Hey guys. Here's something to hold you over till the hiatus is done. I'm sorry it took so long, but I had this and the next chapter about 70% done before I realized that it needed to be split into two chapters.

Also, just to let you know, it's gets a little spicy towards the end. No, it's not smut, but I do have the first of two smut scenes coming up in about four chapters give or take. So enjoy the "T" rating while it lasts. Lol.

I will have another fic up by the end of the week. It's a Harry Potter project I started working on about six months ago but didn't post on (the HP section is so flooded nobody would see it, hence the need for the shameless plug).

It's called Those People and here's the summary:

One mistake shattered James's world. Seven years later, his ex is thrown back into his life, along with the son he never knew existed. Once again, his life is inverted and between sorting out his own feelings of love and hatred towards her, dealing with the hounding press, and coming to realize that there just may be something …off…about Alex, James may just wonder if he is in over his head.

It starts out a classic "didn't know he had a kid" kind of stories and then morphs into something that's three parts Harry Potter, two parts American Horror Story, and one part OUAT.

Anyways, thanks again to the beautiful Noam who bated this for me.

Enjoy lovelies.

Neal sat, saying nothing. Emma was on a rampage and he was smart enough to know there was nothing he could do to quell her rage even if he wanted to. Besides if there was one thing he had learned since Henry had started taking magic lessons from the town's white magician, it's that Merlin was one chill motherfucker. He could take it and honestly it was rather amusing to watch Emma vent on someone completely uninterested in expressing any emotion.

"What do you mean you can't help us? Magic is what you do, isn't it?"

His pen stilled and Merlin looked up from his Sudoku. "Usually yes, but severing the spell on you two would not be the best choice."

Emma's eyes flashed and Neal ducked down a little, as if Merlin's oversized couch cushions could save him from the onslaught of anger, even though it wasn't directed at him.

"And why not?" She hissed, crossing her arms and taking a step forward as if she was ready to really get into his face. Merlin gave no sign that he noticed as he continued his puzzle.

"Magic one oh one Miss Swan," he murmured, somehow managing to sound both condescending and not at the same time, "Magic is to be treated like a drug which means it is to be used sparingly unless you wish to turn into House."

He motioned in the general direction of Gold's shop and Neal had to chuckle at the comparison. They were a lot alike; they both had canes and everything.

"A lesser known, but just as basic rule, is that one never tries to undo the work of another. It takes infinitely more magic to do so and if one is fallowing the "use sparingly" rule, then surely you can understand where I'm going with this."

"Then we get Henry to—"

Merlin looked up, slightly confused. "It wasn't Henry who put the spell on you."

"It wasn't?" Neal asked. Henry was the only one he could thing of who would have motive for this particular spell. He had been sure it was the boy's fault since the moment he walked into the sheriff's office and felt the magic binding them together—making it impossible for them to be more than a few feet away from each other at any given time.

But if it wasn't Henry, then who was it? The list of magic users in the town was rather short and the list of those who would use it to help him was even shorter. And that's all it could be. If someone wanted to hurt them they would have, and hadn't Neal just been considering handcuffing her to him in so she would have to sit down and talk this out? Sure he hadn't been planning on taking the literal road.

Without it being Henry that only really left one person…

Merlin shook his head "And it's not your father either. His magic smells like a swamps ass. I would know."

"Then who is it?" Emma said.

Merlin shrugged. "Don't worry about it though. I know this spell. It's simple and on something of a timer. Give it a day, maybe two and it will ware itself out."

"Are you telling me that I'm stuck with him for two days?"

That hurt more than Neal wanted to admit. Emma being cold and distant was one thing, but flat out hostile was another.

All he wanted was a chance to make it up to her—to put right some of the shit he had fucked up in his quest to do the right thing. There was no way he could atone for everything, he had known that from the beginning and it when he found out about Henry, he had known it was even less possible then he thought.

But all he had wanted was a chance to try and Emma just seemed to hate him for it.

"Yes now please leave. I would like to finish my puzzle in peace."

Emma looked like she wanted to smack him. Hard. But she didn't, she just turned to leave, the spell dragging Neal along with her.

