Chapter 14: Choices

"Let's go to the library," suggested Neal.

Emma offered him a wry, teasing look, "Y'know you actually have to return the books, right? They will charge you."

"Funny." Neal tugged Porter into shoes and a coat and then handed Emma a flier. "Leo mentioned they've got some fun stuff for the kiddies. I thought we could check it out."

"Oh," Emma clapped and smiled widely at Porter, "a puppet show."

The Youth Center was great and all but daycare was daycare and while Elmo and friends distracted Porter when he and Emma needed all hands on deck, they both had agreed that they didn't want Port's only source of brightly colored characters and catchy, annoying tunes to be experienced through a television screen.

Besides, Neal liked the library. That's where he had spent a ridiculous chunk of that first year after Neverland, desperately trying to make sense of a world that had vastly changed since he had landed on it nearly a hundred years prior. He had mostly stuck to the stacks, pulling books randomly from the shelf, finding whatever interested him that day before settling into a dark corner, drinking everything in until the librarian came and kicked him out. Eventually, he got all the necessities (fake IDs and library cards) to take the books with him, but he'd had a tendency to attract trouble back then and would often find himself skipping town before he could actually return anything.

He learned a lot that way, contributing to the odd collection of facts Emma liked to tease him about. But without a syllabus to guide him, Neal had eventually realized that his best chance at survival would have to come through good old-fashioned trial and error. That method, however, would not help someone like Emma hoping to pass a standardized test. So if Neal happened to have an ulterior motive, such as swinging by the stacks with all the study guides, then he saw no reason to mention it just yet. Getting Emma to fully commit to this whole G.E.D. thing had been a constant case of push and pull, causing Neal to question if it had even really been her idea in the first place.

(It had been, which meant she wanted it, and Neal refused to let her doubt that.)

They sat through the show, Porter clapping happily from his mother's lap, before Neal whisked them away to a previously staked out row. Emma squinted at titles through her glasses before groaning, "Neal."

He pretended not to notice her unhappy expression and announced, quite brightly. "I'm gonna take Porter to the kid's section."

When they returned, ready for lunch an hour later, Emma was exactly where he'd left her. "Any luck?"

She merely shrugged and so he suggested, "We can take them with us." He bumped her shoulder with his. "I even promise to return them on time."

"Won't help," murmured Emma, tucking Porter into his coat.

"We can try the main branch." It was farther away, but they'd probably have a wider selection.

"Just forget it."

The snappiness of the reply attracted the glare of the librarian and it wasn't until three more days of not forgetting it, that Emma finally admitted the problem.

"I'm not smart enough."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Neal and then, when she insisted and he realized that she really, truly believed this, he added, "Well, of course you don't understand it. You have no one to teach you."

Neal tried to help her, but despite the progress he'd been making as a teacher in his own classes, none of that involved math or history or English and so study sessions together only made them both frustrated.

(And, sometimes, oddly satisfied because inevitably Emma would avoid the books by distracting him with sex.)

And so again Emma decided to call it quits.

Neal scoffed. "Now what sort of example would that set for Porter?"

"He'll be thrilled," Emma accepted a toy that Porter had crawled over to give her, "all the attention will be back on him."

"The woman I fell in love with doesn't give up," she rolled her eyes, "and I'm not gonna let you start now."

He had, hopefully, realized the problem to. While Emma had no good reason to avoid going for her G.E.D. (other than, maybe, a small admissions fee, it wasn't even that expensive), she also had nothing but her own goals and desires to motivate her. And those were shaky at best, constantly deterred by her own waffling self-esteem and (what she considered) more pressing priorities. So he called in reinforcements, hiring a tutor. One of the younger volunteers he had met down at the Youth Center looking to make some extra cash.

"We can't afford a tutor, Neal," she insisted, but he shook his head, refusing to back down (or let Emma scare her off, insisting that he would pay the girl whether Emma chose to study or not).

"For this we can."

