Here is the next installment. A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone to read, reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. I am very humbled. I hope that this chapter lives up to your expectations. I have read this so many times, I think that I am starting to read the typos as if they are correct. So please be patient with me as I walk away from it for little while to that I can reread it later with fresh eyes to correct any mistakes.

Chapter 2 - Hope

I followed my family as they walked down the street towards Granny's. The December morning had a chill in the air that was helping to set the mood for the holiday season. Henry had gotten on the bus headed for school and Emma was carrying little brother. "Neal, look at that one," when I heard my daughter's voice, I glanced to where she was pointing to see an animatronic Santa and Mrs. Claus sitting on rocking chairs in the window of Sneezy's pharmacy. In the years since the curse had broken, it had become a tradition in Storybrooke to decorate the store front windows for the holidays.

"Santa…" he yelled. He was full of excitement. He put a little hand on each side of Emma's face to make her look directly at him. "Memma…its Santa." Oh his joy was so infectious. And I was missing it. Well, maybe missing it wasn't the right word. I was able to see it all, but my heart broke a little that I couldn't share in this joy with my children. I wondered if I would remember it all when I actually woke up from the coma or would it feel like a dream that would be forgotten way too quickly.

"Yeah, I see that buddy." She snuck a quick kiss onto his little nose that was rapidly turning red in the cold weather. She used the quick motion of her hand to fix his hat, too. A simple tug on the back of it pulled it from covering his eyes. "I have an idea. How about…tonight…when Henry is home from school and me and Daddy are done with work…we will all take a walk around Storybrooke to see all of the decorated windows."

"Yeah…" he clapped with glee.

She turned to her father, "What do you say, Dad?" I was curious to see what his answer would be because he clearly was not paying attention to conversation that his children were having about their evening plans. As a matter of fact, he hadn't looked at them or even spoken to them the entire morning. His mind was out in left field and that seemed to be where it was staying. It was amazing that he was even keeping in step with Emma.

Just as I suspected, he didn't answer. I could read the look of disappointment on Emma's face like a book. Her mouth dropped opened, her eyebrows went together, and she started to tilt her head in a way that indicated that she was about question him. Whether it be out of concern or anger, either way it was coming. Until the jingle of Granny's door broke through her thoughts.

"There's my little man." A smile formed on my face at the sight of Ruby, my oldest and dearest friend. She always had a way of taking care of me, even when she or I didn't know it.

"Hey, Ruby…" Ruby reached out take Neal from Emma, but his little arms clung tighter to his sister's neck. But my Emma handled the situation like a pro by holding the little boy close as she handed his bag off to the tall woman with bright red streaks in her hair. "Here is his bag; I put extra clothes in there, just in case."

"Look at you turning into mother of the year." I knew that Ruby meant it in a lighthearted way, but I couldn't help that it felt like stab to my chest. My daughter was turning into my son's surrogate mother and there was nothing that I could do about it. Emma, of course, laughed it off just before she leaned into the little boy and whispered something in his ear. With a short kiss and a smile he released his grip on Emma and reached for Ruby.

"Remember, we have a date tonight, right?" Neal smiled and nodded his head with enthusiasm.

The women shifted their attention to David. He was standing there with his hands buried deep into his pockets. There must have been something very interesting about the pebble that he was staring at on the sidewalk. It was just a small swing of his foot that sent the pebble tumbling in the direction of Emma's shoe. Emma looked down at the small stone then brought her gaze back up to her father. She was obviously expecting him to say something but when he remained mute she huffed, "Around 5?"

Ruby gave her a sympathetic look then nodded. "Bye Neal, be good for Ruby and Granny…" Emma called out in a friendly voice. I jumped back a bit when she did a complete 180 on her father, "What the hell was that?" Her back was straight as steel and her hands settle hard on her hips. It was a stance that I had seen her father use whenever he wanted to get his point across.

"What?" The way that he said the word was awing; as if he had no idea what his daughter was questioning. What was going on with my husband?

