Hello all! This is my first fanfiction ever, so please try and refrain from chasing me off this website with torches and pitchforks. Now, be forewarned. In this chapter I give a major twist to a person which will seem incredibly out of character. However, there is an explanation for that at the bottom of the page. Please at least try and read it before leaving this fic in huff, probably muttering about idiot authors and their obscene ideas. Okay I guess it's time that I give that ever-so-present disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever owned Once Upon A Time or any of its characters. If I did, I wouldn't be on this website annoying you people. In fact, just consider this a blanket disclaimer for the entire story. If I miraculously end up buying Once before this story ends, I'll let you all know when I rub it in your faces.

Of Broken Families and Shattered Souls

Chapter One: In Which The Orderlies At The Asylum Are Knocked Out Several Times, Endure Multiple Prisoner Escapes, And Have An All-Around Bad Day

Only a fool entered Dark Hollow on a moonless night. Technically, only a fool entered Dark Hollow period. But this fact was especially true on the nights with no moon. Anyone with good sense and a will to live avoided the place as if it were death itself.

And as the cloaked figure slowly made his way through the cave system, he grimly wondered which he was lacking.

The reasoning behind the general avoidance of the place was actually quite simple. Neverland's many shadows had taken up residence in its darkness, and wouldn't hesitate to kill any and all trespassers. Normally, these shades were free to roam Neverland. But with no moon, there was no light to cast a shadow. And so, on these darkest of nights, every shadow on the island was confined to Dark Hollow.

Including Pan's.

And this was precisely what the intruder was counting on.

It was the only time that he could ensure the location of the shade. The only time he could trap it as easily as it had trapped him. It was for this reason that he risked everything (not that he had much in the first place) to venture forth into the forbidden, armed with nothing but hope and a coconut.

And as the screams of the shadows' tortured souls grew closer, it was this painful hope that kept him going. Carefully, he removed the carved lid off of the cage he had built and surveyed the spectors that surrounded him. He could not risk choosing the wrong one. Only Pan's would fit his purposes. It was the only one powerful enough to free him.

There. Reaching towards him. Ready to destroy him further.

It would never get the chance.

Because the moment the shadow got close to the intruder, a candle flickered to life in the coconut he held. It's brilliant flames reached out and wrapped around the specter, trapping it with its warmth. With a shriek, the shadow was dragged down into the tiny cage, and the boy quickly replaced the lid.

The screams stopped. The chill lifted.

And for the first time in a long time, Baelfire smiled.

Storybrooke Mental Asylum was a lonely, forgotten place. Very few were aware of its existence, and even fewer visited. In fact, the only visitor of any regularity was the mayor herself. Anyone who had found themselves unfortunate enough to be confined there was quickly forgotten, if they had ever been remembered in the first place. As a result, most of the patients spent their days in the dark, dreary cells that they called home.

In one such cell there sat a boy. A dark haired, dark eyed boy who had long ago lost track of how long he had been imprisoned. He didn't remember much from before the cell, and what little he did was jumbled and confused.

Until now.

Now, a blindingly bright light had pulsed through the dour cell, burning its way through the fog in his mind.

And Baelfire remembered.

The Ogres War. A cursed dagger. A bean that should have meant hope, but had only given him betrayal. The Darlings. A shadow. Hook. The Lost Boys. Pan. Escape. A curse.

Baelfire remembered it all, and it was quickly overwhelming him. Hundreds of years of pain, betrayal, running, all unlocked and unleashed and threatening to drown him. But slowly, he managed to fight back the wave of memories. They could wait until he figured out what had happened. For now, he needed to focus.

Someone had broken the curse. That much was obvious. That didn't explain where he was, or when he was, or even what realm they were in (a place where there are no happy endings isn't exactly descriptive, despite what the Evil Queen thought.) However, his last question was easily answered when he realized that a scan of his surroundings revealed no magic in the area. He was back in the Land Without Magic.

Okay. He could work with that. First, however, he needed to get out of this cage. The door was locked from the outside, and even if there was a keyhole where he could access it, he had nothing to pick it with. He couldn't exactly wait to be let out, as there was no guarantee that would ever happen. From what little he knew of the Queen, he could tell that any guards she had would never dare cross her, let alone free prisoners because a curse had broken. No, he had to free himself. Quickly, Baelfire formed a plan.

It wasn't the best plan he had ever had. It wasn't even necessarily a good plan. But it was a plan, and he had escaped worse places with less in the past.

Nurse Mildred Ratched was not having a good day. For one thing, someone had had the audacity to drug her, and proceeded to free a patient in the process. And it hadn't been just any patient. It had been her. The amnesiac resident that had so interested the mayor. Nurse Ratched had barely begun to search for the girl when the curse broke, causing immeasurable chaos in the once peaceful town. And now, to top it all off, one of the patients was acting up.

