So you do know something?”
“Perhaps, but answer my question first.”
Wendy frowned, calling his bluff. “You know bullocks.”
“Any knowledge I have is some that you do. That’s…” he smirked. “something.”
“Wanker.” Wendy growled. But he had a point. He had roots in Storybrooke and knew where each one led.
“Fine.” Wendy surrendered. “The…head nun came to Tink’s apartment last night. She was really upset and then she brought up how she was abandoned at the convent. I thought maybe someone had to see something that night. Sheriff Graham wasn’t even an officer then so…you’re my only option. You…have a way of finding buried things.”
“True.” Pan agreed cockily. “But you might not want to go digging for this skeleton, little bird.”
“And just why not?”
“Because it’s too personal.” Pan answered, his tone changing to genuine concern. “Not to mention if Tink wanted to know about her parents, she would have gone digging for the information when she turned 18. She didn’t want to know then, and nothing’s changed.”
“You don’t know that.” Wendy retorted. “You didn’t see her face. Maybe there’s something else, information she wasn’t given. Something I can find for her.”
Pan’s eyes lowered, and Wendy could only imagine what he was thinking.
“You mentioned yesterday that you and Glass came across records, in the library?”
“Yes.” Wendy nodded. “He mentioned that it was the town’s storage unit.”
“Start there. The nuns keep crap there as well. Then check the newspaper archives.”
Wendy nodded, smiling gratefully before turning to run out of the print room. “Thank you. Let Glass know I’m taking the day off.”
“I’m not your fucking secretary!” he yelled after her, feeling surprisingly unfulfilled when she didn’t respond.
The silence that followed her departure seeped into his mind, echoing, drumming his senses.
Oh no…
Not the quiet.
Pan grabbed as stack and printing paper and hurled it at the window. He breathed in relief when the clattering sound filled the room.
He quickly turned on the printer to fill the void, his mind racing as fast as the papers on the belt.
Wendy hadn’t asked about Belle, or about their fight yesterday. She hadn’t even wanted to continue talking about Jekyll or August or the rest of the filth they encountered on their latest adventure. Didn’t she want to know?
Didn’t she still care?
Why is she cutting me out?
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Now that she was standing outside of the library where nine days ago she almost met a ghastly end, Wendy wondered if finding out Tink’s past was worth the panic attack she felt coming on.
Police tape and a fresh lock closed off the door she and Glass had gone through during their research session. They had tried to solve the mystery of Belle’s disappearance on their own, but all they had accomplished was another trip to the hospital.
Jekyll and Pinnock were dead, and the police force had raided their underground prison for more danger. There was nothing to be afraid of, yet she was still terrified. Maybe she should have asked Pan to come along. His company was better than the crippling silence that usually followed her around.
She turned on her cellphone flashlight, her hand shaking as she used the light to find a different entry. She wasn’t even sure what to look for, or even if she would find anything at all. This town had so many secrets under its charming facade. Jekyll’s was literally buried underground. She could only imagine where Tink’s would lead her to.
Without much searching Wendy managed to find a window. Heavy from year of untreated rust, it took some effort to open and crawl through it, resulting in Wendy scrambling for a grip on the wall when her foot got caught in the window. With an annoyed huff, she snatched her foot forward, freeing her but causing her to fall face-first into the dusty library floor.
“Ow.” she groaned as she pulled herself up, rubbing her chin from the impact. Otherwise unscathed, she picked herself up and shown her phone light around the room. She was surrounded by mountains of boxes, all covered in layers of dust and unmarked.
“Great.” Wendy huffed. “This is going to take a while.”
Four hours later, Wendy’s hands were caked black and her nose was pink from sneezing so much. But, miracles of miracles, she had finally found a box of files from the year Tink was born.
She had the files spread out by month, squinting through the contents for anything to do with a found baby. She was relying solely on the light peeking through the boarded windows, her phone battery having gotten too low to support the flashlight any longer.
Finally, she found a file labeled “Convent infant: 1991” and Wendy hissed in self-congrats. She flipped the file open, her eyes instantly falling on a photo of an infant labeled “Margatink La’Belle”. Wendy smiled at the picture of her friend, the idea that she was once small and helpless instead of the confident woman she was now.
She carefully through the details of the file, all of which was cut and dry and containing the same details Tink had described: a nun had heard her crying and found her on the steps of the convent. The nuns called the police but with the convent not having cameras at the time, the person (or people) who dropped Tink off remained unfound.
Wendy sighed when the information ended, leaving her in a dead end. Closing the file, she headed to the archives in the back, hoping any story that was published on the incident would have more information.
Her head was throbbing by the time she found articles from October 1991. There was mostly small-town drabbles, such as construction at the diner and new playground equipment. Wendy wondered briefly when exactly Storybrooke became as hectic as it had when she arrived.
A picture of a bundled baby caught Wendy’s attention, and the headline caused her heart to pound with excitement.
NEWBORN BABY ABANDONED AT CONVENT
“Newborn…” Wendy mused, reading ahead.
