HEY EVERYONE! CAN I JUST SAY 'WOW' ABOUT "MANHATTAN". I MEAN… WOW. JUST TO GIVE YOU GUYS A LITTLE UPDATE, I'M WORKING ON CHAPTER TWO OF "SECOND CHANCES". I'M HOPING TO HAVE IT UP BY WEDENSDAY (SP?) SINCE IT'S VACATION WEEK AND I'LL HOPEFULLY HAVE EXTRA TIME TO WRITE. THIS IS HOW I THINK HENRY AND EMMA'S CONVERSATION ABOUT NEAL SHOULD/COULD HAVE GONE. THIS IS PURPOSELY OUT OF CHARACTER BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY I THINK THIS FIC CAN WORK. JUST A WARNING, LOL.
DON'T OWN ONCE UPON A TIME.
"I could've handled the truth, you know." Henry says quietly, looking his mother in the eye.
"I know, Henry, I…" Emma sighs. She bends down to his level. "It was more for me than you. I didn't want to remember it, I just wanted to forget about it."
"I thought you were different. But you're just like Regina." The boy knows it's a low blow, but the one person he trusted betrayed him. How's he supposed to react to something like that? He sees the hurt flash across the blonde's face, and he instantly regrets saying it. Still, the anger from the temper he assumes he inherited from the woman standing before him fuels him to push on. "I wanna talk to my dad."
"Yeah." She nods. "Can I just tell you one thing?"
"What?" He asks in an annoyed tone. Emma sits next to him, ignoring the way he leans on the railing to his left instead of on her.
"I know you could've handled it. I know you can handle it. But you shouldn't have to handle it, Henry. You should have a normal life, the one I wanted for you." She sniffs, wiping away a stray tear with the back of her hand. "There's a difference between being able to do something and having to do something. When I–" She forces the tears back, "when I handed you to the nurse to go to your case worker when you were born, I thought I was handing you a new life, you know? Your best chance. I know you think I gave you away but… I gave you up. Some people give their kids away cause they were accidents and they don't want 'em. I wanted you. I wanted to keep you more than anything, but I gave you up so that you could have the life I wanted. I'm sorry it didn't work out, and I'm sorry that all this happened." Emma puts a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. "I'm so sorry." She whispers.
"I've already forgiven you for that." Henry says. "I did a long time ago, even before I met you. I mean yeah, when I was younger I was mad. But after I read the book and I knew why Grandma gave you up, I understood that you were just giving me my best chance. I know you get it in your head, and you're grateful to Grandma and Gramps. But it doesn't change the twenty eight years of sadness you had. And that's okay, cause someday you'll be able to forgive them."
"How can you be so sure?" Emma laughs humorlessly, swiping at her eyes some more.
"Because the world you grew up in… and cause you're old…" He smirks, "it's made you cynical and pessimistic. And yes, I know what those words mean, I'm eleven. You don't believe in happy endings cause you've never had one. You've only had unhappy endings. Like August said, you need proof to believe. I know you think I'm naïve cause I believe in happy endings and that good always wins… and maybe it's not true all the time, but sometimes you just gotta look on the bright side. Most people, at least that I know of from TV and movies, take family for granted. None of us do. That's a good thing. And everyone thinks being loved is a birth right, but that doesn't mean it always happens. If the curse hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here."
"Yeah." She agrees, smiling at her son. "You're a smart kid, you know that? You get that from Neal. God, that sounds so weird to say."
"Nah, I don't entirely agree with that statement." Neal hops through the window. "You have your moments."
"Who invited you in on this conversation?"
"Me." Neal says smugly. "Can I talk to the kid a minute?"
"I told Henry he could talk to you." With a glare to Neal, Emma crawls back through the window.
"Your mom had every reason to lie about me." Neal says, sitting on the step Emma just vacated.
"Everyone lies to me." Henry says glumly.
"I was a bad man, Henry. Your mom'll probably kill me for telling you this, if she doesn't kill me after what I did to her first…" He laughs, "She'll kill me and I'll come back as a zombie, then she'll kill me in zombie form."
"The sad thing is that that isn't so far-fetched considering the way my life is going right now!" Emma yells through the window.
"Leave us alone!" Neal teases back. Henry shakes his head at his father.
"She's not gonna. When she's in Mama Bear Mode, she's intense."
"She's always intense." Neal deadpans. "We walked to a bar, about two blocks, and she yelled at me the whole time." Henry giggles. "But seriously, Kid. In Emma's mind, I used her. I pretended to love her, set her up, and ran. Do you know about her childhood?"
"I know that no one loved her."
"I think you're smart enough to understand that that was the worst possible thing I could have done to her considering her past."
"Why did you leave her?" Henry asks.
"In her words? Because Pinocchio told me to. So you get that she thought I was a bad man. And I was, Henry. I stole things. I was horrible."
"But you changed." Henry says, completely non-judgmental. "You came back."
"It was the honorable thing to do."
"Honorable." Henry smiles. "That means you're honorable."
"I'm not sure where you get your forgiving nature." Neal glances inside at his father. "But I think I can learn a thing or two from you." He pats his son's back and squeezes through the window. He catches Mr. Gold's eye for a moment before closing the distance and embracing him. Henry watches and does the same to his mother.
"I guess I can't be mad at you for trying to keep me safe and for caring about my feelings. It's more than Regina ever did. I'm sorry I compared you to her…"
"Kid, forget it. It's fine. You have my temper." Emma laughs.
"I seriously don't know where he got his optimism and goodness. I heard that Rumplestiltskin's his grandfather, his mother slash great-grandmother is the Evil Queen, so his great-great grandmother is Cora, the mother of all evil." Neal says.
"Actually, his step-great grandmother step-great-great grandmother. His grandmother, on the other hand… that's where he gets his optimism and forgiveness."
"Wait. Who're your parents?" Neal asks. Emma rolls her eyes while replying,
"Snow White and Prince Charming."
"Oh. My. God. You are so your mother's daughter!" He exclaims, and even Mr. Gold chuckles. "Now that I think about it, I see the resemblance. You have her chin."
"Shut up."
"Son, how about we go home?" Mr. Gold asks hesitantly. "To Storybrooke?"
"I like that idea." Emma answers for her ex-boyfriend. "And I'm just giving fair notice here: we're not doing Thanksgiving."
"What's that?" Mr. Gold says.
"Let's just leave it at this: it would be World War III." On their way down to the parking lot, Henry says,
"I'm glad we didn't take your Bug. We wouldn't have enough room."
"You kept it?" Neal looks surprised, stopping in his tracks. "The necklace, the car… you missed me." He gives a cheeky smile. Emma ignores his comment.
"There's only four of us, Kid. It'd be a tight fit, but we'd have enough room. Now, can we just go home?" Uh oh. She just said the 'h' word. Quickly, she adds, "Henry needs his stuff back and I don't trust David not to mess up my office."
"Office?" Neal raises an eyebrow as he climbs into the backseat next to Henry.
"Sheriff." Emma answers simply.
"Huh." He makes a confused grunt. "From thief to Sheriff."
"Thief?" Henry questions.
"You know your Grandma's story? It was like that, Henry. I really wasn't a bad person." The blonde tries to put the situation into a context that the boy can understand.
"Oh. Well, I'm hungry."
"This isn't a road trip." Emma smiles.
"Actually, I think it is this time." Henry returns the grin. Maybe, once again, everything can go back to equilibrium.