The expert hand helped, granting alternative explanations and methods for whatever Emma just didn't quite get. And adding money to the mix did exactly what he had intended it to do, providing Emma with enough motivation to actually try because otherwise the whole thing would turn to waste. She studied hard, learning all sorts of interesting things like Trig and American History and the make-up of a cell. Sometimes, Neal would just sorta linger, eavesdropping, picking up all sorts of things that he wouldn't have possibly come across on his own.

Alongside them, Porter was like a sponge, learning and taking things in, hitting some very important milestones of his own. He worked with a fierce determination, trying again and again whenever he didn't get the exact result he wanted and not stopping until he succeeded. He'd topple over until he stood up on shaky legs, tiny fingers gripping the fabric of the orange recliner, grinning happily as Emma and Neal, hovering from just behind him, cheered him on. His excited babble turned into actual words too, the smile Emma shot in Neal's direction both smug and awe-struck when he said, "Mama," for the first time, marking Port's very first word and costing Neal a crisp twenty dollar bill.

(Totally worth it.)

(And, in all fairness, Porter's first, "Dada," followed soon after.)

Neal helped out as much as he could, doing dishes and watching Porter every night after dinner so that Emma could pour over paper and books. But while his nine-to-five job remained fairly static, his responsibilities at the Youth Center continued to steadily expand, something that had started with him filling in for Karen and her art class.

Karen's class (or Mrs. Hicks as the students called her) was much larger than his and her students, for the most part, were quite serious about their individual projects. And so, at first, his presence had been met with suspicious disappointment and then, when he announced that he really was just there to hold down the fort, a lot of resigned sighing. Because apparently, the center was holding an art show at the end of the month and they were working on their showcase. They did not have time for incompetence and so Neal made it a point to stay out of the way for as long as he could. Mostly that left him with clean-up, assurances that the art show was still going on as planned, and diverting catastrophe whenever little Sammy got far too enthusiastic with the scissors.

It left him with an awful lot of down time and so while the kids worked he would sketch between the pieces of praise he would dole out whenever someone asked his opinion.

(They were really very talented.)

"But Mr. Neilson," noted Jane (age thirteen, self-portrait), and Neal's head snapped up to find her squinting at his paper, canvas clutched in her hand, "you can draw."

Neal cleared his throat as a sea of heads snapped to attention. "And that's a perfect nose. You can fix mine."

"Your nose is fine," Neal insisted, quite genuine as he looked over the picture she had shoved onto the desk In fact, he would say that Jane was much farther along than he'd been at her age.

"But yours is better."

Todd (age twelve, pop art) got to his feet to have a look. "Definitely better."

Jane swatted at him, forcing Neal to chide them both.

"Is that Miss Swan?" asked Heather (age thirteen, still life) excitedly, hopping up and down in the effort to see above the taller kids in front of her. "It is, isn't it?"

The class oohed and ahhed and then asked even more questions and it took Neal, his cheeks red, several minutes to get them to calm down.

Sammy (age 9, collage) was the last to speak, "My parents are coming, Mr. Neilson."

And Neal knew this was a big deal for Sammy who had been stuck in foster care for the last six months. A lot of these kids had stories like that. So he did his best, going from desk to desk giving the kids pieces of advice between copious amounts of praise, revealing his own untested practice methods when he could (but always refusing to do the work for them), everyone working until parents and guardians and bus schedules started calling the students away.

After that day they always asked, almost eagerly it seemed, if he'd be back next week.

"Maybe," said Neal, almost hopeful himself, "if Mr. Rosenberg still needs the help."

And he did.

This ultimately raised him to two classes and the occasional baseball game (and a copious amount of practice. He had improved. Somewhat. He could hit the ball and he was very good at running (especially if he pretended he was running for his life), but he was still working on the whole throwing and catching thing.

(Leo would take him to the occasional Marlins game whenever he had the extra ticket and Neal found the sport at its most riveting when he didn't actually have to play.)

And then, after one very intense game, Leo took him for drinks, ushering him into a corner booth, looking unusually nervous, as if they were about to perform some undercover operation.

