Chapter Text

Wishing On a Shooting Star and Thinking that a Heart Can't Lie

Now I'm long away and very far, from gazing at an evening sky
From wishing on a shooting star, from thinking that a heart can't lie
This world is gonna wear you thin, knot you up and spin you round
This world will take its aim, call you every name, trying to bring you down

—Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Hero in Your Own Hometown"

Chapter One

Neal felt his heart thunder as he read the single typed line of text. It stood there in black ink, stark against the white paper that gleamed in the light from the outdoor lamp. "Okay," he said nervously. "I'm listening."

August took a breath. "There's a curse," he began. "And," he continued quickly, "it needs to be broken. Emma? Is the key. I was tasked with keeping her on track and you, my friend, just got caught in the crossfire. Now, I'm going to tell you a story. And, at the end of it, you're going to have to make a decision. Will you do the right thing, or not? So… Are you ready?"

Neal swallowed hard. "I guess so," he mumbled. His brow furrowed. "Did I… know you? Back there?"

The other man shook his head. "No, you were gone long before I was bor… born," he finished firmly.

Neal noted the slight hesitation, but decided to let it slide for now. "Then how—?"

"We don't have a lot of time," August cut him off. "And this isn't my story or yours. It's Emma's. I'm going to explain to you exactly who she is and what she needs to do and why it's important that you step aside and let her. So I'm going to ask you again: are you ready to hear it?"

He wasn't. Not really. But he had to admit that this stranger had him curious. And if this really was as important as August seemed to think, then… He let out a breath. "I guess I'd better," he replied. "Okay. Talk."

Twenty minutes later, Neal's head was spinning faster than his father's wheel ever had. This wasn't possible. If he'd known who Emma was when he'd met her, he would've bailed out of the car while she was driving it and hoped there wouldn't be any other vehicles on the road coming up alongside! But he hadn't known. And now…

He looked at August. "So, Emma's going to break the curse."

The other man nodded. "If you get out of her way and let her fulfill her destiny."

He started to nod back, but then a new thought struck him. "And once the curse breaks, my father's going to come looking for me, isn't he?"

"Um…" August suddenly looked nervous.

"So, if Emma doesn't break the curse, then I don't have to worry about him turning up on my doorstep one of these days."

August swallowed hard. "Baelfire—"

"Neal."

"Uh… okay. Neal. Look, I get where you're coming from, but it's not just your father under that curse. There's a whole town up there. Hundreds of people, maybe even thousands who don't know who they really are or where they come from."

"Then they're better off than I am," Neal shot back. "Because I do know. Every night, when I'm trying to fall asleep, the memories come crashing back. I've been trying to shake them for more than a hundred years and they still won't fade!"

August raised his hands in a gesture clearly intended to be placating. "Look, I get that you're upset. It's a hell of a lot to take in. But Emma—"

"Emma's going to be just fine," Neal replied. "With me." He whirled on his heel and started on his way.

August hurried to catch up. "No! Please," he exclaimed, grabbing Neal's shoulder. "You can't stand in her way. She's got to break the curse! It's her destiny!"

Angrily, Neal reached up and gripped his hand. A moment later, August found himself on the ground, gasping for air, his hand still locked in Neal's. "Look," he snapped, "I'm warning you. Stay out of our lives! I'm sorry, but I don't know those people and I do know my father. There is no way that I'm going to let him back in my life and there's no chance I'm going to let the best thing in my life go so that she can free him to come find me!"

"But—"

Neal released him. "Don't try and follow me," he warned. Then he hefted his attaché case and strode off into the night.

August struggled to his feet, his eyes on the rapidly-receding figure. He took a few steps in the same direction before his gaze lit on a phone booth. "I don't have to," he murmured, approaching the booth.

A moment later, he was dialing a three-digit number. "Uh… Police, please. Yeah, I want to report a crime…"

Emma wondered what was taking Neal so long. She traced the face of the watch on her wrist and hoped nothing had gone wrong. She was reaching for her cell phone when she heard the sound of running feet. She smiled partly in greeting and partly in relief, when Neal raced up.

"Sorry, Babe," he said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. "I got sidetracked for a few minutes. But we're all good now."

"Not exactly," a harsh voice called out in the night.

Neal and Emma turned as one to see a stubble-haired police officer several yards away pointing a gun at them. "What's this about?" Neal demanded.

"We had an anonymous tip about an old case, phoned in not fifteen minutes ago," the officer said. "Hands above your heads, please."

"Wait, what?" Emma replied, not quite processing, yet, but obeying automatically. "Why?"

"Possession of stolen goods." He took a good look at Neal. "Sir, may I see your ID, please?"

Neal's hands were on his head as well, but he sighed and seemed to shrink a bit. "It's in my inside jacket pocket," he said. "I can show it to you."

"Got it," the officer replied. His partner had joined them by now and he approached carefully. He found the wallet and rifled through it. "Neal Cassidy, huh?" he said.

Neal sighed. "Yeah."

"You're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. Do you understand these rights, sir?"

Neal groaned. "Yeah. But listen up. You got me dead to rights. We both know that. But Emma," he jerked his head in her direction, "she's got nothing to do with it. You can let her go."

The first cop lifted Emma's wrist. "Stolen property," he said again, taking out a pair of handcuffs with his free hand. "You're both coming with us. C'mon. Let's go."

Neal turned anguished eyes on Emma. "Emma…"

"It's okay," Emma said, fighting to sound brave, as the officer drew her hands behind her back and secured them. "It's okay."

August had no sooner hung up than he began wondering what the hell he'd done. Baelfire was a distraction that Emma did not need. She needed a chance to take a break and take stock of her life and a stint in juvie was—at least, to his way of thinking—exactly what the doctor ordered.

Harsh? Sure, it was harsh. But it wasn't on the level of being kidnapped and forced into show business, or turned into a donkey, or…

He knew what it had taken to get himself back on the right path, at least back home. The lessons hadn't stuck as well as they should have, but he didn't know what other option he had. Leaving things alone and trusting Fate to have it all come out right didn't appear to be working. From what he'd seen of Emma over the last few weeks, she wouldn't exactly be open to hearing, "Hey, I'm Pinocchio; you're the daughter of Snow White, and in about eleven years, you need to go to Maine and break a curse."

Right now, scaring her straight—or, at least, getting the Dark One's son out of her way—felt like her best chance.

Only Baelfire wasn't cooperating. On the one hand, the way he'd reacted to August's story was proof that Emma needed to get as far away from him as possible; the last thing the guy wanted to do was meet up with his father again. On the other hand, he had no way of knowing that Emma would be okay and everything would be peachy once she and Baelfire parted ways. He hoped that would be the case, but he couldn't shake the feeling that because he didn't trust Fate to handle things at the right time, he was smoothing a path… so that Fate could handle things at the right time.

Maybe he'd just made a huge mistake.

He quickened his pace, heading toward the parking structure, where he knew Emma was waiting for Baelfire. Maybe there was still time. Maybe he could at least try. Sure, Emma wouldn't believe him, not at first, but maybe something about Baelfire's reaction would tip her off that there could just be something to his story, crazy as it sounded. Maybe—

He approached the structure just in time to see a police officer helping a handcuffed Emma into the back of a police car, as another cop steered Baelfire toward a second car parked in front. His shoulders slumped as he watched the doors slam shut and the cars drive off.

Looked like he'd have to trust Fate to take things from here after all.

Emma couldn't believe that any of this was happening. Not the photographing or the fingerprinting or the officers who kept asking her the same questions over and over, just phrased a little differently each time. Finally, they'd bundled her into another squad car and driven her to a different building. It had been too dark for her to get a good look at the exterior, but once inside, she'd seen a sign welcoming her to the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center.

A woman in a slightly different uniform had escorted her to a small room with pastel-painted cinderblock walls. It was a less depressing cell than the holding cells she'd seen on TV, but it was still a cell. There was a bed—a mattress on a ledge built into the wall, really. Also a metal wedge bolted to the wall, and a stool bolted to the floor—obviously some kind of desk-and-chair setup, plus a toilet and sink.

By that point, she'd been so exhausted that she'd kicked off her shoes, stretched out on the mattress, and fallen asleep within minutes.

This was a nightmare and she wasn't waking up. Or at least, when she did, it was to find herself back in the detention center. She'd never been in one of these places before, though she'd heard of them. In the past, getting arrested had meant a call to her foster home, being collected at the station and, more often than not, her social worker turning up within twenty-four hours to whisk her off to another placement.

Somehow, she didn't think that was going to happen this time.

The door opened, and a woman in a tailored suit walked in accompanied by a second woman in the same uniform Emma had seen the night before. "Breakfast," the uniformed woman—Emma didn't know if she was a guard, or 'only' staff—announced, setting a tray down on the bed beside Emma.

"Thanks." Emma looked at the tray. It held a bagel with what looked to be egg and cheese, a sausage patty, a fruit salad, and a cup of juice. It didn't look disgusting, and it wasn't gruel or bread and water. And she was hungry. She took a tentative bite out of the bagel. Yes, definitely egg and cheese. And if it wasn't great, she'd definitely eaten worse.

The other woman cleared her throat. "Hello, Emma," she said with a friendly smile. "May I sit down?"

Emma shrugged.

"I'll leave you two alone for now," the maybe-a-guard said, retreating.

Emma heard the door lock behind her.

"I'm Michaela Tanaka," the woman introduced herself.

"A social worker or something?" Emma asked, once she'd swallowed.

"Actually, I'm your Juvenile Court Counselor—JCC for short," Michaela explained. "You'll be appearing before a judge a bit later today, and I've just been going over your arrest report to get an idea of what you're facing."

"What am I facing?" Emma asked. She took another bite of the bagel.

"Possession of stolen property and accomplice to theft at the moment. It's possible that other charges will be filed before the hearing."

"Wait. You said I'm going before the judge today," Emma said, setting down the bagel. "I thought lawyers or… JCCs were supposed to know about the charges before the trial." Maybe JCCs were different, she thought, but Michaela was nodding.

"That's right," she agreed. "But that's not what's happening today. You see, Emma, you may have been arrested in Portland, but the watches were stolen in Phoenix, Arizona. Because of that, it's almost a given that you'll be sent there to answer charges."

"But I've never been to Arizona," Emma protested blankly. She reached down to the tray without looking and her hand came up with something lukewarm and greasy. Without really thinking, she lifted the sausage patty to her mouth and took a large bite.

"Unfortunately," Michaela replied, "that's not likely to be relevant. Your appearance in court this morning is really more of a formality. The merchandise was stolen in Arizona. Today's hearing is to determine whether an interstate extradition is warranted. Based on the information in your file," she went on, "it's almost certain it will be."

Emma nearly choked on the sausage patty.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

"Mr. Gold!" Sidney Glass exclaimed, more than a little apprehensive to find the shopkeeper standing on his doorstep. "I'm sorry; I didn't think the rent was due for another week."

Mr. Gold shook his head. "I'm not here about the rent today, Mr. Glass," he said easily. "Actually, I require your assistance in another matter."

Sidney blinked. "Oh. Well..." Still somewhat nervous, he took a step back and motioned to his landlord to follow. "Why don't you come inside then?"

Gold thanked him and allowed the reporter to usher him into the living room and offer him the sofa.

"I could put some coffee on," Sidney offered.

"No, that won't be necessary," Gold demurred. He sank onto the left-most cushion of the sofa and leaned his cane carefully against the armrest. "I called on you to enlist your aid on a project that Mayor Mills has assigned me. I think you possess certain talents that will prove useful if I'm to succeed."

Sidney leaned forward. "How can I help?"

Gold hid a smile at the dreamy look that stole over the other man's face when he mentioned the mayor. It was none of his concern as to whom the reporter was not-so-secretly enamored with. In fact, Gold knew, the torch that Glass carried for Regina Mills would likely serve to make the reporter more disposed toward helping him on this assignment. Still, Gold rather thought that Glass would be better off setting his affections on some other object—one who didn't already have another man in her bed. Again, he reminded himself more forcefully, not his concern. He leaned forward and now, he did allow a small smile to show. "The mayor wishes to adopt a child and has tasked me with procuring one for her."

"Um… okay," Sidney replied slowly. "And you need my help because…?"

"Because the mayor has specifically asked me to expedite the process on her behalf. It seems that it generally takes upwards of two years for a suitable child to be found, at least if one goes through regular channels."

Sidney frowned. "I-I see."

Yes. Gold could tell that he was beginning to. "Doubtless, you're aware of the arrangement I've made for Ashley Boyd's child, when the time comes."

"It's a small town," Sidney nodded. "Word gets around." He raised an eyebrow. "Ashley doesn't look like she has more than a month to go. Maybe…?"

Gold shook his head. "I've already contracted with another couple for that infant. And while I did offer to approach them to see whether they'd consider a delay, Mayor Mills was adamant that she wanted to raise a child whose biological mother would not be close at hand." His expression turned serious.

"I've come to you because if there's to be any chance of bypassing the average adoption wait time, I believe that one would need to locate an expectant mother in similar circumstances to the Boyd girl, one who resides outside of Storybrooke. As you are an investigative journalist, one would believe that you have resources and connections which I do not."

Sidney frowned again. "Well, I do mostly cover local happenings," he said slowly, "but you're right. I can put out some discreet feelers, see what—or rather, who—I can turn up."

Gold smiled. "Once you've provided me with a name and contact information, I'll handle the rest. And I'll be certain to let Mayor Mills know she'll have you partly to thank when she's cradling her child in her arms."

Sidney smiled back.

There it was: three paragraphs tucked away on page seven of the Arizona Republic's front section. "Arrest made in jewelry store heist," Emma read aloud under her breath. She skimmed the article nervously. Her name wasn't mentioned the article only stated a 'minor had also been taken into custody in connection with the theft'. Her eyes dipped lower and the room started to spin. "Three to twelve years in state prison for a first offense?" she whispered. "I thought eleven months was bad!"

She hadn't seen Neal since the night they'd both been arrested. The last six weeks had been a nightmare. As Michaela had told her, she'd been quickly remanded back to Arizona to face charges. It had taken a week for the paperwork to go through. After that, everything had taken on a surreal quality. She'd never been on a plane before. If it had been for any other reason, she might have enjoyed the trip. Instead, she'd spent the entire flight gripping the armrests of her seat tightly enough to turn her knuckles white. Her guard hadn't said anything.

The little she'd seen of Phoenix out the window of the car that had picked them up hadn't impressed her. She'd spent the next few days in detention; not having parents—nor even a fixed address—had meant she couldn't be released until the hearing.

And then, once the hearing was over, they'd brought her here to start serving her eleven months. Eleven months less the two weeks she'd already served in custody anyway.

In all that time, nobody had told her anything about Neal. She'd asked for a phone number where she could call him or the address of the place where he was being held, only to be told that the information could not be released to her.

"You won't be able to contact him until you've served your sentence," a guard had told her. "And it might be better if you didn't try to contact him afterwards either."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Emma demanded.

The guard shrugged. "Think about it, Swan. If you'd been picked up on petty theft charges like you were every other time, you wouldn't be here in the first place, and I don't think they lock people up in Oregon for stealing pop tarts either. Instead, you hook up with a guy facing felony theft and he ropes you into this, too."

"He didn't!" Emma shot back. "He told me not to get involved. I didn't listen."

"So he's brighter than I thought," the guard said. "And you're… not. Look. I take it back. You're a smart kid. Not smart enough, but too smart to keep going the way you have been. Use this time. Finish high school. Think about what you want to do with your life when you get out of here. Keep away from people who're going to drag you back down. You're better off without them."

Now, she read the article again, trying to extract some hidden clue, some bit of meaning from the printed words. There wasn't any.

"I'll find you," she whispered, gripping the thin newsprint tight enough to crumple it. "Once I get out of here, I'll start looking and I won't stop until I do."

Nine and a half months. She had to wait that long before she could even hope to get an address. And meanwhile—

The bell rang to announce the dinner hour. Emma got to her feet, resigned. And then, her stomach seemed to roll and she staggered forward, doubled over, and just managed to turn aside in time to avoid splashing another inmate's shoes as her breakfast came back up.

"Gross!" the girl exclaimed, punctuating her assessment with an expletive. Then, more concerned, "Hey, you okay?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah, sorry. Uh… do I clean that up?"

"Better go to the infirmary, Swan," a guard spoke up behind her. "I'll write you a pass. Don't worry about the mess."

Emma nodded again. "Sorry."

"Probably just nerves," the guard said. "Off you go."

She'd been having 'nerves' every day for the last six weeks, Emma thought to herself. And they'd never made her puke before! Maybe she was allergic to this place, she thought darkly. Her eyebrows lifted. Hey. Maybe she was. And if she was, then maybe there was some law on the books that said they had to let her out!

Regina struggled to heft the unwieldy box through her front door, but balked at getting it up the stairs. Graham was coming over later tonight; she'd get him to do it. And maybe assemble the thing too.

Perhaps it was premature, buying a crib at this stage. She had no idea how long it would take Gold to find a suitable child for her. She rather suspected, though, that it would take less time than the two years minimum she'd been quoted by every legitimate adoption agency she'd reached out to.

Regardless, she'd filled out the paperwork for three of them; if this turned out to be something Rumple couldn't arrange after all, she'd still get a child faster than she would if she waited for Ashley to give birth; the girl had been in her third trimester for sixteen years and still no closer to going into labor!

And whose fault is that? a small voice in her head piped up. She squelched it viciously. What was done was done and she couldn't start time moving again for just one person, no matter how useful it might be to her. With magic, she might be able to wake someone up—restore their memories so that they'd know who they truly were—but that still wouldn't bring a pregnancy any closer to term. And anyway, she didn't have the magic to do it. No, this curse might be less of a burden for her than for the people she'd ensorcelled with it, but she was still feeling the weight of it. If there was to be a child—and with Gold's help there would be—it would come from outside Storybrooke.

And with or without his memories, Rumpelstiltskin always had a knack for getting things done. She just had to be patient. And prepare.

She pulled out her phone. "Sheriff. Just calling to let you know I'm looking forward to seeing you this evening. And I have a bit of an assembly project I could use your assistance with. I'd suggest wearing something a bit more casual than usual." She smiled. "Lovely. I'll see you at seven."

Emma stared at the nurse for a full moment before she managed to say, "You've got to be kidding." Her nausea hadn't gone away in the last two weeks. She'd thought that maybe one of the other girls had slipped something into her food as some kind of sick practical joke. She'd thought she wasn't used to the Arizona sun. She'd thought it might be nerves or stress or worrying about what was happening to Neal (and really, that was three different ways of saying the same thing, wasn't it?). But it had never crossed her mind that she could be…

"Pregnant?"

The nurse nodded. "Congratulations, I guess. I'll add this information to your file and we'll see about setting you up with periodic checkups with an ob-gyn."

Emma blinked. "When?"

"Well," the nurse said, not unkindly, "that's hard to say. We don't have one on staff here, and it can take time to get the approval to send you off-site for this sort of care. Usually, we can't get the ball rolling on that until we've made the appointment, and if the approval doesn't come through before the appointment date…"

"Then I don't get to go at all," Emma finished.

"You're from Oregon, right?"

Emma shook her head. "I was arrested there, but I don't know where I'm from. I was in the system in Boston. Foster care, I mean," she added. "But I've been—"

"I don't need your life story," the nurse interrupted her. "What I meant," she continued, "is that if you were an Arizona resident or had family here, there might be some possibility of petitioning the judge to let you serve the remainder of your sentence in the community, where you'd have better access to prenatal care. Unfortunately, since you don't…"

"I'm stuck here," Emma finished. She was feeling nauseous again and this time, it had nothing to do with morning sickness. "Can I get in touch with my boyfriend?" she asked. "He was arrested the same time I was, but he's over eighteen and I don't know where he is. Nobody will tell me if he's had a trial or if he was found guilty or—"

"I'm sorry," the nurse said. "If he was acquitted, and if he wants to make the proper inquiries, he can find out your whereabouts with a bit of digging. If he's in custody, though, that presents more of a difficulty. I think you need to recognize that for as long as you're with us…"

"I'm on my own," Emma filled in miserably. She was seventeen. Only. She'd never had a stable family or a real parent. She'd never finished school. Never held down a job for longer than a few weeks. Never…

She was going to be a mother in seven months.

How could she be a mother when she'd never had one?

"Emma?" The nurse was speaking again. "Emma, you need to think carefully about your options. You can choose to have an abortion; you're still early enough for that. You can choose to keep the baby. Or you can choose to surrender it for adoption. It's your call."

"I don't think I can make it without talking to Neal," Emma protested. "He's the father; doesn't he have any say in this?"

"In the eyes of the law?" The nurse shook her head. "That's all on you. If he were standing here right now, and he gave you his opinion of what you should do, and you thought otherwise? Your decision would be the one that would stand." She sighed. "Look. You don't have to make a decision right this second. If you're considering abortion, you do need to make that choice before you're twenty weeks along. For the other two options, you don't have to decide until the baby's born. Why don't you weigh your options?" She turned to a display of pamphlets on the counter behind her, perused the titles for a moment, and then handed two of them to Emma. "Read these," she said. "I'll put in a request through channels to follow up with you in a couple of weeks. And I'll get the ball rolling on finding you an ob-gyn. Any questions?"

Numbly, Emma shook her head. "No."

The nurse nodded. Then she walked to the infirmary door, opened it, and told the waiting guard, "She's done."

The guard entered at once and motioned to Emma. "Come on, then."

Still looking shell-shocked, Emma obeyed. She made it through the rest of the day in a fog, sitting in her classes without hearing a word the teacher was saying, before trudging back to the 'pod' where her cell was located. She ignored the cartoon playing in the common room (Seriously, she hadn't seen a single thing here that wasn't rated G or PG; she wasn't twelve!) and made her way back to her cell. Only there, in relative privacy, did she finally break down in sobs.

She couldn't be a mother. She just couldn't.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

"You're quiet tonight," Ross said.

Dani sighed and smiled at her fiancé. "Work's getting me down, I guess," she said apologetically. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't bring it up now—"

"Hey," Ross said. "It's not like I've never stayed late at the office, or brought a case home to work on. What's up? Flu outbreak?"

"No," Dani sighed again. "It's one of the new inmates. She came in about a month ago and today, I had to tell her she was pregnant. I shouldn't let that get to me, I know, but it is. The girl hasn't had an easy life; most of the inmates haven't. I guess I just… wish it didn't look as though it's about to get that much harder for her. And the kid's going to be starting out with a couple of strikes against it, too, so here's hoping that, if it's a girl, I don't see her in Durango in another fourteen years or so."

Ross shook his head in sympathy. "How old is this mother-to-be?"

"Barely seventeen. In and out of foster homes, dropped out of high school last year, hooked up with some career criminal and…"

"And she's about to become a mother," Ross finished.

"Well, that's not definite," Dani said. "I gave her the options; she's trying to decide. But even if she doesn't have the baby or surrenders it, I don't know what kind of chance she's going to have when she gets out. She'll be eighteen by then. Out of the system, still no money, no education, no real prospects…"

Ross nodded. "But, I mean, you're a nurse in a juvenile detention facility. What chance have those kids got in the first place?"

Dani gave an angry start. "She's a good kid, Ross! Most of them are, deep down. She's made some bad choices, sure, but that's not a reason to write her off as a lost cause!" She narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Ross hesitated for an uncharacteristically long time. "This girl," he said slowly, "what did she do to end up in juvie?"

"Uh…" Dani tried to remember. "It wasn't anything violent. I think it was felony theft or possession of stolen property or something."

"So, nothing drug-related? And she doesn't have a history of substance abuse?"

"I…" Dani frowned. "Look, I know I haven't mentioned her name, but I'm still not sure I should be telling you the answer to that. Why do you want to know?"

Ross took even longer to answer this time. "I'm trying to confirm that she's not doing anything that's likely to impact her child-to-be. Fetal alcohol syndrome, crack babies—"

"Nothing like that," Dani said. "She doesn't even smoke. Why?"

Ross looked away guiltily. "I… I'm not sure if I should be telling you the answer to that. I want to. I've wanted to for months."

"Ross…?"

"I just don't know how you're going to react when I do. If word gets out, I could be disbarred. Maybe even go to prison."

Dani's eyes widened. "What the hell are you involved with?" she demanded. He was silent. "Ross, you know I love you. Passionately. But you've got to tell me what's going on!"

"Dani…"

"What could get you disbarred? What could mean prison time? Ross… what did you do?"

Ross twisted his fingers together nervously and swallowed hard several times. "I've… helped to facilitate fourteen black market adoptions in the last year, and I've had three times that many requests in the last three months."

Dani exhaled. "How…?"

"Word of mouth from satisfied customers," Ross said. "On both sides of the equation."

"What?"

"Look, the families that reach out to me, they want healthy newborns. They're ready to pay a lot for that. And they're also prepared to support the mothers-to-be during their pregnancies. Prenatal care, living expenses, you name it. It's a win-win for both sides."

"And you think that Emma… I mean, this girl…?" she amended hastily.

Ross nodded. "It's a possibility." He blinked. "You're taking this a lot better than I'd hoped."

"It sounds like you want these girls to have their best chance just like I do," Dani said slowly. "A-and if everyone's satisfied with the arrangement, maybe it's not such a terrible thing. How does it work, exactly?"

Ross took a gulp of coffee. "I'd meet with the girl, explain the arrangement and draw up a contract. She'd agree to do everything in her power to ensure the fetus's well-being: proper diet, prenatal checkups—"

"But prenatal care in juvenile detention is kind of spotty at best," Dani said. "And the food… Durango gets an allowance for each inmate, but it doesn't include extra for mothers-to-be. Getting her that kind of special treatment while she's incarcerated isn't going to be easy to arrange. Not without arousing notice," she added with a note of caution.

Ross frowned. "You said she's doing time for theft?"

"Something like that," Dani nodded. "I'd have to double-check. I know it's something that… probably would have got her probation if she were a state resident."

"But it's non-violent?" Ross probed. When Dani nodded, he smiled. "I think I can get a colleague of mine to represent her at a new hearing. She could serve out the remainder of her sentence under supervision in a halfway house. More freedom, better food, more ways for the adoptive parents to be to help her out… I think it could be her best chance. If she agrees to the arrangement."

Dani reached across the table and clasped his hand. "I'll see if I can find some pretext to talk to her tomorrow," she said. "In any case, she's scheduled to see me in another two weeks. Is that too long to wait?"

"It's not," Ross smiled. "Actually, two weeks gives me time to get things properly set up. I can't exactly afford to be sloppy," he added.

Dani nodded. Then she got up, came around behind his seat, slung an arm about his shoulders and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "I understand completely," she said warmly. "And I'm sure Emma will too."

"I have a lead for you," Sidney said without preamble.

Gold looked up from behind the counter. "You've discovered how I might obtain a set of Hazel-Atlas Florentine dinner plates?" he asked mildly.

"What?" Sidney blinked. "No, I mean for that project you asked me to help you with. I've been doing a little research online. Going into chatrooms for adoptive—and adopting—parents, sending out feelers, trying not to sound like an undercover police office…"

Gold dropped any pretense at disinterest. "And these efforts have born fruit?"

"I think they might have," Sidney nodded. "Someone private-messaged me in one of those chats, after I'd been lamenting the waiting period and wishing that there was some way of speeding things up. They told me that if I had the resources, there's a lawyer in Arizona who can streamline the process."

Gold gave a slight nod, his face betraying nothing. "I trust they furnished you with a name?"

"They did. And after that, I did a bit of digging on my own. It seems to check out. The man's arranged a number of private adoptions. Usually, the birth mother is young and, in some way, disadvantaged. Now, it wasn't easy to hack into financial transaction records, but it looks to me as though, once the woman agrees to sign on with this guy, her bank account receives deposits of a significant amount, usually every couple of weeks. Prenatal care improves, too. Now when the birth takes place, a lump-sum payment, usually equaling the total of all previous payments appears in the woman's bank account, and that's the last such deposit. It looks to me as though—"

"The mother is being paid handsomely to surrender her infant." Gold nodded slowly. "Well, well. I don't suppose this lawyer has a name?"

Sidney smiled. "Anderson. Ross Frederick Anderson in Phoenix, Arizona."

"I don't want an abortion," Emma said firmly. "I don't know if I can be a mother, but I know I can't do it alone. Can you… I mean, is there any way to find out what happened to my boyfriend?" She handed the newspaper page she'd saved to the nurse. "This is all I know."

Dani unfolded the page and skimmed the article. "I can make some inquiries," she said with a frown. "Emma, have you thought this through, though?"

"Yeah," Emma blinked. "That's why I want to get in touch with him. Maybe it's my decision whether to keep the baby, but I think I want to know Neal will want to be with me—or us—when he's done serving his sentence. And that's if he's sentenced at all. I mean, he could get off, right?"

Dani sighed. "I think you need to be realistic, Emma. About his trial and…" Her gaze was serious. "You're seventeen. How old is he?"

Emma shrugged. "I don't know. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Why?"

"Because when a man in his twenties has sexual relations with a seventeen-year-old girl, that's statutory rape. Now, if his case hasn't gone to trial yet, the prosecution might want to add that charge to what he's already facing. Even if it has… This is an election year, Emma. Politically speaking, the DA's office doesn't want to be seen as being soft on sex offenders."

"Neal's not a—!"

"He's a man in his twenties who got a teenager pregnant," Dani interrupted her.

"What if I told him I was nineteen?"

Dani sighed. "Emma…"

Emma slumped in her chair. With her long blond hair falling forward, Dani thought she looked about fourteen or fifteen at the moment. "You going to tell someone?" she asked, fear palpable in her voice.

Dani hesitated. "I should," she said. "If I don't, there could be other girls like you down the road."

Emma caught the reluctance in the nurse's voice. "Please don't. He's already in enough trouble. And anyway," she said, "maybe it was someone else. Maybe I was drinking underage at some party and went with a guy I don't remember."

"Were you?"

"I don't remember," Emma said flatly.

Dani nodded. "I'm sorry, Emma. I can try to find out if there's been any update to this story," she tapped the newspaper for emphasis. "But if you don't want to add to your boyfriend's troubles," she went on, "even if you can contact him, I'd recommend against it. You're very much on your own for this."

Emma swallowed hard and nodded.

After the girl was gone, Dani was still asking herself if she was doing the right thing. She hadn't lied to Emma, but she had to admit that she might have slanted the narrative somewhat. She wanted Emma to have her best chance—and with a baby, whether or not the boyfriend was in the picture, she wouldn't. And what chance would the baby have with two criminals for parents? The best thing for everyone would be if Emma realized her child would be better off without her. And if Emma came to that realization, if she gave up her unborn child, if Ross handled the arrangements… Then Emma could come out of this situation with an early release from detention, excellent medical care, the promise that her child would get a better life than Emma could hope to provide, and enough financial compensation to ensure that Emma could get the education or training she needed to really make something of herself. It was a win-win.

Dani wondered how many times she'd need to repeat that to herself before she came to believe it.

Ross frowned at his latest email. He was tempted to delete it, in fact. He didn't like the idea that he might be developing this kind of reputation. The more a thing became known, the greater the chance of it coming to the attention of the wrong sort of people.

On the other hand, this 'Mr. Gold' had dropped one of the right names—that of a couple whose child's adoption he'd 'facilitated' almost a year ago. He looked over the documentation that had been forwarded. Single parent adoptions were becoming more common now. Mr. Gold's client was a mayor in her thirties. A small seaside town in Maine… Even if people talked about his 'service' there, the odds of word getting back to Phoenix were small. And he did have a contact at an adoption agency in Boston who could handle the arrangements, once he'd found a suitable child.

He leaned forward in his chair and began to draft a response.

"I'm still not having an abortion," Emma said flatly, almost before Dani could greet her. Something about the stubborn set of her jaw told Dani that the girl had probably been getting some 'well-meaning' advice to the contrary, either from another staff member or a fellow inmate. "I don't know yet if I'm keeping the baby or not, but I'm definitely having her. Or him. Whichever." She tilted her head inquiringly. "Can I find out?" She asked. "Whether it's a boy or a girl?"

Dani nodded. "You'll have at least one ultrasound." She took a breath. "Emma, I don't want you to think I'm pressuring you, but if you did decide to give the baby up for adoption, I've been speaking to a-a friend," she hesitated for the barest instant, before deciding not to reveal that it was actually her boyfriend, "about your situation. I didn't mention names," she added. "I only discussed matters in general terms."

"Uh… okay," Emma prompted, when Dani seemed to be waiting for a response.

"He's a lawyer," the nurse went on. "He's handled a number of adoptions. If you're willing," she continued, "he can try to find a placement for your baby even before it's born. If you go that route," she took a breath, "because the adopting family would want your baby to have its best chance, they would support you during your pregnancy."

"So… what?" Emma asked blankly. "They'd send me letters telling me how much they appreciate my giving them my baby?"

Dani shook her head, but she was smiling. "It goes quite a bit beyond that. First, they'd make sure that you were getting adequate nutrition. The meals here are fine for one person, but you're eating for two. And I'm afraid we don't normally stock—nor have the budget for—prenatal vitamins. They would pay your medical costs. And Emma…"

She leaned forward and Emma shrank back nervously when she thought that the nurse might be about to hug her.

"I'm sorry!" Dani said at once. "I shouldn't have… But," she took a breath. "They'd also be willing to hire a lawyer for you. One who could arrange for a new hearing."

Emma blinked. "That's good, right?"

"It's excellent," Dani said, smiling broadly now. "My friend thinks that because you're still a minor, because you've been convicted of a non-violent crime, and because it's been established that you weren't involved in the initial theft of the watches, it's probable that you could serve out the remainder of your sentence in a halfway house. There'd be supervision," she added. "I can't promise you won't have to wear an ankle monitor. But you'd be out of here. You'd be able to see a doctor whenever you needed to. And after the baby's born, there'd be a final lump-sum settlement, likely enough to pay for a couple of years of post-secondary schooling, so you could train for something better than a minimum wage job. Is that something that might interest you?"

Emma fought hard not to smile back. "How long do I have to decide?"

"Well," Dani said, "obviously, the sooner the agreement is finalized, the sooner the prospective family can start taking care of you. The juvenile justice system moves much faster than the adult court, as I think you've realized. I don't know exactly how long it would take to schedule a hearing, but I shouldn't think it'd take more than a few weeks. Days, perhaps," she added.

Emma frowned. "What if I change my mind?" Emma asked. "Do I end up back here?"

"No," Dani said at once. "Once you're out, assuming you don't violate the terms of your release—which have nothing to do with the terms of the adoption arrangement—you'll be out. Of course, the funding from the adoptive family will stop and you might have to reimburse any funds they've already paid out for you, but that's a separate matter." She took a breath. "What do you think?" Then, quickly, "You don't have to let me know right away, but you do need to decide soon—"

"No." Emma took a deep breath and met Dani's excited smile with a guarded one of her own. "No, it's okay; I don't need any more time. It's okay," she repeated, hoping her nervousness didn't show. "Okay, I'll do it."

Dani realized she'd been holding her breath and exhaled. "I'll talk to my friend," she said. "Hopefully, we can get the ball rolling on this before the week's out."

Emma nodded. This was her baby's best chance, and it was hers too. Her baby would grow up in a stable home, not bounced around in the system like she'd been. Meanwhile, she'd be looked after during her pregnancy. She'd have enough money to make a fresh start afterwards. Even better than that, once she was out of Durango, Emma had a feeling she'd be able to learn where Neal was, and how long she'd have to wait until they could be together again. If she could find out that much, if she could talk to him about the situation, if she knew he'd be there for her once he got out... then maybe she could keep the baby after all.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four

It could be worse. Neal told himself that in the holding cell. He was still telling himself the same thing when he was turned over to U.S. marshals for transportation back to Arizona. Even when they shackled him for the ride. Even when the judge denied his bail, and he had to sit in jail awaiting his trial.

It could be worse, he repeated to himself afterwards, when he got onto the transport that would carry him off to start serving his sentence. Two years in a minimum security prison, when the public defender assigned to him had initially told him he could be facing up to ten. He wondered what had happened to Emma. He'd tried to find out, but the defender had either been unwilling or unable to tell him much. Still, what he'd learned had been encouraging.

"She's a juvie," the defender had said. "She also wasn't involved in the initial theft. Plus, since the state has you in custody, they're probably going to be less inclined to prosecute her to the fullest extent possible. In any event, she'll be free long before you'll be."

"That's great!" he'd exclaimed at the time.

The defender had smiled briefly, before her expression grew sterner. "As your counsel, I have to caution you not to attempt to contact her."

"What?"

"She's a minor. If I can tell your feelings for her are more than… brotherly, others will too."

"It's… it's not like that," Neal had protested.

"Good. Because I don't think you'll like what's in store if the prosecution gets it into its head that it might be."

He'd taken the hint and shut up. He couldn't tell her the truth anyway. When he'd finally escaped Neverland, he'd returned to a world changed beyond all recognition. If he hadn't known it to be a Land Without Magic, he would have suspected some of it at work in its transformation. In the century or more since he'd been gone, the technology, the clothing, the food, the music, the language… Almost none of it had been familiar.

More worrying, he'd discovered almost at once that without some sort of documentation, he couldn't get a room at a cheap inn or a job or the education he'd need to navigate this new place or a host of other needs and wants. And he'd learned before too long that nobody wanted to give him access to any of those things when he was only fifteen!

He'd been fifteen for over a hundred years, but a century of Pan had—weirdly, when you considered that he'd been living on an island where people didn't age—given him maturity beyond those years. He wouldn't dream of asking a family to take him in now, as the Darlings once had in London. Even had he known how such an arrangement might be done in this time and place, he'd been looking out for himself for far too long. He wasn't a child anymore. He didn't feel like one, he didn't act like one, and after a few weeks, when he realized that he was sprouting stubble on his chin (and a few other places), he no longer looked like one.

By then, he'd found out how to acquire the documents he'd need to survive here. His conscience had barely pricked him when he'd put the skills he'd learned from the Lost Boys to good use. It hadn't been any harder lifting a wallet out of a man's pocket than it had been getting a Neverfruit out of Felix's hammock—while the older boy had been sleeping in it!

The forger hadn't batted an eye when Neal had said he was eighteen. He'd just furnished the documents with the new name and other information as Neal relayed it.

It had been a good job. Too good, in fact, Neal reflected. Because he was now on his way to Globe, Arizona, courtesy of the state's Department of Corrections, to spend the next two years behind bars. And he wouldn't really turn eighteen for another three months.

It could be worse. He knew it could be worse. He'd lived worse. But this was still pretty bad. And, as much as he wished Emma were with him, he was also pretty glad that she wasn't.

Mr. Gold read the communication over carefully, a faint smile on his face. His newfound associate really did have a hand with phrases. The terms of the agreement before him were both explicit enough for him to understand precisely what he was contracting for, and yet oblique enough to allow for plausible deniability, should the document fall into the wrong hands.

It wasn't precisely the same as the contract he'd crafted for the Boyd girl, but it was close. His eyes widened slightly when he came upon the next paragraph. Oh, he did like that particular bit of wording. Perhaps he ought to make note of it in case another desperate young woman ever approached him to cut a similar deal.

Ross Andersen had thoughtfully included an estimate of anticipated expenditures during the mother-to-be's pregnancy and Gold scanned it, nodding a bit to himself. He'd run his own calculations earlier and, while there were a few expenses he hadn't bargained for—he hadn't realized that the mother-to-be was currently incarcerated and in need of the services of an attorney to try to alter that situation—he didn't believe that the man was trying to cheat him.

He looked at the time. Mayor Mills really ought to be at home by now. He took out his phone. "I believe I may have some good news for you…"

It was good news indeed, Regina thought to herself. "So, in six or seven months…" She let her voice trail off.

"So I'm given to understand," Gold replied. "Of course, this is assuming that the young woman in question agrees. And that, once she does, once you receive her personal data, you find nothing untoward that would lead you to seek another candidate. Assuming that both parties are amenable to the arrangement, the lawyer who is facilitating the process stipulates that mother-to-be receive generous compensation." He named the figure. "Fifty per cent of that is to be paid upfront to the lawyer, who will disburse the funds to the mother-to-be as appropriate. The remaining fifty per cent is to be paid after the birth."

"I understand," Regina said, nodding slightly. It was a considerable sum, but she could afford to part with it and the outcome would be worth it. At least, she thought to herself, it would be if all went according to plan. But life was seldom so simple. And so, it was with more than a little trepidation that she asked, "What happens if the girl changes her mind? Or if something goes wrong with the pregnancy?"

There was a short pause on the other end of the phone. "In the event that the woman changes her mind, you will receive your down payment back, less the lawyer's fees. If, at any point in the pregnancy, it should become apparent that the child will be born with a serious health issue, you will be notified at once and it will be your decision as to whether you wish to continue the arrangement. Should you decide to withdraw at that point, you will receive back whatever portion of the down payment the lawyer holds in trust at the time that you communicate your desire to the lawyer. However, if you were change your mind about adopting the child at any time for any reason other than a serious medical issue, there would be no refunding of monies paid." His voice was gentle, as he delivered the next term. "If the child is not delivered alive, you'll have the option of being matched to a new candidate at no additional charge or to having ninety per cent of your payments returned. The remaining ten percent is a non-refundable facilitator's fee to the lawyer for his part in the arrangement."

"I suppose that's fair," Regina allowed. She didn't necessarily like the terms, but she understood and could live with them. But there was still another concern. "And how would I claim the child once it's born? Will I need to travel to Arizona?" Despite herself, she was feeling a bit nervous at the prospect, though she thought she was hiding it well. The Dark Curse had given her enough knowledge of this land to know that Phoenix, Arizona was a considerable distance away. While she knew that air travel was supposed to be safe here, and that an airplane shouldn't be any scarier than an automobile, if anything were to go wrong with a car, there was a far greater chance of being able to walk away from a disaster if you were already on the ground. Perhaps, she could drive the distance at that. The curse wouldn't dissolve in her absence. And since time was frozen here, the town would barely notice that she was gone before she'd be back again.

Gold's answer interrupted her train of thought. "That won't be necessary, Madame Mayor. The lawyer has ties to a number of adoption agencies that assist with the kind of arrangement you're seeking. The nearest such organization is in Boston. The child will be sent there."

Regina felt some of her worry drain away. Boston was only four hours from here by car, she knew. She could be there and back in the same day. "I'll be home this evening," she said, her voice displaying no emotion other than cool professionalism. "Suppose you come by around seven. We can go over the agreement in detail and assuming that there are no surprises, I'll sign off on the contract and I can have the funds transferred to you in the morning."

"Emma Swan?"

Emma nodded at the man who sat down across from her at the table. "That's me," she said guardedly.

The man smiled. "Hi, I'm Ross Anderson. I guess Dan—Nurse Gutierrez has filled you in on why I'm here?"

Emma nodded again. "She told me you'd help me place my baby for adoption," she said slowly.

"That's right," Ross nodded. He'd reviewed her file last night and again this morning. From what he knew of her backstory, he thought he had a fairly good idea of how to proceed. "Most of the time, when a mother surrenders her newborn, the odds of the baby's being adopted are excellent. Usually, the demand is high for children under the age of three," he added as a passage from the notes he'd taken on Emma's file flashed in his mind.

Foster family had begun adoption proceedings when foster mother became pregnant. Proceedings terminated; child sent back into system aged three years.

"After that point," he continued smoothly, "the chances of adoption plummet. Now, usually, if a child has been placed for adoption at birth, it's not long until a family is found. However, before the adoption is finalized, things can still go wrong. A prospective parent can become ill. They can change their minds. And if that happens, the child goes into the foster system. Hopefully, not for long, but the longer the child remains there, the greater the likelihood that they'll grow up there."

Emma hugged herself. "No," she whispered. "No, I can't let that happen."

"Well," Ross said, "with the arrangement I'm proposing, it won't. Because your child's home will be assured even before he's born."

"But the parents could still change their minds."

Ross smiled gently. "Let me share a sad reality with you, Emma. Sad… but it's also the truth. When people put up money for something they want, they're much less likely to back out of the deal. And this is true even in a case where they're guaranteed to get that money back. Somehow, when cash changes hands, the commitment feels more… binding. I've facilitated over a dozen such adoptions and in all cases, they've been finalized without a hitch. Plus, I can promise you that your baby will be placed in an affluent home and given every opportunity to thrive. He or she will live in the best neighborhoods, go to the best schools, make the right kinds of friends, and have… well, the kind of options I could barely dream of when I was a boy."

"I take it you weren't born… um…" ...Rich, her mind supplied, though she realized before the word left her mouth that it would be insulting to say it out loud. Emma felt her face grow hot.

Ross shook his head, but he was still smiling. "I grew up in the system myself," he lied. "Luckily, my grades were good enough for a scholarship," he continued, falling back onto facts once more, "but I know what it does to a person growing up that way. I don't think either of that wants that for…"

"No," Emma said. "No, I don't. So, would I get to meet this… family?"

Ross shook his head. "I specialize in closed adoptions. That means that there's no contact between the biological and adoptive parents. You'll find out some basic information about them and they'll learn the same about you. You won't contact them and they'll never contact you. If there's ever any reason to communicate any information, it'll be done through lawyers."

"I'd have to talk to you, you mean."

"That's right," Ross nodded. "Now, if you were to write a letter, telling your child a bit about who you are and want you wanted for them when you gave them up, I can arrange to make that available to them on their eighteenth birthday. You can include any contact information, of course, but…"

"But I won't be in Durango in eighteen years. I might not even be in the US, never mind Phoenix," Emma said. "They'll never find me, will they?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that," Ross replied. "In fact, I think by the time your child is eighteen, it's going to be a lot easier than it would be today. You see, today, finding a birth parent—or a child surrendered for adoption, for that matter—usually involves a lot of phone calls and letter writing, often the hiring of private investigators… It can be a long, drawn-out process. Now, in the last few years, as more records have become computerized, that process has become a bit more streamlined. But now, with the internet starting to really take off, I'd say we're right on the cusp of being able to have all that information available right at your fingertips."

Emma frowned. She'd heard about the internet, even gone into a café once to see what all the fuss was about. The 'websites' she'd seen had been garish, often eye-smarting with fuchsia or electric blue type on a black or painfully yellow background. And they'd taken forever to load. Maybe this guy was right, but she didn't see how anyone could stare at one of those screens for long without killing their eyes.

He wasn't lying to her though. Emma could tell that much. He couldn't know the future, of course, but he believed what he was telling her. That, she realized, had to be enough. And in any case, she had to think about what she was going to do in seven months, not about eighteen years down the road. She had to think about what was best for the baby. And what was best for the baby wasn't living with a teenaged mother in some… roach-infested apartment the size of a closet or some trailer park. Maybe things would be different if Neal were with her. Maybe he could be. It was possible that he'd get lucky and the judge would let him off with a warning. Or he'd be sentenced to time served. Or community service. Or…

Three to ten years in state prison.

She couldn't write to him, she reminded herself. She didn't know where he was. And she wouldn't find out as long as she was in here. And once she did find out, what if it turned out that he'd gotten the maximum? After all, it wasn't like the watches were the only things he'd ever stolen. There had been all those petty thefts at the gas stations and convenience stores. The dine-and-dashes along I-84. The VW she'd broken into, not realizing he'd already stolen it first…

If it were just her, she'd wait for him. Once she got out, once she found out where he was, she'd pay him a visit and find out where their relationship stood. But she couldn't raise a baby on her own. She couldn't look after a child alone for ten years. She couldn't…

"I-I can still change my mind, right?" she asked.

"Right up until you surrender the baby when it's born," Ross nodded, feeling a surge of triumph as he passed the paperwork across the table.

That evening, Mr. Gold returned home to a waiting email.

She signed, it read. Attached please find the particulars. If all is to your satisfaction, have your client sign and return the documentation and wire the down payment and we can proceed from there.

Smiling, he opened the attachment. When he read the first line on the form, his eyes opened almost as wide as the door in his mind that had been keeping his memories locked tight.

"Emma," Rumpelstiltskin said aloud. "What a lovely name!"

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

This wasn't right. Rumple realized it nearly at once. He was supposed to recall his true self only when the Savior first arrived in town and she almost certainly wasn't here yet; it was far too soon for that. At least, he thought with a frown, he believed it was. Now that he was considering the matter, just how many years had it been since the curse had carried them all here?

He had no idea and that frightened him. He was used to having all the answers. Knowledge was power, after all, and the more you knew about a thing, the greater your power over it. Giving up as much knowledge, as much control, as he'd known the Curse would take from him had been so terrifying a notion that he'd had to take steps to ensure he wouldn't be able to hang back at the last moment, as he had the first time.

He'd been over a century crafting the Curse that would take him to Bae. Doing so had involved far more than simple incantations, potions, and powders. He'd had to find the perfect curse-caster and twist and shape her toward that end. He'd had to find and bottle a true love pure and powerful—one that had been strengthened through trial and adversity. And hadn't he made certain that it would be? Fate had played its part, of course, but Rumple had known he could leave nothing to chance—especially not last minute panic or second thoughts.

He'd allowed himself to be captured so that he wouldn't have the power to evade the Curse at the last, and even then, he'd given himself a way out, once assured that his curse-caster would fulfill her task. He hadn't used the squid ink to escape his cell. And by the time panic might have set in, there probably wouldn't have been a place he could get to where the Dark Curse's billowing smoke wouldn't reach. Still, just having the bottle with him had been reassuring. Had Snow White or her charming prince decided to execute him as they'd once considered doing to Regina, or perhaps sold him to one of his enemies to replenish their treasury, he would have been able to escape that at least. And while the latter possibility was doubtful, he would have been a fool to think that villains had cornered the market on rationalizations. If the heroes meant to harm him, they'd find a way to make themselves believe he deserved it. And if they contented themselves with keeping him incarcerated where they could seek him out for advice on how to defeat the Curse, then so much the better. He'd been where he wanted to be: in a place where the Curse could carry him where he wanted to go. One day, he'd known, the Savior would arrive, that Curse would break, and he'd be able to leave and find Bae.

But not now!

How much longer would he need to wait, stumbling about and pretending to be asleep and blind as everyone else? He knew he could ask Regina to please leave him to his own devices, but sooner or later, she'd suspect the truth. And without his magic, he wouldn't be able to defend himself if she decided that having him awake and aware was too dangerous.

His mind flashed briefly on the man and boy who had passed through town a while back. (Of course, under the Curse, every day save today felt like 'a while back'.) He knew that the boy had… Well, he imagined 'escaped' was the accurate term. He also knew that Sheriff Graham had apprehended the man—he'd seen them on their return to town; the man sitting stonily in the back of the squad car, the sheriff at the wheel, and the mayor driving her Mercedes behind. And then? Well, he couldn't say, but he doubted that Regina had gone through all the trouble of having him arrested just to let him go an hour later. And yet, he'd never seen the man again. So, either Regina had him caged up somewhere… Or she'd found a more permanent disposition.

Rumple resolved on the spot to avoid either fate. His safety, his freedom, and his life might well hinge on Regina's continued belief that he was still asleep. Perhaps, it would be wiser to return to that state. But first, he wanted to have some idea of how long he'd need to wait. Perhaps, it had already been over twenty-seven years!

Perhaps it had been less than twenty-seven days.

And he couldn't very well go about asking anyone here which it was, when the only person who knew for certain was the person he dared not approach. Not unless he wanted to end up like…

A slow smile spread his lips. Perhaps, there was a way to narrow the timeline down a bit.

He closed his email and almost hesitantly opened his web browser. He really was not comfortable with this thing, but he didn't want to involve Sidney Glass unless there was truly no other option. He typed a single line into Google's search-box.

Missing persons in Maine last 30 years.

The search returned over one hundred thousand hits.

Rumpelstiltskin devoutly hoped he wouldn't need to review all of them.

Emma went back to her cell unable to shake the feeling that she'd just made a huge mistake. She knew that logically speaking, practically speaking, she hadn't. Her child was going to have a better life than she ever had, and a better life than she could ever hope to give him. She knew that was true. She did. She was seventeen, with no education and a criminal record—yes, okay, it would be sealed when she turned eighteen, but even it would be, what kind of future could she have with her past? More to the point, what kind of future could she hope to give her child? And even if she and Neal had been together, his prospects were as bleak as hers. Bleaker; his record wouldn't be sealed when he got out of wherever he was now.

No, she'd made the right choice. She had.

Then why did it feel like she hadn't?

Because Ross Anderson had been too slick, too glib, too eager to establish a rapport. She got that. She'd been getting it all her life from well-meaning social workers, teachers, and the occasional foster parent. There had to be some handbook out there with instructions like, Review the child's history. Try to find some common ground. If there isn't any, create some.

She guessed that was why he'd told her he'd grown up in the system. He'd wanted her to think he was her friend. He could have spared himself the effort. She didn't need a friend; she needed a chance. So did her baby. And her superpower had been quiet when he'd outlined the agreement she was entering into. Nothing about that had been a lie. Because of that, and because she really didn't have a whole lot of options, she'd signed the papers. Maybe, though, she shouldn't have. Maybe she should have asked to deal with a different lawyer.

Get real, Emma, she thought to herself. It's not like you can afford one. Beggars can't be choosers. If he walks out on you, then you've got nothing. She remembered what Dani had told her about the extra challenges of being pregnant in juvie. Lousy prenatal care, not enough food for the two of them, getting taken to an off-site ob-gyn in shackles and leg irons… If Ross Anderson was going to spare her any of that, if he'd been honest about everything else, she could let slide the one lie he'd told that he hadn't had to.

She thought she could anyway.

She swung her legs up onto her cot and sat, hugging her knees to her chest, hoping she'd made the right choice.

It was a small article from the Portland Press Herald. A terse two paragraphs reproduced from page fourteen of the front section. Rumple almost called up the next 'hit' before he realized what he was looking at. Once Regina had signed the forms and he'd duly returned them to Anderson, he'd spent the next five evenings at his computer from after dinner until the wee hours of the morning, scrolling through old news items, some reprinted and others mere scanned pages of tiny type. And here, at long last, it was: "Hopes fade for missing New Jersey camper. Three weeks ago, Kurt Flynn and his ten-year-old son were camping in the Mid-Coast region, when they became separated…"

Rumple fought down his rising excitement. He remembered the two visitors a bit better now. They'd come into the shop looking for souvenirs, in fact. At the time, he'd considered that an odd ask, but he'd shown them a number of articles for sale, none of which had interested them. He'd thought the man's name had been Flynn, but after—he looked at the date of the Herald article and then at the date on the bottom of his screen—after seventeen years, he could have been misremembering.

He brought up an edition from three weeks earlier. This time, the story was on page three, and it was far more detailed. The boy stated that he and his father had been camping in the woods when they'd been struck by some sort of storm. When it passed, they'd found that a town had appeared out of nowhere…

Rumple nodded, satisfied. He'd found the visitors and now, he had his answer. The Curse had been in effect for seventeen years and it would be another eleven before it would break. Well. He wasn't about to remain awake for that long. He'd go mad, surely. And while it wouldn't be the first time that had happened, he had no desire to revisit the experience. In some ways this Curse was an actual blessing. Besides, keeping his newfound awareness from Regina for over a decade and a half was likely a fool's mission. There was only so much he could do to protect himself here, with no ally, no real friend, and the only happy ending in this place Regina's. It was too soon. And yet…

He pushed his chair away from the computer and reached for the printout he'd received from Ross Anderson. Perhaps, he reflected, it would do him no harm to learn a bit more about this 'Emma Swan'. If she was who he believed she might be, then in eleven year's time when she arrived, he'd be that much better positioned to turn the situation to his advantage when he remembered anew…

Emma could barely believe it was happening this quickly, though maybe it was because she'd always thought that it could take months, or even years, for a case to come to trial. Her own experience following her arrest had been different, so maybe she shouldn't have been surprised that barely a week after signing her agreement, Ross had come by again. This time, it had been to tell her that she had another hearing scheduled in fifteen days.

"A friend of mine will be handling your case," he'd told her, "and I'm fairly confident in your chances."

Emma gawped at him. "Sorry, what?"

Ross smiled. "You'll recall earlier that I mentioned we could probably get you out of here and into a halfway house. Well, the woman who's going to adopt your child has agreed to pay for a juvenile law attorney to represent your interests at a new hearing and after reviewing your case, I have to say that she's optimistic about it going in your favor."

"So, I'd be free?" Emma asked.

"Well, within limits. You'd be on probation—probably something involving some kind of community service for the duration of what time remains of your sentence. During that time, you'll be expected to be on your best behavior." His expression was serious. "No jaywalking. No littering. It doesn't matter if 'everyone' does it. You don't." He paused for a breath. "I don't know whether anyone filled you in when you were sent here, but in case you weren't aware, Phoenix has a curfew law: if you're sixteen or seventeen, you can't be out between midnight and five AM."

Emma gave a quick nod. "Got it. Anything else?"

"I don't know about an ankle monitor. Because pregnancy can sometimes cause swollen ankles, you might be able to avoid one, but with or without it, you'll need permission from the Community Supervision Bureau to leave Phoenix. Once your time's up, you'll be free to go, of course. And once you turn eighteen, your records will be sealed—but that's true in any case. Sound good?"

Emma nodded. "It sounds great," she said, even as she tried not to raise her hopes too high. Ross Anderson might be a nice guy, but he wasn't the person deciding whether she'd be getting out. That was up to the judge.

And now, here she was, standing in another juvenile courtroom, in clothes Durango had loaned her for the occasion, beside a short woman in a power business suit with a brisk, no-nonsense attitude, who was presenting her case. It felt so… routine, so ordinary. The lawyer rattled off a few paragraphs and subsections, the judge listened and nodded. He asked Emma a few questions, the gist of which seemed to be, "If I let you out of Durango, will you behave yourself and not find yourself back here again?" Maybe they weren't rhetorical, strictly-speaking, but as far as Emma was concerned, they might as well have been. She gave her yeses and noes in the right places.

There was a tense pause. Then the judge cleared his throat. "Under the circumstances and given the defendant's commitment to reform and the concrete steps outlined here, petition for parole is granted." He looked at Emma and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "Congratulations, Miss Swan. And good luck."

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

The halfway house gave Emma the same vibe as a number of the group homes she'd lived in while in the system. Those had been holding tanks until she either moved on to a new placement or aged out. And this was a holding tank until her parole was completed and she moved on. She was fine with that, honestly. She knew how those worked: keep your nose clean, follow the rules, don't make waves, and you got by.

She was in this place for another seven months. The baby was due in five. For the next little while, all she had to do was eat right, go to her check-ups, try to finish high school—a condition of her parole, and while she resented being ordered to do it, she understood the reasoning—and basically relax.

She knew that. She understood it. And yet, five days after arriving at Second Chance Youth Refuge, she told her house manager that she was going to the library to research a paper. It wasn't a lie; she did have a paper to submit. And she even went to the library—she knew that someone might be keeping tabs on her and she wasn't taking chances. Once there, however, she found a pay phone in the corridor between the bathrooms, flipped the phone book up, and turned to the blue pages. They had an 800 number, she thought. Perfect. She took a breath, hoped for luck, and dialed it.

"Arizona Department of Corrections; Good morning!" a pleasant voice greeted her.

Emma swallowed. Play it cool, she told herself. It's not like they're going to trace this call. "Hi," she said, trying to sound casual. "I'm wondering how I could get in touch with an inmate…?"

The future was like a puzzle with missing pieces. Difficult to read and never, ever what you thought. Rumple had learned that the hard way over the years. And so, perhaps he was reading too much into the paperwork he had before him. After all, there had to be more than one 'Emma' in this Land Without Magic.

More than one Emma born some seventeen years ago.

Besides, the Emma he was seeking would have crossed to this world at roughly the site where Storybrooke was now. This young woman—or girl, perhaps—had been in Oregon, clear on the other side of the country in which he now found himself.

This wasn't the Enchanted Forest, where one might grow to adulthood, wed, raise a family, and die, all within three leagues of the house where they were born. People moved about far more freely here.

It was preposterous. For the Savior to surrender a child, for that child to be raised by the Evil Queen… the entire idea was laughable!

And who was to say that Fate didn't possess a sense of humor? Or that this wouldn't serve as the very vehicle that would draw the Savior here when the time was right?

Rumple sighed. He could go back and forth over this for the next eleven years or so, but it would change nothing. He had to trust that when the time came, the Savior would arrive. It might be this Emma Swan. It might be some other Emma.

If her charming parents had simply dumped her in a wardrobe with no nametag or accompanying letter, the young woman might not be 'Emma' at all! And then, how would he be able to assist her in fulfilling her destiny? If he put himself back under the curse now, and she never spoke her true name to awaken him, how would he be able to guide her to break the curse properly?

He heaved a sigh. He no more had the answer to that than he did an explanation for how his boy could still be alive, more than two hundred years after their parting. He only had the word of a seer who had been dead right about everything else she'd predicted for him. Either he believed in the seer's words and in Fate, or he did not. And if he didn't, then everything he'd done to bring those words to fruition had been an exercise in futility.

He didn't truly believe that it had been. In less than eleven years, he told himself, the Savior would arrive and the curse would break. It only remained to be seen whether it would be through his efforts, or despite them.

"Thanks," Emma said, hanging up the phone with a sigh. The person she'd spoken with had told her to contact his attorney. Unfortunately, she had no idea who that was. The helpful receptionist had also given her the main telephone number for the state prison in Phoenix, but when she'd called it (and used up too many quarters waiting on hold), she'd been told he wasn't there.

"You might want to try the minimum security facility in Globe," that receptionist had told her. "If he was convicted of a non-violent crime he could be serving his sentence there."

"Globe," Emma repeated. "Where's that?"

It was seventy-five miles away. Emma felt her heart plummet, but she called the number they gave her and spent a few more quarters confirming that Neal was, in fact, there. He couldn't receive phone calls, though. There was some process where she had to fill out a form and get her name on a list and if Neal had phone privileges, he could call her collect once a month or once a week or however frequently he was allowed. She asked them to mail her the form, but after she got off the phone, she started thinking about why that might not be the best idea.

If, as Dani had warned her, what she and Neal had done was considered statutory rape, then her calling to tell him might make things so much worse. They monitored phone calls in prison, didn't they? They sure did in juvie. Maybe… She couldn't leave Phoenix for another seven months. The baby would be born in five. She'd have to decide by then, but how could she without discussing it with Neal? Maybe she could visit him and be back in Phoenix with nobody the wiser. Yes, visits were probably monitored too, but if he saw her, if he realized that she was showing, she might be able to talk about it in a way that didn't come right out and say, "I'm pregnant with your child."

It was good that Greyhound had a 1-800 number, because she was all out of quarters. There was a bus to Globe leaving Phoenix at 7:30AM daily. Unfortunately, if she missed it, there'd be no other bus until the next day. She might have tried anyway. Leaving the halfway house that early in the morning might be tricky; the excuse about going to the library wouldn't work at that hour, but some of the clinics could be open then. Or she could say that she had a nine o'clock appointment, but that it was clear on the other side of town and she wanted an early start. Maybe they'd buy it. "Okay, and how about getting back from Globe to Phoenix?"

Her heart sank. There was only one daily bus in that direction, too. And it left at 11:41AM. "Uh, how long is the ride?" It was two hours and twenty-five minutes. Assuming the bus left on time, she'd arrive in Globe just before ten. She'd then have less than two hours to find her way from the bus depot—actually, it was just a bus stop—to the prison, get through whatever security she had to, tell Neal everything she had to say, get out of the prison—probably getting through more security on the way out—and back to the bus stop and back to Phoenix. On the plus side, she'd arrive at 2:15: plenty of time to get back to SCYR before curfew. But if she missed that bus, she'd be screwed. And back in Durango by nightfall.

And what if, when they checked her ID, it came up in their computer system that she wasn't allowed to leave Phoenix? Voluntarily walking into a prison when she'd just barely been allowed to leave it might not be the smartest move.

"Ma'am?"

Emma started. She'd forgotten for a moment that she was still on with Greyhound.

"Ma'am, are you still there?"

Emma swallowed. "Thanks," she managed. Then she hung up with a sigh.

She would write to him. She had an address, now, Emma told herself. She could write to him and tell him—and whoever it was who opened prisoners' mail… Emma went cold. As far as she knew, they could still charge you with more crimes if they came to light after you'd been sentenced for something else. Minimum security didn't sound so bad, at least, not compared to some of the alternatives.

Damn. She wanted him to know, she wanted him to be involved, but telling him might make things so much worse. And what she told him and he didn't want to raise a child? They'd talked about it, sure, but they'd talked about so many dreams. Emma knew very well that it was one thing to like an idea as a nice fantasy, and not necessarily want the real costs involved in turning that idea was into reality. Neal loved kids; Emma had seen him smile at babies and play peek-a-boo or "You drop the toy and I'll give it back" endlessly. He'd never had to change a diaper though. Or had to wake up in the middle of the night with a kid who wouldn't stop screaming. And if a baby was colicky or didn't feel like playing, he could just move along. Having a family meant responsibility and sacrifice and always being around and not jumping up and leaving whenever you got bored with a place or thought the police were catching wise to your scamming. It meant no scamming, not when getting caught could mean you in jail and your kid in the system and… and… And Emma didn't know if she could handle that, with or without Neal.

But part of her wanted to try. And so, the next time she went to the library, she checked the catalogue, sat down with a copy of Heidi Murkoff's What to Expect the First Year, and began to read. She wasn't sure why, when she was going to be giving her baby up for adoption, but if—like so many other hopes and promises in her life—this opportunity fell through, she wanted to be prepared to raise her baby. If there was one thing of which she was positive, it was that her child would grow up in a loving home—and not in the system.

"Emma!" Ross Anderson greeted her. "Lovely to see you. Uh…" He lowered his eyes in what looked like embarrassment. "You're going to need some more clothes. Why don't you pop into Motherhood Maternity sometime this week and pick up a few things? I think you'll find the limit on your credit card is more than sufficient."

Emma took a deep breath. "That's right," she said. "I should. But maybe I ought to give that back to you."

Ross blinked. "Whatever for?"

"Uh… look," Emma said. "This isn't easy for me, but I've been thinking. A-and, I know this isn't what we agreed on, but I think I want to keep the baby after all. There's a parenting class for teen mothers at the Y, and I've been reading up on child development, and I know it's not going to be easy, but I don't really know anything about the people you have lined up. Maybe they're great, but maybe I can be great, too. Or at least, good enough."

"I see," Ross said with a frown.

"You told me I could change my mind at any time," Emma went on. "And I wasn't planning on doing it, but I think I have. I want to cancel the agreement."

Ross nodded. "Of course," he said. "I mean, the adopting family will be disappointed, but I'm sure they'll understand. So…" He turned to the computer on the desk before him and typed a quick staccato on the keyboard. A moment later, the printer hummed and three sheets of paper spilled into the output tray. Ross reached for them, took a pen, and circled something on the last page. "Here."

Emma took the pages. "Is this something I need to sign?"

"No, Emma," Ross said. "It's the itemized total of the funds that have been paid out on your behalf: your attorney fees, medical care, vitamins…"

Eyes wide with dawning horror, Emma pulled the bottom page out and looked at the figure Ross had circled. It was seven digits (two of them in the decimal columns), and the first digit wasn't a one or even a two.

"Those funds were advanced to us by the adopting family. If you're backing out," Ross's tone was gentle, even apologetic, "I'll need to collect this back from you to return to them."

"I-I can't afford this!" Emma exclaimed. "I'm working fifteen hours a week at a diner, plus finishing high school! Where am I supposed to get…?"

"I know," Ross said, still sounding sympathetic. "But Emma, when you signed the contract, you agreed that if you chose to terminate the agreement, you'd reimburse all monies laid out for your prenatal needs. It's only fair," he added. "Those funds were paid with the expectation that the family would be receiving a healthy child in a few months. If they have to start the process again with another young woman, they'll need those monies returned so that they can spend them on her." He paused for a beat. "As soon as you get that amount back to me, I'll tear up the contract and tell the adopting family the bad news. But until then…"

Emma swallowed hard. "What can you tell me about them?" she asked.

"Nothing," Ross replied. "The family wants a closed adoption as badly as you said you did. I can't breach their confidentiality." And while there was nothing wrong with a child being adopted by a single parent, Ross rather suspected that to a girl with Emma's background, a two-parent household meant stability and security. He wasn't about to say anything that might disabuse her of the idea. If Emma learned that her child was destined for a single-parent home, just when she seemed to be on the point of giving in, she might well decide to fight all the harder to keep her child. And if it occurred to her to seek out some legal aid clinic for advice, she'd quickly discover just how non-binding and how illegal her contract was. Better by far that she believe that her child was headed for some young couple in the suburbs, a working dad, a stay-at-home mom, some nice split-level home with a white picket fence and a dog named Spot… There was no harm, and a great deal of benefit in letting her keep that sort of picture in her mind.

"You're sure they're good people," Emma whispered, and Ross noted that she wasn't asking him, so much as telling him what she wanted to hear.

"I am," he said. "And they want the best for you and your child."

Emma gave a faint nod.

"Look," Ross said, "think it over some more. And if you're still sure, then just get the money back to me and I'll refund the family. And if you decide to go through with it after all, we can forget this conversation took place and you can go and get those clothes. And maybe get yourself a little something extra, too," he added. "A spa day or maybe just a good book or a movie. Something that isn't about the baby."

"Yeah," Emma sighed, getting to her feet and preparing to go. "Sure."

Two days later, Ross called Pinnacle Bank and confirmed that there was a $350 authorization from a clothing store on the credit card he'd taken out for Emma Swan. He wouldn't have the full details of the shop until the transaction posted, but he was fairly sure that it would prove to be from a maternity store. He felt a wave of relief wash over him and he settled back to compose an email update to send to Regina Mills' attorney.

Emma couldn't sleep. She stared out the window at the Arizona night sky, so big and wide and filled with twinkling stars and wished she could fly off somewhere where there were no bills and no contracts and…

…No babies?

She shook her head. She wanted this baby. But how could she—?

She looked at the clock by her bed. It was past three in the morning. She should be asleep. But she was still playing over the events of the day and feeling trapped. She'd been, well, she hadn't really been tricked into anything. If she was being paid to give up her baby for adoption and she decided not to, it made perfect sense that she'd have to give the money back. At the time, she'd agreed to the arrangement, she'd never considered that she might change her mind and she'd never bothered to find out what the consequences might be if she had, but she'd looked at her contract when she'd come back to the halfway house, and it was all there—in clear English and black and white.

She couldn't come up with that kind of money.

Again, thoughts of Neal tumbled through her mind. This was his child, too. She wanted to hear his thoughts. More to the point, she realized, Neal had always been good at reading over terms and conditions. Contests, lottery tickets, that fine print that flashed on the screen during TV commercials… even that one time that they'd been given free tickets to North Clackamas Aquatic Park as part of some timeshare promotion, he'd told her exactly what they were getting into and how to avoid getting suckered. If she could show him the contract…

She waited until the clock read 5:05. No point violating curfew on her way to a probation violation. Then she quietly got dressed, stole outside, and made her way to the Greyhound terminal.

They were waiting for her when she got off the bus. She hadn't gone more than a hundred yards or so, when a police cruiser pulled up alongside her. "Emma Swan?"

"Huh?" Maybe if she denied it, they'd apologize and move on.

"Could we see some ID, please?"

Emma winced. "Yeah," she said, resigned. "Here, it's in my pocket, okay?" She pulled out her wallet and passed it over. "What's this about?"

"Had a call from Second Chance about a possible runaway. You fit the description. Parole terms say you can't leave Phoenix city limits, right?" When Emma didn't answer, the officer shrugged and took out a pair of handcuffs. "Palms on the hood, please."

"Seriously?" It came out more plaintively than Emma intended and she wanted to cry as the officer continued.

"You have the right to remain silent. You have the right—"

Running feet. And a familiar voice. "Emma!" And then, quickly, "Ross Anderson. I'm her lawyer."

The officer gave a short laugh. "Well, your timing's good, Mr. Anderson. Let me finish Miranda-izing your client and we can pick this up at the station."

"Ross?" Emma asked, turning her head to look at him. "What's going to happen?"

Ross's expression was somber. "I'll do everything I can for you, Emma. It's going to be okay."

But it wasn't. Despite Ross's arguments and pleas for further clemency, Emma found herself back in Durango, cursing herself for an idiot. She should have waited. She should have… come up with some way to contact Neal that wouldn't have involved a parole violation! She'd been stupid and impulsive and immature and stupid and scared and stupid, stupid, STUPID.

And she'd seriously thought she could raise a child? That she'd be ready to handle a baby in less than five months? She'd probably screw the kid up even worse than she was. Ross had been right. This was her baby's best chance, and it was hers, too.

And so, four months and two weeks later, when she was lying in the delivery room, a cuff on her ankle securing her to the bed, gasping for breath as her newborn son's strong cries pierced the air and her heart, and the doctor held him out her, she turned away. Out the corner of her eye, she saw the nurse whisper something in the doctor's ear and when the doctor spoke again, his voice was a good deal sadder.

"Oh." And then, "Emma, just so you know, you can change your mind."

But Emma knew better. "No," she sobbed. "I can't be a mother."

She was still sobbing when the doctor left, carrying her baby. Presently, an orderly came to wheel her to a room. "Emma?" the corrections officer who had been present for the ordeal was suddenly at the head of her bed. "Emma, they're keeping you overnight for observation. If all's well, we'll go back in the morning."

Emma closed her eyes and didn't answer.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Six months later, Emma still hadn't sent in the form to let Neal know she wanted to hear from him. She did want to. Hear from him, see him, talk to him, touch him… But something kept holding her back. At first, she thought she knew what it was: people who came into her life, even good people, never stuck around for long. And if she ever met up with them again, no matter how great they'd been in the past, any attempt to rekindle a friendship just got awkward, as though one of them had… matured… and the other hadn't. Or they'd both moved on in different directions. Or something. She told herself that she just wanted to hold onto the memories of the good times she and Neal had shared and not replace them with uncomfortable pauses and throat-clearings and trying to find stuff to say.

And then she realized that she had plenty she wanted to tell him, but she didn't know how to start. How could she tell Neal that she'd borne his child and given him up and had no clue where he was or who'd taken him in or if he was even still ali—She viciously tamped down that scary thought. She'd given birth to a healthy baby boy. He was fine. Or he should be. Or...

She didn't know. She didn't know now, but one day she would find out. But right now, she still didn't know how she could explain it all to Neal. Not when she had a pretty good idea of how he'd react when she did…

" Drugs?" Emma asked, with a hint of bitterness.

Neal hesitated. "Close enough, I guess, yeah. I was… well, trying to find a way to help him clean up. And he said he was going to, if there was a way we could stay together and he'd have something waiting for him when he got done. I started doing my research—"

"Hang on. How old were you?"

" Fourteen," Neal replied at once. "Yeah, I was precocious. Growing up the way I did, I sort of had to be. Anyway, I found a place and it sounded great. And Papa was on board, or at least I thought he was, until the last minute."

" What happened?"

Neal hesitated. "I… I went on ahead to check it out. I sent him the money and a train ticket. He never showed up. I never heard from him again. At the last, he just… couldn't kick the habit. He chose it over me and that was that."

Emma's lie detector was pinging, and she'd been about to call him on it, but the last sentence had rung true. Or at least, it was what he believed. Still, she found herself asking, "Are you sure? I mean, if you never heard from him again, maybe something else… happened. Like he lost the ticket or he got mugged or—"

"No," Neal said with finality. "Just because I never heard from him doesn't mean I never heard about him. He's still out there." He blew air out between his teeth. "And no matter how many times I try to remind myself about the good times and how he was there for me before he got into the other stuff, the bottom line is that he abandoned me. I'd never do that to any kid of mine." He leaned back into the cushioned seat of the VW.

Emma's throat felt dry. "I-I never thought about having kids," she murmured. "I mean, sure, one day, maybe. I mean…" She swallowed hard. "I grew up in the system. I know more about not being a good parent than being one. A-and I'm only sixt—"

" Hey, easy," Neal was smiling. "I didn't mean right now! I'm not ready either! But," his expression turned serious once more, "if anything did happen, then ready or not, I wouldn't try to duck my responsibility. And there's no way I'd ever turn my back on anyone I had a hand in bringing into the world."

And her lie detector didn't go off at all that time.

Emma's throat was dry. She wanted to see Neal, talk to him, hear his voice… After all this time, she'd forgotten so much about just being with him. And he'd probably moved on like everyone else in her life who had ever meant anything to her, she told herself.

For a minute, she wished her superpower worked on herself.

Actually, in this case, it wouldn't make a difference; if a person believed that they were telling the truth, her power never told her otherwise. And anyway, what reason did she have to think that Neal would be any different from all the rest?

He wasn't lying when he told me he loved me.

Yeah, but he'd told her he loved her… She did some rapid calculations. It had been over a year and a half since she'd seen him last. Eleven months in Durango, or eleven months minus the three weeks or so she'd been at Second Chance. six months in Miami, because she hadn't had anywhere else to go after her release, and when Durango had set her up with an employment counsellor shortly before her release, she'd jumped at an opportunity to work outside Phoenix, if only barely. And now, she'd been here in Globe for just under three months. Twenty months. That was getting closer to two years all the time.

She was a stone's throw from the minimum security prison; she could walk there on her lunch break, for crying out loud (though she imagined that it would take longer than that hour to get through security)! What the hell was holding her back?

She didn't want to find out that he'd changed. She didn't want to find out if she had. And she didn't want to find out his reaction when he found out that she'd given up their child for adoption. When he found out what an idiot she'd been. Because Neal would have been smart enough to know that the deal Ross had proposed wasn't legal. He would have asked all the right questions, raised all the right doubts. Better yet, he'd never have considered making it. When he found out what she'd done, he wouldn't want anything more to do with her.

The smart play, she knew, was to never contact him again. She should leave Globe tonight; there was nothing holding her here now. Well. Apart from her lack of transportation, the fact that the cash payment she'd gotten from Ross had pretty much gone on rent, clothes, and furniture and she'd need to scrape up first-and-last for a deposit on any apartment she might get, if she found one at all. And she'd have no jobs lined up, no connections, no… No way she was going anywhere now.

Besides, she liked working for Ray Manuel and she was starting to think that she might actually have what it took to become a good investigator.

She didn't have to make a decision now. But maybe... Maybe she should send in the form. She could see Neal, talk to him, find out how much longer he had until he got out, and find out how he felt about her and how she felt about him.

If whatever they'd had was gone, she'd never have to tell him about the baby. And if it wasn't, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

Emma looked up in surprise when her boss set a thin file folder down beside her. "Did I miss something?" she asked a bit nervously. She knew she sometimes got sloppy when she was bored and a lot of the data entry was boring. So far, Ray had been decent about it, but if she made too many errors, Ray would probably be decent about telling her that hiring her had been a mistake, too.

"This is a skip trace case," he said. "We get a few of those from time to time. There are a number of third-party collection agencies in the area. Uh… you know what those are, right?"

"Uh… Well, I know what collection agencies are."

Ray nodded. "When an account goes past due, the creditor likes to try to handle things in-house with their own collections department first. If the accounts remain unpaid, and especially if the customer doesn't try to work out some kind of arrangement—and if they don't declare bankruptcy—then usually at the six-month mark, the creditor turns around and sells the debt to an outside—or third party—agency. These guys buy the debt for pennies on the dollar, so the creditor can cut their losses with the delinquent customer. Then the agency tries to collect. Now, there are all kinds of reasons why an account can fall so far into arrears, but in general, it boils down to the customer being either unable or unwilling to pay. If they're unable, they might do a number of things from hide their heads in the sand and hope people get tired of calling them, to declaring bankruptcy or going for credit counselling, to working out some kind of arrangement with the creditor where they're paying consistently what they can afford until the debt's cleared, no matter how long it takes. And it's not uncommon for the creditor to agree to either freeze the interest or forgive some of the debt, as long as the person continues to deal in good faith."

"Okay," Emma nodded. "And this folder…?"

Ray smiled. "Well, now we're getting to 'unwilling'. These people have the money, or some of it anyway, but for whatever reason, they refuse to pay. I heard one case where a guy went three hundred over limit on his MasterCard. When that happens, the amount you're over is typically added to the minimum due. So, if your minimum due is five percent of the outstanding balance and you went over your limit by a hundred, you pay the five percent, plus the hundred."

"So if your credit limit is," Emma frowned, "I don't know, a thousand, and your balance is eleven hundred, are you charged five percent of the thousand, or five percent of eleven hundred plus the hundred?"

"Good question. Not relevant to the story, but go ahead and research the answer in your spare time if you're curious. Anyway," Ray went on, "this guy thought he knew the law better than the credit card company. He claimed that the credit card company was at fault for letting him go over and because of that, they were legally required to write off that three hundred. That's wrong on all counts, by the way. He then decided that he wasn't going to pay anything until they wrote off the three hundred, plus all fees and interest incurred by his refusal to pay."

"Seriously?" Emma gasped. "How'd that work out?"

"Well, I only know about it because my contact at the collection agency was sharing it as an example of the type of specimen of humanity he deals with. It's not something this firm had to deal with because there's not much to investigate. Last I heard, they were pursuing it through the courts; the outstanding balance was over ten thousand. This, though?" he tapped the folder.

"College graduate with his first card. Maxed it out in a month and never made a payment. After the first two collections calls, the phone was disconnected. Statements were returned to sender with 'Addressee moved' written across the envelope. Now, unfortunately," Ray sighed, "the three most common surnames, bar none, in Arizona happen to be Smith, Johnson, and Garcia. So, maybe it shouldn't be a shocker when you look at the name in the file and discover that our missing man just so happens to be named Scott Johnson. Your mission," he went on injecting an ominous note into his voice, "should you choose to accept it, is to track down the right Scott Johnson."

Emma's eyes widened. "Wait. My mission? You're saying that this is a real case you want me to handle?"

He placed three stapled sheets of paper down beside the folder. "Do's and Don'ts. Read them before making any phone calls or sending any correspondence. Ask me if you're not clear on something. We've got a lot more leeway than the courts or the cops as far as how we uncover our evidence, but better safe than sorry. For the next little while, you'll do your data entry in the morning and after lunch till two o'clock. From two to five, this one's all yours. And if I'm staying later, so can you."

Emma touched the folder almost reverently. "Okay," she said. Then more confidently, "Okay, I'll do my best."

"I know," Ray said. "And Emma, you remember your math classes where you got points for showing your work, even if you didn't quite get the answer you were looking for?"

"Yeah…?"

"There are a lot of Scott Johnsons in Arizona. And there's no guarantee he's still in Arizona. At this point, I'm more interested in seeing how you look for him than in whether you find him. In other words, your job is not on the line if you don't. Just so we're clear, okay?"

Emma smiled. "Okay," she said, for the third time in as many minutes.

It took her a week. "He's in Scottsdale," she told Ray at 4:30 that afternoon. "I just spoke with him."

The smile that had already begun forming on Ray's face froze. "What did you say to him?" he asked, a little too calmly.

Emma shrugged. "I told him I was in theater club with his sister Nikki—it's Nicola in the information you gave me, but she just finished high school in Phoenix. I took a chance I could still pass for seventeen—that's where I went on Wednesday, by the way—caught the bus in, went to the school and checked out the yearbook. That was when I found out she went by Nikki and what her interests were."

"Impressive," Ray said, "and…?"

"And the 'Where Are They Now' section of the book told me she was deferring college for a year and taking a gap year to save tortoises in the Galapagos Islands. So I told him I was trying to get in touch with Nikki as part of an alumnae project to give this year's juniors and seniors an up-close look at what's out there and did he have an address for her. He told me she was hard to reach these days, and usually she calls every few weeks just to let everyone know she's alive." Emma spoke faster now, her words nearly tumbling out. "So I asked if maybe I could mail him some information about the alumnae project and he could mention it to her the next time she checked in." She held up a piece of paper triumphantly. "And he gave me his address!"

Ray broke into a huge grin. "All right, Emma!" he exclaimed. "Great work. Now, serious question: Did you enjoy your chance to play Nancy Drew?"

Emma nodded, still smiling. "Yeah," she said, "I did."

"I don't mean finding the guy; of course that's amazing. But the time you spent going through the paperwork, travelling to Phoenix—I hope you kept your receipt for the bus ticket by the way; that's the kind of expense you get reimbursed for—"

"I didn't," Emma admitted, her face falling. "I mean, it's okay; I didn't mind—"

Ray cut her off. "Did you have to show ID to buy the ticket?"

"Uh… yeah."

He walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out a triplicate form. "Fill this out, fax it to Greyhound, and see if they can print you another copy. As I was saying, everyone likes a good result, but how did you enjoy the process?"

"I…" Emma hesitated. "I really think I could see myself doing more of this kind of thing."

"Good," Ray said, his smile turning fiendish. "Because I've got a whole pile waiting to be worked. You can get started after you send that fax."

Emma hesitated. "Uh… Ray? When I send that fax, could I send a personal one? I've been carrying it around with me for a while and I sort of keep forgetting about it—"

"You're not sending it to Abu Dhabi or Tasmania, right? Business is good, but since it's also 99 percent local, I signed on for the cheapest long distance plan they had."

Emma shook her head, smiling a little, to let him know she recognized that he was joking. "No, it's local."

"Then have at it. Oh, and next time, clear your travel with me. Some of our clients want to okay those expenses beforehand."

"Got it."

She almost didn't send the second fax after all. Her fears and doubts were still there and she wasn't sure if she was ready to find out the truth. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she told herself in an undertone. "And if I don't hear anything from him, or I do and it doesn't work out, then I'll know." And if she never reached out, she'd always wonder what might have been.

All the same, her hands were sweating as she took the form out of her pocket and she had to wipe them before she unfolded it, so she wouldn't smudge the ink.

The form slid into the scanner and out the other side. Electronic beeping blended with the hum and squeak of the motor. And then, a moment later, the confirmation printed. It had gone through.

Now, the ball was in Neal's court.

Chapter Text

Emma wondered how it would work. Would the prison tell her when to expect Neal's call or would it just come out of the blue one day? How long would it take to process the form? Would anyone tell her if she'd done it wrong, or if Neal wasn't going to call, or…

She wondered and she worried, at first, but she quickly had other things to think about. Ray hadn't been joking about having more work for her. He 'helped out' a number of third party collection agencies whose targets went missing and as the weeks passed, more and more of those files ended up in Emma's inbox.

Emma discovered a talent for finding these people who didn't want to be found. It took time; she didn't have the luxury of taking a day off to go traveling to Phoenix—or further afield—for every case. She didn't always get her quarry. But she did manage to locate far more people than those who slipped through.

And then one day, Ray asked her to sit in on a conference call with their contact at one of the agencies. "I think you'll learn something," he added, smiling a bit at her surprise.

Emma wondered at that. She seemed to be doing fine so far with the tools at her disposal and she wasn't sure what taking time off from her workload would accomplish, but she dutifully pushed her folders aside and punched the right buttons on her phone to join the call. Presently, another woman's voice came on the line.

"Hi, Ray."

Ray cleared his throat. "Hey, Charlene. Oh, just so you know, we've got another party on the call. Charlene Delgado, I'd like you to meet Emma Swan. She's the skip trace wizard who's been handling your accounts for the last four months."

Emma blinked. Wizard? Her? Really? But Ray, who was always joking, hadn't sounded like he was joking about that. An incredulous smile spread across her face.

"All of them?" Charlene sounded surprised.

"Ever since the Scott Johnson file."

Suddenly, Emma realized that she should have said something when Ray had introduced her. "Uh, hi."

"Welcome aboard, Emma," Charlene greeted her warmly. "Pleasure to meet you."

"L-likewise," Emma managed.

Ray sat up a bit straighter. "Okay, let's get on with this. Emma, I just want you taking notes for now; if you have any questions, save them for the end or talk to me later."

Emma ducked her head once and reached for pen and paper, but she was still glowing and hearing Ray's praise in her mind. Wizard…

"Emma," Ray said, a few days later, "got a minute?"

Emma looked up from the stack of phone books she was rifling through, one for each major city. "I'll find her," she said, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

"If you don't, it won't be for lack of trying," he said. "As much as I love seeing your dedication, I need your help answering one very important question."

Emma's irritation gave way to worry. "Did I screw something up?" she asked in a small voice.

"Well, there were a couple of typos in your last report; spellcheck won't redline anything that's a real word but not the one you intended, but that's not what I wanted to ask you."

"Um… okay," Emma said. "Then…?"

"I'm thinking of a pizza dinner for everyone at the office working past quitting time," Ray said straight-faced. "Just taking a poll of topping preferences. So far, half the staff has voiced an appreciation for pepperoni and sausage, but I'd like to hear from the rest. So…" He plunked a paper menu down on top of the open phone book. "Your thoughts? And don't tell me you want plain cheese."

Emma blinked. "But I like plain cheese."

"C'mon. Live a little."

Emma sighed. Plain cheese was safe. Nobody ever screwed up mozzarella. Well, she amended mentally as she remembered one hole in the wall joint in Oregon in a town named Boring, of all things, almost nobody. She looked at the menu a little nervously. "Hamburger?" she asked. "On pizza? Seriously?"

"It's good," Ray said. "Nowhere near as good as Aunt Jenny's tepary bean stew—I've got to get you up to Gila Mountain sometime so you can try her cooking—but good." He shook his head slightly. "You won't find any Tohono O'odham restaurants here in town, though."

Emma frowned. "I thought you didn't know who your family was," she said, remembering what he'd told her when he'd offered her the job.

"Not when I showed up at that PI's office, no," Ray confirmed. "But I didn't know anything about tracking down missing people back then. I learned." He shook his head slightly. "Anyway. So, was that hamburger on your half of the pie?"

Emma debated with herself for a minute. "If I don't like it, will you eat it?"

"Absolutely. So pick another topping while you're at it. Not pineapple, though; if you want to feel Hawaiian, ham is a traditional luau food, too, and if there's the slightest chance I'm going to finish your share, I think I'm going to have to insist. No pineapple."

"Ham and hamburger?" Emma made a face. "I don't think so. Make it mushroom."

"Mushroom and hamburger it is," Ray said cheerfully. He went back to his desk and picked up the phone to place the order. Emma went back to her research, nodding absently when Ray told her it would be delivered in about twenty minutes.

She was deep in her phone books when the office door swung open and at first, she didn't look up to see who'd come in. She registered the slight bounce of the newcomer's step and immediately thought about Neal. She still hadn't heard anything about the form. Maybe it was time to follow u—

"Hi! I got a half pepperoni-sausage, half hamb…" His voice, his oh-so-familiar voice trailed off as Emma looked up in disbelief. Their eyes met. "Emma!?"

The flat box dropped from his fingers to the floor as Emma sprang up from her chair and into his arms. "NEAL!"

"I only got two years," Neal said, lifting a point of pizza to his mouth and taking a bite. Long, gooey cheese strings stretched out as he pulled it back. "Well, it was a bit longer than that, but they deducted 'time served' from it, so I got out four months ago."

Emma shook her head. "That would've been right around the time I faxed in that form to let you know how to get in touch with me."

"Ships that pass in the night," Ray said. "Say," he turned his head toward Neal, "not that I'm trying to get rid of you, but is Murray okay with your hanging out here, or do you need to get back?"