Neal looked over his shoulder at the wizard, sure there was something else going on—something just under the surface. Merlin met his eye and, with a twitch of his lips, gave a quick, conspiring little wink. Neal didn't know if the spell itself was his doing or if he just knew more than he was telling.

But Neal kept quiet. He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It had been Emma's idea to call in sick for the rest of the day and for once Neal was kind of thankful that he didn't have a job… It kind of tended to make taking sick days a little easier. Considering the fact that her dad would be the one covering her shift, it hadn't exactly been difficult for her to get the time but that hadn't kept the conversation from making Emma more than a little awkward.

David agreed pretty quickly after Emma explained the situation and Neal couldn't help but wonder why. Sure it didn't take a rocket scientist to see the impracticality trying to enforce the rule of law while she would almost literally be dragging a bunch of useless, dead weight around, but he wondered if maybe David saw this the same way Neal himself did: an opportunity.

From what Neal had seen in Henry's book, Charming and Snow would defiantly understand about the complexities of love. Even back in the Enchanted Forest where, legend had it that everyone was guaranteed at least a chance at true love, it was something that had to be fought for tooth and earned.

The way she had explained the situation to her father had been unnecessarily harsh and it had hurt him more then he would ever admit to hear them. She was being so cold to him lately, ever since Thanksgiving really.

He leaned back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling, trying to at least appear to give her as much privacy as the curse would allow. He didn't really want to hear it either. It seemed like every word she said to him or about him was cruel (at least when Henry wasn't around-she knew better than that and, not matter what she felt or didn't feel for Neal, she would never hurt the kid that way).

Although he would never admit it to anyone, the situation kind of reminded him of the few memories he had of his parents before his mother had left. Even then he could see the tensions between them and knew she had only bit her tongue because she didn't want him to hear that. But he had known. It is never as easy as one would like to keep that kind of negativity away from the kids in that kind of situation. The worst part was that Neal knew it was fixable. It wasn't too late to mend whatever was rotting between them; they just had to work at it.

It wasn't said, but Neal kind of suspected that he had more people in his corner about this then he knew. Henry had made it clear which side he was rooting for, but David had left things up to guessing. He hadn't overtly supportive but it was hard to miss the look he had whenever Emma said something within ear shot.

Neal had gotten along pretty well with the prince when Henry made them practice together, and had quickly come to respect him. David was a good, intelligent, man, but Neal couldn't help but wonder how much of his opinions were linked to Emma's. Would he hate him now that Emma did?

That would really narrow down just who would talk to him. Most of the town avoided him because of his father and those few he knew weren't being as friendly as they used to because of the tensions between him and the hamlet's favorite family.

It hadn't always been like this between them. Back in the days before he knew about the cures, back when they had just been as close to innocent kids as life would allow, they had been able to talk about almost anything...at least anything important. And it wasn't like living together in cramped quarters was anything new. Spending a few days together should have been nothing, but now she was treating this bit of magic as if it were a death sentence.

Her attitude towards him had never been this bad. Ever. Hell, it hadn't even been that bad right after she had got back to Storybrooke and realized that he had come back into her and Henry's lives for good… before she had let him explain why he had done it. Why he had turned her in. Back when she had real reason to hate him.

Neal had thought that once she knew everything they could begin to heal. Sure their relationship may never be the pure and unblemished thing it used to be, but he had never expected it to be this bad.

If he didn't know better he would have thought that maybe she was really Cora in disguise or something (according to the rumors that was a favorite trick of the bitchy old witch) but he had asked and the Blue Fairy had worked a bit of her magic. Whatever was wrong with Emma was actually her. There was no easy way out of this one. Somehow he was going to have to break down that wall between them if he ever wanted back in.

"You know Emm," he muttered, not looking up as she snapped the phone shut, "this doesn't have to be a bad thing."

She looked over to him hatefully. "How is it not a bad thing? Just because we're forced to be in the same town doesn't mean that we're friends."

He wasn't imagining it. He knew he wasn't. Not many else would have picked up on it, but he knew Emma better then he knew himself. There was something in her voice, he couldn't say what it was exactly, but it was there and it gave him hope.

"I thought we were over this. I thought we had talked it out..."

