A/N: Thanks so much for all of your messages and reviews! Sorry it's been so long between updates-I live in California and the last few weeks have been pretty insane with fires and smoke. But I have no intention of stopping this story! Looking forward to continuing with you all!

Regina left around 8:00; she was anxious to get home before Henry was asleep. Little Emma was exhausted after the memory transfer, and Snow put her to bed. Snow tip-toed back down the stairs to where David and adult Emma sat together at the table.

"And no one's seen him?" David asked.

"Who?" Snow interjected.

"Slightly, one of Pan's lost boys," Emma said. "He came back from Neverland, but apparently disappeared into thin air as soon as he got off the boat."

"...until early this morning, when he tried to break into the station," David added.

"What? Why?" Snow asked.

"No idea," Emma said. "I spent most of the day trying to track him down."

Snow crossed her arms. "Are you worried that Pan has something to do with it?"

Emma shrugged. "Yeah, maybe." She pulled her buzzing phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. "It's Neal," she said, standing up. "Hello?"

Emma left to meet Neal at Granny's, and David and Snow moved about the apartment, tidying up. David cleared papers from the table and held one up to Snow. "Keep?"

Snow squinted to see it in the dim lights. "Oh, yeah," she said. "That's Emma's homework. Just…" she looked around the room, then stretched out her hand. "Just give it to me; I'll put it with her backpack."

David handed it to his wife, and she instinctively looked down at the paper as she walked toward the door, then stopped. She stood still for a moment, then slowly turned around. "David?"

He looked up from wiping the kitchen counter. "What? What's wrong?"

Snow frowned and exhaled. "Look," she said, holding up Emma's homework. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's...they're all wrong."

"Hey, hey," David began. "Don't worry about it." He looked closer at the paper. "Fractions can be hard," he said. He looked at Snow's face and continued. "She's had one day of school, Snow. You can't expect her to—"

"I know," Snow said quickly. "It's not that. I just wish she felt comfortable asking me for help."

"She will."

"This afternoon, she was working on this," she said, gesturing to the piece of notebook paper in her other hand. "And I knew she was struggling. I could see how frustrated she was. But I had no idea what to say."

David attempted to interject. "Snow, she—"

"I had no idea how to help her, or comfort her, or…." Snow continued. "I'm her mom. And I'm her teacher. I'm her mom and her teacher and I have no idea how to help her with her math homework."

David wore a slightly bemused look. He was quiet for a beat, to make sure Snow was really finished. "She'll figure out fractions," he said calmly, putting his hands on Snow's shoulders. "And you'll figure out how to help her with her homework." He pulled Snow to his chest, wrapping his arms around her back. "And she'll figure out how much we love her."

Neal was waiting on the sidewalk outside Granny's when Emma walked up. It was a cold night, and she was pulling her scarf higher as she walked.

Neal smiled when he saw her. "Hi," he said.

"Hey," Emma responded, catching her breath. "What's up?"

Neal nodded toward the door. "Come inside for a… something?"

Emma exhaled and saw her breath in the cool air, then nodded.

They sat at the counter, side by side, each nursing a hot cocoa and picking periodically at a shared plate of onion rings.

"So," Emma said, setting her mug down on the counter. "Heard from Gold?"

"Nah," Neal said. "Belle says we just don't know how long the trip there and back will take, but I just… I don't know if I should be worried or not."

"I think… there's nothing we can do now, right?" Emma shrugged her shoulders.

Neal nodded. He ate another onion ring. "Henry's doing great," he said.

"I know," Emma said. "We have breakfast most mornings. But I miss him."

"He misses you too."

They sat for a moment in companionable silence, then Neal spoke again. "I want to give it a try," he said. He sipped from his mug.

"Give what a try?" Emma asked.

Neal turned ninety degrees to look at Emma head-on. "This, us."

Emma's eyes widened, and her mouth gaped open slightly. "Us, us?"

"I want to give it a go. Together. You know, be a family."

"You want to...get back together? Now?"

Neal cocked his head to one side. "Emma, c'mon," he said. "This can't be coming as a total surprise. After Neverland? I mean…" he trailed off.