Neal grinned. "Nah, this was my last delivery; I was heading home afterwards." He looked a little nervously at Emma. "But that was because I didn't think I had anywhere else to go…?"

Emma hesitated. "I… uh… was going to follow up on a possible lead, but that was before you…" She stopped. "I mean…"

"That trail's more than a year cold," Ray said. "I doubt one more day's going to make a difference. Besides, something tells me that even if I insist on your staying, you won't be in the right headspace." He sighed. "Go on, beat it. I'll see you tomorrow at nine sharp. Unless one of the ghosts gets you," he added.

"Ghosts?" Emma repeated skeptically.

"Yeah," Neal deadpanned. "You didn't know? Half the buildings in this place are haunted. Or supposed to be."

"Well, not that many," Ray said. "But the old sheriff's office-slash-jail is, and so's the Old Dominion. Oh and the high school…"

Emma snorted. "Sounds like I should've stayed in Miami."

"As long as you kept away from the third floor of the Bullion Plaza Museum."

"Seriously?"

Ray chuckled. "Well, probably not. All the same, people have reported weird stuff in those places. Like footsteps overhead when there's nobody on the upper floor."

Neal grinned back. "You mean to tell me that two PIs haven't done their own investigating?"

"Ah, but you see," Ray said, reaching for another slice of pizza, "nobody's hiring us to investigate those places. Curiosity is fine, but if I want to keep the lights on and the rent paid, I've got to focus on actual cases." He shrugged. "Besides, if I ever did find out that it was just the wind or a loose branch or something, once word got out, Globe would become even less interesting to tourists. And why would I want to hurt our local economy? It'd be like telling a four-year-old the truth about Santa Claus."

Neal finished his pizza and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. "Just what is the truth about Santa Claus?" he asked.

Ray did a double take. Then Neal snickered, Emma laughed, and finally he joined in. "I think you two'd better leave now. A few more lines like that and I might change my mind. Nice meeting you. Emma, I'll see you tomorrow."

Neal met Emma's eyes. "Well, since we've just had dinner, uh, you want to go somewhere and grab some coffee?"

Emma nodded.

"Hey, you okay?" Neal asked, as Emma set down her cup. "You've been pretty quiet."

Emma swallowed the gulp she'd taken. "I'm fine. Seriously," she added. "I guess… well, it's been a long time and it feels like a lot's changed." She took a breath. "It feels like I've changed."

Neal nodded. "You do seem a lot more… serious. Not that that's a bad thing," he added quickly. "Just… different." He took a breath. "How bad was it? In there?"

Emma tried to smile. "It was okay, I guess. I mean, nobody beat me up in the showers or tried to bully me into giving up my desserts or any of that other stuff you see on TV. They left me alone; I left them alone. But it was… Well, how was your… time?"

"I'm not planning on doing anything that would get me sent back there, if that's what you're asking," Neal said fervently. "I think every night I thanked my lucky stars that they'd only caught me with the watches. If they'd found the car and traced that back to me, or if they'd done some digging and found out about our," he coughed, "Bonnie and Clyde routine, I'd have gone away a lot longer."

Emma nodded. "I saw an article about you not long after I got to Durango. It said you were looking at three to ten…?"

"I thought I was," Neal nodded. "Turns out that most of those watches weren't worth what my old boss reported they were. Either he was scammed long before his path ever crossed mine, or he was scamming the insurance company. Either way, it was enough to get the charge reduced from a Class 2 felony to a Class 3. Or, to put it differently, instead of facing three to ten, I was looking at two to eight and a half. And since I didn't have a weapon, didn't hurt anyone, and it was my first offense—at least, as far as they knew—I got two years."

Emma heaved a sigh. "Lucky."

"You're telling me. So, you're living here now?"

Emma nodded. "I… was, uh, trying to find out where you were. And when I did, I guess I was scared."

"Scared," Neal repeated. "Of what?"

Of having to tell you that I had your baby and gave him up for adoption because I was too stupid to know when I was being strong-armed and I was alone and I didn't want our kid to grow up in the system, but I didn't know how I was going to raise him on my own until you got out. "We had some really good times," Emma said. "Maybe I was afraid that if we met up again, I'd find out that the memories were better than they actually were. Or you'd moved on. Or…"

"Hey." Neal stretched his hand across the table and covered hers. "Hey, it's not all on you, yannow. The day I got out, I wanted to find out what had happened to you. I figured you'd have ended up in juvie, if you hadn't got off, but I wasn't sure if it would've been here or back in Oregon. And anyway, wherever it was, I knew you'd probably have got out before me. I didn't know how to start looking. Or, I did; someone I met when I was inside told me how I could find out, but I never made the call. I figured if you'd never gone for those watches, you'd never have been arrested and you only did it for me, so you probably hated me by now—"

Emma squeezed his hand. "That was my choice," she said firmly. "Because I didn't want to lose you. Everyone I ever cared about walked out on me or sent me away. Sometimes, it was because of stuff I did," she admitted, releasing his hand, "but a lot of the time, it had nothing to do with me. Foster dad lost his job and the check they got for keeping me didn't cover expenses. Foster mom's dad had a stroke and suddenly she couldn't care for him and me at the same time. Okay, 'had to leave the country to avoid arrest' was a new one, but it was still someone I cared about walking out. I didn't want to lose you," she repeated. "So I tried to come up with a way I wouldn't."

"And now?"

Emma sighed. "I don't know. I… don't know what my feelings are. I loved you then. I think I still do. But I don't know if I do, or if I just…" she swallowed hard, "want to."

Neal was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Then, almost too calmly, he asked, "Do you think it's worth trying to find out?"

"I…" Emma blinked. She started to say something, but Neal wasn't done.

"Look, you're right. It's been a while. And maybe we're both different. Or maybe one of us is. Or we're different in the same way. If you're telling me you want to move on and you're trying to do it nicely, then I'm sorry if I didn't take the hint and I won't bother you again. But if you think there might still be something, if you want to give it a chance, well, we're both living here. Maybe we could… try getting to know each other again. Take it slow and if things don't work out, then at least we'll both know instead of each wondering if we could have had something… more than what we already had. What do you think?"

If things didn't work out, she'd never have to tell him about the baby. And if they did, there'd be time enough for that down the road. It didn't have to be tonight. "I think I'd like that," she said, smiling just a bit. "I think I'd like that a lot."

Neal exhaled noisily. "Okay then," he said, wiping his forehead theatrically. "So. You're a private eye, now?"

"Well, learning how to be one," Emma said, relaxing a bit. "And I'm… actually pretty good at it. So far, anyway…"

She didn't tell him about the baby. Not then. And not at their next meeting either. She was waiting for the right moment, or at least, that was what she told herself, but she never could seem to find one. Things were good between them now. Really good. And deep down, Emma knew that if she told him about the baby, it might wreck everything.

She told herself that Neal would understand. She was half-convinced he would. But she didn't want to risk being wrong.

Work was good, too. The data entry job Ray had hired her for was long completed. Now, she spent her time doing skip traces and background checks. Sometimes, she had to deliver summonses and subpoenas, too. Through it all, she tried to apply what she was learning to try to trace what had happened to the baby, but the trail was cold and Emma sadly resigned herself to the possibility that, like her family history, she might never find out.

Three years went by. Business was good. Not what anyone would call 'booming', not in a place like Globe, but they kept busy. Busy enough to hire Neal on to answer phones and do general office work and support.

And then, one afternoon, Emma hurried in after having spent the morning doing research at the library to find Neal looking uncharacteristically upset. "What's going on? Where's Ray?" she asked, leaning in for her kiss.

It didn't come.

"He's meeting with a client in Miami. You had a call from Marisol Zimmerman," Neal said tersely. "She's a reporter with the Arizona Republic. She wanted to know if you had any comment to make on the Ross Anderson arrest."

Emma's mouth went dry. "They got him?" she whispered.

"He was arrested late last night in Las Cruces. I Googled after I got off the phone with her. Emma… why would a reporter want to get a comment from you about a guy involved with black market adoptions?"

From the tone of his voice, he'd probably already guessed it. She swallowed hard. "I can explain…"

Ray came in found her sitting at her desk, staring blankly at her computer screen twenty minutes later. "Emma?"

Emma exhaled. "He found out," she said. "They arrested Ro—"

"Ross Anderson, yeah, I heard. I was going to tell you just now, if you hadn't already seen the news. So… wait. Who found out? What did he find out?"

"Neal," Emma said, fighting for control. "He found out about the baby."

Ray frowned. "And he's blaming you for something that happened when you were sixteen? Seventeen? I… Wow. I have to say, he hasn't struck me as the judgmental type. Not about…" He stopped. "Wait. Neal's not…?"

She lost the fight. "He's the father!" she blurted, as her tears burst forth. "I wanted to tell him before this, but I couldn't find the words. And then a r-r-reporter was calling and he took the call and-and-and…"

Ray was at her side, patting her back. "Emma, hey. Easy. Easy, I got you. It's okay."

"No!" Emma sobbed. "It's not! I l-lost him and I don't know how to get him back and it's all my fault and…"

"I got you," Ray said, not sure if she was talking about Neal or the baby and not really caring. "I got you."

The door opened again and neither looked up until a new voice spoke. "Hey."

She almost didn't dare raise her eyes to see if the face and voice matched, but when she did, Neal was standing on the other side of the counter, looking a lot less belligerent than he had a short while ago. She pressed her lips together firmly, until she felt she could trust her voice. "Neal."

"Uh… can we talk? Or did I just ruin everything?"

"What?"

Ray squeezed her shoulder. "I'm going to go get us some coffee at La Casita. You'll be okay?"

Emma managed to nod. Neal came around the counter, sliding past Ray on his way to the door. As soon as Ray was gone, Neal said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Emma asked bitterly. "I had your baby, I gave him up, I didn't tell you, I—"

"You wanted to give him his best chance," Neal said. "If that phone call hadn't knocked me for a loop, I would've realized it sooner. As it was, I needed to take a walk and get my head together, but now that it is, I think I understand."

"I wanted to change my mind, you know," Emma said. "I mean, I did change my mind. I tried to. But when I told Ross, he…" Slowly, haltingly, the story came out. When she was finished, Neal hugged her.

"Even if he hadn't tricked you into that deal," he murmured, "that would have been one hell of a decision for anyone to make. You shouldn't have had to make it alone at seventeen. I can't even start to imagine what you must have been going through when you did."

"I wanted to contact you," Emma said, for what felt like the tenth time. "But I didn't know how and Dani told me it could make things worse for you because you were over eighteen and I was a minor. And that article in the paper said you could be in prison for up to ten years, and I didn't think I could be a mother…"

Neal was still hugging her. "That's why you're here, isn't it? That's why you decided to become a PI. So you could find him."

Emma nodded. "I couldn't afford to hire anyone. Ray wanted to help me anyway. I never thought I'd actually be good at it."

"You," Neal said slowly, "are amazing. And not just at PI stuff. Okay. Okay, he's out there. Somewhere."

Emma grabbed a tissue and wiped at her eyes. Then, heavily, "It's been over five years. If there's been no trace in all that time…"

"Yeah," Neal said. "Except that they just arrested the guy who organized the whole thing. That means a trial. That means that the details are going to come out. And when they do…"

"I'll find our son," Emma said fiercely, wonderingly.

"We'll find our son," Neal said. "And then, we're going to do everything we can to get him back."

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten

She couldn't speak to Ross, but she read the newspapers eagerly, hoping to learn something new. Everything she did manage to find out, however, only frustrated her more. They didn't know where the babies had been placed. Ross either hadn't kept records, or he'd destroyed them when he'd realized that the law was closing in on his operations. It was "believed" that before his activities had come to light, he had been involved with over two hundred illegal adoptions in over two dozen states.

Angrily, Emma got up from her desk and slammed her fists down hard on the newspaper. Then she delivered a mighty kick to her chair. It careened back several feet on its caster wheels and slammed into the metal filing cabinets with a loud crash.

Ray looked up, startled. "Emma?"

Emma shook her head. "Sorry. Sorry," she repeated. "But there's nothing. You taught me how to track down missing persons. Why can't I do this?"

"Because it's easier to find someone with a credit history and a social security number and known family members? Oh, and names help, too, I might add—" He broke off abruptly when the phone rang.

Emma lunged for it, sparing a glance at the clock. She'd been here since half-past seven, burying herself in her workload and the morning paper. It was now ten to nine and Neal should be coming in any minute. "Manuel and Associates," she said, pushing down her anger and frustration and trying to smother them with a wall of professionalism. "Emma Swan speaking. How may I assist you?" It was a company in Tucson wanting them to run background checks on several prospective hires. Emma gave the fax number. "Oh, and could I ask how you found out about us? I see. Okay, fax us the information and we'll draw up an agreement. Thanks for calling." As she hung up, she turned to Ray.

"We ought to thank Charlene for this one," she said. "She recommended us."

Ray grinned. "Good to know." His expression turned serious. "You know, Emma, I do have a few contacts at a couple of the bigger firms in Phoenix. One of them owes me a favor. I could… ask him to put a few feelers out, see if maybe he can learn anything about your son."

Emma's eyes went wide. "You'd do that?"

"Don't get too excited," Ray said quickly. "I doubt he'll be able to make a couple of phone calls and get back to you tomorrow with your son's name and address. This kind of investigation takes time and money. A lot of it. More than I've got and more than I'd feel comfortable asking Charlie to forgo. But he might at least be able to give you something to get started."

"Okay," Emma said, seizing the faint glimmer of hope. "Okay, let's do this."

"Fine. I'll make the call."

It would take some time before Ray got a response from his contact. Emma wasn't surprised when Ray informed her. "He's got to work on the cases that bring in money, first," she sighed. "I'm right, aren't I?"

"Afraid so," her boss confirmed. "But he will come through in the end."

Neal looked up. "What about that nurse who was helping him?" he asked.

"Dani Gutierrez?" Emma looked up.

Neal shrugged. "She was arrested a few years back; Anderson basically abandoned her to take the fall. Maybe she'll know something she'd be willing to share."

Emma considered for a moment. Then she walked over to her computer and shifted the mouse. Her screen saver dissolved and she typed in a few search terms. "Here it is," she said. "She went to prison for two and a half years," she sniffed, "doesn't seem long enough—"

"Non-violent crime, remember?" Neal put in.

"That, plus I think they knew Anderson was the one they really wanted. Gutierrez might have handled Anderson's first meetings with the Durango girls, but it doesn't look as though she had anything to do with the adoption arrangements besides knowing about them. She was an accessory, sure, but she wasn't the one they really wanted to nail." Ray turned to Emma. "Did she try to pressure you about giving up the baby or threaten or intimidate you in any way?"

Emma shook her head. "Manipulate, maybe, but really, all she did was play up my insecurities. Like how was I going to hold down a job and raise a baby on my own, when I hadn't even finished high school yet, and someone was going to have to look after him while I was working…? All the stuff that was already scaring me." She closed her eyes. "She may have made adoption sound like the baby's best chance, but I'd already been thinking that way; it wasn't like she talked me into it, not really." Remembering the interactions now, though, she had to admit she had a bitter taste in her mouth."

"Emma," Neal said, "it's pretty much what our situation was. I was the one who stole the watches, took them to Oregon, and stashed them. You just picked them up from the storage locker. We both got arrested, but your sentence was less than half of mine."

"I know," Emma said. It still sounded to her like Dani had got off too easy.

"Actually, this simplifies things," Ray said. "If she were still in prison, visiting her would be a lot more complicated."

Right. Emma remembered the process from when she'd been trying to psych herself up to visit Neal. The form would have just been the first step. Neal would have had to agree to a face-to-face meeting. If it had been a phone call, she wouldn't have been able to phone in; he would have had to phone out. She hadn't had anyone to contact when she'd been in Durango, thought she suspected it would have been much the same: inmates didn't have a whole lot of rights, but the right to avoid dealing with unwanted visitors (assuming they weren't cops or lawyers or something) was one of them. A slow smile came to her face. "I can just go up to her and ask her, can't I?"

"Well, I'd still try phoning or writing," Ray said. "Email, if you can find it. But if she doesn't reply, you're fairly decent at finding people who don't want to be found these days, aren't you?"

Emma's smile grew bigger.

Emma spent the next morning in Miami serving papers. One of her targets, apparently, hadn't wanted to receive them and she'd had to chase her through the historic district, and down West Ash Street. She'd been out of breath and hyperventilating when she finally cornered her outside the Pickle Barrel trading post.

On the other hand, her quarry had been in even worse shape. After Emma had finally served the papers and snapped a photo for evidence, she'd given the woman an apologetic smile. "Want to get a Coke? My treat."

After a disbelieving stare, the woman, still panting, had slowly nodded.

"Wish I had a car," Emma wheezed, as she helped the woman to her feet. "It would have had air conditioning."

"I wish you did, too," the woman replied a bit ruefully. "I wouldn't have thought I had a chance at getting away if you were driving after me."

"Do they sell cold drinks in there?" Emma asked, jerking her head toward the trading post.

"I'm not sure, but it'll be cooler inside. We can catch our breaths." She shook her head. "Running in the desert isn't the smartest thing I've done in my life. Not the stupidest," she added, "but it's up there."

Emma nodded. "Sorry if I ruined your day. I'm Emma, by the way."

"Sonia." She winced. "But I guess you know that already," she added, holding up the manila envelope with the papers that Emma had just served her. "Uh… if you're really in the market for a car, my brother has one he's looking to sell."

"Yeah?"

Sonia nodded. "Oh, and my day was already lousy before you showed up, so don't worry about it." She gave her a pained smile. "I knew this was coming; I just… it's one more thing I don't need right now. But running was dumb."

Emma sighed. "I've done a few dumb things in my life, too. C'mon. Let's cool off. If we're really lucky there'll be a soda fridge in there after all. If not, we're only a couple of blocks from Lorraine's. She makes this incredible raspberry cream cheese pie." Or at least, she had three years ago, when Emma had been working there.

"You got that right," Sonia replied with the first genuine smile Emma had seen on her face. "I gotta admit, I could go for a slice right about now."

Emma smiled back. "Like I said, my treat."

The pie was every bit as good as Emma remembered. And Sonia was… nice. Emma wasn't sure why she needed to appear in court, but as the two of them talked, she found herself hoping that whatever the reason, it would work out in Sonia's favor.

She was just about to ask Sonia if there was anything else she needed when her cell phone rang. "Excuse me," she murmured, wondering why she'd ever let Ray talk her into getting one of these things. She wasn't sure she liked being reachable twenty-four-seven. On the other hand, she'd only given the number to Ray and Neal. There was at least a fifty-fifty chance that it was work-related. With a mental sigh, she fished the phone out of her pocket and took the call.

"Yeah?"

It was Ray. "Are you still in Miami?"

"Yeah. Sorry, I'm heading back in a few."

"You might not want to do that," Ray said. "How… tired are you?"

Now that she'd had a chance to catch her breath and unwind? "Not very. Why, what's up?"

"Gutierrez called."

For a moment, Emma didn't know to whom he was referring. Then it hit her. "Dani?"

"She's agreed to a meeting with you. This evening in Phoenix, if you can make it. Where are you right now? I can pick you up."

Right. There wouldn't be a bus at this hour. Or until tomorrow. Suddenly that car Sonia had said her brother was selling sounded even more appealing. If she'd had the money for a down payment on her, she might have asked her new friend to set up a viewing today. As it was, she gave Ray the address and he said he'd be there in twenty minutes.

Dani had always been thin, but now she looked haggard. Still, she greeted Emma and Ray pleasantly and offered them coffee, which both politely declined. She shrugged, poured herself a cup and then, instead of drinking it, lit a cigarette. After a moment, she smiled self-consciously. "Bad habit, I know," she muttered. "Sorry. Picked it up in prison."

"I'm not judging," Emma said. "Though, I'd think a nurse would—"

"Yeah, well, I'm not that anymore," Dani replied. "My license was revoked when the story broke about my involvement." She sighed. "I'm not going to pretend I think it was unfair, but it still sucks." She took a puff on her cigarette. "So," she smiled and continued with a hint of her old friendly smile, "how are you, Emma?"

Emma blinked. "Good," she said carefully.

"You're working with a PI firm, I see?"

"Uh, got my full PI li…" Her voice trailed off for a moment. "License," she finished firmly, hoping that it didn't sound like she was rubbing in the fact that she had a professional license now and Dani had lost hers. Not that she really cared if her words were stinging, except that if Dani chose to take offense, odds are she wasn't going to want to give Emma the information she was hoping for.

For a moment, Dani regarded her coolly. Then she grinned and, for a moment, she looked very much the way she had when Emma had first met her. "That's wonderful," she said, and there was no doubting the sincerity. "I'm so glad you're doing well for yourself."

"Yeah," Emma said, swallowing a bit. "I… uh… Thanks for agreeing to meet with me."

"I almost didn't," Dani admitted. "I'm trying to move on with my life and leave my past behind. Your phone call opened up a lot of old memories I didn't feel like revisiting. Not that any of that's your fault, of course," she added. "So. What can I do for you?"

Emma took a deep breath. "Do you know what happened to my son?"

Dani frowned. "I… guess he went to a good home, like Ross promised you. He… might not have been a saint, but I know he did well by the people he was helping. Why? Have you learned anything?"

Emma shook her head. "I'm trying to. That's why I reached out. I want to find him."

"Emma," Dani said, taking on the same sad empathy Emma had grown to expect from her during her pregnancy, "it was a closed adoption. That was what you agreed to. That means no contact."

"I know what it means," Emma said. "I just want to know that he's okay. That he's happy. I don't even know his name or what color his eyes are. Does he like tacos or-or cinnamon in his hot cocoa? Has he got a dog? What does he like to read? What do his parents do? I have so many questions and—"

"And I can't answer them," Dani said. "Ross handled all of the actual placements. He vetted the adoptive parents. I… just tried to help girls in your situation get a chance to move past their mistakes."

"Mistakes?" Emma repeated. "Giving up my kid was the biggest mistake I ever made!"

"Not getting involved with stolen property and bad influences?"

Gentle though Dani's tone was, the question still hurt. Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw Ray drawing closer to her, a silent support. She forced down the urge to slap the other woman across the face and gritted out, "No."

Dani exhaled. "At any rate, whether you regret it or not, you signed a contract."

"Yeah," Emma snapped, still reeling. "And I was a minor when I did. You told me that I was too young to consent to having sex with a guy over eighteen, but somehow I was old enough to sign a contract I didn't understand until it was too late?"

"It was the best chance for you and your baby," Dani maintained. "Something the law wasn't taking into consideration. Emma, how many hours a week do you work?"

"What?"

"Are you working full-time?"

"Yes."

"Overtime?"

"Yeah, sometimes."

"Weekends?"

"If I have to."

"Do you think you'd be able to keep those hours if you had a four-year-old to look after?"

"No," Emma glowered, "but if I had my son, I wouldn't have tried to get a PI license. I'd be doing something else."

"With barely a high school education. Juggling rent, childcare, groceries, work… Emma, do you really think you could have found anything that would have let you make ends meet and still be there for your child?"

"I don't know," Emma said slowly, fighting to keep her voice calm. "But I wish I'd had the chance to find out." She took a breath. "Look. I can't change the past. I know that. But I still want to be a part of my son's future. Don't you remember anything about what happened to him?"

"There were a lot of kids in his situation," Dani said flatly. "Too many. And in yours, too. I didn't keep track. And Ross didn't tell me much." She smiled bitterly. "I couldn't testify about what I didn't know."

Emma sighed. "Fine. I get it. Sorry to have bothered you."

"New England," Dani said suddenly.

"Sorry, what?"

"Ross told me that he'd been placing babies mostly in the Midwest and in California. And then, right around the time that he met with you, he told me that he'd been approached by someone in New England… Massachusetts or Maine; I think it started with an 'M'." She frowned. "Or maybe that was the city… Manchester? Marlborough? I'm sorry," she added. "I don't actually know if he sent your baby there; I wasn't the only person who was helping him find girls in your circumstances. Maybe he did send your son to Indiana or Wisconsin, after all; I couldn't say. But he was talking about New England right around the time you signed that contract."

Emma smiled. "Thanks," she said, with more warmth than she'd felt since she'd come here.

Dani shook her head. "Don't thank me. And don't expect fairy tale endings. Not in the real world."

In the car, Ray looked at her in concern. "You okay?"

"I will be," Emma sighed. "Damn." She was not going to cry. Or swear ('damn' was so mild, it probably didn't count as swearing anyway). Or stomp her foot through the floor of Ray's 1992 Honda, just because Dani hadn't said she'd been wrong to encourage Emma to give up her baby. "I was hoping for… Damn, I don't know what I was hoping for."

"Yeah, you do," Ray said.

After a moment, Emma nodded. "Yeah, I do. I was hoping she remembered the name and the full address and had a contact phone and that when I called the adopting family, they'd say they totally understood and they'd bring him home to me next week. Or at least, they'd let me talk to him and make plans to meet a few times so he could get used to me first." She shook her head bitterly. "Stupid, right?"

"Hopeful," Ray said. "And there's nothing wrong with that. At least, you have some idea where to start looking."

"Sure," Emma snorted. "Maine or Massachusetts or Indiana or Wisconsin. And if not there, hell, there are another 46 states to check out. I should probably be able to handle that over the weekend." And there went her resolve not to swear again, plus she felt like she was about to cry. Maybe she ought to just focus on sparing the car floor.

"Emma," Ray said seriously, "I want you to know that it has been really great working with you, watching your skills and confidence grow, seeing how far you've come…"

"Why do I think there's a 'but' coming?" Emma asked, after a moment of silence.

Ray took a breath. "When I hired you, it was for a couple of reasons. I wasn't kidding about needing a data entry clerk. I think you know that. But more to the point, the day you walked through my door, you were trying to find a lead on your son and after these last few years, you've got the skills to start looking." He took a breath. "I think it's time you moved on."

"What?" Emma felt her heart lurch. She couldn't lose one of the few stable things in her life; not tonight. "I-I don't… I mean, I can't—"

"Yes," Ray said firmly. "Yes, you can. Now you've been working in the field for me for over three years. You're fully licensed in Arizona. You should check the requirements for other states; it varies, but even if you don't meet the qualifications everywhere, there are other fields that will let you use the skills you've acquired. I can't help you any more than that," he continued. "I have zero contacts in New England or the Mid-West. Best I can do is give you a glowing reference, and I'm happy to do so, but if your son is in Massachusetts—"

"I don't know if he is!"

"—Then that's where you start looking." He took another breath. "We do know that Anderson didn't place any of the babies he handled in Arizona or anywhere close to it. If your son isn't in Massachusetts, then you expand your search. But don't be like the guy who dropped a twenty somewhere on Eighth Street but went looking for it over on Second because the light was better there. If you want to find your son, you need to start looking where there's a chance he could be instead of where you know he isn't."

Emma let his words sink in. Finally, she nodded. "You know, if I go, there's a good chance you'll be losing Neal, too."

"I'm prepared for that sacrifice," Ray informed her dryly. "If it comes down to a custody battle, the courts are likely to look more favorably on a petition made by two parents who are, at the very least, living in the same city."

"I'll... talk things over with him tomorrow."

"You might want to get a car, too. Especially since you don't know how much traveling you're going to have to do once you get up there."

Emma smiled for the first time since she'd seen Dani again. "Funny you should mention that…"

"Thanks for coming with me to check it out," Emma smiled at Neal. "I'm not really sure what to look for besides the mileage."

"No problem," Neal grinned. "If you're driving to New England, you need something that can handle that kind of distance."

Emma nodded. She still wasn't sure if she was going. She'd run away from Boston at fourteen and never stepped foot in New England since. Plus, she liked her life here in Arizona. Still, even if she stayed, she had to admit that it was going to be easier to get into Phoenix—or Tucson or Scottsdale—if she wasn't relying on a once-a-day Greyhound. Her clients might pay her travel expenses, but they'd probably be happier paying for her gas than her bus tickets. Not to mention overnight accommodation if she couldn't get a bus back the same day.

When she'd related to Neal what Dani had told her, though, he'd started getting excited. "You know," he'd said, "I bet Ray would give us a couple of weeks off if we asked him. Probably not paid, but I've been saving up. Even if you don't want to move back up north, we could go see if we can track down the agency…"

Maybe his excitement hadn't been all that contagious, but by the time he'd walked her home, New England hadn't seemed quite as remote as it had when Ray had suggested it. They could go for a week or two, do as much fact-finding as they could, and see if there was anything worth pursuing. At the very least, they could talk to some PI firms up there and see if anyone would be willing to take on the investigation. Maybe, Emma thought, if those firms were trying to track down people in Arizona, they could come to some sort of arrangement. It was a longshot, but still, you never knew.

"I think this is the house," Neal's voice broke into her thoughts.

Emma checked the address. "Yeah," she nodded, turning up the walk. Neal followed.

The door was opened by a man in his early thirties who bore a passing resemblance to the woman Emma had served the day before. He looked the two of them up and down before breaking into a smile. "I guess you're Emma," he said. "Sonia told me about you. I'm Chris."

"Hi," Emma said. She introduced Neal a moment later and the two shook hands.

"Guess you want to see Herbie," Chris said.

"Herbie?" Neal repeated blankly and Chris grinned.

"My car," he explained, taking a step back inside and reaching for something out of their line of sight. A moment later, the garage door rose with a rumble. "We've been through some good times, but I guess all things gotta end at some point and," he shrugged, coming out of the house, "I'm ready to move on."

Emma and Neal followed him to the garage, where a white VW with racing stripes and a large '53' painted on the hood was parked.

"Fifty-Three?" Neal asked, with a smile.

"My lucky number," Chris grinned. "Actually, he was stolen from me a few years back. Exactly 53 weeks later, I got a call from the police that he'd been recovered from a parking garage in Oregon. No clue how he got there, but they were pretty good about shipping him back. Hang on a sec; I'll get him out in the sunlight." Without another word, he trotted for the driver-side door, oblivious to the startled expressions of his would-be buyers.

"The... uh… paint looks new," Neal murmured, once the car was out in the driveway and Chris was back with them.

"It is," Chris confirmed. "I know it sounds weird, but I wanted to do something nice for him when he came home. When I asked Sonia what she'd like as a welcome back present if she'd been away over a year, she suggested a makeover and the rest, as they say, is history." He smiled. "Guess you want to take him for a test drive?"

Emma walked around the car slowly. Then she peered in the back window and her breath caught. "Neal…" She pointed to the coffee stain on the grey upholstery.

"Oh," Chris winced. "Yeah, it was like that when I got him back. Sorry; it doesn't come out, but I can knock fifty off for you."

"Nah, that's… I mean," Neal took a breath. "Okay, sure. Emma, what do you think?"

Emma managed to nod.

Chris blinked. "No test drive? Uh, okay, well, the paperwork's in the house. Let me get that and you can fill it out and I guess we'll go from there. Give me a minute."

After he'd gone back inside, Emma turned to Neal. "Seriously? Neal, you put that coffee stain there!"

"Well, I couldn't tell him that!" Neal retorted. Then he broke into a laugh. "Can you believe this? It's our car! Only this time, it's going to be legal!"

Emma nodded, a smile breaking on her own face. "Maybe it's a sign," she said slowly. "Maybe we should drive up to New England. I sort of know my way around Boston. I guess it's as good a place to start looking as any."

"Now, you're talking!" Neal grinned. "Only before we start that road trip, I think I want to paint Ol' Herbie yellow again…"

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven

Emma surveyed the apartment with more than a twinge of sadness. She'd never been big on accumulating things. If asked, she'd probably chalk it up to the number of foster homes she'd lived in before striking out on her own. Each time a placement had come to an end, she'd find herself waiting for her case worker, all her worldly goods beside her in a large plastic garbage bag. She'd learned to travel light and form few sentimental attachments. The only thing that stayed with her through thick and thin was the baby blanket she'd been found with, the one concrete link she had to her birth parents. Whoever they were. Otherwise, she seldom had much beyond a few changes of clothes and a toothbrush. Sometimes, she'd kept some school supplies, too; pencils, notebooks, and geometry sets didn't take up that much space.

When she'd moved into this apartment, it had come furnished with a bed, dresser, table, four chairs, six built-in shelves, a stove a fridge and a reading lamp. There hadn't been much space to allow for more items and Emma hadn't felt she needed to add much anyway. Still, the walls looked bare now that she'd taken down the Sonic Youth and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone posters.

She turned to Neal. "I guess this is it."

Neal nodded soberly. "Hey. It doesn't have to be forever. Ray said if we come back, he'll always have a place for you."

"Maybe, but I doubt this apartment will just sit here waiting for me." She winced. She'd been clinging to the possibility of coming back, too, but once she'd made up her mind to head back to New England, she'd realized that she probably wasn't going to return so quickly. "Besides," she went on, "Ray also said he hoped I wouldn't need it." She turned to look at him. "You're sure you're okay with pulling up stakes and coming with me? I mean, I'm glad you are, but I don't want you to feel like I'm dragging you clear across the country."

Neal smiled. "Nah, the summers are too hot here. And," he added, "I kind of like being near the water."

Emma tilted her head. Then, softly, she began to sing a song that had been playing on a CD in Ray's car the day he'd taken her to see Dani.

"I've got some ocean front property in Arizona
From my front porch, you can see the sea
I've got some ocean front property in Arizona…"

Neal joined her on the last line, badly off-key:

"If you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in free."

He flung an arm about her shoulders and repeated the lyric. "You're not dragging me anywhere, Emma," he said, his expression turning serious. "He's my kid, too."

Emma let him pull her closer. "What if I can't find him? I've been looking for my parents for a lot longer and never found a trace?"

"Yeah, but you also don't know where to start looking for them. It's different with the baby." He frowned. "Well, kid, anyway; he'd be… what, about four now?"

"Five on August fifteenth," Emma replied in a small voice.

"You ask me, it's got to be easier to pick up a trail less than five years cold than one almost twenty-three. Plus, it's not like you don't know how to find people these days, Nancy Drew."

A small smile played on Emma's lips as she leaned into his embrace. "Yeah."

Emma fought to keep her voice steady as she made her goodbye to Ray. "Thanks for everything," she finished. "I don't know what I'd be doing right now if you hadn't hired me three, no… wait." She was suddenly flustered, as the realization hit her. "It'd be four years exactly if I stuck it out until this Wednesday."

Ray shrugged. "Well, if you want to give me another three days, just to round it off…"

"Don't tempt me," Emma said. "I feel like if we don't go now, we never will. Or I never will. Or…" There was a catch in her voice and she added, almost in a whisper, "Maybe I shouldn't."

"Hey," Ray said. "Hey, you'll do fine. Oh, and Charlie came through with something last night, after you left." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slippery sheet of fax paper, folded in four. "Here."

Emma unfolded it. "A Place for Me, Little Angels, Precious Treasures…" She stared up at Ray. "Is this what I think it is?"

"All the agencies Ross Anderson is known to have worked with from 2000 through 2002. Fifteen, all together. Now, when the story hit, they came under fire, too. Charlie told me that at least half of them had to close. But since most of the employees probably had no clue what was going on, it's probable that many are still working in the field, just for other agencies."

"Fifteen agencies in six states," Emma said, looking at the addresses. "This is going to be like looking for a bunch of needles in a lot of really spread out haystacks."

"I know," Ray nodded. "Good thing there's a dedicated skip-trace wizard on the case, huh?" Seeing Emma's expression, he went on, "I know it won't be easy, Emma. And you're right about needles and haystacks. But at least you now know which fields to start looking for the haystacks in." He took a breath. "I know you'll find him one day, Emma."

Emma swallowed hard. Neal put an arm around her and she gave him a watery smile. Then she held out her hand to Ray. "It's been… really great here," she managed, as Ray clasped it.

"Ditto," Ray said. When he released her hand, Neal extended his. He shook that one, too. "You guys are going to do fine," he said.

"Hope so," Neal replied.

Emma nodded.

"Oh and once you find your son, if you ever decided to take a family vacation to some little town in Arizona about seventy-five miles away from the world-class golf courses of Phoenix, well, odds are, I'll still be here."

"We'll look you up," Emma assured him. She took a breath. "Okay. Okay, if Neal and I are going to do this, I guess we'd better get started." She shook her head. "I never left a place I wanted to come back to before."

"And…?"

Her smile was even more watery this time. "It sucks."

"You'll make it," Ray assured her. "You're tough that way."

"He's right, you know," Neal said. "C'mon. Herbie's loaded and gassed up. If we forgot anything, we can buy it on the way."

"As long as I don't have to put a watermelon under my shirt this time," Emma muttered.

"Nah, it's my turn to try that."

It was a stupid joke, but perfectly timed. Emma burst into laughter. Then she had to dart into the back of the office to use the bathroom before making one final goodbye.

She steeled herself not to look behind her as they drove off. She had to start looking ahead now.

They reached Amarillo some ten hours later and checked into the 1Hotel off of I-40. It was amazing how tiring it could be just sitting in a car and driving, but neither Emma nor Neal felt like they had the energy to do much more than sign the registrar, toss their bags into the room, and collapse onto the twin beds.

"It's barely 8PM and I feel like I could sleep for weeks," Emma groaned.

"Have pity on someone without your superpower and tell me the truth," Neal smirked. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

"Uh, I think so…?" Emma hedged. The truth was she'd closed her eyes and tossed and turned and steadfastly refused to check the time. She thought she must have dozed off at some point. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd had some dream about running down a city street chasing after a whole bunch of toddlers, some with fair hair, some dark, knowing that one of them was her son but having no idea how to tell which. Or maybe, she'd just been letting her imagination run a little too wild. Why not both, she asked herself with sarcastic humor. Both worked.

"But you're not sure," Neal translated. "Hey. You're stressed, you're scared, and you're exhausted. Triple threat. The good news? We're probably not getting back on the road for another twelve hours, so you've got plenty of time to settle the sleep debt. Oh, uh, we should probably eat something or put our food in the fridge if we aren't." So saying, he walked over to the small bar fridge and opened it. "No freezer," he added, not really surprised. "Guess we'll have to stock up on ice once the packs warm up."

Emma nodded. "Pass me the egg salad?"

Neal rummaged in their cooler and handed her the sandwich she'd asked for. "Since when do you like egg salad?" he asked. "I thought you were strictly a cheese-lover."

"Grilled cheese," Emma corrected. "Hot, toasted, not-rewarmed-in-a-microwave grilled cheese. But since there was no way I was going to be able to keep that fresh for ten hours," she unwrapped the sandwich, "egg it is."

Neal shrugged. Then he pulled out a Kaiser bun and Emma could see the edges of some pale pink sliced deli meat hanging out from it. "First one to finish gets the first shower," he announced, taking a large bite.

Emma realized that she already had a slight head start in that department. She grinned, weariness temporarily forgotten. "You're on!"

When Emma came out of the shower, Neal was lying on the bed, watching TV. "You could do this stuff," Neal greeted her.

She sat down beside him. "What stuff?" She frowned. The footage, while professional, had a sort of look to it that was a bit too natural for Hollywood. "Is this some sort of reality show or a documentary?"

"It's called Dog, the Bounty Hunter," Neal said. "He goes after bail-jumpers and brings them back to stand trial."

Emma watched for a few minutes, before turning to Neal with a frown. "So he's a cop?"

Neal shook his head. "Nope. Bounty hunter, like I told you."

"Yeah," Emma said, "I got that, but it can't be legal for just anyone to go hunting people down. I mean, isn't that like… kidnapping?"

"Kind of, I guess," Neal admitted. "But it is legal. Basically, when a bail bondsman, uh… bondsperson… puts up the money for a defendant, there's an agreement that the defendant shows up for trial. If they don't, it's a breach of contract and the bondsperson is allowed to enforce it. Bounty hunters are enforcers."

"How do you know so much about this?" Emma asked, surprised.

Neal hesitated. "I… A couple of months ago, I asked Ray if he'd train me for PI work like he's done with you. I thought, I don't know, maybe we could be partners or something."

"I had no idea it was something you were thinking about," Emma exclaimed. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because Ray shot me down out of the gate. I mean, he said if I wanted to learn a few things, sure, but I'd never get a license. Not with a felony conviction," he added. "Unlike yours, mine's not a sealed juvie record. Unfortunately."

"That is so messed up," Emma groaned.

"It is what it is," Neal said. "Anyway, he told me that even if I couldn't be a PI, there were a few career options that used part of the same skillset. This was one of them."

The closing credits were rolling. Neal was about to turn the channel when the voiceover said, "Don't go away. Another episode of Dog, the Bounty Hunter is coming right up!"

Emma slid a bit closer to Neal. "I'm game if you are," she suggested. Neal smiled and wrapped an arm around her. As the theme music started, Emma found herself wondering whether she was 'game' for more than just watching another episode. If she couldn't find PI work in New England, maybe this could be an option for both of them…

They drove more than fourteen hours the next day, stopping in Nashville for the night. Over dinner at the Elliston Place Soda Shop (which turned out to serve a lot more than sodas and quite a bit good), Neal seemed uncharacteristically nervous.

"Everything okay?" Emma asked finally.

Neal took another bite out of his hamburger and chewed it a good deal more slowly than he needed to. After he'd finally swallowed and washed it down with a swig of cherry phosphate, he said, "It sort of is and isn't. I mean, I've been wanting to ask you this for a long time. I sort of did, back before everything started going wrong, only I didn't exactly, I don't think…"

"Neal?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to make our… um… living arrangements a little more permanent."

Emma frowned. Ray had warned them that Boston was going to be pricier than Globe by a significant margin. They weren't sure about suburbs in the Boston area. They weren't even sure if they were going to stay in Boston for long; if they couldn't find a trace of their child there, they might keep moving. Meanwhile, though, pooling their savings (Emma's having just been significantly depleted by the cost of 'Herbie') made sense and they'd agreed to look for a place together. "You mean, try to lock into a lease instead of looking for a month-to-month?" Emma asked. "It would mean committing to living in Boston for a year that way, but I guess we could do it like that. I've heard of stuff like landlords giving you a free month if you sign up for a year, though I don't know if it's a thing in Boston…"

"Emma," Neal cut her off, "I… I'm asking you if you want to marry me."

Emma's eyes widened. "I… I-I…" She got up abruptly. "I need some air!" she gasped, almost knocking her chair over as she practically ran out of the restaurant.

There was a non-descript white block of a building on the next street. Neal found her standing in front of it. When he looked up and saw the sign over the door, he winced. "Please tell me you're not trying to tell me something," he said.

Emma's gaze followed his. "The End," she read. Then at once, "No. Oh, crud, no. I didn't mean… I'm sorry. Seriously sorry. I… You just sort of… threw me."

"I'm sorry, too," Neal replied. "I… know what it's like to feel that you're alone and nobody sticks around in your life for long. Plus I'm, uh, kinda madly in love with you," he added, and Emma gave him a sheepish smile and took a step toward him. "I can't picture my life without you, and I wanted to," he hesitated, "state my intentions, I guess."

Emma shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said again. "For running out like that. I… I guess I'm just sort of… used to things being like they are. Marriage, that's…" She hesitated. "I was going to say it was a 'big step', but what we've got now is pretty much already that, minus the piece of paper. I think, if we're meant to be together, maybe we don't need the paper. And if we aren't, the paper won't mean anything anyway."

Neal sighed. "I don't think about my father much these days. Or, at least, I try not to," he amended. "But he was very big on contracts and agreements."

"And you think we need one," Emma supplied.

Neal shook his head. "Actually, my father was very big on contracts and agreements that worked out to his advantage and left the other party feeling cheated. That's not who I want to be," he added softly. "I just wanted to make it clear that I see the two of us together for the long haul. I'm not going to pick up and run out on you in the middle of the night or ditch you by the side of the road. We've fought before and we'll probably fight again, but then we'll kiss and make up and…" He took a breath. "How badly did I just mess up?" he asked faintly.

Emma shook her head. "You didn't. You're right. I'm not used to people hanging around. You're one of the only people who ever slid out of my life and then came back. A-and maybe one day, I'll come around to the idea of getting married, but for now, I'm just not there, yet." She took another breath. "I know. It must sound crazy, but all my life, every time I let my guard down and started thinking, 'Maybe this is it. Maybe I'm really not going back into the system. Maybe this time, I'm going to get adopted…' Just when I started letting myself believe, right when someone outright said they wanted me around for the long haul, that was when someone got laid off and they couldn't afford to keep their house, much less another mouth to feed. Or someone got sick. Or I got caught shoplifting or cutting class and they decided I was too much trouble after all," she added a bit shamefacedly. "It just feels like as long as commitment… isn't on the table, things are great. As soon as it is, that's when it all goes wrong. I don't want to lose you, and somehow? It feels like making us official is going to ruin everything.

Neal nodded slowly. "But you do want us to be… us. Together. Just without the piece of paper."

She gave him a real smile. "If I were going to think about getting married, it would be to you."

"Okay," Neal smiled back. "Okay. Then before we hit Boston, I'm buying you a ring."

"Neal!"

"Not an engagement ring; I get it. I can't afford a diamond now anyway. Just a… a friendship ring. Promise ring. Whatever. It'll fit your finger and it won't come from a Cracker Jack box or a gumball machine, okay? And if, at some point, you feel ready to take things a step further, well, hopefully by then, I'll be able to afford that diamond."

"It could be tourmaline," Emma said, after a moment's hesitation. "Pink tourmaline. Or opal. I looked it up: October has two birthstones. I don't know what either one costs, though."

"We can check into it," Neal said easily. "There's time." He held out his hand to her. She slid hers into it and they made their way slowly down Elliston Place until it curved into West End Avenue. Then they turned around and headed for where they'd parked Herbie and drove back to their motel for the night.

The ring was sterling silver with an opal flanked by two pink tourmalines. The jeweler at the store in Branson, Missouri, called it a trilogy ring. "Pinch-style flush setting, with a thick solid shank," he went on enthusiastically.

Emma didn't think he meant it came with a hidden switchblade.

"He's talking about the band," Neal whispered to her.

"I know," Emma whispered back, lying through her teeth and trusting he wouldn't notice, as she slid it onto her finger.

"It looks amazing," Neal said. "You like?"

"Yeah," Emma replied, sounding a bit dazed. In the display case, she'd thought it was a little clunky, but she had to admit it looked a lot better on her hand. "B-but three stones? Can we afford…?" She stopped, seeing a hurt look in Neal's eyes. "Sorry."

The jeweler cleared his throat. "It retails for ninety-five dollars, but I can let you have it for eighty-five if you're paying cash." He smiled at the surprise on Emma's face. "It's sterling silver, not white gold, but it's still a nice-looking piece."

"Eighty-five?" Neal repeated, pulling out his wallet.

"Plus applicable sales tax, of course." He punched some buttons on his old-fashioned cash register. "Eighty-eight fifty-seven." Neal handed over several bills and collected his change.

"Thanks," Emma said, still sounding dazed. She smiled at the jeweler. "Thanks," she repeated, her fingers brushing over the small stones on the ring. Her ring. Hers.

"Emma?" Neal frowned. "You do like it, right?"

She blinked. "I love it," she said, turning to him with a much warmer smile. "Seriously."

They drove into Boston two days later. By the end of the day, they'd signed a one-year lease on a one-bedroom they could afford in Hyde Park. It wouldn't be available until the first of the month, "But we can live in the car for eleven days," Emma smiled. "It's not like we haven't before."

"Our little TARDIS," Neal nodded. Then, at Emma's confused expression, he laughed. "You know, there's more to British pop culture than Harry Potter. Meanwhile, all you gotta know about a TARDIS is that it's bigger inside than out. Considering that the two of us can sleep comfortably in Herbie," Emma wondered if they were ever going to rename the now-yellow Volkswagen, "I'd say there's definitely something similar going on."

"Maybe," Emma said doubtfully. "But even if there isn't, in less than two weeks, we can move into something more comfortable."

"Looks like we'll be spending the next little while checking out second-hand furniture stores. And maybe IKEA."

"Uh… I'm much better at tearing stuff apart than putting it together," Emma murmured.

"So, you can open the boxes and hand me stuff. If it's cheaper than used, it might be the way to go. And when we're not checking that out," he added, "you've got Ray's list." He took a breath. "I think it's time to start checking into some of those agencies and see if we can't find our kid."

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve

Neal took a look at the groceries Emma was unpacking and sighed. "Pop tarts, Pringles… Cheez Whiz? Not even American slices, but Cheez Whiz?"

Emma gave him a glower. "Don't start," she muttered.

"Hey," Neal's smirk disappeared at once. "Hey, you okay?"

Emma sighed. "Yeah. Sure. I guess. Scratch Boston Angels," she said. "They shut down two years ago, around the time that Ross's arrest made the news. I spent all afternoon trying to track down an employee list. I even checked out LinkedIn at the library."

"Sorry, what?"

"Internet site," Emma clarified. "Been up for a year or two, now. It's good for networking. I thought some former employee might've mentioned having worked there in their profile, but no luck. I guess, if my place of business got linked to a black market adoption scandal, I wouldn't mention it either, but I was hoping."

Neal nodded. "So, it was a rough day."

"Yeah. Oh, uh, when you mentioned bounty hunting," she took a breath, "just how serious were you?"

Neal blinked. "Why?"

"Because," Emma groaned, "I can't get a PI license in Massachusetts without three references from Massachusetts residents who've known me for at least three years." She made disgusted face. "I spent a lot of time in the foster system here, but I was never in the same school for more than two years, never mind the same placement. One of the firms I went to said they'd hire me to do office work and maybe some process serving." She sighed. "And I'll probably do it, too; it'll pay the bills and this city isn't cheap. Still, if you think bounty hunting would be better…?"

"It might be," Neal said cautiously. "Let me think about it. And… maybe at first, we can sort of do both. I mean, one thing I do know about bounty hunting: you get paid by the collar. If you spend six months hunting down your guy… or gal," he amended, "you don't get paid till you catch and deliver them. And you get paid a percentage of the bond they skipped out on. Usually it's like ten, maybe twenty percent. Might be a good idea to have a steady salary between gigs."

"I get that," Emma nodded. "And if we are going to give bounty hunting a shot, well, one thing I learned from doing all those skip traces is that I'm actually pretty darned good at finding people."

"Meaning it's just a matter of time before you get a lead on our son," Neal reminded her.

Emma nodded slowly, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

The other agencies Emma contacted were polite, but unhelpful. "While we keep our employee records confidential, of course," one receptionist told her, "I don't think it's a policy violation to tell you that we wouldn't have hired anyone here who was employed at Boston Angels during the period in question. I mean, unless they were cleaning staff or something like that."

"What about if it was through a temp agency?" Emma pressed.

The receptionist paused, and Emma could hear the frown in her voice, when she answered. "We don't generally hire temps, though it's possible that one of the other agencies might. You could be onto something, though; a temp wouldn't be on the adoption agency's books as an employee. Anything else?"

Emma hesitated. "Well… maybe it's a longshot, but uh… did you place a baby girl for fostering or adoption in October of 1983? She would've been found on the side of a highway in Maine."

"Sorry," the receptionist said. "That's confidential."

"I was that baby," Emma said quickly. "I'm just trying to find some clue about who I am or where I came from. All I know is that I was put into foster care in Maine; the family that took me in moved to the Boston area about a year later. They were planning to adopt me," she was horrified to hear a quaver in her voice and started speaking even faster, as though she could outpace the wave of emotion washing over her, "but then, my foster…" not mother, "she found out she was having a kid of her own and they decided not to go through with it and I ended up in the system here when I was three and—"

"I understand," the receptionist interrupted her. "I do. Unfortunately, I can't pull up any files. What I can do, is give you the contact information for an adoption reunion registry."

"I wasn't adopted."

"I know, but given how you were found, your biological parents might not be aware of that. If either biological parent is on the registry, you'd be able to find them that way. And if they aren't, you can put yourself on the list in case they ever try to find you."

The woman kept talking, but Emma's mind was racing. That wasn't the only reason to get her name on the registry! Yes, of course, she wanted to find her parents still, after all this time, but meanwhile, the son she was trying to locate might be looking for her in a few years. If that happened, she thought grimly, then she was damned well going to make it easy for him!

"It's a good idea," Neal said approvingly that evening. "I should probably get my name on it, too."

Emma nodded. "We'll have to update our information if we move," she warned. "It's probably going to be a few years before he reaches out to us. If he ever does."

"I know," Neal sighed. "But we can hope. And if they tell him the date we get on the registry, maybe it'll mean something to him if he finds out we've been looking for him for that long."

Emma nodded again. When she'd been younger, she'd sometimes pretended that she was a long-lost princess who'd been kidnapped and spirited away and any day, her parents would turn up in a coach pulled by six white horses in royal robes and glittering crowns to whisk her away from her foster placement and bring her back to her palace. Growing up had meant facing the harsh truth that her parents had abandoned her by the side of the highway as a newborn and never even tried to find her. Because if they'd been trying, they would have found her by now; it wasn't like the bureaucracy that was the Massachusetts DCF (and later Minnesota Child Care) didn't have her paperwork. She hadn't been that hard to track down, she didn't think. The thought that her son might be entertaining similar fantasies tore at her. He wasn't even five, yet, she told herself. He might not even know he's been adopted. But he would one day. She only hoped he'd want to find her, and not decide that if she'd given him up, he wanted nothing to do with her. She'd known a few kids with that mindset in the group homes she'd been placed in.

She realized that the room was silent and Neal was looking at her expectantly. She blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"Bail bonding," Neal repeated. "If we're both serious about giving it a shot, then we ought to start contacting firms and seeing whether there are any openings. And if we find one, more to the point, if you find one, they get a seasoned, if not licensed here, PI. Stick it out for at least three years? There are your reference letters for a Massachusetts license, right there."

Emma smiled. She didn't seriously think it would be that easy, but maybe it wouldn't be that hard either. Maybe… Maybe she could let herself hope a little. She ran her fingers over the stones of her promise ring absently. Maybe she could.

The interviewer glanced down at the resume Emma had submitted and her eyebrows shot up. "So, you were a private investigator in Arizona before this?"

"That's right," Emma confirmed, hoping her nervousness didn't show.

"Tell me a bit about that," the woman said, smiling pleasantly.

"Well," Emma began, "for the last four years, I've been doing skip traces, process serving…" As she spoke, she felt herself relax. Neal had been on more job interviews than she'd been and he'd spent last night coaching her through the sort of questions she could probably expect. So far, this was going well.

"What got you into PI work?"

She'd been hoping they wouldn't ask her this one. She felt her walls spring up, even as her arms pressed stiffly into her sides. "I…" Damn, why was her heart pounding so loudly? "I was abandoned as a newborn. I was hoping I'd be able to find some trace…" This was what she'd decided to say. It was safe. It was understandable. It wouldn't open up that whole business about juvie and her baby and… "I'm sorry. Could we move on, please?"

The interviewer's eyebrows shot up again, but she shrugged, scribbled something on her notepad, and asked, "Why are you interested in bail-bonding?"

"Uh…" Her composure was gone. She was blowing this and blowing it badly. "Actually, I was hoping to work as a PI here, but I don't have three people to vouch for me, and this seems like a good way to keep my skills sharp."

"Why did you move from Globe, Arizona all the way to Boston without checking into whether you'd be able to work in your field?"

That was a damned good question, but she didn't have a ready answer. Because there are six adoption agencies in New England I want to look into and Boston seemed like a good base of operations. Because I wasn't thinking that far ahead when I got the idea to move here. Because my boyfriend thought there'd be more opportunity. Because… "Because I'm an idiot," Emma muttered. Then her face went hot when she realized she'd just said that out loud.

Somehow, she didn't think she was going to get this job.

She was right. She didn't get that job. Nor did she get the second one she tried for, nor the third. Neal had better luck; his second interview led to an offer, which he quickly accepted. "It's going to mean a lot of traveling," he reminded her. "I can ask to only get local cases, but since I'm just getting started, and since I only get paid when I bring in the bail-jumper, if I'm too picky about the cases I take on, then it's going to mean less opportunity."

"No," Emma sighed. "It's fine. At least, expenses are covered. So, when do you start?"

"Well, training starts next week. Since I can't carry a gun, they… uh… strongly encourage me to take some self-defense classes; I've got a list of options to check out." He gave her a weary smile. "Apparently, I'm not the first bounty hunter with that problem; Dog can't carry either."

"I think I remember him mentioning that on the show," Emma said slowly. "Did he say why?"

"He did time for murder," Neal replied. "Not gonna lie; it bugs me a little that as far as the law's concerned, when it comes to gun ownership, a felony is a felony, and whether I swiped some watches out of a safe or killed a guy doesn't make a difference, but here we are. At least, your record was sealed."

"Maybe you could get a pardon?" Emma suggested.

"That's… complicated," Neal sighed. "Varies by state. Anyway, I'm not really upset that I won't be carrying; if I had to, I guess I'd have to, but it's a stretch to say I want to."

Emma nodded. Then, hesitantly, she asked, "Does it bug you that I carry?"

"What?" Neal's jaw dropped for one second. "Oh, no. No. No, I've got no issue with people who carry guns, as long as they know how to treat them. But me, personally, it's… not something I'm comfortable with in the first place, so I'm not exactly torn up about the fact that I can't, you know?"

"Okay," Emma said, reassured and smiling just a little. "Okay. Meanwhile," she sighed, "I've got another interview tomorrow. This one's office work, but it's with a PI firm." She shrugged. "That's how I got started with Ray."

"It won't feel like you're taking a step backwards?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "But I've got the experience, and it's a steady paycheck if I get it. I can deal."

"Sure," Neal agreed. "Sure. What time's the interview?"

"Ten."

"Okay; I'm setting the alarm for seven. I'm going to check out a few of those self-defense classes. You want to get up then?"

"Yeah, might as well," Emma nodded. She looked at the time. "And since it's after eleven, I guess we'd both better get some sleep."

She thought the interview went well, but she wasn't sure until she got called back for a second one and then hired. Less than two weeks after Neal found a self-defense class that fit his budget and schedule, she started taking the train to Belmont. The work wasn't difficult, but it was tedious and, despite herself, Emma was force to admit that it did feel like a step backwards.

The other people in the firm were cordial enough. Still, on her first day of work, she found herself feeling the same sensations she'd had as a child, every time she'd move to a new placement and start in at a new school. No matter if it was the beginning of the year or—as happened more often—the middle or end, walking into her classroom, she'd inevitably discovered that everyone already knew everyone else, the lab partners and swimming buddies had already been chosen, the cliques were established, and she was on the outside, eating lunch by herself.

It wasn't that anybody at her new job condescended to her or bullied her, but neither did they make any attempt to socialize with her or get to know her. The three-person team who'd interviewed her knew her background from her resume, of course, but they'd also been upfront about hiring her as office support staff only. "If you should become licensed in this state, of course you'd be eligible to apply for an investigator position in this firm, should one be made available. Our current opening, however, is in records."

Emma had nodded and said she understood. So far as she knew, her employment history was buried in their personnel files and, in an office full of private investigators, nobody else seemed to have shown the slightest interest in checking her background or finding out anything more about her than what time she took her breaks and how long it would take for her to retrieve a file. She told herself it didn't matter. Repeatedly. And she hoped that at some point, she'd even mean it.

It was a few months later, when she came home to find Neal sitting at their new computer, a cup of coffee beside him and a donut almost as glazed as his eyes. "Hey," she greeted him.

"Hey, yourself."

She came up beside him, leaned over, and brought her hands down over his shoulders, clasping them below his neck. "What're you up to?"

Neal groaned. "They're having me shadow someone, or at least, that's what they described. Turns out the guy wants me to try tracking down the fugitive myself first. I get the feeling that if I can't do it, they might tell me this thing isn't working out after all."

Emma made a sympathetic sound. "How's it going?"

"Terrible," Neal replied with mocking good cheer. "Oh, it started off okay, sure, but then I hit a wall and I don't know how to get around it."

Emma hesitated. "You want me to take a crack at it?" she asked.

"You've got to be exhausted," Neal started to demur. "You're up at the crack of dawn; you come home a couple of hours after I do—"

"Hour and a half, and I get to nap on the train."

"You could take the car."

"We've been over this," she sighed. "Once you start getting solo bounty-hunting jobs, you're going to need it. Meanwhile, I hate driving in rush hour, the train station is only fifteen minutes' walk from the office, and seriously, I don't mind. Look, if this is something you have to do on your own, I get it. But if you want me to take a look, I mean I'd sort of like a chance to keep my skills up, so I don't forget everything in three years."

Under Emma's forearms, Neal's shoulders rose in a half shrug. "Pull up a chair and I'll bring you up to speed," he gave in. "And, at least, let me make you some cocoa. I did a little grocery shopping on the way home and picked up a canister."

"Tell me you bought—"

"Cinnamon? C'mon, Emma, after all this time, you think I wouldn't remember?"

Emma grinned back and planted a kiss on his temple.

Three hours later, Emma looked up. "Okay," she said. "I think I've got it narrowed down to two likely options. If your guy's in the country, then he's either in Boise or Des Moines."

"What about his cabin in the Adirondacks?"

Emma shook her head. "At the time of the arrest, the newspapers profiled him and his holdings. Most of them mentioned the Malibu beach house and the Adirondacks retreat. He likes creature comforts too much to go off-grid and he hasn't got a passport. Faked documents are a possibility, if he did leave the country, but I'd check out those cities first."

"What's so special about the Midwest?"

"He's got two sets of cousins there. And going by these," she pulled up a number of photos of smiling, tanned people at picnics and parks, clearly relaxed and having a good time, "he enjoys being around them. Maybe he isn't there, but… I'll bet you he's been in touch with them. He's got to know that the cops are keeping an eye on his family in this part of the country. But I bet they're ignoring the nice, normal, middle-class relatives in Iowa and Idaho."

Neal considered. Then he picked up the folder and rifled through it. "Hang on... Okay, I need someone new to the family whose voice they won't recognize yet... Bingo." A moment later, he picked up the phone. "Here's hoping," he said, as he keyed in the number, "that this guy I'm impersonating won't be sitting in their living room when I reach ou— Uh… hi," he injected a note of good cheer into his voice as the party on the other end of the call picked up. "Is this Madge? Yeah, this is Connor; Pam's husband?" A moment later he smiled. "I'm great, how are you? Listen, I was cleaning out my dad's garage, and I found a box of old sports cards. I remember Brett being into them and I was wondering, if I gave you some of the names of the players, if you could tell me if they're worth keeping around for when Brett can think about stuff like that. Sorry, I know the timing stinks, but he seemed like a cool guy when we talked at Marla and Billy's wedding and I'd hate to think I tossed something he's been looking for and… Uh… yeah. Sure," he gave Emma a thumbs-up, "that'd be great. Yeah, I can be by the phone then. Actually… let me give you another number. Just in case they're watching the home phone…"

As soon as he ended the call, he planted a kiss soundly on Emma's lips. "Brett Simon's not there now, but he'll call back on Friday!" He turned back to the computer, his fingers racing along the keyboard. "Just filling in my supervisor. The number I gave was one of the office's; they have a couple for situations like this. I can't believe… Actually, scratch that; I've watched you in action before, I ought to know by now that… Ah, screw it. I know you're amazing, but I didn't realize until now just how amazing!"

Emma laughed. "It's seriously not that hard to do, and you pinpointed him all on your own!"

"Yeah, after you got me ninety percent of the way there!"

An email notification showed on the screen and Neal opened it. "Ticket confirmation from here to Des Moines leaving tomorrow," he said. "Looks like my supervisor agrees with you."

"So, your job's safe?" Emma grinned.

"Looks like. Never been to Iowa before."

"Me either. I hear Iowa and I think cornfields."

"I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that. I mean, it's the future birthplace of Captain Kirk."

"Future birthplace?" Emma repeated. "I wonder if they're leaning into that. Like, 'future elementary school of Captain James T. Kirk; on this spot, a bench will one day be installed to commemorate the successful completion of Captain Kirk's five-year-mission; future site of Captain Kirk's farmhouse…"

Neal laughed with her. "Tell you what," he said, "if I get there, and they do have stuff like that? I'll bring back photographic proof."

He didn't bring back a photo, but he did bring back an offer. "I told my supervisor how you helped me out and I… might've mentioned your Arizona PI license. He said that if you fax in your resume, he'll check it out."

For the first time in weeks, Emma felt her hopes rise. But, "He didn't promise?"

"He promised to check it out."

Emma hesitated. "I'll need to update it. I haven't added Rushton-McCormack, yet."

"You've only been there four months."

"And if they want to check references, they might be more interested in local ones." She sighed. "I just hope it won't push the end of it to page two."

"That'd be bad?"

"Yeah, if it means that it's just two lines at the top and the rest of the page is blank. If that happens, I'll either have to figure out how to cut some of what's already in it to get it back to one page or… find more stuff to add."

Neal thought about that for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Want some help?"

She had a call for an interview two days later. It must have gone well, because a week later, she received a formal job offer. At first, she spent most of her time behind a desk, but after a while, like Neal, she was working in the field.

One year passed before she knew it, and then two more. She obtained her Massachusetts PI license and with it, a nice jump in salary. Neal insisted they go out to celebrate.

"They're probably going to keep my field assignments in-state from now on," Emma told him. "The license really just means I'm allowed to open up my own office instead of working for someone." There were a few other differences, but that was the main one. "There are a few jurisdictions where it makes a bigger difference, though, and if I stick closer to home, it's less of an issue."

"Plus, a stable home environment, when we find our son," Neal nodded.

Emma flinched guiltily. "Do you know how long it's been since I've really thought about that?" she asked. "He'll be nine in August. He wouldn't know who we are; he's got another family now and they must love him…" She swallowed hard. "He's probably happy and… and secure and…"

"You don't want to tear him away from the people he knows and loves," Neal sighed. "I get it."

"Is it okay?" she asked, sound for a moment like a young girl.

Neal nodded. "I want him to know about us. I want to meet him. At least, if he wants to meet us, too. And if he's happy where he is, but he still wants to know us, I'm all for it. If he doesn't want us in his life, I'm not going to push myself in where I'm not wanted, but I kind of hope he does."

Emma was silent for a long time. Then, slowly, she said, "I've spent more than twenty-six years wondering about my parents. More than eight wondering about my son. It's been eating at me for so long. Maybe… maybe it's time I tried to move on from it. My parents obviously don't want to know me, or they'd have tried finding me by now."

"You don't know they haven't," Neal pointed out.

"They left me by the side of the highway. I don't think they were planning on coming back." Her lip curled bitterly. "Maybe I'm better off not finding them; I'd probably end up wishing I hadn't if I did. And… it was a closed adoption. I asked for 'no contact'. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was being manipulated. Maybe I didn't think it through. But I still signed."

"An illegal contract."

"I can't afford to hire a lawyer to fight it. And the family that the baby went to… they had enough money to pay my medical bills and living expenses and take on a kid. If I go up against them, it could mean years of fighting, probably traumatizing our kid by ripping him out of the only life he's known, and there's still a good chance a custody fight wouldn't go our way. I… I'll always wonder about him. About them. But the life we've got here, it's… pretty good just the two of us, you know?"

It was Neal's turn for silence. Finally, he said, "Could you promise me one thing? Make sure that we get our names on as many adoption registries as we can find, and that our contact information is always up to date on all of them. Let's give our son his best chance to find us, if he ever wants to."

Emma nodded. "Deal."

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen

Interlude: Storybrooke, June to Mid-September, 2011

Henry Mills was the only boy he knew who had birthdays. He was the only boy he knew who turned a whole year older every year. He was the only boy he knew who got promoted to a new grade every year. And he was the only boy he knew who found anything weird about the whole situation.

When he told his mother what was on his mind, she told him that he was just imagining things.

"But…"

"Henry, I'm preparing for a council meeting. Don't you have homework to do?"

"I wish that stayed the same every day," Henry muttered. "I'd just do it once and make a bunch of photocopies." He wondered about that, too. The seasons changed. The homework assignments did, too. He wasn't the only person who wore different clothes every day. But every morning, on his walk to school, rain, snow or shine, he'd see Marco the handyman nailing the Five-and-Dime's sign up again. He'd see Mr. Gold walking to the shop at exactly the same time. Forty-two seconds later (he'd timed it), Ruby would be complaining to Granny about being on the early shift. Ten seconds after she flounced into the diner, Archie would approach with Pongo…

Every day was the same.

"Small towns are like that," his mother said, but Henry knew that couldn't be it.

He wondered why he was the only person in town who seemed to think anything was wrong. Maybe, he thought, his mother—his real one—had also felt that way. "Did my mother ever live here?" he'd asked once. "Did you meet her?"

"Henry!" his mother exclaimed. "I'm your mother. I may not have given birth to you, but you are no less my son for that." She sucked in her breath. "And no," she went on. "I never met the woman who gave you up. She wanted a closed adoption."

"What does that mean?" Henry asked.

His mother took a breath. "It means she didn't want to see you or hear from you. She didn't want to raise you."

"She didn't want me," Henry whispered, feeling tears burning in his eyes.

"But I did," his mother told him, pulling him into a hug. "I did."

Henry hugged her back, reassured for now. His questions, however, didn't go away. Neither did his discomfort.

As the summer wore on and his tenth birthday drew nearer, Henry found himself thinking more and more about the mother who hadn't wanted him. "Do you think she had a lot of other kids already and couldn't afford one more?" he asked his mother. "Or maybe she was a secret agent and she was afraid that her enemies would hurt me to get to her?"

His mother sighed. Not for the first time, she cursed the articles she'd read that recommended letting an adopted child know that he'd been adopted as early as possible. Yes, a number of other townspeople had volunteered the same advice unasked, including Mrs. Lucas and, rather surprisingly, Gold. She'd listened to the experts, both bona fide and armchair, trusting that they knew what was best. Now, however, she was thinking that if she had disregarded them, she and Henry would both be happier now. "You know, Henry," she said, "I'm getting worried about you. Your mother, whoever she was, had her reasons. I don't know what they were, but I don't think it matters. Do you know what being adopted means?"

Henry nodded. "Yeah, it means I didn't come out of you," he said at once.

"It means that I wanted you."

"I know," Henry said. "But I still want to find out about her."

"Unfortunately," his mother said, "I can't help you there. Actually," she continued, "I think that getting you some… help… might be a good idea."

"Yeah?" Henry brightened at once. "So we can hire a detective? Take out an ad in the paper? Start a website?"

His mother shook her head. "No," she replied. "That's not the kind of help I meant. I believe you're thinking about this whole… thing… a bit too much. It's becoming an obsession and it's not healthy for you to dwell on it quite this much. I've spoken with Dr. Hopper and he agrees with me that a few sessions with him might prove beneficial. Do you know what that means?"

Henry shrugged.

"It means that he's going to help you get some perspective. You're seeing him tomorrow evening at seven." She saw the shock on her son's face and decided to stave off any protest with a carrot. "And we'll go out to Granny's for supper before you do. In fact," she went on, "we can do that every Thursday evening from now on. I'll make sure I leave the office at five and it'll be our time. We don't really do enough together these days," she added a bit wistfully. "What do you say?"

Henry frowned. "And I can order anything I want? Or does it have to be good for me?"

"Any main course you want," his mother said. "And if you finish it, any dessert."

"Even if I want a hotdog combo?" Henry promptly named the most unhealthy item he could think of.

"I suppose one hotdog combo a week won't hurt," his mother agreed, a bit less enthusiastically. "But only once a week. If we go out more often than that, I'll expect you to make better choices. So?"

Henry smiled. "It's a deal."

And for a few glorious minutes, Regina felt like she had her son back.

Ms Blanchard was young and pretty, with a kind of wide-eyed enthusiasm that Henry warmed to. At least he did for the first twenty minutes of his first day of fifth grade. For those twenty minutes, he'd thought that it was going to be a fun year. Okay, so the math sounded like it was going to be a little harder. When Ms Blanchard passed out the two novels they were going to be studying this year, he couldn't help smiling. He'd read Dear Mr. Henshaw on his own last year, so he already knew the storyline. And as for The Cricket in Times Square, he was curious. He'd never seen or heard a cricket in Storybrooke.

"Now, this year, I hope to make history come alive for each of you. If you don't know who you are or where you came from, it can feel as though there's a big hole in your life, like there's something missing you can't quite describe…"

Henry found himself nodding. That was exactly how he'd been feeling lately.

"…So your first assignment will be to create a family tree. I want you to record, not only the names of your ancestors, but some fact about each one. If you don't know anything about them, then find an event that happened or an object that was invented during their life. Include yourself and any siblings you might have, your parents and any siblings they might have, and your grandparents and any siblings they might have. You can go back even farther, if you're able. It's due one week from today. Are there any questions?"

Henry sagged a bit in his chair. This was going to be the worst year ever!

"Your grandfather's name was Henry Mills, too," his mother told him that evening. "You're named after him. And your…" Uncharacteristically, she hesitated. "Your grandmother's name was Cora."

Henry shook his head. "I need my real grandparents' names."

"We've been over this before," his mother said, sounding annoyed. "In every way that matters, I am your real mother. I may not have given birth to you, but I have cared for you since you were three weeks old. I have changed your diapers," Henry flinched at that, "soothed your fevers, and endured your tantrums. True, I didn't give birth to you, but I am still your real mother. And since Henry and Cora were my parents, that makes them your real grandparents."

"It's not the same," Henry protested, glumly.

"I can have a word with Ms Blanchard," his mother said. "Explain your circumstances and tell her that this is how you'll be completing the assignment. If she gives you a hard time about this, you tell me."

Henry lowered his eyes. "I don't think she will," he admitted. "But I'm going to be the only kid who'll…" He took another breath. "You don't know anything about my re—" Something about the look on his mother's face made him amend, "my birth mother?"

"Nothing."

Henry sighed. "How did you get me? If I was born here, then you'd know who gave me up. So I know I wasn't. But how did I get here? How did you…?"

"I've told you the story a hundred times already," his mother said with some surprise.

"No," Henry replied. "You've told me that you wanted a little boy and so you got me, but you've never told me how."

Ten years earlier…

Regina looked up from the council brief she was reading in surprise. "What can I do for you, Gold?" she asked. In all the years that the town had been here, she couldn't recall him ever calling on her at the office before.

Gold smiled. "Just following up on your visit to the shop the other day. At the time, you seemed… less than satisfied with the service I'd provided and I wanted to verify whether you were still, uh, dissatisfied?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Since when do you care whether your customers are satisfied, Gold?"

Gold smiled. "Well," he said with a chuckle, "you are the mayor. As such, it's prudent for me to remain in your good graces."

Still somewhat suspicious, she gave the shopkeeper a polite smile. "There was a bit of an adjustment, but I do believe that things are looking up."

"So our business is concluded?"

Regina nodded. "It would appear so." She frowned. "Or was there something else I'm overlooking? You did receive the final transfer payment, didn't you?"

"I did," Gold nodded. "No, our business is concluded, but I would like to ask a favor of you, please."

Regina blinked. A fog seemed to veil her mind and, as if from a distance, she heard her voice respond, "Go ahead."

"Never conceal from him that he is your adopted son. If he's old enough to ask about it, he's old enough to hear the answer. And at some point, should he further inquire as to how the adoption came about, please let him know that…"

"…Mr. Gold arranged it," his mother replied slowly. "Most adoption agencies had waiting lists that were years long, but he knew how badly I wanted you. How badly I wanted a child," she corrected herself. "Of course, I didn't know then that it would be you. In any case, he was able to find a lawyer willing to speed things up for me."

"How?"

His mother's tone was apologetic. "To be honest, Henry, I never asked, but he found him. A few months later, I got a call to drive to Boston to get you. You came home with me that same day."

His mother was smiling and Henry smiled back and tried to act as if everything was fine now, but it wasn't. He still didn't have all the answers he wanted. But he did have a better idea of how to get them.

Even if he was more than a little nervous about it.

Two weeks later, the bell over the front door of Mr. Gold's shop jangled and he looked up as said door creaked open. He frowned. And then he looked down as a small figure stepped hesitantly past the map carousel and into view. "It's Henry, isn't it?" he asked in some surprise. Children generally did not cross his threshold unattended, and even then only with the utmost trepidation. And the boy did look nervous, hugging a large brown hardcover volume with no dustjacket to his chest as though it was some talisman for courage.

A handy thing to have, if such actually existed, he thought. Aloud, he said, "What can I do for you today?"

The boy seemed poised to flee out the door. Then, very hesitantly, he took another step forward. Almost in a whisper, he asked, "Did you find me for my mother?"

"Find you?" Gold repeated.

"When she wanted to adopt me," Henry said, still looking down. "Did you get me here?"

Gold picked up a knickknack from behind the counter and began polishing it. "When the adoption agency advised her that they had a child for her," he said slowly, "and yes, that was you, it was she who drove to Boston to fetch you and bring you back. However, I did have dealings with the agency in question. It was quite some time ago and..." He frowned. "That's odd."

"What is?" Henry asked, seeming to forget his nervousness.

"I don't recall the details at all," Gold replied, looking puzzled. "I know your mother came to me, asking my help in bypassing the waiting time…"

"Waiting time?" Henry prompted, when Gold's voice trailed off, hoping to jog the conversation along

"There are often more prospective parents looking to adopt an infant than there are infants available for adoption," Gold said. Then he saw the set of Henry's jaw. "Ah," he smiled. "So you knew that part already. Forgive me. As I was saying, had your mother been willing to consider an older child, it might have taken far less time. As it was a baby she wanted, she came to me. I'm," he shrugged, "usually good at facilitating things like that."

"Oh," Henry said in a small voice.

It struck Gold that the boy wasn't entirely satisfied with his answer. "Was there… anything else?" he asked.

Henry hesitated. Then, clutching the book before him more tightly, he asked at a rush. "Did you ever meet my mother?"

Gold smiled. "Well, she is the mayor, isn't she?"

"Not her," Henry replied, almost at once. "My real one."

"Henry," Gold sighed, "there's more to family than blood. To be wanted is a fine thing," he added, his voice wistful.

Henry waited, but the proprietor was silent again. "Mr. Gold?"

Gold blinked. And then, his eyebrows lifted and he walked over to his cash drawer. "You know, Henry," he said slowly, "I believe I may have something to show you."

"Yeah?" A glimmer of hope appeared in the boy's eyes.

"I seem to have been keeping this with me for the longest time," he said. "I'm not at all certain when it came into my possession. I'd been meaning to open it myself, but somehow it's never seemed very important to me. However," he pulled a white legal-size envelope out of the drawer, "I suspect it may be of import to you."

Henry reached for it. "Thanks," he said sounding as though he wasn't certain whether he'd just been handed a gemstone or a pebble. He read the legend on the front aloud. "To be given to Henry Mills. When he asks about her."

"The handwriting is mine," Gold confirmed. "Though for the life of me, I don't recall what's inside it. Perhaps, the answer to your question. Perhaps not. But I suspect," he continued, "that it's something meant to be read privately."

Later, after Henry had thanked him again and left, Gold found himself wondering why he'd said that. If he'd written the letter, then he really ought to remember its contents. At the very least, he should have asked Henry to open the envelope in his presence. And yet, somehow, it hadn't seemed important enough to make that request. Well, tomorrow, he'd have to be sure to ask Henry about it.

The next morning, like every morning, Mr. Gold awoke at 6:30 sharp, brushed his teeth, gargled, shaved, showered, and dressed. At 7:15, he was en route to his shop, reaching it at 7:21. He unlocked the door, gave the counters a quick dust and polish, and prepared for his day. He unlocked his safe, counted off a number of bills and coins, and opened the register to stock it properly. He frowned. Something appeared to be missing. Something that had been there since… well, it seemed as though it had been there forever. Not money, for he locked that away safely at the close of business. And nothing else had any business being inside it. And yet…

He shook his head. Perhaps his memory was playing tricks on him. If it wasn't, then no doubt he'd recall what he was missing in time. He began setting the bills and coins in the proper compartments in advance of any customers who might arrive.

His mother's name was Emma Swan. Alone in his house, upstairs in his bedroom with the door closed, Henry read the letter over and over, trying to read between the lines. She'd been abandoned as a baby and never had a real family. She'd got pregnant at seventeen and didn't think she knew how to be a mother.

I know I'm taking a chance with this, she wrote. After all, I was supposed to be adopted, but I ended up in the System when I was three after all. I have to hope that things worked out better for you, that you ended up with a good family who loves you, or in a really great foster home, but I hope it's with a family. All I know is, wherever you are, you've got a better chance without me than you do with me. I haven't always made the best choices. I hope for both our sakes that this is a good one. It's not that I don't want you. It's that I want you to be happy and I don't think you will be with the life I could give you. As I write this, I have no home, no job, and I'm trying to finish high school through correspondence. You deserve better than that. And if I can't give it to you, I'm hoping someone else will. And even if I might never know who you are or anything about you besides your birthday (it's August 15th, 2001, in case nobody told you), I do love you. And I hope you're having a great life.

Henry wiped at his eyes furiously. His mother would never have put him up for adoption if she'd known that he was going to be raised by the Evil Queen! He opened the book again and sought out the drawing of the woman he'd lately thought of as his mother. Oh, her clothes were different, her hair was longer, and she looked a lot scarier, but that was his mother. No. Not his mother. Not really. Regina.

Henry's eyes widened. He flipped to the back of the book and the picture of Snow White and Prince Charming bending over an infant who was swaddled in a blanket. There was a name on the blanket. Emma.

His heart, already beating faster than usual, began to pound. His mother… was Ms Blanchard's daughter! And she had to come to Storybrooke to break the Dark Curse! But if she didn't know about it…

"I have to tell her," Henry whispered. "But first, I have to find her. Sh-she could be anywhere." He took a breath. It was true. She could be anywhere… but he had to start somewhere. He swiveled his chair back around to face his computer and slid the mouse around to banish the screen-saver. He opened a Google session and typed in the search box: find birth mother…

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen

"Oh, Henry!" Ms Blanchard looked up from her desk with a smile. "It's recess now. Shouldn't you be outside?"

Henry shook his head. "It's too noisy," he said. "Couldn't I read in here?" He held up the book meaningfully.

Ms Blanchard sighed. "I'm glad you're enjoying it, Henry, but…" She winced at the boy's pleading look and relented. "I guess it'd be okay, just this once." The broad smile on Henry's face made her own a bit wider. She went back to grading papers, glancing up every minute or two to check up on her student.

Henry sat, his eyes glued to the pages, which rustled slightly as he turned them. Ms Blanchard silently congratulated herself on how much happier he'd been these last few weeks. Then she remembered something. "Henry," she said, "I'm just going to run down to the office and pick up some copies. Will you be okay here for a couple of minutes?"

Henry looked up. "Sure!" he said.

"Okay. I should be back before the other kids come in," she said, already halfway to the door.

As soon as it closed behind her, Henry put the book aside. He opened the door again cautiously, and looked up and down the hallway. Reassured that it was empty, he carefully eased open the bottom left-hand drawer in Ms Blanchard's desk, wincing a bit at the slight creak. Nobody could hear it outside the room, he told himself. He knew it was true. He also knew he'd be in real trouble if he was caught.

He'd never been in real trouble before. At least, never in school. (Not doing his family tree homework didn't count. It wasn't like Ms Blanchard had called Regina or anything.) For a moment, he wondered whether anyone would remember anything about it a day later anyway.

Then he reached into the drawer, opened Ms Blanchard's purse, pulled out her wallet, opened it, and extracted the Visa he found inside.

By the time the bell rang and Ms Blanchard returned, seconds ahead of the rest of her students, Henry had closed the drawer, returned to his desk, and resumed reading—the card now safely ensconced in his pocket.

Neal was waiting when Emma got home. As she came in, he got up and ran into their small kitchen. She heard the microwave door slam, followed by a series of beeps. "Dinner will be on the table in a minute," he told her, coming back into the main room.

"Candlelight," Emma said, looking at the table. "Real tablecloth instead of disposable, real cutlery…"

"Real plates, too," Neal told her, as the smell of cinnamon wafted from the kitchen. "And I'll wash 'em, don't worry," he grinned, just as the microwave dinged.

He went back to the kitchen and Emma heard the microwave door open again, then close, and then came another series of beeps. A moment later, he returned, bearing an earthenware plate with a generous portion of…

Emma's jaw dropped. "I thought they retired the Cinnabon French toast!" she gaped, taking in the dish with its all its maple-cinnamon-mascarpone-syrupy glory.

"They did," Neal grinned. "But they agreed to make it up as a special order. Uh… sorry if the fruit looks messy, but I put it on myself just now." He shrugged. "I got them to put it in a separate container so it wouldn't get gross when I nuked the toast. Sauce too." The sliced strawberries and bananas did look a bit haphazard, and the banana was a little on the brown side, from having been cut some time ago, but Emma wasn't about to complain. The microwave dinged again, and he went to get his own meal—a short rib mac-and-cheese. "Good thing Victoria's Diner serves a 24-hour-breakfast, huh? I remembered how much you loved this."

"Yeah," Emma said, sitting down at the table a little nervously. "So… what's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Neal asked, a little too quickly. "Why should—?"

Emma gave him a hard look. "If you're going to try and tell me nothing's wrong, trust me, I won't need my superpower to know you're lying." Her frown fell away, replaced by worry. "What's happened?"

Neal sighed. "You know that guy, Scanlan, we've been trying to find for months?"

"Yeah?" Emma nodded. That one had even stymied her above-par talents.

"Well, there's been a break. We're pretty sure we know where he is."

Emma grinned. "It's about time! Wait. So, what's…?"

Neal pushed pasta around on his plate. "All signs are pointing to Alaska. And not some major city, like Nome or Juneau. No, he's the outdoorsy type, and even Alaska's not all that cold in early October. He cashed in travel points on an account I guess he didn't think we'd be looking at. To be fair, it was dormant for a few years; glad you showed me how to be thorough. But he used them on a car rental. And when we reached out to Avis and faxed them documentation, the agent who'd handled it remembered the guy saying something about heading up to Denali State Park. That's… over three hundred thousand acres of wilderness to comb through, if he wasn't deliberately planting a false trail. It's the best break we've got anyway; whether he went to Denali or not, we at least have a good idea which state he's in now. There are a couple of complications, though," he continued. "Law states that bounty hunters in Alaska need to work for a bondsperson in the state, but given how much ground there is to cover, Shaughnessy's contacted an office up there and they've agreed to hire me on contract for the duration." He gave Emma an apologetic smile. "They admitted that they don't have enough people to comb the area looking for this guy and considering the size of the Ponzi scheme this guy was running, they're agreeable to having a little extra help. Anyway, I'm flying to Fairbanks the day after tomorrow and I'll probably be there at least a week or two."

Emma nearly choked on her morsel of French toast. She swallowed, washed it down with a gulp of Coke and exclaimed, "B-but you'll miss…" She stopped. "Never mind."

"That's why I got you the French toast," Neal admitted. He sighed. "Babe, I know I'm gonna miss your birthday and I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you when I get back."

Emma took a deep breath. "Okay," she said, "but it better be with something extra special."

"Uh…" Neal hesitated. Then, a bit nervously, he asked, "Would a diamond ring be special enough? Because once I nab this guy, my cut of the bail bond is probably going to be enough for that."

Emma was silent and Neal was immediately sorry. "I didn't mean to…"

"No," Emma protested. "No, no, you didn't say anything wrong. I…" She took a breath. "I think that might be," she smiled a bit nervously, "just special enough."

Neal jumped up from his chair and came around to her seat. She clasped her arms about him and was about to apologize for the syrup on her fingers getting all over his shirt, but his lips were already pressed firmly on hers, and he was probably getting cheese sauce in her hair anyway and she didn't care about that any more than he did.

"So, you're okay with committing?" Neal grinned, when they'd pulled apart once more.

Emma smiled back. "You've stuck it out this long. I guess you're probably coming back. And… I don't think anything earth-shaking is likely to happen before you do…"

When he'd read his mother's letter, Henry had been so positive that she was the Emma from his book who was destined to break the curse. In the cold light of the next morning, however—or in the twilight of his latest session with Archie, anyway—he had to admit it seemed a little farfetched. There had to be thousands of Emmas out there.

But this Emma had said she'd been abandoned on the side of a highway.

Well, duh! If she'd been sent through an enchanted wardrobe as a newborn, she sure wouldn't remember it!

Okay, so there was a baby Emma in his book and his mother's name was also Emma. It could still be a coincidence. Archie had suggested as much. And talking about the curse hadn't got him anywhere, not that he'd expected it to, but he'd been hoping…

"Henry, I know living in a small town can be a little boring, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a curse."

Henry looked at the rectangle of plastic in his hand. It wasn't too late. He could probably slip it back into Ms Blanchard's purse as easily as he'd slipped it out with nobody the wiser. Once she noticed it was missing, though, once he used it, once she got the bill, if she guessed he'd been the one to take her card, he'd be in the biggest trouble he'd ever been in!

He sucked in his breath. "This had better be worth it," he muttered, switching on his computer and going back to the site he'd bookmarked a day earlier. This time, when the payment screen came up, he only hesitated for a moment before he keyed in the credit card information. He frowned for a moment when it asked for the CVV; he'd never heard of that before. A moment later, Google told him what it was and he'd flipped over Ms Blanchard's card to find the three-digit number on the back.

For several achingly-long moments, the webpage displayed only the single word, "Searching," followed by a series of dots that increased and decreased. And then, Henry's breath caught.

There was an Emma Swan on an adoption registry who had surrendered a baby boy for adoption ten years ago. But she wasn't in Arizona…

She was in Boston.

Regina had told him the story. How she'd wanted to adopt a baby and how when she'd finally been told that the agency had one for her, she'd practically jumped into her car and driven the four hours to Boston to…

Boston was only four hours away by car.

Henry's face fell. There was no way that he could drive a car all the way to Boston, or even out of Regina's driveway!

But if he could get out of Storybrooke, get as far as the next town, wherever that was, then maybe he could take a bus!

Neal zipped his duffle bag closed and headed into the living room. Emma was sitting at the computer, typing. Neal glanced over her shoulder. "Uh… I am coming back, you know," he said.

Startled, Emma gave an involuntary jump. Then she pretended he hadn't rattled her. "This is work-related," she said with grim satisfaction. "Ryan Kirkpatrick just took my bait."

"Refresh my memory?"

"Embezzler. Got out on bail; skipped out on his wife, who put up half the bond. And now, he's on a computer dating site. Real prince of a guy," she added sourly. "Julie Kirkpatrick was in the office last week. Lovely lady, didn't deserve this crap. It wasn't until he abandoned her and she went checking his home office for a clue that she found out he had an up-to-date profile on eHarmony. Now she's got another reason to find him: so she can serve him divorce papers."

Neal let out a low whistle. "If you don't track him down, she can still serve him by publication or posting, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Emma agreed. "But she wants to do it directly. Or see the photo when the process server does it. Not that I blame her. Anyway, she came back today. I sat down with her and she helped me create a profile of my own that makes me sound like his dream date. Looks like it worked. He wants to meet."

"And there's no chance you'll fall for him?" Neal deadpanned. "I mean, when you and I hooked up, I was a two-bit con-artist. Not to mention a car thief. Now, here you are playing for another criminal. I dunno, sounds like you have a type…"

"Yeah," Emma swatted him playfully. "Guys I go to jail for who end up delivering pizza to my workplace and hanging around for another seven years or so after that. Not white collar crooks who cheat on their wives."

