A few days later, when Henry announced at breakfast that he was going to his dad's for the day, Emma decided to join him. Henry had been coming home for weeks now full of stories about Robin and various Merry Men and the shenanigans they got up to at Neal's place. She figured she should do the responsible mom thing and check it out for herself.

"You're going to Neal's?" Snow asked with a little too much interest.

"Yeah, I thought I'd go meet all these guys Henry's been hanging around with."

"But Neal is there, too?"

Emma smirked. "It's his house, so yes, Neal will be there."

"Maybe…"

"What?"

Snow fidgeted with the gold filigree clasps on her morning gown. "Maybe he'd like to come back here for dinner."

Emma chuckled. "Are you asking me to bring him home with me?"

Snow waved her hands. "He's all alone there and—"

"He's got a dozen Merry Men and Belle. He's pretty much never alone."

"I just thought he'd appreciate a nice family dinner."

Emma looked from Snow to Charming, who just shrugged as if he had no idea what his wife was up to. But Emma knew. "Family dinner", her ass. They were hoping she'd get back together with Neal. It would warm the cockles of their little fairy tale hearts. The most perfect storybook ending to ever exist, with every pesky loose end neatly tied up.

"Family dinner," she said flatly.

"If he's free," Snow shrugged nonchalantly.

"Okay, yeah, I'll see," Emma said, pushing Henry in front of her out of the room.

They rode to Neal's, Emma on the slowest, most docile mare in the royal stables and Henry on his new horse, Stormcloud, who he adored. They were accompanied by a contingent of palace guards. Because they were now people who traveled with armed guards.

Neal's palace—Rumple's palace—was transformed. Most of the furniture and goods had been looted over time and what was left was in bad shape. Neal had chucked out most of it. Emma never saw Rumple's palace, so all she knew of it is what Neal told her as he took her on a tour of the place. The purge had left many rooms nearly bare. All the better to house the Merry Men's combat practices. The house was full of shouts and laughter and the clang of weapons crashing together. She could see why Henry liked it here. After a quick hello for his father, he'd disappeared to watch sparring practice.

They ran into Belle in the library. Emma spent a few minutes catching up with her but Belle seemed distracted, surrounded by piles of open books.

"She's still not herself," Emma whispered to Neal on the way out.

"Yeah, well at least she stopped with the damned dusting. She spends all her time in the library now."

"I guess that's an improvement. Belle always loved reading."

"I don't know. She's a little too driven about it. I think she's up to something."

"Like what?"

"I have no idea. Guess I'll find out eventually, huh?"

"And how are you doing?" Emma asked, nudging Neal's arm.

He gave a soft huff of laughter and ran a hand over the back of his hair.

"You mean since I got yanked away from everything I knew and tossed into some fairy tale to live out the rest of my life? Okay, I guess."

Emma laughed. "Yeah, I get it."

Neal's expression turned serious. "What about you? I mean, I haven't been here since I was a kid, but I do remember it. This is all new for you."

"I was here once."

"Your little side trip with Snow is different than a permanent move. How you holding up?"

Emma shrugged and ran her hands through her hair. "Okay? I don't know. It's fine. Different but fine. I don't think it's sunk in all the way yet."

"How's life in the royal family?"

She rolled her eyes and huffed. They were in the dining room, but the massive carved wood table had been pushed up against one wall and all the chairs were gone. So Emma levered herself up on the edge of the table where Neal joined her. They sat side-by-side swinging their feet.

"It's weird. Everybody calls me Your Highness."

Neal chuckled. "Emma Swan, royal princess."

She elbowed him hard but she was laughing too. "Shut up."

"I'm just saying, it's a long way from pouring coffee at the Route Six Diner," he said, referring to the waitressing job she'd been working when they met. That felt like another lifetime. She supposed it was another life now, the one that happened back there.

"Do you miss it?" She asked Neal after a minute.

"Home? New York?"

She nodded.

He scoffed. "Parts of it, no. I mean, this place..." He waved a hand to indicate the palace. "Do you have any idea what I was paying for that dump on Wooster Street? And the subway and the rats... Nah, I certainly don't miss that part."

"Yeah, I don't miss having to chat up creepy pervs just so I could collar them for jumping bail. Dealing with all those low lifes on a regular basis."

"But some things..." Neal said, trailing off wistfully.