"A while back we received a fairly ... generous donation," Leo had unpocketed an envelope and started to empty out the contents. "No one thought much of it, really, until they took a closer look at the note attached."

Leo handed everything over and Neal unfolded a note that had been written - no, typed - on some pretty fancy stationary. Leo tapped the date in the corner.

Neal blinked.

"That's Emma's birthday." He peered at the date closer and did some quick math. "That's her twenty-eighth birthday."

"I asked Emma," now Leo pointed out the names and address printed in the corner, "about her ... If she had any other family. She said she didn't."

"She was found abandoned on the side of a highway." Neal couldn't bring himself to muster his usual amount of anger at this fact - he was too busy reading and rereading the names Mr. and Mrs. Bennett Swan. "But these were the people ... They were gonna adopt her."

Leo looked apologetic, "We had already cashed the check before we noticed anything odd. We put together thank-you notes, you know, but the address isn't current. And, as you can imagine, the phone number isn't either."

Neal grunted, eyes fixed on the note. The body of the letter containing only one line, the odd unevenness of the font hinting at the use of an old type writer, the words reading: Because every child deserves a happy ending.

Something about the words made his skin crawl.

Neal nodded across the table. "Is that the envelope it came in?"

"Yeah," Leo slid it across the table, "but it won't tell you much. The guy dropped it off personally." He cleared his throat. "You met him actually. Allan said you brought him down to the office. Young guy. Leather jacket."

Fuck.

"But that couldn't have been Bennett." Neal hadn't thought to take a thorough study of the guy or anything, but he had a pretty good handle on the age range at least. "He wasn't much older than me or Emma."

"No," Leo agreed, pulling out a photograph. "But that's him, right?" Neal studied the image and then offered a fairly confident nod. "That was the only time he showed up on the security tapes. Not before and nothing since."

Neal pinched the bridge of his nose, frustrated and desperate in his attempt to reach some sort of conclusion about what all of this could mean.

"What do I do? I mean," he looked at Leo somewhat helplessly. "Do I tell Emma?" Leo must not think so or else he would have just gone to her first. Right? "These people. They broke her heart."

Leo pressed his lips together in a grim line. "That's really up to you. You know her best. Though John?" Neal raised an eyebrow. "I get that it's weird. But for what it's worth, I don't think it's a threat."

Neal snorted but Leo remained serious.

"What is it then?"

"An apology."

(Well, screw that.)

Neal sat on it for days, studying the note whenever he got a moment alone. The same thing he had done with Porter's ultrasound. But instead of hope and love, he only felt dread and revulsion, making it impossible for him to find any sense in Leo's words. Because where Leo saw an apology, Neal only saw cruel mockery, taunting Emma with the fact that even though they had failed to grant her the happy ending they had promised, they would generously try giving it to complete strangers.

(Because these people would think money solved everything.)

Ultimately, it didn't matter what he thought. Neal knew that. But he still feared telling her, worried that this would hit Emma, tapping into that part of her he still hadn't fully reached, causing her to shut down and snap walls back into place, regressing when she'd already come so far.

Why did she have to know? What difference could it possibly make?

There was only one other person (besides Emma) that could, maybe, answer those questions.

Joy studied the note quite thoroughly before offering him a critical look, "I'm not going to give you permission to hide this from her."

"But if it hurts her -"

"Lying will hurt her," a tense beat, the kettle ringing in the background, "because she trusts you. But you already know that."

Neal ran a shaky hand through wild curls and said, almost accusingly "You didn't know her before."

"I didn't," Joy agreed, pouring them both coffee, "but I also know enough. I saw her fall apart and I've watched her grow. And I think what you need to do now, John, is trust what you've built with her."

Neal furrowed his brow worriedly, "So you really think she can handle it?"

Joy smiled and handed him a mug, "She's strong and I think she deserves the chance to prove that."