"Okay, okay," Neal laughed. "So, when does it all go down?"

"You've been watching old detective movies again," Emma replied. "And… Let's just say, I'm going out on my birthday, after all."

The sun wasn't up yet when Henry tiptoed downstairs. He carried his shoes in one hand and a foldable scooter in the other. On his back, he carried his knapsack, the storybook safely within. He wasn't positive the scooter was a good idea. He'd never been outside Storybrooke since he'd come here and he wasn't sure if the seasons here were going to be the same once he crossed the town line. It was already cold enough to dress for winter in town, and while it hadn't started snowing yet, Henry had seen frost on the grass just the other morning.

In the vestibule, he set his bag and scooter down on the polished wooden floor, tensing at the faint click the metal scooter made as it touched the wood. When there was no sound from upstairs, he put on his shoes, got his coat and scarf from the closet, and put them on hastily. Then he quickly punched in the alarm code—his birthday numbers, which made it easy to remember—and once the light on the control box changed from red to green, grabbed his knapsack and scooter and carefully eased open the front door.

The streetlights were still on when he unfolded the scooter and pushed off down the street, turning left at the boarded-up library with its tower clock proclaiming the time incorrectly as 8:15, heading for the town line. He could see another light dusting of frost on the grassy lawns he passed, too. He was half-expecting there to be a barrier of some kind when he was getting close. Sheriff Graham's car parked horizontally across the road, or maybe, since everyone in town was from a fairy tale, the barrier keeping them all here would be too! He couldn't remember ever seeing the town line before, and he was half-hoping that there would be a thicket of briar or a hedge maze with a dragon in the middle (minotaurs were Greek mythology, and anyway, there weren't any in his book). But then, he rounded the bend and saw a green road sign, just like they had on the highways on TV, that read "Leaving Storybrooke."

It suddenly occurred to Henry that if his book was right and the Curse would 'bring down a terrible fate on any who sought to leave this new town in which they found themselves', then maybe he shouldn't be scootering toward it. Not if there was a chance of an ice patch on the pavement! He slowed, dismounted, and rather awkwardly picked up the scooter and walked the last fifty yards or so.

He tensed as he stepped carefully past the sign, alert for any kind of invisible force-field or booby trap. Nothing happened. Maybe the sign wasn't actually at the town line. Maybe it was a little in front of it. He took a few more steps and turned around. Now, he could see the back of that sign and, facing him across the opposite traffic lane, a white sign whose blue letters proclaimed, "Welcome to Storybrooke."

Hardly daring to believe he'd actually done it, Henry kept walking down the road, somewhat surprised to realize that the scenery didn't look appreciably different from what he was used to. It wasn't any warmer or colder either. After about twenty minutes he saw a sign with no words. Instead, there was only the number 172 encased in a square with a narrow black border. He wasn't sure what that meant, but before he could begin to piece it together, he heard a car horn behind him and instinctively stepped onto the grass beside the road.

The car passed and Henry's eyes widened. Every license plate he'd ever seen had a picture of a bird on a pine branch on its left and painted green grass along the bottom. This one had had… well… some sort of image on the right he hadn't been able to make out. But the number had been green, not the black he was used to. That meant that the car had to be from some other state! He'd done it! He'd left Storybrooke! Wait. If the car was from another state, did that mean that he was in one, now? After a moment, Henry rejected the idea. If a town that nobody was supposed to be able to leave had a sign at the border, a whole other state probably had one too. But he was out of Storybrooke. The road he was on had to go someplace. Sooner or later, he was going to hit a town or a city or something. It probably wouldn't be Boston, but hopefully, he'd be able to get there.

A bit after noon, an exhausted ten-year-old blearily scootered into Blue Hill, Maine. He walked into a convenience store to ask directions, wondering if the woman behind the counter was going to wonder why he wasn't in school. If she did, though, she kept her questions to herself and told the boy what he needed to know.

A few minutes later, Henry stood in front of the town hall, waiting for the Downeast Transportation commuter bus to Ellsworth. From there, he would take another bus to Bangor and transfer to yet another one, bound for Boston South. He looked down at his tickets once more, and curled his fingers tightly around the bus schedules. It sounded like a long trip, longer than he'd already come, but he had six Apollo bars and two bottles of Pepsi for the road and if that wasn't enough, he imagined that Ms Blanchard's credit card would come in handy when he needed more.

Emma's evening had not gone well. To be fair, she hadn't expected it to. Going out on a date—even to catch a bail-jumper, even when she'd only stayed long enough to make the collar,—just made her feel sleazy under most circumstances already. Being practically engaged, even when her fiancé was on board with it, just made it worse. Yeah, she'd caught the guy after a brief chase. And a dress that she could only hope would look as good as new after a dry cleaning; it had been a lucky find at Boomerangs and she doubted she'd be able to replace it with anything equally suitable on her budget.

She'd stopped off at a bakery on her way home and bought a cupcake so the night wouldn't be a total washout. They'd had a number of candles and other accessories hanging on the wall and impulsively, she'd picked up an assortment of star-shaped ones.

Back in her apartment, she set the cupcake on her counter, and dialed Neal's cellphone. She couldn't say she was overly surprised when it went to voice mail. It was four hours earlier in Alaska; he was probably out searching and had his phone turned off. Plus, cell phone coverage was spotty outside of the cities; she had no idea whether she could reach him if he was inside a state park.

Too bad. She really wanted to hear his voice, but even his voicemail just used the computerized, "The person you have dialed is not available. At the tone, please record your message." She hadn't left one, though she hoped he'd be able to call her tonight.

Sadly, she set a blue star candle into the cupcake, lit it, and rested her elbows on the counter, pillowing her head in her arms, with a sigh. "Another banner year," she murmured. And then, instantly, she shook her head. She wasn't that same lonely 'friendless orphan' she'd let Ryan Kirkpatrick think she was. Oh, she had been in the past, but that had been before Neal.

No, but tonight, it was her birthday and she was lonely. Maybe she could have let that date go on just a little bit longer, she thought wryly. No. The way it was going to end, she would have been on the hook for both meals. Still, celebrating a birthday alone wasn't fun and it would have been nice to have someone to share it with. Sighing, she closed her eyes and, not expecting anything but figuring she didn't have anything to lose by trying it, she blew out the candle and made a wish for…

The ring of her doorbell startled her. She wasn't expecting anyone. For a moment, she thought it might be Neal, home early to surprise her, but she doubted he'd caught his guy this quickly. Even if he had, it was a ten hour flight from Fairbanks to Boston and probably about the same from any other city in Alaska. And that was if it was a direct flight. Still, if he'd collared the perp yesterday, then maybe…

Yeah, but why would he ring the bell when he had a key?

Well, she'd never know who it was if she didn't open the door. She had a fleeting thought as she turned the handle that it might be one of the creeps she'd brought in, come for some payback and she wondered whether she shouldn't have grabbed her gun.

And then, she blinked down at the little boy in the navy blue woolen coat and the red-and-gray striped scarf. The clothes looked like quality and the kid didn't seem to be sick or starving. "Um…" She wondered if he was looking for the previous tenants, or if he'd meant to ring another apartment. She didn't know most of her neighbors, but maybe he was here for one of the ones she did. "Can I help you?"

"Are you Emma Swan?" the boy asked hopefully.

"Uh… Yeah," Emma replied, wondering what was going on. "Who are you?"

And then the kid smiled a crooked smile so achingly familiar that made her wish more than ever that Neal was here now. "M-my name is Henry," he said. "I'm your son."

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen

Emma's eyes grew wide as Henry's words penetrated, but before she could form a response of her own, the boy had pushed past her and into the apartment.

"Kid?" she called. Then, louder, "Kid! Hey, hang on a second!" She'd wanted to meet him, to know he was okay, but for him to show up unannounced and unexpected out of the blue… Part of her was overjoyed. But part of her—the hard-nosed, practical part that kicked in whenever she was working a job and wanted to throw the rulebook out the window and make the collar to tell her that if she didn't do things properly, it wouldn't just be the perp sitting in a jail cell and she'd probably be sitting in one longer—was kicking in now. And while it might not be saying anything she wanted to hear, she had to listen.

She had no legal right to look after this kid.

Her apartment was a one-bedroom and definitely not kid-friendly. It wasn't exactly kid-hostile; it wasn't like there were radioactive chemicals and power tools lying around or anything; but apart from her Harry Potter boxed set and the TV, she couldn't think of a single thing that might appeal to a ten-year-old.

And even if she took steps to change that; even if she went to the nearest Wal-Mart and threw something together right now, since she and Neal didn't have custody, it would be kidnapping. Kidnapping was a felony. Punishable by up to ten years in state prison or two in a house of correction. Plus a fine. She'd be tried as an adult. Her juvie record might be admissible; it might not be. But Neal already had one felony conviction on his record.

She couldn't keep Henry here. Not now. Not like this.

And even though she wanted to, she had no clue how to be a parent and any screw-ups she made while she was looking after him would be magnified and picked apart if—no when—the authorities tracked him down.

Oh, she was going to find out his full name and address and she was going to be a part of his life if he wanted her to be. (And face it: if he'd tracked her down and knocked on her door, he probably wanted her to be.) And if he wanted to live with her, then she was going to do her best to make that happen.

But it had to happen legally.

And right now, that meant that Henry had to go back to his adoptive parents.

Henry could hear Emma Swan (his mother! That was his mother!) calling after him to wait, but he ignored her. This was an apartment and on TV, anytime you tried to have a conversation in the hallway, people in the other apartments were opening their doors to listen in. Or sometimes, they were holding drinking glasses to the wall so they could listen without being noticed.

Besides, if he was in the apartment, his mom couldn't shut the door in his face. Not that she looked like he was about to, but he wasn't taking chances.

Wasn't he? Wasn't he taking a huge chance that this was his mother, and not some other woman who'd given a baby up for adoption? The website had said she was. Well, it said that there was a 97 percent likelihood that she was, but there had been a couple of other names and a note at the bottom saying that the list was 'not exhaustive'. He'd had to Google what that meant. But the other names on the list hadn't been 'Emma'.

Unless Archie was right, and his storybook was just a book. Not that Archie had come out and said it that way. It had been more like, "So, what is it that makes you believe that the people in town are all also characters in your book? Henry, you've read fairytale stories before, right? What is it that has you convinced that this collection is more than just… stories?"

He'd tried to explain, but it was obvious that Archie didn't believe him. Oh, again, he hadn't said outright, "I don't believe you." Instead, he'd asked questions meant to make Henry decide that all by himself. But Henry knew better, even if he couldn't convince Archie. Not yet. But once Emma came to Storybrooke and broke the curse…!

"Whoa!" Emma had followed him into the room. "Hey, kid! Kid! Where are your parents?"

"It's just my…" Henry's voice faltered. "My other mom and me. I came on my own."

"What? Wait. How old…?" She stopped.

"Did you give up a baby for adoption ten years ago?" Henry asked her. The look on her face confirmed it. "That was me."

Emma sucked in her breath. "Give me a minute." She hurried through a door. Before it closed, Henry caught a glimpse of brown-tiled walls and a porcelain sink. Bathroom, then. He looked around the main room quickly. There wasn't much furniture, and what there was looked like the kind of stuff his mother had wrinkled her nose at when she'd seen it in a shop window on Main Street in Storybrooke. "Well, I suppose it's economical," she'd murmured, in a tone that Henry knew meant she'd never dream of having anything like that in her house. Henry had never thought it looked all that bad, though. And here, it looked… kind of comfortable. At least, that brown chair did—

Henry's eyes widened. There was a woolen throw draped over the chair. One that looked incredibly familiar. He pulled his book out of his knapsack and flipped it to one of the last illustrations, that of Baby Emma swaddled in her blanket in her father's arms.

That blanket, or its duplicate, was now sitting on the back of a chair in his mother's apartment. A wide grin split Henry's face. It was true. It was all true. His mother was the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. And now, she had to come back with him to break the Curse!

Neal still wasn't picking up. From inside the bathroom, Emma could hear her son asking, "Hey, have you got any juice?" And then, a moment later, "Never mind. Found some."

Emma swallowed hard. Then she sent a text to Neal and left the bathroom.

In the kitchen, Henry was drinking orange juice straight out of the bottle. Like father, like son, she thought wryly. To be fair, Neal only did it when he intended on finishing what was left in the bottle. Henry was holding a quart bottle that had been more than three quarters full a couple of minutes ago. "Uh, kid…" she tried.

She could make up a bed on the sofa. In the morning, she could call a lawyer. Wait. If she told a lawyer what was going on, was she technically confessing to kidnapping? Did a lawyer have to report that?

It's not kidnapping if he shows up on my doorstep.

Is it kidnapping if I have no legal right to him and I don't let the authorities know he's here? What about if his adoptive parents reported him missing?

She knew quite a bit about the law, at least insofar as what she could and couldn't do, both as a PI and as a bounty hunter. This, on the other hand, was beyond her.

Henry set down the bottle. "You know," he said casually, "we should probably get going."

Emma blinked. "Going?" she repeated. "Going where?"

"I want you to come home with me."

Emma shook her head. "That's something we can talk about tomorrow," she said. "I mean, it's late. Your fath…" She stopped. Then she continued more firmly, "Your father is out of town and I can't get hold of him right now. Meanwhile, I mean, you show up on my doorstep out of the blue; you're here ten minutes and you want to turn around and go back. What's going on?"

"I can't stay here," Henry said patiently. "If I do, everyone will think you kidnapped me. I'm ten. Nobody's going to listen when I tell them the truth. Especially since you're my mom. But even if that weren't true, your parents need your help."

Emma gaped at him. "What did you just say?"

"I said," Henry replied with a long-suffering sigh, "that your parents need your help. Now, will you please come back with me?"

Emma swallowed hard. "I… I need to pack an overnight bag."

"You mean, you believe me," Henry said, clearly surprised.

Emma sighed. "Kid. There's not a lot I'm great at in life. But I do have this one skill. Let's call it a superpower. I can always tell if someone's lying. Right now, you're not. Or at least, you don't think you are. Which isn't the same thing. But the other point is, your parents have to be worried sick about you. In fact, I should probably call them."

"It's just Regina," Henry said quickly. "I don't have a dad. Except for my real one, I mean. But you can't call her."

"Why not?" Emma asked, trying to remember if Ross had ever said anything about who was going to adopt her son. I just sort of assumed it'd be a couple in the suburbs with a colonial home and a picket fence, and maybe dog or a cat, but it's not the 1950s. Single women can and do adopt kids, and that was happening already in 2001, when I had him—

The look Henry was giving her sliced through Emma's thoughts and made her feel as though she was the new kid in class again, and she'd just put up her hand to ask the teacher a question that immediately set the rest of the class to giggling and whispering about how she could not know the material they'd been learning for months, but which she'd somehow never covered at her old school. "Because if she knows I'm with you, then she'll call the cops and tell them you kidnapped me.

He wasn't lying about that either.

"Ten minutes," Emma sighed. "And I hope you're good with directions."

Henry's face lit up like dowtown's Faneuil Hall Marketplace after dark.

"So," Emma said, as she opened the passenger-side door, "where is home anyway?"

"Storybrooke, Maine," Henry said, as he clambered in.

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Storybrooke? Seriously?" Her son nodded with a bright smile. Emma rolled her eyes, but she shut the door, went around in front and opened the driver-side door. "Okay, kid," she sighed. "I guess I'm taking you to… Storybrooke." She turned her key in the ignition, started the bug, and drove out of her apartment garage and into the Boston evening again.

"Can we stop at a Cinnabon?" Henry asked, as Emma looked for the Interstate sign.

Emma kept her eyes on the road. "We're not stopping for snacks," she said. "This is not a road trip." My son likes cinnamon, she thought. Just in a sweet bun, or does he enjoy it in cocoa, too?

"C'mon," Henry wheedled. "We don't have those in Storybrooke. I was hoping I'd get a chance to try one at least once."

She could feel herself weakening. "Maybe next time," she said. "I mean… if we can work things out so you can come back to Boston." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her son's gaze drop down to the book in his lap.

"I don't think that's gonna happen," Henry sighed.

Emma winced. "Hey. Going back tonight was your idea. I'm not saying you're wrong," she added quickly. "Your mother must be worried sick."

Henry shrugged. "I guess."

"Anyway, if I'm taking you home, then I should—" —Spend a little more time getting to know this kid, because when Neal asks me about him, I want to have answers. Hell, even if Neal wasn't in the picture, I'd want to have answers. "The nearest Cinnabon is in Marlborough," she said. "That's in the opposite direction from where we're headed. But we can stop at Bova's in Little Italy on our way out of town. They've got cinnamon sticks. Pecan squares, too," she added. "And other stuff. We could… grab some for the road. And some for your mother," she added. "Maybe it'll help."

"Maybe," Henry said dubiously. Then he seemed to remember his manners and gave her a quick smile. "Thanks."

"These," Henry said, pointing at the counter.

Emma blinked. "You sure? They've got amazing lobster tails here, and you won't believe the cannoli."

"My mom likes apples," Henry said decisively. "Like, a lot."

She tried not to wince. Of course this other woman was his mother. His adoptive mother. Who would have been assured that his biological mother was out of the picture when she'd signed the papers and was probably not going to be thrilled to have said biological mother turn up on her doorstep, especially once she learned that Emma wanted to be back in her son's life again.

I agreed to a closed adoption when I was scared and seventeen. The contract probably wouldn't stand up in court. Probably. But can I afford to hire a lawyer to fight it? What if…

She caught herself. First things first. She wanted to get to know her son. Maybe his adoptive mother would be okay with that. Maine was four hours away from Boston. She couldn't drive there every week, but every couple of months, maybe… A week or two in the summer? She and Henry could write, email… maybe phone each other. And over time, if she was convinced that she could give him a better life than the one he had, then maybe it would be time to talk to a lawyer. First, though, she needed to talk to his adoptive mother. And if Henry was right about her tastes…

She smiled at the clerk. "Two apple squares, please. Boxed separately."

Henry watched as the box joined his cinnamon pinwheel and Emma's lobster tail on the counter. "That going to be enough for you, kid?" Emma asked.

Henry nodded.

Henry didn't talk much after they left Bova's, though Emma didn't realize it until sometime after she'd got onto I-95 northbound and the traffic had thinned out a bit. Until then, she was just grateful that Henry hadn't been peppering her with questions, while she was looking for the on-ramp to the Interstate.

Now that they were on their way and she didn't have to worry about directions until they hit the state border, however, the silence was starting to bother her a little. She glanced at the passenger seat, wondering whether her son had dozed off. He had a large hardcover book in his lap, and was avidly poring over a page.

"You're lucky reading doesn't make you carsick," she remarked. Then she wondered if mentioning the condition had just somehow cursed it into existence.

Henry didn't look up. "I thought about that," he said nonchalantly. "But I read on the bus down to Boston and it didn't bother me, so I figured it would be okay."

"Good book?" Emma asked.

"You have no idea," Henry said with deep feeling.

Emma fought not to laugh. "What is it anyway?"

And now Henry did look up. And, quite seriously, he replied, "I'm not sure you're ready."

Emma took her eyes off the road for one second to glance at the open page in Henry's lap. Her eyebrows climbed upward at the image of a dark-haired girl, her arms linked with seven short, bearded men. "Not ready for some fairy tales?" she asked.

Henry shook his head. "They're not fairy tales," he said, still serious. "Every story in this book actually happened."

Emma snorted. "Of course they did."

"Use your superpower," Henry pressed. "See if I'm lying."

Her superpower wasn't something she could switch off and on. It was always working in the background, whether she meant for it to be there or not. And right now… She shook her head. "Just because you believe something doesn't make it true," she told him.

"That's exactly what makes it true," her son countered. "You should know more than anyone."

Wait, what? "Uh… why's that?" Emma asked. She got that he was disappointed that she wasn't buying his story, though why he thought it was a convincing one was beyond her, but the last time she looked, she didn't have 'gullible' tattooed across her forehead. If he tells me he thought his real mother would always believe him or something, I'm going to hate to have to disappoint him, but…

"Because you're in this book," Henry replied.

Emma blinked. He couldn't be serious. But if he was, then, "Oh, kid," she sighed. "You've got issues."

Henry smiled. "Yup," he agreed cheerfully. "And you're going to fix them."

Right. Sure she was. Clearly, ten wasn't too old to believe in fairy tales, after all, even if she'd certainly given up on them, by the time she'd been his age.

Henry went back to his book.

Emma kept her eyes on the road.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen

They were over the state line into Maine and driving past Ogunquit, when Henry slapped his forehead. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed.

Emma glanced over at him. "What's wrong, kid?" she asked.

Henry sighed. "I forgot my scooter on the bus to Boston. I had it in the overhead compartment with my knapsack and I—"

"—grabbed your knapsack when you hit the terminal and left the scooter?" Emma finished. "It happens. South Station Bus Terminal should have a lost and found. When I get back, I'll give them a call and if someone turned it in, I can pick it up and send it to you."

Henry blinked. "You're going back?"

"Uh… yeah," Emma said with some surprise. "I-I mean, I hope I get to see you again. Maybe your father and I can both come up for a visit sometime soon. But I don't think your mother's going to be thrilled about having me move in with you guys."

"There's a bed and breakfast in town," Henry said quickly. "You packed an overnight bag anyway."

"Yeah, because it's going to be after midnight when I get you home and I'm not going to drive more than four hours straight in one direction, then turn around and drive another four or five hours in the other one without getting a few hours' sleep first. But I'm not sticking around much after that. I mean, I've got a life in Boston and a job and rent and bills and…"

"Couldn't you stay for a few days anyway?" Henry pleaded.

Emma glanced at him again and looked away with a sigh. He had his father's puppy dog eyes when he wanted her to give in. She should have shot him down. She was an adult with responsibilities. She couldn't just…

Well, technically, she had flexible hours. And if Storybrooke had a place where she could rent a laptop, she could probably work on skip traces even from there. And if they needed her to hunt someone down, she could always drive back then. And meanwhile, she could take the time to get to know her kid better. But to just decide to stay for a few days, just like that…

I didn't used to be this settled, she thought to herself. Time was when I'd just start walking or hop on a bus if I needed a change of scenery. Her years in Miami and Boston had changed that. Maybe she shouldn't have let them. There was something to be said for spontaneity. She sighed again. "We'll see."

Maybe she only imagined hearing an excited 'Yes!' under her son's breath.

There were no road signs for Storybrooke. At first, Emma wasn't surprised. You expected there to be signs telling you that you were 200 miles away from Baltimore or 75 miles from New York. There was nothing out of the ordinary about not seeing a mention of Storybrooke when you weren't practically on top of it.

"You want to turn here," Henry said.

"What?" Emma blinked. Had she somehow missed the sign?

"Stop the car," Henry said urgently.

There weren't any cars on this stretch of road. Emma pulled over to the shoulder. "Kid? What's goi—?"

Henry had his seatbelt off and the door open before she'd come to a full stop. He practically tumbled out and made a bee-line for the barrier fence that bordered the highway. Emma turned off the motor and followed.

"I didn't know if I'd be able to get back," Henry said, and now Emma could see something blowing in the night. If she hadn't been driving slowly, looking for a sign, they might have whipped past it. "The town's under a curse. People can't usually enter or leave. If I couldn't get back in, I wanted to make sure I knew where it was, so…"

He reached out and tugged on what Emma realized now was a sweater. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the crest. "Your school uniform? Aren't those sort of expensive?"

"Yeah, but I figured it'd probably be night when we came back and," he held up the sweater so its embroidered crest was clearly visible, "white thread shows up better in your headlights. Besides, if you didn't bring me, I'd miss school anyway. Oops." He winced as a bit of wool caught on the wire, pulling a doubled strand out behind it. Emma reached over and unsnagged it. "Thanks. Anyway, take the left fork."

"You sure about this kid?" Emma asked dubiously. "I don't know this area, like at all. And it's night. And there isn't much light to see by. Maybe I should turn around and find us a motel and we'll drive back in the morning."

Henry shook his head. "I'm sure. And there won't be any motels unless we go back to Blue Hill."

"That's only about ten minutes by car."

Henry blinked. "It took me forever to get there on my scooter!" he exclaimed. "Are you sure?"

"Cars go faster, remember?" Emma smiled. "Even forty-year-old Volkswagens."

"Then we're only about two minutes away from Storybrooke," Henry said decisively. "Come on."

Henry's mother had probably reported him missing by now. If they were stopped by police, it was probably going to look better if she was driving toward his home than doubling back away from it. "You're the boss kid," she said. Then she wondered whether she'd seriously just told a ten-year-old that he was calling the shots.

Henry just grinned.

Emma's doubts about their route faded as she beheld the bright white sign whose blue letters proudly welcomed her to Storybrooke. She continued down the road, as widely-spaced farm houses yielded to a gas station facing several boarded-over stalls and a placard announcing that the farmers market was now closed for the season, but would be back after Memorial Day.

Street lamps appeared, illuminating fields that shifted gradually to large grassy yards, which shrank the closer they got to town. Finally, Emma turned onto a main street. "Okay, kid," she said. "How about an address?"

Henry kept his eyes straight ahead. "Forty-four Not Telling You Street."

Emma skidded to a stop in the middle of the road and flung her door open wide as she clambered out. Henry followed suit. "Look," she snapped, "it's been a long night and it's almost…" Her gaze fell on the clock face on the tower up the street and her voice trailed off. "Eight-fifteen?" she finished incredulously.

Henry nodded. "That clock hasn't moved my whole life," he said. "Time's frozen here."

"Excuse me?"

"The Evil Queen did it with her curse," Henry insisted. "She sent everyone from the Enchanted Forest here."

Maybe he wasn't troubled. Maybe he just had an active fantasy life and her superpower was busted. Playing along, she sighed. "Okay. The Evil Queen sent a bunch of fairy tale characters here."

Henry nodded. "Yeah, and now they're trapped."

Emma groaned. "Frozen in time, trapped in Storybrooke Maine. That's what you're going with?"

As Henry protested that he was telling her the truth, and elaborated on his story, she heard a man's voice calling his name. She looked up and Henry looked back over his shoulder as a bespectacled man with a large Dalmatian hurried up.

"Henry!" The man exclaimed once more. "What are you doing here? Is everything all right?"

"I'm fine, Archie," Henry said quickly.

'Archie' looked at Emma and smiled. "Who's this?"

Emma smiled back. "Just someone trying to give him a ride home."

"She's my mom, Archie," Henry announced.

Surprise registered on the man's face but he recovered quickly. "Oh," he said. "I see."

"You know where he lives?"

"Yeah, sure," Archie replied. "Just, ah, right up on Mifflin Street. The mayor's house is the biggest one on the block."

Emma whirled on Henry. "You're the mayor's kid?" In her mind, she was swearing. She did not want to be accused of abducting the mayor's kid. She took a calming breath. She was bringing him back. It would be fine. But the mayor's—

Henry swallowed hard. "Uh… maybe?"

Emma groaned.

Her thoughts were churning as she drove the few hundred yards to the mayor's front door. Clearly, when she'd said that her son had issues, she'd been more on the mark than she'd realized. Henry was in therapy; he'd skipped out on a session to come find her. She shouldn't feel guilty about that, but she did, a little.

And Henry was convinced that the 'Evil Queen' had laid a curse on the town and that his psychiatrist was Jiminy Cricket! Pinocchio wasn't even a fairy tale really, was it? Although she wasn't sure what to think about Jiminy's—Archie's!—going on about how lying was giving into your dark side. Were shrinks supposed to talk that way? Maybe they were; it wasn't like Emma had a whole lot of experience with them. Social workers and guidance counsellors and nurses who claimed to be acting with your best interests in mind, sure, but that wasn't the same thing.

Why pay someone a hundred dollars an hour to tell you what's wrong with you, when everyone you know will be happy to do it for free? The old joke surfaced in her mind and a tiny smile flickered on her face for an instant, but she didn't really feel like laughing. This evening had been a whirlwind and despite four-plus hours in the car, she didn't feel as though she'd truly caught her breath once since Henry had turned up. Or since Ryan Kirkpatrick had flipped the table in the restaurant into her lap and (hopefully not) ruined her dress.

Part of her wanted to pull back over to the curb and spend a couple of hours getting to know her son better. Except that for all he'd wanted to meet her, he'd spent most of the ride engrossed in his book. In fact, she'd seen him finish it and immediately start reading again from the beginning! Did he want to get to know her, or had he sized her up in the first thirty seconds and decided he was better off at home after all?

She pulled up to the front door.

And now, Henry turned to her and there was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. "Please," he whispered, "don't take me back there."

Despite herself, Emma felt a pang. "I have to," she said. "I'm sure your mom's worried sick."

"You're my mom!" Henry said. "She's evil!" Still, he got out of the car when Emma opened the door and fell into step beside her as they started up the walk.

"Evil?" Emma echoed. "That's a little extreme, isn't it? Besides, aren't stepmothers supposed to be wicked?"

"She's evil," Henry repeated. "And she doesn't love me. She just pretends to."

Emma's face fell. "Kid," she said sadly, "I'm sure that's not true."

They were halfway up the walk when the door of the house opened and a dark-haired woman hurried out. Framed in the doorway behind her, Emma could see a bearded man wearing a leather jacket with a sheriff's star pinned over his breast. "Henry!" the woman exclaimed, pulling the boy into a hug. "Henry, are you okay? Where have you been?" She looked up at Emma. "What happened?"

Henry struggled out of his mother's embrace. "I found my real mom!" he snapped. Then he ran into the house without a backwards glance.

The woman favored Emma with a dismayed look. "You're Henry's birth mother?" she managed.

Emma gave her an uneasy smile. "Uh… hi…"

The sheriff cleared his throat. "I'll just go check on the lad," he said with an accent that Emma thought she recognized as Irish. An Irish sheriff in a small town in Maine…? "…Make sure he's all right," he continued. Then he headed into the house, leaving Emma alone with the other woman.

"Regina Mills," the woman introduced herself with a slightly-forced smile and an extended hand.

"Emma Swan," Emma returned, clasping it.

"Well," Regina said, "How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you ever tasted?"

Emma thought for a moment. "Got anything stronger?"

About an hour later, Emma's head was reeling as she got behind the wheel. Henry's mother was… definitely something. What, she didn't know, but something. Not evil, obviously. Henry's imagination was really going overboard on that one. But Regina had been, well, ostensibly friendly, but Emma had picked up on the veiled hostility.

Maybe she was just nervous about Emma's arrival. She'd asked outright whether she needed to be worried about her or Henry's father. Emma hadn't seen the point of antagonizing the other woman. Regina had clearly been rattled by Henry's escapade and hadn't seemed to calm down much after the sheriff had reassured her that he was fine. What good would it have done to say, "We've been looking for him for more than seven years and the adoption was never legal anyway"? Instead, when Regina had asked about Neal's whereabouts, Emma had opted for a misleading truth and replied only that he was in Alaska, without bothering to mention that he'd be back in a week or so.

"Do I need to be worried about you?" Regina had pressed, and Emma had swallowed and opted for another half-truth.

"Not now. When he turned up on my doorstep, I wanted to make sure he was okay here, but I can see that he is."

Regina had smiled a bit at that and taken it as an opportunity to spell out the challenges inherent in combining single motherhood with running a town.

He hadn't told her about the fairytale book. The book he'd barely put down in the car and Regina didn't seem to know he had it. Was he hiding it from her, or was Regina less involved in Henry's life than she wanted Emma to believe? Emma wasn't certain, but it had been the first real red flag of the encounter.

I don't think that makes me evil, do you?

That wasn't necessarily a red flag, Emma told herself. Henry might not have told Regina about the book necessarily, but maybe Emma wasn't the only person whom he'd told that his mother was evil. And if Regina had overheard, or if word had got back to her, then that could expl—

Her gaze fell on the passenger seat. Henry had left the book behind. "Sneaky bastard," Emma murmured. Naturally. He's my bastard. And Neal's. Still smiling, she pulled her attention back to the road and started. Was that a…

WOLF!

In the instant that it took her mind to process what she was seeing, she was already swerving to avoid hitting it. The car's rear wheels hit the base of the Welcome to Storybrooke sign. For a split-second that seemed to last forever, she saw the sign toppling toward her in slow motion. Then it hit the roof of her car and she pitched forward, banging her head on the steering wheel hard enough to black out.

Neal wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a good night's sleep. It wasn't even ten o'clock, but he'd been up since 6AM and although he wasn't a stranger to waking up when it was still dark, he wasn't used to a sun that rose after nine.

Funny. When he'd been a teenager, it had never bothered him that time in Neverland had sometimes appeared to flow at Pan's whim. True, there had been neither clocks to keep track of the hours, nor calendars for the days, but it seemed to him that some of their bonfire dances had gone on for days. (Pan had divided them into crews and had each perform for the others in turn, but there were generally more than a half-dozen crews, and to Neal's recollection, it had been commonplace for each to have upwards of a dozen turns in a night.) Similarly, when Pan had taken it into his head that the boys should hunt pirates until sundown, the sun had taken an inordinately long time to set. At the time, Neal had never questioned it. Not out loud, anyway. Neverland was Pan's kingdom and it followed his laws. Even when he changed them.

Neal hadn't thought about those days in years, but now, after a day spent trekking through Denali National Park with nothing to show for it, the old memories were surfacing. He'd lost cell phone reception about three miles past the entrance, just when he'd been driving past the sled dog kennels. Fortunately, his phone's GPS still worked, and while the tracking skills he'd acquired under Pan might have been a bit rusty, they were all coming back to him.

He'd spent the daylight hours walking the trails, keeping an eye on the sky and knowing that he needed to be back in his rented car and on the main road out of the park before it got too dark to see what he was doing. Thus far, while he'd encountered a number of hikers, his quarry had eluded him. Maybe the guy had been trying to send any pursuers on a wild goose chase when he'd told the Avis clerk where he was headed. Maybe. But Neal knew he'd still comb the area until he was certain.

It was a hundred and twenty miles back to Fairbanks, and after a full day outdoors, he'd been only too eager to get back to his hotel. It wasn't until he'd had dinner and the aforementioned shower that he realized that today was Emma's birthday. And he hadn't called her.

He reached for his phone and saw that he had a phone message and several texts. He swallowed hard. Emma wasn't the kind to rage or sulk if he forgot a date, but he knew she'd been disappointed that he wasn't going to be there to celebrate with her. Without looking at the texts or playing back the message, he called. Nobody picked up. Funny. It wasn't that late. He remembered that she'd made plans for the evening, but—oh for… He'd forgotten that it was four hours later in Boston! She was asleep! He left her an apologetic voice message. Only then did he look at the texts.

A moment later he was calling her phone again. "Come on, Emma," he murmured. "Pick up! Pick up!"

On Sheriff Graham Humboldt's desk, a cellphone vibrated. The sheriff noticed, but though he quickly jotted down the number that flashed on the screen, he let it pass unanswered.

His gaze traveled to the holding cells where two occupants now slept. As though one of them knew that he was being watched, he sat up crossly. "Oh, terrific. Here again."

Graham smiled. "You do make a habit of this, don't you? Is it the mattress you prefer," he tossed a plastic-wrapped muffin expertly through the bars, which the prisoner caught, "or is it the free breakfast?"

The prisoner made a rude gesture. Then he unwrapped the muffin. "Bran?" he snapped. "Were they out of blueberry?"

"You know, Leroy," Graham replied, "the idea is for you not to want to end up here every evening. If you want a blueberry muffin for breakfast, might I suggest you avoid getting drunk and disorderly the night before? Then you can go out and buy whichever variety your heart desires, yes?"

As he finished speaking, a balding man who might have been in his early sixties hurried in. "The Mother Superior, she tells me you have Leroy here," he said.

"That's right."

"Well, the convent, he needs a new roof. That's a two-man job and Leroy, he and me we're supposed to start today. Could I ask you, please, to release him?"

Graham sighed. "I suppose so. I'll just need a moment to draft up an appearance notice first."

The cell phone vibrated again and Leroy groaned.

"Shut that damned thing off willya?" he demanded. "My head's about to explode."

"It'll stop in a second," Graham called back. "Now let me see where I put that form."

"Come on, Emma," Neal muttered. "Pick up. Pick up!" He put his phone down with a groan. Damn it!

"Okay," he said aloud. "Okay, stay calm. She found our kid. Or our kid found her. She's driving him back to his adoptive family, and she's right. This isn't the Enchanted Forest and we can't just keep him. And even back there, kidnapping was a thing," he added. Although blood still generally trumped upbringing. Unless the foster family had wealth or power.

He tried Emma's cell again. When she still didn't answer, he flung the phone across the room. It bounced off the wall and landed on the thick pile carpet.

It was four hours later in Boston. Or Maine. Emma was probably asleep. She'd call him when she woke up and they'd talk and they'd figure out where to go from here.

Unless that destiny August had told him about one night in Portland was at hand and Emma was on her way to break a curse…

"And if she does, then one day soon, my father's going to turn up on our doorstep," Neal muttered. They'd have to move. They'd have to pick up and head out and keep going and hope he wouldn't track them down. Only they couldn't go on the run if they had a kid with them. And how the hell was he supposed to explain any of this to Emma?

He could just cut and run now. Get a head start before the curse broke and… He couldn't just abandon Emma that way. And he wanted to meet his son. And maybe, his showing up now had nothing to do with the Curse. August said that Emma was going to break the curse when she was twenty-eight. I didn't think that meant it was going to happen on her birthday! He'd been hoping it wouldn't happen at all!

He picked up his phone from the floor. It seemed undamaged, apart from a small chip in one corner—which might have been there from before. He turned it on and opened MapQuest. There was no Storybrooke in Maine. There was no Storybrook, Story Brook, or any other variation on the name that he could think of. At least, not in the US; there was a "Storybrook Medical Clinic" in Brampton, Ontario. He didn't think Emma was driving to Canada, though.

"Maybe it's just the name of a neighborhood not an official town," he said. Maybe Emma had misheard or misunderstood or there was some weird spelling. And just because MapQuest couldn't find a place didn't mean it was… hidden under some sort of magical cloaking spell, did it?

Why the hell was he stuck in Alaska right now? He wanted to get to Emma. He wanted to meet his son. He wanted to get them as far away from Maine as he possibly could! But right now, he had no idea if Emma had even made it that far and even if she had… he had no idea how he was supposed to find a town that wasn't on a map.

He wasn't a drinking man, but he kind of thought he wanted to start. He grabbed his wallet, got in the elevator and took it down to the ground floor where the hotel bar awaited. By the time he stepped inside, though, he realized that first, the situation called for clear thinking: something he wouldn't have if he got lit. Second? He wasn't sure if he'd had a real drink since Neverland. Pan had given him elderflower wine to loosen his tongue. Later, he'd wondered whether it had been only alcohol, or whether Pan had slipped something else into the cup, but if it had just been the wine, then he probably didn't want to start spilling his life story to strangers in a bar if he didn't want to wake up in some nice safe place with padding on the walls. Instead, he ordered a club soda and a plate of potato skins and tried to figure out what he was going to do next.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen

Emma had a headache. There was a buzzing in her ears and wherever she was, it wasn't her own bed. It was too comfortable to be the car, plus she was stretched out full length. Her head was hurting. Without opening her eyes, she tried to think back. She'd been in the car. With her son. Her son! Or had that been a dream?

If it were a dream, his name wouldn't have been Henry. She'd wondered what it might have been. Something nice and normal, like Jason or Ryan, or maybe weird enough to make you want to side-eye the parents, like Moon Unit or Pilot Inspektor? Henry? That one hadn't been on her radar at all.

Last night, she'd been tired and miserable and alone on her birthday and… And she'd probably crashed on the couch and dreamed everything that came afterwards.

This wasn't her couch.

Somebody was whistling close by, an annoying earworm of a tune that was probably going to stay in her head for hours now. Groaning, she opened her eyes and saw bars. A jail cell? Just what had happened last night? She turned her head in the direction of the whistling, and a grumpy voice snarled, "What are you looking at, sister?"

And then another voice, coming from outside the holding cells snapped, "Hey, Leroy! Manners! We have a guest."

This speaker was balding and quite a bit older, and though his voice was irritated, his eyes were kind. A moment later, the irritation vanished when he smiled at her. "So, you are, uh, Henry's mother? How lovely for him to have you back in his life."

It hadn't been a dream. Okay. So, why was she in a cell and what the hell was going on? "I…uh… was dropping him off," she told the older man.

The guy in the next cell snorted. "Don't blame ya," he said. "They're all brats. Who needs 'em?"

Before Emma could respond, though, the older man stepped in to say that he for one would have wanted a child, but it hadn't been in the cards. The guy, Leroy was it, was unimpressed.

And then the sheriff with the Irish accent—she hadn't dreamed that either—came back into the office to unlock Leroy's cell. And that was when Emma found out that she was locked up for driving while intoxicated.

"I wasn't drunk," she insisted. "There was a wolf standing in the middle of the road."

The sheriff chuckled. "A wolf. Right."

Before she could respond, running feet sounded outside and the woman she'd met last night practically flew into the office. "Graham!" she cried. "Henry's run away again!"

It was eight AM Eastern Daylight Time and Emma still wasn't taking his calls. Neal was beside himself. Worse. He wasn't beside Emma. He was racking his brains trying to remember everything he could about his encounter with August eleven years earlier. The guy had said he was Emma's 'guardian angel'. That there was a town in Maine that was under a curse, which Emma was supposed to break once she turned twenty-eight. And he'd made it clear that he thought Neal was steering her away from that destiny.

Obviously, Neal thought, he hadn't been steering hard enough.

Then again… So their kid had been adopted by someone in Maine. Maine was a big state, even if it was, from what Neal recalled, pretty underpopulated. Maybe that was why the curse had set a town down there, as opposed to New York or California. I guess they're lucky it didn't pick Antarctica, he thought dryly. But who said that their kid had been adopted by someone from that town?

C'mon, Neal. Storybrooke. Storybrooke. You're Rumpelstiltskin's son; you have a child with the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming… Those are stories! Your kid was probably adopted by Baba Yaga or Mother Hulda or something!

Why the hell wasn't Emma picking up? And what the hell was he doing three thousand miles away in Alaska? Damn, he had to get back there. If his father was in that place, then Emma could be in real trouble. Even if this land didn't have any magic in it, his father could still be formidable. And Emma wouldn't realize the danger until it was too late!

His phone rang and he grabbed for it. The number on the call display was local. Not Emma. Damn it. "Hello?" He listened for a moment and tried to pull his mind back to the reason he'd flown up here in the first place. "I'll meet you downstairs in twenty," he said finally. He hadn't slept at all last night, but he could grab a coffee from the breakfast buffet on the way down. Maybe a Danish for the road, too.

He hoped his colleague's hunch was right about their fugitive. The sooner he was in custody, Neal thought, the sooner he could fly home.

He'd worry about how to find this Storybrooke place when he was at least back on the right side of the country.

There were two upsides to waking up in a jail cell. First, it gave you an airtight alibi if a distraught mother wanted to accuse you of kidnapping and second, your day was almost bound to get better from there. As soon as Emma understood the situation, she'd begun asking the usual questions. She was in her element and tracking down missing people was a large part of what she did.

According to Regina, Henry didn't have any friends with whom he might have discussed his plans. Emma wasn't buying that. In her experience, kids had friends, even if their parents might not be aware of them.

Once she'd convinced the sheriff and Regina that given half a chance, she might be the best person to track down Henry's whereabouts, she'd been released from the cell and granted access to her son's computer. The kid was savvier than she'd thought: he'd known enough to wipe his inbox, but not enough to make the contents irretrievable. No emails to friends turned up, but there was a receipt for a website called whosyourmomma-dot-com. No extra credit for guessing what that site was all about. She looked up with a frown. "He has a credit card?"

"He's ten," Regina snapped.

"Well he used one," Emma said, pulling up another transaction record. "Who's… Mary Margaret Blanchard?"

The expression on Regina's face was angry, but Emma realized, the mayor didn't appear to be very surprised. Now, why might that be? "Henry's teacher…"

Emma wasn't sure why she took an instant liking to Mary Margaret Blanchard. Oh, the woman was sweet enough, a bit nervous in Mayor Mills's presence, but Emma could understand why. Regina Mills was a woman who exuded power and authority from every pore and right now, her son was missing and she was looking for someone to blame. Sure, she'd been civil enough, but Emma could tell that the mayor detested the elementary school teacher. There was a story there, she was certain, but unless it was somehow relevant to Henry's whereabouts, Emma knew it wasn't any of her business. She also suspected that, if Storybrooke was like any other small town she'd passed through, if she hung around long enough, she'd run into some gossipy type who'd be happy to tell her more than she wanted to know anyway.

Meanwhile, Ms. Blanchard seemed to have a better handle on Henry than his own mother—either one of them!

"He's like any adopted child. He wrestles with that most basic question they all inevitably face – why would anyone give me away?" The words had stung, even though Ms Blanchard had apologized at once. And they hadn't only stung because Emma had been the one to give up Henry. They'd stung because it wasn't only adopted children who felt that way. Foster kids who'd never known their birth parents, who'd been shuffled from placement to placement—sometimes for good reasons, but sometimes for stupid, minor crap that any kid might get up to—felt like that too.

At least, Emma thought, as she got back into her car, Ms Blanchard had given her a lead. Henry had a castle. And while Ms Blanchard hadn't quite drawn her a town map, she'd given Emma enough of an idea where to find it.

Emma wished Neal were here. By the time she'd got her phone back from the sheriff, the battery had been at four per cent. She'd left it to charge at the sheriff station—Neal had warned her that charging it in the car (there was no USB port in a '72 Beetle, but she had a portable one that hooked up to the cigarette lighter) could stall the phone, damage its battery and hurt the car's battery too! Sheriff Graham had been gracious enough about it, though Emma thought he might have taken some initiative and plugged it in before she'd had to ask him. Or maybe she was being unfair and he hadn't wanted to be blamed on the off chance that something went wrong with her phone if he tried charging it before she'd requested it.

At any rate, once she found Henry, she was going to go back to the sheriff station; the phone was probably back to full power by now. And then she was going to check if Neal had got back to her. She knew that the reception was spotty where he was, but he'd been able to text her at least once a day until now and she wanted to hear from him. She wanted to tell him about Henry and this town and Regina Mills and the book and…

First things first. She had to find Henry's castle. And, she noted, as she glanced at the handwritten instructions on the passenger seat beside her, it looked like she was heading in the right direction.

Driving back to the mayor's house, an hour later, Emma sent a few concerned glances in her son's direction. Beside her, Henry sat silently, gripping his book like it was some sort of good luck charm. Thinking about it, Emma figured that was probably what it was to him. She wasn't sure where to go from here. She liked Henry. A lot. And she felt as though they'd really connected just now. At the same time, she couldn't deny that the kid had a few problems. Problems that had him in therapy. And she had to ask herself whether starting a custody battle right now was wise.

Sure, Henry wasn't happy right now, but he had a stepmother who clearly cared for him. He didn't seem to be abused or neglected. Regina might lead a busy life and not always have as much time as either of them would have liked, but that hardly made her 'evil', did it? She was giving her son the psychological help that he clearly needed and Emma found herself wondering about the wisdom of yanking him away from a doctor with whom he was already comfortable and hoping that they'd find one as good or better in Boston. Even if they could, a custody battle could turn out to be messy. No, the adoption hadn't been legal, but Henry had been in this environment for ten years. A judge, she knew, would take that into consideration when determining whether it was in her son's best interests to be uprooted from the only home he'd ever known. Regina looked like she had the money for a protracted court battle. Emma had to admit that she and Neal didn't. And even if they did, that couldn't be good for Henry.

"Hey," she said gently. "Hey, this isn't the last time you'll see me."

Henry glanced at her. "I know," he said, almost whispering.

"I mean it. It's too bad you showed up when your dad's up in Alaska, but I know that once he comes back, he's going to want to meet you too. So, we'll both probably drive up here in a month or two if not sooner."

"You say that," Henry said, "but if you go, you might not be able to come back here again. The curse was created to keep all the storybook characters here and everyone else away. I knew that if I could leave, then I could bring you back with me. But I don't know if you can get in without me."

"Kid," Emma sighed, "I get that it's a little confusing finding the way here. They really need to have a few more signs on the highway; I must've missed the one telling me where the turnoff was. But now that I know, I'm sure I can find it again."

Henry didn't look at all convinced. "One week," he wheedled. "Please?"

"Kid…" They were almost at the house. She tried to think of something else reassuring to say, but they were at the door before she could. It looked as though garbage pick-up was tomorrow; there was a bin at the bottom of the walk and, as Emma glanced up and down the street, she could see similar ones in front of the other houses. As Henry got out of the car, Regina came out to greet them. Henry rushed past her and into the house without a word.

Regina smiled at Emma, and if the smile wasn't warm, it was genuine. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"He seems to have taken quite a shine to you," the mayor remarked.

Emma smiled. "You know what's kind of crazy?" she asked. "Yesterday was my birthday and when I blew out the candle on this cupcake I bought myself, I actually made a wish. That I wouldn't have to be alone on my birthday. And then, Henry showed up."

Regina's smile seemed to freeze then and an edge came into her voice. "I hope there's no misunderstanding here."

"I'm sorry?"

"Don't mistake all this as an invitation back into his life."

Emma tried to protest, but Regina cut her off. Her words were sharp and they cut deep as she made it clear that Henry was her child and Emma had neither right to him nor any place in his life. When she was done, Emma had only one question. "Do you love him?"

Regina blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Henry. Do you love him?" She looked away miserably. And that was when she saw the plastic clamshell box sitting atop the knotted garbage bags in the trash bin. The two apple squares were still sealed inside untouched. A wave of fury washed over her. Regina didn't notice.

"Of course I love him!" she snapped. Then she spun on her heel and went back in the house leaving Emma behind with her anger. And her confusion. Her superpower was… doing something weird. She didn't always know if someone was telling her the whole truth, but as she'd told Henry, she could always tell when someone was lying. But Regina's assertion… It almost felt like there was a big flashing sign in Emma's brain vacillating between 'true' and 'false' and she didn't know what to make of it. Unless Regina was so angry in the moment that her fury was somehow overriding her love? Maybe, Emma allowed, that was possible. After all, Henry had run away twice in less than two days. It sounded like he wasn't the easiest kid to raise right now. Maybe Regina was at her wit's end and her emotions were all over the place. Maybe, but Emma's power had never behaved this way before.

She was shaking her head as she headed back to her car. A minute ago, she'd been ready to swing by the sheriff station, get her phone, and drive back to Boston, but between her superpower inexplicably going wonky, her anger at seeing the apple squares—the squares Henry had picked out for Regina—sitting at the top of the trash bin, and Henry pleading with her to stay, well, Neal wasn't likely to be back for another few days at least. With Ryan Kirkpatrick back in custody and no new assignments in her inbox, really there was no reason that she couldn't stay in Storybrooke for a little bit longer.

What was she thinking? She couldn't just drop everything and stick around. She had a… a life and a job and an apartment…

…And a son.

First things first, she told herself. Get her phone, see if she was actually free to go or if she had to wait around for some court date or give the sheriff her address or deal with some other paperwork. And then, she needed to decide whether to go back to Boston and take stock of the situation there, or…

Three hours later…

She'd gotten her phone back and checked her messages. There had been several from Neal, each more agitated than the last, all of them telling her not to push things. I want to see him, too, Neal had typed. But if we want to do this right, if we want to do it legally, then we need to back off until we can talk to a lawyer. You don't want this Regina Mills person to take something you said or did and twist it around until it looks like you said something else. Come back to Boston and wait for me. We'll discuss everything once I get back. Emma had to admit it sounded like sensible advice. Sure, she wanted to get to know her son, but Regina had made her opposition to that idea abundantly clear.

Also, for all that Henry had tracked her down and sought her out, he hadn't been in her apartment five minutes before he'd wanted Emma to drive him back to Maine. Clearly, he didn't want to leave the only home he knew.

So, Emma had to ask herself, why exactly should she stay in Storybrooke? Just because Henry had asked her to? Yeah, he was her kid, but that didn't mean she had to give in to whatever he asked and asking her to stay in town for a week was a little bit beyond asking to stop for pastries! The smart thing, the sensible thing, was to do what Neal was telling her and head back to Boston. She could start researching attorneys in the morning.

She'd had mixed feelings as she drove out of town.

Those feelings were still persisting as she made her way southward down I-95. She was thinking about Henry telling her that Regina was evil. Yeah, the kid was obsessed with that fairytale book, and what stepmother wasn't evil in those stories? Strict wasn't the same as evil.

She remembered the apple squares in the trash bin and wondered why they'd been sitting there in the open instead of tied up in a garbage bag. Had Regina wanted Emma to see what she thought of the peace offering? And she was still bothered by the 'mixed signals' her superpower had given her when she'd asked Regina whether she loved Henry.

It was probably nothing.

What if it wasn't though?

What if there was something seriously wrong here?

If she came back in a month to find out that the kid had been right and something… horrible had happened, Emma would never forgive herself. Yeah, it was probably nothing. Her son had a wild imagination and a slight problem—okay, a major problem—telling fantasy from reality, but…

…But what if there was more going on than that, after all?

There was a road sign up ahead. She was five miles from Kittery and the New Hampshire state line was coming up one mile beyond that. She was probably about an hour from Boston then, give or take. An hour, hour-and-a-half tops and she'd be home. She could stop off on the way for take-out, have a quick meal, a hot shower, unwind in front of the TV and… and…

She couldn't do this. Something about that town wasn't right and she had to get to the bottom of it. Her tires squealed on the asphalt as she made a sharp U-turn and she checked her rearview mirror anxiously, half-expecting a police car to peel after her, but the road behind was clear.

She didn't stop again until she was back in Storybrooke.

It was 8:11 by her watch when she pulled into the parking area at Granny's Bed and Breakfast. The wind whistled as she made her way across the walkway and up the steps into the motel. As she did, the sounds of a heated quarrel reached her.

"You're out all night and now you're going out again," said one voice. As Emma approached the desk, she saw that the speaker was a woman who looked to be in her sixties.

"I should have moved to Boston!" a dark-haired woman in her twenties shot back.

"I'm sorry that my heart attack interfered with your plans to sleep your way down the eastern seaboard," the older woman retorted tartly.

Emma cleared her throat. "Uh… Excuse me," she said, cutting through the argument. "I'd like a room."

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen

From the shock on both faces, Emma found herself wondering whether she'd made a mistake. Maybe Granny's Bed and Breakfast was some landmark historic house and not a functioning motel. But if that were the case, Emma thought to herself, then surely she couldn't be the first tourist to have made that error. It probably happened often enough that her query should have brought apologetic smiles and explanations instead of this stunned surprise.

The older woman recovered quickly though. "Really?" she asked, her fury of a moment ago vanishing. "Would you like a forest view or a square view? Normally, there's an upgrade fee for the square, but as rent is due, I'll waive it."

Emma didn't really care one way or the other. She was exhausted and, as long as the room was clean and had a bed, she'd be fine. Actually, at the moment, she'd settle for the room having a bed. But since the woman seemed to think the square was preferred, she replied that it would be fine.

The woman—Granny, Emma guessed—asked her name for the register and Emma gave it. As soon as she had, she was startled to hear a voice exclaim behind her, "Emma! What a lovely name!"

She whirled to see a slight, wiry man who appeared to be in his fifties smiling at her. Something about that smile unnerved her. Just as Granny and the younger woman had seemed a little too surprised when she'd asked to check in, this stranger with the burry Scots accent seemed a little too pleased to meet her. Maybe this exuberance was normal for Maine, Emma thought doubtfully, as she thanked the man.

Meanwhile, Granny had reached beneath the counter and was now thrusting a wad of bills at him. "It's all here," she said nervously.

Looking somewhat distracted, the man took them, assuring her that he didn't doubt it. He wished Emma a pleasant stay, putting a disconcerting emphasis on her name when he repeated it. Then he was gone. Emma looked at Granny. "Who's that?" she asked.

Looking just as apprehensive as the older woman, the younger one answered, "Mr. Gold. He owns this place."

"The inn?" Emma asked.

Granny shook her head. "No. The town. So, how long will you be with us?"

Driving along the Alaska Highway at 4:10PM local time, Neal was frantically trying to remember everything August had told him on the night of the arrest. A bit over seventeen years ago then, the evil queen had cast a curse that had brought everyone from the Enchanted Forest over to this realm and plunked them down in a town it had created for them in Maine. 'Everyone', Neal knew, meant his father was there, too.

There was no magic in this land, Neal thought to himself, but that fact was exactly what had frightened him about August's tale. Because the last time he'd seen his father, he'd been trying to take him to a land without magic and Papa had protested that he'd never heard of such a place.

Peasants like he and Papa had been in their own land, they'd never dreamed of travel to another realm. Well, Neal knew he hadn't, beyond a vague 'Wouldn't it be something to see a place like that, Papa?' and Papa had always said more or less the same thing in response:

Life may be hard here, Bae, but it's what we know and there's safety in that. What I've seen of this land outside our village's borders hasn't a great deal to recommend it and people are much the same wherever you go. It can be good here, and there's comfort in knowing what each day holds for you. Why search afield?

Papa had kept right on saying that until the day the soldiers had come for Morraine.

A lot happened between that day and the day he and his father had parted ways for good, but Neal knew that if his father even suspected that the two of them were now in the same realm, Papa wouldn't rest until they were reunited.

Would Papa know, though? After all, all of that had happened over two centuries ago. If it hadn't been for those years in Neverland, Neal knew that he'd be long dead by now. And with no magic…

With no magic, Papa would still find a way. If the curse broke, then this town in Maine wouldn't be cut off from the rest of the world. Papa would have had twenty-eight years to learn how things worked here. He'd hire investigators, he'd check old records, he'd go onto one of those websites that showed you how a fourteen-year-old's face might look at twenty-five, and thirty-five, and so on.

Maybe he was getting ahead of himself, but when it came to his papa, Neal knew that it was safer to overestimate him than the reverse. Especially after August had finished his story and Neal had asked him a few pointed questions.

"Wait, so the evil queen still wants to stick it to Snow White and she's decided that the best way to do it is to curse everyone to come here? How does that even make sense?"

August hesitated. "I might be getting this part wrong. You know, I was just seven and this was more than fifteen years ago, but… Okay. Okay, after the battle for the kingdom, Snow White and her husband captured the queen. They were going to execute her, but at the last second, Snow White stopped it."

"Go on."

"The queen was being held captive in one of the towers at the palace. I was a kid. I liked to explore things and sometimes, I heard things I maybe shouldn't have. And I'm still not sure I got it right. Anyway, I was hanging around the tower cell. Okay, I was curious. I wouldn't have actually spoken to her, I don't think. Even if the room she was locked in was supposed to block her magic, I didn't want to take a chance that it might wear off. You know that part in the movie about me where I started turning into a donkey? That actually happened. I didn't want to risk getting changed into anything else. But… I dunno. Morbid curiosity? Before they brought her out to be executed, I snuck up the stairs a few times and peeked through the keyhole. That last time, though, she wasn't alone. I heard voices inside. Snow White was talking to her, pleading with her to make a fresh start. I tried to get closer, but the prince and some guards were between me and the door, trying to be just as quiet as I was. I couldn't let them see me, so I held back.

"I heard the queen say something about killing Snow White with the blade that Snow had meant for her and a minute later, the prince and the guards went into the cell. The prince said that Rumpelstiltskin had made a protection spell and the queen couldn't hurt them anymore in this land. That land. At the time," August continued, "I thought it was just fancy-talk, like grown-up nobles did. But what if it wasn't? What if the only way the queen could hurt them was if she brought them to a different land?"

Neal considered that. He had to admit it made sense. And it was an elegant bit of wordplay that would put Snow White and her husband's minds at ease, sure that the queen was no longer a threat, when… A cold dread seized him. He knew someone who thought like that.

"So, my father was on Snow White's side against the evil queen?" he asked.

"I guess so," August shrugged. "Funny, I think the Blue Fairy told Papa once that he also taught the queen magic and that was why she went so Dark. That was when she was sending her troops through the villages trying to capture Snow White. We were lucky. She just paraded some poor woman in front of us as an example of what would happen to anyone who helped the princess. I heard she massacred another village a few days ride from us."

"What happened to the woman?"

August shook his head. "The queen took her back to the palace. I never saw her again but, based on what I know of the evil queen, either she took her heart, or she executed her. She… really wasn't big on long-term imprisonment."

Neal shook his head, but his thoughts were spinning. Papa had taught the evil queen, and then he'd turned around and helped the very people she most wanted to harm. And the next time anyone heard from the queen, it was because she was about to cast a curse that would carry everyone—including Papa—to a land without magic, which was the one thing he knew about the land he'd refused to travel to when he'd had the chance.

Papa was trying to follow him.

For an instant, Neal felt a slight surge of hope. After all this time, Papa still missed him!

Good, Neal thought in the next instant. Good, he deserves to. After choosing power over me, after holding onto his dagger and letting me go? Serves him right.

If his hunch was correct, though, then once Emma broke the curse, Papa would be looking for him. But would it be because he was sorry? Or would it be because he didn't want his valuables lost? Neal remembered seeing the struggle in his father's face at the last. The terror when the bean had opened the portal and the indecision as he'd gripped his son's hand in one clenched fist and his dagger in the other. That Papa had ultimately valued power more didn't mean that he hadn't valued his son at all. Yeah, Papa was going to want him back. A long time ago, the Reul Ghorm had told Neal that the love Papa had for him was the 'little light that still glowed'. Did Papa still have that light even now? Or had the centuries extinguished it? Did Papa still love him in some dark, twisty way, or was he just out to retrieve something he'd lost, just like he would any of the treasures that he'd come to possess over those last months? Neal told himself it didn't matter. Whatever Papa's reasons, Neal no longer wanted anything to do with him. Hadn't for years. Sure, sometimes he still had nightmares about falling through that portal screaming for Papa, but he was an adult now. Maybe his life wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't bad. Things were finally looking up. And if Papa showed up now, it would turn everything upside-down and inside out and reopen wounds that were still barely scabbed over and—

"So," he'd said to August, "if Emma doesn't break the curse, then I don't have to worry about him turning up on my doorstep one of these days."

He'd never told Emma any of this. Obviously, for the first three years after the arrests, it hadn't been possible. And after that, well, August had seemed so sure that the only way for Emma to fulfill her 'destiny' was for the two of them to break up, that Neal had sometimes thought that their getting back together would be enough to derail things on that score. Of course, that hadn't been why he'd stuck with her. He loved her. He wanted to make his life with her and he knew she felt the same way about him. They were so right for each other, and if years apart hadn't wrecked the relationship, Neal didn't think anything would now. Most of the time, he didn't think about the curse. It was easy enough not to think about it; it wasn't the kind of thing that came up in everyday conversation.

Sometimes, though, late at night, Emma sleeping beside him, he'd wondered and worried. Just a bit.

And now? He was almost back to Fairbanks after another day of tracking. His quarry was still giving him the slip, but the net was tightening. It was just a matter of time.

It was raining now, the drops streaking on the windshield of Neal's rented Impala. He glanced at the clock on his dash, and as he did, the digital display changed from 4:14 to 4:15. As it did, a jagged bolt of lightning split the sky. Seconds later, thunder roared overhead and the rain became a torrent. Neal turned on the wipers and concentrated on the road, resolving to phone Emma as soon as he made it back to the hotel.

It had been an exhausting day. Emma took her overnight bag up to her room and then came back downstairs to the restaurant for a late night spaghetti dinner. Only when she went back upstairs did she check her messages.

There were several from Neal:

Call me.

Emma? U there?

?

Where R U?

U OK?

She shook her head. Poor guy had to be worried sick. She looked at the last message.

Emma, please call ASAP.

She was tired. She just wanted a hot shower and bed. But after all those texts, she couldn't leave him hanging. She called his cell. She was only mildly ashamed of the relief that washed over her when the call went to voice mail. "Hey, it's me," she said. "Sorry if you were worried. I'm okay. So's Henry. Our son," she added, not sure if she'd mentioned his name in one of her earlier texts. "Anyway, I'm going to hang around here for the next week. Call me tomorrow; I'm pretty wiped out. Love you." She ended the call, grabbed the neatly-folded stack of towels from the dresser and headed for the bathroom.

Glancing out the window, she frowned. The tower clock showed twenty-five past nine. She could have sworn Henry had told her that its hands never moved…

Regina opened Henry's door and peered inside. Reassured that her son was indeed safe in his bed and sound asleep, she closed it once more and went back down the hall to her home office.

She hesitated only a moment before calling a familiar number. "Sidney," she said crisply, "I have an assignment for you. I need you to find out everything you can about a woman named Emma Swan. And Sidney, I need it yesterday."

She ended the call and leaned back in her armchair with a sigh. Emma Swan was the first stranger to have entered Storybrooke since the time of the town's creation, and Regina found her appearance worrisome. At best, the woman was a threat to the life she'd created with her son. At worst…

At worst, she was a threat to everything else she'd created, too.

She hoped Sidney would come through with answers for her sooner rather than later.

Neal hated driving on unfamiliar roads with bad visibility. He went slower because of the rain, now sheeting down in a way that his colleague at the bounty office had assured him was rare in Alaska's interior at this time of year. "Bet they tell that to all first-time visitors as some kind of joke," he muttered. The rain, bad as it was didn't worry him, but this was Alaska in October and the temperature often dipped below freezing. It still wouldn't be anywhere close to as cold as the state could get in the winter—in January, Fairbanks averaged three degrees for the high and minus thirteen for the low. All the same, Neal worried about the possibility of ice patches forming on the road. "As long as that's rain on my windshield, not snow, it's fine," he told himself. Fine, at least, unless he missed his exit or took a wrong turn.

His phone rang, but he couldn't pick up when he needed to concentrate on getting back safely. Even if he'd had Bluetooth, he wasn't sure he wanted more distraction at the moment.

Besides, it was probably some telemarketer or whoever that person was who kept leaving voicemails in Mandarin that he couldn't understand. If it was important, they'd leave a message or call back.

It was just about six when he finally parked in front of the hotel.

And that was when he found out that the message had been from Emma. He tried phoning back at once, but evidently, she hadn't been kidding about being wiped out, because she didn't pick up.

Neal passed a hand over his eyes and wished that, just this once, there was magic in this land and that he knew how to cast a transportation spell, so he could talk to Emma face to face and stop playing phone-tag!

Sidney Glass never disposed of old research files, and tonight, he was glad of it. It wasn't hard to find out about Emma Swan's more recent past. She had an up-to-date LinkedIn profile, and was reasonably active on Facebook and Twitter, too. He raised an eyebrow. Recently, she'd opened up an account on eHarmony, too. He brought up her Facebook account again. If she was 'in a relationship,' why did she have a profile on a dating site? Maybe it was an open relationship. Maybe it was over and she hadn't updated. Or perhaps, she was seeking something on the side. He made a note of it.

She was on file with a number of adoption reunion registries, both as a birth parent and as an adoptee.

When he'd tried to dig a bit deeper, he'd found virtually nothing on her until a decade ago. She would have been eighteen then. But if this was Henry's birth mother, then it wasn't the first time that Regina had asked him to do some digging. Doubtless, she still had the information he'd given her at the time, but since she hadn't mentioned it, he might as well be thorough.

It didn't take him long to dig up the earlier records. Now, he remembered. Emma Swan had done a stint in juvenile detention in Arizona. She'd been released on probation, violated it within weeks, and been returned to custody to finish serving her sentence. When Mayor Mills had adopted Henry, she'd still been there.

He smiled. Emma's juvenile record might have been sealed when she turned eighteen, but he had the information. He didn't know how relevant it was now, ten years later, but it gave him a thrill to know that he'd be able to deliver something to Mayor Mills that she wouldn't have uncovered herself, had she the time, patience, and internet savvy to type the right keywords into Google. Or Bing, for that matter.

Sidney was humming a bit to himself, as he organized his findings, anticipating how pleased the mayor would be when he came through for her again.

Had Emma still been a kid in the system, she'd have been on her way out of Storybrooke the next morning. Back in those days, she'd kept her head down, tried not to cause trouble, and cut and run whenever things got too rough—if her social worker hadn't turned up to take her to a new placement before she got the chance.

She'd barely got up and was still half-dressed when she'd answered a knock on her hotel-room door and opened it to find Regina there with a basket of apples and a strong indication that she thought Emma had overstayed her welcome. Maybe Emma still would have taken the hint; ticking off authority figures was generally a bad idea. (At least, she'd been prudent enough not to correct the mayor's misapprehension that the basket contained Honeycrisp apples, when anyone with eyes could see that they were Red Delicious!) But this woman had adopted Henry. Henry wasn't happy. And the mayor seemed to think that putting Henry in therapy was the solution to everything.

It wasn't that Henry didn't need that kind of help. In the short time since she'd met him, she'd learned that he had… issues. But Regina's whole… attitude… seemed to suggest that putting him in counselling had solved the problem, when it clearly wasn't getting the job done.

There was a text from Neal. She hadn't had a chance to check her messages before Regina had shown up. She looked at the time. It wasn't even five AM in Alaska right now. Too early to phone, but not too early to return the text. She shook her head. Neal thought she could come home now.

That woman sounds dangerous. Better we talk when I come home. We'll meet with a lawyer then and plan our next steps.

It sounded like a smart strategy. Her teenaged self might have gone along with it. But she wasn't thirteen and on the run from a bad placement, unwilling to risk the next one being even worse. She was an adult; twenty-se—no, twenty-eight years old, now, and she'd spent a decade investigating people from all walks of life. No, most of them hadn't been authority figures or municipal politicians, but the few she'd had to track down had proven to be people like everyone else. "Bet she puts her Jimmy Choos on one talon at a time, like anyone else," she muttered. "Anyone else who can afford thousand-dollar shoes, anyway." In her line of work, she couldn't allow herself to be easily intimidated. More to the point…

If she's dangerous, I'm not leaving Henry with her and I can't take him with me. Anyway, Henry asked me to stay a week, and I'm going to. Love you.

She sent the text. Then she grabbed the rest of her clothes out of her overnight bag to finish getting dressed. She was going to have breakfast. And then… She was going to call on Archie and see if she could get some insight into what her son was currently going through.

It was weird to be front-page news, Emma reflected. She told herself that this was a small town and knocking over a sign, however 'historic' probably was the biggest news this place had had in a decade. As she bit into her apple, though, she thought she could feel the other customers staring at her she hunched a bit lower in her chair. Her cheeks were probably as red as the fruit she was holding, she thought ruefully. A soft thud on the table beside her made her look up in surprise. The desk clerk from the night before—who obviously worked as a waitress during the day—had set a mug of hot cocoa down before her. "Here you go," she said with a smile. If she'd noticed what Emma was reading, she gave no sign.

Emma finished chewing the bite of apple; it might not be a Honeycrisp, but it was surprisingly flavorful for a Red Delicious. "Thank you," she said, when she'd swallowed, "but I did not order that."

"Yeah, I know," the waitress—Emma remembered now she'd introduced herself as 'Ruby' last night—said, still smiling. "You have an admirer."

Puzzled, her eyes darted about the diner and settled on a familiar face, several tables over. Picking up the mug, she stalked over and set it down before him. The sheriff looked up. "Ah," he greeted her. "So you decided to stay."

Emma snorted. "Observant. Important for a cop."

The sheriff smiled pleasantly. "It's good news for our tourist business. Bad for our local signage." When Emma didn't crack a smile, he shifted uncomfortably. "It's a joke," he said. "It's… uh… because you ran over our sign."

Maybe it was her annoyance about the article in the paper, or maybe she was still upset that he'd arrested her a day earlier, but she bit back an angry retort and tried to keep her voice calm when she responded, "Look. The cocoa was a nice gesture, and I am impressed that you guessed that I like cinnamon on my chocolate because most people don't, but I am not here to flirt. There's already someone significant in my life and even though he's not here with me now, I'm not interested in some… short-term fling. So thank you, but no thank you."

The sheriff blinked. Then he looked back down at the mug of cocoa. "I didn't send it," he said mildly.

Emma blinked. She'd been positive that… And now, she'd gone jumping to conclusions and her face was growing hot again and maybe she really should just head back to Boston before she managed to make an even bigger fool of herself. She was just about to stammer an apology when a voice piped up from close by, "I did." Henry's face poked up from another booth. "I like cinnamon, too."

"Don't you have school?" Emma asked, still feeling a bit flustered.

"Duh, I'm ten," Henry retorted. "Walk me."

She turned back to the sheriff to try to apologize, but he just shrugged. "An honest mistake," he smiled. "School's about twenty minutes away on foot. Better leave now or he'll be late."

By the time Emma reached the school, she was all the more convinced that taking Henry back to Boston with her would be letting herself in for a whole lot of trouble she had no idea how to deal with. It wasn't just that Regina would fight her every step of the way. Emma might not be able to afford a good lawyer, but if the media caught wind of the situation, it might be wishful thinking, but in the movies, there was always someone out there who would take the case pro bono. She hated painting herself as a victim, but to her mind, 'Mother fights to reclaim son she was tricked into giving up for adoption' was the sort of story that the press would be happy to blow up. (Technically, she'd been manipulated, not tricked, but from what she'd seen, the newspapers liked to use shorter words when printing headlines.) She wouldn't go that route yet, though. It wasn't just that Henry didn't seem to want to leave Storybrooke. It was that the twenty minute walk to school had convinced her that her son couldn't tell fantasy from reality and Emma had no idea how to deal with that kind of problem.

So, when she and Henry parted ways at the school and she bumped into Henry's teacher, she'd asked how to find Dr. Hopper. She needed a better window into her son's thought processes before she even thought of launching a custody battle that just might make things worse for him.

At 8:15 that evening, Emma's phone rang. She had never been so happy to hear a friendly voice. "Did you catch the guy?" she asked. "Tell me you caught the guy."

"Not yet," Neal admitted. "But we're closing in on him. You okay? You sound tired."

A note of steel crept into Emma's voice. "Right now? I'm seriously more pissed than anything. That woman set me up! She told me Henry was in therapy, knowing I'd want to talk to his shrink, and then she got the shrink to loan me his notes and then had the shrink call the sheriff to say I'd stolen them! I've been in this town for less than 48 hours and I've already spent almost half that time in a holding cell!"

Neal winced. Emma didn't usually get angry, but when she did… "Tell me you didn't do anything… hasty. You're not calling from jail now, are you?"

"No," Emma sighed. "Henry's teacher bailed me out."

"Well, that's something," Neal said with some relief. "So, you're ready to come back to Boston and start looking for a lawyer?"

"Are you kidding me?" Emma demanded and Neal felt his heart sink. "Neal, Henry may have issues, but Regina's making them worse. Listen she called me in for a meeting and she…" There was a pause on the other end.

"Emma?"

"Sorry," Emma said after a moment. "I'm still kicking myself. She played me. She got me talking about how… concerned I was, only she made it sound, she made me sound, like I thought Henry was… crazy. And she did it when he was outside her office and able to hear every word." She paused for a moment before saying in a lower voice, "I know. I can't believe I said it either. I've been doing… damage control for the last hour or so and I think Henry and I are okay again, but there is no way that I'm leaving town now. I can't. Not knowing what kind of a piece of… work Regina is. Ten years ago, I gave our son up, because I thought it would give him his best chance. Maybe Ross and Dani manipulated me into believing it, but I still did. I really thought he'd be okay, he'd be happy, he'd be…" Her voice trailed off for a moment, and when it came back, it had hardened. "After seeing what he's dealing with, if I leave him now, it'll be abandoning him. I can't do that. I-I won't. I'll do what I can to find a lawyer while I'm here, and you can work on it when you get back from Alaska. But meanwhile, I'm staying here. For as long as it takes."

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen

"Sure, Mike. Thanks. Yeah, I know; I'm just a little worried about— I know, I know, we're getting warmer. Okay. Yeah, I can give it another week. Thanks." He ended the call and sank down on the plaid bedspread on the double bed in his motel room. Damn it. Emma had no clue what she was getting into and he knew too much about it. But she'd never believe the truth if he told her.

At least, she knew he didn't do drugs, but if he started talking about fairy tales being real and telling her he'd come to this world with a magic bean, she'd wonder.

He'd known Emma long enough to realize that while she might be a Potterhead from way back, and she'd watched more than her fair share of Disney movies as a kid, she drew a firm, deep line between 'fantasy' and 'reality'. They'd wandered into a magic show once at a carnival. It hadn't been planned; they'd been driving through Essex County one Sunday, looking for a break from the city and spotted one of those pop-up fairs with rides and games of skill and decided to give it a go. They'd walked around a bit, finding themselves at a large stage graced by a guy in a black top hat and tails, in the act of turning a playing card into a dove.

They'd watched the rest of the act, smiling at his artistry and laughing at his jokes. Afterwards, Emma had mentioned that she wished she knew how he did some the tricks.

"Maybe it's real magic," Neal had deadpanned.

Emma had only laughed. "As if. Nah, in one of my group homes, there was a kid a couple years older than me who was into that stuff. He even showed me how to do some of the tricks we just saw. That one with the linked rings, for example. But it's all smoke and mirrors and getting you to look at the hand holding something out to you instead of the one taking something away."

"Still," Neal had said, "what if there was real magic out there somewhere?" He didn't know why he was bringing it up. He'd spent a lifetime trying to get away from magic. But it was also a huge part of his past and Emma had shared so much of hers with him that he wanted to reciprocate—not with some plausible lie, but with the truth.

Emma had just laughed. "I'm a little old for fairytales, Neal. This is the real world: rent and bills and paperwork and…"

"Love?"

Her eyes had widened a bit as she let him pull her in for a quick kiss. "Yeah," she'd said a little breathlessly. "Love, too."

He hadn't brought up the subject again. But how could he start now? "Uh, Emma? Henry may not be as troubled as you think he is. There really is a curse on some small town in Maine and you might be in it." Yeah, that would go over about as well as he thought it would.

The longer she stayed there, the more dangerous it was going to be, for her and for him. Because while he might not want to see his father again, he also didn't want Emma tangling with an evil queen who massacred villages and ripped out hearts. Even if she couldn't do that stuff here, she might still be capable of murder. And in a town that didn't appear on any map, a town sealed off from the outside world, what would stop her? Emma had no idea what she was getting involved with.

And Neal wasn't even sure how to warn her.

All he knew was that he wanted to get back to New England as soon as possible. Maybe he could find this Storybrooke place; maybe he couldn't. But he thought he had a better chance of getting Emma safely out of that… craziness if they were back in the same time zone.

He'd give this another week. Then, if he and local law enforcement still hadn't caught their fugitive, he was going to be on the next plane home. Even if he had to pay for it out of his own pocket.

It wasn't the first night that Emma had slept in the bug. If she was staying in this town for the next little while, it probably wouldn't be the last. Still, if Regina thought that getting her evicted from Granny's was going to send her running for the town line, the mayor had another think coming.

There was something weird about this town. Emma didn't believe Henry's story about everyone here being a fairytale character for one second, of course. Still, when she'd asked Mary Margaret Blanchard how Regina had gotten elected, the teacher had replied that Regina Mills had been mayor for as long as she could remember. But Regina couldn't be more than ten or twelve years older than Mary Margaret. There had to have been a predecessor. And yet, when Emma had tried going about town and gently probing some of the other townsfolk, older people like Granny Lucas and Marco, the answer had been the same.

Henry had said that everyone's past was a 'haze' to them and it looked like he was right. But where Henry saw it as curses and magic, Emma sought a more rational explanation. Drugs might be a possibility, but you couldn't keep a whole town drugged! Could you?

Maybe you could. Except that the people Emma had met didn't act drugged, and she'd met enough stoners to recognize the signs. Maybe this place was some sort of CIA mind control experiment, like that MK-Ultra stuff at Fort Detrick. When she'd heard about that—from Benton, a kid at one of her last group homes who'd been hugely into conspiracy theories and always spouting off about the Illuminati or the Freemasons—she'd dismissed it. But one day in Globe, when Ray had been out of the office and she'd been on her lunch break, she'd remembered Benton and his crackpot ideas and, just for the fun of it, decided to Google CIA mind control experiments. That had been when she'd discovered that, at least some of what Benton had been rattling on about had been grounded in reality. The CIA had been looking into mind control in the 50s and 60s. According to the website she'd visited, the project had been abandoned in the early 70s, but what if it hadn't been? What if they'd just gotten sneakier?

But did that mean that Regina was part of the experiment, or the one conducting it?

Emma shook her head. That was almost as crazy as believing that everyone here having been whisked away to Maine from the Enchanted Forest. Almost as crazy. No. No, there had to be a more rational explanation. And probably, after a… well, it wouldn't be a good night's sleep curled up in the bug, but it would be a sleep… she'd probably think of something more sensible in the morning.

She knew from experience that she wasn't anywhere near tired enough to curl up quite yet, though, so she pulled out the newspaper she'd picked up earlier. It was too dark to read, but she kept a flashlight in the glove box. How much were rents in this town anyway? The tourist season was over, but the temperature hadn't plunged yet. Maybe there was some vacation cottage she could get for a week; this late in the year, there might even be a discount for it. She pulled out the classified ads section and turned on the flashlight.

Presently, a soft voice called to her from her open window. "Hey. You okay?"

Regina Mills had no online presence whatsoever. Neither did Henry, for that matter, though that wasn't surprising for a ten-year-old. But when Neal had pulled up a list of current mayors in Maine municipalities, Regina's name hadn't been on it. When he'd tried to find the credentials for Dr. Archie Hopper (and yes, he'd also looked under 'Archibald' 'Archimedes' and just plain 'A', there had been nothing. No record of a Mary Margaret Blanchard, and no women surnamed Lucas in the Maine Innkeepers Association.

Neal clenched his fist in frustration. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he knew Emma was already in it up to her waist and 'it' was rising higher every day. He could be a supportive voice on the phone now and later, when this was wrapped up, he could see if he could find this town that wasn't on any map and join her. And then what? How long could he pretend he didn't know what was going on?

If he didn't want to encounter his father, the smart play was to cut and run.

And leave the woman he loved and the son he'd never met.

Well, maybe he could go to the town, convince Emma that staying here wasn't safe and they could… They couldn't just grab Henry; that was kidnapping. On the other hand, how could someone in a town that was cut off from the rest of the world go about filing a missing persons report or notifying any authorities outside of it? Maybe they could!

Maybe they could, but Emma would never believe it unless she believed what Henry was telling her about the curse. And if she believed that, then she'd almost certainly want to break it. Especially now that she was getting to know these people. She wouldn't want to abandon them to their fate.

Neal started to get an uncomfortable feeling that maybe it wasn't just Emma that he was thinking about. It was so easy to make a decision when he could convince himself that it was only about how the curse's breaking impacted him. Only it wasn't just about him, was it? If August had been right eleven years ago, then yanking Emma out of this town would also mean tearing her away from the dream she'd had since long before he'd ever met her: finding her parents.

She'd never have to know, though.

But he would. And Henry would, too.

Even if Emma didn't believe it.

Neal didn't know these other people. But he did know his father. And he couldn't risk…

So… what? Was he going to abandon the person he loved most because he was afraid of the unknown? Now, who did that sound like?

Neal winced. Well, if he was even considering going to a town inhabited by fairytale characters, maybe he ought to brush up on his fairytales, however distorted the accounts might be! He'd heard a few at the Darling house and picked up a lot through osmosis after Neverland, but he'd never actually sat down and read the stories himself. Maybe it was time.

He called the front desk reception. "Uh, yeah. Hi, it's Neal Cassidy in room 23. Kind of a weird question, but could you tell me where the nearest bookstore is and what time they're open?" The clerk asked a question and he had to think for a moment. "I guess it doesn't matter if it's new or secondhand. I'm looking for a few old classics." He smiled. There was a secondhand store less than ten minutes away on foot, though it wouldn't open until eleven tomorrow. They closed at five-thirty. He'd find time to swing by, if not today, then tomorrow. He needed to take care of some paperwork in town anyway. If he did that in the morning, then he could probably hit Forget-Me-Not Books right when they opened, and be on the road before noon.

Henry's teacher was probably the most genuinely nice person Emma had met since her arrival here. Not that most of the other people weren't nice, of course. But it took a special person to bail a total stranger out of jail on her fifth-grade pupil's assurances. Plus, when she'd pointed Emma in the right direction, Sheriff Graham hadn't turned up at her door an hour later with a search warrant. Wryly, Emma reminded herself that in that instance, Mary Margaret had only told her where Henry was likely to be, and Emma had taken him home to Regina. There was nothing illegal there.

But there hadn't been anything illegal in Dr. Hopper loaning Emma his notes about Henry—until he'd called in to report that she'd stolen them. Probably unprofessional, yes. Maybe even unethical. But not illegal.

All the same, Emma was used to managing on her own. She'd done it for years without Neal; many of her foster placements had provided her food and shelter, but she'd been left to her own devices for everything else. In prison, she'd had nobody to rely on either. And even with Neal, this wasn't the first time that one or the other of them had taken a case that had meant days or weeks apart at a time. Sleeping in her car was nothing.

She had to admit that it was sweet of Mary Margaret to offer a total stranger her spare bedroom on the spur of the moment. Maybe it was just that 'small town hospitality' thing that sometimes cropped up in old movies. Emma had usually shaken her head at it when she'd seen it and wondered whether people had really been that gullible in the 40s and 50s, or whether the script had been penned by someone who'd spent a lot of nights sleeping in their car as some kind of wish-fulfillment. The offer was tempting. Her bug was a bit cramped. Cozy. It was cozy. All the same, Emma had known people like Mary Margaret before. They came across all sweet and friendly and most of the time, it wasn't an act; they really were that nice. But once Emma let her guard down and they really got to know her, their smiles grew more strained. The awkward silences grew more pronounced. They still made the effort… only it started becoming more and more obvious that it was an effort.

Emma just wasn't the kind of person who fit in with people this… good. She'd have to turn down the offer. And so, it was with a pang of regret that she told Mary Margaret that she just wasn't the roommate type and she did better on her own.

The teacher accepted her answer with a sad, understanding smile and bid her a good night.

It was only after she'd gone that Emma realized that Mary Margaret probably hadn't only made the offer to be nice. She'd just left a bad date. And going by the way she'd looked and acted, it must have been a disaster. She'd been looking for someone she could vent to and commiserate with. Emma had been on a few bad dates. Not many, but enough that she probably could have related.

She opened the car door and looked in the direction that Mary Margaret had gone, but the teacher had already vanished in the night. Emma resolved that if their paths crossed again and Mary Margaret repeated the offer, she'd at least think about it. It wasn't like she had very many friends in this place apart from Henry. Maybe she shouldn't be alienating someone who seemed so close to becoming another.

Neal folded down the corner of the page with a sigh and closed the book. He didn't know who the 'Rumpelstiltskin' in the story he'd just read had been, but it sure hadn't been Papa! The bargaining had been, and as for the spinning straw into gold, Papa hadn't been doing that when Neal had seen him last, but he'd always had a talent for the art of spinning. A snatch of a long-forgotten conversation surfaced in his memory.

Rumpelstiltskin? He's useless in a brawl and he can barely work a garden plot with that ankle of his, but those fingers could likely spin straw into gold if he put half a mind do it.

Neal smiled. He must have been all of eight. Now, he remembered he'd run back to their hovel to tell Papa that he just needed half his mind and they'd be rich! Papa had chuckled and explained that the man in the marketplace had been praising his talent, but that nobody could really do such a thing. Not without magic anyway.

His smile gave way to a frown. Papa had magic now. And it certainly sounded like something Papa might have done. As opposed to dancing around a fire, reciting a silly poem and gloating about his plans, while revealing the one piece of information the miller's daughter needed to hear most. Even if there hadn't been a messenger in the woods to overhear it, in a land with magic, listening spells were… kind of a thing. Plus, papa had never hidden his name in the first place. On the contrary, once he'd become the Dark One, he'd wanted everyone to know it.

A spell, Bae, he'd announced, his smile almost too wide. To point me toward those who might need my help. From now on, throughout this realm, in every kingdom, on every sea or mountain top or plain, in any meadow or forest or valley, if any soul should speak my name, even in a whisper, I'll hear and seek them out!

It had sounded like a fine thing at first. But the cost of Papa's help was always higher than it seemed. 'All magic came with a price', but Papa's prices often included hidden charges that buyers never knew about until it was too late.

Neal shook his head, still frowning as he remembered the deals that this Rumpelstiltskin had made with the miller's daughter. That last one did sound like something Papa might have made, he had to admit. As for the rest of the story, though… well, they'd got Papa's name spelled correctly, at least.

He thought for a moment. Then he took a sheet of the hotel stationery from the pad on the desk. He divided it into four columns: 'Probable', 'Possible', 'Unlikely', and 'Oh, Hell, No!'

Under 'Probable', he wrote, "Deals with Miller's daughter; Daughter not realizing she's signed away her child until it's too late; Daughter desperate for help."

Under 'Possible,' he wrote, "Spinning straw into gold; offering daughter new deal to get out of previous deal."

He only made one entry under unlikely: "Not telling Miller's daughter his name at the start."

Into the last column went the whole song-and-dance around the fire, to say nothing of that stupid ending! Stamping your foot on the ground so hard you broke in two—was that even possible? And even if it was, if that had happened, Papa wouldn't be here now.

Neal checked over the list again, shaking his head. With all of this silliness, it was a wonder that any of it sounded remotely like Papa. "I guess a stopped clock is still right twice a day," he muttered.

The book wasn't going to be much help for Emma, though. First, she probably knew its stories better than he did. But second, he realized with some consternation, if those stories were as historically inaccurate as Papa's, then he had no idea what bits of them were actually going to be helpful. And believing the distortions in this book would probably be just as foolhardy as reading J.M. Barrie and thinking Neverland was a load of fun and games! If Neal could have had his way, he'd have taken Peter Pan and put in on a shelf with books with titles like, How to Bake with Arsenic and Fifty Fun Things to Do with TNT! Those distortions were dangerous! Dreamshade-level dangerous.

Neal clenched his fist. He had to find a way to warn Emma, but what the hell could he say that she'd believe? She was already too involved to be likely to back out if he called and said something vague about 'Having a bad feeling about the place'.

He heaved a sigh. For now, he was going to be supportive from a distance. But as soon as he could get back to New England, with or without Henry, he was going to get Emma out of that town. Even if he had to drive there and drag her out himself.

Emma hadn't slept well that night, though a couple of cups of coffee the following morning and a couple more at lunch had her functioning well enough to come up with what she thought was a good idea around mid-afternoon.

Henry had run up to her as soon as school was out, bursting with excitement when he'd told Emma that he'd found her father. Kid had an imagination for sure. It didn't matter to him in the slightest that Emma wasn't buying into it. Or that if Mary Margaret was her mother, then she was either following one hell of a beauty regimen, or she was in the Guinness Book of World Records for giving birth as a preschooler! Every sensible objection Emma raised was met with, "That's because of the curse."

So, naturally, some guy in a coma who happened to have a scar similar to that of the drawing of Prince Charming in Henry's book had to be her father. Emma hadn't seen him in the flesh, of course, but she was willing to bet that he wasn't a day over thirty-five and probably younger. Plus, Emma knew that Ms Blanchard wasn't doing so well in the romance department at the moment. If Henry ran up to her with this… idea of his, it would just be cruel. Unless… Unless I can get him to see the truth.

