Summary: Neal Cassidy and Emma Swan return home with their baby, in time to host their first Thanksgiving Dinner. But will Mr. Son of Rumplestiltskin be able to take care of a newborn while managing the rivalries among family members, or is it going to be too much for a man to handle?
Chapter 1: The night they all met for Thanksgiving
"It's just a diaper."
"It is. Just a diaper."
Neal Cassidy rocked back and forth on his heels, staring at the baby lying on the changing mat.
Their baby.
He turned his head to look at the woman by his side, and the dark bags under her eyes were a clear indication that she was struggling to stay awake. He probably didn't look that much better himself. They had just returned home from three sleepless nights at the hospital, not to mention the whole ordeal of labor… the longest, and most nerve-wrecking twelve hours of his life.
He still wondered how he had made it through without any broken fingers: Emma certainly seemed intent on breaking them as she clutched his hand in the delivery room.
But everything was fine. They would make it. The fact that it was their first night taking care of a baby, and also the first time in their lives they were going to have their whole family together for dinner… totally doable.
"Tell me again who suggested we celebrated Thanksgiving here?"
"You," Emma groaned, her eyes half-closed.
"Oh," he raised his eyebrows, beating himself mentally for his faux pas. What a stupid idea it had been. If only he had known that their daughter would arrive two weeks earlier than they had expected… Still, he could have called it off and no one would have blamed them. His father, Belle, the Charmings… No one would have objected. In fact, they had even tried to change his mind about that infamous get-together, and he, as usual, had not caved in.
He had always wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family, but he had never had a family to do so before. Now he did.
And now, he realized that maybe he could have waited another year. After all, Regina Mills and Hook were coming as well, and managing all the tension among family members as well as taking care of a newborn was, perhaps, a little too much to handle.
He shrugged. No point thinking of what could go wrong. Luckily, nothing would.
They would be just fine.
"Why don't you take a rest, let me handle this," he said, pressing a kiss to her head as he rubbed her shoulders.
"Think you can do it?"
"Yeah. I mean…" he fished a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. "I printed the instructions."
"Instructions?" Emma felt like laughing. She couldn't believe that man. Who, in their right mind, would print a full page with instructions on how to change a diaper? "Neal… Are you… are you serious?"
"What, think you can do better yourself?" he said, with a frown.
"Nope… you go ahead."
"You laugh… Okay," he let a smile curl his lips. Emma could mock him for his lack of knowledge on the matter, but at the end of the day she knew as little about taking care of a baby as he did. "First, get a clean diaper. Fine…" he moved around the room, and grabbed all the supplies the paper indicated. "Now… unfasten the tabs… Jesus, girl!" he blinked, and turned his head around while holding his daughter's ankles up in the air. "Emma! What have you been feeding her? Indian food?"
"I could do with some curry…" she whispered, after letting herself fall onto an armchair.
"Sorry, honey…" he replied, reaching for a dozen wipes and smiling as their baby giggled. "I guess you'll have to do with Belle's turkey… and your mother's sweet potato casserole."
"And Regina's lasagna."
"Indeed…" he whispered, after using nearly half a packet of tissues. "Uh, Emma?"
"What?"
"Do you think we should shower her?"
"Is it that bad?" she asked, getting to her feet.
"No… I think she's clean, but… I don't know, what do you think?"
"She looks clean to me…" Emma said, touching the baby's belly and making her giggle even more. "Besides, if she takes a shower every time we change her diapers, her skin is probably going to fall off…"
"Yeah…" he replied, his eyes shining as he looked at their daughter. "We are going to change a lot of diapers, ain't we?"
"Apparently…"
He felt Emma's hand go up and down his back, and then her lips were on his temple, as she pressed soft kisses all over his face.
"Next one is mine, ok?" she said, and he saw her fingers close around the paper next to the changing mat. "I guess I'll keep this."
"Who's laughing now, huh?"
He fastened the clean diaper and took the baby in his arms, barely hiding his pride in having successfully changed their daughter's first diaper.
