"I think we should just continue down the east coast. You know down south somewhere like, Florida." Emma shrugged casually while the purple light emanating from her hand reflected in her eyes. She had one hand propped up under her chin with the elbow on the small rickety table she sat at in the shabby motel room. Her glowing hand was held up casually, causing the crumpled paper map she had found on the floor of her car to levitate slightly in the air. It smoothed itself and lit up so they all could see it clearly. It was early morning of the fourth day of this,...expedition. And all four of them crowded in, with Gold a few steps back as usual, inside the room Emma and Henry had shared at this particular motel last night. Gold and Belle had shared a different room, and Emma really didn't want to think about it. Although those two didn't actually seem that thrilled with each others company recently, which worried Emma slightly that she'd made a mistake bringing along the librarian.

"Oh! If we go to Florida can we go to Disney World, puh-leeease?" Henry grabbed his hands together and leaned forward like he was desperately praying at an alter.

"Disney World? What is that? Is it actually another world?" Belle mused, her curiosity obviously peaked.

"Uh no." Gold shook his head taking in Belle's sudden interest, "I think that joke of a place is the last place Belle, or uh, any of us need to go."

"Why?" They practically all asked in unison. To which Mr. Gold raised his eyebrows as if in surprise that they would even ask.

"Because it's full of lies." He replied standing a bit taller. Belle looked confused, Henry frowned and Emma both chuckled and smirked.

"Okay, so that's a 'no' to the land of lies then, other suggestions?" She looked mainly at Henry and Belle because she had gotten use to Gold not participating in this part of the travel. Which is why she practically jumped when he spoke yet again.

"I say we head across the country towards California."

"Ooh, do we suddenly have an opinion?" Emma sat up a bit taller herself.

"Yeah," He nodded pointedly, "I do in fact have an opinion. Though you haven't exactly been receptive to my opinions lately." He raised an eye at the levitating map with its eerie purple glow.

"Well because your opinions are accusing and unfounded." Emma dead panned. "But today's your lucky day, it's off towards Cali we go!"

As they all shuffled out of the room Henry could be heard chattering about how Disney Land was in California and Belle questioning again about who this Disney person was who owned not just land, but worlds.

/

"Ooh can we just stop here a minute? I won't be long I promise!" Belle begged from the backseat. Emma pulled up awkwardly in front of the library in the small town they were driving through. This was the third one they had stopped at so far over the past four days, Belle asked to stop at them in the same manner that some people ask to stop at bathrooms. She always ran into them alone then emerged several minutes later with a slight look of defeat on her face, but still that spring in her step. "Maybe she's looking for her favorite book?" Emma wondered out loud one time while waiting. "I thought all the books were her favorite." Offered Henry from the backseat. Emma saw Gold shrug his shoulders in amusement at that one, but offered nothing of his own to the conversation.

Today it was a small modern library with stucco sides and cube shaped bushes all around it. And Belle emerged as usual with her look of quietly cheerful defeat. When she returned to the car, Emma had to ask, "What are you looking for anyways?"

"I'll know when I see it." Belle said with a little dignity.

/

"Emma! Emma my god, it's good to hear your voice!" Mary Margaret's own voice sung through the cell phone. They were at another rest stop, stretching legs and such. Belle and Henry were checking out a display about local attractions while Gold seemed happy to wonder off by himself in the trees, with his suit and knotted walking stick he looked like a business man lost in the wilds. Emma took up her familiar position of leaning on her bug with her phone in her hand.

"Yeah! Hi! It's, ..uh, good to hear yours as well." Emma stuttered slightly to realize the sentiment was very true.

"Where are you? How are you? I can't.. I mean, it's just you left so suddenly." Mary Margaret was trying to sound upbeat but Emma could tell it was a bit manufactured.

"Yeah it was a very spur of the moment decision,.. I'm sorry. Otherwise I would of told you." Emma wondered if that was really true. "But, I'm good, we're all good." She glanced around the rest stop where quite a few other traveling folks meandered around. "Mostly." She finished.

"Well, that's good." There was a loaded pause before Mary Margaret jumped into the question, "Why, exactly, did you leave with... Mr. Gold?"

"Yeah..., we're looking for his..., his son is apparently living somewhere in this world?" Emma noticed a older lady raise an eyebrow at her when walking by and hearing her.

"He has a son?" This was obviously news to Mary Margaret and there was a muffled conversation away from the phone, probably with David, while she took in that information. "I guess that explains why he wanted to leave town so bad."

"Uh yeah." Emma fiddled with a bit of her hair, only just resisting the urge to braid it using magic, knowing people were around.

"The uh,.." Emma heard Mary Margaret falter slightly on the phone, she then heard David's voice in the background. "Yeah, I..yes, David... Emma? ... David why don't you just talk to her yourself!" There was shuffle on the line and Emma absentmindedly scratched her head, feeling fidgety. Then David's familiar voice came on the phone.

"Emma?"

