AN: Thanks for the incredible response to this Snowing story! See previous chapter for important authors notes on characters and story notes.
Important note: Milah is not Neal's father in this universe. Cora is I've taken some liberties again with characters and back stories. :)
Special Note: By now, those who watch Manifest, will have seen the season 3 finale. I won't say anything else in case someone hasn't seen it, but I can assure you that there will be certain changes. No decisions yet, as I'm kind of waiting to see what happens in season 4, which we are now getting, thanks to Netflix.
Another Special Note: By now, most of you know that NBC made the horrible decision to cancel Manifest, despite ending season 3 on a terrible cliffhanger. Thankfully, Netflix has saved Manifest and is giving us a final super sized season 4 with 20 episodes!
This one will update bi-weekly on Monday nights. Please consider leaving a review, it is much appreciated. Here are individual responses to reviews:
Jennifer Baratta: Yep, very interesting! Glad you're enjoying!
Ghostwriter: Yep, things just got more exciting and glad you like the twist. Yeah, he was smart to leave clues, but probably shouldn't run off. Those pesky Callings. Glad you're enjoying!
Number Ten: Glad you liked the twist. Yep, it's a nice mix of genres. Yeah, we're not sure how Neal vanished and came back either. More questions than answers. More mystery too. Henry is very smart and yes, now we have a glance into Gold's past and his interest in the Nolans. Glad you're enjoying!
Grace5231973: Yep, Cora keeps turning up like a bad penny. I like that analogy. I'm glad Aurora helped them too. I think Neal and his father will eventually grow closer. He always starts out mad at him, but it doesn't last. ;)
Sexystarwarslover: Yep, Cora is Neal's mother here and he never knew her (lucky him). Yeah, I figured it wasn't a stretch that he and Cora could have had a kid together. Almost surprised the writers didn't go that route in Once. Yep, you thought they were going to find him, but Aurora threw them off. She listened to Emma, thankfully, but yes the Major is relentless. Yep, David and Margaret found their son! And a mysterious stranger has shown up. Yep, the stranger is Neal. Yeah, Neal is mad at his father, but was out of line. Thankfully, he was set straight about David. True love for sure. Yep, afraid so. Cora is Neal's mother. Glad you're enjoying!
AnonSnowing: Yep, we're getting a super sized season 4 or I guess 4 and 5, since it's 20 episodes and probably will be split in half. It's an amazing compromise either way. We'll get an ending of some sort at least. Yep, they were thrown off. Emma got through to Aurora and she helped them instead. Yeah, the Major wants Henry and it probably isn't for good reasons. Yeah, Henry is a seer of sorts and this family does love puzzles. Yep, I think Killian is headed for divorce. Yep, Margaret and David found him and then Neal arrived. Yep, he was in a cave and survived, but was gone a year. Another mystery it seems. Yep, Gold has found his son and Neal is not happy. Thankfully, Margaret corrected him on what a great husband and father David is. Yeah, I think Ruth may have had a feeling she wouldn't be around to see them grow up. Yep, unfortunately, Cora is his mother here. Yep, Regina has at least two half siblings, because we know Zelena is out there now too. Glad you're enjoying!
Lightning in a Bottle
Chapter 38: Cleared for Approach, Pt 1
"And that sucks, but I don't see why I should believe you," Neal replied.
"You should believe me, because the people in this room can attest to what type of person your mother is," Gold said.
"We can?" Emma asked.
"You know her," Gold replied.
"We do?" Margaret asked. He nodded curtly.
"Her name is Cora Mills...nee Cora Blanchard now," Gold said, shocking them all to speechlessness.
"W...what?" Margaret squeaked.
"It's true," Gold said.
"You know this Cora?" Neal asked.
"She's...she's married to my father now. Estranged father...Leopold Blanchard," Margaret replied.
"Wait…Blanchard, like that huge Wall Street Banking empire?" Neal asked. She nodded.
"Yes...but I haven't had anything to do with him for a very long time and emancipated myself when I was sixteen," Margaret said.
"Okay...so you're not a sister by blood or anything," he said.
"No...but you have a half sister. Somewhere before she married my father, she married a man named Henry Mills, whom she treated like dirt too. But they had a daughter, who is my step-sister now, though we just met after the plane came back," Margaret explained. He shook his head.
"Wait...my half sister was on the plane too?" he asked. David nodded.
"It's also her cancer research that saved our son's life. If the plane hadn't disappeared, Henry probably would have succumbed to the cancer, before this treatment was a thing," he explained.
