A/N: There's a certain feeling of frustrated hopelessness that occurs when something happens to the people you care about when you're in no position to offer help. Emma gets to experience the sensation first hand while also dealing with an abrupt immersion into the past she wants nothing more than to leave behind.

(Edited and updated as of 11/8/2015)

A Gambit in Trust

Emma III

It never took long, Emma mused, for the sights offered by a drive down the interstate to become repetitive and dull. After a solid six hours of it, Emma felt proud that the boredom had not managed to steal what little sanity was left to her, though the monotony of night driving for so long was sorely testing her limits.

It did not help that Gold had absolute shit taste in music and would freak out if her hand so much as twitched toward the dial.

Emma thumbed through the apps on her phone for the hundredth time with a heavy sigh that she hoped irritated the wizard, warlock, magician, or whatever he called himself. None of the programs caught her interest and she clicked the phone to sleep, knowing she would repeat the process in another five minutes.

Behind her, the kid's light snores kept up the same steady rhythm they'd held since somewhere near the Massachusetts-Connecticut border. She eyed him in the rearview, taking comfort in the rise and fall of his chest beneath her puffy winter jacket he used as a blanket. All at once she felt relieved he was well away from Storybrooke and out of Cora's reached, concerned for why Gold wanted him along in the first place, and guilty for separating him from Regina after the two were just starting to rekindle their bond.

"He's a good lad, your boy." Emma blinked in surprise, finding Gold staring ahead at the road before them, a pained little grin on his face. Outside of answering Henry's incessant line of curious questions, Gold had not said a word the entire drive.

"He is," Emma agreed, cautious. "If nothing else, Regina did a good job with him." She considered for a moment. "Mostly," she amended.

A faint laugh met her statement. "An ironic outcome, all things considered." Emma could not argue the point and Gold seemed content to let the silence return following his random compliment.

Emma followed a sudden hunch. "How old was your son when you two were… separated?"

Gold's grip on the wheel tightened with the audible creaking of leather and his eyes went hard, staring at the middle distance. Emma had the distinct impression she had crossed an unspoken line. Still, Gold spoke. "Young," he said. "Far too young." He glanced toward the rear view for only a second, but Emma caught it.

"Henry reminds you of him." She deduced. Gold hummed, noncommittal. After a few beats, Emma ventured to ask, "What was he like?" Gold did not turn his attention away from the road ahead.

Awkward moments ticked by to the point where Emma turned back to her phone. She had decided to break down and find a new time waster when Gold started to answer.

"Baelfire was… good." The same grimace of a smile pulled at his lips. "By the time he was to turn fourteen he was already a better man than I ever was." Gold's eyes took on the glassy tint of someone lost in memories. Not exactly what Emma wanted to see when he was driving on the freeway, but Gold's antique of a car remained steady.

"He always had a strong sense of honor. Kind and generous to a fault." Gold sighed a wistful breath. "He never wanted anything in the world more than what he had. So I tried to give him everything." Gold shook his head the tiniest bit, and as he grew silent once again, Emma had the distinct impression that he was not used to sharing.

She wondered if he ever had spoken of his son to someone else before.

Emma pressed her luck. "How did he end up in this world?" It had taken an entire curse to get everyone else here, and from what she had been able to piece together, she knew Regina needed a hell of a lot more than a bit of emotion and will to cast it.

Gold's expression flashed to a dangerous level of angry that had Emma reaching for her weapon on instinct. It disappeared in a moment, replaced by the benign indifference she was used to seeing, and he spoke in a tone of inarguable finality. "I made a choice."

Emma did not belabor the point

The tense quiet that followed had Emma longing for the boredom she had cursed earlier. Gold's agitated body language did not let up as they passed into their seventh hour and crossed over from Connecticut to New York. Emma supposed having sensitive conversations while in an inescapable metal box speeding down a highway may not have been the brightest move.

