The Choices We Make
One-shot

He'd spent most of his life running. Ever since that night, dangling over the portal with his papa holding his hand until he wasn't, he'd never had time to stop. He'd never had time to breathe. The Darlings and his sacrifice so at least one family could stay together. Neverland and the centuries he'd spent running and fighting against boys who were even more lost than him. The Land Without Magic and struggling to find his way in a world he didn't understand.

Cars scared him until he realized the shelter they offered. After that, he learned everything he could and that cramped little Bug became his home until he met Emma and it became theirs. Their home. Their life. They had their first kiss in that car. Their first kiss. Their first fight. That car had their first I love you and the last. The memories haunted him as he drove it around Canada, some bitter and heartbreaking reminder of the mistake he'd made because he'd been afraid.

He called himself a coward on his worst days, drunk and alone again, because he'd left the one person he'd promised himself he'd never leave. It only got worse when he realized where she'd ended up. He'd never planned for jail, never planned for her to end up somewhere like that, never considered what August might have planned for or what he would have done.

Arrested. Charged. Probably jail time for a crime she didn't even commit.

He broke August's nose when he found out and let the anger take control of him for the first and last time in his life. Everything he'd planned to give her—to leave her—was in his hand, ready to hand it to August until he didn't. Couldn't. He couldn't trust him and he'd realized that too late.

Realized too late that Emma was worth the risk and the threat of seeing his father again.

Two months after he walked away from August, he managed to sneak back over the border, secure in the fact that his IDs were good enough to pass as the real thing. He passed through Maine with a feeling in his chest that made him breathless and hazy, and didn't let up on the gas until he'd passed safely into New Hampshire. Massachusetts. He drove down the east coast without seeing any of the sights.

He thought about pulling west and driving towards Arizona so he could track her down, but the nauseous feeling in his gut kept the car directed south. He reached Tallahassee on a Tuesday, the sun beating down and the wind whipping so hard that he zipped his jacket to his chin.

It wasn't as perfect as it should have been. It was empty without her. Empty hearts and broken promises.

He filled a notebook with letters to her and another with the story of his life. The pain. The secrets. He explained how he'd gotten the scar on his arm that he'd always refused to tell her the story behind. He told her why he was scared of the dark.

He told her that he loved her and how sorry he was.

He told her he'd take it back if he could.

Two months after he got to Tallahassee, he drove to Arizona, walked into a police station with a crumpled wanted poster in his hand, and turned himself in.

The cuffs left bruises on his wrists.

"I'll tell you whatever you want," he said as he sat across from a detective his papa's age, but with eyes like Hook's. It made his stomach churn. "On one condition."

"You aren't exactly in a place to be bargaining, kid."

"You know I stole them," he said, sounding more confident than he felt. "You don't know who I sold them to. You want that, you'll make the deal." Their eyes met, hard and calculating, and Neal held steady. If anything, he'd learned how to bargain. He knew how to make a deal.

The jail was the epitome of minimal security. As they led him in, he counted the guards and eyed the exits, more out of habit than an honest escape strategy. Jailbreaks were out of his wheelhouse, too high-level for a thief like him. Besides, he'd already gotten her out. This… This was just goodbye.

He was sitting at the table when she walked in, free of the glasses he loved and her hair longer than he remembered. He watched her face as her eyes found him. Shock. Hurt. Anger. Betrayal. There was love buried underneath it all, looking more like heartbreak than the way she used to look at him.

He wanted to throw up. Maybe cry.

Her body shifted, one hand crossing over her stomach and he finally looked away from her face and—

Oh.

Oh.

His hands shook as he stared at her belly—her pregnant belly—and honestly wondered if he could hate himself more than he already did. "I didn't know," he whispered, but he was pretty sure she heard it anyway, because her other arm went over the swell.

"You have ten minutes," the guard warned them before he motioned for Emma to sit in a chair on one side of the table. She did it with a look that was supposed to be a glare but seemed more like she was begging the guard to let her leave. He didn't. He barely even looked at her. He didn't care.

Neal rubbed his hands over his face, his breath short. She wouldn't even look at him. His chest ached and as much as he wanted to reach out for her, he didn't.

"What are you doing here?" Months ago and her voice wouldn't have sounded like that. The anger and the honest wonder of why he'd care to come. "You know they won't let you leave."

"I know." He sniffed and ran a hand through his hair.

"The warrant-"

"I turned myself in."

She finally looked at him, eyes wide. "What?"

"I didn't know what was going to happen, Em," he told her. She sucked in a breath at the mention of the old nickname, soft and shaken. "If I'd known you'd end up here or that you were pregnant…" His voice cracked at the word and he dropped his head. "I made a mistake. I ran and I can't even start to get into it. Not here. It would take a lot longer than ten minutes and they won't give me any longer."

"Like I'm supposed to believe you?"

"No." He exhaled slowly like it would steady him and pulled the keyring out of his pocket. He slid them over to the middle of the table, careful to not reach too close to her, and left them there for her to take. "They're yours. The Bug's clean. The other one goes to a safety deposit box. Number twenty-eight." The irony hadn't been lost on him when the woman had assigned it to him hours before he turned himself in to the cops. It still made him queasy. "Em-"

"Don't call me that."

He closed his eyes and nodded. "I never should have left. I got scared and… I'm not asking you to forgive me. Take the Bug and sell it if that's what you want. Burn what's in the box. I'm leaving it up to you, but that stuff… It's not mine and it's not the cops'. I made a deal to make sure you got it all. Whatever happens after, it's up to you."

