I have reached demi-god status! Two people have done fanart on my fic:
Desklazy on tumblr and Cherrymizu on Instagram! I-I-I-I got so many feels!
p/BmgkPXrn3si/?taken-by=cherrymizu
tagged/papers-and-sleuthers
Also, this is my longest chapter to date at 23 pages and +9000 words, beating my record from chapter 13!
-,-,-,-,-,-,-
"Speak up, kid." Sydney yelled through the phone.
Wendy pressed the diner phone as close to her face as she could. Her cell phone had died as soon as she left the library, and despite Storybrooke's vintage look, it did not have payphones around town, thus she had to rely on Granny's charity to complete the next step of her mission.
"I asked if you kept any notes on a story you worked on?" Wendy said as loudly as she could without attracting attention.
"Depends on the story. Which one you looking for?"
Though she trusted Sydney's ability to keep silence, she didn't want to get him too involved in case this all went south. He'd been damaged enough because of her.
"One from about…twenty years ago?"
She pulled the phone away from her ear when Glass burst out laughing.
"You want me to find notes from a story from two decades ago? What the hell have you gotten into now?"
"Research purposes." Wendy stated vaguely.
Sydney chuckled again. "I don't have a memory that far back, kid. Is Pan involved in this research of yours?"
"No." Wendy huffed. "This is all me."
"Heh, that's unusual."
It was on the tip of her tongue to remind her boss that every case she had worked on had started off as a solo project before Pan stuck his head into it. However, she needed to stay focused on Tink and push her frustrating counterpart into the furthest part of her mind.
They shared a few more words before Wendy hung up with a heavy sigh. A dead end. She leaned against the counter and put an strike across Glass's name.
"Everything work out?" Granny inquired from across the counter.
"Not really." Wendy replied, pulling her bag to her shoulder.
Granny leaned in closer. "Are you working on a new story?"
Wendy glanced behind her to see a few other diner patrons who were hungry for new news to feed their gossip groups until.
"N-no." Wendy concluded. "Just…needed to make a phone call."
"Hmm, right." Granny hummed, unconvinced. "So you weren't just changing details with Pan?"
"Poppycock." Wendy muttered under her breath, easing out from behind the counter and leaving the friendly diner before Pan could be mentioned again.
-,-,-,-,-
"That's him." Graham pointed at a grainy photo on the police station wall. The man in question a curly mustache that reminded Wendy of Clark Gable.
"The sheriff before you." Wendy nodded.
"Yep, old Holmes. Three terms unopposed." Graham said before taking a bite out of his sandwich. It was his lunchbreak and he was working through it to get the paper work on Jekyll out before the end of the day. Wendy felt guilty about taking away the only free time he'd had, but he really didn't seem to mind.
"Where is he now, exactly?" Wendy inquired. She hadn't told Graham why she was looking for the ex-sheriff, and hopefully he wouldn't be too concerned. It was best she kept her mission for Tink's origins from as many people as possible.
"In the cemetery now." Graham answered. "He passed away a few years ago."
"Shit."
Graham coughed, preventing his last bite of sandwich from going down the wrong pipe. "Pardon?"
"No, no sorry." Wendy sighed. "I just…really wanted to meet him."
Graham looked the journalist over suspiciously, but had too much going on to worry about her sleuthing.
"Just one question: is Pan involved in…whatever you're doing?"
"No." Wendy replied, annoyed.
"Alright." Graham shrugged, turning back to the computer. "That means one less crisis this week."
Wendy chuckled and took Graham's dismissal has her cue to leave.
She crossed off his name from her book and hoped that her visit to the convent would be more successful.
-,-,-,-,-
The nunnery seemed much friendlier than the ones back in London, brighter with the colorful lights of the stained-glass windows bouncing off the.
Yet there was this air of dread around Wendy, like the walls were ready to push in and crush her to dust. She wondered if this was what Tink had felt during her time here, or if her own newfound claustrophobia was arising once more.
The apprehension clung to her bones as she followed one of the nuns to Mother Superior's office. From the brief moment Wendy had laid eyes on the woman in blue, Wendy was more than certain that she wasn't very nice. Anyone who could make someone like Tink La'Belle cry was certainly a monster.
The nun turned to her when she paused, giving her as small smile that indicated for her to do the same. She knocked on the door and a muffled response allowed the nun to enter.
"Mother Superior," the nun greeted. "A young lady is here to see you."
"Yes, yes let her in." she spoke, sounding annoyed but willing.
The younger nun turned to Wendy with an apologetic smile and stepped aside to allow her entrance. Wendy breathed out nervously, watching as the door closed behind her, leaving her with a possible enemy.
"What is it?" the mother sighed impatiently, her head lifting from the paperwork she was scribbling on. "Oh, you again." She said with a gross whine. "You didn't bring that hooligan with you, did you?"
A definite enemy, then.
Wendy cleared her throat, as well as clearing any rude comment that was threatening to come up.
"No, it's just me. My name is Wendy Darling. We didn't get the chance to introduce ourselves after you upset my friend." Wendy snarked. It would seem she didn't clear everything away.
Mother Superior's eyes bowed into a hard glare. "What do you want?"
"I want to know about what you might have seen the night Tink La'Belle was left on the convent doorsteps." Wendy stated confidently, keeping eye contact with the spiteful nun.
A flash of blankness ran over the nun's soft features before they hardened again.
"Why on earth ado you want to know any of that?"
"For the truth." Wendy said. "There's something else to this simple abandonment story and I intend to find out just what it is."
"And splay it all over your pathetic paper?" Superior snipped.
"The only person who will ever know about any of this is Tink." Wendy clarified. God forbid if anything got back to Pan.
The nun's face paled slightly, and Wendy could see the wheels spinning frantically behind her eyes. With a blink, she was back to her passive, professional facade.
