"Emma?"

The blonde barely heard her mother as she desperately tried to push a wave of nausea down and continued on the path in the woods.

When she arrived at Ashley's earlier, her [parents were already there and after David double checked the property for the missing toddler, everyone quickly formed a search party. They split off in teams, Snow quickly taking it upon herself to go with Emma. Emma tried to protest but just got that stern mother look in return. With a quick roll of her eyes, she had no choice but to agree then. It wasn't that she didn't know Snow could handle herself, she was afraid she was going to try to have a conversation about something Emma wasn't in the mood to discuss.

"I'm fine." She grunted. "Alexandra?!"

Snow secretly scoffed at her daughter's answer but mimicked her call for the missing girl. "Honey, you're not in trouble, we just want to know that you're safe." When they were all at the house, Ashley informed them that she had just punished her for some silly little toddler antics.

"I don't think she came this way." Emma could hear the frustration in her own voice. "She would have left tracks"

"Mmm" Snow seemed to agree, but neither of them turned around right away. "Neal just texted me and said she's not at the daycare."

Neal texted you? It was Emma meant to ask, but another wave of nausea took over and caused her to stumble a little, trying to keep it down.

"Emma." Snow asked again, but this time it wasn't a question and more stern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I got the call as soon as I was sitting down to breakfast." Although she was sort of thankful she did not eat anything because it would be all over the woods by now and definitely would have scared off Ashley's daughter if she was here.

"Couldn't you have grabbed something quick?"

Emma didn't even respond to that question. She knew her mother was concerned about her, but her duty was to the town and when there was an issue like this, her needs became second fiddle. Everyone should know that by now. "Let's check by the creek."

Snow made a noise of agreement and they changed course slightly to check. Almost instantly Emma spotted a tiny toy doll in the mud, and as she bent down to pick it up, a wave of dizziness washed over her and she ended up on her knees in the mud.

"Emma!" She felt her mother's hands immediately on her shoulders to start helping her up.

But she never got that far

xxxxxxxx

"He said to give her time." Neal said for what it felt like the millionth time.

"I know but-"

"Give her time." He interrupted Snow. He wished she would leave. It was mean, this was her daughter and grandchild, but he needed peace for ten minutes so that he could think. He needed to wrap his mind around what just happened and what the next steps were and just life in general.

"Yes, but-"

He groaned and put his face in his hands.

"Honey, let's give him a moment." David gently grabbed Snow's arm and started leading her out of the room. "Henry must be getting antsy."

Neal gave his silence thanks to him just as a slight moan came from the hospital bed.

"Emma?!"

Well, there went any chance of getting her out now.

"Woah, Woah. Quietly." David warned.

Neal sat up straighter and put his hand gently on Emma's. "Hey.." he whispered.

"Hey stranger." It was barely a whisper but caused him to grin from ear to ear.

"Take your time." He uttered. "We got you."

At that Emma's eyes fluttered completely open. "I…what happened? Where…Alexandra?!"

"She's safe," David confirmed. "Actually it was quite funny, She was at Grannies. Not the whole time but she made her way there. It was a happy ending."

"Well, not for some of us." Neal noticed Emma's eyes fell on her hospital bracelet as she spoke.

"Shh. It's okay. You're okay. She's okay." He quickly jumped to action.

"She?!"

He winced at her loud voice (at least she finally found it.). "Or he. Sorry, sorry. Quiet or else Whale's nurse will scream and I don't need to be kicked out."

"You're the one who said it." She weakly accused, hand trying to go to her stomach, but instead tugging on IV cords.

He smiled again "I know, I'm sorry. It's been a rough few hours. How are you feeling?"

"Weird." She made a face and made a move to tug at the cords again.

"No, you don't." He put his hand on her arm to stop her. "They're rehydrating you. Em, you passed out. You were severely dehydrated and your blood pressure was dangerously low. Are you trying to be the one who dies on me now?"

"She wasn't going to die" Snow, who he was surprised remained silent for this long, interrupted. "Just a scare, that's all."

He had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out she was more worried about impending doom than him an hour or so ago.

"It would serve you right," Emma muttered.

He chuckled. "Okay I'll spare you the lecture for now then, but just for you know, there's now rules."

