Not My Homeland Anymore

Chapter 8: Though I Can't Recall Your Face

Emma woke up early the next Saturday morning. (She'd planned to leave the previous evening, but had ended up talking to Mary Margaret until late and had been too tired to drive four hours back to Boston.)

She checked her bag one last time to make sure she had everything- the toothbrush she'd borrowed from Neal Cassidy's apartment, along with two spit-filled tubes carefully labeled HM and ES. (For such a curious kid, it was kind of strange that Henry hadn't asked any questions when she'd handed him the tube and told him what she needed.)

Suddenly, she thought about something Mary Margaret had said when she'd first moved in, something that she still thought sounded a bit nuts.

But what did she have to lose?

Before Emma could think twice about it, she'd dashed into the bathroom and grabbed her roommate's toothbrush.

This is crazy, she thought, but still dropped the brush in another bag, labelled it MMB, and put it next to Neal's.

As she crossed the town line, she felt a slight jolt, as though the ground beneath the car had shuddered ever-so-slightly.

She'd probably imagined that, right?


Neal woke up to the feeling of something shaking beneath him.

Blinking slowly, he realized that it wasn't the bed that was shaking- it was the room.

An earthquake? Quickly, he hopped out of bed, pulled on his slippers, shoved his phone and wallet into his pockets, and dashed out the bedroom door. Then he froze.

Neal knew what he ought to be doing right now. He should be dashing out the door and evacuating the building as quickly as possible.

But there were things in this apartment he couldn't risk losing. Running back into his bedroom, he reached under his bed and grabbed the box he kept down there. Then he snatched the dreamcatcher off of the wall, dropped it in the box in his hands, and fled.

Strangely, the only thought that came to mind was an absolutely trivial banality.

Aw man, I'm going to need to buy a new toothbrush, aren't I? And he had just gotten a new one a few days ago!


Regina had an absolute mess to deal with. The earthquake that had woken her up way too early in the morning had gone right down Main Street and completely destroyed the asphalt around the library.

Luckily, the building itself didn't seem to have taken too much damage (that clock was still working far-too-smoothly), but it was completely inaccessible. The librarian had managed to get out, and was apparently being put up at the inn behind the diner, which was one less hassle for her to have to worry about- he was a city employee, and it would have been her responsibility to make sure he was taken care of.

Now she just… had to figure out how to get the street fixed, make sure that her friend in the basement wasn't responsible for these disturbances, and convince her people that everything was under control.

Oh, and keep Henry away from the chaos. Not exactly simple when his normal Saturday occupation wasn't exactly avaliable.

"Henry, please just go home!"

"But I want to see!"

"Henry!"

"Can I help you?" The librarian had appeared out of nowhere, standing on the street in front of the diner with a box in his hands.

"Huh?" Regina turned to look at him, still gripping Henry's wrist in her hand.

"I'll watch Henry," the librarian said. "It's really no trouble. It's not as though I have work or anything."

Regina considered this for a moment. She had to get this situation under control, and she couldn't do that with Henry getting in the way. Besides, Miss Swan had apparently left town, which meant that the other woman wouldn't be able to interfere.

"Keep him safe," she instructed.

"Of course," the young man said. "You can trust me."


"Alright, here's the plan, Henry," Neal said, opening the door to the room Ruby had told him he was more than welcome to use for as long as he needed. "I'm going to leave my things here, and then I need to go out and buy a few things. And you are coming with me."

"What kind of things?" Henry asked curiously, as Neal put the box down on the small desk in the corner.

"Clothes," Neal said, looking down at the pajamas he was still wearing. "Not to mention a toothbrush, some food, and whatever else I might need over the next few weeks or months until the road is fixed up."

"Oh," said Henry, frowning. "Hey, what happened to the book?"

"I thought you took it with you yesterday?" Neal said, exiting the room and locking the door behind him.

"Well, yeah, but I left it with Emma, and she dropped it in the return slot before she left town last night," the boy explained.

"Oh. Oh," Neal said, understanding. "I'm so sorry, Henry. Hopefully the stuff in the return box didn't get too damaged, and it'll still be there when they clear out the road."

"But couldn't we-"

"No, we are not climbing over the rubble and digging through what used to be the library to try and find one book that may or may not have been destroyed in the earthquake," Neal said, predicting the boy's next question. "Your mother would kill me. I'm sorry, Henry."


Trying on clothes was taking Mr. Cassidy forever.

"Are we going to do anything besides shop?" Henry called into the changing room behind him.

