2.

"Yeah, Neal, you didn't tell me you know someone famous that I've never heard of," Emma laughed and Neal Cassidy looked more than a little confused. He didn't say anything, though, and August wasn't sure if he was being nice or if he thought he'd forgotten him.

"I'll let you guys catch up," the waitress said as August finished signing her book and he tried to motion for her to stop so he could order a drink, but she was gone again before he could. He really was going to need a drink or three for this.

Neal and Emma took a seat at the table, Emma grinning ear to ear and looking thoroughly amused that Neal was quite so uncomfortable. "So, how do you two know each other?"

The dark haired man grinned then. "It was that thing… Oh, what was it, two years ago?"

"The one in New York," August answered and then he saw the glimmer of mischief in the younger man's eye and he knew he was lying. He just wasn't sure to what end yet. "And I think it was three."

"Seems like it was more recent, but I guess you're right," he answered. "What brings you to Portland?"

August shrugged. "Hadn't been here before, thought I'd check it out."

The waitress came back with a tray full of drinks. She set a beer down in front of Neal and Emma and a whiskey and coke in front of August. He stared at her with an openly surprised expression and she grinned. "It's a gift."

"August offered to pay tonight, Lisa," Neal told her, leaning back in his chair. "He should come to town more often, don't you think?"

"Definitely," she answered with a huge smile and was off again.

Neal was a talented liar, August had to give him credit. He'd told a few whoppers in his day, but he doubted that he fell so easily into it as this man did. He eased into the role, never missing a beat, and on the third round in when Emma got up to talk to the bubbly little waitress, he finally leaned in. "Listen, August, I don't know who you're with, but Emma's got nothing to do with it, do you hear me?"

The writer blinked. "More than you know, but that's not what I'm here for."

Dark brown eyes glanced around the room as if he were looking for someone. "And what is that, exactly?"

"Woh," August tried to chuckle, "I'm not here to hurt you or anything. I don't know what kind of stuff you've gotten yourself into, but I'm not here about that. I'm here because someone needs your help."

"Yeah, and who's that?"

"Your dad."

Neal snorted, taking another long sip of his beer. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know more than you think, Baelfire," August said lowly and watched most of the colour drain from his new drinking partner's face.

He stood abruptly. "You tell my dad to stay the hell away from me," he growled and August saw his opportunity slipping faster than he could catch it. He struggled to remember what all Blue had told him. Neal would be against it at first, but he had to remind him how much he loved his father. He had to tell him how his father was in trouble and how Neal was the only one that could save him. What she hadn't told him was who the hell this Baelfire's father was, and he wondered for a brief moment if he was doing the right thing by bringing this guy back to Storybrooke. Surely the Blue Fairy wouldn't be putting some poor guy in harms way, right?

"Hey, listen, I know this is out of nowhere, but he needs your help. He came here to find you and he's in trouble now."

That made Neal pause. "What? What sort of trouble? No, wait. Not here." He looked back to where Emma was coming back with Lisa. "Where are you staying?"

"Nowhere yet. I didn't know how long I was going to be here."

Neal nodded, scribbling something down on a napkin. "After we leave tonight, wait an hour and then meet me here. I don't want Emma anywhere near this before I know what's going on."

The fact that she was going to land herself in it sooner rather than later probably was not the best thing to say at that point, so August let it ride. Instead he put on his best smile when the ladies came back, Lisa telling him that she was off the clock and joining them. Somehow he had just bought them all another round.

Neal stood in the back alley on that rainy December night, his hood pulled up around his face and his breath showing in the cool air. His hands were stuffed deeply into his jacket pocket and he was cursing himself for choosing the place like this to meet this stranger that was, apparently, a well known author. His options on the where for their meet were more limited than the when, as it was well after all the bars closed down and he didn't dare bring him anywhere near the little motel that he and Emma were staying at. That left him bouncing up and down a little on his toes, trying to stay warm, as he worked through all the possibilities of who this August Booth was.

He was a legitimate author, as he'd found out when Lisa had been ready to show them her newly signed book with his picture plastered across the back of it. Twenty-four, tall, and seemingly well adapted to this world, though somehow knew about the Enchanted Forest. He couldn't be lying, Neal told himself for the tenth time in two minutes, because who in their right minds would believe that it existed without having seen it for themselves? No one, that's who, so that handled at least one of the thousands of questions barrelling through his mind fast enough to give him a headache. The cold, rainy weather wasn't helping a great deal either, and damn it all he just had to be sober, didn't he?