"I told the police years ago everything I knew and saw." She stated, looking back down at the paperwork. It was the way the pen shook in her hand that gave Wendy the indication to push forward.
"I know you were young at the time," Wendy pressed on more softly. "But if you remember anything—a mysterious person wondering around, a sound, someone coming by later—it would help—"
"I have nothing left to say!" Superior shouted, her façade dropping and crumbling into shards before Wendy's eyes. "Now leave, or I'll call the police!"
"Fine!" Wendy yelled back, her own patience slipping away. "Then you can explain to them why you keep harassing Tink to the point where she's considering getting a restraining order against you!"
The rage vanished instantly from the Mother's face, a wave of despair washing over her instead.
"She said that?" she inquired, her voice wretched.
For a brief moment Wendy almost felt pity for the nun. It would appear that despite her harassment towards Tink, there was a part of her that generally cared for her.
Then she recalled Felix holding her sobbing friend and the rage resurfaced.
"It was indicated." Wendy replied simply. "Maybe, when I tell her the truth about her abandonment, I can mention that you're the reason I found it and that you helped me."
For a moment Wendy thought she had her. The head nun seemed to contemplate what she was saying, mulling it over to an accepting extent.
Then, she disappointed Wendy by bending over her paperwork once again.
"As I said, I have nothing to say that I didn't report to the police all those years ago." She stated more mechanically. "Now please, excuse yourself."
Wendy actually twitched. Really, the nerve of this woman! She was sly, Wendy would pay her that compliment. She thought of a way she could make her say more. She could reveal what Tink told her, about why she had refused to return to the convent.
That place was never a home.
But as Wendy mulled it over (and as the words hung on the very tip of her tongue), she decided against it. That was something Pan would do, and do with pleasure if she had to guess. Pan wasn't here, she didn't have to handle things his way.
She was Wendy Darling, and she was clean.
"If you happen to remember anything," Wendy said with sarcastic politeness. "Just call the paper and let me know."
The head nun flinched but did not answer, and Wendy pressed no more.
Stomping out of the convent, she slashed Mother Superior's name off her list and hummed when she saw her next—and last source.
Mr. Gold.
-,-,-,-,-
Mr. Gold looked up from his tedious paperwork when the door opened, cursing that someone would wonder in this close to lunch time. He had planned to close shop early so that he could visit Belle in the hospital as he had done since her rescue. His agitation stilled some when he saw that it was Wendy Darling, Belle's savior.
His savior.
"Mr. Gold," she greeted, an air nervousness in her voice. "May I talk to you for a moment?"
"Miss Darling," Mr. Gold returned, smiling whole-heartedly rather than with his usual sarcasm. "Please, come in. Would you follow me to the back?"
Wendy nodded, glad for the privacy. The shop itself reminded Belle of her grandmother's house: a fire hazard with its antiques but strangely inviting. It had the stale smell of dust just overpowered enough by the smell of strongly brewed tea.
Mr. Gold guested to a small, rumpled cot for her to sit, and in a moment he pulled a whistling teapot from a small hotplate.
"Milk, sugar?" Mr. Gold inquired as he set out an additional teacup next to his own.
"Just a dab, if you please." She answered, pulling out her notebook.
He handed her a cup and took a seat in a rough desk chair across from her. Wendy noticed that his own teacup had a chip in the rim.
"Belle's doing." He indicated when he caught her gaze. "The first time she entered my shop, I shocked her as she was admiring a stack of books. I don't know why, but I fell for her rather quickly after that."
Wendy smiled at the fleeting love story. Five minutes in his shop, Mr. Gold had revealed more about himself than Pan had in the month and a half she'd known him.
"However, I'm sure you didn't come here to hear me drawl on about my past. What can I do for you, Miss Darling?"
Wendy took a sip of her tea before she answered (it was a bit too strong for her liking but still much better than the bagged stuff she'd had to sip on during her stay in Storybrooke).
"Actually, it's your past I'm inquiring about." Wendy stated, pulling out her cellphone for the pictures she took in the library.
Mr. Gold's calculated expression bowed into calm curiosity. "Is this about Pan?"
Wendy felt she would have to start introducing herself with "Hi, may we talk, and no this is not about Peter flipping Pan," for now on.
"No, it's about a mutual friend of ours, Tink La'Bell." Wendy showed him the grainy picture of the cross she took in the library. "I know it's a long shot, but I was curious if the police asked you about the cross she had with her. I would have brought it with me but…"
Mr. Gold peaked over the top of her cellphone. "But this is a silent angel mission for you?"
"It is." Wendy confided. "I'd just like to help her find some kind of closure. Do you have any idea if someone around here had one like it, or maybe if they got it from here?"
There was a comment in his smile that Wendy wanted to hear, however his attention returned to her cellphone a moment more before he handed it back to her.
"I recall Miss La'Bell's abandonment quite well," Mr. Gold reminisced. "Sheriff Holmes came to my shop the day after the incident to ask me similar questions like the ones you're asking me."
Wendy frowned, sensing another dead end.
"Let me guess, there was nothing you could provide him."
"You're quick to reach the worst conclusion, Miss Darling." Mr. Gold teased before turning to a nearby shelf. "I cataloged the item during the 24-hours it was in my possession so that I could do extensive research to find its origins. Thusly, I came to a few conclusions to satisfy the sheriff."
"Could you share those conclusions with me?" Wendy asked hopefully.
"Would you like the answers I gave to the sheriff or the information I found afterwards?"
Wendy's heart pounded with anticipation. This was the best, and so far only, lead she'd gotten and it would seem it could lead her to all the answers she was striving for.
"In order, please."
Mr. Gold pulled out a small card and low and behold there was a picture of Tink's half-cross attached to it.
"I discovered that the cross was Italian-made, and 30% silver." Mr. Gold relayed.
"Italian-made? Does that mean that it didn't come from Storybrooke?"