It wasn't that Neal didn't think Emma was strong and he was certainly well aware of how far she'd actually come, he just didn't see the point of causing her unnecessary pain.

Joy, apparently, disagreed. "What is it that you're really afraid of here, John?"

Her words haunted him the whole ride home.

He wanted to protect Emma. He would always want to protect Emma. That much was certain. And he could do that, he thought, without actually doubting her. But beyond that? Something about the note - the mysterious sender, the odd date, the cryptic (possibly mocking) message - didn't sit right with him still, turning his stomach and raising the hairs on the back of his neck. However peculiar Neal found it though would still pale in comparison to Emma, who would be downright suspicious. She'd want answers and, at the very least, would want to know how they had found her.

Except, as he'd observed and Joy pointed out, Emma had changed.

So maybe she would just see what Leo did. A veiled apology. And then, maybe, she would want to find them. To what? Confront them? To forgive them?

Why did that thought scare him more than anything else?

Fuck. He had to take the advice Joy had given him. He had to trust what they had built together. It would be selfish not to. And so he would tell her. He would tell Emma everything and he would do so with a copious amount of food to accompany him. And he would do it because not telling her would surely test her faith in him, driving her away faster than, say, her picking another family over him.

(He didn't really think that she would do that.) (Not rationally.) (But there was a track record in his own history that said maybe he should.) (And he absolutely could not let that fear guide him.)

He took an afternoon off and made a special dinner, putting together all of Emma's favorites after dropping Porter of at Joy and Maya's for the evening. She took in the spread excitedly, at first, and then suspiciously when she remembered that they had no special occasions to mark.

"What's this for?" she asked, eyes narrowed. "Where's Porter?"

"Joy's," he said and then gestured that they should sit. Emma did so cautiously and Neal pushed a mug of hot chocolate, made just the way she liked it, in her direction.

"The Youth Center got a donation," Neal murmured, taking out both the note and the security picture, "a pretty big one."

"Okay," said Emma slowly.

"The thing is Leo realized that the donor had a connection," he looked at her sympathetically and passed along the evidence, "to you."

Emma smiled like she didn't quite believe such a thing was possible and then took the note, looked at it, and then dropped it before pushing her chair away from the table.

She looked at him accusingly and, like a reflex, asked, "Is this a joke?"

"Of course not. Emma," She climbed to her feet and started to pace, "I never told anyone about them. Least not until Leo showed me the note."

"So they found me?" Confusion set in the lines around her eyes. "How? Why?"

"Well, you never changed you name." Emma gave him her best seriously look and Neal knew now was not the time to be glib. "Did they ever mention anything about your birthday?"

Emma gave a dry look, "Other than that whole promising to adopt me thing?"

He picked up the discarded note and pointed out the date to her, "That's years from now still. You'll be twenty-eight."

She stared at the date and then took the note and studied it some more, her features taking on an array of emotions. From confusion to heartache to the set lines of suppressed fury until it finally settled on something he didn't quite recognize.

She ripped the note in halfs. And then again. And again.

"Emma -"

"I don't like games, Neal, and I'm definitely not interested in riddles, " She shredded the note until it had turned into confetti. She took the security picture and, without looking at it, did exactly the same, dumping it all in the trash. "You should go get Porter." She tied off the garbage bag and shoved it in his hands. "Take that with you."

Neal's fingers closed around the handles, gripping it tightly, glued to the spot even as Emma turned away, unlidding Tupperware and clearing the table. There were things that he should say. Things that he had practiced. Important things. Because, however, misguided the attempt, the Swans were attempting to do the one thing that Emma thought not to be true. They were telling her that they cared. Weren't they? Leo certainly seemed to think so and Neal liked to believe the best in people. But even if it was a game like Emma thought, he should still tell her that she was loved. She had become a beloved fixture at the center. Joy and Leo, each in their own ways, believed in her. Porter idolized her. And words could not describe the depth of what he felt for her.

She should know that.

"Neal," said Emma sharply and Neal blinked, looking up at her as Emma scraped untouched food into plastic containers, "The baby."

