Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

General Note: This chapter contains spoilers for the Season 5 finale.

PART II

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

MR. QUACKINGTON

(flashback)

Little Emma ran out of the movie theater after being scared by the stranger usher. It was only when she reached the lobby that she realized the lady's billfold was still clutched her hands. She'd only meant to lift a few dollars and then put it back.

Panicky, Emma tried to decide what to do. She didn't have a ticket stub to get back in. Should she wait for the people to leave the movie and try to sneak the wallet back into the woman's purse? She could just leave it at the concessions stand or in the trash by the door...

"Hey, that's her!"

Emma turned. It was the lady.

Crap.

She dropped the wallet and she ran.

She made it onto the sidewalk before another usher caught her and the lady snapped, "You filthy little street rat. I'm calling the police!"

"I'm sorry," Emma cried. "I just needed money for the bus. I didn't mean to take it all, I swear. Please, can't I just go home?"

"Sorry, Kid," the usher told her. "I know I didn't tear your ticket. You got two strikes."

Neal took a moment to assess his person after recorporealizing inside the elevator. That done, and with a mental note to make Regina pay somehow, he turned his attention to Emma sitting against the back wall with her legs pulled up to her chest and her face buried in her knees, crying.

"Regina was just trying to wind you up," he explained, startling Emma who quickly wiped at her eyes and nose with the sleeve of her sweeter, "to get me in here. Not sure if she was trying to be considerate in a sneaky and kinda cruel way or punish me for bringing up the we-might-be-related thing."

Emma sniffled, narrowed her eyes and waved her hand. Nothing happened.

Neal frowned. "Did you just try and poof me back out of here?"

"...no..."

"Yeah, you totally did!"

"Okay, so maybe I want to be alone!"

"Well, your magic doesn't seem to think so."

"Fuck magic," Emma grumbled.

"Yeah, I hear you there," agreed Neal. "You realize we're both gonna be stuck here until you calm down, right?"

"You'd better get comfortable then. Hope you peed before coming down to join in the Emma Swan Freak Show," Emma snarked.

"Well, the elevator is just a cage above like a hundred foot pit or something, so pretty sure disposing of bodily fluids aren't a problem," Neal pointed out and Emma just harumphed.

Neal sighed and sat down next to her. "What's going on, Em? You resigned as Sheriff?"

She shrugged. "Wasn't really my thing."

"I thought you enjoyed it," Neal countered, confused. "You liked protecting people, doing good. I mean, I get that things went a bit astray on account of your father and Hook-"

"I only took the job as an excuse to be near Henry, okay?" she snapped, cutting him off. "It was all a big act. Just like everything!"

"Everything?"

Emma huffed. "Yes, everything. The whole bullshit spell my mother had cast on me before I was born that made me the Savior, not cause I actually have any savior-like qualities! I was only even a bounty hunter for a year! A year, Neal! I made fun of you having a shitty life in New York, but only because up until a year before Henry found me I was a pathetic loser on the run from a probation violation ever since I got out of jail.

"After I got out, I was supposed to check in with my probation officer," Emma explained, "but instead of ran off to Tallahassee stupidly hoping you'd be there and that it was all a big mistake. But you weren't, so I stayed until I almost got caught, then I never stayed anywhere more than a year."

Neal gave her a surprised and rather guilty look. "So what did you do?"

Shrugging, Emma answered, "Odd jobs, some petty theft if I couldn't get a legit job waiting tables or temping. Slept in the Bug a lot."

Frowning, she continued, "But I let Henry think I reformed right off, that I was a hero hauling in bad guys while I wasn't raising him. He was so sure I was a hero, someone special, so how could I break his heart and tell him that Regina was right, that I really was a criminal loser pretending to be a hero.? How could I tell him that I only became a bounty hunter as part of a deal to get out being thrown back in jail when I accidentally got a woman killed."

Sniffling, Emma held out her phone which had the obituary of her late frenemy with a picture. "I even started dressing like her, like it was a superhero costume, but I never earned it. I just stole it from an innocent woman who was trying to find her kid. And you know what? I thought I was doing some great thing by finding the girl and telling her that her mom was looking for her - but she was dead! She was crying and I bought a jacket at her shop. Who does that? I didn't even have the balls to tell her that it was my fault her mom was dead, that she'd never get to know her. I just bought this fucking jacket and left!"

