Chapter Two: A Woman in Love

"What in the world?" Snow asked eloquently as they stepped off of the boat that had brought them to the underworld.

"It's… Storybrooke," Henry intoned, sounding as surprised as all of them as he stepped onto the shore.

"Indeed," Rumplestiltskin agreed flatly.

"You could've mentioned that," Regina snapped at him. "Before we'd gotten ourselves wrapped up in visions of-"

"Of what?" Rumple demanded. "Rooms filled with flames and endless nothingness? No, dearie, that's a sleeping curse, not the underworld."

"I don't think this is regular old Storybrooke, anyway," Emma pointed out, literally pointing towards where the clock tower should have been. Instead there was just a heap of rubble on the ground – and a trio of figures stalking towards the group on the shore.

"Who are they?" Robin demanded of Rumplestiltskin, drawing his bow and arrow to the ready.

"If I had my guess?" the Dark One piqued, "One is Cora, and another is Pan. The third is probably your beloved Hook. So let's get one, avoid the others, and get out of here."

"That's not Killian," Emma objected, peering at the figures. "No hook."

"Then who?" David asked, drawing his sword.

Snow drew her own bow and arrow, Regina's hand lit up with a ball of flame, and Emma's hands started to glow. Until the blonde woman froze, the magic flashing out as quickly as it had come. Before anyone could stop her, she was running towards the unidentified figure, flinging her arms around his neck as she gasped out a name.

"Neal!"

Rumplestiltskin's world froze – until Henry grabbed his hand and dragged him towards his parents. Baelfire! He realized sluggishly that Emma was right. Baelfire – his boy – was here in the underworld! They'd found him! Or… he'd found them. Rumple couldn't care less about the particulars as he threw his own arms around his boy, ignoring Emma, Henry, Cora, and Pan alike.

Still, he broke the hug first though, stepping back to look at Bae's joyfully shocked face as his dead son breathed, "Papa? Henry? Emma? You're all here!" Then his glee turned to a darker expression as he asked, "Why are you all here? You're all dead too?"

"No," Emma shook her head quickly, saying, "We're… Rumplestiltskin just helped us cheat our way here. We're looking for-"

"It doesn't matter," Henry broke in hopefully.

Rumple squeezed the boy's shoulder in understanding even as Emma looked at her son a little sharply. "You're looking for Hook, aren't you?" Bae asked, his frown becoming a little sad as understanding dawned in his eyes.

Emma nodded, even though Rumple couldn't help but notice the way that her arms were twined even now around Bae's neck.

"Good luck finding anyone in this maze of a town," Cora all but snarled, speaking up suddenly. "This isn't the Storybrooke you know."

"You'd have more luck finding your beloved pirate in Neverland," Pan added with a dark happiness in his eyes.

"We will find him," Robin declared – the one least unaffected by the sudden reappearance of this trio of the deceased.

"Of course we will," David agreed, shaking himself out of it. "We'll split off into pairs and go looking for a couple of hours, then report back here to the boat to check on one another. Agreed?"

Rumplestiltskin looked around at the group and nodded when everyone else – even Bae, but not Cora and Pan – did. Henry was quick to grab his father's arm, still grinning broadly as he dragged him away. Snow and Charming went off together, as did Regina and Robin. Cora and Pan melted off to do gods knew what, and Rumplestiltskin was left behind with Emma, who was still staring in awe after Bae and Henry.

"Well, Miss Swan," he said cheerfully, "I guess that leaves you and me."

Emma snapped back to attention, looking at him as she replied lightly, "I guess it does."

He mused to himself, She must be very in love with someone still in order to not mind that at this point. "Well," he said dryly, "Off we go to look for your precious Hook." And for a little while they did exactly that, both keeping an eye out for whatever dangers Cora and Pan had been talking about. Soon, though, Rumplestiltskin realized something. If he could convince Emma to share her heart with Bae, he could have his son back again. So he calmly mused as a means to an end, "You know, Miss Swan, empirical evidence doesn't lie."

"What are you talking about?" she snorted, eyes still darting here and there as they walked.

"Your feelings," he replied simply. "I'm talking about your feelings."

"I have a feeling I'm going to get tired of this conversation real quick."

"Hm," Rumple smirked. "It's likely."

"I thought you were one of those 'feelings make you weak' people, anyway."

"No," he objected. "That's you – and Cora, but she's of no importance at the moment. You see…You say having feelings makes me weak, but you're weak for hiding from them."

"I'm not hiding my feelings," Emma argued sharply. "I'm here to literally split my heart for my true love. Where in there am I hiding my feelings?!"

"You didn't see your face when you saw Bae. Everyone else did. You still love him, Miss Swan. Don't tell me you don't know it, and don't tell me that you're going to choose to resurrect a one-handed pirate over the father of your child. Even I wouldn't do that!"

"Given that he's your son, no, I bet you wouldn't," she bit out.

"I love Bae, yes," Rumple agreed readily, looking at her even as she steadily refused to meet his gaze. "But you love him too."

Emma didn't answer for a long time, but he got the feeling that she was thinking about it, so he left her alone in her silence until she said, "I already made the decision to come get Killian back." His mouth opened to voice another rebuttal, but she silenced him with a sudden glare before she added much more softly, "But I made this choice with my head and not my heart. I didn't even think about the possibility of finding Neal here, but now that I have… I don't know what to do. I do love him still, but how can I keep Killian from surviving, after everything that we've been through together? He deserves that much from me, doesn't he?"