"Yeah." He shook his head. "Yeah. But Em, Joy said she could -"

"Yeah, I'm sure she did -"

"- We should talk about this, baby."

Emma sighed and walked toward him, taking his face in his hands. "We have talked about this. Remember? Surprise birthday on the beach. I worked out everything I needed to then. You helped. End of story. No one gets to reopen it. " She gestured vaguely. "So if they want to try and clear their conscience then let 'em. I don't care."

Emma couldn't will this away, he knew that, but he feared the consequences of pushing it too far, too quickly. And he didn't have too. Right? There was no looming threat. The man in the photo came and went, no one had bothered Emma personally, and the out-of-date phone number and address made things all too clear. They didn't want to be contacted.

Maybe his instincts had been right, after all.

Neal furrowed his brow. "Should I not have told you?"

"You shouldn't have made such a big thing about it." She rolled her eyes and let out a big, heavy-sounding sigh. "Honestly? This is ... It hurts, Neal. Okay. It makes me angry that they think they can just come in and try and pull this shit now. But it's not ..." She made wild, sweeping gestures with her arms.

"All-consuming?"

She nodded. "That hole they helped my so-called parents dig? It's been filled, Neal. By you and Porter and everything else we have here." She looked down at him over her glasses quite pointedly. "Which is why I would really like to see my son now."

Neal laughed, relief easing tense muscles. "Joy said I should trust what we've built."

"Well, that's very good advice. And hey," she shrugged. "At least the center got some money out of all this, right? That's something."

"Something," echoed Neal, he freed a hand to squeeze hers and then kissed her forehead. "I love you."

She smiled and walked him to the door. "Love you."

There was every possibility that she simply needed time to process and was just using Porter as an excuse to get him out of the apartment without protest. He wouldn't blame her for that. But he also didn't think it was anything less than wanting to hold their son or anything more than the usual space she typically requested when trying to process the big and emotional.

Which was probably why Neal was so surprised to find the apartment empty when he finally returned with Porter.

X-x-x-x-X

Leo called, not five minutes after Neal had left, and asked if she could come down to the Youth Center as soon as possible.

"Not tomorrow," he said following Emma's promise that she would see him first thing in the morning, "More like now."

The topic of the evening had her on edge and so her grip on the phone tightened as she asked, somewhat suspiciously, "Why?"

Leo sighed audibly. "There's a young woman here who wants to talk to you. And only you."

Emma blinked and then swallowed another why. So either she had seriously pissed someone off or they actually thought she had the know-how.

Or they were a her long-lost , maybe, almost family.

(She didn't like any of those options.)

"Who?" she asked instead, as she slipped into her shoes.

"Her name is Lucy," She heard the sound of rustling and then Leo's voice lowered to a whisper, "She seems pretty upset. So if -"

Emma cut him off, "I'll be right there."

She took a cab. It was an expense that she and Neal didn't typically spring for, but he had the bug and, between earlier with whatever and nerves about what to expect now, Emma very much lacked the patience for the bus. So she scribbled out a quick note for Neal and headed to the Youth Center, getting directed to her desk where a girl sat, waiting, hands rubbing up and down frayed jeans, her knee bobbing up and down with nervous energy.

A lot of kids came through the counseling center. Some came once or twice a week because they wanted to or because someone else told them they had to. Others showed up and said what they had to say and got the advice they needed to hear and then never came back. Some were petulant and others were super chatty, but most just really needed someone that would listen.

Lucy had fallen into the one and done category, coming in fresh off a move to a new foster home and sent by her social worker because she wouldn't talk to anyone else.

Emma bit the pad of her thumb and looked nervously at Marge. "What I'd do?"

The advice she had given hadn't been particularly earth shattering. Mostly because it hadn't been advice at all, just obvious understanding. Because Emma had been there. She knew the options and none of them were appealing for a then fifteen year old. But she must have screwed it up somehow, the girl worse off than before, fingers pointed to Emma with blame for whatever else had turned deeper south in Lucy's life.

