I still think Emma kept the keychain and wore it close to heart to always remind her of what it feels like to be loved by someone. From what all we know about Emma and her history, Neal really is the only person from her life before Storybrook who showed her love, affection, and companionship. In the pilot she tells the creepy bail jumper that she has no family or friends so Neal was truly the only person who ever cared about and loved her in the real world. That’s a pretty powerful thing. My head canon will always be that the keychain symbolized Emma realizing what love actually is and that she never wanted to forget that feeling even if she never saw Neal again
YES to all of that!!
Yeah the car was ancient! She would need to fix it up all the time. And she DID. She took time and money and put it into their home.
METAPHOR
I suddenly have a mighty need for a flashback where Emma takes the busted Bug in to get fixed, and they tell her that it’d cost a fair bit to fix, and she’d probably be better off just selling it for scrap, and her insisting that they fix it, no matter the cost.