"Perhaps. Usually when something that wasn't made here on the mainland cycles about, it comes through my shop. Not to mention the second half of the cross was never found, so Miss La'Belle was definitely brought here from outside of Storybrooke."
Wendy nodded, a dead-end seemingly upon her.
"At least, that's the information I gave the authorities."
Wendy breathed in. He knew something no one else did. Another secret keeper, too much like Pan.
Although, Pan's secrets stemmed were more personal, while Mr. Gold's more than likely stemmed farther. He had stakes in Storybrooke, as Pan and several others had warned her. More than likely anything he was about to tell her could land him in legal trouble. Then again, this was all off the record. What the police didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
"What else did you discover?"
Mr. Gold ran the tip of his tongue over his lip. "A great deal of secrets, all of which stem back to the very place Miss La'Bell was dropped off at."
"With all due respect Mr. Gold, I get enough of the vague allusions from Pan. Could we be more direct with each other?"
Mr. Gold smiled approvingly. "In all honesty, there are a few details I can't reveal."
"For legal reasons?" Wendy sighed. "I promise you, this all off-record."
"For business-related reasons, Miss Darling." Mr. Gold corrected. "I made a deal with Miss La'Bell's abdicator."
Wendy paused, the meaning of his words sinking deep into the liner of her brain, infuriating and intriguing her all at once.
"You know who did it, who abandoned Tink?"
"I do." Mr. Gold stated, his tone leveling when he saw Wendy's gaze darken.
"You've known all this time and you told no one? The authorities, Tink? She has the right to know! You should have told her!"
Mr. Gold barely flinched when she yelled at him. "You're right." He agreed.
"Then why? What kind of deal did you make with her parents that would prevent you from giving her the information she deserved?"
Mr. Gold looked down at his ring, the strange blue stone reminding Wendy so much of Belle's eyes.
"As I said, I can't reveal the details of the deal I made."
"Even to the person it affected most?" Belle barked, rage boiling inside her. Tink had a hole in her heart because of her parents, a hole Gold could have filled long ago. Instead he had used Tink's pain as a bargaining chip against the people who had caused her so much pain. He used people to put himself further on top.
Just like Pan.
Just like his brother.
"I didn't see it before." Wendy muttered, shaking her head. "I didn't see the connection, the part of you that he wanted to keep buried." She lifted her head and met Mr. Gold dead in the eyes. The slight flinch he let off from the heat of her gaze only dulled her rage slightly.
Very slightly.
"I see it now. You're both cut from the same cloth. You're both horrible, selfish people"
Mr. Gold surveyed the young journalist, startled by her fire yet excited to feel the licks of her flames. Despite what Pan thought, Gold had indeed been keeping tabs on his much younger brother on and off since Belle's disappearance. He knew about his shenanigans he pulled for the sake of journalism, about the lives he'd helped destroy. About the battles with his demons and recklessness and close calls. He even knew about Jekyll and August and all the bouts of filth in-between.
And he knew about the impact the young woman before him was having on him. He had seen it in the way he had carried himself in the last few months. Even when he was bruised and cut up from his recent horrors, there was still some sort of light over him, and Wendy Darling was always by his side to cast it.
He hadn't seen him so alive since…well, Belle.
"No, Miss Darling." Mr. Gold finally spoke. "You're quite wrong on that note."
"I doubt it." Wendy hissed, grabbing her purse and standing.
"Where are you going?"
"To find Tink and tell her everything you've told me!" Wendy barked. "It'll hurt her, but she had a right to know."
"That won't be necessary, Miss Darling." Mr. Gold sighed, reaching under the counter and pulling out a small box.
"So you're going to tell me who they are?"
"No, I can't do that." Gold stated simply, pulling a small brass key from the box. "But perhaps, Mother Superior can."
"I've already talked to her—"
"You spoke to her, but you didn't get the truth, I'm sure."
"What do you…"
Mr. Gold reached out for her hand and curled the ancient key into her palm.
"Go back to the convent and search her office. You'll find all you need to know."
"But…"
"I can't say anymore." Mr. Gold stated firmly, turning to retreat into the back room. "I must ask you to be off now, Miss Darling."
Wendy groaned. This mysterious-town cliché had gotten old fast.
"What if she won't talk to me?"
"Trust me, Miss Darling, once you find what you're looking for, she'll be singing like a bird."
Wendy glared at him as she stuffed the key into her pocket.
"I barely trust Pan, why would I trust you?"
"Because you don't have a choice. You're getting desperate, and one thing I can recognize is a desperate soul."
"I am far from desperate, Mr. Gold." Wendy commented, turning on her heel. If he thought he could manipulate her with mixed metaphors than he would be sorely disappointed.
Pan couldn't, and neither could his much older, much calmer brother.
But as she stormed out of his shop and headed back to the convent, she did hope whatever Gold wanted her to find would lead to the end of her current case. She wasn't desperate, but she didn't have a single straw left to grasp.
-,-,-,-,-
It sickened Wendy to think so, but she wished she had called Pan to join her—at least on this part of her mission.
Judging by their experience with August Booth and his vicious feathered pet, Pan was much more knowledgeable in these sorts of misadventures.
And as the minutes ticked until it was quite enough for Wendy to sneak back into the convent, she wished more than ever that he was here with her. Yelling or cursing at her, soothing and reassuring her that she had nothing to worry about. Taking the blunt of their horrors and fears from her.
It sickened her to have become so dependent on someone like Pan, who frustrated, hurt, and comforted her all at once.
God she needed therapy.
Finally, the young nun from earlier left the convent, locking the doors behind her as she whistled her way to the living quarters just behind the garden. Wendy scurried to the door, searching for a key under the worn map and in the bushes near the door. Though a quick look around the grounds indicated that there were no cameras around to worry about, there was still the grinding fear of being caught that she had yet to shake during her time as a journalist.
Pan would bite her head off if he were here.