Marge gave her an half-amused look, "Now why would you think that?"

That didn't help and Emma desperately tried to pull something from their talk that could help her prepare (in the short walk between the entrance and the cubicle), but the details blurred together, nothing standing out. Lucy had a sucky situation, yeah, but nothing that would set off the usual alarm bells.

"Hey." Emma offered a smile that she hoped didn't put her nerves and discomfort on full display as she settled into the chair across from Lucy.

"Sorry for -" Lucy finished with a vague gesture.

Emma merely waved it off. "I had a whole list of things I was avoiding anyway. This just gives me an excuse."

Not that she'd been avoiding the ... whatever. Neal clearly thought she wasn't dealing, and maybe she wasn't, but once the initial knee-jerk reaction of anger and fear and hurt had subsided, only a very dull buzz of annoyance had been left behind and Emma simply wasn't feeling particularly chuffed about going over the whens and the whys of that particular development.

Jenna replied with an awkward nod, "I just didn't know where else to go."

"You can always come here."

She thought it at least once a day, for one reason or another, but a place like this really would have done Emma a world of good as a kid.

"I screwed up."

"I'd be rich, you know, if I had a nickel for every time I said those exact words." Lucy looked like she might crack a smile, but mostly she just looked kinda queasy and so Emma switched back to serious. "Do you wanna tell me what happened?"

Lucy didn't say anything at first and then she let out a shaky breath. "It's so big."

She didn't elaborate and Emma knew better than to try and pull the words out of her. But teenager? It could mean any number of things. What, Emma had realized a long time ago, didn't always have to matter.

She leaned forward, cocking her head, trying to catch Lucy's eye despite her bowed head. "It's never too late, Lucy."

Alarmed, Lucy looked up, eyes wide and scared like a deer caught in the headlights. "What?"

"It's never too late to turn your life around. You just have to want it. Find something you want, more than anything, preferably legal," Lucy's lips twitched, "and go after it."

"I don't know. It's -"

She pushed forward to the edge of her chair, her knees stopping just shy of bumping into Lucy's, and whispered, "Two years ago I was homeless, alone, stealing just to get by. And now I've got this guy. We moved here, got jobs and we have this amazing kid that I love more than anything. I'm even studying for my G.E.D. And we did it all by ourselves." She could never tell Neal what she was about to say because the smug idiot would never let her live it down, but, "Anything is possible."

It wasn't hope, but something remarkably like it sparked in Lucy's expression, "You have a kid?"

Emma smiled tightly, understanding finally dawning. "Yeah."

And just like that the details started to trickle out. Just newly sixteen, stuck in the foster system, baby on the way. Alone. The guy, who really didn't sound like someone Lucy should want around anyway, bolted soon as the baby became a possibility.

Emma didn't sugarcoat things for her because she wasn't naive enough to think that just because something worked for her that meant it would surely work for someone else. Lucy's situation wasn't ideal, but she still had options. A whole list of them and Emma had a well of knowledge that she could share on each, the subject one that she had studied and pondered thoroughly as she struggled through the decision.

"The important thing to remember is that you have time," Emma murmured sometime later as Lucy clutched pamphlets and torn pieces of paper with numbers on them (her cell included). "And you can call me if you have questions. Or just wanna talk. Anytime."

Lucy responded by throwing her arms around Emma, murmuring a tear-filled thank-you somewhere near her ear and Emma thought, maybe, she hadn't done a completely horrible job.

She had spent months and months fretting over what she could actually do with her G.E.D. once she got it. There were so many things to consider beyond just the simple question of what she wanted to do. Because she didn't want to completely miss out on raising Porter, but if something didn't sound time consuming then everything sounded too boring or too hard and just not her. Emma had reached a point where she had begun to seriously worry about her obvious lack of interests and talents.

She just ... didn't like things.