Sister Corrine Blue, 17, discovered the abandoned infant shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday night. A doctor’s analysis showed that the baby was just over a week old and still had an umbilical cord stomp in her belly button.
“Poor Tink.” Wendy sighed.
The baby was abandoned with a wicker basket, flannel shirt, and a broken metal cross. The other half of the cross has yet to be located.
“We’re very grateful that the child is healthy, and the Sisters of Saint Meissa will do everything to make her comfortable until social services decide on a plan of action.” Blue said.
Wendy read through the article again, look carefully for other details that she may have missed the first time. The only addition information she found was a small article stating that the convent had been allowed to adopt her. It would seem that Tink’s story ended there, but Wendy knew that it was the event leading up to her adoption into the convent that was most important.
After snapping photos of the pictures in the articles, she pulled out her notebook and began making a list of possible interviewees. Mother Superior was already at the top, being that she had taken responsibility for Tink’s upbringing. If she found Tink, then she might have seen something else. Then, of course, was Sheriff Graham. He may not have been sheriff then, but he could still tell her who his predecessor was. And finally, the author of the article, Sydney Glass.
As Wendy ready through the list, another name came to mind. It was a long shot, but any information anyone could provide would help.
Especially if that particular person owned the town and knew every corner of its happenings.
Mr. Gold.
-,-,-,-
Part two is almost done, but damn if this chapter wasn’t 8000+ words and bordering on 23 pages! It would have taken me months to edit!
This chapter is really just my attempt of getting my own timeline together XD. It’s a bit of a mess but after the slew of reviews I got this week I just had to write something.
Warning: mentions of suicidal thoughts. If you’re in a dark place right now take a second to breath before coming back. I want you to come back for the next chapter. Please take care of yourself.
A03
Previous Chapters
Chapter 1: Pan meets a Wendy
Chapter 2: Scars (Felix’s Story)
Chapter 3: Day One
Chapter 4: Revenge and Fireflies
Chapter 5: Brighter than Stars
Chapter 6: filler: The Tigress
Chapter 7: Operation Spotless!
Chapter 8: Operation Spotless: Reporters Down
Chapter 9: A Dance with the Devil
Chapter 10: filler: Felix and the Pancake
Chapter 11: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 1
Chapter 12: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 2
Chapter 13: The Girl with Blue Eyes pt. 3
Chapter 14. Recovery
Chapter 14.2 Recovery some more
Chapter 15: Trapped
-,-,-,-,-,-
“I shouldn’t have told her.”
Pan repeated the line like a mantra as he pushed his way into his apartment, as if saying it over and over again could somehow undo the damage he had done to himself.
He stepped over his hungry cat, unwilling to deal with him as his head spun. With a huff he dropped facedown onto the couch.
“I shouldn’t have told her.”
Mr. Gold was his brother. Half-brothers if you wanted specifics. Different moms, same dad if you wanted specific specifics. A good twenty years’ worth of age difference if you were just curious.
Pan hadn’t even known he existed until the coppers shoved an envelope of paperwork into his hands and all but threw him onto a plane to Boston, USA.
He turned over on his back, staring at the ceiling as he thought over his defining and crummy past.
“Don’t listen to them boy.” His father had said over the phone at the police station just before the social worker came to collect him.
It had been the first time Pan had seen or heard his father in six months.
“I won’t.” Pan sighed.
I really won’t.
“It’s all lies. They’re just trying to tarnish your papa’s good name.”
“I know.” Pan agreed.
Too late for that.
“Just talk to your brother, he’ll sort this out.”
The line cut off before Pan could respond.
I have a brother?
Three days and an awkward, cramped trip on a bus later the question was answered.
A man who looked dressed for a mob hit, rich materials that made him stand out too vibrantly in the filthy terminal, met him at the station.
“You must be Peter.” He said, his voice rich with their Scottish roots. That hint of the homeland was the only reason he didn’t hesitate to get in the car with him.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Do you…need anything before we get home?”
“Home.” Pan scoffed. The word still sounded ridiculous to him. “This isn’t my home. You don’t even want me here.”
He hadn’t expected Gold to reply, but it still stung when he didn’t.
“We’ll get you enrolled at the high school in the morning.”
Pan rolled his eyes. “School. What good will that do me? Haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in two years.”
“It’s law here.”
“Speaking of law, are you gonna send him bail money?”
“No.” Gold had replied dryly.
That one little word was the last time they ever spoke about their father. For years, the nameless figure that connected them was forgotten about.
Six months later, a blue-eyed woman became their new connection.
And ultimately the reason they didn’t talk to each other for four years.
Pan turned on his side. Fuzz’s one functioning eye was bearing into his master’s bloodshot ones.
“I shouldn’t have told her.”
He had just told Wendy Darling his greatest secret, a secret kept so locked in his brain that only four people knew about it. Felix and Tink by default, Glass because it just happened, and Belle. Of course Belle knew. And she was the only person who didn’t look at him like a specimen in a jar after the truth came out (Pan wasn’t sure what Gold did for a living, but whatever it was it was legal and had the entire town afraid of him).