"Yeah, David! Hi!" Please don't weirdly lecture me, Emma silently hoped.

"Emma, you left so suddenly. The fairies, they were quite concerned! Looked for you all over town,... They say your powers are much better and under control but that your training is incomplete and you,.. You might still be a bit, volatile."

"Uh, no. No I think I'm doing just fine with... With it." She finished blankly, aware if the random eyes that casually glanced her way.

"Oh? Well, they are the finest teachers of magic.. But, um, it's just Blue was a little upset when she found you had left..." At this Emma swore she heard Mary Margaret scoff in the background, ".. A little upset? She was down right furious,.. Leaving town with Rumpelstilskin of all people..."

"Yeah, uh" David continued, "Blue is just as worried about you as the rest of us, Emma. Just, you should come back here, this isn't your search to be on anyways. You belong with us, all together. Let Rumpelstilskin look on his own, he's more of a...loner anyways, don't you think?" David did a little nervous laugh. Emma took in Gold's distant lone silhouette hobbling by the trees. "And you know, we miss you and Henry." David offered genuinely as a closer.

"We miss you guys too, but trust me those fairies," Her voice raising a bit uncontrollably, "are not as innocently concerned as you think. I had to get away from them,... I can't totally explain right now," Emma awkwardly sputtered when several people raised their eyes in alarm at her when walking by.

"Uh." Was all she heard from David, then Mary Margaret took over the phone again.

"Emma we don't blame you for leaving, and we love and trust you," Emma smiled to think of the warning look she must be giving to David right now. And it actually made her heart swell a bit at the thought of them. "You just do whatever you need to do and then come home to us. And one of these days we'll actually be a family.." She drifted off at the end and sounded more like she was talking to herself. "Oh and Emma, remember what I told you about magic, don't lose yourself." There was a suddenly sputter of chatter from David in the background, "Okay Emma... We've got to go! Bye love you!" There was a sudden click and Emma found herself mumbling "love you too?" to an empty line.

So, Blue and the fairies were mad that she skipped town with the Dark One. Emma let that sink in, though it didn't surprise her. If it wasn't for the town line, she knew they'd be after them. She thought about the story that Nova had told her, about how the Blue Fairy didn't want Rumpelstilskin to reunite with his son, because it would 'throw off the balance of the worlds.' How could one little boy being reunited with his father possibly throw off a balance of worlds? Whole worlds thrown off balance? Was that even possible? A shiver passed over her skin as she cautiously glanced over at Henry who was still grabbing brochures about water parks and haunted tours with Belle. But then she shook it off with reminding herself that the fairies were not human, and their sense of balance was probably something very different.

/

Gold was shuffling about in the trees of the rest stop just looking for a quiet moment to himself. He wanted to be this better person for Belle and for the son he lost, but his obsessions were simply that, obsessions. He couldn't shake them so easily. For years and years, so many they blurred into just a dull ache of never ending forever, all his focus was obsessed with gaining the power and magic to get back his son. The details of his finely crafted plan slowly and very surely falling into place and until a few months ago everything had been going exactly as planned and expected. He'd spent so long watching and observing human behavior and the general course of existence, that it was very rare that things did not go exactly as he predicted. And thus life moved forward for him, like the predictable gears of a clock, as he played his part in a game that he had the constant comfort of knowing he was winning.

Till now. It was like a screaming and a tearing at his very fabrication. Feelings of being not in control he had not felt since he first lost his son. Then magic, his very essence and life breath - regardless of what Belle said, he heard the voice screaming in his head, he needed it - was torn from him. Necessary he knew to leave Storybrooke, to find Bae, but part of him had hoped he'd be able to cling to it. And of course, Emma had her magic. Of course, the great and powerful child born of true love. Even in a world without magic, her magic prevailed. She didn't even appreciate or respect the power of her own magic. Using it for mundane tasks, she walked a line of casual abuse. He glanced tensely over at her, over there chatting away on the phone, casually twirling her hair. Probably talking to her charming parents. Because, of course, everyone - everyone! - gets reunited with their loved ones with such ease it made him sick. While he had fought and calculated and driven himself quite mad, he knew, for longer than any of them could comprehend. And yet, here he stood alone. Even Belle when near him, was just beyond his grasp. He knew she would never truly be his and he was foolish to think otherwise. Perhaps Bae was the same, always to be just out of reach. Maybe this was just his destiny, to be alone. It made him desperate to angrily kick something but he didn't think his leg would agree.

He looked back over at the others, realizing Emma had ended her phone call and Henry had run over to excitedly show her something. Belle lingered and looked in his direction, questioningly. His eyes drifted back to Emma and Henry, the way Emma placed her arm gently around Henry and bent to talk with him. The quiet smiles they exchanged. And there was a knot in his stomach, it really did make him feel sick. He was sure it was a blinding jealously, yet something about that knot nagged at him. But he refused to consider that Belle was right, he did not care for them. "They will serve their purpose." He mumbled at himself as he started back to join the group.