Regina gently closed the door of Henry's room, the light of the hallway narrowing over his sleeping, yet splotched face. Crying himself to sleep. He had put up a fight. His abrupt transition from the back of Swan's vehicle to home had scared him. Horrified screams had echoed throughout the entire mansion. He had thrown himself to floor, screaming and crying like he'd been physically hurt. There was nothing she could do to calm him. Every time she went to pacify his flailing arms and wipe his tears, he recoiled and kicked. He had accusingly asked what she did. He told her she was the worst mother, and that he wanted his real mom. They'd been on their way to Chuck E. Cheese, and it was going to be the best thing ever, and that she ruined everything. He vowed he was going to run away to live with Emma, and they would eat Pop Tarts breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It was at this point Cora emerged from her corner, hand raised. Regina put up her own and let her mother know she was never to use magic on Henry again.
The tantrum was unlike anything Regina had ever experienced with Henry. She half expected the walls to shake and the windows to crack.
After an hour, he had finally passed out on the sofa, and Regina could finally hold him since she saw him in the hospital. She carried him up the stairs into his room and laid him on his bed. Kissing his cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin.
Entering her own bedroom, she closed the door behind her. Chin trembling and fingers wringing, she approached Graham's body on the bed. Since the return of magic, her powers weren't up to par. She'd been able to transport his body here from Gold's apartment, but it gave her a headache to do it.
Unable to help herself, she sat beside him and leaned down, her lips brushing his before rubbing her hands together. Closing her eyes, she hovered her hand over his body, and she felt it. The magic. The preservation spell worked and for now, she'd keep him here.
Pulling up the sleeves of her blouse, Regina entered the kitchen, the pool of blood giving her a pause. She was relieved knowing it wasn't Henry's. Sleeping Curses weren't known for causing such a mess. The gore likely belonged to Hook, and Emma had been the one to bring Henry into the ER.
Regina waved her hand over the gore, muttering a curse when the puddle barely rippled. She fetched the bleach, hot water, a scrub, mop, and set to work on her hands and knees. Once the blood was half-gone, she saw the cracked divot in one of her tiles. Partially lodge inside was a bullet.
"Regina, my dear, what are you doing?" asked her mother.
"Apparently I have to spell it out for you, Mother, but you aren't welcome here in my house anymore. Go back to Hook's ship and stay there."
"I retrieved Henry for you. Emma was taking him out of Storybrooke. She wasn't coming back."
"Well, in that case, all is forgiven," she remarked sarcastically. She stood up, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a watery red streak in its wake. The knees of her pantsuit were soaked, and she placed her hands on her hips. "I don't know why I believed for one second you actually came all this way to be with me—"
"Sweetheart, I did—"
"It was to get that dagger. It's always been about power for you. You don't want my happy ending if it means getting in the way of yours. You killed Daniel and Graham. You terrorized and manipulated Daddy. You used Graham to torture Belle in front of the Dark One who loves her. Now he knows what I did to her. Magic is here, the curse is broken, and I'm not safe. I thought it was bad when Henry's mother got here, but it's when you got here, my happy ending really did fall apart."
"You don't need to be frightened of the Dark One. Once I've secured his blade—"
Boiling, hot anger rose within Regina. Chaotic, unruly magic shot out of her hands and hit her mother square in the chest, and she watched her mother morph into a towering, Black Diamond apple tree. She cautiously approached the trunk, placing her palm flat against it.
The branches jittered, irritated.
Pressing her lips together, she summoned a fraction of that previous rage and made the tree disappear from the kitchen. She walked into her backyard, arms stretched out, and cast another preservation spell, this time on her mother. Several feet from her cherished apple tree was the Black Diamond. Again, she approached the trunk, pressing her lips against the rough wood.
"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispered, saddened. "But you left me no choice."
Regina returned to her house, staring at the remaining blood on the floor and the ruined tile piece. Hook was hurt wherever he was, but she couldn't bring herself to care. He'd been alive for centuries and survived God knows what. If he got himself gunned down by a pitiful piece of white trash, then that was his problem and his alone.
Upstairs, she quietly reentered Henry's bedroom, pulling out his suitcase from the closet and packing it full of clothes. She grabbed his backpack and went to slide in his DS and iPad but paused when seeing a thick, rectangular book. She pulled it out and read the cover.