She pulled the jacket off and threw it on the elevator floor. "Then I got the chance Cleo never had and I ruined it so badly that Henry would have been better off if I'd died instead of you. Or Robin! You both died because of me!"

"Hey, it wasn't just you," Neal told her. "I died because of Zelena and my father. And Robin died here too when you had nothing to do with it."

"But I didn't save him either! I was in New York. And it was my fault before. I let Hades out of The Underworld! I even had a drunken make-out session with a douchebag at his funeral," sighed Emma. "I mean, sure, Hook was miraculously back from the dead and according to Henry's book what everyone saw was just a beautiful moment between two lovers-"

"As opposed to a spirited bout of Skanko-Roman wrestling," Neal quipped. "Thanks for holding back and not fucking all over my headstone by the way."

"I was drunk, okay?"

"You know you're an alcoholic, right?"

"I think alcoholism is the least of my problems," Emma moped, "though it's just one more thing to add to the list of why Emma Swan is a big fat loser impostor."

"Naw, Hook is worse. He's way fatter and loser-er," Neal tried to cheer her up, but it didn't work.

"I know you think I'm a loser, Neal," Emma argued. "I'm a disappointment. And I'm an awful parent. I only ever paid attention to Henry when he was in danger... and even then only half the time. As soon as Hook showed up, I'd abandon him to go make out like the horny teenager he was supposed to be. Just because I never let myself actually be a horny teenage slut when I was a teenager didn't give me the right to decide to be one at thirty because I had parents to annoy when I had a son who depended on me. I couldn't even be honest with him about who I was. Even Regina came clean about all her shit - well, apart from the raping, but I can't really blame her for that, because how do you explain that to an eleven year old..."

"Yeah, not easily. Though after a year living in New York, Henry's probably pretty self-educated about a lot of stuff he wouldn't have learned until he was thirty here... if at all, so if anything, Pan's curse at least allowed him to grow up normally for a year," Neal considered.

"Yeah, but he still grew up normally as a dumbass who then was a dumbass about magic," grumbled Emma. "And I couldn't even tell him that he was being a dumbass and ground him until he was thirty because I'd just dragged him to Hell to save an alcoholic douchebag and I was putting on this badass act because I didn't want him to be embarrassed and disgusted by me, but he had to already be disgusted by me, because how could he not be after the shit I did as the Dark Swan and after that sent him running away to New York with his personality-challenged girlfriend."

"Never a fan of Violet, huh?"

"She did end up sleeping with my husband and the jury's still out on how consensual it was," huffed Emma. "Considering she ran off with Henry to New York to destroy magic, she obviously had shitty judgment!"

"Well, I can't disagree there."

Frowning, Emma asked, "Were you really on a quest to destroy magic? I mean, I know you were trying to protect yourself from your father, but-"

"Naw. I mean, I did research a bit," Neal admitted, "but nothing as hardcore as what Henry got up to. He obviously misinterpreted what I said-"

"And thanks to that hoe whom I've always thought looked too much like Regina for it to be healthy," said Emma, "it all turned into a massive clusterfuck."

"Foolish teenage love does that. Destroying magic. Running to Hell for a drunk dbag pirate."

Emma smirked. "Thanks."

"You set yourself for that one, Em.

"Anyway, what was I saying?" Neal scratched his head, "right, destroying magic. Naw, it wasn't a master plan or anything. I didn't want anything to do with magic, but I did want some protection. Knew my old man would come looking because of you, so I figured I'd be prepared if I could be. I didn't know what would be coming for me, if it would be the demon I left, and I'd had a decade to lose sleep about it and imagine the worst."

"Considering you died, I'd say 'the worst' happened," sighed Emma. "If you'd succeeded..."

"Then what? It'd still have been a mess. All I'd have done is destroyed the magic that came from our world, not this one. It wouldn't have eliminated any real threats. And it wouldn't have guaranteed we'd get a second chance either. That's why I stopped looking, never made that appointment. You got to Storybrooke and I knew... I knew it was stupid to think I'd have a second chance with you. And who was I to decide to wipe out magic, anyway?"

