A/N Holy late update batman... sorry about the wait, but here is chapter 6

When Henry was turning six, Emma surprised him, bringing home plane tickets to Chicago, telling him that she was paying for them to go to Navy Pier for Henry's birthday.

When they got there, Emma told him, she wanted to do everything. That after their day at the pier, they would go to some museums and the aquarium. The day of the pier they spent hours riding the Ferris Wheel, and the teacups, with a giggling Henry. On the boardwalk, he won him a giant plush dragon, that Henry lovingly dubbed, Reggie, and was passed out in the back of the rental, before they got to the hotel.

The museums, didn't disappoint, as Henry ran along in front of them, choppily reading the signs, and asking questions, eyes wide. Emma holding him up to look at the dinosaur bones at the natural history museums, and Henry announcing with a straight face, and a childish level of seriousness, the he was going to. "Be the first person to go back and find a dinosaur, and ask it what it was like to be a dinosaur."

Emma bit back a grin, as she asked her son how he was going to go back.

"With my time machine!" Henry declared, giving her a toothy grin.

Neal feigned a shocked expression. "You have a time machine?"

Henry frowned, and looked at his dad. "Not yet, daddy. I'm gonna build one, and then we can all go back!"

Neal smiled, and ruffled the boy's hair. "Well then, let's make a pact."

Henry looked confused. "What?"

"If we do travel in time, we won't change a thing." He told his son.

Henry nodded. "Just to get an A on my history test." He told his parent's seriously.

"Now Henry" Neal began, even with knowing that Henry couldn't travel in time, his own experience with time travel fresh in his mind, despite the fact it was almost seven years ago. "Time travel is very serious" he told his son. "If you're going to go for a good grade, aim at least for an A plus."

Emma couldn't hold it in, as she belted out a loud laugh, making Henry giggle too, and several other museum goers to stop and look at them in annoyance.

Six years went fast, but it seemed in the blink, seven and eight were gone just as fast, when Henry came out of school, eyes puffy, nose red. The way the little boy's shoulders slumped, rang warning bells in Neal's mind. "Henry?" Neal asked getting out of the bug. "Hey, what's wrong kid?" He asked.

Henry shrugged, and moved past his father, to get into the car. Neal could have gotten in the front and taken them home then, but instead he slid into the backseat with his son. "You gonna tell me, what's wrong?" he asked. "Or are we going to become car people, until mom comes and finds us." He told the eight-year-old seriously. "You know mom wouldn't be happy to have a car child. She likes her family outside of this bug. Spill."

Henry sniffed, pulling a ruined notebook out of his bag. "We're supposed to make family trees in my class, and…" he looked up. "Am I weird, because I only got a mom and a dad, and not a grandma, or grandpa?"

Neal's heart broke, he should have seen this coming, he thought that all Henry would ever need was him and Emma, but he didn't think his school would make them do that. "No." He told his son. "You know why?"

Henry shook his head. "Why?"

Neal wrapped his arm around the boy. "I'm gonna tell you a story, and then we're going to go get some ice-cream."

Henry perked, and nodded.

Neal took a deep breath. "There's a reason you don't have any grandparents. Me and your mom? We didn't want to tell you, because we didn't have very happy childhoods." He admitted. "Your mom? She never knew her parents." He explained. "They left her on the side of a road, when she was born, with nothing but a baby blanket." Henry's eyes widened.

Neal continued. "Then, she was bumped around the foster system until she was seventeen. She'll have to tell you more about it, if she wants too, but I can't share that for her. What I can do, is tell you, that I remember your grandparents from my side." He told Henry softly.

"Are they out there somewhere?"

Neal thought for a moment. "My father might be, but you don't want to know him." He explained. "When I was born, my father was a soldier, and he abandoned his post, and became a deserter, because he wanted to know me, but it was a good life. Good until I was a little older than you. My mom was killed in a terrible accident." He said, looking down at her hands. "My dad? He was never the same after that, he was afraid of the world. Then, one day, he changed. He got power, and when he got that power, he used it to hurt people. He told me it was just to protect me, but he never stopped, he seemed to like hurting people, so… I ran away. I was thirteen when I left, and my father had the chance for us to be a family, but he chose his power over me. So, I never looked back. That doesn't make you weird. It makes our family unique. We've never needed more than us. Me, you, and your mom. Isn't that right?"

Henry nodded, thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess so." He mused. "I never thought there was anything wrong with us. The kids in my class, told me it was weird."

Neal frowned, what do those kids know? "Well, maybe our normal, just isn't the same as theirs. So what might be normal for them, is strange for us, and vice versa."

Henry nodded again, sniffling, before he launched himself into his father's waiting arms.

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