Once Upon a Time
Emma badged herself into the pharmaceutical supply closet adjacent from the OR. Her fingers skimmed across labeled boxes, trying to remember the generic names for medicines. She had her fair share of them when her appendix ruptured last year in Boston. Her hands hovered over Fentanyl, and then she shook her head.
"I wouldn't recommend it," said August from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder at him. "He needs drugs."
August nodded. "Given you shot him, morphine would be the best bet—"
"I need him lucid and walking. He's going to get Henry from Regina's and will need his wits about him to sneak him out under her nose."
"Is that the plan?"
"Mmhmm."
"And he's going to do it?"
She settled on oxycodone, ibuprofen, Tylenol, and penicillin for good measure. "Probably not. While he's telling Regina all about my plan to take Henry, I'm coming through the front door and you can enter from the back and…"
In her peripheral, she saw August stare at her expectantly.
"I know. It's not a good plan," she confessed.
"You never know. Maybe Hook will surprise you."
Emma frowned at the boxes of medicine in her arms. "It was you who brought him in, wasn't it?"
"Traced your phone, and I found him."
"Did he talk to you about anything? Like...never mind."
"He was unconscious. Emma, I wasn't being entirely truthful when I said I knew about Neverland."
Emma turned her head towards him. Slowly.
"I don't know your details about what happened—"
"Then whose details do you know?"
"Look, I'm just saying everyone's got a story. You think you know Hook's. He betrayed you. He handed you over to Pan. You lived. You didn't spend another day in Neverland when you left that ship…"
Emma faced him head on, eyes wide. "You know what, August? I've been trying to avoid talk of Neverland. When you said you knew about me going, I didn't press for information because I didn't want to think about it—"
"I think talking about it might help you remember things differently—"
"And how in the hell do you know Hook betrayed me and that I left soon after? The only person that should know those details is—"
"Neal," he finished.
"You…you've been talking to Neal!" Boxes of medicine hit the floor. She stepped over them, getting closer to August who backed away. He didn't get far before his limping leg gave out, and he had to hunch over, painfully gasping.
"Magic is here, and the curse is broken." From his hunched over position, he stared up at Emma and pulled up both pant legs of his jeans. Narrow beams of polished wood exposed. "And still it spreads. I keep choosing the wrong path or the easy way when the truth is, I took advantage of you not wanting to talk about Neverland or Henry because I was a coward. I didn't want you knowing I failed you not long after we got here from the Enchanted Forest, and I couldn't even do it just once. I had to keep doing it over and over again. Emma, you were planning this whole new life with the Dark One's son in a new country. You would've run away with him and never looked back. The curse would've never been broken. You would've never found your parents. I…" He lowered his head, shamed. "I had to intervene. The night you got arrested, not long before, I confronted Neal."
Emma stumbled backwards, her feet tripping over the discarded medicine boxes. She braced herself against the shelf, her her sinking into her souring stomach. "You told him to leave me? You told him to let me take the fall…and he did? Just because fucking Pinocchio told him—"
"He wasn't going to." His Adam's apple bobbed. "He didn't want to but when I explained to him about the curse, your parents, and you being the Savior, he—"
"He let me take the fall."
"He told me to fuck off." He chuckled bitterly. "So I had to try a different tactic."
Leroy glowered at Emma's beat-to-hell Beetle while he shook the can of spray paint in his hand. He called the Marine Garage and nobody answered. Ever since the curse broke, nobody was doing anything but pissing and moaning and running amok. Damn it, Snow White's little princess almost died because no one answered at the hospital. Thankfully, he figured it out pretty quick that said Little Princess was fleeing town with Henry.
He was way behind Emma when he managed to get into his car but figured he'd be able to catch her at the town line or close to it if he gassed it. He didn't expect having to saw off her seatbelt, pull her through her shattered windshield, and drive the woman's broken body back to the hospital. Hoping she wouldn't die on the way. Leroy called Snow through FaceBook since he didn't and wouldn't have Mary Margaret's cellphone number, and she and Charming met him there, explaining to them what he saw and how Henry was nowhere among the wreckage.
From town sign to town sign, Leroy painted a bright orange line on the road. "This, gentlemen, is our mission. The great barrier of our existence – does it remain? We must investigate the line." He lifted his other hand. "I made straws. Short one crosses. Draw."
"With the curse broken, we can cross, right? It should be no problem." Happy took a straw.