"Someone smarter than almost everyone else in this family," sighed Emma. "You wouldn't have used a demonic drinking cup to destroy a divine phallic crystal. And getting rid of the magic your father brought here isn't a bad thing. It's basically part of what we're doing here, isn't it?"

"Well, that and destroying a shit-ton of dusty old books."

"Which we wouldn't be doing if I'd gotten things right last time," sighed Emma. "If I'd turned my life around after prison, got my GED, got a real job, actually... I don't know... educated myself even a little. Which is maybe why I liked this act too much," she admitted. "I got to look badass smart and no one ever questioned it, but I didn't have to actually be smart, because no one else here is. I mean, next to my mom I look like a genius.

"Regina, your dad, Belle, they're only ones around here to seem to be remotely intelligent beyond magic and heraldry crap," Emma continued, "so I could look badass and still be a dumbass and no body would care that their savior acted like the idiot high school dropout she was. It's all about image with fairy tales. I got so caught up in trying to look the part, if I'd forgotten who I was playing a bounty hunter, I really forgot being a savior and a princess. Not that there was anything to miss. I forgot the real me, the better me, a long time ago. Maybe not as long ago as Regina, but that good me is all the same just a small spec somewhere deep in my soul that I literally lost being a selfish dumbass. How can you possibly respect that?"

"I don't," Neal conceded, "but I also don't think you're a loser," he argued. "I just feel even more guilty I let August do that to you, honestly, that going to prison sucked the good potential out of you, left you to a life we were trying so hard to escape to be the good people we both knew that we could and had always wanted to be. It just didn't occur to me that you'd try and find me after sending you the Bug-"

"And the money that you never actually did."

"And that," sighed Neal.

"Why didn't it occur to you?"

He shrugged and answered, "I guess I didn't think you loved me enough to still love me enough after that to want anything to do with me."

"I stole those watches for you," Emma argued. "We were going to run off together and start a life together. A real life."

"I know. I guess I just have a history of people lying about how much I matter to them," Neal replied and concluded, "It was easy to fall back on that and assume you didn't love me as much as I loved you. You were always gonna be my one true love, Emma, but the way my life had gone... didn't seem likely I'd always be yours. And I wasn't."

"Because you left!" Emma snapped.

"And I came back, but you still didn't choose me," Neal reminded. "You didn't even try to be friends."

"Because you were a jerk with a fiancee at first! And because I was afraid of falling back in love with you! I'd never loved anyone that much and losing you hurt! Even after ten years it hurt!"

"I dunno," Neal argued. "You acted like you loved Hook a hell of a lot more than you loved me, Emma. Love or 'in love', either way, I fell short. You never grieved me, Emma."

"I know," Emma conceded, dropping her head. "I don't think I could, not after starting in Neverland. That tore me up, and then you were back, so I didn't have to. And then you were gone and I knew I'd fall apart. I wouldn't be able to maintain the act I was so... invested in. Everyone would see who I really was: that blind-sided, brokenhearted girl whose happy ending had just been snatched away, who didn't have the first fucking clue how to deal with that."

"I'm sorry," Neal exhaled. "I'm sorry that I broke your heart, Emma."

"You broke me too," Emma told him with a shake of her head. "I could never be the same person after that, not when the good person I was got used so badly. Or I thought got used. Finding out the truth really sucked. Losing you again sucked even worse. Then I really couldn't ever be the good person I was back then. It hurt too much to be her again."

She snorted and amended, "But lucky me, I got my soul sucked out so then everything that happened before was numb and all I had was a weird soul-seeking-darkness-craving infatuation with Hook which just ruined me even more."

Emma slouched and kicked her legs out in front of her like a petulant child, crossing her arms before huffing, "Maybe I would have been able to find some... some better version of me, actually been able to become the hero Henry thought I was if you hadn't died instead of just pretending and failing and then not even trying to pretend anymore, because being an asshole was so much easier when everyone was there telling me what a good person I was and that I needed Hook to knock walls down and be a real woman until I just lost my identity and was basically a reflection of him with a vagina - and Jesus, it all sounds like some nineteen sixties anti-feminist garbage from Mad Men! So I'm not just a bad savior, a bad daughter, and a bad mother, I'm also a bad woman on top of it all!"

