A/N: I hate this fandom, LOL! Every time you think you're out, done with it forever, it sucks you back in. So yeah I'm kind of a OUAT fan again; at least until the next time the writers do something I find annoying. And I did end up watching (and yes, enjoying much of) season four after all. Anyway, I haven't been doing fanfiction (for any category) lately because of time constraints (my original writing needs to take priority at this point in my life if I ever want to be a published author), health problems (my migraines are no joke), and other things that crop up. But I found the start of this fanfic on one of my flashdrives and I just HAD to finish/post it. I think (though I don't remember for sure) I originally intended this to be a long multichapter but I don't have the time/inspiration to commit to that right now and I think the story works better as a three-shot anyhow.

Hope you like!

The Short, Cursed Life of Malcolm Gold

A Reimagining of "The New Neverland"

Part One: Malcolm Gold

It wasn't fun, being in Pandora's box. As it was not total oblivion for whoever was trapped inside, Pan didn't have the luxury of blacking out. All he had was an endless wait inside of a dimly-lit cube. He could still hear his son, Rumple, talking to the others. His voice was slightly muffled by the box, but Pan still understood what he was saying; that he could never get out and Henry was safe now.

He'd actually tried, as Pandora's box sucked in his essence, to use magic to switch places with Henry. If he had succeeded in swapping bodies, things would have been very different. With the shell of doe-eyed Henry to protect him from all suspicion, everyone would easily have been taken in. Particularly, he was sure, the evil queen. Regina's all encompassing love for the boy would have blinded her. Emma might have been a little tougher. She loved Henry too, but her love was more guarded and more in tune to the boy's true nature.

This was all moot, however, since he'd lost his grip on the spell at the last minute, slipping away into Pandora's box, from where he could no longer reach the boy, his shadow, or his pulsating, truest believing heart.

Still, left alone with his thoughts, Pan couldn't help imagining the way it would have gone; walking across the deck of the Jolly Roger to Felix, who would certainly have been taken by surprise at first, then glowing with pleasure, poised ready to do his bidding. He wasn't a traitor like the other lost boys...

When he wasn't savoring the conjured vision of what might have been – what almost was – Pan strained and tugged against the hold of the box, trying to use some part of himself, however deep within, to reach out. Perhaps if he could call his shadow from the sail where the evil queen had trapped it... Might it not be able to swoop down on dear little Rumple, snatch away the box, and release him?

Sometimes he thought he could feel a slight connection, thin as a strand of spider's silk, to his shadow, but he was never sure if he was successfully releasing it or sending it out to do his biding.

Then, one day, after Pan didn't know how long (or short), a reddish light was shining down on him from above. Someone or something, a shadow or person or creature, was finally releasing him.

Smirking, he stopped struggling and allowed his essence to float up to greet his benefactor.

Peter Pan never fails, he thought smugly.

Two Days Ago

"You want to release Pan? Are you out of your mind?" demanded Regina, her lips pursed in disbelief, one hand on her hip, eyes darkening considerably.

"Don't look at me like that," Emma said, dragging her hand anxiously along the glass counter in Mr. Gold's antique shop. "I just think we need to figure out what's going on."

"What's going on," snapped Regina, "is that Pan is safely locked in Pandora's box, where he can't ever hurt Henry again. And I intend to keep it that way."

"Regina, none of us are safe; not with Pan's shadow flying around loose in Storybrooke. And that includes Henry." Her eyes darted over to Mr. Gold, as if looking for help.

She got none. "Ms. Swan, while I hate to disappoint you, I'm going to have to side with Regina on this one."

"What? Why?"

Mr. Gold sucked his teeth. "Well, perhaps because, so far, the only people my father's shadow has gone after have been fairies. If it was really being controlled by him, don't you think it would have gone straight for Henry?"

It was true that the only two victims since yesterday morning, when the shadow had first broken free, were Mother Superior and Tinker Bell. But that didn't change the fact that Tinker Bell was in the hospital under Doctor Whale's supervision or that Mother Superior was now dead.

The shadow could easily have just been warming up, Emma thought; there was nothing truly preventing it from flying into Henry's bedroom (be it at Regina's house or Mary Margret's apartment) and trying to tear out his heart for Pan some night. Sure, Regina had put a protection spell over it, which wouldn't let the heart ever be taken out again, but what if this only angered the shadow, who then found another way to hurt Henry? What if it tried to do to him what it had done to poor Mother Superior?

Pan himself, Rumpelstiltskin had told them, already tried once to rip Henry's shadow away upon discovering the protection spell; right before he was sucked into Pandora's box...

"The shadow ripped Mother Superior's shadow, killing her," Emma growled, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm not about to let that happen to Henry next."

