Despite his insistence that he could at least walk in, Neal arrives at Storybrooke General Hospital on a stretcher dragged by two sprinting paramedics – with the sheriff, deputy, and sheriff's son running alongside him.
The speed of all this starts to scare him – is he dying? – but he tries not to show it because he doesn't want to frighten the little boy. And because neither the sheriff nor the deputy seem to be the kind of men who ever show fear, or respect those who do, and Neal doesn't want to be a traitor to Team Masculinity.
So all in all, he's a little annoyed when the doctor spends more time checking out the nurse than him.
Apparently he doesn't hide this emotion quite so well, because the sheriff catches his eye and then quickly turns a snort into a cough.
"Sorry," the lawman smiles after the doctor has left the room. "Dr. Whale's a bit of a Casanova."
"But not actually Casanova, right?" Neal asks because he doesn't believe being history's most famous womanizer qualifies the man to assess whether Neal's bones are still intact.
And then he sees the sheriff's face and curses himself. If it wasn't for the fear and the lack of sleep and all the stress of knowing Emma is around here somewhere…
He briefly considers trying to play it off as a joke, but decides any stranger in this town is going to be a source of curiosity and gossip. Telling the truth, or a version of it, isn't going to draw any more attention to him or heighten the risk of Emma finding out he's in town. If anything, it might lessen it. Anyone who's talking will know he's not a danger – which would have made them spread the story faster.
Okay, then. The sheriff is clearly looking for an explanation. What tale should he spin?
Well, the best lies do contain as much truth as possible…
"Do you know August Booth?"
The sheriff nods slowly.
"He's a … friend of mine." That's not the truth, but characterizing the relationship as he ruined my life would definitely lead to questions. "He told me about Storybrooke and the curse, and he … invited me to visit after it broke."
The sheriff doesn't trust him. He silently congratulates the man for his good instincts. "He told you Storybrooke was … cursed?"
Well, Neal thinks, he can't exactly half-ass it at this point. "Yeah. He said a bunch of fairytale characters had been brought here by a curse and were … kind of frozen in time without their memories."
The sheriff has gone a little pale.
"And that …" actually, he wants to leave Emma out of this, "that the curse was going to break soon, and everyone would remember who they were."
"And you … believed this?" the sheriff asks, doing a credible impression of lawman-about-to-call-white-coats.
Yeah, Neal guesses your average thirty-something American male would have laughed his head off at this story, not set off to Maine to check it out.
So it's going to have to be even more of the truth, then.
"I'm not from this world either," he says baldly.
And the sheriff has definitely blanched. "You're … from our …?"
Neal shakes his head emphatically. He's not doing that much of the truth. His father is in this town somewhere and he does not want word getting out that another Enchanted Forest escapee has randomly arrived in town.
"I guess I should have said I'm not just from this world," he clarifies. "I left this world as a child, and went to another one. And then I came back."
All this is technically true.
"Which other world?" the sheriff asks.
Damn. Neal was hoping he wouldn't have to bring it up, because there's always the chance Rumplestilskin knows. But he doesn't know enough about other worlds to credibly fake it if it turns out this man – or anyone else he runs into – has done any … traveling … of their own.
"Neverland," he whispers.
"Second star to the right?" the sheriff asks with a smile.
And now it's Neal's turn to whiten. "How do you know that?"
The man's smile falters at Neal's tone. "It's in Peter Pan. I read it as a child. Or," he pauses and shakes his head. "I guess I have fake memories of reading it as a child. Good book."
"The reality's a little different," Neal says grimly.
Emma examines a piece of … chimera … that she's holding aloft with something that almost wants to be serving tongs.
She's been sucked down a hat with her roommate-slash-mother to freakin' Fairytale land, captured by some Chinese warrior and a snot-faced princess brat, tethered to a horse and marched days across a dessert, and dropped down a hole for a chat with Regina's mom.
And now she's sitting at a weathered wooden table while Mary Margaret catches up with Lancelot in a discussion that seems to center on ogres.
"As in fee fi fo fum?" Emma asks in disbelief.
"Those would be giants," Mary Margaret says, patting her arm kindly.
And this is hands down the weirdest part of … all this. The woman who was her sweet little mouse of a friend yesterday is suddenly trying to protect her, rebuke her, coddle her and just generally treat her like … a child.
