Chapter Forty-One: Double Life

The address that the Doctor left for Jack led him, Gwen, Gold, and Henry to a shabby-looking apartment complex – the home of Gold's son, Baelfire. Harkness doubted anyone by the name of "Baelfire" would be listed on one of the intercom panels, despite Henry checking for it. Any of the names listed on the panels could have been an alias Baelfire had taken upon living in the new world. The least the Doctor could've done was give us an apartment number, Jack thought in aggravation. With no name and no apartment number, the group had reached a dead end…until Gwen spotted one nameless entry for "407" on the panels.

"It could just be vacant." Jack presumed.

Gwen smirked. "Take it from someone who once lived in hiding herself, Jack. Any people who don't want to be found also don't like to advertise their whereabouts."

Jack sighed in admittance of her theory. "Fine. But let me do the talking."

"Never stopped you before." Gwen said with a grin.

Harkness pressed the "call" button for "407" and then spoke into the intercom with a heavy Scottish accent. "Oy! I forget meh keys! Anywey ye can buzz me back in, mate?"

The other end of the intercom disconnected, which left the group questioning Jack's approach to addressing the occupant. "I think you laid it a little thick with the Scottish," Henry openly critiqued.

Rapid movement was then heard upstairs, and Jack immediately deduced what was happening. "He's making a break for it." Jack rushed outside with the others and discovered the resident of 407 climbing down from the fire escape, his face obscured by his hoodie. "Hey!" Jack shouted for the escapee and the man only half-turned for a second before bolting down the sidewalk. "Gwen, let's catch him. Henry, you stay with Gold. We'll be back."

Henry did as Jack told him while Harkness and Gwen ran down the sidewalk, dodging past several pedestrians to keep up with the fleeing stranger that was possibly the son of Rumplestiltskin. The chase reached through an intersecting street corner, forcing Jack and Gwen to dodge oncoming vehicles. Jack was hit by one taxicab, his body smashing over the hood and into the windshield, but the immortal captain rapidly recovered from the painful impact and resumed with the chase.

The runner led Jack and Gwen to an alleyway. Before moving in, Jack spotted a clothing store to the left of the alley and signaled for Gwen to take a shortcut through the building. She had done so while Harkness chased the man down the alley. Once the stranger reached the other end of the alley, he turned left, only to have been surprised by Gwen, who tackled him to the ground. As soon as he saw that Gwen overpowered the runner, Jack slowed down and walked his way to the spot where she and their target were sprawled out on the ground.

After catching his breath, Jack gloated over the victory. "Thought you could lose us, huh? Well, buddy, I'm afraid this isn't your day." He picked the stranger up by the collar and forced him to stand up. "You better be worth the trouble, being the son of Rumplestiltskin." He removed the hood, exposing the face of a man in his mid-thirties with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a hint of facial hair.

The man, clearly frustrated over being caught, looked to Jack. It was at that point his attitude had changed from frustration to pleasant surprise. "Captain Harkness? Oh, damn. It's really you! You really haven't aged a day!"

Gwen, picking herself up off the ground, was confused by the man's familiarity of Harkness. "Jack, he knows you?"

"Clearly." Jack remarked, sounding just as confused as Gwen. "But I haven't a clue who he is."

The man laughed. "It's been that long since our time with the pirates, hasn't it?"

Jack's eyes widened; he finally recognized the man that he chased over three blocks. "You? You're Rumplestiltskin's son?"

"How do you know who my father is?" The man asked – only to allow his own suspicions to answer the question for him. "Oh, my god. He's here, isn't he? You brought him to me? Why would…?"

"Hey!" Jack infuriatingly bellowed. "I'm not concerned about your estranged relationship with your old man right now. What I'm concerned about is finding the Doctor. He told me that you're the key to getting him back to Storybrooke."

The man was silent for a long moment. "Alright. But we can't discuss it here. We gotta get off the street. We can't do it here, out in the open. I spent a lifetime running from my father. I'm not gonna let him catch me."

Harkness nodded in agreement. "Fine. Where should we go?"

"There's a bar down the street. We can talk there."

Jack gestured to the direction that the man pointed in. "Then lead the way." He and Gwen then casually followed him to their next destination.

Still confused over all that had transpired after their intense chase, Gwen whispered to Jack, "Who the hell is this man?"

Harkness shook his head. "I wish I knew for sure right now."

At the bar, the man once known as Baelfire revealed his new name – Neal Cassidy – to Jack and Gwen. He told the two Torchwood officials how he escaped from the world he was born into as a way of getting away from his father and the dark magic that had overtaken him. However, as Jack pointed out in the conversation, the world that Neal had currently been residing in was not the first one he jumped to after escaping his own.

"After leaving that place, I wound up here, grew up, and fell in love." Neal said.

"Fell in love?" Jack remarked in surprise. "With who?"

"Her name was Emma." Neal's answer was met with shock from Jack, and the immortal's reaction did not go unnoticed by Neal. "Wait. Don't tell me that you know her, too."

"She's the other reason why I'm here in New York." Jack said. "She made a deal with your father, but she wasn't there for him to collect the debt, so he dragged me over here to do his work for her."

Neal was not too pleased with this news. "She made a deal with him?"

"I guess. Look, all I care about is finding the Doctor." Jack said. "Did he come to see you recently? Give you a message to leave me? Anything that would help bring him back to Storybrooke?"

Neal looked down at his tall glass of beer, which he barely touched since ordering it. "He did come to see me…but it was eleven years ago, right at the time when Emma and I were together. He told me who she was, or who she was going to be, and that I had to leave her so that she could follow her destiny. If it was any other random schmo off the street telling me something like that, I would've told him to go to hell. But this was the Doctor – a man I once saw stand up to knights that recruited kids for some damned, ridiculous war…a man who I heard great stories about from people who really believed in hope and good. This is man I wanted my father to be…but he chose to be something else instead…something worse."

Jack felt sympathy for Neal over his infamous father, but he tried not to let it take his mind off of what really mattered at that moment. "What else did the Doctor tell you when you last saw him?"

"There wasn't anything else. He only told me to leave Emma alone for the sake of getting her back home, which is what I did. And from what you told me about her breaking the curse, it sounds like she's better off without me there with her."

"Emma's not in Storybrooke now. She's with the Doctor." Jack stunned Neal with that update, just as Jack anticipated. "There are things happening in Storybrooke right now that requires not just the Doctor's help but Emma's as well. And if we don't get them back anytime soon, I have a feeling things are going to worse even before they get just plain bad."

Neal sighed heavily, suddenly feeling the weight of the world – or two worlds – on his shoulders. After a long moment in silence, pondering over what Captain Jack Harkness had told him and taking it into deep consideration, Neal shook his head and repentantly said, "I'm sorry, Captain Harkness. There's nothing I can do to help ya."

Jack nodded in understanding but also disappointment. He looked to Gwen, signaling for the door, and she quickly caught on to the fact that it was time for them to leave. Harkness did not say another word to Neal, and his silence made the man formerly known as Baelfire to feel extremely guilty as he was left alone in the bar with a glass of beer that still remained untouched.