Well, except Porter and Neal obviously. And there was Joy and Maya now. And, well, the Youth Center. Leo was pretty much alright, she supposed, so long as he wasn't conspiring with Neal behind her back.

(And, okay, maybe the list was longer than she'd thought.)

"Of course you like things, Em," Neal told her after she had complained hopelessly on the matter, "you're just juggling a dozen different plates. Most students only have the one."

Obviously Neal had a skewed memory of high school because the kids she remembered had done everything - homework and clubs and sports. But Neal still had a point. For most people, school would always come first, but Emma had work and Porter - her very adult responsibilities - and they would always remain her number one priority.

This direction? The youth counseling thing? She had toyed with it before. In a yeah, right sort of way because as fulfilling as she found volunteering, she still lacked the qualifications and still worried about whether or not she was actually doing anyone any good.

But maybe tonight was, like, one of those signs Neal liked to go on about?

"Marge," It was hesitant because this would obviously go down as one of her more ridiculous ideas. But Marge didn't even force her to get the words out. She just handed her a stack of brochures as she wore a knowing smile.

"I think it's a great idea." She sounded pleased.

Emma gave a distracted nod as she thumbed through the various leaflets before snapping her attention back to Marge, feeling an odd mix of both doubt and hope. "Did she really ask for me?"

It probably didn't mean much. Just that she was familiar or whatever. But it felt like something.

"She really did."

Her lips twitched despite herself.

When she got home, well past Porter's bedtime, she found Neal sitting in the orange recliner, eyes bloodshot and the television on mute. She dropped her keys in the bowl and quietly noted, "It's late. You should have gone to bed."

But he was in arms before she could finish, hugging her, clinging to her tightly in a way that caused her to furrow her brow in worry. "You got my note didn't you?"

"Yeah," he ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah I found it. I dunno. It was just ... Earlier, y'know." He shrugged. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"We've been over this," she reminded him, treading lightly, wishing for his typical airiness after a very heavy day, "It's a rule. If I leave then I take the kid with me."

He frowned but she could see the beginnings of a amusement tugging on his lips. "That's not the rule."

"No," Emma grinned, "but I'd still take him." She tugged on his hand, pulling him back to the recliner. "Come here."

He sat down, pulling her with him. "Everything alright at the center?"

She couldn't really get into the specifics, but he knew that. "It's gonna be a day by day thing, I think, but I realized something. And it's why you shouldn't worry."

Neal ducked his head, "It's a me thing, baby. I know you wouldn't -"

She clapped her hand over his mouth. "A part of you does though and at least a fraction of that is on me. But here's the thing, babe. Everything I've been through ... the pain and the loneliness. The constant shuffling around and the stupid life of crime ... it's made me who I am. It got me here, with you and Porter, and I know I worry about the details and the what ifs and all these things that you think are just ridiculous, but I like it here, Neal. I promise you that."

His fingers circled around her wrist and he kissed her palm softly before he lowered her hand revealing a soft smile.

"Okay." He seemed to get it, at least, but she wasn't done.

"Yeah, it is. Because I realized that I can't change any of that, even if I wanted to, but I can use it. I can take what I've been through and what I've learned from it and I can use it to help other people. And if I can do that ... if I can somehow make their experiences even just a fraction easier than what it would have been then that's ... that's something I want to do."

She shifted, pulling the folded up brochures out of her back pocket. "And I know that it'll involve school and that school costs money and time ..."

"We can figure that stuff out. Like scholarships," he promptly suggested and Emma returned his look with one of her own because yeah right, like she could ever get a scholarship. "Loans." Emma really didn't want to go into debt over this, but Neal had already taken the brochure and moved into the kitchen, sticking it on the fridge with the rest of Operation Hope. "We'll figure it out as we go. Whatever it takes. Because it's something you want."

Maybe she should have taken it down. She stared at it long enough, considering it. Especially since she hadn't even taken the G.E.D. yet and at the rate she was going she might never pass. The road certainly wouldn't be as simple as the one Neal had painted, but he had gotten one thing right: She really did want it.