Emma dropped her head back into her hands.

"Why didn't I save you?" she cried. "Everything would have been so much different if I'd just been stronger! If I hadn't been so afraid of being me... or that it was too late to be that me... or I don't even know, just that you deserved that Emma that day in the forest, not a selfish, scared, screwed up impostor who just left you there and then didn't even take the time to get you a properly engraved headstone."

She scoffed. "I should have used that serum of Jekyll's to suck out this selfish, jacket-armored bitch. Even if I couldn't have killed her, I'd have at least had to face that this part of me isn't a hero, isn't good, isn't even nice, is just a costume that selfish criminal loser's been using to fake everyone out the same as all the other villains. And that real me really is a scared, lonely orphan who's never strong enough to fight that. Regina did a better job of fighting her dark side and she's a mass-murdering rapist. And I couldn't even admit what a fraud I was when she told me I was good, that every day since getting to Storybrooke has been the extension of a lie stemming from guilt over getting an innocent woman killed. What does that say about the kind of savior I am?"

"That you're one who got really screwed up and never had the guidance you should have had?" Neal answered and shrugged. "I get thinking you're a loser and pretending you're okay, Emma. My life wasn't that great. I told you I could never get a good job either, never stayed in one place until the statute of limitations ran out. I kept trying to turn my life around, but it never worked running from the past. I came to the conclusion that I was cursed, that it was magic and the price I was paying. Til you got to Storybrooke, then Tamara showed up, and I thought maybe I'd succeeded in my part, maybe I was getting my chance."

"That worked out so well," snorted Emma.

"Yeah, think about it, though. If you'd made something of your life, if you'd done anything else but become a bounty hunter at that moment, trapping yourself in Boston to work off your debt, you wouldn't have been there for Henry to find you. Your motives were selfish, but they got you where you needed to be to find the selfless part of you again."

"A lot of good that did, though."

"Maybe in the longterm, but in the shortterm, you did do good, Emma," Neal reminded. "I know you did. Don't tell me that good part of you didn't really want to help people and that it was just for Henry."

"I did," Emma admitted, "but it all went sideways after I broke the Curse. I never had a chance to be honest with anyone, even if it ever did cross my mind. I got branded The Savior, the woman I was pretending to be to be a hero for Henry, who could stand up to the Evil Mayor. No one would have taken seriously a dork in glasses and flannel who ran away from her problems instead of facing them, who took the easy way out every time."

"Maybe not," Neal conceded. "Maybe Henry screwed it all up by taking the initiative and speeding things along before the Curse was supposed to be broken. Maybe you were supposed to eat that pastry and Henry was supposed to wake you up."

"Or you," Emma told him. "Maybe that was supposed to get you here. Maybe that was supposed to be our true love happily ever after moment."

"Maybe, but that's not how it happened."

"No, it's not. Instead you died and I ended up with a thing for assholes."

Frowning, Emma amended, "You're the only not-asshole I loved, you know?"

"I guess that should make me feel special," quipped Neal.

"It should!" Emma insisted. "Every other guy I've been with has been a total creep. I mean, I didn't even really think about Graham that way until he drunk threw a dart at my head and then drunk kissed me against my will. And Walsh acted like he thought I was a client who'd called with some ridiculous accusation about faulty furniture, so basically insulted me a lot, then took me out to dinner when he 'realized' that wasn't me and drunk kissed me. Hook physically assaulted me a lot, made rape jokes, and then drunk kissed me-"

"And I dragged you to a bar," Neal recalled. "That's kind of a messed up pattern, Emma. You seriously equate falling in love with assault and alcohol? When did that happen?"

"Who are you, Archie?" Emma huffed. "I don't know! Maybe that married asshole I dated when I tried being a nanny after realizing you weren't coming to Tallahassee! But I was really lonely and I wanted to know things still worked down there and... it just... happened."

