CHAPTER SEVEN: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

(In which Neal's choice is revealed with terrible timing, as per usual.)

The Library used to be Neal's refuge. Well, libraries in general.

When he was a kid here, he'd always considered the library as the closest thing he had to a home, since you could stay all day and no one would kick you out, and being able to learn about the new world he'd dropped into. But Storybrooke's library was just a dusty place that regular people avoided, a pet project that Belle took on as a job that like a lot of jobs in Storybrooke seemed to be bullshit people used to occupy their time but actually serviced no one.

He'd intended to stay in Belle's old apartment upon her and his father's offer, but that was before he discovered that Hook was using the Library's second floor to stash booze, cigars, porn, and his gambling-related paraphernalia for when he held after hours poker and dice games, cockfights (for which he had a subscription to Cockfighting Aficionado that came to the apartment's address), and other illegal activities with former members of his crew, the Merry Men, and some other unsavory sorts that now included Prince James and "Jack" in the large expanse of storage space.

Neal had spent all of two nights there before waking up to the sound of homicidal chickens, and after threats from Hook while he was shoved up against a splintered post with a bloody chicken-claw-razor held to his throat, Neal had decided it wasn't worth staying there and made up some BS about the pipes rattling and the hot water heater not working and that it was just easier to go back to Granny's until he'd worked out his employment situation, because he didn't want charity.

Now Neal wouldn't have to worry about that for awhile, though he did feel like he was intruding, throwing himself into a different family situation that hadn't been set up to include him. Of course, Belle had insisted she didn't mind, but he knew that his stepmother, and father too, had been planning to finally put his death behind them and start a family of their own... until the dead started popping up and threw a wrench in that plan... not that it was stopping Emma from moving on, and not that it would have bothered him all things considered if the circumstances of his death and the choice of her partner were different. It was hard not to feel jilted that even as the Dark One she hadn't known about his situation - and that it was that prick who'd saved her and won her heart and was going to get everything he'd always wanted.

This was really the only option left to him, Neal accepted, as the elevator doors opened onto the second floor, now cleaned of the fighting ring and chalked in alchemal permutations.

"Are you sure about this?" Rumplestiltskin asked, his hands clasped over his cane. "When I suggested it before..."

Neal let out a breath and nodded. "Things have changed. I can't run away from here, not really. Magic will always follow me. This place, these people... but I can't, I can't be a part of it either, Papa. I can't be... Neal Cassidy. He died in that forest and it's obvious they don't want him back. And I know... I know that person - the person I am now - doesn't mean a hell of a lot to you..."

"Son," Rumple rasped out, "that isn't true."

"You don't have to lie, Papa," sighed Neal. "I'm a stranger to you. And a reminder of what went wrong. I seem to be the same for Emma and Henry. So... you get your wish in the end. If I can't be a father to my son... I can at least be the son you lost. Then maybe... maybe this won't hurt as much for either of us."

Gold laid a hand on his arm. "I am so sorry, son. Emma and Henry... they should have been your happy ending. I saw the way she looked at you in New York. And your boy... he did love you."

"Yeah, and weeks after I kicked it he was using my death to play on your emotions in some extortion plot because he cared more about Regina getting with his 'childhood hero' that she knew for all of a week. All of that book stuff, maybe it screwed up Henry's sense of right and wrong. Or just being raised by a sociopath. All I know is that I'm a relic, and not the museum masterpiece kind. The pawn shop junk kind that most people throw in dumpsters-"

"Bae-"

"No, it's true," he cut his father off. "That's how they look at me, Papa. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, tall enough, handsome enough, or... just interesting enough to fit into their happy ending. It's only for royals and rogues. Peasant Lost Boy car thieves don't fit in. Not even having a kid with a princess can make me part of their story if Emma and Henry don't want me."

He was crying now, in spite of his promise not to, and his father pulled him into a hug.

"It will be okay, my boy. Happy endings aren't always what we want or expect, but... I will do everything I can to see that you are happy. And you will always be enough for me."

As the clock tower began to chime, Rumplestiltskin began the incantation...

AN: Wait, Rumple has magic? He didn't lose it when he was no longer the Dark One? Does everyone know? Or is he just casting a spell like Belle and Zelena did with external magical bullshit? How the hell should I know?

Next up: Always listen to Cora.