Emma nodded tensely. "After I said those things… I'm sorry…"

Neal shook his head quickly. "Don't worry about it. I...I understand. Look, I…" he reached for Emma's hand, resting on the counter, and held it gently in his own. "I get it," he said, looked Emma in the eye again. "I betrayed you. I left you alone, and Emma, I'll never stop regretting that. But I meant what I said in Neverland too. I'll never stop fighting for you, and I'll never stop trying to prove to you that you can trust me."

Mr. Gold stood perfectly still. Though, stood wasn't the right word-he hung perfectly still, suspended in mid-air. Three hooded figures stood in front of and below him, all in a row. He knew who they were, of course, but he'd never been face-to-face with the Fates before. There weren't many beings in the universe that made the Dark One feel nervous, but now—dangling, powerless—he was afraid.

The tallest, standing in the middle, spoke first. "Rrrrummmmplessstillllltskkkiiiiin," she said, her voice slithering across and around and through his name. "Thhhhe Ddddarkkkk Onnne."

"Yes," Gold said, feigning confidence in his voice. "I've come to—"

The figure on the left raised a single disfigured, claw-like hand to stop him. "Weeeeeee knooooow whyyyyy youuuu haaaave cooooome."

"Then what—" Gold gasped, a shock running through his body; he felt as though a string was jerking his spine straight up into the air. "Then what do you make of my request?"

A low chuckle rumbled. "Thaaattttt issss thhhhhe wwrrooooonggg quesssstionnnn," the Fate on the left said.

"And what is the right question," Gold asked slowly, suspecting he already knew the answer.

"Iffff weee hellllp youuuu," she continued. "Whhaaattt dooo weeee geettttt innn returrrnn?"

When Emma returned home to the loft, the lights were off and the house was quiet. She stood near the door, stripping off her coat, scarf, and gloves. She startled when she heard a voice behind her.

"Everything okay?" Snow's voice was light. Emma spun around to see her mother standing in the kitchen, her face barely lit by the glow of the oven clock. She was sipping from a mug she held with both hands.

Emma exhaled and smiled, the sudden shock wearing off. "Yeah, fine. I just thought you were asleep."

Snow smiled and took another sip. "How's Neal?"

Emma's shoulders tensed slightly. "He's fine."

"Any news from Gold?"

Emma shook her head. "No. He just, um, wanted to...talk...about Henry...and stuff."

Snow cocked her head to one side. "Stuff?"

Emma walked to the kitchen counter. Once she was across from Snow, she leaned on the countertop, pressing one hand into the wooden edge and leaning against it while she slipped off her shoes. "Yeah," she said. "Stuff… we haven't had a lot of time, since Neverland, and….we don't have time now either, I mean…" her voice trailed off.

"Emma," Snow said. "Things are busy. It seems like as soon as we solve one problem there's a new one popping up in its place."

"Yeah," Emma said, nodding. "And I—"

Snow cut her off. "But it's okay to live your life in the meantime." Emma looked at Snow, confused. Snow continued, "It's okay to let yourself be happy, even if you haven't...saved everyone...yet. You deserve happiness, Emma."

Emma looked at the ground; she was grateful it was dark enough that Snow wouldn't see her blushing. "I don't even know if that… if Neal and I… I don't know if that would make me happy," she said, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt and avoiding Snow's intense stare. "And we've got so many other important things to deal with right now. I mean, Pan, and her—" Emma gestured upstairs toward little Emma's room— "She's still so… And everything is up in the air, and she needs to—"

"Hey," Snow interjected. "You deserve happiness."

As Emma climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she thought about Neal. She thought about his face tonight in the diner as he'd told her he wanted to try again, as he promised he'd never stop trying to fix what was broken between them. She thought of Henry, and the way he looked like Neal when he laughed. Then she pushed all thoughts of Neal from her mind. She couldn't let herself go there, not right now.

If she was being honest, she did still love Neal, and probably always would. And if she was being honest, she was terrified of being hurt by Neal again, when she still felt so fragile from all the pain he'd caused the first time.

And if she was being really, really honest, it wasn't Neal's face that flashed through her mind in the last moments before she fell asleep.