"With magic back," Walter started, "it could be even worse now."
"Like vaporize us," Doc added.
Bashful nervously pitched, "Let's go home."
For God's sake!
"Guys!" Leroy shouted. "We are the Royal Guard. Towards loyalty to Snow White. This is our chance to prove ourselves to the Prince. We must do this. Show your hands."
The men showed Leroy their hands, Sneezy letting loose a couple of sneezes. Leroy's eyes narrowed on his hand, seeing the short straw. He clapped him on the shoulder and grasped at the material of his trench coat. "You're up, Snotty."
He guided his fellow dwarf to the orange line who made no move to actually cross it. "You know, what if we found a turtle and sort of nudged it over first?"
Rolling his eyes dramatically, Leroy growled out, "Oh, for the love of..." and pushed Sneezy over the painted line. The man stumbled over and then straightened, frozen in place. Vibrating ripples of bluish waves encapsulating him.
"Sneezy, you okay?" Leroy called out him. "Sneezy!"
He and the other dwarves looked on in horror. Sneezy seemed to be having a fit and wasn't snapping out of it. Leroy was about to stretch his arm across the line and pull him back over when his ears picked up the sound of a vehicle approaching and at breakneck speed. He and the others looked over the shoulder.
Leroy was the first to recognize the car. "It's the Evil Queen!" he shouted. "Scatter."
He and the men dove off to the side, landing atop one another. Leroy craned his head and watched the black Mercedes Benz cross the town line, barely swerving to miss Sneezy.
"Mom, you almost hit Mr. Walter." Her son twisted in his seatbelt to stare at those insipid dwarves.
"He shouldn't have been standing in the middle of the road like a lunatic," she countered, frowning into her rearview mirror. What were they up to, anyway?
Her son let out a forlorn sigh, settling back in his seat. He stared at her through his wild, brown fringe. "Where are we going?"
Somewhere far away from here, she mused. Far away from Swan and Gold.
"Mommy needs a vacation," she replied stiffly.
"But there's a curse. Emma. My other mom. She's supposed to—"
"What are you talking about?" she snapped. That damned book he somehow got. Where did he get it from? "And I will not have you refer to her as your mother or other mother. I'm your mother. I raised you, and I love you more than anything."
"But she loves me, too."
Regina sneered, thinking of how Swan awoke Henry and broke the curse with True Love's kiss. Her fingers flexed over the steering wheel. "Be that as it may, Henry, I'm still your mom and always will be."
"Mom—"
"Enough, Henry." She put on her sunglasses. "Play with your DS for a bit, and then we'll stop to get some road snacks."
Her son huffed and zipped open his backpack, screeching, "Where's my book? I had a book in here. Mom, we have to go back and get my book—"
"Absolutely not."
"You took it, didn't you? You took my book. Snow White gave it to me. Mommy, I need it—"
"Snow White?" She scoffed. "A fairytale character didn't give you a book—"
"She's my grandma, and she's real! Just like Captain Hook is! He was in our house!"
"That man's name is Killian Jones," Regina sputtered. "And he is not Captain Hook. Henry."
"He told me who he is and that he's been to Neverland, and Peter Pan is real."
"You must've endeared him, and he decided to joke around with you because of his missing hand."
"Miss Blanchard is Snow White. She's Emma's mom—"
"I love you're imaginative, but this is going too far. Miss Blanchard is not Snow White. Emma isn't her daughter. Killian Jones isn't Captain Hook. Peter Pan isn't real, and neither is Neverland."
"And you're not the Evil Queen," he said hotly, his brown eyes teary and full of hurt.
Regina tightly gripped her steering wheel, her heart pounding in her chest. "Is that what you think of me, Henry? Evil?"
He sniffled, folding his arms. "You're mean, Mom. That's what you are. A mean queen!"
"Mean," she said, brows arched, briefly looking at him over her shoulder.
"You're mean to everybody, and it's embarrassing. It's why I don't have any friends, and no one wants to come over and play with me. Nobody came to my fifth birthday party."
"But they came to your sixth."
"Yeah, I wonder why," he muttered darkly. "Because you stomped around town scaring all the grownups who have kids in my class. And almost every morning, you run into Miss Blanchard, my grandma. It's your fault, and you get mad at her for it. You're mean to Ruby and Granny, probably because they used to be friends with Snow White, but I also think it's because you know I like Granny's lasagna more than yours."
