Chapter Forty-Seven: Plan B

"What do you mean it's 'not safe to call them'?" Emma queried in frustration.

"It means exactly what it means, Emma!" The Doctor exclaimed while carrying the Spoonhead's robotic body out of Clara's house and towards the TARDIS. "You can't contact Henry or Jack again with the Wi-Fi interfering around us. Whatever or whomever it was that almost killed Clara could go after you, if you use the Wi-Fi from your phone."

"But she called Henry earlier when we arrived in this time." Mary Margaret informed.

The Doctor was alarmed when he was reminded of that fact. "Yes…which can only mean they have Emma under surveillance now, just like Clara."

Emma was unsettled. "You mean those spoon-head things are gonna show up and 'upload' me?" The worried look that the Doctor gave her was enough confirmation for her suspicions. "Then let's get out of here. Let's get the hell out of here while I'm still…"

"I can't leave Clara." The Doctor said. "They may come after her again, I can't risk it"

"We take her back with us then." Emma suggested.

The Doctor frowned in confusion. "Back to Storybrooke?"

"Yes!" Emma cried in near-desperation. "She'll be safe there. Safe from whatever's tryin' to kill us." She saw the conflict the Doctor struggled over in making a decision on the matter and tried harder to persuade him. "Look, you told me that I'm the key to getting us back home. Why has that changed now?"

"Because you are not the only key, Emma." The Doctor sternly alerted her.

His reply baffled Emma, but she quickly realized to whom he referred. "It's him, isn't it? Your 'mystery guy' – the one who supposedly has the power to get us back." The Doctor did not say a word to acknowledge her deduction, but she knew the truth regardless. "Well, I want to know right now who this guy is."

"Emma…"

"TELL ME!"

There was no use in hiding the truth from her anymore. Taking a deep breath and setting the Spoonhead robot aside, he focused directly on Emma while Mary Margaret looked on with agitation, knowing what was to come. "Alright. I'll tell you. But, before I do, you must understand that your connection to this person is the only way we can ever return to Storybrooke."

Emma's curiosity outweighed her frustration. "Who is he?"

Manhattan

Neal sat close near his dying father, waiting with Jack, Henry, and Gwen for nearly an hour to hear Henry's phone ring and receive another call from Emma or even the Doctor. He began to grow impatient, seeing how much worse his father had become in the duration of time they waited. "We can't wait any longer for 'em," he finally told Jack, Gwen, and Henry. "We might as well go with Plan B."

Jack was surprised. "Uh, I might've missed a piece of an earlier conversation, but what is 'Plan B'?"

"We take Hook's ship and sail our way to Storybrooke in it." Neal said. "You can still zero in on it with that thingamajig on your wrist, right?"

Harkness realized that Neal had referred to his vortex manipulator. "Yeah, but…"

"But nothin'!" Neal interrupted. "Cap, we need to get him back there right now, or else he's gonna die. You said there's magic there – let's use it while there's still a chance."

Jack sighed. He knew Neal had a point about the dying Gold, and he could never live with himself if he failed in helping save the life of not only Neal's father, but Henry's grandfather as well. There just was not enough time to wait and hear back from the Doctor, Emma, or Mary Margaret. At that point, Jack began working with the vortex manipulator. "O.K. Five to beam up, Scotty."

"Four, Jack." Gwen spoke up. "I won't be coming with you there."

Jack looked to her; at first, he was discouraged, but he was soon reminded of the reason. "Yeah…I can imagine how pissed Rhys would be if you left him alone in New York with a baby that cries more than he does."

Gwen snickered. "I'll see you again when I know they're safe back home."

Jack acknowledged her promise with a nod and continued to dial in coordinates to the vortex manipulator while Henry approached him and asked, "What about Emma, Mary Margaret, and the Doctor?"

Harkness saw how uneasy Henry was about the decision to return to Storybrooke without the three people they fought so hard to get back. All Jack could do was shrug and tell him, "There's another way of getting them back, Henry. I know there is." He placed a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder and then brought it back to his vortex manipulator, dialing in the last sequence of buttons before he, Henry, Neal, and Gold all joined hands and vanished from the apartment.

After witnessing their departure, Gwen walked out through the front door. Had she stayed a little longer, she would have heard the unusual noises that accompanied the arrival of a large blue box that materialized in the living room. Once it had completely materialized, its right door suddenly flew open and Emma Swan rushed out, searching around the apartment.

"Neal? Henry? Neal? Henry?" She repeatedly called out the names of her former lover and son while searching all about the apartment, yet she discovered not a single soul was there. She returned to the TARDIS just as the Doctor and Mary Margaret had exited. She let loose her frustrations on the Doctor over missing Neal and Henry. "Why? Why did you keep this from me?"

"Because I didn't want you to find out who he really was…where he really came from." The Doctor answered.

"I could've taken it!" Emma exclaimed. "How do you think I took finding out that my mother's Snow White?" She gestured to Mary Margaret to emphasize her point.

Mary Margaret saw how empty the apartment was. The only thing that remained was Gold's cane, which she walked over to and picked up, looking despondently upon it. "We're too late. They were here, and we missed them." Tears welled up in her eyes. "This was our only chance to get back home, and we missed it."

"No." The Doctor uttered. "We only missed the chance of getting back the simple way. Now there's just the difficult way."

A baffled Emma cringed over his puzzling statement. "What?"

"Emma, I am so sorry that I didn't trust you with what I knew about Neal, but both you and him are our only way of returning. You still love him – I know because you still wear the keychain that he gave you eleven years ago. Love is strength, Emma. You have magic that is powered by love. That's why you have that power to get us to Storybrooke. If that love is strengthened by being reminded of the one person you love the most in this world, then we have a greater chance at forcing our way back there."

Emma was left speechless from the Doctor's hypothesis, yet there was a part of it that left her unconvinced. She lightly touched Neal's keychain, which she wore as a necklace. "You're right, Doc. Love is strength. But Neal's not the one person I love the most in this world or any other…especially not after what you told me about him." She snapped the necklace off from her. "I wear this as a reminder to never trust anyone again." She threw the necklace aside, leaving it to join with the rest of the junk in Neal's apartment. "If all it takes for us to get back is me being reminded of who I truly love, then it won't be as difficult as you think. Because the one and only person I love the most in this world is my son."

The Doctor smiled. "Then let's go home, Emma Swan."