When Your Walls Come Crashing Down

Prologue

The hike through Neverland's most treacherous jungle scapes definitely was not an easy thing for Emma to navigate. Twice already she had stepped on an elevated root and almost went tumbling down, along with coming across a lengthy, but harmless, according to Hook, orangish snake, and almost falling into a gully in the ground. Now, she had had her fill of the Mermaid Lagoon, Skull Rock, teenage lost boys fantasy.

As a child, Emma always dreamed of being whisked away to Neverland, to live away from adults who would neglect and abuse her forever. She seriously regretted ever having such a thought, seeing as the movie she had grown up with was full of it.

However, as inconvenient as the island may be, it did have one thing: the ability for one to find solitude if they so wished. The land was vast enough that the group could be separated for days and never see each other once. Which, with the way things were at camp, didn't sound like such a bad idea to Emma.

Ever since the Echo Caves, Mary Margaret hadn't been speaking to David. She was, well, not Snow White-like at all. Her responses to anything were terse and snippy, she did everything dramatically, and her muscles were strung more tense than that of a rubber band on an Operation board.

David, on the other hand, was desperate. Emma wasn't sure she'd ever expected to see him begging on his hands and knees before, but here they were. All he wanted was for his wife to speak to him, to utter one word, and honestly, Emma had to feel for him. How exactly was he supposed to tell everyone that Henry would only be going home with one grandfather, and it was the one you don't want to double cross?

Meanwhile, Regina hadn't been spotted by their little Nevenger posse for days on end. No one knew where she was, but the general assumption throughout the group was that she found Gold. As far as Emma was concerned, they were off tampering with magical maps. She understood; she truly did. Regina was just as desperate to get Henry back as herself, but the revelation that Henry's father had survived the fall through the portal and was on the island was definitely something that needed to be handled.

Speaking of which, Emma thought, interrupting her internal monologue. Neal was walking up to her from her spot tucked into the hollow of a tree. It looked like the entrance to a rabbit den, more specifically the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, and God, if that was real too, then Emma would-

"Hey, Ems," Neal said, sliding down in front of Emma's temporary sanctuary.

She put on her best fake enthusiastic smile and responded. "Hi, Neal." The words were short, to the point. One could tell she meant business.

If there were red flags being raised at all at Emma's behavior, Neal ignored them, deciding instead to plow right through them.

"So, Emma," he began. "We need to talk."

Emma didn't even respond, not in the mood for all of this today. Today was supposed to be her day away from all this, and she was not about to sacrifice it all just because her son's father had his heart set on walking back into her life to take back her heart.

Little did he know as Emma walked away, his eyes trailing after her though his person was glued to the spot, there was no heart left for him to take as far as Emma was concerned. He already crushed it to shreds.