"Neither am I. Which is why we can't let Pan out of that box," Regina countered. "Perhaps, what we should be looking into is a way to rid ourselves of the shadow as well."

"And what if Pan's the only one who knows how to do that?" Emma argued.

"Even if that were true" – here Regina paused and squinted emphatically – "you think he's just going to hand that information over to you the second he gets out of the box? No." She shook her head. "I can trap the shadow. I did it once before, on the sail."

"And that worked like a charm, didn't it, dearie?" Mr. Gold jibed.

Regina whirled on him. "Whose side are you on, Gold?"

"Look, just because I don't want my father released, doesn't mean I'm going to stand here and indulge this mad idea that you're somehow more powerful than his shadow."

"I can do it again," she insisted heatedly, taking a step towards him.

"Even if you could, there's always the chance it'll break free again and hurt someone," Emma mused.

Regina turned back to her, glowering fiercely.

"Wait..." Emma's eyes moved past Regina's angry expression and over to Mr. Gold. "Is Pan conscious in Pandora's box?"

"You mean is he sitting in there, angrily stewing over being trapped?" Mr. Gold said, his response not wholly lacking in sarcasm. "You know, I really couldn't say. Are you going to suggest we let him out and ask?"

"It's just... What if he didn't have his memories? What if he was cursed, like the town used to be? Then he wouldn't even know about the Shadow, let alone be able to use it to hurt Henry."

Regina's eyes widened with interest, but Mr. Gold only rolled his. "It's not as though we could simply insert a curse into the box."

"Maybe we don't have to," Emma told him. "What if we let him out of the box, but put the box outside of the town line?"

"There's always the chance that won't work," Regina pointed out, "because he wasn't part of the dark curse to begin with. He wasn't even in the Enchanted Forest; I never made fake memories for him."

"Right, so–" Mr. Gold cut in impatiently.

"Although," Regina added, speaking over him, "if he was over the town line, he wouldn't be able to use magic."

Letting her arms fall back loosely to her sides, Emma sighed. "Come on, Gold, there has to be some way to curse him, once he's powerless. You found a way to keep your memories when you crossed the line to find Neal; now we need you to find a way to make Pan lose his."

After a long pause, Mr. Gold finally spoke, grimacing. "I'll see what I can do."

Present Day

The moment Pan saw daylight was the moment he forgot who he was, the moment false memories smothered him.

So it was no wonder that, upon seeing Emma holding a gun out in front of him, he looked alarmed. "Mom?"

"What?"

"Damn." Mr. Gold jabbed his cane on the ground. "It didn't work. This is one of his tricks; shoot him."

Emma hesitated.

"Take it easy," Pan protested, eyes widening. "I just wanted to know if you were my new foster mother. You don't have to shoot me!"

Nudging past Mary Margret, Regina let out a low sigh. "Hold up, Gold. Maybe it did work."

"Maybe what worked?" Pan blurted. "Look, there must be some mistake. My name's Malcolm." His eyes darted to the Welcome to Storybrooke sign. "I'm supposed to be meeting my new foster family." For some reason, he remained fixated on Emma. "Are you Belle French? Mr. Gold's girlfriend?"

Belle took a step forward, still remaining behind the town line. "I'm Belle."

"I'm Malcolm, your boyfriend's new son." He winced at the sight of Mr. Gold, whom he had now identified by association. "Oh, wow. The agency must be getting desperate."

"Excuse us for one moment, won't you, Malcolm?" Mr. Gold sneered, pulling Regina aside and growling, "I give you the power to provide my wayward father with new memories – any memories at all – and you make him my foster child?"

"Exactly. He's your father, Gold." Regina wretched free. "Your burden."

"I don't want him," he breathed out shrilly. "This was Ms. Swan's idea; why didn't you make him her son?"

"And essentially make him Henry's brother? No way."

"Oh, but you've got no problem turning Henry's evil great-grandfather into his evil adopted uncle?"

Regina sardonically pretended to consider for a moment, before shrugging indifferently.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with him?"

"I don't know; teach him to play scrabble, or run that shop of yours. Just keep him away from Henry."

Mr. Gold's brow furrowed angrily. "And how am I meant to explain a town filled with magic, hospitalized fairies, and a rogue shadow running amok?"

"You're not," Regina reminded him in a slow, stern tone. "If he believes in magic, he might figure out he can use it. Even without his memories."

"I don't mean to break up this little tea-circle," Pan called from behind the line, "but I really don't fancy standing out here all day while you whisper in a huddle. Also, can somebody explain why I'm dressed like I'm auditioning for A Midsummer's Night's Dream?" He stared down at his green-and-black Peter Pan outfit, rolling his shoulders awkwardly. "Where are my things?"

