DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, ABC Studios, Disney, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a sequel to my story A Good Pirate is Hard (to Find). It is highly recommended that you read that one first, if not for continuity's sake, then at least because it's fun. Hopefully? Anyway, this story is set after the episode In the Name of the Brother but before the new episode Tiny which will air tonight (yay!). I have taken some liberties, of course. Though not as many as Hook, who you will notice is absent in this first chapter. Sorry! It was necessary, don't keelhaul me. Now, again, I'm shutting up!

Chapter One: Emma and Gold's Excellent Adventure

"We're lost."

"We are not lost, Ms. Swan. I know exactly where we are."

"On the Earth is not specific enough." Emma imagined that Gold was about to kill her five minutes ago, so she added, "Do you want me to ask for directions at the next gas station?" which of course did nothing help to improve the man's mood.

"No, that will not be necessary, as we are. Not. Lost." This last volley came from between gritted teeth.

Emma smiled, and wondered what it might take to snap that last thin thread of patience. She had several hours to find out.

XXXXX

The trip had started off on a bad foot thanks to Emma's casually flung barb regarding Hook, and the atmosphere had steadily declined from there.

People who could barely tolerate each other during the best of times were never meant to share a small car for hours. Although they (Gold) had ultimately decided to take Gold's luxe town car instead of Emma's peasant-mobile, after five minutes it had already seemed smaller than a Mini Cooper. What space they had was taken up by Emma's backpack, Gold's ridiculously huge wooden box, and icy cold silence.

Emma's second mistake was suggesting they listen to some music. Gold agreed readily enough with a nod of his head, but by the time Emma fished out her iPod, he had already turned the radio to some ungodly station that played nothing but Wagnerian operas as far as Emma could tell. She soldiered on for twenty minutes, but when there was still no end in sight to what could not possibly still be the same damned song, she flicked off the radio. Gold raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Speaking of saying nothing, Emma decided the silent treatment would have to end. She knew Gold loved the sound of his own voice, and while she would not normally be inclined to chat with him, she wanted more information on their mission. She also hated the awkward silence. Why were men such sulky babies?

"Gold, you're going to have to talk to me eventually. I'm sorry I slept with your mortal enemy. There, does that make you feel better?"

The noise Gold made fell somewhere between choking and growling. "Oddly enough, Ms. Swan, that does not make me feel better."

"Well tough, because I'm not sorry anyway." More growling. "Seriously, Gold, get over it. You gave me a super pervy spell and not a lot of time to cast it. Hook was there, it happened, Henry's safe, end of story. Can we move on with our lives? I'd like to talk about the more pressing problem."

Gold relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel and let out a long breath. Get over it indeed. Just another stupid woman; how disappointing. "Putting aside your monumentally asinine decision, to what problem are you referring?"

"The problem of finding your son! I assume you have an idea of where he's living, but do you know what he looks like now? Or what name he goes by? New York is a big city!" Seeing his bleak expression, Emma felt a bit sorry for him, but Gold's customary self-assuredness quickly returned.

"It's all under control, Ms. Swan. My globe will show us where he is. It becomes more detailed the closer it gets to the subject of the blood spell." He indicated the mysterious large box in the backseat with a wave of his hand.

"Like a Google Map," Emma said absently, calculating how many hours were still left on their trip. They had been traveling for about two hours already and were just past Portland.

"Yes, exactly like a Google Map." Gold's cuttingly sarcastic tone jarred Emma out of her calculations. "An ancient, blood-fueled, magical Google Map, the only one of its kind in the worlds. No, Ms. Swan, it is most decidedly not like a Google Map. Try to retain a modicum of intelligence, if you please. Or perhaps attain would be the better word."

Emma's eyebrows furrowed as she glared at her odious traveling companion. "Listen up, Rumple. Let's get one thing straight. I'm here to help you recover your son, not to be your whipping boy. I know you're stressed and anxious to find Baelfire, and I get that, but fighting from here to NYC isn't going to make this trip go any faster."

A flash of light reflected off a passing car drew her eye for a second, and when she looked back at Gold, she saw a monster. A scaly, leather-clad, crazy-haired nightmare that radiated trickery and evil. Rumplestiltskin. Shit. As she drew back instinctively against the passenger door, she blinked, and the creature was gone. Gold was sitting there calmly driving, looking as sharp as ever in his expensive suit. The only signs of his continued anger were the tense lines bracketing his mouth.

"Do not call the monster, dearie, if you do not wish him to appear."

Emma swallowed hard, loosening her grip on the door handle. "Yeah… yeah, I got it." She had never seen the real Rumplestiltskin before, and never wanted to again. How did Gold manage to suppress all that evil under his human façade? Or maybe he didn't. Either way, Emma would be perfectly happy living the rest of her life without a repeat of this little performance. Part of her rebelled against being bullied, but a slightly larger part reminded her to pick her battles. This one she could do without. She settled back into her seat and smoothed her sweaty palms down her jeans.

"Can I put on some of my music this time?" she asked, in what she assured herself was a perfectly reasonable and non-combative tone.

"No."

Pick your battles. Pick your battles. Pick your battles... ARGH!

And so the silence continued.

XXXXX

One and a half hours and one thoroughly uninteresting lunch at Burger King later, they were driving through Boston. And they were lost.

The city was a twisting labyrinth, and Emma was sure they were no longer headed towards New York. "If you don't want me to ask for directions, maybe we could just buy a map? I'm a great navigator, plenty of experience. I'm actually surprised GPS doesn't come standard with this expensive heap." She stared at the dashboard as if willing a GPS unit to appear.

"Again, I repeat: we are not lost. And we already havea map. We just need to get back onto the highway. Hold on." Gold reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small silver box about the size of a cigarette case. From it, he extracted a slim glass vial containing a murky black liquid. In a move that was at odds with his urbane appearance, he unstoppered the tube with his teeth, spitting the cork out the window.

'He must really be jittery now that we're getting so close to his son,' Emma thought. Then, as Gold drank the contents of the vial and spat actual freaking fire around the interior of the car, she didn't have time to think anymore. She just screamed.

After a long, searingly hot moment, Emma opened her eyes. Clawing her hair out of her face, she looked around wildly. The interior of the car was pristine, and although a slight scent of smoke remained, the flames were gone. As she glanced dazedly out the window at a passing mile marker, she noticed they were headed west down I-90.

"You goddamn crazy bastard!" she yelled, smacking her thigh so as to avoid hitting the driver (always a bad idea, she had learned). "What the hell was that?"

"Just a small teleportation spell. I told you we didn't need directions," he added, unnecessarily smugly in Emma's opinion.

"Well, how about a little warning next time?" she demanded after taking a long drink of her bottled water. She wiped her mouth and looked over at him. She could swear he was laughing on the inside, and it dawned on her that this was perhaps his little retribution for the whole Hook debacle. And if that's the way he wanted to play things… She unwound her pale blue scarf and shook it out with more vigor than the task demanded. "God, it's so hot in here now."

Gold glanced over at the ruckus, and Emma could tell the exact second that his eye caught the angry red scar peeking out from above her black v-neck shirt. And he knew what it was from, too, she could see that from the way his nostrils flared and his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. He raised his eyes to hers and they were like molten lava, anger simmering hotter than the flames from just a few minutes ago. But he was still himself, and Emma did not fear him. She met his stare and lifted an eyebrow. Touché. He visibly collected himself and returned his attention to navigating the congested traffic.

Emma decided to extend an olive branch. She put her scarf back on. "Ok, so this might be a stupid question, but why didn't we just use that spell to get from Storybrooke to New York City?"

Gold opened his mouth, then closed it. He decided to accept the tentative truce and said instead, "It's not a stupid question. I considered using it, but New York is too far away. The spell only works for short-range teleportation. Plus, as we get further from Storybrooke, my magic weakens. It's simpler to drive and conserve energy. I will likely have to use another spell to locate Bae within the city, since as you pointed out, I don't know what he looks like now as a man." He stopped abruptly, and Emma could tell that it had cost him something to admit that.

Their bickering aside, she truly could sympathize with his desire to see his son again, to apologize for past wrongs, and to move forward towards a hopefully happier future together. Now that Henry was in her life, she couldn't imagine how she had gotten through ten long years without him. Emma reached over and lightly clasped the back of Gold's right hand. Her touch did not linger, but it was heartfelt. She said, "We'll find him, Gold."

He nodded briskly. "I know we will, Ms. Swan."

They spent five minutes in surprisingly companionable silence when Gold suddenly said, "Why don't you check the globe, and see if it's narrowed down the location at all yet."

Emma unclasped her seatbelt and climbed halfway into the backseat to open the wooden box. She pulled the strangest-looking globe she had ever seen back up front with her. It was completely blank but for one streak of dried blood at the top. Gold reached over and put his palm to the smooth surface, and instantly, lines spread out from under his hand forming a map of the American east coast. The dried blood liquefied and ran down, presumably marking the trail to Baelfire. Emma peered closely at the globe, raising it to the window to better see the tiny lettering curving across naming roads and cities. But something seemed off to her. It was almost as if the blood line led back up… Oh no.

"Gold, we have a problem, pull over. Now."

XXXXX

Emma and Gold ignored the honking horns and dull engine roars of the passing cars. They were pulled over in an emergency braking lane, staring dumbfounded at the globe. No matter how long they looked, the information they were seeing did not change.

"He's moving towards Storybrooke." Gold's voice was barely above a whisper, his accent more pronounced than Emma had ever heard. "How… why?"

"Maybe it's a coincidence," Emma offered, but even she didn't believe that. "How do you know he hasn't been traveling up until now, maybe he doesn't live in New York."

"No, he does. Or did, at the very least. If he had been on the move recently, the blood line would have shown his path. But it led firmly to New York City, with no prior trail. That means that whenever he had last traveled, enough time had passed for the lines to weaken and disappear. He was definitely living in New York. The question is, why is he moving now? I suppose it could possibly be a coincidence as you say, but I doubt it." He stared at the globe a moment longer, pinpointing a particular spot. "It doesn't matter how or why, we're going after him. We have to catch up to him before he crosses into the town, if that is indeed where he's headed. Let's go."

Gold reached into his pocket and withdrew the silver case. As he unstoppered another vial, he glanced at Emma, "I don't suppose you'll need a warning this time?"

She sighed and closed her eyes, "Nope. But that doesn't mean I want to see it again." She felt the flames and the heat and the cloying scent of acrid smoke, which, as before, were all gone a moment later.

Emma looked outside and saw that they were about twenty miles outside of Storybrooke. She whistled and was a bit impressed in spite of herself. "That was a pretty big jump, Gold."

Silence. She turned and was alarmed to find the pawnbroker slumped down over the wheel, held up only by his seatbelt. "Gold! Hey, come on, don't do this to me now!" She quickly undid her own seatbelt and reached over to haul the older man up by his suit lapels. She lightly slapped his cheeks a couple of times, then grabbed her water bottle and upended what was left of it over his head.

With a gasp, Gold came to and his hand was around her throat before either of them realized what had happened. Eyes wide, Emma scrabbled ineffectually at his iron grip. He let go immediately and sighed, rubbing his temples. "Sorry."

Emma breathed deeply through her nose and croaked, "Never mind that, what happened to you?"

Gold loosened his tie – 'He loosened his tie, he must be dying!' Emma thought – and he said, "Too much repetitive magic. I shouldn't have used the teleportation spell twice in the same day, especially not over such a long distance. But it doesn't matter." He shoved her away from him and fished the globe out from under Emma's legs where it had fallen. "It shows that he's nearby, perhaps at a rest stop. We'll go left at the next fork in the road."

They buckled back in and resumed their journey.

Emma took a moment to chuckle quietly at Gold's sodden state. She didn't expect she'd see him like that again. She was shocked when he smiled and said, "Really, Ms. Swan. Is it quite that hilarious?"

She laughed louder then and replied, "Absolutely, Gold."

XXXXX

They pulled into a BP gas station outside of town about ten minutes later, Gold having driven the last fifteen miles at demonic speeds. It seemed pretty obvious now that, yes, Baelfire was headed directly towards Storybrooke.

Gold tore off his seatbelt and jumped from the car. Emma followed close behind. They both glanced around at the various pumps, trying to spot a lone figure that could be the prodigal son. Time seemed to slow as the glass doors of the convenience center swung open and a tall, stocky figure in a green canvas jacket and dark shades emerged.

Gold sucked in his breath and took a small involuntary step forwards. He didn't need another spell after all; he would recognize his boy anywhere. "Baelfire?" he said in a broken, hopeful voice.

The figure stopped, jaw dropping. He whipped off his sunglasses and cried, "Dad?!" Then a moment later, "Emma?!"

Emma had never ridden a roller coaster before, but suddenly she knew this was what a long, fast drop must feel like. Somewhere in the universe stars exploded, and she saw the white lights dancing in front of her eyes. She leaned back against the hood of the car.

"Neal."