InsaneJournal

Even though it had been well over a hour since being placed in the holding cell, Neal still hadn't settled and taken a seat. The device that had been handed to him had been tossed, without much care, directly onto the bed he was told he could use for the next 48 hours. The individuals who had spoken with him had suggested that he get comfortable and that this wouldn't be that long of a period of time. As soon as the 48 hours were up, he'd be free to go. And while they must have thought that this sounded reasonable, Neal had other opinions on the matter. His mind was in another realm altogether. His thoughts and focus were still in Camelot. Were Henry and the others still there? Had he been the only one to cross into another realm? These were the questions he had but he didn't see the point of bringing them up to the individuals who had escorted him to this cell.

They were being cordial enough, given the circumstances, but the truth of the matter was that he was still being confined in a room in a realm that potentially held his Father and Grandmother. He was a sitting duck. At least, metaphorically, as he hadn't sat at all since his arrival. He was still moving around the room, crouching down to examine seemingly pointless little areas of the room; but in truth he was trying to detect any semblance of magic. They'd told him magic and powers didn't work in this room. He had no reason not to believe them, and he didn't have magic to use to aid in his escape anyway, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to find a weak spot. Any weak spot might be the way out for him if and when someone came looking. Or if he needed to come up with a creative excuse to escape on his own.

"Mr. Cassidy," he heard someone say. "You've a visitor on the way."

He didn't stand and instead kept pressing his fingers along the caulking of the corner of the room. "Who?"

"A relative. You're son's Mother," they stated before exiting the room behind the glass on the other side, shutting the door behind them. Neal cast a glance over his shoulder towards the door and found himself frowning with that. This meant Regina was here, at least, but theoretically Henry would come with her if he was with her, too. His frown grew and he remained crouched near the corner, letting his arms rest on his knees while his fingers spread up through his hair. He gave a heavy sigh as he waited for the sound of the door to open again. When it did, he spoke without looking up, "Regina, tell me Henry is here."

"Henry's here… Neal."

They'd told her it was him, but seeing him through the glass made it all the more real. Baelfire was back at home, watching TV or drawing. Maybe talking to that girl he liked now. So how was Neal Cassidy here?

"I didn't bring him with me because I had to see this for myself."

What the hell was this? Face twins were one thing. Alternate Marvel universes with the same names were one thing. There'd been alternative universes in their world too — one where the Savior was locked up and Gold was a knight, one where she was a princess without a backbone — but those were fleeting. And most of them involved their real selves with fake memories.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but how the hell are you here?"

Having prepared himself for a sarcastic quip from Regina, he felt a shiver run down his back with the voice that actually greeted him. His hand yanked out from his hair in the motion of his head turning so he could look towards the door. With his gaze cast over his shoulder, and arm falling quickly by his side, the color visibly drained from his cheeks from the mere sight of her.

How?

How was she standing there?

He pushed up with his knees to a complete standing position and soon enough was facing her. With just a few strides, he was near the glass, looking at her as though she were the one who needed to be answering that question. And then his face contorted and he looked past Emma, towards the direction of those who had put him in here, or at least in the presumed direction. "What the hell is this?" He came close to shouting. He didn't look back to Emma. Not yet. "What kind of magic you pulling? Huh?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Emma's voice bordered between suspicious and outright distrust. Now that he'd mentioned magic, it was all she could think about. Forget the alternate universe versions. All she was thinking was that someone had created a Neal and dropped him here to cause them pain. Henry, in particular, didn't deserve this. "I came here because they said you were here, and I don't know how that can be when Baelfire is sitting in my house. So you've gotta be some glamored version of Neal. Is it Gold? The Black Fairy?"

Though he didn't want to, his gaze shifted back to her and a flicker of pain was visible as he did so. "Baelfire?" Emma didn't refer to him as Baelfire, even once she had known his true identity. He was always Neal when she spoke to him and this didn't help Neal's assumption that this was a trick.

"I'm not at your house, I'm right here," he responded. "Only thing is you can't be right there." His jaw set at the mention of his relatives and he wondered if they would be trying to trick him by referencing themselves.

"Neal isn't at my house; Baelfire is. And so is Henry." Emma's jaw flickered at that, knowing that if this were a trick of those evil bastards, she wasn't going to let him anywhere near Baelfire or Henry. She narrowed her eyes and gave him a good look over. Come on, superpower. Work this time. She needed something that only Neal could answer, that wasn't on the show. "What's your favorite color?" Okay, maybe something more personal between them. "When was the first time we kissed?"