It wasn't exactly a surprise that it had been this patient causing the disturbance. Over the years he had committed many outbursts, and this one was no different to all the others. The young boy had been admitted to the asylum due to a diagnosis of early-onset schizophrenia with self-harming tendencies—or at least that was what her cursed memories had stated. Now that the curse had been broken, she knew that she really had no idea why he was here. Perhaps he had upset the Queen in his past life. Perhaps his parents had crossed the wrong person, and this was the revenge. Or perhaps he just truly was crazy.

Either way, it didn't really matter. She had a job to do, and no curse was going to stop her from doing it, no matter how dark it may be. The way the boy had gotten here made no difference. He was here now, and, crazy or not, here he was going to stay.

So, with this thought in mind, she prepared a sedative and made her way to the boy's (what was his name again? She probably should have learnt it by now) cell. This, at least, was the same. She would open the door, utter a few calming words (or what was supposed to be calming words, but actually had quite the opposite effect in her harsh, no-nonsense tone), and jam the syringe into the child's arm, effectively subduing him.

Or at least, it should have gone that way. Instead, the moment she opened the door the unintelligible sounds the boy had been emitting ceased, and she found herself staring into decidedly not crazy eyes.

Baelfire knew that he had to leave tonight. Pan would know, of course, that his shadow had disappeared. He would know that it had been stolen. And, more importantly, he would know that the only person on the island with enough audacity to do such a thing was Baelfire.

After all, Baelfire was the only one who repeatedly defied him. The Lost Boys were far too brainwashed to even think about disobeying their leader. Tinkerbell had only barely managed to barter an alliance with Pan, and would never dare risk it, and even if the Jolly Roger was still in Neverland, its crew had long ago become Pan's errand boys in exchange for the promise of one day earning their freedom (a deal that had recently been fulfilled when Pan had become bored of the pirates' presence.) Everyone had surrendered to Peter Pan's tyranny. Everyone except Bae.

And now that Baelfire finally had the means of escape, he couldn't hesitate to use it. If he did, Pan would catch him, and he would never leave this godforsaken island.

Bae would sooner die than surrender to such a fate.

Even now, he could hear the Lost Boys' cacophony. They would be hunting soon. Hunting for him. Pan was not pleased, and would do everything in his power to ensure that Baelfire lost this game. But he didn't know that the deck was already stacked in Bae's favor. He had the shadow, a head start, a sheer desperation on his side. Moreover, he had a ensured Pan could never follow him. The binds on the coconut prevented the shadow from ever returning to his destination, and Baelfire had already stolen the one remaining means Pan had to travel the realms. Pixie dust. The last of the pixie dust.

He may not have much of a plan, but it would work. It had to work. He would go to the highest point of the island, release the shadow from its cage, and use it to escape this wretched island. He would be finally be free. He needed to be free. With this thought on his mind, he steeled his determination and began to stalk through the forest.

Peter Pan should have known better than to play a game against such a desperate soul.

Frankly, Baelfire hadn't thought that getting the door open would be so easy. After all, this was only plan A, and surely the nurse (warden) would at least have some hesitation to come near a prisoner so soon after the curse broke. But apparently, she had no such disinclination, and entered the cell the exact same way she had a thousand times before over the past thirty-odd years.

What happened next, however, was not at all similar to past events. Whenever the curse-induced madness had set in the unflappable Nurse Ratched would encounter a delirious, hysterical boy insistent that the shadows would take him away to hell. (And didn't that particular symptom burn of irony now that his memories were back.) Now, however, she entered his "room" (cagecellprison) to meet a controlled, determined young boy absolutely hell-bent on escape.

Honestly, Bae wasn't even going to try and reason with her. It would just be a waste of both their time. Instead, the moment she opened the door he calmly slipped past her and began to make his way towards the exit. She could have let him go. She could have allowed the blatantly sane individual to walk out of the asylum he was only placed in due to a curse cast by a self-proclaimed Evil Queen whose mental state was sketchy at best. (How many well-adjusted individuals dragged several kingdoms worth of people to another realm because of their personal vendettas?)

Instead, Ratched decided to grab his arm and attempt to yank him back in his prison. "Really?" Baelfire looked at her askance. "You and I both know I'm not crazy."

Rather than heed his statements, she continued her increasingly fruitless attempts to confine him. Eventually, she gave up and snapped at the large, sullen male silently observing from the corner. "Help me with him!" At her bidding, the long-haired man abandoned his mop and seized Baelfire from behind.

This was a mistake.

The moment Bae felt himself being grabbed he snapped his head backward, slamming it into the stranger's nose and causing the man to release him. Not wasting a moment in his assault, he pivoted his torso and crashed his elbow into his opponent's face. As the man stumbled backwards, the apparently scrappy Nurse Ratched entered the fray. Baelfire easily caught her arm before she could claw him, and quickly pinned it against the wall.

Then, he froze.

"No."

Because there was an all too familiar aura washing towards him. Something that tinged of danger and madness and possibility. Something that's sickly sweet essence crawled under your skin and whispered promises of anything, of everything, but all for a price.

Something that felt like magic.

