Henry was sound asleep by the time they pulled into the driveway, and Neal couldn't help smiling as he carefully lifted the toddler from his carseat and hefted him up onto his shoulder.

"If I fall asleep will you carry me in next?" Emma asked from the passenger seat. Her voice was drowsy as she gathered up the diaper bag, her purse, and the bags of stuff they'd bought that day. He'd shown them all the places he'd loved when he was growing up, and they had made a day of it which had culminated in a drive-in movie. They were all completely exhausted, but it had been worth it.

"Nah," he replied. "But if you're nice I might bring you a blanket after I get him tucked in."

"Fine, I guess I'll come in then."

Neal hadn't been to the small movie theater in town since he'd worked there the summer he was seventeen, but absolutely nothing had changed except the posters out front. Emma thought it had been quaint, he just felt stifled. Being back in this town felt a little bit like drowning sometimes, like he was struggling to keep breathing when everything was pushing down on him.

The house was quiet when they walked through the front door, and at first he'd thought that everyone had gone to bed already but it was barely half-past eight – no way they'd gone to sleep quite that early. Sure enough, his father was still sitting in the living room with a book in his lap, although Belle was nowhere to be seen.

His dad quickly flipped the book closed as soon as Neal and Emma were in the room, though. "How was the movie?" he asked.

"Honestly, it was just nice to be out," Emma replied.

"That good?"

"I thought it was fine," Neal replied, although that was really stretching it.

Emma looked at him like he was crazy. "The big reveal at the end was that the main character was a computer simulation and his girlfriend was a virus."

Which was a fair criticism, and Neal didn't really have a response for it. So, he changed tacts. "Is Belle asleep?" he asked his father. It was weirdly early for that.

"Yeah." His father looked away and Neal could see his fingers tapping the cover of the book in agitation, which hadn't ever been a good sign.

"Is everything okay?" he asked.

"Belle's...pregnant."

Neal felt his heart drop to his stomach and he looked over at Emma who looked just as confused as he felt. Neal had always had this idea in his head that by the time a person had a grandchild, having new babies was largely out of the question. Of course, Belle was a lot younger than his father – a little over ten years, actually putting her almost exactly in between Neal and his father in age – and it really wasn't that unusual for a woman in her early forties to get pregnant anymore, was it?

"Congratulations!" Emma said before Neal had gotten his feet back under him. "I didn't know you guys were trying."

"Not exactly," his father said. "It was quite the surprise. The doctor has put her on light bedrest, though, so I think we're going to end up cancelling the retirement party."

"Are you sure?" Emma asked. "We can help with all the arrangements and everything. And it can be a joint party for the baby and the retirement."

She elbowed Neal behind the baby he was holding, spurring him to finally snap out of his unpleasantness. "Right," he said. "It's not a problem."

"I appreciate it," Ewan replied. "Really, I do. But I don't think either of us is going to feel like a party, to be honest. But thank you."

Something was definitely up, and Neal was sure that Emma could tell, too. They looked at each other and had a brief conversation with their eyebrows.

Talk to your dad.

We don't have that kind of relationship.

I don't care, it's your dad.

Then she hefted the bags onto her shoulders, reached out, and pulled Henry out of his arms. Neal didn't even bother to fight it, she was going to lock him out of the bedroom if he tried to follow her. He was sure his father had some idea of what had just all gone down, but he was pretending not to and Neal was going to pretend like it had been his idea to hang out and they would both be happy with that because they had to be.

"So...is everything gonna be okay with Belle?"

"I don't know," his father said, not quite looking at him. "The doctor thinks in about six weeks we'll know for sure what's going on with the baby. But after the miscarriages...I don't know. I just really don't know."

Neal felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. His father was upset, and the part of Neal that was a father understood – the blind terror that had accompanied Henry had kept him up nights and there hadn't been any reason at all to think that it would have been anything but a successful pregnancy. But the part of him that was a son, the part of him that was angry and hurt, that part had a lot of questions.

"What miscarriages?"

His father looked startled for a moment before shaking his head and looking away. "I'm sorry. I forget how young you were then. It – it was after we got married. I'm sure you must have known something was wrong. I just...there weren't words to tell you back then."

How were there no words? That was the part Neal couldn't quite wrap his head around. There were just as many words back then as there were now, and somehow they hadn't bothered to use them to actually let him into this part of their family life. They'd intentionally excluded him from this and it was hard not to take it personally, but at the same time he had to not take it personally because it was a stupid thing to be mad about and especially now when there were so many other things going on.

"I get it," Neal said at last. "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"I didn't even know they had wanted more kids," Neal said more to himself than to Emma. They'd gone to bed probably close to an hour ago, and all he'd done was lay in bed staring up at the ceiling and trying to put together how he actually felt about all this. He was pretty sure she was probably going to divorce him soon if he didn't shut up.

"So? You're not a kid anymore, and you don't live here, it doesn't affect you at all, why do you care?"

"They never told me about any of it."

"Well, yeah. You were what, eleven when they got together? Twelve?"

"Still. It was this whole huge part of their lives that they didn't tell me about."

He felt her shift next to him in the bed. "You wanted to know your dad was banging your step-mom while you were in the same house?"

He could hear the eyeroll in her voice, and he knew he was overreacting and probably being ridiculous but still.

"I just...I don't know. I guess I just wanted to feel like I was included in their family."

"What do you mean?"

