Turn for the Worst

Chapter 26

"You know that's not my name anymore," Neal says through gritted teeth. He feels the veins in his head begin to pop as his blood boils from seeing Gold again.

"Wait you know him?!" Lacey says in confusion.

"Why would anyone want to know him?" Leroy grumbles.

Gold ignores him. "Of course I know him, he's my son."

The hallway seems to go quiet from this realization. No one knew this, not even David, Mary Margret or Regina, who had known him the longest. David looks at Neal and then over at Gold.

"I can see some resemblance," he says quietly.

"Something I wish wasn't true," Neal grimaces.

Gold takes a step towards his son. "Bae, how long has it been?"

"Not long enough," Neal practically snarls. "And my name is Neal!"

Gold's son then storms off, towards the exit. Henry races after him in desperation.

"Dad, Dad wait!"

One could tell that Mary Margret wanted to go after Henry, but with the weight of her baby, it was impossible.

"Go follow them, Killian," she requests.

"Why?" he asks, raising his eyebrow.

"In case Neal tries to take Henry for his own."

"Right," Killian says and follows to where the two Cassidy men disappeared. Once the docks man is gone, David turns back to Gold, who has lost a lot of colour in his face.

"Are you okay?" Lacey asks.

"B-Bae told me that he had a son, I didn't realize it was Swan's son too."

"You seriously didn't know?" Anna calls from the doorway.

"Well, Baelfire and I are not exactly the closest anymore."

"Baelfire?" Lacey says in confusion, raising her eyebrow.

"That is... Neal's original name," Gold explains. He feels a tiny bit of guilt for not taking Swan's case more seriously, especially if she was the Emma.

Gold and Neal had never had a good relationship. Gold was always working and had very little time for his son when he was home, he put so much pressure on his son to succeed, Neal developed low self-esteem. On top of that, Neal's mother was very unfaithful to the family and often left the kid alone. Neither parent seemed to take much notice of their own son; Gold did love him, very much, it's just with his wife's infidelity, the only way to cope with the stress was to work hard to provide for his family. He wanted Baelfire to be like him and therefore tried to get him to work very hard to be successful. His wife couldn't keep a job and was out drinking most nights during Neal's childhood. Neal had been basically forced to raise himself and had tried to run away many times, but due to his father's resources, he was always brought home again. The minute he turned eighteen, Neal was gone, left with little contact with either of his parents. He went around working odd jobs and stealing when he needed to survive. When he met Emma, he knew he was in love and wanted to succeed where his father failed. When Henry was born, Neal swore to never let his father or mother near his son for fear they might do what they did to him. Gold did try to reach out to Neal a few times, having a private investigator track him down. Gold begged for his son to at least talk to him occasionally and despite everything, the two had the occasional phone call, but Neal kept his father out of his new life. When Emma got a job at the police station, Neal never went to visit her for fear of running into his father and just kept any questions she asked about his family vague.