Emma felt Neal on her tail as she was leaving the hall, and her suspicions were confirmed when, as she stood looking into the night from the steps of the town hall, she heard the door open and close behind her.
"Emma," he stared. She did not turn to acknowledge him. She continued walking, down the steps and was about to round the corner when he caught up with her and swung her gently but firmly by the elbow into the alleyway beside the old building. She wouldn't let him speak first.
"Let me make this perfectly clear to you," she growled. "Henry has no father. On his birth certificate, it's just me. You know why? Because it was just me there when he was born. And even if I had wanted to add his father to the birth certificate, which I by all means did not, I couldn't have because I didn't even know his full name."
"That doesn't mean he's not my kid!" Neal retorted.
"Yeah, it does actually!" Emma hurled at him. "Just like he wasn't my kid for the first ten years I gave him up, he had to grow up with Regina until he came and found me himself!"
"You gave him up for adoption?"
"I was eighteen," Emma said defensively, "and thanks to you and those damned watches, I still had two months left to serve. I knew I couldn't handle the responsibility, not alone, and I wasn't about to try and fail and let him grow up in the same system I did."
Neal was looking at her like he used to, with longing, and she found her own longing creeping back into her in the wake of his deep brown eyes.
"You're father has done everything he can to find you again, including ripping my family apart," Emma accused.
"You think I don't know what that's like?" Neal asked aggressively, years of pain filtering through his eyes. "You think I don't remember what it's like to grow up alone, separated from your parents? I was sleeping in that car too, Emma, when you found it, or have you forgotten. You're not the only one who got hurt in all of this."
Emma watched Neal's eyes, and she put her anger briefly aside as a small curiosity sprang up inside her. She had been too busy being angry to really wonder at why Gold had been looking for his son in the first place. How had the two been separated?
"I'm only going to ask you this once," Neal said, his voice both pleading and threatening at the same time. "And I want the truth. Is Henry my son?"
Their eyes locked for a long moment. Emma was literally and figuratively backed into a corner with nowhere to go. She tried to put a certain amount of defiant loathing in her voice as she responded, but in actuality it was just a relief to final get it out.
"Yes," she breathed.
Neal held her eye contact, and she held his, watching as the emotion of it reached into his eyes. Despite herself, she couldn't help but feel for a moment how much she had missed those eyes.
The two came together in perfect unison, stepping towards each other, each reaching for the other, until they collided passionately, pressing their lips together. Emma breathed heavily, pressing the weight of all the unspoken emotions she had been experiencing ever since the curse had broken into that kiss. Neal's hands ran through her hair and cupped the small of her back. The pair stumbled back against the alley wall, pressed up against the brick, their heated breath echoing in the alley.
"Hey!" a sharp cry pierced the dark night.
Emma and Neal broke apart to see a furious David standing at the opening to the alley, a flushed Snow behind him. Before anyone else could make so much as a move, David had lunged forward, a paternal instinct taking over, and rugby-tackled Neal to the ground.
"David!" both Emma and Snow shouted, rushing forward.
"You think you can mess with my daughter, think you can break her heart and not have me to answer to?" David was seething, but he didn't have time to get more than two slugs in before he was thrown back by some unseen force, pressed up against the wall as if some invisible hand were holding him by the throat.
"David!" Snow cried out again, rushing to him, though he remained suffocated despite her attempts to help him breathe. Emma looked up, and Neal turned from where he lay sprawled on the ground, lip bleeding, to see Gold on the other side of the alley, his hand outstretched.
"Just wait right there," he was snarling, his taught hand tensing and causing David to choke still further.
"Gold!" Emma exclaimed in a mixture of fear and furry.
"That was my son you were hitting," he hissed through gritted teeth. David twitched.
"Stop it!" Snow was crying.
"Papa, you promised you wouldn't!" Neal said, starting forward, but Gold was clearly in some kind of a rage and wouldn't hear anyone's words. He swept his son aside and continued forward, slowly and menacingly.
Emma looked from her choking father to her desperate mother to Neal having been swept back against the brick wall and something pulse inside her. She took a deep breath.
"Stop!" she said firmly, and from somewhere inside her she didn't know she emanated a strong pulse that through Mr. Gold backwards and broke his charm. David sank to the ground, choking and sputtering air back into his lungs while Snow bent to comfort him. Gold hit the ground harshly and slid a few feet before coming to a halt, now appearing more old and broken than Emma had ever known him.
Everyone froze and looked at Emma, a bit in awe, a bit fearful. Emma herself was trying not to appear fearful. She didn't like this thing about herself that she could not control.
"What the hell was that?" Neal asked, panting.
She cast Neal a sweeping glance before walking over and reaching down to help Snow lift a weak Charming to his feet.
"You two should go home," she said, then more pointedly to Snow, "take him home. I'll be right behind you."
Snow surveyed the frozen scene in the alley with skepticism before nodding her approval and tugging at Charming's arm. At first he did not make to follow her, cast a murderous look back at a panting Neal.
"David, I can handle it," she assured him. "Go."
David followed Mary Margaret begrudgingly, keeping his eyes on Neal until the two were far down the road and out of sight. Emma turned slowly to look at Mr. Gold, who had picked himself up off the ground and was leaning sorely on his cane once more.
"Go home, Gold," she said in a weary voice. "It's been a long night, we should all just…" she caught Neal's eye and paused a moment, "…go home."
Emma turned to leave she had only taken a few steps towards the end of the alley when she felt as if something like a lasso were wrapped around her waste and pulling her in the other direction.
"Not so fast, deary," Gold said. "You are going to tell me everything."
In a second flash of furry, Emma twisted and in some way she was able to sever the magical bond Gold had cast on her, turning sharply and piercing him with a raging stare.
"After everything you have done to me and my family, all so you could find him," Emma pointed at Neal, her voice low and murderous, "if you ever hurt any of them again, you will have me to answer to."
Gold's eyes flashed at the threat.
"I'd like to see you try that neat little trick again, deary," he snarled, pulling his hand back as Emma braced herself, unsure of what she could do, but prepared to make her best attempt nonetheless. But before anyone could make one move more, Neal stepped between them, facing his father.
"You're never going to change, are you?" he asked him, his voice raised in anger. "You're never going to stop using magic to get what you want. Just because one day somebody handed you a dagger and made you the dark one, and now it consumes you. And you'll never be able to let it go. You haven't changed at all, and you never will."
"Bae," Gold started, but Neal held out his hand to silence him.
"No, you know what, no. I'm done. I'm done with you." Neal stormed out of the alley way and out of sight. Emma watched him go, wondering if she should say something to make him stay but thinking better of it. She looked slowly back at Gold. He looked furious and devastated. That was not a good combination. Slowly he swiveled his eyes back to Emma, the only person still left in front of him.
"How much did you overhear?" Emma asked Gold.
"Enough," he answered simply through gritted teeth. The pair stared at each other for a moment. Then Emma turned to leave.
"Go home, Gold," she repeated, walking away.