"Rules?" The blonde echoed. "Already?"

"Yes, already. I can't…we can't afford to take chances. You scared everyone. I…" He sighed and rubbed his temple. "I have to call Belle."

"You told everyone?"

"I didn't know if I was going to have a fiancée or a child later today, so yeah, I did" It came out rougher then he meant and he knew that it just upset her and she would have came back even more defensive, if her mother didn't interrupt.

"Fiancée?!"

"Mom, you completely expected that, don't be overdramatic."

Emma's response made him chuckle.

"Call whoever needs to be called, is Henry here? And I need someone to tell me exactly why I'm in this hospital bed when I am supposed to be looking for a missing toddler."

The other three adults in the room exchanged glances with each other at the sudden orders before David and Snow slipped out of the room, Snow with her phone in her hands.

"Firstly, Alexandra's safe." Neal said for what he felt like the hundredth time. "Granny found her trying to sneak cookies in her kitchen. It seemed she woke up with an independent spark this morning and wanted to explore the neighborhood herself. No kidnapping, No funny business. Yes, David already told me you guys didn't suspect that, but honestly, I did. I guess I underestimated four year olds' abilities to think for themselves. So that's scary. Secondly, as I said, you were severely dehydrated and your blood pressure was dangerously low. You were really lucky that your mother was with you. Whale seemed to know right away what was wrong which is astounding to me, and he assured us he could rectify it with fluids but then he mentioned complications if this becomes a habit. Guess what we're not going to do? Make it a habit. So I've been doing some homework and you are going to fight me tooth and nail on things, but I have rules."

"Rules?"

"Yes, rules. Emma, this is my child too. You aren't the only one who gets a say. The first rule is eating. Every meal. Maybe more than that. Everyday. No matter what."

"It was an emergency!"

"No, it wasn't, not really. Fine, you didn't know that at the time, but even still, you're not the only one in this town who can handle things."

"I-"

"I what, Emma? You're used to it? You're the savior? I know that. But you don't seem to know that your job was to break curses, and I'm not aware of any curses at that moment, so now your job is to take care of your family. I know I sound really serious right now and maybe I should give you a few more minutes to adjust but I was scared to death. I can not do this again."

All she did was sigh in response before Henry and Snow and Whale himself came bursting through the door.

xxxxxxxx

She was discharged the next morning. She suspected, no, she knew that Neal had a ton to do with that and if it was just her, she would have been in her own bed that same night.

Not that she would have slept either way.

"Henry's staying at Regina's, not because of you, just because he wants to." Neal informed her as he opened the fridge.

Not because of her? "Thanks for the clarification." She knew him well enough to know that he took pride in being able to tell her that as a father, or just someone who could make that kind of decision.

"I didn't think you would mind, you need rest anyways."

"I slept last night." She knew that wasn't what he meant but she wasn't going to spend all day on the couch. She felt perfectly fine.

"Well, that's a lie."

It was.

He scoffed as he moved a tupperware container to see what was behind it.

"What?"

"Marriage and lying really don't get along."

She bit her lip. Was he actually mad now? "We're not married yet."

"Okay, after all we've been through, lying is not the game." He shut the fridge with a thump and turned to face her.

"Neal, come on…"

"Em, I'm serious."

The corners of his mouth were turned down, and he did look serious, so serious that she had to glance away. For the life of her she couldn't fathom why his mood turned sour this quickly. He was laughing and joking on the car ride home. Maybe it had something to do with his death. "Those bed's aren't really that comfortable."

"Thank you." The corners of his mouth immediately turned up. "Are you hungry?"

If I say no, will you turn again? "Not really, I had breakfast." That definitely was not a lie. He watched her eat it.

He looked defeated but ultimately shrugged and told her to go sit down, which she did. She really wanted to go into work, but truthfully, she wasn't up for that fight right now. Her father had promised he would catch up on the paperwork anyways. "See, I listen."

That got a smirk out of him. "When you want to, You have not changed since you were the girl meeting the guy in the amusement park."

He said that to her quite frequently, and normally she would laugh and shrug it off but this time she had a different response. "But you aren't the same guy."