"What!? Really? You didn't even say good bye to him. I know that Mom being in the hospital is hard on you, but guess what, Dad, it is worse on Neal. He doesn't understand what is going on or why Mom hasn't come home yet."

"Can we talk about this later?" He looked at everything but his daughter.

"No." She countered. "No, we can't talk about this later; we'll talk about it now."

"No, we won't." His response was stern. He didn't give her time to react. He turned on his heal and jetted across the street, leaving Emma standing on the sidewalk outside of Granny's in open-mouthed shock.

"Where are you going?" It was an angry question that she yelled to her father who was walking away at a rapid pace in the opposite direction of the station. He didn't answer. He didn't acknowledge her in any way. He just continued to walk. A loud 'err' rumbled out of her chest while she threw her arms up in disgust and stomped her way to the sheriff station.

"Wow…I've seen that reaction before…" I jumped at the sound of the man's voice behind me. Where did he come from? It had only been Emma and Charming present once Ruby took Neal inside the diner. Which meant that the man was talking to me; eyes wide, I slowly turned to look over my shoulder. Neal, not my Neal but Emma's Neal, was standing there with a stupid grin on his face. "Nice to see that some things never change."

"Neal?"

"In the flesh…well…in the spirit, I guess." He kept his hands in the pockets of his wool coat, but that didn't stop him from using them to gesture toward Emma. "What's her problem?"

I released an exasperated sigh, "her father."

"Well, at least it isn't me this time." His cheekiness was not something that I needed at the moment.

"What are you doing here?"

"You wished for guidance, so here I am. I'm here to guide."

I took a minute to look him over. I don't know why I was bothering to entertain this figment of my comatose imagination, but when he smiled and raised his eyebrows at me, I understood how he won Emma over so easily in her youth. He had an adorableness to him that instantly reminded me of my grandson, Henry.

I closed my eyes for a second and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. "I made that wish days ago," I breathed out.

"Yeah, well, paper work is a little behind on the other side. It's so hard to get good help these days."

"What do you want Neal?" Now he was wasting my time. I had husband and a daughter to keep tabs on.

"It's not what I want, it's what you want." With a snap of his fingers, we were no longer on the street outside of the diner. No, we were at the hospital, more specifically my room. I was surprised to find it empty, with the exception of my sleeping shell of a body. I had expected to see Charming sitting in the chair, willing me to wake. But instead, I was alone. Where did he stomp off to?

"What are we doing here? Aren't you supposed to be helping me with my family?"

"You read too many books," he laughed. He turned more serious when I didn't return his glee. "No, I brought you here to show you yourself. How long you stay in this bed is up to you. You need to make a choice to live or die."

"I want to live. There we're done. You can go back to whence you came."

"Ha. Now I see where Emma gets it…"

"What?"

"Nothing."

I was done with his antics. He said that I had to choose, well there was no choice to be made. I wanted to live. So, it was time to fix this little situation and I knew how to do it. I triumphantly straightened my back and walked directly toward my bed. I sat on the side of the bed, just as I had before I lifted myself to check on Emma several nights ago. This time, instead of swinging my legs to the floor, I lifted them to the bed. I aligned them perfectly with my shell that laid still; gently I lowered the rest of my body into my shell. "There, I'm back in my body, we can end this little charade."

"Um, no you're not." I snapped my head in his direction. He stood there hiding a smirk behind his hand. I sat up and tried again making sure that my body was perfectly in line with the shell. I sat back gently and he laughed a little harder.

"Why are you laughing? I made my decision, now help me get back into my body." At this point, I wasn't even trying to hide my annoyance with this man.

"Sorry, it's doesn't work that way."

"What do you mean…it doesn't work that way?"

"Exactly what I said, it doesn't work that way. The moment that you sat up and stepped away from the body that is in this bed was the moment that you succumbed to the 'what if.' You have that nagging wonder that keeps making you want to know what would happen if you did die."

"I have never seconded guessed that." I was appalled that he could even suggest such a thing. "Why would I ever wonder that? The last thing that I want to do is leave my family. My life is nothing without my family."