Inspiration hit. There was a way to get Henry to recognize reality. Hopefully. And while it might be disappointing for him in the short term, he was a smart kid and he'd get over it. At least, she thought he would. At least, she didn't think she'd make things worse.

Still, she was relieved after she'd sounded out Mary Margaret and found out that the teacher thought it was a good plan. Almost foolproof, in fact. And they were going to set it in motion first thing tomorrow morning.

"C-calm down, Emma," Neal told her that evening. It was a quarter to seven in Fairbanks, which meant that it was nearly eleven in Maine. "So, the guy woke up. That's good, right?"

"No! I-I mean, sure it's good. Great. Only, the whole idea was to prove to Henry that his book was just stories and that Mary Margaret Blanchard doesn't have this whole… true love connection with John Doe. Or David Nolan; I'd better start calling him that. But she woke him up. I mean, he must have been coming out of his coma somehow already and it was just… crazy timing, but…"

"Yeah," Neal agreed. "Might be enough to start me believing in that stuff, if I'd seen it."

"I have to keep reminding myself it's all a coincidence," Emma answered, still sounding agitated. "Of course, Henry's even more convinced of the curse now."

"Of course," Neal said, nodding all the way. "But hey, good for his teacher. From the way you described her, a little love in her life can't be a bad thing for her."

"This one is," Emma said. "Turns out he's married."

"Wait… what?"

"His wife said she thought he left town years ago. She never checked the hospitals; never knew he was lying there just a few blocks away or whatever… Oh, and get this: Mayor Mills was his emergency contact."

"Not his wife…?" Neal asked.

Emma hesitated. "She found him on the side of the road with no ID and brought him to the hospital. Or so she says. But, Neal, if there's one thing I know about small towns, it's that everyone knows everyone. If she's been mayor forever, like everyone seems to think, how could she not have looked at him and gone, 'That's David Nolan. I'd better call his wife Kathryn and tell her to meet me in the emergency room.'?"

"Did she have an explanation?"

"More of an evasion," Emma said. "She asked me why I thought Kathryn would lie and," she hesitated, "she asked me if I thought she'd cast a spell on her. Regina on Kathryn, I mean," she clarified.

On the other end of the phone, Neal frowned. "She's read Henry's book? Or does she know about it? Because if she has and she knows Henry thinks she's the evil queen…"

"Right. Wait." Emma sounded confused. "Did I tell you he thought Regina was the evil queen?"

Neal swallowed. "You must have," he said quickly. "How else could I have known?"

"Yeah. Sorry, it's been a hectic couple of days; I guess I'm just a bit jumpy. I'm glad I caught you. It's good to have someone to hash things out like this."

Neal coaxed a smile into his voice. "Anytime." Meanwhile, I'm just glad that if that superpower of yours really exists, it doesn't seem to kick in on long distance phone calls. You didn't tell me about the evil queen; that was August. And if I slip up like this another time or two, I might not be able to explain it away so easily. "Actually," he said a bit more seriously, "maybe not anytime. We've pretty much finished combing Denali by now and it doesn't look like our target is going to turn up there. There've been some reports that he's been spotted at different points along AK-Highway 3, heading toward Anchorage, so we'll be heading that way tomorrow."

"How far is Anchorage from Fairbanks?" Emma wanted to know.

"About six hours straight driving, maybe a little more. It won't be straight driving, though. I'm going to have to stop at every gas station and truck stop along the way and ask questions, hoping someone recognizes the guy. And I'm not sure about cellphone coverage on the road; population's pretty thin in these parts. Once I get into Anchorage, it shouldn't be an issue, but until I do… Emma, I'm really sorry."

"Nah, don't be," Emma sighed. "Find the guy, get paid, and then, you can head out here and meet our kid. We'll have plenty of time to talk then."

"Sounds like a plan," Neal nodded, even if his main goal in finding that town was still to get Emma and Henry out of it and safely back home to Boston. "But if this town has a 'no felons' rule… If they found your juvie record, they're going to dig up mine, too. Herbie's going to be a little cramped, don't you think?"

Emma paused for a moment. "Well, Ms Blanchard did offer me a place to sleep. Maybe she's got room for two. Or she has a friend with another spare bedroom. I'll look into it."

"You're taking her up on it?" Neal asked.

"Well," Emma admitted, "I wasn't going to. But I don't know this town and she does. Plus, after the day she's had, well, I probably ought to check if she's still up and if her offer's still open. I know it's getting pretty late, but if I were her, the last thing I'd want would be to be alone right now. Something tells me she could probably use a friend…"

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty

Friday morning, Emma walked Henry to the school bus, not caring if Regina saw. Henry might see this whole curse-breaking business as some top secret operation, but Emma had no intention of pulling a cloak and dagger routine, just to spend time with her son. Besides, she had a feeling it wouldn't work anyway, so she figured she might as well save herself the aggravation of trying. Plus it gave her the added bonus of impressing her son with her 'bravery', and while that part hadn't been planned, she wasn't about to knock it.

She watched Henry get on the bus, and was about to turn back and head to Granny's for breakfast—it was one thing sleeping in Mary Margaret's loft, but Emma had no intention of eating anything in her kitchen before she'd contributed a bit of grocery shopping— when a siren startled her and a squad car turned the corner directly in front of her before it came to a stop. Graham emerged from the driver's seat. "What's with the siren?" she asked him, by way of a greeting.

"It's so hard to get your attention," the sheriff replied with a grin.

"Well," Emma said, "you've got it. Are you arresting me again?"

He wasn't. Her eyebrows shot up as he explained why he'd approached her this time. "I have a job," she told him. Really, did this town have, like zero percent unemployment, or something? She would have thought a local would be the first pick for a position like this, not the 'known felon' who was just in town for a week or so.

"As a bail bondsperson?" Graham asked. "There's not much of that going on here."

"I don't see a lot of sheriffing going on around here either," Emma snorted.

Graham's answer to that was to repeat his offer and add dental to it. He drove off after asking her to give it some more thought.

Emma shook her head in some bemusement, as she made her way over to Granny's, where breakfast awaited.

A half hour later, she was still shaking her head over the idea as she sipped her cocoa. Her… as a deputy. Her, with her juvie record, on a police force. Her, a known felon who couldn't even stay in a motel in this town... as a cop. It was ridiculous. Laughable. So why was she even still thinking about it, when—?

"How was your walk with Henry?"

Startled, Emma looked up to see Regina sliding into the seat across from her. "That's right," the mayor continued, I know everything. But relax. I don't mind."

Emma blinked. "You don't?"

"No," Regina said, still smiling. "Because you no longer worry me, Ms Swan. You see, I did a little digging into who you are. And what I found out was quite soothing. You see, it all comes down to the number seven."

"Seven?" Emma repeated blankly.

Regina nodded. "It's the number of police reports you've filed last year alone. I guess bail-bonding can be a dangerous line of work. It seems that some of the people you apprehend have associates who blame you for their… colleague's… incarceration. As I understand it, you've received death threats. Nasty telephone messages. Shoe boxes with mutilated animals. Now, Ms Swan, I think that we can agree that at a custody hearing, any judge would have to consider the effect that such… intimidation… might have on a young, impressionable child. You've had to change your locks a time or two as well…?"

Emma nodded involuntarily. It was only when she saw the self-satisfied gleam in the mayor's eyes that she realized that Regina had only been guessing at that last bit.

"So, you've had break-ins. Or attempted break-ins. You also have a job that requires irregular hours. So, it's entirely possible that Henry might be alone in your apartment should someone make another attempt."

"I wouldn't leave him alone," Emma snapped.

"Well, I'm sure that leaving him in the care of some teenager with a CPR certification or a retired schoolteacher in your building would make all the difference. You may be comfortable with a target painted on your back, but you're not painting one on my son's. And I believe any judge would agree with me."

"I don't have to stay a bail bondsperson," Emma retorted.

"Well, what else are you qualified to do that'll keep a roof over your head and cover expenses for two? You've drifted into every job you've ever held, Ms Swan. You have no idea how to steer."

"You don't know me," Emma said evenly.

"No, I think I do. All I ask is, as you continue your dangerous line of work, you spare a thought for Henry and what's best for him. Perhaps, consider a clean break. It'll be less painful for all concerned." She smiled again. "Enjoy your cocoa." She rose and left the diner without a backwards look.

Emma got up to follow, inadvertently upsetting her cup and spilling its contents all over her shirt.

Behind her, Ruby clucked sympathetically.

Emma sighed. "Do you have a laundry room I can use…?"

On Fridays, Mary Margaret had no classes to teach between 10:30 and 2. Most of the time, she stayed in school, but today, she had a couple of errands to run. She came home at a quarter past eleven to find Emma sitting at the table, an open box of Pop Tarts in front of her and two more lined up behind it. There were two torn wrappers beside the open box and Emma was ripping open a third one. "Uh, I was going to fix myself a tuna melt," the schoolteacher said. "I could make it two."

"No thanks," Emma said, taking a savage bite out of the first toaster pastry in the envelope.

Mary Margaret placed a metal object down on the table. "Here's your key," she said. "So you won't have to wake me when you get back. Everything okay?"

Emma chewed, swallowed, and set down the pastry. "Well, apart from my letting Regina get under my skin and ruining my shirt—okay the stains came out in the wash… mostly… Anyway, do you know Ashley Boyd?"

Mary Margaret nodded. "I mean, I know who she is; I don't really know her that well." She frowned. "I don't think she was one of my students, though after a while, they all sort of start blurring together. Which isn't right, of course, but…" She stopped. "I'm sorry. What about Ashley?"

Emma sighed. "She reminds me a lot of me when I was around her age. Pregnant, scared, got a whole bunch of well-meaning people giving her well-meaning advice…"

"Well, at nineteen, with a baby on the way, she must need advice."

"Yeah," Emma nodded, "but what I called 'well-meaning'? Try 'running her down, telling her she can't handle it, and she'll only end up ruining her kid's life.' Oh, but they're only saying it for her own good, so that makes it okay," Emma added bitterly. "If I'd had one person point me to some of the resources I found out later were available, yeah, it still would've been hard. I might have still given up Henry to give him his best chance. But at least, I could have weighed out my choices and made an informed decision, instead of being… browbeaten into it."

"Emma," Mary Margaret said gently, "a-are you sure you're not seeing too much of yourself in Ashley? I mean, you might have made a wonderful mother, but Ashley's a high school dropout. She's working as a maid right now, which is hard enough when she's nine months pregnant, but once the baby's born, she won't even have that."

"I was seventeen and a high school dropout when I was pregnant with Henry," Emma pointed out. "And I didn't have a job, period. I was…" She stopped. Mary Margaret didn't have to know she'd been in juvie. "I was scared. And alone. And I could've used someone in my corner, instead of…" She shook her head. "Sorry. It's just a crappy situation." She looked up at the clock. "Anyway, I'd better get going before I hit rush hour."

"I'll miss you."

Emma smiled. "I know. But the rent's due and Neal's still in Alaska, so somebody has to pay it. Plus, if I'm going to keep spilling hot cocoa on myself, I'd better get some more clothes. This whole 'wear one outfit while I wash the other' might work for shirts and socks, but I only brought one pair of jeans."

"I understand." She frowned worriedly. "Emma, if you're too tired to drive back tonight, don't risk it. The last time you fell asleep at the wheel, you were lucky; all you hit was a sign."

"I told you," Emma said, "there was a wolf on the road."

"I know," Mary Margaret said. "But all the same, I want you to promise me you won't drive if you're sleepy."

She was beginning to see why Henry thought Mary Margaret was her mother. "Okay," she said, trying hard not to roll her eyes. "I promise."

It felt like she'd never been away when Emma stepped into her apartment again, dropping the empty cardboard boxes she'd grabbed from the garage onto the floor. For a few minutes, she was hard-put to remember that Henry knocking on her door four nights ago and everything that had happened since hadn't been a dream. Her cupcake was still on the counter where she'd blown out the star candle still mounted in its frosting. She'd never even tasted it. She took a small nibble. The cake was stale now, but the frosting was still sweet. After a moment she set it back down and pulled out the candle. Then she lifted the cupcake once more, tilted it toward her mouth, removed the frosting in three unladylike bites, and tossed the denuded cake into the garbage.

After that, she grabbed one of the boxes, double-checked that it didn't have any wet or rotting spots that might give way, and that its bottom was securely taped, and began packing. It only took about an hour. She still wasn't used to acquiring things. Furniture, sure, but not the paper weights and knickknacks that everyone else seemed to accumulate. Plus Herbie didn't have that much room. Her clothes filled three boxes and a garment bag. Books, posters, and the baby blanket that had been with her since the day she'd been found on the roadside filled a fourth. She stepped into the kitchen area and eyed the blender, toaster, and coffee maker speculatively. They'd probably fit, but… Mary Margaret had all three. And Neal might still need them when he got back. No, she wouldn't take them.

She took a moment to quickly jot down driving instructions for how to reach Storybrooke—with the signage either easy to miss or non-existent, Neal was going to need them. Then she went down to the ground floor to take care of next month's rent and grab a dolly cart for the boxes.

She checked her watch in the elevator on her way back up and nodded to herself. She'd made good time. It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to get Herbie loaded and return the dolly cart. If she left now, she imagined she'd be back in Storybrooke before ten PM. And that was allowing for time to grab a bite to eat at a rest stop and fill up with gas.

She wondered if she'd be back again before the next month's rent was due. If she was going to have to keep paying for this place without getting any new bounty hunting assignments, then maybe the position that Graham had offered her this morning was worth considering after all…

It was half-past ten when Emma got back to Storybrooke. Once again, she'd missed the sign for it on the Interstate, but she remembered that the exit had been just past the Mr. Cluck's and Exxon that were across the highway from the Dunkin' Donuts and Irving Oil. All four businesses were well-lit and impossible to miss, even at that hour.

Mary Margaret was awake and sipping a mug of hot cocoa when Emma turned the key in the lock. She smiled with obvious relief. "I thought you might be back tonight," she said. "I mean, I know you didn't have to phone me to let me know one way or the other, but I guess I just thought that once you got behind the wheel you'd probably just keep driving until you got here and…" She stopped. "I'm babbling and you must be exhausted. I can make you some cocoa. Or," she shook her head, "maybe herbal tea would be better at this hour?"

Emma shook her head. "Nah. Thanks, but I am exhausted. I'm just going to turn in. Isn't it kind of late for you, though?"

Mary Margaret laughed. "Tomorrow's not a school day. And I had papers to grade. I only just finished about half an hour ago."

"Oh." Emma frowned. "Hey, is the pawn shop usually open late?" she asked.

"Mr. Gold's shop?" Mary Margaret asked. "No… why?"

"Not open, I mean," Emma corrected. "But does… Mr. Gold usually hang around much past closing time?"

"I don't think so…" Mary Margaret said slowly. "Again… why?"

"No reason," Emma said. "Just, when I drove past ten minutes ago, he was out on the street in front, taping something over the shop's door…"

The next morning dawned bright and sunny and Emma was up and out of bed before Mary Margaret. She dressed quickly, and was about to head out to Granny's for breakfast, when she paused. The food at the diner was good, but she was getting tired of having all her meals there. Not to mention that the cost was starting to add up. And Mary Margaret really didn't seem like she'd mind if Emma helped herself to the contents of the fridge. Besides, it wasn't like Storybrooke didn't have a grocery store. She could always replenish what she took.

Her eye fell on the cardboard boxes she'd unloaded from the car last night and hadn't yet gotten around to unpacking. That was going to be her project for the day. But once she was unpacked, her part of the loft was going to feel a lot more like home. Maybe it was time to start treating it as such.

She opened one of the kitchen cabinet doors and was pleased to find a frying pan. Instead of buying breakfast today, she'd stay in and make some. And she'd make sure that there was enough for Mary Margaret, too.

"Is that French toast?" Mary Margaret beamed. As expected, she didn't sound at all put out that Emma had used the loaf of bread on the counter for it. "Hold on. I'll scramble some eggs to go with it. Protein," she added brightly.

"Sure," Emma said, her eyes flicking to the cardboard boxes she'd brought in the night before. It would be another few minutes for the eggs to be ready and Emma was looking forward to getting unpacked. Even though the cocoa stain on her shirt was barely noticeable from afar, Emma still knew it was there and it was nice to have options again. She opened one of the boxes, and smiled as she beheld her baby blanket. She'd used it to wrap up her toiletries; it wouldn't have been the first time the nozzle on her spray deodorant had broken off in transit. She hadn't packed any clothes in that box, however. Reaching for the next one, she exclaimed, "I'm so glad my stuff's here."

She looked up to see Mary Margaret coming toward her with two full plates of eggs and French toast. "Oh. Thanks."

Mary Margaret looked at the boxes. "So, that's all your stuff?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Uh… is the rest in storage?"

Emma shook her head. "No, this is all of it." Except for some of the kitchen stuff; in addition to the small appliances, she hadn't wanted to leave Neal without a few pots, pans, dishes, and cutlery. "I'm… not sentimental," she added. And she'd left too many foster homes with all her worldly goods thrust into one heavy-duty black garbage bag. The more you owned, the more you had to pack and Herbie really didn't have that much space for extra cargo.

Mary Margaret smiled and said doubtfully, "Well, it must make things easier when you have to move."

Emma nodded, her own smile freezing on her face as she wondered whether she'd only imagined a note of pity in the schoolteacher's voice.

A knock on the door startled them both. Eyebrows rising, Mary Margaret went to open it. A slight man whom Emma recognized at once stood leaning on a cane. "Ms Blanchard," a crisp voice with a Scots accent greeted her. "Is Ms Swan here?"

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-One

At the mention of her name, Emma rose to her feet and came forward. The man smiled and extended his hand. She shook it. "Hi," he said. "My name's Mr. Gold. We met briefly on your arrival."

"I remember," Emma said, noting that, though he sounded friendly enough, he hadn't given her his first name. Maybe it was a British thing. Or a Scottish thing. Wait, Scotland was part of Britain… at least she thought it was. Whatever. She pulled her focus back to what Mr. No-First-Name Gold was saying.

"I have a proposition for you Ms Swan. I… uh… I need your help. I'm looking for someone."

"Really?" Emma asked. "Um…" As she tried to think what to say next, she caught the look that Gold directed at Mary Margaret.

The schoolteacher ducked her head a bit nervously. "You know what?" she asked brightly. "I think I'm going to go jump in the bath." She beat a hasty retreat away from the door.

"I have a photo," Gold said, coming into the loft. As he held it up, Emma's eyes widened. She recognized the young woman at once. "Her name is Ashley Boyd," he continued. "And she's taken something quite valuable of mine."

She'd never had to hunt down a friend before. Back in Arizona, she'd become friends with Sonia after chasing her down, but she hadn't known her before that. She wasn't sure she wanted the job. "So, why don't you just go to the police?" she asked.

"Because, uh…" Gold gave her a pained smile. "She's a confused young woman. She's pregnant. Alone and scared. I don't want to ruin this young girl's life, but I just want my property returned."

"What is it?" Emma asked.

Gold shook his head. "Well, one of the advantages of you not being the police is discretion. Let's just say it's a precious object and leave it at that."

She didn't like the sound of this. On the other hand, if she turned down the job, Gold might put Graham on it, but if he had reasons for not using local law enforcement beyond what he'd told her, then he might just turn to someone less savory. Whoa. Where did that thought come from? He'd been nothing but pleasant thus far. Still, something told Emma that this man was used to getting his way and while he might prefer to use legal channels, he wasn't above other routes. "When'd you see her last?"

He smiled. "Last night. That's how I got this," he added, pushing back his long hair to reveal a cut on his temple. Emma winced. That looked painful. "It's so unlike her," he went on. "She was quite wound up. Rambling on and on about changing her life. I have no idea what got into her. Miss Swan, please help me find her. My only other choice is the police, and I don't think anyone wants to see that baby born in jail now, do they?"

Emma felt her heart sink. She'd been the one to tell Ashley that if she didn't like the way her life was going, she had to take a stand and change it. But she'd never thought… It didn't matter what she'd thought. And it didn't matter what Ashley had taken from yesterday's pep talk. She wasn't going to have a baby in jail. Not if Emma had anything to say about it. "No, of course not," she murmured.

Gold exhaled in relief. "So, you'll help me then?"

"I will help her," Emma clarified.

"Grand."

The door opened again and Henry walked in unannounced. "Hey, Emma," he greeted her. "I was thinking we…" He stopped as he realized who was in the loft with her.

"Hey, Henry," Gold said in a friendly fashion. "How are you?"

Henry smiled a bit nervously. "Okay…?" he replied, making his answer sound like a question."

"Good," Gold said, moving toward the door. "Give my regards to your mother. And," he looked back to Emma once more, "good luck, Ms Swan."

As the door closed behind him, Emma, thoughts still reeling, turned to greet her son.

As soon as Emma had explained to Henry why she couldn't spend the day with him, he insisted on coming along. She could have seen that one coming if she hadn't been up in her own head. Ashley's situation was ripping the scabs off of more than a few painful memories that weren't nearly as well-healed as she'd thought.

"Please," Henry panted, as he hurried to catch up with her. "Please, let me help."

"No." She was not dragging a kid along with her. Especially not her kid. Especially not a kid with a legal mother who was going to make things even more difficult for Emma than she already was if Henry sustained so much as a paper cut or a lost sleeve button while the two of them were together. "No, it could be dangerous."

"The pregnant maid is dangerous?" Henry asked sarcastically.

"She assaulted Mr. Gold."

Henry blinked, but the expression on his face was less nervous than impressed. "Cool!"

"This isn't a game," Emma snapped. "She's desperate."

"How do you know?"

She was trying not to go off on him, but she really wasn't feeling up to dealing with his questioning. "Because I know," she said with a finality she hoped would end the conversation. No luck.

"Well then," Henry said, ever chipper, "let's find her."

"Oh, no!" Emma groaned. "No. No, there is no 'let's'. You cannot come with me."

"Then I'll look for her myself," Henry retorted.

"Then I'll find you and bring you back."

"Then you won't be helping the maid."

Smart kid. Annoying as hell, but a damned smart kid, she thought as she unlocked the car. "I am just trying to be responsible, here."

As if to put the lie to her words, Henry jumped into the passenger seat through the door she'd irresponsibly failed to lock. "And I'm just trying to spend time with you."

And just like that, he'd won. He'd fought dirty, but he'd won. She fought down a surge of guilt. "Oh, that is really not fair," she groaned.

Henry grinned. "So. The maid. What's her story?"

In most small towns that Emma had been to, if you wanted to find out the dirt on one of the locals, you chatted up the local bartender. And, if she didn't turn up any leads by late afternoon when the Rabbit Hole opened, that was exactly what she planned to do. But in the meanwhile, Granny's seemed to be another branch on that grapevine (and they did sell alcohol, too).

Sure enough, Ruby seemed to know the situation quite well. Standing outside the diner and watching as a tow truck unloaded a red Chevy Camaro, the waitress was happy to share details. Apparently Ashley's boyfriend had ditched her as soon as she'd learned she was pregnant. Emma fought down a wave of anger at that. She'd had to handle her own pregnancy alone, too, but that had been because she and Neal had both been incarcerated in different facilities. Had that not been the case, there was no doubt whatsoever in Emma's mind that Neal would have supported her. As far as Ashley's family…

"Wait," Henry interrupted excitedly, as Ruby took the tow truck driver to task for nearly breaking the wolf charm hanging off the Camaro's mirror. "Stepmom, stepsisters, and she's a maid?"

And just like that, Emma thought ruefully, the role of Cinderella in Henry's fantasy world was assigned to Ashley Boyd. She suppressed a groan. "Henry," she was almost pleading, "not now."

"Look," Ruby went on a bit defensively, "I don't know what you've heard but it's wrong. Everyone thinks she's not ready to have this kid, but she's been trying. Taking night classes, trying to better herself, trying to get her life together. Can you understand that?"

She could understand that Ashley was doing more than Emma ever had to prepare for this. "I think so."

"Then maybe you should just stay out of it," Ruby said. "She's been through enough already."

"I've been through it too, Ruby," Emma replied. "I can help her."

Ruby gave her a long searching look. Then, with a slight nod, she seemed to make up her mind. "Then… you should try her ex."

A lead. Finally. "Where can I find him?" Emma asked.

"He lives with his dad."

Three quarters of an hour later, Emma stormed down the Hermans' front walk, feeling like she was about to retch. Instead of going back to the car, she stomped down the street, knowing that Henry was going to wonder what was going on, but unwilling to talk to him until she could do so without swearing a blue streak. It was happening again. Another scared teenager was getting strong-armed or manipulated into giving up her baby, probably tricked into a deal without realizing that other options had been available.

She stopped. If Ashley was getting roped into surrendering her child-to-be into some black market adoption, then the other options were still available. The deal wouldn't stand up in court and if it did get that far, then probably everyone involved except Ashley would be looking at jail time. Ashley didn't have to give up her baby. Only Ashley didn't know that.

Emma's jaw set. She'd been about to storm over to Mister Gold's shop and let him know what he could do with his assignment, but if she did that he'd… What? Involve the police? He couldn't; not without implicating himself. She frowned. On the other hand, Ashley had assaulted him and he had the scar to prove it. And he could probably afford a good lawyer and get off with a slap on the wrist, especially since the baby wasn't yet born and the adoption hadn't taken place. Meanwhile, Ashley could end up in prison for… for… Well, in Massachusetts, it was up to two and a half years in a house of correction; she assumed it would be something similar in Maine, though she wasn't sure. As friendly as Gold had seemed when he'd stopped by the loft, Emma remembered how nervous Mrs. Lucas had been that night at the motel, when she'd passed over the rent money. Something told her that Gold was the sort of guy who'd do everything in his power to ruin the life of anyone who crossed him.

So why did he hire me to bring Ashley back? Either it's because he knows he can't go to Sheriff Graham over this, or there's something more he wants. But does he want it from her… or from me?

Rubber-soled shoes slapped the pavement as a high voice behind her panted, "Emma? Hey! Emma? What's the matter?"

"Henry." She turned around and tried to smile and act normal, even as a nasty thought surfaced. Was Ashley's baby the first time that Gold had been involved in this sort of thing? Or had he had a hand in Henry's adoption too?

Ruby looked up as Emma stormed into Granny's, Henry behind her. "Why didn't you tell me she sold the baby?" she demanded.

Ruby flinched, but her voice was steady as she answered, "Because I didn't think it was important."

Was this more of that 'haze' Henry was always talking about? Because the only way that anyone could think that the contract wasn't important was if their brain was permanently fogged. A great deal more calmly than she felt, Emma snapped back, "Really? Considering that's why she's running away?"

Ruby sighed. "Look, Ashley's my friend. I don't like the idea of people judging her."

That was when Emma noticed the wolf-charm on the counter. "Ruby," she asked quietly, "where's your car?" When the waitress didn't answer, Emma realized that whatever her frame of mind might be, 'hazy' was about the polar opposite from it. "You didn't send me to Sean to find her. You sent me to give her a head start."

She didn't buy Ruby's protests that she'd only been trying to help Ashley. "Yes," she retorted. "So am I. Ashley's in more trouble than you know, Ruby. Where is she?" Seeing the waitress hesitate, she urged, "Don't make her deal with Gold without me."

Ruby frowned and jerked her head in Henry's direction. "I can't talk in front of him. He's the mayor's kid."

"Hey!" Henry protested. "I'm on your side!"

Time, Emma felt strongly, was of the essence. And if Ruby wouldn't spill in front of Henry, then Henry had to leave. Luckily, he saw her point and headed for the exit. As soon as he'd left the diner, she locked eyes on Ruby once more.

"She left town," the waitress admitted. "Said she was going to try Boston. She thought she could disappear there."

Boston. Hopefully, Emma would catch up to Ashley before she reached it, but even if Ashley made it there, she was headed to one place Emma knew pretty well. Odds were, she'd find her regardless, but it would be a lot easier if she managed it before the maid joined the other six hundred thousand or so people in the city—or four-point-two million if she included the whole of Boston Metro. "How long ago did she leave?"

Ruby only hesitated a moment before answering, "About half an hour."

She'd driven about a block and half, when Henry popped his head out of her back seat. "What'd she tell you?"

Emma gasped and narrowly missed plowing into a mailbox. Another night in jail averted, she thought, as she exclaimed, "Henry! What the hell?" Almost at once she realized that she shouldn't have sworn in front of a ten-year-old. If Regina found out… Yeah, like Henry was going to tell her. Her kid might have issues, but stupidity wasn't one of them. Seeing his face in her rearview mirror, she realized how much he looked like his father—who, come to think of it, also popped his head out of the back seat when I thought I was driving alone, once. "I'm going to Boston. You can't come with me."

A horrified look came over her son's face. "You can't go to Boston. She can't leave. Bad things happen to anyone who does."

"Really?" Emma asked. "Like what?"

"Uh… Well…"

"Do you actually know anyone who's tried to leave? Besides you?"

"Well, when you tried, you hit a sign and ended up in jail!"

"Yeah, and yesterday, I left town to get my stuff and I was fine. Henry, I haven't got time to argue with you over the curse. I have to get you home."

"We have to stop her before she gets hurt!" Henry insisted. "We're wasting time. If you drop me off, we'll never catch up to her!"

"Henry…" This was more than a smart kid in search of adventure and trying to spend the day with her. He was far more upset than he should have been.

"And then, Mr. Gold will call the police and he'll have her sent to jail!"

Damn it. "Buckle up," she gave in. And under her breath, as she heard the seatbelt click, she muttered, "Ashley, what did you get yourself into?"

It was Henry who spotted Ruby's car on the side of the road. It was halfway up a rising concrete barrier and, evidently, whatever work the garage had done previously hadn't sufficed for Ashley to back it down again. The hood was up, steam was coming from the engine, and the car was empty.

Emma and Henry exchanged alarmed glances when a moan drew their attention to the grass on the other side of the barrier.

"Ashley!" Emma exclaimed, rushing toward the young woman.

In obvious pain, Ashley looked helplessly at the two of them. "My baby," she managed. "It's coming!"

Getting Ashley into the bug was the first step. Emma did her best to remember her own pregnancy and how they'd moved her to the hospital, but she'd already been there before her labor pains had progressed to the point Ashley seemed to be at right now. She had to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible. Ashley, however, had other ideas.

"Take me to Boston!" she pleaded. "I can't go back there!"

And she couldn't go to Boston; not when that was four hours away if they didn't get bogged down in traffic.

"Please!" Ashley sobbed. "He's going to take my baby!"

Over her dead body, Emma thought. Aloud, she said, "I won't let that happen." Not if she realized what having a kid meant and accepted that it wasn't like having some… doll you could dress up and chuck in a crib when you got bored. "Do you know what you're asking for?" she asked, deadly serious. "If you keep this child, are you really ready?"

"Yeah," Ashley said."

"Are you sure?" Emma persisted. "Because I wasn't." She took in the girl's disbelief and nodded. "If you want to give this kid its best chance, it's going to be with someone who's ready, so know what that means. Your whole life is going to change and once you decided that it's yours, this running away can't happen. You have to grow up and you can't ever leave. Understand?"

Ashley hesitated for only an instant before she nodded. "Yes. I want my baby."

Emma nodded back. "Then sit tight and hang on. Henry—"

"You don't have time to drop me off. Besides, I know the fastest way to the hospital from here."

Two good reasons to keep him around. Emma resigned herself to the inevitable, started mentally rehearsing what she was going to say to Mr. Gold, and hoped Regina wouldn't be at the hospital—or at the very least that she wouldn't run into her until after she'd confronted Gold.

As soon as they got to the hospital, orderlies transferred Ashely to a wheelchair and hurried her through the waiting room and then past the double doors at the opposite end. Emma and Henry settled in to wait. Emma's thoughts were churning, as she tried to prepare herself for what was ahead. Henry, however, seemed oblivious, as he prattled on.

She tried to smile and nod her head, but her mind was a million miles away and eventually Henry picked up on it and pulled his fairytale book out of his knapsack.

It wasn't until about an hour later that she felt relaxed enough to give her son some attention. "Hey," she said softly.

Henry looked up with a smile. "You know, Emma," he said, "you're different."

Because she wasn't walking around with her mind in a fog? "What's that?" she asked.

"You're the only one who could do it."

Oh, not this again. "Break the curse?" She tried not to roll her eyes. "Yes, I know. You keep telling me that."

"No," Henry said. "Leave. You're the only one who can leave Storybrooke."

Yeah, when a wolf doesn't spook me into ramming a sign. Besides… "You left and came and found me in Boston," she pointed out.

"But I came back," Henry countered. "I'm ten. I had no choice. But if anyone else had to go, bad things would happen."

"You—" Emma stopped. She'd been about to say that he could have stayed in Boston with her, but realistically, that wouldn't have happened. Not without a custody hearing. Maybe she could have arranged things so he wouldn't have to go back to Maine in the interim, but between her crazy work hours and Neal having a record, she couldn't say for sure that Henry wouldn't have ended up in the System, at least temporarily. Emma swallowed hard. She might not like Regina very much—understatement of the year—but she wasn't ready to say that Henry would be better off in foster care than in his current situation.

"Miss Swan," a petite doctor approached with a smile. "Baby is a healthy six-pound girl and the mother is doing fine."

"What lovely news," a cheerful voice with a Scots accent proclaimed from behind her. Emma whirled to face its owner and Mr. Gold smiled with satisfaction. "Excellent work, Ms Swan. Thank you for bringing me my merchandise."

Emma turned to look at her son. "Henry," she said firmly, as Gold headed for the coffee machine, "I need you to go for a walk. Now."

Something about her voice or expression must have convinced Henry that this wasn't the time to argue, for he got up and left without another word. Emma steeled herself and strode over to confront the man who'd hired her.

"Well, well," Mr. Gold said at her approach. "Must be my lucky day. Care for a cup, Ms Swan?"

Emma was done with being friendly. "A baby?" she demanded. "That's your merchandise? Why didn't you tell me?"

Gold shrugged. "Well, because at the time," he replied, "you didn't need to know."

"Really?" Emma demanded. "Or you thought I wouldn't take the job?"

His eyebrows climbed. "On the contrary. I thought it would be more effective if you found out yourself. After seeing Ashley's hard life, I thought it would make sense. I-I mean, if anyone could understand the reasons behind giving up a baby, I assumed it would be you."

"You're not getting that kid," Emma said evenly.

"Actually," Gold said. "We have an agreement. My agreements are always honored."

"Even when they aren't legally enforceable?"

He shook his head. "Come now, Miss Swan. We both know what will happen to that poor child if I have to involve the police. With a mother in jail and no father in the picture, that babe will have to go into the system. Do I need to paint you a picture of how tragic that would be?"

"It's not going to happen," Emma replied.

Gold's smile thinned. "I like your confidence," he said. "It's charming. Truly. But all I have to do is press charges. She did break into my shop."

She also assaulted you, Emma thought. If it were me, I'd have led with that. Or are there so many more people in town ready to slug you than rob you that you just take it in stride? Aloud, she said, "Let me guess. To steal a contract."

"Who knows what she was after?" Gold shrugged.

Emma shook her head. "You know, no jury in the world will put a woman in jail whose only reason for breaking and entering was to keep her child. And I think we both know that an illegal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on. You'd have to sue her in court for the baby and, uh… good luck with that. Plus, if you did go that route, I bet a lot of stuff is going to come out about you in the process. Somehow, I suspect that there is more to you than a simple pawnbroker. So," she looked at him levelly. "You really want to start that fight?"

For one terrible moment, Gold regarded her, his face inscrutable. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed in an almost friendly fashion. "I like you, Ms Swan," he said. "You're not afraid of me. Now, while that's either cocky or presumptuous, either way… I'd like to have you on my side."

Emma raised a single eyebrow. "So, she can keep the baby?" she asked.

Mr. Gold was still smiling pleasantly. "Not just yet. There's still the matter of my agreement with Ms Boyd."

"Tear it up," Emma said with a shrug.

"That's not what I do," he replied and Emma blinked. Had she only imagined hearing a faint note of regret in his voice? She must have, she decided, as he continued smoothly, "You see, contracts… deals… they're the very foundation of all civilized existence. So, I put it to you now: if you want Ashley to have that baby… are you willing to make a deal with me?"

Two hours later, Neal listened with a sinking feeling, as Emma told him about her day. "What favor?" he asked finally.

"He didn't say," Emma replied, sounding unconcerned.

Now his heart was starting to pound. "So, you just went into an agreement blindly?" Damn it, this was that miller's daughter from Papa's story all over again!

"Hey, you weren't there," Emma said. "I had him. I knew that contract Ashley signed wouldn't stand up in court and that he'd be in for a world of trouble if things got that far and he knew it, too. I think he was looking for a way of backing down that would let him save a little face. So, the next time he needs some help with inventory at the shop or his car's at the garage and he needs me to chauffeur him around town, I guess I'll be stuck helping him. Meanwhile, Ashley's got her daughter and Sean Herman turned out to be… not as big a jerk as he seemed at first. I mean, I think she can probably do better, but that's her call. And maybe he just needed to find the guts to stand up to his dad and this gave him that push. Anyway, that's over with. But…"

Neal was sure that Emma could hear his thundering pulse over the phone. "But…?" he repeated.

"Well, I'd been thinking… Ever since I found out what the 'merchandise' was that I'd been hired to recover, I was wondering if this was the first time he'd done something like this. Or if he'd maybe been doing it for a long time. Like maybe ten years or more."

If that book of fairy tales was right, 'or more' is pretty on point, Neal thought, even as he caught onto what Emma was suggesting. "Did you ask him?"

"About Henry's adoption? He told me that Regina Mills consulted him when she was looking to adopt and he started reaching out to different agencies. She wanted to skip the wait-list and he was, as he put it, 'able to find a lawyer willing to assist her'." She paused for a beat. "When I asked him if he had anything to do with the contract I signed, Gold told me that the lawyer had already drawn up that agreement and had me sign it before he got involved. Gold, I mean. Not Ross," she added, as if Neal hadn't figured out who she'd meant.

"And you believe he was telling you the truth?" Neal asked.

"My superpower didn't go off, so… yeah." She paused. "Look, I don't deny the guy's slicker than an oil spill, but he wasn't lying. Not about that, anyway."

"About something else?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "Nothing I can put my finger on, exactly, but I get the feeling there's a lot of stuff he's not telling me and I don't even know enough to ask the right questions. Not yet, anyway. But… I think I know a way to get to that point. At least, as long as I'm going to be sticking around."

"How long are you staying there, anyway?" Neal asked.

Emma hesitated. "I don't know," she admitted. "When I drove Henry back, I thought it was just going to be overnight. Then, he asked me to stay the week and with you away and no jobs waiting in Boston, I figured, why not? He's my son. Our son," she added.

"And now?"

"I don't know," Emma repeated. "But this place is growing on me. Or Henry is. Or the mystery is. I don't want to leave until I figure out what's going on and I know if it's safe to leave Henry here. Anyway, someone here offered me a job this morning that I'm thinking of taking, so at least I won't have to dip into our almost non-existent savings to get by."

"I should be back in Boston in about a week, the way this is going," Neal said. "And the payoff once we catch the guy should mean we won't have to worry about finances for a while."

"So come up here with me," Emma said. "Meet Henry. Help me crack this case." More softly, "I miss you."

"Miss you too," Neal said, just as softly. They chatted a bit longer before ending the call. Once they had, Neal sat on his hotel room bed, staring at the phone as though it might bite him. There was only one person whom 'Mr. Gold' could be and Neal had no intention of meeting him again!

On the other hand, he couldn't leave Emma alone to face him, not when she didn't know who she was really going up against. And it wasn't like he could tell her!

He grabbed the copy of the local paper he'd picked up in the lobby. Almost without meaning to, he turned to the classifieds. You could rent a house in Anchorage for a couple of hundred cheaper than their one-bedroom apartment in Boston. Maybe that would be far enough. He could grab Emma and Henry and…

…And Emma would never go for that without a good reason. And he'd never be able to convince her if he wasn't there with her seeing things for himself.

He exhaled noisily. He hadn't abandoned Emma eleven years ago and he wasn't about to, now. He only hoped that in the last two centuries, he'd changed enough that Papa wouldn't recognize him when he saw him!

Emma was frowning as she ended the call. She wasn't usually this secretive. Not nowadays. Not anymore. And if Neal had asked her anything about the job offer, she would have told him. But he'd sounded distracted, worried even. She knew that he was probably feeling the pressure to deliver. After all, the company didn't send just anyone on a job in Alaska on their dime.

She wondered if she was doing the right thing. This wasn't some low-level fast food or retail side hustle to pay the bills between assignments. This was the kind of job you were expected to stick with for the long haul. Emma had no intention of settling in this town. Her life was in Boston with Neal. But as long as she didn't know how long she was staying for, she did need to find some way to cover her expenses and, really, how hard could law enforcement be in a small town where the sheriff station only needed two holding cells and the biggest criminal in town was probably the drunk who'd been in the cell next to hers that first morning? She had this. At least, she did if the sheriff had been serious about his offer. And there was only one way to find out about that.

She dug her arrest paperwork out of the night table by her bed. The letterhead had both the sheriff station's phone number and Graham Humboldt's personal cell. She debated only a moment before calling the cell.

He picked up right away.

"Graham?" she said. "It's Emma. That deputy job still open?"

She could hear the smile in his voice when he replied. "Absolutely."

"Then I'm in. Regina gonna be okay with this?"

"I don't care," Graham said firmly. "It's my department. I'll see you Monday morning."

"See ya," she confirmed and ended the call. So… she had a job. In law enforcement. In Maine. She sank down onto her bed, feeling like a cartoon character who'd just realized they were running in empty air and about to plummet, as she muttered, "What on earth did I just get myself into?"

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rumpelstiltskin was in a good mood the following evening, as he prepared to close up the shop. Things were falling into place more neatly than he'd originally anticipated. True, the Curse was still intact, but the first cracks had appeared in its surface and those fissures would only continue to widen and grow.

The Savior wasn't yet a believer, but that would come. And meanwhile, she owed him a favor.

In the act of turning the 'Open' sign about, he paused. Was she truly in his debt? He wondered. Because in fact, he'd never had any plans to make off with Cinderella's infant. He'd struck that contract only as a means to an end—to force the heroes' hands and ensure that when the Curse struck, he'd be in no position to escape its power. He'd balked at just such a leap into the unknown once before and because of that cowardice, he hadn't seen his son in over two centuries.

By the time he'd taken hold of that oh-so-lovely pen, the Curse had been mere months away. When it struck, he'd been where he'd wanted to be. A pity about Prince Thomas, but all magic did come with a price and if he didn't exact it, then the magic itself would.

And then they'd awakened here. Funny how, with all the false memories the curse had supplied, it had still left the contract more or less intact. In keeping with the norms of this realm and this time period, it had led him to believe that he was procuring an infant for a black market adoption, and Ashley to believe that she was providing that infant. For the twenty-eight years in which time had been frozen, none of that had mattered. The baby had been in no danger of being born and he'd been in no danger of having to locate the non-existent adoptive parents.

On Emma's first evening in Storybrooke, he'd been going on his rounds collecting rent. And then she'd spoken her name and he'd remembered himself and his past in a sudden flash of clarity. Oh, he'd kept his composure until he was out of Mrs. Lucas's establishment. And then, seeing the clock across the square reading 8:17, he'd almost been ready to break into a jig—twisted ankle and all!

…Until Ashley Boyd had trudged past, a shopping cart half-full of groceries in front of her very-pregnant belly and sobered him up again. What on earth was he going to do with a child? He certainly wasn't ready to raise it himself! Nor could he go about posting flyers on telephone poles like he was some pet owner trying to find homes for an unexpected litter of puppies! And yet, he couldn't void the contract either. There was no magic, here, true. And perhaps, there was no price then that had to be paid. But he had his reputation and magnanimity wasn't part of it.

It had almost been a relief when the girl had broken into his shop to steal the contract. True, he could have gone to the sheriff. And had he still been 'asleep', he likely would have. But as he was patching up the cut on his temple, he realized that, if he played his cards right, not only could he avoid having to raise or rehome the child, but he could have the savior in his debt and under his control as well.

And when you controlled a person, you need no longer fear them.

Yesterday, he'd taken the first step on the road that would lead him back to Bae.

This evening, well, he wasn't quite about to dance that jig, but he was actually whistling as he began sweeping up one final time.

At least, until the ground beneath his feet trembled and shuddered so violently that he tumbled to the shop's wooden floor.

Eyes wide, he lay sprawled there for nearly a full two minutes before he braced both hands on the display case and staggered shakily to his feet, as he wondered aloud, "What the hell was that!?"

Out on the street and turning his key in the lock a few moments later, Rumple noticed a number of people emerging hurriedly from homes and places of business, their eyes darting about wildly. He wanted to ask what was going on, but in this land, knowledge was power and he wasn't about to reveal that he was lacking it now.

His eyes narrowed. An inordinate number of cars seemed to be heading eastward, toward the…

The old mines. Well, that part of Storybrooke was honeycombed with underground passages. It wouldn't be completely surprising if the ground above them had collapsed.

It never had before, though.

He shook his head. Of course it never had before; the town had been frozen in time for the last twenty-eight years! Perhaps, if it hadn't been, such tremors and cave-ins would have been a regular occurrence.

But perhaps, there was more to it than that.

Rumple wasn't entirely certain he wanted to see whether there was. Without magic, without two good legs under him, he was under no illusions about his ability to defend himself or flee, should there be another trembling, or worse. All the same, he was curious. Moreover, by the time he walked the two blocks between the shop and his home and car, he'd be in no danger of being the first to arrive at the mines. If there was any further danger awaiting, he'd have plenty of time to peel off in the opposite direction without ever getting out of his car!

Under the circumstances, he decided, it was worth the risk to satisfy his curiosity. He even quickened his pace as much as he could comfortably do, in order to reach his car with a bit more alacrity.

He couldn't park close to the site of the disturbance, but then, that was probably for the best. If the earth wasn't done shaking and trembling, the weight of too many people and cars in one place might well end… well, uncomfortably; he would have had to care about those individuals before it could be called tragic.

He watched as a police vehicle made its way to the crowd and stopped a short distance away. His eyebrow shot up. Graham's presence was no surprise, but why was Emma Swan with him?

Before he could begin to speculate, the mayor's Mercedes pulled up and Regina swept out. Almost before her heels touched ground, she was ordering the crowd back from the site and directing the sheriff to clear a perimeter.

Marco's voice carried clearly over to Rumple in the night air, telling Ruby that one of the old mine tunnels must have collapsed. He nodded to himself; his guess appeared to have been correct. He barely had time to appreciate that, however, before a new revelation reached his ears.

"Actually," Emma was saying, "I work for the town, now."

"She's my new deputy."

The bright searchlight over the mine entrance illuminated briefly the six-pointed star now gracing Ms Swan's belt, and a slow smile spread across Rumple's face. The new fissure in the ground heralded a new crack in the Dark Curse. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before it shattered completely.

And then, he would, at last, be free to find his son…

Two days later, Rumpelstiltskin's son had a frantic—and furious—Emma on the other end of his phone. "C-calm down," he said, as soon as he could get a word in edgewise. "Regina did what?"

"She got to Archie! Henry's shrink," she added. "I think I told you about him."

"Uh… yeah. The guy who let you have his notes on Henry and then said you stole them?"

"Yeah, she was behind that too," Emma snapped, but her voice was marginally calmer. "Anyway, now that I'm a deputy, that's not going to happen anymore."

"Still not sure that's such a good idea."

"It's just temporary," Emma told him, as she had the day before. "Until I'm sure Henry's okay and…" Her voice trailed off and Neal knew that she hadn't thought much farther ahead than that.

"And then, what happens? Are we bringing him back to live with us? Fighting for custody? Driving up to Maine every other weekend?" Neal probed. "I-I mean, don't get me wrong. I want to get to know him, too, but we need some kind of long-term plan, here."

"I know! But short-term, Henry needs us. Well, me, for now but eventually, us. Because he is not okay! He's got issues, yes, but now his shrink is telling him that they're going to have to lock him up if he doesn't 'let go of his delusion' and now he's freaking out!"

"Calm down," Neal said again, but he was fighting a surge of anger himself. Everyone else in that place might be delusional, but not his kid! And he couldn't share that knowledge with anyone without sounding… No wonder Henry was so frustrated. He'd be, too! Instead, he had to play dumb for now, and once Emma found out the truth, things were really going to hit the fan. "Is this something that… Archie… told you, or are you going by what Henry said?"

"He wasn't lying, if that's what you're asking," Emma said.

"No, but he's ten. Kids misunderstand stuff. They hear wrong. Maybe Archie said something along those lines, but Henry read more into it. You told me he's imaginative." All true, but he still felt like crud trying to pretend he didn't believe what Henry was telling Emma. From everything Emma had been sharing with him over the last little while, Henry might be the only person in that place—aside from the mayor and, maybe, Papa—who knew what was really going on.

Emma, of course, was oblivious to his dilemma. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Maybe. Maybe it is just a misunderstanding. I just dropped him off at Regina's before I called you. I'm supposed to join Mary Margaret for dinner, but that's not for a little while, yet. Maybe I'll swing over to Archie's and ask him about what happened. I don't know if it'd be a breach of confidentiality, but maybe there's something he can say, or maybe if Henry gives him permission to talk to me… Can he do that? What with him being a minor and all, I mean? Maybe he'd need Regina's permission. Good luck with that one."

"I… I don't know," Neal admitted. "But it doesn't hurt to try. Just… Emma? Go in calm. Henry might have heard something Archie never said."

"I hear you," Emma acknowledged. "I won't go looking for a fight." Before she ended the call, though, Neal heard her add under her breath, "…unless he gives me one!"

Emma meant to take Neal's advice. She really did. So, instead of storming into his office, she knocked politely. Archie didn't answer, but when Emma tried the knob, she found that it turned easily. The psychiatrist was sitting beside Pongo on the leather couch with an expression of self-loathing on his face. He was holding a glass containing a clear amber liquid and, as Emma came closer, she caught a whiff of scotch. She wondered whether Henry had been the last patient of his day, or whether Archie regularly drank during office hours. Well, nobody said a shrink was immune to having issues. "Archie?" she asked. "Help me understand. The last time we spoke, you told me not to take away Henry's fantasy life. You told me it would devastate him. Why…?"

Archie held the glass casually in his lap. "Of course, if therapy isn't working, you adjust it," he said.

Emma hesitated. Archie's statement was factual, but… "Henry was in tears. Do you really believe that whatever adjustment you tried today was in his best interest?"

She was trying to get him to say something that her superpower could react to. Instead, the psychiatrist's face hardened. "I do not need to justify my professional decisions to you, okay?"

Every word of that answer was true, but Emma still saw red. "Is it Regina?" she demanded. Archie looked away, but not before he blinked rapidly. Tell of a guilty man, Emma thought. "Did she threaten you?" she pressed. Then, more softly, "What could be strong enough to drown out your own conscience?"

"Look, if you don't leave, I'll call the sheriff and have you trespassed," Archie shot back.

Clearly, he'd either forgotten or hadn't heard about her new job. She was reaching for the lower edge of her jacket to pull it back and reveal the deputy's star on her belt, when the phone in its pocket started to ring. She pulled it out, checked the call display and, seeing a familiar number, answered. "Hello, Madame Mayor," she said, fighting to sound professional. "Nice work."

"You with him?" Regina demanded, evidently feeling even less need for social niceties than Emma did at the moment.

"Yes, I'm with Dr. Hopper," Emma returned. "And guess what? You left your fingerprints all over him when you tried—"

"Not him!" Regina cut her off. "Henry. Is he with you?"

Emma's eyes widened. Still irritated, but now feeling a faint stirring of alarm, she said, "I dropped Henry at your office an hour ago." She saw a sick look come over Archie's face, as she listened to Regina informing her that Henry wasn't there. "I don't know where he is," she replied, her anger shifting rapidly to worry. This isn't Boston, she reminded herself. This is a small, friendly town, where everyone knows everyone and people don't lock their doors at night. Henry's fine. But then why did Archie look so nervous?

The psychiatrist let out a long breath. "Oh," he said miserably, "I do."

Emma didn't want to believe that Henry had gone back to the mine tunnel. She had a horrifying thought that Archie might have been right to try to scare her son out of his fantasies if they were leading to something this dangerous.

Get a grip, she told herself. He's a kid. Kids do dangerous things because they don't know better. It's not like you never hid out in a cave when you were about his age. Just because you know how stupid it is now doesn't mean he does and it doesn't mean he's losing his grip on reality, either!

All the same, as she and Archie searched the area by the tunnel entrance and shouted Henry's name, she couldn't help feeling relieved not to hear an answer. "I don't think he's here," she said, as Pongo raced up with something in his mouth.

Archie held up the candy bar that the dog had brought him. "I think he is," he replied. "He had these with him."

The ground was starting to shake again. "Henry!" Archie shouted.

Emma wondered whether that might not be making things worse. Didn't loud noises trigger stuff like avalanches and cave-ins? But from the look of things, a cave-in might happen anyway, and Henry's hearing them call might be the best chance he had of getting out of there. She added her voice to Archie's.

The rumbles were getting worse. Archie was closest to the tunnel entrance. Seeing him debating whether to proceed inside, Emma cried out his name, trying to reach him, when another tremor knocked her off her feet.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. She watched Archie slip past the caution tape blocking the way into the mine. She was trying to get up, but she was too slow and the ground was shaking too much. And then, the entrance collapsed and she was staring at the rocks and rubble, while Archie and Henry were trapped on the other side.

Rumpelstiltskin winced as a delicate Balinese music box slid off the shelf to crash to the floor. When he bent to pick it up, he noted that the thin wood had cracked in several places. The tremors were getting worse. He wondered whether he'd made some miscalculations with the Curse. Perhaps, when Emma succeeded in breaking it completely, the town itself would shatter in turn. And what then of its inhabitants?

He looked about at the sheer array of objects that surrounded him, some heavy, some fragile, some heavy and fragile. He swallowed hard. Perhaps, he considered, it would be prudent to close up early today and find someplace less dangerous in which to weather these quakes.

Or perhaps, another visit to their source—oh, not too close, mind, just close enough to see whether there had been any new developments since yesterday—would be in order.

It wasn't that he wanted to go back to the mine entrance, but an active imagination was both blessing and curse. If he didn't see for himself what trouble might be brewing, his mind would only conjure up hypotheticals that were bound to be worse. That such conjurings would have no physical substance in this land was immaterial. Tangible or not, to his mind, they would be solid enough. And the only way to prevent such imaginings was to see the reality with his own two eyes.

Preferably from an isolated vantage point, where nobody would witness his terror, should his worst imaginings prove accurate.

"Did you have something to do with this?" Regina stormed up furiously and Rumple blinked.

"What, me?" he asked, for once genuinely mystified. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

Regina's agitation didn't lessen in the slightest. "My son is down in those tunnels!" she snapped. "Archie went in after him, just before the entrance collapsed. If I find out that you sold him a-a map, or a flashlight or…"

All at once, Rumple realized that the mayor's anger was concealing another emotion, one he understood far better than he liked: fear. And while he couldn't say he disliked seeing her off-balance, he knew too well what it meant to feel anxious for a child's well-being. He shook his head and replied, a good deal more gently than he might have had her anguish had a different cause, "I assure you, Madame Mayor, this escapade is not of my making."

Regina seemed like she was about to ask something else, but then she spun on her heel and went back to the collapsed entrance, where workers were trying to break through. Rumple watched, as she approached one of them, seemingly to consult with them, while Pongo barked his worry. Softly, he drew closer, in time to hear Marco assuring the sheriff and his new deputy that Archie could be depended on to keep Henry safe until they broke through.

Just then, the ground shook again and Rumple sank to one knee, as his cane dug into the sand. He looked about quickly but, as nobody seemed to have noticed him. He wasn't sure if it was better not to have been spotted in so vulnerable a condition, or whether he could have used the assistance that might have been forthcoming if he had been.

"Stop!" Regina yelled, as he fought to get upright on his own, wincing as his hand came down on something sharp. He knocked it aside, then frowned as he realized that it was an unusually thick piece of glass. It didn't look like it had come from anything nearby. It might be nothing, but on the other hand… He slid the shard into his pocket, just as Regina cried out, "Stop, you're making it worse!"

"I am trying to save him!" Emma shouted back, both women seemingly heedless or ignorant of the dangers posed by loud noises in this situation. "You know why he went down there in the first place, don't you?" Rumple's ears pricked up at that. "Because you made him feel like he had something to prove!"

And yet, she'd tried to lay blame at his door. Well, if Emma was correct, then it appeared that the good mayor had been projecting and, while Rumple couldn't yet see how such knowledge might be turned to his advantage, he filed the insight away against some time when it might be.

"And why," Regina demanded in a tone that was no less angry for all that it was softer, "does he think that he has anything to prove? Who's encouraging him?"

"Do not put this on me," Emma snapped, as Pongo started barking again and the rumbling grew louder.

"Oh, please!" Regina retorted as she stormed off. "Lecture me until his oxygen runs out!"

As the dog continued to bark, Emma followed the mayor, her furious expression yielding to one of concern. "We have to stop this," she said quietly, but not so quietly that Rumple couldn't hear her. "Arguing won't accomplish anything."

Regina turned to face her. "No," she admitted. "It won't."

"What do you want me to do?" Emma asked, and Rumple nodded to himself at the mayor's reply.

"Help me."

Well, if Regina could put her love for her child over her hatred for the lad's birth mother, Rumple thought with a measure of satisfaction, Henry might just stand a chance, after all. He frowned, though, as Regina kept talking.

"We need to punch through the ground," she was saying. "We need something big."

"Like what?" Emma asked.

"Explosives!" Marco interjected, and Rumple's heart sank.

Yes, in the absence of magic, those might well get the job done. But they might also bring several tons of rock and sand down into the mine shaft burying anyone trapped inside! Marco had to know that. But if they didn't make the attempt, then it was only a matter of time before another tremor would do the same thing… if the air didn't run out first.

Rumple watched as Regina pulled out a phone, evidently to order the explosives from, well, wherever one would order such things in this town. Then, slowly, he turned around and made his way back to his car. There was nothing he could do here but worry. And he could do that just as easily back in town.

"But he's okay?" Neal asked Emma later.

Emma heaved a sigh. "Yeah, he's fine. Better than fine, actually. At least, I think so. Archie couldn't really tell me that much, because of confidentiality and all that, but I saw him talking to Regina after we got him and Henry out and she didn't look happy when she walked off."

"And you think…"

"I think he stood up to her. She had that same look on her face as she has the couple of times I've done it. Only, I don't think she's used to it."

"You sure you're not reading too much into it?" Neal asked. "Not that I doubt you," he added quickly. "But sometimes, we all see what we want to see."

There was silence on the other end and Neal imagined that she was thinking things over. "Maybe," she said after a moment. "But something tells me she's too used to things going her way around here and now, they're… not."

"Is that good or bad?"

Emma hesitated again. "I'm not sure, but I think I need to stick around to find out. I mean, if it's bad, I was the first one to do it. First adult anyway," she added. "If I'm setting her off, well, I feel like I should be here to help with the fallout."

"Fallout?" Neal repeated. "What do you think she's going to do?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "She tried to scare me off when I first got here. Since it hasn't worked, she can either back down or try harder. My money's on option B."

"Emma," Neal said, "you know, I'm not going to be out here that much longer. We're closing in on Scanlan. Once he's back in custody, and I come home… Are you planning on staying in Maine?"

He heard Emma's hard swallow through the phone. "I wish you'd been here this afternoon," she said, speaking slowly, as though she was trying to marshal her argument on the spot. "It wasn't just the official rescue workers on the job. It was… Marco, the town handyman, troubleshooting. And Ruby—I told you she works at the diner-slash-bed-and-breakfast—in her pickup truck, ripping the grate off the air shaft, so we could get down there. And for about ten minutes, I actually saw something… vulnerable… in Regina. Or at least she decided getting Henry back meant more to her than putting me down. Okay," she added, "that didn't last long once I got him and Archie out of the mine, but it was something, for as long as it lasted. Two people got trapped and… the whole town pitched in to help." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I've never been anywhere where that's happened before. And I kind of… want to be. At least, for the next little while."

Neal was silent for a long moment. "So… where does that leave us?" he asked apprehensively. The pause unnerved him even more. "Emma?"

"Couldn't you… come up here?" Emma asked hopefully. "Just give it a week? If the town doesn't start to grow on you, I'll turn in my deputy star and we'll go back to Boston. But I think you ought to see this place first. G-d, you've got to meet your son!"

"That much," Neal replied, "I definitely want to do. But pulling up stakes in Boston and starting fresh in some small town in Maine… I don't know…"

"But you'll try for a week?"

A week. Even in a small town, he should be able to avoid running into his father for a week. And with any luck, after all this time, Papa probably wouldn't recognize him anyway. Especially if Papa was still Cursed, like August had told him everyone in the town would be. He couldn't be sure—if anyone had managed to keep their memories intact over the last twenty-eight years, Papa surely had—but maybe not. Still, Neal reflected, if they should meet, so long as he kept any conversation with Papa to a minimum and made sure not to use any turn of phrase that might remind Papa of years gone by… He could probably handle a week. He'd get to know Henry. And once they were back in Boston, he'd use part of his payment for bringing in Jeremy Scanlon to hire the best family law attorney he could find to see if he and Emma had any chance of getting Henry back. "Yeah," he told Emma. "I'll try for a week."

It wasn't until he was back at the shop that Rumpelstiltskin took the time to examine the shard of glass more closely. It was too thick to have come from a window, that much was certain. It was slightly convex, so he imagined it could have come from a jar or bottle, but the curve was small enough to make him think it would have been a vessel of considerable width and that there really ought to have been more fragments about. Perhaps there had been and he'd simply failed to notice them.

He turned the heavy shard over in his hand, frowning a bit. He had encountered the like once, he thought. He held it up close to the lamp on his counter and was so startled by the shifting rainbow of colors dancing over the piece now that he nearly dropped it. Only one variety of glass, to his recollection, bore that characteristic: glass melted from the sand found in a fairy dust mine. Glass worked by dwarfs. And for its like to suddenly surface now…

A broad smile creased Rumpelstiltskin's face. If he'd had any doubts that the Dark Curse was breaking, they were now allayed. The Savior might not know why she was here, but it seemed that such knowledge was less relevant than he'd originally thought. She would fulfill her destiny in due course. He knew that now. She simply wouldn't be able to help herself.

He wrapped the shard carefully in a clean handkerchief and tucked it away in a drawer for safekeeping. In the days to come, when he watched the Savior stubbornly blind herself to the truth as it became more and more obvious, when he began to despair of her ever recognizing her power and potential, he would find occasion to take out the fragment, unwrap it, and remind himself that in due course, all would transpire as it must. Until then, he would wait as patiently as he could, and be prepared to nudge matters along when he saw the opportunity.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Have a good time," Mary Margaret said, watching as Emma eyed the two jackets hanging in the front closet and opted for the blue zippered one.

Emma turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "You're sure you don't want to come with? Kathryn's invited the whole town. Maybe you'll find someone there who you'll hit it off with."

Mary Margaret rolled her eyes. "By now," she groaned, "I think I've already dated all the eligible men in this place. I'm not going to just stand there awkwardly smiling and nodding and hanging out at the refreshments table. You go," she said. "You're the new deputy; you should get to know a few more people here." She winced. "Of course, when I say you should get to know people, I mean that in a purely platonic sense," she continued, smiling nervously as her words seemed to tumble from her lips. "Because, like you told me, you already have someone in your life and I would never suggest that you should try to find someone else while you're here. I mean, when you tell me that I might meet someone, I know that you mean it very differently than I do when I say it to you and…"

Emma smothered a smile. "I know you're not trying to fix me up," she reassured her new friend. "It's okay."

"Well, good," Mary Margaret said, with near-palpable relief. "Have a good time. And Emma?" Her nervous smile was back. "Tell me about Day—about your evening when you get back? I'll probably still be up."

Emma nodded. "Sure."

Henry still hadn't given up his idea of David being Prince Charming and Emma wasn't sure if she was spending her evening talking to him because he was still the person that she knew best here, or if she was just trying to keep him from annoying the other adults.

"We just have to jog his memory," Henry was saying, "by getting him and Ms Blanchard together."

Well at least he wasn't calling her 'Snow White', Emma thought, as she answered him, "Didn't we just try that?"

"And it woke him up," Henry pointed out.

She was about to try to tell him that David Nolan's waking up right then could only have been a coincidence, when a "Hey!" drew both of their attentions to a familiar face. "You're the ones who saved me, right?" David Nolan himself asked.

Rising to her feet, Emma smiled. "Oh," she said, before Henry could mention Mary Margaret again, "yeah. I guess."

"And, uh," David looked more than a little embarrassed, "you're also the only ones I know here."

She could relate. "You can hide with us," she offered, hoping she wasn't making a terrible mistake. At least she'd have something to report to Mary Margaret when she got back. On the other hand, her new friend's attraction for a married man wasn't a great look. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

David, however, had already moved closer. "Fantastic," he said, as a server approached with a tray of canapes. David skewered a cocktail weenie with a toothpick and expressed his thanks.

"So," Henry said with a big grin, "you ever use a sword?"

Oh, this was seriously a terrible mistake. And even if David barely paid attention to her son's question, it was only because he'd been hoping to run into Mary Margaret here.

Suddenly, hanging out at the refreshments table was starting to look like a pretty good idea.

She and Neal never hosted gatherings like this. They had few friends in Boston and frequent last-minute travel for indefinite periods didn't lend itself well to such get-togethers. Plus, as soon as someone learned what they did for a living, reactions tended to range from mild unease to veiled—sometimes outright—hostility. Even those rare acquaintances who responded with "Cool!" or "How interesting…" tended to take a step back. They were still friendly, but an invisible wall always seemed to slide down, making them maintain a distance.

Emma had tried introducing herself as a PI, which had gone over better. Except that then, she tended to field calls from neighbors asking if she could 'find out whether their teenager was really studying at the library or if they were out with that delinquent they swore they'd broken up with' or if their spouse was cheating or drinking or… She didn't even know. She'd tried quoting an hourly rate, and gotten surprised or annoyed reactions: "I thought we were friends!" "Surely, you'll give me a discount?" "Don't you have to work some pro bono hours?" "It's just a simple favor; it'll take you, what? An hour or two, tops?"

Over time, she'd learned that disclosing she was currently working as a bail-bondsperson-slash-bounty-hunter was a lot less stressful, even if it was a bit lonelier.

Unfortunately, in a situation like this, Emma felt herself at a disadvantage. She wasn't great with small talk and once she got past greetings and thanking those guests congratulating her on her new job, she really didn't know what else to say. After a moment or two of standing awkwardly, she grabbed a beer from the table, popped the top, and looked for Henry. He was sitting on the corner of the coffee table with a can of his own in hand. Cola, Emma noted with some relief, suspecting that Regina would blame her if Henry were experimenting with anything stronger. She smiled. And then, recognizing another familiar face, murmured a greeting to Dr. Whale.

Just then, Kathryn Nolan hurried toward them. "Have you seen David?" she asked worriedly.

Emma looked toward the spot where she'd last seen him, but he wasn't there. "Um… he…"

"No," Dr. Whale said, sounding a bit concerned.

"Maybe he just needed some air," Emma suggested. "I can go look for him."

"No," Kathryn said with a forced smile. "No, he was telling me that he wasn't really… comfortable… with all these people. I'd hoped something might jog his memory, but if he felt overwhelmed… maybe we should just give him his space."

"Okay," Emma said, trying to hide her relief. She had a suspicion that she knew all too well where to find him. And that Kathryn wouldn't like the answer.

Emma left shortly afterwards. She didn't know anyone here besides Henry, not really. Dr. Whale had been friendly enough, at least, until she'd let him know that she was in a relationship, at which point he'd quickly caught Ruby's eye and gone to chat her up. Archie had been nice enough, but between his complicity with Regina's frame-up job when she'd first decided to stay and his behavior toward Henry, she wasn't that comfortable hanging out with him. True he'd gone into the mine to find her son, but as grateful as she was that he had, Henry probably wouldn't have gone in there in the first place if the shrink hadn't upset him so badly. Archie struck her as a nice guy, and he probably was. She still didn't know if she could trust him not to report anything she might tell him back to Regina. She wasn't his patient. Confidentiality wouldn't apply. It was hard to have a conversation about more than the weather with someone you couldn't trust, and when Marco came over to say hello to the two of them, she waited until both men were conversing before she edged away. Nobody noticed when she slipped out the front door.

As she parked Herbie in front of Mary Margaret's, she suppressed a mental groan. David was leaning against the white picket fence, a dejected look on his face. She had a sudden urge to slide lower in her seat so that he wouldn't see her in the car, but she fought it. She didn't have to worry; he trudged slowly down the street in the direction from which she'd come, still looking defeated.

Emma waited a full ten minutes until she was certain that he wasn't going to double back. Then, bracing herself for, well, whatever she might find when she got back to the loft, she exited the car and made her way up the front walk.

It really was too bad, Emma reflected later that evening, that David was married. He and Mary Margaret seemed to click so well together! But Mary Margaret was doing the right thing by pushing him off, even though it was, evidently, killing her.

She smiled a bit, thinking about the gusto with which Mary Margaret had taken the glass of whiskey Emma had offered. When they'd first met, Emma would have been surprised to know that the school teacher even had a bottle of whiskey on the premises. Granted, it had been opened at some point before this, but its contents had barely been touched. Then again, the face she'd made after downing the first sip had told Emma that whoever had sampled the bottle prior, it probably hadn't been Mary Margaret.

Her smile dimmed a bit, though, when she remembered again the reason she'd offered the drink. Damn, she liked Mary Margaret. She didn't know David well enough to like him yet, but she didn't dislike him. She did think he needed to either stop trying to spend time with Mary Margaret or… tell his wife he needed a… break. Or something. Wasn't he seeing Archie for help with readjusting to life after spending so long in a coma? Maybe there was more he should be discussing. Then again, after the way Archie had been with Henry lately, well, this was a small town, but maybe there was another psychiatrist in it. Or a psychologist. Clergyman? She thought she'd driven past a convent the other day. She wasn't at all religious, but, weren't 'people of the cloth' trained to give counsel? Some of them were, she was willing to bet.

On the other hand, this wasn't any of her business. Mary Margaret and David were two adults who could make up their own minds. And while Mary Margaret had asked Emma's advice, or at least confided in her, David hadn't. And anyway, Emma thought, she'd probably be out of here in a few weeks and never see these people again, so what the point of getting involved?

She didn't want to see Mary Margaret get hurt. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. But everything Emma had ever heard or seen on TV or in the movies told her that when a married man fooled around on the side, somehow the woman got the blame for being the 'homewrecker'. She hoped things might be different here, but somehow, she didn't think it would be.

Still not her business.

Besides, David might do the right thing and try to rebuild his relationship with his wife, especially since Mary Margaret had just turned him down.

Could she still get the Brooklyn Bridge free if she bought that oceanfront property in Arizona?

She turned out her light, just as she heard Mary Margaret's footsteps pad back into the kitchen. A moment later she groaned. Evidently, she'd remembered those dishes in the sink after all and she wasn't going to leave them until morning. If the bed hadn't been so warm and she hadn't been so sleepy—a can of beer and a glass of whiskey could do that to a woman—she might have gone back downstairs. Instead, she told herself that washing dishes was probably therapeutic, sank back into the pillow, and closed her eyes. She didn't know how long it took her to doze off, but she must have at some point, because the next thing she knew, it was half-past six and her alarm clock was ringing.

She listened for the sound of Mary Margaret's mattress creaking, but didn't hear it. After a moment she got up and padded downstairs. To her surprise, the teacher was already sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in front of her. "Hey," Emma said. "Don't tell me you've been up all night?"

Mary Margaret gave her a bleary-eyed half-smile. "Can you get a hangover from half a glass of whiskey?" she asked plaintively.

Emma sighed. "Let me make you some breakfast."

Emma was sitting at her desk—it was starting to sink in that it was actually her desk now—at the sheriff station holding the bear claw that Graham had handed her when Mary Margaret hurried in. "Emma," she said, "can I talk to you for a minute?"

Graham looked at the two women and ambled off murmuring some excuse about patrolling his office. Almost the instant that the wood-and-glass door closed behind him, Mary Margaret exclaimed, "He left his wife. David. He left her. He left Kathryn."

The sugar on the bear claw was making her fingertips sticky, and she really wanted to take a bite; she didn't have anywhere clean on her desk to lay it down. Instead, she looked up at her friend. "Okay," she said "Slow down."

"He did it for me," Mary Margaret said, either not hearing or not taking Emma's advice. "He wants me to be with him. He wants me to meet him tonight."

Emma tried to gauge how she should react. Was that excitement on the school teacher's face, or was it fear? Did she want David to pursue her, or had she, while flattered by his attention, felt safe in the knowledge that things wouldn't go any farther than friendship and maybe a bit of not-so-harmless-but-not-really-so-terrible flirtation? "That's… uh…"

"I mean," Mary Margaret talked over her, "I'm trying so hard to be strong, but he just keeps coming. I mean, how do I stop it? You know, how do I let him down? What would you do?"

Excitement and fear, but there was hope there, too. And since she was asking… Emma took a breath. "I'd go."

"What?"

Emma shrugged. "Well, he left her. It's one thing to say that he wants you, but it's another to actually make a choice, and now, he has. That's all you can ask for."

Mary Margaret's eyes went wide. Then she sobered slightly. "Given her new friendship with Kathryn, I don't think Regina would be happy."

Emma felt the faintest surge of glee rising up, as she smiled. "All the more reason to do it."

"Good lord," Mary Margaret breathed. "Is this really happening?"

"You tell me," Emma said. "In fact, I just got put on the night shift, so let me check with Graham if I can leave now. Heading back with you to take a nap is probably a good idea."

"Oh, uh…" Mary Margaret looked down. "Actually, I have to be back at the school in another twenty minutes; after David stopped by to tell me, I felt like I had to get your advice, and I had a free period." She brightened. "But if you're heading home, it's on the way; I can give you a lift."

Ten hours later, Emma stormed back into the loft after a night shift that had been abruptly cut short when she'd thought she was nabbing a prowler. She hadn't hesitated when she'd seen the figure leaving Regina's window; she'd even had a fleeting thought that maybe the mayor would think of her a bit more favorably. Not that she was looking to find favor with Regina, exactly, but it might mean that she and Henry wouldn't have to be so… sneaky about spending time together.

It hadn't been a prowler.

And Graham hadn't been volunteering at an animal shelter tonight.

She should have quit on the spot, but she'd been so furious that— And just why had she been so furious? It wasn't as though Graham and Regina weren't two consenting adults. They could be in a relationship; it wasn't any of Emma's business. What was the problem?

The problem, she realized, was that when she'd learned that Graham had offered her the job without running it by Regina first, she'd thought he wanted someone on-side who Regina couldn't intimidate. That maybe she wasn't the only person here who thought there was something wrong with the way she seemed to run this place and that Graham had been trying to do something subtle to… what? Wrest control away from Regina? Curb her power? Whatever, but she'd liked Graham. She'd trusted him, even thought he might be an ally. When all the while he was sleeping with… Oh, she just couldn't deal with this tonight!

She slammed the door loud enough to wake up Mary Margaret (and the neighbors across the hall!) if she was sleeping, but silence greeted her. Right. Mary Margaret had gone to the toll bridge to meet David. Emma sighed. Then she dug out the bottle of whiskey and poured herself a shot. As she nursed it, she wondered whether she ought to quit her new job. It wasn't like it was ever going to be long-term. Once Neal was finished up in Alaska and came here, she fully intended to resign within the week. If she had to give two weeks' notice, then she'd work out those weeks and then they'd both head back to Boston and plan their next steps as far was Henry and custody were concerned.

But if she quit, wasn't that just rolling over and letting Regina win?

Win what exactly? Emma might not like the woman, but she was the mayor and Storybrooke was her town, and most of the people here seemed just fine with that. Mary Margaret had told her that Regina had been mayor as long as anybody could remember and she'd run unopposed in elections for ages. (It did still bother Emma that nobody seemed to remember her predecessor. And that Mary Margaret hadn't been able to tell her when the last election had been, or when the next was scheduled. Maybe, though, sleepy little tourist towns were like that. Even if they weren't especially sleepy. And if she was the only tourist passing through that anybody could remember.) She poured herself another shot of whiskey, but instead of drinking it, she set it down on the table and stared ahead, lost in thought.

She wasn't sure if she'd dozed off, but the next thing she knew, the door handle was turning and Mary Margaret—a bleary-eyed, disheveled, and fully miserable Mary Margaret—stumbled in. "Is there any more of that whiskey?" she asked, sounding for all the world like a little girl.

"Uh…" Don't you have a class to teach? Shouldn't you be sober for it? She wasn't Mary Margaret's mother. And this wasn't any of her business. She pushed the bottle across the table.

Mary Margaret started to reach for it. Then she shook her head. "I have to be at school in a couple of hours. And I need to shower. Desperately." Without a backwards glance, she headed for the bathroom.

Emma shook her head. She'd thought she'd had a bad night, but from the way the school teacher was acting, Mary Margaret might just have had a worse one.

By the time Mary Margaret returned, her short hair already starting to air dry in a way that Emma envied, Emma had made up her mind. Graham could give her a desk and bury her in paperwork and she'd grit her teeth and deal with it. He could fire her and, while she might deliver some parting jab about Regina exerting undue influence, she wouldn't formally contest it. What she would not do, under any circumstances, was quit and leave town with her tail between her legs and her taillights blinking past the newly-reinstated 'Leaving Storybrooke' sign. Regina hadn't forced her out yet, and neither would her flunky in cop's clothing.

"So," Mary Margaret asked, trying to put a bright face on it, "how was your evening last night?"

Emma fought the urge to pour herself another shot. "You want me to just say 'fine', or do you really want to hear?"

Mary Margaret sank into the chair across the table from her. "I was actually planning to use that line on you when you asked me," she admitted.

Emma winced. "I take it that things with David didn't go as well as you hoped? He stood you up at the bridge?"

"No," the school teacher drew out the syllable quite a bit longer than was necessary. "It might have been kinder if he had. He's gone back to her. Kathryn."

"What? Why? I-I mean, she's his wife, so I get it, but why?"

Mary Margaret shook her head. "He told me he remembers now, and he loved her once and he feels that the right thing to do is to go back, so…"

Emma shook her head sympathetically, but all the while she was thinking. First he's a John Doe. Then after Mary Margaret wakes him up, and they're starting to fall for each other, Regina suddenly discovers he's got a wife. He doesn't remember a thing about his old life… until he decides to meet up with Mary Margaret. Somehow, somewhere between setting up the rendezvous and actually getting there, something happens to jog his memory. Coincidence. Or… Or what? Magic? That's… not possible. She remembered her previous thoughts about mind control and brainwashing. As though that wasn't similarly farfetched. Wait. Real mind control isn't supposed to be a thing. But… conditioning? Like Pavlov's dog, only a little more sophisticated. I… think that could be. Shouldn't it take longer than a couple of hours, though? More to the point, even if could be done faster, who could? Normally, my money would be on Regina. But first, I don't know if she's capable and second, I'm pretty sure she's got an alibi for tonight. Maybe, a new thought occurred to her, Regina's not the evil… mastermind… behind this. Maybe this town is some kind of mind control experiment, and Kathryn's the one to watch! Where was this even coming from? Mind control? Was she even being serious? But if you ruled out magic, then what else made sense here?

"Emma?"

She blinked. "Sorry. I… uh… I guess I zoned out for a minute." If her theory was right, then there was no point confiding in Mary Margaret. Either she wouldn't believe a word, or—for all Emma knew—she'd been brainwashed, or conditioned, to tell whoever was in charge the minute Emma seemed to be figuring things out. Better not to say anything for the time being. "You going to be okay?"

Mary Margaret started to nod. Then she made a face. "I'll get over him."

"But…?"

"I didn't come straight back here after meeting David last night. I went to Granny's."

Come to think of it, if Mary Margaret had only gone to the bridge, she would have been back long before this. "Okay…"

"You remember when you saw me coming back from a bad date right before you moved in? Well, he was there and… he bought me a drink." A pink flush came over her pale complexion. "Actually, he bought me two. I'm not sure if I drank the second one before we… left together."

"Mary Margaret—"

"I don't know what I was thinking!" she moaned. "I mean, I think maybe I was thinking that if David could give Kathryn another chance maybe I could give… But that makes no sense! Nothing makes any sense about anything! Why did he even ask me to meet him if he was just going to go back to—? And why would I think what I did was in any way getting back at him? Or even to him? Or…"

"I don't think it had anything to do with him," Emma said slowly. "Not really. I just think you were hurt and this other guy, whoever he was—"

"Dr. Whale."

"Whale? Seriously? I'm not judging," she added quickly. And she wasn't. But seriously, Whale? "Okay, you were hurt and Whale was… there. Right place right time. Or wrong place wrong time. Depending on how it went."

"Well, he paid this time, at least. So that was my bad night. What was yours?"

Emma heaved a sigh. "You know how Graham told me he volunteers at the animal shelter? Well, unless Regina's running one out of her bedroom, that was… kind of not true."

"Graham. And Regina?" Mary Margaret exclaimed with a surprised laugh.

"I take it you didn't know."

"I don't think anyone did. I-I would've said something if I'd susp—"

"Hey. They're two adults here. And we're two adults. And we're going to deal with this like adults."

"How?"

Emma shook her head, suddenly deflated. "Damned if I know. I'm going put up coffee. Want some?"

"Oh, hell yes."

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emma had the coffee with a strawberry pop tart to go with it. Mary Margaret opted for eggs and toast. Both women ate and drank mechanically, not really saying much more. After Mary Margaret excused herself to go to class, Emma sat looking around the empty kitchen. She thought she wanted something else to eat, but nothing really struck her fancy.

After a few minutes, she shook her head and mounted the stairs to the loft. Thanks to her night shift—unexpectedly cut short though it had been—she didn't need to report to the sheriff station until four this afternoon. And if Graham was wise, she thought, as she grabbed her football jersey nightshirt and started to get undressed, he would be out on patrol when she got there, because at the moment, she wasn't at all sure she could trust her temper if he tried explaining himself again!

She was in luck. Graham wasn't at the station. In fact, from the look of things, Emma wasn't sure whether he'd been at the station at all that day. She wondered whether he called on Regina when Henry was at school, too. Not her business, she reminded herself. Storybrooke was a small town. He was probably out on patrol and maybe he had the station's main line forwarded to his cell phone in case of emergency. Whatever. She had the office to herself, just like she'd wanted.

There wasn't much paperwork on her desk. No surprise; she'd been barely three days on the job and she hadn't done much that required a written report yet. Her gaze fell on a book case and she pulled down a copy of the Maine Revised Statutes Title 17-A otherwise known as the Maine Criminal Code. She was more or less familiar with the Massachusetts version, at least those parts of it with direct bearing on her line of work. As long as she was here, though, and as long as she had a mayor on her back who would be all too eager to catch her messing up, Emma didn't think it would hurt to read up on how the law worked in this part of the world.

The material was hardly what she'd consider exciting, and she wasn't much of a reader in the first place. The book was written in plain English, though, and it was well-organized. She started taking notes.

Sometime later, she smothered a yawn, stretched, and looked out the window. To her surprise, it was practically dark. A glance at the clock told her that it was nearly half-past seven! She'd been sitting here for more than three solid hours! Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't had dinner yet. And she hadn't brought one with her. It was pretty dead here, and the supper rush was probably almost over at Granny's. She hesitated only a moment before taking her jacket down from the peg and heading out into the evening. If there was an emergency in the next half hour or so, she hoped it would keep until she got back—or that the call would go to Graham's phone; she wasn't sure how to set things up so it would forward to hers, yet. Something to ask Graham when she saw him, she supposed. And she still wasn't in any hurry to do so!

Emma parked her car in the motel lot and tried the door. It opened easily and she walked past the unmanned reception desk toward the entrance to the diner. She slipped inside, walked past the bathrooms, rounded the corner, and felt her good mood evaporate. Graham was there. And from the look of him, he'd been there for some time. She was about to turn on her heel and clear out when Ruby spotted her. "Emma!" she exclaimed. "What can I get you?"

"Nothing," she said tersely, walking past the two of them, heading for the door to the street. Let them think she'd just been taking a shortcut through the diner; now that she'd been noticed, leaving the way she'd come would look too much like running away. Even if she was running away, she didn't want it to look like it.

As she reached the door, a dart whizzed past her, missing her head by scant inches and embedding in the door frame. For the barest moment, she was startled, but that feeling vanished in an instant, replaced by sheer fury as she whirled on Graham. "What the hell?" she demanded of him. "You could have hit me!"

Graham smiled remorselessly. "I never miss," he drawled. "You've been avoiding me? Since last night when I saw you—"

"Leaving the mayor?" Emma finished his sentence. "And yes, that is a euphemism. And no, I've been at the sheriff station. Working. I'm not avoiding you, Graham. I just have no interest in having this conversation. It's your life. I really don't care." With that she pushed open the door and stepped outside. Graham followed.

"If you don't care, then why are you so upset?"

Emma sucked in her breath. "I'm upset because normal people don't throw darts at other people's heads!" she snapped.

"All right," Graham said. "I'm sorry about that. I just… Why don't you come back inside, have a drink with me at the bar… Don't run away, Emma. Please."

"I'm still on duty," Emma replied, walking quickly.

"So after your shift," Graham pressed, trotting to keep up with her. "Look, can we just… talk about this. Please?" he repeated. "I need you to understand."

She had so not signed on for this when she'd taken the job. "Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe so… I can understand?"

"Graham. I'm your deputy. Not your therapist." She shook her head. "You want analysis, talk to Archie."

He cut in front of her, and wheeled about to face her. "I want to talk to you," he pleaded.

Emma felt herself slide into defensive mode. She didn't want a fight—not a verbal one and definitely not a physical one. Especially not with her boss. Who happened to be a cop. But right now, Graham was showing a side of himself that spoke of desperation. Desperate people sometimes did desperate things. And if one of those things involved grabbing her or hitting her, she wasn't going to be caught off guard and she was going to put up a struggle. "Your bad judgment is your problem," she informed him. "Not mine."

"You don't know what it's like with her!" Graham exclaimed. "I don't feel anything! Can you understand that?"

She didn't want to be his shrink. Couldn't he understand that? "Bad relationship? Yeah," she snapped. "I understand a bad relationship. I just don't want to talk about yours."

"Look," Graham said, and Emma could tell that he was trying to calm down now, "I know you and Regina have your issues, and… And I should have told you about us before you took the job."

"Yeah," Emma said, relaxing just a bit. "Why the secrecy? We're all adults. You can do whatever you want."

Graham winced and seemed to wilt further. "Because I… I didn't want you to look at me the way you are now."

Emma blinked. And then with some confusion, she asked, "Why do you care how I look at you?"

"Because."

"What?" she demanded.

He pressed his hands to her cheeks, pulled her face forward, and kissed her.

Emma's eyes went wide. And then she brought her hands together and shoved him away hard. "What the hell was that?" she cried out.

"Did you see that?" Graham gasped.

"How much have you been drinking?" Emma snapped. "That was way over the line!"

"I'm sorry." Graham yelped. "I just…"

"What? You what?"

"I need to feel something," Graham said miserably.

Emma took a breath. "Listen to me, Graham," she said firmly. "You are drunk and full of regret. I get it. But whatever it is you're looking to feel? I can tell you one thing. You are not getting it with me. I am in a relationship, with a guy I love and I am not interested in dating anyone on the side. Clear?"

Graham looked stunned. For a moment, Emma actually thought he was about to break down in front of her. She thought she saw him give a slight nod, but she didn't wait for confirmation. Instead she crossed the street and kept walking southwards.

This time, Graham didn't follow. After she'd gone another block, she turned east, walked a block and then turned north, headed back to Granny's parking lot to get her car.

She called Neal from the parking lot. "Hey," he greeted her, before she could say what was on her mind. "I finally have some great news. We got him!"

Emma's fury at Graham evaporated in an instant. "You did? Seriously!" Her lips curved in smile. "Neal, that's fantastic! So you're…?"

"I'm coming home," Neal said. "I'm still waiting on flight confirmation; the department's supposed to be taking care of booking me, but if they don't get back to me soon, I'll check the airlines myself; I almost don't care if they reimburse me or not. I figure I'll probably be pretty wiped and jetlagged when I hit Boston, so I'll spend a night or two at home, but then I'll be on my way to Maine. Uh…" He paused. "Since you have the car, I don't suppose you could pick me up at the airport?"

"No problem!" Emma assured him. "Uh… I think it's near… um…" she thought for a moment. "Bar Harbor!" she finished triumphantly. "Is there an airport there?" she asked a moment later.

"I'll find out. Hey, it's going to be great seeing you again. And meeting Henry. And being someplace warm! At least, warmer than Alaska at this time of year."

Emma laughed with him.

"So, uh…" Neal still sounded cheerful, "you called me. Was it just to talk, or was there anything else on your mind?"

Telling him about Graham now was only going to sour what was shaping up to be a better evening than it had started out. "I… uh… just wanted to hear your voice," she said. "Actually, my supper break's just about over, so I'm heading back to the station. Can we talk more later?"

"Sure. Hey. Love you."

"Love you too," Emma said, and ended the call. As she started the car, she found herself relieved that Neal didn't have her superpower.

Emma didn't get a single phone call for the remainder of her shift. Her eyelids were drooping and she would have welcomed a report of a cat stuck in a tree; if its branches were low enough, it would give her a chance to practice her pull-ups. Then again, with her luck, any cat so stranded would probably be up in Regina's apple tree. She could vouch personally for it having no low-hanging branches. Not anymore, anyway.

As she left the station and got back into her car, she felt herself tense up again. She wondered whether Graham would be in front of Mary Margaret's hoping to talk to her again. Or feel something, she thought, more angry than nervous about that prospect. She didn't want to deal with that tonight. If she did, she had a feeling that even if she was in the right, she'd be in more trouble than she needed. Slugging a cop was a bad idea. Slugging your boss was a horribly bad idea. Slugging your boss who happened to be a cop—or ramming a knee into a somewhat vulnerable body part of his (even if it was well-deserved)—crossed the line from 'bad' to 'excruciatingly awful' as far as ideas went. And since she wasn't sure if she would be able to restrain herself if Graham was staking out the loft, she was going to drive around for a while.

Six hours and a newly-refilled gas tank later, she finally decided that Graham must have either given up or fallen asleep in his parked car by now and she headed back. No car other than Mary Margaret's was parked on the street outside. Emma sighed with relief, and then reflexively brought her hand up to smother a yawn. Amazing how tired a day of basically doing nothing could make you.

She went inside, made her way into the loft, and headed upstairs, not bothering to turn on the downstairs lights as she started to get ready for bed.

There were flowers on the table when she came downstairs the following morning. She'd chucked them into the garbage before Mary Margaret could tell her that they'd come from Whale, not Graham. Once she'd gotten over her shock, she was more than happy to congratulate her new friend. Maybe Mary Margaret would be okay. Maybe she was moving on from David.

