Her head was pounding.

Like a sharp pain behind the eyes that accompanied the ever-expanding lump in her throat. Something that had appeared right around the time Neal, she decided, had broken Rule Number Three. Emma rarely cried and she didn't now (she refused to actually). Not really. But her eyes had begun to burn, her vision blurring slightly until Emma wiped angrily at them, the force of it accidentally knocking her glasses off one of her ears, causing them to hang crookedly on her nose until she impatiently corrected their position.

She wouldn't cry. Not when it felt like admitting a betrayal. She had no reason to doubt Neal. Not now. Not until he told her whatever he needed to tell her.

Not even if he had (most definitely) broke Rule Number Three.

(We always make decisions together.)

Why hadn't he told her before now?

( Together.)

What could possibly be so bad that he had felt like he couldn't tell her?

They had made Rule Number Three (formerly Two) sometime after deciding to move to Tallahassee. Emma had pulled out the frayed notebook where she had written out Rule Number One (now Two) along with its many addendums, and then proceeded to wait for Neal to return from his meeting with a guy who knew a guy that might buy the watches from them at a decent price.

"What's this for then?" Neal had asked, fingering a frayed edge after sharing the proposed deal.

Emma eyes had gone wide after hearing it because holy shit that would make for a good start.

(And it had – just more along the lines of a cover and a fresh start rather than a comfy security blanket that they could fall back on until finding actual jobs.)

But his smile had faltered when he had glanced down at the kinda list. A sure sign that he had probably broken one of the amendments without her knowledge (typically this had involved giving her the last of the stash without setting anything aside for himself).

(He had tried to excuse this by complaining that she got mean when hungry, but Emma had known what he was doing and refused to just let it slide.)

"We need a new rule," Emma had told him, pen tapping the notebook in her lap, her legs stretched out and her feet had, somehow for such a small space, come to rest comfortably on the dashboard. "One that doesn't involve you playing the marauder."

"That's the whole point of this though, isn't it?" he had asked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. "To give up the Bonnie and Clyde act? One last hoorah."

Emma's brow had furrowed in her confusion. She hadn't questioned that . "Yeah, but I mean, we won't get that far, will we? If you keep playing hero?"

A look of realization had crossed his face then. "You meant martyr."

"Sure, whatever," she had said, waving this off because that didn't matter nearly as much as this, "the point is you were going to jet off to Canada without telling me."

"I was going to tell you," Neal had insisted, and then, defensively, "I did tell you."

"But you weren't going to include me," she had stressed, pressing her pen against the notebook harshly, hard enough that it had pushed through, creating a hole in the paper. She continued, and a note of hurt had begun to surround her words. "You had already made the decision. Without me."

Sounding half-desperate (as if just thinking about the possibilities again had cause him to fill with panic and guilt), he had hurriedly explained, "Because you shouldn't have to suffer my mistakes, baby. I did this and-"

Emma had immediately started shaking her head at you shouldn't, Neal only managing to get farther on his mini-rant because she had stupidly decided to untangle herself. But once she had gotten her feet back on solid ground, she pressed a finger to his lips, looking at him dead on, expression dead serious. "But we're partners. We're –"

She had faltered then, a blush settling on her cheeks, the thing she had meant to say still new enough that she had still found it difficult to say with any sort of ease.

"In love," he had whispered softly, fondly, swooping in to her rescue after pressing a kiss to her finger, a rough, calloused hand wrapping around her wrist to lower her halting finger while a giddy smile spread across her face in spite of herself (she could help it, y'know, because of the newness), Neal immediately matching it.

"Yeah, she had agreed, somewhat awkwardly, " that. That should make your mistakes mine and vice versa. I don't care what the mistake is. If you kill someone I wanna help you bury the body."

His mouth had settled into a smirk at that, eyes alight with sudden amusement, teasing, "You need help burying a body, baby?"

"Neal."

"Okay," he had said after sobering.

The immediacy of his reply had given her pause having, maybe, expected a bit more of a fight. "Okay?"