"I guess we are doing fine for our first night as parents…" he muttered. "I mean… You know…"
She knew.
"Yeah…" she whispered, her arms encircling both their child and his shoulders. "I guess we are."
He had just given her a kiss on the lips when the doorbell rang.
"They're here," he said.
"I'll get her dressed."
When Emma took the baby from his arms, he took a long, deep breath, and fixed the scarf around his neck.
"Everything will be fine," he kept telling himself, as he hurriedly went down the stairs. "Everything will be-"
And then, his foot landed on the bottle that had fallen from their maternity bag only minutes ago, the one that he had mentally remarked he should get before someone suffered some sort of accident.
Too late.
He rolled down the stairs, and landed with a deafening bang against the broom closet, its door cracking open with the impact.
"Neal?" he heard Emma's voice call out.
"I'm fine!" he screamed back, after jumping to his feet and opening the door.
"Dad!" exclaimed Henry Mills.
"Hey, buddy!"
He hugged his son, ignoring the ache on his ribs as the boy hugged him back.
One by one, the Charmings, Belle and his father entered the house.
"Hi Snow… David," he shook hands with his father-in-law, and then reached out to give Belle a kiss as she entered the house as well. "Belle…"
The last person to enter the house was his father, and the two of them simply nodded at each other. He knew he was the one who was not making an effort to bridge the gap between them, but what did his old man expect? Certain wounds didn't heal that easily… He was not ready to let him back in yet.
"Where is she?" Henry asked, and his voice was filled with anxiety.
He didn't even have time to answer. As Emma slowly walked down the stairs, he searched around for the bottle that had caused his accident instants ago, fearing that it was still on Emma's route, and was relieved to find it in the broom closet. After letting out a sigh, his eyes were again on Emma and their daughter, and for a moment he realized that Henry was looking at them with as much awe as he was.
They had decided to let the boy choose his sister's name. 'She deserves the name of a warrior,' he had said, 'because she was born fighting, already!' Indeed, she was. The poor thing had had to struggle with a nuchal chord that nearly strangled her during delivery, and the moment Neal first saw her she was not breathing. The worst feeling of his life… He saw the doctors take her away in a hurry, and he was torn between following them and staying by Emma's side.
He chose the latter. He had promised himself never to leave Emma's side again.
But Henry… Henry hadn't given the doctors a moment of peace, and minutes later he had returned to the delivery room, a broad grin on his face, to tell them that his sister was just fine, that she was screaming at the top of her lungs, and that she had even opened her eyes to look at him. 'She kicked ass!' he had said.
Fair enough, then, that she got the name of a warrior. But then, what name would Henry come up with? For some reason, he couldn't stop thinking that Xena would not be a hit… and he was already preparing what to say when his son suggested it. But, maybe, Henry had another warrior in mind? Mulan, maybe? Joan, as in… Joan of Arc? Only God knew what kind of book his son had been reading those days…
"Hi, Olive!" he exclaimed, as soon as Emma reached them, with his baby sister in her arms.
Olive. So that was the warrior's name he had in mind.
Okay, then.
They had both shrugged and smiled when they first heard it. So, no members of the family would get a heart-warming tribute. No Eva, no Milah, no Ruth. And no Wendy, either. But now that they looked at the youngest member of that insanely improbable family, maybe a simple name like Olive made perfect sense.
Olive it was.
And Olive, as usual, was crying. No, not crying. Wailing.
"I think she's hungry…" Emma whimpered, her eyes darting from her mother's face to Neal.
He nodded, aware of what that meant.
Excusing himself, he rushed into the kitchen and opened the fridge, where they had stocked half a dozen bottles for troubled times like those. He quickly picked one of them and threw it on the microwave oven, returning to the living room after a minute.
"Wait!" Emma shrieked, before he had the chance of giving it to their daughter. "Don't you have to… you know… check to see if it is too hot or something?"
He looked from the bottle to the baby and then back at Emma, and he knew he probably looked like a criminal caught in the act.