"Okay...my head is spinning," Neal said.
"No doubt…" Emma agreed.
"You knew about Cora...and you didn't tell us that she was the mother of your son," David said to Gold in a stern tone. Neal scoffed.
"Welcome to my world," he said bitterly.
"As you can imagine, my memories of Cora aren't good and with my son missing and presumed dead, I couldn't bring myself to talk about it," Gold offered. David nodded, as he accepted that answer. For now.
"I still don't understand any of this. How did we all come back? How is any of this possible?" Neal questioned.
"We don't know yet...but we are trying to find that out," David said.
"But maybe the best place to do so is to go back home to figure it out," he added.
"Yeah…I don't think I'm ready for re-entry into the world. But you guys go ahead," Neal said, as Emma motioned her brother off to the side.
"I think I'll stay up here with him for the time being," she said.
"Emma...if he really is like us, we need to have Regina check him out," David replied.
"Yeah...well, he's not ready and if we force it, he'll bail and we'll lose track of him," Emma reasoned. He sighed.
"I'm not sure I like the idea of you staying up here with him alone," David said.
"That's because you're overprotective," Emma replied.
"Can you blame me after everything we've been through?" he asked.
"Well...no, but he's Mr. Gold's son. I doubt he's an ax murderer or something," she replied.
"Plus…I'm a cop. I think I can handle this," she added.
"Fine...but encourage him to come back to the city so Regina can run some tests," David said.
"Or...you can just see what she can get from this," Emma replied, as she held up a baggie that had one of his bandages with blood on it. He nodded and pocketed the baggie in his coat.
"That's good," he complimented.
"I still don't like it though," he added.
"I'll be fine. Go...you and Margaret should take Henry checked out and go home to Olive," she insisted. He sighed and hugged her.
"Fine...but be careful," he urged. She nodded.
"Yes Dad," she teased.
"Maybe Mr. Gold will be staying," David said.
"Somehow…I don't think so," she said, as she motioned him to the scene between them.
"What do you want?" Neal asked, as he looked at his fingers, which Margaret had taped up. They looked much better this morning and he was no doctor, but he felt that he wasn't in danger of losing any digits to frostbite.
"I was hoping we could talk," Gold said. He snorted.
"You hoped wrong...we have nothing to talk about," Neal replied.
"Neal…" he started to say.
"Save it," he snapped, as he got up and walked away. Gold lowered his head and looked a little lost.
"It appears that he will not talk to me. I was going to stay...but he does not want me here," Gold said.
"We can give you a ride back to the city. I think he just needs time. Emma is staying up here. Maybe she can get through to him," David replied.
"My son is stubborn...that is a bit much to hope for," Gold said. David smirked.
"I doubt he's more stubborn than Emma...no one's that stubborn," he said.
"Like you're one to talk," Emma retorted, as she went to find him.
"So...is it true? Were you an absentee father?" David asked. Gold smirked.
"You are not one for beating around the bush, are you?" Gold asked. He shrugged.
"MM says I have no tact...she's usually right," he replied.
"It's okay...I appreciate the forwardness, actually and yes, it's true," Gold said.
"I poured myself into my work. I let the art of making deals consume me. I was determined to give him everything I didn't have and hope that no one ever left me again, because I was poor," Gold said.
"In the end, this led to neglect and he fell in with some bad kids. He abused drugs for a while...I don't know if he's clean or not now, but we fell out pretty hard a year ago when I caught him stealing money from the shop," he added.
"He said I owed him...he's probably right," he continued.
"I know addicts...they lie," David said, now a little more wary of Neal being alone with Emma.
"Yes...but he was never violent and Emma can certainly handle herself. You made sure of that," Gold reasoned. He looked back at him.
"Why so much interest in my family and so little in your own?" David asked.
"That was blunt, even for you," Gold replied.
"Neal is a bit older than you. By the time your mother made arrangements with me to be her financial advisor, Neal was already in trouble and using. I was putting him in rehab and he was skipping out constantly," he explained.
"Then your mother died, not long after she hired me...and I saw another family in the same potential danger as my own," Gold said, as he looked up at him.
"You were afraid I might fall into the same trap as Neal?" he asked.
"No...you had MM and if social services separated you and Emma, I knew somehow, you'd find your way to your fair Margaret," he replied. His eyes widened.
"Emma...you were afraid Emma would have the same kind of hard life," he realized. Gold nodded.