"Okay," he had confirmed, a palm landing gently on her cheek, thumb moving back and forth in a gentle caress, Emma immediately wrapping a hand around his, holding it there as she leaned into his touch. "We agreed to start a life together and you're right. That means we can't just do things on our own anymore. Not when it might affect both of us." He nodded at the notebook, "we take care of each other, watch each other's back, and make decisions together. "

Now, if Emma opened the glove department and pushed aside old, forgotten binkies and a instruction manual for a car-seat, she would find the frayed hole-torn piece of paper where they had written the rule down, making it official. She didn't need to see it though. Not when she had memorized the words well over a decade ago, learning to treat them with a certain respect, as if they served as the very foundation of their relationship – reminding them that they were partners and that, instead of loners that only looked out for number one, they had someone to share the burden of the demons they carried.

Instead Emma turned on the radio, cranking the volume until the dial resisted, letting music fill the car, the seats vibrating with the beat as she made a desperate attempt to drown out her thoughts, knowing that she needed to calm down before pulling into the O'Brian's driveway or else risk upsetting Carina further.

(She hoped, at least, that Porter was having a good time at his party. Someone should get to enjoy their evening.)

Emma suspected that Carina, at least in part, had simply been looking for an excuse to leave, never mind how common it was for eight-year-olds to blow disagreements about board games out of proportion. Either way, she would need her mother to comfort her, not make her worry more (kids always sensed it though, it didn't matter how deep you buried the bad, they just knew ).

And while letting go of the anger that obnoxious ass Booth had inspired remained her most important priority, she also needed to stomp out those seeds of doubt that his arrival had unintentionally planted once and for all. Because it wasn't like she wanted to question Neal. She had no reason not to trust him and she'd always known that he had an unpleasant past. And, for as much of it as he had shared with her over the years, she had never deluded herself into thinking she knew everything. But she had never pushed, agreeing that it didn't matter.

All that did matter was how they were now (and, of course, that they had found each other).

Except, and this was one of those unwanted seeds she desperately wanted to rid herself of before it sprouted roots, Emma had no reason to suspect that anything in her past would cause them and, more importantly, their children harm. Neal, however had immediately begun to question the safety of their family with a single word from Booth.

Maybe it was her. Maybe she should have worried about the threat his father posed the moment Neal had revealed to her just how far down the road of crime his father had gone.

(Honestly? He had sounded like a complete psycho.)

But Neal had sworn that his father could never find him, even going as far to call it impossible. And she had believed him.

(When, exactly, did she stop questioning everything? She had been a person that would always, always , expect the absolute worst. The type of person that would anticipate threats and, rather than wait for it, go out and find it first.)

She slammed a frustrated palm down on the steering wheel, officially drawing Emma's attention to her overly excessive speed, immediately causing her to pick her foot off the pedal as she forced herself to slow down. She took a deep breath too. In and out. Again and again. But it didn't stop, this stupid, mocking thought that kept reminding Emma that, instead of talking to her, his wife, Neal had chosen to entertain the delusions of a drunk in their foyer. Without her. In the home he had built for their family. Something he had decided before Carina had even called her away.

So much for Rule Number Three.

And she got it. Mostly. Got that he needed to find out what sort of threat possibly plagued their family and what , exactly, this Booth guy knew about them.

(Y'know, the guy who apparently went by Pinocchio in this mysterious place he and Neal had once called home.) (Which was ridiculous.) (But, come to think of it, Neal hadn't even blinked at the name.) (Then again, he used to go by Baelfire.)

But it hurt. Hurt that he wouldn't want her standing next to him when this guy delivered the bad, she assumed, news.

(And, arguably, she made for a much better interrogator than he did. Neal was too nice. Too trusting. And, despite his expertise in bullshitting, he had no sense when it came to picking out the lies others told him.)

They had a vice-like grip on her, these unwanted thoughts, along with her stomach, too, squeezing and twisting her intestines, each knot getting pulled tighter and tighter as she considered Booth in their home, talking to her husband, knowing things about him that she didn't.

And not just Neal. Her too.

Her fingers itched with the urge to call the cops. Or Effie, at least. That's what you did when someone unwanted invaded your home and Emma couldn't shake the feeling that talking to Booth would lead to more bad than not talking ever would.

(Why couldn't Neal see that?)

Neal didn't scare easily. Not unless faced with the possible fragility of his family. His nightmares, even, came from that old runner's instinct, haunting him, trying to trick him into believing that no place was safe (maybe it wasn't), reminding him that even the best of men could fall prey to temptation. Neal again, worrying more about the possibility of what he could become, rather than the danger the actual past presented. He believed it posed a threat now, however. She had seen the fear in his eyes and heard the waver in his voice. He needed time to work out the specifics.