"You're right," he whispered, beating himself for his poor parenting skills. 'Now… how do I know if it is too hot?' he thought, looking at the bottle as if it was some sort of alien object.
"Just put some of it in your arm," Emma said.
Of course. Still not sure of what he was doing, he opened the bottle, and just when he was about to pour some of the milk on his forearm, Emma's hips bumped with his while she tried to calm Olive down, and he spilled the bottle's contents on Henry's head.
"Ouch!"
"Oh my God son, I'm sorry!"
The boy was now rubbing his head, and Neal looked like someone on the verge of a stroke.
"Well, in case you wanna know…" the boy said, as his father pressed a napkin to his hair to wipe away some of the milk. "It is hot."
"I am sorry, I am so sorry!"
In the meantime, Snow and Charming took turns trying to distract Olive, and Belle had approached Henry to help him dry off his milk-soaked hair.
"Let me see this," Neal heard his father say after taking the bottle from his hands.
"I'll just go get another one."
Again, he nearly tripped on his own feet as he rushed back into the kitchen, fishing another bottle out of the fridge.
"Oh my God… I read it somewhere, but now I just don't remember…" he muttered, trying not to let panic take over as his daughter's cries grew more urgent. "Can I microwave it at all?"
He took the cell phone out of his pocket and his fingers moved nervously along the screen.
"Jesus, what have I done, I'm killing her milk…" he whispered, after finding the answer for his question in his Internet browser.
"Son, calm down," said Rumplestiltskin, who had just entered the kitchen.
"Boil it in water, they say…"
Neal, however, was too busy filling a pan with water and taking it to the stove, his shaky hands adding an extra level of difficulty to the task.
"Neal!" Emma shouted.
"Coming!" he shouted back.
"Why won't Emma nurse the baby?"
"She will, she does…" he replied, rubbing his temples as he waited for the water to heat up. "But sometimes Olive just won't latch on."
"You will do fine."
He felt his father pat his shoulder, and for a moment he closed his eyes and let those words wash over him. They would do fine. He was not a lousy parent.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Belle enter the kitchen, just to turn on her heels when she saw the two of them by the counter.
"Come in, Belle," he whispered, picking up the bottle, which was now warm. "It must be good, I guess."
And then, again, he raised his eyes to his father, as if begging for help.
"Yes, it is," Rumplestiltskin replied.
"Sorry I interrupted," Belle said, as soon as Neal left the kitchen. "I just have to check the turkey!"
"You didn't. It's always… complicated for the two of us."
"No, it isn't," she said, opening the oven to take a look at the huge bird cooking inside it. "He is scared, he is trying so hard so be a good father!"
She closed the oven and reached out to catch her husband's face in her hands.
"He needs his Papa… now more than ever."
Rumplestiltskin smiled as he pressed his forehead against hers, thankful for her words, thankful for her undying hope that he would do the right thing, as a man, as a husband, as a father.
"Now…" he said, trying to brighten things up. "Don't you think twelve hours are enough to cook a turkey? I remember you brought this over in the morning… they were not even home yet."
She blushed.
"I have no idea!" she whimpered. "I'm not used to cooking in these… things!" she completed, frowning as she pointed at the electric oven.
"Well… better overcooked than undercooked, I dare say."
Then Rumplestiltskin gave her a quick kiss on the lips, and the two of them walked back to the living room, in time to find Olive finishing her bottle.
And then crying again.
"Oh, honey, no…" Emma whispered.
"Here, let me try," said Snow. "I'm your mother, after all, I'm supposed to help."
As soon as she started rocking the baby in her arms, Snow's eyes went from calm to desperate.
"Charming, I… I don't know what to do," she whispered, as baby Olive continued to wail despite her grandma's best efforts. " I've never taken care of a baby before!"
"Oh, here…" her husband replied, trying to calm her nerves by taking his granddaughter in his arms. "You will be fine, it's all about trial and error."
And then, he held the baby up in the air as he guffawed, bringing her back down and making faces in an attempt to distract her.