Wendy rolled her eyes and searched for a window. She'd probably go straight to Hell for breaking into a nunnery, but she would risk damnation later if Tink received some kind of peace.
She shoved her hands in her pockets to keep them warm, her knuckles grazing the key Mr. Gold had bestowed upon her earlier. She had no idea what it would open, or even if what it revealed would do anything for her current case, but she had a hunch that Mr. Gold hadn't given it to her just to get her out of his shop.
A thought came to her as she examined the key: it was old, much like the door leading into the convent. She turned back to the door and tested her hunch, her stomach flipping with joy as the key turned easily in the door lock. She pushed the old door opened, the aging squeak barely startling her. With a shaky breath she snuck into the nunnery and closed the door carefully behind her.
The walk to the head nun's office felt shorter, as if time were working with her to ensure that she didn't get caught before she found what she was looking for.
Her door was locked, as it should be during the night. Yet Wendy could feel the doorknob buzzing with all the secrets inside the quaint office. Carefully, Wendy inserted the key into the ancient key hole and the door opened with ease. Mr. Gold have given her a skeleton key. Either he was indeed a persistent ally, or a misleading enemy.
Wendy turned on the light and wondered where to go from there. The key couldn't possibly unlocked everything in the room, could it? There was only one way to find out, and Wendy nervously began searching.
She started with the cluttered shelves, searching for anything that screamed TINK. Mostly she found old religious texts and old financial records that were probably too important to be boxed up in an abandoned library for snoops like her to find.
This was becoming frustrating. What was she even supposed to be looking for? Every mystery book and movie she had consumed often indicated that this part was easy, that the answer to her problems would jump out in front of her. It was an overused but very convenient plot device.
She couldn't have helped but think that Pan would have found it by now.
As she mused on the thought, her cellphone buzzed against her hip. She quickly grabbed it to put it on silent and stared at the unknown name in her inbox.
Find what you're looking for yet?
Wendy's jaw slacked. Pan? She texted back.
No Larry King who do you think?
"How did you get my number?" she muttered aloud before texting the same question.
Not important. Have you found what you were looking for?
Wendy wanted to argue on the breach of her security, but decided that if he was curious about her mystery hunt, maybe he could give her a pointer or two.
Not yet. I'm in Superior's office looking for clues.
You broke in? Now THAT'S my girl!
Wendy rolled her eyes. Don't call me that.
I'm coming over. This is too adorable to miss.
"No!" Wendy exclaimed, tensing at the echo of her own voice before typing again.
Don't. This is stressful enough!
She waited for a response, but none followed. She cursed Pan and herself. She was going to get caught and more than likely thrown into a cell with him!
She had to make a quick decision before he showed up. She could either ditch her mission altogether and run, or she could push through just long enough for a miracle to happen.
Her phone buzzed once more and she pounced on it before the buzz finished.
Check the drawers. There's always something in the drawers.
"No bloody duh." Wendy spat at Pan's text before rushing to the head nun's desk. Like the doors, the locks were ancient, leaving Wendy to wonder if the desk had been part of the property from the beginning.
The contents of it were scarce, full of old receipts, office supplies and little toys no doubt confiscated from unruly children.
Then there was something that stood out: a wad of blue silky cloth. It was too much of a coincidence for Wendy to pass up. She picked up the mass and instantly felt the added weight of whatever was wrapped up. Her heart pounded in anticipation for the reveal, and by the time she unraveled the object, the answers to a 20+ years case was almost solved.
In her hand was the other half Tink's cross.
Mother Superior's cross?
She moved the heavy, smooth metal in her palm, glazing over the jewels and the jagged edge where the cross must have broken off.
Mother Superior had had it all along, had had it lying in a drawer to gather dust while she belittled Tink. Wendy moved the cool metal to her chest, trying to possibly envision what her friend had gone through, how relieved she must had felt when she was able to leave it behind.
She had the other half of the cross, she had the keeper to Tink's past, but she still didn't have a motive. A "why?"
Unless…just possibly…
"What are you doing here?"
Wendy turned to face the head nun, her eyes roaming over her robed form, no doubt having been asleep just moments before. Her eyes widened when she saw that Wendy was holding the cross.
"Give me that!" She commanded, stepping forward.
Wendy scurried behind the desk, using the ancient relic as a border between them.
"You know something." Wendy accused. "You know who abandoned her."
"I'm calling the police." She said, though made no move to act on her threat.
"Good, call them!" Wendy exclaimed. "Tell them you lied to them over twenty years ago, why you withheld evidence."
Mother Superior lunged at the desk and snatched the cross from Wendy's hand, the whiplash causing her to send the broken edge into her palm.
Wendy gasped in pain, clenching the end of her sleeve into the bloody streak. Panic began to consume her, the fear of a repeat of her last two brush with death a rising possibility.
"This was none of your concern to being with." The head nun growled. "Everything was going as it should be."
Wendy took the blue silk cloth and wrapped it tightly around her hand. "How…how was anything going well?" she panted, stalling long enough for Pan to arrive. "Do you know what you put her through? What you took from her?"
The head nun seethed, squeezing the cross tighter in her palm. "I did everything possible. I kept her close, kept her safe. I gave her everything she needed."
"Except the most important thing a mother should give their child," Wendy seethed, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction when Superior's expression paled. "Love."
Mother Superior looked her over. "No…how…" her expression darkened. "Gold told you, didn't he?"
"No," Wendy sighed. "Honestly, I'm just connecting dots at this point. And…she has your nose."
The head nun blinked, panic rising in her eyes. "Are…are you recording this?"
"No." Wendy sighed, flexing her fingers. "Like I said earlier, anything you tell me will only go back to Tink."
"Get out."
"She deserves to know the truth!" Wendy pleaded.
"You have no proof now." The head nun fought, shoving the rest of the cross deep into her robe pocket. "I'll deny everything, and nothing will change."
