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.

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"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.

Just stop.

Please?

"Like she was ever mine to keep."