A/N So I'm not at all surprised by the Nealfire reveal – although I do like the way they did the whole reunion thing (I thought it was very in-character). Also, am I the only one noticing how our Killi bb seems to have bad blood with books? Poor darling. Moving on part 1 of three of our lovers' time apart. Warning: I am not following the storyline of the show – as much as I love love love OUAT I hate that Gold is related to Henry. I reject it. Please don't burn me at the stake.

Chapter 22: Manhattan

The flight was long and gruelling but soon enough, Emma and Gold were standing outside of the LaGuardia Airport New York, bags in hand. The man beside her looked bewildered as he stared at the skyscrapers rising high into the clouds. This was clearly not what he expected from the modern world. Hiding his bewilderment, Gold watched the saviour's movements and tried to imitate them – if anyone knew about this strange world it was her.

Emma smiled knowingly, this was definitely her element and it would make it easier for her to demand certain things - like what food they chose to eat and where they stayed. Gold had been heinously unprepared for the plane ride and airport, with several of his items being confiscated. The food on the plane had perplexed him further; aluminium foil covered containers and a tray for a table was foreign to the man who had grown up eating from a wooden tabletop.

The blonde whistled loudly as they reached the edge of the road where taxi's waited eagerly for customers. Her companion's head snapped up at the noise and he looked at her questioningly. Before he could demand the meaning of drawing such attention to them, a cab parked in front of them.

She smiled, motioning for him to put his bags in the boot as she dropped into the backseat with her own small bag. As the wiry man sat down in the back of the taxi, the saviour beside him spoke up.

"Manhattan Hotel on West 38th Street," Emma said confidently and the driver nodded. Gold looked at her before staring curiously out the window. It was a five minute drive and his eyes roamed the scenery outside; enormous metallic buildings, lit like fireflies in the night sky, people everywhere, rushing around every which way, cars congesting every road. It made Storybrooke look painstakingly humble.

As the cab pulled over, Emma handed the driver some cash and ushered Gold out of the backseat, opening the boot to collect their bags. She waited for the thin man to gather his items before they started moving towards the entry of the hotel. He followed her to a desk where a woman was stationed. It took them about twenty minutes to secure a room and another five to reach it; they were stationed on the fifth floor.

Emma chucked the bags on the bed and lay down, spread eagle, across it. Gold placed his own baggage lightly on the ground before moving to the window to take in the view. He shook his head and the saviour couldn't help but be amused at his astonishment.

"Never seen a big city?" she asked, mimicking the mocking tone he used on her frequently.

"I've never been outside of Storybrooke, so forgive me if I'm a little new to all of this," he said, irate that the blonde was treating him like a child. The man had done things she couldn't dream of and here she was treating him with disdain.

"So how are we going to find your son?"

Gold turned to look at Emma before moving over to one of his bags. Out of one of the pockets he produced a small satchel. He dug his bony fingers in and pulled out a necklace with a blue diamond on it. It was glowing ever so slightly and she felt like she'd seen something similar before.

"You may recognise this because your mother possesses one," Gold said, watching Emma's face contort in confusion, "I enchanted your father's ring when he was lost so that he could find your mother. It glows brighter when they are near each other, yes?"

She nodded, watching the blue diamond swing on the chain strung across his fingertips.

"Yes, well I enchanted this to do the same for me. When I am closer to Bae it will glow brighter, hence assisting me in my search." He ended the description of their plan abruptly and she sat up, staring at him as he sat on his bed.

"So we're just going to go around New York until it gets brighter?" she asked incredulously, if that was the case they could be here for a very long time.

"Well actually I figured you might possess the skill set to find him. You were a bail-bondsperson, were you not?" he replied, raising a brow at the blonde girl across from him. She smirked slightly, recalling the days of catching runners, using her appearance to trick men into thinking she was harmless. It was actually kind of entertaining.

Thinking about this situation and the fact that Bae was unlikely to have used his real name and the fact that it was not known whether he had committed a crime; Emma was short on ideas. Until one occurred to her.

"When did he arrive here? How old was he?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter. Gold answered immediately, the number memorised.

"He was fourteen."

Emma nodded; a fourteen year-old would have likely been found by child services and put into the system. If that was the case, she could hack into the archives of adoption centres within New York and isolate which he had been taken in by based on his appearance, age and how they found him. Gold saw the idea spawning in her eyes.

"What is it?" he asked, eager to know what she was planning to find his son.

"I know how we can get some idea of where he is."

8888

Killian was standing at the mast when he spotted the young boy walking up the docks. He was alone and clutching the arms of his backpack nervously. Without hesitation, he picked up a wad of the birdfeed and tossed it near the Jolly Roger, illuminating the path onto the ship.

Smiling amusedly, Killian watched as the boy stepped onto the ship and looked around in awe. He was utterly impressed and his eyes quickly landed on the pirate at the helm. Even though Killian was no longer dressed in his traditional garb - having opted for this realm's clothing before Emma's attack - he still looked like a pirate.

"Hello lad," he called, swiftly moving down the stairs to stand before the young boy.

"Hey Killian," Henry replied, tearing his gaze away from the ship to look Killian in the eye.

"What exactly are you doing here?" the pirate asked politely, cocking his head slightly to the side in wonder. There was no way Mary Margaret had allowed him to come down here, let alone Regina.

"I wanted the answer to my question from yesterday," he said, "about you teaching me to sail."

"Aye lad, I would love to but I don't believe your family thinks it wise. Are you even allowed to be here at this current moment?" Killian asked and the boy looked down at his fingers sheepishly. Yep, this boy was going to get him in a lot of trouble with the Charming family.