"What?"
"Yours is too spicy!" he accused.
Regina let out a flabbergasted noise, removing her sunglasses to look at her son through the rearview mirror. "I think I'm going to have to take away your DS and swat your rear for good measure."
"Go ahead, Mean Mommy," he challenged. "Make my day."
Mary Margaret and David found Emma loitering by the pharmaceutical closet, boxes of medicine clutched to her chest. Her face was wet and puffy and hurt.
"Honey, what happened?" Mary Margaret ran to her daughter, wiping at her tears. "Oh, baby. Tell me what's wrong?"
"Where's August?" asked David, looking around the empty hallway.
"I told him to leave," mumbled Emma. "Why…Why is it that every time I give in and trust someone, they turn around and hurt me?"
Mary Margaret petted Emma's hair, tucking her locks behind her ears and then pulled her into an embrace. This time her daughter wasn't stiff. She slumped into her mother, albeit awkwardly, with medicine boxes between them. Emma's head rested on the other woman's shoulder, and her eyes drifted towards David.
Could she trust him? He was her dad, apparently, but also a man.
Who sent her off to Maine. To this horrible world where nobody loved her.
They both did. They both sent her here.
Emma jerked away from Mary Margaret, violently wiping her face with the back of her hand.
"What's wrong?" asked David.
"You sent me away," she said, accusingly. "You were my parents, and you sent me here."
"We did it to give you your best chance—"
"You did it for everyone because that's who you are. Leaders, heroes, princesses. And that's great. A-And amazing and wonderful. But it doesn't change the fact that for my entire life, I've been alone."
"But if we hadn't sent you away," Mary Margaret began, "you would've been cursed, too."
"But we would've been together," Emma countered. "And I know you, both of you, want to be my parents right now, but it's too late. I can fall into your arms and cry and tell you all the ways I've been hurt, but it won't change anything. Those experiences, you can't protect me from them. They've already happened—
"But we can comfort you," Mary Margaret pressed. In her peripheral, she saw the sickened horror on her husband's face because their daughter was right. It was too late. Emma was raised and grown. Beautiful and womanly. But a hardened, resilient adult who did adult things. She knocked back hard liquor and wore colored bras underneath white tank-tops. Her fingernails were painted a bold, blood red, and she had bedded men outside of marriage who were likely commoners and unworthy of a princess's attention. She bore a child out of wedlock and spent time in jail.
"If you let us," her husband added.
Emma shook her head no. "I have to deal with this on my own, and you need to…" Clutching the medicine boxes with one arm, she gestured with her free one, "tend to your kingdom. My kid isn't grown yet. I still have a chance with him, and I need to keep him safe and get him away from Regina and here."
"Emma…" Mary Margaret tried.
"I have to take him out of here. He'll never be safe with Regina and Cora and Gold lurking in the shadows."
"Okay."
David did a double take at his wife. "Okay?"
She reached out and squeezed his arm, giving him a steady, resolute look. Her expression was one of hurt but also understanding, and David knew the situation was out of his hands. He couldn't try and force his daughter to stay when all was said and done. If anything, it would sour a relationship he wanted to have with her.
"Maybe…" Snow added, her tone gentle. "We can all leave Storybrooke and start anew. Emma?"
Emma stared at the floor. Eventually, she shrugged. "I…I have to go. Do what you want."
David moved to go after her, but his wife's grip never left his arm. "Let her go. It's not like she's leaving town right now. I mean, she can't. Her car is wrecked."
"I have a feeling she'd just steal one." He wasn't able to prevent the smirk spreading on his face. He side-glanced at his wife. "Reminds me of someone I know."
A faint blush pinked her pale cheek. "It's possible she might do that."
He placed his hands on his hips, jaw ticking. "I mean, where is she going? And with all that medicine?"
"I don't know—"
"We should follow her. Something happened with August, and she's devastated."
"I want to." Her lips formed into a bitter smile. "And I want to know everything, big or small, that has harmed our daughter, but she's not ready. If we push her, we will lose her, and I am not losing her again, David. If she's not going to have us as parents, we're going to be her friends."
"Which means?" he questioned.
"Which means we support her in whatever she decides to do." She grabbed his hand, their fingers clasping. "Come on. Emma was right. We need to go take care of our kingdom."
