"Neal, you're sick," Emma accused. It was morning, just after sunrise, and Emma stood above Neal, who remained huddle in his makeshift blanket of newspapers. His pried his eyes open with apparent effort.

"I'm not sick," he sniffed through a thick voice.

"You have a fever," Emma insisted, pressing a hand to his forehead.

"I'm fine," Neal retorted, pulling away and turning onto his other side, trying to hide his shivering. "August, tell her I'm fine?"

"You're not fine," August told him.

"See?" Emma said.

"Come on, man!" Neal begged, looking at August as if he'd betrayed him, but August merely shrugged.

"It's the truth."

"Since when do you deal in truth," Neal mumbled pointedly, folding his arms across his chest. "Pinocchio."

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them, especially considering the way August looked down at the ground, the shame of his past mistakes glowing in his countenance.

"Sorry," Neal said. "That was a low blow."

"It's fine," August said, catching Neal's eye pointedly. "You're sick, so I guess I can excuse…"

"I'm not sick!"

"Maybe I should stay back today and look after you," Emma offered. "Make sure you don't get worse."

"No," Neal refused, his tone suddenly becoming serious. "You have to keep trying to figure out how to break the curse. You don't have that much time before you turn fifteen and our half-way window has closed, and then we really will have to wait another fourteen years."

"He's right," August sighed, looking at Emma. "You can't afford to waste even one day. You go. I'll stay home today."

"Are you sure?" Emma asked gently. "Your father…"

"Will be there tomorrow," August assured her. "Neal's right. Your work is more important."

For the past few months, Emma had returned dutifully to Mr. Gold's shop to continue her search for how to break the curse. Or, at least, half the curse it seemed. At first she was eager and enthusiastic. She arrived before his shop was even open and stood at the back door, tapping on the glass pane of the window until he opened the door, wiping sleep from his eyes or breakfast from his lips and grumbling. She didn't mind. She didn't detest Mr. Gold - not like Neal did, at least - but she didn't particularly like him either and she felt no need to try hard to make him like her. She was his only hope for getting what he wanted - for reuniting with his son. So he would both like and resent her regardless of how she acted.

As weeks turned into months, however, her enthusiasm waned. She poured over the books and trinkets in Gold's shop, searching for any remote hint of something that could help her. She reread the "Once Upon A Time" book until her eyes were red and sore from staring, but all she learned from it was that true love's kiss could break any curse. Too bad true love didn't exist in this world. That was why the evil queen sent them here after all, wasn't it?

Meanwhile, the cold intensified, and with it came the snows. "Blizzards" was more like it. The pummeled the small town, and while most residents holed up in their houses with their furnaces and warm blankets, the homeless trio struggled to find dry wood to feed their fires and keep them warm. Newspaper was their best friend, as was the occasional handle of liquor one of them would swipe on the way home. It was a small town, so they stole only sparingly to not raise alarm or attention.

Days ago, the three had given up trying to stay warm and had staged an impromptu snowball fight by the docks. It had been Neal and Emma ganged up against August, until Emma had dealt some friendly fire and nailed Neal in the face with a large snowball. As she went to run away, he dove and tackled her to the ground, and the two of them went tumbling down the hill together until they reached the bottom, still scuffling. They'd gotten snow all in the necks and sleeves of their jackets, which was just as well considering they were much too threadbare for this kind of weather as it was.

As Emma sat on a countertop in the back of Gold's office that morning, scanning yet another tome, this one about love potions, her gaze fogged over as her memories of that day faded into a picture of Neal's face, red and splotched this morning. They should not have had that snowball fight. They should not have been so reckless. They had had no way of getting warm after words, or of drying their clothes, and it had take its toll.

Emma raised her gaze from her book, and was startled to find Mr. Gold's eyes on her expectantly from across the room.

"What?" she asked.

"I said, you're distracted," Gold said, apparently repeating something he had said before that she hadn't heard. That didn't exactly help her case.

"I'm fine," she said, blushing and turning back to her book.

"No you're not," Gold insisted. "You're distracted. You've been distracted all day."

"So?" Emma challenged aggressively.

"So," Gold continued, thin patience in his voice, "what is distracting you?"

"It's nothing," Emma insisted. She knew Neal would not thank her for informing his father about his condition. While she admittedly did not completely understand the foundation for Neal's anger towards his father, she wanted to respect it nonetheless.

"If it were nothing, we wouldn't be talking about it," Gold persisted.

"How is that any of your business?" Emma demanded.

"It's my business," Gold sneered, his voice rising with hers, "because I'm taking time out of my busy schedule to help you."

"Business isn't exactly booming," Emma noted, eyeing the empty show room. "You own a pawn shop in a small town, get off your high horse."

"If you are just going to be unappreciative, then you can just…" Gold began, his voice rising still further, but before he could finish, the bell rang at the front door and a few moments later August appeared in the doorframe, breathing heavily, his cheeks flushed.