"Yeah it will."
Mother Superior shot around just as Pan breezed around the corner, his lips curved in anticipation.
"Rule one of journalism: lock the damn door after you break-and-enter." Pan said with a frown Wendy's way. A small smirk followed. "Unless you were just hoping I'd show up."
"Yes, the same way I hope for appendicitis." Wendy snarked, hiding her secret smile behind her bandaged hand. "I'm kind of busy here…"
"Yeah I heard," Pan threw back. "And I think Graham, Sydney and, well damn, all of Storybrooke, would like to hear too."
Wendy watched the head nun's back tense. They had her in a corner, and while this was hardly the way Wendy had wanted this to go, it was working as things had to be.
"Please," Wendy beseeched once more. "Tell us the truth. We can help."
"Or we can expose you." Pan shrugged. "Just spill it."
Mother Superior sent a deadly glare Pan's way, but when he smirked back at hwe unfazed, she plopped down in her chair, defeated. She scrubbed two worn hands over her face, covering her eyes for a moment before turning to Wendy once more.
"You swear you're not reporting this?"c
"Okay," Wendy sighed, pulling out all the evidence she had gathered. "You're Tink's mum. You staged her abandonment and subsequently adopted her."
"Yes." The head nun admitted quietly.
"Shit." Pan mumbled.
"Fine, I get all that." Wendy nodded. "But the real question is why? Why go through such an elaborate setup for a baby you wanted to keep? Why never tell her anything?"
"Because I would have lost everything I had ever worked for."
Wendy glanced at Pan who was staring at the head nun in a very queer way. It concerned her really, but she couldn't focus on him right now.
"What do you mean?" Wendy inquired.
"I…was a lot like her." Superior said, rubbing her hands nervously together. "I was abandoned, and someone took me under their wing."
"You call humiliating and berating someone taking them under your wing?" Pan seethed.
Wendy held a hand out, warning him to stay put. "I can handle this." She said, turning back to the nun. "Continue."
"The nun before me groomed me to take her place when I was eighteen. About a year before, I went on a mission trip to Italy and…" she paused, her eyes searching the past for the more intimate details. "I met a man…"
Wendy nodded, assuming that the man in question was Tink's father.
"He said and did things that…" she smiled fondly, "that went against everything I had ever known. I loved him, I really did…"
"Yes, lovely, I'm sure the sex was great but on to the post-baby abandonment already." Pan intervened.
"Pan, shut up." Wendy snapped.
"She's stalling!"
"She's telling a story, zip it!"
Pan rolled his eyes and slid down the wall, muttering something about idiots and exhaustive details.
"Okay, you met a man and got pregnant." Wendy said, eager to speed the story along but wanting to do so in a more professional matter. "What led to you keeping Tink?"
The head nun was quite for a moment, a myriad of emotions swimming through her deep brown eyes.
"I told…Tink's father…" she grimaced, as if the mention of the man left a bad taste in her mouth. "But he wasn't interested in being a father, and I had no choice but to return to the states."
"And no one noticed you were pregnant?" Wendy questioned.
"I spent most of my time in confinement, praying." Superior admitted, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "By the time it was time for her to be born, we went into hiding, to this cabin just outside of town…"
"Shit." Pan cursed. "The one that Gold owns? Is that how your arse got caught?"
"I…do you really need to know all that?"
"We can get to that." Wendy promised, more in Pan's direction than in Superior's. "What happened then?"
The Mother's back remained straight, her expression blank. "That's it really. I gave birth to her in the cabin and later I took her to the convent to be found. All staged. And you know the rest. Are we done?"
Wendy stared at her for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around her tale.
"You've given us the bare bones of your tale, but nothing else. No motive no real reason why you did the things you did."
"What more do you want?" Mother Superior groaned, sounding more tried than irritating.
"I want…answers!" Wendy said. "I want something meaningful to take back to Tink! I want her to know why you would keep her for a week and then just…dump her. Why you shamed her and forbade her from doing normal things. Why you—her mother—would put her through all you did!"
"I didn't know how to be a mother!" Mother Superior yelled, her voice breaking with a sob. "I had my entire life planned out, I didn't know how to fit a baby into all of it." She took a long breath and straightened her spine once more, the blank veil of emotion she carried so perfectly falling over her face. "I did the best I could to give her a good life."
"No," Wendy said. "You did the best you could to cover your arse so that you could keep face."
Superior glared at Wendy, but the young journalist gave her no room to cut in an argument.
"After you left yesterday, she told me about how you made her feel. About how you made the only home she ever knew feel like a prison. It was heartbreaking. And you have the nerve to try to drag her back here."
"She's living in sin!" Superior protested.
"She's living with someone who loves her more than anyone else in this whole damn world!" Pan barked, stepping beside Wendy.
"Peter…"
"He has never, would never, do anything to hurt her, unlike you." Pan growled, eyes aflame. He smirked then, enjoying the way the head nun paled. "I think you know that, and I think you're jealous. She loves him and she'll never love you. Not then, not ever."
"I don't have to listen to this any longer." The head nun decided, standing up and heading for the exit. "I answer to one higher power, and he will judge me righteous!"
Pan stepped in front of her, not necessarily blocking her escape, but his presence was enough to stall the nun.
"Righteous?" Wendy gasped behind her. "I may not know much about God, but I'm sure using his name to judge your deceitfulness is blasphemy."
"Everything I did was for the benefit of everyone!" Superior argued. "He will see that! I did it all in his name!"
"God is not your scapegoat!" Wendy yelled back. Despite her current hatred for the pious nun, she couldn't help but feel something equivalent to pity for her. It certainly couldn't have been easy to get pregnant so young and then subsequently abandoned by the child's father. She had just never tapped into her maternal instincts. Maybe with help, she could have.
"I do care for her Miss Darling, whether you," she glanced to Pan, "or anyone else thinks so or not."