Something cow-like brays in the distance. Two women walk past, struggling with a purple, writhing plant.
Emma feels so lost.
The curse has been broken for a week. Regina feels like she's lived three lives in that time.
There was the first, where she'd lost her son, the entire town wanted to kill her, and she was powerless to stop any of it.
There was the second, where she had her magic, her son, and everyone's fear.
And then there's this one, which is kind of … both.
No one attacks her, but it's because they know she has magic, and they don't know she's promised her son not to use it.
No one speaks to her either, and she can tell that this time it's from a combination of fear and loathing.
Henry's still with David. He hasn't called in the two days since he left her home. Probably too focused on finding his other mother.
And she is grocery shopping at the crack of dawn, as the store first opens and she won't have to run into any other customers – and watch them quickly turn away.
She wants to walk into Granny's and just order a plate of pancakes. But she knows she can't.
She wants to go home and just conjure up some pancakes. But she knows she can't.
Instead, she drops a box of Bisquick into her basket and then tries to locate the dairy section.
Regina feels so lost.
Neal rolls slowly out of bed around two in the afternoon, moving carefully to avoid jostling his ribs. They are broken, according to Dr. Whale, who eventually tore his eyes away from his nurse's ass long enough to read Neal's X-rays.
What's also broken is most of Neal's rental car. It's been towed to a local garage, Tillman's, where the sheriff assures him it can actually be fixed – although it will take about two weeks.
He's torn about this. One the one hand, Tillman can apparently make the car look and work like new for only a couple thousand. (Neal jokingly asked if the man was a magician, and then realized this was an actual possibility.)
On the other hand, this leaves him stuck in Emma's town for two weeks, which greatly increases the chances he'll run into her.
On the other other hand, the town seems much bigger than he thought, and the townspeople seem to be very wrapped up in dealing with suddenly being other people. Or having been other people. He doesn't know how best to characterize it, but he can certainly understand how it would be a little consuming.
In any event, once the sheriff and the grumpy deputy assured the eagle-eyed diner/inn owner (and her earliest customers) that he wasn't a government spy or tabloid reporter, she'd been perfectly happy to give him breakfast and a room and otherwise leave him alone.
All this gives him hope that the rest of the Storybrookians might do likewise, given their considerable preoccupations. And that Emma Swan, wherever in this town she might be, will not hear that Neal Cassidy has checked in to Granny's Bed and Breakfast for a two-week stay.
Plus, his ribs hurt like hell, and he just isn't up for an eight-hour drive home. Or dealing with Pea Coat Man who he imagines as just outside Storybrooke, stalking the town's perimeter in search of him – for God knows what reason.
So Neal resigns himself to his stay and sidles over to Granny's Diner – casting surreptitious looks around for a be-spectacled blond as he does so – for coffee, lunch, and any information Granny has on August Booth.
Forty-five minutes later, he heads back out, having achieved two of the three. He's full, he's caffeinated, and he has directions to Gepetto's home – because no one has seen or heard from August since the curse broke.
This has Neal totally stumped as August so desperately wanted the curse broken. What's stopped the man from racing to reunite with his family and friends?
Neal's considering magical termites, and giving the idea such thought that he doesn't pay attention to where he's walking – and nearly ploughs over a neatly dressed older man.
He's gets as far as righting the man and apologizing profusely before he realizes he's talking to his father.
The limp's still there, as is the cane. The glittery skin – thank God – is gone. The man might actually be his papa instead of the Dark One, if it weren't for the thousand dollar suit and the impatient manner with which he shrugs off Neal's help and apologies and heads across the street into a shop labeled "Mr. Gold Pawnbroker & Antiques Dealer."
Completely shaken, Neal heads off in a random direction, telling himself he's looking for Gepetto's home even though he's no longer paying any attention to the directions on the napkin in his hand.
Ten minutes later, he feels like he's fled far enough from the scene to stop moving and start calming down. He leans against a white picket fence, takes a couple deep breaths, and starts taking in his surroundings.
He's on a quiet, residential street full of single family homes – and an old warehouse, which appears to have been subdivided into apartments.
A school bus pulls up and several children depart, running this way and that towards parents who appear out of nowhere and start casting nervous looks at this unknown man lounging against the fence.
