Blackness laid over the world like a blanket tucked snugly over a child. Millions of stars dazzled the sky, tracing a clear milky causeway across the heavens. The gibbous moon hung brightly over the ever lit skyscrapers and seemed to look down curiously upon the eternally shining city though no neon could compare to the lunar orbs pale faced radiance.

The sky was a brilliant diamond fresco over the towering buildings and seemed a neatly laundered canopy above a place where peace and tranquility was not necessarily run of the mill. The entire skyline was visible on the outskirts of the city for miles around; a perfect postcard that belayed the scarcity of the event.

A clear night in New York was a rare thing indeed.

"This was your idea of a fancy date?" Emma asked in a whisper as she slid through the narrow opening of the locked back gate to the harbor.

Wearing a plaid skirt and a blue top with a sweater to ward off the light chill of the day, she looked about the dark rear exit to the docks behind her 60's style gray glasses.

The loose chain carelessly attached above her jangled luridly as she wiggled her form through the steel slit.

Roughish smile upon his scruffy chin, Neal poised a shrug as he helped her through. "I heard there was going to be shrimp and margaritas. That's fancy right?" he parried back in his eternal careless jesting way.

Unable to restrain a grin the delinquent Emma gave her partner in crime a small shove. "In our case it's like having dinner with the queen," she returned in joking sarcasm.

A small laughed huffed from Neal's lips as he led her up a back gangplank to a large white yacht moored in port. He had caught wind of some bankers daughter's wedding being held on the boat and what was a wedding without a few wedding crashers?

As the emerged at the main deck the place seemed perfect for their entry. A few guests still stubbornly lingered aboard the ship though the thick of the guests had departed to either the cabins or hailed taxis home. The bride and groom were nowhere in sight and all that seemed to be left were a few old relatives catching up on old times and drunks that sat dull witted at their own tables with mini champagne bottles forested around their tuxedoed and gown ridden forms.

Servers of the banquet sat in chairs dozing or tapping away on their phones whilst the band seemed to be looking for someone to tell them they could leave.

Dual smiles of relief carved their faces as they spied the perfect surroundings. If anyone cared that they had snuck aboard they weren't present at the moment, allotting the pair a well needed reprieve off their guard that had them constantly running away from every sort mischief they worked.

"Plenty of leftovers." Neal pointed to the metal containers still littered with food. "We'll go nab us some chow after we do one thing."

Emma turned to him, a brow arched incredulously. "What thing? I see hot dinner rolls and the promised shrimp over by what I'm pretty sure is some fancy French desert I can't pronounce. There isn't much going to trump that." She held a hand to her gut. "At least that's what my stomach says."

"Just… wait," he dodged, hoping to keep her rooted for the moment. "There's something I need to do. Trust me."

Another smile twitched upon her lips and she gave a defeated sigh. "Fine."

Flashing her a brilliant smile the man backed away. With a quick hand that seemed to want her to stay and not make a move for the food, he quickly jogged over to the band. Taking out a roll of bills, some of their last, he slipped a few to the lead guitarist.

The musician gave a strange look but with a word to his friends once more picked up their instruments. They were going to get paid for the extra work anyway.

Triumphant the victorious Neal swaggered back to the confused Emma.

"We can't have a proper date without a dance. So…." Bowing neatly, his eyes twinkling with mischief, he held out his hand. "May I have this dance?"

A faint smile of embarrassed disbelief rose upon Emma's face. Looking away for a moment she looked as though she could dredge up a retort but found the words unsuitable. Rare tenderness welled in her heart biting away the words that would have aimed at dinner. By heaven above he always knew how to get past the snarky, quick tongued front she always held.

"Alright." She accepted his hand without a sarcastic reply or retort to his uncommon chivalry.

The multicolored lights strung along the wires above cast a soft glow under the stars and moon as they began to dance. Coming closer to her, they fell into a rhythm with the lazy slow song played by the band.

When I finally asked you to dance on the last slow song

Beneath that moon that was really a disco ball

I can still feel my head on your shoulder

And hoping that night would never be over….

