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Chapter 10

The apartment door opens and Emma can't contain her anger, "I said we're good. Just leave it alone already!" She shouts thinking it is Neil who has come back then gasping in realization that it is only her parents. "Oh."

"Yeah, seems to me everything's just peachy in here." David offers. Emma merely averts her gaze and purses her lips trying to avoid any sort of conversation for the moment.

David takes in her defeated slouch in the chair and throws a quick glance at Mary Margaret. His wife only smiles and makes her way to the bedroom. "Emma?"

"Nope... don't want to talk about it." She says quickly but continues to stare at the kitchen table.

David only grins at her. "Okay."

The playful tone in his voice only causes her to look up and glare at him. "I'm serious." She says fiercely.

"No, I know you are." David assures her with a nod but cannot stop smiling.

"Oh don't start... you are not about to tell me that I am acting like my mother again are you?" She asks and is trying her best not to lower her defenses and allow him to cheer her up.

"You said it not me." He says smiling.

Emma scoffs. "What are you trying to read in to now? I didn't say or do anything this time." She sighs loudly in annoyance. "Just go ahead and tell me already." She's saying crossing her arms over her chest.

"Emma, I know you want to hate him. You want to be mad now. I know you want to tell yourself that you could care less about who he is with or what he is doing but deep down you still care. Mary Margaret Blanchard tried desperately to fend off David Nolan. The harder she tried the harder it got to avoid him."

"Those were not my parents. You can't use Storybrooke aliases and say that I am like my mother. It doesn't work that way. That's like saying that I fell in love with the son of Rumplestiltskin a decade ago. That's not true."

"Technically it is." David offers but is doing little to hide how proud he is of pointing this out.

"No… he was NOT the son of Rumplestiltskin back then. He was just... a man." Emma says earnestly.

"A man that you fell in love with." David offers this with a nod, his smile growing brighter as he meets her eyes.

"Shut up." Emma says smiling at him now. "Have I told you lately that you annoy me?"

"No not today but I can't say I didn't see that one coming." He laughs but then their attention is taken by Mary Margaret who approaches them at the table.

"Emma… Henry just asked me to find out what you and Neil were arguing about. I told him he should ask you himself but he seems to think he can get a story out of it." Mary Margaret says smiling kindly.

Emma winces. "Seriously? With the bedtime stories?"

"You've been doing the same thing with your Father haven't you? He'd just like to hear things from you, hear your side of the story, that's all." The woman offers as an excuse.

"Are you sure you didn't give him the idea?" Emma asks narrowing her eyes at the woman. "I mean I can't help but notice that he seems to have your deductive reasoning skills along with your optimism. He definitely doesn't get any of that from me." She says as she gets up from her seat to tuck it under the table.

"Your daughter is in quite a mood." Mary Margaret says as she sits down next to David at the table.

"I hate to break it to you but that attitude is all you my dear." He starts to say while nudging her.

"I can hear you guys... You know that right? I'm standing... right here." Emma says to them from where she stands at the bottom of the stairs.

"Goodnight Emma." David happily says to her.

"Yeah... right..." She narrows her eyes at them once more. "Goodnight." She makes her way up the stairs.

"What sort of story do you think she's going to tell him?" David asks his wife when Emma is clearly out of earshot.

"It seems they were discussing the fact that she went to jail because of Neil. So I would assume he's going to ask more about that or possibly how..." She does not finish her statement as she takes in David's amused expression. "What?"

"I think I see what she was talking about." David says now.

"What do you mean?" Mary Margaret asks quite confused.

"Those deductive reasoning skills paired with keen ears for eavesdropping... Henry is a lot like you as well."

"When do we start getting to how much these kids are like you?" She asks in a snippy voice.

The man only laughs. "So do you want to put those deductive reasoning skills to work or do you just want to use your eavesdropping skills for the night and listen in on the story?" David offers.

"You know if we sit in the spot just under the stairway we can probably hear the whole thing." She offers. "Not... that I've... tried that... before." She quickly adds.

"No... of course you haven't." He says grinning at her.

Meanwhile up in the bedroom Emma is trying to make her point. "Henry, some things are just not meant to be shared between parent and child."

"Do you remember when I told you that you have to let me decide what I can't handle?" Henry asks laying in bed propped up on his elbows with a grin on his face.

"Do I have to keep reminding you that you are still my son? I think I have a say in what I do or do not tell you. This is my story Henry... not some fairytale in your book." She points out as she starts to pace in her frustration.

"The book that you've been reading all day?" Henry says tilting his head.