In Emma's absence, Hook was able to get into a sitting position. He kept the sheets bunched around his privates, but his bare legs hung freely over the edge of the bed. Maybe with the pain medicine Swan promised, he might be able to stand without buckling over in pain.
When she finally came back, somehow looking worse, he said through a dry chuckle, "You know, for a moment there, I truly thought you weren't coming back."
She set the boxes she had in her arms on some sort of odd table. It had a small, square surface and was attached to a poll with tiny wheels. To be quite frank, the entire room was strange. From his bed to the white floors and walls.
"Is…all of the Land Without Magic like this?" he asked.
Swan tore open a box and plucked out a shiny looking card with elevated nodules. She pressed against those raised surfaces and out popped a white capsule onto the tiny, mobile table.
"Most towns aren't governed by a psycho, fairytale bitch, so no."
Swan repeated the motions of opening the other boxes and popping out capsules, not all of them white like the first. A couple of them were two colors. She then darted to a metal basin. He looked over his shoulder and watched her turn a lever and fill a papery cup full of clean water from a thin, curved spout. He'd seen similar marvels at Queen Regina's estate in her kitchen and washroom.
When Emma came back to his bedside, he remembered the only modesty he could claim was the twisted sheet around his lap. She'd been behind him and probably got a glimpse of the upper part of his naked ass.
As she set the cup of water down next to the capsules, he twisted the sheet more around his back area which made Swan roll her eyes. "You don't have anything I haven't seen, so don't flatter yourself."
But you haven't seen mine, love, he wanted to say but thought better of it.
"So," he started, testing the waters, "are you going to allow me to speak? Or are you just going to yell at me some more and threaten again to bring The Crocodile."
"Is that what you call him?"
"Aye." His answer was quiet, distracted. Now that she was holding still for more than three seconds and not trying to shoot him, scream at him, or threaten him, he wanted to study her. Take her in. Absorb her. Even in her state of disarray, she was still breathtaking beautiful. More than she had been on Neverland, and his dreams couldn't even hold a candle to the real deal.
He watched her slump into a peculiar chair and pull a metal flask out of her pocket with VW engraved into the side. She unscrewed the lid and took a long, healthy gulp, her eyes unfocused and distant. She went back for several more swallows before sitting up straight and capping the flask. She sniffed and then dragged her gaze to his.
"Okay. Before anything, you're going to tell me what Regina and her mother are planning."
"Are these all for pain?" Hook gestured to the capsules.
"One of them. The others will help with infection, inflammation, and nausea."
"I don't feel ill…"
"You will," she vowed. "And don't avoid my question—"
"That wasn't a question, Swan. It was an assumption. This is a question. Why do you want Regina's son? And I thought you had him already. You shot me and took him, so where did he go?"
The hand that wasn't clutching the flask curled around the armrest. Swan glared at him, and he took the capsules from the small table and popped them into his mouth, swallowing them with the water she gave him. Water droplets fell to his beard, and he wiped at them with his hand. He then started stroking his chin pensively.
"I have an idea, Swan. How about we take turns asking each other questions and answering—"
"No."
"It's only fair."
"No, it's not. Sure, you'll start by asking why I want Henry away from Regina, but your question won't stay on track. But I'll humor you just this once. He's not safe with her. She ruined my life and my parents' lives. She raged terror in Misthaven, brutally murdered my mother's people, and killed her own father, so she could cast this curse. He was her blood. Henry's not biologically hers. She might love him, but she would kill him if it meant completing her revenge."
"But…why must you be the one to take him?"
"Because." An expression of utter revulsion marred her face. "I'm the Savior, apparently. I save people. Or I'm supposed to, I guess. And that's two questions I've answered."
"If we're going to do this and try to be fair like you wish, then we must be honest with each other. I am willing to be honest with you. It is the least I can do…given our history. But so long as you're truthful with me."
Emma lowered her gaze. "What was the question?"
"Why must you be the one to take Henry, Swan?"
Her arms folded, and she rubbed her arms like she was cold. Moments ticked by and then finally, she broke her silence. "Because he's my son."
"I'm sorry, love. What?"
"It's my turn." Her brow wrinkled. She thought of August and what he said before she told him to leave her alone. He'd been going on about perspective and obtaining Hook's side of the story of what went down in Neverland. He never got the time to circle back after he came clean about his part in her separation with Neal.
Did Emma want to know?
Maybe.