"Regina and Mary Margaret think I'm spending the afternoon with Grace, Jefferson's daughter," Henry admitted, smiling mischievously as he looked up at the pirate again, who smiled in return. This kid was not only Emma's but he was a spitting image of Killian as a child; candid, adventurous, roguish and desperate to sail.

The captain chuckled at the thought and made a decision.

"Okay, Henry. I'll teach you to sail, on a smaller vessel, but your grandparents and Regina can't know about it – they'll skin me alive." The young boy never even hesitated, rapidly nodding his head in agreement. Emma was going to kill him when she came back and found out, and there was no doubt she would find out.

8888

"What are you doing, dearie?" Gold asked, hovering over Emma's shoulder like a hawk. She sighed, it was incredibly hard to concentrate when you had someone scrutinising your every move.

Turning her head to look at the man beside her, she said in an irritated tone, "I can't work with you right there, can you just go sit down and relax. Maybe order room service? I don't know, just give me some space."

Gold's expression became befuddled at the mention of 'room service.' Clearly he'd never been in a decent hotel – Granny's Bed and Breakfast wasn't exactly five-star. Ignoring his antics, she focused on what she was currently doing.

Back in the day, Emma had picked up a thing or two about hacking and was eager to see if she could still work her magic. She typed rapidly, evading the security network that the city had protecting the records of child services. Probably so they don't get caught messing up, she thought bitterly, remembering her own awful experience. Growing up in foster care, most of the time the adults just wanted the pay-check and treated you as much. It was one of the many reasons that Emma was who she was, guarded and independent.

Bingo! She thought as she finally broke into the system, bringing up a text box so that she could type in the requirements for her search.

"He was twelve, right?" the blonde asked, typing it in as Gold nodded, "How long ago did you send him here?"

"Thirty-one years ago."

"Okay, what else? What was he wearing? What did he look like?"

The wiry man behind her fell silent and when she turned she saw the remorseful man who had let his child get away. How he had done so, she didn't quite know, it was just that he had the same expression her parents always got when something came up about her troubled past. Emma waited, fingers poised over the keyboard.

"He had dark brown, medium-long, hair, dark green eyes, olive complexion. When he was sent here he was wearing a khaki coloured rag shirt with a brown hemp cape." The words were pained and recited like he was talking about a person in front of him. Their separation had obviously not been a clean one.

Emma typed in Gold's words and entered the information into the search engine. Files spun across the screen, downloading information to process and refining it to what she needed. While she waited, the saviour turned in the chair to look at the deflated man on the bed.

"What happened to him? Why is he here?" she asked curiously, not sparing the Dark One with soft tones. He looked up at Emma and sighed.

"He wanted for both of us to come here but I didn't and he went through." The words were precise and pointed and the woman knew she wouldn't get any more out of him. A beeping behind her alerted her to the completion of the computer's search.

There were twenty three-results for what she had described (except the clothing which was deemed a null point in the search). Gold stood up and pulled a chair up next to Emma, staring at the twenty-three names before him. Any one of them could be his son, and the closeness which he felt to finding his son left him breathless.

"Okay, so each of these twenty-three was twelve when they were found and put in the system in 1982. And each of them match the description you gave me so we can probably look through their photos and you could pick him out," Emma explained, looking through the names in front of her. She didn't recognise any of them.

She clicked on the first name, bringing up his file accompanied by a picture. Gold shook his head. She closed that window and selected the second name. He shook his head again. It was at the thirteenth name that Gold paused, looking intently at the screen in front of him. Emma turned to look at him, recognition starting to show in his eyes.

"Is that Baelfire?" she asked, looking at the name of the boy: Bailey Smith. They probably heard the name Baelfire and thought it was a nickname. Bailey had been found wandering the paths in Central Park and was taken to the hospital straight after. When they were unable to contact or locate any relatives, he was placed into Children's Services where he lived with four foster family's over six years. While she had never met Gold's son, knowing he probably went through the same thing as her made her feel less alone.

"That's him. That's my boy," Gold finally stuttered out, his voice the softest Emma had ever heard it. He looked at the picture of the boy with unadulterated sorrow, reaching up to touch the screen before quickly pulling his hand back. He stood up and faced away from the saviour, controlling his emotions.

"Where was his last foster home?" Gold asked stoically.

"Well, it says he last lived in Queens but keep in mind it's been twenty-five years since he was out of the system," Emma replied, closing down the hacked files and turning to face his back. Gold started pacing tensely, she could see the wheels spinning rapidly in his head.

"Isn't there anything you can do to track him down?" he asked, and Emma nodded.

"Yep, but it might be difficult. It's also likely to turn up more results since his last name is generic, so we'll probably end up with tonnes. I'll narrow it down though." The keys clacked sporadically as she began typing, entering different codes and surpassing numerous security systems. It was another ten minutes before she turned up a list of twenty-two names in the New York area.

"Oh, um… let me just try and narrow this by appearance and age," she said, tapping the keyboard a couple more times. The names shrunk again to reveal three Bailey Smiths. One was in Hoboken, one was in the Upper East Side and one was in Soho.

"I've got three people who could be your son. We'll look for him tomorrow, it's too late to get any actual work done," Emma said, saving the three files and exiting the program before shutting down the computer. Gold looked up and nodded; he appeared drained and didn't move as the woman jumped under the covers. She had taken a shower when they first arrived and was already in her pyjamas.

Sleep was quick to consume Emma's thoughts where she dreamt of kisses like fire and eyes like ice.

And Part 1 of their separation is over. Not too painful I hope? Don't worry, I have big things planned. BIG! Sorry for the delay my lovelies – next chapter should be up soon.