He sighed, and changed directions, asking the one question that had been on his mind for a long time. The question he had been afraid to ask because he knew he just might not like the answer.

"Do you really hate me that much?"

She sighed and for a second Neal was sure she was going to yell at him. Tell him to fuck off or worse.

"I just can't afford this. I can't afford to let you hurt me again." Her words were whispered and Neal suspected she hadn't meant to say them aloud. Her eyes widened as she looked at him, realizing that he had to have heard.

He took a step towards her, his heart breaking, and she took a step back, only making the pain that much worse.

He stopped and ran his hands through his hair, exhausted with the conversation before it even began.

"I never wanted to begin with. Why is that so hard to believe?"

"Because I still don't get it," her voice was hard and cold and Neal knew she didn't want to have this conversation…at least not really. She hadn't meant for the conversation to get to this topic, but there was no backing down now.

"Get what?"

"So you knew about magic, fine," she said, destroying Neal with the hurt in her eyes, "But when August told you about the curse, why did you automatically go with his plan? Did you even consider another alternative to turning me in? To leaving me? Why couldn't we have just been together and then you drag Henry and I on a road trip or something?"

It was a valid question, one he was kind of surprised she hadn't asked or he had thought to answer it earlier.

"Would you have let me go if you didn't think I was the bad guy?" It hurt him to think about how much she seemed to hate him and what he had to do. Talking about it wasn't any better; actually it was so much worse. But she had to hear it, "I didn't have the strength to try and explain it then—at least whatever part of it I could have without you thinking I was crazy."

He licked his lips and looked up at her. "If I had just left you there, you would have followed me. You would have spent all your time looking."

"I did that anyways." Her voice sounded as broken as his heart.

"I was trying to give you a clean break."

Emma snorted but didn't say anything.

"What do you think would have happened if I had stayed?" he said, exasperated. "If I brought you and Henry here when the time was right and you found out that I had known about it all for ten years? The curse. Your parents? And when you found out the whole reason the old man made the damn thing to begin with, there was no way you wouldn't think our life together was anything but one big lie."

"What about right after you heard about after you heard of it? Why not bring me then? Tallahassee for us could have been anywhere. I wouldn't have cared if it was Maine or Florida."

"We probably wouldn't have been able to find the place at all." He muttered and she looked at him in confusion, "A few months after all that I tried to get in. I'm not even sure why, call it morbid curiosity, but even though I was of that world I couldn't find the town. I drove up and down the same stretch of road a million times and it was like the town wasn't even there."

Emma sighed and looked out the window. She knew he had a point and gave her a moment to digest the information, but they weren't done. Not by far. He had to tell her—she had to know this wasn't a choice he had made lightly.

"Maybe I fucked up, but you know Em, it was a no win situation. No matter what you were going to hate me for something and everyone else who was cursed were still going to suffer. There was no way I wasn't going to come out of this not looking like an ass. All I could do was try my best and hope that when all was said and done you could eventually forgive me" he sighed, his voice lowering, "and maybe even give me another chance."

She shook her head and, as much as she tried to hide it, Neal could see the truth like a revelation form the gods. The reasons things were getting worse between them was because they had been getting better. It was a convoluted thing, but it made since. Emma wasn't good with emotions and she didn't want to let him back behind her walls. She was pulling away so that she didn't fall back in love with him…or at least so she could pretend she had ever really stopped.

This was all a defense mechanism to keep him out. Whatever he was doing had been working...and now she couldn't even run away. Now more than ever he was convinced that this curse was actually a blessing hiding under a feeble mask of shit.

There was something poetic and beautiful about it. In almost every way he could think of, magic had fluked up his life. It had taken his father from him. His girlfriend, his kid. It had twisted their lives. It had taken Emma's parents away from her. And it had put Henry in much the same situation Neal had been in. It had forced him to choose between siding with a parent he loves and doing the right thing.

It was about time magic gave something back.

Neal sighed.

"Well, it looks like we're going to be stuck together a while." he said, taking a deck of playing cards out the drawer. "How about a game?"