Belle had to know because she needed Gold’s permission to tutor Pan right after he had come into the county.
It was college credit for her.
It was love at first site for him.
When he had first arrived in Storybrooke he had been woefully behind the other students (what’s the big deal, he hadn’t wanted to go to school in the first place).
To his credit, he made up for his inherent academic capabilities with his golden charm. It annoyed his teachers but had the students bowing to his will in a month.
The sheep of the school anyway. A few were already head wolves and welcomed him into their pack.
Tink Le'Belle, who would come to school dressed in the nun’s uniform and change as soon as the doors closed.
Felix Croft, who had every girl (and a boy or two) wanting to sleep with him but never took his eyes off Tink.
Then of course there was Lily Tigress who was a grade above the rest of them and more or less ran the school’s hierarchy. She had passed the leadership role to Pan when she graduated, and it took a few knocks from Tink to keep the power from going to his head.
Despite his popularity in school, his grades still suffered. Things that his fellow classmates had learned two grades prior he was having to crunch in during one semester. He was never going to catch up.
That was when Gold had brought her into their lives.
Belle French had been a breath of fresh air in the dusty salmon mansion. She held her own against his sass and Gold’s never-ending bad mood. She like books and hot tea with lemon.
She was perfect.
“I’m glad you’re here.” Pan would say each day she gifted his life with her hour of light.
“I’m glad to be here.” She would return with a bright smile.
She was there from him, he thought. Just him, he thought.
“You’re late Pan-the-Man.” She had said once. He hated that nickname. It was too young for him. Not something lovers would call each other.
“Glass kept me.” Pan had said. “He thinks my writing is improving.”
“It is.” Belle agreed proudly. “You got a B+ on your last paper. You should show it to Mr. Gold.”
Pan frowned at the memory. Why would a man who he barely saw want to read a shitty high school paper?
“He hates me.”
The words had fallen out like a bad tooth, dangling and painful and causing everything around it to rot. But they were out, and he waited for Belle to fuss at the books and papers around them and change the subject. That’s what everyone else had done.
That’s what people back in Scotland did.
Instead—and this was when he knew indefinitely that he was in love with Belle French—Belle shook her head.
“No he doesn’t Pan-the-man, he loves you very much.”
Pan’s fingers itched as he remembered pushing a pile of books away from them.
“He doesn’t want me here! He never did!”
Belle reached out for his arm, stopping him from fleeing the salmon mansion.
“I want you here. I will always want you.”
He groaned into the leather cushioning of his couch when he thought of what a freaking idiot his 16-year-old-self had been. He thought that she could love him, want to be with him. They were only four years apart in age; they could make it work when he graduated.
“Idiot.” Pan murmured. Damn he’d been so stupid.
When had it fallen apart exactly? When had reality bit him in the arse?
Oh right…that night.
“Son of a bitch.”
He was going to ask her to wait for him. Like what the hell?
He left school early and made a stop by the flower shop. What kind of flowers had he gotten her? Roses? They were pink, he remembered that much. Why couldn’t he remember what those stupid flowers were?
She was there, as she always was. Waiting for him.
Pan was confident as he walked up the stairs to the salmon mansion (he never did try to call it home)…
“She’s going to say yes.”
Unlocked the door…
“She loves me.”
Opened the door…
“She wants me.”
And saw the love of his life and his brother kissing on the arm of the couch.
When Pan heard of people dropping things when they were in shock, he thought the trait to be the result of bad dramatic writing. However, the second he saw Belle and Gold’s lips separate and their wide eyes turn to him, he felt his limbs go numb, and vaguely heard the sound of soft flowers hitting the floor.
Damn it what kind of flowers were they!
“Pan…” Belle had greeted as she stood, soothing her dress.
“You’re early.” Gold had finished for her, his voice stern like a parent’s.
You’re not my father.
They stared at him, neither saying anything. And it disgusted Pan to his core than neither of them looked even the least bit embarrassed.
How could a man not look embarrassed when he had been caught red-handed with the woman someone else loved?
“Pan you idiot.” Pan groaned loudly at the memory.
Pan’s eyes had wondered down to their hands. Their fingers were lightly intertwined. Pan hadn’t even gotten to hold her hand yet!
The site was the trigger. The moment Pan realized just how stupid he had been.
The ten minutes “talks about his progress” Belle and Gold would have at the end of each day. The rides home he would give her that stretched on for two hours when they should have only lasted ten minutes.
This had been building before his very eyes.
He looked at his brother. His “guardian”. The second half of a very unstable bloodline.
“You.”
Gold simply blinked.
“You took her from me!” He had screamed at him. “She was here for me! And you took her!”
Gold had the decency to look confused, but it wasn’t enough for the broken-hearted sixteen-year-old.
He wanted to see him bleed.
Which is particularly why Pan lunged for him with the full intent of pulling his vocal chords out of his throat.
Pan couldn’t remember the details of the fight, but he did vaguely recall having just enough prowess on his brother to knock him into the kitchen counter.