"She has had her problems...but she is a far cry from what she could have become in the broken foster system," he said.
"It was my way of trying to make amends. I can only hope Neal will see in time," Gold added.
"I forgave my Dad...I think Neal can forgive you, eventually. Just give it time," he said.
"Yes...but we still need to know how this even happened. My son wasn't on that plane," Gold replied. David nodded.
"Yeah…I have no idea what connections the plane could have to that cave," he said.
"Perhaps Emma will find the answers," Gold surmised. David nodded and then went to help Margaret pack up for the trip home.
Neal and Emma set out, trekking toward the mountain, complete with supplies. He had agreed to take a walk to try and figure out what happened, but Emma knew getting him back to the cave would be a challenge.
"You know...you don't have to stay up here with me," Neal said, as he grabbed a bottle of water from the supplies they had brought.
"I know...but we need to figure out what happened to you in that cave and how it relates to the plane," Emma said.
"Is that even possible?" he asked. She shrugged.
"I don't know...but the answers are probably in that cave," she said. His eyes widened.
"You want me to go back up to that cave?" he asked.
"I'll be with you...and I think it's important," she replied. He sighed.
"Look, I know asking you to go back up there is like asking me to get on a plane right now," she added, making him chuckle.
"But I'm guessing the reason you came up here in the first place, a year ago, was to do more than hiking," she said. He looked at her in surprise.
"Twelve step program, am I right?" she asked.
"How…" he started to say.
"Dad was an alcoholic. David and MM raised me, pretty much. And I'm a cop...I can see it a mile away," she replied. He sighed.
"Fine...yeah, I was trying to get clean and I came up here to clear my head," he said.
"Just to clear your head?" she asked. He rolled his eyes.
"Fine…I dated this girl. Wendy...and we were up here on the mountain a few years ago, getting high and stuff," he admitted.
"What happened?" she asked. He shrugged.
"What do you think? She overdosed and died right in front of me," he replied.
"I'm sorry...is that when you decided to get clean?" she asked. He snorted.
"If only...but no. I went deeper, met a girl that was even worse an addict than Wendy and lost like two years in a haze of drugs and booze," he replied.
"Well...you must have hit rock bottom somewhere," she surmised.
"I did...and I finally entered a program. I came up here to make amends to Wendy and then the blizzard hit. That's how I found myself in that cave," he said, as she gently touched his hand and that's when they experienced a Calling together.
"Go Back," the voice said, showing them atop a mountain with a blanket of stars in the sky behind them.
"What the hell was that?" Neal asked, as they came back to reality.
"That's another reason I had a hunch that the cave and plane are somehow connected," she said, as he looked at her in confusion.
"That was a Calling and a lot of us...the returned, get them. They usually mean something," Emma explained, leaving him stunned.
The first stop once they got back to the city was at the hospital, where Regina was waiting for them. Regina examined their son and gave the parents some much needed relief.
"He's perfectly fine…" she assured them.
"But I thought you were bringing this mysterious man you said was caught out in a blizzard. The one from the Calling," Regina said. They had only told her the basics on the phone.
"Yeah...he wasn't ready to come back yet, but Emma is staying with him," David said, as he pulled the baggie out of his pocket.
"I don't know if this is enough blood to run any tests on, but we managed to get this," he added. She took it from him.
"It should be enough to run a test to see if he has the same marker," she replied.
"You're sure he was gone a year?" Regina asked. They nodded.
"We don't see why he would lie and Gold backed it up. Neal has been missing about a year," Margaret replied.
"Guess that's why he's so interested in the plane and looks like if he had a theory his son might return...he was right," she said.
"There's more…" David said.
"Okay?" she asked.
"Regina...there is something else that Mr. Gold told us about his son and himself," Margaret replied.
"Okay...you're starting to scare me, but if the guy was dangerous, I know you would have never left Emma alone with him," she said.
"He's not dangerous...that we know, anyway, but Mr. Gold revealed that Neal's mother left them when he was very young and the main reason was because she found a better deal. Apparently, Gold was pretty poor at the time," David explained.
"That's crappy...but what does that have to do with me?" Regina asked, as Margaret took her hands.
"Because that woman was Cora…" Margaret revealed. Regina's eyes widened.
"What?" she asked. He nodded.
"Apparently, she and Gold grew up together and were never married, but involved. Neal's a couple years older than you so this was before she met your father," David replied.
"Gold said that she left him for a man named Johnathan, who was the son of a banker. Obviously, that didn't work out either, but she abandoned them. I'm so sorry to have to tell you this," Margaret said.