"I just need to try on these shirts, and then I think I'm good," Mr. Cassidy called back. "We'll drop this stuff off at Granny's, and then we can do whatever you want- within reason."

Which was something, at least.

Bored, Henry wandered over to the shop window, watching as two kids he vaguely recognized from school left the drugstore across the street, chased by Mr. Clark.

What's that about? Just as he was about to walk out the door and follow them, he heard Mr. Cassidy call his name.

"Alright, Henry, I think I'm done here." The librarian walked out of the dressing room, dressed in a shirt, jeans, and the sneakers he'd bought at the shoe store. He left the stuff he hadn't liked in the bin, grabbed a few extras of the things he had liked in various colors, and then they went to pay.


After leaving the various purchases in his room, Neal and Henry went on a walk, exploring parts of town Henry told him he hadn't really seen before. (At least, the safer parts. Neal was not about to take Henry somewhere the kid might get into actual danger.)

Trying to make it interesting for Henry (he really didn't want Henry to run off somewhere), Neal suggested they try to hide behind the trees- which was how they went unnoticed by two kids approaching one of the houses on the other side of the street.

"Hold on, what are those kids doing?" For some reason, rather than going up to the front door, they'd snuck around to the back of the house. "Henry, do you recognize them? Are they in your school?"

"Yeah, I think so," Henry said. "I saw them running out of the drug store earlier, while you were trying on clothes. Mr. Clark didn't look happy- he was trying to stop them."

"That's…" Neal trailed off, unsure what you ought to do with that information. Two kids running out of a drug store while pursued by the pharmacist, and then sneaking into a house that probably wasn't theirs? That sounded all kinds of sketchy. The question was, what should he do about it?

Neal wasn't sure what to do- if someone was taking advantage of those kids, he had to help. But at the same time, he didn't want to bring Henry into a potentially unsafe situation. Should he call Graham?

And then he realized that while he'd been standing there deliberating, Henry had already followed the kids and was in the middle of trying to climb over the fence.

"Henry!" Running after him, Neal found himself staring at a dirty-looking door attached to the back of a house. Before he could say anything, Henry had already pulled the door open and headed inside. Following him, Neal watched as the two kids already inside turned around and looked at them. They both looked terrified.

"Alright, what's going on here?"


Henry wasn't sure exactly how he, Mr. Cassidy, and the two kids (Ava and Nicholas Zimmer, apparently) had ended up back in Mr. Cassidy's room at Granny's. Nicholas and Ava, who both seemed kind of nervous, were explaining how they'd ended up staying in that abandoned house, and with each word, Mr. Cassidy looked more and more… something. Henry couldn't tell exactly what it was the librarian was feeling. Tired? Sad? Angry?

The story sounded a bit familiar to him, when he compared it to what he knew from the book. Brother and sister, lost, no parents. Hansel and Gretel!

And now Mr. Cassidy was asking the twins something about their dad. They both shook their heads, and Henry tried to remember what he knew about Hansel and Gretel's father in the book, but nothing came to mind. He didn't remember much about that particular story- it had been short, and not nearly as interesting as a lot of the others, so he hadn't reread it as much as the stuff about Snow White and Prince Charming.

"And your mom didn't tell you anything about him?" Mr. Cassidy asked.

"No," Ava said firmly. "We don't know anything."

"So then how-" Mr. Cassidy's eyes widened and he whirled around, picking up the box he'd left when they'd first come this morning. "I have an idea."


"You know, my mom wasn't around much," Neal said, looking down at the box in his hands- all he'd managed to get out of the apartment.

Not around much was something of an understatement, actually. Neal had never heard his father say a bad word about his ex-wife, but people in small towns talked, and it wasn't all that hard to put the pieces together.

It wasn't all that unusual of a story, really. His mother had been young woman enamored with uniforms, and his dad, an aging armyman who knew his days in the service were numbered, had been flattered by the attention and allowed himself to be talked into an ill-advised marriage with a girl half his age.

But while life as the young bride of a war vet might have seemed charming, the realities of being married to a debt-ridden tailor who couldn't even walk without a cane hadn't been nearly as romantic, at least not to Camila Robertson Cassidy. And then Dad had talked her into having a kid, and it all went even further downhill from there. She'd taken off with a Navyman five or ten years her junior a week before Neal's fourth birthday.

He didn't really remember her, and had never cared to know more about the woman who'd abandoned him and his dad. (As an adult, he'd gained a bit more sympathy for her circumstances, although not enough to actually have any interest in finding her.)

"So what?" Ava asked, interrupting his musings.

