But I'm Family!

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"I just don't think you're being very reasonable here," Pan pouted.

"If by 'not reasonable' you mean 'not giving you exactly what you want' then no, I'm not being reasonable," Emma said.

"I'm told that being reasonable is a good thing. You should look into that," Pan said.

Emma rolled her arms. "And maybe you should look into learning what things actually mean."

"Tell you what, I'll do that the minute you go be reasonable. It's a pretty reasonable compromise, don't you think?"

"There's no compromise about you getting what you want and then not having to twist things to get what you want because you've already gotten what you want," Emma pointed out.

"Let's not quibble about the word 'compromise', too," Pan said. "I don't see how we're supposed to be getting anywhere with this is we can't even agree on the basic meaning of words. I mean, I'm not throwing out anything like 'sesquipedalian' here. These are pretty basic words that no one should have gotten to your age without knowing."

"I know the correct meanings of words! You're the one who doesn't seem capable or at least willing to use them right," Emma ground out.

"You see, when you say things like that you make me feel like you always have to be right and aren't willing to compromise," Pan said, shaking his head sadly.

"Sometimes I am right and there is no compromise. It's like when you wanted to kill my son and I didn't want you to kill him. There is no compromise there. We couldn't just half-kill him and it wasn't something that should have been compromised about."

"Actually, we did half-kill him," Pan pointed out. "He was dead and then his heart was restored and he was fine."

Emma threw her hands up in the air. "It doesn't matter!"

Pan crossed his arms. "Well you're the one who brought it up is all I'm saying. And I don't actually want anyone dead this time so I don't see why you're not willing to give a little and give me a chance."

"You killed Henry!" Emma burst out.

"So did Regina and I don't see anyone clamoring to keep her away from him," Pan pointed out.

"She's his mother," Emma said.

"And I'm his great-grandfather," Pan retorted.

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. "I thought that the whole reason all this happened was because you couldn't deal with having a child and being a child yourself. I would think that having a few more generations of descendents would just strengthen that sense of wrongness."

"I couldn't accept having a child as a child at the time, no," Pan agreed. "But I've made great strides since then. I think it's the fact that he's clearly so much older than I am that I can accept him as my son because of the surrealism. And it's the same for having a grandson and great-grandson. I'm sure it's quite like how you can look at your parents who are your same age and acknowledge them as your parents but it's always going to feel somewhat off."

"Henry actually wants Regina in his life," Emma said.

"He wanted me in his life before, too, and given a few minutes I'm sure I can win him over again," Pan said confidently.

"You're not going to get a few minutes."

"Well that's just not fair," Pan said. "What happened to 'we have to let the child decide'?"

"The child was Henry and not you and that's somewhat limited. If he wants someone who shouldn't be in his life to be in his life then we're not just going to allow it because that's what he wants," Emma told him.

"I'll have you know that I am just as capable, if perhaps a little less willing, to go on a murderous rampage and kill everyone if I don't get to see Henry than she is."

"Oh, that is not why we let Regina stay in Henry's life!" Emma protested.

Pan looked skeptical.

"I will concede that in the past not being able to see Henry whenever she wanted has driven her evil. A few times. But we think that she's probably over that now," Emma said.

"And at any rate you're not going to test it by depriving her of him."

"She's not Job," Emma snapped. Pan looked blank. "We're not going to ruin her life to see if she stays good or not."

"I'm just saying that it's a bit hypocritical. Regina's tried to kill you all many times. She first tried to kill you on the day you were born and your parents were forced to banish you alone to another world with no one to take care of you because that had less of a chance of killing you than leaving you to be found by Regina. She killed Henry trying to put you in a coma forever when you were going to leave Storybrooke. The reason that Storybrooke was even in danger before my agents brought Henry to me was largely her doing. But she's okay to be in Henry's life but I'm not? What did I ever do that was worse than that?" Pan asked rhetorically.

Emma paused. While it was true that Pan had been semi-kidnapping children for centuries, had actually mostly-killed Henry, had abandoned Gold, and had Tamara and Greg killed, she just didn't know enough about his various misdeeds that if she had to list everything she knew Regina wouldn't appear worse.

"It doesn't matter. Regina would never hurt Henry."

"Except for when she killed him. Oh, wait, but that was an accident so it doesn't count. Would it have counted, I wonder, if he had stayed dead?" Pan mused. "I guess we aren't counting emotional scarring since she just intended to take the mother she loved out of his life forever and raise him in a town where he was the only one aging so he thought he was crazy."

"She's doing better."

"I can do better," Pan insisted.

"Her evil is all in the past," Emma said, wishing that she felt as confident in this as Mary Margaret seemed to. For someone who Regina had dedicated more than thirty years of her life to systematically destroying the happiness of, Mary Margaret sure had a lot of faith in Regina's goodness.

