Back at Neal's apartment that evening, Emma was on the phone to Mary Margaret while Henry and his father were in the kitchen making dinner.
"Does he believe you?" Snow asked when Emma told her about the conversation she'd had with Dr Wilson.
"I doubt it right now. He's a doctor, like me. We both know how long I took to believe Henry. He might be more open minded than my old boss but he's still going to need proof."
"Are you sure telling him was the right thing to do, Emma?" She questioned, concerned both for her daughter and her friends in Storybrooke.
"I need someone to talk to here, someone with medical knowledge who can help me to help Gold if it comes to this. I trust him, Mary Margaret."
"Well that's all I need to hear. You're a good judge of character."
"Thanks mom." Emma smiled, unaware that her smile was being mirrored tenfold by the woman on the other end of the phone. "Have you heard back from Mother Superior yet?" There was a brief pause at the other end of the line as Snow tried to figure out how to break the news to her daughter.
"It didn't work Emma. The fairy dust just turned into soot when we threw it over the town line. I'm sorry." She replied sadly.
"It's ok. We both knew it was a long shot."
"Blue did say something though." Mary Margaret started. At this Emma felt her hope returning slightly. "If Hook was able to use magical means to hurt Rumplestiltskin outside of Storybrooke, maybe there is still a way."
"What do you mean? What can we do without fairy dust, short of bringing him back to Storybrooke? And believe me he would never survive the journey if we took him from the hospital now."
"Think about it, Emma. You weren't affected by the curse."
"So...?"
"So you might still have a shot at being able to use magic there."
"I have no idea how to even begin to use magic without Gold's help." Emma said. She knew that magic working in New Jersey would be almost impossible, but then again how many times had 'almost impossible' come true in her life recently?
"You'll find a way, Emma. We'll always find a way, together."
"I'll give it a go." She agreed.
"Emma, dinner's ready!" Neal called out from the kitchen.
"I've got to go Mary Margaret. I'll call you again as soon as there's any news." She said before exchanging goodbyes with her mother and hanging up her phone.
Later that evening, Emma found herself lying in bed musing over the events of the past couple of days. It seemed so hard to believe that it had only been a little over 24 hours since she'd discovered that Neal was Rumplestiltskin's son and now here she was, working with her former colleagues to solve another unsolvable case. Although this time she couldn't shake the feeling that maybe it was unsolvable, at least without bringing magic into the mix.
Now that she had told Wilson, she knew that she had someone else at the hospital to turn to if it came to that. Emma doubted that James believed her, but he'd been enabling House's insane thoughts and actions for years. It wasn't that much of a stretch to think he'd help her theory even if he was still telling himself it was crazy. He was still a good man though, and he would never tell anyone what she'd divulged to him that evening. The only way House would find out would be if, by some random moment of genius, he guessed it and somehow by an even more unlikely miracle, he believed it. Emma estimated that the odds of that happening must be higher than a billion to one.
But then, the odds of many things in her life that crazy happening always seemed pretty impossible, yet her she was in the apartment of her son's father who happened to be one of the only people outside of Storybrooke from the Enchanted Forest. Out of all the men in the world who she could've stolen her stolen car from it had been him: Baelfire. And of all the possible placed she could've found him outside of Storybrooke it had been the one place she was trying to avoid going back to, in an attempt to leave her own past behind as Dr Allison Cameron. It seemed that was another thing both she and Neal had in common.
Emma could tell she was starting to get into dangerous territory as her mind drifted to the hospital, specifically her ex husband and her former boss. She knew if she opened that can of worms she'd never get any sleep so she made a conscious decision to stop thinking about them and close herself off. Getting out of bed to make herself a hot cocoa, she resorted to listing various rare diseases in her mind, along with symptoms and risk factors. It was a tedious task that she was well practiced in after her years of working for House but it was one of the few ways she had found to close herself off from showing emotions and thinking about things that would bring up feelings she couldn't let herself succumb to. From being a doctor, she'd learnt how much it hurt to be too caring as she saw patients die every day. Taking a leaf out of House's book, she had begun to force herself to focus only on the medicine, not allowing her emotions to get in the way. Every time she did it she could feel the foundations of another wall being built around her heart, allowing herself to become the woman hardened off to the world: the woman who was now known as Emma Swan. Since meeting her family in Storybrooke, she'd found that she hadn't had to use this ritual at all, meaning that she was able to get close to her parents and her son and was starting to let them in. This was the first time since her 28th birthday that she'd started consciously building more solid walls, but she knew now that it was for her own protection; and for Henry's too. After everything that had happened she had to stay strong – for him.