"Now, Charming, you shouldn't-"
Charming, however, paid no attention to Rumplestiltskin's warning.
"Now who is grandpa's little princess? Who's grandpa's-"
Before he could finish his sentence, grandpa's little princess threw up on him, covering his face, and his shirt, with a thick white fluid.
"Oh… David… I…" Neal's eyes were about to pop out of his head. "I-I'll go get you one of my shirts."
"Frankly…" said Rumplestiltskin, taking the baby in his arms and showing everyone how to truly take care of a newborn. After all, if anyone in that room had any experience at all with babies, it had to be him.
"This cry… is the cry of a baby with colic," he explained, after wiping baby Olive's mouth with a cloth and pressing her stomach against his forearm as he rubbed her back. "Bae used to have them all the time."
Neal, who had been about to go upstairs to get David something clean to wear, stopped dead on his tracks, his eyes catching his father's across the room. They spent a long minute looking at each other, in silence, his gratitude showing in every line of his face as he looked at his papa taking charge of the situation, teaching Emma how to hold the baby to make sure she would not start crying again.
He then remembered that once, a long, long time ago, Rumplestiltskin had been the best father a child could ask for, and he felt the corners of his eyes prickle.
Maybe his father had really reverted to the best version of him.
The doorbell rang, and he woke up from his reverie. David was still by his side, waiting for a clean shirt.
"Sorry, man," he said, gesturing for David to go upstairs and then followinghim. "Papa, can you get the door for me?"
Rumplestiltskin raised his eyebrows, and then searched around for Belle, who merely smiled at him and nodded.
"S-Sure…" he muttered, walking towards the door with a hesitant limp. His son had finally trusted him with a task!
When he opened the door, though, he wished it had been a more pleasant one. Regina and Hook were staring at him from the porch, their matching sneers a silent invitation for a fight.
The nerve.
But he wouldn't ruin his son's first Thanksgiving, so he simply raised a hand and invited the two of them in with a quick gesture, although his eyes were nothing short of menacing.
"Sorry we are late," Regina announced, opening her arms to hug Henry, the first person to greet her. "The Captain here insisted on driving. Needless to say, he-"
"How could I have known your car was on reverse?" Hook interrupted.
"He crashed into Granny's," she concluded, raising an eyebrow. "And it took us a long time to get her to lose the bow."
"My dear, I don't know what you are complaining about…" the Captain of the Jolly Roger replied, his eyebrows doing their usual dance as he spoke. "She even gave me a pie."
"What pie?" Henry asked, secretly hoping for pumpkin.
"Cheery pie."
"Oh," the boy replied, with a defeated whisper.
"Your art of seduction is indeed remarkable, Captain," said Regina, before handing Snow her lasagna and a bottle of apple cider.
"Now… Where is the baby?" Hook asked, placing the pie on the table and rubbing his hands as he approached Emma. "After all… I'm step-grandpa!"
Because the others knew that such words were as reckless as waving a red flag in front of a bull, all eyes shifted to Rumplestiltskin. The man seemed to be biting his own tongue as he glared daggers at his eternal rival, his fury barely hidden under his elegant Italian suit as Belle grabbed his arm and whispered words of wisdom into his ear.
"I am sorry, but who exactly are we waiting for?" Regina asked, after Henry introduced her to his sister, and vice-versa, under the zealous eyes of his other mother.
"Really, Regina?" Rumplestiltskin snarled, his annoyance bubbling inside him like the lava of a volcano that was about to erupt. "You can't actually spot who is missing in this petit comité?"
Before she could answer, though, Neal and David were back in the room.
"Baelfire!" exclaimed Hook, walking over to Neal to catch him in a bone-breaking embrace.
"Belle, this man…" Rumplestiltskin hissed, as soon as Belle tightened her grip on his arm, sensing that he was likely to strangle the Captain of the Jolly Roger if he had the chance.
"Dinner is ready, everyone!"