Again, his brother had a good amount of age on him, but he had strengths that Pan hadn’t known about.
His hands for one. Strong from years of tinkering away in his empty shop. They nearly crushed his airway when they wrapped around his throat.
Somewhere between all the yelling and the scratching and the spots of black from suffocation there was Belle, pulling them apart and begging them both to stop.
“Why!”
Pan had screamed the word at her, her answer only a look of confusion.
“Peter, I’m sorry if you though that I…that we…”
Pan never thought anything. He knew. But Belle French had rendered him uncertain.
“We’re nothing.” Pan had spat at the small space between Gold and Belle. The last thing he saw before he turned to run out the door was Belle’s tearstained face.
Pan gulped at the memory, of the sorrow in her eyes.
“Oh Belle…”
What if he had stayed, talked it out with them?
Would Belle had never gone missing?
Would his relationship with Gold had somehow improved?
Would they have been a family for once in their miserable lives?
What was the point in thinking about it?
It doesn’t matter what could have happened. All that mattered is what did happen.
And what happened wasn’t very nice.
Honestly, he remembered it all in bouts of time rather than complete memories. Glimpses of the past that stayed fused to his memory.
Running to Felix’s and sneaking into his bedroom through the window.
Best friends don’t tell.
A few days passing.
Gold meeting him outside of his school.
“Have you heard from Belle?”
A month passing.
Pan filling out the forms to make him an emancipated minor. He had turned seventeen eight days prior. No one had heard from Belle.
Another month passing.
Archie Hopper had found Belle French’s cellphone near the old well just outside of town. Graham Humbert had been sheriff for eight months. He started the search personally.
Two more months passing. The seniors of Storybrooke High graduated. Felix Croft’s parents were killed in a car accident that night and Felix sustained a serious cranial injury. Pan never left his side.
(That wasn’t entirely true. Pan left the hospital long enough to buy a camera at the pawnshop. Gold didn’t say a word to him. Pan didn’t say a word to Gold. It was the last time they laid eyes on each other until Gold was arrested for suspicion of murder.)
Two weeks passed. Pan began his internship at the Daily Mirror. Felix came on as a photographer as soon as he was released from the hospital.
Three weeks passed. Mr. Gold was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping Belle French. A neighbor said she saw her leaving his house the night she disappeared. Pan wasn’t allowed near the case, and was thoroughly pissed.
One month passed. “Belle” sent a series over very strange photos to her father. It was proof that she was alive. Mr. Gold was released. Pan wasn’t satisfied.
“What did you do to her?”
“I did nothing! She left Peter! She’s gone! Let it go!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you! Get off my porch! You never wanted to be here.”
A year passed. Henry Jekyll began working as a coroner at the Storybrooke hospital. Two local women went missing. Pan discovered Jekyll connection to them and began a very painful affair to find evidence.
“Why do you have bruises on your back?” Felix had asked him in jest one night when they were changing out of wet clothes.
Pan had laughed it off without answering, showed Felix to the door, and thrown up in the bathtub.
Two months into the investigation, Pan was ready to snap. He needed proof, and he needed it before he scalped himself. Finally, an opportunity presented itself. Tink had burned herself with steam from an expresso machine at work. With a bit of care she could have dealt with it at home, but Pan had rushed her to the hospital.
“I’m sorry.” He had said to her when the nurse took her to one of the rooms.
“What?” she asked as she was rolled away.
Pan shook his head and waved her off, making a dash to a quiet place to alert Graham.
Within an hour, Jekyll was caught and put in handcuffs. Tink was unearthed from the morgue drawer before she sustained any real harm.
The nightmare was supposed to be over, but that night Jekyll miraculously broke out of the unguarded jail cell.
The site of some of Storybrooke’s most temperate citizens with torches and rope was a photographical achievement for Felix (though he didn’t say a word to him all night). Graham had warned all of them not to get involved, to let the police handle it. Most of them listened, though that wouldn’t guarantee Jekyll’s safety when he was caught.
Pan had gone a different route and had tracked Jekyll (and unsurprisingly his murderous lackey) to the edge of town where they were boarding a getaway car.
Their exchange both excited and terrified Pan even to the current day.
“Going somewhere?” Pan called out to them.
Jekyll shot around, his eyes wild, his lips shaking with a snarl.
“You!”
Pan shrugged. “Me.”
Jekyll shot out and grabbed Pan by the collar. Pan was smirking. He didn’t know why but he couldn’t stop. Maybe because it was all almost over. Maybe because it would never stop.
“You lied to me you bastard!” Jekyll has screamed at him. “You ruined everything!”
“It’s what I do, Dr. J.” Pan had laughed. I ruin everything I touch.
“Now I think you better make a run for it. That angry crowd is shouting your name, not mine.”
Jekyll had looked past him into the distance where the dim light of torch fire could be seen.
“You’ll pay for this!” He snarled as he released him, running to the car.
“I doubt it.”
With that, Henry Jekyll was gone, And Pan’s first case was over.
But his story wasn’t.