"Sorry, I don't mean to…" he started breathily, eyeing Mr. Gold before turning to regard Emma. "He's getting worse."

Emma tensed and felt her heart freeze for a moment. That couldn't be a good sign.

"Bae?" Gold asked, his voice having shed all the malice it had held just moments before. "Baelfire, is he… what's wrong?"

August cast Gold a glance before turing his eyes apologetically to Emma. They seemed to say, "I'm sorry, I have to tell him."

"Neal's sick," he said simply, not taking his eyes off Emma.

"Sick?" Gold repeated. "Sick how? Sick with what?"

"We don't know. He's running a fever, and it keeps getting higher and higher. His breathing is really shallow, and I can't... I don't know..."

Gold rounded on Emma.

"My son is sick, and you weren't going to tell me?" he seethed.

"He doesn't want your help," Emma shot back, placing her book beside her and jumping down from the table.

"I don't care what he wants, I'm his father," Gold retorted. He turned back to August. "Bring him here, I'll look after him until he's better."

"He won't come," Emma said.

"I wasn't talking to you," Gold barked.

"Emma, we have to do something," August implored her. "If we don't..."

"You know he won't come, he'll refuse," Emma said. "If I thought I could get him to come, I would, but he won't, you know he won't."

The three of them shared a long silence, eyeing each other. It was true and they all knew it. At the same time, they had no idea what to do.

"Take him to the hospital at least," Mr. Gold begged them.

"Neal's still technically underaged," August explained, "which means if he seeks any kind of official medical attention, he'll get sent back to the foster system. And if they really start digging and find out he had something to do with helping Emma to run away, he could be sent to jail for kidnapping."

"Well, if he won't come here, and he can't go to the hospital," Gold started, turning towards some cabinets and opening them, fishing inside, "then you will have to take something back to him. If you describe his symptoms exactly, and don't leave anything out, and I can try and make an antidote. A potion of sorts that will cure him."

"Can you do that?" Emma asked, intrigued as Gold extracted vile and packages of all shapes and sizes from inside his stores. "I thought there was no magic here."

"Potion ingredients contain their own magic. I can't harness it from them, but to brew a potion, I don't need to, I just need to let them do the work," he explained. With Emma and August's descriptions, Gold concocted a serum that he stoppered in a small vile. It looked clear as glass, which was probably for the better, because they could pass it off as medicine. Emma had a feeling that if Neal knew there was magic in what he was taking, he would refuse to take it.

"Emma?"

Emma knelt by Neal's side. He could barely open his eyes. She pressed her hand to his face and cringed at the fever she felt there.

"Yeah it's me. I'm here," she cooed softly, bringing her face closer to his. "Who's not sick now, you stubborn idiot?"

Neal tried to laugh, but he only collapsed into a severe coughing fit. Emma helped him sit up straighter to regain his breathing.

"Here, we brought something back. Something that will help you get better. Drink this." She handed him the vile.

"What is it?"

"It's medicine," August told him. He and Emma had conferred on an alternate explanation before hand.

"But where did you get it."

"What does it matter?" Emma insisted, unstoppering the medicine for him. "Just drink."

But Neal did not drink. He stared at the vile hard, then, stared at Emma, directly in the eyes. She tried to hold her poker face.

"He gave this to you didn't he? My father?"

Emma did not answer. She felt her lips press themselves into a line. Of course he would know. She involuntarily threw a guilty glance at August, confirming for Neal that he was correct.

"No," Neal insisted. "No magic." He poured the potion on the floor.

"Neal!" Emma protested, but the liquid was already running its course across the floor.

"No magic, I said," Neal insisted.

"Come on man, he's just trying to help," August prodded.

"You know how he could have helped? By keeping his promise and coming with me when I first found a way over to this land, instead of breaking our deal and abandoning me so he could keep his powers. That's how he could have helped."

"You wanna die?" Emma barked. She was afraid for him. If he had gotten so much worse in the few short hours she'd been at Gold's shop, how much worse would he get in the next few hours, or the hours after that? What if this was not something that would just run its course. "You want to die rather than accept his help?"

"No magic," Neal repeated. He held Emma's gaze fiercely, her frustration and panic building. She turned away, and stood up. She stood still for a moment, then began to head for the door with insistent strides.

"Where are you going?" August called after her.

"To figure something else out."

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet, do I?" she snapped, rounding on him. "But he is not dying of pride, not on my watch. Do you hear me?" she asked over August's head to Neal, who had already slid back into his feverish stupor. "I'll be back."

She wasn't sure what her plan was until she found herself outside the elementary school once more. Her feet apparently had known what she would do even before her mind did. School was out, and the last of the straggling children were hanging on the play structure waiting for their parents to pick them up. The woman she was here to see sat on a bench at the edge of the playground, supervising them. Her mother. Emma took a deep breath, burying her hands in her pockets. She approached.

"Excuse me, Ms. Blanchard?"

"Emma!" Mary Margaret said with a bright grin. Emma blinked, taken aback.