Snow had returned to the room as well, carrying a large tray with the turkey Belle had been roasting for half a day. Her timing was perfect: the building tension suddenly dissipated as everyone stared at the enormous bird, its delicious smell numbing all rivalries, silencing any potential insults.
One by one, people took their places as Neal and Emma sat at the opposite ends of the table. As soon as Neal pulled his chair, though, he realized both Hook and his father had engaged in a rather obvious dispute to see who got the seat to his left.
And then, the loud noise of a cane hitting the surface of the chair forced Hook to pull his hand back, although he had reached the seat first.
"I am still his father, if you don't mind, Hook," he hissed, each word dripping with poison.
Neal watched as the pirate cursed silently and moved over to the other side of the table with a very annoyed expression on his face. Soon, everybody was sitting and waiting: Emma had her parents sitting by her side, Regina had taken the seat next to Hook, and Belle had just pulled the chair next to Rumplestiltskin.
"I'm fine," Henry said, realizing there was no chair left for him. "Don't mind me!"
And then, everybody stood up and hurried to offer their chair to the boy, except for Belle and his own parents, who just watched the scene with a look of disbelief on their eyes.
"You have to be kidding me…" Emma whispered, as Olive slept soundly in her arms.
Regina was accusing Snow of always trying to look like the victim, having offered her chair just to humiliate her in front of her son. Hook and Rumplestiltskin, in a surprising turn of events, got together to torment Charming as the blond man stood up to give Henry his chair, accusing him of going to unimaginable lengths just to be "Grandfather of the Year".
"Sorry, buddy," Neal whispered, as he silently placed his own chair next to Emma, and motioned for his son to sit.
"They will never stop fighting, will they?" Henry asked, with a sad smile.
"I don't think so…" he replied, shuffling the boy's hair with one hand as he squeezed Emma's shoulder with the other. "I guess we'll just have to get used to it!"
Then, while the other family members engaged in a massive argument, he kissed Olive's forehead and then Emma's, and headed back to the turkey.
When his eyes caught Belle's, the only other person who had remained seated, she took the hint and pulled Rumplestiltskin down with a rather strong jerk.
Emma did the same with her father, and soon enough the others followed suit and returned to their seats as well.
"Snow…" Neal said, after clearing his throat. "You had told me you wanted to say a few words…"
Emma's mother, still trying to regain her composure after the unexpected argument with Regina, simply raised her eyebrows and rose to her feet after gulping down her glass of water.
"Well… It is clear that we have a lot of work to do…" her gaze shifted to Regina, who did her best not to meet her eyes, "but as long as we love each other, as we obviously do…" her eyes searched for Charming's as she spoke. "Then we'll be fine."
She raised her empty glass, looking at her son-in-law standing at the opposite end of the table.
"Cheers!"
"Cheers," all the others said in unison, although with varying levels of enthusiasm.
Neal had expected something different, but then… The simple fact no one had tried to blind each other with a fork was a good beginning.
"And I just want to say, since it is Thanksgiving," he said, his glass still raised, "that I'm thankful for you all."
His eyes lingered on Emma's, who tilted her head at his words. She, out of all the people in that room, was probably the only one that truly understood how much that dinner meant to him. Dysfunctional or not, it was his family, and for the first time in ages, he finally had the opportunity to celebrate their existence.
"Now, for the part you were all waiting for," he said, a smile curling his lips. "The turkey!"
David, who was intent on making that night a more pleasant event than it had been so far, let out a very audible, and lonely, 'yay!' He frowned at the others' lack of enthusiasm, but Neal smiled heartily at his attempt.
His father-in-law was really a character.
"And my special thanks to Belle, for roasting the turkey," Neal completed, steadying the grip on the knife. "It looks delicious."
It took only one cut for the turkey's breast to open in two halves, a cloud of smoke going up in the air.
"Oh my God!" Belle gasped, when she realized that the turkey had been reduced to little more than bones and skin, and that the only meat left in it seemed horribly dry.
Next to him, Hook was coughing and having a giggling fit.
