Chapter Eleven: The First Argonaut

Neal had put some thought into the possibilities of what they could do service-wise well before his conversation with Emma, the idea of doing something charitable turning over in his head for days following their blank stares at Operation Hope (though Emma's worries and seeing the miracle of Porter's birth had most definitely planted the seed). And while something like this, whatever they wound up doing, wouldn't suddenly give them a different past with parents, childhoods filled with happy stories, or youths filled with crime-free activities, he hoped it would say that they had at least tried to do better. For themselves, yeah, but other people too. People like them who had endured the hardships of abandonment or poverty. People who hadn't quite lucked their way into a better life like he and Emma had.

(Though, honestly, this life had taken a lot of work too.)

He did some research, eventually narrowing down their choices, letting Emma make the final decision with the flip of a coin. Heads for the soup kitchen and tails meant the local youth center.

Tails won.

Neal had hoped it would.

Maybe he should have felt a stronger connection to the soup kitchen given his status as a former man of the streets. But, in a weird sort of way, Neal had never actually considered himself homeless. Down on his luck? Between things? Yeah, maybe. But he had always managed to luck into whatever he really needed and, eventually, he had pieced together how to get his hands on whatever he didn't.

Places like the Youth Center, however, he had more of a kinship with. Kids who felt lost and alone could go there, find a safe space, and they'd have someone. Several someones, actually. People they could talk to and lean on. A support system. Neal had never gotten that. He hadn't even known places like that existed as a kid, though he wished he had. Maybe then he would have had something to fill those long years after Neverland, easing the loneliness that had defined that period of his life he had affectionately termed pre-Emma.

They went for a tour, bundling a fussy Porter into his stroller, a nervous Emma sitting stiffly in a brightly colored chair as they waited for someone to collect them, Neal examining the walls, hand painted words creating a story, listing the names of all the people this place had reached out to in its brief history.

"Sorry about the wait," said a lanky black man, breaking the silence that had fallen over them. He wore a handmade jersey and sounded slightly winded as he half-jogged into the lobby, a clipboard getting set off to the side as he held out a hand for Neal to shake. "Baseball game went over. Leo Rosenberg. Assistant Director."

Neal waved off the apology, "John Neilson." He introduced Emma and Porter too, grinning down at the bundle in the stroller proudly before offering Leo a curious glance, "Did you guys win?"

Leo shook Emma's hand. "Nah. Carter Elementary wound up creaming us seven to three. But the kids had fun."

"That's the spirit," said Neal enthusiastically, Emma's poorly suppressed eye roll turning into a slight flinch when Leo knelt down, focusing fully on Porter. Leo, however, just offered a friendly hello to go with a playful handshake that caused Porter to flail happily, allowing Emma to lose some of her trademark tension.

"Well," started Leo, looking up at them, "we have an excellent daycare center and -"

Neal shook his head. "We were, uh, actually hoping to volunteer."

"Even better then," said Leo, his friendly smile widening as he climbed to his feet. Porter started to fuss at the sudden absence, prompting Emma to carefully bundle him into her arms before he could cause too much of a ruckus. "The holiday influx tends to take a nose dive after the holiday season. Y'know, busy schedules and people feeling like they've done their yearly good deed. And while any help is appreciated, it's always a bit of a struggle to suddenly go from so overstaffed to barely enough people." Emma made a sympathetic noise as Leo led them down a hall, glancing between them. "Were you hoping to do anything in particular?"

Neal exchanged a questioning glance with Emma who bit her lip and shrugged a shoulder. Leo looked on with amusement.

"Well, we have a fairly extensive outreach program," he explained, breezing past the unanswered question as they found themselves in a cafeteria, excited chatter and the smell of peaches, freshly baked bread, and marina sauce playing a backdrop to the conversation, "designed specifically to benefit local children."

Emma cocked her head. "What do you mean by that? Local children?" And Neal knew she was wondering if they let anyone in or hand-picked the so-called riff-raff that came and went.