But if she wasn't sure, then it had to wait. Nothing could be more important than Henry.
"Do you think you can get Henry out of Regina's?" she asked after a long while.
"He'll come quietly since he's under a Sleeping Curse. But you say Henry's yours..."
"He's awake now. Can you distract Regina while I go in—"
"As in...you were with child and bore him."
"Yeah," she clipped impatiently. She rubbed her right eye, successfully biting back a yawn. "Is your next question going to be about surviving Regina then?"
Hook snorted. He was still stuck on Swan being young Prince Henry's real mother.
"You know what my next question is."
"I…" She laughed, the sound sour and incredulous. "Can't explain how my kid got in the hands of Regina—"
"A lie." He lifted his finger. "And as curious as I am how that happened…it's not my next question."
Her brows cinched together, and she looked at her lap and then back at him. "I really don't know where he is, Hook."
"And why is that? You two were thick as thieves—"
"Oh, God." Her cheeks reddened and shielded her eyes with her and like she was embarrassed about something.
"—last I saw you."
"We grew up. We left Neverland, and we grew up. We moved on and took different paths in life."
Clearly, there was something underlying in her words. "Could you find him?"
"Okay, we're done with the question thing." She stood up. "We're going to Regina's. I'll see if I can go find your clothes in the OR—"
"I just need my brace and hook. I'll get fresh garments from my ship."
Leroy's claim came back to her about seeing a pirate's ship. She licked her teeth behind pinched lips. "That's right. Your ship."
After finding a pair of draw string pants, a gown, and slippers, Emma placed them on Hook's tray. Taking note of the greenish hue of his ashen features.
"Feeling sick?"
He shot her a bemused glance before sneering at the clothing she brought him. "What are these? Where's my brace and hook?"
She shrugged one shoulder, feeling the weight of his hook in the deep pocket of her oversized scrub pants. "Didn't find them in the OR, and you can't be walking around Storybrooke with a blanket around your waist."
She turned around, giving him privacy and trusting herself she could flatten his sorry ass if he tried to attack her from behind.
After a couple of minutes of muttered curses and the sound of rustling cloth, Emma pinched the bridge of her nose, and asked, "You can't get the pants up?"
There was pause and then an, "Aye."
She had been prepared to help him with the gown. He would've needed help maneuvering the garment with his bandage and sling, but the pants…yeah. The circus-tent looseness and the ridiculously long drawstrings. He had just one hand which wasn't anything new, but without being able to move properly on top of that…
The irony of the entire situation wasn't lost on Emma.
She squared her shoulders and turned around, keeping her gaze locked on his face for a good five seconds before dropping it down.
She had seen penises before.
One pant leg was twisted around his lower leg.
She was a worldly woman had seen many penises before.
The other pant leg was bunched underneath a foot.
But she had never seen Captain Hook's penis.
She dropped to her knees, and it twitched.
She tilted her head back up at him, cheeks burning. "Really?"
"Buggering hell, Swan. A beautiful woman drops to her knees—"
"Do not finish that sentence." Head still tilted back, her hands blindly grabbed for the one pant leg trapped under his foot. "Lift."
He lifted his leg, and she pulled up the material over his ankle and calve and righted the other.
The double doors of the PACU flew open, and the distinct sound of David Nolan's voice hit her ears.
"I'm sorry, Emma. I know you wanted your space, but Regina left town. She's got Hen…ry. What the hell is going on here?"
Emma jerked her head over her shoulder, nearly giving herself whiplash.
"Fucking hell," muttered Hook, his hand flying to cover his dick.
Her jaw dropped, wordless noise coming out of her mouth, and those awful, fucking pants falling from her slackened grip.
A/N: I'm taking the approach that Emma's jail time wasn't all Neal's fault. August needed to have some blame in the show, too. Sure, Neal went along with August's plan, which is damned near unforgivable of him, but none of it wouldn't have had to happen if Pinocchio would've stayed a good, honest boy. I really felt like he got off easy in the show, and I'm not going to let that happen here. Plus, given Emma's and Bae's more in-depth history together with Neverland, I had to create a more dramatic reason why Neal would leave her. (we'll get to that later) She wasn't just some cute chick who tried to steal his stolen car in this story. She knew him as Baelfire, and he loved her first as Baelfire before loving her as Neal.
Anyway, I love Bae. I've grown fond of Neal over time. But I will always love Captain Swan. :)