Emma didn't believe that for a second, and she honestly thought Mary Margaret could do a lot better than Dr. Whale—and what the hell was up with people in this place not seeming to have first names? Gold was one thing, and even that was more than a little weird. But if Mary Margaret was going out with Whale, shouldn't she be… comfortable enough with him to not call him by his last name? It was still better than seeing her friend miserable, Emma thought to herself. So what if Whale was the rebound guy? They were two single adults—which was more than could be said about David. If they wanted to have a little… fun, where was the harm, so long as they both knew how things stood?

And this was so not her business, Emma reminded herself. Even if Mary Margaret was asking her for advice. Except she wasn't, Emma realized. What she was really looking for was validation. Emma was more than happy to give her some—particularly since Mary Margaret wasn't asking if she and Whale made a perfect couple or whether Emma minded if he moved in with them or other questions that Emma didn't think she'd be able to answer honestly and still be supportive.

"Maybe I shouldn't have called him," Mary Margaret murmured.

"Oh my G-d, you called him?" Emma exclaimed. "That is definitely not a one-night stand."

"I'm still learning!" Mary Margaret protested. "I never had one of those before. I felt guilty."

"Why?" Emma asked. "There's nothing wrong with what you did."

Mary Margaret still looked uncertain. "Did you…?"

Emma shook her head. "Not really. I mean, I… experimented a little. When I was in high school. But after I dropped out and ran away from my last foster placement, I met Neal and, well, when I was in juvie, it was all girls and when I got out, I ended up in a town about half the size of this one and I didn't really meet a lot of people. I guess," she admitted, "I sort of crushed on my boss, but he was kind of old for me. Not… Well, okay, I guess technically, he was old enough to be my father—if my father were a teenager when I was born—but I didn't think of it like that. And he didn't think of me like that," Emma continued. She wondered what Ray would think of the goings-on in this town. Maybe she ought to call him. "And then," she added, "Neal came back into my life, so one-night-stands were kind of off the table for good after that. But the night you invited me to move in with you, I think you told me that you were a teacher, not a nun?" Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Mary Margaret wearing that crucifix necklace for the last few days.

Mary Margaret smiled at that. "I did say that, didn't I?" she replied. Then she shook her head. "I'd probably feel better about it if he hadn't also been that bad date I was cutting short."

"Oh." Emma absorbed that. "Well, maybe he realized he messed up and he was trying to do better?" She didn't fully believe that was the case, but Mary Margaret seemed to relax.

"So," the teacher said curiously, "why would you think the flowers were from Graham, if he's… seeing Regina?"

Emma felt her face grow warm. "Uh…" Great. She didn't really want to relive the events of last night now. But Mary Margaret was looking at her, waiting for an answer and Emma couldn't come up with a reason beyond the messy truth, though maybe she could spare her friend all the details. "Let's just say that you're not the only person who tries to explain your love life to me," she sighed. "Except that in his case, I… seriously didn't want to listen. I thought this was his way of trying to get me to have that conversation after all. Dumb, right?"

"Maybe a little," Mary Margaret said, but she was smiling again.

Emma was relieved when her friend let the subject drop.

Emma headed back to the sheriff station after breakfast. There was still no sign of Graham. Emma wasn't sure if it was because he was now too embarrassed to face her, or if he was still in that funk and taking some kind of mental health day. She didn't much care, but she had to admit that she was relieved to have the office to herself. Even if there wasn't anything there for her to do. She didn't really want to get back to the Maine criminal code. She had a pretty good idea of what the felonies were and, admittedly, she probably wasn't going to be dealing with many of them. This was Storybrooke, Maine, not Cabot Cove, Maine, so she strongly suspected that there weren't going to be many murders here. Sighing, she took a much thinner volume down from the shelf that was labeled "Title 29-A: Motor Vehicles and Traffic." Yeah, illegal U-Turns and lane changes were probably more relevant here. Still boring, though, she thought, as she resigned herself to more reading.

Mary Margaret stopped by several hours later. "I just had a weird conversation with Graham," she said, almost as soon as Emma greeted her.

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"

"He came into my classroom when I had a free period and he was asking if we knew each other from somewhere else. I mean, we've always known each other; I can't recall a time when I didn't, but I've never lived outside of Storybrooke and neither has he."

Emma nodded. And then, feeling a little foolish about it, she picked up a notepad and pen and began jotting notes. "How did he seem?"

"Agitated," Mary Margaret said. "Confused. He was also running a fever, I think, so that could explain some of it. But he was asking if we'd met in another… life."

Maybe he was having some kind of breakdown, Emma thought, feeling a twinge of guilt. Not that what had happened last night had been okay by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe she shouldn't have been so flippant when she'd suggested he see Archie. It might have been the right call, after all. "Okay," Emma said. "I'm guessing you told him…?"

Mary Margaret gave a slight laugh. "Well, how do you answer a question like that?" she asked. "I don't even know if I believe in reincarnation, but if Graham and I knew each other in a past life, I certainly don't remember it!" Her expression sobered. "He was asking if he'd ever hurt me, if I believed in past lives… It sounded like he'd been talking with Henry. But when I mentioned that to him, he didn't seem to know anything about the storybook or the effect it's been having on Henry's imagination."

Emma felt her heart rate speed up. "You told Graham about Henry?" she repeated.

"Yeah," Mary Margaret said, sounding surprised. "Why?"

Why indeed, Emma wondered. Graham was going through… something right now; that much was clear. Still, there was no reason to think that Henry was in any danger. Or that Graham posed a threat to her son. So, why am I thinking it? she wondered. "Uh, are classes out for the day?"

"Mine are," Mary Margaret said. "It's another hour or so before school ends, though. Why?" she asked again.

Emma smiled uneasily. "Probably no reason," she said. "Things are pretty quiet here. I may leave early. I'll see you back at the loft. Oh, um… sorry about the flowers this morning. Let me know if Whale gives you anything else before I trash it."

Graham didn't come in that afternoon, and Emma was debating whether to leave as she'd told Mary Margaret she might. Instead, she went out for a drive around town and discovered a traffic pile-up on Main Street, thanks to Walter Dormer. She recognized the security guard at once—he'd been asleep on the job when David had slipped out of the hospital after waking from his coma and switched the tapes to cover for it. Now, it appeared that Dormer had stopped at a red light and dozed off before it could turn green. She'd been shaking her head when she wrote the citation.

"It's the first time it's happened to me," Dormer had protested unconvincingly.

Emma sighed. "Pull over," she said. "Park. Granny's is just a half a block away. Get some coffee before you head home. And… try to get some sleep at home for a change?"

The rest of her patrol passed uneventfully and she headed back to the station to type up her report. Once she had, though, she realized she wasn't sure where to file it. And Graham wasn't back so she could ask him. Emma sighed. Then she slid the report into a folder and placed it on Graham's desk. Spying a dart, she picked it up, weighed it in her hand for a moment, took aim, and fired it at the dartboard hanging on the wall. It missed by a mile.

"Our tax dollars always hard at work, I see," a voice that was almost pleasant said from behind her.

Emma didn't miss the sarcastic edge, so sharp you wouldn't even feel it when first it sliced into you. She turned to face Regina with a too-friendly smile. "Graham isn't here," she said. "I assumed he took a sick day. With you."

Regina smiled back coldly. "Oh, so you're aware of us? Good. That's why I'm here. Because I'm also aware of your relationship with him."

Her… what? "I don't have a relationship with him," she retorted.

"Oh?" Regina drawled. "So nothing's ever happened between the two of you? You forget, Ms Swan, I have eyes everywhere."

And they only see half the story, or they'd have seen me push him away. Who's riling up your suspicions, Regina? Are you running the show here, or is someone trying to manipulate you? And why? It was too bad that the mayor already disliked her. Emma was starting to think that if the two of them sat down together and talked, they might be able to get to the bottom of what was happening. As things stood now, though, the last thing Regina wanted was to get chummy with her and she'd be too suspicious of any overtures on Emma's part. And if it were to turn out that Regina was the mastermind of whatever was going on here, then the last thing Emma ought to do was discuss her suspicions with her. Better to keep them to herself for now. She sighed and half-turned away. "Nothing that meant anything," she said firmly.

"Well, of course not," Regina said, smirking a bit. "Because you're incapable of feeling anything for anyone. There's a reason you're alone, isn't there?"

You might have eyes everywhere, Regina, but you don't have ears. I haven't made any secret about having someone in my life, but obviously, word about that hasn't got back to you. Well, I guess you'll find out sooner or later, but not from me. Aloud, she said, "All due respect, the way I live my life is my business."

"It is until it infringes on my life," Regina countered. "Stay away from Graham. You may think you're doing nothing, but you're putting thoughts in his head. Thoughts that are not in his best interest. You are leading him on a path to self-destruction. Stay away."

Emma's eyes narrowed. "Seriously? Are you threatening me?" she started to ask, but the mayor had already spun on her black Jimmy Choo and swept out of the office and Emma wasn't about to chase after her.

Shaking her head, she retrieved the dart from the wall for another attempt.

This time, she hit the four in the double ring.

The door of the inner office slammed with a bang and startled, Emma looked into her son's excited face. "Henry!" she exclaimed.

"Graham believes me!" Henry all but shouted. "He knows I'm not making it up! He knows my book is real!"

Emma held up her hands at chest height, palms outward. "Calm down, Henry. Now. Tell me slowly. What's going on?"

"He believes me!" Henry repeated. "He knows he's the Huntsman!"

Emma felt like she needed a cup of coffee or something a good deal stronger for this. The whiskey, however, was back at Mary Margaret's and maybe drinking in front of her son in the middle of the afternoon wasn't setting the best example. She walked over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup of the battery acid that was cleverly disguised as coffee, adding several plastic spoonfuls of sugar to mask the taste. Only after she'd forced herself to gulp down half the contents of the Styrofoam cup did she look at her son again and say, "Maybe you'd better start at the beginning."

Henry did.

After he'd left again, nearly as excitedly as he'd arrived, Emma took another sip of her now-cold coffee and made a face. Graham had gone looking for answers… or therapy… from a fifth-grader. On the one hand, maybe it was good that he was starting to wake up to the strange things that were going on in this town. On the other hand, approaching a ten-year-old for advice—especially a ten-year-old whose grasp on reality was a little flimsier than it ought to be—was a good deal less good. "I told him to talk to Archie," she muttered under her breath. "There is no way that he misheard 'Henry'. So how…" Realization and the memory of another conversation she'd had today came crashing in on her. "Mary Margaret," she groaned.

She tamped down her anger. It wasn't Mary Margaret's fault. She couldn't have known that Graham would go running to her son for advice; the whole idea was crazy. "Sorry, Archie," she muttered, remembering that the psychiatrist had cautioned her about using the word. But it was! What had Graham been thinking? How stable was he right now? Could he possibly pose a danger to Henry, after all?

Suddenly her ruminations about brainwashing seemed a little less out there. If that… hypnosis or-or conditioning wasn't permanent, if it was somehow wearing off o-or cracking or… Was she even being serious? The whole idea was something out of science fiction or a comic book or… something not real. If she really wanted to know what was going through Graham's mind right now, then asking him might be a real good way to start!

"And I know just where to go looking for him," she added under her breath as she yanked her jacket off the coat hook and headed out the door.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Five

Graham was waiting when Henry got back home. He frowned. "Did you come back to talk to my Mom now?"

Graham shook his head. "No… I… that vault in your book. Have you ever seen anything like it in town?"

Henry frowned. "No…"

"Think," Graham urged. "It's important. I've been racking my brains, trying to think where it could be. I have seen it. I just don't remember where."

Henry hesitated. "My mom should be home any minute," he said. "We can't talk long."

"Don't worry about that," Graham said. "If she does, I'll just say I stopped by on town business."

Henry grinned. "Welcome to Operation Cobra." He motioned the sheriff to follow him inside before Graham could ask him to explain.

It was, perhaps, a half hour later when Graham stepped back into the outdoors. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the yellow bug parked outside. If he had, he wouldn't have been so startled when the door popped open and Emma emerged. "Hey," she said, "I hear you're having a rough day."

"Who says?" he demanded.

"Pretty much everyone," Emma shot back. "I think maybe you need to go home and get some rest."

He didn't have time for this now. He barely registered that Emma was talking to him again. "I'm fine," he snapped.

"No," Emma countered. "You're not. You just went to see a ten-year-old for help."

"He's the only one making any sense," Graham snapped.

To his surprise, he saw Emma blink. And then, she continued more softly, "Graham? What's going on in this town? Seriously, what's really going on?"

She felt it, too, he realized. The general 'offness' that he was only starting to wake up to. So that was three of them: he himself, Henry, and now Emma. Perhaps… perhaps, he could trust her after all. "It's my heart, Emma," he said. "I need to find it."

"O…kay," Emma said, evidently not knowing what he meant. "How are you going to do that?"

"I just need to follow the wolf," he said. Only after the words were out of his mouth did he realize how ridiculous the whole thing sounded. "The wolf from my dreams," he tried again. "It's going to help me find my heart."

"W-wait," Emma said, confusion yielding to incredulity. "You didn't mean it as a metaphor? You really think you haven't got a heart?"

She didn't believe him. He'd overestimated her. But maybe… maybe he could still make her understand. "It's the only thing that makes any sense," he said. "It's the only thing that explains why I don't feel anything."

She was shaking her head. "Listen to me, Graham," she said urgently. "You have a heart. I can prove it." She put her hand on his chest. "See?" she said. "It beats. It's real." She grabbed his hand and put it where hers had been, and he felt it. He did. But he knew that the only reason he felt it was because he was supposed to. People weren't supposed to be able to rip out other people's hearts, not without killing them—messily—anyway. If he was alive and breathing, then he had to have a heart. He understood that. But at the same time, he knew that Henry was right. He had a heart, but it wasn't in his chest. He didn't understand how it was possible, but he believed it with every fiber of his being and with all the heart that wasn't where it was supposed to be.

"No," he said with clear conviction. "It's the curse."

She was looking at him the way… The way I've been looking at Henry since I learned he's been seeing Archie, he thought with a pang. "You can't believe that's true," she said, shaking her head again.

And then, she seemed to look past him and her eyes grew wider.

"What?" he asked, turning around. The wolf he'd been seeing since the evening before was back. From the look on Emma's face, she saw it too. After a moment, it turned tail and ran.

Emma and Graham each shot the other a stunned glance before Graham took off after it, Emma only a couple of steps behind.

Emma had thought she was in better shape than this! Graham was tireless, but she was winded, by the time the wolf stopped running. Looking around, she realized that she was in the town cemetery. Graham advanced closer to the animal and she warned him to be careful.

"He's my friend," Graham said calmly. "He won't hurt us."

Wolves, she thought she remembered, generally weren't aggressive toward humans, but there was something off about this one. Something off about Graham; something off about the wolf; something off about the town; what exactly passes for normal around here? Emma wondered. Neal. When Neal got here, she'd get a better grip on what normal was supposed to be again.

The wolf's howl was an eerie sound and Emma was sure that under her jacket, her arms were covered with goose pimples, each hair standing on end. It took off again at a lope and Emma and Graham pursued. It rounded a marble structure, but when they followed where it had gone, it had vanished. Emma turned to Graham, intending to ask what to do next. Graham, however, was looking up at the marble structure—a crypt, she could see now—eyes widening. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's my heart," Graham said. "It's in there."

Neal looked at his ticket with satisfaction. "Two days," he noted.

His liaison, Susan Lockwood, smiled. "Guess you can't wait to get back to balmier temperatures," she said.

"I never considered thirty-two degrees in November to be balmy," Neal bantered back. "Until I came here."

"It's thirty-two here, today," Susan pointed out. "Just on the opposite side of the zero."

"Don't remind me," Neal groaned. "Seriously, I don't know how you guys do it." He frowned. "If it's still like this the day after tomorrow, will my flight be cancelled?"

Susan shook her head. "Might be delayed a bit, if the wings ice up, but cold weather is pretty much par for the course in these parts. We don't close our airports for half the year," she assured him. "And while it's not like you can roll down your window on the aircraft to test this, I'm reliably informed that the temperatures at cruising altitude run even colder." She grinned. "I like you, Cassidy, but you're starting to bore me. I'm getting tired of having you hanging around every day." She made a shooing motion. "Go home."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Neal chuckled. "But if you're ever in Boston, or maybe Maine…"

"I'll look you up."

Emma couldn't believe her ears. Graham had to know how irrational he sounded, right? Like he had to know he couldn't be walking around without a heart. And he thought it was in this… mausoleum? The whole idea was (yes, Archie had cautioned her about using the word, but it really seemed to fit here) crazy! Her eyes widened when she realized that Graham had taken out a flashlight. "I have to look in there," he said.

"Oh, no!" she moaned. "Stop, stop!"

"I have to get in there," Graham repeated stubbornly, almost begging. "Please."

"Graham…" She'd forgive him if he admitted now that he was just kidding. Or if this was some test to see if she could… handle a suspect with mental health issues, or something. Well, first she'd slug him with something heavy enough to hurt and then she'd forgive him. She dimly remembered watching Candid Camera in a few of her foster placements and wondered if it was still on the air, or if some copycat incarnation was filming here. She fought to keep her eyes on Graham and not scan for hidden cameras. "Come on!" she exclaimed. "You really think your heart is in there?"

He nodded firmly.

"Okay," Emma said. Clearly, they weren't leaving here until he saw the truth for himself. "Let's find out."

She yanked on the handle on the mausoleum door, but it wouldn't open. "Come on," she muttered. Then she realized that the door wasn't going to listen to verbal encouragement and gave it a firm kick. It gave way almost at once and they entered.

It was dim inside the building. Thanks to Graham's flashlight, Emma could make out a sarcophagus and several urns—exactly the sort of stuff one might expect to find in a crypt in a cemetery. "It's got to be in here," Graham insisted. "Somewhere." He panned the light slowly along the wall and pressed his free hand against it. "There's got to be a hidden door," he continued. "A lever." He checked an urn. "Something."

"Graham," Emma said gently, drawing closer. "Hey. Graham." When he looked at her, she shook her head. "There's nothing here."

"There has to be!" he exclaimed. "If there isn't, then…"

"It's okay," Emma said, wondering if Archie could meet them at the gate or if it would be better to bring Graham there. Or… maybe she should bring Graham to the hospital first and then ask Archie to meet them there? "It's going to be okay."

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" an angry voice startled them and they turned their heads as one to look at its owner standing in the doorway. Regina.

Emma wondered how long they'd been inside the crypt; it was already dark out when they stepped out again. The mayor was waiting for an explanation and Emma knew she didn't have a good one. There was no name on the mausoleum and she had no idea to whom it belonged, but she was well aware that she had no business there. And how the hell could she account for any of this rationally? Graham thinks his heart is in here, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a look around. Technically true, but also throwing Graham under the bus. Considering that he and Regina were involved, Emma didn't think that kind of defense would be well received. Don't get defensive, she told herself. Take the offensive. You're not the only ones sneaking around this place, are you? "What are you doing here?" she demanded of Regina.

Instead of getting flustered, the mayor replied calmly, "Bringing flowers to my father's grave like I do every Wednesday," and Emma's heart sank. The sarcophagus in the crypt. She hadn't looked for a nameplate, but if Regina hadn't entered because she'd been tailing them, but because…

This was her family crypt. Emma opened her mouth to apologize, but Graham spoke first.

"Don't blame her," he said. "It's my fault. I wanted to look in there."

Regina's eyebrows shot up and Emma didn't think her surprise was feigned. "Really?" she asked with surprising gentleness. "Why? What were you looking for?"

Graham, evidently, realized how bizarre his conviction would sound to her, for he replied quickly, "Nothing. It was nothing."

Still speaking gently, the mayor said, "You don't look well, dear. Let's take you home," she added, grabbing hold of his arm.

Graham twisted free. "Regina," he said, sounding befuddled but firm, "I… I don't want to go home. Not with you."

"Oh?" Regina replied. Her voice hardened, as she looked from Graham to Emma. "But you'll go with her."

"Hey." Emma did not want to be caught in the middle of this. "This is between you two," she protested. "Leave me out of it."

"She's right," Graham said, sounding a good deal more sure of himself than he had a moment ago. "It's between us. And things have to change."

"And I wonder why that is all of a sudden," Regina said, eyeing Emma coldly still.

"It has nothing to do with her," Graham insisted. "You know," he continued, "I've realized that I don't feel anything, Regina. And I know now it's not me – it's you.

"So, you're leaving me for her?" Regina asked.

It was on the tip of Emma's tongue to say that she didn't want him, but Graham spoke first again and what he said next made her want to cheer. "I'm leaving you for me."

Regina flinched, but her voice was calm when she responded, "Graham, you're not thinking straight."

"Actually," Graham replied, "for the first time, I am. I'd rather have nothing than settle for less. Nothing? Is better than what we have. I need to feel something, Regina, and the only way to do that is to give myself a chance."

"Graham," Regina started to say, but he cut her off.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's over."

Stunned, Regina turned wounded eyes on Emma. "I don't know what I ever did to you, Ms Swan, to deserve this. To have you keep coming after everything I hold dear."

"I told you—"

"It's okay, Graham," Emma said. "I've got this." She locked eyes with Regina. "No matter how much you want to make this about me," she said, "it's not. Hard as it might be for you to grasp, this really is all Graham."

"None of this happened until you got here, Ms Swan," Regina countered.

"I'm sorry," Emma shot back, fighting to control her temper. "But did you ever stop to think that maybe the problem isn't with me, but with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Henry came and found me," Emma said. "Graham kissed me. Both were miserable. Maybe, Madam Mayor, you need to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself why that is. Why is everyone running away from you?"

Maybe she was trying to rile Regina up, but she certainly hadn't expected the punch that sent her careening into Graham. What the hell…? In the middle of the throbbing pain of her temple, the stinging below her eyebrow, and Graham's cry of protest, Emma found herself noting that the mayor wasn't as unflappable as she seemed. And then, she was back on her feet and retaliating in kind. Before Regina could recover, Emma had grabbed her and slammed her against the mausoleum. And then, Graham was wrenching her away and she was fighting to… to… what? Kill Regina? Make her bleed? Graham was shouting at her, at both of them, to stop, and angry though she was, she realized that he was right. She gave him a quick nod, broke out of his grip and shot Regina a venomous glare. "Not worth it," she said coldly. And then she turned on her heel and started walking away. She didn't realize that Graham was following, until she heard Regina call his name.

At first, she thought that he might go back to the mayor, but he fell into step behind her as they departed the cemetery, leaving Regina alone. "Let's head to the station," she murmured. Graham didn't disagree.

Emma's thoughts were churning as they stepped inside the sheriff station. The events of the last half hour were already taking on a surreal quality. Despite her admittedly dangerous line of work, physical attacks were rare. Most of the time, her quarry preferred flight to fight, and while Ryan Kirkpatrick hadn't been the first fugitive to upend a restaurant table into her lap, such incidents were uncommon enough to be remarkable. She definitely had not seen Regina's punch coming, though she wasn't at all sorry she'd returned it.

"I'm sorry," Graham's voice broke into her thoughts. "I don't know what came over me."

"It's okay," Emma murmured. Then, she added, "I'm… starting to think there's a lot of that going around." There was, she realized. She was trained in self-defense. Her first counter to Regina's attack should have been a block, and if she hadn't been able to, then a flip or a throw—not a punch. Suppose she'd been up against a heavier opponent, someone who actually knew how to fight? Regina didn't, Emma thought. If she did, she would have been ready for Emma's retaliation. The mayor had lashed out in anger, but she was no fighter; she'd just… lost control. Or maybe she was afraid that she was losing control. Or maybe, she was waking up to the idea that possibly, she wasn't in control and someone was playing her.

Regina was waking up and Graham was waking up and…

Just what the hell, Emma wondered, had she stumbled into in this place?

"It's okay," she repeated. "You were tired and feverish and… heartbroken and…"

"And?" Graham repeated.

Emma took a breath. "And I'm starting to think there's something screwy going on here. It's not just Regina."

"Still don't know why I let myself get caught up with her," Graham mumbled.

"Because it was easy," Emma said. "And safe. Not feeling anything's an attractive option when what you feel sucks." She realized that Graham was lifting a gauze pad toward her face and she let him apply it. Somehow, while she'd been talking, he'd dabbed it with alcohol, because the stinging below her eyebrow got worse when the pad touched it. "Felt that," she murmured.

"So," Graham said, as he continued to attend to what was probably a cut or a scrape—come to think of it, Regina had been sporting a ring on that hand, "besides running into wolves with mismatched eyes, and no, that's not a regular occurrence in these parts, what else have you noticed that's… screwy?"

Emma sighed. "You got a couple of hours?" She flinched again as he pressed down with the gauze pad.

"All better," he said with a smile. "And my evenings look like they've become clear for the foreseeable future."

"Yeah," Emma said. "So, it's not really any one major thing. It's a whole bunch of little things. Henry pointed me to a few of them, but it feels like everything is… snowballing. Or maybe I'm seeing things because he's got me thinking and it's just my imagination," she went on. "I don't know. I mean, if you look at every little thing, by itself, each one is nothing, but when you start looking at the big picture…"

"What does it look like?" Graham asked, sounding, for once, like she imagined a police detective ought to sound.

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "But I can't shake the feeling that there's more happening here than meets the eye." She reached over for the pad and pen on the desk and staggered as a wave of dizziness washed over her.

"Emma?"

At once, he was at her side.

Emma shook her head. "I think I've been running on adrenaline," she said. "Just feeling a little… wobbly, I guess."

"Hang on," Graham said. "You might have a concussion."

"No," Emma said, as he brushed back the hair from her face with his hand. "I've had those a couple of times. She didn't hit me that hard. I'm just… tired. Or maybe that fever of yours is contagious."

"Uh… may I?" Graham asked hesitantly, bringing his lips toward her forehead. "Just to see. I-I'm not trying to…"

"Oh," Emma smiled. "Yeah, go for it."

He kissed her forehead and his eyes went wide.

"Graham?" Emma asked. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Graham staggered backwards as though… as though someone just punched him, Emma thought. Only, why the hell was he smiling?

"Graham?" Emma repeated, her dizziness drowned by her worry. "Are you okay?"

"I remember," Graham whispered.

"Graham?"

"I remember," he repeated, breaking into a smile.

Emma shook her head, frowning in confusion. "You remember… what?"

He cupped his face in her hands, still smiling. "Thank you," he said.

In the next instant, his smile vanished, replaced by an expression of pure agony, as he slumped to the ground with a strangled cry. Emma bent over him, shouting his name, as she frantically tried pounding his chest, trying to hear the heartbeat she'd heard there before.

She'd never hear it again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Six

Emma's hand was shaking as she backed away from Graham, pulled out her phone, and punched three numbers on her touch screen. A second later, she heard it ring and waited for the operator's voice. It didn't come. Instead, almost at once, the phone on her desk sounded. Crud. She couldn't answer that; not with Graham lying there. But what if it was another real emergency? And why wasn't 911 picking up? A scary thought struck her and, without ending her call, she picked up the extension on the desk. "Sheriff Station, how m—" Her cell phone had stopped ringing. And it was her own voice on the other end.

She was 911.

She uttered a word she'd have been embarrassed to speak aloud, had Henry been there. A moment later, she was eyeing a list of Emergency numbers on the corkboard on the wall and calling the hospital.

"Emma?" As soon as she heard the quaver in her roommate's voice, Mary Margaret knew something was wrong. "What is it? What's happened?"

"I'm at the hospital." A moment's hesitation, before she added more softly, "the morgue."

Maybe she'd only imagined the quaver; Emma sounded calm enough after all. No, Mary Margaret realized. It wasn't calm. It was shock. "Are you okay?" she asked. What on earth are you doing at the morgue? I didn't know we even had one, though I guess we must. Of course, we must. I just… don't remember hearing about anyone being there before. For a fleeting moment, she had a sensation that there was something odd about that, but it passed, as Emma finally answered her.

"I'm fine," she said dully. "B-but Graham…"

Mary Margaret waited. "What about Graham?" she asked finally, after what felt like forever, but was probably more like thirty seconds. Thirty seconds was more than enough time for her mind to go to the obvious—ludicrous—place. Because why would Emma—or Graham—be at the morgue?

"He's dead!" Emma blurted, with a ragged edge to her voice that horrified Mary Margaret. "One minute, he was bandaging a cut on my forehead and the next minute, he was gone!"

Dead? Mary Margaret heard and understood what Emma was saying, but she didn't want to believe it. We were just talking this afternoon! How…? How didn't matter. And Emma had a cut? When and how had that happened? That didn't matter either. "Do… do you want me to meet you there?" she heard her voice asking. "At the hospital?" She wondered how she could sound so calm when her mind was running in fifty directions at once.

Emma's response was barely a whisper, but there was no mistaking the gratitude in it. "Please."

Mary Margaret nodded to herself. Still holding her phone, she moved over to the coat hooks and took down her jacket. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Fifteen minutes?"

"…Kay." The call ended, but Mary Margaret had a feeling that the nightmare was just about to begin. She didn't drive often and she hated driving at night, but she didn't hesitate a moment before grabbing her keys and heading out to her Jeep Wagoneer.

So there was a morgue at the hospital, Mary Margaret noted, as she followed the directions she'd been given at the reception desk. She wondered whether she'd actually have to be in the room with all the… Or would it just be Graham's in there? Either way, she wasn't sure how comfortable she'd be in a room with a dead body, even if she wouldn't see it.

She stifled a sigh of relief when she rounded a corner and saw Emma sitting on a bench outside a pair of stainless steel swing doors, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She looked up when Mary Margaret placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"They're doing an autopsy now," she said, speaking in a monotone. "I don't know how much longer it'll be."

Mary Margaret was about to join her on the bench, when she thought of something. "I think I passed a coffee machine on my way here. Do you want a cup?"

Emma nodded. "Black, no sugar," she said. "Wait. Was it just a coffee machine, or was there one for snacks, too?"

"I think there were two or three machines," Mary Margaret said. "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention. Do you want something from there, too?"

Emma fumbled in her pocket and pulled out her wallet. "Maybe an Apollo bar?" she asked. "My mind's going all over the place; maybe something to eat will help me focus."

Privately, Mary Margaret wasn't sure that sugar was going to help with mental concentration, but she took the five-dollar bill that Emma held out, murmuring only that she'd bring her back the change. Five dollars should be more than enough for coffee and a candy bar, but if it somehow wasn't, Mary Margaret resolved to make up the difference herself and not mention it to Emma.

It was over an hour later when the doors opened and a short man with a neatly-trimmed brown beard and moustache stepped out accompanied by a younger man, clean-shaven and baby-faced. "Deputy?" the bearded man asked, and Emma looked up. "Hi," he said. "I'm Ira Greer. I'm the medical examiner." He motioned to his companion. "This is my assistant, Herb Carliss. He doesn't speak," he added.

Emma nodded. "What was it?" she asked.

Greer shook his head. "Sudden Cardiac Death is one of those self-explanatory causes that really tells you nothing, but it looks like Sheriff Humboldt suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or, in lay terms, a thickened heart muscle. It's genetic and, while it's rare, it's one of the leading causes of cardiac arrest in people under the age of thirty-five."

"So it's… rare, but it's common?" Emma asked with a frown.

Greer sighed. "It's rare for a seemingly healthy young man to suffer a cardiac incident, ostensibly out of the blue, but when that happens, this condition is the cause, more often than not. Deputy, do you know whether the sheriff experienced any fainting spells recently?"

"No," Emma said, eyes widening slightly.

"Shortness of breath? Chest pain?"

"Not that he told me." Emma took a breath. "But he… he said his heart was… missing. And he had to find it. I know how that sounds, but… he told me that this afternoon and less than three hours later, he…" She jerked her head toward the metal doors from which the two men had just emerged.

"Well, the thickening wouldn't have presented that symptom," Greer said. "It can cause a fast heartbeat, but so can a lot of other things. Stress, physical activity…"

Emma lowered her eyes. "When he told me what I just told you, I put my hand… I was trying to prove to him that he had his heart where it should be, so I put my hand on his chest. His heart was beating fast. But he was also running a fever and he was freaking out. I never thought that…" She looked up again. "If I'd told him to come to the hospital and get checked out, could they have found the problem before this happened?"

"Most of the time," Greer reassured her, "SCD occurs without warning. And even if there are warning signs, well, as I was saying, there are many explanations for a fast heartbeat. Fainting would have been more worrisome, but considering the sheriff's youth and fitness level, I don't know if anyone would have necessarily thought to test for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. And considering the relatively short amount of time that elapsed from when you noticed faster heartbeat to the sheriff's cardiac event, there's a fair likelihood that the event still would have occurred before we'd have received the test results back." He shook his head. "Don't blame yourself, Deputy. I know a bit about how to watch for this sort of thing and I'd probably have missed it, too."

"So, it was natural causes," Emma said, intoning it as a statement, rather than a question.

"Completely," Greer nodded.

"What… what happens now?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Well, we'll notify the sheriff's family, if he has one. And then," he shook his head sadly, "I guess we'll be releasing the body to the funeral home once we can make the proper arrangements."

"Is there anything else we need to do here? Or that Emma needs to do, I guess?" Mary Margaret added.

Greer shook his head. "No, Ms Blanchard," he said sadly. "I think we've got this one." He looked at Emma again. "I guess, seeing as you and he worked together, I should express my condolences to you."

Emma blinked. They'd barely 'worked together' for a week. She hadn't known Graham, not really. But she thanked Greer just the same, sounding more than a little dazed. And when Mary Margaret offered to drive her back, she didn't protest. It was only when they were out in the parking lot that she thought to ask, "Is it okay to leave my bug here overnight?"

Mary Margaret shrugged. "I don't think anyone's going to tow the deputy's car. And if someone does, I'm sure the impound lot will release it to you, no questions asked."

Emma almost smiled.

Once back at the loft, Mary Margaret put a pot of tea on to boil. She set down two plates, cups, saucers, and teaspoons. She took the lid off the ceramic cookie jar and set the jar down on the table. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she got out the whiskey bottle and a shot glass and set those on the table, too.

Emma practically lunged for the bottle.

Mary Margaret sighed and sat down at the head of the table at the end closest to Emma's chair. "Maybe I could use some of that," she admitted, getting up again to get another glass.

Emma shrugged. "If you're not fussy, you can just pour it into the teacup," she said. "I'm tempted."

Mary Margaret shook her head. "I think a shot's enough for me," she said, taking the second glass and returning. "I don't even know why I'm doing this," she sighed. "I don't exactly like the taste."

"Why'd you buy it then?" Emma asked.

Mary Margaret shrugged. "I don't really remember. It must've felt like a good idea at the time." She sighed. "I can't believe he's gone. We were just talking this afternoon and he was fine. I mean, he wasn't fine; he was jumpy and worried and he wasn't feeling well, but there wasn't anything to suggest that he'd…" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head.

Emma started to down her own shot, but stopped and set the glass back down, frowning.

"What?"

"You said you didn't remember why you bought the whiskey," Emma said. "Do you remember buying it?"

"Pardon?"

"Anything about the day?" Emma asked. "Was it sunny out? Were there people ahead of you in the checkout line? Was it your twenty-first birthday and you just wanted to get a bottle of something because you could?"

"Emma… I-I don't understand. I've had this bottle for, well… forever, really. You can't expect me to remember…"

Henry had told her that everyone in this town walked around in a haze. She'd seen for herself that nobody seemed to recall a mayor before Regina Mills had been elected. Mary Margaret couldn't remember buying a bottle of whiskey. Maybe it wasn't unusual to have forgotten something minor that had happened years ago, but… "How long have you been teaching fifth grade?"

Mary Margaret blinked. "What does that have to do with the bottle? Or Graham? Or anything, really?"

"Just answer the question," Emma pressed. "Two years? Three?"

"I-I don't know," Mary Margaret said. "Let me think. It feels like forever. I mean, I know it can't be forever, but I can't recall a time when I wasn't."

"How about when you were in college?"

Mary Margaret laughed. "Well, of course I wasn't teaching then! But that was such a long time ago—"

"How long?" Emma demanded. "Who were your teachers? Who did you hang out with?"

"Emma…" Mary Margaret seemed to shrink into herself. "Where are these questions coming from? You… you're scaring me. A little."

And you're scaring me a lot, Emma wanted to say. You're about my age. If you went to college full time straight out of high school, you would have been about twenty-two when you graduated. If you went part-time, then maybe you were twenty-three or twenty-four. Even if you're a couple of years older than me, you can't have been teaching for more than a decade, so why can't you remember anything that happened before that? She didn't say any of that, though. Her mind felt like it was going at light speed. Right before Graham had died, he'd said that he remembered. He'd said that. He'd smiled. And less than a minute later, he'd been dead. Correlation wasn't necessarily causation, but what if there was a connection? Maybe there was some kind of mass conditioning going on and if anyone woke up and realized what was going on, it triggered some kind of… kill switch.

No. That was crazy. And besides, Henry seemed to know what was going on and he was fine.

Unless Regina was protecting him.

Did that mean that Regina knew things were screwy here? How was she okay? Unless she was involved with… with whatever the hell was going on. Maybe she and Kathryn were working together.

And maybe, Emma thought, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this that didn't involve mind control and conspiracy theories. Like early-onset Alzheimer's.

In the whole town? Plus, I've known a few people with Alzheimer's. Not very many, but enough to know that whatever this is, that's not it.

Whatever the answer was, it was clear to Emma that she wasn't going to find out by freaking out one of the few friends she had in this town. "Sorry," she said. "I guess I'm just a little jumpy. I had a couple of cups of coffee before you showed up at the hospital; maybe it's the caffeine."

It was a weak excuse, but Mary Margaret seemed to accept it almost gratefully. "You've just had a friend die in front of you," she said. "Of course you're jumpy."

Emma nodded. "I saw you put water on for tea," she murmured. "I don't suppose you have herbal?"

"Chamomile or peppermint?"

"Peppermint," Emma said, and Mary Margaret got up to get some. Emma forced herself to drink it, even though she wasn't really in the mood. If she didn't have tea in her cup, she was going to pour herself another shot of whiskey and that wasn't a good idea.

Mary Margaret drank her own cup silently, her body language telling Emma that she was open to talking or listening, but she didn't push. Finally, Emma pushed her chair away. "I think I'm just going to go upstairs and try to get some sleep," she said.

"If you change your mind and want to discuss…"

"Maybe," Emma allowed. "But don't count on it. I'm really not that great at spilling my guts." Then she thought back on recent events. "Not usually, anyway."

"It's up to you," Mary Margaret assured her.

"Thanks. And… seriously, I'm sorry about before. I guess I'm just… not used to small town life. And then this happened and…"

"And you spend a lot of time with Henry, who has a very vivid imagination," Mary Margaret smiled. "A young man dies suddenly, you want answers, and suddenly the stories Henry tells start making you wonder."

"But they're just stories, right?" Emma asked.

"Of course," Mary Margaret agreed. "I mean, they'd have to be. Fairy Tale characters living in a small town in Maine?"

Emma nodded, smiling back a little.

Graham's death was almost certainly due to natural causes. That it had happened right after he'd claimed he 'remembered' but before he could elaborate on what he'd meant by that assertion had to be a coincidence.

And if it wasn't, if someone was somehow… watching or listening in on conversations, hopefully, she'd just managed to convince them that she was buying the 'official' explanation and didn't think that there was anything suspicious about Graham's death at all!

Neal picked up on Emma's agitation when he called her later that night to let her know that he'd arrived back in Boston safely. "I'm just going to pick up the mail, make sure the bills are paid, and then I'll be on the next flight to Bar Harbor."

"Neal," Emma's voice was too controlled for her to have good news, "Graham's dead."

"Graham." Neal wasn't sure he remembered the name, but Emma hadn't told him about many people. "Your boss, right?" he guessed. "The sheriff?"

"Yeah. The ME said it was a heart attack. Natural causes. It could be, I guess."

"From the way you're talking," Neal said slowly, "I take it he wasn't middle-aged, out of shape, and overweight."

"No," Emma said. Haltingly, she went over the events of the night before, touching briefly on her altercation with the mayor, but focusing more on its aftermath.

"A… and then, I think I sort of lost it on Mary Margaret. I must have sounded, she must have thought I was nuts. But Henry's right. Everyone's in a haze and nobody seems to have a handle on how long ago anything was that hasn't happened in the last couple of months."

You mean, anything that happened before you showed up there, Neal supplied mentally, though he didn't voice the thought aloud. Truthfully, he was going through his own freak-out right now. The sheriff's talk about his heart being missing, his dying right after he'd ended a relationship with the woman who seemed to be running the town…

The Evil Queen. August told me that the Evil Queen created that town with a curse. A Dark Curse. I don't know much about the finer points of magic, Light or Dark, but in the stories the old folk told around the bonfires after the harvest was in, there was usually some Dark witch or wizard who enslaved someone else by ripping out their heart. Or murdered someone by crushing it. But how can I explain that to Emma? "Hey," Neal said gently, "you'd just seen someone die in front of you. I don't think anyone would blame you for losing it for a little bit afterwards."

"She didn't," Emma admitted. "I mean, she wasn't exactly… comfortable with it, but I can understand that."

"So…"

"Something is going on here," Emma said. "I don't know if I can figure out how to get to the bottom of it and maybe I don't have to, but I don't think it's safe for Henry to be here. And what if Regina's trying to be on her best behavior because I'm here and if I go back, she gets worse? Or decides to go on the run with Henry before I can come back, or…"

"Emma?" Neal asked. Then, slowly, "What exactly are you saying?"

Emma took a breath. "I'm saying that I want you to get in touch with a lawyer before you come down here. Find out what's involved in getting custody of Henry. Because I'm not leaving town without him. Not unless I know he'll be safe if I do."

Neal swallowed hard. He wanted to see her again. He wanted to meet his son. But he didn't want to see his father again. And if he did as Emma asked, he could delay that inevitability for just a bit longer. Plus it would help to allay her worries. It was almost a win-win. "Okay," he said. "I'll make some calls."

It took Emma a while to fall asleep that night, but she did in the end. When she woke up, it was after eight and Mary Margaret had already left for school, so Emma didn't get an opportunity to talk to her again until suppertime. By then, after a full day's work for both of them, she was able to see her thoughts from last night as the crackpot theories they almost certainly were.

"It's fine," Mary Margaret reassured her when Emma tried to apologize again. "You were upset. A-and you had every right to be. I am, too. Not at you!" she added hastily. "But anytime someone Graham's age passes it's upsetting!"

Emma nodded. "Do we know when the funeral is?" she asked.

"I guess you didn't read today's Mirror," Mary Margaret said. "It's tomorrow. Graham didn't have any family. It's just going to be a quiet affair, I think."

"No family?" Emma repeated. "What about his parents?" At Graham's age, she would have expected at least one of them to still be alive.

Mary Margaret frowned. "I don't know," she said. "Graham never mentioned them and the obituary in the paper didn't either. I guess he must have been an orphan."

Emma's suspicions came flooding back. Seriously? You guess? I mean, if this were Boston or New York or even Phoenix, I'd get it, but this is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. You said you and Graham have known each other for, like forever. And you guess he must have been an orphan? She was about to ask Mary Margaret about her own parents, but she didn't think she'd get a satisfactory answer on that one either and she didn't want to be right about it. There was something weird about this place and she wasn't sure she wanted to keep digging to find out what.

"I made some calls," Neal told her. "Just to firms that offer you a one-hour free consult and I've got some appointments lined up over the next couple of weeks. Five of them," he added. "Do you think that's enough shopping around," Emma heard him heave a sigh, "or do you want me to call more?"

Emma felt a pang. They hadn't seen each other for over a month and what she was asking him to do was keeping them apart for longer. Plus, Henry was Neal's son, too and Neal deserved to meet him. "Five is enough," she said. "Go ahead and book the flight. I'll meet you at Bar Harbor Airport. Or Bangor, if that's easier; it's a little farther away, but there might be more flights in."

This time, Neal's sigh was one of relief. "I'll get right on it. Love you."

"Love you, too."

A fair number of people turned out for the funeral, Regina and Henry included. The mayor wore a stylish black dress and a hat with a veil that made Emma think she looked as though she was Graham's widow. She delivered the sole eulogy in calm, polished tones, nothing at all like the cold fury she'd shown on the night she and Emma had last seen each other. From Regina's speech, Emma couldn't tell whether she was suppressing her grief at Graham's passing, or whether she truly didn't care.

Neal called her later that day to let her know that he'd be landing in Bar Harbor on the morning of the seventh—fourteen days from now. "Another firm I'd left a message for called me back this morning," he explained. "They slotted me in for the fifth. I figured one more wouldn't hurt."

"No," Emma agreed. "That's fine."

"Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah," Emma nodded, her fingers playing absently with the deputy star on her belt. With Graham dead, she was the closest thing this place had to a law enforcement officer and she was going to keep wearing it until a new sheriff was appointed or until she left, whichever came first. "Yeah, I'll see you on the seventh."

Twelve days later, Emma arrived at the sheriff station and noticed that the voice mail light on the old-fashioned desk phone was blinking. It wasn't an emergency; the emergency line would have forwarded to her cellphone. Curious, she played back the message. Why the hell was Gold calling? And why was he asking her to stop by his shop instead of telling her outright? It wasn't like anyone else was going to pick up the message.

Emma considered. Gold's shop was just a block or so away from Granny's and Emma hadn't packed a lunch today. She'd stop there on the way, she decided firmly.

At half-past noon, Emma pushed open the shop's front door. To her surprise, Gold wasn't behind the counter. She caught a whiff of an unpleasant odor in the air and wrinkled her nose. "Gold?" she called. "In here?"

From the back, she faintly heard a voice heavy with sarcasm drawl, "Well, it is my shop."

She ventured behind the counter and pushed aside the curtained partition. The odor was far worse here and it was coming from some sort of paste that Gold was brushing onto a piece of fabric. Lanolin, he informed her when she asked.

"It smells like livestock," she choked out, and she really didn't care what Gold was using it for, though he told her anyway. She just wanted to know why he'd called the sheriff station so she could get back out in the fresh air.

"I just wanted to, uh, express my condolences, really," Gold said. Emma blinked. There had to be more to it than that. "The Sheriff was a good man," he went on, and then his eyes flicked down to her belt. "You're still wearing the Deputy's badge," he said with something that might almost have been surprise. "Well, he's been gone two weeks, now, and I believe," Emma's eyes widened as he reminded her of something she'd skimmed over that first week when she'd been familiarizing herself with the policies and procedures manuals, "that after two weeks of acting as Sheriff, the job becomes yours…"

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Emma swallowed hard. "Yeah, I guess," she said, "I'm just not in a hurry." If her criminal history meant that she couldn't get a room at Granny's, it probably meant she couldn't be sheriff anyway. Hell, in most places, a felony conviction meant you couldn't be in law enforcement period. And yet, while Regina hadn't exactly been thrilled that Graham had deputized her, the mayor hadn't told him that he couldn't. Plus, Graham was the sheriff. Had been the sheriff. He'd known about Emma's record and hired her anyway. Maybe, just this once, the weirdness in this place could work in her favor. What the hell was she thinking? She wasn't sheriff material. She was barely deputy material. But she hadn't made a botch of anything yet, not really. Maybe she could, but… No. No, she wasn't qualified for this. She'd keep doing her job until some… committee… got around to appointing a real sheriff, but for now, she was going to thank Gold for his kind words and head back to work.

"I have his things," Gold said, before she could leave.

"What?"

"The sheriff," Gold replied. "He rented an apartment that I own. Another reason for my call, really; I wanted to offer you a keepsake."

Because there was a small chance that she'd forget Graham? She didn't want to go through his things; it felt ghoulish. But when Gold suggested that whatever she didn't want ought to go to Mayor Mills, Emma felt her hackles rise.

Gold smiled. "No love lost there, I see," he said. Then, more gently, "Look. I feel that all of this stuff is headed for the trash bin. You really should take something. Look. His jacket."

Emma didn't want it, but when Gold pressed her to take the walkie-talkies, she felt herself weaken. Henry probably would get a kick out of those. In fact, they looked like exactly the kind of thing he'd want for his 'Operation Cobra' thing. In the end, she took them.

"You enjoy these with your boy," Gold told her, and—for once—Emma didn't feel like he had some angle she wasn't seeing. "Your time together is precious, you know? That's the thing about children – before you know it," he went on sadly, "you lose them."

Out on the street once more, Emma shook her head. "Wonder what that was about," she murmured, as she shifted her grip on the walkie-talkies and headed back to the station.

Emma called Neal that night. "Henry was really down," she said. "I haven't seen much of him since Graham died and today, I found out he's been avoiding me."

"What?" Neal asked. "Why?"

Emma sighed. "Because he thinks trying to get me to break this… 'curse' is what got Graham killed."

He's not wrong, Neal thought. But all he said was, "That's rough."

"Yeah. I…" She took a breath. "What did this lawyer say?"

"Same as the last four," Neal sighed. "It's doable, but it's going to cost us a lot. My cut from bringing in Scanlan helps, but if the adoptive mother hires a good lawyer, it could drag on for a year and half or longer. And since neither of us have a steady income and we're not exactly in the safest line of work, and Henry's had a stable home life for more than ten years… We might win, but it's not cut-and-dried and a battle like this is probably not in Henry's best interests either, unless we can prove abuse or neglect or something."

"Henry's not happy," Emma said slowly. "But as awful as Regina's been to me, I don't believe she's been abusive." She knew Henry didn't think he needed therapy and hated having to go—though he did like Archie—but the kid was convinced that his book of fairy tales was true, that Regina was the evil queen, that his teacher was Snow White, and that she was Snow White's daughter. She might not like Regina, but she also didn't think the mayor was wrong in getting Henry professional help!

"Maybe," Neal said slowly, "we ought to talk to some lawyers in Maine, too. Since that's where Henry lives, that's where the trial would be. Anyone we find in Boston to take our case would either have to have passed the Maine bar or have associated local council."

"You mean work with someone who passed the Maine bar," Emma groaned. "There's probably, like, just one law firm in Storybrooke and I bet Regina's got them on retainer!"

"Well, maybe there are two of them," Neal sighed. "Anyway, see what you can find out. We can go together once I'm there."

"Okay," Emma said. "And… do you think our odds might look better if I were the town sheriff?"

There was a long pause. "What?"

"Yeah," Emma said. "It seems if I've been filling in as acting sheriff for two weeks or more, it stops being 'acting' and becomes the real deal."

"What about Boston?" Neal asked. "I mean, that's one hell of a commute. Unless you're planning on pulling up stakes and settling in Storybrooke."

Emma hesitated.

"Emma?"

"I… No," Emma said. "Not right away. That's something we need to work out together. But for now, until we do go back, well, it can't hurt. Can it?"

From what August told me about the Evil Queen, you'd better believe it can. And if Papa's there, too… But how could he tell that to Emma. "Just be careful," he said. "Law enforcement can get pretty dangerous, too."

"Yeah, but this is a small town where my crashing into the town sign was probably the most exciting thing that happened all year. It's not exactly the state murder capital."

"No," Neal allowed, "but the way you've been talking, it sounds like the mayor would be only too happy to catch you putting a foot wrong. Don't give her what she wants."

"I won't," Emma said. "What time does your flight get in on Thursday?"

"Eight-fifteen in the evening. Oh, and I did some checking. The airport is actually about twenty minutes out of town. Near Trenton," he added.

"I'll check Google Maps before I head out," Emma said. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

The next morning, Neal left the apartment at five past eight. Ten minutes later, he was almost at the bus stop, when a heavy hand came down hard on his shoulder, another hand twisted his arm behind his back, and he was jerked back into an alleyway, as a voice whispered harshly in his ear, "You can't stop Emma from breaking the curse!"

Alarm and fear melted into anger in an instant, and Neal twisted in his captor's grip, turning into the hammerlock as he delivered a powerful kick to his assailant's knee. The man released him and staggered back with an oath, but it was Neal who gasped in pain. The shock of the impact felt like he'd just hammered his own shin bone into his kneecap. He dropped heavily to his other knee, gasping. Then he took a good look at his assailant. "YOU?"

"Yeah," the other man gasped. "Me. August. And I need you to do now what you refused to do eleven years ago: leave Emma alone to fulfill her destiny!"

At the precise moment that Neal was turning the tables on his attacker, Emma was setting down her coffee. At Graham's old desk. It felt awkward, but if she was going to do this thing, she was going to do it all the way. No wishy-washy half measures. If she was going to wear the 'boss's' badge, she was going to use the boss's desk.

The sheriff star glistened on the beige blotter and Emma steeled herself to pick it up. It was as light as the deputy star she'd been wearing until now, and she wondered why that surprised her. It wasn't as though the weight of extra responsibility somehow got added to the nickel-and-brass. She hesitated only a moment before flipping the badge over. The sound the locking clasp made as she unfastened the pin was startlingly loud. She was just about to pin the badge to her jacket, when a matter-of-fact voice from behind her announced, "Oh, I'm sorry. That's not for you."

Neal sat on the ground, cradling his foot, even as he glared at August, who remained sprawled before him. "You have one hell of a nerve," he snapped. "Assaulting me? And I assume I have you to thank for my state-sponsored retreat eleven years ago?"

August nodded with a pained expression. "Uh… sorry? For both?"

Neal continued rubbing his foot. "You wearing armor under those Levis? Feels like I kicked a steel wall."

The other man sighed. "Not… exactly." Slowly, taking care that Neal could see what he was doing, he lifted as much of his pants—and now Neal could see that they weren't jeans after all—leg as he could and Neal's eyes grew wide.

"How...? Who…?" He blinked. "You're Pinocchio?"

"Surprise," August deadpanned. "Didn't get the chance to tell you last time before you stormed off, but explaining to you why I was supposed to be looking out for Emma was more important at the time than telling you who I'd been in the Enchanted Forest."

"You call sending her to jail for eleven months—sending her to jail for my crimes—looking out for her?"

"She needed a wake-up call," August said. "And it's not like she wasn't stealing. I tried letting the cops know about your Bonnie-and-Clyde act before our first meeting, but they didn't have the time, the interest, or the manpower to stake out all the gas stations on I-84, so I had to try something else."

"You are not helping your case."

"And yet," August shifted position with a groan, "we're still sitting in an alley and talking." He exhaled. "Look. Emma's in Storybrooke now. Right where she's supposed to be. I'm betting that once I get her believing in magic so she understands her destiny, she'll break the curse, the promise I made to Papa to make sure the savior believes will be kept and my leg will go back to normal." He sighed. "Or it'll stay like it is, but at least the rest of me will stay human. I can live with that. If she doesn't… this… reverting is going to keep going and living puppets aren't exactly a thing in a Land without Magic. I'm begging you not to interfere." He locked steely blue eyes on Neal's hard brown ones. "Stay here and leave Emma to fulfill her destiny." He shrugged. "You don't want to see your father again anyway, so why not just step aside?"

Neal had been nodding along as August spoke, but now he gave an angry start. "You haven't cared a damn about me or what I want all this time," he pointed out. "It's all been Emma. Emma has to break the curse. Emma has to fulfill her destiny. Emma is the savior. And now, you're suddenly so solicitous about what I want? Well," he shrugged. "You're right. I don't want to see my father again. And once I get to Storybrooke, I'm going to do my damnedest to stay out of his way."

"Baelfire—"

"No. I've listened to you, even after you mugged me. I haven't called the cops," he dug his phone out of his pocket and held it up, "at least, not yet. But it's not just my father in Storybrooke. There's the woman I love. There's the son I've never met. And even if everyone else besides Papa is gone, Emma and Henry are reason enough for me to head over there. So… thanks."

"Thanks?" August repeated, blinking in confusion.

"Up until this moment, I was having second thoughts about going to that place. About running into my father. But you wouldn't be trying so hard to keep me out of that town if I didn't have to go there."

"That doesn't make any logical sense," August said blankly.

To his shock, a wide smile appeared on Neal's face. "I know," he said. "And that's what makes it the right thing to do." He braced his hand on the ground and levered himself up.

"Neal, wait." He struggled unsuccessfully to rise in turn. Neal watched, making no effort to aid his erstwhile assailant as he scooted toward the wall of one of the buildings that created the alley.

"You said your piece," Neal informed him. "I heard you out. Now I'm going. And unless you want me to call the cops after all, you're going to let me."

"Please!" August called after him, pressing one hand to the rough cement wall, still trying to stand.

"Don't try to follow me," Neal said coldly. Then he turned and stalked out of the alley, wondering whether his day was going to get any more exciting.

Emma was seething as she stomped up the stairs to Mary Margaret's apartment. She didn't have the credentials to be sheriff; that much was true. And she'd been prepared for Regina to throw up her juvenile felony conviction. Hell, if Regina had appointed someone—anyone—qualified to be sheriff, Emma told herself she would have yielded gracefully. But Sidney Glass? Yes, okay, some reporters did turn out to be great crime-fighters, but they usually wore capes and spandex and were sent from some distant planet just before it exploded!

Clark Kent was probably a better reporter than Sidney Glass, too, Emma thought grimly.

She didn't know that. She was probably still upset over that… hatchet job he'd done on her that first night when she'd swerved into the sign. Her not liking Sidney didn't mean he couldn't be sheriff. But Regina appointing a man who seemed to be firmly in her pocket… Well, that didn't mean he couldn't be sheriff either, but the whole setup reeked to her.

Emma thought about this morning, when Henry had told her that he wanted to stop 'Operation Cobra' for now. He'd called her good. Which had made her feel uncomfortable. Sure, she tried to be good. She didn't think she was bad. Or 'evil'. But…

She killed Graham because he was good. And you're good.

The poor kid still saw things in black and white, and Graham's death had hit him hard. Maybe his dejection had given her that slight push she'd needed to put on the sheriff star after all. And then to have Regina snatch it away from her… No, of course the mayor wasn't evil, but Henry wouldn't see it that way and…

Her anger was mounting as she turned her new key in the lock. She wasn't usually a violent person, but she right now, she really, really wanted to smash something. Or pour herself a stiff drink and maybe unload on Mary Margaret.

Mary Margaret wasn't there. And when Emma opened the kitchen cabinet where the whiskey had been, the bottle wasn't there. Had Mary Margaret moved it? Or drunk it? Or spilled it down the sink? Emma yanked open another cabinet door. No bottle. Her frustration mounting, she looked wildly around the apartment for something to…

Her eyes narrowed as she crossed over to the toaster oven in two angry strides. The whiskey bottle was beside it; it just hadn't been put away yet. Good. Good… but, like her, not quite good enough. She poured herself a glass and took an angry swallow.

Maybe it was her emotional state. Maybe she shouldn't have poured something 50 percent proof down into a stomach that hadn't had any food in it since supper last night. But as her gaze fell again on the toaster, a grim smile lit her face and she raced upstairs and dove into her minimal luggage, lifting out her small home toolkit bag triumphantly. She descended once more and bore down on the small appliance still resting unawares on the counter.

Something to smash…

Breaking apart the toaster was cathartic and the radio's music blaring in her ears helped Emma's mood. Unfortunately, it also obscured the sound of Mary Margaret's footsteps coming up the stairs, and the turning of her key in the lock. She looked up, startled, when the music suddenly ceased and she saw her friend looking at her in confusion. "Toaster broken?" she asked.

It would have been easy to take the 'out', but Emma only sighed. "It wasn't when I started with it, but I'm pretty sure it is, now," she said. She probably should have felt guiltier about it, especially since Mary Margaret looked to be more concerned about her than about the appliance, but her fury toward Regina hadn't lessened appreciably, yet.

"What's going on?" Mary Margaret asked, and Emma told her.

"It's my job," Emma finished.

Mary Margaret was shaking her head, but a small smile was playing on her lips. "I've never heard you so passionate about it before," the schoolteacher said. "What happened?"

Henry acting so… down happened, but Emma had the feeling that 'I'm fighting for my job because my kid's upset' probably didn't make a whole lot of sense. Besides, that wasn't the whole reason; it was just a big part of it. Anyway, she didn't want to have a long, drawn-out discussion with someone who would probably sweetly get her to admit she was being silly and she'd end by backing off and wondering why doing the 'sensible thing' made her feel so lousy. Instead, she shrugged. "I don't know. I just want it back."

"There must be a reason," Mary Margaret probed and Emma felt like she was back to seeing that counsellor the department had set her up with after she'd run away from one of her placements. The counsellor hadn't bought, "I don't know, I just felt like I wanted to leave," as a valid excuse either, even though it had been the truth.

As she opened her mouth to answer, there came a sharp, polite, rap on the door. Saved by the bell. Door. Door knocker, she thought as she got up to answer it. "Maybe I just want to beat her," she muttered, hoping that once whoever it was now standing in the hallway had gone, Mary Margaret would be willing to drop the subject.

As she eased the door open, her eyebrows climbed.

"Good evening, Ms Swan," Mr. Gold greeted her. "Sorry for the intrusion. There's something I'd like to discuss with you."

Emma cast a hesitant look over her shoulder.

Mary Margaret smiled a bit nervously. "I'll let you two talk," she murmured, leaving the room.

Emma pulled the door open a bit wider. "Come on in…"

"Whoa, hang on," Neal exclaimed, when Emma called the next day. "You're what?"

"I'm running for sheriff," Emma said. "Graham got the office out from under Regina's thumb. I owe it to him, well… to his memory, to keep it that way."

He understood the sentiment. And he knew what Emma was like when she got this determined, whether it was about tracking down a bail-jumper or fighting a traffic ticket she was positive she didn't deserve. But, "Look, I get you wanting to step in when there didn't seem to be anyone else who wanted the job, but now you're campaigning? Emma, what happens if you win?"

Emma hesitated. "Well, I guess I'm sheriff then."

"Until we go back to Boston?"

There was a long pause. "I'm not going without Henry. I can't. I can't leave him with Regina. There's stuff going on here and either she's behind it, she's part of it or she can't keep Henry safe from it."

"That's… pretty vague," Neal said.

"Something stinks here," Emma said stubbornly. "I don't have to dig in the garbage pail and hold everything up to my nose to identify exactly where the smell is coming from."

"Emma, it's not your fight."

"Actually, as of this morning, when I announced my candidacy, it is. I'm running."

"Without consulting me."

"If you'd been here, you would have been the first to support me."

Neal took a breath. "I do support you," he said. "I do. And I get why you want to take this on. But, Emma, our lives are in Boston. I'm coming up for a week, but after… I want us to go back together."

Emma swallowed. "If I win this election, if I become sheriff, then once I am, I can appoint a deputy," she said. "Like Graham did with me. I can… train them to handle things while commute back and forth between Boston and Storybrooke for a while. And once I get to the bottom of whatever's going on here and set things right, once we get Henry… I'll step down, the deputy takes over—or there's another election that I won't be running in; at that point, I won't care—and we'll be together as a family."

Neal groaned. "How long do you think that'll take?"

"Less time if you help me."

Neal sighed. "You're still going to pick me up at the airport, or do you have some big campaign meeting at that time?"

"Thursday at eight-fifteen PM? I'll be there." Emma paused. "Neal, I… I didn't mean for this to happen. Until yesterday, when Gold reminded me that I was technically in line for the sheriff job, it wasn't on my radar."

"And Gold told you about the clause in the town charter, too?" Neal asked with a sinking feeling. Just what was Papa playing at? And what was Emma getting roped into?

"Yeah. I… guess he knows there's something shady about Regina, too," Emma said slowly.

Neal noticed her hesitation with no small relief. If she was still questioning, then maybe she wouldn't fall prey to Papa's manipulations as easily as he'd feared. "Maybe," he allowed. "But be careful. You told me he owns the town. Chances are, crossing a guy with that much power could cause… problems."

"Not exactly news," Emma said. "And I'm keeping my guard up. Right now, though, he says he wants to be my benefactor."

"That mean you'll owe him another favor?"

Emma was silent for a moment. "I don't know," she admitted. But he knows this town better than I do. Right now, I think I can use his help. I'll be careful though."

"Yeah," Neal said. "See you Thursday."

"You want to come with me to the airport?" Emma asked Henry the next afternoon. She frowned. "Hey, you're reading that paper pretty hard. How was school?"

"It was fine," Henry said. He pushed the paper over to her with some reluctance. "Sidney wrote it."

Emma's breath caught as she took in the headline: Ex-jailbird—Emma Swan birthed babe behind bars. "Henry…"

"Is it a lie?" Henry asked. "It wasn't in the letter you wrote to me."

"No. I mean… you were born in a hospital, not a jail cell, but... Yeah, I was in juvie at the time." She winced. "I guess I should have mentioned it, but I…" I was afraid you'd think badly of me. If my giving you up at birth didn't have you thinking it already. She shook her head. "These records were supposed to be sealed," she said. She realized that she was making excuses and sighed. "Just tell me you're not scarred for life."

"I'm not," Henry said. "Not by this."

"Good," Emma said. "Then let's throw this out and we'll get our news from something more reliable. Like the internet."

Henry didn't smile back. "I can't go with you to the airport," he said. "This is what I've been trying to tell you. Good can't be evil because good doesn't do this kind of thing. My mom plays dirty. That's why you can't beat her. Ever. And she won't want me leaving town with you, so… I'd better wait for you to come back." He hesitated. "So… what's he like? My dad. He's not in my book."

"Well, he wouldn't be, would he?" Emma said. "Uh… well, let's just say I haven't always been 'good'. I was in Oregon trying to hotwire a car and… your dad was sleeping in the back seat."

Henry blinked. A slow smile spread his lips, the first Emma had seen from him in days. "Yeah? Cool!"

Oh, that was so not the reaction she'd been hoping for, but she'd take it. "Well, at first, I thought he was going to call the cops and get me arrested, but as it turned out, it wasn't his car. He'd actually stolen it from someone else before I ever broke in…"

Emma's face lit up when she saw a familiar figure come through the double doors in the arrivals area. "You made it!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms around Neal.

Neal hugged her back. "Sorry we got in twenty minutes late; if I could've I would've got out and pushed, but I hear it's colder than Alaska up there." He frowned. "Or at least that's what one of my colleagues in Fairbanks told me when I complained about the weather." He looked around. "You didn't bring Henry?"

Emma shook her head. "He didn't want to tick Regina off. And," with a sigh, she handed him the copy of the Mirror she'd bought before driving out to the airport, "considering that the candidate she's endorsing wrote this hatchet job…"

"How did he uncover this?" Neal asked, his eyes skimming the newsprint.

"Don't know. Don't care. Just makes me all the more determined to win this election."

"How far are you willing to go?" Neal asked slowly.

Emma paused for a moment, before she answered him, but there was no uncertainty in her voice or in her reply: "As far as the law will let me."

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Eight

There was still a light on in Mary Margaret's apartment when Emma led Neal upstairs. She smiled as the two stepped in the door. "You must be Neal," she said. "Emma's told me a lot about you."

Neal glanced at Emma. "Good or bad?" he asked with a nervousness that was only partly feigned.

"Good, of course!" Mary Margaret laughed. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Neal smiled and shook the hand she held out to him. "Likewise," he said. "Emma's told me a lot about you, too."

Mary Margaret hesitated. "Good?" she asked hopefully.

"Good," Neal assured her and Emma nodded. Mary Margaret heaved a sigh of relief.

"If you're hungry, I can take some stew out of the freezer and pop it in the microwave."

"Thanks," Neal said, "but I grabbed something on my way to the airport. Emma?"

"I got take-out at Granny's."

"Oh," Mary Margaret's smile dimmed a fraction, but only for a moment. "Well, then, if it's okay with you, I need to get ready for bed. I'm tutoring one of my students at seven-fifteen tomorrow morning, so I should get a good night's sleep."

"Sounds like a plan," Neal said, smothering a yawn of his own. "Sorry. I guess flying tires me out."

"Yeah," Emma quipped. "Flapping your arms for an hour and a half must get exhausting."

"If you're going against the air current," Neal said, so deadpan that for an instant, Emma half-believed he was serious. She laughed.

"C'mon. I'll show you where we're sleeping."

This wasn't going to work. Neal realized it as soon as he heard the bedsprings creak down below, as Mary Margaret got into bed. He'd always been a far lighter sleeper than Emma. Well. Not always. Neverland and its teenaged ruler had taught him well. A few too many rude awakenings in the dead of night for a pirate raid or a kraken hunt, knowing that the last one out of his hammock was likely to be dangled as bait, set to scout for traps, or 'just' given a nick from one of Felix's arrows as a warning (Felix was always awake and on his feet before any of the other boys and Neal suspected that Pan roused him first) and Neal had learned to sleep with one eye and both ears open.

He and Emma had moved in together almost eight years ago. Over time, he'd learned to tune out her breathing patterns and the occasional groans she sometimes made when she slept. According to her, he groaned too, sometimes. It didn't surprise him.

He couldn't tune out the noises coming from Mary Margaret's bed one level below. Maybe if she'd had a bedroom with proper walls and a door, or if this not-exactly-an-attic alcove had come with those accoutrements instead of being so… open-concept.

Emma might have warned him. His terry bathrobe was bulky and it would have taken up too much space in the lone checked bag and carry-on he was able to bring on the flight without incurring extra fees, so he'd left it at home. He'd only just met Mary Margaret, but she didn't strike him as someone who'd be blasé about seeing him walking around the loft in his underwear. His eyes, already half-closed in the dark flew wide open. No walls and no doors… He'd have to get dressed in the bathroom. Nothing wrong with that, except that even if Mary Margaret didn't spend any longer in that space in the morning than Emma did, waiting—in his underwear—had a good chance of becoming a new norm for him.

It was just for a week, he reminded himself. Funny, though. That was what Emma had told him: that she was just going to stay here for a week to get to know their son. And yet, she'd quickly taken a job and now she was running for sheriff. He wanted to get to know their son, too. And…

And he probably wasn't just here for a week either. Even if he wanted to leave and not look back, Emma wouldn't go with him and he couldn't just leave her to deal with his father. Not only would she never forgive him for knowingly abandoning her, but if Papa did anything to hurt her, he'd never forgive himself.

Besides, while this might be a Land without Magic, Neal was ready to lay odds that Destiny was still Destiny. Emma had one and Fate, he'd wager, would see to it that she fulfilled it. He couldn't pull her away from it; he'd tried and yet, here they both were. He didn't want this. He wanted a nice, sane, safe life in Boston where the only magic was the kind he and Emma made together. And if Henry could be part of that, so much the better. But Emma was stubborn and he'd never get her to leave now—not without a good reason. With her superpower, she'd see through any lie, but she wouldn't believe the truth either; not now anyway.

Neal mentally reviewed the things Emma had already told him about this place: the hazy memories everyone seemed to have, the recent earthquakes, the coincidences she knew had to have some rational explanation, and at the heart of it, their son and the book he was obsessed with. Neal wanted to have a look at that, too.

He groaned. He couldn't abandon Emma. He wouldn't encourage her, but he would stay back and give her whatever mental and emotional support she might need. He was going to meet his son and get to know him. He was going to look for a lawyer in this town who might be willing to take their part in a custody case…

…But first thing in the morning, he was going to see whether there were any short-term rentals with walls and lockable doors in this town.

When Mr. Gold walked into Granny's the next morning, he saw that Henry and Emma were sharing breakfast together for the first time in weeks. A smile came to his face. Young Henry was scarcely having the easiest time of it, but he generally exhibited an optimism and resilience that had been sadly lacking since the Sheriff's demise. It was good to see the boy animated and engaged once more.

An eyebrow shot up. He'd been quite certain he knew everyone in this town by now, but the young man sharing a table with Henry and Emma was a stranger to him. All three of them were poring over the newspaper and frowning. Gold shook his head. There was nothing in the town charter to forbid a candidate running for election from working as a journalist, and mud-slinging was scarcely illegal, but there was still something distasteful about a news reporter using his vocation to tarnish his opponent. At least, judging by the expressions on the faces at the table, he presumed that Sidney had published another hatchet job.

It mattered little. The town was overdue for some change (twenty-eight long years overdue), and Gold meant to help bring it about. By the time he was done, Emma Swan would be sheriff and Regina and Sidney wouldn't know what hit them. And if they did, there would still be precious little either could do about it.

Henry got up from the table, shouldering his backpack and waving to the two adults. Gold believed he heard the boy say something about needing to catch his bus. Gold considered for a moment. Then, as the boy passed him, he contrived to take a step forward at what would have seemed an inopportune time to any onlooker. Henry collided with his cane and would have gone sprawling, had Gold not caught hold of his sleeve. "Careful, there, young man," he exclaimed.

Henry's eyes went wide, but seeing that Gold didn't seem put out, he relaxed somewhat. "Sorry, Mr. Gold. I didn't see you."

"Well. That much is obvious," Gold said with a faint smile. "You're unhurt."

"Yeah, I-I'm fine," Henry said. "Just got to catch the school bus if I don't want to be late."

"Ah." He loosened his grip on the boy's sleeve but didn't release it. "I must confess I'm curious as to who it is yet sharing a table with your mother."

At once, Henry brightened. "Oh," he said, almost too casually. "That's my dad. Neal. C'mon, quick; I'll introduce you."

His father? Gold's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't balk when Henry unselfconsciously grabbed his hand and led him back to the table.

"I told you," Emma was saying.

"Yeah," the young man—Neal—said wearily, "but who ever heard of a place with zero vacant apartme—" He broke off suddenly at Henry's approach, eyes widening when he realized that the boy hadn't returned alone.

"Mr. Gold," Henry said proudly, "this is my dad. Neal Cassidy."

Rumple's pleasant smile yielded briefly to a look of disappointment. He banished it quickly "Judging by your reaction," he said with forced joviality, "I can only presume that my reputation's preceded me. Pity."

"Uh… yeah," Neal managed, taking Gold's outstretched hand and giving it a quick pump. "Nuh-nice to meet you."

You scarcely seem to think so. Gold thought. Curiously, Emma seemed surprised by Neal's reaction. Whoever it was who'd told the young man about him, it didn't seem that it had been she. His gaze fell on the open Mirror. "Looking for work?" he asked, noting that the paper was open to the classifieds.

"Actually, we're looking for an apartment," Emma said. "I tried before, after I got thrown out of Granny's, but I was hoping something else might have opened up in the interim."

"Things aren't going well at the Blanchard loft?"

Emma shrugged. "You know what they say: two's company, three's a crowd. But with the anti-felon ordinance, we don't have a whole lot of options."

Gold looked from Emma to Neal. The young man nodded hesitantly, not meeting his eyes. Just who had he been talking to? Mary Margaret, he answered himself. She must have regaled this Mr. Cassidy with all the stories she knew about him and then moved on to rumors and innuendo. Yes, Neal Cassidy's reaction had the schoolteacher's fingerprints all over it. With that mystery seemingly solved, he smiled. "Well, you know, I do own all of the rental properties in this town and, in general, I only find it necessary to advertise them when I haven't a potential renter lined up ahead of time. As it happens, though, I do have several vacancies that I haven't gotten round to posting for, as of yet. Suppose you pass by the shop in about an hour and I'll be happy to give you a list of such dwelling places as are currently vacant?"

Emma beamed. "That sounds great!"

"Yeah," Neal managed. "Great." He turned to Emma. "We'll go together?"

Emma hesitated. "Actually, I need to stop by the town hall. Yesterday, when I saw the newspaper, I was," she held her thumb and index finger up about an inch apart, "this close to storming into Regina's office and ripping her a new one, but…" she gave Neal a hesitant smile, "I kind of figured if you were here, you'd tell me to calm down, sleep on it, and see how things looked in the morning.

Neal smiled. "And now?"

"I still want to tear her a new one," Emma stated. "But I'll go easy on her. Probably won't look great if tomorrow's Mirror headline reads, 'Sheriff candidate assaults mayor; charges pending'. I'll behave."

Rumple stood behind the shop's counter, a faint smile on his face as he toyed with a lighter, feeling the warmth of its flame on his face as it danced before his eyes. The bell over the door jangled and his smile broadened. He'd been looking forward to this meeting. "Regina," he greeted the mayor, as she shut the door behind her and flipped his sign so that it would show as closed to any passersby. "Shall I move some things? Make a bit of space for your rage?"

She'd rarely been one to mince words. "You found that loophole in the town charter."

He smirked. "Legal documents… Contracts, if you like. Always been a fascination of mine."

"Yes," Regina retorted. "You love to trifle with technicalities."

"I like small weapons, you see," Gold returned with a slight shrug. "The needle, the pen, the fine point of a deal. Subtlety. Not your style, I know."

"You're a bastard," Regina said calmly and he chuckled. Emma's throwing down the gauntlet had gotten under her skin, hadn't it?

"I think your grief's getting the better of you, Regina," he pronounced. "Shame what happened to Graham."

"Don't you talk about him," she said bitterly. "You know nothing."

I know you took his heart long ago. And that had your rage not got the better of you, you'd hold it still. But play the grieving paramour if it suits you, dearie; I'm scarcely about to admit to knowing things that Mr. Gold has no business knowing. Though by now, you must suspect I'm awake and it must rankle that you can't confirm as much. "What is there to know?" he asked, shrugging again. "He died."

"Are you really going up against me?" Regina asked him.

"Not directly," Rumple informed her, keeping to the nonchalant tone he knew infuriated her most. "We are, after all, both invested in the common good. We're just picking different sides."

"Well," Regina said, smiling again, "I think you picked a really slow horse this time. It's not like you to back a loser."

"She hasn't lost yet," Rumple reminded her."

"She will."

"Never underestimate someone who's acting for her child."

"Henry is not her child," Regina snapped. "Not legally."

Rumple snorted. "Now who's trifling with technicalities?"

Regina's eyes narrowed. "Where on earth did you dig up that man who was sharing a table with her at breakfast? I thought you usually had Mr. Dove to do your dirty work. But then, he doesn't strike me as the type to get political."

Rumple laughed. "It wasn't me doing the digging, dearie," he said. "No, I think you're best putting that question to Ms. Swan directly."

"So, you don't know who he is," Regina said, looking nervous for the first time.

"Oh, I know who he is, dearie. His name is Neal Cassidy." His lips parted in a wide grin. "That's Henry's father."

He made a mental note to go over the footage from the shop's security camera after closing time this evening. If there was any way that he could preserve the frame showing the mayor's reaction to that revelation, he had every intention of doing so.

Papa hadn't recognized him. Neal's initial wave of relief didn't last long. If Papa was still asleep under the Curse, then of course he probably didn't remember he had a son and Neal didn't need to worry about giving himself away until—and unless—Emma successfully woke him. But if Papa was already awake…

Neal frowned. If Papa was awake, had he changed? The man he'd just shaken hands with had been soft-spoken, polite, guarded yes, but also relatively friendly. Perhaps, this was who Papa would have been, had poverty and sorrow not crushed his spirit years ago. Or perhaps, Papa was putting on a show, lulling everyone's suspicions while he put some plan into action.

He frowned. Papa hadn't been that devious before. It had been the Darkness, changing him, corrupting him, turning him from the good man Neal had once known. If, in this Land without Magic, Papa had truly been freed from that Darkness as the Reul Ghorm had led him to believe, then maybe they could be together once more. If Papa was asleep, then the personality he'd displayed today wasn't truly his own. But if he was awake…

If he's awake, why didn't he recognize me? I haven't changed that much! Or have I? Has Papa forgotten me? The Ruel Ghorm told me once that I was the part of Papa that kept him human. Once he let me go, did he get so much worse that he…? Neal shook his head. The man he'd just met hadn't seemed much like a monster.

But then, he'd met a number of people who hadn't seemed like monsters until he'd gotten to know them a bit better, hadn't he? And anyway, after all this time trying to keep himself and Emma away from this place so that there would be no confrontation with his father, why was he so upset with this outcome? He should be thrilled that Papa didn't know him! It made things so much easier!

Then… why did he want to take Papa by the shoulders and scream that he was Baelfire and somehow make him remember? And then… what? Hug him? This was his father, but this was also the man who'd chosen power over love. Power over him. And he didn't even remember doing it!

…Did he?

Neal closed his eyes and massaged his forehead. He didn't know what to do and there was nobody that he could ask for advice. But he was going to call on Papa at the shop, as he'd been advised to. After all, he did need to find a place to stay for as long as he was here. If Papa didn't know who he was, then it should be safe enough. And maybe, Neal thought, if he spent a bit more time with Papa, he'd be able to find some of the answers to the questions and speculations now churning in his mind.

Regina wasn't in her office. Much as it might have been nice to think that the mayor was avoiding her, Emma doubted it. She was probably at Sidney's campaign office giving him some tips. After all, she'd been the mayor of this place forever; she probably knew a thing or two about successful campaigns.

She'd run unopposed for 'as long as anyone could remember,' though. Maybe she didn't actually know how to deal with opposition.

Emma thought about how she'd been evicted from Granny's. The boot on her car she'd found later that day—the same day that Regina had manipulated her into saying something that had nearly destroyed her growing friendship with Henry. Regina knew how to deal with opposition, all right. She didn't seem to know about proportional response! Maybe, Emma thought, it would be better to let that hatchet job slide. She didn't actually know for sure that Regina had anything to do with it. Maybe that was all Sidney.

Her phone vibrated, and she looked at a text from Neal: Spent some time walking around and lost track. Heading to the shop now, but it doesn't feel right looking at places without you. Sure you can't meet me there?

Emma hesitated. Then, after verifying with Regina's receptionist that the mayor hadn't said when she'd be back, she texted, On my way. See you in ten.

She'd just have to come back here later to have it out with the mayor.

"You're late," Gold greeted them, and though his tone was pleasant enough, Emma could tell that he was annoyed.

"Yeah, sorry," Neal said, not meeting his eyes. "I…"

"He had to talk me into coming after all," Emma said.

Gold smiled. "Ah. I did see Mayor Mills a short while ago, so would I be correct in thinking that the confrontation you were seeking earlier has yet to take place?"

Emma frowned. "You would be, yeah. So, do you know where she is now?"

"Alas," Gold shook his head, "I do not. But this is a small town and, doubtless, you'll bump into her ere long. It's not as though you don't know where she lives and works, after all. But as you're here for another matter," he continued briskly, "suppose we deal with that now?"

"Sure," Neal said, and there was something about the heartiness of his agreement that made Emma frown. She'd rarely seen him this on edge. Yeah, Gold was shady, but it wasn't as though the two of them didn't have experience dealing with shady people. For now, though, she only nodded and resolved to try to get to the bottom of things with Neal later.

"You're seeking new lodgings," Gold stated. "Might I enquire as to your budget?"

Neal hesitated. "Well, I don't know how long we're going to be in town," he said. "I-I mean, if Emma wins the election, I guess we'll be here for a while, but if she doesn't, I don't want to be locked into a lease for a year."

Gold nodded. "Quite right," he said. "I do take your point. Well, if you're looking for a short-term rental, I do have one property that would suit. It's a bit rundown, I must admit, though it's certainly fit for habitation. If you're only looking for accommodations for a few weeks, I think it would do quite nicely. And if you should decide to extend your stay, well, of course I'll move on the necessary repairs. Meanwhile, in its current state, I would be willing to be a bit more flexible than usual on the rent." He frowned. "I don't believe you did mention your budget."

Neal hesitated. "This is for an apartment?"

"Actually…"

"Hang on," Emma said. "You're not… I-I mean, you weren't going to give us Graham's place, right? Because I know I'm trying to take over his job, but living in his old apartment just feels… a little too creepy. At least, for me."

Gold chuckled. "While the former sheriff's apartment is currently vacant, I'm afraid I'd need you to sign a one-year lease for it. No, I was thinking of a different property—a house on Chatham Street about ten minutes from here."

"A house," Neal repeated. "I… Well, if it's the only place available short-term, maybe you'd better tell me what kind of rent you were expecting and I'll tell you if we're in the right ballpark."

"As you wish," Rumple returned. He named a figure and Emma's eyes widened.

"That's all?" she asked. "For a house?" Gold was asking over a hundred less than they were paying for their apartment in Boston.

"Emma," Neal reminded her, "he said it's a fixer-upper." He turned to Gold.

"I guess we can have a look," he said. "And if worse comes to worse, I guess we can stay with Mary Margaret." He had no intention of doing so, but he also had no intention of letting Papa think they were desperate. He knew better than that.

The house at 3695 Chatham Street had definitely seen better days. Its windows were boarded up and the wooden staircase that led up to the front door was missing its banister. Inside, though, the floor was sound, the walls showed no hint of mold or moisture damage, and the walls appeared solid enough.

"As I said," Mr. Gold remarked, "it is a bit of a fixer-upper. Naturally, if you are intent on taking it for longer than a week, I'll put a bit more effort into arranging the repairs."

"And the rent would be the same?" Neal asked.

Gold smiled. "Well, if it's just a matter of bringing the property into compliance with building code requirements, no. If, on the other hand, you wish to request additional improvements, I'd say that's something we can discuss." He noted the look that passed between Neal and Emma with satisfaction. "Come. There's a basement I haven't yet shown you."

They followed him down the rickety stairs. Gold nearly tripped halfway down when his cane caught in the threadbare carpeting, but Neal gripped his elbow to steady him. "Careful!" he exclaimed.

Eyes wide, Gold turned to face him and nodded. "M-my thanks to you," he said with attempted nonchalance, but Neal had caught the faint tremor in his voice.

"Don't mention it," Neal said. "Let's just take it slower."

"O-of course," Gold agreed, taking them the rest of the way down without mishap. He shook his head. "It appears I must apologize for the mess," he remarked, eying the sloppy pile of comic books and the candy bar wrappers strewn about the floor. "I've not been here since the previous tenants defaulted on their rent. I hadn't realized this rubbish was down here."

Emma's eyes narrowed. "Really?" she asked.

Gold shook his head. "I had hoped that they were tidier than this," he said. "After all, the upstairs was certainly neater."

Emma's frown deepened, but she nodded and turned to Neal. "So… what do you think?"

Neal hesitated. "It's… not bad. I mean, we've both lived in worse. What do you think?"

Emma considered for a moment. "Well, it's not Tallahassee, but if you like it, I think we can make it work."

"I'm sorry," Gold cut in. "Tallahassee?"

"Um…" Neal swallowed.

"Old joke," Emma said. "You had to be there."

"Ah. Well, then. About the house?"

Neal nodded slowly. "We'll take it."

"Excellent," Gold said, his businesslike demeanor returning. "In that case, I'll have the paperwork prepared and I can bring it by Ms. Blanchard's loft, say… around half-nine this evening?"

"Uh, yeah," Neal said. "That sounds fine."

"Sure," Emma agreed.

It was getting dark when they were standing outside again. After Gold had driven off, Emma looked at her watch. "You'd think I'd be used to early sunsets in December," Emma muttered. "It's not even four-thirty yet. I'm going see if Regina's back in her office by now."

"Want some company?" Neal asked.

Emma shook her head. "I can deal with this myself. Oh, and don't tell Mary Margaret we're moving out. I think that's something we need to do together."

"No problem."

The morning paper was in the Beetle's glove compartment and Emma remembered to take it with her when she pulled up in front of the town hall. The receptionist wasn't at her desk, she noted as she stormed into the office beyond.

"This was a juvie record," she informed Regina, skipping the usual pleasantries. "I don't know how you got it, but that's abuse of power and illegal."

Regina smiled coolly. "Oh," she said, "I'm sorry. You didn't want people to know you cut his cord with a shiv?"

"I don't care what people know," Emma said, "but this hurts Henry."

"He would've learned eventually," Regina said with a shrug. "We all lose our heroes at some point." She got up from her desk, gathered her things and began heading out of her office.

Emma followed hot on her heels. She might have calmed down some since the morning, but Regina's supercilious attitude was riling her up all over again. She made an effort, all the same. "He doesn't need to lose anything more. He's depressed, Madam Mayor. He doesn't have any… any hope. Don't you see that?"

Regina gave her a hard look. "He's fine."

"He's not fine," Emma insisted. I mean, think about it. Watching his adoptive mother throw an illegal smear campaign against his birth mother? You don't think that would be upsetting?"

"All I did," Regina snapped, "was expose him to the truth. Which, I might say, is more than you did for me when I asked you about Henry's biological father."

"Excuse me?"

"You led me to believe that he was out of the picture. In Alaska."

"He was in Alaska," Emma said, hurrying to keep up as Regina flicked the lights and proceeded down the stairs. "On business. He's back now."

"So I observed earlier," Regina said. "One can't help wondering why you didn't mention earlier that he'd be coming."

"I didn't do anything wrong," Emma gritted.

The mayor sniffed. "And you believe that I did. Well, from a legal standpoint, Miss Swan, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't. Of course, you and Sidney will have a chance to get into all that at the debate."

Emma's eyes widened and her throat went suddenly dry. "Debate?" she repeated. Up on a stage, in front of the whole town, fielding pointed questions about her qualifications, her past, her… She couldn't do this. What the hell had she even been thinking? There was just no way that she could…

Regina smiled, and with a faint note of exasperation replied, "Yes, Miss Swan, there's a debate. You two can talk about jail time and juvie records and maybe even your new association with Mr. Gold. He's a snake, Miss Swan. You need to be careful who you get into bed with."

Emma blinked, as Regina put her hand down on the handle of the door leading to the first-floor foyer. "I'm not getting into bed with anyone," she snapped. "I'm just fighting fire with—"

As Regina pulled the door open a wall of flames erupted in front of them.

FIRE!

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I will not panic, Emma told herself. I will not panic. The force of the heat flung them both backwards. Emma got to her feet, noticing at the same time that Regina wasn't following suit. A slatted piece of wood, probably some sort of banister or railing, had landed squarely on the mayor's leg. I will not panic, Emma repeated her mantra. If she panicked, they were both dead. The flames seemed searing on her cheeks and smoke stung her eyes, and she started to cough. How could she not have smelled it from the stairs? How could Regina not have noticed how warm the door handle was? Either Regina and me were really so deep in sniping at each other that we were oblivious, her blood suddenly ran cold, or that door was booby-trapped! Had the blast been caused by some sort of bomb? Wait. I remember learning about fire safety in school. When you open a door on a fire, you give it a rush of oxygen and it gets a lot stronger really fast… I think. Or… Less thinking, more moving! There would be time to think once she and Regina were out of here! "We have to get out of here," she told Regina, grabbing hold of her arm.

Regina half-rose and then sank back down. "I can't move!" she cried. "You have to get me out!" That piece of debris had clearly hurt her more than Emma had thought. She looked at the hallway before her and through the flames, she saw one of the most welcome sights she believed possible. Getting there would be risky. Staying here is risky too, she reminded herself. Pick your risky. 'Risky' wasn't impossible. In fact—Emma looked over the flaming room before her and felt her fear subside slightly—if she was careful, and the flames didn't grow too much fiercer, and the ceiling didn't fall in on her, she really thought she could make it. And, she thought as she took two steps forward, it wasn't as though she could abandon—

Regina seized hold of her arm. "You're just going to leave me," she said, her voice thick with anger.

For a moment, Emma was tempted. She always got her back up when someone ordered her to do something she'd been planning on doing anyway—or assumed the worst of her right when she'd been trying her best. The moment passed. She shook loose of Regina's grip and made her way through the smoke and fire, keeping as low to the ground as she could as she tried to reach the fire extinguisher.