Neal slowly realizes that he's completely lost. He also realizes that he's doing a great impression of a pedophile. He can only thank God that he didn't try to ask one of the kids for directions.
He's decided to just start walking purposely in any direction - in the hope that he'll soon meet an adult who doesn't think he stalks children and who will therefore give him directions – when the door to the warehouse apartments opens and a kid comes out.
He's yawning a little and is short the uniform all the other kids are wearing, even though he's definitely school-aged – and is toting a pretty stuffed-looking backpack. It takes a second, but Neal recognizes him as the sheriff's kid, who probably – Neal feels another pang of guilt - ended up missing school today after being up all night.
The kid recognizes him a second later and waves. "Hi, Mr. Cassidy! How are you feeling?"
Out of his peripheral vision, Neal can see parents relax on either side of the street and start shuffling their children back into the routines of life. If the sheriff's kid knows him, Neal supposes they must think he's okay.
"What are you up to?" the kid asks, bobbing up to him. "Just out for a walk?"
"Something like that," Neal says, smiling at his pint-size rescuer. "What about you? The same?"
"Granny's," the kid yawns again. "I'm hungry and David's at work."
Neal's a little thrown by the kid using his dad's first name, but supposes these are modern times. Besides, the more important thing is that the kid is heading to Granny's, the point from which Neal's directions to Gepetto's will again work.
"I'm heading back that way myself," he says. "And I probably owe you lunch – or dinner, maybe? I think I'm the reason you missed school."
The kid shrugs, his little shoulders barely lifting his backpack. Seriously, what is in that thing – especially if the kid didn't even go to class?
"There's not really a point in going now. Everything's a mess with all the teachers realizing they're not actually teachers," the kid pauses to shift his backpack, and then heads off, nodding to Neal to follow. "And then it turned out the janitor was a troll. That was a mess."
From what he knows of trolls, there are several ways Neal could take that comment. He feels like the kid would have mentioned if one of his classmates had been eaten, though. So it's not the worst-case scenario at least.
"And then everyone has their memories back," the kid continues. "So they know they've been doing the same year over and over again. So it's this big thing. Do we just continue with the year we're in and make everyone do, like, the same math problems again? Do we move everyone up a grade and start the school year later?"
Neal tries not to laugh at the local governance issues a broken curse apparently creates.
"Well, it's only mid-September," he reasons. "You could start a new school year now and then just end a couple weeks later. And then by next year everything would be back on track."
The kid looks at him in abject horror. "But … summer vacation."
This time Neal does laugh out loud.
"Sorry," he says to the kid, who's looking a little affronted.
"Didn't you ever go to school here?" the kid asks, apparently curious about his lack of regard for summer vacation. "Or were you in that other land all the time?"
Apparently, Neal thinks, the kid stayed awake long enough to pump his dad for information.
"No, I never went to school here," he says softly. And then, to change the subject and also because at this point he needs something else to mentally call the kid. "Hey, I don't know your name."
"Oh," the kid adjusts the backpack again. "I'm Henry."
"It's nice to meet you, Henry," Neal smiles.
"You, too," says Henry. "Was the other land the Enchanted Forest?"
Neal sighs. So much for changing the subject. "No." And please leave it at that, he thinks.
"Oh," Henry says sadly. Then, "My mom's over there. I thought maybe … if you'd gotten here …"
Neal stops walking so quickly he almost falls over. "Your mom ... never came over?"
What kind of monster would separate a family that way, he wonders. Oh course, you'd have to be pretty monstrous to cast the curse in the first place. You'd have to want to take away everyone's happy ending. But to strand a mother in a different realm from her child …
The kid's talking. Apparently, it's something totally different.
"And so my mom was trying to help. And then she got pulled through this portal with her mom …"
Oh. Neal can sympathize with unwanted portal-ing
The kid looks down suddenly and then rubs the heel of his hand quickly at each eye. Neal pretends not to notice because he's obviously not supposed to – but he feels the sudden urge to wipe at his eyes as well. That poor kid. His poor mother.
"She'll find a way back to me," Henry says suddenly, fiercely. "She will."
"Of course she will," Neal says softly, and surprises himself by rubbing the kid's hunched back.
They're right in front of Granny's. "C'mon kid. Let me buy you a sandwich or a hot chocolate or something."