"Movies. TV. The internet," Emma said.

"Jesus, I go to bed as soon as it gets dark here just because I'm so fucking bored."

"Going out to eat."

"Take out," Neal moaned. "I'm never going to have Kung Pao Chicken from Happy Dragon Kitchen again. Sometimes that makes me want to cry."

"Jeans," Emma sighed. "Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get dressed in the mornings? And two people have to help me. It's ridiculous." A flash of an image popped into her head, from that afternoon nearly a week before, of Killian's fingers tracing the neckline of her dress and deftly releasing the first hook. She cleared her throat and looked at her feet. When she looked up again, Neal was watching her, smiling softly. "You look really pretty, though."

Emma felt herself flush. Neal wasn't nearly as florid and suave as Killian with his words, but somehow that made his simple compliment all the sweeter. Then she felt guilty for comparing them. This wasn't a competition. This was... she didn't know what this was, and sitting here reminiscing with Neal wasn't making it any clearer. She'd just resolved to get up and go find Henry when laughter and voices sounded out in the hall.

Moments later, the door to the dining room burst open and Roland, Robin's little boy, flew through it, brandishing a small wooden sword over his head. "You'll never catch me, ya scurvy cutthroat!" He shouted over his shoulder.

"Throw down your weapons and surrender! You can't escape me," came a voice from behind him, just before Mulan raced into the room, hot on Roland's heels. She was laughing as she reached out and caught him around the waist. Roland shrieked and dissolved into hysterical giggles. Mulan had shed her armor and was dressed in breeches and a loose white shirt, but that wasn't why it took Emma a second to recognize her. Then she realized that she'd never seen Mulan laugh, or even smile much.

Mulan glanced up at Neal and there was flash of a gentle, unguarded expression there before she straightened up and her inscrutable mask dropped down again.

"Oh, I'm sorry. We didn't realize you were in here. Hello, Emma, it's good to see you again."

"It's good to see you too. You look like you're doing well." She meant that. The Mulan standing before her, smiling and laughing, clutching a squirming Roland, was another person entirely from the fierce, guarded warrior she'd first met.

"Neal's been very generous to all of us," Mulan said, glancing at him again.

"I suspect he's happy to have the company," Emma said.

"I am. Can you imagine me rattling around this house by myself? I'd go insane."

"Too many years living in a crowded city, I guess."

Neal sighed and nodded. "Yep, you're right. But no worries. I've got a full house to make me feel at home."

"Did Henry come with you?" Mulan asked.

"Yeah, he went off to watch guys hit each other with heavy things."

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Then maybe Roland and I will go find him and say hello. I'll see you later."

Mulan left, leading a chattering Roland by the hand.

"She looks really happy."

Neal rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip. "I think she is. She's pretty hard to read, but when she opens up, she's great."

Emma wondered if Neal was even aware of the way Mulan looked at him, or that she only seemed to open up to him. She suspected he didn't, because men could be really stupid about stuff like that. She hoped Mulan wasn't in too deep. She'd already had her heart broken. Twice. She didn't need Neal to break it, too.

"Hey, I'm gonna go find Henry."

Neal reached out and snagged her hand as she hopped off the table. "Come around more often, okay? It's good to talk to somebody I knew from then. I don't want to forget, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

Neal's thumb rubbed across her knuckles. He hadn't touched her like that since Phoenix, when she was that other girl, living that other life. It felt nice. Familiar, even though it had been forever. This would be easy, her and Neal, so easy. With the way everything had changed, it was practically foretold. She could even stand outside herself and see it the way everyone else would. Snow and Charming's daughter with the son of The Dark One. No better way to send a message that the old days were gone and there was one united leadership.

Killian, on the other hand… he didn't seem to fit in her new life at all. If possible, he was even more a stranger to her existence now than he was back in Storybrooke. But when he touched her… It wasn't a warm kind of comfort like Neal's touch. It burned her. It made her lose her mind. She didn't just stop caring about the right thing to do, she forgot right and wrong even existed.

That was scary, too. She'd spent a really long time protecting herself, being cautious, thinking things through. There was no way to think through Killian.

Emma gently pulled her hand free from Neal's.

"I'd better go."

"Sure. See you soon?"

She smiled. "Yeah, see you soon."

She didn't invite him home to dinner.