Slurp, I do wonder that as well, what if it was Ruby vs Emma or Tink vs Emma when it came to Nealfire. If the roles were reversed and Emma left Neal instead.
For the sake of exploration of ideas, you bring up an interesting concept. If Emma were the one to have left Neal for selfless reasons, and then they’d met again a decade later, I have a feeling people would have been rooting for them. Maybe Neal would have dated a nice girl like Tink or Ruby, as you say, and while some people would’ve been rooting for various couples in crack-ship type of ways, I think that most people would’ve largely been rooting for Neal and Emma. They would’ve been rooting for Neal to forgive Emma for leaving him, especially after she apologized and tried to prove her love to him by sacrificing for him. There is no doubt in my mind then that Emma and Neal would’ve ended up together. Maybe Hook and Tinkerbell would’ve then found happiness together too (as makes sense because they had a long history together in Neverland while Emma and Neal had True Love).
"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy