Emma's feet were killing her and it was getting dark. They had been walking around Manhattan since they had arrived in New York and the piece of fabric Rumplestiltskin had enchanted hadn't glowed once, in fact, Emma was starting to think it wasn't working.

'Let's just go back to the hotel and start again in the morning,' Emma sighed, flopping down on a bench and relishing at the feeling of not having all her weight on her feet.

'Excellent idea,' Rumplestiltskin agreed as he sat down next to her.

Emma looked at him carefully, if she was tired then no doubt he was since he had half drag is leg around.

Once Emma had cleaned up a bit in the room they had gotten, she headed up to the roof with her phone intending to call her parents and Henry.

'Why is my life so crazy?' she asked to the sky before looking down at her watch.

At this time, Henry and her parents were probably about to head to bed so she quickly dialled the home number, a thought that still made her smile. She'd never really had a home before Storybrooke, sure she had had that small apartment in Boston but not even she would call that a home. The closest thing she had ever had was the yellow bug she still had that she had shared with her first love, Neal, but she was sure most people would describe a home as a house but Emma believed the saying that "home is where your heart is" and heart had been with Neal.

'I'll get it,' Henry yelled as the phone went off, scrambling out of his chair and across the room.

His grandparents had allowed him to stay up until his mum called, which they knew she would, so they were all just sitting around watching Disney's version of Snow White – Henry had convinced them to see how they were represented.

'Mum?' Henry asked hopefully as he answered the phone.

'Hey, kid,' Emma's familiar voice came through the earpiece. 'You being good for you grandparents? Not causing trouble?'

'I don't cause trouble, mum,' Henry said stubbornly as Snow and David looked up at him, now knowing that it was their daughter who was calling. 'Now, where are you? What have you been doing? Have you found him yet? How are you going to find? What-'

'Henry, slow down,' Emma laughed and Henry bit his lip so no more questions could burst out. 'Put it on speakerphone, please, that way I won't have to repeat myself.'

Henry did as he was told as he made his way back to his grandparents, who were still sitting on the sofa.

'Hi, sweetie,' Snow said. 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm fine,' they heard Emma say and they could almost hear the rolling of her eyes. 'And hi.'

David chuckled, 'hi, sweetheart.'

'Now, Emma, answer my questions, please,' Henry almost whined, he had been changing between "Emma" "Memma" and "Mum" since she returned but now it was completely natural, he didn't even notice which one he used.

'Okay, okay,' Emma laughed again. 'I'm in Manhattan, we've been walking round it all day since we arrived and no we haven't found him yet but that's hardly surprising. The plan, Henry, is to wait for this piece of fabric to glow to tell us that he's near – I just hope it does more than that because Manhattans a very busy place.'

'Oh, I'm sure Rumplestiltskin took that into consideration,' David smiled.

'If he didn't, I might just murder him,' Emma grumbled.

'Emma,' Snow scolded.

'Look, I have to go, early start,' Emma sighed but with a hint of laughter. 'I love you all. Henry, be good.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Henry said, standing up. 'I love you, too. Bye, mum.'

'Bye, Emma, we love you,' Snow sighed, obviously not wanting the call to end.

'Call soon, sweetheart,' David added, taking the phone from Henry as he began to make his way toward the stairs.

'Bye,' Emma said and then the line disconnected and David got up from the sofa to place it back in its holder.

'Let's get started,' Emma said the next morning once she and Rumplestiltskin had finished breakfast in the hotel. 'The sooner we find this guy the better, for both of us.'

Her companion nodded with a smile and began to stand.

Once they were back out on the streets on Manhattan, Emma brought the piece of Baelfire's cloak out and held it in front of her.

'You know,' she began conversational, 'we started so early that if we find where he lives, he may still be sleeping and –'

She stopped talking as suddenly the fabric began to glow and pull away from her.

'Hold onto it, Miss Swan,' Rumplestiltskin warned, suddenly looking rather nervous. However, his words were in vain as the fabric slipped through Emma's fingers and smacked not into a building like she had expected but into a man leaving an apartment building.

The man looked down at his arm were the part of the cloak had hit him before he looked up, right into Rumplestiltskin's gaze. Neither Emma nor Rumplestiltskin could see his face since he was wearing a dark hoody with the hood up due to the rain that was just beginning to fall but Emma could tell that he didn't have Rumplestiltskin's stringy build, he was still tall but he was broader.

'Shit,' Emma heard him muttered and the voice sounded vaguely familiar to her but before she could think anything more about it, the figure had turned and began to run.

'Oh no,' she sighed heavily, why did he have to run?

'Get him, please,' Rumplestiltskin begged, staring after the man that magic had said was his son.

Emma looked at him for one second before she took off in pursuit of the person.

'Stay here,' she called over her shoulder before she focused on following the figure, which she could see not far ahead of her.

The man was fast, as though he'd spent many years running, and he dodged people and obstacles easily, although they both nearly got hit by a taxi as he sprinted across the busy road. He obviously knew New York well as he slipped into a small alley way that Emma probably wouldn't have seen if she had just been walking past.

Following him down the narrow alley, almost slipping in a puddle as she did so, Emma noticed it was a crisscross of paths, which, for experience, she knew was the best place to lose someone. Unluckily, for the man, Emma knew the back areas of New York quite well and took a short cut to where she guessed he was going: a wider street that led to another main road, which if he managed to lose her would have his best chance of escape.

Timing her exit until he was just passed the tiny alley way she was in, she jumped out tackling him to the wet ground. The force of her collision not only caused them to hit the ground but also to slide along it.

'Don't struggle,' she panted, thinking that, like everyone else she had chased, he wouldn't listen then he did but it seemed a shocked freeze.

The next words that were said made her jump up as though she had been burned because she knew where she recognised the voice from now. How could she not? It was voice that she had woken up to every morning for at least a year. A voice she would have walked through fire for. A voice that comforted her when she was upset. A voice she should have known anywhere.

'Emma?' the horribly familiar voice whispered in a hoarse voice.

'No,' is all she manages to say as she backs up against the brick wall of the building behind her, shaking her head slightly in denial - this had to be a nightmare, it had. There was no way Neal freaking Cassidy was Baelfire, it couldn't be possible. She squeezed her tightly shut, trying to keep at bay the tears over Neal that she had never allowed herself to cry and hoping when she opened them he wouldn't be there anymore.

'Ems,' he said gently and she knew without looking out him that he was reaching out towards her with a pained look on his handsome face, the same look he always had when she was the slightest bit upset because what had hurt her, had hurt him too, as clique as that sounded.

Her heart twinged at the old nickname in his voice and she just shook her head again bringing her hands up to cover her face.

'Babe, please, look at me,' that voice said again cutting her deeper as she shook her head, keeping her eyes closed and her face covered with her hands as she felt a single tear slip out. 'Babe.'

She felt him grasp her arms gently just above her elbow and she felt the familiar shock go through her body causing her to silently curse that he still had this effect on her. His calling her "babe" was not helping her keep control herself, either, because a part of her, the part that made her wonder if behind all her walls she was still the girl in the glasses, wanted nothing more than to leap into his arms as though nothing had changed but the other part of her knew that it had and that part was angry and hurt, emotions that usually won out.

Emma allowed him to guide her arms down to her side but kept her eyes firmly closed, afraid of what she would see in his eyes if she looked into them and what her reaction would be.

'Come on, Babe,' his voice came again. 'I wanna talk.'

Emma's eyes snapped open.

'"You wanna talk"?' she quoted, her eyes widening before narrowing dangerously causing Neal to, wisely, take a step back. 'What do you want to talk about, Neal? How you abandoned me? How you sent me to jail for a crime you committed? What the hell do you want to talk about?'

'Ems-' he began.

'Don't call me that!' she snapped.

'Emma,' Neal corrected to her sudden statement. 'Just listen to me, please. You have every right to be angry but I was honestly trying to do what was best for you.'

'How was going to jail what was best for me?' she screeched back at him incredulously. 'How was you leaving me, best for me? I loved you; I trusted you.'

Neal swallowed heavily, nodding his head gravely, 'I know and I loved you. That's why I did it because I loved you and August tol-'

'August?' Emma interrupted momentarily side-tracked.

'Your friend, August, he said you had-'

'Shut up, just shut up a minute!' Neal sighed obviously getting annoyed at the fact she continually kept cutting him off. 'You left me because Pinocchio told you to?'

'Well, in a way,' Neal related realizing how much worse it sounded when she put it like that, 'but I was doing what I thought was best for you, I was helping you to get home, you always wanted to meet you parents, Ems, you deserved it. He told you had to break the curse, that your parents were in that town-'

'And you just believed him?' Emma always growled. 'You believed him that your girlfriend, who you claim to love, had to break a curse over a load of fairy-tale characters?'

He sent her a look that told her she was clearly forgetting something vitally important and when she remembered how she ended up in this situation, she sounded all the more realistic.

'I'm not saying anything more until me the truth about who you are,' Emma said, still breathing heavily from shouting and running. 'Were you playing me? Did you know all along who I was?'

'No, I didn't,' Neal interrupted her this time before she got the wrong idea, 'and I haven't been Baelfire for a long time, to me he doesn't exist. What does he want?'

Emma didn't even have to ask who he was on about, 'he wants you.'

'Really?' Neal said with a slight laugh before his face turned deadly serious. 'How do you fit into this?'

'I made a deal with him-'

'A deal!' Neal exclaimed, grabbing her by the arms again and pulling her closer to him before saying hoarsely, 'are you insane? Do you have a death wish or something, Emma? He' s dangerous, you don't make deals with that man.'

Neal's voice had rose steadily as he'd spoken

'I was new to town, I didn't know who he was and I don't regret the reason I did it,' Emma yelled back at him, pulling herself free of his grasp. 'Why do you care?'

'Because I still love you and I won't allow him to hurt y-' Neal's words had trailed off as he realized what he had said and Emma stared at him wide-eyed.

'No, you not allowed to love me,' Emma said the words almost icily after a few seconds too long of silence.

'Love does not work like that, Ems,' Neal said tiredly, shaking his head gently.

'Stop calling me that,' Emma said weakly.

'Sorry.'

'Come on,' Emma said after a few minutes of them just standing there. 'I have to take you to your father.'

'No way!' Neal snapped. 'I'm not talking to him.'

'You don't have to talk to him,' Emma almost pleaded. 'Just please go to him, let him talk to you.'

'Why?'

'Because I made a deal with him!' Emma cried, waving a hand around and feeling slightly hysteric. 'If I don't keep my end up who knows what he'd do. He took my Uncle from my Aunt because she broke a deal with him. I'm trying to protect my family; I'm trying to protect my son.'

'Your son,' Neal repeated sounding a little hoarse again and Emma could see his eyes flash down to her left hand, no doubt looking for a ring

'My son, your son, ' Emma told him, knowing he was wondering if he'd heard correctly but her worry over that he would not come made it her turn to say too much but she continued anyway, knowing he'd find out anyway. 'Our son.'

Neal said nothing just stared at her as though his mind was still processing the words she had dropped like a bomb.

'Our son.'

'Quick repeating me,' Emma said breathlessly. 'Please, Neal, let's talk about this later.'

It seemed she'd finally pushed him over the edge as he sighed heavily and nodded his head. He gestured with her to lead the way, when her phone went. Searching frantically for her phone, Emma began to walk Neal walking beside her.

'Hello?' she said when she finally located it in the depths of her coat pockets.

'Mum?' Henry's voice came over the phone.

'Hey, kid,' Emma replied, a large grin spreading over her face and Neal's head turned towards her curiously causing her to nod in reply to his silent question. 'What's going on?'

'Well, Gramps was thinking about getting me a horse and teaching me to ride but I have to check with you,' Henry said, and she could practically see him bouncing with joy and a large grin stretched over his face. 'It's okay right? Please say it's okay!'

'Let me make sure I heard this correctly,' Emma said, half frowning, half smiling. 'My dad' – Emma saw Neal smile out the corner of her eye – 'wants to buy you a horse and teach you to ride it?'

'Yep,' Henry replied, almost cheekily.

'Okay, sure,' Emma laughed. 'Just be careful, Henry.'

'Yeah, yeah, mum,' that was cheeky. 'I'll be fine. I love you. Thanks!'

'Mhumm,' Emma hummed. 'I love you, too. Bye.'

'Bye!'

Emma brought the phone down from her ear, shaking her head with an amused smile on her face. That was so like, her eyes flickered to the man next to her, it was so like him. However, she'd stopped being surprised at the things Henry did so much like his father because she'd realized that he was much more like Neal than he was her.

'So his name's Henry,' Neal observed, pulling her out of her thoughts as they stepped out of the little alleyway that they had turned off the main street into.

'Yeah.'

'When did you find out?' asked Neal, attempting to keep a conversation going.

'When I got the car keys,' Emma said honestly before adding sarcastically. 'Thanks for that, it really softened the blow.'

'What about the money?' Neal asked and Emma turned to him sharply but continued walking.

'What money?'

'The money from the watches, I told August to give you it with the keys.'

'You gave Pinocchio the money to give to me?' Emma asked. 'I never got the money, Neal, he took it.'

'Fuck, stupid scumbag,' Neal cursed. 'He was supposed to be helping you.'

'I only met him a few months ago, so much for helping… where is he?' They had arrived back at where they had started but Rumplestiltskin was nowhere to be seen. Emma looked up at building. 'You live here?'

'Yeah, why?' Neal said, as he stopped his search for his father to look at her curiously.

'Shall we check your apartment for him,' Emma suggested, she could just imagine Rumplestiltskin breaking into his sons apartment to wait for them. 'If he's not there we can check the hotel room.'

Neal sighed heavily, he didn't really want to see his father at all, let alone search him out, but he had to protect Emma, Henry and their family. He led her up to the apartment where the door was open very slightly.

'He's here,' Emma said.