the saviour found her home

Emma stood near the kitchen counter, looking towards the oven where her Christmas cookies were rising steadily. The Storybrooke house she had just recently made her own was decked out in all of the dressing of Christmas that she and Henry had invested in while in New York. A small green, holly infested wreath hung on the door and the stair case was lined with colored tinsel. A modest tree sat in the living room surrounded by a colorful array of presents.

Though tree was fake and smaller than the average at only four feet, the branches were thick and Henry and her had picked out all the decorations on it themselves from a ritzy specialty Christmas pop store, the kind that only sold handmade ornaments and charged $15 a pop. At the time she had splurged to make up for the homemade ornaments they had lost in the fire, and in her guilt ridden state she had spared no expense. There was a yellow bug ornament Henry picked out for her as one painted to look like the New York skyline and another that, coincidentally, depicted a scene from Disney’s Snow White.

If she thought hard enough she could still remember the tree from her fake memories covered in popcorn wreaths and popsicle reindeer and other terrible (but adorable) things children made on the last days of school while teachers looked to fill in time. She could see toddler Henry dressed as an elf, haphazardly wrapping up pictures he had drawn for her and putting them under the tree. She smiled at the thought, appreciating it even though it was as fake as the tree in the other room. Storybrooke had not celebrated Christmas before her arrival but even if it had she wouldn’t have been around to see it.

She took in the smell of the cookies, taking them out of the oven and sitting them on a cooling rack. Henry sat on the other side of the counter, his eyes sparkling pleadingly. He pushd a DVD towards her.

Emma looked at it for just a second.

“No.”

Immediately, Henry’s face went into puppy dog eyes, begging mode.  

“But mom, Star Wars and Christmas. Rolled into one, one hour special. I don't see how that could go wrong.”

“Oh my poor, sweet, naive son.” She said patting his cheek tenderly and looking on him with fake condescension. “How wrong you are.”

“So you've seen it before?”

“Nooooo. I don't have to. Everyone knows it’s terrible. I am surprised you haven’t learnt that yet. What are they teaching you at that school?”

She took off her apron and moved out of the kitchen and to the living room, her son trailing behind her still clutching the worn out DVD.

“That's what happens when you leave Snow White in charge of education, the striplings end up missing out on all the good stuff.” Said Hook, who was sitting on the couch in the living room waiting for Emma and Henry.

Henry turned to him, flashing him the DVD.

“What do you think? You want to watch it too, right? You liked the other Star Wars movies I showed you?”

“I don't know, lad. I'd listen to your mom about this one. My Emma here is quite the pop culture queen.”

“Damn right I am and on my royal decree I say, we're not watching that.”

“Oh come on, mom. It can't be that bad.” He made the puppy dog eyes again and Emma groaned. This was the peril of having kids. You could end up loving them so damn much that you get roped into wasting one of your few free December weekends watching one of the most notoriously bad Christmas specials in all of history.

“Fine. You want to celebrate Life Day, we'll celebrate Life Day but once you put it on you have to watch he whole thing. No backsies.”

Henry smiled.

“Okay. Wait, what's Life Day?”

“Oh kid, you are so not ready for this.”

One Hour and Thirty Seven Minutes later.

“I feel dirty.”

“What was that? That was worse than those bloody sequels you showed me.”

“Prequels but yeah. Honestly, even I was surprised by how bad that was and I knew it was going to be terrible going in.”

Hook looked to Henry in disbelief.

“Why? Why would you want to watch that?”

Henry moved his hands upwards and shrugged, still partially in shock.

“I didn’t know. I just.. How can two good things combine to make something so bad.”

Emma tilted her head to the side.

“Well, I did warn you.”

“When you said it was going to be bad I thought it would be like, fun cheesy bad not..not like that.”

“And, Swan, why wouldn’t you just let us turn it off half way through.”

“Because you don’t start something like that just to turn back halfway through. I am not raising Henry to be a quitter.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, love, but even I know that sometimes it’s best to cut your losses.”

“Okay, this is getting ugly. Let’s put something else on.” Said Emma.

“Yes,” agreed Henry and Hook.

Emma went to the television and put on another movie Home Alone 2, a classic this time, one that she knew could erase the last two hours. The movie started and Christmas carols flowed out of the speakers, but just when the title gave way to the sight of a large white house the screen paused.

Just because you hate Neal it doesn’t mean the characters on the show do. Hate Neal all you want, if you don’t like a character your free to feel that way, but stop pretending that Emma Henry and basically all of the other characters feel that way.

They love Neal.

They miss him and that is why they mention him with love. That is why they named a baby after him. I don’t like Regina particularly, I am not gonna to get into why right now but I know that the characters love her. Emma and Snow and such do care about her, and I accept that. Every time they show appreciation of her I don’t get up in arms and have an existential crisis while screaming OOC.

I don’t pretend they hate her and then act ridiculous when the characters are nice to her like now that Robin is gone. I’m not like confused as to why Emma is so concerned for Regina’s feelings.

It’s not really the Neal hate that’s annoying. It’s that it gets projected onto other characters like Snowing and Henry and Emma when, on the show, they LOVE NEAL.