Their study in awkward silences broke just as Emma saw the lights of the city begin to coalesce in the distance. Her phone buzzed with a call, the vibration magnified by the absence of other sounds. The screen showed Mary Margaret's smiling face and Emma's pulse sped up. Incoming calls from family at three in the morning were never good, right?

She answered, hesitant. "Mary Margaret, what's going on?"

A sigh of relief greeted her before Mary Margaret spoke. "You're alright." Exhaustion laced her words and Emma's concerns doubled down.

"Other than being extremely bored and really needing to pee, yeah." Her humor sounded flat to her own ears and Mary Margaret did not so much as chuckle. "Something's happened," she said. "Who?" Emma braced herself.

"Ruby." A brief burst of relief was followed by an intense flash of guilt and anger. Glad as she was that Regina's name had not been spoken, she had not been prepared for Ruby to have been in the crossfire.

She forced the next words out at almost a whisper, glancing in the rearview to make sure Henry was still out of it. "Tell me she's alive." Gold glanced toward her with mild curiosity.

"Yes," Mary Margaret confirmed and Emma sank down into her seat. "But that woman used silver Emma." Emma blinked, never having heard the schoolteacher so angry.

"How bad?" She asked, assuming silver was as toxic to werewolves as all the stories made it out to be.

"Burns. A-a lot of burns." Emma closed her eyes and pushed back the sick feeling in her stomach. "Whale doesn't know how long it'll take for her to wake up. He says that her body's using nearly all of its resources to purge the poison from her."

"Jesus…" Emma muttered. "Where did it happen?" She tried to turn off concerned friend mode and go full into her sheriff state of mind, with little success.

"Outside Gold's house." Emma cast a sharp glance toward the man, but he acted as if he was not listening in on her conversation, eyes firm on the city rising before them. "A little more than an hour ago."

"Any idea what she was after?" Gold owned many dangerous artifacts, and Emma presumed the most dangerous would be kept under lock and key.

"Not something," Mary Margaret said. "Someone. Belle says Cora would have been able to kidnap her if not for Ruby." Emma let out a slow breath to calm her nerves. She felt certain that the only way to gain any leverage over Gold would be to go after Belle. "She was lucky it was Ruby's wolf time, if not she would not have been able to…" Mary Margaret trailed off and Emma heard her move the phone away from her mouth.

It did not stop Emma from making out the choked sob the woman tried to hide.

"Ruby's strong. A fighter," she said once Mary Margaret regained her composure. The words felt cliché off her tongue, but it made them no less true. "She'll pull through."

"I know, it's just…"

"I know," Emma said as Mary Margaret's voice hitched again. "But now we have to worry about keeping Belle safe."

The car jerked to the right in sudden motion and Gold brought them to a jerky stop on the side of the road. Emma had to grab the panic handle to keep herself from smacking into her window, and Henry bounced against his seatbelt in the back, jolting awake with a wide eyed yelp.

"Gold, what the fuck!?" Fueled by equal parts panic and anger, Emma could not stop the words from coming out as a shout. Henry flinched behind her, but Gold took advantage of her disorientation to snatch her phone away. Emma heard Mary Margaret shouting her name through the speaker.

"Put Belle on the line, now." Gold barked the words into the phone, jaw set in anger. "Your daughter is fine. Do not test my patience, Snow White."

"Don't you have your own god damned phone?" Gold ignored her. The temptation to physically subdue Gold to retrieve her property almost overwhelmed Emma's frayed patience, but she remembered her company. "You okay back there, kid?"

"I think so…" His sleepy voice answered her. Henry rubbed at his chest beneath the seatbelt, curious more than concerned. "What happened?"

Emma glanced at Gold – now whispering into the phone so that Emma could not make out the words – and shook her head. "Nothing good." She sighed and leaned around her seat to check him over to rest her own concerns. He'd have a bruise, she believed, but nothing worse.