"Is that why you gave her the other half of your cross?" Wendy inquired, pointing at her protruding coat pocket. "So that she would know that you loved her?"
The nun looked down guiltily. "The cross was an accident. I had bougt it in Italy…with him. I meant to throw it away but it had slipped my mind. The night I faked Tink's abandonment, the chain I had it on broke and it shattered against the concrete. I had put one of the pieces in her bassinet and by the time the police came it was too late to hide it before it was documented in their report."
"Oh my god you're the worse." Pan groaned.
"The bottom line," Superior continued, unperturbed, "is that all of this will be resolved when Tink rejoins the convent for good."
"Oh, you plan to tell her everything if she does?" Wendy inquired more sarcastically than she meant to. "Or would that risk your position you ditched her for?"
"I suppose that's really up to you." Superior replied icily. "You can tell Tink all I've told you tonight and destroy all I've managed to build."
"Bitch we just might." Pan muttered.
"But," the nun contemplated with a small, eerie smile. "Without a recording, she won't believe a word you tell her, and I'll deny you ever being here."
Wendy gripped the table to prevent herself from diving at the nun. Cunning witch! She glanced at Pan who gave her an "I fucking told you so" look and she wished they were on a higher floor so that she could jump to her fate.
Still, Wendy refused to let the nun have the last word. She straightened her coat and gathered her things, ready to leave on a final note.
"Who do you think she's going to believe, Mother Superior? Someone who's actually taken the time to earn her trust, or the woman who mentally and emotionally broke her for years?"
The head nun's satisfied smile vanished, and her mouth fell as she searched for a retort.
"My advice is to talk to her first." Wendy said as she stepped out of her office. "It might take a while but she'll forgive you." She motioned to Pan. "She did him."
"Hey, watch it." Pan warned only for Wendy to breeze past him unperturbed. He followed her with one last dirty look at the nun.
They made it out of the convent without incident, but neither of the journalists looked or spoke to each other until they were walking the quiet streets of inner-Storybrooke.
"Well you just barely screwed that up." Pan teased, his spirits lifting
"I was doing fine long before you poked your nose into it." Wendy miffed.
"Please you were bored to death without me." Pan chuckled, and then nodded to her bandaged hand. "Not to mention you get cut up a lot worse when I'm not around."
Wendy rolled her eyes. True, she had missed his accustomed presence today, but she had been doing a lot better on her own than she thought she had. No panic attacks, no shadowy figures crossing her path. She had been fine, abet a bit lonely.
"Well, I thought you needed more time to recover from your little tantrum yesterday." Wendy spoke, keeping her eyes straight ahead.
"Oh, I see." Pan scoffed. "Get a good night sleep last night, Wendy? Oh wait, no you didn't."
Wendy skid to a stop and shot around to the jeering boy. "That's something totally different."
"You'd be surprised just how much it's not." Pan argued.
"You know what, let's just…drop it." Wendy sighed exasperatedly.
"Fine with me." Pan grumbled, and the two slipped into silence again.
They were close enough to town that they could see the ever-present light of Granny's diner twinkling in the night. Despite how lively the restaurant still seemed to be, the rest of the town seemed too quiet, too peaceful despite what had happened—and was still happening—around it.
"I wonder what she's going to do." Wendy pondered aloud. "Will she tell Tink anything, or will things go back to being the way they were?"
"You should have recorded it." Pan shrugged. "Then the bitch couldn't hide anymore."
"Actually, I'm kind of glad I didn't."
"You're glad a whole day of work was for nothing?" Pan scoffed.
Wendy stopped and turned to Pan, sighed exhaustedly. "I'm glad that Superior now has the chance to come clean without the threat of blackmail hanging over her head."
Pan observed her, taking in her nobility and strength, but quietly judging her obscene sense of justice. She didn't know how twisted the head nun really was. She didn't know at all.
"This was never my story to tell." Wendy continued. "I shouldn't be the one to decide where Mother Superior's secrets get thrown around. She knows we know, so maybe that will give her enough of a push to tell Tink the truth."
"Maybe." Pan muttered, a small pearl of rage growing in his belly. But Wendy was smiling, satisfied with her days work, and he held off.
It wasn't her fault she didn't know everything.
"Well," Wendy sighed. "I think I'll head home, try to sleep."
"Yeah." Pan muttered, his hand sliding deeper into his pockets.
"Goodnight." Wendy renounced, giving him a light nod before turning away.
Pan nodded, watching as she clipped to the apartments, safe and smiling whole-heartedly for the first time in weeks.
"Fly, fly, little bird." Pan muttered before turning in the direction of the Mirror. As he walked, he fished deep in his pockets of his coat to pull out his cellphone.
Before him was a recording app with all thirteen and a half minutes of his and Wendy's conversation with Mother Superior saved.
Rule one of journalism may have been to lock the door after breaking and entering, but rule two was to always have a recorder going.
Pan weighed his phone back and forth in his hands, readying himself to give into his dark urge to put it on tomorrow's front page.
The idea that Tink deserved better was what was stopping him.
Wendy thought that the Blue fairy was also a victim in all this, but she was way off from the truth. She witnessed a mere moment of Tink's pain brought on by the holy horror. Pan had witnessed years of it.
Once, during his first week of school, when he didn't have Felix or anyone else to call home to, he witnessed her cruelty first-hand.
It had been an early release day, but it could have been the end of the world and Pan wouldn't have thought different. He was numb from the excitement of classmates. All he had to go home to was a stolic brother and a quiet, dusty house.
He was ready to walk back to said quiet, dusty house when someone bumped into his shoulder and changed the course of his overly quiet life forever.