"When they got married I wasn't really sure how I fit into that whole situation. They were going to get married and start a whole new family and my family was really going to be gone. And now, knowing that they'd been trying to have more kids the whole time?"

"Neal, sweetheart, I love you. But this is nuts. You know that, right?"

She had a point – she had a good point, actually. He was a grown adult man, and this was supposed to be good news. He loved his father and Belle, and they were happy. He'd be happy for them.

Belle was getting really good at swallowing her pride. It was a hard thing to accept that they were struggling financially when she'd never struggled before. She loved her husband, and his son, and their lives together (even if Neal was becoming more of a surly teenager by the day)...she just really wished that there was more time and less to do.

It had turned out there was less in her trust fund than she'd thought, especially after her college and the wedding (and subsequent honeymoon). It had been an unpleasant surprise at how thin they were spread now, even with the remaining payments from the trust fund. Their house practically drank money, but they needed a safe place to live and someday there would hopefully be more children to need the space. It had been a stupid decision to buy the house, but it was the best one they could afford and stay in town. It was an awful catch-22, they both hated his job but he'd never be able to find a better one without a degree which he didn't have and they couldn't afford.

She'd only been able to find a part time job in town, and while they were able to make ends meet with his job, there wasn't always much extra and Ewan was on the road four days a week, leaving on Monday mornings and not returning home until Friday afternoons. She was so, so lonely most of the week, and while Neal was a distraction he wasn't really company. He had his own friends and his own life, and he didn't really want to spend his time keeping his stepmother company. Making it worse, he was still at an age that required some discipline and Belle didn't think their relationship was really good enough to handle her being the one to actually provide it. As hard as it was for her, she knew it was worse for Ewan – he wanted to be home with them but he wasn't able to be and it was killing everybody.

Somehow, it hadn't really occurred to her that when her father had said he was done helping them he'd really meant it. She'd always believed that when he saw how much happier he was, he'd forgive her for defying him and cheating on Gaston and causing a huge scandal, and yet, here they were. Maybe it would have been different if she'd managed to have a baby, maybe a grandchild would have softened him up enough to help them out but there hadn't been any luck on that front yet and they couldn't really justify fertility treatments while there were still rooms in the house that had exposed wiring and probably also lead paint (which was still pretty low on their list of things to fix since it wasn't dangerous unless somebody ate it). Her father was still nice to them, still celebrated holidays and birthdays, and was so kind to Neal. But he'd never made a secret of his disapproval for her life choices, or her husband, for that matter.

The only really bright spot in her day during the week was when her husband would call her at night so that they could talk. It was like a little bit of sunlight through the clouds that filled the house when he was gone.

"Neal got a D on his math test." She hated bringing bad things into their calls, especially if it was something bad about his son, but Neal was getting very close to summer school over this math class and the previous weekend had already been a long fight about his study habits. It was definitely something they needed to be keeping a closer eye on, and she wasn't sure if she should be the one to do it or not.

She heard Ewan sigh on the other end of the line, and she could picture the way he was probably rubbing his hand across his forehead in frustration at the news. It made her homesick, even though he was gone and she was right there.

"I'll talk to him about it when I call tomorrow. Today was too long to deal with right now."

"That bad?"

"Dragons and ogres."

"Tell me about it?"

He made a warm sound from deep in his throat and she smiled at the sound of it, familiar and sweet. It buoyed her soul, and she turned off the lights and settled into their bed. It was almost like he was there while he told her a silly story about a particularly demanding client. It was all she needed – he was all she needed. She just desperately wished she could have more of him than she did. She bit her lip and fought the tears until she couldn't fight them anymore. It was safe to cry, after all, she just couldn't let him hear it or it would shatter this illusion that everything between them was still perfect and that was an illusion she needed just for now.

Neal ended up barely sleeping. He'd been relieved when Henry woke up a little early and he could justify being a good husband and getting up to get the baby so Emma could sleep in. Henry was easily soothed by picking him up and taking him downstairs for breakfast. It was a nice distraction to sit there at the breakfast table he'd eaten all his meals in since middle school and feed his own son fruit and yogurt, kind of like coming full circle in a weird way. Once they finished breakfast, Neal distracted Henry with a baggy of Cheerios that was going to need to be swept up later, but which kept the baby happy while Neal set about making grown-up breakfast. It helped keep his mind off of things to have something to do, and when Emma joined him downstairs and gave him a hug from behind it all felt right. She settled with the baby and Neal could hear her wrangling the cereal that had spilled all over the table. It was nice, it was domestic, and it was perfect.

He kept flipping pancakes long after he was sure he had enough, after his father had joined them and said Belle would be out for a little while later on. Long after everyone else had eaten. He was sure Emma knew what was wrong, and he resented himself for his cowardice in not being able to stop cooking so he could just ask the question he needed to know. He wanted to be better for Henry than he'd been before, but to do that he needed to settle his own demons. Hadn't that been why they'd come here? To finally lay the past hurts and resentments to rest? And they'd done such a good job. Neal was sure he knew his father now better than he ever had before, he understood why he'd done the things he did and even if it didn't necessarily make it better it certainly made it easier to understand – with the exception of one thing, the foundation on which this wall between them had been built.

It had gone on long enough.

"Hey dad?" Neal said before he could stop himself, interrupting his father's conversation with Emma about baby foods. He glanced to the table and both adults were looking at him now. There was no going back. "What happened to mom?"