After finishing her hot cocoa and washing up the empty mug, she settled back down into bed beside Henry and, eventually, was able to drift off to sleep.
The next morning, Henry and his parents made their way to the hospital as soon as they had finished breakfast to check on Mr Gold. Neal agreed that he would take Henry to Gold's room and look after him for the day, promising to take him to a nice cafe for lunch instead of buying hospital food from the cafeteria, which both of them were very happy about.
Emma made her way straight up to the diagnostics office, knowing that she would be able to get a more detailed update on Gold's status and their theories there, rather than reading the chart. From experience, she knew how bad House was at keeping records on patient's tests and would be able to get up to date quicker by asking his team.
Instead of walking in on them discussing their patient as she expected, they were sat around House's TV, which he had moved into the outer office so that they could all see it.
Upon closer inspection, she saw that they were watching a cartoon. More specifically: the Disney animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. They had reached the part where the dwarves were lining up to be kissed on the head by Snow White. Emma chuckled slightly at the scene, having not seen the film since discovering her parents' identities. She'd always liked when Dopey tried to get a second kiss, although she could never imagine him doing that in real life. It seemed they had Grumpy's reaction almost spot on, remembering how Leroy behaved when he was drunk.
"What are you doing?" She asked them, noticing a couple of members of the team jump slightly at her question after she had entered the room unannounced.
House, on the other hand, remained focused on the small screen. "Research." He stated, without taking his eyes away from the animation.
A momentary wave of panic flashed through Emma, thinking that Wilson must've told him, before realising that House was probably just responding to her comment when she compared her parents to the characters from the movie. Composing herself, she asked simply: "What research?"
"I wanted to see what your parents were like." House replied, and Emma had to take a second to reassure herself that he didn't know anything. "The kids are just here to keep me company until they can come up with a decent theory." He said, referring to his team.
Foreman looked over at Emma and rolled his eyes, indicating that he knew this was just House being, well... House. Having worked for him for the longest, he'd long since given up trying to understand his crazy logic and just went along with anything that wasn't endangering a patient's life.
"Yes they've portrayed my mother exactly right there House. She'd forever being followed by short people. She teaches the fifth grade." She sighed. "Although they missed out the fact that Snow White is completely badass and can take down an ogre with a bow and arrow." She said with a laugh that no one could tell was false. While everyone thought she was just joking, Emma was imagining one of the most terrifying moments of her life before she was saved by her mother who, a few days before the incident, had been nothing more than a timid school teacher. When she thought of it like that, she realised really how much had changed in her life since she'd last been to Princeton.
"Yes I can imagine her doing that. I always thought the 'fairest of them all' thing was a bit fake." Thirteen joked.
"Have you got any more ideas about Mr Gold's condition?" Emma said, hoping to steer the conversation towards their comatose patient and away from her mother.
"No. Like I said, my team is useless." House said, still staring at the small TV screen.
"It's your job to come up with a diagnosis as well, House." Emma replied, talking to him as she would a child.
"Really? I thought it was to make their lives miserable and annoy Cuddy."
"Stop messing around House! That is my son's grandfather out there. They've only just found each other. Please don't take this away from them now. Get off your lazy ass and find out what's wrong with him!" She yelled. For a split second she could've sworn she saw a white light near her hands out of the corner of her eye, but brushed it off as her imagination. There was no way she could've generated magic then. They weren't in Storybrooke and she had no idea she was even doing it. She put it down to wishful thinking and an overactive imagination after everything that she'd been through.
Putting it to the back of her mind, she walked over to the sink and washed out a mug to start making herself some coffee. She was aware that House was still watching the Disney film, but at least her rant had had some effect as the rest of the team started discussing their case.
After half an hour they had got nowhere with their diagnosis, jumping backwards and forward between past ideas with inconclusive tests and occasionally throwing in ridiculous theories only marginally matching Mr Gold's symptoms. The film had finally finished, meaning that House could focus on the differential and Emma was able to give it her full attention as well. She'd found herself inwardly cringing at how wrong they got the characters and the story, knowing that it was her inner perfectionist talking. She made a mental note to sit down with Snow and watch it when they got back to Storybrooke, knowing that her mother's reaction would undoubtedly be hilarious.
Everyone soon realised that they were getting no closer to any form of theory, let alone a solid diagnosis. House decided to get his team to run a series of random tests: MRIs, x-rays, blood tests, tox screens, anything that anyone could think of in hope of finding some random anomaly that could trigger some genius theory. They all knew it was a long shot that they would find anything remotely useful but neither House nor Emma would give up on this case until they had an answer.