Hearing that his papa was here after so very, very long would do that. It had been like a kick to the gut, even without hearing his name. His father was in the Land Without Magic, the world that he'd been so terrified to go to, and something had gone terribly wrong when he got here. He'd played scenario after scenario over in his mind and tried to come up with something plausible, but he was having a hard time fitting the two worlds together and it not sounding ridiculous. Where was that idiot August, anyway? He'd told him an hour. It'd been at least and sixty-five minutes.

"Neal?"

Neal turned, squinting into the darkness. August looked miserable without a hood to shield himself from the muck and he was frowning as his leather coat was well on its way to being ruined. "Sorry, I had to drop by stuff off at a hotel. I carry my typewriter with me and this rain would have ruined it." He paused. "Any chance we can find some place to duck into?"

Dark eyes watched him suspiciously for a moment before Neal noded. "Yeah," he said, motioning for him to follow. They'd been back in Portland a little over month - one of their longest stints in one of their favourite cities - and he knew the back streets well. They ducked an awning and pressed their back against the wall to stay dry.

"You probably have a few questions," August prompted when nothing was said.

"Yeah. A few," Neal breathed and tried to keep them all straight in his head. "Who are you?"

"August, like I said."

"No, who are you? In our world?"

A slow, careful smile of a man that had spent just as much time as he had crafting a new identity spread across his lips. "Pinocchio."

"Seriously? I suddenly just lost a lot of faith in anything you're about to say."

August chuckled at that. "The movie is that accurate, you know."

"Never actually saw it." He paused, watching the other man. He had other questions in line, but one managed to butt its way to the front. "Is my dad hurt?"

"Not that I know of. Not yet. She just said-"

"She? Who's she?"

"Have you ever heard of the Blue Fairy?"

"I've met her. She's the one that gave me the bean to come to this world. Why would she be here?"

August loosed a long breath. "Listen, it's kind of a long story, and we've got a ways to go, so can we get dried off and get moving? I can tell you on the way."

"Hey, I didn't say that I was going anywhere," Neal argued immediately. "You said my dad was in trouble. What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know. She just said that something he did went wrong and that he needs you. That's all she'd tell me."

Neal frowned. The Blue Fairy was supposed to be the original good in their world. She didn't lie and she didn't manipulate like his father did. If she was sending someone for him, his papa must really be in trouble, and no matter what had happened, no matter what he'd done, he was still his papa. Or at least he had been once, and Neal couldn't live with himself if he could have helped him and didn't. Especially after he'd found a way to follow him.

"I'm sure she'll tell you more, but we have to go," August pressed.

"Okay. I'll have to get a few things and I'll meet you in the morning. I… can't just skip out on Emma. I have to figure out something to tell her."

"Guess the truth is a little farfetched for guys like us, huh?"

"Yeah. Emma's not exactly the faith type either. She has to see something with her own two eyes and touch it with her own two hands and she may still call it fake depending on her mood. I'll tell her as much as I can, but…"

"I get it. No judgement from me," August offered. "Where are you staying? I'll swing by and pick you up in the morning."

Neal gave him the address. "So where is it that we're going?

"Storybrooke, Maine."

"Never heard of it."

"No one has. I'll see you in the morning."

Neal watched him walk away and pulled his hood up around his ears to protect himself as much as he could from the rain for his trek back to the motel. He was soaked all the way through and his teeth were chattering by the time he got there and he was thrilled that they'd popped for a place other than the bug to stay this time. They'd hocked a few things they'd stolen in the last city and had a couple hundred bucks.

"Where've you been?" Emma asked drowsily as he came in and he immediately started dropping layers, leaving a sopping trail behind him. "Neal? You're soaked. Hey? What happened?"

"Let me get warmed up?" he asked and she nodded. The shower didn't do much to warm him with the water only barely lukewarm, but it did give him time to think. That way he didn't feel like he was completely sputtering when he found Emma sitting on the bed and waiting for him. She looked at him expectantly and he found himself at a point of decision. He could just go. He didn't have to say anything. He could leave and never look back and he'd be just like every other guy - every other person - in her life. It wouldn't be that different.

But he couldn't, and he knew he couldn't. He loved her. It had been a long time since he'd thought about True Love, but if it was possible in that world, he'd found it, and he had to tell her - assure her - that he'd be back for her. "I have to go," he whispered.

"Why?" she whispered and her voice was so broken. "Did you… meet someone else?"

Shock swept through him. "No. No, nothing like that. Emma, I love you, I'd never do that to you."

"You… what?" she managed, eyes wide as she stared at him and he realized he'd said it out loud. Well, he'd said it once, and he knew he meant it.