Noticing his inner turmoil, Ratched swung up her free arm in an attempt to catch him off guard. Bae, managing to deflect her attempt, quickly snatched away the syringe and pushed it into her own arm, administering the sedative as the first tendrils of purple fog began to leak into the hall. Ignoring the smoke, he quickly moved towards the recovering male and rammed his knee into the the individual's gut. Before he could retaliate, Bae grabbed the man's head and slammed it down on his knee just as the hall flooded with the vibrant haze. With magic.

By the time the fog was cleared, both of the orderlies were out cold and Baelfire had already resumed his march towards the exit. But his thoughts weren't on escape. No, he was much more preoccupied with the fact that someone had brought magic to the Land Without Magic.

This warranted further investigation. He snagged a coat from the rack next to the desk and swung it on. He'd return it once he was able to (and once he was sure that he wouldn't be locked up again.) It was too big and reeked of mothballs but at least it somewhat covered up the baggy shirt and loose sweatpants the asylum had provided him with.

He finally reached a problem at the door. (While unpleasant, the fight with the staff hadn't necessarily been a problem. They would not have any damage past a few aches and bruises and before enacting his plan he had known he would be able to handle any altercation that may take place.)The door was electronic, the kind that required a specific code to open. And Baelfire had no idea what the code may be.

Experimentally, he flexed his fingers. It would be so much easier to not even try and use it. He could leave it in the past, with the old realms and the nightmares and fighting.

But then he would never get this door open. The orderlies would wake up, only this time they'd be cautious around him. They'd be careful not to give him any openings in the future. His escape attempt would die, and with it his freedom.

With a sigh, Baelfire waved his arm in an arc in front of him, feeling the familiar flood of energy pass through his arm.

The door swung open.

Baelfire exited his prison of the past thirty years. He needed answers, and he wouldn't stop searching until he found them.

He shouldn't be having second thoughts.

This plan had been years, centuries, in the making, and there shouldn't be a single doubt in his mind.

But there was.

It wasn't escape itself causing the trouble in Bae's mind. That was actually the one point he was firm on. He would escape this thrice bedamned island, and he would do it now. It was rather the destination that was causing him turmoil.

He had his reasons for choosing it, of course. He had spent months debating it, ever since leaving had become a real possibility. Time had moved on in the other realms. Sand passed through the hourglass, the hands of the clock spun, and people grew, withered, and died. More importantly, they wouldn't be there anymore. They would have been nothing but a row of gravestones for years now. They would have lived long, happy lives together, growing old and dying. The Darlings would be gone.

The Land Without Magic had been empty before he met them, and it would be empty now that they were gone. He had only ever wanted to go to save his father, and when he was alone there it was nothing but a strange, foreign place filled with people that knew nothing of him and didn't care to. No one had wanted him. No one except the Darlings.

He couldn't go back there and pretend like nothing had happened. He couldn't go back to a realm full of people that couldn't even begin to understand what had happened because magic wasn't real. And so he had chosen somewhere else. He had set his destination for a realm with magic. He'd still be alone there, but at least he wouldn't have to pretend that his entire life was nothing but an impossible, fictitious story. Nothing but a fairytale.

Then why was he having doubts? It was far too late to change his plan. His path was set, and there wasn't enough time to alter it (no time at all, not with Pan and his hounds getting closer by the second.) He quickly pushed aside his fears. He couldn't risk getting caught just because of a few apprehensive thoughts. Carefully, he unwound the thread binding the two halves of his trap together. Then, he pulled off the jagged lid of the coconut.

The shadow sprang from the small space, desperately trying to escape the deceptively innocent candle still flickering from within. It wouldn't get the chance. The instant the shade emerged Baelfire threw out his hand, sending forth a golden pulse of magic to bind it in place. The specter's eerie, glowing eyes fixated on him, an unspoken promise of revenge in its gaze.

It was too late for that. The shadow was already bound to obey him.

"You know what to do," Bae stated unflinchingly. "Take me to the Enchanted Forest."

Reluctantly, the shadow reached out and took the former Lost Boy's hand. As an icy chill shot down his arm, Baelfire felt himself get lifted off the ground.

And so the shadow and its passenger flew away. They flew away from the Lost Boys, away from Pan. Away from Neverland.

Baelfire never once looked back.

Okay so I guess this is explanation time. You're probably wondering, "Why the heck does Baelfire have magic?" The concept for this fic was born when I wondered, what if Baelfire was naturally talented with magic? We know it's possible, because of characters like Emma, Elsa, Zelena, and Ingrid who discovered their magic from random, usually sparkly outbursts that generally meant that they had magic whether they wanted it or not. It made me so curious as to how Baelfire would have dealt with it happening to him, as he had severe aversion to magic, and even went so far as to describe Neverland as "a land cursed with magic." This spun off into a monster of an idea that kind of took on a life of its own. Eventually, I decided to finally write it all down in an attempt to simultaneously improve my writing and finally get this idea out of my head. If you haven't run off screaming yet, there's more background information and explanations in my Bio for those interested.