"It started out as underprivileged, mostly," said Leo, nodding at one of the cooks (one of the kids, he realized) while Emma peered through the protective glass, "Kids with working parents and small budgets would get a hot meal and a safe place to go after school. Word got out though and we try our best to keep an open door policy. Anyone's welcome. We see a lot of troubled youth unfortunately. Kids on their last legs looking for a safe haven. Runaways. Abuse victims. The whole spectrum, really. We wound up petitioning the state a year ago and got permission to add a counseling program and an overnight wing to try and accommodate for it. It's not the ideal solution, but if we're not equipped we can at least give them a safe place until we can get them in touch with the proper channels."

"And it's all non-profit?" Emma asked. Leo nodded, high-fiving a passing kid as they exited the cafeteria, and Neal let out a low whistle. It all sounded like a fairly large and impressive undertaking.

"We depend a lot on donations and state help, of course," explained Leo, leading them through a door and into what looked like a theatre of sorts. "Take our newest addition, for example - the auditorium. It got added a couple of years ago and most of our thanks for that goes to a local who gave a pretty handsome donation." He ran a hand along the polished stage. "We get the kids involved whenever we can too. Like - we'll put on plays and concerts. Arts shows. Or, like today, with the baseball game. Basically, if there's enough interest from the kids then we try to make sure there's something in the program for them. So they can learn and develop their skills, yeah, but we want to give them an opportunity to show it all off to."

"Sounds like a good way to build their confidence," murmured Neal, a bit of awe lacing his tone as Emma, absently bouncing Porter in her arms, looked around with an intense look on her face. And he knew, like him, Emma was thinking of all the times she was told no and can't instead of can or even try.

"That's absolutely a part of it," Leo agreed, taking a side door into a different hallway, pointing out another room that he noted, after a peak through the window, had pairs of students scribbling notes and lots of books generously strewn across the tables. "Our tutoring center. We have both student and adult volunteers that come in, help the kids with their homework, study for tests. Whatever they need really."

They continued walking, Leo talking passionately as they passed more busy classrooms, a bustling daycare center, and then a rec room.

"We really want to give these kids more than just a place to go," he told them, "our goal, across the board, for our volunteers as well as the kids, is to help everyone that walks through those doors. We want to give them a safe environment to get involved and, maybe, develop skills that they can put to good use outside of here. And if it keeps the kids out of trouble? Well, that's definitely a bonus."

Neal nudged Emma playfully, mindful of their son still nestled in her embrace. "This probably would have done us some good as kids, huh?"

Emma narrowed her eyes, offering a pointed, "John."

But Leo merely chuckled. "It's okay, really. We find that the people who know what the kids are going through are the best kind of volunteer."

"We didn't exactly have a lot," Neal admitted, the conversation's sudden shift to something more personal causing Emma to visibly stiffen next to him while Porter picked up on his mother's discomfort and began to fuss. "No family. No home. And -"

"No one should have to go through that," said Emma suddenly, surprising Neal (and even Porter quieted). It wasn't just that she had joined the conversation (personal as it had turned), but the intensity of her voice as she spoke. An impressed sort of look crossed Leo's features. "But if they do. They should have a place like this. That puts them first."

Neal smiled softly at the reminder of their own Rule Number One.

"I couldn't agree more," Leo told them, "Places like this did me a lot of good as a kid."

Neal raised a brow. "Yeah?"

(Emma, he could tell, wanted to chide him for prying but Leo didn't even blink.)

"I started volunteering because of court-mandated community service," explained Leo, not a hint of shame lacing his words as he led them down a brightly-painted hallway. "My brothers ... well, we were left to fend for ourselves a lot of the time and bless them, they tried their best, but they weren't exactly the best influence growing up and I wound up getting caught red-handed, literally, on a vandalism charge back in New York. The judge let me off with a warning and community service. So I picked one of the local centers on a lark, thinking it'd be an easy way to knock off the hours." He shrugged. "They weren't as ... present in the community back then. They had no problem putting me to work though and it kept me off the streets so, all in all, probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time."

"That's how we feel about this little guy," Neal said, playfully tugging on Port's foot causing him to flail happily in Emma's arms, prompting one of her patented nervous looks, as if Emma feared Porter would wriggle his way right out of her grasp. He offered a light, "Here," gently lifting Porter out of his mother's embrace, giving her a bit of a break.

Leo smiled. "Not much of a stroller kid, huh?"

Emma scrunched her nose, tucking Port's displaced blanket back around him as she gave a dry, "More like anti-furniture, really."