"That conniving bitch." Gold snarled and thrust the phone in Emma's direction, already pulling back onto the empty highway and accelerating up to a speed any sane cop would pull them over for. Emma snatched the smartphone back with a glare Gold ignored, and found Mary Margaret back on the line.

"I take it Belle is fine," Emma said, deadpan.

"Shaken up, but yes." The bone-deep weariness she heard had Emma checking her sarcasm and running a helpless hand through her hair.

"And where's Regina in all of this?" Silence greeted her question and Emma's heart skipped a beat. She kept her voice carefully calm. "Somebody checked on her, right? You know, with her crazy mother on the loose and all?" So much for saving the sarcasm, Emma…

"She wasn't the first thing on my mind." Mary Margaret's words came out harsher than Emma had ever heard the woman speak. It left Emma stunned for a moment as she tried to curb her instinctive, angry reaction to the woman's dismissive words, remembering how much Henry being hurt had her running on tunnel-vision.

She figured a best friend being injured had to be at least somewhat similar, right?

Still, she could not stop a note of shortness from playing in her response. "Get someone over to Mifflin, and have them stay there." Their conversation came to a stilted goodbye following her order, neither woman having the energy to deal with hurt feelings that night. The moment the call ended, Emma hit Regina's contact and waited, holding her breath.

If Cora had taken advantage of Gold being out of town, Emma felt no doubt the witch would have done the same in her own absence. She and Regina had planned for the confrontation, but none of their scenarios had Regina facing her mother alone. Who could have foreseen Gold calling in his favor at the worst possible time?

She cut a sideways look toward the driver, but Gold had regained his calm composure. Emma frowned.

Nothing about the situation settled well in her gut.

"Hello Miss Swan…" Regina's greeting came at the cadence of someone focusing on each word and making an effort at pronunciation. "Making sure I haven't gone back over to the Dark Side?" Regina laughed after her slurred words, bitter and resentful. Emma heard the clinking of glass against glass and knew Cora must have made a move.

Emma's relief came with a heavy sigh, but she still could not help the note of sarcasm entering her tone. "Making sure you're okay, actually, but let's go ahead and start throwing accusations around." Regina snorted in disbelief over the sound of pouring liquid. Moments of silence followed and Emma imagined Regina draining cider from the glass. "Seriously Regina, tell me you're okay."

She was sure she did not mean for it to come out like a demand.

"Can't do that, Sheriff." Emma felt a tingling in her neck and glanced in the rear view to find Henry staring at her, worry staining his expression

"Regina," she implored. "Talk to me. What did she say? What did she do?"

"She did nothing." Her hollow laugh sent chills down Emma's spine. "It turns out that was the worst thing she could have done."

"I don't-"

Regina cut her off with a jarring shout. "She offered me everything, Swan!" The woman's voice hitched. "Henry to myself. My power back. My worst enemies dead at my feet. Everything that I... What have you done to me Swan?"

Emma was left at a loss for words at the scathing question, but Regina seemed unperturbed by the lack of response, carrying on with her slurring rant

"I should have wanted to join her. There is no logical reason why I didn't. I attacked her, Emma. What did you do to me?" She repeated her question with the same strained blur of words blending together. Emma took a steadying breath and let the angry accusations roll off her shoulders, focusing on remaining calm in the face of drunken confusion.

"Regina." She enunciated each syllable of the former mayor's name, hoping it united her divided attention. "I need you to realize you did the right thing, okay?" Only the sound of Regina's edged and shaky breaths met her declaration. Emma shelved the argument for a more sober time. "Were you able to use the fairy dust?"

"I hesitated," Regina admitted. "Even after making a choice, I was too weak to act decisively. She got away." Emma held back a sigh. She had thought the dust would be incredibly clever. Figures the witch would have escaped it.

"You're a lot of things, Regina, but I would never consider you weak." Emma rubbed at her forehead with her palm, staving off an echo of a migraine. She was never any good at this cheerleader type of pep talk.