"I already want to kill him," growled Mr. Gold, rubbing his temples.

"Congratulations," Regina laughed, "you're the father of a smug teenager."

The bells overhead jingled as Mr. Gold threw the door to the shop open to allow Malcolm and Belle – who was carrying a small shopping bag of Storybrooke-appropriate clothes for Pan they'd picked up on the way – to enter before him. He couldn't help glaring at the back of Malcolm's head. Would he ever be free of this distasteful, heartless person?

He snapped his fingers, trying to get Malcolm's attention as the boy looked around at the shelves and glass cases with an half impressed, half contemptuous expression on his face.

"So, this is how it's going to work," he began, his tone very no nonsense. "You will go to school every day–" Mr. Gold paused, making a mental note to ask Mary Margret to see to it that Malcolm shared no classes or lunch periods with Henry. Resuming: "After which you will immediately come here to the pawnshop, where you will help with chores until it's time to go home. You are to touch nothing without my expressed permission, do you understand?"

Malcolm's nose wrinkled. "What about weekends? What about friends?"

"I wouldn't count on having either of those."

Belle couldn't help feeling a mild twinge of pity when Malcolm looked at her, as if expecting that she'd somehow soften Mr. Gold up. She hadn't forgotten all the horrible things he'd done (it still turned a knot in her stomach to recall the Darling brothers' crestfallen faces as they'd explained how they had to do what Pan told them, or he'd kill their sister), including abandoning Rumpelstiltskin as a helpless child, but he wasn't that person right now.

It was like when she had been Lacey. There was an entirely different set of memories and circumstances in his mind right now. It wasn't real, but it was real to him. Who knew how bad Regina had made his memories of previous foster families? Belle highly doubted Regina would have been so magnanimous as to give good memories to a fiend who'd kidnapped her son.

She almost reached over and squeezed his shoulder, wanting to say, "Don't worry, I'll talk to him," but stopped herself just in time. There was a reason, after all, Rumple had to do this. He had to keep Pan off the streets of Storybrooke as much as possible. So she just handed him his bag of clothes instead, smiling tightly.

That night, Malcolm was appalled to discover that his new foster father had locked him in the guestroom after lights out. He tried to pry open a window, ready to see what this town was like beyond this rich ass's prison-house, but it was sealed shut (by magic, though he had no way of knowing this).

Gritting his teeth, he picked a pillow off the bed and flung it at the wall. Then he lifted a sneaker out of the shopping bag Belle had handed him earlier and threw that at the wall as well.

It made a loud thump, and Mr. Gold responded by banging his cane on the floor (the bedroom he shared with Belle was directly above the guestroom) and telling him to pipe down.

Muttering profanity under his breath that suggested Mr. Gold do something anatomically impossible, Malcolm stomped over to where the pillow had bounced after hitting the wall, picked it up, and carried it back to the bed.

Then, curling into a ball on top of the beige comforter, he clutched the pillow to his chest.

"Where did you get that shirt?" demanded Mr. Gold as Malcolm took off his jacket, revealing a black T-shirt with a graphically bloodied skull on it.

It was supposed to be Malcolm's first day working in the shop, but there was no way he could have him skulking about the place looking like that...

He'd scare away all the customers!

"I traded another boy for it at school." He pulled his hand out from behind him, suddenly holding a cigarette between his index and middle fingers. "Cool, isn't it?"

"Now you're smoking?" exclaimed Mr. Gold, his face going somewhat red.

"I don't know, am I?" sneered Malcolm sarcastically, bringing the cigarette to his lips.

"What's going on out here?" Belle came in holding a spray bottle she'd been using to lightly water the delicate plants in the back room.

Mr. Gold took the bottle from her hand and sprayed it in Malcolm's face, putting out the cigarette. "That does it!" Slamming the plastic bottle down on the glass countertop, he reached over and grabbed the back of Malcolm's neck, dragging him out to the car before he even had a chance to wipe the splattered mist and ash off his face. "We are going home, and you will change your clothes!"

"Anything you say, Daddy-dearest."

"Don't call me that."

"Rumple it is, then."

"What?" Mr. Gold let go of him, suddenly looking like he was about to have a stroke right there in the middle of the street. "You remember?"

Malcolm rubbed the back of his bruised, aching neck, glowering at his seemingly deranged guardian. "What are you talking about? That's what Belle calls you, isn't it?"

"Oh." His chest stopped heaving dramatically. "Just get in the car."

After waiting almost twenty minutes for his teenage father to come downstairs dressed in appropriate work clothes, Rumpelstiltskin was ready to storm up there and drag him back to the shop in the buff if necessary.

