Emma's hands gripped the flask so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The rum warmed her belly and blurred her mind, but did nothing to stop the pounding of her heart.

Orphan.

She'd always been an orphan, she saw that now. A dirty child stuck in the system, falling through the cracks as she was tossed from one money-grubbing foster family to the next. Even when she was living with Neal, for such a gloriously short, happy time, she was still an orphan.

And she would be one for her entire life. Charming and Snow were doing all they could, but that gaping hole in her heart would never be filled. Nothing could change the hurt that a child bears when she realizes she's been abandoned.

And then she'd gone and done the same thing to Henry. She'd tossed him aside into the cold hands of the very same system that had wounded her so deeply. The system that gave her innocent child to the darkest form of evil she knew.

A tear slid down her cheek as she sat on the log, her forehead almost touching her knees as she willed her traitorous emotions to stay inside of her. She opened the flask again, taking another swig of the burning liquid. Hook would be angry that she drank his entire supply, but she'd deal with the pirate later.

When she was too drunk to care anymore, preferably.

"Hello Emma."

The words were quiet but they startled Emma as though they'd been fired from a gun. She jumped, leaping to her feet and turning to face the speaker.

"Are those tears?" The teenager asked, leaning against a tree as though he didn't have a care in the world. "They don't suit you."

Emma reached for her sword, but realized with a sinking feeling that it was still back with the rest of the group. Swallowing, she looked around the brush, scanning for signs of movement.

"Oh, I'm alone." Pan said, grinning. "But where are your friends? Do they even know you went for a little moonlight stroll?"

"Of course they do."

"Oh, Emma," Pan sighed, shaking his head. "This is my island. I know your friends are fast asleep, helpless and vulnerable. Don't try and lie to me. It wouldn't be good for dear Henry."

Emma bristled, not liking the edge in Pan's voice. "If you've done anything to my son, so help me God-"

"Calm down, calm down." Pan sneered. "We haven't harmed a hair on that boy's head. Rather, we've shown him just how...rewarding...it is to be a Lost Boy."

Emma gritted her teeth. "The map isn't blank anymore."

"Oh, I figured. Otherwise you wouldn't be out here drowning your sorrows, would you? You've discovered who you truly are."

Emma fell silent, her lips pressed in a harsh line. Pan pushed himself away from the tree, stalking towards her. "Aren't you sick of being thrown away? Discarded?"

Emma narrowed her eyes, stepping back to put more distance between them. Her back hit a tree, and a trace of panic licked at her stomach as she realized how trapped she was.

"After all, only unwanted things end up here." Pan said, his voice dangerously soft.

"Watch it, you little punk," Emma snapped, trying to jerk away, but the boy pulled a knife from his waist and pointed it at her face threateningly.

"Have I spoken a lie?"

"My friends -"

"-are only here because you're their savior." Pan finished. "They'd leave you in a second if they could, and you know that I'm right, because each of them already has at some point."

Emma squirmed uncomfortably at the thought. Hook had left her to rot in a cell, Regina would be ecstatic to be finally rid of her, Gold would betray anybody to help himself, and Snow and Charming...well, their betrayal had hurt the worst.

"That's not true." Emma denied.

"There you go, lying to me again. I don't know why you try. I know what you said to get that map to reveal itself, as well as you do." A strange light danced in Pan's eyes as he lifted the cold metal of his knife to Emma's neck. "But let me hear you say it."

Emma flinched at the blade's presence. "Orphan." she spat. "I'm an orphan."

"There it is!" Pan crowed, smiling widely. "An orphan. Oh, don't give me that look Emma, we're all orphans here. As am I, as are the Lost Boys, as is your Henry..." His gaze bored into hers uncomfortably. "We're the same."

Emma shook her head, aware that the weapon's pressure at her throat had not eased. "We are not the same."

"Neglected, deserted, forsaken...we're damaged goods with no hope for redemption."

"Speak for yourself."

Pan looked as though he was about to fire back a retort, but then a smirk spread across his lips. "You know, you are right about one thing."

"What's that?"

"You aren't unwanted." The unrelenting knife remained at her neck, but with his left hand, Pan stroked the side of her face gently, smoothing an unruly blonde strand back behind her ear. "I want you."

Emma's eyes widened with surprise and she shoved him away instinctively, momentarily winding him as the knife fell to the ground. "There's that fire I love so much." he proclaimed, straightening himself up again.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Emma swore, maneuvering away from the tree so she couldn't be pinned again. "You, you are a freaky little boy with -"

"A boy?" Pan asked sarcastically, spreading his arms dramatically. "I'm five hundred years old."

"But you-"

"Never grow old? Exactly. Do you know how nice it is to stay a teenager forever? To never wrinkle or grow stiff? Emma, I am seventeen and at the peak of my youth. Forever. Of course, when my shadow travels to realms of aging, I grow a little older, but in five hundred years I've gone from fourteen to seventeen. And do you know what I've learned in my five hundred years alive?"

"What?" Emma asked distrustingly.

Pan opened the bottle of fairy dust at his neck and breathed it in deeply, his feet rising off the dirt. "It's a lot easier to be an orphan when you have someone to be alone with."

Before she could answer, noises came from the woods.

"Emma! Where are you?" Snow's thin voice called from far away.

"Where is my damned rum, Swan?" Hook called, his voice closer than the others. Everyone was awake.

Pan smiled down at her. "Go back with them and follow the map. See where it leads you. Oh, and Emma?"

Emma raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"Play by my rules, or Henry will suffer."

Emma's hands curled into fists at her sides. "I don't know what you want with my son-"

Pan threw his head back and laughed, as Hook crashed through the brush into view.

"I don't want anything with Henry. I have plenty of Lost Boys." His green eyes gazed down at her, ignoring the pirate completely. "What I want is my Lost Girl."

With that, the boy flew away, disappearing quickly into the darkness. Emma exhaled deeply, sinking back to the ground.

"What the bloody hell was all that about?" Hook asked, snatching back his flask.