"You're an awful judge of character, Emma." The sheriff heard most of the desperation bleed out of Regina's voice – by way of exhaustion or Emma's words having an effect, she could not be sure – leaving only the sound of extreme wariness.

"Maybe, but I always stick by my bets." Regina hummed in a vague acknowledgment of her words, and Emma pictured the woman beginning to pass out. She wondered if Regina was a lightweight or had just gone too deep after confronting her mother. "And I've got someone on their way, so don't smite on sight or something."

Slow, even breaths met her words. Emma pulled the phone from her ear and shot a text to Mary Margaret making sure the woman would let her know the moment someone was with Regina.

With a moment to breathe, Emma took the time to consider the situation. Not hours after leaving town, Cora had taken advantage of Regina being alone to try and recruit her and failed. Then she used Gold's absence to make a play at Belle only to fail again.

Emma knew Cora would not – could not – take such a show of defeat lying down. More concerning was how she knew to make her move so quickly.

"We have to go back," Emma said, staring at her phone's black screen. Her reflection looked awful with its stress lines and the shadows beneath her overworked eyes. "Turn it around Gold." She meant it to sound as a command, but it the words came out flat.

"Absolutely not." Gold scoffed, not even sparing her a glance.

"She only did this because we're not there," she said through gritted teeth. She knew he had to have realized it as well. "We can come back after Cora's taken care of."

"She tried and failed, Miss Swan. She will spend time licking her wounds and gathering her strength." His fingers drummed the steering wheel in an irritating rhythm. "Because she will know I will be coming after her upon our return. And rest assured, I will obliterate her for what she's done." Gold spoke with a nonchalant nature of absolute certainty that chilled Emma to the bone. "We press on."

The timing of the night's events twisted Emma's insides in the certain knowledge she was missing an integral piece of insight. Her instincts screamed at her that she needed to be back in Storybrooke to face this threat head on. She contemplated ripping the shawl from Gold's neck and kicking the man out of the car, but restrained herself. It wouldn't be the heroic thing to do.

"I-is Mom okay?" Henry's squeaky voice stole her attention. He had gone pale, posture held tense. He was terrified, Emma realized, and her demeanor was not helping things.

She did not paste on a smile, knowing the kid was too smart to buy it, but instead just tried to hide the worst of her anxiousness and fear. "She will be," she said. "It's just hasn't been an easy day for her." Henry nodded, appearing slightly mollified. "But hey. Even if she's not on her A-game right now, we'll be there to help her get back to it, yeah?" Henry considered her point for a moment, then smiled in his goofy way and nodded his agreement. It was infectious and Emma found herself grinning back even as Gold took them farther away from where she thought she needed to be and where she knew she wanted to be.

"And you're sure your magic globe gave you this address?" Emma asked with more than a little skepticism. They were in a relatively decent neighborhood, which meant that in a city like New York the rent would doubtlessly be extraordinarily high. She still had moments of phantom stress over trying to save enough to pay her loft's rent from Boston, despite not having lived there in over year.

Gold drew a long breath, holding back a sigh. "I have the coordinates down to the second, Miss Swan." He clicked his cane against the ground, walking toward the building with all the confidence in the world. Emma glanced behind her, finding Henry turned away from her and chattering into her phone. She did not try to hold back the smile that bubbled up at the sight.

Gold had shown mercy the night before, finding a motel just miles outside the city limits and letting them get a few hours of rest. It didn't stop him from getting them back on the road at the crack of dawn, but Emma was grateful for the time even if the only benefit was allowing Henry to be reassured by his mother directly rather than relying on Emma's vague promises alone.

She poked him in the shoulder and cocked her head toward the building. He nodded and skipped ahead of her, not breaking his conversation with Regina that Emma surmised had to do with creating defensive wards from his constant questions. From the way his eyes kept lighting up, Emma figured that the kid was a far better student than she was, even remotely.