~8~8~

So much had changed since that night but the memory had stayed a precious keepsake locked away in the tender treasure chest of her thoughts that belonged to her past life.

Now with the curse broken, with him in Storybrooke….

"May I have this dance?" Neal, now known as Baelfire asked in the same way he had on the ship.

A slow song played on the old jukebox lodged in a forgotten, dusty corner at Granny's. The patrons had all but left and only Ruby was left buffing tables to a sleek shine for the next morning.

Emma sighed and shook her honey tresses. "This isn't like old times, Neal."

How could he expect to let things fall back as they had been?

"It can be," he persisted gently. "Just for tonight?" At her stubbornness, he sighed and rubbed the back of his head, his eyes darting away from her stone gaze. "Look, I know things have been crazy, hurtful, and impossible since you know who I am and why I left you that day. I know things are hectic and confusing and unbelievable, but for one song, Emma? Can't we just…. I haven't…. we haven't…."

Sighing forlornly, sadness welled in her eyes. "Why, Neal?"

"For old times' sake, Emma?"

Staring at him with the same incredulity she had given him that night aboard the ship, she sighed once more and without another word stepped forward. She would have been lying had she said she didn't want to. It had been so long.

And of course, it was for old times' sake, for that memory that replayed in her mind when she let her thoughts wander to the past.

I haven't seen you in ages.

Sometimes I find myself wondering where you are

For me you'll always be eighteen

And beautiful

And dancing away with me heart.

"Like old times, right?" a familiar smile she had missed so much stole faintly upon his lips. His words were near a whisper filled with the old ardor that had once bound them.

Turning round and around, they held one another close as the song crooned through the diner.

Looking away the bail bondswoman hid a blushing smile. "We crashed that wedding boat every chance we got."

"And that one Bar mitzvah," he reminded her in a low chuckle, his smile splitting his handsome face.

She couldn't help but laugh along. "And the bands would always give us that strange look," her laughed faded into a gentle memory. "But they always played us a slow song at the end. Remember?"

I brushed the curls back so I could see your eyes

And the way you moved me was like you were reading my mind

And can still see you leaning to kiss me

And can't help but wonder if you ever miss me….

By the whole Enchanted Forest itself why had she ever agreed for another dance, Emma cursed inwardly as her walls of anger so long bound began to crumble. The perfect fit in his arms the sway of being rocked by the winds of love as they stepped and turned all came flooding back with the love that had never departed for him no matter how angry she had been.

There were too many good times, too much love, and too many memories that all came back with the dance.

I haven't seen you in ages.

Sometimes I find myself wondering where you are

For me you'll always be eighteen

And beautiful

And dancing away with me heart.

"Did you know?" She leaned her head on his shoulder. "That I used to dream of dancing with you while I was locked up?"

Back then, looking up over her cellmates bunk, she would count the steps over the gray steel above her head and image the circles they had danced over and over until the back of the bed above her became the deck of the ship once more.

She felt him stiffen with regret as they turned to the tune. "Emma," guilt strangled his voice. He would have never left her, by all the fates he should have never listened to that wooden man! Holding her close he closed his eyes to stave away the hot prick of tears. "I could barely tolerate to look at the water after I knew what I had done to you. If I could take it back…."

You headed out for college at the end of that summer and we lost touch

I guess we didn't realize even at the moment we lost so much….

"Do you think we could ever…?" she let the words drift left unsaid. After all that had happened could they reunite?

Pain twisted a knife into his heart. Like most things in his life the very base goodness and honesty they had shared was irrevocably ruined. "It'll never be like it was before. But here, this life in Storybrooke. We could give it a shot."

Smiling up at him, her face so much as it had been those nights before upon the ship, she seemed just as she had been. "I'd like that," she repaid truthfully, her voice no more than a whisper.

No it would never be the same as it had been, that was true, but with their memories of the good perhaps they could patch up things they had lost. As long as they remembered what they had been perhaps they could mend what was lost.

I haven't seen you in ages.

Sometimes I find myself wondering where you are

For me you'll always be eighteen

And beautiful

And dancing away with me heart.

~8~8~

A/N: This song is "Dancin' Away with my Heart" by Lady Antebellum