The long road to happy

JRocks asked for a oneshot of Henry babysitting 8 year old Neal who asks why his nephew is older than him. Henry explains and Neal feels sad. Henry reminds him that they all have their happy endings now.

I won't be writing a sequel to this one :).

Neal was getting older. His cognitive understanding of things was developing. He saw plenty of families around Storybrooke as well as on TV. As he did, he was beginning to become aware of the fact that his family dynamic was different from others. Normally brothers and sisters were the same ages roughly as their siblings. Normally, uncles were much older than their nephews, not the other way about. Neal really got thinking about this one evening when Henry was babysitting him. Henry noticed that the normally highly animated little boy seemed rather quiet, and deep in thought.

"What's up Neal?" Henry asked him. Neal shrugged. "Come on, don't give me that." Henry said, turning off the DVD they had been watching. "You can tell me anything, you know that." Henry reminded him. Neal sighed.

"I just don't get it." Neal said, frustrated.

"Get what?" Henry asked.

"Why I'm much younger than mom." Neal explained. He looked at Henry. "If I'm your uncle, how come you're the adult and I'm the kid?" Hery ruffled the back of his neck uncomfortably. He knew Neal was bound to start asking these kind of questions sooner or later. He just never figured he'd be the one having to answer them.

"Ok, give me a moment." Henry said, heading for the stairs. "I think my storybook might clear most of this up."

About half an hour later, Henry had finished telling Neal all about the curse, and how it had stopped most people from aging that had been born in the Enchanted Forest. But that his big sister had been sent through the magic wardrobe to save her from the curse, but that meant she grew up away from her family. So that's why she was the same age as her mom and dad and not Neal. Understandably, Neal felt a bit upset (even guilty) about all this.

"Oh." Was all he said. Henry frowned.

"She's alright now though, bud." Henry promised him.

"Maybe." Neal said quietly. "But she never got to have a family growing up. I get mom and dad all to myself." Henry squeezed Neal to him.

"None of this is your fault." He told his little uncle. "Nobody blames you. Mom never has been mad at you for being here. She loves you to pieces Neal. We all do. If things hadn't have happened the way they did, I wouldn't have been born either." Henry reminded him. "We all got to have our happy endings because of it, it just got a bit messy in the middle." Henry did his best to explain. Neal nodded, still thinking things through. He still wasn't entirely sure he was happy about the whole situation, or that he felt guilt-free. But he supposed Henry was right. Emma seemed happy now. Maybe things worked out alright in the end.