She shook her head with a rueful sigh, following him into lobby of Baelfire's supposed apartment building. It was a tiny thing, with just enough room for the three of them to stand with and not feel suffocated. A set of glass doors stood locked before them, and the right wall was covered in mailboxes – each with a buzzer to their owner's apartments. The rest of the room was bare, impersonal, and unremarkable. Fantastic features if one was looking to lay low.

Gold studied the mailboxes, glancing from name to name with a deepening scowl.

Emma could not help herself. "So I take it none of them are tagged 'Baelfire, son of the Dark One,' right?"

"No." Gold did not become angry, looking from the mailboxes to the door that barred their way. "If I had my magic I could do a simple tracking spell."

"But you're running dry on the juju," Emma said, trying to keep her tone under control. The sooner they found the missing Baelfire, the sooner they made it back to Storybrooke. "Did he ever have a pseudonym back in the day?"

Gold shook his head. "He never needed one."

That you knew of. Emma held back an irritated breath. She needed something to go off of, but Gold seemed to have nothing to give her. She stepped up beside him, giving each name a once over for anything that might have jumped out as false. Unfortunately Baelfire was not so kind as to pick something obvious.

Only one thing drew her eye. Apartment four-oh-seven's tag held no name, and Emma wondered if they could really be that lucky.

"This," she said, tapping the mailbox. "Is our best bet."

"It could just be vacant," Gold pointed out, a frustrated lilt to his voice. Emma eyed him, not hiding her annoyance.

"Without anything else to go on, this is what we've got. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't want to draw attention to himself. No name on the mailbox, no undue attention."

"You thought of it," Gold said. "Would others not make the same leap of logic?"

"I've been on the run before," Emma explained distractedly, trying to figure out a believable con to get them in the building when most people would not have begun their days. "It's the same trick I'd use."

"Why not just ask?" Henry handed Emma her phone, joining in on the conversation. "I mean, we can't figure out anything by just guessing, right?"

"Right you are, kid." Emma closed her eyes, thinking of sad moments in her past as she hit four-oh-seven's buzzer in three quick bursts. When she spoke again her voice cracked in a decent imitation of someone choking back a sob. "H-hello? I-I-I...can you buzz me in?" She sniffled noisily. "I-I was just attacked... They took my wallet which had my key and... P-please can you?"

Silence answered her and both Gold and Henry looked at her with unbridled skepticism. Emma held her breath for two beats, ignoring their incredulity. She was rewarded when a buzzer sounded to her left with the typical click of a lock releasing following on its heels. Emma had hoped the renter would answer by voice so Gold could confirm if it was his son, but she would take what she could get.

"After you," she said to Gold, not bothering to hide the smug sense of satisfaction. She cleared her throat to get rid of the hitch and held the door open. Gold strode by, shaking his head, and Henry scurried after him with a smile on his face, muttering the word "awesome" under his breath. Emma made a mental note to sit her son down and have a good old fashioned 'do as I say and not as I do' lecture. The last thing they needed was the kid learning how to pull a con.

Regina would kill her.

With fire.

Emma followed the pair of them up three flights of stairs carpeted in a dull beige to match the painted brick of the walls. The hallway they reached on the fourth level proved to be just as nondescript, with nothing to break up the monotony save for the stark white doors lining each side of the hall, staggered from side to side every ten or so feet. They found lucky number four-oh-seven at the end of the hall, tucked against the corner.

Gold raised his cane to knock, but Emma caught him before he struck the wood.

"He's spent how long running?" She asked, words a whisper. "I should break the ice here." Gold's posture went tense, ready to argue, but seemed to think better of it and nodded her forward. He and Henry put some distance between themselves and the door at Emma's insistence, so they would not be within anyone's line of sight at first glance.

She knocked, and waited. She strained her hearing to listen within, but could only just make out the sound of someone crossing the floor with careful, quiet steps.

A muffled voice called through the door. "Who's there?"

