A/N: Twelve13, hecatemoondancer, jo, Meresger, sudoku, Baellefires, MusicalLover17 and pinkcrazyness, thanks for your reviews! Honestly, each and every one of them has brought a smile to my face. Thanks for all of those who have been following this story as well; I know I ended up posting this chapter later than I expected, but the good news is that I have already started working on chapter 15, and if everything goes well, it will be posted here before Saturday!

Chapter 14: Some wounds won't heal

There was a song coming from somewhere in the Convent that seemed to highlight all the awkwardness of that moment. The look on everyone's faces was pretty much the same when the Blue Fairy finished her tale: all of them seemed to be immersed in memories, as scenes from the past unfolded behind their eyes and they took all the new information in, seeing how it fit into their own personal journeys…

No one said a word.

"Thank you, Nova" said Mother Superior, as a compassionate-looking woman approached the group to place a tray with a teapot and cups on the center of the table. "And please, tell Guinevere to practice the harp later, will you?"

The other fairy nodded silently and left, and in a matter of seconds the music had stopped.

"The right choice?" whispered Emma, the first to wake up from the trance. "Letting me go to jail was the right choice? Leaving me in the dark, without knowing what the hell had happened to you... was the right choice?"

Neal turned his head to look at her. 'Of course it wasn't', he thought, still trying to make sense of everything that he had heard. It wasn't. It had made him unhappy for years. It had made her unhappy for years. And had he heard it right? His son had been raised by the very same maniac who was throwing fire balls at them an hour ago?

"No," he said simply, wishing he could have elaborated more. His brain was having none of it, however, and all he managed to do was stare at her in silence.

Snow realized that the conversation that was about to take place was a very personal one, and motioned to Charming and the others to follow her to the back of the patio to give her daughter and Neal some privacy.

"But I don't understand," started David, frowning at Mother Superior. "How… how? I mean, your son," he turned to look at Rumplestilskin, who was pacing up and down away from the rest of the group. "His son, he was in a land with no magic? How? When did that happen?"

"Oh Charming," answered the Blue Fairy. "This is another very long story, one that I don't feel I should tell, and one that probably neither of them is willing to revisit. All I can tell you is that they were separated much before you were even born, and under extremely dire circumstances."

"Wait," David continued, with a puzzled look on his face. "Are you telling me that Henry's father is actually older than… his grandfather?"

"Older than anyone in Storybrooke," she replied. "Except for Rumplestiltskin himself and us, fairies."

"Older than-" the blue-eyed man had raised his eyebrows and was about to repeat that piece of information to make sure he had gotten it right, but found out he didn't need to. After all the events that had taken place in the last few hours, he was ready to believe anything was possible.

"Henry needs to know," said Snow, looking at her daughter and Neal with an anguished look in her eyes. "We have to tell him the truth, the whole thing, that his father is alive, that Rumplestiltskin is-" she stopped, as if the next two words belonged to an alternative reality that sounded too absurd to be true.

"I don't think he is ready for that," David replied. "I know I wasn't!"

"I have an idea," Snow started talking again, putting one hand over Charming's arm and another on her own chest, trying to calm herself down. "Let's have a dinner. Let's have everyone sit together, as real adults, and let's do this together."

"A dinner?" David asked, disbelief showing in every line of his face. "Snow, I don't think that is a good idea..."

"I know it's not!" she answered, her face once again showing deep signs of concern. "But what choice do we have? Cora is in town, Regina has sided with her, Hook has joined them, and sooner than later we'll be fighting in a war! This might be our last chance to do this, Charming, and Henry deserves to know who his family is while all of us are still alive, because honestly? Only God knows whether everybody around this table will make it."

Her whispered words sounded like a thunder, and made Charming nod in agreement. She was right: they couldn't afford to hold grudges against each other, neither could they wait for old wounds to heal. They had to do it… and they had to do it now.

David took a long, deep breath as he approached Rumplestiltskin, barely believing he was about to invite the Dark One for a family dinner. That had to be the most surreal day of his life.

"What?" asked the older man when Charming cleared his throat right next to him. "Are you here to tell me what a terrible father I am, Charming?" he sneered, putting up his most arrogant façade. "Shall I remind you that you are not doing that much of a great job as a parent either?"

"Well, no, that's not what I was going to say," David responded, somewhat prepared for the usual demonstrations of hostility. "But thank you for the constructive criticism on my parenting skills, I'm sure we have a lot to learn from each other," he finished with a smirk, which was not matched by the other man.

"Ok. Enough of flattery," said Charming, sensing the silent threat that hung between the two of them. "Uh. Snow and I are having a dinner, and we were thinking… uh, we were, we are going to call your son… uh, because I think, Henry, and your son, they have to meet each other… uh… properly. So, I was thinking… uh… since you and your son don't seem to be… uh… getting along at the moment, I was wondering… uh… if it would be a downright bad idea to-

"Yes, Charming, it would be a downright bad idea to have us both under the same roof," said Rumplestiltskin, before the other man could finish his sentence.

"Oh," said David, somewhat surprised. "Then, no."

"No."

"OK," replied David, as he made to walk away to join Snow and the fairies.

"Charming," said Rumplestiltskin, as he prepared to make his next words sound as indifferent and emotionless as possible. "Thanks for inviting me, anyway."

David made sure to remain serious as he nodded. But as soon as he turned to walk towards Snow, he let out a smile: he had known the older man long enough to understand what that sentence actually meant.

Far from him, there were no smiles being handed out that easily.

"I am sorry that I never told you anything about who I was," Neal said, after long minutes of silence. "I am sorry I didn't tell you anything about the curse. I wish I had. Now I wish I had, though I still don't know whether you would have believed in a single word of it."

"I wouldn't! Of course I wouldn't have believed in a single word of it!" answered Emma, "That's not the point!"

"Emma, please…" he closed his eyes, his mind way too tired to make sense of what she was saying. "Then what is the point? What would be the point of telling, if you would not believe in it?"

"I wanted to be with you!" she exclaimed, as the corner of her eyes started prickling again. "I wanted to be with you, and I would go anywhere it took… to be with you!"

He bit his lower lip so hard he could almost feel the taste of blood on his tongue.

"If you had said that we were going to Storybrooke, Maine, instead of Florida, fine! Do you get it?" her voice trembled, as she finally let all the bottled up feelings wash over her. "I wouldn't have believed in any crappy story about a curse, but I would have believed in us!"

"I never stopped believing in us, Emma, I just didn't know what to do!" he answered, and his voice was loaded with despair. "What do you think I felt when August told me I had to leave you for your own sake? How do you think I've spent the last eleven years of my life?"

"Better than I have," she answered, her face covered by tears. "At least you don't have to live with the memory of giving up your own child so that he could have a better chance in life, or with the memories of two years waiting in Tallahassee for a person that never even bothered to write a letter, to call, to show up and explain why the hell I was not good enough!"

Neal just stared into her eyes, completely horrified by every single word she was now shouting at him. That was it, he had ruined her life. And the worst part was that she had spent eleven years thinking he had left because she was not good enough for him.

And in that moment, when neither of them spoke, he realized he had done much worse than abandoning the woman he loved and his own son. He had made her lose hope. What hurt the most when he tried to get past his own tears to look into her eyes was not the shadow of disappointment or anger, but the certainty she would never forgive him for what he had done.

And right now, he was not sure he would ever forgive himself either.