He took another step backwards and brought a hand up to his face, rubbing at his forehead in the way he always did when he was frustrated. He didn't know what she was going on about. Emma hadn't even known him as Baelfire. It wasn't as if he was a separate person. He was Baelfire. And besides, she didn't have a house. She didn't have anything. She was gone.

And yet there was someone convincingly like her standing in front of him.

He sighed heavily. "You can't be here," he mumbled, before dragging his hand down completely. He glanced to her. He didn't see the point of this. He'd be feeding her information. "Fine, but you got to answer questions for me too," he stated.

"Blue," he then said as he crossed his arms. He didn't like the second question as much. Even before he'd lost Emma, he'd been trying to keep those memories at bay. It made moving on easier if he didn't look at the past. "Stargazing," he replied, quieter.

It had been awkward sitting on the hood of the bug. Made it that much cozier. She'd found a kindred spirit in Neal Cassidy, and it was completely strange that she'd stolen his stolen car. At the time, Emma felt like it was fate, but when he didn't show at their rendezvous point and a cop did, she stopped believing in anything like that.

Except he showed up now, within weeks of Killian disappearing, as if she needed someone her age to commiserate with. As if the world just wanted to shove it in her face.

"You wanted to sit on the hood of the car, even though you knew the only way we could fit was if we were so close that you just had to put your arm under my head." Like everything else with them, it was stolen. Food, cars, watches, moments. "And not just blue. Navy blue."

His head tipped up as she recounted the evening of their first kiss. She was correct, of course, as that had been a hope of his that evening. He'd been on his own for so long before Emma that having her as a friend was a welcome change in his life. The fact that they had so much in common, and how apparent it had been, only made his attraction to her even greater and he'd been wanting to kiss her for days leading up to when he actually did.

His Father wouldn't know of this. His Father hadn't even known he'd met Emma. It had, evidently, been a surprise even to the calculating Rumplestiltskin. Thus, he didn't think his Father could be parading around as her now. He wasn't as certain about his Grandmother. She wasn't one he knew well. His interactions with her were so limited that he didn't know what to expect.

But the information felt too personal. It didn't feel like it was them. "Like the water," he added, because that had once been precisely what he'd told Emma. He loved the color of deep navy blue because it reminded him of the ocean under a well lit night. And then, with a very small voice, he spoke, "Emma?"

This was all wrong. He shouldn't be able to be here. Baelfire was there when she got the notification that Neal was here. Shouldn't he have disappeared before that if this Neal was here? He obviously came through the portal or they wouldn't have put him in quarantine so what was this?

And how could she prevent it from hurting Baelfire and Henry?

"I don't understand. How are — what's the last thing you remember?"

His last memories were of Camelot. He had been stoking a fire while Henry entertained the younger kids. These memories were well past Emma's exit from his life. How was he supposed to tell her that? "You weren't around," he told her, as if that was simple enough. She wasn't there so his answer wasn't going to help her.

But, she was here. She was here even though she shouldn't be. Had she been resurrected, too, somehow? As a pawn to control him, maybe? Or Regina?

It'd be a smart move. With this thought, he raised an eyebrow. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Memories were hazy things here. When she first arrived, she had one set of memories, well before the extra years that were piled one. Killian had given up his ship for her. His home. And then there were memories crammed in from time to time, that coincided with her time in Mount Weather and Tumbleweed and space. It had also been a while since she'd gotten a memory upgrade.

Emma's gaze dropped from his. "Killian had just proposed."

Her jaw twitched. She'd gotten two proposals, both of which had been perfect — which was actually not perfect atll because that's how they were. And now he was gone. "But things are strange here, Neal. People come and go. People get memories from back home. Henry and I have been here for almost two years. Baelfire too. Killian disappeared a couple of weeks ago."

Neal's head tilted when her gaze dropped and he studied her as she spoke. It wasn't as if this was something unknown to him. He'd wanted her happy. He'd congratulated them both. It stung, of course, but that wasn't something he'd ever allowed himself to show Emma. Even if she suspect it, he'd brushed it off and instead made jokes about the hell of wedding planning. He'd even told her a few of his horror stories from his brief plans with Tamara.

"Which time?"

He shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest. "How is that?" He asked, though he knew it wasn't even the best question to ask. There were dozens he felt a need for answers for in her statement. "You've never been away with Henry from Storybrooke for that long," he pointed out before his face twisted and he latched onto the other point. "And why do you keep saying my name?"