She hated it though. Hated that Neal had endured something so bad that he felt like he had to entertain a stranger. Listen to him. Engage him.

Break Rule Number Three.

(It terrified her.)

The car and the watches. He had promised her that he had never pulled anything bigger than those two things, even going so far as to swear that, until her, he had always worked alone, meaning no old partners would reappear in his life, demanding payment or bringing hell down on their lives. Even his father, he had claimed, possessed no way of finding him. The new identity, Emma had assumed, would only further cement these facts, ensuring their safety as they officially erased Neal Cassidy, replacing him with John Neilson and further removing him from Baelfire. But still , that jackass had known Neal's real name. Somehow. What if he worked for Neal's father, hired by a mad man to track down his son.

Except , and she kept forgetting this, the evening had started with Booth looking for her. The name Baelfire had just served as the proverbial trump card, used in order to force them (or just Neal, apparently) to listen.

The pounding in her head intensified, Emma squinting her eyes behind her glasses before blinking rapidly, trying to clear vision that blurred once more.

She couldn't make sense of any of it.

And none of that, however, explained why Neal broke Rule Number Three, deciding that he couldn't talk with Booth in front of her. Because she had known about his father, the sorts of things he had done, for a good while now. And, okay, maybe, she didn't have an exact list of every crime Mr. Not-Cassidy committed. But should that matter? Like, soon as Neal said people had started turning up dead under suspicious circumstances she had figured she should probably suspect the absolute worst.

She knew enough.

(Only she obviously didn't.)

They had spent the past eleven years together. Neal knew everything about her. But it took years before he could even begin to tell her what he saw in his nightmares and, even then, he still held parts back, never actually sharing any specifics. He had eventually revealed his first name, as ridiculously obscure as it was, but never a last. He had shared how he came to be on his own, but never even bothered to mention his parents' names. Not their occupation or his place of birth (other than not America). And she didn't press it, stupidly perhaps, because those things didn't matter. Not to the girl who had no possible way of knowing who her parents were or what they had done or where they had come from. The past didn't define her so why should a few details about a couple of lousy lay-abouts who she would hopefully never meet (and who obviously didn't give a shit about their son) actually matter.

Neal had told her. He had said Neal is who I am now , assuring her that he had buried Baelfire in the past, leaving him behind. And she accepted this because, honestly, Emma had wanted to forget about her lousy excuse of a past as much as he did. Except Neal knew the important bits. All her weird hang-ups and how she got that stupid scar on her knee.

(Cigarette burn and a drunk foster parent.)

They had children together.

He had neglected to tell her about a part of himself. This huge thing that he had admitted, when cornered, could actually pose a danger.

(Except Booth came there to see her first.)

Anger weighted her foot down and Emma felt the car accelerate once more until she eased up, forcibly moving her foot to the brake, slowing the car down and, she hoped, her thoughts. Only five minutes, at best, remained between her and Susan's. She fiddled with the radio, adjusting the sound and then the channel before just deciding screw it and turning it off completely.

Neal loved his children.

He would never, not ever, let anything happen to them.

If Emma could trust anything, it was that.

So she would just have to let herself. She didn't really have a choice.

She parked in the O'Neil's driveway, hands gripping the wheel tightly as she gave herself one last moment, just to breathe before getting out and knocking lightly on the door. Mrs. O'Neil was perfectly apologetic when she answered and Emma privately assured her that Carina had, most likely, just wanted an excuse to leave.

"Ah, the joys of parenthood," said Mrs. O'Neil and Emma did her best to laugh and actually make it sound convincing.

"Marmy!" Carina rushed at her, Emma kneeling down to embrace her, and while she meant the hug as a means to comfort her daughter, it worked both ways, the knots loosening in her stomach. And she realized this , her daughter, Porter? They were what mattered. And if Neal had to break a rule to make sure they were safe then Emma would have to accept it and move on.

Carina sniffed dramatically, burying her head on her shoulder, and Emma lifted her, letting her settle on her hip while Susan hung back, looking about as unhappy as the little girl in her arms. "I wanna go home."

"What do you say to Mrs. O'Neil, then," instructed Emma, smoothing back her silky black hair.

"Thank you for having me," she said with all the sincerity of a grumpy old man.

"We'll work on that," Emma noted.