After a short-cut through a well-used gymnasium, they had would up in the art wing, Neal realized, the smell of paint, glue, and pencil shavings assaulting his senses as he took in the drawings that lined the walls. "You've got a talented bunch of kids here."

"We do," agreed Leo proudly, opening a door to reveal the collection of musical instruments behind it (everything from the piano to drums and Emma quickly pointed out a guitar). "When budgets get tight schools often have to cut their art and music programs first so they tend to be our biggest draw. We do a lot of seminars too. When we can get the teachers. Sculpting, pottery. Things like that."

"John's a bit of an artist himself," offered Emma, half-boasting in a way that caused Neal to duck his head, concealing a hint of pink and noting that Porter's eyes had finally started to droop closed. "Drawing. Music. All that stuff. He plays the guitar before we put the baby down - Port, here, can't get enough of it."

"Well, if you got any interest in teaching -"

Emma cut-in with a definitive nod, "He's a really great teacher."

"Em," Neal murmured half-heartedly. While he knew she liked to credit him with teaching her what she termed the important things, he had never had any actual training when it came to drawing or music. What did he know about passing those skills on to someone else?

"It doesn't necessarily have to be anything formal," Leo noted, leading them out a back door, forcing Neal to squint as his eyes readjusted to the bright Florida sun. Emma quickly leaned over to adjust Porter's hat, attempting to convey some sort of message behind the guise of a pointed look as she did. "Lack of volunteers meant that who we do have tend to start out in a more supervisory role. They sit, give the kids something to do, and make sure no fights break out. But, more often than not, they tend to realize that they had some nugget of knowledge to offer and the teaching just sort of springs up naturally out of that."

"I dunno how good I'd be at teaching. Drawing, at least," Neal admitted roughly, settling down at a picnic table. Those things had always come instinctively. He worked on them, yeah, but the how-to came from somewhere inside him. He didn't know how to pass that on. Not really. "I'm good with the hands on stuff though. Taking something. Building it. Fixing it. Turning it into something else."

It came with the whole adapting, learning how to survive thing.

Leo smiled, holding his arms out wide. "Sounds like arts-and-crafts to me. So if you want ... put a list together, we can get you whatever supplies you happen to need and see if we can set up a time that works for you. Y'know, as long as it's all kid-friendly and in-budget."

"That sounds," Neal couldn't quite find the words so he settled on, "really great."

"Excellent," said Leo before fixing Emma with a look. "That just leaves you then."

She turned, breaking her intense stare at vast fields and a busy playground to look back at Leo with wide-eyes, as if she'd just been cornered.

"I'm not really the, uh, creative type," she said blandly. Emma had plenty of strengths, Neal knew, but none of them involved her imagination. "Or the teaching type. The whole talking thing, in general, kinda turns me off."

Neal and Leo exchanged amused glances.

"She likes to act tough," said Neal, nudging Emma's shoulder fondly as he did his best to not disturb Porter (though, once he fell asleep, only his own needs tended to rouse him), "but she's really a big old softie."

Leo adopted a sort of knowing look and said, "I think I have just the thing for you."

X-x-x-x-X

That thing was youth counseling.

Neal, the lucky bastard, had gotten set up in a creative arts classroom, and it was, of course, perfect for him. He'd set up shop a couple days a week (a few hour chunks on Friday and Sunday and then, when he could, he'd stop by the center during his lunch breaks), teach the kids how to make whatever, and would come home, gush about it for days afterwards, and then repeat. He loved it. And Emma had honestly never seen him that passionate about anything that didn't involve her or Porter.

Which was good. Great, even.

Emma just wished she could muster up the same sort of enthusiasm for her assignment.

She had to undergo a pretty thorough training seminar, for one, and even with that she kinda doubted that she'd gain enough people skills to actually help someone else solve their problems. Not when she barely had the emotional know-how to deal with her own shit.

It didn't help that it involved leaving Porter for hours. And while training fell on a Saturday giving them, according to Neal anyway, some extra special father-son bonding time, it still worried her. Because Neal's schedule meant that he had never spent that much alone time with the baby before and while she obviously trusted him, it was a lot of work and Porter could get finicky, liking things a certain way. Even getting him to eat out of the bottle was a hassle and a half.

"But what do you do with him?" Emma would ask, pushing back Porter's unruly hair as she straddled the space between the apartment and the hallway.