"Now, Regina…" he managed to say. "When you messed up with her memories, you could have at least made sure she would still remember how to cook!"
He barely realized all jaws had dropped at his comment, including Neal's. Rumplestiltskin had stood up so fast that his chair fell behind him, and he had to be stopped by both his son and his wife before he successfully lodged his knife into the other man's throat.
"What?" Hook said, still giggling as he raised an eyebrow. "I'm joking!"
"I apologize for this man's behavior," Regina said, before taking another glass of her famous apple cider to her lips. She alone had pretty much gulped down the entire bottle. "After all, I'm the one who drove him here."
"I thought you had said he was the one driving?" asked Snow, still looking at her plate as she played with her peas.
"He was," Regina corrected, after scratching her nose. "That is exactly what I said."
"Where is Neal?" Emma asked, when an uncomfortable silence followed the former mayor's words.
"Here!"
Neal raised his arm to make himself visible from behind the turkey. After giving his chair to Henry, he had taken a stool from the kitchen, and was now several inches shorter than the other people around the table.
"At least Regina's lasagna is good," muttered Charming, paying little attention to the thick cloud of tension hovering above them.
"It really is."
Again, it was Neal that spoke, to rescue his father-in-law from another frustrated attempt to make small talk. Regina raised her glass with a smile, and soon enough all of them were eating again, whispering quietly to the person closest to them.
"Hey, Henry…"
Neal rolled his eyes when Hook decided to speak again. Just when things had finally returned to normal, and his father no longer looked like he was on the verge of going on a killing spree!
"How do you feel about a sailing trip?"
"Excuse me?"
This time, it was Emma's turn to look disturbed.
"I'm going on a business trip to Barbados…" the pirate explained, with a very proud grin as he looked at Henry, "and since one of your mothers is coming with me, I thought you might want to join us?"
"You're going on a business trip with Hook?" Emma's eyebrows were impossibly high on her forehead when she looked at Regina, as if each word that left Hook's mouth made an unlikely story even more improbable.
"He and I do have some interests in common, Ms. Swan."
"What kind of interests, may I ask?" Rumplestiltskin promptly asked, with a sneer curling his lips.
"I think you know," Regina replied, with an unmistakable look of defiance on her face. "It has to do with a certain mer…" her eyes caught Henry's, and she cleared her throat, "…person."
Again, silence threatened to settle in, but before it did, Neal spoke.
"So, a business trip, huh…" he sniffed, and turned to look at Hook's face. "Pillage, I take it?"
Then, for the first time that night, Hook's humor seemed to sour.
"If you know the answer," he hissed, "then why ask the question?"
"Because you're planning to take my son with you, that is why."
The two men exchanged a very dangerous look, Neal biting his lip as Hook clenched his jaw. For a second, the two of them were reminded of their first days together in the Jolly Roger, the obvious air of animosity falling between them, although memories of shared journeys and laughter also filled their minds…
"Well… then let me rephrase it…" said Hook, letting his hand fall on top of Regina's. "Me and Mills are planning a romantic vacation on the Caribbean… does that put your mind at ease?"
Neal raised his eyebrows and swallowed. Now he remembered where he had gotten his swagger from: that man was quick on his feet.
"Not actually, no…" he replied, looking at his own plate.
"Well, boy, I tried…"
Hook finally shrugged as he talked to Henry for the last time that evening. He had, indeed, tried, but perhaps his little family vacation would have to wait a little longer.
Regina Mills was again sipping her cider. By her side, she could see Snow smiling, just like her idiotic husband. And Swan. And Belle, and everyone else on the table, as they cast very amused looks towards her.
And then it hit her. Obviously, the idiots had taken Hook's joke seriously.
"For the record, the pillage version is the real one," she said, watching everyone lower their eyes with the same smirks on their faces. "What? You didn't honestly think…"
Emma was holding back the laughter, but she simply couldn't anymore. At the risk of waking up her baby, she let out a very audibly cackle, which was echoed by pretty much everyone else on the table.