Emma pushed her tone to a place of grateful embarrassment. "I just wanted to say thank you," she said, letting a grimace cross her lips when she saw a shadow cut off the light shining from the peephole. She moved to speak again, but the door yanked open in a sudden jerk that startled her, but the small fright paled in comparison to the bombardment of varied and wild emotions that struck her at the sight of the man.

Several of Emma's nightmares came to pass at once.

"Emma..." The man whispered, shock etched into every aspect of his body language. He stood just a few inches taller than her, his brown hair cut short but still somehow shaggy, the same excuse for a goatee he always favored shadowed his chin and upper lip, and he stood in nothing than flannel pants and a wife beater – his preferred sleepwear, she recalled. His brown eyes lacked the mischievous gleam that had so enamored her in her youth, the haze of sleep and confusion in its place.

She had imagined this situation hundreds of times, if not thousands. For that first year, little else had ever been on her mind. Yet as she stood there with her mouth hanging open like a gaping fool, Emma could not focus her anger and panic well enough to form a coherent thought, let alone vocalize one. A thousand explanations and possibilities flashed through her mind, but Emma could not act.

He smiled, toothy and genuine, and everything in her head boiled down to the thought of how dare he? She reared back her right arm and punched her first love right in the solar plexus. The blow caught him off guard and he stumbled back, wheezing.

"Stay here." The words came out low and harsh and she saw Henry flinch in her peripheral vision, his eyes wide in surprise. She ignored the jolt the sight sent through her gut and stepped into the man's apartment, slamming the door behind her. She gathered herself and faced the man who abandoned her to take the fall for his crimes.

"Hello Neal." She had aimed for pissed, but the words lacked the oomph she imagined they should have.

He raised back up to his full height with a grimace, rubbing at his sternum. "Probably deserved that." He muttered the words, not having the air to say them louder, and seemed to be content just staring at her, gaze looking her up and down with a damned smile on his face.

He stood there, looking hardly any different than he had over a decade ago, and Emma tried to make the puzzle pieces fit. If fucking Neal was really Gold's son, she did not know how she would react. If her biggest mistake had all been part of some grand plan… P

lanned out by the megalomaniac standing out in the hall…

Neal spoke first, asking, "What are you doing in New York?" He looked thoughtful for a second. "How did you even find me?"

"You knew."

Neal blinked. "Knew what?"

"You knew." The words were all in Emma's head, clear in their scathing intent, but they came out a jumbled mess as her mind whirled. "You come from there, so you had to have known. Was everything a lie? Just a fucking scheme to get me to fulfill some bullshit destiny?" Neal held up his hands in a placating gesture, eyes wide.

"Easy Em. I have no idea what you're talking about." He looked around, panicky and backing up, as Emma advanced on him. He sounded genuinely afraid.

"Your father," she said the words in little more than a hiss. "You're Rumplestiltskin's son." Neal froze in place, demeanor changing from fearful to guarded quick enough to seem unnatural.

He looked beyond her toward the door, words coming out harsh with the beginnings of anger. "Is that how you found me? Did you bring that bastard to my fucking front door?" Neal did not wait for her answer, turning from her and scrambling over to an old set of gym lockers that lined his far wall, picking up a duffel off the floor on his way.

"Hey!" She closed the distance and grabbed his shoulder, yanking him away from the lockers just as he started digging into them. "You don't get to be the angry one here." His brown eyes flashed with fury and for a heart-stopping moment, Emma believed he might lash out. She braced herself for a blow.

Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep, lingering breath.

"Emma, please." The nylon bag crinkled in his shaking grip. "You can't let him in here. I've been running away from that man for decades. I crossed realms, Emma. Three times!" He said it as if it had been a big deal, but Emma found she did not care. She'd done the same and only meant to the once.

"I. Don't. Care." She yanked the bag out of his grip in a show of force that caught Neal off guard and forced him to stumble to keep his balance. "I owed him a favor, and if you enduring his presence long enough to tell him to 'fuck off' is what I need to get that off my back, then you'll do it. You owe me, Neal."

