Emma had no clue how long she sat there on the ground before she finally decided to get up. The moment she did her feet started screaming at her and so she leaned down and pulled off her heels, sighing at how good the cold felt on her aching feet.

She turned away from the docks and back in the direction of the apartment. She was never gladder that her parents had decided to get their own place—she didn't think she could handle Mary Margaret's questioning about where she'd been.

Storeybrooke was silent and dark as she slowly made her way.

It must be really late.

By the time she finally neared the apartment building all she could think about was crawling into her bed and never leaving.

Emma quietly put the key in the lock and opened the door. She could hear the tv in the living room before she even made it through the doorway. She just knew that Henry was asleep on the couch and, sure enough, he was passed out there completely unaware of her return.

She grinned fondly at him as she switched the tv off. He'd grown a lot recently and she wasn't entirely sure that she could carry him to his room, so she settled for covering him with a blanket and turning out the light before heading to her own room.

Damn I need to start working out again if that walk was enough to wear me out.

But she knew the walk wasn't what had drained her.

Emma stripped off the red dress and momentarily considered throwing it out. It really was beautiful… and who knew how much Neal spent on it.

But she didn't want to keep it. What a horrible reminder of this lovely evening.

I'll give it back to him, he can take it back to wherever he got it, get his money back.

She threw on an old t-shirt before climbing into bed and pulling the comforter right over her head.

She closed her eyes and tried to clear her head, but her mind wouldn't shut up. She was confused over Neal and unsure about how she felt about him after all this time and all he'd done to her and still sad that Hook hadn't been the one to take her out tonight and wasn't completely sure why that was or why she'd been drawn to the docks and what it all meant and she had no idea how to sort any of it out.

The sun was just creeping through the window when Emma finally fell asleep.

She dreamed that she was sprinting for her life through a crowded airport. She had a plane to catch, an important plane, one that if she missed it her life would be ruined.

She was still in a dead sprint when she came upon a sign: left for gates 1-20, right for 21-40.

She stood stock still, staring aimlessly in both directions, ignoring all the people brushing by her. What was the right gate number? She couldn't remember.

She was unable to move, so sure that if she took one step in the wrong direction it would mean disaster.

And just when she had finally made up her mind and decided to go to the left… there was a loud pounding that made no sense given her current location.

The pounding intensified, and Emma jerked awake, gasping. "What the hell?" she muttered as she jumped out of bed and ran to the front door.

She had no idea who she expected to see, or even who she wanted to see, but it was her father on the doorstep before her, a sheepish smile on his face.

"What?" Emma grumbled.

David shrugged out of his jacket as he came in and hung it on one of the hooks by the door. "Heard you had a big date last night."

"Oh." She turned her back on him as she shut the door and went to put on a pot of coffee. "How'd you hear about that?"

"Henry, he showed up alone at Granny's this morning claiming that his mother was too dead asleep to make him breakfast this morning."

Emma grunted, but said nothing.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"No one ever said finding true love was easy."

Emma felt her blood start to boil. Her parents and their incessant talk of true love made her want to scream, as if that even existed in this world for people like her.

They were silent while the coffee brewed, and then they were silent some more as they both concentrated on their drinks.

David was the first to break the silence. "Emma?"

"Hmm?"

"You know your mother and I just want you to be happy, right?"

Emma sighed. That, above anything else, she knew for a fact and yet she was completely unsure if any real happiness, in that way, was in her future.

David was watching her with his eyebrows raised, waiting.

"Yeah, yeah I know," she finally answered.