Emma glared. "Stop judging me!"

"I'm not-"

"That's your 'I am judging you' face, Neal!"

"Okay, fine, I'm judging you! I'm judging you as someone who got messed up before you were born and then had more chapters of crap piled on top of that until you got twisted into a shitload of emotional and psychological knots and don't even know who you are anymore.

"And that's sad, Emma," he sighed. "It's seriously not good. You gotta work through all these hang-ups and defense mechanisms you acquired to survive and figure out who you are. Believe me, I know, it's hard. Saying you just got some walls that need tearing down is bullshit people who don't know anything about real suffering spout to feel like they get it and are being helpful. It's not about walls and it sure as shit is not healthy to have them torn down before you're ready just because some asshole who watches Dr. Phil thinks it's what you need."

"Hook does really like Dr. Phil," sniffled Emma.

"Well, he is bald and loved for being an asshole to people with serious emotional and psychological problems. I'm sure he gives Hook hope that even without his hair he can still have a fanbase."

Emma snorted. "Probably."

Neal let out a sigh before telling her, "Look, Em, magic fucked us both over, kept us from ever realizing our potential, ever being happy. Kept us fugitives from the law 'til it wanted us to settle down, be in the right place, you for Henry to find you, me for my old man to show up and finalize the whole reason for casting it in the first place. So maybe we coulda been better people, done great things, been heroes without magic. Maybe we both have it in us to be more than losers or pretenders, to be good parents. Magic kept us from ever being able to exercise that free will. Just means there's a lot of nasty habits to unlearn is all."

"I'd say it's more than a lot," Emma argued, "when they lead to an incestuous family orgy and an antichrist."

"You know, I'd have had money on my half-sibling being the antichrist and your second spawn as the runner up," mused Neal. "Didn't see it being your grandkid. I guess that exorcism meant it had to get transferred to someone, and who better than the descendant of two Dark Ones-"

"And two idiots pretending to be heroes whose bad advice led to the whole mess in the first place," sighed Emma. "I really don't like my parents."

"Yeah, not a fan of 'em either. Or mine. Or, really, any parents here, ourselves included. We suck."

"We really do."

Emma kicked at the elevator's cage door again and considered, "You know, even if what I did to get that potion was all a con, I still did it for love. That was my first and last act of legit true love."

"You kissed Henry awake."

"Out of guilt. Because I failed. Every act of true love I've done since has been out of guilt for hurting people, for not believing them, for messing with their lives. And every act of true love I haven't done has been out of fear of failure.

"I wish I could find you in the Echo Caves all over again," sighed Emma, "and tell you that I didn't really mean that I wanted you dead, that I was just scared because I'd never stopped loving you and I didn't know how to go through losing you again, not knowing you were never trying to hurt me, that you left me for love, that you wanted to be with me and be Henry's father. Facing that pain was the one good piece of advice my mom gave me, and I should have listened... but I didn't. I pushed you away and I listened to all the fairy tale bullshit advice, crap that's probably half my fault my mom was even saying because of how I changed the past, changed my parents' story by inserting myself and Hook into it..."

"Maybe, but that didn't happen here," said Neal. "Means they could improve. Plus... the whole syphilis brain transplant pixie dust detox thing's gotta eventually have some positive gains you'd think."

"Hard to offset the mass-murder side-effect, though."

"True," conceded Neal.

Emma let out another sigh. "I really fucked up, Neal. I gave Hook your happy ending. I fought for him. Fought too hard because I didn't fight for you. I let him in when he didn't deserve it, because I pushed you away when you deserved to have a family. Because of me at least four parents, good people, didn't get to see their kids grow up. And I'm sorry," she apologized, crying again. "I'm sorry I keep helping the bad guys win, I'm sorry I keep giving up on the good guys. I don't even know why!"