"Oh, please," Regina whimpered, watching Hook wink at her as if proud of his latest conquer. "Now you are all out of your minds."
And then, obviously, Olive woke up, wondering what the hell was so funny for people to interrupt her nap.
As Emma stood up to rock the baby in her arms, all eyes were again on the youngest member of the family. Henry had a happy grin on his face, Snow and Charming looked at their daughter with nothing but awe in their eyes, Belle held Rumpelstiltskin's hand and silently wondered if, maybe, he would be willing to be a father again, and Neal… Neal let his eyes wander around. He realized that Regina seemed to be daydreaming, and that Hook, in a rare display of non-piracy, was smiling. Not sneering, not smirking, not doing that thing with his eyebrows. Simply…smiling.
He almost looked like another man entirely.
And then, it was gone. His eyebrow went up and he turned to Regina, starting another dialogue that was likely to trigger other heated reactions.
"Have you ever thought of having a baby, Regina?"
Regina blinked, and turned her head to look at him as if she was staring at a person with serious mental issues.
"Where did that come from?"
"I'm just curious… Only a blind man would not notice your… curvaceous body," he bit his lip as he spoke, and winked at the woman by his side before taking the glass from her hands and gulping down what was left of her cider. "You have child-bearing hips."
A very loud snorting noise by their side broke Hook's reverie.
"I'm sorry," Neal apologized, laughing so much his shoulders were shaking violently. "I need a moment."
He wiped away happy tears and realized his father was laughing as well.
"Child-bearing hips, I swear…" he muttered, before breaking into laughter again. "The worst pick-up line ever!"
"There is no such a thing as a bad pick-up line, mate," Hook said, his gallantry untouched despite those vile attempts to ridicule him. "There are those that are memorable, and those that are forgettable."
He turned his head to look at Regina again, and saw that she seemed about to punch him right between the eyes.
"Mine was certainly memorable," he whispered.
"You are ridiculous," Regina replied, looking away before she was tempted to do something nasty to that man while Henry was around.
Neal shook his head, trying to catch his breath again. Indeed, memorable was a good word to describe his first Thanksgiving with his family.
The rest of the night went on without other surprises or crises. In a way, he couldn't help but feel relieved when it all came to an end, and he and Emma found themselves at the porch saying goodbye to everyone.
Henry had decided to stay, despite Regina's pleas: he wanted to be with his sister on her first night home. He had agreed, however, to spend the weekend with his mother, and then the next with his maternal grandparents, and then to travel to the tropics with Belle and his other grandpa on the first weekend of December.
Kid had a busy schedule to manage, but he seemed to be happier than ever.
So were Neal and Emma, despite their exhaustion, as they sat on the sofa.
"So…" he muttered, his eyes half-closed as his head fell over her shoulder. "Do you think Regina and Hook…?"
"They might be…"
When Henry returned from the kitchen and joined them on the sofa, the three of them looked like they needed a decent night of rest. It was time to go upstairs and call it a night. But their tiredness got the best of them, and they were all fast asleep before either of them got to their feet.
It was Neal, though, that got up when Olive started whimpering on her bassinet.
Meal time.
He clumsily rose from the sofa, and picked up the baby in his arms, dragging himself to the kitchen to heat up her bottle.
And then, when she was properly fed and fell asleep again, he put her back in the bassinet, and took his time to stretch Emma's and Henry's legs on the sofa, covering them with a blanket.
"Neal?" Emma whispered, her eyes still closed.
"Yes, baby?"
"I love you."
He smiled as he kissed her hair, tempted to join her on the sofa but knowing there wouldn't be enough room for the tree of them.
"I love you too."
And so, he let his body fall onto the armchair near Olive's bassinet. If he remembered it well, the nurses had told them that they should be prepared to feed the baby several times a night, every three hours or even less than that.
He set the alarm clock on his cell phone, just in case. As he did so, his eyes fell on the date showing on the screen, and he smiled. Thursday, November 23. 11:38 PM, EST. Thanksgiving: their first.
That was a night he was sure he would never forget.