The shock in Regina's eyes when she raced back, spraying flame-retardant foam over everything she could see on the way, was quickly surpassed by relief and gratitude. As Emma took the mayor's arm and helped her to her feet and out the door, though, she saw those emotions yield to annoyance, followed quickly by anger. Still, she allowed Emma to guide her through the now-weaker flames and out the door, where they could hear sirens in the distance drawing closer.

A flashbulb popped in Regina's face and she whirled on Emma. "Ow! My ankle," she snapped. "Set me down gently!"

Granted, people lashed out when they were angry, but, "Seriously? You're complaining about how I saved your life?"

"The firemen are here," Regina pointed out. "It's not like we were really in danger."

"Fine," Emma shot back. "Next time, I'll—" She caught herself. "You know what? Next time I'll do the same thing. Because that's what decent human beings do. That's what good people do." She stalked off toward Henry, as a paramedic approached Regina with an oxygen mask and guided her to a stretcher.

Regina lay there for a moment, but when she heard Henry asking in awe whether Emma had really rescued her, her joy at hearing Henry call her his mom was quickly overtaken by her realization that this move could only work in Emma's favor in the upcoming election. "Enough!" she said, springing up, just as Sidney rushed forward with his camera.

"Nice shot of the victim?" he asked.

Regina seethed.

Neal was sitting in the loft waiting for his father with Mary Margaret. Mr. Gold, he was repeating to himself in his head. Not my father. Definitely not 'Papa'. Mr. Gold. Get that into your brain and don't you dare slip up. "He said 'half-nine,'" Neal remembered. "Is that halfway to nine or halfway past nine?"

Mary Margaret shrugged. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "But you're welcome to stay as long as you both want to; you know that, right?"

Neal nodded. "But I'm sure you want your privacy back, still."

"Well," the schoolteacher sighed, "maybe just a little. But I must admit that it's nice not coming home to an empty house. Even though Chatham Street is only a couple of blocks from here." She smiled. "I suppose that's one nice thing about living in a small town: everyone is just a few blocks or so from everyone else.

"You smell smoke?" Neal asked suddenly.

Mary Margaret frowned. Then she walked to the open window. "It's coming from down the street," she said. Then, more excitedly, "and two fire trucks are passing by right now!" She walked to her door and held it open. "Maybe someone below knows what's going on."

Neal nodded and followed on her heels. Once out on the street, Mary Margaret collared the first person running past she could. "Leroy? What's happening?"

"Terrible news!" the hospital janitor exclaimed. "There's a fire at the town hall!"

Mary Margaret's jaw dropped. "What?"

There was a strangled noise from behind her. She turned to see that Neal had gone white. In a horrified voice, he whispered, "Emma was heading over there."

When Mary Margaret and Neal arrived, they were both relieved to see that the fire appeared to be out and Emma and Mayor Mills were outside on the grass, being attended to by paramedics. As the two hurried toward Emma, they were startled by a flash of light directly in front of her. It took them a moment to see that it had been caused by a camera.

"Sidney!" The mayor's outrage carried clearly over to the newcomers. "What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to hand this election to her?"

Neal shot Mary Margaret a questioning look. "That's her opponent?"

"That's Sidney," Mary Margaret nodded. "He's not going to let personal interest get in the way of tomorrow's headlines. C'mon."

Snatches of conversation swirled about them as they drew closer and by the time they'd crossed the short distance to the lawn, they thought they had the gist of it. Mary Margaret's eyes were growing wider by the second, and, as soon as she caught Emma's eye, instead of asking whether her friend was okay, she blurted out, "Did you really rescue Regina?"

"She did!" Henry exclaimed. He was beaming, turning to include Neal in his excitement. "The firemen said it. They saw it!"

Neal slung an arm about Henry's shoulders and looked at Emma. "But you're okay?"

"Uh… yeah," Emma nodded. "I didn't breathe in much smoke, and once I got my hands on the fire extinguisher, I was able to push back on the flames enough to get Regina out." She frowned. "I guess. Seriously, it all happened so fast, I barely remember doing it." Her nose wrinkled. "Phew, it stinks here."

"Yeah," Ruby said. "Probably be a few hours before the smoke dissipates. Hope the wind doesn't blow it toward Granny's; my room faces the square." She shook her head. "But enough of that. Emma… you're a hero."

Mary Margaret looked thoughtful. "I wonder if anyone got a picture of the actual rescue."

"We could use that," Granny nodded. "It would be perfect for a campaign poster." She turned to Ruby. "And if the wind's uncooperative, take one of the forest-side rooms for the night. Lord knows we haven't got any guests right now."

Archie was nodding his head as the others spoke. "Wait, he said, so if we're making up posters…"

Emma, one hand clasped in Neal's the other in Henry's was barely paying attention and scarcely noticed when the crowd drifted off. She smiled at Henry. "This is how Good wins," she told him. "You do something good, people see it, and… they want to help you." It still smelled here. It wasn't just the smoke. There was something else, an odor she knew, but couldn't place.

Henry didn't seem to notice. He smiled. "Maybe you're right," he allowed.

"Of course she is," Neal said, ruffling Henry's hair. He looked at his watch. "Hey, you cleared to leave or do they want you to go to the hospital for observation or something?"

Emma looked around. The paramedics seemed to have vanished along with the rest of the crowd. "Looks like I'm good," she said.

"In that case," Neal said, "believe it or not, it's only a quarter to eight. If we hurry, we can be back at Mary Margaret's when Mr. Gold shows up with the lease for the house."

She'd almost forgotten. But Neal's mention of Mr. Gold reminded Emma of exactly what that mysterious odor had to be. Slowly, she moved over to a pile of debris and looked down. Her smile vanished, as she plucked out a charred rag.

"What's that?" Neal asked.

Shaking her head, Emma handed it to him. "Smell it," she said.

He could from here. An odor that was at once painfully foul and achingly familiar. "Lanolin?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

Emma nodded. "Lanolin. This fire was set. And I think I know who by."

Neal hated having to play dumb. Part of him hoped she didn't suspect the same person he did. But it wasn't as though this would have been the first time Papa had used lanolin to start a blaze…

Mr. Gold came by at a quarter to ten apologizing for the late hour. "Promptness is a value to which I generally adhere," he said, "but with the commotion earlier, I wasn't entirely certain that Ms. Swan would be here. And as, alas the Storybrooke telephone directory does not as yet include your contact information, I waited until I felt sure that you were at home."

It sounded plausible. At least, to a point: Emma couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a telephone directory. Maybe Gold just meant four-one-one-dot-com. Emma, though, had other things on her mind than his tardiness. She held up the charred rag she'd found earlier. "You set that fire."

Gold looked from Emma to Neal. They appeared to be in accord on the matter. Either her young man was completely enthralled by his love, or he'd come to his own conclusion. It would be interesting to know which, particularly since the method he'd employed wasn't one that many would have recognized. Emma, of course, had good reason to; in fact, he'd planned for her to make the connection. Well, for now it mattered little that she wasn't the only one. Still… curious.

He tilted his head, opening his eyes slightly wider, trying to feign confusion. "I was in my shop, Ms. Swan," he said mildly.

Emma held the rag closer to his nose and he couldn't help wrinkling it slightly. "Take a whiff," she ordered. "It smells like your sheep crap oil. Turns out it's flammable."

The internet, Gold had to allow, was quite the useful tool for finding out uncomfortable facts. That it did not exist in the Enchanted Forest was somewhat of a mixed blessing. Still, he did his best to act innocent; it would scarcely do to confess now and she'd be all the more suspicious if he did. "Oh," he said. "Are you sure? There's some construction going on at City Hall right now and they do use a number of flammable substances in that sort of work."

"Why would you do something like that?" Neal asked, speaking for the first time. Gold blinked. There was anger in that voice, yes. But there was also, as much as the young man was trying to hide it, a note of anguish that clutched at him.

No, Papa. No. Please, Papa. Don't. No, Papa! Papa!

He blinked again, more rapidly. Why was that memory haunting him now? He took a breath to recollect himself. "If I did it," and his voice came out as calm and steady as he'd meant it to, "If I did it, that would be because Ms. Swan has no hope of winning the election without something big. Something like…" he shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Being the hero in a fire?"

"How could you even have known I'd be there at the right time?" Emma demanded.

Gold shrugged again. "Maybe Regina's not the only one with eyes and ears in this town. Or maybe I'm just intuitive. That's… if I were involved, of course."

"I could've just run and left her there."

Gold shook his head. "Not the type."

"I can't go along with this," Emma said, speaking slowly, incredulously.

He saw Neal's quick approving nod, but ignored it. This was between himself and Ms. Swan, and Mr. Cassidy might well be a party to their conversation, but not a part of it. "You just did," he pointed out. "Think of it as the price of the election."

"No," Emma said. "That's not a price I'm willing to pay."

As he'd hoped she'd respond. "Okay," he shrugged once more. "Go ahead. Expose me. But, if you do, just think about what you'll be exposing and what you'll be walking away from and, oh yes… um, whom you might be disappointing."

"You… bastard." Neal said in a low tone.

Gold chuckled. "Would you believe you're not the first person to have called me so today?" he asked mildly. He sighed. "I take it that means you won't be taking the house, after all?"

Neal and Emma exchanged a long look. Finally, angrily, they both faced him again. "You own all the real estate here, right?" Neal asked.

Gold inclined his head.

"So, whether we pay Mary Margaret part of her rent or pay you directly, it still goes to you in the end," Neal summed up bitterly.

"As do a great many things," Gold assured him.

Another look exchanged. Finally, Neal sighed in resignation. "Fine, give us the papers. We'll sign them. After we've spent a few hours going over the fine print."

Mr. Gold chuckled. "Prudent on your part. I'd scarcely have expected less. Well then. I suppose you'll be spending at least one more night here?"

"Looks that way," Emma said, her voice no less furious for its even tone.

"Very well," Gold said, opening his briefcase and extracting a thin sheaf of papers, "In that case, I'll bid you a good evening. Oh, but I'll ask you not to keep me waiting. There aren't many people in this town looking to move house at any given time, but should I be approached, well, I'd hate for the two of you to miss out. You know, you really do make quite the lovely couple." With that, he touched his hand to his forehead in what might have been a salute, and walked calmly out of the apartment.

Emma and Neal glared after him.

Papa hadn't changed. Magic or no magic, memory or no memory, he was still Dark. Lying beside Emma in the loft later that night, Neal's fists clenched the coverlet as he continued to seethe in silence.

As he lay there, he found himself wondering whether it would have been any different had Papa leaped with him all those years ago. One part of him felt certain that it would have been. Papa had been new to his power then. It had been less than a year since its acquisition that the Reul Ghorm had given him the bean. Surely, with less than a year, Papa would have—

—I can't make him the man that he was before, but I can send him someplace where he won't be able to use his powers.

—Not a jail. I want to be with him. Like it used to be.

—Not a jail, young man. Just a place without magic.

Those months with Papa after he'd changed, that eternity in Neverland with a teenaged tyrant who never lied outright but always seemed to be promising something and nothing in the same breath and always, always making you think you were getting what you intended until you didn't… Had the Reul Ghorm really promised that coming here would cure Papa? Or—

—Can you do it? Can you leave everything behind… for the unknown?

—If it means I get my father back, then yes.

—You're a very good son, Baelfire…

She'd never promised him anything. Maybe the Papa he'd known and loved had been too far gone even then. Or maybe he hadn't been. Maybe the Reul Ghorm had played him, manipulated him, just as much and as badly as Pan had. As Papa could have, but never done. Maybe she hadn't been sure, but just wanted Papa gone. He thought back to the conversation he'd had with Henry at breakfast and the things Emma had told him on the way to Granny's about how down their son had been since the death of the previous sheriff. Henry was convinced that Good couldn't fight dirty to win, and maybe that was how it ought to be. But maybe if it was for a good purpose…

He was thinking like Papa.

But he was also thinking like the Reul Ghorm. At least, maybe.

Damn it, she was probably here in this town, but even if he found her, he couldn't ask her now! And what kind of answer might he expect to get from her, even if he could ask?

"Can't sleep?" a weary voice mumbled beside him.

Neal sighed and rolled over to face her. "Thinking."

"About tonight?"

Neal sighed again. "Yeah. Look. Whatever you decide to do about Gold's stunt, just so you know… I've got your back."

For a moment, there was no reaction. Then Emma's arm curved about his shoulder blades as she slid closer to him and rested her head on his chest.

A soft smile came to Neal's face as he caressed her hair. "I've got your back," he repeated, and she smiled and slept.

Mary Margaret frowned worriedly at them across the breakfast table the next morning. "Do you have to go?" she asked. "The place is going to be kind of lonely without you."

Emma smiled uneasily. "It's just a couple of streets over," she said. "It's not like we can't still hang out. But I think Neal and I just… need our space."

"I went over the rental agreement," Neal added. He smiled at Mary Margaret. "Thanks for letting me see your lease so I could compare the two; I checked against a copy of the one on our apartment back in Boston, too and it all seems legit." There hadn't been any fine print about signing away their first-born anyway, Neal thought dryly. Then the half-smile that had been forming on his lips died before it became recognizable. They'd already done that part, he thought with a pang.

"I understand," Mary Margaret nodded, oblivious to the thoughts going through Neal's head. "But," she went on, turning to Emma, "I'm going to miss you. Even if I am going to be seeing you at the debate tonight," she added with a little laugh.

Emma winced. "I'm trying not to think about that."

"Emma!" Mary Margaret exclaimed. "You don't have to worry. After last night, I think at least three quarters of the town must be on your side! You're going to be fine up there. Just… be yourself."

"A felon who had a child in prison?"

"A hero."

Emma felt Neal squeeze her hand under the table and she did her best to smile, even as she thought to herself, Some hero.

Several hours later, Emma was sitting on a stage at the Storybrooke town hall, peering through the curtains at Henry's grinning face. He and Neal were definitely hitting it off, she thought, as Henry noticed her and sent a friendly wave in her direction. She smiled back, right when Regina approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. Henry looked up, rose at once to his feet, and followed the mayor to the seats she'd picked out, several rows closer.

A few feet away, Archie—who was going to be moderating the debate—was nervously rehearsing his opening remarks. Sidney was sitting in front of a lighted mirror, touching up his… make-up? Stage make-up, she realized, wishing she'd thought about that. The overhead spotlights were probably too bright; she was going to look pale and washed-out. Wasn't that how Nixon had lost the debate against Kennedy? She vaguely remembered hearing something about that in history class. Or maybe it had been some other class and the teacher had just mentioned it in passing. She didn't really remember much about either man. Kennedy was the Cuban Missile Crisis and Dallas. Nixon was… the end the Vietnam War and Watergate.

I am not a crook.

Emma wiped her hands on her jeans. She wasn't a crook. Not anymore. But… she was playing dirty. Or letting Gold play dirty, which was pretty much the same thing. Neal understood. She knew he'd meant it when he said he'd back her, whatever she decided. On the other hand, had he meant it because he trusted her to do the right thing? Or because in this case, he was willing to accept that the ends just might justify the means? They'd both done things they weren't proud of in their past and they hadn't agonized much over the morality of shoplifting and penny ante con games.

"Hey," Neal had said, "we gotta eat, right?"

She hadn't protested his rationalization. Actually, she'd applauded it. But that had been then. This was now. And now…

Now, she was trying to get her son back, she was trying to keep herself in a position where she stood a real chance of taking on Regina, and she felt accepted here in Storybrooke, in a way she never had anywhere else. She didn't want to throw that away.

Plus, even if she told everyone the truth about the fire, would anyone really believe that she'd truly had nothing to do with it? She was a known felon. What business did she even have trying to get this position? In any other municipality in the country, she'd never have even been considered for a post in law enforcement, not with her history. She wasn't qualified. Hell, when you got down to it, a big part of why she was tossing her hat in the ring was because she had something to prove. To Regina, to Henry, to herself…

Either she was about to do the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Or the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, she thought to herself, just as a hand dangled a small stack of lined index cards before her eyes.

Startled, she looked up. Mary Margaret proffered the cards again, holding out a bottle of water in her other hand. Emma exhaled. "I'm not going to win," she murmured, hearing the truth in her voice. As the words fell from her lips, she felt a strange calm blanket her. She wasn't going to win; if she did, she was only going to lose. No matter what. Of course, if she lost, she was also going to lose, but at least she'd still be able to look at herself in the mirror afterwards. If she had a mirror; Sidney was still hogging the one backstage.

"What are you talking about?" Mary Margaret replied, still smiling. "Everyone's talking about what you did in the fire."

"No," Emma said, still feeling that eerie calm. "No, Henry's right. I can't beat Regina at this. Not the way she fights." There was only one way through this, she saw it now. "Watch and see."

Mary Margaret's eyebrows climbed. "Is this really just about beating Regina?"

It had looked that way for a while; that was why she'd been trying to quiet her conscience, but it wouldn't stay silent now. "It's just…"

"Henry," Mary Margaret supplied, and Emma felt her resolve falter again.

"I want to show him that good can actually win," she said.

Mary Margaret frowned. "That's why you want to win it for him," she said, "but why do you want to win the election for yourself?"

Because I do want to beat Regina. But if I tell you that, you're going to be… more disappointed in me than you're going to be in about five minutes. And you'll be right. Aloud, she said, "That is why. I want to show him that a hero can win." Her hands were sweating again, but her voice was steady, as she continued. "And if I'm not… If I'm not a hero and I'm not the savior, then what part do I have in his life?" Whoa. She hadn't known that was going to come out. Startled, she met Mary Margaret's eyes and sighed. "Okay," she said, just as someone whose name she didn't yet know announced a two-minute warning. "There it is."

"There it is," Mary Margaret repeated, just as a stagehand approached, making shooing movements in her direction. She moved away, giving Emma a wave and another reassuring smile. Emma returned it. Then she wiped her hands on her jeans once more, sat up straighter in her chair, and waited for the curtains to part.

"Hey," Neal rested a hand on Emma's shoulder. "Hey, you did the right thing."

Emma sighed and drained the last of her beer. "I know," she said. "I still feel lousy." She shook her head. "Not as lousy as I'd feel if I hadn't spoken up, but…" She rubbed her forehead, as Neal slid off his stool, stood behind Emma, and massaged her shoulders. "Well, at least, this is usually a quiet little town and Sidney probably won't have to deal with much more than the occasional illegal U-turn or Leroy's usual drunk-and-disorderly." Come to think of it, she hadn't had to bring in the gruff hospital janitor since Graham's funeral. Maybe Leroy had just enjoyed hanging out with the former sheriff.

"Want me to flag the server to get you another beer?"

She did, but she felt that she'd let Henry down enough already. If he stopped by to see her tomorrow, she didn't want him to see her with a hangover. Granted, a second beer probably wouldn't get her there, but it might make her feel just good enough to think a third would make her feel better. "Make it a coffee," she said. She shook her head. "Maybe we shouldn't have signed for the house, after all."

"It's week-to-week and we only had to pay for two weeks up-front," Neal said. "Didn't even know you could get an agreement like that anymore. And if you want to go back sooner, it's not like we're obligated to stay here a minute longer than we want to."

Emma frowned. "I don't want to leave Henry," she admitted. "Even if it's just until we can talk to a lawyer about suing for custody, he's going to feel like we're abandoning him again." She winced. "If he even wants to talk to me again after tonight."

"I tried to have a word with him after you walked off the stage," Neal said. "But Regina was watching, I didn't think she wanted me around, and I was worried that if I pushed it, it might cause a scene—"

"No, you did the right thing," Emma reassured him. "Well, I guess if I've blown the election, we can spend tomorrow asking around about a good custody lawyer."

Just then, the door of the diner opened and Henry walked in and made a beeline for the two of them. "Hey, kid," Emma greeted him.

Henry reached into his book bag and handed her one of the walkie-talkies she'd given him the week before. Emma stared at it. "What's this for?"

"You stood up to Mr. Gold," Henry said, as though it was self-explanatory. "It's pretty amazing."

Emma and Neal exchanged a quick glance. "Well," Emma said, "he did do something illegal."

"Yeah, but that's what heroes do," Henry said. "Expose stuff like that. I… shouldn't have given up on Operation Cobra."

"Operation… what?" Neal asked.

Emma grinned. "I'll tell you later," she promised as the diner doors opened again. Her grin suddenly felt tight on her face, as Regina and Sidney approached.

"I thought I might find the two of you here," Regina said primly. "With a drink. And my son."

As resolved as she was to track down a custody lawyer tomorrow, she so did not want to get into this tonight. She raised an eyebrow at Sidney. "Here to card me, officer?" she asked, as Neal caught Ruby's eye and requested two coffees when she approached.

"Not at all," Sidney returned. "Actually, I think I'll join you."

"Here?" Emma asked. "I don't know; I think they're setting up a back room for the victory party."

Sidney gave her a tired smile. "Well, you'll have to tell me what that's like," he said.

"Wait," Neal interjected, as the two cups of coffee hit the counter. "What?"

Regina sighed. "Congratulations," she said softly. "Sheriff Swan." She laid the sheriff's badge on the counter beside Emma's coffee.

Henry perked up. "You mean, she won?" he asked.

Regina gave her son a hard look. Then she sighed once more. "It was a very close vote, but people really seem to like the idea of a sheriff brave enough to stand up to Mr. Gold." As she spoke, Emma and Neal noticed that the room was slowly filling with townspeople.

Emma was still trying to process what she'd been told. "Are you joking?"

"She doesn't joke," Sidney asserted.

Regina wasn't finished. "You didn't pick a great friend in Mr. Gold, Ms Swan, but he does make a superlative enemy. Enjoy that."

It was, perhaps, three hours later that Emma made her way up the walk to the house where she was now going to be living. As she fumbled in her pocket for the key, the door opened and Neal greeted her, his expression serious.

"Sorry," Emma said softly. "I didn't mean to stay that long after you left, but everyone kept coming up and I thought it would be rude if I headed out too soon. You didn't have to wait up, even if I'm glad you did." She frowned. "What's wrong?"

Neal sighed. "I think we may have a problem. Or two," he added, moving aside so that she could enter.

Emma blinked. "What kind of problem? Problems?" she amended hesitantly.

Neal motioned for her to follow him, and led her toward the door to the basement. "Keep your voice down and careful on the stairs," he said. "I don't know if we should wake them."

"Wake who?" Emma asked, almost whispering. "Neal?"

"I just figure, well, maybe they've got a good reason to be here, and I'm worried that if we spook them, they'll run and it's pretty late, so I think we should leave it until morning." His hand was on the doorknob by now.

As he turned it, Emma whispered, "Who has a good reason? Who are we going to sp—?"

Neal put his finger to his lips and flicked the light switch. The lone bulb over the stairs came on, barely illuminating the way down. Carefully, remembering that Gold had tripped on the carpet the day before, she made her way down behind Neal, one hand on the bannister. Three steps from the bottom, Neal's arm shot out to block her progress. Then he gestured directly ahead.

Emma's eyes went wide. Not far from the messy stack of comic books that they'd noticed yesterday were two sleeping bags that they definitely hadn't seen earlier.

Each bag was occupied by a slumbering child.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty

Neal closed the basement door softly, as soon as they were back on the main floor. "I heard a noise," he murmured. I thought it was the wind, blowing the window shut, but then I heard voices. They didn't know I was upstairs, at least, they didn't bother to whisper." He smiled. "Actually, they were pretty loud."

"You didn't go downstairs to talk to them?" Emma asked.

Neal shook his head. "It's weird, but… from what we saw the other day, they've been living here longer than we have, or at least, it looks that way. Somehow, I felt almost like I'd be the intruder. Plus, I was afraid they'd run and, well, it's pretty late and it's dark, and somehow, I don't think they're going to knife us in our sleep." He gave her a pained smile. "Plus, until just now, when I brought you downstairs, I was hoping maybe I'd just hallucinated the whole thing, but you saw them too. So unless there's something in the water in this town…"

"Actually," Emma said slowly, "I've been starting to wonder. There's been some… pretty weird stuff going on here."

"You were telling me," Neal nodded. "Still, I'm pretty sure our houseguests are real. So. What the hell do we do now? Call the cops?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "As of about three hours ago, I am the cops." She groaned. "I've really got to do something about this tonight, don't I?"

Neal nodded. "If those kids have parents who care about them, those parents have got to be worried sick. And if they don't, we need to make sure they get looked after."

"You mean, get them into the system," Emma said.

"If that's what they need."

"That is not what they need," Emma said tightly.

"You don't know that."

"Yes," Emma shot back. "I do. I grew up in the system."

"I grew up with a gang of homeless kids!" Neal snapped. "That wasn't a picnic either! Look. Until we get some answers out of those two, we're just guessing anyway. So, since I don't think either of us is getting any sleep tonight, here's what I'm suggesting…"

Emma's eyes, however, were wide. "You grew up on the street?" she asked, the anger out of her voice.

Neal hesitated. "Sometimes," he said. "Other times, we found places to bed down where the authorities never bothered us. Hey, when we met, I was sleeping in a car I'd stolen. You never wondered why I didn't have a fixed address?"

"I thought…" She hadn't thought he'd been living on the street for years. She'd just never asked and he'd never volunteered. She hadn't wanted to bring up her past to him back then either. He'd told her that he'd left a crappy home situation and she'd definitely been able to relate. What else had either of them needed to know? At least, until now. "I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd have told me." She took a deep breath. "Okay, what did you have in mind…?"

Nicholas Zimmer was dreaming of scrambled eggs and French toast. French toast with cinnamon. He could smell it. And the worst part was that he knew it was a dream and he was going to wake up. He didn't want to wake up and go to school. But if he didn't go to school, they'd call the number they had on file to tell his mother. And then they'd find out that the number wasn't in service. Maybe they'd ask him, but maybe they'd send someone to the address they also had on file. Then they'd know the truth. It would be the end of everything. And all because he didn't want to go to school.

Groaning, he opened his eyes. Yep, he was still in the basement of the empty house. He eyed the snack cake and candy bar he'd saved for breakfast with distaste. He was still smelling the cinnamon from his dream.

His eyes went wide. "Ava," he whispered. "Ava!"

His sister stirred, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. "Morning already?" she asked sleepily.

"Ava, do you smell what I smell…?"

Ava sniffed the air. Then she sat bolt upright. "Cinnamon?" she asked. Then a look of horror crossed her face. "Someone's upstairs!" she hissed. "Nicholas, if somebody moved in, we have to go!" She slid out of her sleeping bag and frantically began gathering up their things. "We'll find somewhere else," she said, rolling up the sleeping bag as she spoke. "The library's boarded up; maybe we can get in there."

The footsteps above sounded impossibly loud. How many people were upstairs? One set tramped across the floor and the brother and sister tracked them as they headed toward the trap door that was the cellar's entrance.

"They won't come down here," Nicholas whispered. "I bet they're just going into one of the other rooms."

Ava put her finger to her lips, even as her eyes moved toward the wooden side door they used to enter and leave the house.

They heard the cellar door creak open and Nicholas's breath caught. Frantically, he motioned to Ava to duck behind the wooden stairs. Brother and sister huddled in the small space, scarcely daring to breathe, as they saw two legs encased in jeans and running shoes descending.

Halfway down, the legs stopped. The person they belonged to sat down on one of the steps, carefully setting a tray down beside them. Nicholas knew his mouth was watering. He started to reach through the space between the steps for one slice of the cinnamon French toast he could see plainly on the tray. Ava yanked his hand back, shaking her head emphatically.

And then, both gasped, as a man's face suddenly appeared in that gap. He smiled at them in a friendly fashion. "You guys want to join us for breakfast, or would you rather eat down here?"

Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast table. "It's fine," Emma said, when Ava shot forth her hand to stop her brother from snagging the last piece of French toast. "I'll make a few more slices."

"Sorry," Nicholas said. "We've come upstairs a few times, but we were afraid to use the stove."

"We… uh… don't have a lot of experience cooking," Ava explained. "And I didn't know whether a fire alarm would go off if anything burned."

"Understandable," Neal said, spooning more eggs onto his plate and reaching for the open salsa jar. He frowned. "How long have you two been living here?"

The siblings looked at one another. Ava shook her head. "It feels like always," she said slowly. "It's been a few years, I guess."

"A few years?" Emma repeated sharply, as she dunked sliced bread into beaten egg and milk. "How old are you guys?"

"Eleven last month," Nicholas said, frowning a bit.

"Where are your parents?"

Ava looked down. "Well, our mother got sick a lot. I remember that. She'd get better and then, she'd get worse again. And then one day she… didn't get better."

Emma winced. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago," Nicholas said. "I barely remember now."

"And your father?" Neal asked.

"We never knew him," Nicholas said. "Mom never told us his name, even."

"What's going to happen to us now?" Ava asked nervously.

Emma turned away from the frying pan for a moment to exchange a look with Neal. Then she sighed. "For now? This is a three-bedroom house. Neal and I just need one of them. After school, we'll all clean this place up together, figure out where you guys want to sleep, and if we have to get more furniture…" she frowned. "I don't think there's an Ikea here, but maybe we can order. Or we'll find something we can afford. Even if it might not be new."

"You mean…" Nicholas's eyes widened. "We can stay?"

"For now," Neal said. "At least, until we can see if we can track down any relatives you might have. Emma and I are good at that."

"But if you can't?" Ava asked.

Emma hesitated. "Well, you can't keep living on your own like you've been doing. So," her eyes sought Neal's again, but it wasn't until he gave her a slow nod that she exhaled, "I guess the next step would be for Neal and me seeing if we can get approved to foster you."

After Ava and Nicholas had left for school, Emma set about making herself another cup of coffee. "Make one for me, too?" Neal asked, and Emma put out a hand for his mug.

"What the hell are we doing?" she asked.

Neal came up beside her and set his mug on the counter next to hers, while she poured water into a saucepan. "I should've brought the coffee maker with me from Boston," he murmured apologetically.

"Yeah, like you had room in your suitcase," Emma said, smiling a bit. "We'll get one here this week. Meanwhile, there's instant and boiling water the old-fashioned way." She shook her head. "This is not how I saw things going."

"What's our alternative?" Neal asked. "They've been living on the street. I know what that's like. If we don't help them out, then…"

"They go into the System," Emma finished. "I know what that's like."

"You almost never talk about it," Neal said. He rested a hand on her arm. "Bad?"

Emma nodded. "Bad. Maybe not for everyone. Cute kids under five with curls and dimples had a decent chance at getting adopted. I did," she added. "At least until the family that wanted to take me had their own. No need for second-best then," she added bitterly. Her eyes widened. "Wait. Is that what we're doing? Like, if we can't have Henry, this is the closest thing?" She didn't want to think that she was being that... calculating. Even unconsciously.

Neal shook his head. "Somehow," he said, "I get the feeling that, even if Regina did a complete about face, dropped Henry on our doorstep with his bags packed and told us that she was stepping aside, we'd still be helping those kids. It's not about our not having Henry with us. It's about those kids being alone in the world and needing someone in their corner. We've both been through that. We can give them a better chance than we ever had."

"But this isn't like Oliver Twist or even Pete's Dragon. We can't just… take in a couple of orphans off the street. There's paperwork… legalities. Neal, I don't know if my giving up Henry at birth would disqualify me for fostering right out of the gate, and you—" She stopped. "Sorry."

"You were going to remind me that I've got a felony conviction and a prison record," Neal said. "Yeah. I do. But maybe that won't matter. Hey, maybe it'll help. I'm willing to bet that those two have had to do a couple of things outside the law to get by already. We know they were trespassing. I don't think it's breaking and entering unless they robbed the place, but robbery could be taking some canned goods out of the cupboard or… or… a scarf or a pen, even. And since ten-year-olds usually don't find legal employment and those two didn't look like they were starving, well, they've either been begging or stealing."

"I haven't seen anyone panhandling in town since I got here," Emma said. "Not adults and definitely not kids. We shouldn't make assumptions, but you're probably right."

"So, maybe our having done some of that stuff when we were younger will actually work for us. Because we can relate to what those kids must be going through. It's worth looking into."

Emma thought about it. "You could be right," she said slowly. "I've got to get to work, but maybe you could start researching?"

Neal nodded. "I guess with the election over, well, if you're sticking around, I could… try it out here for a while. I'd need a job, though. Bumming around and playing on my screen all day is going to get real boring real fast. I was planning on knocking on doors today to see if anyone was hiring, but I should be able to find time in there to, at least, try to find out what's involved in fostering."

"And if—when—we do get Henry's adoption overturned and he comes to live with us?"

"Then, if things go right, he'll have a brother and sister his own age to play with."

"I had no idea," Mary Margaret exclaimed, a shocked expression on her face. "They've been on their own for how long?"

Emma shook her head. "A few years, from the sound of it. Nobody at school suspected…?"

Mary Margaret frowned, thinking. "They're in Hiromi Tanaka's fifth grade class, not mine. She's never mentioned anything about them that I've heard. We do vent every now and then in the teachers' room, of course, but their names never came up."

"But when Dory Zimmer passed away," Emma pressed, "didn't anyone think about those kids?"

Mary Margaret shook her head. "It sounds awful, but… I don't remember anyone by that name at all. I know," she added with a guilty smile and a glance ceilingwards. "In in a small town, everyone should know everyone, o-or at least know of them, but I can't recall ever meeting her." Her eyebrows shot up. "Isn't that odd?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah," Emma said. "Yeah, it is. Well, thanks, I guess. Meanwhile, it looks like Ava and Nicholas will be staying with me and Neal, until we can sort things out. So, if there's any kind of paperwork the school needs…"

"Of course," Mary Margaret nodded. "I'll look into that and let you know."

"I'll keep asking around," Emma replied. "Maybe someone else will remember their mother. Or know something about their father," she added.

Mary Margaret nodded. "Good thinking. And good luck."

She was probably going to need it, Emma thought, since Dory Zimmer's demise seemed like it might be one more thing that everyone in this place was hazy about. Keeping her trepidation to herself, though, she just smiled and thanked her friend.

Neal stopped by the Sheriff station at lunch. "Well," he said, "I've got good news and bad news. What do you want to hear first?"

Emma hesitated. "Better get the bad news out of the way," she said. "What's up?"

"Actually," Neal said, I've got two pieces of good news and one piece of bad, so maybe I'll make it a sandwich."

Emma walked over to the coffee machine and poured herself a mug. "Want?" she asked.

"Nah, you know I only drink that in the morning." He eyed the stack of papers on her desk. "No luck?"

Emma carried the mug back, cupping one hand around it so it wouldn't spill.

Neal smiled as the fragrance of the brew reached his nostrils. "French vanilla?" he asked. "I thought you cop types liked your coffee black."

"What I'd love would be a cinnamon dolce latte, but somehow, Starbucks hasn't opened up a franchise here in town. On the other hand," she gestured to the small red-lidded tin on the counter, "General Foods International seems to be a different story." She sighed. "And to answer your question, nobody seems to remember Dory Zimmer. Oh, they've all seen Nicholas and Ava around, even if no one had any idea where they lived or where they were supposed to be living. But when I asked about their parents, it was all," she paused for a beat and began speaking in a slightly higher tone, "…That's odd. You know, I'm not sure… Dory Zimmer… Yes that name sounds familiar, but I just can't put a face to it…" She shook her head. "Assuming those kids were being honest with us—and my superpower didn't go off at all this morning—they've been on their own for years. And yet, they've been finding food, going to school, staying clean, keeping their school uniforms neat… Nobody noticed anything wrong? Neal, those kids are eleven. I ran away from a placement when I was seven and got picked up in a matter of days. When I got a little older, I could sometimes manage for a few weeks. I think three or four months was my record, and I sure as hell didn't look as well cared-for as those two when the cops found me. In a town this size, especially when the sheriff's department usually doesn't have to worry about much beyond traffic violations a-and vandalism—"

"Damage to public property?" Neal interjected with a sly grin and Emma made an annoyed gesture.

"I'm getting more and more sorry I ever told you about hitting that sign," she grumbled. "My point is that someone should have found out about those too long ago. I can't believe that Graham was so… oblivious." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Neal. I'm just so frustrated." She forced herself to smile. "Anyway, let's have your… news sandwich."

Neal nodded. "Okay, well, first bit of good news: our criminal pasts don't disqualify us. They would if either of us had been convicted of crimes involving children. I'm not saying our records won't be relevant. I wouldn't be surprised if they vetted us more thoroughly, since fostering is supposed give kids a certain amount of stability and we won't be providing that if we're still running cons and robbing gas stations, but seeing as we've both been clean for years, I think we could pass."

Emma's smile grew a bit less forced. "That's something," she said. "What else?"

Neal sighed. "The bad news is that we'd need reference letters—three of them. I don't know yet if that's three for each of us, or if someone who knows us both could write one letter that covers the two of us, but they have to be from people who've known us for five years."

Emma swallowed. "I can reach out to Ray," she said slowly. "I met him nine years ago and I sent him a card last Christmas, even if we haven't spoken much since you and me left Arizona. Maybe that's one."

"Yeah," Neal said. "One. I don't know anybody in Boston I could ask to vouch for us, and since we'd be looking to foster in Maine," he frowned, "maybe they won't want out-of-state."

"Maybe that won't matter," Emma suggested, trying to sound hopeful. "Did it say anything else on the website?"

"No, I'll have to reach out for more info." He hesitated. "Or, we could just… keep them anyway."

"Neal…"

"Nobody noticed that they were on their own for years! Why would they notice that we're looking after them?"

"Neal, I-I'm the sheriff. Law enforcement. I've got… We've got to follow the rules and do this the right way. Besides," she added, "with all the people I've been talking to this morning, I think people are going to pay more attention now."

Neal sighed. "Point taken. I'll make some inquiries."

Emma nodded, relieved. "What's your other good news?"

Neal's frown yielded to a grin. "I think I just landed a job…"

He'd been walking down the street, keeping one eye on the way ahead and the other on his phone as he tried to navigate his way through the state of Maine's 'Fostering and Adopting' web pages, while not running afoul of auto-correct. He hadn't been paying much attention to the street, though the rhythmic sound of a hammer from above made him look up as he passed.

"Hey, mister!" a voice called down, "Could you hold this ladder for me? The sidewalk, she's, ah, not quite even."

Neal slid his phone into his pocket and gripped the sides of the ladder firmly. "No problem."

"Thanks," the man at the top called down. "I just need to get one… more… nail… in," he added, stretching to deliver the last hammer blows. A moment later, his work done, he descended the ladder and extended his hand to Neal. "Thanks." His eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "I don't know you… do I?"

"Probably not," Neal said easily and introduced himself. "I just arrived a couple of days ago," he added, shaking the proffered hand.

"Ah, so you're Henry's father," the man said, his features relaxing in a smile. "I'm Marco. I'm the handyman and carpenter in these parts."

"Nice to meet you," Neal said. "I… used to do a bit of carpentry, some years back."

"Did you?"

It had been on his mind since he'd seen Papa again. The hovel in which he'd spent much of his boyhood hadn't been much, but most of their furnishings had been items that he and Papa had built together. None of it had been fancy, but every piece had been solid, serviceable, and made to last. In Neverland, he hadn't had much opportunity to put those skills to use, but he'd learned to weave vines and craft decent enough wickerwork. "Yeah," Neal said now. "I mean, it was probably pretty amateur, but…"

"Amateur," Marco repeated. "You know that word means 'one who loves'. And if you love to craft such things, sometimes that's all you need."

Neal shook his head, but he was smiling. "Unfortunately, right now, Emma and I just rented a house and I'm kind of looking for work. Don't suppose you know if anyone's hiring?"

Marco tilted his head to one side, considering. "I have a few more places to visit, and if you're willing to hold the ladder for me again, I'll pay you for your time. But back in my workshop, I've a settle bench in need of refurbish I haven't had time to get to. If you know how to strip off old finish, and you can seal, stain, and paint, perhaps your search, he's over, yes?"

Neal smiled. "My father told me once not to agree to a job without being sure I knew what was involved. I'd have to see the piece first. But, yeah," he nodded. "That sounds like something I could do, sure. And I can come with you now to hold the ladder," he added, his smile widening.

"Bene," Marco returned, giving Neal a friendly clap on the shoulder. "Here. You fold that thing up then," he said, pointing to the ladder. "Help me load it into the truck and we'll be off."

As Neal hurried to comply, it occurred to him that for the first time in a long time, he'd remembered Papa without a trace of the old anger.

Later that afternoon, after Mr. Gold closed the shop and was walking home, he chanced to glance through the workshop window of one Marco Stefano as he passed by. His eyebrows climbed when he spied Neal Cassidy through the glass, hard at work stripping varnish from a high-backed wooden bench—a Welsh settle, if he wasn't mistaken. But what was Mr. Cassidy doing working on it?

He frowned. He was one of the few people in town who was currently awake and aware, and because of that, he knew full well who Marco had been back in their land. And if memory served, the man had been granted a son under somewhat unconventional circumstances—a son Rumpelstiltskin realized, who had not been seen in this town during all the years of the Curse. Perhaps, in this land without magic, the boy had returned to his original state and now appeared in one of the carpenter's Miners' Day Marionette Matinees with his father none the wiser. But Rumple had seen in a vision that, if Snow White and Prince Charming were successful in spiriting their child to this land ahead of the Evil Queen's curse, then old Geppetto's son would be tasked with guiding her toward her destiny.

His frown twisted into a bemused smile. Marco might not remember that he had a son, but that son certainly remembered he had a father. And in so remembering, might he not strive to kindle a relationship with said father, against the day when the Curse would break and memories be restored anew? And with his memories of his old life intact, of course Mr. Cassidy's nervousness in his presence made all too much sense. Even if Pinocchio's path had never crossed directly with the Dark One's Rumple had little doubt that his reputation would have preceded him in that land, as well as this.

He sighed wistfully. Pinocchio might have come to seek out his father, but when the Curse finally broke for good, Rumple knew that finding Baelfire would devolve squarely on his own shoulders. And though Geppetto would surely be overjoyed when he knew that it was his son who stood before him, somehow he suspected that his reunion with Bae would be far less joyful.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-One

Emma was getting ready to go home when Regina breezed into the sheriff station with a tight smile on her face. "You can relax, Ms. Swan," she informed her congenially. "I found out about your unexpected squatters and I've contacted social services." She shook her head. "Shameful thing, really. I had no idea that those children have been on their own for this long until you started making inquiries this morning. As mayor, I should have been made aware of the situation long before now, so of course, I've taken it upon myself to rectify the matter.

Emma blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"The Zimmer twins, Ms. Swan?" Regina prompted. "They're on their own. They need help and I'm going to ensure that they get it."

Emma shook her head. "They are getting it," she informed the mayor. "Neal and I are looking after them while we see if we can track down their father."

Regina made a scoffing noise. "He doesn't exist," she said, handing Emma a file.

"He has to," Emma said, opening the folder to find two official-looking birth certificates, one for Nicholas Zimmer and one for Ava. On each, the word 'Unknown' was typed neatly where their father's full name should have been.

"Well, of course, biologically, he does," Regina allowed. "But there's no record of him. Which means we have no choice. The children need a home—"

"Which Neal and I are giving them for now," Emma interrupted, not at all liking the direction she thought the conversation was going.

Regina blinked. One supercilious eyebrow shot up. "I had no idea that the two of you were licensed foster parents in this state. Or are you licensed in Massachusetts?"

"We're looking into it," Emma said, trying to sound firm, but she heard herself stammer.

"Well," Regina said, "as soon as you obtain the necessary credentials, of course you can apply to take in those two, but until you have that certification, I can't in good conscience allow them to remain with you. Sorry, sheriff, but for now, they go into the foster system."

Emma tilted her head to one side. "Storybrooke has a foster system?"

"No," Regina admitted, "but I've contacted the state. Maine's group homes, unfortunately, are filled. But they put us in touch with two homes in Boston: a boys' home and a girls'."

"They're separating them?" Emma cried.

"I don't like it either," Regina admitted. "But we've got no choice. You need to have them in Boston by ten PM tomorrow evening."

"Me?" Emma repeated.

"Well, you wanted to be sheriff," Regina pointed out. "This is what sheriffs do. Yes, you're taking them." A pensive expression came to her face then. "Of course…"

"Of course?"

Regina sighed. "If pressed, I'll deny I ever mentioned this to you, but if you and your significant other were to decide to raise the children in Boston, where you're both somewhat more established, I'd think that you'd have an easier time obtaining custody. After all, you've only been living in Storybrooke for a few weeks. Who here could truly vouch for you? Also, I might remind you that the children have no known relatives, so the odds of anyone coming after them are small. Boston is significantly larger than Storybrooke; it's likely that if you were to raise the children there, you might even be able to avoid the long, drawn-out process of home studies, security checks, invasive social workers…" Her voice was almost gentle. "I do know something of the difficulties in obtaining speedy approvals for this sort of thing."

Yeah, Emma realized, she would. Illegal adoption or illegal fostering, either way you jump the line and cut through a lot red tape, but meanwhile... "Meanwhile, you keep Henry."

"That's a given regardless of whether you deliver the Zimmer twins to the facilities that are even now preparing for their arrival," Regina informed her, businesslike once more. "He's my son. Right now, however, there are two more children right under your nose. Or your floorboards," she added dryly. "Unlike Henry, they have no current guardian and no legal home. I must admit," she said, her voice softening, "that the idea of those two bouncing from placement to placement until they age out of the system…" She shook her head. "It's really unfortunate that you and Neal haven't yet been approved to foster; it might be those kids' best chance. And away from small-town gossip and Job's comforters… It would be a fresh start for them, and in surroundings more familiar to you."

The look she gave Emma was almost kind. Then she went on crisply, "If you keep them here, I can't turn a blind eye to your lack of proper certifications. But if you take them elsewhere? Neither you nor they will be my concern any longer. And if you decide against keeping them?" She shrugged. "One way or another, they need to be in Boston tomorrow night."

Nicholas and Ava did not take Emma's news well. "You mean," Ava said, her lip quivering, "we'll be separated?"

Emma sucked in her breath. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"So, we can live with you in Boston," Nicholas said with a hopeful smile.

Emma winced. "Kids… It's not going to work."

"But Mayor Mills said…" Nicholas protested.

Emma shook her head slightly. "I know what she said, but I don't trust her. Look, she definitely wants me out of her life or, more to the point, out of Henry's life. Telling me that I can keep you out of the system if I," she glanced at Neal, "if we leave town is smart. Only once I do, all she has to do is put in a call to the state troopers or the Boston PD and tell them that I was supposed to drop you off with Massachusetts DCF," she took in the Zimmer twins' blank looks and clarified, "Department of Children and Families, or at least, with one of their facilities. All she has to do is report that I never arrived where I was supposed to, and that now she thinks I kidnapped you. Kids, like it or not, and I don't like it, I don't have a legal right to look after you. With one phone call, Neal and I could be arrested and you'll go into the System after all."

Neal spoke heavily. "If she does that," he said, "if we're charged with… Guys, from what I've been reading, well, once we've been convicted of a crime involving minors—abduction in this case—Emma and I would lose any chance of being approved to foster or adopt you o-or any kids."

Emma's blood ran cold at his words. She'd known Regina's suggestion was risky, but she hadn't foreseen that consequence. Neal was right. If she took the 'advice' that the mayor had oh-so-sympathetically volunteered, it wouldn't just cost them the chance to help these kids, or their freedom, or their reputations. It would cost them Henry. And all it would cost Regina would be a single phone call to the Massachusetts State Police. Her eyes met Neal's and she gave him a faint, distressed, nod of understanding. There was too much at stake for them to consider taking the gamble.

"We… we'll have to think of something else," she said. "And we don't have a lot of time to do it."

For a time, the four of them sat miserably around the kitchen table, each trying to find a solution to the problem. Presently, Emma rose to her feet and strode purposefully toward the cardboard boxes she'd repacked a day earlier when she'd left Mary Margaret's.

"Emma?" Neal asked.

Emma didn't answer. Instead, she tore open the closest box she saw. After rummaging unsuccessfully through it, she opened another. At a glance, she could tell that this one wouldn't have what she sought either. Third time's the charm? she wondered to herself. Then, abruptly, she shook her head. She was starting to think like Henry. Even so, when she did open that third box, the object she'd been looking for was right at the top. She pulled it out and brought it back to the table. "Guys," she said, holding up the baby blanket, "this is my…" She hesitated for a moment. This is my baby blanket sounded like a weird way to lead. "I've held onto this all my life," she said. "It's the only thing I have from my parents. I've spent a lot of time with kids in your situation. Neal and me, we've both been there. And all of them… all of us… we held onto stuff." Come to think of it, she wasn't positive that Neal had, but when her eyes flickered momentarily to his, he gave her a tiny nod of confirmation. She exhaled and went on, "I want to find your father, but I need your help. Is there anything of his you've held onto?"

For a moment, there was silence. Then Ava said hesitantly, "I may have something. But if I give to you, you'll make sure we stay together, right?"

Emma swallowed. "Right." She wasn't lying. She was hoping for the best. And... maybe things would work out for these kids the way they never had for her.

Ava pulled a round object on a metal chain out of her pocket and handed it to her. Emma took it curiously. "A compass," she said, recognizing it.

"Our mom kept it," Ava said. "She said it was our dad's."

Emma brushed a finger over it almost reverently. "Thank you."

"Did you find them?" Ava asked, almost pleading.

"Find who?"

"Your parents?"

Hoping for the best was one thing. Lying was something else entirely. "Not yet," she admitted. "But I'm going to find yours." And hope that what I'm saying now? Is that first thing.

Henry stopped by after supper. Regina must have told him about the Zimmer twins, for he greeted them with a casual 'Hi,' not at all surprised to find them there. The two weren't much in the mood for talking and soon made excuses to leave the dining room. Emma shook her head sadly. "I've got less than twenty-four hours to find their father if I'm going to keep them here," she groaned.

Henry tilted his head worriedly. "You can't take them out of Storybrooke," he insisted.

"I don't want to," Emma protested. "But Neal and I can't keep them here, so if I don't find their father, I'll have no choice."

"Bad things happen when people try to leave!" Henry exclaimed.

Emma sighed. "I've left."

"You're not under the curse."

Emma shook her head. "Henry…" She regarded her son with the usual exasperation that rose up whenever his fantasies came up. She paused. "Do you know them? Nicholas and Ava?"

"I know who they are," Henry said patiently. "Brother and sister. Lost… no parents. They're Hansel and Gretel."

Great, Emma thought, fighting the urge to bury her head in her hands. "Anything in there about the dad?" Emma asked, pointing to Henry's storybook and not really expecting a useful response.

"Just that he abandoned them."

"Seems to be something of a theme with a lot of those stories," Neal commented. Including his own.

"Oh, yeah," Emma agreed. "And unfortunately, life often imitates art. Guy could be in Laos by now."

"No," Henry said, shaking his head. "He's here."

Emma blinked. "Just how do you know that?"

"I told you," Henry said patiently. "Nobody leaves Storybrooke. No one comes. No one goes. Except you guys. That's… just the way it is."

Emma shot Neal a helpless look and received an amused smile in return. "Well," she said finally, "if he's around here anywhere, I'm going to find him. I'll get on the computer tonight and start asking around town tomorrow. Meanwhile," she gave Henry a fond smile, "it's getting late. Regina's probably going to start trying to find you if you don't go home now."

Henry nodded.

"Uh… Henry?" Neal stopped him. "Would you mind if I took a look at your book tonight? I'll give it back to you in a day or two."

A broad smile creased Henry's face. "That's okay," he said, passing the leather-bound volume over. "I've read it cover to cover about twenty times by now. You can borrow it for longer if you want." All the same, his hands lingered on the leather as Neal took it.

"I won't keep it any longer than I need to," Neal assured him.

Henry beamed.

Rumpelstiltskin smiled when the bell over his shop door jangled. He'd been expecting the new sheriff's call ever since he'd heard that she'd been inquiring—not about the whereabouts of one Dory Zimmer—but as to whether anyone in town had any memory of her. He knew of the woman, of course. Or, at least, his path had crossed with that of the father's years ago in Misthaven, when the man had come seeking his missing children…

"Please, Dark One," the man had pleaded. "I must find my children. I-I'm desperate."

Rumpelstiltskin's cold heart had warmed slightly at the woodcutter's statement. "That's what I like to hear," he'd chortled, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "Now, have you got something belonging to either of your children?"

The man reached into his pack and brought forth a clean muslin apron and a well-worn, though equally clean scarf. "Will these do?" he asked.

Rumple giggled. "They will indeed! Now, uh… how will you pay me?"

The man flinched. "I… I…"

"Come now," Rumple said in a genial sing-song. "You're coming to me for magical aid and, uh, all magic comes with a price!"

"Dark One, please," the man quailed. "I've nothing. My wife, my Zivia died three winters ago of diphtheria. Those children are all I have. Without them, I-I'm dust. Please!"

The man's words sent a shudder through the Dark One, for all he tried to hide it. "A woodcutter, you said?" he asked, his words almost gentle.

"Y-yes."

"Well," Rumple said, sounding almost nonchalant, "I must admit I do have need for a cord of birch and the same of wild apple. You cut me those trees, mind it's quality logs with neither rot nor infestation and, uh, I'll see what I can do." Birch for the fresh start that the Curse would bring all when it rewrote their memories; wild apple to amplify the magic it would require; a cord of each to assure an ample supply for testing and experimentation. The price was steep in hours of labor, but—unlike the hundred gold a healer had once quoted for snakebite venom remedy—well within the woodcutter's ability to pay.

The woodcutter blinked. "Yes, yes, of course!" he gasped. "Anything!"

Rumple giggled again. He passed his hands over the two objects, his expression serious. It didn't take him long to see the boy and girl, wandering in the woods, the girl holding out a compass before her—an exquisite piece, he noted in passing; the sort he might well have bargained for, had it been she to approach him seeking her father. But there was another force in play here, he realized, his eyes narrowing. A curse—minor and crude, to be sure, but such a knotty problem it would be more trouble than two cords of word were worth—their magical applications not withstanding—to untangle. Still, a man separated from his children… Rumple was loth to send him away empty-handed.

"I can't reunite you," he said heavily.

The woodcutter's lips quivered. "What? No, no, you must! I-I'll cut you more wood!"

"It's not a question of wood!" Rumple retorted, his voice pitching higher with scorn. "It's one of fate! And yours is to find your children without me! And you will," he added softly. "In time. They're looking for you now," he added, his voice silky once more. "But it will be another's task to bring you three together!"

"Whose?"

Rumple shook his head. "Go home, woodcutter. Put your children far from your mind. For your reunion will not come about until you've each forgotten that the other ever existed." A cackle escaped his lips unbidden, making his sympathy seem a mockery.

The woodcutter gaped at him. "A man can't forget his own flesh and blood, Dark One! It's not possible!"

"And yet," Rumple said gently, "such is how it must be. And when it is, you will all three be together as you should be. While I can't give you your children, I can give you that hope. And that's no paltry well-wishing. It's a certainty. Now go."

"But…"

The thoughts of Bae that he tried so hard to suppress lest they overwhelm him even now were hammering at his defenses and, with a wave of his hand, he repeated his order and the woodcutter vanished in a teleportation spell, reappearing several leagues away, but the thought of another parent deprived of his offspring niggled at him, stirring a welter of emotion he couldn't easily control. He'd be useless for the delicate work that curse-crafting entailed now and such delays were difficult to bear. How long had he and Bae been apart now? A century? Two?

Frustrated and furious, the Dark One flung empty glass flasks and earthenware flagons against the stone wall of his castle, shrieking as they shattered. After his tantrum was over, though, he restored them magically and did his best to resume his work. The sooner he perfected the Dark Curse, the sooner both he and the woodcutter would find their children.

Zivia, he remembered now. That had been the wife's name back in their land. Like Dorcas, it meant 'gazelle'. Interesting how the Curse kept some semblance of their original names, some meaning or—in his case—attribute to hint at their true natures. Even in the names of those who'd died long before the curse was ever cast…

He tore his mind from his musings to greet his newest visitor. "Emma," he smiled. "How lovely to see you. I'm, uh, flattered you'd take time off your busy schedule for me." He leaned closer. "What could I do for you, Sheriff?"

For answer, Emma held up a device he'd once glimpsed years ago in the grimy hand of a young girl in his scry glass. It was far more exquisite up close. "I'm looking for information on this old compass," she informed him. "Any idea where it could have come from?"

Neal looked up as Emma stormed into the kitchen several hours later, clutching a small paper bag. "Where are the kids?" she asked, with a thunderous expression.

He blinked. "Out in the back, playing with Henry. I've been checking up on them from time to time. Why? Emma, did something happen?"

She blew air out from between her teeth. "I just wanted to make sure they weren't in earshot," she said a bit more calmly. "I went to see Gold about the compass, hoping to get a lead to their father."

Judging by her expression… "I take it that didn't go well?"

Emma rummaged in the cabinet for the hot chocolate mix and set it down on the counter with the cinnamon and salt. Neal's eyebrows shot up when she pulled a 12.7-ounce bottle of Drambuie out of the paper bag and placed it beside them. "Tell me there's milk," she growled.

"Uh… yeah, in the fridge," Neal said. "Since when…?"

"I'm making a cocoa buie two," she said, not turning to look at him. "Found the recipe on Google. It's got cocoa, it's got cinnamon, it's got milk… and it's got an extra kick. Which is what I'd like to give to Gold and Michael Tillman."

The second name meant nothing to him. "Who? Emma, what the hell's going on?"

Emma didn't say anything until she'd taken the milk out of the fridge, poured some into a saucepan, and set it on the stovetop to heat. Then she finally faced him. "Gold recognized the compass. He bought it off Tillman. Guy runs the garage; I drove down there to talk to him. He might be the only person in this town who actually remembers Dory Zimmer."

"Well, I mean, I'll miss the kids, and I guess I was looking forward to going furniture shopping with them, but we'll still seem them around town, right?"

"He doesn't want them, Neal," Emma said bitterly. "He didn't want to meet them; didn't want to see them; says he doesn't know the first thing about being a father…"

Neal winced. "Well, maybe it's for the best, then. I mean, if he doesn't want them, they might be better off without him."

Emma's eyes flashed. "Those kids will not be better off in two different group homes!" she retorted. "If he just had... five minutes with them, I know he'd…"

"Change his mind?" Neal asked gently.

"I hope so," Emma said. "I can't know that, of course, but if he gave them a chance, I'm sure he'd…"

"Maybe…" Neal allowed. "So, why do you want to kick Gold, too?"

Emma's anger returned in full force. "He gave me this when I went to see him this morning," she said, her hands smoothing the brown sheriff's jacket that she was wearing—the jacket, Neal realized, that she had not been wearing when she'd left the house earlier.

"You're upset he guessed your size wrong?" Neal asked, knowing that his joke had fallen flat the instant the words left his mouth. "Sorry. Actually, it looks good on you."

"It was Graham's," Emma snapped. "Turns out that when I walked out of the debate, it was all part of Gold's plan."

"What? How?" Come to think of it, that did sound a lot like Papa, Neal thought.

Emma noted that the milk was steaming and quickly opened the Drambuie and measured out a double shot, which she poured into the pan. Then she stuck a tablespoon into the cocoa canister, scooping as she continued. "He was banking on my telling everyone the fire was set," she said, almost spitting out the words. "He wanted me to call him out so that everyone else in town would see that I was willing to stand up to him. That won me the votes."

Yup. It sounded like Papa. Still, "Or… he's just trying to take credit for your win, so you'll feel you owe him."

"Oh, I owe him," Emma grumbled. "He reminded me of that, too."

"Okay," Neal said. "The fact remains, you called him out. The town witnessed it. They made up their own minds. Maybe that was part of his plan; maybe he's just saying that. Doesn't matter. You outed him on your own. He didn't coach you. And now, you're the sheriff, right?"

Emma sucked in another breath, but when she let it out, she was smiling, just a little. "Right," she admitted ruefully. "I am." Shaking her head, she reached for the cinnamon. "And because I'm sheriff…" her face fell as she looked at the digital clock on the counter, "I've got less than four hours to get Michael Tillman to meet his kids and convince him to take them in before I need to get on the road back to Boston."

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Two

The smiles on the children's faces froze and faded rapidly when they raced back into the house and took in Emma's and Neal's serious expressions. "You didn't find him?" Ava wailed.

Emma swallowed. "I found him, but… well, he's," she hesitated, "he's not that well off and he… doesn't think he's in a position to take you in right now."

"But if he's our dad…!" Nicholas exclaimed.

"We don't need much," Ava said. "Just each other. Please, please, don't make us go to Boston. We've managed on our own here forever. If you don't want us, we'll find someplace else. Just please don't separate us."

"Kids," Emma started, but Neal broke in.

"We do want you," he said. "But we have to do this properly. Look," he passed two slips of paper across the table toward them. "You've got our cell phone numbers and our email addresses. Text us or write to us as often as you want. And to each other, too," he added.

"We don't have cell phones," Nicholas said.

"Public libraries have free internet," Emma said. "And maybe you'll get them. I didn't when I was in the System, but they weren't exactly a thing yet back then. It could be different now."

"We're going to try to get certified as foster parents," Neal said. "If we're approved, as soon as that paperwork goes through, we'll apply to take you."

"Will they let you?" Ava asked. "I mean, what if they say you have to take a kid who's been waiting longer?"

"I don't think it works that way," Emma said. "But once we've asked for you, we'll let you know. If it's something we all want, maybe it'll make a difference."

"And maybe it won't and we'll never see you again," Nicholas said.

"Guys," Emma said, "we're going to do our best to make sure that doesn't happen. Do you… want us to promise something we might not be able to make good on?"

"No," Nicholas sighed. "You did that already when you promised we wouldn't be separated." He headed toward the cellar. "I'd better see if I left anything downstairs I need to pack."

Ava bit her lip and turned away to follow her brother.

Emma, Neal, and Henry looked at each other.

"That… could have gone better," Neal said.

"They can't go." Henry was almost whispering.

Emma shook her head. "I don't want them to, but if their father won't step up, then…" Her voice trailed off.

"What?" Henry asked.

Emma shook her head again. "I don't… I have an idea, but if it doesn't work…"

"What?" Henry repeated.

Emma swallowed hard. "If I'm wrong about this, I'm going to have to go through with driving them to Boston. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up prematurely. Just… trust me and keep your fingers crossed?"

Henry nodded slowly.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Neal murmured.

"So do I."

Neal's expression turned stony when he saw the mayor's Mercedes pull up in front of their house. "Mayor Mills," he greeted her, before she made it to their front door. He spared a smile for Henry, who trailed a half-step behind, biting his lip.

Regina favored Neal with a cold smile. "I'm just here to ascertain that the sheriff does her duty."

Emma joined him outside. "You know," she said, "you don't have to check up on me."

"The fact that you aren't yet on the interstate with those children tells me otherwise," Regina informed her.

"Beats me how tearing them away from the only home they know, dragging them to another city, and separating them is in their best interest," Neal said.

Regina sighed. "Unfortunately, at the present time, I'm afraid that's the case. Now, if you and Emma were licensed resource parents, it would be different. Of course, once you obtain that certification, considering that children of the Zimmer twins' age generally aren't in any great demand by potential adopters, I shouldn't think you'd have much trouble taking them back. It's a long process," she added. "It's likely to take three to six months at minimum, but if you're able to pass all the background checks, the home studies, the medical and psychological assessments, have good references…" she smiled, "I'm sure it will all work out. For now though," she continued crisply, "those two need to be in Massachusetts."

"I'm on it," Emma snarled.

"Clearly, 'it' is not the road to Boston, then," Regina snipped back. "Suppose you collect your houseguests and get moving on that?"

Neal took an angry step forward. Emma stayed him with a hand on the inside of his elbow. "Don't," she sighed. "Unfortunately, she's right. It'll be okay."

"You sure?" Neal murmured.

Emma made a face. "Not really. But… I've got to give those kids their best chance."

"In Boston."

Emma sighed. "I don't like it either," she said carefully, pretending she didn't see Henry desperately shaking his head, his eyes pleading, "but I'm just about out of options." Just about, she repeated mentally, but not quite. It's a long shot, but there's still one more card I can play. No idea if it's going to pay off. There's still so much that could go wrong: if the car doesn't stall when I pull that trick I got off of Google; if my call for roadside assistance doesn't go to Tillman's garage; if he has another employee he sends out or some… contract with another towing company and he doesn't answer the call himself, if he sees the kids and still doesn't want to take them, if… Enough. Long shot or not, it's still giving those kids their best chance and, who knows? It might even work. She gave Neal a quick hug and a kiss on his cheek. "I'll be back by morning."

"If you're too tired to drive back tonight," Neal said, "stay over and I'll see you in the afternoon. Probably will anyway; Marco needs me to help him fix the cannery roof first thing in the morning. I'm just going to read for a little and turn in early."

"Sounds like a plan," Emma said. "I'm still heading back as quick as I can, though." She sighed. "Guess I'd better go in and collect the kids."

As she disappeared back inside the house, Neal glowered at Regina. "I hope you're happy."

Something in the mayor's smug expression faltered for an instant and her voice was just a touch softer when she replied, "I'm not."

Neal watched as Emma drove off with the twins. He waited until Regina and Henry had also left before he turned and went back into the house.

Henry's book was on the kitchen table. Neal had been meaning to get to reading that, but he hadn't had time before. Almost nervously, he reached for the book and flipped the pages to the table of contents. His eyebrows shot up. The chapter titles weren't exactly what he'd been expecting. "The Bandit Snow White," one header near the middle of the page jumped out at him. "The Novice Fairy and the Dreamy Dwarf…" Clearly, these weren't the classic versions he'd found in that second-hand book he'd bought in Fairbanks. Smiling a bit, he slid his eyes up to the top of the page. Maybe these were parodies or retellings or…

His mouth suddenly went dry and his hands went clammy. "Prologue: The Dark One and His Son…?" he whispered aloud. "What the hell?" It felt like some outside force was manipulating his hands as he turned the pages. Maybe this book was some sort of authorized tie-in to that graphic novel by… Sanders? Sanderson? Something like that, he thought. Or, or, wasn't there also a Dark One in Wheel of Time? There were probably a million more stories that used that particular term. It probably had nothing to do with Papa! He'd just read a paragraph or two to make sure, and then he'd probably have himself a chuckle and move on.

Setting his gaze firmly on the first sentence, he began to read.

Rumpelstiltskin was a mild-mannered and curiously unremarkable man who lived a rather unremarkable life. Along with his wife and young son, Baelfire, he lived in a modest wooden hut on the outskirts of the village, making his living by spinning wool into the thread that he would barter or sell to the people thereabouts. Rumpelstiltskin's fortunes were to change that beautiful day that the Duke's soldiers rode into the village. They were rounding up all men and children of a serviceable age, garnering recruits to fight in terrible, never-ending Ogre Wars….

Heart pounding, half-dreading what he would find, Neal continued, knowing that he wasn't going to sleep tonight until he'd read the entire prologue, however long it took.

He read the prologue. Then he read the first chapter, and the second. He was halfway through the fifth when a jubilant Emma came back, crowing to him about how she'd faked car trouble to get the Zimmer twins' father to come from the garage for roadside assistance and how his resistance had melted away once he was face to face with his children.

"He took them back with him," she finished. "We'll still see them around town, and I told the kids that they could come and visit us anytime. Tillman ended up being a better guy than I took him for initially," she added. "Maybe we should invite the three of them over for dinner next week."

"Sure," Neal agreed, his mind still on what he'd been reading.

"I still can't believe it worked out," she added. "I just wish you'd been with me to see the smiles on all their faces…"

"Yeah," Neal nodded absently.

"Neal? You okay?"

He forced himself to smile. "Yeah, sure. I… Did you ever read this?" he asked, tapping the book for emphasis.

Emma blinked. "Henry loaned it to me when I first came here and I sort of skimmed it. Mostly the Snow White stuff, since Henry kept insisting she was my mother. Uh… sorry there are a couple of missing pages at the end. Henry was afraid of Regina seeing them since," she gave him a rueful smile, "well, since she's the Evil Queen and he didn't want her finding out that Snow White's child got sent here ahead of the Dark Curse." She shook her head. "Wow, that sounds weird when you say it out loud."

Neal nodded. "Yeah," he said faintly. "Weird."

"Anyway, I stopped in to see Mary Margaret on my way back and she offered to take me to Granny's to celebrate. I popped by to see if you wanted to come with?"

Neal hesitated. "Nah," he said. "You go. I've still got to be up at the crack of dawn to help Marco tomorrow."

"You sure?" Emma asked. "It's not going to be a late night or anything. Mary Margaret has to make an early start, too."

"Maybe next time," Neal said, smiling. "Have fun."

"Okay," Emma said, drawing near to give him a quick kiss. "Probably be back before you turn in, though."

"Well, if you need me to drive you home, don't be ashamed to call me to meet you. Granny's is only about a fifteen minute walk from here, if that."

"We're just going out for coffee. Or cocoa. Normal cocoa," she added.

"You mean, no booze? Or no cinnamon?" he asked, with a teasing grin.

Emma smacked him playfully on the arm and gave him another kiss before heading out.

As soon as he heard the front door close, he reached for the book once more.

There were too many cracks, Regina realized. The clock starting up had been worrisome. The earthquake that had turned up fragments of Snow White's coffin had been concerning. David Nolan coming out of his coma, Ashley Boyd giving birth, Graham's defiance… and now, the woodcutter and his two children were a family again. Regina's frown deepened. The Curse was weakening. And somehow, she knew, it was all happening because of Storybrooke's new sheriff, aided by Gold—who seemed to be minding his manners, particularly his pleases, a bit too conscientiously these days.

Each element on its own was bothersome. Taken together, they created a result that Regina didn't care for in the least.

She wished that she could be certain that Gold was awake. Over the past twenty-eight years, there had been times when she'd been sure of it, but subsequently come to think she'd been mistaken. He was helping Emma now. Did that mean that he was awake? Or was he always scheming, awake or asleep?

He'd never tried any such tricks before, not for twenty-eight years. Of course he was awake!

But still the niggling voice at the back of her mind asked her whether she was positive that his plots and games were a new development, or whether he'd merely gotten sloppy enough for her to notice them.

But then, suppose his sloppiness was a cause for alarm? Or maybe he wasn't getting sloppy at all. Maybe she was just getting sharper!

She had to know for certain. She wouldn't rest until she did. Some way, somehow, she had to obtain some sort of leverage to force Gold to admit he was awake.

If he was awake. If he wasn't awake, but was helping Emma against her, whatever his motivations, if she confronted him without any evidence to bolster her accusations, she might well play into his hands. If he meant to help Emma win custody over Henry, then her accusing him of being Rumpelstiltskin would not help her case—particularly if she made that assertion where it could be witnessed or recorded. But if he was awake…

…Then her life was about to become exponentially more complicated.

Somehow, she needed to learn the truth. And she needed to learn it sooner, rather than later.

Neal closed the book and pushed it several inches away. His hands were shaking as his thoughts churned wildly. Part of him wished he hadn't read it, but part of him was glad he had.

It was all for him. The Curse, this town, Emma coming to this realm instead of growing up with the loving parents she should have, Henry getting adopted by Regina… Why start with the curse? Papa had been working behind the scenes, a deal here, a bit of advice there, teasing and tweaking and manipulating, and all for him.

His smile froze halfway. How many people had Papa hurt trying to get here? How many lives disrupted, how many deaths, how many deals? All to…

It wasn't his fault, Neal told himself. He'd never asked Papa to come find him! He'd never wanted…

—Papa, please! It's the only way we can be together!

—No, Bae! I can't!

—Papa, please!

—I can't!

—You coward! You promised! Don't break our deal!

If Henry's book was to be believed—and it had been frighteningly accurate in its account of his own story—Papa really had meant to honor their agreement. He'd panicked at the last, but he'd spent the past two centuries trying to make good on his promise. If Neal had known the lengths to which Papa would go, of course he would have told Papa not to. At least, if he could have somehow reached across realms to tell him. Yes, he'd wanted Papa with him, but not like this! He couldn't deny the rush of love and sorrow washing over him now, though, with the realization that Papa had cared enough to craft this curse to get to him, even though it had taken two hundred years for it to come to fruition.

I will do nothing else. I will love nothing else. I will find a way.

"Papa," Neal whispered.

His mind was spinning faster than Papa's wheel ever had. Should he reveal himself? If Papa was still cursed, then disclosing his identity would be meaningless to him. But if he was aware and awake… Papa still loved him, but it was obvious that not having magic hadn't made Papa less Dark, just less powerful. He'd still set the fire to clinch Emma's election win. He'd still made a contract to purchase a baby and only torn it up when Emma had agreed to do him an as yet undisclosed favor at some future date. Neal didn't even want to think what that favor might entail.

When Emma got back, he'd… He'd what? He couldn't talk to Emma about this. What could he say that she'd believe? The only people in this place he could talk to about Papa were Regina—which was a complete non-starter for obvious reasons, Papa himself, and Henry. And there was no way that he was going to lay this on a ten-year-old kid who already had enough going on. Besides, Neal had a feeling that if Henry were the author of this story, he'd end it with, "…And Emma broke the Curse, Good won, and everyone lived happily ever after." Life was never that simple, not unless you were ten years old. Or younger.

He wasn't even sure if he wanted Emma to break the curse. What if it meant that they'd all go back to the Enchanted Forest? He didn't know how it would work for the people living in this town. Maybe they would forget all about the last twenty-eight years and be able to pick up where they left off, but he couldn't turn the clock that far back. He didn't think Emma would be able to adjust either. No cell phones, no indoor plumbing, no electricity… And he didn't think she'd ever be comfortable in corsets and petticoats! Crud, did that mean he'd have to wear hose? Tie points? He hadn't had to worry about those before Papa had become the Dark One and decided that they needed to improve their standard of dress along with their standard of living. The doublet had been hot and uncomfortable and the hose and points had been worse. At least, Papa hadn't forced the matter then. But now that he'd learned how gentry truly lived and dressed and ate, now that Papa was a man of substance here, he'd probably insist on keeping the finer things in life—even if life in the Enchanted Forest was sure to be rougher than it was here.

And here he was carrying on as though the worst of the fallout if Emma broke the curse would be uncomfortable clothes! What the hell was wrong with him? He was tired. He was scared. He wasn't thinking clearly. He…

"Hey, I'm back," Emma called, as the front door opened. "You still up?"

He forced a smile onto his face and into his voice. "In here," he called back, and a moment later, she joined him in the kitchen. "Have a good time?"

Emma hesitated. "Kind of. But… Well, while we were at Granny's, David Nolan came in to pick up some takeout and from the way he and Mary Margaret looked at each other," she shook her head. "I just hope neither of them does anything stupid."

"You think they're…?"

"Seeing each other?" Emma finished. "Oh, yeah. I mean, I hope I'm wrong and it's seriously not my business, but Mary Margaret's my friend and this can't end happily ever after."

You might be surprised on that one, Neal thought to himself. Aloud, he said only, "I hear you. But other than that…?"

"Other than that, it was a good evening. And I drove by Tillman's house. It was late; the lights were already out, but I think they're going to be okay."

"Good."

"Oh, and…" she stopped. "Nothing."

"What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing important. I mean, someone new showed up. I met him when I stopped off at Regina's on the way."

"What? Why stop there?"

"Because I knew she had a council meeting and Henry was home alone and I wanted to say 'hi' and tell him the good news about the Zimmer twins. Anyway, this guy stopped when he saw us and asked us for directions to the nearest motel. I pointed him to Granny's. Funny thing: Henry was just in the middle of telling me that this place doesn't get any tourists. Guess he just never paid much attention. I mean, it's not like there's some… thicket of briar around the place keeping people out, right?"

"Yeah, right," Neal said weakly.

"Anyway, I'm beat. I'm heading up to bed. And I think you said you need to turn in, too."

He nodded. "I'll be right behind you." They kissed and then Emma headed toward the bedroom.

Neal stared at the book for another few minutes, as though it might have some details for him on the future as well as the past. Then he pushed back his chair and got up to follow Emma, closing the kitchen light on his way out. He didn't know when, what, or how he was going to tell her, but he hoped that things would look clearer after a good night's sleep.

He wasn't holding his breath, though.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Three

Rumpelstiltskin was in a good mood when he left his house the next morning. He was almost to the end of his front walk, when Marco's truck drove by and Rumple noted that the passenger seat was occupied by the handyman's new employee.

He smiled as he approached his shop. Judging by the sour expression on Mayor Mills' face, he'd wager that the woodcutter had finally found his missing children. Clearly, that old compass had done its job and pointed the sheriff in the right direction. And here came Mary Margaret, racing past the mayor and calling out an apology over her shoulder, as she avoided the collision date that she'd faithfully kept for the last twenty-eight years. She certainly seemed in an all-fired hurry to obtain her morning coffee, he noted, as she ducked into Granny's. Really, she might use her time more efficiently if she'd brew her own at home.

A moment later, David Nolan hurried into the restaurant from the opposite direction. Ah. Rumple rather thought he was beginning to understand.

"Something strikes you as funny, Gold?" Regina's icy voice cut into his ruminations.

Rumple shrugged. "Actually, the opposite." He inclined his head in the direction of Granny's window, through which they both now had a full view of David Nolan sitting down opposite Mary Margaret.

Regina scowled. "He's married."

"Oh, I'm sure it's quite innocent," Rumple remarked. "After all, they're in public. His wife," he motioned to a parked car several yards away, "awaits. And one scarcely thinks that they're about to surrender to the heat of passion on a two-top table in full view of the customers. Still, considering that Ms. Blanchard has been waiting an inordinate amount of time to find true love, well," he sniffed, "it is a pity that she seems to have found one who's already taken." He shrugged. "I suppose I was appreciating the irony."

"I doubt Kathryn would appreciate the irony," Regina retorted.

"Well, that may be the reason I'm not sharing my observations with her. Interesting how Mr. Nolan found a parking spot that doesn't afford his wife the best view of the window, though, isn't it?"

Regina opened her mouth to respond, when a motorcycle ripped past tearing through a puddle and she took a quick step backwards to avoid the splash.

"Who is that?" Rumple asked. He hadn't budged from his spot; he'd correctly gauged the radius of the spatter zone and known that he would be spared.

Regina shook her head. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"Me, dearie?"

Regina took in a sharp breath. "He was talking to Henry this morning, just before he left for school."

"From the glimpse I caught," Rumple deadpanned, "he seemed a bit old to be a student."

"Not him!" Regina snapped. "Henry!" Then, more seriously, "You really don't know who he is?"

Rumple shook his head. "On that, dearie, I'm currently as much in the Dark as you are. Perhaps more so," he added. "But I doubt our curiosity will be satisfied standing here on the curb. I suppose I'd best get on with my day. A pleasure speaking with you, Madame Mayor."

"I'm not done with our conversation, Gold," Regina informed him.

"I am," Rumple replied easily. "So, if I might proceed to my shop? Please."

He managed to conceal his smirk at the mayor's discomfiture until he was turning his key in the lock of the shop's door and lifting the latch.

Neal had to admit that a couple of centuries in Neverland had its upside: Pan's games had forever cured him of any fear of heights he might have once held. Not that it had ever been a strong fear; if it had been, he'd never have scaled the wall of the Darlings' house when hunger had made a thief of him, but there was a qualitative difference between climbing solid stone with plenty of handholds and whip-like trees with barks that could go from sap-sticky to soap-slippery in the blink of an eye if Pan willed it. Usually, Pan had cared enough for his playmates that injuries from those tricks were minor. Usually. Today, standing on the cannery's slanting roof with Marco, despite the stiff winds, he felt sure-footed enough that if he'd had to, he could almost have dispensed with the safety harness.

"Pass me that pry-bar, son," Marco called to him from the eave below, and Neal drew his mind back to the present.

"Hang on," he shouted back. "I don't think throwing it's a good idea!" He wasn't sure if he heard a laugh from his employer, or if it was only the wind, as he made his way down the slope. He bent down to hand Marco the tool, and as he rose up slightly, preparing to turn for the ascent back to the ridge, his gaze dipped past the handyman to the ground below.

A man he recognized was glowering up at him with a fury so palpable that Neal was glad he'd put on the safety harness after all. And even from several yards up, he had no trouble recognizing August W. Booth. The guy had said something about coming here to 'make sure that the savior believed', Neal remembered now. Guess he'd finally made it. But why the hell was he looking at him like that?

Neal debated coming down to find out, but before he could make a decision, August had donned his helmet, hurried to his bike, and motored away.

It wasn't until David had left the diner that Mary Margaret spotted Emma seated one table away, nursing a cup of coffee. Wincing a bit, she moved over to join the sheriff. "I-I know what that probably looked like," she said guiltily.

Emma blinked. "You know what what probably looked like?" she asked, trying to act as though she hadn't noticed.

"I was…" Her voice trailed off.

Emma waited for a moment before sighing. "I get it."

"He comes in here every morning at seven-fifteen to get coffee."

"Yeah," Emma said gently. "For him and his wife."

"I know!" Mary Margaret replied. "I know, I know. I just… like to come here to see him."

Emma smiled faintly to take the sting out of her next question. "So, you're a stalker?"

"No!" Mary Margaret exclaimed. Then, in a more subdued voice, "Not really. Maybe… a little bit. I mean, it's not like I'm following him…"

No, Emma thought, as Mary Margaret kept talking. She wasn't following him. She was just committing his regular routine to memory was all.

"…I can't get him out of my head," her friend concluded.

Emma gave her a sad smile. "Maybe the first step is not showing up here tomorrow?"

The schoolteacher gave her a reluctant nod. "Love's the worst," she said sadly. "I wish there was a magical cure."

Roofing job done, Neal opted to walk back to the house later that day, declining a lift from Marco. He still had a lot to think about, after reading Henry's book. He passed by the antiquities shop and thought about going inside. After a moment, though, he kept walking. Soon, he knew, he was going to have to have that meeting. He'd been thinking about it since he'd realized that Emma wasn't leaving town anytime soon. It was only a matter of time before the curse was broken, and once it was, he knew that Papa would come looking for him. He was still safe for now; Papa didn't expect him to be in Storybrooke, so asleep or awake—and 'asleep' was looking less likely all the time, Papa wasn't searching for him. Once the curse was broken, though, that would change. And once Papa learned the truth, he'd also know that his son had been here for months and never revealed his identity.

If he was lucky, Papa would only be hurt and not angry.

But Papa had been hurt so much in the past. And as hurt and angry as Neal had been all these many years, he didn't want to be the cause of more pain. Not as much pain as he was likely to cause if he left things that long, anyway.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he'd stop the shop and he'd say… He'd say… What the hell was he supposed to say? 'I'm Baelfire,' would probably do for a start. But then what? Papa would be overjoyed. He'd have questions. They'd catch up. And… Papa wouldn't want to let me out of his sight, not after two hundred years apart. If I felt suffocated for those last weeks before I used the bean, what will it be like now? And what the hell do I tell Emma? How do I explain to her that everything she thinks she knows about me is wrong? How do I make her believe? How…?

One thing was certain: the moment he disclosed his identity to Papa, the repercussions would fall fast and hard. There would be no shoving the genie back into the bottle on that one. It would change everything. He… He wasn't ready for that. Not yet. Maybe he never would be, but he knew that if they stayed here or, more to the point, if Emma stayed here, sooner or later she was going to break the curse and then the truth would have to come out.

Eleven years ago, he hadn't wanted that, but eleven years ago, Storybrooke and its people had only existed for him in the abstract. Now that he was getting to know them, he was realizing how selfish it would be to leave them in their current state. It wasn't a horde of faceless people, most of whom hadn't been born when he'd left the Enchanted Forest. It was Mary Margaret and Granny and Marco and Nicholas and Ava and so many others he'd passed and smiled at on the street these last few days. Old people, young people, kids… Emma had to help them. She would, too; of that Neal was certain, and he was more okay with that than he thought he would be.

And before that happened, he was going to talk to Papa. He'd have to. But it didn't have to be today.

He squelched the urge to turn back toward the shop and kept walking.

Emma got home about a half hour after Neal did. She sank down onto the new-to-them sofa they'd bought second-hand the day before with a loud groan.

"Rough day?" Neal asked.

"Not on the working end of it," Emma admitted, leaning back and closing her eyes. "Nice to have a sofa we didn't need to buy flat-pack or we'd probably still not have taken it out of the box."

"Oh, we would have taken it out of the box as soon as we brought it back here," Neal retorted. "And then, we'd have the frame half-assembled and arguing over which screw goes where and where the allen key's got to until we decided to call it a night and make a fresh start in the morning, only now it's two evenings later and we've kind of got used to having a half-constructed sofa in the living room."

Emma groaned again. "You know us too well. Anyway, Mary Margaret confirmed this morning what I told you I'd figured out last night: she's still seeing David. Not seeing as in dating, at least, but… seeing as in tracking his routine and making sure she bumps into him at least once a day."

"Not good," Neal agreed. "Not illegal, but not good."

"Nope. I don't suppose you ran into the new guy in town?"

"Huh?"

Emma leaned forward a bit. "Regina told me to see what I could turn up on him. Apparently, he's been talking to Henry. Of course, it would help if she'd had a name for me; it's not like Google image search is going to be useful."

"Did he give one to Henry? A name?" Neal asked.

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "I haven't had the chance to ask him. He does keep secrets from Regina," she added thoughtfully. "Maybe he knows and isn't telling her."

I know that feeling, Neal thought. The truth was that there was no good reason not to tell Emma who the guy was and what he'd done in the past. No good reason, apart from the questions Emma might ask.

Why would he turn us in? What did he have to gain? Why did he have it in for you? Did he follow us here? All questions that Neal knew he'd be asking in Emma's place. And if he didn't have answers that were plausible, sensible, and accurate enough not to tip off Emma's lie detector when they rolled off his tongue, things were going to get even more complicated.

"There any cocoa?" Emma asked, sinking back into the sofa once more.

"Yeah, sure," Neal said. "You want me to make it for you?"

"Please. Sorry," she added. "I mean, you're probably tired from the roofing job. I can do it."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Neal reassured her. "It won't take a minute. Well. Maybe a minute. Or two."

"Thanks." Emma shook her head. "Don't know why I'm this tired. Actually, I do. Graham wasn't as on top of the paperwork as I'd thought. The files are a mess and I've been straightening them up because I thought I should, you know? It's not hard work, but it's pretty boring," she added. "I guess it took more out of me than I thought. And then Regina burst in on me and got me a little nervous."

"Nervous?"

"Yeah, like what if the new guy's some… kidnapper or something. And don't quote me the statistics," she added wearily. "I know most of the time the kidnapper is someone the kid knows, like a non-custodial parent… But I wasn't going to mention that," she snorted.

"Of course not," Neal agreed with exaggerated relief.

"Hey, I'm not stupid."

"No, but sometimes we all say stuff without thinking. Glad that didn't happen. I'll make you the cocoa." And hope you'll forget that I never answered your question about whether I'd met the new guy in town.

It took a good night's sleep and a chance to mull things over to convince Neal that not telling Emma something about the newcomer was probably silly at best and downright dangerous at worst. So, at breakfast, he asked her to sit down, and he quietly told her about the first time he had crossed paths with the man. "He told me his name was August," he said, on his second cup of coffee by now, "though that could be an alias."

Emma's eyes were wide. "And he tipped off the cops that night? Why? Was he some PI the jewelry store hired?"

Neal shook his head. He'd rehearsed this bit carefully in his mind, still not sure he fully believed in Emma's 'superpower', but not wanting to inadvertently set if off if it was really a thing. After all these years, he still wasn't sure that it was a thing. Even so, Emma usually did have a knack for knowing when someone was lying outright. "Actually," he said slowly, "from the way the guy was talking, he's… kind of got a thing for you. Or had one, anyway."

"What?"

Neal nodded with a half-shrug. "Yeah. Apparently, you and he were in the same foster home when you were a baby. He cut out early, but… he tried to keep tabs on you and, now I'm not necessarily disagreeing with him here, but he kind of thought I was a bad influence on you."

Emma's groan was practically a growl. "Seriously? He tracked me down and tried to step back into my life after seventeen years? Obsessive, much?"

"I know, I know," Neal replied. "The whole thing seemed so… crazy, I didn't think he was serious at first. I mean, I couldn't even tell you if he wanted us both arrested, or if he was hoping that they'd nab me and let you go." He shrugged once more at her startled look. "You were a minor; possessing stolen property isn't nearly as bad as actually stealing the property. I guess it's possible that they'd have let you off with a warning. Or possible that he thought they would anyway." He was overdoing it, he thought, and he closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "I don't even know. I had a lot of time to wonder about it when I was locked up in Globe, but it's all speculation on my part. Anyway," he tacked on, "I'm not saying that he's same guy you encountered, but… I did see August here in Storybrooke yesterday and while I wasn't exactly going to vault off the cannery roof to say 'hi', guy saw me gave me a stink-eye like you wouldn't believe. And he was on a motorcycle," he added. There, he thought to himself. That was better.

Emma absorbed that. Then she angrily downed the last of her own coffee. "I guess the only way to find out for sure is to ask him," she said decisively.

No. Not better. "Emma…"

"Don't worry," Emma said. "I'll be careful. Guy's obviously got some… mental health issues if he's been fixated on me for this long. But if he tracked me here, then it's just a matter of time until we have some kind of confrontation that's not in front of our kid. I can hide in the house and wait for it, or I can have it when I'm ready for it and maybe he isn't." She got up from the table and walked over to the closet, taking the brown sheriff's jacket off the hanger and leaving her red one where it was. "I'm not exactly going to tear the town apart looking for him," she huffed, as she pulled on the jacket, "but if I see him, I'll be ready."

"Emma… don't—"

The door closed behind her before he could finish his sentence and he massaged his forehead with a groan. "That," he muttered to the empty room, "didn't go nearly as well as I hoped it would…"

Emma's day didn't get much better. Mary Margaret had bustled into the sheriff station late morning, having just encountered Kathryn Nolan at the drugstore. "She was buying a pregnancy test!" Mary Margaret exclaimed.

Emma blinked. "Uh… well, she and David are married. I guess they're doing what couples… do."

"Yes, but he… a-and I…!"

Emma shook her head. "He made his choice weeks ago. Now, if he's changed his mind, that's one thing. But if he's trying to have both of you, it's… not going to work. You know that."

"I do!" Mary Margaret groaned. "And I don't think he is. I mean, I might run into him at Granny's every day, but we just talk. I like running into him. I look forward to the conversation. But then, I go to school and he goes to…," her face fell, "her. That's all."

"So then why are you so upset to find out that she might be pregnant?"

Mary Margaret looked at her helplessly. "I'm not, I just…" Her shoulders slumped. "I am. I have no right to be, but I am. It just feels like if she is, it's all over. Only, it's already all over. Isn't it?"

Emma winced. "You tell me."

"It's over," Mary Margaret said firmly. But before Emma could nod approvingly, the schoolteacher tilted her head to one side and mumbled, "I think…"

After Mary Margaret left, Emma tried to busy herself with paperwork. Graham had really let it pile up and, while a sleepy seaside town didn't have a fraction of the law enforcement work a city like Boston might, a city like Boston had multiple precincts to spread the cases around. This was going to take a while.