"You're life wouldn't be your life anymore." I felt the wind leave my body, like he had just kicked me in the lungs. "It is human nature to wonder what would happen if the worst would occur."

I wanted to deny his accusation, but I couldn't. I would be lying if I said that I never wondered if Charming would be able to raise Neal on his own or if Emma would build her walls back up higher and stronger. I secretly hoped that I had done something right for my family and that I wouldn't have to worry about them. But I did worry. Maybe that is what comes with being a wife and a mother.

I stood from the bed and looked down at my tattered body. I looked so helpless. The monitors kept their steady tones, ensuring that I was still in stable condition. And as much as I didn't want to give in to what Neal was saying, I had no choice.

"So what do we do now?"

"Follow me," he said. With the snap of his fingers we were gone.

"Wha…what are we doing here?" With the snap of his fingers, Neal had poofed us from the hospital room to Henry's classroom at school.

"I think that you know the answer to that question." We were standing the back corner of the classroom just by the doorway. The position gave an excellent view of the substitute teacher; who had been filling in during my absence; and the kids who filled the room. They were all attentively listening to the teacher and taking notes. Save for one boy who was sitting away from the others. Henry was slouched down at his desk fiddling with the pencil that was in his hand.

"Henry, pay attention," I admonished. Habit I guess, because the boy certainly couldn't hear me.

"The kid reminds me of myself, at that age. I think that I paid attention in school about has well as he is right now."

I glared at Neal. It wasn't just a mother glare; it was a mother mixed with grandmother mixed with teacher glare. The kind of glare that made Neal flinch when he saw my face; "Not, helping."

"Right…" Neal stepped back a half of step, "so anyway. I have no idea what is up with the kid."

"Then why did you bring me here?"

As if I wasn't annoyed enough by his actions his only answer to my question was a shrug of his shoulders. I rolled my eyes and walked away from him towards my grandson. "That right there…" I heard him say, "That was pure Emma."

"Shut up, Neal. We're not here for you to make comparisons between me and my daughter." As I approached Henry, I looked over his shoulder to the open notebook that sat on his desk. At the top of the notebook page were some notes that he had begun to write at the beginning of class, but those notes were short and soon stopped. The writing morphed into doodles which transformed into a castle surrounded by mountains and a lake. It reminded me of our castle back home in the Enchanted Forest.

I was taken aback at how well he drew my former home. I looked up to smile at him, but noticed that he was now staring out the window. I could tell that he was trying to see that far off land. He was daydreaming of that castle and what his life would have been like had we all gone back to the Enchanted Forest after the curse broke.

"Oh, Honey…" I reached out to touch his cheek. I knew that my hand would go through him so I put mine as close to his skin as I could without feeling the weird tingle that always came with getting too close, "don't torture yourself like this."

He continued to stare out the window. I heard the teacher calling his name, but I had no way to nudge him to pull him out of his reverie. I noticed that the kids were gone from the room. Although I didn't hear it, the bell must have rung to dismiss the children.

"Henry…" the teacher finally placed a hand on his shoulder to gain his attention. He looked at her wide eyed; his face turned a light shade of pink with embarrassment. "It's time to go, Henry."

He nodded his head and gathered his books to exit. "Henry…" He stopped and turned to the teacher just before he reached the door. "She's going to pull through you know…your grandmother." He gave her a half hearted smile, "she's Snow White. She and your mother are the strongest women that I know. Just have a little hope."

"Thank you, Miss Vergoose. I know, but it is also really nice to hear other that other people have hope too."

"Anytime Henry. Now go home and spend some time with your family. I think that you need it." He gave the teacher a small nod as he left the school for the day.

"What was that all about?" Neal asked as he stepped up behind me.

"Aren't you supposed to be the one guiding me?" I cocked my head and looked at him over my left shoulder.

"I guess it's more of a mutual guidance."