"I love you," he said again and he took a seat next to her, taking her hands in his and squeezing hard. Hers were warm, but she didn't seem to mind. "My… dad got ahold of me."

"You said you didn't talk to your dad."

"I didn't. I don't. I don't know. He's in some sort of trouble and he needs my help."

"Neal," Emma said softly, gripping his hand, "he left you. You never wanted to see him again."

"I know, but what…. He came looking for me and he may be hurt. If he's not, he might be. It's really hard to explain, Emma."

"I'm going with you then."

He shook his head. "No. My family's complicated. I can't… Please, Emma, I don't know how to explain it, but I have to do this alone. I'll be back, I swear, but I have to do it alone."

"You'll come back?"

There was that small, uncertain voice again and it just about killed him. "I will, and I'm just a phone call away. I'll answer whatever time you call. Any time at all."

"Even five in the morning?"

"You won't be be up at five in the morning."

"True."

They laughed and he leaned forward, pulling her close to him. "Any time," he promised.

"You really love me?"

"I really do."

"What time do you have to leave?"

"First thing."

Emma smiled, and pulled him back onto the bed. He fell after her and she curled up in his arms, burying her face in his t-shirt. She was so warm that he felt himself slipping off to sleep almost immediately, safe and secure and happy. Facing his father would come soon enough. He didn't need to worry about it that night. He needed to focus on the good in his life right then or he'd lose his courage.

"I love you too," she murmured sleepily and he smiled and held her close.

It was another perfect day. The air was cooling, the clock was still, Dr Hopper was walking that damn dog of his, and Mary Margaret Blanchard - that insufferable Snow White - was sputtering and apologizing for nearly running into Regina again. "I am so sorry, Madame Mayor!"

"Enough," Regina snapped, brushing the bumbling shadow of the girl she'd once known aside. "I have better things to do than to listen to your petty excuses."

Mary Margaret continued to sniffle and mumble behind her and Regina brushed past. She really did have better places to be, or at least potentially more entertaining places. Storybrooke was stagnant and somehow her curse had made it that way, but even when that was the way of things she found that certain people were not quite as stagnant as the rest. Her old mentor was one of them.

The little bell announced her arrival as she stepped into the pawnshop. It was empty - predictable - and the owner was nowhere in site. Regina waited a minute and then another with no sign of Mr Gold. She was the queen - mayor - and he had no right to keep her waiting. She wasn't one of these cursed fools bumbling around without a purpose.

But he was, and that was both entertaining and unbelievably dull in alternating moments.

"Madame Mayor, to what do I owe this unexpected visit?" Rumplestiltskin's - even if he didn't know himself as such - smooth lilt filtered in as he pushed back the curtain that separated the back office from the showroom and limped in. It had been quite a shock the first time she'd seen him there. Instead of the giggling little imp he'd been when they left their world, her former teacher had been replaced with this well dressed, clever, manipulative man that didn't need her help to put the rest of the town on their knees in his own way. Regina had power, but Gold held their pocketbooks. She'd seen people run just because he walked through a front door. It was glorious.

The shop owner bent to pull something out from beneath the cabinet and Regina saw an music box that could have been old from their time. He started fiddling with it, obviously as bored as she was, but at least he didn't know it. "I came to see if perhaps that bit of land over by the cemetery had come available this year. I do know how you squabble with your tenants every year."

Gold's thin lips turned down. "The nuns," he grumbled distastefully. "Sadly that is what I was working on in the back. They've renewed another year."

"You could always choose not to renew and simply sell the land to the city instead," Regina offered, though she knew he'd never take it. The curse that he had written and she had cast made sure of that, no matter how much Regina would have loved to have seen the blue bug and all of her gnats tossed out of her town. She hadn't wanted to bring them, not really, but they'd come through and it had never set well with her. She ran into the nose-in-the-air Mother Superior every now and again, each time having to crush her urge to tear that fake smile from her face.

"While your offer is tempting, I assure you, I'd much prefer upping their rent each year as to selling off that plot of land. I like to look at the long term, you see, and as irksome as those women are they will always continue to pay because they have nowhere else to go." He paused, a glint of mischief in his eye. "Unless you want them out of Storybrooke, Madame Mayor."

There were times that Regina wondered if he knew everything and simply hid behind the façade of the pawnbroker. "Mr Gold, what could I possibly have against a convent of nuns?"

That knowing smile just didn't end and the fact that this was as entertaining as it would get was something she tried not to dwell on too much. "Nothing, I'm sure," he murmured with a low chuckle and returned to his tinkering.