Shaking her head, she lamented, "It was supposed to be us having those stupid magical adventures. It was supposed to be us watching Henry have his first kiss. We were supposed to get married, have more babies, watch them grow up and give us grandkids and have awesome jobs we loved and a house by the beach. I wanted that. A part of me always did and always mourned that it was never going to happen. I want to believe that's the only thing that kept my heart from turning entirely black - that I did truly love you... even if I realized it too late and had to keep it buried so deep in order to find happiness and love in life without you. Even if the rest of me had to change, even if I had to really become that badass jerk in a leather jacket to live that life, even if any part of Emma who loved you that was still left after Tallahassee had to die and be reborn as a morally corrupt asshole- that spark was still there."

"I think you always carry your first true love in your heart, that first person you want to spend the rest of your life with," Neal told her, "no matter what comes after. The others fade, but the first is something special, whether it lasts or not. You were mine, Emma."

"And you were mine and it was special, what we had," Emma agreed. "And it was so much more than all of this fairy tale bullshit, Neal. We were just us, two messed up kids together against the world, not putting on any acts or airs or with crazy responsibilities. I think... I only ever really knew myself when I was with you, and that's what made me the most mad when I lost you."

Hanging her head, she explained, "I became such an awful person after you left me, then you came back and for a short while I remembered the person I used to be, that good person who didn't want to be a criminal, who only did bad things to get by. But then you were gone again, so I couldn't ever be her again, and I was so angry that you made me remember her and that I had to become such a bitch to survive without you! So I had to forget you again, shove all that down, go back to being the bad boy's girlfriend, the selfish bitch who only cared about herself and didn't think about why she was that way, or I'd never be able to deal with it all - with all of this. And that just destroyed me, everything good and special about me. I just became like everyone else here."

"So now you gotta unbecome like them," Neal told her. "You gotta push back against this fake-ass story that says good people get punished and bad people get rewarded. That says true love is strangers eye-fucking. Magic's a mess and this magic is gonna infect the magic of this world - already has started to - and then it's magical Armageddon all over again. You know the truth, Emma, you see through the lies now that no one else can."

"You see through them too."

"But I don't have magic. I'm not The Savior. I'm just a guy who dresses like a hobo."

"You really do. Seriously, you gotta do something about that," Emma sniffled.

Neal smirked. "Fine, I'll buy actual full-price clothes if you stop dressing like a dead woman and forgive yourself. You have to find a way or this is all for nothing. For whatever selfish reasons your parents cast that spell on you, they did try to save you when Regina cast the Curse.. They did believe you'd grow up to save everyone. Maybe they didn't know what they really needed saving from, that it's something deeper and grander than a plot device, but they believed in you."

"And they also believed that true love," Emma snorted, "is supporting each other doing incredibly stupid things that hurt innocent people. They helped make me into the bad person I don't want to be."

"So don't be that person."

"I'm trying," Emma griped, "but I'm a mess, Neal! And this family of jerks isn't making it any easier! I mean, every time I try and make things right with my parents, they go and fuck it all up! Like literally this time. They fucked me up even more by fucking. And who the hell uses a rubber ducky as a dildo! They ruined Mr. Quackington!"

"Mr. Quackington?" Neal lifted a brow. "Wait... that rubber ducky you insisted watch us have sex in that motel bathtub that time? You parents actually-"

Emma glowered. "It was a hotel with a fancy bath and I turned him to look away."

"Okay, okay! I know, I was joking!" Neal defended, remembering that he thought it was kind of adorable that she had brought a childhood toy to enjoy their stolen romantic bubble bath, and then she'd gotten on his case for not knowing who Burt and Ernie were.

"My father had Mr. Quackington's head up my mother's vagina and he was squeaking. SQUEAKING! It was awful, Neal. It was bath toy abuse!"

"I'm never gonna be able to unsee that image," Neal winced.

"You're never going to be able to unsee it!? I WAS THERE! I'll never be able to take a bath ever again!"

"Because you walked in on your parents banging with your childhood toy?" Neal questioned. "That's... extreme. I mean, I get it's gross and disturbing and you might have nightmares about it for awhile-"

"I was molested, okay!"

AN: The lines about Emma losing herself and becoming Hook are inspired by an Inside Amy Schumer song in which a female lead sings about how her true love is defined by her losing her identity and turning into a reflection of her double - which he finds extremely hot and leads to them having sex.

Next up: Emma got molested...