"I told Dad I didn't care about her, that I didn't want or need anything of hers, but he didn't listen." Opening the box, Neal dug past the dreamcatcher and uncovered the bag he'd barely touched since returning to Storybrooke. He unzipped the front pocket and pulled out a thick metal bangle. "He saved this for me. I guess he thought I might want something to remember her by."

Henry was staring at the band with a confused expression, as though it was a puzzle piece that didn't fit right. Nicholas and Ava, however, barely glanced at it before looking away.

"What does that have to do with us?" Nicholas said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Did your mom have anything like that?" Neal asked. "Something she set aside for you kids that she'd gotten from your father?"

"She might have," Ava said, looking up at him. "Why do you care?"

"Because you kids need someone to take care of you," said Neal, meeting her gaze. "And maybe I can use it to help you find your dad."

"And if he can't, my mom might be able to!" Henry interjected. "She's great at finding people."

"Isn't your mother the mayor?" Nicholas asked, sounding confused.

Rolling her eyes, Ava pulled an old, cracked compass out of her pocket and handed it to Neal.

"Don't lose it," she demanded, and Neal nodded.

"Why don't I get you kids something to eat, and then we'll see what we can do about finding him, okay?"

As they headed down to the diner, Neal heard the honk of a car horn somewhere outside and remembered something else he'd meant to do today.

The mechanic's is just a few doors down from here, he thought. I can be in and out in a few minutes, no problem.

He really ought to wait, he knew. Ava and Nicholas needed to eat, and he had to track down their father. But he was worried about his car…

"Henry," he said, glancing down at the kids. "Take the Zimmers to the diner and let them order whatever they want- tell Ruby it's on me."

"Okay?" Henry said, sounding confused.

"I need to check in at the auto shop," he explained. "I shouldn't be more than a few minutes."

Henry nodded, and Neal dashed down the stairs, down the hall, and out the door, not even pausing to warn Ruby what about the three prepubescents about to descend upon her.


"I wondered when I was going to see you in here," Michael said, smiling as one of his favorite clients stepped into the garage. "I know how much you love that car."

"What's the prognosis, doc?" Neal asked, holding his hands together in a pleading motion. "Is my baby going to be okay?"

"Yeah, one of the doors got dented, and the paint job's pretty dinged up, but she should be good as new with in a week or two," explained Michael, clapping a hand to the younger man's shoulder.

"Thank goodness," said the librarian, sighing in relief. One of his hands slipped into his pocket, where Michael noticed a chain poking out, along with the impression of something small and round.

"What's that you've got there?" Michael asked, pointing. "Don't tell me you've started carrying around a pocketwatch?"

"Oh no," Neal said, shaking his head. He pulled out the object, and Michael gaped.

"Where'd you find that?" Taking the old compass from his younger friend, Michael ran a finger along the crack on the lens. "I haven't seen this in… I don't know how many years."

"You've seen it before?" Neal asked. "Do you who it belongs to, then? Because I need to find the owner."

"That would be be me," he replied. "I think I lost it on a camping trip-"

"Twelve years and nine months ago?" Neal interrupted.

"Yeah, that sounds… right, I guess," Michael said, confused.

"Was a woman named Dory Zimmer involved?"


Neal looked at the mechanic in front of him, who seemed to be struggling for words.

"No, it's not possible," Michael said. "I don't have twins."

"Yes, you do," Neal said, meeting his friend's eyes. "You have homeless twins."

"Excuse me?"

"I suppose 'homeless' isn't quite the word," explained Neal. "They've been living in an abandoned house since their mom died, and they need someone to step up and take responsibility for them."

"Look, I can barely manage this garage," Michael said, gesturing around him. "I can't manage two kids."

Neal sighed. He understood where the older man was coming from- if some kid showed up on his doorstep claiming to be his kid, he'd be completely lost. As of today, he didn't even have a doorstep.

So while he could yell or argue or try to guilt Michael into stepping up for the Zimmer twins, he decided to take a different approach.

"Mike, what do you remember about my dad?" At Neal's apparent non sequitur, the mechanic blinked. "Because what I remember is sneaking out of my room at night to sit at the top of the stairs and watch him sew."

"Sew?" Michael scratched his head. "Look, Neal-"

"Dad spent hours at the shop every day, working his rear off," Neal said, ignoring the interruption. "He had a lot of debt, and the only way he could afford to pay it off was to work every free moment he had. But he never opened the shop until after I'd gone to school, and he was always closed by the time I got home. When I was there, so was he. And if that meant working late into the night after I was already in bed to make up the difference, that's what he did."