A year passed. There was too much quiet. Pan was losing his mind (Belle had yet to send any more pictures). The former mayor was using taxpayers money for personal interests. Pan found out and exposed her, tearing the town a part and setting his name in stone. The stress of the ordeal led the mayor into an early grave—heart attack (ironic since there was an urban legend that the mayor was heartless).
A month passed. Somehow, the mayor’s daughter Regina Mills became the new acting mayor. There was a rumor about corruption on the ballot, and Pan went to investigate. Long story short, Sydney and the new mayor had been caught in an affair. Pan had kept his mouth shut for the cost of having more control of the paper. He managed to swallow down the guilt of the blackmail.
A week passed. A neatly typed-out letter from Scotland informed him that his father had died in prison. Pan threw the letter away and bought a moped. He never found out if Gold knew or not.
Things got too quiet after that. Pan hated quiet. He needed constant movement, constant activity if he were to remain sane. To make up for the quiet he became louder, more spontaneous, more quick to turn any one-page story into a ten-page exposé.
Time was passing in blurs by then. Sydney watched him anxiously but stopped fearing him. Felix’s seizures would come on spontaneously. Tink finally talked to him again, but there was always a bite of distrust in her eyes. He and Lily Tigress had begun a casual relationship, but it took a few tries before sex felt consensual to him.
He was restless. He was hurting inside.
And Belle hadn’t been heard from in over two years.
A dirty kitten with a bleeding ear and a pus-filled eye found its way onto his porch. Pan let him in and never made him leave.
“Rough start, the two of us.” He said to the cat after he went through half a bag of cat food the first night. Then he chastised himself for talking to a cat.
He was bored. As soon as a story was over or as soon as Felix and Tink left him to his own demise, he’d start crumbling again.
His mind never stopped spinning but his thoughts were never together.
He started getting careless, desperate for something to fill the void in his life.
Pills (boring), drugs (the high was over too fast), and even sex (messy, and he didn’t like his one-night strays knowing where he lived).
One time when he was typing up a story he contemplated driving his moped off of Firefly Hill. Then he recalled he had horrible insurance and perished the thought.
He had no peace, nothing that truly stimulated him, nothing that mattered to him.
(Belle had all but disappeared off the face of the earth.)
No rush. No hope.
And then Wendy fucking Darling showed up, and for the first time in so long—ever?—his mind was quiet.
Then she started screaming at him.
Pan sat of on the couch, the weight of Wendy Darling’s presence in his life finally hitting him.
She was his never-ending challenge. A catalyst of destruction and torment.
She was saving his life and didn’t even know it.
He…needed her, like he had need Belle all those years ago.
The idea that he needed to be so damn codependent on another human being was disgusting and terrifying.
But it was what it was.
He needed Wendy Darling in his life.
But he didn’t want her in it. He didn’t want her to see him in his darker moments. Yet he also wanted to bare his soul to her.
He wanted her to see him when he was cocky and in control, not when the filth of his life was drowning him.
“I shouldn’t have told her.” He said, his shoulders shaking as a wave of self-hatred and regret ran through him.
It wasn’t just his sordid sex life and relation to Gold that he had revealed to her. It was an invitation for her to know all the filth that made up the fibers of his being.
To despise him as much as his father did. As Gold did. As Belle probably did.
As he did.
“I shouldn’t have told her.” He sobbed hoarsely, throwing one of the couch pillows in frustration. “Son of a bitch!”
He was going to lose her.
He scoffed through his tears, ordering himself to stop.
Has it really been a year since I updated this? Damn I suck XD
-,-,-,-,-,-
The one week of mandatory recovery and therapy had to be the slowest and most boring time of Belle’s life.
Sure there were some interesting moments, like when Jefferson brought his daughter Grace over to paint her toenails (sparkly and messy but still appreciated) and she cried from being able to feel the tickling of the brush. Or when Will snuck a bag of plastic stars from the children’s ward and glued them to the ceiling above her bed. It was a much better site than the blasé roof, even if she did get a few curious looks from the nurses.
Merlin did his best to stop by between his breaks, but he helping Moe carry the business while she was out of commission. She swore if she ever came across a hefty inheritance from a distant mysterious relative, she’d sign it away to him. Well, maybe two thirds of it. Girl had to pay her bills after all.
Her most consistent visits were from her father, who had reluctantly come around to Belle temporarily moving in with Mr. Gold, and Mr. Gold himself.
Moe French would spend roughly an hour at Belle’s bedside, usually texting Merlin with status updates on the business or what things to pack up for Belle. It was quiet and Belle saw his eyes maybe twice, but it wasn’t as tense as it could have been and he always kissed her goodbye.
Mr. Gold’s visits were much more pleasant. He would roll into the room as soon as Moe left, carrying with him some kind of treat his right-hand man Dove would smuggle in to share. Sometimes, if his medicine didn’t have him too lightheaded, and if she wasn’t too exhausted from physical therapy, he’d read whatever magazines the waiting room had on hand. She particularly liked the cooking magazines.
