Sorry for all those out there that love Neal. This is not a good chapter for him. Don't hate me.

Kind of a shorty chapter! But it's got some feels :)

Enjoy!

Tallahassee Part 2

Henry ran out ahead of the two women in the sand, kicking over mounds that had built up from the waves. "This pirate ship is going to be awesome! Look I see it!" He bounced around them, pointing to the ship that was floating in the water just ahead of them at the dock.

"I can't believe you found this place." Emma said as her and Regina walked close next to each other.

"Well it wasn't too hard. You be surprised what you can find on the internet." Regina shrugged her shoulders.

"Mom! Come on! We are going to miss it!" Henry ran ahead of them as they reached the line to go inside. Once Emma paid for the tickets she was sure she would never see Henry again. He took off inside before she could yell after him.

"He'll be fine. There is only so many places he could go." Regina assured her as she took the blondes hand in her own, intertwining their fingers.

The ship turned out to just be a museum for pirate history. Leave it to Regina to find something educational for them to do. Regina smiled at Emma as the blonde turned into a kid at the candy store once they were inside. Emma must have not realized that she was into pirates as much as she turned out to be. Like mother like son.

"Regina, come here! Look at this." Regina made her way over to where Emma was. A huge glass cabinet stretched out horizontally in front of them. Inside was supposedly the only remains ever to be found of an actual mermaid.

"It's like a real life Little Mermaid."

"Well let's hope nobody breaks into song." Regina joked, and Emma laughed a little harder than she should have. Henry had busied himself over at a cabinet full of swords and guns, his face plastered to the glass trying to get a better look at everything.

"Emma?" The unfamiliar voice caught Emma mid laugh and she turned around to find the source. Emma felt her heart fall to the floor as a man approached the two women. He wasn't terrible large, but he was handsome enough. His eyes pierced her skin like a knife and she could hardly hold the shock from her face. Emma knew his face all too well and up until this point she never thought she would ever see him again. Deep down she never wanted to see him again, especially after everything he did.

"Emma, is that really you?" He got closer, and Emma was scared that he was going to try and wrap her in a hug or something. She took a small step back from him inching closer to Regina.

"Um, what are you doing here?" Emma finally managed.

"It's nice to see you too." He joked bringing up his hands and placing them on his hips. "Look at you, you look great!"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Regina butted in. She had noticed Emma's hesitation and decided she needed to step in.

"My name is Neal." He stretched his hand out to shake. Regina looked down at the hand before lightly taking it as her memory processed the name.

"Neal? As in Henry's father, Neal?" Regina found the thought. She looked over at Emma who looked like she was on the verge of an explosion.

"In the flesh. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name?" He asked, turning his attention to Regina.

"Regina." She stated. She stepped a little closer to Emma and the man eyed between the two of them, slowly connecting the dots.

"Are you two…"

"Dad!" Henry sprang up out of nowhere, running and jumping into Neal's arms.

"Hey, big guy! Look at you! You're getting so big. Let's see." He placed Henry back down and measure him up against his body. "Yep, you'll be bigger than me by Christmas I can tell." Henry laughed a little, rolling his eyes as Neal ruffled his hair.

"Mom, you didn't tell me dad was going to be here." Henry said enthusiastically.

"Looks like he surprised us all, kid." She finally managed after flinching a little at the man touching her son. He wasn't his father. He would never be his father. He left her. He left Henry. And now he acts like nothing happened and he can just pop back up and take Henry as his own? Not in this life.

"Dad, are you going to stay with us today?" Henry looked up at him in question.

Regina stepped up and took Henry by the arm. "Um, Henry, why don't we go get you something from the gift shop. What do you say?"

"Okay!" He followed after her. Regina looked back at Emma who had a shade of terror spread across her face. The brunette gave her a reassuring nod and then jogged to catch up with the boy who had run way ahead of her into the gift shop.

The two remaining adults stood a little awkward in front of each other. There was at least three feet between them and Emma wished there was a thousand feet between them. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, her nerves getting the better of her.

"Man, he's gotten so big. What is he now? 10?" Neal asked casually.

"He's 12 actually. But you would know that if you were around." Emma spit out. She really didn't mean to come across that stale, but she couldn't help it. He made her sick.

"Aw, Emma come on. We're going to do this right now? You know why I couldn't be there. My job kept me away." He breathed out.

"For 6 years?" Emma narrowed her eyes at him, her arms tightening around her chest.

"Emma, please." He pleaded.

"No, Neal." She held up a hand to stop him. "You can't just do this to us. You can't just pop up and act like everything is okay. We've moved on Neal. We have a life again." Emma's anger was boiling inside of her. She hated to even look at his face.

"Look, Emma I didn't have a choice. He's my son, you think I didn't want to be there? You think I didn't hate missing everything?"

"You sure didn't act like it. You left. You don't call, you don't write. You really expect me to believe you wanted to be there? You didn't even try." Emma looked around as a few people had shot them some funny looks. Two adults arguing in the middle of a pirate museum was kind of frowned upon. Emma sighed and started out of the museum, Neal right on her heels.

"But I'm here now. What are the odds that we would run into each other? Here, of all places." Neal protested after her.

The sun hit Emma like a brick wall. The inside of the museum was so dark that she forgot it wasn't even noon yet. It wasn't even noon and her day was already in shackles.

"Yeah what are the odds Neal? What are you even doing here?"

"I… I'm flying out in the morning for a business trip." He admitted.

"Oh yeah that's rich. So you show up, and then you leave. Bad habits never die. Great. What am I supposed to tell Henry? Oh wait, I'll just tell him that his father left, again, and I'm really not sure when he'll be back." If Emma wasn't in public she would beat the shit of Neal right now. How dare he do this… again.