"It's always money and power with her," Regina spat bitterly.
"She's a bad person, but this means you have a brother, right?" Henry asked. They managed a smile for him.
"Yes…I suppose it does," she said.
"He's really nice and he's like us," Henry assured her.
"Well...then I guess I look forward to meeting him. We can bond over how much we hate our mother," Regina said.
"I can throw in with that too," Margaret replied. Regina smiled.
"Yes...you can," she agreed.
"Want to come home with us for dinner?" Henry asked. She smiled.
"I want to run this test...but I'll be along later," she promised.
"Can you bring ice cream?" he asked. She chuckled.
"I'll pick it up on the way," she promised again, as they left and headed for the car.
As he drove them home, they saw a banner on one of the bridge overpasses, which was calling for an investigation into the passengers of flight 828. He and Margaret exchanged an uneasy glance. He had hoped the fascination, both friendly and weary, around them would fade. But it wasn't happening. If anything, it was growing and that gave him a really bad feeling in his gut.
"What does that mean?" Henry asked. David sighed.
"It just means that there are a lot of ignorant people in this world," he answered.
"Yeah...and most of them just have too much time on their hands. Instead of focusing on their own lives, they seem far too interested in those of others," Margaret added. Henry seemed satisfied with that answer for now and he continued driving them home.
Neal looked at her.
"A Calling?" he asked. She nodded.
"That's one reason that I wanted you to understand what coming back means," Emma replied.
"So you get these Callings?" Neal asked. She nodded.
"David gets them...Henry too, albeit differently. That's how he knew you needed help," she tried to explain.
"So...you get Callings and help people?" he asked.
"Sometimes," she replied.
"Sounds like a lot," he said.
"It is...especially if you interpret them wrong. It can be a disaster," she said.
"You're not making a good case here," he mentioned.
"But when you get them right and save lives...it really makes it worth it," she said. He sighed.
"Maybe for you, Emma...but I'm no hero," he replied.
"Neither am I...I lost someone too," he said.
"I am the reason Wendy is dead. She wanted to get clean...but I just kept giving her drugs," he replied.
"I am the reason my best friend Lily is dead. She was really drunk, so I took her keys and decided to drive us that night. But I was drunk too and we were in an accident. She died on impact," she revealed.
"So what? How does going back to that cave help us now?" he asked.
"I don't know...but when we get Callings, we have to follow them," she replied.
"Why? What happens if you don't?" Neal asked.
"Well, for one thing, they get louder and they don't stop. Plus, if Henry and I had ignored yours, you'd be dead right now. Same with some other people the Callings led me to," she replied.
"That's a lot to put on a person," he mentioned.
"Yeah...well, we came back for a reason and maybe this was it. I don't have the answer, but the Callings are really important and we think by following them, we might figure out what happened to us," Emma replied. He sighed.
"Fine...let's go to the cave, but know that I hate this," he said. She smiled.
"I get it...I'm not ready to get on a plane either, but I know I'll probably have to someday," she replied, as they set off further up the mountain.
They arrived home that evening and Olive rushed to hug them all, including Henry, before giving him a punch in the arm.
"Owe…" Henry responded and she smiled at him.
"Don't scare me like that again," she chided.
"Promise," he replied.
"So...this was a Calling?" she asked. He nodded.
"Yes and it was connected to your Aunt Emma's blizzard Calling," David replied.
"Your brother saved a man named Neal Cassidy, who went missing for a year," Margaret replied.
"Wait...missing like the plane missing?" Olive asked. They nodded.
"He was trapped in a cave and lost a year. He should have frozen to death...but somehow he came back," David explained.
"And that's not even half of it," Margaret said, as they went into the living room, where Mr. Gold sat, having been invited in by them.
"Yeah…Neal is Mr. Gold's son and Aunt Regina's brother," Henry announced.
"How is that possible?" Olive asked.
"Cora and I were together...when we were younger and she left us," Gold replied.
"Is that why you're interested in the plane? Because your son disappeared?" Olive asked. He nodded curtly.
"Yes...but I'm afraid time has not healed our relationship," Gold said.
"You weren't on good terms before he disappeared?" she asked.
"No, I'm afraid not," Gold replied.
"Yeah...but he came back. He's getting a second chance like us! Maybe you'll get a second chance too," Henry said. David and Margaret shared a smile and even Gold managed a small one.
"I hope so, young one," he agreed.