“Okay, read the strawberry tart recipe again.” Belle requested, slowing jotting down the ingredients. She had begun to regain movement in her limbs on her second day, and with a little help from the nurses, she could sit up in bed. Walking was still a challenge, but Dr. Whale was lending her a walker to assist her until she was healed enough to walk on her own.
Mr. Gold chuckled at her enthusiasm, flipping the page back. “You do know I can just rip them out, right?”
“Don’t you dare!” Belle gasped.
Mr. Gold shook his head in amusement. “1¼ cups of flour…”
Belle watched him in appreciation. He was able to open his black eye now, and most of his stitches had been removed. The only noticeable proof of last week’s catastrophe was the scabbed indention above his eye that would soon become a scar. Despite the horrible way he had received it, Belle couldn’t help but thing he’d look rather handsome with a few rustic scars.
A knock on the door cut Mr. Gold off from his reading. He and Belle turned to see Dr. Whale smiling at them.
“Yes?” Gold growled.
The doctor stiffened and flipped through his clipboard. “You and Miss French will be ready to check out this afternoon.”
“Bloody brilliant!” Mr. Gold exclaimed as he rolled closer to the doctor. “I’ll take the release forms now.”
“In a moment. I have to read you a few check-out policies, procedure you know.”
“Oh for the love of…” Mr. Gold held his tongue, not wanting to stress Belle or lose his temper in front of her.
“Could I at least start filling them out? I promise I won’t let him leave.” Belle negotiated, amused.
The doctor looked back and forth between the couple before sighing and handing Mr. Gold the forms.
“Please don’t make me lose my license.”
“I never make promises, only deals.” Mr. Gold replied, rolling backwards to Belle’s bedside. He was becoming too skilled in a wheelchair and needed to leave as soon as possible.
“Don’t be cruel, he’s only doing his job.” Belle chastised Mr. Gold as soon as the doctor left.
Gold leveled the clipboard and started filling out the papers with a mutter of irritation.
Belle only laughed. If she was going to be living with him for an unspecific amount of time, she’d have to get used to his bouts of playful pouting. It was amazing to think that they hadn’t been dating long at all, and unofficially moving in together would undoubtedly bring out some of their more unappealing traits.
Within the hour, Belle and Mr. Gold were being rolled out the hospital. Mr. Gold was swearing at the tight-lipped, stern nurse that he could “bloody well walk with his cane”.
“Hospital policy.” The nurse barked, all but dumping him in the drop-off zone. Mr. Gold jumped from the chair, growling as he steadied himself on his cane and limped to Belle’s side.
“The nerve.” He huffed, hiding a grin when Belle laughed into her hand.
“Are you sure you should be walking?” Belle inquired, nodding to his heavily bandaged leg underneath his expensive pants leg. Dr. Whale had insisted they dress comfortably until their injuries healed, yet Mr. Gold was dressed to the t’s in his nice clothes why Belle had swung for a gently worn sundress.
“I’m fine, really.” Mr. Gold assured, though he leaned more heavily on his cane. “I sprained it more than anything. None of the screws were bent in anyway. I won’t even need therapy.”
Belle nodded and looked down guiltily. She felt Gold tuck her hair back and kiss the edge of her ear, the effort causing him to shake.
“I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”
Belle smiled, picking up the hand resting on the back of the wheelchair and giving it kiss. “My hero. But, you really should sit down.”
Mr. Gold pulled his discarded wheelchair closer to Belle and sat down with a relieved grumble.
Conversation seized between them and in no time, they watched in surprise as Mr. Gold’s Cadillac pulled around the drop-off zone.
“How…” Belle gasped when it rolled in more closely. Other than the slightly discolored grill, it looked exactly as it had before the accident.
“Billy the mechanic owed me a favor.” Mr. Gold shrugged. “He did a lot better than I thought he would.”
Belle nodded as a tall man, presumably Dove, stepped from the driver’s seat. Belle had only seen him a few times during her deliveries but had never had the opportunity to speak to him more personally.
“Mr. Gold,” he nodded professionally, turning a light smile down to Belle. “Miss French.”
“Hello.” Belle smiled back, his tall height along with her wheelchair sitting causing her head to spin.
Mr. Gold stood from the chair and stepped over to the car, intending to be a gentleman and open the back door. However, he found the back seat occupied by none other than his son.
“Baelfire.” Gold greeted sternly. “Is there an early release day I forgot about or are you skipping school?”
“Let’s go with the first one.” Bae smirked as he slid from the back. “You look good for a guy who nearly got wrapped around a tree.”
“Not funny.” He growled, motioning him to stand aside so that Belle could slide in.
She took Gold’s hand as Dove released her into Gold’s grip. She felt stiff from the effort, but more embarrassed that it took three people to get her into a car. She hoped she could be more independent during her stay at Gold’s. She refused to be a burden to anyone, especially her somewhat-boyfriend and his son.
“I should probably sit in the back with Miss Belle.” Bae whispered. “Wouldn’t want you two to get too excited while you’re in recovery.”
Belle bit back a giggled while Mr. Gold’s face erupted in flame.