One thing he knew for certain. He hadn't ever lived with Henry and Emma as a child. Ever. Of course, well, he supposed there was the possibility of alternate realms. He'd heard of the wish realm. Or the changes made by the author. "Does this have something to do with the pen? Henry's pen?"

"No, I've confiscated the pen. I hid it from him so he couldn't use it —"

Emma froze. He shouldn't have been able to know about that. Neal was gone before the Author's pen had been found, before Henry had been chosen as the latest Author. She took a step back, frowning deeply.

"Hang on a second. How do you know about Henry and the pen? You were — That was after —" She didn't want to tell him that he was dead, not if he didn't know that was going to happen. She cringed. "What was the last thing you remember?"

"Not a bad idea," he responded, though it wasn't worth focusing on for the present. Instead, he was continuing to watch her. He remained where he was standing and took note of her stepping backwards.

"Yeah. I know it was after." He didn't necessarily want to use the 'died' word either. But here was where he was confused. If Killian had proposed by now, she should have known about him being alive, shouldn't she? Of course it didn't explain why she was. His earlier theory was still his popular one.

"Of you?" He asked, carefully. His last memories were not relevant to her but he could give a vague semblance of his last memories involving Emma. Which, well, he didn't really want her to ask too many questions about. There was a look in his eyes of how he didn't care for that idea.

Emma peered at him, once again willing that "superpower" or hers to work properly. This was confusing. Too confusing, and she was beginning to get the idea that this Neal was vastly different. In fact, he looked a little older. More salt than pepper at the temples then she remembered.

"I think this is one of those timeline things," she started with a frown, her brow creasing. "Or dimension things. How do you know it was after if you were — do they allow you to watch people in the afterlife?"

He straightened up with that suggestion. It didn't throw him as much as it might most other people but then again, they weren't like most other people. He'd been leaping from realms since he was a teenager. His frown grew. "I knew of things, not every specific," he answered, but she should have known that already.

"I got you celebration donuts. Do you not remember that?" He'd found himself moving closer to the glass.

Emma mimicked his movement until she was close enough to the glass that she could put her hand against it. The ring that Killian had given her here wasn't nearly the same as the one she'd gotten in their world. She knew she should have taken it off, but she wasn't willing to part with it. Not just yet.

"That never happened. Neal, you were long gone by then. We buried you. We mourned you."

His arms unfolded and his face completely fell. Then his eyes shut and he brought a hand up to sweep his hair back. "You don't know," he exhaled, before steepling his fingers together in front of his face and opening his eyes to look at her.

"Papa didn't let me keep resting, Em," he whispered, eyes focused on her. "The Black Fairy did it because of him," he added though it seemed as though this was painful for him to talk about. "That was over a year ago."

He didn't add how he'd done the same. He was still mourning her. The only difference was they didn't have time to bury her. Or Killian. Or Snow and Charming.

The first thing that Emma thought about was when they were traveling to the Underworld. Meeting Neal in the bug before they arrived. He wasn't in the Underworld, because his business was finished. Something a lot of the deceased were not able to do.

Did the Black Fairy pull him from that?

A flash of anger surged. If they did that, she'd be having words (and probably more than a few punches) with them if they showed up here. In fact, she'd probably just lock them permanently in that quarantine room where neither of them could get out. Let them suck on that.

"Neal, I think we're from different… universes. There are people here that are from similar worlds but experienced different things. Somewhere along the line, something changed. I think in this case, maybe you coming back might be the divergent thing. That didn't happen where I'm from."

That seemed plausible. He knew she was herself, and not someone using a disguise, so if she was telling him that didn't happen, he had no reason not to believe her. At least the concern about using Emma as a ploy against himself and Regina was no longer a concern. He dipped his head and sighed heavily as his hands dropped down.

"Yeah, yeah. Sounds it," he agreed, before tilting his head back up to look at her. "Henry? Is he from before a split in our perceptions or after?"

It didn't matter much, since he was still Henry regardless, but it'd help Neal to know how to approach him.

"He's from long before that. A few years. Right after he broke the pen." Unfortunately, it had shown up here, and she'd gone Dark One for about six months before she'd had that spell backfire on her. Emma shoved down the guilt that went along with that. Two sets of Dark One memories often made that hard.

This new Neal threw whether Henry was even the Henry from her universe. It didn't matter in the end, but it meant there were so many possibilities in the future. She hoped that his version of Henry got to know him. "No one else from our world is here. It's me, Henry, Baelfire, and now you." Should she offer a spot at her house? Maybe his apartment was here now that he'd shown up. "Mom was here for a while. Dad too, but they disappeared about two years ago and I haven't seen them since. Aladdin was here. Belle. It's been pretty much us three for over two years now."