By the time Emma looked up from what had been one hell of a disorganized file, the sky was darkening. She frowned. It wasn't even half-past three. Looked like there was a storm brewing. She stepped out onto the street and her eyebrows knit with worry. It was going to hit soon and it was going to be bad. She debated going home early, but she still had a mountain of paperwork to wade through. Emma sighed. If the storm hit before her day was done, maybe she should count on staying late at the station. True, the house was less than ten minutes' drive away, but didn't most accidents happen within five miles of home? She didn't want to drive through a storm if she could avoid it. Maybe she ought to just pop by Granny's now and grab dinner—something cold like a pastrami sandwich, so she could bring it for lunch tomorrow if she did get home for supper.

She sent a quick text to Neal, so he wouldn't worry, and made sure she locked the station before she left.

Emma took a quick look around as she entered the diner, and her jaw tensed when she saw the stranger seated alone in a booth. Steeling herself, she walked up to him and announced, "We need to talk."

He gave her an amused smile and countered, "Why?"

"Because," she stopped. Yes, this was probably the guy that Neal had warned her about, but there was just the smallest possibility that he was wrong. He'd met a guy once, at night, eleven years ago, right before their lives had taken a major change in direction. Yesterday, he thought he'd recognized him, but it was more than a decade later, and Neal had been up on the roof. She didn't doubt that Neal believed that this was the same guy, but maybe it was just someone bearing a resemblance. Meanwhile, Regina still wanted her to investigate, so she'd do that. She wasn't, however, about to bring up any past that he might have with her or Neal. "You're suspicious," she finished firmly.

The smile became a smirk. "Sitting here, out in the open, drinking coffee," he chuckled. "I wonder what kind of hell I would've raised had I ordered a donut."

If this was the same guy, Neal would have thought he was a pain in the ass, even if he hadn't been trying to warn him away. "You were talking to Henry," she snapped.

His eyes opened wider, and while his voice stayed friendly, he still sounded as though he was enjoying some private joke. "You mean the little kid who came up to me asking me questions? Is that unusual for him? Being curious and precocious?"

She wasn't the one who had to answer questions here and she wasn't about to let herself get sidetracked. "What were you doing outside his house?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "My bike broke down," he said. "It happens."

Finally. A straight answer. Maybe she could get another one out of him. She eyed the large box under the table, the same one that had been on the back of the motorcycle last night. "Your mysterious box," she said, eyes flicking toward it, "What's in it?

The smirk returned. "It's awfully frustrating not knowing, isn't it?" he said, sounding as though he was musing aloud.

Emma wasn't amused. "Just tell me."

"Why?" he asked. "Is it illegal to carry around a box in these parts?"

"No, of course it's not," she snapped, though for a moment, she wished that she did have the power to draft a law or two, instead of just enforce the existing ones.

"You really want to know what's inside it, don't you?" he drawled, clearly enjoying himself.

"No," Emma retorted. She did not want to get pulled into some head game. Even so, she was curious, and he knew it, damn him. Besides, if the box turned out to contain some sort of bomb, she'd spend the rest of her life—no matter how long or short it might be—wondering if he would have showed her, had she asked, and whether she could have prevented… whatever damage it might have caused. "Well, maybe," she allowed, hating herself for even pretending to play his game.

The stranger chuckled. "I'm going to make you wait," he said. "You're going to have to wait a long time and watch me carry it around. Hauling it to strange and mysterious places. And with each passing moment, the mystery will become more tantalizing. Your imagination will inflame, but so will your frustration. Never knowing – only guessing – what could possibly be inside that box? Or, you could let me buy you a drink sometime and I'll tell you right now."

Emma blinked. "You want to buy me a drink?" she asked, nonplussed.

More serious than he'd been until this point, he nodded. "Yes."

Emma wasn't about to forget Neal's warning. If this was August, and he'd told Neal the truth, then he'd been fixated on her for twenty-eight years. Not sane. Not normal. But if he was a threat, either to the town, or to her, or to Henry, as Regina feared, she had to find out. She knew how to defend herself against a stronger attacker and she was armed. It should be all right. "Okay," she said. "A drink it is."

Without another word, the man reached under the table for the box. Setting it down in front of her, he opened it, revealing an old-style typewriter—the kind that even her last underfunded high school had chucked out ages ago in favor of electric models. "Really?" she groaned.

The man smiled. "I'm a writer."

"That's why you're here?" Emma pressed.

His smile broadened. "I find this place provides…inspiration," he replied. "Don't you?" And with that, he closed the box, locked it once more, and rose to his feet.

"Wait," Emma called. "Have you been here before?"

"I didn't say that," he replied.

"Have we met before?"

He blinked and for a moment, his smile faltered before it returned in force. "I didn't say that either." He hefted the box, evidently, preparing to leave.

"Hey," Emma called again, "What about that drink?"

His smile broadened. "I said sometime."

Then he was striding away. For a moment, Emma debated following him, but she could see that the sky looked darker outside than it ought to at this time of day, noticeably darker than it had half an hour ago, even. Bad weather was definitely imminent. Instead, she opted for walking up to the counter to place her to-go order, so that she could make it back to the sheriff station before the storm hit.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Four

"Uh-oh," Neal said, when Emma slid into the booth beside him at Granny's at lunch. "What's wrong?"

Emma shook her head. "I had a little run-in with Regina this morning, over at Henry's castle."

"His castle?" Neal repeated. "Maybe we should've moved in with him."

Emma gave him an irritated sock on the arm. "Play castle," she retorted. "And anyway, after what the storm did to it, if we'd decided to live there, we'd all be homeless right now; the storm did a real number on it. Think Marco could fix it?"

Neal smiled at that. "Sure, after we're done repairing some of the more serious damage around here. So, what happened?"

"Henry keeps his book buried there when it's not with him. Or with you," she added. "He's got a metal box buried at the base of one of the supports. So, while he was digging it up to make sure it was still there for when you give him back the book—"

"Yeah," Neal interrupted, "I'm almost done with it."

"Well, anyway, Regina pulled up and gave Henry some grief over missing a session with Archie this morning and then she gave me some grief for letting him anywhere near that structure after the storm was through with it." She sighed. "Wish I didn't think she might've actually had a point."

"How bad's the damage?"

"Pretty bad," Emma admitted. "I mean, I would've still checked it out when I was his age, but it's not like I really had people paying attention to what I was up to, once I got out of the house." She sighed. "Real responsible parenting, huh?"

"You'll learn. And he's smart. And Regina probably would've said something if you were both wearing helmets and goalie pads," he added and Emma smiled weakly.

"She told me not to let my feelings cloud my judgment!" Emma groaned, as Mary Margaret brought her coffee over and joined them. "It's all she ever does!"

"I hear you," Neal said.

"Regina?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Who else?" She quickly filled her friend in on her morning.

Mary Margaret clucked sympathetically. "She's just upset because you and Henry have a special place and she… doesn't," the schoolteacher said.

"How does she even know about it?" Emma asked.

"She's the mayor; she knows everything that goes on in this town," Mary Margaret said with a shrug. Her phone vibrated just then and she took it out to look at the text. At once, she pushed her chair back.

"Everything okay?" Neal asked.

"Yeah, I just… have to go," Mary Margaret said. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I think Henry's doing a whole lot better since you two got here. Regina probably does feel threatened by that. I'll see you later."

After she left, Neal and Emma looked at each other. "That was pretty abrupt," Neal said.

"Yeah, and right after she was telling me Regina knows everything. Wish I knew how accurate that was."

"You're not still thinking…?" Neal's voice trailed off.

The truth was that Emma hadn't been thinking much about the town possibly being some sort of mind control experiment for weeks now, but Mary Margaret's hasty retreat, right on the heels of her disclosure that the mayor had eyes everywhere had brought those suspicious back to the surface.

"Not really," Emma said. "Well, a little. But maybe we should talk more about it tonight at home. I've got to head into the sheriff station."

"Yeah, and I've got to get back to Marco." He frowned. "You don't think Regina has something on Mary Margaret, do you? She got nervous right about the point she started getting critical of her. Mary Margaret getting critical of Regina, I mean," he clarified.

"I don't know," Emma admitted. The idea hadn't occurred to her, but maybe Neal was onto something. "And it's not just Mary Margaret. Everyone in town seems a little afraid of her." Almost everyone, she amended mentally, thinking about Gold.

"Not just because she's the mayor?"

"Possible, but I doubt it," Emma said. "Politicians get tons of flack normally; it comes with the territory. This is more."

"What, then?"

"Wish I knew," Emma sighed.

A horn honked from outside and Neal's eyes traveled to the window. "Marco," he smiled. "Guess I'm needed." He reached over to kiss her. "See you later."

"Bye."

Emma finished her coffee and was about to get up, when a voice behind her rasped, "I can grant your wish."

The curse was definitely breaking, Rumple thought to himself. The clock, the coffin, and now, the barrier. For how else could the motorcycle-driving stranger have come here, if not that the part of the enchantment meant to keep the town hidden from visitors was now beginning to erode?

It occurred to him that the weakening of that force might also mean that it was now possible for him to leave Storybrooke. If that were so, then perhaps he could already set out to find Bae! A moment later, he reconsidered. The barrier might indeed be weakening, but it might not be weak enough. Doom awaited anyone brought to Storybrooke by the Dark Curse who attempted to cross the town line. He had to remember that Emma and Henry did not fit that category. As for Neal, well, if he was whom Rumple suspected, then he wouldn't fall under that rubric either. And if he wasn't, if he was native to this realm, and merely someone who had forged an attachment with the Savior, she had left town to bring him here, after all. Henry had confirmed as much, that first morning. No test of the barrier's strength there. No, the stranger's arrival was far more promising on that front.

Still, even if one could safely cross the town line, Rumple realized, sobering, what then? The outside world was large indeed, and without magic, he had no idea where to start searching for Bae. Even if he found him… On impulse, he took out his phone, opened Google, and typed Bae's name.

Baelfire—Origin, meaning, popularity and related names… No, he wouldn't find his boy on a baby-naming site.

His heart leapt when his eyes dipped further down the page. The spelling wasn't quite right, but 'the Box of Balefire'? Apparently, it was a magical artifact that had featured on an animated television series that had aired not long before Storybrooke had come into existence. As he read the description, a disbelieving smile creased his features. The box in question was designed to summon a being of immense Dark power. It took him some digging to uncover the names of the people involved with that episode. Bae's wasn't among them, but then it wouldn't be. He surely would have changed it to something less remarkable in this land. Still, the notion of a box that could summon a Dark being from some other realm… If Bae was working in children's entertainment, or if he had been at the time, then perhaps this was no coincidence. Perhaps Bae was hoping for a reunion as much as he was! If only he could be certain! He continued reading. The writer of the episode in question had a respectable list of credentials for a number of animated series, but try as he might, he could find nothing else to support the hypothesis that this "Michael Reaves" might be his long-lost son. Rumple filed away the information and back-buttoned to the search results.

His eyebrows shot up again at the first entry on the next page. It seemed that 'baelfire' was also the name given to a multicolored blend of merino, bamboo, and silk roving yarn. That also smacked of the sort of thing that Bae might be trying his hand with—a way of carrying on the family trade in some small part. He clicked on the website. Shirley Bryan Yarns seemed to have a staff of one—a woman named 'Beckie'. Bae might still be involved and keeping a low profile, though were that the case, it was doubtful that he'd use his true name for a product, particularly not a yarn. Unless he was hoping that somehow, his father would come searching! Hope buoyed his heart as he explored the website further. The company was based in Perth, Ontario. Canada. Another country entirely, albeit still a good deal closer than Los Angeles, where—at least, insofar as he believed—most animation studios were based. He wasn't even certain how he would find his way safely to another town, nor how to navigate it once he reached it! No, there could be no search until the Savior believed and the Curse broke entirely.

And then?

Well, then, it would be time to call in the favor Emma owed him, and if her young man wished to accompany them, then the more the merrier!

"Slow down, Emma," Neal said, holding up his hands, palms facing out in a placating gesture. "Now, what's this about Sidney? Isn't that the guy Regina hand-picked to run against you for sheriff?"

"Yeah," Emma said. "But that was before she got him fired. And before she bulldozed Henry's castle. Good thing you still have his book, because that metal box he kept it in met the business end of an excavator bucket." At Neal's blank stare, she added impatiently, "the… scoop. With those… teeth around the rim? If that thing turned steel into scrap metal, think what it would've done to paper!"

"Okay," Neal said, "but the book's fine. I'll give it back to him tomorrow. What's got you so upset?"

Emma shook her head. "Regina just… gets under my skin. She told me I had to 'learn my place' in this town, and suddenly, I was back to being in the System." At Neal's blank look she winced. "There was this one placement… I was only there for about a month. Anyway, it was in a really upscale neighborhood. Monster houses, most kids probably got sports cars for their sixteenth birthdays, you can imagine it. Anyway, I was upstairs when a… delegation of mothers came to the front door and gave Angie—that was her name: Angie Carrisford—grief about taking in a 'foundling,' i.e. me, and letting her go to school with their precious angels. And yeah," she added, "the phrase about me needing to 'learn my place' came up. I kept waiting for Angie to rip them all a new one. She didn't. She just made some half-hearted comment about how it couldn't really be that bad." She sighed. "Five days later, my social worker whisked me off to a group home and it was way the hell on the other side of town from that area."

Neal squeezed her shoulder. "Oh, jeez."

"Yeah. I didn't need those memories. Anyway," she took a breath and let it out, "Sidney says he's got something on her that'll prove she's been misappropriating council funds. Once that comes to light, she's done."

"So, what? He's going to publish an article?"

Emma shook her head. "Regina fired him. Or got him fired. Whatever; he's not with the paper anymore."

"Okay," Neal said, "so…?"

"So, Sidney and I get the proof we need and we tell the town at the next council meeting."

Neal frowned. "What kind of turnout do those meetings get?"

"I don't know, but it's got to be more than just Regina. If even one person is sitting in on the proceedings…"

"I'm not sure about this," Neal said slowly. "If things have been going her way for this long, she's got to have a few people on her side. I mean, if she's involved in something shady, and there's proof, it takes two people to make a deal, at the very least. Someone else in this town has to know what she's doing. Maybe more than one someone. Secrets like that don't stay secret for long. Rumors start spreading. Some true, some false, but they stick."

"That's what I'm telling you," Emma said. "Sidney knows what she's been doing."

"So then, why does he need you to dig up proof? Even if Regina got him fired from the paper, he's still a reporter, right? If he knows proof exists, it should be because he has it in his files, or he knows where to find it. He should be bringing it to you; you shouldn't be… playing Rina Lazarus to his Peter Decker."

"Who?"

"I have got to introduce you to Faye Kellerman's novels," Neal muttered. "My point is, maybe he needs law enforcement to arrest her, once he's got proof. Telling you that there's proof and then expecting you to help him dig it up… It smells like a setup to me."

Emma's eyes widened. "I don't… That's… that's…" That's a little too close to something Regina might cook up. How sure am I that Sidney isn't in cahoots with her? "My superpower didn't go off when he told me Regina got him fired."

Neal shrugged. "Maybe she did. Doesn't mean she didn't find him another job, or slip him some cash or something, right?"

Emma blinked. "Okay," she said slowly. "Okay. Maybe there's more to it and I'm letting my being pissed at Regina cloud my judgment. Maybe." She thought for a moment. "Look, I'm meeting him tomorrow around three," she said. "Makinland Road, uh…it branches off Main Street about a mile and a half from downtown and ends at one of the entrances to the wilderness park." She stopped. Neal had taken his phone out and his fingers were tapping on the screen.

"Okay, got it."

"There's a tunnel about two thirds of the way there. He'll be waiting at the far end. If you're not doing anything and you want to follow in Herbie and listen in…"

"Text him," Neal said. "Tell him something's come up and you need to make it for five. Marco and I should have the finishing touches done on the cannery roof by then."

Emma smiled. "Deal."

The following afternoon, Neal sat in the yellow bug on a dirt trail some hundred feet off of Makinland Road, listening to the conversation through the concealed wire Emma was wearing, and frantically texting notes into his phone.

Sidney was claiming that Regina had diverted fifty thousand dollars from the town budget—an amount that, quite frankly, struck Neal as miniscule, even in a small town. Evidently, Emma had the same thought, he noted, when her reply came through his receiver.

"That's it? That's what you have on her?"

Sidney insisted that the money was 'just the tip of the iceberg', and that once they figured out what Regina was up to, her scheme would fall apart. Neal frowned at that. Shouldn't Sidney already know? Fifty thousand dollars missing might be grounds for an audit, but as a reporter—former reporter, maybe—shouldn't he know that you didn't go around making accusations without hard facts?

"All right," Emma said. "What's your plan?"

Neal had to roll his eyes at Sidney's response. Sure. Let's ask the sheriff to violate Maine's wiretapping laws. Nothing shady about that. All the same, he breathed a sigh of relief, when Emma turned him down, telling him she wanted to do this by the book.

"She's going to know that you're on to her sooner than later," Sidney warned. "Are you prepared for her wrath?"

"Oh, yeah," Emma retorted.

To which Sidney replied, "Good. Because I wasn't."

"If you thought she was so terrifying," Emma asked, "how'd you end up in her pocket?"

There was a longer-than-usual pause. Then Sidney said sadly, "I used to think she was a different person. Look," he continued, "why don't we head over to the records office tomorrow morning at nine when they open? The information should be there; we'll just need to dig a little."

"Wait. 'Should'? You're not sure?"

Sidney was silent for a moment. "I came across the file in passing. When I started asking questions, that was when I was suddenly given fifteen minutes to clear out my desk. I'm assuming the information is just buried and hasn't been removed, but no. I'm not sure. And if it's buried, two sets of eyes are going to be better than one, when it comes to unearthing it. So. You in?"

"You know it."

Neal only wished that Emma hadn't sounded so enthusiastic in her agreement.

Neal waited for Sidney to leave before getting out of Herbie and making his way toward where Emma was parked. Without preamble, he opened the unlocked passenger-side door of the squad car and tumbled heavily onto the seat.

"I hate to say it," Emma said slowly, "but you could be right."

"Too convenient?" Neal asked with slight smile.

"Too convenient. It doesn't make him wrong, but I need to see his proof. And…"

Neal waited. "And?"

Emma looked down. "When he said that he and the mayor were done yesterday, my superpower didn't go off, but 'done' and 'through' aren't necessarily the same thing. I want them to be, but his turning up and offering to hand me Regina on a plate, just when I'm ready to… set the table," she winced a bit at the murdered metaphor, "it really is too convenient, isn't it?"

"That's what I was thinking," Neal nodded. "Mind you, I just arrived and you've been here for weeks. You know these people way better than I do right now. So, you tell me: how… honest… do you think Sidney's being right now?"

Emma exhaled. "He was her hand-picked candidate for sheriff. He's used his reporter job to do a hatchet job on me when I first came here, and a smear campaign when I ran against him. For him to mess up badly enough that she'd turn on him and get him fired," she frowned. "This is a small town. Shouldn't everyone have known the details about it almost as soon as she was done talking to him?"

"Well, gossip may not always travel as fast as all that," Neal said, "but you've got a point."

"All the same, if this isn't a setup, if Regina really did turn on him and he's switching sides, and he's got something on her… I mean, you were listening just now, right? What do you think?"

"I," Neal hesitated. "I think it sounds like you've got a little research to do."

"More than a little," Emma said. "You want to help us sift through the records tomorrow?"

Neal grinned. "Sure. It'll be like old times. Except I'd rather it was Ray instead of Sidney giving us this assignment."

Emma nodded and smothered a yawn. "It's not even dinnertime yet, and I'm feeling pretty wiped out. Want to get takeout at Granny's tonight? I locked up at the sheriff station already before I came out here, but we can swing back so I can leave the squad car in the lot and join you in Herbie."

"Takeout's okay for tonight," Neal agreed. "But tomorrow, I'm making us a home-cooked meal. Tacos sound good, or would you rather baked ziti?"

"Tacos," Emma said, after a moment's thought. "With loads of shredded cheese."

"You got it." He gave her a quick kiss. "Race you to the sheriff station?"

"Don't think I won't give you a speeding citation if you deserve it."

The days were getting shorter, Emma realized, as she parked the squad car and got out. The sun had already set and the sky was darkening rapidly. By the time she and Neal left Granny's, the first stars of evening were plainly visible. "I remember when you used to show me the constellations," Emma murmured, leaning closer to Neal.

Neal shifted the brown paper takeout bag to his other hand and wrapped his arm around Emma's shoulders. "We should do that again one night. I think I still remember them all."

"It's a date, Mister," Emma grinned.

As they reached the house and parked in front, Emma frowned. "Did you leave the window open this morning?" she asked.

"No," Neal said slowly. He and Marco had taken down the boards and put in new glass two days earlier, but he knew he wouldn't have left them open now that the temperatures were changing. With some trepidation, he turned the house key in the lock.

Emma breathed a sigh of relief as she did a quick walkabout and noticed that nothing seemed amiss. "Maybe I did and forgot about it," she said. "Nothing looks like it's missing."

Neal wiped his brow theatrically. "I'll just grab Henry's book now so I can drop it off to—" He stopped. "It was here on the kitchen table. Did you move it?"

"No," Emma said slowly. "Could it be somewhere else?"

"I doubt it," Neal replied. "But let me just check the bedroom."

It was more than ten minutes before he returned. "I tried a few other places I thought it might be and it's not in any of them."

"Well, it's got to be here somewhere," Emma said. "I mean, books don't just… grow legs and walk away."

"No," Neal said. "But they can get carried away through open windows." He shook his head. "But who breaks into a house just to steal a book?"

Emma sucked in her breath. "If I had to make a guess?" her voice was nearly a growl as she rapped out, "Regina."

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Five

Neal frowned. "You really think the mayor's going to break into our house?" he asked. "Pencil skirts and stiletto heels do not an effective cat burglar make."

Emma snorted. "Come on, mixed in with all the Versace and Prada power suits, she's got to have some designer leisurewear." Alala, Emma thought to herself. That, or maybe Summersalt. Not to mention a decent pair of runners. "Besides," she continued aloud, "she might have someone else doing her dirty work."

"Yeah," Neal nodded. "She might. So, Sheriff Swan… hauled in any thieves lately?"

Emma frowned, thinking. "No. I noticed the locksmith at Granny's the other day and when I asked her about it, she told me it looked like someone had forced the door open, but when I tried to take a report, she told me not to bother, because the only stuff missing were a loaf of bread and a couple of packages of cold cuts and she didn't want to press charges on a person who was just hungry." She tilted her head with a faint smile. "She did say though, that if I found out who it was, to let them know that she'd appreciate it if they washed out their coffee cup instead of leaving it for the morning shift next time."

Neal chuckled. "I like her," he said firmly. His face grew serious once more. "Regina might be behind it, but how would she know we even had the book? We didn't tell her and Henry wouldn't."

"She might have overheard him and me talking at the castle," Emma said slowly. "No. Wait. She was in her car; we stopped talking when she pulled up." She frowned. "Okay. Who else knew about the book?"

Neal shook his head. "I don't know. And I'm not saying the mayor isn't behind it, I'm just saying…"

"That I'm letting my anger run away with me," Emma finished. "Damn."

"Hey, at least you recognize it."

"No, that's not it," Emma replied. "I mean, yeah, I see it, but you know what makes it worse? I can't even notify the police; I'm the police!"

Neal started to laugh.

"It's not funny!" Emma protested. "If word of this gets out, I'm going to be a laughingstock. I'll never live it down!"

"Yeah, you will," Neal reassured her. "I mean, of course, in a small town like this, it might take a couple of years—"

"You're not helping."

"Sorry," Neal said, still smiling a bit. "I mean, as… weird as you've said this place is, let's face it: with no creepy psychos or gruesome murders in a one-hundred-mile radius, sheriff's house gets burgled is news. Even if all the thief took was a book of fairytales."

Emma shook her head, but she was starting to smile too. "At least, I don't have to worry about Sidney writing an article about it for tomorrow's paper."

"There ya go. I knew you'd see an upside eventually."

The response Emma gave him was halfway between a growl and a groan.

Neal left before breakfast the next day to do an early job with Marco. By the time he was finished, it was nearly lunch time. "Go on," Marco told him indulgently. "Just be at the school for half-past two. Some of the kids, they can hit a baseball higher than the school board thought, when they decided not to reinforce the top-story windows."

"Thanks," Neal grinned back. "See you then."

"Give the sheriff my best," Marco added.

"I will."

He got home to discover boxes covering the dining room table with more on the floor stacked around and under it. "How goes the investigation?" he asked, after greeting Emma and—because Sidney was also there—settling for giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

Emma exhaled. "It's taking forever, but I guess you can tell that much. I think we may have found something on Regina, though."

"Oh?" Neal pulled up a chair. "What?"

"Missing records of a funds transfer."

"Missing?" Neal repeated. "Then you didn't actually find them?"

"We found out that they aren't where they should be," Sidney said. "Meaning that Regina likely absconded with them. So," he glanced at Emma, "since you want to do this by the book, the next step would be to get a search warrant to check her home and office."

Emma's face fell. "What judge are we going to find that she doesn't own?" she said with no small amount of exasperation. "We're screwed."

Sidney nodded, his expression unwavering. "Or there's my way."

"I want to do this the right way, Sidney," she said.

"What's right," Sidney retorted, "is exposing her. Sometimes doing a bad thing for a good reason is okay," he turned to Neal while he was speaking, "right?"

"Don't look at me," Neal said, seeing Emma's eyes on him as well. "I'm staying out of this." He hesitated. "I mean, if there's no other way, then I guess maybe… I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a couple of things in my past that you'd say were bad."

"Robbing a jewelry store in Arizona?" Sidney asked dryly.

Neal did his best to fight the wave of annoyance that surged up. "You've done your homework on me."

"At Regina's behest."

"Of course."

"And I'm sure you had a good reason," Sidney offered.

Neal shook his head. "Not really," he said, adopting the nonchalant contrition he generally exhibited when the subject came up at job interviews. "My boss was a drunk and, at least to my mind, lazy. I thought he was making me do more work than I'd agreed to for less money than it was worth. I was annoyed; he was careless; I saw a chance to get rich quick and I took it. I didn't have the easiest time growing up. I got used to making my own opportunities and looking out for number one and I was still in that mindset, so maybe I had understandable reasons, but not good ones." He'd practiced that speech to the point where he could make it without a hint of fear or defensiveness. The trick was to be open about his past, while making it clear that he'd left that part of it behind him. Usually, his candor went over well, and he hoped that it would now, too, because he really didn't feel like fielding more of Sidney's 'gotcha' attitude today.

To his relief, Sidney seemed inclined to drop the subject. "Mr. Cassidy," he said carefully, "that's as may be. I wasn't there. I don't know what your boss was like. But I can tell you that Regina and I go pretty far back. Look what she's done so far. To your son. To Emma. You're right that she had me research you and I should caution you that I turned over everything I uncovered before she got me fired, so it's just a matter of time until she finds something she can use against you. She'll keep coming until she does and she's not going to stop until she's got you all toeing her line, so whatever you do, you've got to do something."

Emma and Neal exchanged a glance. "Okay," Emma said slowly. "We can start by talking to her."

"You bugged her office?" Neal exclaimed that evening. "Emma, Maine's a one-party consent state! Even if you turn anything up, it'll be inadmissible!"

"But I'll know," Emma shot back. "Even if I can't use it, I'll know what she's up to. And once I do, I can find legal support and make it stick."

Neal shook his head. "What if you can't?"

"Then I'll still know. And maybe…"

Neal waited for her to finish. "Emma?"

She shook her head. "You know I keep going back and forth about whether this place is some… extended… brainwashing experiment. Or mind control experiment. Or… Look, I know it sounds crazy, but there is something… off… about this place and Regina's either behind it, or she's as much a victim as everyone else, but maybe this way, I'll start getting some answers." Her eyes widened. "Unless someone was watching me plant it. Or Sidney's in on it. Or," she groaned. "I'm sounding paranoid, right? But what if they really are out to get me?"

Neal shook his head. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy. Maybe you are a little paranoid, but come on: you told me that Regina managed to find out how many death threats you've had in Boston! Not to mention uncover your juvie record."

"That was Sidney," Emma groaned again. "And I'm actually working with him now! I mean, if he's really split from Regina, then that's good. But if he hasn't…" She stopped. Neal waited. "If he hasn't," Emma said slowly, "then he's working with her and this is all playing into her hands. How am I supposed to figure this out?"

"Well," Neal ventured, "it's not like you have to decide tonight." He took a breath. "Okay. You planted the bug. Illegal as hell, Sheriff Swan, but unless she's got you on video doing it, you still have plausible deniability if she finds it. Of course, if she and Sidney are still in cahoots, she might just have you on video."

Emma brought her hand to her forehead. "Great."

"Well, still not terrible. If Regina knows about the bug, either because she has you on camera, or because Sidney told her, what do you think she's likely to do about it?"

Emma thought. "I guess she could report me to… Well, I don't really have a boss, do I? What's her recourse in a case like this again, the state attorney general?" When Neal nodded, she frowned. "Except I don't think she will. Henry told me that nobody ever comes or goes around here, and while that's not entirely true, I can confirm that apart from Herbie and August Booth's motorcycle, I haven't seen a single out-of-state license plate since I got here. Something tells me that Regina doesn't want outsiders coming here, even if it's their job to. If there's something going on she wants dealt with, she'll do it 'in-house'."

Neal didn't know much about curses beyond the stories whispered around the campfires in the village where he'd been born. He'd left the Enchanted Forest long before Papa had delved into such matters. But from the bits he'd retained from Henry's book, the curse was supposed to repel outsiders. This town wasn't on any map. While Emma's rationale was off, he rather suspected that her conclusion was on the money: if there was crime or corruption within the sheriff's office, Regina wouldn't be reporting it to anyone outside of Storybrooke. "Okay," he said. "So…"

Emma frowned. "So, she's either going to confront me with what she knows in the next day or two," her eyes widened, "or she's going to make sure that anything I hear over that bug plays right into her hands. If she discredits me, then I'll lose the town's confidence. And even if I don't resign over it, I won't have the support I need to take her down."

Neal nodded.

"Of course, Sidney might be playing straight with me," Emma added.

"Yeah."

Emma rubbed her forehead. "I keep going back and forth over it and my lie detector isn't helping. I-I mean, I don't believe everything he's telling me, but I don't know if it's my superpower, or if it's just this little voice in my head telling me it's too good to be true, because if he's legit, then everything's about to swing around my way and every time I've felt like that in the past, I've had the rug yanked out from under me. So is this my superpower, or am I just… cynical?"

"Sometimes," Neal said, "I wonder about that, too. Emma," he continued seriously, "you're good at reading people. You always have been. And mostly, your instincts are great. You pick up on body language that goes right past me. Do you have a built-in lie detector on top of that, or is it part life experience, part intuition, part… picking up on tells and non-verbal cues? I don't know. But I do think that when you… when anyone really wants to believe something, you can find reasons to. Usually."

"And I really want to believe that Sidney's legit, because I want to bring down Regina and get Henry away from her."

Neal didn't say anything.

After a moment, Emma took a deep breath and let it out. "As long as I planted that bug," she said, "I guess I should see if it picks up anything. But before I go barreling up to Regina with guns blazing, I need to make damned sure that whatever I hear means what I think it means."

Sidney was waiting for Emma when she arrived at the sheriff station bright and early the following morning. He turned down an offer of coffee, and waited for Emma to turn on the equipment that would receive the transmission from the listening device now attached to the underside of Regina's desktop.

The message light on the non-emergency phone was flashing, and she quickly checked the voicemail. There had been a number of calls. Each needed to be entered in the logs, and while some did not have to be returned, others did. By the time she finished, it was nearly an hour and a half later and Sidney was seated in front of the machines, a headset around his neck, and Regina's annoyed voice clearly emanating from the speakers, as she informed a caller that she was not responsible for the air temperature. "Scintillating," Emma said, joining him. "Find anything good yet?"

Sidney greeted her with a smile. "Yeah, better than good. She made this call a little over an hour ago." He played back a recording. Regina certainly sounded suspicious, promising to meet someone at Access Road 23 that evening with 'the rest of the payment' and insisting that nobody could know about it.

"Who's on the other end?" she asked Sidney.

The disgraced reporter shook his head. "You bugged the office, not the phone," he pointed out.

That much was true enough, but there had been only so much she could do while Regina was still in her office. "Well, we're just going to have to go and find out," she said, not missing a beat.

"Yeah," Sidney nodded.

Emma smiled. "A payoff in the woods. That's promising."

"A payoff using stolen city funds."

Emma's smile widened slightly. "We need to find out who she's meeting."

Neal decided to surprise Emma with a bear claw that afternoon. He'd seen them in Granny's and been pleasantly surprised, even if they did seem to be called apple fritters here. Then a bearded man rudely shoved ahead of him, slapped the counter and hollered, "Hey, Ruby! I'm in a hurry. Just gimme a bear claw and a coffee and put it on my tab!"

Okay, evidently, they used both terms here. He frowned when he realized that the server was taking out the only pastry under the clear glass dome on the counter. "Uh… do you have any more of those?" he asked hopefully.

The dark-haired young woman whose name seemed to be 'Ruby' shook her head. "Next batch should be ready in about half an hour. I've got whoopie pies good to go right now, if you want; they're a Maine specialty."

Neal looked at the item she was offering, an item that—to his mind—looked like a giant Oreo cake: two round devil's food cake domes with a layer of white filling oozing out between them. He thought that Emma might like one, but he knew she liked bear claws. "I'll come back in half an hour," he said. "Thanks."

Once he was out on the pavement, he decided he'd take a walk around the neighborhood. He still didn't know his way about and, since it looked as though he was going to be here for a while, he should at least know where everything was along Main Street. He could see the town hall in the distance and, more to have a destination in mind than for any other reason, he started heading toward it.

He was about a half block away when he saw the main doors open and Sidney Glass emerge from within. Neal's eyebrows shot up. He guessed it was possible that he'd been in the building to call on someone else; the mayor couldn't be the only person who worked at the town hall. Still, why was Sidney looking around so furtively? Neal quickly stepped into a doorway, out of the disgraced reporter's line of sight and pulled his knitted cap lower over his head.

Sidney walked past, carrying a leather valise in one hand. If Henry was right about nobody ever leaving town, Neal didn't think that the guy was taking a trip.

Neal waited a moment before following, using the training he'd received as a bounty hunter—not to mention his years in the jungle of Neverland—to stay out of sight of his quarry. His eyes narrowed when he saw Sidney turn into the sheriff station. He debated for a few moments, before walking in.

Emma was alone. "This is a surprise," she greeted him with a smile. Then, seeing Neal's eyes darting about, she asked, "Something wrong?"

"I'm not sure," Neal said. "I was going to bring you a bear claw," Emma perked up at that, and he smiled as he explained why he didn't have one with him, "…so I went for a walk and I thought I saw Sidney come in here."

Emma shook her head. "No, though we're going to drive out to the woods later." She laughed. "I did not mean that the way it probably sounded!" she exclaimed. "We heard over the wiretap that she's making a payoff tonight. We want to watch and see who she's working with."

Neal started to frown, but he knew the determination in Emma's voice too well. "Be careful," he said. "From everything you've told me, she's probably got an ace or two up her sleeve."

"When both aces are from the same suit, everyone knows there's something fishy," Emma pointed out.

Neal grinned and headed back outside. Weird. He could have sworn he'd seen Sidney come in. Unless…

Slowly, he walked around the station to the fenced lot where the patrol car was parked. Sidney was zipping up the valise and looking quite a bit dusty. He started when Neal approached. "Some… kid… thought he hit a baseball over the fence, but he was afraid that the sheriff would be angry if he went into the lot. I… was just checking under the car, but I didn't find it."

Neal didn't need Emma's superpower to know the guy was lying. "Where's the kid?" he asked.

Sidney blinked nervously. "He should be just around the corner. You want to meet him?" he asked dubiously.

Neal shook his head. "Nah, I'll let you tell him the bad news. Later."

Sidney couldn't get away fast enough. Eyes narrowing, Neal approached the squad car. At first glance, nothing seemed wrong. Then he noticed a small puddle under the door on the driver's side. Looking around, he saw a number of small twigs lying on the asphalt and he picked one up and dipped it into the liquid. Decades on an island with dreamshade had taught him how to handle potentially dangerous substances and he took care to drip nothing on his skin or clothing as he raised the twig to his nose and took a cautious whiff. He recognized the fish oil smell at once and all but ran into the station.

"Got my bear claw?" Emma asked eagerly.

Neal shook his head. "You'd better come around back. I have to show you something."

Nonplussed, Emma followed him back out to the parking lot. Her eyes widened as Neal pointed out the puddle and told her what he suspected. "Brake fluid?" she repeated.

"Smell's a dead giveaway. I can't prove it was Sidney, but whether it was or it wasn't…"

"I can," Emma said. "There should be camera footage of the lot. Let's go back inside and I'll check."

Neal followed Emma back into the station and sat back to wait. Ten minutes later, she looked up angrily. "He's smarter than I thought."

"Sidney?"

"Who else? Remember when I told you about how someone switched the security tapes at the hospital to cover up missing David getting up and walking out? Today's lot footage shows rain."

"It hasn't rained all week."

"I know. That's because it's not today's lot footage. And Sidney was here listening to the bug in Regina's office all morning. I had a couple of calls I had to attend to. Nothing major and I didn't leave any confidential files lying out before I left, but…" She examined the lock in the doorknob of the security room and swore. "Tell me this doesn't look like it was tampered with."

Neal shook his head. "He's really… not very good at this, is he?"

"He was good enough," Emma snapped. "Okay. There's no way I'm getting behind the wheel until I have the car looked at." She sighed. "Guess we're taking Herbie tonight."

"We?" Neal asked.

Emma nodded. "I told you: Regina's meeting someone in the woods tonight. Sidney and I are going to find out who." Neal started to say something, and Emma held up her hand. "I get it. If Sidney cut the brake lines on the car, he's obviously still working with Regina." She frowned. "Unless he's upset about losing the election and he's trying to discredit me so he can get the job after all," she said thoughtfully. She took another breath. "Look. Either way, if I don't go with him tonight, he's going to know I'm onto him. Whereas, if I do…"

"If you do, he thinks he's got you fooled and you can play along until you find out what's really going on," Neal nodded understanding. "I get it. I don't like it," he added, "but I get it."

"You think me heading out the middle of nowhere with a guy who probably just sabotaged my car and the security tapes might not be the smartest move I could be making."

"Is there any way I can answer that which won't land me in the doghouse?"

Emma laughed. "I'll be careful. I'll also wear a wire again. Plus," she added, pulling out her cell phone, "when I call Tillman to check out the car, I'll ask him if he can spare me a loaner for police work. You can tail us in that."

"Not Herbie?"

"I pick Sidney up in a loaner, he knows I know there's something wrong with the patrol car. Whereas, if I pick him up in Herbie, I can tell him that I thought it would be less conspicuous than a black-and-white at this time of night and if Regina sees me, I can tell her I was out for a night-time drive and got lost." She shrugged. "I'd buy that if I were either of them."

For the second time in as many days, Neal found himself sitting in a car—a Honda Civic this time—listening to Emma and Sidney's conversation over a wire. He wished the car wasn't white; he'd rubbed mud over it to make it harder to spot in the moonlight and he'd have to find time to take it to the car wash before returning it, but he could deal.

From what he could hear coming through Emma's wire, Sidney was not happy with the yellow bug, though he hadn't been able to come up with a good reason.

"It's not what I was expecting," he repeated.

"We're undercover," Emma said again. "So's the car. What's the big deal?"

"There isn't one. It's just… not what I was expecting."

Neal smiled in the darkness, as Emma—and, he assumed, Sidney—exited the car. Sidney was warning her that they had to be cautious and think clearly. "Tell me something I don't know," Emma retorted, and Neal smiled. Emma hated being patronized, especially by someone she didn't trust.

Sidney seemed to realize he'd misstepped, for he said quickly, "I only meant—"

"Quiet," Emma snapped. "If Regina hears us, we won't find out who she's meeting or why she's out here."

And then a new voice announced, "She was meeting me."

Neal's smile froze and then fell away. Papa. He should have known.

"Well," Sidney said, "I can't say it's surprising."

"Regina's meeting with Gold, you mean?" Emma asked.

"He does own almost all the land in and around town. If Regina's buying some, there aren't many others she can approach."

"You know them both pretty well, I take it," Emma said softly and Sidney chuckled.

"Well, I can't say anybody really knows Mr. Gold. He keeps himself to himself mostly, and he's not the kind of guy people approach unless they have to. But Regina… I thought I knew her fairly well." He sniffed. "Not quite as well as Sheriff Graham, of course, but… well."

"Sidney? Why did she get you fired?"

Sidney hesitated. "When you first came to town, she asked me to investigate you. I guess that doesn't surprise you. I found out a few things; if you've read my hatchet jobs, I guess you know what, but… it wasn't enough. You're still here. The town hasn't turned against you. Regina doesn't like it when things don't go her way and she needed someone to blame."

"You."

"Me," Sidney confirmed. "I won't apologize for uncovering your past. I'm a journalist, or at least I was. I didn't need to slant it in the direction I did."

"Hang on." Emma pulled out her phone. "I'm just getting a text." She studied the screen. Neal was asking if everything was okay. She was about to confirm when an idea struck her. She let out a heavy groan.

"Problem?" Sidney asked.

Emma nodded. "You could say that. Since I knew we weren't taking the squad car tonight, I figured Tillman could give it its annual service checkup early." She kept looking at her phone as she spoke, but out the corner of her eye, she saw Sidney suddenly look worried. "I wish he'd just tell me instead of getting all mysterious, but he wants me to come in and discuss it in person." She turned to face Sidney with a quizzical expression. "I have no clue what he's going to tell me. Don't suppose you have any insights?"

"Me?" Sidney repeated, stammering a bit. "How would I know anything?"

"I just thought, you being a reporter and knowing Graham better than I did, maybe you'd noticed something wrong with the car before now. How about it? Any idea what Tillman found?"

"Not a clue," Sidney breathed and Emma smiled.

"That's all I need to know." She started the motor. "I'll give you a lift home."

Neal tailed Emma at a distance, pulling past her and parking around the corner when she let Sidney off at his front door. She pulled up behind him a moment later, got out and came to his window with a thunderous expression. He rolled it down, almost before she reached him. "Well?" he asked.

Emma's exhalation was half a growl. "He knew damned well what Tillman found," she said. "And I'm pretty sure he's still working with Regina."

"Only pretty sure?" Neal asked.

Emma sighed. "I'm still can't decide if Regina's in charge, or if someone else is pulling the strings, and Regina's getting hers yanked along with the rest of the town, but whatever's going on, I'm getting close to it."

"Or, maybe this is just a quiet little seaside town with a few… quirks."

Emma shook her head. "I don't need my superpower to know that you don't believe that either."

Neal smiled uneasily. "So… what now?"

Emma shrugged. "Regina did make a payoff in the woods tonight. We know she bought land, and we know she bought it from Gold. What we don't know is why she bought it, but I'm betting that if it were for town business, she wouldn't be bothering with all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff. That suggests it's for personal reasons," she continued, "but we can't know that for sure." She smiled. "Unless we can uncover documents that link her to the land."

"Okay… Neal said slowly. So…?"

"Move," Emma said, and opened the Beetle's door. Neal stepped back to let her out. "Herbie's too conspicuous," she said flatly. "I can pretty much promise he won't be ticketed if we leave him here for an hour or two and go in the loaner."

"Okay," said Neal, trotting to keep up with her. "So where are we headed now?"

Emma shrugged. "The documents are either going to be at Regina's house or her office, and she's probably home by now. That makes this the perfect night to search the town hall."

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Six

"Emma, wait," Neal exclaimed, as she turned the key in the ignition. "You can't just go breaking into people's offices!"

"She broke into our house," Emma shot back. "Fair's fair."

"You don't know it was her!"

"No," Emma admitted, "but I know she's doing something shady and I'm going to find out what before she gets the chance to hide the evidence." She sighed. "You in? Or should I just drop you off at the house on the way?"

Neal made an inarticulate sound before answering, "I'm in. If I don't go with you, I'm just going to be up worrying until you get in, so since catching up on my sleep is already out, I'm in."

Emma grinned. Neal glowered.

Neither Emma nor Neal was surprised to find the town hall locked at that hour. "Can you get it open?" Emma asked hopefully.

Neal studied the lock and shook his head. "This is state of the art. I can probably figure it out, given enough time, but I'd need tools. Maybe a look at the system manual to get a clearer picture of what we're up against."

Emma shook her head, but she didn't seem disappointed. "I was afraid of that," she said calmly. Then she took a rock she'd picked up on their way to the door and smashed the window glass. At once, the alarm began to sound, but Emma calmly stuck her gloved hand through what was left of the pane and unlocked the door.

"Emma!" Neal exclaimed.

Emma shrugged. "The alarm's going to alert the police. Once again, I'm the police. We've got about six minutes," she continued. "Two minutes for Regina to get a call from the alarm company, one minute to get her coat and keys, three to drive here. Now let's get up to her office and grab what we're here for."

Neal would have stopped her to argue longer, but she was right. They had six minutes and he couldn't afford to waste a second of it. He followed her up the stairs and down the hall to the mayor's office.

It wasn't locked. Neal frowned. In a small town, maybe that wasn't unremarkable, but if Regina did have something incriminating in her office, this was just careless. Something felt off, and he didn't like it. "Emma—"

"Here." Emma tossed Neal a ring of keys she found in the desk drawer, while she turned on the computer sitting on the mayor's desk. "I don't know what the hell these things open, but try the cabinets." There was a small black box in the drawer, too. Emma flicked the lid up and was rewarded by a half-dozen USB drives. They didn't look as though they'd been used.

Neal caught the keys one-handed. "Okay," he said. "What am I looking for?"

"Henry's book," Emma said flatly, inserting one of the drives into the computer and copying the land files onto it. "She wouldn't keep it at the house, not when the person she most wants to keep it from lives there. It's got to be here."

"If she took it," Neal said, hesitantly fitting one key to a cabinet lock. "Big 'if'."

Emma exhaled. "I know. I've been thinking about it and, fine. There's a good chance you're right. But if you're wrong and the book's here, we're," she held up one hand, her thumb and index finger less than an inch apart, "this close to getting it back to him, and I'll be kicking myself if we let this chance slip away." She turned back to the computer and a savage smile lit her face. "Yes! I'm in." She typed several commands in quick succession and nodded. "I just uncovered every file that references the tract of land Regina's just bought from Gold."

"Nice," Neal said, and Emma wasn't sure whether his dry tone held a hint of sarcasm, or just his usual deadpan delivery.

"Any sign of the book?" she asked, quickly copying

Neal shook his head. "Nothing. If she took it, she hid it well."

"You know," Emma said slowly, "there's another place it could be. She's got a family mausoleum at the graveyard. The night Graham died, he was convinced she had," Emma swallowed, "something of his there." She had the files copied. Swiftly, she slid the USB into her pocket and turned off the computer.

"We're not going to the cemetery this late at night," Neal said, as she finished. "If anything jumps out at me I…" He stopped, thinking better of the joke he'd been about to make. Graham had died from a heart attack. "Tomorrow's another day," he finished.

The lights in the office came on and Regina strode in, looking concerned. Her worry changed to a scowl when she saw Emma and Neal. "What are you two doing in here?" she demanded.

"Some kids broke in," Emma said calmly. "I heard the alarm, so I'm checking it out 'cause…I'm Sheriff."

Regina sniffed suspiciously. "Well, that was an awfully quick response time," she retorted accusingly.

Emma didn't quail. "You told me to do my job," she informed the mayor, "and I'm doing it."

Regina's glance shifted to Neal. "And you brought him."

"He met me when I got here," Emma said. "Actually he called me after I got the notification from the alarm company."

"Yeah," Neal said. "I was out walking and I heard the glass break out front. Guess that makes me a witness."

"Hm," Regina said, still not sounding convinced. "And what did you see, Mr. Cassidy?"

"Afraid I didn't have the best view," Neal said easily. "Looked like a couple of kids. I thought I saw someone else leave out the window, but," he shrugged, "it's closed, so maybe not."

Regina rolled her eyes. "In other words, your presence here's useless." She looked from Neal to Emma and then back to Neal again. "Did they take anything?"

"I don't know," Emma replied. "I'd have to do a thorough sweep to, uh, find out."

Regina sighed. "It appears to me, it's all just a prank."

In other words, the last thing the mayor wanted was a full investigation. No surprise there, she thought. Aloud, though, she only asked, "You sure you don't want me to take the place apart?"

Regina smiled coolly. "Sheriff, your services are neither wanted nor needed," she said.

Emma smiled. She had what she'd come for; she could afford to let this go, at least for now. "Okay, she said, coaxing the slightest bit of doubt into her voice so as not to back down too easily. "Well, you know where to find me…"

"Tomorrow," Emma said, unlocking their front door. "When Regina's in her office, I'll head to the cemetery, to check the mausoleum."

Neal shook his head. "You're pretty convinced Regina took the book."

"You bet," Emma retorted, closing the door behind him and flicking the light switch. "Oh, you're probably right that she wasn't the one who broke in, but she orchestrated it. I mean, who else would've taken it?"

Neal thought for a moment. "Well, who else knows about it? I mean, in a small town, where everyone knows everyone and everybody's probably up in everybody else's business."

Emma frowned, thinking. "Well, Mary Margaret and Archie," she said. "I don't suspect them." Her frown deepened. "But I have to admit, you're right. Henry was carrying that book around everywhere. Anyone could have seen it. But who else knew we had it?"

Neal shrugged. "I dunno. But are you so sure Regina did?"

"Again," Emma said, "who else breaks into a house and steals a book of fairy tales?"

"Friends of Nicholas and Ava?" Neal suggested with a shrug. "Who knows? Maybe we moved into the creepiest abandoned house in town and some kids dared each other to go inside and bring back some… trophy."

"That's the best you've got?" Emma asked, her lips twitching a bit.

Neal shrugged again. "You're claiming the mayor's behind it. I think my theory's more plausible."

Emma pulled the USB out of her pocket. "It's not like she isn't already up to her neck in illegalities," she retorted. "You got to be up early tomorrow?"

Neal shook his head. "No…"

"Then let's see what's on this baby."

Regina waited a full fifteen minutes before she was certain that Emma and her significant other were gone and weren't coming back. Then she stepped into the corridor, away from the listening device that she wasn't supposed to know that Emma had planted, pulled out her phone, and selected one of her contacts.

"I hope you found something," she said without preamble.

"Not much," Sidney's voice was apologetic. "He served three years for theft in Arizona, but he was arrested at the same time that she was. It's a safe bet she knows all about it."

Regina sighed irritably. "Well, find something! Dig into his childhood if you have to. Everyone has secrets, Sidney, and I'm betting there's something in his past he'd rather the sheriff didn't know about."

Emma had been too calm tonight, Regina realized. Far too calm. "I thought you were going to rattle her," she snapped, and was rewarded by an audible gulp.

"She didn't take the squad car tonight," Sidney said. "She decided her own would be less conspicuous."

Regina sighed again, this time more with resignation. "Well, that's unfortunate. Still, I imagine that the next time she gets behind the wheel, she'll have that nasty shock after all." The sheriff had claimed tonight that some burglar had broken into her office in order to have a pretext to come here after hours. Perhaps, Regina thought, Sidney might be able to arrange for some other false alarm, to get Emma behind the wheel of the patrol car. If it happened before the council meeting, then perhaps Sheriff Swan would yet manage to embarrass herself. Depending on the extent of that embarrassment, Regina reflected, she just might have enough high ground to keep the sheriff out of her son's life for the foreseeable future.

Sidney, however, had more bad news. "She had the car serviced," he said. "Whether she knows the brakes were tampered with or not, it's just about certain that they'll have been fixed before she drives it again."

Damn! Through clenched teeth, Regina ordered, "Find something. On her or on Cassidy, I don't care, but find it and find it yesterday!" She ended the call without waiting to hear his reply.

Emma had the computer up and running and she was going through the contents of the USB when Neal joined her carrying two cups of coffee. Emma accepted one with a smile.

"What've you got?" Neal asked. For answer, Emma slid over a bit to let him see what was on the screen. "Blueprints," Neal noted. "Bank statements…"

"What is she building out there?" Emma wondered aloud. "A mansion?"

Neal looked at the figures on the bank statement. "Maybe the price of real estate is a lot lower in rural Maine than Greater Boston, but those amounts look pretty cheap."

Emma blinked and took another look at the bank statements. Neal had a point; fifty thousand dollars might buy a small fixer-upper, but not a mansion. "The fifty thousand might just be for the land," she suggested. "Maybe she's going to embezzle more to build this," she waved at the blueprints for emphasis.

Neal frowned. "There's something off about those, too," he said slowly. "I'm no architect, but…"

"Wait," Emma said. "Don't blueprints show more than floor plans? Where's the wiring?"

"Forget wiring. Unless she's going really rustic… if she's building a house, she needs to fire whoever drew this." Neal gave her a wry smile. "I don't see anything here that looks like a plumbing system, let alone a bathroom." He looked up. "Without plumbing, how the hell do you get a kitchen, even? Also," he stabbed the bottom of the image. "The scale's way off for a mansion. I mean, for a sublet in Manhattan, the kind that was originally supposed to be a walk-in closet, maybe, but a bedroom is… what, about a hundred and thirty square feet? This is under a hundred. You couldn't get a full-sized bed in there, and that's the biggest room in the drawing."

"What?" Emma looked over the plans more carefully. Neal was right. "Hang on." She brought up more statements. Construction costs. Construction materials… "She's ordered some lumber, a bit of sheet metal and… plastic?" She frowned. "I'm not showing much in the way of concrete, and there's no insulation. No fireplace either, and the winters are pretty cold in this part of the country. I mean, maybe she wants a summer retreat, but with no electricity, that would mean no fans or air conditioning and in summer she'd need that, too…" Her eyes opened wide, as realization hit. "She's building a playground."

Neal blinked. Then he nodded slowly. "That would explain the weird layout," he said. "And the lack of power and plumbing."

"I guess after the storm totaled Henry's castle… I mean, I guess he—and the other kids—need somewhere to play, but why be so secretive about it? This is something the town council ought to have no problem approving."

Neal thought for a moment. "Maybe she wanted to get it done, skip the debate, and present the council with a… damn, what's that French again? Fat accomplice?"

Emma hid a smile. "I'm pretty sure it's pronounced fait accompli," she said, "but close enough. I mean, she still 'borrowed' council funds, and that's shady. But if she's putting it into a town project instead of making personal use of it…" She shook her head. "It could be enough to sink her, but I don't think so." She took a small sip of coffee and, once assured it was cool enough, a larger swig. "Sidney told me about this," she said.

"The same Sidney who cut your brake lines?"

"I can't prove that," Emma muttered, "but if he did do it, well if you saw him leaving the town hall yesterday, then it looks like he's working with Regina, and if he's working with Regina," she went on, her scowl deepening, "then he wanted me to dig this stuff up. This whole thing is a setup."

"Why?"

"Because Regina can't fire me," Emma said decisively. "She can't fire me, but she can destroy my credibility. If I go to the council with this, then she can prove that we weren't just in her office to respond to a burglar alarm. She'd know that I got the evidence from an illegal search. If I don't resign after that, she could bring in the state attorney general and get me dismissed. And probably up on charges, too," she added.

Neal exhaled. "So, what are you going to do?"

Emma shrugged. "Keep an eye on the land Regina just paid for and see what actually gets built on it. If it's a playground, life goes on. If it's anything for personal use, then this," she held up the USB, "gets mailed to the DA's office in an envelope with no return address. Until then?" She smiled. "I think I'll let Regina stew a little while she wonders when the shoe's gonna drop."

"You don't have to go," Emma said, two nights later. "I'm staying home, so I don't say something I'm going to regret."

"Yeah, well, if anything comes up that the sheriff needs to know, I'll make sure you do," Neal told her.

"Sure you don't want to tag along?" Emma coaxed. "With Regina at the meeting, Henry and I are going to spend some quality time at the arcade and maybe go for ice cream afterwards." She sighed. "It won't totally make up for my not finding the book at the mausoleum, but it might still cheer him up. How about it?"

Neal hesitated. "It's tempting," he admitted, "but the last thing you need is to be out of the loop. Besides, if the meeting breaks up early, someone needs to send you a text to let you know she's on her way home."

Emma sighed. "I guess I can't argue with that. And you and Henry did go hiking last Sunday." She gave him an amused smile. "You really impressed him, you know. He had no idea how many edible plants there were in the woods, and just how did you know about them? And how did I not know you knew about them?" she added with a slight laugh.

"Hey, lifting snack cakes out of Exxon stations didn't always come naturally," Neal shrugged. "I had to eat. It's amazing the kinds of things you can learn if you have a few hours and a good library."

"Well, seeing as the library here's been boarded up forever—at least, according to Henry—it's a good thing there's Google nowadays," Emma replied. "Have fun at the meeting."

"Fun?" Neal echoed. "I'm just hoping I'll stay awake till the end of it."

The town hall auditorium was nearly full when Neal arrived. Neal found an aisle seat near the back and slid in, a moment before Regina entered and made her way past the white-barred barrier to the desk at the front. He noticed his father seated several rows up and wondered whether Papa generally made a point of attending town meetings. He never had back in their village.

Regina seemed to be scanning the crowd, looking for someone in particular. Her eyes found Neal's and her eyebrows shot up for an instant. Then her expression hardened, and she rapped her gavel on the desk to call the meeting to order.

Neal tried to pay attention, but really, the proceedings were boring. Call to order, roll call, approval of the minutes of the last meeting… There was no old business. Someone—Neal didn't recognize the name—had submitted a request for a tax abatement that was briefly debated and then turned down. And through it all, both Regina and Papa looked vaguely worried, as though each was expecting something to happen.

"This meeting is now open to questions and comments from the floor." She looked around the room, frowning expectantly, though briefly, in Neal's direction. All at once, Neal realized that Regina was expecting Emma to come storming in to accuse her of embezzling town funds. She probably assumed that Neal was here to give her some kind of signal. And Papa? Papa had sold her the land, and he'd made sure Emma knew about it. Was he working with Regina? Or was he playing his own game?

Both, Neal thought dryly, both. Both is good. Or, at least, likely.

"Council recognizes Michael Tillman," Regina's voice broke into his musings.

"Madame Mayor," Mr. Tillman said, "with that wooden castle destroyed by the storm, the children need a new playground. Is council going to construct one?"

"Yeah," a woman in the front row exclaimed. "Where are our kids supposed to play now?"

More voices echoed the same sentiment.

Regina's gaze traveled swiftly over the assembly, pausing just a fraction of a second longer on Neal, who smiled in a friendly fashion. Then, smoothly, she took up the microphone once more. "As the mother of a young child, the need for recreational space is, of course, as important to me as it is to all of you. To that end, this week, I've acquired Lot A-815 from Mr. Gold this past week. The land is situated on the outskirts of the Storybrooke Nature Preserve and will be used for the purpose of erecting a playground for the children of the town. I must confess that I underestimated the demand for such a structure," she continued. "Had I realized that I wasn't alone in perceiving the need, perhaps I wouldn't have taken the purchase price out of the town coffers to preempt any debate on the subject. Rest assured," she added, "Mr. Gold gave me fair market value. As for the construction," she laid a transparency on the overhead projector platen and turned on the machine, "as you can see, the cost promises to be quite reasonable. Shall we call for a vote?"

She was slick, Neal hadn't doubted it before, but now he was all the more convinced. Of course, with the castle gone, the children did need a new play area, and sometimes, it was better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. All the same, the meeting was leaving a sour taste in his mouth.

He got up to make his way out of the auditorium.

"Oh, Mr. Cassidy?" a polished voice called from behind him and he turned to see Regina standing several feet behind him. Nobody else seemed to be in earshot.

"Madame Mayor," Neal nodded a polite acknowledgment.

"I was pleasantly surprised to see you here tonight. It's always nice to see new faces at these meetings."

"Thank you," Neal returned.

"I trust you found the proceedings enlightening."

"Well, it's given me some insight into how things work in this place," Neal nodded. "Although," he took a breath, "I have to admit I'm curious about why you had to buy the land on the QT in the dead of night, if you were just going to announce it in a meeting."

"Mr. Cassidy," Regina smiled, "despite the relative peacefulness of this evening's meeting, there are a usually a few naysayers who seem to take perverse pleasure in blocking any proposals to fund new ventures or construction. Rather than endure weeks of debate, I found a way to slice through them. It may not be standard procedure in other places, but it works for us. I imagine Mr. Stefano will be contacting you tomorrow about beginning construction."

"Guess so," Neal shrugged affably. "Uh… good night."

"You know, it's a curious thing Mr. Cassidy," Regina said. "When you first came here, I had Sidney do a bit of digging into your past. We don't get many visitors here, and as it appeared that you would be staying with us, I wanted to know the sort of person who might be settling down with us."

"I'm flattered," Neal said. "Sort of."

Regina smiled. "And doubtless, you've told Emma all about your past."

Neal blinked. "Sorry? She knows I was in prison, as I'm guessing Sidney informed you."

"Before we parted ways, yes he did," Regina nodded. "The thing is, Mr. Cassidy, your past, as far as anyone's been able to discover, appears to begin less than a year before your arrest. Before that," she shrugged, "no medical records, no school records. Your birth certificate… Well, the only thing that came up was a delayed birth application in 1999 that was rejected due to insufficient corroborating evidence. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, that's the first record of your existence in any government database, and even that's uncorroborated. I don't know who you are, Mr. Cassidy, and frankly? I don't care. But I'll wager that Emma might."

"Emma knows all about me," Neal told her tersely.

"Does she?" Regina smiled brightly. "Well, it's late, so I'll let you go. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

Neal tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. She was letting things drop altogether too easily. "You too," he said.

"The next time I run into you and Emma, perhaps we'll continue the conversation," she added, still smiling. "I'm quite looking forward to it. Good night."

She turned and headed back toward the refreshment table that had been set up during the meeting. Neal was glad she'd moved off before she could hear his heart start pounding. If she continued this line of questioning in front of Emma… He'd better hope that her superpower wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. Until then, he was going to stay the hell out of the mayor's way. Even though he suspected she'd just waylaid him with that goal in mind, he couldn't risk calling her bluff. Round one to the mayor, he thought grimly. But I'd better hope I can come up with something to counter before round two starts!

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Neal was glad he'd walked to the council meeting. He needed time to think, and while the town hall wasn't that far from the house, it was far enough for him to feel like he was getting his head together. Damn. Emma had warned him that Regina wasn't averse to dirty tricks. He doubted that she'd hit upon the truth of his background, but, he admitted to himself, she didn't need to. All she had to do was raise up some doubts in Emma's mind, and if they disturbed her enough, well, superpower or no superpower, she was pretty good at spotting lies and he wasn't very good at coming up with convincing falsehoods on the spot.

Long ago, he'd been relieved that she hadn't asked too many probing questions about his past. He hadn't wanted to talk about his. She hadn't wanted to talk about hers. The problem was that once her suspicions were aroused, Emma could open up to him about her past easily enough. He wouldn't be able to do the same. And he didn't know what Regina had turned up on him. She might have nothing. She might have uncovered everything there was to uncover. Unfortunately, during those early days back in this land, he hadn't kept track of the cover stories he'd told.

In Victorian London, he'd spun whatever sob story had got him enough coin to eat that day. A drunkard father who'd turned him out of doors? He'd got tuppence for that one. A shopkeeper who'd fired him as an errand boy when he'd been too ill to come to work and now he'd been turned out of his lodgings for not having rent? He'd not only gotten a loaf of bread, but a sixpence for a day of odd jobs. He'd even thought that the work could lead to something more permanent, until the wife of the man who'd hired him had declared that a lad that 'dirty and scruffy' would put the wrong face on the business. "And he'd like to rob us blind besides!" she'd exclaimed, not caring that Bae could overhear. If he thought it would get him a place to sleep under a bridge with a gang of child thieves, he claimed (not erroneously) to be one of them and a cutthroat (highly erroneously!) to boot. It had been easier then. There had been far less that one carried in the way of identification.

Problem was, when he'd escaped Neverland and ended up in Portland, Oregon, he'd also tried telling whatever stories he'd had to in order to get food and shelter. His cover hadn't solidified until he'd managed to acquire some personal identification—though without a valid birth certificate, he'd had to rely on a forged facsimile. The paper looked official enough, but if anyone investigated further, the ruse would come to light. Even while he'd been acquiring the necessary paperwork to function in the world in which he'd now lived, the story he'd told others had changed quite a bit in those early years, as he'd become more familiar with the way things worked. Doubtless, there were numerous conflicting accounts in his records. Regina hadn't called him out on the discrepancies, but he wondered whether it was simply that she hadn't found out everything yet, or whether she already had, and was waiting until some later date to confront him over them.

He wasn't going to get out of this without help, and he didn't know where he could go to obtain any.

Didn't he?

No. No, it was out of the question. There was no way that he was going to talk to Papa about this. If Papa had arranged for the Evil Queen to bring several thousand people here under a curse for over a quarter century just to find him, what would happen once they were reunited? Suppose Papa made him a virtual prisoner here, just as he'd done back in their village, and all in the name of love and protection?

Suppose he revealed himself to Papa, only to find that Papa was still under the curse and had no idea who he was?

Neal was pretty sure that Papa was awake, but he wasn't certain.

And asleep or awake, he already had Emma owing him a favor—and he'd never told her what that favor might be. That was absolutely the most dangerous kind of agreement to enter into with Papa—Awake Papa. Somehow, Neal didn't want to gamble on an agreement with Cursed Papa being any safer. Neal wasn't ready to bind himself to any contract where he didn't know all the terms!

He needed more time to think. And if there was any possibility that he was going to approach his father…

…He was going to need some sort of, well, no, not leverage… but some kind of advantage.

Now, if he could just figure out what that might be.

In the middle of the night, Neal suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. Beside him, Emma stirred and reached for him. "Neal…?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Nothing," he whispered. "Just… gotta get up for a sec."

"…kay," Emma mumbled, already sinking back into the pillows.

Neal slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He did some of his best thinking there sometimes. Besides, if Emma did come fully awake, finding him there wouldn't invite the kind of conversation that finding him sitting at the dining room table at two in the morning might. He locked the door behind him.

"Leverage" had definitely been the wrong thought. After a lifetime of being forced to bend his knee and bow his head to all and sundry (and on one horrifying night, to kiss a knight commander's boot and be kicked after doing it!), as soon as he'd acquired power, Papa had made it clear that he was no longer anyone's dogsbody to order about. He'd bridle and balk at anything that smacked at coercion. However, there might be a better way.

A passage he'd read in Henry's book had come back to him a moment ago, a passage, Neal thought, that just might hold the key…

But the Evil Queen had lied to the Dark One. The maiden yet lived. Shut away in a tower cell in her castle, Belle continued to hope for a rescue that would not come. For her people believed that she was yet with the Dark One and the Dark One now believed her dead. So who was there who might think to search for her? Only with the coming of the Dark Curse would she leave her cell, and then it would be to a new imprisonment. For freedom would only come when the Savior returned to break the Curse…

That was all Neal could remember, and he wasn't sure whether he had it all word-for-word, or whether some of what he thought he recalled was just his mind trying to find likely words to fill in the gaps. It happened that way sometimes with songs on the radio. But whether he had the passage memorized precisely or not, he knew four things:

First, Papa had fallen love with a woman named Belle (who might or might not have an animated counterpart in a musical film that involved singing furniture).

Second, Papa had tried to fight his Darkness, however slightly, for her, just as Papa had once fought it for him.

Third, Papa believed Belle to be dead.

Fourth, assuming that Belle had still been alive when the curse had been cast, she was here. Somewhere.

Papa's love for him hadn't been enough to stave off the Darkness. And in the end, Papa's love for Belle hadn't been enough either. But if he could find Belle, assuming Papa was awake, maybe standing face to face with the two people he truly cared for would be enough reason to fight to become the good man Neal could just barely remember.

He had to find Belle. He just didn't know exactly what she looked like or where to start searching. Hey, he told himself. You're a bounty hunter. You found a total stranger in freaking Alaska! And it's not as if you never saw the movie. It's not as if you don't have some picture of her in your head!

Yeah. He had a picture of a brunette Barbie doll in either a blue dress and white apron or a yellow ball gown. What if, under the curse, she'd dyed her hair red and now wore it in a spiky mohawk? Would he recognize her if she went around in maintenance coveralls and safety goggles these days? Or dowdy sweaters and thick glasses…?

"Neal?" the doorknob rattled. "You gonna be much longer?"

"Uh… no," he called back. He counted to ten mentally, then flushed the toilet, ran the sink, and turned off the tap thirty seconds later. His gaze fell on the air freshener. Not knowing how long Emma had been standing on the other side of the door, he used that too. Then he opened the door. "Sorry."

"S'okay," she murmured, stepping into the room as he left it.

Neal yawned and stretched, before making his way back to bed to try to get some sleep before daybreak.

"Hey," Neal ventured at breakfast, "when you arrest someone, what happens next?"

Emma blinked. "I book 'em and put 'em in a holding cell, I guess. It hasn't happened since I took over as sheriff. I… guess most people probably get released on their own recognizance; according to Henry, you and I are probably the only flight risks in town. Otherwise, there'd be a bail hearing and then…" she shrugged, "a court date. Why?"

"Just wondering," Neal said. "I mean, there's no prison here, right? So what happens if someone gets jail time?"

Emma shrugged again. "Beats me. I guess they'd go to county. But seriously, this is a small town. Leroy getting drunk and disorderly is about as rough and rowdy as it gets. Mostly, being law enforcement here is pretty dull, honestly, which is kind of a good thing." She frowned. "Why the sudden interest?"

"I dunno," Neal replied. "Just trying to figure out how it works if nobody can leave town."

Emma laughed. "You know I was kidding about you and me being the only flight risks, right? I'm… pretty sure that if someone like… like Regina or Gold were facing charges, they'd be locked up until trial and then shipped out to wherever."

Neal waited a fraction of a second too long before chuckling in response.

The thought had occurred to him as he'd been drifting back to sleep for the second time: if Regina had kept Belle locked up before the Curse, maybe she was still keeping her locked up. She'd been Papa's student; she had to suspect that if Papa wanted her to cast the Curse, he might have some way to protect himself from forgetting who he was. And if he was awake, then the moment he saw Belle walking around, even if she didn't know who she was, he would. Neal didn't think that the queen would want to risk that. If Belle was here in Storybrooke, she was almost certainly shut away somewhere. And wherever she was imprisoned, Neal was reasonably sure that it wouldn't be in the mayor's basement, or anywhere else that an inquisitive ten-year-old might stumble across her.

But if Storybrooke didn't have a prison, where might that be?

Neal didn't have a clue right now, but he knew he had to try to find out.

Sitting behind her desk at the sheriff station, Emma found her early morning conversation replaying. What exactly did happen to lawbreakers in this town, if the law they broke mandated a penalty somewhat greater than a fine or a night in jail?

Small towns generally did have lower crime rates. Emma remembered one bail-bonding job that had sent her to a place called Wayland in Middlesex County. She'd reached out to local law enforcement, thinking that if she had to nab her quarry off the street in broad daylight, it would be helpful if they knew the whole story. The officer she'd spoken to had laughed and told her it was probably going to be more excitement than they'd had in over a year.

"You have to understand, Ms Swan," she'd said, "the beauty of living in a place like this is that everyone really knows everyone. We may get the odd traffic violation. Sometimes we catch a kid spray-painting some graffiti on the side of a building, but we're more likely to give them a lift home and tell their folks what they've been up to than bring them in and book them."

"So, no robberies?" Emma had asked and the officer had laughed again.

"Please. The minute anyone tried to sell off what they'd taken, or shown signs they'd come into a bit more money without a reasonable explanation, we'd be all over it. Life in a small town may be something like a goldfish bowl. It's definitely not for everyone. But if a fellow loses their job or a family's house burns down, folks are lining up with clothes and casseroles before the final paycheck's cashed or the embers are cold. Now, it's tourist season and we are right up by Cochituate," she named the state park less than five miles away, "so we're getting a few more strangers at this time of year, but if that photo's recent, you can show it to some of the businesses on Main Street. Guarantee you someone's seen your guy."

The officer had been right; she'd made the collar less than eight hours later, and gained a new appreciation for small town living. Thinking back about it now, Emma didn't believe that Storybrooke was much bigger than Wayland. Crime probably wasn't a major concern. Still, even Wayland had had a larger law enforcement department than one lone sheriff.

And even if crime was virtually non-existent, there had to be some kind of infrastructure or procedure or something.

She went over to the reference shelf and took down the policy binder, flipping the plastic-sleeve-encased pages and skimming each one. She found nothing. It was as though Storybrooke existed in some self-contained bubble with no outside contacts. She really thought she would have noticed if she'd driven past a prison. Unless the two holding cells in the station's main area were the only lockup area in town. She frowned. That couldn't be right. It couldn't be possible. Unless the town really was some kind of an artificial environment, like an experiment.

She didn't want to believe it, but when she tried to come up with another explanation—besides Henry's idea of 'fairy tale characters brought here by a dark curse'—which was even less plausible, she couldn't.

"It's got to be that there's no real crime here, so there's never been a need for anything more long-term than a holding cell," she told herself. "If there ever was anything worse, then of course we'd have to transport lawbreakers to… to… county jail or wherever." She frowned. What county was Storybrooke in, anyway?

She couldn't find that information in any of the manuals either, and Google was—surprisingly—no more helpful. Weird. Or maybe not so weird, if this place was some government testing sight. Frowning, Emma slid her phone back into her pocket and resolved not to use it to look up anything else on Storybrooke, just in case her searches were being monitored.

Henry was at the new playground in the forest and smiled when Neal approached. His smile grew even broader when he heard what Neal was asking. "So, you believe me," he said. "About the curse?"

Neal hoped his son didn't see him flinch. "I don't not believe you," he said. "I mean, it's a lot to take in."

"Mom said the same thing," Henry admitted.

"Yeah," Neal nodded. "Not surprised. But… hypothetically, where would the Evil Queen keep people locked up here?"

Henry frowned. "I don't know," he admitted. "I-I mean, the curse is how she's already punishing people. Nobody knows who they are, so why would she need to lock them up on top of that?"

Good point. Neal swallowed. He still didn't want to disclose too much. Or, more to the point, he didn't want to explain to Emma why he was encouraging Henry's 'fantasies'. He knew Emma was playing along for now, but it was more like she was humoring him until he figured out for himself that none of it was real. If she were to learn that he was taking Henry's belief seriously, she'd want answers. Unfortunately, given Henry's convictions, Neal could easily picture his son running up to Emma and exclaiming, "Dad's starting to believe me now! Maybe he can make you see!"

He didn't want to be in that position, especially not with Regina digging into his past. If she found out that he was taking Henry seriously, she'd start suspecting something far more alarming than a shady past from him.

"Are you positive nobody remembers?" he asked. "Or, more to the point, was she when she cast the curse?"

"I… I don't understand," Henry said with a puzzled frown.

Neal took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "I only read the book once before it went missing, so maybe I don't remember everything, but… Rumpelstiltskin wanted the Evil Queen to cast the curse so he could follow his son to a Land without Magic, right?"

"Yeah…"

"So, if he knew the curse was coming, and he didn't want to forget everything, maybe he fixed it so he'd remember."

Henry frowned. "Maybe," he said slowly. "My book didn't say anything about it."

"I don't remember if it did," Neal said, "but whether he did or didn't, if the Evil Queen thought he could have, well, he thinks Belle is dead, right? But the Evil Queen took her prisoner instead. So…"

Henry's eyes opened wide. "You're right," he said. "The Evil Queen can't let Rumpelstiltskin know she's alive. She's gotta be somewhere. Maybe in her vault. Or… or in the mine tunnels. Or maybe she built a tower in the forest—"

"Uh, she's Belle, not Rapunzel, right?"

"If Rumpelstiltskin can also be the Beast, Belle can also be Rapunzel," Henry said decisively. "And the Evil Queen did lock her up in a tower."

"That's…" Neal stopped. He couldn't think of a single reason why Henry's theory couldn't be true. "Have you come across any towers in the woods?" he demanded. He looked behind him at the turret crowning the playground slide. "I mean, besides that one?" he asked, pointing at it.

Henry looked deflated for a moment. "Not yet," he admitted. Then brightening, "but I haven't been looking yet. And her hair was pretty long in my book…"

"If there is a tower," Neal said slowly, "it probably wouldn't be on one of the marked trails. What if a hiker found it? And if you stray off the trails, it's easy to get lost."

"But you know about the woods, right?" Henry asked.

"Not these woods," Neal said.

"I know, but if you know what's safe to eat and what plants are good for medicine and all… Do you know how to make sure we don't get lost?"

"I usually stay on marked trails," Neal said dryly. Then, in a sharper tone, "We?"

Henry grinned. "We can go on Saturday after I see Archie. As long as I'm home for supper, Mom won't know. If she asks, I'll just tell her the truth: I was walking in the woods. She won't have to know it was with you, or that it wasn't on the trails."

"Henry…" Neal looked into his son's expectant, hopeful eyes and felt his heart sink. "Sure. Saturday sounds… good."

"Great!" Henry got up and started for the path back to town. After he'd gone a few yards in that direction, he ran back and flung his arms about Neal. "I knew you believed me," he proclaimed. Then he released his father and took off down the path again.

Neal watched him go and wondered what the hell he was getting himself into and how the hell it had happened so quickly.

The smoke alarm jolted Emma out of a sound sleep the next morning and she leaped out of bed, following the smell of smoke toward the kitchen. This is probably stupid, she thought as she sped down the hallway. I'm supposed to be running away from the fire, aren't I? Neal hadn't been beside her, she realized, and she called out his name.

"Here!" he shouted back. "Sorry! It's all under control."

His voice had been coming from the kitchen. Entering the room, Emma found him standing in front of the stove, mercilessly discharging the contents of their fire extinguisher on a blackened mess in the frying pan on the stove.  He turned to her sheepishly. "Happy Valentine's Day."

Emma took in the mixing bowl on the counter, the milk, flour, and eggs beside it, and the mess in the pan. "You were making pancakes?" she asked, just as the wail of the alarm finally ceased.

Neal nodded miserably. "The first two were raw and fell apart when I flipped them," he explained. "I thought I'd leave the next ones a little longer and, I started playing Angry Birds on my phone while I was waiting. The next thing I knew…" He did a credible imitation of the sound that had awakened her.

Emma groaned. "It's the thought that counts," she consoled him.

Neal sighed. "What would you think about leaving this mess to soak in the sink until later and catching breakfast at Granny's today?"

Emma considered. "Well, she does make better Cinn-a-Stack pancakes than any IHOP we've ever tried," she said thoughtfully. "Even if she does keep calling them 'flapjacks with sweet bun filling'." She grinned. "Okay, you're on. And," she leaned over to kiss him, "thanks for getting up early to make me breakfast. Or trying to."

"Any time," Neal said.

Emma winced. "Uh… just not any time soon for a repeat performance?"

Neal chuckled.

At Granny's, Emma and Neal both tried to focus on their menus, even though they knew what they were ordering. It was a good deal less uncomfortable than watching Mary Margaret and David sitting at separate tables and insisting to Ruby that they weren't together. Emma wondered who they thought they were fooling.

Kathryn, she supplied mentally, and for now, it seems to be working. 'Seems to be' being the operative phrase. Those two had to be the least sneaky sneaks around and, Emma suspected, the only reason the gossip wasn't already spreading was because those two were just so… bad… at hiding their secret that most people were assuming things were platonic because they just couldn't be that blatant about carrying on. Emma wasn't sure if she ought to be rooting for them, all things considered. So, she told herself it wasn't her business, and she told Ruby she wanted her favorite pancakes, while Neal opted for the breakfast special.

After Ruby had moved off, David bid a warm farewell to Mary Margaret and left the diner. After a moment, Mary Margaret walked over to their table. "Okay if I join you?" she asked.

Emma and Neal exchanged a quick look. "Sure."

Something in Neal's voice must have tipped her off, because the teacher's eyes widened. "Oh, my goodness! I am so sorry. I completely forgot it's Valentine's Day!" she exclaimed. "And you two are here together having a romantic breakfast, and I'm just pushing in!"

Emma grabbed her hand as she got up. "No, really, it's fine. We… sort of came here on a whim anyway. And we've got time."

Mary Margaret heaved a sigh. "You're lucky. I've got another ten minutes or so, and then I need to head off to school." She smiled a bit guiltily. "Maybe six hours of the three R's will help distract me from my…" she rolled her eyes slightly, "…current and ongoing lack of a steady significant other."

Or not one you're ready to admit to, Emma thought. And for good reason.

Just then, a new voice called, "Six hours?" They looked up to see Ashley Boyd approaching them, while Granny fussed over Baby Alex. "You take newborns?" the teen asked Mary Margaret. "Because I would love six hours off."

"Ashley!" Mary Margaret broke into a wide smile. "I didn't even recognize you."

"Baby on the outside?" Ashley asked with a faint smirk.

Emma leaned forward. "How's it going? Oh, uh… Ashley, this is Neal. Neal, Ashley. You remember I told you about her."

"Uh, yeah." He gave Ashley a small smile and told himself firmly that it wasn't her fault that Emma now owed Papa a favor. "Nice to meet you."

Ashley nodded. "Likewise." She turned to Emma. "It's going, uh… It's, uh… I mean, baby's great, but we really haven't had time to do the whole getting married thing. So, that's been rough. And Sean's been working double shifts at the cannery."

"Well, he has to work," Mary Margaret pointed out, as Ruby came over with their breakfast and a coffee for Ashley.

"On Valentine's Day?" Ashley asked plaintively. At Ruby's sympathetic look, she continued, "Yeah. He couldn't get out of it."

"I'm sorry," Emma sympathized. "That sucks."

"It doesn't have to," Ruby interjected. "Come out with me. Let's have a girl's night. We can all go. Mary Margaret – Emma, too. If you leave the badge and the boyfriend at home." She grinned at Neal. "No offense."

"None taken," Neal said. He looked at Emma. "It's up to you. Not like we need a special day to tell each other how we feel."

Emma shook her head. "Nah, I'll sit this one out, but you guys can all go and have fun." She didn't know if Neal had been planning a romantic dinner on top of the romantic breakfast, but if he wasn't, then a quiet evening at home sounded like a good idea after the excitement of the last few days. And if he was, she didn't want to ruin things.

Neal smiled and clasped her hand, just as her phone vibrated on the table.

Mary Margaret blinked, as Emma picked it up. "What's that?" she asked.

Emma looked at the display and sighed. "It's the station – something's up," she replied. She leaned over to kiss Neal's cheek. "I'll catch you later."

Neal was just finishing up a roof repair with Marco for the day when Emma texted him. Hope you're not planning to surprise me with dinner. I'm going to be a while.

Neal frowned and texted back. Anything major?

The answer wasn't long in coming. Sheriff business. Looks like I'm about to find out what happens to someone whose illegal activity needs more than a night in a holding cell or a ticket.

Neal sighed. Guess confidentiality means you can't say more?

Not in an ongoing investigation for sure, Emma replied. Probably not afterwards either, but this is a small town. Word's going to get out, I bet. Love you. Sorry about working late on Valentine's Day.

Neal was smiling as he texted back, Hey. Not like we need a special day to tell each other how we feel. He followed that up with a Cupid's Heart emoji. A moment later, Emma texted him back the same and he was still smiling as put his phone away.

He'd just helped Marco put the equipment into the truck and was about to climb into the passenger seat when he heard a boy's voice calling his name. Or rather, calling him Dad. He wasn't prepared for the rush of emotion triggered by that designation. "Hey, Henry," he said. "What's up?"

Henry drew closer and motioned excitedly to Neal to step away from the truck. "He's not part of Operation Cobra," he explained in an apologetic whisper, jerking his head in Marco's direction.

Emma had told him about that. "And I am?" he asked, whispering automatically as well.

"Duh! You're my dad."

"Okay," Neal said, smiling easily, despite another rush from that emotional wellspring. "What's up with Operation Cobra?"

Henry lowered his voice another notch. "I think I know where Belle has to be!"

Neal's eyebrows shot up. "Hit me," he said.

"Well, I'm not sure. But if she's Rapunzel, then there's a tower right here in town!" He pointed to the clock tower across the street. "It's been locked up forever. But the evil queen has keys to every door in this town. That's got to be where she is! I just need to get my hands on her keyring!"

Neal hesitated only a moment, before making up his mind. He didn't want his son trying to steal from the evil queen, even if she was also his mother and probably wouldn't do anything too terrible to him. First, stealing was wrong. Second, stealing from your parent—biological or otherwise—was almost always more wrong. And third, he could be wrong about what Regina might do to Henry if she caught him, and he didn't want that on his conscience. "Hang on," he said. He walked back to where Marco was standing to tell him he didn't need a lift home after all. Then he went back to Henry.

"Okay," Neal said. "Let's have a look at that door." He started across the street. Henry followed him.

The door was chained shut with an impressive padlock, but to Neal's trained eyes, it was a normal padlock. No combinations, no electronics, and—he felt confident enough assuming—no magic. He smiled. "You don't have to go after the mayor's keys," he told his son. "Just let me know if you see anyone coming while I work on this. I should be able to get it open in about… ten minutes."

He wasn't sure if he liked the enthusiastic agreement in his son's eyes. And, as he set to work, he fervently hoped that he hadn't forgotten his old skills. And that Henry would be a good lookout. Because he most definitely did not want to end Valentine's Day being booked at the sheriff station by the woman he loved!

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Eight

"How's it going?" Henry called softly, and Neal gave a start.

"Aren't you supposed to be standing lookout?" he demanded in a loud whisper. He glanced up to see that his son was, indeed, still standing several yards away, his gaze fixed on the street.

"The coast is clear," Henry reported. "I just wanted to know how much longer?'

"It's coming," Neal said. "It's all about the tumblers. You just have to know how to work them."

"Cool!" Henry exclaimed, walking over. "Can you teach me?"

Neal sighed. "Sure. Some time when you aren't supposed to be standing lookout." He grinned at the guilty expression on his son's face. "Relax," he said, as the lock clicked open. "We're done. I should tell you, though," he added, "this lock's been on for some time and I don't think anyone's tried opening it recently. Unless there's another way in, I don't think anybody's inside."

Henry absorbed that. "The clock tower's still the highest place in town," he said. "From there, we might be able to tell if there's another tower in the woods. Hey," he went on, sounding more excited, "maybe that's why this place is locked up! Because the Evil Queen doesn't want anybody seeing where the other tower is!" And then, sounding only slightly more subdued, he added, "or else, there is another way in. Like a secret passage leading underground from the town hall to here. That could be it, too!"

Neal shook his head, but he was smiling. "Guess there's one way to find out," he said, pulling the door open and motioning to Henry to follow. In for a penny, in for a pound…

Emma's day had been on a downhill slide since breakfast. (Actually, it had been on a downhill slide since the smoke alarm had got her up this morning, with a small uptick for breakfast with Neal over Granny's pancakes.) The call that had pulled her away from the table and out of the diner had come from Gold's security company. They'd received notification that his burglar alarm had gone off.

When she'd reached his address, she'd found the door ajar and the lock broken. She'd raised her eyebrows at the sight of a piece of green wire in the keyhole. Evidently, the burglar had tried to pick the lock first, before taking a heavier tool and smashing the mechanism. There was an electrical wire flush with the door jamb that had been neatly snipped in two. That probably explained why the alarm wasn't sounding now, though it had been activated long enough to alert its installer. She'd moved inside cautiously, well aware that the burglar might not yet have left.

It had been only a few minutes before Gold had returned, and there's been a tense moment where they'd each been holding a gun on the other. (Emma mentally filed away for future reference the knowledge that Gold carried.) He hadn't seemed nervous or frightened. Rather, his reaction to the burglary had been one of cold fury. For the first time, Emma had thought she understood why everyone else in town seemed to be terrified of him; she'd known he was tricky, but until now, she hadn't thought that he might be dangerous. Still, he'd directed her toward the man he suspected and she'd recovered almost everything taken.

Gold hadn't been impressed. He'd brushed aside the vast pile of property that she'd recovered and focused on her failure to apprehend the culprit and the one item that hadn't been in the stash. He hadn't told her what it was, but if it was as valuable as Gold was implying, then Moe French probably had it on his person and once Emma caught up with him, she'd catch up with it.

Meanwhile, she'd been driving around town for the last few hours, missing her dinner date with Neal, and hoping to catch a break. Gold had strongly insinuated that he was about ready to take matters into his own hands, and going by the way he'd been acting, Emma had a feeling she'd better find French first. She was willing to bet that there'd be less paperwork to deal with for a burglary than for a murder, and Gold did have that gun...

As soon as the door closed behind them, Neal pulled out his phone. "I've got a flashlight app on here," he muttered. He blew air out from between his teeth. "Battery's at sixty percent," he said. "Hopefully we won't need long to search; it's less than an hour to sunset now and these boarded windows aren't letting in a whole lot of light."

Henry was looking around at the library. "I wonder if the Dark Curse brought any spell books over. If they're in here, maybe that's why it's been locked up!"

"You could be onto something," Neal said, striding over to a shelf. "On the other hand…" He pulled out a hardback volume with a jacket-protected cover. "Unless the curse gave these new identities, too, I don't think Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day is going to give you any potion recipes." He held it out to Henry. "Good read, though, if you're interested."

Henry took it. "Thanks. Oh, and," he pulled an LED flashlight out of his backpack, "you don't have to worry about your phone."

Neal raised an eyebrow. "You always bring a flashlight to school with you?"

"Operation Cobra is always prepared," Henry smiled. Then, he added quickly, "Also, I sort of forgot to take it out of my bag from when I went into the mine. Uh, you know about that, right?"

"Your mother told me," Neal said. "Okay. Well, I know we're here because it makes sense to look for Rapunzel in a tower, but since we're really looking for Belle, I mean… we are in a library. Maybe we ought to take a look at this floor first."

Henry's eyes opened wide. "That's brilliant!" he exclaimed.

"Thanks," Neal said with a smile. "Of course, for practical reasons, we need to check this floor out anyway. If Belle's not here, we need to find a way upstairs. Be on the lookout. If we can't find her, we've got to find a stairway or an elevator or something."

"Okay," Henry said, "but just in case…" He walked over to an old-fashioned card catalogue chest of drawers and pulled one out.

"What are you looking up?" Neal asked in confusion. "And by the way, I'm sort of impressed you know what that thing is."

"My school library's got one," Henry said. "I'm checking to see if there are any books here on curses. Maybe we can get a hint about how Emma's supposed to break this one…"

They found the elevator at the opposite end of the floor. It was one of those old-fashioned jobs that needed a lever to operate. Neal had come across one on Kingston Street in Boston's Chinatown a few years ago. Then, there had been a uniformed man who'd worked the lever. Neal frowned. "I… guess it's pretty straightforward," he said slowly. "Huh. There's a basement level in this place, too."

"We can check that after," Henry said. "If Belle's Rapunzel, she's in the tower."