"Emma, please! What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to grow up, Neal. And be a father. Did you see the way he looked at you? He has no clue what kind of person you are. But I do." Emma could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, clouding her vision and magnifying the sunlight.

"Emma, that is not fair." He tried to step forward.

"Oh." Emma breathed out, holding her hand out to immediately stop his advance. "What is fair Neal? Because the last time I checked, walking out on the mother of your child is way up there on the list!" She was almost shouting now. She couldn't take it anymore. This was not happening.

"Mom! There you are! Look what Regina got me!" Henry ran up to Emma, and poked her with the plastic hook that now covered his left hand.

"That's nice sweetheart." She bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

Regina slowly approached them, her eyes meeting Emma's to make sure it was safe. From the look she got from the blonde, she knew it wasn't.

"Look, Neal. We have to go."

"Are you coming with us Dad?" Henry butted in, poking the hook around in Neal's stomach.

Emma and Neal exchanged emotionless looks and then Neal slowly squatted down in front of Henry. "Dad's got a lot of work to do, kiddo. Maybe we can catch up another time."

Henry's demeanor immediately went soft. "Okay." He said sadly. "Maybe you could come to one of my basketball games soon." Henry offered.

Neal took a hold of his chin and lifted his head up. "I'll see what I can do kiddo. But for now, I need you to be the man of the house and take care of your mom okay?" Neal forced a smile.

Henry nodded sadly and stood next to his mother.

"Well uh, It was nice to see you Emma." He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, trying to avoid eye contact with the blonde. Emma kept quiet as she kept a hand firmly on Henry.

"It was nice to meet you too, Regina." He eyed the two of them and then took a few steps back away from them. He took one last look down at Henry before finally turning down the dock.

Regina kept a close eye on him and when he was finally gone she looked back at Emma. Her face was so blank, Regina couldn't tell what she could have been thinking.

"Emma…"

"Let's go." Emma interrupted. The blonde started down the dock, Henry close at her heels swinging his hook around. Regina hesitated a moment taking in a deep breath as Emma passed her before taking up step behind the two of them. She suddenly felt like an awkward third wheel. Emma had never really elaborated on what happened between her and Neal. Regina only knew his name and one picture that Henry had shown to her a while back. That was the only way she recognized him. She suddenly realized how Emma must have felt about Daniel. A mix of emotions between fear, and anger, and jealousy, and she didn't like it at all.

The tiny bed in their room at the inn had never felt so comfortable before. Regina flopped down on the covers, kicking her sandals off and rubbing her sore feet. She was pretty sure she had never walked so much in her life and hoped that tomorrow could be a day of rest. They had already been there over a week and they hadn't stopped since they got there. She needed a spa day or something calming and soothing on her body.

Emma walked solemnly through the door after tucking Henry in, and made her way to the drawers where she had partially unpacked her clothes. Regina sat up on her elbows on the bed and watched her. She could see the blonde's face through the mirror on top of the drawers and her heart sank at the reflection. Today had been rough, what with seeing Neal and all, and then the fact that Henry couldn't stop talking about him, or asking Emma when the next time they would see him was. Regina felt awful for the blonde.

Regina stood up from the bed, despite the lingering pain in her feet and stepped over behind Emma. The blonde was unbuttoning her shirt when she felt the warm hands of the brunette around her waist. Emma stood there a moment, allowing the woman's warmth to break the ice that had formed around her heart. Her head leaned over to on Regina's and they stood there for a moment together.

"I'm so tired of doing things on my own." Emma breathed out, the tears welling up in her eyes. "Is there such a thing as starting over? Because that's all I've ever wanted to do, and it always seems like what happened in the past is always waiting around the corner. Ready to ruin any new thing that comes into my life." Emma wasn't sure what she was trying to say precisely but she needed to say something. She had pushed Neal away so far in her past that he didn't even seem real anymore. And all in a moment he came crashing back down on her. She had to brace herself on the vanity to keep her from falling to the floor.

"I'm so sorry." Regina whispered. She perched her chin on the woman's shoulder and looked into her eyes through the mirror, tears spotting her own chocolate pupils. Emma stared back until she could no longer take it. She spun around and smashed their faces together. She took hold of the older woman's head and pushed harder into her lips, wishing the feeling would numb away her pain. It did somewhat but Emma knew it would never go away completely.

When she finally let go, she pulled herself away, only to close the distance immediately as she wrapped Regina in her arms. Regina went with the flow, holding the woman in her arms. Her skin rose in little bumps around her body as she held the blonde.

"Emma I don't expect things to be perfect. We all have a past that continues to haunt us. But it's when we find someone that makes all that irrelevant that we can start over." She let go of the woman so she could look her in the eyes. Her hands gently brushing the tears off of the blonde's soft skin. "I don't know how to express how much I want to be that person for you, Emma. You were that person for me. You helped me see that there was so much more that I was missing in my life. I was missing you." She wrapped her arms around the blonde once more and they stood there for a long time. The time flew by in an instant for both of them though.

As they fell asleep in each other's arms that night Regina could only wonder what was happening in Emma's mind. She watched the blonde fall asleep and could see the stresses fall away from her face as she fell into her dreams. Regina pushed away a stray curl that had fallen in the blondes face and leaned forward, placing a small kiss on Emma's sleepy lips. She felt a small tear roll down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away. She hated the thought of Emma being in pain. Regina knew she could not be there for Emma in every aspect of her life, but she damn well was going to try. She had never truly realized how much she cared for Emma until this very moment.

She pulled the blonde closer to her and felt her warmth before she could no longer keep her eyes open. She loved Emma Swan, and she would make sure she proved it every day of her life.