"Of course it is." I grabbed his arm and pulled him along as we followed Henry. The boy didn't go straight home. Which didn't surprise me; he still had close to two hours before either of his mothers or his grandfather would be home for the evening. Neal and I followed him as he walked to the pier. He sat on a bench and pulled what looked like his lunch from his book bag. And that was exactly what it was, a sandwich and a bag of chips. I had to laugh, I was certain that my daughter had packed his lunch; I think that the words fruit and vegetable were exiled from her vocabulary.

He pulled the bread of the sandwich apart and tossed it to the ducks that were swimming nearby. When the bread was gone, he moved to the bag of chips. I didn't know whether to allow my heart to break at the site or yell at him for wasting the food that Emma and David worked so hard to provide. However, soon the heartbreak won out when I noticed that he never took his eyes off of the horizon. Well, that and he couldn't hear me.

"He wants to fix it all, but he doesn't know how," I finally said to Neal.

"You got that from him feeding bread and chips to the ducks?"

"No, I got that from the fact that he hasn't stopped looking at the horizon, he drew a picture of our castle in his notebook when he should have been taking notes. He wants everything to be ok, but he has it in his head that the only possibility of that is in the Enchanted Forest. He needs to snap out of this."

"The enchanted forest? How that hell is that going to help anything?"

"It isn't, but he is desperately trying to find a solution to bring me back to the family. He has the heart of the truest believer and he believes that he can make it better. And maybe, just maybe, he can."

"Henry?" Oh, I knew that voice. It belonged to a gentle girl with long brown hair; a girl with whom Henry had been very smitten. Recently they had been spending more and more time together.

"Who is that?" Neal asked.

"Violet…" Henry looked up in surprise. I guess that he wasn't expecting her to follow him. But he didn't seem displeased.

Neal's eyes went wide when he realized just who Violet was, "That's my boy."

I rolled my eyes and backhanded the man lightly in the chest. "Shush…"

As the girl approached, Henry stood to offer her a seat next to him. They smiled at each other then gently eased down on to bench. "Is that your lunch that you are feeding to the ducks?"

"Yeah…well no…not really. It was the lunch that my Mom packed for my grandfather this morning. My grandma being in the hospital is really hitting him hard."

"What does that have to do with you having your grandfather's lunch?" She reached into the bag and pulled out a chip to toss to the ducks. They both laughed when two ducks began to fight over the chip. Henry quickly threw another one to the loser.

"My Mom has been trying really hard to fill the void that is left because my grandma isn't there. She keeps doing things that my grandma would do, like pack our lunches, make sure that my uncle had someone to keep him for the day, and keep us all in the holiday spirit. She even bought cookie dough the other day to bake cookies with Neal. But my grandpa isn't making it easy. Tensions are high between them." They both tossed a couple of chips to the ducks that were around them. "So when I came downstairs this morning, I saw him take the lunch that she packed him and shove it into my backpack. I didn't say anything; I didn't want to make any more stress for my Mom. I know that she is worried about him."

"Well, shouldn't you tell your Mom that your grandfather isn't eating right?" Violet had a look of concern on her face that morphed into a look of confusion when Henry chuckled at her question.

"No, she knows. One thing about my Mom…she can tell when anyone is lying. Which, come to think it, can be a real pain in the butt for me. But I have no doubt that she knows. And I'm sure she that when she didn't see his lunch at the station, she tricked him into go to Granny's with her for lunch."

Violet nodded her head in understanding. The two sat there for a couple of more minutes laughing at the ducks as they finished feeding them the remaining chips. My heart swelled with pride for my daughter, who stepped up to take care of her father and brother. She even baked cookies with Neal. When didn't think that I could love my daughter any more, she always did something to prove me wrong. Things were going to be ok, a little rough maybe, but ok.

"Take me home, Neal. Please?" I turned to face the man but he was gone. I called for him a couple of times, but there was no response. I looked back to my grandson, and realized that Neal was there to guide me to Henry. Henry was wise beyond his years and with the discussion the young boy had with Violet and his teacher, I learned a lot. I learned that Henry had hope for his family to pull through this tough time. And hope is a very powerful thing.