"Drink bourbon and rob convenience stores." Emma gave him a blank look. "We go to the park, baby, have ourselves a nice little walk."

"Don't forget his -"

"-Hat and blue blanket in case he gets fussy," Neal would finish, feigning exasperation, "I've got this, Em."

Her training ended officially today and while she stood by her opinion, truly believing that the center did great work, she just didn't see herself as a good fit. Especially in the capacity Leo seemed determined to use her in.

And so, before catastrophe could strike, further ruining already ruined lives, Emma knocked on his office door and told him as much.

"We'd be happy to give you a bit more training, Emma," Leo said and Emma couldn't help but note that he had chosen to lean against his desk, right in front of her, rather than talk at her from behind it. Almost like an equal. "But I have to tell you that Marge has kept me up to date on all your lessons and sounds to me like you're doing just fine. A bit shy, maybe, when it came to the improv scenarios." Emma raised a brow because what he called shy was really more like a feeling of downright discomfort. Leo, however, didn't waver. "But you were also attentive and she liked your practical approach."

Emma sighed. What Leo called practical, she would call insensitive. "I just feel like I could be a better help somewhere else. Like in the cafeteria. I can ... kinda cook." She had improved anyway. Without work and a baby that had grown (slightly) less demanding, she had found herself with more time to spend experimenting in the kitchen. "And I was serving food before anyway so you'd know I'd be good at that."

"Is that how you see yourself?" Leo asked, cocking his head. "As someone who serves food?"

Emma furrowed her brow, "Well, it's my job, I guess." Or it would be when she inevitably went back to work.

He turned, rifling around on the desk behind him before he produced a piece of paper, handing it to her. "That's last week's menu."

Emma perused it, but she didn't recognize, like, any of the dishes on there. "We try our best to put together healthy, organic based meals. Our students prepare the meals, serve them, and clean up when they're done. All under the supervision of professionals. So while I'd be happy to get you set up there, Emma, it'd be as a student, not a volunteer."

She bit the back of her thumb and pushed the menu back onto Leo's desk, half-wondering if it would reflect badly on Neal if she made a hasty exit and just never came back.

"Now, I don't know you that well, Emma," said Leo, his gaze fixed despite her attempts to look at a point just beyond him, "but I'm not so sure you know yourself that well either."

Emma frowned, offering a defensive, "I know what I'm good at."

"I think you know what you've tried," said Leo pointedly. "You know what you're comfortable with. But I don't think you've ever really pushed yourself either. Because you never had anyone to show you how."

"Ne-" Nerves made her stumble over the name for the first time in forever and she stuttered out an attempt to correct it, "John."

Leo swiftly cut in. "I imagine he does. Just like I bet you do the same for him. Which is wonderful, really, but you're both still learning how to be more and until you both discover what that more is, you can only push each other so far."

Emma felt ridiculous. Pathetic, really, and half-mortified. Leo had these stupid expectations for her and inevitably she would fail. She knew it. And he just kept going.

"I want to help you. The both of you." Emma blinked because clearly he had their roles backwards. They were the volunteers. "And maybe you're right. Maybe youth counseling isn't a good fit for you. That's okay. We'll move onto the next thing until we do find something that suits you. But either way, we won't know until after you try."

"That seems like an awful lot of work," said Emma, shifting in her chair. "I don't want to be a bother."

"Why would it be a bother?" Leo asked, seeming truly perplexed, "this is a part of my job."

"But I'm supposed to be volunteering," Emma stressed, "not floating around, wasting everyone's time."

"What difference does it make?" Leo asked, tone practical and brow furrowed as if he really didn't understand. "The work still gets done. But honestly, I think you're going to surprise yourself, Emma. Because believe it or not, I didn't just pick youth counseling out of a hat. And I never would have put you there if I thought you'd somehow be a threat to the kids well-being. Marge and the gang are great at what they do, but sometimes there's a disconnect. It's been a while since they've sat on the other side of that desk. If they did at all. But you know what it's like, you know what those kids are going through."

"I didn't actually deal with it all that well, though," admitted Emma, picking at a lose thread on her jeans.