"I completely forgot about the early release day." Tink La'Belle (who at the time wasn't the quite confident young woman she was in later years) gasped as she and Felix Croft pushed past the exiting bustle of students. "I forgot my clothes…"
"It's okay," Felix (who at the time was unblemished by scars and loss) assured, and Pan watched as he rubbed a hand comfortingly over her back. "We'll sneak through the woods and then…"
Felix suddenly stopped when a blue car in desperate need of a paintjob on the hood breezed into the school parking lot, narrowly missing the bike rack.
Pan divided his attention between the pinch-faced nun who stepped out of the car, and the way Felix Croft's hand waved up and down on Tink La'Belle's back. The motion was therapeutic in a way Pan didn't understand, and it numbed him all in the right ways. When the door to the nun's car slammed and she started screaming, the peace he felt was shattered, and he was thoroughly pissed from the interuption.
"What are you wearing?" Mother Superior demanded, marching up to Felix and Tink while many of the other students looked on.
Pan hadn't been sure who she had been yelling at. Both Felix and Tink were dressed rather appropriately for the cool Autumn weather, right down to the jeans and boots.
"I…snagged my skirt." Tink said quietly, a sound that didn't suit her loud, confident nature.
"Doing what?" the nun snarled with a glare at Felix.
"Please don't do this." Tink begged, and Pan could feel the heat of her mortification even from his place on the steps.
"Get in the car now." The head nun snarled, grabbing Tink by the wrist before she had a chance to protest.
The small utter of discomfort caused Pan's stomach to turn, and a small but fierce flame to flicker in his chest.
"You're hurting her!" Felix had yelled after them.
"You stay out of this!" the nun growled at him, bundling Tink into the passenger seat before stalking to the other side.
Students muttered their condolences as the car drove off, but Felix didn't utter a word. Didn't even seem to breath.
Pan rolled his eyes at the boy's love-struck agony (it would be many months before Belle would enter his life and fill him with the same pain), but he licked his lips as an idea filled his mind.
The following morning, the Daily Mirror ran a story on the second page about how the head nun of the Sisters of Saint Melissa's car had been completely vandalized. Torn tires, key marks in the paint, and—as the mechanic would later explain—pieces of an Apollo candy bar in the gas tank.
While Pan chuckled about the small act of revenge he performed on Tink's behalf, it also filled him with resentment for the head horror.
Wendy had said that this was Mother Superior's tale to tell.
She was dead wrong.
It was his, and Felix's, and anyone else who had to witness the head nun's cruelty.
Pan didn't blame her for her ignorance, but he wasn't going to let it stop him from giving the icy bitch what she had coming.
He made a turn to the Mirror, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that—for whatever damn reason—he should feel some kind of guilt for what he was about to do.
-,-,-,-,-,-,-
Despite another restless night, Wendy felt more blissful when she awoke the next morning than she had in weeks. She had accomplished something big yesterday with only a slight interference from Pan. She felt more confident now, braver. She was going to be okay, and the idea was enough to make her sob.
As she locked up her apartment and headed to the Mirror, she wondered if Mother Superior had contacted Tink yet. No doubt her name would be brought into it, and Wendy was prepared for the backlash. She hoped whatever happened, her friend could finally get the closure she deserved.
There was something off in town as Wendy got closer to the paper. People seemed to be sending her side-glances behind their freshly printed papers. Wendy assumed it was about the Jekyll story and ducked her head. She hoped Pan hadn't added any extravagant details for shock value.
The unnatural feeling followed her into the Mirror, which was unusually quiet for a Monday morning.
It wasn't until she saw Glass, Felix, and a sobbing Tink in Glass's office that she realized something was horribly wrong.
Two very distinctive thoughts ran through her head at that moment:
Tink knew, or something had happened to Pan, as he was nowhere in sight.
They all turned to her when she barged into the office, searching their faces for answers.
"What's going on?"
"Like you don't know!" Tink screamed at her, causing Wendy to flinch from the unexpected reaction.
"Know what?" Wendy gasped, reaching out to Tink.
"Do not touch me!" she yelled, snatching away from Wendy. "Stay the hell away from me!"
"Tink calm down." Felix tried to sooth.
"No!" Tink fought. "What she's done is lower then low. She does not get a pass on this!"
Felix pulled her back, trying to put some distance between the two women. Glass stepped forward, a hand on his lower back to steady himself.
"What's going on?" Wendy begged him.
Glass held up the latest addition of the Daily Mirror. The moment she saw the stolid, gray image of Mother Superior she knew what had happened.
HEAD NUN OF CONVENT REVEALED TO BE MOTHER OF BABY ABANDONED IN 1991
Wendy's name was under the headline and Tink had her scapegoat.
"I trusted you!" she sobbed. "I told you all of that in confidence and you published it like—like some kind of bizarre tabloid story!"
"T-Tink," Wendy gasped, the paper rattling in her hands. "I swear I didn't—"
"I thought you were different, that you knew how to separate your job from the rest of the world." Tink hiccupped, pulling from Felix's protective grip so that she could step up to Wendy and look her straight in the eye. "But Pan got to you. You're just as filthy and selfish as he is. More concerned about a few seconds of glory than people's lives."
Wendy's chest constricted with the weight of Tink's words—her very misguided, hateful words.
"No, Tink, please that's not—"
"Save it," Tink sneered, stepping around her. "I'm done with you."
Wendy couldn't speak, couldn't move as she heard Tink leave the office, Felix following her without so much as a glance at her. The moment that followed was quiet, yet bizarrely peaceful, like the few seconds right at the end of a horrible storm that had devastated the world around it.
It was Glass who pulled her back into the storm, and Wendy felt the air scorch her skin.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded, having to sit on his desk due to his still-injured back. "This was the research you were doing all day yesterday?"
"It wasn't…I didn't…"
Glass cursed and threw the paper on the floor. "We'll be lucky if she or the convent don't sue. Did you get any recordings or video? We can avoid slander at least."
Wendy began to shake her head until a thought occurred to her.