"That's very nice, but-"

"Michael, my dad wasn't perfect," said Neal, shaking his head. "He was stubborn, and old-fashioned, and much stricter than any kid would have liked. But at the end of the day, none of that mattered. What mattered was that he was there."

"Neal, I can't," said Michael, looking lost. "I wouldn't know what to do with one kid, let alone two."

"Just be there," said Neal. "That's all."

"But-"

"Look, would you at least come meet them?" Neal asked. "They're right next door, eating at Granny's with Henry."

Michael closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath.

"Okay."


Pausing in front of the store, Michael down looked at the two children standing next to him.

"What are we doing here?" The girl- Ava, she'd said her name was- asked.

"Do you remember what, uh, Mr. Cassidy said when we left the diner?" Michael said.

"He told you to talk to a lawyer, right?" Nicholas answered.

"Uh-huh," Michael said, gulping nervously. "Not too many of those in a small town like this one."

He looked up at the sign on the door in front of him.

You can do this, Mike.

He reached out and pushed open the door.


Ding-ding.

Gold looked up from the case he was polishing as the door to the shop was opened.

"Mr. Tillman, good to see you again. And who do we have here?"

He recognized the children of course. Hansel and Gretel, wasn't it? Their names in this realm, however, were a mystery to him, although he'd known they weren't living with their father. In fact, he'd been under the impression that 'Michael Tillman' was unaware of their existence. So what were the three of them doing together, and why were they here?

"This is, uh, Ava and Nicholas," the former woodcutter explained, sounding nervous. "They're, um…"

"He's our dad," the little girl said, pointing up at him with her thumb. "But he didn't know about us until now."

"My belated congratulations, then," Gold said, smiling down at her. "Always a pleasure to discover that family can be closer than we realize."

"Uh-huh," Michael said, clearly not really listening. Gold noted a chain poking out of his pocket.

So he found his lost compass, then? However did that happen?

"Other than offering my felicitations, what can I do for you?" Gold asked. "I'm afraid I don't carry much in the way of things for children, but-"

"That's not what I'm here for," Mr. Tillman interrupted. "I need a lawyer."

"A lawyer, hmm?" 'Gold' did have a law degree, though it wasn't often he needed to use it. "To make sure that your custody rights are all in order, I suppose?"

"That sounds right, yeah," Michael Tillman said, shrugging. "I'm a bit over my head in all of this, but a friend of mine suggested I talk to a lawyer before anything else."

"Smart friend," Mr. Gold said, nodding. "Might I ask who this friend of yours was?" Things didn't change in Storybrooke- or, at least, they hadn't before Miss Swan came to town. But she wasn't even in town at the moment, so she most likely wasn't directly involved in this. Which meant that someone else had stepped in. And it couldn't have been young Henry, or at least not on his own; the boy had a good head on his shoulders, but Gold doubted he'd be thinking about lawyers right now. So who-

"Neal Cassidy," the mechanic said. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Gold couldn't quite place it. Which was odd- names were his stock and trade, after all. If he'd heard a name before, he wasn't likely to forget it.

Thankfully, the children seemed to notice the confusion Gold had allowed to cross his face.

"You know, the librarian?" Nicholas said.

Ah.

Gold tended to avoid the library, but he had heard something about that this morning. Apparently all of the chaos on Main Street had resulted in that young man being temporarily displaced from his home. Which had probably triggered the chain of events that resulted in Michael Tillman being reunited with his children.

Who was he back in the other world? No one of note, clearly, or Rumplestiltskin would have known of him.

But it seemed as though that might have changed… perhaps it was time to find out more about the young librarian.


"Alright, Henry, it's getting a bit late," Mr. Cassidy said as they walked out of Granny's. "I'd better walk you home before your mom gets worried."

"Wait!" Henry said, pointing. Headed in their direction was a familiar yellow bug. The car pulled to a stop in front of them and his birth mom climbed out, looking at the rubble on the other side of the street.

"What happened here?" Emma asked, looking from him to Mr. Cassidy.

"There was an earthquake this morning," explained Henry, waving his arm to gesture at the library.

"Which means that right now I'm out of a home and a job," Mr. Cassidy said, sighing. "Luckily, Ruby and Granny have plenty of spare rooms, and the town's covering both my board and the repairs."

"Oof," Emma said, wincing. "So what did you boys get up to today, then?"

"We met these kids who were living on their own in and abandoned house and Mr. Cassidy helped them find their dad!" Henry said, eager to share the story.

"Huh?" Emma asked.

"It was the Zimmer twins," Mr. Cassidy explained. "Their mom died a few years back, and their dad didn't know about them."

