Hold on Chapter 11

Emma pulled along the road at the entrance of the trail and they both stepped out of the car. Emma pulled her jacket around her tighter at the sudden chilly air. He waited for her before they started walking neither of them saying anything.

"How did you and Wendy meet?" Emma asked awkwardly.

"Well I assume you understand that I'm Peter Pan?" Neal asked Emma only nodded. "Well it's wasn't much different than the movie really. We met when I was doing rounds in London."

"Rounds?"

"Yeah, I would go to orphanages and look for boys that wanted a new start and a chance to experience Neverland. I tried to find boys who had nothing and didn't have families to go home with. The lost boys were family to each other and Tink was our mother, even if she wasn't much older than us."

"Neal that's amazing what you did." Emma said a little surprised at this side of him.

"Well if anyone should understand it's you." He said letting his hand touch Emma's softly not making it to obvious, Emma smiled and wrapped her pinky around his, They fell into i=silence as Neal decided what to say next.

"I found the Darling's window and it was open to the nursery so I decided to have a look and that was when I saw her. She was asleep in her bed and as a fourteen year old boy it was hard to resist." Neal smiled. "When I was walking towards her bed it was too dark to see and I tripped over the doll house in the middle of the room. It woke all of them." He laughed at the good memory.

"How well did that go?"

"Well I was their age so they didn't really fear me but I think the fact I was hovering above the ground made them think I was pretty awesome." Neal said looking at Emma. "Wendy was the first one to introduce herself and well we all hit it off right away. Their room had these paintings of pirate ships and mermaids, things I had seen and I made the choice to tell them about Neverland. They fell in love with it and I took them with me that night."

"How long did the children stay?" Emma asked now being pulled into the story. She felt like a little kid being told about a bedtime fairytale.

"Only a day but in Neverland the days can go for as long as you like it seems, so it felt like forever. It was the first time that I had brought a girl and kids who had parents. Tink didn't like it and the younger kid's missed their parent's so I took them back the next morning. But Wendy. She had told me that she didn't like her parents so I gave her something that she could use if she ever wanted to get back." Neal said pulling something out of his pocket and placed it in Emma's hand. It was a small thimble.

"A thimble?" Emma asked looking it over before giving it back.

"Tink put a spell on it, it was a bit like a telephone, she would whisper my name to it and I would hear it in Neverland from this one." He said holding up the thimble.

"So did she ever contact you?" Emma asked now even more engrossed in his story.

"About a year later, it was just a week before the curse hit I think." Neal said pulling Emma over to a bench along the trail.

"The day the curse hit Wendy and I were in the trunk of a tree, in fact it was a lot like the tree that brought you to this world. Each one of the realms has one. But the tree didn't have portal properties; all it did was protect us from the curse. After the curse hit we came out and everything was destroyed and the boys and Tink were gone, we didn't know what to do. But we also knew we didn't want to leave and go back with her parents, we would have too much to explain. Plus we were fourteen so we didn't know what would have been a good idea and not. We stayed there for almost ten years by ourselves, we managed to live off the land and we found it easy to keep ourselves busy exploring, seeing as we didn't need to worry about pirates or Indians. But as time went on we realized that maybe staying the same age forever wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Wendy wanted a life back home and she wanted kids."

"How did you get back?" Emma asked resting her arm on the back of the bench and propping up her head with her hand.

"I had saved some pixie dust and I could still fly so we came home, well to the United States, we couldn't risk going back to her family because she should have been almost twenty six not still fifteen. We managed to end up in California and lived in abandoned buildings where no one would catch us. That was my first real taste of life as a thief and what it meant to not have a home. Things were alright for a while but then Wendy met a guy and soon our friendship became phone calls and meeting in the park. Eventually we lost touch and then I met you." Neal said with a smile.

"You told Hook she had, died, what happened to her?" Emma asked.

"After what happened with you and me, I went to Canada then I came back after almost a year and went to find her. When I did she told me that she was sick and that she only had a few months left to live. She had a rare form of brain cancer and she was to the point she couldn't eat or move. I stayed with her, her husband had left her a few years before and her kids were young. I was the only family she had left." Neal said, his eyes glazing over with tears, voice cracking.

"Neal, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Emma said bringing her hand to his, her tough felt nice even after all these years.

"I want to; I've never really told anyone before." Neal said letting out a shaky breath. "She told me the doctor gave her three months, but uh, she died in less than two. I watched her take her last breath before she… Di..."

"I know" Emma said wrapping her arm around him in a tight hug.

"I'm sorry" Neal said with a sob, Emma had never seen this side of him but she didn't mind. She knew what pain felt like.

"You don't need to apologize Neal." She whispered into his neck as she continued to comfort him.

"You need to pick up Henry don't you?" Neal said changing the subject quickly.

"Yeah, we should start back." She said as they stood up. "Thank you for telling me this Neal; I can only imagine what it must have been like for you to tell me that."

"You deserved to know, I have the feeling I will be thinking about her more now than ever before." Neal said as they made their way back down the trail.

"Did you love her?" Emma asked part of her wanting to know, the other part not so much.

"Not as much as I loved, love, you. She was like a sister to me and yeah I had a crush on her but being fourteen I didn't know much about love." Neal said taking Emma's hand, she stiffened but didn't move away. "I'm glad I found you again, I always wanted to know what had happened and know that you were okay." Neal said glancing over at Emma.

"Same here" Emma said with a small smile before pulling him to the car. "Let's go get OUR son" Neal nodded with a huge grim as he climbed into the car.