She stared at him, guarded and angry, but she didn't say anything. She didn't reach for the keys either, though. She kept her arms folded over her belly like she was protecting it from him.

It broke his heart.

"They're gonna let you go. After I leave, I'm giving them a full confession. That was the deal; that keyring and ten minutes." He tapped one finger against the spot beside the keys and sucked in a slow breath. "I don't expect you to forgive me, Emma, but I am sorry. Everything that happened… I didn't mean for this to happen."

She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but the guard returned with the detective this time, cuffs dangling from his fingers, and Neal stood with a sigh. Hands behind his back and he watched the surprise cross Emma's face, like she hadn't really believed him until that second.

She finally reached for the keys as they snapped the cuffs closed. "Neal…"

"What is it?" he asked. "The baby?"

"I don't know." She swallowed and her fist closed around the keys. "I'm giving it up."

Giving it up. Adoption. He wouldn't meet his kid, too busy being locked up. It was his penance, he thought. His price. He nodded, his eyes drifting between Emma's face and her belly. "Whatever you want."

For his credit, he didn't cry until they had him in the back of the squad car.

He signed everything. His confession. The forms agreeing to giving the baby up when it was born, even if signing it did make his breath hitch.

"Will someone tell me when it's born?" he asked as he slid the papers across the table. "I just want to know if it's okay."

"Someone will let you know."

No one did, but four months into his one-year sentence, he got a letter from Emma. It was a boy. He was healthy.

You deserved to know that much.

He kept the letter taped to the wall in his cell and started calling his son my boy in his head.

Emma never visited him, but she wrote him once more. That time, it was about the notebooks. She called him insane and asked if he'd ever really loved her.

He would have replied if she'd left a return address.

It was raining the day he got out, pouring in a way he didn't think was possible in Phoenix. It soaked through the thin jacket they'd given him and he held his bag close like it would protect his few possessions. He could walk to town, save himself the few dollars he'd been given as they processed him out.

"Neal."

He hadn't seen her, but he knew her voice like he knew his own. He turned, wide eyes staring at her and at the yellow Bug she was standing beside. Her glasses were still gone, but the familiar ponytail was back and dripping wet in the rain. She was soaked.

He breathed her name like saying it any louder would make her disappear. "What are you doing here?"

She walked up to him, arms crossed over her chest and her face hard. He tried to not think about the belly she'd had the last time he saw her. It was long gone now. "I'm still mad."

"I know."

"You're insane. That story-"

"I know."

"It was a boy."

"I know." Neal bit his lip. "Did you name him?"

"No."

"You kept the Bug."

"It's mine," she said plainly, but the corner of her lips quirked up in a tiny smile that broke the cold look. "I stole it from you."

"Without any skill," he shot back at her. "You used a screwdriver and a rock."

"It worked."

"It ruined the ignition." Simple. Easy. It was like their old normal for a second, but she realized the setting the same time he did and both their smiles dropped. His shoulders sagged. "Did you come here to tell me I'm insane?"

"Yes. And to give you the dreamcatcher," she said as she glanced back towards the car. "You're the one with nightmares."

"I wanted you to have it."

"I have the car." She paused fingers drifting up to brush against the swan pendant she'd put on a chain. "Where are you going to stay?"

"Figuring it out as I go," he said, honest. The Bug had been his home until he'd turned himself in and given it back. "I can steal another car."

"And end up back in jail. You're out of practice."

"I was in there for a year. I doubt the world's switched over to hover-whatevers since then."

"Give it another couple years." She shook her head. "I have a passenger seat."

"Most cars do."

She shot him a look that had his gut saying she wanted to slap him upside the head. She didn't, but he saw the way her fingers twitched and he gave her a wry grin. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest instead. "Are you going to make me say it?"

He thinned his lips and shoved his hands into his pockets, eyes sliding away from her. "Kind of feel like I'm sneaking through ogre territory," he admitted softly. Minefield, he realized too late, he should have said minefield, but old terminology still managed to run at the forefront of his mind. He didn't need to look at her to know she was giving him the odd look she always used to.

"Neal-"

"You didn't have to come," he told her softly as he turned his eyes back to her. He could see the indecision warring with her like a knife to the gut, but he understood. He gave her an easy smile to cover up the way his chest ached. "I'll be okay."

He wanted to thank her for the letter. He wanted to ask her how she was doing. He wanted to ask if she'd held their son or if he'd looked like either one of them. The words didn't come, forced back before they could start to travel their way up his throat. Not the time. Not the place. He probably didn't have any right to ask, anyway.

"You always do that," she sighed, annoyed. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be. Just get in the car."

"You're sure? Emma-"

"I have a place," she said, "in Tallahassee. I could use some help with the rent."

He sucked in a breath and he understood. Where she'd gone. That she'd come back for him. "You drove here from Florida?"

"I was giving myself time to turn around."

"You didn't."

"No," she said and met his gaze, "I didn't. So will you get in the damn car?"

He stared at her for a long moment. This was an olive branch, he realized. Whether or not they ever ended up as anything more again, it was her asking him to stay in her life. Even if she thought he was crazy, he thought as his lips quirked up. He still loved her—always would—but if friends were all they ever were, he could live with that. "Can I pick the music?"

"No."

He drove while she slept and played the oldies anyway.

The End