"Pan might." She said quietly, her strength slowly rebuilding after Tink had drained it from her.
"Shit!" Glass exclaimed. "I knew you hadn't done this all on your own."
Wendy's head shot up to stare at Glass, another, much more different bubble of hurt filling her chest.
The entire town thought she was glued to Pan's side. She couldn't even screw up without them somehow thinking he had a say in it.
It was time to rip herself from him, or perhaps just rip him a part in general.
"Where does he live?" Wendy inquired calmly.
"You've been here all this time and haven't figured out where he lives?" Glass remarked off-handedly.
"Tell me his address please." Wendy pled more urgently.
Before Glass could respond, the office phone began to ring. He cursed and reached out to put it on hold.
"You know what, fine." He grumbled, scribbling something out on a sticky note before tossing it carelessly Wendy's way. "I have to deal with damage control. Just…don't kill him before I figure all this out."
Wendy barely managed a nod before she turned to leave the office, the note crumbling into the center of her pale, shaky palm.
She wasn't sure what she was going to do to him when she saw him, but she knew she wasn't going to be satisfied until she saw blood running down his traitorous face.
It took her half an hour of stomping through town and having people jump out of her way before she found the first story apartment. It surprised her that it was in the building in front of her own, and that Pan had never mentioned their close proximity before.
Another thing to add to the list of reasons he was to die today.
"Peter Pan!" she screamed as she banged on his front door. "Open this bloody door!"
She continued to bang on it, unperturbed about the neighbors or what people passing on the street may think. When he didn't answer, she stepped aside and tried to look through his curtained windows. She could see a slither of a kitchen through the cloth, but no Pan.
Frustrated, she stepped down and search for a rock or something she could use to break the window. Just as she was knuckles-deep in dirt, the door opened. Her glare melted instantly at who was leaning against it.
"A-A…uh, Mr. Booth." Wendy swallowed, heat numbing her cheeks at the site of the shirtless man with a coffee cup clutched in his hands.
"August is fine." he smiled, sleep still present in his deep blue eyes. "Winry, right?"
"Wendy." She croaked, trying to wrap her head to what was going on. "I'm sorry to…disturb…um…I'm sorry…is Pan here?"
August turned just enough so that Wendy could peek into Pan's apartment. Just ahead she could see what she assumed was Pan's bedroom, as she saw a figure in bed and his long, pale arm sticking out from under the covers.
"I can wake him if it's important." August stated.
Wendy watched the tantalizing movement of his body as he breathed peacefully, sleeping away as if he hadn't just destroyed several lives.
The rotten bastard.
"It's fine, I'll wake him."
August stepped aside as Wendy barged into the apartment, watching in mixed horror as she grabbed a stray pillow from the end of the bed and began mercilessly beating Pan until he startled awake.
"Shit." August laughed into his coffee.
"The fuck!" Pan slurred, shooting up and rubbing his eyes. "Wendy?"
"What the actual bloody hell is wrong with you!" Wendy screamed so loud the giant fuzzy cat in the corner of the room scurried away in a frenzy.
"In general?" Pan yawned, the thin sheet covering his waist sliding further down as he stretched. "August, you still here?"
"Yep." The man in question responded from the living room.
Wendy's face heated from the sheer absurdity of all that had happened in the last half hour. It was almost too much to bear, especially when the person responsible cared so little that he had spent the night in the throes of passion with another person. She wanted to scream or cry or break something, anything to get the horrible feeling of failure and hurt out of her system.
She grabbed the pillow she had been beating him with and raised it over her head again, ready to destroy him once and for all.
However, Pan's phone began to vibrate on the nightstand, and he held up a finger to stall her.
"Just a sec," he said answering his phone. "Hello?"
"Are you bloody kidding me!" Wendy yelled at him, slapping him on the shoulder with the pillow.
With a flick of his wrist, Pan wordlessly tore the sheet from his waist. Wendy gasped, covering her face with the pillow to block her view of Pan's parts, her face hot enough to boil water on.
"Alright, repeat that." Pan asserted with a slight smirk.
As the blood rushing through her ears began to slow down, Wendy shifted her attention to the man chuckling over his coffee. He winked at her when he noticed her gaze, and Wendy blushed all the more.
With her anger cooling, she now felt a bit embarrassed that she had stumbled into such an intimate setting. It was odd seeing Pan with someone who just the day before had been held for suspected murder, but it was more odd to see him with someone who he had insisted he had no current attraction to. Wendy could only wonder the circumstance that had seduced August Booth in to Pan's bed.
"Astrid, slow down." Pan demanded over the phone.
Wendy turned just enough so that she could see his face, using the pillow to block out his parts. She watched as his confused look melted into astonishment.
"What? When?"
Wendy gulped. Something was wrong.
"Damn…yeah, sorry for swearing, whatever."
Oh, that he would apologize for.
"I'll be there soon." He said, hanging up and standing.
Wendy looked away, listening as he frantically opened and closed drawers.
"Come on, we've got to go." Pan said over the rustle of clothing.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me why—"
In a flash, Pan had her facing him, his hands gripping her shoulders like he was trying to hold her together.
Then Wendy saw it, the rare emotion of guilt in the depths of his green eyes. It was just a twinkle, like the life of star, but it was there all the same, and it made Wendy's stomach turn with anticipation.
He was trying to hold himself together.
"We've got to get down to the convent." Pan croaked, his hands fidgeting on Wendy's skin. "Mother Superior was just found dead."
-,-,-,-,-,-
Okay, I mean to have this out sooner but I totally changed the ending at the last second (the other one was just confusing and kind of boring to me).
I have two ideas for the next couple of chapters, but I must flesh them out first. Not to mention it's my last semester of college and I have to focus on my studies if I'm to graduate without incident.
Also, I have a side project with this story I'm working on 😉 as well as chapters to my other works. But I shall update soon I say!
Thanks for all the love guys!