Finally, though, Malcolm appeared on the stairs decked out in one of Mr. Gold's own black-on-black suits. His hair was matted down, combed into a shorter version of Rumple's own parted hairstyle. He had gotten hold, somehow, of a long stick and was using it as a faux cane, slowly hobbling down the stairs in an exaggerated, melodramatic manner.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Malcolm's face twisted in an expression of false surprise. "I thought this was the uniform."

Belle – standing in the doorway, the car keys dangling from her hands – sucked her lips in to hide a laugh her involuntarily shaking shoulders betrayed anyway.

Lifting a cool cloth from his forehead as he sat up on the long couch in the back room he was currently sprawled out on, Mr. Gold sighed, "Well, it's almost three thirty, and I don't hear any sirens."

Belle forced a smile, sitting down on the edge of the couch and touching his leg consolingly. "Maybe all your father needed was a little time to adjust."

Mr. Gold grimaced. He'd heard of aging parents going through a second childhood, but Malcolm brought new meaning to the term altogether. He'd only been in school for five days, and already he'd been brought to the storefront in the squad car by Emma three times.

The list of complaints was practically endless. Gambling and smoking on school grounds; sneaking off school grounds to egg the convent the nuns rented from his guardian; super gluing another boy's fingers to a urinal; stealing David Nolan's truck from the parking lot where Mary Margret had left it and going for a joyride around town; cheating on tests; stealing answer keys and selling them to other children so they could cheat on tests...

And that was just scratching the surface!

Before Mr. Gold could continue contemplating his wayward, amnesic papa's misdeeds, the bells out front jingled. There was a thump as Malcolm apparently threw off his backpack and swung it at something fragile, loudly shattering whatever it was. "I'm back!"

"Belle, could you give him his list of chores for the afternoon?" He leaned back and rubbed his temples, eyes half-closed. "I think I'm getting a migraine."

"Of course. You rest."

"Helloooooo, anybody here?" Malcolm was calling as Belle stepped out. "Oh, hi, Belle. Boy, am I glad to see you."

She blinked in surprise, her brow furrowing uncertainly. "You are?"

"Yeah, of course. I like you. You're the only one in this town who's not completely psycho."

Belle actually felt moved by this unexpected statement. Sometimes it was so hard to remind herself who Malcolm really was; that he wasn't just some troubled kid she was helping Rumpelstiltskin raise.

"You know," he went on, "I think you're the only person in town who hasn't yelled at me."

Her face softened. "Well, Malcolm, to be fair, you have damaged a lot of their personal property since you arrived."

"Yeah, but still. It's not my fault they're such freaks."

"That's not very nice."

"They are," he insisted. "There's this one boy, in my class..." He raised an eyebrow and leaned in, "his name's Felix. All he does is grin and wink at me." Wetting his lips, he cocked his head and turned the corners of his mouth up in an exaggerated imitation, batting an eye. "Like that. All day, every day."

Belle bit back a smile. "Malcolm..."

"Also, he thinks my name is Peter."

"Oh, my."

"Yeah, you're telling me."

"There must be something you like about your new school," she tried haplessly.

To her surprise, he blushed and momentarily broke eye contact with her. "Well, there is this...girl..."

Belle's chest tightened, a conflicted feeling rising in her heart. On the one hand, her natural instinct was to encourage the pursuit of true love. Everyone deserved to find it, in her opinion; it was a beautiful, beautiful thing. However, Malcolm was also Mr. Gold's father, and the thought of him falling in love with some poor girl, countless years his junior, in Storybrooke was more than a little disturbing. Perhaps she should simply recommend that he focus on improving his grades before seeking romance.

"She's really something. She's got these absolutely killer eyes. Beyond intense." Malcolm seemed unable to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up. "I like her and everything, but the one time I came up and talked to her – you know, at lunch..."

"What is it, Malcolm? What happened?"

"She started screaming and crying for me to stay away from her and threatened me with a plastic knife."

"I'm afraid it doesn't sound as though she cares for you like you do her," she told him frankly.

He sighed. "Shows she has fire. I like fire."

"Maybe she wants some space."

"I think what she wants is to be medicated," he said flatly. "Do you know what she said when she attacked me with that plastic knife? She said No, no, you're not putting me back in that cage – No!" He rolled his eyes. "I mean, I've had girls tell me no before, but not quite like that. And where she thinks I'm going to get a cage, I have no idea."

Belle nearly choked on her own spit. "Wait... This girl... Her name isn't... She's not Wendy Darling, by any chance?"

"Yeah, that's her." His face brightened. "You don't happen to know where she lives, do you?"

A/N: Reviews welcome.