“One more crack like that and I’m going to un-overlook you playing hooky today.” He warned, not meeting Belle’s eyes as he crawled into the front seat.
The ride was quiet and slow, and Belle was thankful to see the outside world. Her stomach flopped a bit when they eased into the driveway of the salmon mansion. Before her and Mr. Gold’s relationship—or what any rational person would call it—began, she used to be so excited and giddy at the thought of a few stolen seconds with him. As soon as the pizza was out of her hands, they were just Belle and Mr. Gold, not pizza delivery girl and customer.
Now they were going to be temporary roommates, and while some women would see that scenario as an erotic fantasy come to life, Belle couldn’t help but feel sickeningly nervous.
“It feels strange pulling up without a pizza in my hands.” Belle smirked, hoping humor would lift her mood.
Luckily, Mr. Gold chuckled and sent her a gentle smile through the rearview mirror.
“Speaking of pizza, do you think we could still order one tonight?” Baelfire inquired. “It is Friday after all.”
A tense air filled the car, and Mr. Gold could see Belle’s nails digging into the leather seating. Belle’s father nor Merlin had told her what they were doing about deliveries, but judging by how stressed they both were (yes, Belle could tell no matter how much they tried to hide it), probably not very good.
“Miss French.”
Belle looked up to find Dove standing over her, offering his hand with a gentle smile.
Dove helped her sit on the edge of the seat while he grabbed her walker from the trunk. Belle felt so embarrassed to have to use it but noted to herself to count her blessings that she hadn’t been paralyzed in the crash. She’d only have to use it for a few weeks, and would be back to rolling pizza dough in a month, give or take. She hoped to move the process up a bit, hoped she could push herself to make a miraculous recovery.
“Mr. Knight dropped a bag off this morning.” Dove stated as he helped her get a grip on her walker.
“Yes, my father mentioned he would yesterday.” Belle said with a hiss.
Mr. Gold seethed as he tried to get out of the car by himself, his leg screaming in protest. It was time for more of his pain meds and that would mean an early night, the last thing he wanted with Belle’s first night in his home.
Baelfire stood beside his father and watched Dove escort Belle into the house, her bag in his opposite hand.
“What’s with the frown?” Baelfire smirked. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
Gold glared at his son. “Of course not. Don’t you have homework?”
“It’s Friday.” Bae reminded him as he swayed to the house. “And I’m ordering pizza.”
“Fine.” Gold agreed with a sigh. He was so tired he would probably sign over the deed to the house if Bae asked for it. “I’ll send Dove to pick it up.”
Bae turned, confused. “Why can’t we have it delivered?”
“Just…I don’t know about their delivery status right now.” Gold sighed as he limped into the house. “Just go with Dove, alright?”
Bae sighed, sensing that there was more to the story decided to push for details on an empty stomach. “Fine.”
Gold looked around the corner, nodding in approval at how the furniture had been moved. The room he had Belle set up in was more of a small parlor connected to the downstairs bathroom. He had been meaning to take out the wall that separated the room and the living room but was not glad he had put it off.
He stepped into the room to find down waiting by the bathroom door.
“She’s changing.” Dove stated simply.
Gold nodded. “I owe you a great debt for all you’ve done.”
Dove shrugged. “I’ll remember that the next time my nephew’s soccer team sells chocolate bars.”
Mr. Gold chuckled, his breath stilling when the bathroom door opened and Belle stepped out. She wore a loose pair of men’s pajamas, the little pocket on the shirt ripped in the middle. Her feet were bare and her hair mused, and she had forgone the walker to take on the short space.
She looked absolutely stunning.
“Comfortable?” he teased.
“My limbs feel like noodles. I feel great.” she laughed, using Dove’s offered hand to help her sit on the bed.
“Bae wanted to pick up pizza for dinner, is that okay with you?”
Belle smiled sheepishly, tucking her curls behind her ear. “I just took a pain pill…”
“Say no more.” Gold smiled.
“Sorry.”
“Not at all, I think I may follow suit.”
Belle nodded, the pill kicking in faster than she thought it would.
“I’ll…check on you later?” Gold suggested.
“I’d like that.” Belle said drowsily, carefully curling her legs onto the bed.
He didn’t take his eyes off of her until Dove closed the door.
“This is going to be an interesting few weeks.” Dove said, the teasing nature of his voice a earning him a glare from his employer.
“I’m going to take a pill.” Gold growled.
-,-,-,-,-,-,-,-,-,-
When Belle opened her eyes again, it was dark outside and her head was swimming. She groggily felt on the nightstand for her phone. She blinked the itchy tears away until her eyes adjusted to the light. 2:11 a.m. Damn, she had slept the whole day!
Belle groaned, wishing she would fall right back to sleep. However, she was wide awake now, and her back was cramping. She needed to walk around, maybe get a snack from the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten since her barely passable breakfast at the hospital.
Her muscles cramped as she sat up, her lungs feeling smaller. She took several deep breaths before she reached for her walker.
She did her best to enter the kitchen quietly, which was hard to do with a clunky walker loudly tapping on the hardwood. After some hassling she found the light switch and was immediately floored with awe at the site of Gold’s antique kitchen.