"You're quite welcome, Carina. Susan do you want to come say goodbye." Mrs. O'Neil looking at a point over her shoulder where Susan lurked, peering around a corner, but she merely and stomped out of the room, and Mrs. O'Neil turned with an odd look of frustrated amusement. "And we'll work on that."

Mrs. O'Neil walked them to her car, carrying Carina's things and placing them in the trunk while Emma got her settled into the backseat. Mrs. O'Neil stood, leaning in the open window, chatting with her a bit and Emma tried not to make it too obvious as she glanced at the clock. She had a bit of time to waste, though Emma didn't necessarily have a problem going back on her word, cutting the hour short. Her daughter curled in the backseat put things back into a certain perspective. Her thoughts drifted away from the lies and potential betrayal, settling on 'I left my husband and father of my kids alone with a crazy stalker.'

The idea of him in her house still made her skin crawl.

"Marmy, can we please go," Carina pleaded and Emma tried not to make her relief to obvious as Mrs. O'Neil chuckled and stepped back. They said their goodbyes and promises to try again, hopefully with less volatile results, and Carina let out a huff in the back.

"I'm never talking to Susan again," said Carina petulantly as they turned out of the driveway.

"I'm sure that's not true," Emma murmured, eyes meeting her daughter's in the rearview mirror.

Carina shook her head. "Nuh huh."

Considering the hour, Emma decided not to push the subject, eyes automatically drifting to the clock on the radio, nervously chewing her bottom lip before Carina demanded her attention again.

"You're not going to tell Port are you?" she asked, voice quiet and nervous.

"Porter doesn't have to know a thing," Emma assured her.

"Because you promised," she insisted.

"Then you definitely don't have to worry."

Carina bit her lip. "What about Daddy?"

Emma hated the way she stiffened, but her whole body tensed and she had to actually work to keep the night's emotion out of her voice. "What about him?"

Impatient, Carina prompted, "Can Daddy keep a secret?"

"Your daddy is the very best secret keeper I know." Her tone remained perfectly friendly, kind even, but inside the words made her stomach clench and turn.

Carina seemed to study her mother's face in the mirror for a long moment (they always knew ) before nodding, seemingly satisfied and then falling into a certain silence.

Emma followed, her thoughts quietening into a single repeated mantra – Neal was putting their children first. And even if he broken one of the rules, he had remembered the most important ones.

Rule Number One.

And yeah, of course it hurt, that he had left her out of the process. That he felt like he couldn't trust her with all of his secrets, but she could fault him for doing the most important thing of all.

Taking care of Porter and Carina.

That was the only thing that mattered.

Neal poured through the foyer, attempting to erase all remnants of Booth's presence, desperately trying to get rid of the faint smell of alcohol that lingered in the air with a can of extra strong air-freshener that Emma typically used to get rid of the smell of wet dog.

He did the dishes, the few lone utensils sitting in their sink, and wiped down the counter.

This did not occupy nearly as much of his time as he would have liked.

He was turning into Emma, adopting her insane productivity – any mind-numbing task that would keep her from focusing on whatever she was trying to avoid.

Usually that wasn't Neal's style.

He should be planning out what to say to Emma. But every attempt was an utter failure. Eleven years together and every false start fell flat, Neal picturing Emma's unamused glares and hearing a sarcastic 'seriously,' with every planned attempt. He had completely screwed himself over, naively believing that he could actually outrun his past without consequence. Leaving it behind, desperately trying to forget it as if it didn't matter.

(It didn't.)

And somehow, here they were, and they apparently had more in common then they could ever dream of.

The idea that Emma originally came from the Enchanted Forest as well had certainly thrown Neal for a loop. It raised a number of questions, yeah, but it answered even more, providing a background for the unknowns that had haunted Emma throughout her whole entire life and, maybe, answered a few questions that he had asked and then immediately dropped with the assumption that they were just plain ridiculous.

Like that day in the delivery room. That wave of something that had clearly been magic. Neal immediately discounting Emma as the producer, instead considering himself guilty of passing something unwanted to his son.

But it had been her all along.

He couldn't dwell on it though. What it all might mean. Because explaining why August was trying to find her started with his own history. Because she would, inevitably, want to know why he was so willing to take August at his word.

And getting her to believe that another world with magic actually existed?

Fucking impossible.