"So you what, just showed up at his house and dumped them on his doorstep?" Emma asked, brow furrowed.

"Not exactly," Mr. Cassidy said.

"It was the compass!" Henry said. "Just like in the book!" If he still had his book, he'd make sure that the next story they read was 'Hansel and Gretel.' It was too bad-

"By the way, I think this is yours?" Emma reached into the car and pulled out-

"The book!" Henry yelped, and grabbed it out of her hands. "I thought you returned it!"

"We were worried it had been damaged in the earthquake," Mr. Cassidy explained.

"Nope, it was totally fine in my car, where I'd kind of forgotten about it?" Emma said.

"Why don't you hold onto it?" Henry said. "Keep it in your car for our next reading session."

"Henry, we really do have to get you home before your mom starts getting worried," Mr. Cassidy interrupted. "We're walking, remember?"

"I could give you guys a ride," Emma said, shrugging. "And drop you off up the block so your mom doesn't get mad?"

Mr. Cassidy didn't seem to like that idea, but he agreed once Emma pointed out it would probably be safer than walking around at this time of night.


Neal sat in the car quietly as Henry told his birth mom about Ava's compass and how Neal had used it to track down the twins' dad.

"It really wasn't as impressive as the kid's making it out to be," he said. "I just happened to have it on me when I stopped by the Marine Garage to check on my car, and Mike happened to recognize it. It's not like I figured the whole thing out on my own."

"Accidentally or not, you managed to find their dad pretty quickly," Emma said, giving Neal a strange look.

"Emma, can you tell me about him?" Henry asked. Neal blinked, wondering who the kid was talking about.

"Tell you about who?" Emma was clearly equally lost.

"My dad."

Emma glanced at Neal, looking extremely uncomfortable. Neal imagined that this was a conversation she'd prefer to have with Henry alone.

"Tell you what, kid," she finally said, looking back out at the road. "I don't think now's the right time, but I will tell you about him some other time, alright? I promise."


Emma sat at the kitchen counter, nursing her hot cocoa (with added cinnamon, of course).

She knew she ought to be getting to bed- she was starting her new job tomorrow- but she couldn't stop thinking about her conversation with Henry.

What was I supposed to say with Neal right there? No, that wasn't right. He wasn't Neal- or, at least, not her Neal. He couldn't be. She knew that. I've got to come up with something else to call him.

Still, she'd feel a little more comfortable waiting to tell Henry about…everything… once her contact in Detroit came through with that test confirming that the Neal Cassidy of Storybrooke, Maine was not the man she'd once known.

"Emma?" Mary Margaret called, rubbing her eyes as she stumbled into the kitchen. "When did you get back?"

"Just a few minutes ago," she said, pouring what remained of her drink down the sink. "I hope I didn't wake you?"

"Oh no, I wasn't sleeping," the schoolteacher said. (She was lying, but Emma wasn't going to call her out on it.) "You got all your stuff alright? Did you need any help bringing it up and unpacking?"

"Nah, I'll deal with it tomorrow," said Emma, heading for the bathroom.

"Hey, Emma," said Mary Margaret. "Have you seen my toothbrush? I couldn't find it this morning."

"Uh, nope!" Emma replied. "I have an extra if you want- I just bought a new one, and it was part of a two-pack."

"No, thank you," said her roommate, not sounding at all suspicious. "I just wonder where it could have gotten to?"


As Neal walked up to the entrance of the bed and breakfast, he noticed a familiar-looking car parked out front.

Smiling, he headed inside, where the town's sheriff was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking anxiously towards the back, where the Lucases lived.

"You know the deal, right?" Neal said.

Graham jolted, looking startled. Apparently, he'd been so distracted he hadn't noticed Neal's entrance.

"Uh, I'm not sure what you're referring to," the older man said, glancing at the back.

"Have her home by eleven, and absolutely no funny business," said Neal, doing his best to look stern.

"What?" Graham said, still sounding confused.

"Neal!" Ruby said, stepping out from the back. "Ignore him, Graham. He thinks he's being funny."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I am completely serious," Neal said, carefully looking her over. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, nothing fancy, but she also had on a necklace he'd never seen before, and he could tell she'd taken extra care with her make-up. "He needs to know that if he hurts you, I'll break his arms."

"You and what army?" Ruby laughed. She gave him a quick hug, then headed towards the door- and Graham.

"Yeah, yeah," Neal said, smirking. "Just have a nice time, and don't get home too late, alright?"

"Good-night, Neal," she said, and Graham followed her out the door.