I do not own Once Upon a Time. So we are done with Gold's recruits, we are on to the last three people.
Neal Cassidy said he was an orphan. He tended to gloss over his family history. There wasn't much good that he could say anyway. His parents were in a happy marriage since Neal was born. He wasn't the reason, he had been told them countless times. His father didn't make the right choices or the right friends, if one could call them friends.
Then when Neal was about six, his mother disappeared one night. There was a rumor around town that she found a better man and left with him. She never came looking for Neal. A tiny part of him wanted to leave with his mother, but the bigger part, the child part, just want his family back together. But she never came home, even when Neal wished on every star.
It was just Neal and his father then and shockingly they formed a tight bond. He wasn't a bad father, just a flawed person. He got his act together and began to make a decent living for his son. His job was a manager at a pawn shop.
Slowly Neal's father began to gain influence and power, both from his boss and from the regulars at the shop. It was before when his father was involved with dangerous people, now they got involved with him. Neal was never sure how it happened but one day he came home from school and his father was a completely different person.
He made deals, ones that really only he came out on top. He became evil but a necessary evil in town.
Neal hated every minute of it and again wished on a star that life could go back to normal. When wishing didn't work, he tried pleading with his father. And Neal Cassidy made a deal with his father, they were going to leave town and start a new life.
Fourteen year old Neal sat at a train station the next day and waited. And waited. And waited. His father never came. So he made the grown up decision and bought a ticket to the further city the rail offered.
His father chose his influence over his own son. He had seen it in his eyes that he wasn't good enough.
Neal lived on the streets for a few months before a kind family took him in. He glossed over his parents, he just said they were dead. He also lied about is age so he could start working and providing for himself.
Every day as he walked to work, he wondered about his mother, where she was, if he was going to randomly run into her on the streets, if they would know each other. No such luck.
Neal tried to lead a clean life, he did have a few slip ups. There was one slip up he did not regret, the one with the car and her. And the one thing Neal wanted in life.
Reviews?
After these last three, there's a tad more before the Monday morning where everyone meets up.