She just had to figure out how to get Gold inside without Neal interacting, seeing, or acknowledging Henry's presence in any way.

"You made a deal with my father?" Neal asked with an incredulous laugh. The sound of it brought Emma right back to seventeen, feeling insecure over saying something that might have been silly or stupid. She hated that he had that power over her and pushed the echoed emotions away.

"You don't get to judge me. Ever." She slammed one of his lockers shut and shoved him back toward the front room.

He held his ground. "There's a lot I don't get to do, apparently." He shook his head, flexing his hands in the open air between them. "Listen, Emma." He tried to put on the smile he always wore when she was mad at him. A decade ago it would have melted her. "Now that you know everything, I can explain."

"I really don't need to hear it." Altering her strategy, Emma grabbed a fistful of Neal's tang top and dragged him to the foyer. She just needed to secure him to something, shove Gold inside, and keep Henry from even looking within. It was a plan as solid as it was simple, and Emma knew it would have worked.

If Gold had not already let himself and Henry into the apartment.

She froze, trying to process a way to salvage the situation. Gold and Neal stared each other down, neither giving an inch. A variety of emotions flittered through Gold's guarded eyes, while Neal stood stone-faced, tense, and ready to bolt. The situation balanced on a pin point, but Emma thought that Neal had not noticed the kid, which meant she could still –

"Hi!" Emma closed her eyes, silently cursing her son's friendly disposition. He held out his hand, stepping toward the father he did not know. "I'm Henry." Off kilter, Neal blinked at the kid for a stunned moment before grasped the offered hand in his own, letting Henry give it a dramatic shake. Standing so close together, Emma could see the small bits of Neal that were peppered throughout Henry's features.

It churned her stomach.

"Neal…" The man offered in place of a greeting, bemused.

Henry's brows furrowed. "I thought your name was Baelfire?" He looked to her. "Did we get the wrong apartment, Emma?" She was never more grateful Henry had not picked up a habit of calling her "mom."

"No." Gold spoke up, answering before she could. "Your mother has proven quite adept at her trade, Henry." Emma closed her eyes, grinding her teeth, wincing, and wanting to scream to the heavens how unfair her situation just became. "Baelfire…" Gold stepped toward his son, but Neal's attention was split between her and Henry, jaw loose.

"Mother!?" Neal paled and Emma urged her mind to work faster than the gears churning in Neal's head, but she kept coming up blank, paralyzed by indecision. "How old are you, kid?"

"Almost twelve." Henry frowned, doubtlessly recognizing the subtext in the air. Neal went from pale to ashen, mouth moving but unable to speak. He looked to her, eyes screaming a thousand questions he could not vocalize and Emma stood frozen in place. "Emma… What's going on?" Henry sounded almost scared.

The kid was smart, Emma knew. He likely was putting everything together as quickly as Neal was. Even with less information.

Gold held a look of dawning revelation as well.

Something inside her snapped, and Emma moved in a burst of sudden motion that had Neal flinching away. She grabbed Henry by the arm and all but ran from the apartment. She had no idea where to go except away from the situation. As far as possible.

"Emma!" Neal shouted from behind her. "Is he my son?" Heavy footfalls banged against the floor behind her as Emma raced down the stairs with Henry in tow. Just as she pushed through building's double doors, Neal called out again, sounding much closer. "I have a right to know if he is my son! Emma!?"

A hand grasped her shoulder and Emma lashed out without breaking stride, driving a kick into Neal's shin. The man cursed and dropped, and Emma did not stop running until she put several twists and turns between her son and the man, finding refuge in an alley between two towering brick buildings.

She let herself lean against one and dropped her face into her hands. She wanted to curl up and pretend it was all a dream.

Henry huffing, puffing, and gasping for air beside her stood as a stark reminder of just how real the situation was.