"How do YOU know what I was doing today?" She asks narrowing her eyes at him.

"Doesn't matter... I'm right." He says with a nod. "You know... It's not fair that you can just read your family history in a book. Your story is not in that book so I need to hear it from you... the truth this time. No lies." He says quite definitively.

"Fine..." She says in a grumble. "What do you want to know?"

"You said that you went to jail for him. What did you mean?" Henry asks.

"You sure don't sleep as soundly as I thought." Emma says narrowing her eyes at him while he simply shrugs. "So you want to know what it was that put me in jail?"

"Yes." Henry says with a nod.

She sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Okay. You already know now that Neil and I were... well... basically just a couple of criminals." He nods. "Well one day your... Neil... he finds out that he's wanted for a crime he committed years before, years before he met me at least. He found a wanted poster with his picture on it. He had stolen some watches that were worth a lot of money. He told me all about how he hid them away in a train station locker hoping to go back for them some day and make money off of them but he never went back to get them."

"He... he stole some watches?" Henry asked with a pained grimace.

"Yeah. We did a lot of stupid things back then. I mean I was young and stupid but... well I can't speak for Neil. We never really talked about our past much... otherwise I would have known about Storybrooke and the curse a lot sooner. Anyway... don't interrupt me. You're as bad as David." She smiles at the boy and then looks out the bedroom door tilting her head, having this odd feeling she heard a chuckle, but she shrugs it off and continues with the story. "Neil was worried. He wanted to go in to hiding but he wanted to do this without me. I mean... I didn't want to get left behind, not after I finally found someone who I felt safe with. You know, someone that I... that I..."

"Loved... You can say it. I know you loved him." Henry says sitting up and resting his head against the headboard of the bed.

"Yeah." She clears her throat. "Well... he started hashing out a plan. He wanted to leave the country. I wasn't about to let him do that. I needed him. I didn't... I wasn't just going to let him go so I proposed a new plan. I said we could go to that train station, get those watches from that locker, and sell them. He said that they would recognize him but they wouldn't recognize me so I said I would get them for him. We'd get rid of the evidence, make some money, and with that money we could move to... well... away... Anyway I forgot what I was saying." She clears her throat again.

"So you tried to steal a car that he stole when you met him and now you were going to help him steal watches that he had stolen?" Henry asks settling back down in the bed.

Emma laughs at this comment. "Wow... seems like I just couldn't help but take everything he had huh? That just sounds... terrible... and quit distracting me!" She continues to laugh heartily but calms down a moment later. "So... so when he drove me to that train station I can honestly say I was a nervous. I had to do this... without mistakes. It had to be a clean get away otherwise we'd be in a mess. I manage to go in, avoid the any law enforcement, and then I'm gone. It was a pretty easy getaway for me. I met up with Neil. I handed over the watches and he told me to meet him. He was going to go fence them."

"Fence them?" Henry repeats while squinting his eyes at the term.

"Uh... sell them. He was going to sell them and meet me and we'd leave together. It was pretty dark out so we'd be able to leave town easy enough. I waited a long time for him. I started to worry that something happened but I didn't want to panic. He always came back for me anytime we got separated so I just waited a little longer. I waited a good few hours or so..." Emma frowns.

"He didn't come?" Henry asks as he looks over at her from where he lay on the bed.

"No." She says and then sighs. "I pulled out my cell to call him and I got this message that his phone had been disconnected. Someone else came though... A security officer from the train station. He stopped me... told me that a tip had been called in to check out the video surveillance at the train station. I was the only one on that video. I was the one who went to jail. I didn't know what had happened all I knew was that I now I was alone. I trusted him... and he never came back. He never came to look for me."

"Oh." Henry says in a whisper.

When he doesn't say anything else she decides to clear up something for him. "Henry... the fact that I don't want to be around Neil is not your problem okay? I love you. He loves you. We both just want to be here for you. Things that happened between me and him that's just stuff we have to deal with and maybe we're gonna yell about it once in a while. I can't help how I act around him or how he makes me feel. I don't hate him though. I just... it's just hard for me to trust him you know?"

"Yeah. I know." Henry says quite sadly. "You can though... trust him. He still loves you. Why else would he be here?" He adds with a sleepy smile.

"Henry..." She wants to argue this but the boy does not give her the chance.

"Goodnight." He says quickly and rolls over pulling the blanket over his shoulder.

Emma shakes her head and chuckles. "Goodnight Henry."

Mary Margaret leans over to mockingly whisper in David's ear, "Avoidance, evasion... that's all you right there."

His reply is accompanied by squinting eyes, "Well played my lady. Well played."