Regina caught the hint and there'd been less of a distraction there that day than others. She just had to accept it, she supposed, and had already made it halfway to the door before Gold's voice caught her. "What do you know of their grounds keeper?"

She paused, unsure where a question like that would have managed to sneak up from. "Nothing particularly. Why?"

Dark brown eyes flickered up to meet her own and she could see his clever mind weighing options. Something was bothering him, and while Rumplestiltskin was trying to decide - very deep, deep down - if he trusted her enough to say, Gold likely thought it didn't matter as much in that moment as it had in the one before. Finally he shrugged. "If he's living on the property it's in violation of their lease."

Regina nodded slowly. He wasn't offering anything, nor was he asking for her help. If she chose to look into this she could expect nothing in return. The curse might or might not bend enough for the two of them to force the fairies out, but something about the groundskeeper that Gold had met had resignated deeply enough to break through just a little. It wasn't much, but one crack led to others, and if she wasn't careful Regina knew her whole world might start crumbling in on her. It was best she looked into it, she decided, before it crept up and caused trouble.

August hadn't been an early riser in years. When he'd been a kid his papa had gotten him up before dawn and they'd start to work before the day woke up. Since he'd come to this land, though, he found himself giving more and more to late nights and late mornings. His lifestyle certainly encouraged that, and he'd cursed that lifestyle the whole way to pick Neal up, all through his purposeful avoidance of anything remotely similar to eye contact with Emma, and all the way to the airport. It hadn't been until he'd finally settled down with a cup of coffee that he'd begun to feel remotely close to human. The coffee hadn't kept him from sleeping on the over five hour flight, though, so by the time that they made it to Maine, he was feeling somewhat back to his usual self.

Neal, apparently, hated flying and hadn't slept at all.

"Please tell me that wasn't your first time," August chuckled as he took the keys for their car rental that would get them to Storybrooke.

Neal still looked a little ill. "Childhood trauma with flying. That's all you need to know."

August laughed, but didn't push. He hadn't known exactly what to expect out of the man that had used a magic bean to escape the Enchanted Forest. There were still so many questions that he didn't have answers to, though he wasn't sure he wanted them. The more he knew the more he had a sneaky suspicion that things wouldn't line up. He wasn't lying to this guy, just relaying a message, but if he knew all the details then he'd be forced to make a choice. August knew from past experiences that didn't always turn out well.

The car ride was relatively quiet, his passenger finally able to sleep a bit only to be woken up a couple hours later by a buzzing phone. August tried not to listen too closely as Neal chatted with Emma, regaling her with their adventure - such as it was - thus far. He could hear her laugh on the other end as Neal started grousing about the plane and everything about it, and August tried to push down something that might have been jealousy bubbling up inside of him. He'd thought over the years about the little girl he'd left behind to the system and wondered how she was doing. He could have chosen to stay. Likewise, he could have chosen to go back for her. He hadn't and someone else had stepped in to fill a void in her life that he'd left. He didn't know who Emma had become, but now that he'd seen her again, now that his failure to keep his promise to his papa was so blatantly placed in front of him, he wished he did. At least it seemed like she'd found a decent guy to love. It might even work in their advantage now that he was tangled up in everything. He could make sure she came back to break the curse in a little over ten years.

Neal clicked the cell phone closed and August glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "So how did you and Emma meet?"

The younger man flashed a grin. "We stole the same car."

Not that August really was one to judge, but his head snapped to the side at that one and Neal busted out laughing and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Long story?"

"I bet it is," the writer chuckled and turned his attention back on the road. If his papa didn't fuss at him, the king and queen were going to kill him when they woke up from the curse. Well, he had heard that Snow White had lived as a bandit for a few years, so maybe they'd be at least a little bit more understanding. "Listen, it's probably better if you don't mention how you met Emma to the Blue Fairy, okay?"

"Why would she care about Emma?"

"No reason," he answered evasively. "She can just stick her nose into everything if you're not careful."

Neal laughed at that as they drove past a sign that read that they reached the town line for Storybrooke. August had never been inclined to any magic - well, other than the fairy magic that had turned him into a little boy - but even he could feel the difference as it washed over him.

"Guess there's no turning back now," his passenger murmured and August had been thinking the same thing.

TBC

Notes: I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday! While this story begins in December, sadly I wasn't able to start posting it in time to get to the Christmas chapter, so that'll hit down the line at some point. :)

Next time - Neal finds that nothing is as he expected while Regina sets her sights on finding out as much as she can about the nun's groundskeeper.