"Emma…?" Henry's voice wavered between his labored breaths. Emma forced herself to look at her son, finding his innocent face contorted with confusion, apprehension, and a sprinkling of fear.

Please don't ask kid, she begged in silent prayer. Please just let it go.

"You told me my dad died." His voice cracked and the beginnings of tears formed at the corner of his eyes.

"Yeah…" Emma let herself slide down the wall until she sat on the ground hugging her knees.

"You told me he was a hero." The tears slipped down his cheeks and Emma felt the stinging wetness ready to release at the back of her own eyes. She closed them and nodded. "You lied to me!"

The accusation ripped through her heart without mercy, leaving the fiery burn of guilty shame behind. Henry rarely became truly angry, and she had never been on the receiving end of his righteous fury before. For a moment she considered if this is what Regina felt like every time Henry had accurately accused her of lying.

She pushed the thought away. "Henry." Her voice was thick with emotion and her vision blurred as she opened her eyes. Henry stood taller than her in this position, his fists balled and shaking at his sides. Anger and betrayal ruled his expression, and Emma held onto the desperate need to make him understand.

But no words came to her.

How the hell did she explain to a kid that she never even told his father that he existed? That she didn't think he deserved to know he had a son? Henry would not know the rage she had felt. Could not fathom a betrayal that ran so deep that it changed her life forever. Would not perceive the hopelessness she lived through. Did not remember a year spent behind bars for a crime not committed.

He would only see a woman who kept his father away from him. A mother who kept secrets from him. A person he trusted having lied to him from almost the word go.

"I'm sorry." The words left her, harsh and laced with her restrained emotions. Tears teetered on the edge of falling from her eyes. "Henry…" She did not reach out to him or try to explain, only watching as he bowed his head. She could not see his eyes behind his shaggy hair, and Emma was far from sure she wanted to.

Pounding footsteps echoed down the alley and Emma spotted Neal run into sight. He skidded to a halt, barely catching himself on the far wall, and just stood there. With his heaving chest, pajamas, and bare feet, he looked foolish. He stared at her and the kid, asking a silent question. Without a viable alternative, Emma nodded.

Neal took a deep breath and seemed to brace himself, walking over to Henry with a determined gait. Her son watched him as well, his anger replaced with a cautious curiosity. As Neal knelt before her son, Emma wondered when it had been decided that she would be fate's plaything.

"So…" Neal said, awkward as could be while spending long seconds searching for something to say. "You like pizza?"

Emma let her head bang against the wall behind her.

E/N: We're chugging right along, aren't we? I'm excited to delve into the messy familial dynamic that is Rumplestiltskin-Neal-Henry, which has parallels that practically beg me to explore.

Much of the time, I see Neal get treated awfully by this fandom. While he certainly is deserving of criticism, there's still a good deal of redeeming qualities about the guy. I hope to show him in a balanced light in that regard. He made mistakes, he took the path of least resistance, but hey, he cares. Whether it's enough to ever get into Emma's good graces remains to be seen.

In any case with that, I want to be clear. There is absolutely no way Swan Thief will ever approach happening in this fic outside of flashbacks. There are just some things relationships cannot recover from.

As for the more fun stuff, Drunk!Regina is an idea that's oft-explored by Swen, and I could not resist myself. Though my take is much less humorous due to the situation, I find it helps break the ice on Regina's defenses just a bit. She won't be happy about that though, which will spill into the future somewhat.

And by gods do I think I need to do a Snow chapter soon. I keep on getting her in a relatively negative light, and she deserves a chance to shine from her own PoV.

Next chapter, though, will be either a Henry chapter or another Interlude with multiple PoVs. It basically comes down to how long Henry's scenes end up being.

Until then, please leave your thoughts on the chapter! Was Neal realistically portrayed in this alternate line of events? Do Emma and Regina's interactions show them growing closer at a glacial place? Can Emma ever catch a break? If you have a notion, please let me know.

I love feedback, it gives me strength!