Just because things had gotten on better terms after Emma's little slip up, didn't mean that they were back on pre-August terms. That night Emma got the bed, and although there was plenty of room for both of them amongst the soft pillows, Neal got the floor.

He didn't say one word in complaint but that didn't mean he was happy about it.

Everything in his mind had been shouting at him that this was his opportunity. The binding curse had been just what he needed to break down that wall she had built around herself—a wall that, since she and Neal had parted ways, had become something impenetrable and indestructible.

He had thought that, since she could no longer avoid him, he would at least be given a chance. But nothing in this world was given freely and it looked like this was going to be something he was going to have to steal.

Taking showers in the morning was an interesting challenge to say the least. Emma, of course, vetoed the idea of sharing so Neal was forced to stand so close to the tub that the back of his knees dug into the rim of the old clawfoot.

Just because she had blindfolded him so she couldn't watch her in the mirror didn't mean that his imagination wasn't running wild. Hell, it probably made it worse.

Every detail of Emma had been seared into his mind for over a decade. He would be lying if he said that he hadn't thought of her and often…and in a lot of different circumstances. In the shower was defiantly one of them, especially when they didn't have to play beat the maid.

He could picture as clearly as if she had glued his eyes open. He could imagine her face as she soaped up, the thick suds caressing every inch of her as she ran the poof slowly up her arm. The phantom silk of her hair made his palms tingle, and the smell of her skin filled his noise like the lingering sent of a feast long cleared from the table.

The fact that he was now just inches away from her and yet still so distant made it all the worse and to compensate, the image in his mind only got more and more vivid.

Neal imagined as gravity took hold and the suds slid down her shoulders and onto her back, some making their way down the side of her thighs and down her calves, while others mingled in her hair before sliding slowly between the firm globes of—

"Alright, your turn." Emma said, smacking him on the arm, giving him permission to take off the blindfold.

Neal bit the side of his cheek to hide his surprise. He had been so caught up in his fantasy that he hadn't even noticed her getting out the shower.

"That was fast," he muttered.

Emma didn't comment she just pulled the fluffy towel tighter around herself and took the blindfold out of his hand.

"You know you don't actually need that," he said, motioning to the blindfold. It wasn't like she hadn't seen everything before anyways. Emma just scrunched up her face and narrowed her eyes as she shoved the blindfold over her head.

She was making a show of it just for him and Neal didn't know if it was to piss him off or what. It was like she was trying really hard to pretend that their little heart to heart hadn't done anything…that it hadn't cleared the air between them and paved the way to something better.

Neal undressed and stepped into the shower.

This cold shoulder shit was getting tiring. He had fucked up, he knew that but she had been doing this for far too long. Hell, even she had admitted that it was more to do with not wanting to give him another chance then actually hating him.

Maybe it would have been easier for him if that had been the case, if there was truly no chance of reconciliation. If she really did hate him. But she still loved him, he had suspected as much the moment he had seen the bug sitting on Main Street and had known it the moment he had seen the keychain hanging around her neck like a talisman.

He peeked out of the curtain and watched as she stood there, arms crossed, blindfold firmly in place.

Fuck this. Once upon a time things had been a lot different between them: playful and light. Was this his punishment for trying to do the right thing? For putting the needs and wants of many above the needs and wants of a few? Was he supposed to stay so close to what he wanted but have it be just out of his reached, warped into something bitter and hateful?

He sighed and reached for the shampoo, and an ideal struck him. It was petty and childish, but maybe that's exactly what the moment needed. Besides, someone had to keep Emma on her toes...

Quietly pulling back the curtain, Neal held the shampoo bottle out just over her head and squeezed gently. The thick substance came out in a small stream and Emma didn't notice, not at first.

Neal chuckled. Maybe if she hadn't insisted on that damn blindfold...

After a few seconds she must have noticed the weight on top of her head, she reached up and touched the crown of her head, her fingers coming away covered in a slimy mess.

"Damn it Neal!" she hissed and Neal chuckled.

Emma's eyes narrowed and she let out a large, supposedly calming breath as she tossed off the towel and the blindfold before stepping into the shower in front of him.

Neal wasn't sure if she had somehow guessed what he had been thinking about earlier, but he was sure she was trying to taunt him. Without looking at him she continued to rinse the shampoo out of her hair.

