Chapter Two: Family

Neal paused in his quiet interrogation to allow Emma to process the implications associated with her inability to answer his questions, and in the subsequent silence Henry took the opportunity to speak.

"Mom? Is he telling the truth? Is he my dad?" Emma felt somewhat dazed and she just couldn't remember what she'd told her son about his other parent, so she just nodded and sat down next to the kid. "Cool! You always told me he was a 'useless good-for-nothing', but he doesn't seem so bad really." Emma frowned at these words, since that seemed like an oddly harsh thing to tell a young boy about his father and she was almost certain that she would not have put it that bluntly. Neal just put on a kicked-puppy expression and she thought she heard him growl 'Regina' under his breath.

Putting this issue aside for now – although honestly she was going to run out of mental storage space for all of the things she was ignoring – she turned back to Neal.

"Say I believed you and there's really something off about all this, then who is Regina? And why do I keep seeing her in my dreams?" Her ex looked at her for a long moment, flicking his gaze to Henry every so often, before he responded.

"What have you seen?"

"Not much: short, dark hair and sad eyes. Something about happy endings and giving me a gift?"

"And how long have you been dreaming about her?"

"…forever?" Emma wished she could give an answer that sounded less cliché, but she simply didn't remember a time when she hadn't dreamed of the strange woman.

"Right, well, I'm not entirely surprised. When she rewrote your memories she left a part of herself with you, and combined with your ability to escape the curse it must have resulted in you remembering her to some extent…"

"What? Did I trip and fall into fricking Neverland this morning? Curses aren't real! They only exist in fairytales and Harry Potter! Why are you laughing?" Neal had cracked up as soon as she mentioned Neverland, but it was kind of the hysterical laughter you produce when you can't believe something is happening.

"Ha, Emma, when you get your memories back you're going to find that whole speech hilarious." He wiped a tear from his eye and resumed a serious expression, opening his mouth to speak.

"Wait. The woman mom's been dreaming about is Regina? That's her name?" Henry interrupted.

"Yeah, buddy. Why?"

"I think I've been dreaming her too. You never told me." He looked accusingly at Emma for a moment before gazing out of the window with a distant expression. "I thought I was going crazy. I'd dream about her and in the dream she was my mom and she was always telling me that she loved me and that she'd protect me from anything. It's only been these last few months though."

"That'll be the curse breaking down. Look, I don't need you to believe me. I just need you to trust me enough to take a trip – hell, you can drive. You can bring your gun as well, if you want to." Emma had to admit that it was a pretty fair deal: he was handing her all the control and she really did want some answers.

"Mom, seriously, he sounds like he's telling the truth." And that was a valid point, as well, since he hadn't been setting off her lying-asshole alarms in the last five minutes. The whole situation was still ridiculous, though. Curses? Happy endings? Was she Snow-fricking-White or something? "I think we should go. It feels like the right thing to do."

Hell with it, she thought.

"Alright. I'll entertain this wild goose-chase for one day, because my son will never forgive me otherwise and I will not let you ruin what we've built here. I'm taking my gun and I'm going to ask my friend at the sheriff's office to keep an eye on the GPS on my phone – she'll call for backup if I stop texting her or end up somewhere suspicious. Damn it, I already left work mid-shift for this and I will murder you if you get me fired because you went delusional and made my son believe it was real." Neal accepted these terms in what almost looked like relief, as if he was somehow getting off lightly.

"Call your office. Trust me when I say that the words 'family emergency' will get you out of any consequences. And tell them you may be gone for a while." Well that wasn't creepy at all. Emma rolled her eyes and moved over to the window to make the calls, keeping an eye on Henry and Neal the whole time. The two just eyed each other in apprehension, with a little more curiosity on Henry's side and worry on Neal's.

"Yeah, Kate, I know how it sounds but I really think I have to do this. Besides, he told Henry who he is and you know the kid wouldn't let something like that go. If this gets us nowhere then he'll find out who Neal is for himself." She listened for a minute as the other woman quietly went through protocols for any kind of emergency – her friend had always been rather brilliant in tough situations. "Alright, yeah and I called the office. Yes, I'm taking my gun…" Once Kate was finally satisfied that Emma wasn't going into the wild essentially naked and covered in honey, she hung up and walked back over to the guys.

