Phee, your post got me thinking about these passages:
2×04 “The Crocodile”
Mr. Gold: Baelfire is his name. After he left, I dedicated myself to finding him. I went down many, many paths until I found a curse that could take me to the land where he’d escaped.
2x “Manhattan”
Neal: Fine! We- we gotta get off the street. We can’t do it out in the open. I spent a lifetime running from the man. I’m not gonna let him catch me. There’s a bar down the street. We can talk there.
and also from the same episode
Mr. Gold: Well, my son’s been running away for a very long time now. And I have a feeling he’s equally adept at it.
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Edited: Having trouble editing post. It ate half of this post and then wouldn’t let me edit. Evidently it’s okay with me slamming my fingers onto the keyboard and allows that to be posted. Grrr.
Anyway…what I was saying was Rumple appears to know that Bae has been running from him. I can see one of the trips being to Neverland and Bae realizes Rumple is there and that is the impetus for him to flee to our world. How he gets here, I don’t know. But Neal knew his dad was searching for him, and he didn’t want to be found.
Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.