Emma credited him with teaching her how to believe in things again. He had helped open her eyes to hope and faith and chance – jumping in when they had no guarantees. And through hope and faith and chance they had built a life together.

(Maybe that was why it felt so fragile now.)

He ran the tea pot under the faucet and turned on the stove. He took two mugs out of the cabinet and got out the ingredients for hot chocolate. The way Emma liked it. It would be a feeble attempt at a peace offering, but it helped relax her too.

He somehow doubted it would do much good now.

He had screwed up, rocking their peaceful life together in the process. August's screw-up, he assumed, reached farther back, potentially damning all the former occupants of the Enchanted Forest. But even that Neal couldn't fully place the blame on him. No child should ever be tasked with leading a crusade, left alone in a foreign world with another child in his care and no one left to guide him along the right path. Of course August had strayed, cracking under the pressure.

(Neal would have done anything to save his children, yes, but pressuring them with the weight of saving a whole world would only damn them and there was always another way.)

Never telling Emma the full truth, though? That was on him. And Neal didn't have a good excuse. Yeah, he knew that the chances of her believing him were remarkably low, but that had served as his excuse, the thing he had hid behind while he let his fears and insecurities make the actual decisions, worried that she wouldn't believe him and fearing that, in the face of the truth, she would just up and leave, knowing that, when faced, with something she didn't understand, Emma always fell back on her first instinct to run.

And the thought of losing Emma scared him more than anything. Except, obviously, something happening to Porter and Carina.

He settled on the porch, desperately needing the fresh air, and waited, knowing that he wouldn't have to wait long in the nippy October air. And, as suspected, Emma arrived before the promised deadline, and Neal shot up, approaching the bug before she could even fully park.

"All clear?" she asked, voice deceptively neutral as she stepped out of the car, Neal gathering a sleeping Carina up out of her booster seat.

He gave a curt nod as Carina shifted, settling against his shoulder, smelling like flowers and chocolate.

(August had left, but he would hardly say they were clear.)

"I'll put her to bed," Neal told her as they slipped into the foyer, Emma locking the door with a forceful click. He nodded toward the stove. "The water should be about done if you want to finish the cocoa."

She didn't say anything, just walked briskly over the counter. He hovered, just a moment, hoping , but Emma turned her back, reaching for mugs he had already set out, and awkwardly Neal passed through the kitchen to the old stables, finding Carina's girlish room and settling her down on her bed.

He lingered, perhaps longer than he should have, stroking his daughter's hair, taking in her features.

(It all seemed so fragile.)

"Daddy?" she murmured sleepily, a tiny fist rubbing at one of her eyes as she squinted up at him.

"Go back to sleep, Care Bear," he whispered, kissing her forehead, tugging the covers up and over her.

"Marmy's upset."

It wasn't a question.

"Not with you, sweetheart," he promised, smiling reassuringly as he swept her bangs aside. "Did you have fun at Susan's? Before you fought?"

"We played games. Susan said I cheated, but she kept making up new rules." The passion she felt about this came through clearly, even when she ended on a giant yawn, before squinted up at him, suspicion taking over her features. "Are you and Marmy in a fight too? Is that why she's upset."

"Marmy and I just had to contend with a few new rules ourselves, that's all," Neal said, choosing his words extra carefully. "We'll work it out. Just like you and Susan."

They would. They had to. Emma had known him long enough. She had to know that this wouldn't suddenly change him or her or what they had.

(He wished that more of him actually believed that.)

(He wished that he had told her sooner.)

"Nah huh," Carina said defiantly, shaking her head, "I'm never speaking to Susan again."

"Well, that's too bad," said Neal, as if he believed that it truly was a travesty (and not just a young squabble that would get resolved when they traded snacks. Or because they forgot they were even mad at each other.) "I liked Susan. It'd be a shame if we never got to see her again."

Carina shrugged and let out another big yawn.

"Get some sleep," he murmured, pressing another kiss to her forehead. "Love you, Care Bear."

Her eyes drifted shut. "Love you too, Daddy."

He smiled softly, shutting the door behind him, and forced himself to turn in the direction of the kitchen. But really, a part of him wanted to run. To protect his family. What Neal had expected August to say merely skimmed the surface of the story he had told. A story that connected him and Emma in a way that he could have never predicted. But he couldn't fight against it. It was bigger than just his father. It was even bigger than magic.

It was destiny.

(And destiny was a bitch.)