"Better leave before the evening traffic hits," she sighed. Tucking her cell phone into her jeans and adjusting her holster. "Let's hit the road, Jack." She received twin confused expressions and experienced a brief moment of resignation. These two really were related. "What? I like '60s music."

Four hours later and Emma was cruising through Massachusetts with Henry in the passenger seat and Neal in the back, muttering directions every so often. It had been a while since she and the kid had taken a decent road trip, and she had to admit that it had gotten a whole lot easier as he'd grown up and stopped needing to take breaks every hour. Apparently they were heading to some coastal town in Maine that she'd never heard of. Neal had reluctantly informed her that it was called "Storybrooke" which was quite possibly the least subtle name he could have come up with for a fictional town, so he may actually not be lying about that at least.

"Henry, can you call Kate again for me?" Her son nodded and speed-dialled a number on her cell phone. The call was picked up almost immediately and the boy uttered a few assurances that things were still fine and that they were driving through Massachusetts (which Kate already knew since she had the GPS map up on her computer, but it was always nice to give confirmation). They hung up and Henry returned to drumming his fingers on the passenger side door, humming softly to himself.

"Can we have the radio on?" He'd asked this a few times over the past few hours, but Emma had refused on the basis that she wanted to be able to hear if Neal tried anything weird. He'd surprised her from the back seat when they met the first time, after all, and it was even the same car. She glanced back at the man in the rear-view mirror and bit her lip, considering. Was he really stupid enough to try something in a car that she was driving? With her son able to get the state cops on him in the time it takes to press two buttons? It had been long enough, she supposed, and the quiet was eerie.

"Sure, kid. Make it something good though, I don't want any of this teen pop crap in my car." The boy rolled his eyes good-naturedly and fiddled with the controls until he found a decent classic rock station. An eyebrow rose as if to ask if this choice was acceptable, and she just smiled. Then she grimaced as she remembered something unpleasant.

"BACK IN BLACK! I HIT THE SACK!" Right, yeah. Neal had an unfortunate tendency to sing along and it would have been okay had it not been so terribly off-key. A quick glance over to the passenger seat confirmed that Henry was equally horrified and blindly reaching for the dial to turn the damn thing off and hopefully quieten their suddenly joyous stowaway.

"Aw man, that was my song!" The guy sounded so put-out, but Henry seemed to feel that he'd been traumatised enough for one day.

"So Neal, how far have we got left to go?" Emma asked, hoping to distract her ex from continuing to sing despite the lack of back-up. He looked around quickly, nodding to himself before replying.

"'Bout three hours." It was going to be a long day.

The crisp April evening fell around them as they drove through the long stretches of forest in Maine. Emma couldn't decide whether she missed the gritty, thrumming energy of the city or not, since she was once again experiencing that strange feeling of rightness and homecoming. One she had only caught glimpses of before, in her dreams or when she heard that voice on the phone. It was at this moment that the radio decided to crackle to life and that same voice spoke again, almost causing her to crash the damn car.

"Emma? Emma, we need you."

She screeched to a halt at the side of the empty road. Her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest and her hands shook as she lifted them off the steering wheel. Henry turned wide eyes to her and she wished she could tell him what the hell was going on.

"Hey, Emma, it's okay. Regina's been trying to reach you for weeks and I guess it's started to work." Neal softly placed a hand on her shoulder to hold her steady and she couldn't help but lean into his familiar touch. Goddamn it. She waited a few minutes for her heart rate to slow and the adrenaline to work its way through her system. If she was going insane at least she wasn't the only one who heard that stupid voice. "Let's go, Emma. We're nearly there."

She turned the key in the ignition and slowly started driving again, more careful now. She kept glancing in all her mirrors, now paranoid that something even more freakish was going to happen and it was during one of these checks that they crossed the town line. The car slowed once again to a stop as Emma remembered, staring at Henry as reality dawned on both of them.