Neal shifted his gaze away from Emma as he thought of their son. He'd known Henry as an eleven year old, and only for the shortest period of time, before curses separated Neal from him and Emma. His death had prevented him from getting anymore time with him until his resurrection. And once that had occurred, Henry was no longer eleven years old, and there was more of a gap to bridge. His time with him now was as a teenage boy who was being uprooted constantly. He was thankful for any time with Henry, naturally, but he didn't like the price any of them were paying for it.

Now he would be starting over once again.

He could manage it. Looking back to her now, he couldn't help the frown. "Baelfire." She kept saying it and hadn't elaborated much but he had noticed and he was piecing things together. "How old?" It felt weird to ask 'am I?' in this instance. It felt weird to consider a version of himself was already here. His frown remained.

Neal had done everything to try to get Emma back to her family and now he was finding out there was a version of her, right in front of him, who was living without them once again. He didn't care for it. "And Killian just disappeared?"

The look on his face made it clear that he was sorry for this.

Emma had shut down when it came to Killian. Once she'd told the boys and had the one entry where she confessed to missing him, she'd shut down. If he was going to come back, he'd come back. And while he was always Killian Jones, he didn't share the memories they all did. Some things just didn't translate.

"It's complicated. He didn't know how old he was when he showed up. He was from Neverland, but he was definitely older than 16. He just didn't know how old. He's going to college now. He had several friends encourage him to pursue it." It seemed like time had flown by here, despite the distinct lack of Disney villains and memory-wiping curses.

As for their son… "Henry's fifteen. He starts high school this week, actually."

Neal had to take a moment to think about that. He'd never been able to have that kind of opportunity. His education was completely self taught once he had left the Enchanted Forest. There'd been a period where Mrs. Darling had talked about enrolling him in school with John, but that hadn't occurred. And once he'd left Neverland, he'd taught himself about the new era through libraries and the media. But there had been no hope of a proper school.

"Good for him," he said, not wanting to really linger on it for long. It was going to be something he'd have to work through but there was time for that during this 48 hour stretch, wasn't there?

"Fifteen," he repeated. That wasn't too far off from how old Henry was in his world. Only, Henry wasn't going to high school now. He didn't know if Henry was going to be able to. Sighing heavily, he looked to her. "How do you want to go about this?" He knew there was going to need to be a conversation with Henry before he just out of the blue messaged him. He'd been through something quite similar before, after all.

"I'll go home, have a talk with him. And with Baelfire. I think this might throw him more than Henry. You know how Henry is; he's pretty good at rolling with the punches by now." Baelfire was infinitely more sensitive to these things. A lot of that was just being stuck in Neverland for however long he'd been there. Having been hurt by his father, then sacrificing himself for the Darlings. Baelfire — and Neal — just never stopped sacrificing, did they?

She looked around the containment room as best she could. It was just the standard room. Didn't look like it had much of anything extra. "In the meantime, I can pick up some things. Books, games, whatever. If you ask the people here, they'll bring you whatever kind of food or drinks you want. No matter how outrageous a request."

Neal nodded his head in agreement. As far as Henry was concerned, he knew that to be true. Henry was one of the most resilient kids he knew. Thinking about himself --- no, Baelfire --- was another matter entirely. He was pretty sure that wasn't going to stop being weird. He gave another nod in agreement. He didn't know where his younger self's head would be at, since they didn't share memories of his experiences here, but he had an inkling based on all of his own memories.

He glanced around the small room as well before shrugging his shoulders. "I'll catch up on the world," he idly said. He'd barely had any time to catch up on what was going on in the Land without Magic before everything went to shit and even if he had, he'd been away for over a year. There was likely plenty of information he needed to get caught up on. Then, looking to her again, he smiled. "Good. Been craving Whopper and Coke for months," he said, flashing her a grin.

It was easier to fall in line than to think about everything else.

Emma gave a half-hearted smile. She wished she could give him a hug. All of this dimension crap and then finding out about alternative universes was bound to take its toll on him. It always did. People just didn't always say, and Neal was a pro at hiding himself.

"There's a forum for the Displaced out there. I'll let you know how things go and when you can talk to either of them." It was the best she could do while he was cooped up. "Unless they want to come here and see you. Until then, there's internet and Netflix."