"You… you remember my name?"

"Of course I do," Mary Margaret said, tilting her head kindly. "I was hoping I would see you again some time."

"Really? Why?" Emma blurted out, before reeling herself back in. "Um, I mean… that's not why I…" She was stuttering. Why had she come again?

"Is everything alright?" Mary Margaret asked. "You seem like something is on your mind."

"It's just… it's my… cousin," she started, remembering the lie she had told this woman when she'd first met her. "He's very sick. He is running a fever and it just keeps getting higher and higher, and he definitely needs antibiotics, but I don't have any money..."

"Your aunt and uncle didn't give you any money to buy medicine for your cousin?" Mary Margaret asked skeptically. Emma blinked, unsure how to answer. This lie was getting over her head, she was losing control of it.

"They're... they just... they're out of town," she decided, thinking quickly. "And I'm worried that it will be too late before they get back. He's really bad."

There were any number of holes her mother could thwart in her logic. Why hadn't Emma called an ambulance? Why had she let it get this bad? Where were her other cousins and what were they doing about it? And why had her aunt and uncle left them alone in the first place without any emergency money?

Emma had answers for none of these questions, and her mind reeled trying to think what she would say next, but that was unnecessary because Mary Margaret, after surveying her closely, did not push the issue. She straightened and donned a pleasant, reassuring smile.

"Well, you are in luck, because I just happen to volunteer at the hospital after work today. I'll find someone to finish the supervision here and then you and I can go over there together and I'll see if I can't scrounge together some antibiotics for you to take back to him."

Emma blinked up at her. It was more than she could have hoped for. She didn't realize her mother volunteered at the hospital.

"Really? That would be… thank you."

As Mary Margaret smiled down at her with rosy cheeks, skin as pale as the winter clouds above her, Emma definitely saw the resemblance to the storybook character more than ever. Her mother was a true princess, a good person. Emma swallowed hard. How far the apple had fallen.

Emma followed her mother to the hospital, which was just down the road. Once they entered, she left Emma at the front desk and scampered off behind one of the doors marked for staff only. Emma surveyed the ward. There was two rows of beds, about half of which were filled with patients. Some of them were awake, while others lay asleep. As she stretched her gaze, she saw a man in a bed at the end of the room, behind a set of glass doors. She gasped.

She knew that face.

Slowly, as if in a dream, she began to cross the room, her eyes glued to the face of the man lying in the bed on the other side of the glass doors. His face was difficult to make out from far away, but each step brought her closer, and with each step she felt more and more sure it was him. She'd seen that face in the book Gold had given her. Seen it battle a dragon not once but twice, seen it regard her mother first with disdain, then with admiration, then with love. She pressed the doors open and allowed them to swing shut behind her silently. She stepped still closer until she was just beside him, looking down on his face, doubt erased from her mind. There sat a small scar on his chin.

Her father.

Emma was having trouble breathing. Involuntarily she reached out to touch where the scar sat just below his lips, confirming his identity.

"Emma?"

Emma wheeled around. Mary Margaret stepped into the room.

"What were you doing?" she asked kindly.

"Nothing, I just…" Emma faltered. She turned back to her father in the bed. "Do you know who he is?"

Mary Margaret stepped up to the other side of the bed and looked down at the man with a kind but blank expression. She shook her head.

"No, I don't. He's been in a coma for as long as I've been volunteering here, but no one has claimed him."

"That's…" Emma felt something catch in her throat. She swallowed. "Sad," she finished.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Mary Margaret said, and Emma nearly winced as she turned to leave. She had no idea. No clue what this man had done for her. What she'd done for him. That, for the first time in her life, Emma was in the same room as her family.

"Come on," Mary Margaret said, holding the door open for her. "I've got those antibiotics for you."

The pair walked back to the counter, and Mary Margaret handed Emma a small bottle.

"Ms. Blanchard thank you so much," Emma said. "You have no idea how… thank you. I promise, I won't ask you for anything else ever again…"

"Emma," Mary Margaret said, catching her darting eyes with her kind gaze. "If you ever need anything else, you know where to find me."

"Here."

Emma thrust the medicine at Neal even before she sat down. He started awake. He was noticeably worse even then when she'd last seen him a few hours ago. He could barely open his eyes, and could not sit himself up.

"What's this?"

"Medicine," she said. "Real medicine this time."

"Where did you...?"

"I didn't get it from your father, so you don't have to worry, just take it. And no I'm not lying to you, but if you don't take it I swear to God I will wait until you fall unconscious from this fever, which you will, and then go and get your father and together we will carry you to his house until you're better. So take the goddamn medicine."

Neal obliged this time, slipping the pills into his mouth and swallowing them with a handful of fresh snow August collected for him from outside. Emma breathed a bit easier as he closed his eyes again, certain that the medicine would work. Still, as he slipped back into an exhausted sleep she sat next to him through the entire night, straight-backed and frowning, checking for when his fever would break.