In reality they both had changed. In as many years that had passed since they were kids, it was impossible not to. She would be worried if that wasn't the case, but as they both spoke the words that they were saying now, she could tell that he knew what she meant. They both knew what eachother meant.

"Death changes you." He confirmed. "That shouldn't be surprising."

It wasn't. She had luckily never had the experience, but she had been close enough many times to get the gist. That wasn't exactly what she was getting at though and she had a feeling he knew that. She sighed, knowing that it was time to be blunt if she was ever going to get anywhere. "Are you just not going to talk about it?"

"You don't need to relive it."

"You know that's not what I mean." Of course she didn't need to relive the actual moment, she had done that enough over the past handful of months. She would if that was what he needed though, and she knew he knew that. She also knew that she was more interested in the things she didn't know.

He considered his next response carefully. "I'm not sure you're meant to know about that. I think I already told you too much."

She was visibly taken aback. "Too much? You barely told me anything at all."

"Yeah, exactly."

The look on his face told her not to push it, and she knew that she should just change the subject, but her pride got the best of her. "Do you think I can't handle it?"

A hint of amusement flickered across his face. "You fought a dragon to save your family. Of course I don't think that. I just…it's me that can't handle it. I mean, obviously I did handle it, but.." He sighed and turned away from her for a second. "I'm afraid something will happen if I tell you."

She wanted to point out that he had been the one telling her that he was fully confident that nothing would happen no matter what for days, but this time she kept her mouth shut and just nodded. Even if she did start saying something, she would have gotten interrupted by a knock on the door.

"I hope we are decent." Snow's voice was sing-songy as she cracked the door open.

Emma rolled her eyes. Why even bother knocking? "What would you do if we weren't?" She muttered for only Neal to hear.

He chuckled.

"It took a while, and I had to get some help, but I tracked down mostly everything." The burnettes arms were buried in bags. "Protein bars, water, electrolytes…"

"Mom, I already have groceries."

"Neal didn't seem to think so." She turned into the kitchen to seemingly put things away.

"Mom!" Emma got up to try to follow her.

"I asked her to get stuff. Sit down." Neal ordered.

"Hmpf."

"Oh, and there's something still in my car for Emma, can you go get it? It's on the front seat."

Neal flashed her a grin and went to do what Snow asked, and as soon as he was out of the house, Emma got up to investigate the bags.

"Emma! What did Neal tell you?" Her mother disapproved.

"Neal overreacts." The blonde went into a bag and pulled out some ice cream. "This was on his list?"

"It was on my list." Snow took it from her hands and put it in the freezer. "I know it's your favorite and I also know that you will probably need to eat your annoyance at your fiancé." She seemed to stumble over the word a little, not surprisingly seeing as she only found out yesterday in a way Emma knew she definitely didn't appreciate.

"I'm sorry, I was going to tell you but…"

"You were busy." Immediately after she spoke, she turned her back, but Emma imagined a slight frown on her face.

"Mom, it just happened."

"I know. It doesn't really matter all that much, all that does matter is you are engaged. My daughter is getting married. There's no time to cry over silly little things now. Your father is esatic it's not…" She immediately cut herself off when she realized what she was going to say.

"Killian?" Emma finished for her. "It's alright, I'm not going to spontaneously combust at the sound of his name."

"Does he know?"

"No, but I'm going to tell him before he hears it from somebody else." Neal came in and answered Snow's question. "I think he's owed that much respect at least."

Emma was going to express how she thought that was a really bad idea, but before she could, he shoved an odd shaped pillow in her arms.

"You are not sitting." He complained.

She sighed and held up part of the pillow at Snow.

"It's a pregnancy pillow, Ashley gave it to me to give to you." She explained.

"I know what it is, I don't need it though."

"Em, just take it and go sit down."

She groaned frustrated.

"Listen to your almost husband, Emma. I'll be there in a few seconds to talk about ideas for the wedding."

Emma turned to Neal desperately with her eyes bugging out of her head. She was prepared for her mother to hit the ground running in a way, but in another, she wasn't.

Neal just shrugged and grabbed the last bag of food to put away so she sighed and went back to the couch to start trying to explain to her mother that she just wanted something small and quiet and not the celebration fit for a princess that Snow White was surely cooking up.