+ Wanted to get it real home-like... +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: ANYT-- Friday, February 20 to Monday, February 23
Rating: An average PG-13? (Consider warning for explicit sexual or violent content in your thread's subject line)
Summary:
For the duration of this event each character will discover that their room has been replaced with one of their own memories, one that they find themselves particularly happy or "at home" in. More information can be found here.

This log is an opportunity for your characters to describe the memory playing in their room, so that other characters might visit, and watch the scene unfold. To help browse the collection better, please include your character's name, and their room number in the subject line (e.g. Seta Souji - 100, 6th floor) of your top-level comment.

Rooms/Comments may be locked to certain people, or be available for all to see & visit. Log participation is completely and entirely voluntary.

Have fun!

Comments

[henrydaniel]

"You did pretty good," Henry says with a little smile, watching the memory a little bit longer, thinking about the kid version of his dad he met, wondering if, had Henry been transported to another land all alone that he knew nothing about, he could make it. He likes to think he could.

"My memory is...it's me and Emma. I was really small but it's not really real. I mean, I remember it because Regina changed our memories. I know it happened in Storybrooke, but I have a memory of it in Central Park, too."

It's really weird. And really confusing.

[belovedson]

“You think so?” As much of a hell as Neverland had been, what Pan and Hook put him through had prepared him to take on the modern world. Maybe not in terms of technology or whatever, but it had given him practical lessons, the sense to survive because advancements or not, certain things don’t change. How to sneak into places, how to con someone, how to find gaps in people’s walls. Maybe it’s not the skillset he should be proudest of, but Neal had been pretty good at it regardless.

And yeah, if anyone could make it he thinks Henry could. The kid’s got a lot of ideals, but he’s also smart. Takes after his parents in that way.

But this isn’t just about Neal, and nostalgia gets trades in for dad mode when the kid starts talking about what’s going on in his room. No details, at least not yet, but Neal knows enough to get what he means when he talks about altered memories. “Hey, it’s real to you, right? Even if you didn’t go through it, it’s something you got to share with your moms—both of them.” Maybe in some twisted way that makes it better.

[henrydaniel]

He's nodding along, because yes, his dad is right, for sure. He likes that he can ask remember if she remembers that time they went to the park and he kicked a soccer ball into a tree and it hit him in the face. Traumatic then, funny now, and he likes that they have that now.

Henry's thinking twice now though, about voicing his true concern, what really...doesn't weigh on him, because he doesn't think about it always, but this memory thing makes him feel it. He wonders if Regina or Emma, or even his dad feel like he spends too much time with one parent over the other. He tries hard to balance it, to know when he should go to one parent over the other. And there's definitely dad stuff that he'll only go to Neal for (like this crush situation that he hasn't let himself think about for a while), but it still gets hectic sometimes.

He doesn't say it though, because his dad won't always be there, and thinking about that makes his stomach ache. So, he just pushes the thought away and shrugs his shoulders a little. "That's true. And I think it means a lot to Emma that Regina did that. I mean, she didn't have to share all of her own memories." He figures she could have done anything, like when she gave everyone totally fake names and lives.

[belovedson]

That silence goes on a little too long for Neal’s liking, and he watches Henry out of the corner of his eye. The kid can definitely play a con when he wants, but there are other times when he’s kind of easy to read. Now may fall just in the middle of that: Neal’s pretty sure there’s something going through Henry’s head he wants to say, but that he chooses not to for whatever reason. Now, what that something is, or why he keeps it to himself? That Neal’s clueless on.

“Yeah, I’m sure it does.” He’s got his own mixed feelings about that whole thing. It’d been the best thing Regina could have done for them, and part of Neal is glad for it. They got to be happy for awhile, live without the pain of having to miss so many people they’d loved. But he’s never going to be completely okay with the thought of Henry having forgotten him—or worse, thinking of him only as the ass who left his mother in jail. Temporary or not, he never wants Henry to have to live with the idea that his dad doesn’t love him.

Or didn’t, given what happens back home.

[henrydaniel]

Neal won't have to be clueless for long, Henry's just not sure how to phrase it at all. But for now he's buying time by talking about other random things. He's really not doing a good job of pretending like nothing is wrong as he talks about different things he remembers with Emma and how they vary with Regina. But after about six minutes of solid talking, he finally goes quiet again.

"Dad?" he begins, taking a deep breath. "Do I...I mean, do you think we get to spend enough time together here?" Is he making it count, is he doing enough with him?

[belovedson]

Alright, so whatever Henry isn't telling him? For the moment, it's okay. Hearing about all the parts of his kid's life he missed out on isn't ever going to be easy, but Neal wants to know everything. The good memories Henry has, the bad, how his life had been both times he remembered living it. There's a pretty common theme throughout: he'd been loved, and yeah, it hadn't been perfect, but in both sets of memories Henry had someone there who chose him over everything else.

It's the best Neal could wish for his son, even if he hadn't been the one to give it to him.

But somewhere along the way, that stray thought pops back up. The chatter goes silent, and Neal looks over at Henry, just waiting for what comes next. He doesn't have a chance in hell of expecting it though, given that on the surface, it seems pretty far removed from everything else they'd been talking about.

"Yeah, of course." The answer comes quick, all too easy for Neal to give. "I mean, don't get me wrong. If you want to spend more time together, I'm all for it." Hell, Neal would love it. "But I'm just happy to spend time with you at all. I mean, this place is screwed up--but I get to be your dad here, and that means more to me than anything else."

[henrydaniel]

Henry manages a little smile at that, glad at least that his dad doesn't feel short-changed in the here and now, in Wonderland. Because it's all Henry has control over.

"That's why being here is so good. Screwed up, yeah, but...all three of you are here." And it's honestly all he wants, and it was the first thing he wanted when he got his memories back in Storybrooke, until he'd remembered tat he couldn't have it.

"I wish there was a way we could go to baseball games or something. Like we could have in New York."