Oaky so maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Hadn't he just been complaining that in Storybrooke he could look but not touch? And that had just been in the metaphorical sense. This took it to a whole new level of torture.

Neal's fingers twitched.

"Touch me, Cassidy, and I'll break it off," she said not turning around.

Neal's fingers pulled together in a fist in an impressive show of self-control.

"And I wasn't talking about your hand."

For a second he paled before he noticed something, a nuanced in her voice that tipped her hand probably more then she had wanted to. Emma was trying to sound tough but there was a playful note to her voice-one he didn't think she intended to be there-and he could hear that she wasn't serious.

Damn her and her mixed messages. It was impossible for him to tell just where they were at any given moment. Were they kind of oaky or did she hate him again? It was like trying to keep his eye on the ace when all the cards kept shuffling and there was only one thing he could do: guess.

Neal took a deep breath and made a decision.

The first time someone had caught him drawling—it had been a teacher while he was doodling, trying to keep his mind busy in a class that was so far above his level—he had quickly snapped the note book shut. The teacher looked at him and, while he expected to get scolded for not paying attention, he just shook his head and gave him a bit of advice "It's better to be laughed at for doing what you love and doing it horribly then to be the next Picasso and never picking up a brush."

At the time he hadn't gotten the reference but as he became more and more familiar with this world he began to see the truth in it. The teacher had been completely wrong about why he wouldn't show his art. It hadn't been out of some self-consciousness, it had been because it was a privet thing for him, something he wasn't ready or willing to share.

That didn't make his advice any less true, though. It was better to take a chance and fail then to let life pass you by while you act like a coward just to hide form the rejections and the pain. He wasn't going to get anywhere if he didn't at least try.

"Emma," he said, stepping closer.

She turned around and before she could say anything he kissed her letting everything he had been feeling since coming to Storybrooke (hell, everything he had felt since meeting her) pour out in that one instant. This time it lasted a lot longer than seven seconds.

He wasn't the only one emptying his heart into that kiss. Emma wrapped her arms around his neck just as he did the same to her waist, pulling her closer.

Their tongues mingled, trying to devour each other. This is what he had been fantasying about for eleven years and reality had exceeded every detail his mind could come up with. Her skin like silk and the feeling of her fingernails digging deliciously into the back of his head.

He took a step forward, pushing her against the cool, wet tile and instinctually she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer. She wanted this; she needed this just as bad as Neal did. He could feel how turned on she was, how wet (and it had nothing to do with the shower) and he was just as hard.

Neal slid his hands down to her ass, ready to position her to…

"Neal," she gasped, breaking the kiss. He smiled in satisfaction and moved his head down to trail kisses along her collar bone.

"No," she said, killing the mood.

Fuck.

Neal stared at her for a second, not enough blood left in his brain to instantly register the meaning behind the word. One look at her face though, was all it took. She was sorry, but she wasn't ready to go where this was undoubtedly going to lead.

He let go completely and stepped back, his foot landing on a bar of soap they hadn't noticed as they were playing tonsil hockey.

He tumbled backwards like something out of a child's cartoon, arms flailing as he tried to find some way to break his fall. Lot of good that did him. He only managed to tare the shower curtain off its hooks as he fell through it, barely missing hitting his back against the hard porcelain of the toilet seat.

If that wasn't bad enough, the curse pulled Emma down with him just as comically… but at least she had something a bit softer to land on even if he was left to wonder only half kidding, if she had broken some of his ribs in the process.

For a second he braced himself for her harsh words at the intimate position they found themselves in, lying there naked on the floor, blood still racing, but they never came.

He let out a full bodied laugh, not entirely sure what was funny, and she followed. For a few seconds he could pretend that it was still before. This was the kind of crazy thing that had defined their lives then, before the curse and the watches and the well-meant and yet upkeepable promises of Tallahassee.

"We really need to get this curse broken." Emma said, her laughter dying, but she did not try and get up from where she laid on top of him.

Neal sighed in frustration and rested his head against the cool tile but he didn't' argue with her.

This was exhausting. For every two steps forward they had to take one step back. But still that was progress, right?