A large, stainless steel refrigerator purred near the back door while several cooking tools awaited silently to be used. Her kitchen apartment above French Bread could probably fit in this kitchen, and she bet all the eyes on the stove worked as well.
With renewed excitement she limped to the pantry and searched its contents. She hummed, noting a packet of yeast on the top. Gripping the walker with one hand, she stretched on her toes to reach the things she needed, hissing as her back cramped from the effort.
“Need a hand with that?”
Belle twisted around, grabbing her walker before she could fall.
Baelfire hissed. “Sorry.”
“No it’s fine.” Belle gasped, stepping aside. He was just about her height, maybe a few inches shorter than his father, but he reached the yeast packet with less effort than she had.
“Thanks.” Belle smiled. “Did I wake you?”
“Nah,” Bae assured, leaning on the counter. “My sleep cycle’s been off this week with Dad in the hospital.”
Belle looked at the teen, his curly hair disrupted from restless sleep, the color under his eyes too dark for a boy his age.
“So whatcha making?” Bae inquired, smiling brightly despite the later hour.
“Don’t laugh, but I was going to make pizza. But if you want something else…”
“No, pizza sounds great. The one I ordered earlier was…I don’t know, bland?”
Belle chuckled. “Dad must have made the sauce. It’s his recipe but he never makes it right.”
Bae chuckled. “Is everything you guys make your dad’s creation?”
Belle shrugged as she scooped flour out of the properly labeled container on the counter. “Technically yes, but Merlin and I add our own flair to each thing we cook. The recipe’s always different each time, but there’s always a few ingredients that never change.” She said with a wink.
Bae nodded. “Anything I can do to help?”
Belle hummed. “Do you have a food processor?”
Bae nodded and opened one of the cabinets, pulling the processor out with ease.
“Great. Get out what you want on the pizza. Do we have enough cheese?”
Bae pulled a pile of things from the refrigerator, including a nearly empty bag of shredded mozzarella.
Belle surveyed what else he had brought out and nodded as she put a recipe together in her head.
“How fresh is that cream?”
Bae bravely opened the carton and smelled the dairy substance, sighing with relief when he didn’t smell anything sour.
“Great, find me a pan and some butter and we can make alfredo pizza.”
Soon enough the teen was helping her chop chicken and kneed pizza dough, chuckling when she flicked flour in his curls.
“This is great.” Bae said as Belle sprinkled oregano on the pizza. “I’ve been living off diner food and cereal all week. I never though I’d miss home cooking so much.”
Belle paused in her pizza-making, her eyes looking over his lanky frame.
“Baelfire I’m…I’m sorry about all of this.”
Bae looked around the kitchen, confused. “The flour will come off the counters.”
Belle scoffed. “No, I mean for the accident. For borrowing your dad’s car. For his injury. Everything.”
Bae stared at her, unsure what he could say to make her feel better. Whenever he and Emma fought she would just punch him in the arm and everything would be fine afterwards. Hitting her, even playfully, did not look like a good idea in her condition.
“Really, Belle, it’s fine.” Bae assured awkwardly. “It’s not like you’re a crazy girlfriend who crashed my dad’s car to keep him to yourself.”
Belle laughed at the idea, turning to put the pizza in the oven.
“I mean, I guess I was a little mad at first, but I got over it. My dad really likes you, and spending these last few weeks with you has made him happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. I’m sure there was no lost love being in the hospital with you, even if you were doped up half the time.”
Belle chuckled. “A third of the time, actually. Between you and me though, your dad’s a real lightweight.”
Bae snorted. “I bet. And while we’re dropping secrets, that bit about me living off of diner food was a white lie. Emma brought me some of her mom’s cooking to keep me going.”
“Ah, and I bet she made you dessert afterwards.” Belle teased.
Bae’s blush was as read as pizza sauce. “Well…”
“Unless you want to be grounded until you graduate, I suggest you not answer that.”
Belle and Baelfire both turned around to find Gold leaning against the doorframe, eyeing the messy countertops and his flour-dusted son with amusement.
“Bit late for a midnight snack, isn’t it?” he teased, limping in.
“More like too early.” Belle said. “It’s just after three.”
“Indeed. Smells good whatever it is.”
“Chicken alfredo pizza, enough for three.” Belle blushed as he took the seat beside her. This was the first time she had seen him wearing anything but a three-piece suit. It was almost an honor, seeing a piece of him that no one but his son had seen.
“Excellent.” he smiled, turning to his son, dusting some of the flour out of his hair. “Glad to see you’re taking up a trade, m’boy.”
“Yep,” Belle teased. “I’ll have him trained as a sous chef in no time.
Bae rolled his eyes as he went to check on the pizza. Adults were so weird.
In no time the pizza was sliced and passed around, conversation and napkins flowing easily. It was domestic if not unique scene considering the late hour. Unbeknownst to each participant, there was a mutual want to make the event—both the living arrangements and late-night pizza-making, mind you—much more permanent.