"And so is mine," Pan insisted.

"You can't just say when you're between evil acts that just because you haven't committed any evil acts lately that it's all in the past," Emma argued. "Even though technically that is true."

"But they are," Pan said. "And it's not as though Regina has more than a week on me in terms of giving up evil."

"Why do you keep trying to convince me that Regina is horrible?" Emma demanded.

Pan blinked at her. "I'm not. I'm just saying that if you're going to allow her to be in his life then I don't see why you won't allow me to be in his life."

"It's…it's just different, is all. At least whenever Regina hurt Henry in the past it wasn't on purpose."

"See, right there is where I'd disagree with you. If Regina hurting Henry happens on accident then how is she supposed to stop doing that? If I hurt him on purpose then it's pretty easy to just choose not to do that anymore," Pan said. "And I have."

"It's still not going to happen. You can't be a part of Henry's life."

Pan crossed his arms. "You let Rumpelstiltskin be a part of his life. You know that Henry was prophesized to kill him and so he tried to kill him?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "First of all, 'undoing' doesn't have to mean killing and I really wish that that would have occurred to Gold at some point over the last three hundred years. And I'm pretty sure you were the boy who led him to that anyway. Besides, I can't believe that Gold has tried to kill my son and yet not succeeded."

Pan considered this. "Well, fine, he at least wanted to kill him. Would you really want someone like that around your son?"

"Gold would never do anything to hurt Neal's son."

"Oh, and he'd never do anything to hurt Baelfire either. Except for that time he abandoned him," Pan said.

"That was a mistake and he regretted it ever since."

"I'm sure when he kills Henry by mistake you can console yourself with the knowledge that at least he didn't mean to," Pan said sarcastically. "And before you start talking about what a great father he was for going out and finding Baelfire, try and remember the lengths he took to do that and just how much they ruined the lives of literally everybody in the Enchanted Forest whether they were caught in the curse or not."

"Since Gold was already kind of dead we think the prophecy has been fulfilled anyway," Emma said. "So there's nothing to worry about."

"I'm not what many people would call a great dad but I'm not sure I'd want someone who wanted my son dead based on a prophecy around my child just because the prophecy isn't active anymore," Pan said seriously.

"That's a reason to maybe limit Gold's contact with Henry and not extend yours," Emma said flatly.

"And yet you're not, are you? And not just because you couldn't stop him if you wanted to," Pan said knowingly.

"He's proven himself willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good," Emma said.

"Sure if you want to count 'the two people he actually cares about' as the greater good," Pan agreed. "I can sacrifice for the greater good, too."

"Is this about when you killed Felix to enact your curse?" Emma asked. "Because I wouldn't call that the greater good."

"Agree to disagree but I was actually referring to the fact that just because I have yet to be called on to make that sort of a sacrifice doesn't mean I'm incapable of it or unwilling to make it."

Emma snorted. "Maybe not but I think that your history makes it pretty clear the likelihood of you doing something like that."

"Based solely on the history of the Dark One and the Evil Queen, how likely were they to try and make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good? Hm?"

"You went out and tried to curse an entire town! You killed that which was most dear to you outside of yourself when he either didn't agree or was too brainwashed to object! There is a hole in your heart that can never be filled!" Emma accused.

Pan didn't deign to respond verbally but simply raised an eyebrow at her.

"…Yes, I know that all of that can apply to Regina as well but the curse is broken and she may have had some idea that would happen when we saved Henry, I don't know."

"And my curse didn't take effect because Regina spirited everyone back home," Pan said. "So I don't see why I'm bound to have a hole in my heart that can never be filled while she gets to have a nice loving mother-son relationship with Henry. I do wonder about the healthiness of that. Telling her he never should have brought you to Storybrooke and everyone should have been doomed to the curse forever? Clearly she's been a wonderful influence on him."

"He didn't really mean that. It was just the heat of the moment and he didn't want to lose her," Emma defended.

"Oh, I do hope that you're right," Pan said but he didn't sound hopeful.

"Why do you even want to be a part of Henry's life anyway?" Emma demanded. "Before you were only interested in taking the heart of the truest believer to extend your own lifespan."

"Before Regina was only interested in making sure that Snow White could never be happy and my son was only interested in finding Baelfire again to fix his own mistake even if he had to literally destroy realms to do it," Pan countered. "A man can change."

"You'd need a reason to change. Regina loves Henry. Gold loves Neal and Belle. Hook was sick of being alone. What do you have?"

Pan looked noble. "I have Henry."

"I'm not going to let the fact that you want to be around Henry prove that you're a good person and so you can be trusted to be around Henry!" Emma exclaimed. "Especially since the last time you were near him you were ripping out his heart."

"Actually, I was persuading him to give up his own heart," Pan corrected her. "I heard that your heart couldn't be ripped out and didn't want to take the risk that that was genetic."

"You're really not helping your case," Emma said flatly. "For all I know you want to do it again."

"But Henry's family!" Pan protested.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Everyone's related to Henry at this point. Everyone. And I've seen the way you treat your family. You took Henry's heart, apparently terrorized Neal for awhile and took him prisoner, abandoned your son after blaming him for your problems and trying to trap him in a box forever…the list goes on and on. I don't know of any other family members you have but I'm sure that you screwed them over. too."

"In my defense, Rumpelstiltskin was trying to do the same thing to me and it really was just self-defense," Pan said innocently. "And you want to talk about how I treat family? Since my son and I are part of the same family I've already mentioned what he did except perhaps for the part where he killed his wife for leaving him. But Regina? She killed both of her parents, you know, as well as her husband and has certainly tried to destroy Snow White every way she could."

There wasn't much she could say to that. "Cora's death wasn't intentional and there was no way she could have foreseen that. She was tricked."

"True enough, I suppose," Pan agreed. "But I heard that her father begged her not to kill him right before she ripped his heart out because her happiness came first. He wanted her to start again there but she didn't want to. At least Felix wanted to help me cast the curse."

"That…was a very long time ago and if we're stuck with Regina, which we are, we really can't afford to-"

"Acknowledge basic things she's done but stopped doing five minutes ago?" Pan interrupted. "I understand, truly. But if Regina can have her, shall we say, issues with her family and not regret a single thing but still be trusted around Henry then why can't I be?"

"Regina already proved herself as a lov…well as someone who would never hurt Henry and who eventually convinced me she really loved him when I came into the picture," Emma amended. "I knew I could trust her with him even if I couldn't trust her with anything else. You I don't know I can trust and I'm not willing to take that chance. Henry's more important than what you want and if you truly cared for Henry then you'd understand that."

"Why can't you see that it's for the best of the child to have his family with him?"

Emma sighed. "Believe it or not, being related to someone biologically or having some sort of legal guardianship over somebody and being considered 'family' does not automatically mean it's for the best for you to be in a child's life! If you're abusive like, say, trying to kill said child then that's a pretty clear indication that you shouldn't be there."

"I can't even take you seriously when you say that and allow people who have also tried to or even succeeded in killing him in his life," Pan said flatly.

"Then don't take me seriously but I'm still not letting you anywhere near my son."

Pan looked pityingly at her and shook his head. "I was afraid that it was going to come to this."

Emma tensed as he reached into his bag and pulled out a clipboard. "What?"

"I started a petition to allow me access to my great-grandson. I collected signatures until I got bored but all the relevant ones are at the top." He offered it to her.

Emma took it and scanned the page. "Mary Margaret and David?"

"He signed when she started getting misty-eyed about family and how she wished that you could have had more of a family and would have if she hadn't ruined Regina's life all those years ago."

Emma sighed. She never did understand Mary Margaret's feelings on that matter. "Neal and Gold?"

"Neal was in a reconciling mood and believed anything was possible after his father chose to do the right thing for once," Pan explained. "And Rumpelstiltskin thought that if I were really going to be hanging around Storybrooke he might as well at least try to make sure I'm on his side so we don't run into another situation like with the dagger."

And while Emma was reasonably convinced that Gold had no intention of trying to murder Henry himself anymore she didn't know that she believed that he'd be all that put-out if he died. "Regina?"

"I told her I thought she was a good mother and wanted to learn from her in relating to my own son," Pan said. He actually looked serious.

Emma just closed her eyes and groaned.

"If it makes you feel any better, that pirate of yours refused to sign but I think that was mostly because he knew I was going to present this to you if you refused to allow me to see him," Pan informed her. "So I've got everyone's approval except for yours. The people have spoken. It's time to at least give me a chance. Or give me infinite chances if we're going to really be fair given what you allow from Regina and my son. But at least the one."

"You already had one."

"One second chance," Pan amended.

"No."

"Don't make me bring Henry here and see what he thinks," Pan threatened.

Emma could imagine all too well Henry turning his earnest eyes on her and saying 'But he's my great-grandfather!' "I will get a sword and stab you."

"In front of Henry?" Pan asked, raising an eyebrow mockingly. "Maybe we should be asking about your suitableness to be in Henry's life."

Without another word, Emma spun on her heel and walked away.

"Where are you going?" Pan called after her. "I wasn't done yet."

Emma didn't answer.

"I really hope she wasn't serious about that sword thing…"