"Not everyone that comes through here is looking for someone to magically fix their problems," said Leo. "And no one can give them that. Usually they just want someone they can talk to. Someone who will listen. Maybe, even, understand. And if you do get a problem bigger than you can handle then just tell someone. Make it a group effort. That's okay too. Encouraged, actually."

She supposed, in a way, it was just another reminder of what Neal liked to tell her. That she didn't have to do everything completely on her own. And while she still worried about wasting everyone's time (and about potentially giving someone advice that would ruin their life), it was nice, really, that Leo seemed as invested in the people that worked for him as he did the children they helped.

"Okay," she agreed, the word weighted down with reluctance and fear.

Leo smiled gently. "I really do think you're going to surprise yourself, Emma."

X-x-x-x-x-X

She did.

Things had started off with a lot of awkward small talk and sullen silences (from Emma's side just as much as the teens). So, for a while there, considering the fact that she failed to make anything remotely connection-like with anyone but a box of donuts, Emma thought she had been well on her way to proving Leo wrong. Only Emma had never done well with the whole awkward silence thing.

It made her feel strangely exposed. This pushed her to talk. About anything, really, not personal because if awkward silence made her feel exposed then talking about her emotions made her feel downright naked. So there was talking, just not about the things she assumed she was supposed to be connecting with them on.

But if teenagers liked to talk about anything it was the things they hated. And Emma hated plenty of things. Things like people, food prices, people, traffic, people, work, people, her neighbors, people, and lots of other things.

Kids hated things too: school, people, counseling, people in authority, and people.

Emma had plenty of stories and complaints about all of that. They didn't even involve the distant past.

And if you got people talking about the crap they hated long enough then they inevitably got worked up. And when people got worked up they also (usually) got loud and passionate. Sometimes they even started talking about things they liked.

Still. This approach, Emma knew, sat on the far edge of removed from the deep emotional connection she sorta assumed they expected her to build with these kids.

She had thought, obviously, it'd probably go unappreciated that she had bonded with a kid about how hard it was for a former criminal to get back on the straight and narrow. At the very least it seemed like a bad first impression. But it was hard, especially with a baby, which the poor kid they had forced in her direction definitely didn't have to deal with.

"Starting over," she had told the kid, Daryl, a bit bluntly, "sucks. It's hard and ugly and absolutely exhausting. But it gets easier. Because funny thing? People are more willing to help you if you show them that you're willing to try."

(And shit, okay, maybe she was starting to get it now.)

"They gotta know you're worth the effort though," she continued, "which means you've got to put the work in. You can't give up at the first sign of failure." She thought about Neal's newest ideology. "It's hard when you're the new kid, but sometimes the clean slate helps." He looked skeptical. "Gives you a chance to reinvent yourself."

(He seemed to think about it, at least.)

Still, at the end of it all, she fully expected Leo or Marge or some other supervisor to tell her that, maybe, youth counseling wasn't her thing, after all.

(Never mind that Leo had shoved it on her in the first place.)

Instead Marge gave her a "Good job," and Leo had offered her a knowing look as he said, "See you next week." And despite cocking her head and giving them both her best 'are you shitting me' look, she couldn't actually detect the lie.

Huh.

She didn't know what to make of it.

(Not when she still felt like a complete disaster.)

And naturally, after she returned home and resisted the urge to pick up a sleeping Porter just so she could cuddle him, Neal asked her how it went.

Emma shrugged. "Alright, I guess." Then, more significantly, "It's a good place, Neal. I can see why you like it so much."

And maybe she did too.

She still didn't get it. Because clearly Leo had put a whole lot of misplaced faith in her. But even if it made her stomach twist up in knots, thinking about her inevitable failure, she appreciated it too. Because Leo had been right when he'd said that no one had ever really bothered to push her before. Only Neal. But even this felt different. Neal loved her and was ever the optimist. Leo, however, could have written her off, giving her some meaningless task (which she still kinda wished he had), and never bothered beyond that. But he had bothered and that meant something to Emma. It terrified her, yeah, but she wanted to try. She wanted him to be right (even when every part of her kept shouting that he was clearly wrong). But mostly (and maybe this was her finally getting what Neal meant when he had started them on this whole crusade that he swore had been her thing first) she wanted to do better. To be better.

And maybe, finally, she was starting to believe that she actually could be.

Thanks for reading and thank you to maressaonce for taking the time to review! :)

Next Chapter: Yes Man