"Towers have lower levels," Neal reminded him.

"Well, yeah. But if there's another tower in the woods, we should be able to see it from upstairs, so if she's not here, it'll help point us toward where to look next."

"Always assuming that Belle really is Rapunzel. And that the curse didn't stick her in some cellar."

Henry shrugged. "We gotta start somewhere. And there aren't a lot of places in Storybrooke she could be, not if the Evil Queen wants to keep Rumpelstiltskin from finding her."

Neal snorted. "Well, in that case, putting the shop right across the street from the clock tower wasn't the best move."

Henry's eyes opened very wide. "Wait. You think Mr. Gold… is Rumpelstiltskin?"

Neal froze. "Uh… yeah. Sure. It fits, right?"

Henry considered. A slow smile spread across his face. "Yeah. It does! I've been trying to figure out who he was and I thought he could be, but… You really think so?"

"Yeah…?" Neal mumbled. He swallowed hard. "Yeah, I do. I-I mean if there's someone else you think it could be, you've read your book more times than I have, so…"

"No," Henry cut him off. "No, it fits. Mr. Gold is Rumpelstiltskin. So once we find Belle, we know exactly where to bring her! Come on!"

The boy practically flew into the elevator. After a second, Neal followed. And as he pulled the lever to take them higher, he couldn't help but feel that he was also getting in deeper.

Neal wasn't sure what to expect when the elevator doors opened, but the uppermost level of the clock tower proved to be a vast empty space. Very little light filtered in through the translucent clock face. The walls were dark wooden beams and the ceiling seemed to be at least two stories up. There was a musty smell to the place, the air was stale, and a layer of dust covered everything.

He and Henry were the only two people standing there.

"I thought…" Henry's face fell. Then, he took a few steps forward. "Hello?" he called. "HELLO?" When no response was forthcoming, he shouted, "CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?"

The acoustics didn't seem to be suited for echoes, Neal noted dispassionately. Sighing, he walked over to Henry and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "It did seem like a good idea. We can check the basement."

Henry nodded sadly. "Yeah. Wait. You said that we could open the clock face and see if we could spot another tower in the woods."

"I did, didn't I?" Neal nodded, smiling a bit at the hope in his son's voice. Striding over to the massive round glass, he pulled open the inner door and groaned. "I really did think that there was a chance it was just the inner glass that was opaque," he said, gesturing to the frosted disc, "but it doesn't look like we'll be able to see anything through this."

Henry swallowed hard. "Let's take the stairs down," he said. "Maybe there's a-a cell or something we'll pass on the way."

Neal shrugged and motioned to Henry to follow him. The wooden steps seemed solid enough, though just as dusty as the space they'd just left. He was glad that Henry's flashlight was holding up, because he didn't see a light switch and with the windows boarded up, he wasn't sure he'd have wanted to risk the descent. They were about halfway down, when Neal put out a hand to halt their progress.

"What?" Henry asked.

"Look," Neal replied, pointing at a patch of light on the floor. "A couple of the boards must've fallen off the window. This might not be as good as the view we'd have had at the top, but…" He pressed his eye to the gap between the boards and peered out.

"Well?" Henry asked excitedly. "Can I look?"

All at once, Neal spun away from the window, his expression furious.

"What is it?" Henry exclaimed. "What's wrong?"

Neal didn't answer him. His phone was in his hand, and he practically stabbed his finger down on the touch screen to unlock it. He had to call Emma… No. No, he had to snap a photo of what was going on in the alley below and text it to her. He angled the phone as best he could to get the most unobstructed shot—and the best light—possible. "Come on," he muttered. "Come on…"

Emma's search for Moe French wasn't bearing any fruit and she wanted nothing more than to call it off and head home. She didn't though. Partly, she was still smarting under Gold's derisive, "So, job well half-done, then," but mostly, it was because she'd seen the look in his eyes when she'd promised him she'd find the man. "Not if I find him first." The look in his eyes when he'd that statement had sent a cold chill down her spine. She didn't know what Gold might do with the man were he to 'find him first,' but something told Emma she didn't want to find out.

She was heading back toward the Game of Thorns florist shop, hoping that French might risk a quick visit to... pick up supplies or... something. She'd already checked his house and he hadn't been there. As she passed the Rabbit Hole bar, she saw Ashley heading inside and for a moment, contemplated joining the girls' night out after all. It would serve her right, if Moe was holed up inside getting plastered and she didn't check it out. "After I pass by the shop," she muttered. "And if I am going to call it a night, I'll probably want a stiff drink right about then."

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. It was likely Gold, calling to check on her progress. She didn't want to deal with him now, and she almost didn't pick up, but the traffic light changed to red in front of her and she didn't want him to think that she was avoiding him. She pulled out the phone. It wasn't Gold. It was a text from Neal.

Emma took one look at the photo he'd sent—an overhead shot of a guy with a shaved head and a solid build wrestling a bound and gagged middle-aged man into the trunk of a Cadillac, while Gold looked on impassively—and let loose a sharp epithet.

A moment later, another text appeared on her screen. Gold's behind the wheel. Heading down Main toward the woods. I think.

The light changed to green, but there was nobody behind her, so she took a second to let Neal know she'd received the message. Then, she made a U-turn back toward Main Street.

Neal took Henry home; it was getting close to dinnertime, and he didn't relish explaining to the mayor what he was doing with her son (legally, anyway) in a building that wasn't open to the public. "We'll check out the lower level another day," he promised, and Henry might have been disappointed, but he hadn't protested much.

"I wish you'd tell me what you saw outside the window," Henry said.

"Another time," Neal managed, forcing himself to smile. He didn't want to have a conversation with his son about what Emma would do when she caught up with his father.

Actually, he was trying not to think about it. Yes, he'd done the right thing by reporting it. Yes, his secret was still safe—at least, unless Papa had mentioned his existence to Regina back in the Enchanted Forest at some point. So long as he hadn't done that, while the mayor might suspect he had a shady past, there was no way that she could guess who he really was. At least, he didn't think so. And the more he considered the matter the more certain he became. Papa wouldn't have mentioned him. That would have meant opening up and opening up meant allowing oneself to become vulnerable. No matter how much Papa might have changed over the last couple of centuries, Neal didn't think Papa would have let himself become vulnerable again. No, Neal thought: his secret was probably safe from her for now.

Emma wasn't back when Neal got home. But the burned pancakes in the frying pan washed out well enough after having been soaked in soapy water all day, and it wasn't long before he had the mushrooms scrubbed, and the bacon in the pan for chicken chasseur. He was just adding the chopped-up chicken breasts when Emma got in.

"That smells amazing," she sighed, sinking into a chair. "There enough for two?"

"And leftovers for tomorrow, probably," Neal admitted. "I found the recipe online and it's supposed to serve four, but I'm pretty hungry, so maybe not."

"Same," Emma admitted, watching as Neal tipped the chicken in. "Need any help?"

"Nah, I got this. I'd offer you some coffee, but this comes together pretty quickly," he said, stirring the chicken. "And after this morning, I don't want to get distracted."

"It's okay," Emma said. "Thanks for the text."

Neal turned back to the stove with a grunt. The chicken only needed four minutes to change color, but for once, he didn't feel like filling that time with more conversation. It wasn't until he'd turned the heat up and added the mushrooms that he could bring himself to ask, "You caught him?"

"Them," Emma corrected. "Moe French and Gold."

"Moe… French?" Neal repeated, and Emma sighed.

"That's right, I couldn't tell you earlier. He broke into Gold's house this morning. I've been chasing after him all day."

Neal focused on stirring the mushrooms, as though it might still the maelstrom of emotions swirling within. His first thought was fury that this… person… had dared to invade Papa's home—not just the shop, but his home. Papa had to feel so… violated. Vulnerable. At once, his fury yielded to fear. Once Papa had become the Dark One, he'd been quick to lash out at anything or anyone that could make him feel that way. It was something Neal had come to appreciate more after months living on the streets of Victorian London: if you suspected that someone was going to hurt you, you hurt them first and you hurt them hard. And if they managed to hurt you before you suspected them, you hurt them back and you hurt them harder. Swallowing, he asked, "Are they okay?"

Emma sighed heavily. "I think French will live. I got there in time for that, but he's was on his way to the hospital in an ambulance last I saw him. Gold's in a holding cell," she added. "I know you were asking me earlier what the next step is when the charge is more serious than a drunk and disorderly. Looks like we're both going to find out."

The oil in the pan sizzled, demanding Neal's attention, and he quickly added a tablespoon of flour. The meat was sticking to the pan, and he grabbed a cup, ran cold water into it from the sink, and added a few splashes to the pan. Once the sizzling sound dissipated, he spun back to Emma. "You arrested m-Mr. Gold?" He'd almost ended that question with 'my father' instead of 'Mr. Gold'. Careful, he warned himself. Remember. She doesn't know that part. Nobody does. Keep it that way.

Emma blinked. "Uh, yeah. He was bludgeoning French with his cane when I got there, ranting about someone being… gone forever. How French had hurt 'her'. When I asked him about it—Gold, I mean—he told me I must've heard wrong, but I know I didn't."

"I believe you," Neal said. But if Papa was talking about Belle, I think I just found Duke Maurice. "And I guess you had to. Assault."

"Aggravated assault," Emma said. "A-and kidnapping, forcible confinement… hell, probably obstruction of justice. He's looking at serious jail time, I bet."

Neal wished she didn't sound so satisfied about it.

Emma's phone rang then, and she picked up. "Hello." Her expression changed from complacency to concern. "W-wait. Slow down, Mary Margaret. What? Oh… Oh, sheesh. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be right over. Hang on."

She ended the call, just as Neal finished tipping a can of diced tomatoes into the pan. "Save me some of that, will ya?" she asked. "I gotta go out again."

"Everything okay?"

Emma sighed. "Well, it's not sheriff business, even if a crime has been committed, from the sound of it."

"What?"

Emma shook her head. "Not in the legal sense, sorry. But she's hurting and she needs a friend and," she shook her head, "weirdly enough, she's picked me over everyone else in town." She walked up to him and kissed his cheek. "I'll be back as soon as I can be."

"Sure." It would give him a chance to process the rest of what she'd been telling him. "Drive safe."

"Always. Love you."

"Love you, too."

All in all, Henry thought, it had been an interesting evening. They hadn't found Belle, but they had got into the library and the clock tower. Henry didn't think anyone in town had ever been up there, except maybe his mo—Regina, he thought to himself firmly. Emma was his mother and Regina was the Evil Queen, and even if he'd loved her before he realized who she truly was, even if he still loved her deep down, she wasn't his mother. His mother was Good, his grandparents were Heroes, and Henry knew that if he was going to be a Hero, too, one day, then he couldn't stay with anyone Evil for a second longer than he had to. As soon as Emma—Mom, Emma was his mom—broke the curse, he'd never have to live with the Evil Queen again. And they'd probably go back to the Enchanted Forest and he'd get to live in a real castle. His grandparents' castle. Maybe right now, he had no choice but to live with the Evil Queen, but he didn't have to like it. Even if, most of the time, it really wasn't all that bad… she was. Anyway, it was just a matter of time until he was back with his real mom and dad, and he just had to hang on until then.

All the same, Henry wondered why the idea of soon never having to see the Evil Queen again didn't fill him with joy, or relief, or anything but a heavy sort of ache. He didn't want to dwell on that, so he turned his mind back to the events of this evening. He had to hand it to Dad, Henry thought with a smile. Of course, Mr. Gold was Rumpelstiltskin! Henry wondered why he hadn't seen that all along. He'd read the storybook cover to cover, backwards and forwards and skipping around to the parts he liked best for weeks. Dad read the book once, and he'd figured out a connection Henry had missed. It was amazing! His dad was amazing!

A new idea made his heart start to pound. All this time, he'd been fixed on his mom being the savior. He knew that it meant that Emma was the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. But he'd never even thought about who his dad was. Maybe Emma wasn't the only one to escape the curse, Henry thought to himself. Maybe his dad had too! Or maybe his dad just found believing easier. After all, without a magic bean, that wardrobe Gepetto had carved was the only way to get from that world to this one, and Baelfire had taken the last magic bean centuries earlier.

"Maybe he's from another land," Henry whispered. "One where there still are magic beans. Or maybe he had one from a long time ago, that nobody else knew about." His jaw dropped. Unless his dad was Baelfire!

"I'm sorry I made you drive out here," Mary Margaret greeted Emma at the door of her loft. "Really, I'm all right."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You called me less than ten minutes ago, and I would've been here sooner, if the weather wasn't turning cold enough for me to need to grab a jacket before going out at night. What's up?"

"It's," Mary Margaret moved aside to let Emma enter, "it's really silly. And it's my own fault." She sighed. "Tea?"

"No thanks," Emma said, half-wishing that her friend would offer her something more substantial, and half-hoping she wouldn't, so the dinner Neal had been almost done preparing wouldn't be wasted. "I'm good." She settled down in one of the kitchen chairs. "What's up?"

Mary Margaret poured herself a cup of tea and set it down on the table. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she got the scotch out of the cupboard and poured a shot of that. "I've been an idiot," she groaned, sinking into the chair across from Emma's and setting the scotch down next to the teacup.

"Hey," Emma said. "Talk to me. When you phoned, you said you hadn't had anything to drink at the Rabbit Hole but if you had to be alone much longer that..." Her voice trailed off as she eyed the shot glass pointedly. "What happened afterwards?"

Mary Margaret took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "Well, remember when you told me to stay away from David and I agreed?" Emma nodded. "I didn't," she confessed.

"Not exactly news," Emma drawled.

Instead of chuckling, Mary Margaret's eyes widened in horror. "You… know?"

"Your seven-fifteen breakfast… not-dates? New perfume? Plunging necklines? If that's your idea of sneaking around, you… kind of suck at it."

"Plunging necklines?" Mary Margaret repeated, sounding faintly horrified.

Emma gestured toward the turquoise evening dress Mary Margaret was still wearing, with its square neck and spaghetti straps. "When I met you, you were a top button kind of girl."

"And you never said anything?"

Emma shrugged. "Not exactly my business, and I'm not your mother."

"Well, according to Henry, I'm yours," Mary Margaret pointed out with a thin smile.

Emma smiled back. "I guess, I figured you'd say something if you wanted me to know. So…?"

Mary Margaret sighed. "He was waiting for me after girls' night. With a valentine."

"Nice."

"Addressed to Kathryn."

Emma winced. "I take it back. That sucks."

"He had one for me, too. He just got them mixed up." Mary Margaret's voice was level, but looked like she might be one moment away from a crying jag. Instead, she tossed back the shot of scotch, made a face, and took a gulp of tea. "How do people drink that stuff?" she gasped.

"Acquired taste," Emma said dryly. "So, what happens now?"

"I told him we shouldn't see each other anymore," Mary Margaret groaned. "I mean, I do want to see him. Every time I close my eyes, I see him. But I don't want to see him behind Kathryn's back. He chose her once. If he's changed his mind, then…" She exhaled. "Then I'll have to decide. But he's trying to choose both of us, and he can't do that. At least, I won't let him. At least…" She pushed her chair back, got up and walked halfway to the counter, where the scotch waited. Then she groaned again, spun back, returned to her chair and took another gulp of tea. "What am I going to do?"

Emma shook her head. "Sounds to me like you're doing the right thing,"

"Am I?" Mary Margaret asked, sounding even more like she was about to cry. "Of course I am," she said quickly. "I know I am. But why does doing the right thing feel so… wrong?"

It was nearly two hours later that Emma returned home. Neal had long since taken the pan off the stove or dinner would have been ruined, but he heated it up as soon as she stepped in. Evidently, she had a lot on her mind, because she didn't notice that Neal wasn't as talkative as usual that evening.

Once again, it took him a long time to fall asleep, but when he did, his decision had been made. No matter what Papa had done and how wrong he'd been to do it, Neal had to make sure that he was all right. He could still hear the Reul Ghorm's words from that long-ago night: Oh. I can't make him the man he was before, but I can send him someplace where he won't be able to use his powers.

And he heard his own reply. Not a jail. I want to be with him. Like it used to be.

Now, Papa was someplace where he couldn't use his powers, but that place was a jail. And even if it was because he'd assaulted another man, if that man was who Neal now believed he was, then Neal could understand why. He just couldn't explain it to Emma. And, of course, if Papa was still 'asleep', then his theory went out the window. He had to know, but he couldn't ask. Maybe, though, if he could see Papa, talk to him… Papa could be cagey, but Neal thought he still knew how to get an answer he could properly understand out of him.

It was with those thoughts in his mind that he stopped by the sheriff station the following morning.

A familiar voice reached his ears as he stepped through the door, but it wasn't Emma's. Peering through the main office doorway, Neal noted at once that Emma wasn't there. Nor was she working in the glass-walled inner office. But sitting on the arm of the sofa by the holding cells, facing the barred wall was Mayor Mills. Had Emma seriously left her alone with Pa—with a prisoner? Well, Neal reminded himself, Emma didn't have a deputy, so if something came up, she sort of did have to go and investigate, but you'd think she'd have locked up the station before she left if there was someone in a cell.

Neal took another step closer, moving as quietly as he could. Thus far, neither Papa nor Mayor Mills had noticed him, but from where he was standing, he could now better make out what the two were saying.

"We used to know each other so well, Mr. Gold," the mayor said, almost pleasantly. "Has it really come down to this?"

"It seems it has, yeah," Papa replied, not sounding at all distressed about his situation. "But you know what I want; what is it you want?"

"I want you, to answer one question," the mayor replied. "And answer it simply. What's your name?"

Neal managed not to gasp only by clapping his hand to his mouth. So she suspected the same thing he did.

"It's Mr. Gold," Papa said, sounding a bit puzzled.

"Your real name," the mayor pressed.

"Every moment I've spent on this earth," Papa said, "that's been my name." Neal couldn't quite tell if the note of confusion was feigned, but he had noticed the turn of phrase.

"But what about moments spent elsewhere?" And evidently, the mayor had too.

"What are you asking me?" Papa asked, shaking his head a bit, but now there was just the slightest note of danger in his tone.

The mayor smiled. "I think you know. If you want me to return what's yours – tell me your name."

For a moment, there was no response. Then, Papa chuckled. His voice dropped several decibels when he spoke again. "Rumpelstiltskin." He rose from his cot and lunged for the bars. "Now give me what I want."

Neal spun on his heel and all but ran out of the station. Outside, he leaned against the wall, taking deep slow breaths until he felt his heart stop pounding. So, now he knew. Papa was awake. And presumably, he remembered everything. And Neal was still no closer to deciding what to do now.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Emma was not having a good morning. To begin with, less than forty-eight hours after she'd taken Gold into custody, he'd been released on bail. Forty thousand dollars cash bail, and Gold had paid it without blinking an eye. On Emma's last case before coming to Storybrooke, the man she'd had to track down had defaulted on a bond for half that amount, and his wife had posted it for him.

Gold's parting smile had been almost warm, as Emma cautioned him not to leave town.

"Perish the thought, sheriff," he'd replied lightly. "If I were to do that, I'd never be able to call in that favor."

Emma had only glowered.

Mayor Mills had also been at the proceedings and she'd made a point of coming around to congratulate Emma on the speed with which she'd arrested 'the perpetrator'. There had been nothing wrong with the Regina's words, and her tone had been perfectly affable, but Emma had detected a note of smugness there, as though somehow, her actions had played right into the mayor's hands, and she couldn't see how.

She'd gone to grab a coffee at Granny's after the proceedings, only to find Storybrooke's newest visitor's motorcycle parked outside. As she made her way up the walk, its owner had emerged, and tried to talk her into getting the drink he'd mentioned a couple of weeks earlier. At least, her refusal to accept dates with people who failed to properly introduce themselves had garnered her a name, and confirmed Neal's story: this was August W. Booth. 'W' for 'Wayne,' he'd informed her with a smirk, as though the disclosure would neutralize all of her reservations. Still, Emma had agreed to let him buy her that drink at some point in the future, if only because—at least, according to Neal—he might hold some key to her past. Of course, she didn't know if she could trust anything he'd tell her, but if it came down to a choice between believing a story told by someone who claimed to have known her once and believing a story in a book of fairytales, she'd pick smirking stranger over storybook any day.

She was still mulling that over as she sipped her hot cocoa (funny how she'd thought she was getting coffee right up to the point when she'd actually placed her order), when Mary Margaret came into the diner at a breathless run. "Emma!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper.

Emma set down her cocoa. "What?" she whispered back. Then, puzzled, "and why are we whispering?"

"Because I don't want anyone to hear!" the schoolteacher exclaimed, sliding down into the chair across from her. "It's David," she said, whispering again, but more softly now. "He's telling Kathryn!"

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "Everything?" she asked, all thoughts of the morning's earlier events vanishing in the face of Mary Margaret's bright eyes and incredulous smile.

Her friend nodded vigorously. "Everything!"

"He did what?" Neal asked.

Emma sighed. "He wanted to take me out for a drink. I mean, it's not the first time I've gone out on a date for 'business'. It's just that this time, the business is," she winced, realizing how this was sounding, "kind of… personal. If he knows something about my past… Neal, you know how long I've been trying to find out who I am and where I came from and," she sucked in a breath, "why my parents chucked me on the side of the road."

Neal shook his head. "And you think some guy who was a kid in one of your foster homes has that information."

"I don't know!" Emma exclaimed. "One thing Ray taught me when he was training me for P.I. work was that I have to investigate every lead, no matter how out there it sounds. If he knows anything and I let him slip away." She shook her head. "I know. Part of me is saying that this is all some… wild goose chase, and if my birth parents abandoned me, then maybe I'm better off never knowing who they are. I know. But I still feel like I have to pursue this." She winced. "Am I making sense, yet?"

Neal sighed. "Yeah, you are. And I understand. I guess, maybe I just wish it had been some girl who was in foster care with you, showing up now."

"You're jealous?" Emma asked, with a tiny smile.

"No! I trust you," Neal said. "One hundred per cent. But just in case he gets any ideas about this being more than a… business meeting… Hang on." He dashed back into the bedroom. Emma followed him, her eyebrows shooting up as she watched Neal pull his carryon bag out from under the bed.

"You're spending the night at Granny's to protest?" she asked sarcastically.

"No," Neal said, unzipping one of the outer pockets. "No. Now," he said slowly, "I know a lot's happened in the last few months, but before I went to Alaska, I asked you a question, and you said 'yes'. And," he withdrew a small box from the pocket, "I had every intention of giving this to you as soon as I got back, but by the time I did get back, you'd taken a surprise road trip and were up to your ears in an election campaign, and after that, well, this may just be the busiest sleepy little seaside town either of us has visited before, because the timing never felt right, and I'm not sure it does now, but," he was running out of air and he paused to take a breath, even as he held the box out to her. "What I'm trying to say, Emma, is… will you marry me?"

Eyes wide, Emma flipped back the lid of the box and gasped. The band was rose gold, set with a one-carat opal, which was surrounded by three diamond side stones on each side. "It's beautiful," she whispered, awed.

"I know I promised you a diamond," Neal said, "but this one took my breath away, too. And I know opal's one of your birthstones," his gaze strayed to the promise ring he'd bought her seven years ago, and which she still wore. "Plus, technically, I got you a whole bunch of diamonds. Small ones," he added.

"Neal," Emma said, drawing closer and clasping her hands behind his neck, "stop talking." Then she pressed her lips firmly to his.

Neal pulled her in closer, as he kissed back. As their lips parted, he asked, "So, was that a yes?"

Emma smirked back. "It's a yes." She looked at the promise ring on her left hand and smoothly transferred it to her right.

"Here," Neal said, plucking the engagement ring from its box. "If you'll let me…?"

Emma nodded.

"Now," Neal said, as he slid the ring along her finger, "hopefully, if Mr. Booth had any non-platonic ideas, this'll squash them."

Emma shrugged. "And if it doesn't, I will."

"Police brutality?" Neal bantered back. "What happened to due process and upholding the law?"

"I'm also a convicted felon," Emma smiled, leaning in for another kiss. "You never know when I might revert…"

Stopping in at Granny's for a late lunch, Emma wasn't sure when she realized that the buzz of conversation around her was all focused on one topic.

"She didn't!"

"Right across the jaw. You ask me, the tramp had it coming."

"She always seemed so… demure, that one."

"And we're trusting our kids to her?"

"Hey, they're both adults; it ain't like she's Mary Kay Letourneau!"

"How long do you think it was going on?"

"Well, David Nolan woke up less than six weeks ago, so not that long."

"Unless she did… you know… while he was in a coma…"

Emma half-rose from her seat, her eyes glittering dangerously. "Go on," she gritted through clenched teeth, as all eyes at the adjacent booth turned toward her. "Unless she did… what?"

The speaker, Emma realized that it was Walter from the hospital, shook his head. "Nothing, Sheriff," he said, lowering his eyes. "Nothing I saw, anyway."

"And you've been paying closer attention to the cameras since we spoke last," Emma said, still keeping her tone pleasant.

"Yes, ma'am."

Emma nodded curtly and turned to go. But not before she heard Walter add, "Of course, Mr. Nolan was awake by then, and I couldn't help but notice that Ms. Blanchard was so much chummier around him whenever his wife wasn't about."

She didn't make it outside in time to miss the laughter that greeted that comment.

"Hey!" Henry called a greeting, as he pedaled up to the open double garage that functioned as Marco's workshop. Neal looked up from the cabinet he was sanding down and smiled.

"What's up, Henry?" he asked, straightening up.

Henry dismounted and leaned his bike against the side of the garage. "Where's Marco?"

"He had a repair job near the cannery," Neal said. "You're here to see him?"

"No," Henry grinned. "I wanted to talk to you. But it's probably better if he doesn't hear us," he added, lowering his voice. "Or are you busy?"

Neal shook his head. "I am," he admitted, "but you can talk while I sand. I'd like to finish by the time he gets back. What's up?"

Henry hesitated. "Before I went to Boston, Ms. Blanchard gave us a family tree project. I couldn't fill it out then, not really. I mean, Regina told me who her parents were, but it wasn't the same. Anyway, she asked me about it today, so I was wondering if maybe you could help me."

Neal swallowed. "I-I can try. Thing is, I don't really know much about my family. I grew up on the streets."

Henry nodded. "Well… do you know your father's name?"

Back in the Enchanted Forest, he would have had that answer, but here, he'd never heard anyone call Papa anything other than 'Mr. Gold'. And even if Papa had told Regina his true name, Neal wasn't about to give Henry that information. True or not, Henry just couldn't turn in a family tree listing his grandfather as Rumpelstiltskin! It would make him a laughing-stock and probably net him a failing grade on the assignment! Neal shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "He was always just 'Papa' to me. I'm not sure I'd recognize the name if I heard it now. Just put, uh, 'question mark Cassidy,' I guess."

Henry considered for a moment, and then jotted something down on his notepad. "Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"

Neal shook his head. "It's been a long time," he said. "I don't think I know who he is anymore."

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't entirely true either.

"How about your mother?" Henry asked next. "My grandmother."

Neal frowned. Papa never had spoken her name to him, and he'd been little more than a toddler when she'd gone. But years later…

…Not a single day went past where your mother didn't regret leaving you, Baelfire. We talked about going back for you when you were old enough. Perhaps fate brought us together to make good on those plans. We can live the life that Milah wanted for us, as a family…

"Milah," Neal said softly. "I-I think her name was Milah."

"All right," Emma said, as August Booth pulled up in front of Granny's. She'd taken a few moments to collect her thoughts after hearing the buzz inside. Damn. She liked Mary Margaret. Small town gossip could be merciless; she'd learned enough of that during her years in Arizona. On the plus side, everyone knew everyone and if a baby was born or a job lost, neighbors were lining up with casseroles and fundraisers. On the minus side, everyone knew everyone and if somebody messed up, the news travelled at the speed of light. Mary Margaret was about to find that out, and as much as Emma wanted to be supportive, she had to admit that she'd been expecting something like this for some time and she couldn't help but believe that her friend had brought down this grief on herself. She didn't want to judge. She was doing her best not to. But Mary Margaret had been fooling around with a married man. What exactly had she thought was going to happen?

It was while Emma was trying to parse the current situation and figure out how she could be supportive without condoning what had transpired, that August had arrived, and Emma realized that maybe she needed a bit of a distraction now to help settle her thoughts. "All right. You win. Let's have that drink."

August broke into a broad smile. "You got it. Hop on."

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "Wait. What?"

"I never said I wanted to have that drink here. Get aboard."

Sure. She was going to hop on the back of the bike of the guy who'd been stalking her for eleven years and, if Neal was right, had landed her in juvie. "You expect me to ride that. With you."

"That's what 'Hop on,' means," August said glibly.

"How about, if we're going somewhere, I drive?" Emma suggested.

"How about you stop trying to control everything and take a leap of faith?" August countered. "You promised me a drink. Hop on. I know a good watering hole."

"If you don't, I will," Granny announced from behind her and Emma started.

She took a breath. "How do I know I can trust you?"

August held up a hand. "I solemnly swear that I am not up to no good." In a more serious tone of voice, he continued, "Neither am I a murderer, a rapist, or any other kind of violent criminal. Now, here." He tossed her a helmet and she caught it on reflex, but she was smiling.

He hadn't tripped her superpower. And he was at least familiar enough with Harry Potter to misquote it to effect. Maybe he did know something about her past that she didn't already know, but even if he didn't, she thought she could at least trust him to bring her back in one piece. And if she was wrong, she thought, patting her hip and feeling the contour of her service revolver under her jacket, between her firearm and her self-defense classes, it wasn't like she couldn't defend herself.

"He took you where?" Neal asked, incredulously. "Uh…" He turned to look at his boss.

"Sorry, Marco. Are we done here, or is there something else you need me to take care of?"

Marco shook his head with a tolerant smile. "You're all done, my boy. Have a good evening and I'll see you at the workshop bright and early tomorrow."

Neal grinned and waited for the older man to drive off before he turned back to Emma. "Sorry."

"It's okay. And," Emma snorted, "you heard me the first time. He drove me to this well in the woods, and no, that's not the name of some pub; it's a literal well, and gave me some story about how if you drink its water, something you lose will be returned to you." She shrugged. "I drank and… surprise, surprise, my parents didn't show up."

Neal winced. "I know you weren't seriously expecting them to, but I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Emma said, smiling. "I was sort of expecting it to be a waste of time anyway."

"So, he didn't tell you anything about your past?"

"I didn't ask," Emma said. "Guy likes to get off on being all mysterious and acting like he knows stuff you don't, the last thing I want to do is play into that. If he knows anything about me, he can damned well tell me what it is. Otherwise, I'll find the answer some other way." She shook her head and her expression faltered. "Could we just… head home now? I don't want to talk about it anymore tonight."

Neal nodded. "Of course."

"I parked in the next block," Emma said. "It's windy and with you guys doing a roofing job, I didn't want any shingles landing on Herbie."

"Asphalt shingles probably wouldn't dent anything," Neal said. "Probably."

"Why does 'probably' sound like 'happens more often than you think' to me?" Emma grumbled.

"Your carefree happy nature?"

Emma made a rude gesture, and Neal laughed, as they walked toward the car.

"Hey," Emma said, when they were still some twenty yards away. "What's that under the tire?"

"Well, we know it's not a boot," Neal grinned, quickening his pace to keep up with her. "Seeing as you're currently the only one in town with the authority to stick one of those on."

"Got one my second day here," Emma said. "It didn't look anything like that." Seeing the look on Neal's face, she rolled her eyes. "Regina wanted to get my attention, okay? Graham basically did what she wanted back then." It almost didn't hurt to think of Graham now.

"Hey," Neal said. "I know you liked him. I mean, not liked him liked him, but… liked him."

Emma sighed. "He kissed me. I didn't want him to. I shoved him away as soon as he did. But yeah. I liked him. As a friend."

Neal nodded. "I know." He reached into his jacket pocket and handed her an envelope.

"What's this?"

"It was slipped under Marco's door last week, addressed to me," Neal said, as Emma opened it. "And relax. I know your body language and there's no way that was mutual."

Emma stared at the photo. That night when she'd stormed out of Granny's and Graham had kissed her on the street, someone had been there to capture the moment. Shock and fury battled with each other for a moment. Fury won. "I do not freaking believe this!" she hissed between clenched teeth. Had Sidney done this? She'd bet good money on it, but without a shred of proof, she wasn't going to go hurling accusations around like… like… Like whoever sent this photo wanted Neal to do. Someone is trying to rattle us. Or split us up. Regina's the obvious choice, but maybe she's too obvious. It could be Gold. Or… August wasn't here yet, but maybe he's got someone on the inside. Or… I'm betting Sidney took the photos, even if I can't prove it, but was it on his own behalf, or did someone pay him to? Like whoever's behind whatever's going on here, who might not be Regina or Gold, or… She took another breath. "How long have you been carrying this around?"

"A few days," Neal shrugged. "Like I said, I know the kiss wasn't mutual. I wasn't even sure I should bring it up, but if I had any lingering doubts, your reaction squelched them."

"Thanks for that," Emma said. "I mean it. But when I think that someone's been following me around town, or was back then, taking... photos... Argh! I feel so violated!" she finished furiously.

"I would too," Neal nodded. "As it is, I'm more insulted."

"Insulted?" They were almost to the car now.

"That anyone would think I'd walk out on you over an obvious hatchet job like this!"

Emma's glower gave way to a tiny smile. Then she stooped down to examine her front tire. "It looks like someone wedged a block under here," she said. "Though it's hard to tell in this puddle."

"Looks like a storm drain backed up," Neal said, pointing toward a grate, from which water was steadily flowing.

"Great." Emma gripped the object with both hands and tugged. It wasn't a block. It was a metal box. The latch was down and held in place by a piece of twisted wire. One eyebrow went up, as Emma carefully untwisted it. "Tetanus shots are good for more than three years, right?" she asked, as she worked the wire, not waiting for a response. She had the lid open in a moment and her eyes widened.

"What?" Neal asked, stepping closer, so he could see too.

"No way…" Emma whispered, as Neal lifted out Henry's storybook.

"Well water, huh?" Neal murmured, but though he tried to sound flippant, neither he nor Emma was laughing.

"Hey," Emma greeted Henry. "Isn't it a little late to be hanging around school?"

Henry glanced up briefly from his handheld game. "My mom's picking me up in, like, five minutes," he said apologetically. "And I really want to beat my high score before she does."

"Gotcha," Emma said, joining him on the bench. "I won't be here when she shows." She didn't want to get into a conversation that might end with her throwing unsubstantiated accusations about who might have sent Neal that photo and Regina had a way of getting under her skin sometimes. "I just wanted to give you this."

Henry took one look at the storybook and set down the game. "You found it?" he exclaimed. "Where?"

"Under my car," Emma said. "I guess it washed into the sewers or something, and when a pipe burst on Main Street, it just… floated out somehow."

"Wow," Henry said, taking the book. "That's crazy."

"I know, but what other explanation is there?"

Henry shook his head, as he slid the book into his backpack. "I don't know. Maybe it means our luck is changing." He smiled and said decisively, "It's a sign; it's gotta be. Things are going to be better."

Emma sighed. "I hope you're right kid." Her thoughts turned to Mary Margaret. The gossip behind her friend's back had been vicious enough, but as for what people might be saying to her face… "I gotta go."

Mary Margaret almost didn't answer the knock on her door. She was positive it would be a mistake. Mentally, she ran through the list of people likely to be on the other side. David might be coming to apologize, and maybe in a day or two, she'd even be willing to listen, but right now, she didn't want to look at him.

Sidney might be there to snap a photo of the town homewrecker, hoping that a good enough shot might get him reinstated at the Mirror. She wasn't about to help him with that!

It sounded too polite to be Kathryn at the head of an angry mob come to run her out of town, unless it was all a ploy to trick her into opening her door.

There came a second knock, and Mary Margaret reluctantly dragged herself out of bed. "Who's there?" she asked, horrified to hear a quaver in her voice.

"It's me. Emma," came the reply.

Mary Margaret sucked in her breath. Then, slowly, she unlocked her door and opened it a crack. Seeing that Emma was alone, she pulled the door open further to allow her friend entry. "Hi," she said softly.

"Hey," Emma returned the greeting. "I… came to see how you were doing."

Mary Margaret's face crumpled. "Terrible," she said, her voice breaking on the last syllable.

Emma nodded. "I, uh, brought some mac 'n cheese," she said, holding out a Tupperware container. "Solid comfort food."

Mary Margaret took it. "Thanks," she said. "I'm not hungry right now."

"It'll keep," Emma said. She rested a hand on her friend's shoulder. "You feel like talking about it, yet?"

Mary Margaret shook her head. "Nope," she said, setting the container on the table behind her.

"You want to be alone?"

She shook her head again. "Nope."

Emma slid her arm around to encompass both of Mary Margaret's shoulders. "I'm here," she said simply.

Mary Margaret nodded, rested her head against Emma's shoulder, and let her friend pull her into a hug.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty

She wasn't in his book. Henry had flipped through all the pages in Rumpelstiltskin's story, and she wasn't there. Well, she was, but…

Rumpelstiltskin was a mild-mannered and curiously unremarkable man who lived a rather unremarkable life. Along with his wife and young son, Baelfire, he lived in a modest wooden hut on the outskirts of the village, making his living by spinning wool into the thread that he would barter or sell to the people thereabouts.

Along with his wife. But there was no mention of her name! Henry shoved the book away. "Come on," he said, exasperated. "You named Prince Charming. You named Cinderella's prince. You even named the Miller's daughter!" He shook his head. "Along with his wife," he muttered.

He supposed he could ask Mr. Gold.

Mr. Gold? I was just wondering if the name Milah meant anything to you? Henry swallowed. If it did, Mr. Gold would demand to know where Henry had heard it and why he thought it was significant. If it didn't, he'd still probably ask the same questions, but either way, he wouldn't stop there. He'd be suspicious; it wasn't like Henry usually popped into the shop to ask questions. He'd start digging. He might talk to his mom—who might decide that three weekly sessions with Archie weren't enough after all.

And if Dad was Baelfire, then if he'd wanted Mr. Gold—or Rumpelstiltskin—to know who he was, he would have said something. Henry didn't know why his dad would want to keep it a secret, but he knew from the Snow White story that bad things happened when you told secrets, even if you meant well. Some secrets were okay to keep. Some, really bad ones, weren't. He'd had "No-Go-Tell" drummed into his head a couple of years ago, when his third-grade teacher had done a whole week's worth of lessons with them on 'good touches' and 'bad touches' and 'when to tell a secret, even if someone didn't want you to'. Then, he'd been told to 'tell someone he trusted'. Well, he didn't trust Mr. Gold, but if Mr. Gold was his dad's father, maybe it was still the right thing to do.

But maybe it wasn't. Suppose he was wrong. Mr. Gold might be mad at him and Henry did not want Mr. Gold to be mad at him. Look what he'd done to Moe French when he'd got mad! But even if asking Mr. Gold about Milah didn't make him mad, if Mr. Gold thought that Henry's dad was his son and it turned out he wasn't, if the whole curse had been so Rumpelstiltskin could get back to Baelfire and Henry got his hopes up for nothing, Mr. Gold would be so hurt. Henry didn't like Mr. Gold. Actually, he was pretty scared of him. But there was a difference between not liking someone and wanting to hurt them.

He wished there was someone he could talk to, but if he spoke to his dad, he knew his dad would order him to keep away from Mr. Gold, and that he'd probably say the same thing whether he was Baelfire or not. As for the others, Emma, Archie, Mary Margaret… they'd all tell him not to go bothering Mr. Gold. And if he was wrong about his dad being Baelfire, then they'd be right , too.

Henry heaved a sigh. There were too many reasons to keep this a secret. At least, for now. All the same, he was going to look harder and see if he could find anything to help him learn whether or not his dad really was Baelfire. Even if he still didn't know what he'd do if he found out for sure.

"You're quiet tonight," Emma said, smiling. "Not having second thoughts about the ring?"

Neal shook his head. "No. Sorry. I…" He took a breath. "I was talking with Henry earlier. He had a family tree project and asked me to fill in some of the names. I guess it opened up a few memories."

Emma walked over to the bed and sat down beside him. He smiled and took her hand. "Maybe," he went on, "I should've said it told me how much I've forgotten." He shook his head. "My dad… I loved him, but in the town where we lived, he… he didn't have any friends. People came up with all kinds of insulting nicknames for him, and he took it," Neal went on heavily. "The thing is, when Henry asked me what his name was, I didn't have an answer for him. To me, he was always 'Papa', and I honestly don't know what his first name is now."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't want to dump this on you when…"

Emma squeezed his hand. "When I know even less about my folks," she finished. "It's okay." She rolled her eyes. "August W. Booth was too busy playing head-games and acting mysterious to share anything about them, if he knows anything in the first place." She exhaled noisily. "I think when I drank that well water, part of me really wanted them to just… come trundling up the trail with my birth certificate and a million apologies, even if I wouldn't want to hear them now. I mean, how do you make up for twenty-eight years and…" A horrified look came to her face. "I didn't mean to turn this around and make it about me."

"I gave you an opening," Neal shrugged. "Maybe it was to get me off of this memory kick."

Emma squeezed his hand. "We deserve each other, you know that?"

"Hope so. So… how was Mary Margaret?"

Emma closed her eyes. "Bad. This… won't blow over for a while, will it?"

"In a town this size?" Neal laughed bitterly. "They'll stop whispering about it, once something else happens, but if you're asking if folks around here are likely to forget? Don't hold your breath."

"That sucks," Emma pronounced. "She's probably my best friend here or, well, anywhere. Apart from you," she added quickly. "Sorry."

"No need for apologies," Neal shrugged. "I sort of like to think we're more than friends." He caught Emma's quick smile before her expression sobered again. "It's good you two are friends, though," he added. "She's going to need one."

"Talking from experience?"

Neal sighed. "My dad… did something once. Before I was born. In hindsight, it probably wasn't as bad as it seemed. Or maybe it was, I don't even know. Where I grew up, a lot of things mattered that… really weren't as important then as I thought they were. Anyway, he didn't have any friends or support besides me, really. And not only wasn't it my place to be his… support network, but I'm pretty sure he tried to give me a normal childhood and tried to deal with his… baggage on his own, as much as he could. Back on topic, the thing he did… he couldn't live it down. More than thirteen years later, people still talked about it. Maybe not as much, but they remembered."

"That sucks," Emma said again.

"Tell me about it." He smiled. "And invite Mary Margaret to dinner here some night next week. If she flips it around and asks us to go to her, that's okay, too."

Emma smiled back. "That's a great idea. I'll spring it on her tomorrow."

Emma fully intended to act on Neal's suggestion the following morning, but Fate seemed to have other ideas. She'd been seated at Granny's waiting for Mary Margaret to show up for her morning coffee. It was a full twenty minutes before she realized that her friend might be too mortified to show her face after the stories flying about. She sipped her hot cocoa slowly and resolved to leave if Mary Margaret hadn't shown by the time it was finished. That was when she heard a familiar voice calling for everyone's attention from the doorway.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your morning," Mary Margaret announced, smiling as though her world hadn't flown apart yesterday, "but I just wanted to remind everyone that a very special occasion is upon us – Miner's Day. As always, the nuns of Storybrooke are hoping that everyone will get involved, and will help sell their exquisite candles. All we need are a few energetic volunteers. So, who wants to join me?"

One volunteer might have been enough to keep her spirits up, Emma reflected. She was debating whether to stand up and be counted—it wasn't as though being sheriff involved that many long days, and getting more involved in the community was probably a good thing—when she saw Leroy get up and head for the door. Maybe the guy did have a sensitive side after all, she thought.

"…Quite a team we'd make – town harlot, town drunk. The only person in this town that people like less than me, is you. If you're coming to me, you're screwed."

Emma winced. No, Leroy did not have a sensitive side. Her eyes slid to Mary Margaret and the look on her friend's face as she turned and hurried away made Emma start from her chair and rush to catch up.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked. "So, what the hell is Miner's Day and why are you beating yourself up about it?"

Mary Margaret's explanation didn't make much sense to Emma. Since when did Maine have coal mines anyway? Lobster or timber, sure, but coal?

"Look," Mary Margaret cut her off, "I don't know; now they use it as a fundraiser. It's an amazing party; everyone loves it."

Emma frowned. "It doesn't seem like everyone loves it," she said.

Mary Margaret shook her head. "It's not Miner's Day, it's me. Last week, I had ten volunteers. This week, they all dropped out."

"You think this is about what happened with David?"

Of course it was about what had happened with David. Mary Margaret informed Emma that some of her former volunteers had even said so. "I've never been a… home-wrecker before," she finished miserably.

"It's going to blow over," Emma said. "You made a mistake with David. It happens. But you don't have to do charity to try to win people's hearts back."

"I have to do something," Mary Margaret retorted, "and this is the best I can do. Love ruined my life."

"Hey," Emma started to say. "You want to—?" Her phone rang and for a moment she thought about not answering, but then she was the sheriff, and with her luck, Regina had probably just bought Henry a kitten and needed Emma to get it out of her apple tree. Or was that a job for the fire department, she thought, as she pulled her phone out. "Sheriff Swan," she said. Her expression turned serious. "Yeah," she said. "I'll be right down." She looked at Mary Margaret. "Well, apparently, duty calls. We'll talk later. And meanwhile, if there's anything I can do to help, I will."

Mary Margaret smiled sadly. "I know. Thank you."

It was getting harder to keep quiet around Emma. One of the many reasons that Neal had never wanted to come here. At first, he'd naively thought that if he never mentioned what August had told him on that long-ago night eleven years ago, the subject would never come up. Storybrooke wasn't on any map. It occupied a tiny piece of the state of Maine, which was one of fifty states in one of several countries on the American continent, among several continents on the globe. Statistically speaking, the odds of the town ever being a topic of conversation between them had looked to be somewhere between 'slim' and 'none'.

As if Fate had ever given a crap about statistical probability.

He should have stayed away, told Emma that another job had come up, or that he needed to pick one up so they could pay next month's rent (damn, he was going to have to mail a check to their landlord for this month and last, come to think of it); he could have come up with something! Instead, he'd yielded to a mix of excitement over meeting the son he'd never known, a sense of protectiveness—Emma might not know the kind of people living in Storybrooke, but Neal knew at least one of them and Emma had no clue what she was going to be facing, and a sense of morbid curiosity over just how the hell Papa was after all these years, even if he'd had no intention of ever confronting him again.

The longer he stayed here, though, the more he cared. About Emma and Henry, of course, but also about the people whom the Evil Queen's curse had carried here. Maybe he'd never met most of these people outside of the distorted second-hand book of fairy tales he'd bought in Alaska and a bunch of equally-distorted animated movies, but splitting up Snow White and Prince Charming was just wrong. Especially when it was so clear that, curse or no curse, they were still fighting to be together.

And, for all his deals and angles and conniving, Neal had to admit that he saw more of the Papa he remembered in Mr. Gold than in the Dark One he'd left behind. And when he thought of everything that Papa had done to get here… No. Neal was not going to blame himself for the Dark Curse. His going through the portal might have been the catalyst for Papa's plan but, Neal reminded himself firmly, Papa's plan wasn't his fault. If Papa had truly wanted to come here with him, then he shouldn't have held onto that damned dagger and released him!

So once you mess up, you never get a second chance, Mr. Arizona Department of Corrections Veteran?

Neal shook his head. That was different!

He knew he should confront Papa, or talk to Papa or something. And if he'd blundered on this place alone, he probably would have. But with Emma and Henry here, they'd wonder why he was spending so much time with Mr. Gold. (Once Papa figured out who he was—and he would—either he'd be spending more time with Papa, or he'd be riding Herbie for the town line a top speed, with or without Emma, and he'd have to explain that, too!) And if he told them the truth… Neal winced. Henry would probably think it was cool. Emma would either think he'd had some kind of mental break or she'd think he'd been lying to her from the moment they'd met.

In a way, he had been. He hadn't meant to. It was just… really hard to find the right moment to say, 'By the way, Neal Cassidy isn't my real name. I come from another land where magic exists and fairy tales are real and my dad's Rumpelstiltskin, only he abandoned me and now I'm on my own'.

When he'd been younger and less wary, he'd told one person that he came from a land with magic and spent the next couple of centuries under a more tyrannical overlord than the duke and the army he'd left behind!

He ruthlessly tamped down on the voice that reminded him that his getting to Neverland hadn't happened quite like that. In all likelihood, Wendy's fascination with magic would have had her flying off with Pan's Shadow whether she knew he came from a magical land or not, but there was still a part of him that wondered if she'd have been quite so quick to leave with it if he'd been more skeptical from the outset, rather than confirmed that magic was real.

You don't have to be afraid. He doesn't want to hurt us. He's from another land—a land with magic, but it's... different from where you came from. It's called Neverland. And there are no grown-ups there, and children never grow old. And we can do anything we want, even fly! This is what I've always dreamed of. You just don't believe.

If Wendy hadn't believed, then he wouldn't have ended up trapped in Neverland.

So, what was he afraid of now, that he wouldn't be able to get Emma to believe… or that he would?

Ironically, if the circumstances had been different, even in this land, he probably would have gone to Papa to ask his advice on how to proceed! "Not gonna happen," he muttered.

He didn't know how to handle this, although he had a pretty good idea that closing his eyes and hoping the problem went away wasn't the right move. Unfortunately, he didn't think full disclosure was either, and he didn't know how much of a partial disclosure would be safe.

Meanwhile, he was due at Marco's workshop in twenty minutes. He fixed himself a cup of instant coffee and told himself he'd figure things out later.

Maybe if he closed his eyes, the problem really would go away.

Yeah, he still didn't believe that part.

The left rear tire of Kathryn's Saab hung several inches off the ground. The car was tilted on an angle at the side of the road, both doors open, and no driver in sight. Wearing thin rubber gloves, Emma snapped several photos of the interior, and then opened the glove compartment. It was empty.

"You mind if I take a look, too?" a voice called from behind her. Startled, Emma nearly banged her head on the door frame as she turned to look at Sidney.

"What for?" she asked, trying not to sound suspicious. As far as she knew, Sidney wasn't aware that she'd found out about her brakes before sending in her car for servicing, and until she knew what his angle was, she wanted to keep it that way. She wasn't forgetting that photo Neal had received either. While she couldn't prove that Sidney had had anything to do with it, she knew it was likely. Of course, even if Sidney had taken the photo, he hadn't necessarily sent it. He would have been acting on Regina's orders—or someone else's, someone who hoped she'd blame Regina—and the photo might just as easily have come from whoever Sidney had passed it to (for now, she was just going to assume it was Regina and not complicate things more than she needed to). Meanwhile, Emma knew she'd get more information from Sidney if he didn't realize she was on to him. She could lean into the 'dumb blonde' stereotype for now, at least she hoped she could.

Oblivious to the thoughts going through Emma's head at the moment, Sidney shrugged. "Well, just because I got fired from the Mirror, doesn't mean I can't do a little freelance reporting. So, what do we got here?"

Maybe two heads were better than one, even if one wasn't necessarily trustworthy. If you had to trust someone to pump them for information, she wouldn't have gone to Gold for a clue to the Zimmer twins' father. She sighed. "Gym teacher found this thing on the side of the road abandoned. Engine running, no one around. Registered to Kathryn Nolan. She's MIA."

Sidney raised an eyebrow. "Kathryn Nolan, whose husband very publicly left her?" Something about Emma's expression must have checked him, for he hurried to add, "I mean, the story writes itself. If I get a scoop like that, the Daily Mirror would have no choice but to take me back."

So, this was all about getting his job back. Emma relaxed. She could understand that sort of motive easily enough. Still, she didn't need him mucking up her crime scene and it wasn't like there wasn't another explanation. "Calm down, tiger," she warned. "You don't work for Regina anymore." Well, maybe he didn't. There was still a slim chance that she was reading the situation wrong, but if she wasn't, it didn't hurt to let him think she still bought his story. "Kathryn got accepted to law school in Boston. Maybe, after David dumped her, she decided to leave town. Car broke down; she hitched the rest of the way. That's what I would do if I was running away from my problems."

As she had been talking, she'd been moving to the rear of the vehicle. Now, she popped open the trunk and her expression froze.

"And, uh, would you leave your clothes in the car?" Sidney asked and Emma muttered something under her breath.

Aloud, she said, "Time to pull Kathryn's phone records and find out who she spoke to last."

Sidney rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you know, if you go through the Sheriff's Department, it'll take you days to get those. I've got a contact over at the phone company, who used to help me out when I was at the newspaper. I can get those in a couple hours."

Emma still didn't trust him—not for a second—but, like Gold, she could use what he could give her. She'd just have to try to verify what she got from some other source whenever possible. "Great," she agreed briskly. "Call me the minute you get your hands on those phone records."

The sound of a motor made them both turn to watch as David's truck pulled up close by.

"There he is," Sidney muttered.

Emma nodded. "Time to break the news."

Sidney sniffed. "You really think he doesn't know?"

Much as she hated to admit it, Sidney had a point. When someone went missing—or worse—statistically speaking, the guilty party was likely to be someone the victim knew and was close to, like a spouse. Grimly, she replied, "I'm about to find out."

Mary Margaret looked up as Neal approached her table. "Hi," he said. "How's it…?" He checked himself. "Stupid question, sorry. You're hanging in there?"

Mary Margaret swallowed hard. "I'm trying to," she said, pasting on a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "C-can I help you with something?"

Neal nodded. "Yeah, Emma texted me. She got called away before she could invite you, but, would you like to come over for dinner Tuesday night?" He smiled sheepishly. "Police business isn't always nine to five and I'm a pretty basic cook. I can't promise you it won't be spaghetti, a tin of sauce, and some sliced-up hotdogs, but Emma and I aren't bad company. At least, when we haven't got something to brood over." He winced. "I'm not selling this well, am I?"

Mary Margaret's smile grew a bit warmer. "Thanks," she said. "I… I'd love to. Even if I'll probably be miserable company."

"Eh," Neal shrugged, "I guess we can deal." He looked at the banner over her table. "So, this candle-selling… What kind of time commitment are we looking at?"

Mary Margaret blinked. "Are you saying you want to help out?"

"Well, I'm working full-time for Marco, but the hours are a little irregular and sometimes there's overtime. At least, that's what he told me; I've only been at it for about three weeks. So if this going to be another 40-hour job, then I can't, but…"

"No!" Mary Margaret cut him off with a startled laugh. "No, of course not! You can put in as much time as you want; every little bit helps!"

Neal smiled at her enthusiasm. "Okay, so how does it work? Do I buy the candles from you up-front and then sell them to recoup, or…?"

"What?" Mary Margaret blinked. "Oh, no. No, it's not like in Newsies!" she laughed more warmly this time. "No, you just fill out this form, put down the number you're taking, and if you sell them all and want more, you can fill out a new one, and if you can't sell as many as you thought, you can just bring back the extras."

"Okay," Neal said. "In that case, put me down for two dozen, um," he looked at the price and pulled out his wallet, "on top of the one I'm buying from you now…"

"You don't have to…"

"Yeah, actually, seeing as we're friends, I kinda do," Neal replied. "So, one to keep, twenty-four to try and sell, and we'll see how it goes."

Just then, Leroy came charging toward them. "Where can I sign up?" he demanded.

Mary Margaret raised an eyebrow. Then she pointedly set down a cardboard box in front of Neal and turned to grab another.

"What?" the janitor pressed. "I want to volunteer to sell candles."

"No you don't," Mary Margaret said in a low voice. "You made that very clear this morning at Granny's." She smiled brightly at Neal.

"There you go," she said. "Two dozen to sell, and that'll be ten dollars for the one you're holding."

"Thanks," Neal said, pocketing the candle he'd been holding and then scooping up the boxes. He walked off leaving Leroy still arguing with Mary Margaret. He wasn't sure if he could sell two dozen of these things, but he was damned well going to try.

The site was too clean, Emma realized. The car was wrecked, the airbag deployed, but a meticulous search turned up no blood, no hair, not even a broken fingernail. Try though she might, Emma could discern no shoe-prints other than her own, Sidney's, and now David's.

David's eyes were wide as Emma finished telling him what she'd discovered. He closed the car door a bit harder than necessary and only then did Emma realize that she shouldn't have let him touch anything. First, the angle of the door might have been important—she'd been careful not to move it when she'd crawled in to look for evidence. Second, he'd just got his fingerprints on an active crime scene—if they hadn't already been there.

She was just as glad that Sidney had gone back to town to talk to his contact face to face. It made sense, she supposed. Someone adept at obtaining phone records that might prove incriminating might also want to minimize creating any that would shine a light on their own activity. Sidney's absence meant that she could question David about his wife's disappearance without worrying about Sidney muttering insinuations about his possible means, motive, or opportunity—everything Emma had seen of the reporter so far told her that he wasn't anywhere near as discreet as one would expect a journalist to be. Maybe that was the real reason the Mirror had fired him, she thought. Maybe it had been a lack of professionalism, rather than a word from Regina. Or perhaps, the word from Regina had just been that final straw that had broken the camel's back.

"She's just gone?" David asked, looking stunned.

Emma raised both eyebrows. "You really don't know anything, do you?" she asked, trying to make him believe that she was convinced of it. Truthfully, she wasn't sure. She hadn't thought to look for footprints until after David had pulled up, and—as she'd realized too late—she hadn't cordoned off the crime scene. She and David had walked around the car now, but were all of his tracks newly-laid down? If Kathryn hadn't crawled out of the car, but been carried, Emma suspected that David was strong enough to do it.

"I-I don't understand," he said. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "I'm trying to find out. What can you tell me? When was the last time you spoke to Kathryn?"

"Yesterday afternoon," David admitted, a bit shamefaced.

Emma took a breath. "Okay," she said. "Look. I know there has been lies and deceit and I'm really not judging you, but is that the truth?"

David nodded. "Yes. I haven't spoken to her since we… I ended things. And I came home yesterday, and all her things were gone. I assumed she was going to Boston. That's what she told me." He frowned. "Am I a suspect or something?"

She hadn't ruled him out as one yet, but he was telling her the truth right now, or at least the truth as far as he knew. "No," she told him firmly. "I know when people are telling the truth, David, and you are. She hasn't even been gone twenty-four hours. She's not even technically missing. But, if she is, trust me – I will find her."

Her reassuring smile lasted until David got back in his truck and drove off. She wished that she hadn't known for a fact that since David had awakened from his coma, he'd suffered at least one instance where he'd gone sleepwalking and awakened with no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there. She'd assumed that he hadn't done anything like that since, but she didn't know. More worryingly, David might not know either.

Could he have done something to Kathryn while he was in that state? Or, a new thought came to her, could someone engineer such a state in a patient, possibly make them do things that they'd never consider if they were conscious at the time?

She was back to the brainwashing experiment hypothesis again. She hated it; she knew it was venturing into tinfoil hat conspiracy theory territory. The trouble was, the longer she stayed in this town, the more plausible the idea seemed. There was something strange going on here. She didn't know what it was, but Kathryn's disappearance was part of it, and one way or another, Emma knew she was going to figure out the rest.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-One

Marco bought a candle off Neal that morning, as did Archie when the psychiatrist stopped by the workshop to chat, barely managing to hand Neal the money before Pongo jerked him away in hot pursuit of a passing squirrel.

"So she has you doing it now?" Granny asked him gruffly, when he stopped in for lunch and held up his wares.

Neal shrugged. "It's for a good cause," he replied.

"That's so," the old woman grunted. She peered down her nose at Neal, the overhead light glinting off of her steel-framed spectacles. Neal met her gaze squarely, waiting. Finally, Granny sniffed. "Well, seeing as it's for the nuns," she muttered, opening the cash register. She handed Neal a twenty, in addition to his change. "Make it two. But don't go bothering Ruby, without telling her I've already bought her one, you understand?" she demanded with a twinkle in her eye that belied her menacing scowl.

Neal swallowed theatrically. "Yes, Ma'am," he said, bobbing his head.

Granny sniffed again. "Good boy."

Emma felt her phone vibrate on the drive back, but she waited until she was at the station before she checked the message. She smiled slightly as she tapped the screen to return the call; she'd been expecting this one.

"Mr. Spencer? Sheriff Swan. If you'll let me know which documents you'll be needing, I can get them right out to—Excuse me?" Her voice rose up sharply. "You're what? But he… Yes, I understand. Okay. Uh… Thanks for letting me know… I guess."

She ended the call and spent a moment glowering at her phone. The assault charges against Gold were being dropped. The district attorney had said that in light of the fact that the victim had robbed him, and that Gold was willing not to press charges against him for that, there really wasn't much of a case against Gold and they weren't going to proceed. To Emma, that sounded like a load of crap. Sure, had Gold come home to catch French in the act of burglary and started laying into him then and there, 'Castle Doctrine' probably would have kicked in. But to abduct French hours later, drive him off to a cabin in the woods, and then proceed to beat the living tar out of him? Something stank here and it wasn't Gold's lanolin dip.

Emma sighed. Rightly or wrongly, it looked like Gold was getting away with assault. She couldn't do anything about that. Her main job right now was tracking down Kathryn Nolan. Probably, hopefully, Kathryn was fine and would turn up safe and sound within the hour. But if the empty car pointed to a more ominous outcome… Emma was damned if she was going to let anyone get away with murder.

Back in town, the Miners Day festivities were beginning to attract crowds. Those crowds, however, were giving Mary Margaret and Leroy's booth a wide berth, despite Mary Margaret's increasingly frantic pleas.

"Buy your Miner's Day candles here!" she was crying. "Handmade by Storybrooke's very own nuns! Light your way to a good cause! By buying a candle…" Emma started toward her, but then she spied Sidney at the ring toss and changed course, weaving through the other revelers and taking far longer than she normally would have needed to traverse some three hundred yards.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, when she reached him.

Something about the look on her face made Sidney turn from the game to give her his full attention. "What's happening?" he asked her.

What was happening was that she'd called Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where David had told her Kathryn had been heading, when she'd got back to the station. She'd been hoping that Kathryn might have somehow forgotten about her suitcase, or maybe hadn't wanted to carry it out of… shock, or a concussion, or some other reason that had made perfect sense to her in the moment, and walked out to the main highway, where she'd hitched a ride with a passing motorist but, "…Registration was this morning, and she never showed up."

"Something did happen," Sidney breathed, looking a bit stunned.

"It looks that way," Emma said. She wished she knew whether Kathryn had made it out of town. If she'd stumbled out of the car, battered and bloody, and managed to get to the highway, whoever picked her up might have driven her straight to the nearest hospital—which should be the one in town, actually. Of course, if Kathryn had been ambulatory, the driver might have taken her to a hospital on the way to Boston, one with better equipment than a small town could offer.

There hadn't been any blood at the site of the car crash, though, nor further up the road. Emma had a sinking suspicion that Kathryn hadn't made it out of town. She wasn't at her house and she wasn't at the hospital. So, where else could she be? She couldn't just… disappear. Not unless someone had made her.

Mary Margaret came running up, Leroy in tow. "Oh, Emma!" she exclaimed. "Help me out! What's more sympathetic? Um, scarf or no scarf?" She modeled each 'look' for her friend.

Emma blinked. "Uh… sc-scarf," she stammered.

Mary Margaret exhaled. "Okay," she said, sounding a little relieved.

Leroy tugged at her arm. "Come on," the janitor urged. "We're on a schedule."

Mary Margaret let him hurry her away. "Oh, uh, thank you," she managed. "Got to go."

After they'd departed, Sidney turned to Emma with a puzzled expression. "Why didn't you say anything?" he demanded. "You're looking for a suspect. Someone with a motive. Pixie cut over there has got one a mile high."

Emma's expression hardened. "She had nothing to do with anything," she told Sidney. "Trust me."

Sidney blinked. "But she's the one—"

Emma didn't want to hear it. "Trust me," she repeated. "I know her. Just get me those phone records."

Neal sold another two candles, but no more. Some people hurried past with an unintelligible mumble. Others smiled apologetically or murmured that they had no time right now. Neal wasn't pushy, but he was getting discouraged.

"Candle?" he asked a hurrying young man with a worried look on his face, wincing as he realized his voice had taken on the same plaintive note it once had when he'd been begging for alms in Victorian London. "For Miners' Day?"

The man stopped. "Uh… yeah. Sure." He raised an eyebrow. "Haven't seen you around."

"I'm new, here," Neal smiled. "It's ten dollars, please."

"Here," the man said, holding out a twenty. "Better make it two."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me," the man said. "Guess you heard that Kathryn Nolan's gone missing."

Neal blinked. "Who?"

"Right, you're not from here," the man said, slapping his head. "Sorry. Jim Jeffries," he said, holding out his hand. "I teach phys. ed. at the elementary school."

"Neal Cassidy." He frowned. "You said someone's missing?"

Jim nodded. "Her car was found abandoned at the town line. Search parties are forming and hopefully, we'll find her by nightfall. If we don't," he said, "I was just at Mr. Clarke's to buy a flashlight but he's all out. These should come in handy instead."

Neal took the money and handed over two candles. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

Emma glowered at the sheaf of papers in her hand. Technically, the former reporter had done well. The phone records purported to disclose every call that Kathryn had made yesterday, up until the moment her car had crashed. Including an eight-minute call that she'd had with her husband less than an hour before the accident.

"That's not possible," Emma protested when Sidney told her. "He said he didn't speak to her that day." More to the point, he hadn't set off her superpower when he'd told her.

"It's right here on paper, Emma," Sidney repeated. "Phone records don't lie. People do. And our friend David does it better than most. Don't beat yourself up over this," he added with a grim smile. "You're not the only person David fooled."

Her hand clenched around the pages. She should be satisfied. According to these records, she had an obvious suspect in Kathryn Nolan's disappearance. Someone who knew her, who had a motive for wanting her gone…

No. Kathryn had already been on her way out of town and out of David's life. There would have been no need for him to look for a more… permanent solution. Sure, it was possible that he'd decided to make sure she wouldn't be back. Or he'd been… what? Trying to avenge Mary Margaret's honor for that slap? Somehow, from what Emma had seen of David thus far, he didn't seem like the type.

On the other hand, if David could fool her lie detector, maybe he had been lying, or putting on an act, or… No. She still didn't believe it.

Maybe… Maybe Kathryn staged the whole thing. She faked the accident and she left town, or she's hiding around here somewhere to gloat after framing her philandering husband for murder. Was it wrong that Emma found that last scenario more plausible than David being behind Kathryn's disappearance? Her superpower wasn't infallible.

No, but it isn't usually this far off when it's wrong, either. Unless the person I'm talking to believes what they're telling me is the truth.

She massaged her forehead. If David was telling the truth, then the phone records were wrong. If David was lying, then her superpower was wrong. If David thought he was telling the truth, then either he'd been… talking in his sleep, or he'd blacked out, or… Or what? Someone had hypnotized him into forgetting he'd had a long conversation with his wife? That was crazy! She winced. She'd promised Archie she'd try to stop using that word as a synonym for 'impossible', but she didn't seem able to stop thinking it. Worse. She didn't seem able to stop thinking that, as farfetched as the notion was, it just might be the only answer around here that made sense.

On his hands and knees as he ran a fastener into a deck board, Neal had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. He'd learned to trust the prickling sensation at the back of his neck in Neverland. Pan might have sneaked up on him on a lark, to see if he could scare him, but some of the Lost Ones had been far more homicidal in their outlooks.

Not that Pan wouldn't kill if he thought it necessary… or fun, but he had at least grasped the idea that once a boy was dead, he made a bit of a boring playmate. Some of the Lost Ones had been too young to appreciate the concept. Others, however, simply hadn't cared. Or they'd been jealous of the attention Pan had showed their victim. Or they'd thought that their victim had fallen out of Pan's good graces and hoped that by killing him, they'd improve their own standing. That last one had always been risky; one could never really predict whether Pan would respond with approval, or a dreamshade-coated weapon.

Neal had learned to keep his eyes and ears open and trust his instincts. Even then he'd had a few close calls. And right now, his instincts were screaming.

Slowly, coolly, he looked back over his shoulder, and saw nobody.

"Hey!" the homeowner, a middle-aged man whose straight gray hair fell just shy of the earpieces of his eyeglasses called. "I'm not paying you to goof off!"

"Relax, Mr. Orvosh," Marco snorted. "My new helper, he's a hard worker. He just thinks a little too hard sometimes." He gave Neal a quick smile, even as he gestured for him to get back to work.

"And don't you dare get sawdust on my Miata!" Mr. Orvosh warned.

Neal reached for another fastener to secure the board at its other end. As he crawled over to position it in place, a sound from the road made him look back again to see a motorcycle roar away. The driver was wearing a helmet, so he couldn't see who it was, but his money was going on August W. Booth. Seriously, what the hell was the guy's problem?

Whatever it was, Neal told himself with a mental shrug, it was August's problem, not his. Let him deal with it. He drove in the fastener and reached for another deck board.

Emma was not thrilled to be called away from the sheriff station when the alarm company notified her that one of their units had gone off. She was especially not thrilled when she arrived at the clock tower to find Henry working intently on the lock around the door of the library on its ground floor.

"Uh, hi," Henry said, meeting her glower with a sheepish smile as he tried unsuccessfully to palm the hairpin he was using.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked, trying to hide her annoyance.

"Trying to find Rapunzel," Henry said, turning back to the lock.

"Excuse me?"

Henry shrugged. "Rapunzel's supposed to be in a tower and," he shrugged again, "this is the only tower in town. Dad and I were here the other day, but I think someone changed the lock."

Emma went cold. "You were here before?" she asked, wondering how she was able to sound as calm as she did. "With Neal?"

Henry winced. "Uh… yeah."

"I suppose he showed you how to do that?" she asked, gesturing toward the lock.

Henry winced. "Well, he told me not to look, but I sort of, maybe… peeked a little? He said it was about the tumbl—"

"The tumblers," Emma groaned. "Yeah, I know." She took a deep breath as she watched a familiar Mercedes pull up and park behind her patrol car and Regina emerge from the driver's side door. "Let me talk to your mother."

"Sheriff, I received a call from the alarm company that someone had attempted to break into—Henry, what are you doing here?"

Emma took a step forward. "It seems someone dared him to go in, Madame Mayor. Latest rumor around the elementary school is that the building's haunted," she said, with a smile and a slight eye roll. "Kids, huh?"

Regina didn't smile back. "Who dared you?" Regina demanded of her son.

Henry shrugged.

"I want an answer," Regina pushed, and when Henry shrugged again, she stooped down to his level and laid her hands on his shoulders, her expression thunderous. "Now you listen to me," she said, her voice heavy with tightly-controlled fury and another emotion Emma couldn't quite pinpoint. "That building isn't safe. The only reason I haven't had it condemned is because it's a historical landmark, but it is dangerous in there. I had the locks upgraded just last week, when I realized how easily someone might be able to slip inside and meet with some accident and I do not want it to be you. Do you understand me?"

Henry nodded.

"Now get in the car," she ordered, and Henry obeyed with a last look over his shoulder at Emma.

"Kind of intense, weren't you?" Emma asked her.

Regina turned the same angry eyes on Emma. "Where did my son learn to pick a lock, sheriff?"

Emma winced, but there was no way she was selling out Neal. "Well, he obviously didn't find out from a library book," she muttered. "Did you check his internet browsing history?"

"If this is something that you or your lover taught him…"

While Regina's use of that term wasn't wrong, hearing it coming from her made the relationship sound somehow cheap. Emma walked over to inspect the lock. "I didn't," she sighed. "And I doubt Neal would have either, but I will sound him out tonight." Not really a lie, considering that first, by Henry's own admission, Neal had told him not to watch and second, Henry's breaking-and-entering skills were still minimal enough that she didn't think she could say he'd learned to pick locks. At least, not yet. She gave the lock a hard tug, and the chain rattled a bit, but showed no sign of weakness. "Doesn't look like there was any harm done," she said. "Of course, since I did catch Henry red-handed attempting to break into city property, if you want me to book him, you can follow me to the sheriff station and I'll take his prints and photo."

Regina gave her a hard look. "Thank you for your help, Sheriff. I'll handle things from here."

Emma's smile lasted until the Mercedes drove off. Then it changed to a scowl, as she headed back toward the station. She was definitely going to have a few words with Neal. Some which probably would not be G-rated.

When the power cut out that evening, Emma swore darkly under her breath. Then, she turned on her smartphone's flashlight to see if she could find a candle, thinking to herself that she should have bought a couple off of Mary Margaret when she'd had the chance. That was when the emergency lights winked on. With a sigh of relief, Emma put a call through to the power company to ask them to look into the outage.

She wondered whether Marco handled electrical work, too, and whether he and Neal were already out fixing whatever was wrong. Carpentry wasn't the same thing as electrical work, and being able to handle repairs didn't mean that the town didn't have a specialized team working on it. Probably, this had nothing to do with either of them, but she still found herself wondering.

Rubbing her eyes and squinting in the dim light, she went back to her folders and pulled out Kathryn's phone records. Sidney, or his source, had helpfully highlighted David's name for her. Emma chewed on her lower lip. She didn't want to do this. She wanted to go home.

But if she went home, she'd have to have that conversation with Neal about Henry breaking into the library, and she only hoped he'd take the matter seriously. Sometimes, Emma loved Neal's ability to find the humor in almost any situation, but right now, she was almost as ticked off over the incident as Regina had been. If Neal tried to turn this into a joke, between having a son who was graduating from credit card fraud to breaking and entering and Kathryn's disappearance, Emma's temper was fraying and she didn't want to blow up at him.

She heard the station door open, and stiletto heels clacking on the hallway floor. A moment later, Regina stepped into her office. Emma sighed. "If you're here to ask about Neal's reaction, I'm talking to him when I get home. If this is about the blackout, I've got the guys from the power company down there working on it."

Regina shook her head. "That's not why I'm here," she said crisply. "It's been twenty-four hours since my friend, Kathryn, went missing. Have you found anything?"

Emma thought carefully before she replied, "I found something. I just don't know what it means."

Regina took a step forward. "Well, what is it?" she asked, sounding surprisingly more curious than hostile.

Emma took a breath. "At this point in the investigation," she stonewalled, "it's best I don't divulge that information."

Regina's expression hardened. "If you're covering for someone," she cautioned, "if you're not doing your job, Sheriff Swan, I'll find someone who will."

Her threat hung in the air and echoed in Emma's mind, long after the mayor had departed.

The power hadn't come back on an hour later, and Emma had gone over every digit and letter in Kathryn's phone records several times by now. She was fairly sure that she could recite each phone number and the individual to whom it belonged from memory, but there was only one that was possibly relevant to Kathryn's disappearance.

Unbidden, Emma's mind flicked back to her theory about the town being some sort of science experiment. It was a ridiculous notion and most of the time, Emma knew that. But, she remembered, it had occurred to her that maybe, for all Regina seemed to be in charge of things, perhaps the mayor was just the figurehead and Kathryn had been—or was—the real mastermind in control here.

If that theory was true, then had Kathryn realized that Emma knew something was 'off' in this town, and had she taken herself off the board, as it were, in order to avoid a confrontation? Maybe Regina had realized what was going on, and taken matters into her own hands.

Emma frowned. She might not like the mayor very much, but that didn't make Regina a kidnapper or a killer. Graham had been showing signs of coming out of the haze almost everyone else in this town seemed to operate under. Maybe he wasn't the only one.

Or maybe that other theory about Kathryn being a vengeful wife, faking her death to screw over the husband who was having an affair wasn't so farfetched after all.

She shook her head, still scowling. Hell, maybe there was some butler somewhere who'd done it, but until she had hard evidence, there really was just one person on her suspect list who had the means, the motive, the opportunity, and some admittedly circumstantial, but still pretty damning evidence staring up from the page in front of her.

Emma heaved a sigh. Then she pushed back her chair, grabbed her coat, and headed off into the night.

The carnival was winding down, and the crowds were beginning to disperse, but there were still a fair number of people there. Emma spotted her quarry and made her way toward him, barely noting in passing that Mary Margaret was heading off with a lit candle in both hands and a smile on her face.

"Emma," David greeted her, when she reached him.

She didn't return his smile. "David," she said, "we need to talk."

"Did you get a hold of Kathryn?" he asked, and for a moment, Emma found herself believing his curiosity was genuine.

He's good, she admitted grudgingly to herself. Or he really doesn't remember. Or he's completely innocent. Trouble is, I have no clue which it is and finding out is seriously part of my job description right now. Aloud, she said, "No, I'm afraid not."

David's smile dropped at once. "Then what is it?" he asked.

Emma took a breath. "I need you to come to the sheriff's station with me and tell me everything," she said firmly.

"I'm sorry?" David blinked. "I thought I already did."

Emma exhaled. "So did I," she replied, motioning for him to accompany her. "Come on."

As she led him to where she'd parked the squad car, she caught sight of Mary Margaret watching, the schoolteacher's puzzled expression yielding first to surprise, and then a dawning horror.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Two

Emma forced herself to meet David's eyes squarely and steeled herself against the hurt and bewilderment she read within them. Despite the case she was trying to build, she truly didn't believe that he was guilty. Not knowingly guilty, anyway, she reminded herself. She got up to pour a cup of tea and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said, accepting it. "I hope Kathryn's somewhere warm and not out in the cold."

Emma winced. Coming from someone else, it might have sounded as though they were laying things on a bit thick, but to her ears, David sounded genuine. If he was guilty, he had to be like Jekyll and Hyde. Or maybe he had an evil twin, somewhere. Whoa. Save that idea for if any eyewitnesses to the car crash turn up. Aloud, she said, "David. I think you need to start worrying about yourself a little bit more here. Your wife is missing. You are in love with another woman. There's this… unexplained phone call."

"I know," David said. "I know. I just… I can't explain why it says that. I didn't do anything to my wife.

Emma sighed and gave in. "I'm pretty good at spotting a liar," she told him. "And, honestly, liars have better material." She took another breath. "Now, go home."

David blinked in surprise. "I can go?" he repeated, with a startled smile.

Emma exhaled. "We don't even know if there was a crime yet," she pointed out. "So, get some sleep."

David heaved a sigh. "Thank you," he said, and rose to leave.

Emma paused for a beat. "And, David?" she added, "maybe… Get a lawyer." She didn't have enough evidence to charge him. She didn't have any proof of a crime. But either circumstance might change and probably would. And if something had happened to Kathryn, that line in the phone records and David's inability to explain it, still made him her most likely suspect.

Emma had only walked half a block when she realized that someone was following her, and making no efforts to hide it. She turned to see Mary Margaret and waited for her to catch up. "Is he okay?" the schoolteacher asked. "David?

Emma smiled reassuringly. "Oh, yeah. He's a little shaken up, but he's headed home. He's fine."

Mary Margaret heaved a sigh of relief and asked if there had been any news about Kathryn. "Did you check with Boston again?" she asked, when Emma admitted that there wasn't.

Emma shook her head. "She's not there, Mary Margaret," she said gently.

"So, we have no idea what happened to her?"

Emma sighed. "All we know is that she found out about you two, gave you a well-deserved slap, and then disappeared."

Too late, she saw the hurt in her friend's eyes when Mary Margaret repeated, "Well-deserved? Do you really believe that?"

"No," Emma said, though she was glad that she was the only person she'd ever met with her superpower. Really, if she'd found out that Neal had been carrying on with someone behind her back, she'd probably clobber both of them, but telling this to Mary Margaret would only make her friend feel worse and accomplish nothing. "I'm just preparing you for what everyone else is going to think. You two are going to look bad until we figure the truth out."

"You mean David?" Mary Margaret asked, horrified. "Th-That people are going to think in order to… be free with me…"

Emma nodded. "Some are," she said honestly. "And, he's not doing himself any favors. So, if there's anything you could think of to pin down his whereabouts that night…"

Mary Margaret shook her head. "He wasn't with me. We really are through."

Emma stopped, seeing Ruby waiting by the bus stop—where, come to think of it, Emma couldn't recall ever having seen a bus before—and Whale apparently annoying her.

"Sorry, no," Ruby was saying. "Don't need a ride."

"It's awfully cold out here," Whale pushed, to which Ruby responded that she was fine.

"I can carry your bag," Whale insisted. "Where are you headed?"

"Dr. Whale?" Mary Margaret called.

Startled, Whale turned to see the two women standing close by. "Mary Margaret," he said, with a grin that was just a bit too wide. "Emma. Hello there."

"Hey!" Mary Margaret said, and Emma suddenly remembered that Whale had a bit of history with her.

Whale chuckled nervously. "I was just having a talk with Ruby here. But, I should, um…"

"Yeah," Emma said, her hand reaching into her jacket pocket and closing on her sheriff's badge in case she needed to pull it out. "Yeah, you should."

Whale gave her a tight nod. "Yeah…," he said, turning quickly and hurrying off into the night.

Mary Margaret turned to Ruby. "Was he bothering you?" she asked.

Ruby smiled. "The day I can't handle a lech is the day I leave town." Her smile dimmed and she exhaled noisily. "Which this is, I guess."

"You're leaving?" Emma asked, surprised.

"I had a fight with Granny," Ruby admitted. "Quit my job."

"You quit?" Mary Margaret repeated. "Where you going?"

Ruby's smile dropped away entirely. "I don't know," she said. "Away."

Emma winced. She knew what that felt like. "Yeah, well," she said, "buses out of town don't really happen. And, you might want a destination first." Not that she'd ever needed one herself, but being on the run from foster care hadn't been any kind of fun.

"Hey," Mary Margaret said with a gentle smile, "if you need a place to figure things out, you could always come home with me. I've got a spare bedroom."

Ruby's eyes widened. "Could I?" she asked. "I-I mean, just for a little while? Until I know what I'm doing," she added quickly.

Mary Margaret beamed. "Come on."

The power was back on by the time Emma made it home, but there were two fat candles burning on the table and the scent of popcorn shrimp wafted from the oven as she made her way into the kitchen.

"I just put it in ten minutes ago, when you texted you were on your way," Neal grinned, as Emma dropped her jacket on the back of a chair and promptly sat down. "Long day?"

Emma nodded. "Unfortunately, I don't know if I can tell you about it without jeopardizing an investigation."

Neal's eyebrows shot up. "You think I'll blab to the press?" he asked lightly.

Emma sighed. "I've already made enough mistakes in less than a day. I'd better not make any more."

"Sorry," Neal said at once. "You're right."

Emma sighed, but when Neal went to bring the shrimp to the table, she didn't reach for the serving spoon. "Caught Henry trying to break into the clock tower," she said.

Neal blinked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. He was trying to pick the lock, but the alarm went off."

"There's an alarm now?" Neal asked quickly.

That clinched it. "Yes," Emma shot back. "I guess there wasn't one when you helped him break in the first time."

Neal flinched guiltily. "He was pretty sure that Rapunzel was up there. I figured the best way to show him he was wrong was to take him inside and show him."

"Neal…"

"Look, if I hadn't been up there, I wouldn't have been able to set you on Gold's trail when he nabbed that florist. Where did you think I was when I took that photo?"

"I don't know… some roofing job on Main Street," Emma mumbled, fighting down a wave of irritation as she realized she should have noticed his vantage point ages ago. "Meanwhile, I had to deal with Regina and for once, we were on the same side." She winced. "Not a great feeling."

"Want me to apologize to her?" Neal asked easily.

Emma shook her head. "It'll just vindicate her suspicions and, since I told her I doubted you'd been contributing to the delinquency of a minor—"

"You make that sound so… harsh," Neal said, feigning hurt.

Emma glowered. "He's our kid, Neal. Do you seriously think teaching him how to be a criminal is going to help convince a judge that we'd be better parents than Regina?"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Neal held up his hands in surrender. "It was a dumb idea in hindsight, but I tried not to let him see what I was doing."

"Yeah, well, telling him not to look wasn't good enough," Emma retorted. "Anyway, if you go to Regina now, it'll make us both look bad. Just… let it drop and, hopefully, it'll blow over." She hadn't missed the way the town's attitude toward Mary Margaret was already beginning to thaw, though she somehow doubted that the mayor would be nearly as forgiving, should her suspicions be confirmed.

"Emma?" Neal asked hesitantly. "I know you told me about what happened when you asked Mary Margaret to read to David. What if Henry's right and there's really someone locked in the clock tower?"

Emma's shocked stare yielded almost at once to a startled laugh. "Good one, Neal," she admitted, still chuckling. "I guess I needed that after a day like this one. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Neal said, and Emma didn't notice that he wasn't laughing along with her.

Emma was late getting into the station the next morning. She didn't want to go in; police work in a small town was one thing when you were dealing with traffic violations, peace disturbances, and crowd control. Kathryn's disappearance, however, was completely different.

It wasn't that she didn't feel up to finding the woman; she was a private investigator and a bail-bondsperson. Finding people was what she did for a living. Usually, though, she found people who didn't want to be found, not people who might have been murdered.

And there it was: the 'm' word Emma hadn't wanted to think about, but which had been there, lurking at the back of her mind. Kathryn was missing. She hadn't left town. And if she hadn't turned up yet, the reasons why she might not have were… starting to look a little grim.

Emma knew how to locate a runaway child or a bail-jumper, but her knowledge of police procedures came from a couple of weeks on the job with Graham and a bunch of outdated training manuals. Sure, there was overlap with her PI training, but a lot of her PI training had consisted of "This, you leave for the cops to handle." Well, now she was the cops, and she was playing catch-up on the fly. When you were a bail-bondsperson, you didn't worry about botching evidence or mucking up a crime scene; by the time you got there, that part of the job was over and done. She didn't know how many procedural violations she'd already committed, but she was all but positive she wasn't done with them, yet. It was, she thought glumly, entirely possible that she'd find out what had happened to Kathryn, but see the killer walk free because of her mistake.

Whoa. Slow down, there. She's still missing. Not dead. And she might turn up safe and sound in an hour. You just don't know. Don't go assuming the worst until you have to.

She entered the station to find Ruby and Henry already there, a newspaper spread open on the desk to the want ads. Ruby was on the phone.

"Uh, no," she was saying, "that's not a prowler. That's Archie's dog – Pongo. Throw him a vanilla wafer. He'll quiet down. Did you still want to talk to Emma? Great. Glad I could help." She hung up as Emma walked forward.

"How's it going, you two?" she asked, smiling.

"Great," Ruby said, looking up. "Except I can't do anything."

Emma shook her head. "I'm sure that's not true," she said, still smiling. "I just saw you on the phone. That was good."

Ruby blinked. "That? That's nothing."

"No," Emma countered. "No, it isn't. I actually have some money in the budget if you want to help out around here."

Eyes wide, Ruby leaped at the offer, practically falling over herself with enthusiasm. Emma fought not to laugh at the image of the eager puppy that jumped into her brain, as she told her new hire to pick up some lunch. Ruby was nearly out the door when Mary Margaret walked in. "Hey," Ruby greeted her. "Lunch, Mary Margaret? I'm getting for everyone."

"Uh, no," Mary Margaret said, sounding distracted. "I'm not hungry."

She turned to Emma, not paying attention as Ruby left. "David's in the woods," she said, her words nearly tumbling out of her mouth. "There's something wrong with him. He looked right through me. It's like… It's like he was a different person…"

"Here," Neal said, pointing to the ground. "Someone definitely passed this way, but the area's been swept clean. I can't make out any tracks."

His companion frowned and bent down to see for himself. He looked up again with a raised eyebrow and an appreciative smile. "I guess you got your merit badge for tracking," he said.

"Huh?" Neal shook his head. "No. Actually," a newspaper article from more than a year earlier flashed into his mind, "I don't think that's a thing anymore."

"Really?" Jim asked, sounding surprised.

Neal thought back. "Sorry, I read about it a while back. There was this feature on how, as part of the BSA centennial, they were bringing back four badges they'd discontinued, for one year only. Tracking was one of them, except that back in the day, they used to call it 'stalking'."

Jim whistled. "Doesn't exactly sound like a good name for it today," he said.

"Hence the change to tracking. But since they only offered it for the one year last year, I was too old to try for it. Plus I traveled around a lot when I was younger. Never really went out for extra-curriculars like scouting or sports." Realizing that he should probably explain how he had come by his wilderness skills, he added, "I grew up way out in the boonies. Lot of animals around, not so many people or roads. I don't hunt much these days, but if I had to, I guess I still could. Tracking was just something I had to learn if I wanted fresh meat."

"I can tell moose tracks from bear," Jim said, smiling a bit, "but I don't know if I would have realized that someone was trying to hide their trail here if you hadn't pointed it out."

"Okay," Neal sighed, "I guess being a bail-bondsman, sometimes I have to draw on those skills, too. Not usually," he added. "Most of the guys I track try to hide in the big cities, but I was just up in Alaska last month, slogging through a lot of places that were definitely not cities, or even small towns."

"Got it," Jim said. "Let's keep moving. If someone's trying to hide their tracks, well, if we can find out who they are, maybe when we do, we'll also find Kathryn."

Neal nodded. "Here's to hoping, then," he said. "This way."

It didn't take Emma long to grab her jacket, gun, and car keys. "Okay, kid," she sighed. "I don't mean to kick you out, but I got to go see if David's in any trouble out there."

Henry was stashing his book. "It's okay," he said, as he laid he book in one of her desk drawers. "I'm supposed to meet my mom." He slid the drawer closed and locked it. Emma nodded approvingly.

"You know," Henry said seriously, "you can let Ruby do more. She's Little Red Riding Hood."

Emma fought not to roll her eyes. "With the little basket?" she asked, smiling just a bit. "Yeah. She seems like a badass." As soon as the words left her mouth, she wondered whether she should have used that description in front of Henry. Henry, however, didn't seem at all scandalized by her turn of phrase.

"She is," he maintained. "She just doesn't remember how cool she is or what she's capable of, but it's true."

As he pushed on the door to the sheriff station, Ruby returned with lunch and Henry greeted her as he passed by. Ruby returned the greeting and handed Emma her lunch. Emma thanked her. Then she noted her new assistant's slumped shoulders. "You okay?"

Ruby sighed. "I guess. I mean, this is something I know how to do. So," her lip curled up with bitter irony, "yay."

Emma considered. She wasn't quite convinced by what Henry had said, but if David was wandering in the woods, she had to admit that getting a local like Ruby to help her search made sense. "Okay," she said, making a quick decision. "Let's pack these back up, and we can eat it in the car. I need to do a little wilderness search, and I need your help."

Ruby lowered her eyes. "I'm pretty sure I'm just going to screw it up. I mean, I'll screw it up with flair, but…"

Emma shook her head with an encouraging smile. "No, you won't. Come on – you can do this…"

Emma had to admit that Henry's instincts had been right. Not that she would volunteer the information; the last thing she wanted to do was corroborate his theory that Ruby was Little Red Riding Hood! Emma's brow furrowed. Why the hell would Little Red Riding Hood have above-par tracking skills anyway? Her skill-set was supposed to be… picking flowers and talking to strangers, and lousy eyesight, come to think of it, if she could confuse her grandmother with a wolf in a nightgown!

However it was, Ruby had seemed to have a superpower all her own, as she'd unerringly led Emma to where an injured and unconscious David Nolan had fallen in the woods. Their relief at finding him had yielded to frustration, when David couldn't tell them anything about what he was doing in the woods, or how or why he'd even gone there in the first place.

In the end, she'd sent Ruby back to the station and driven David to get checked out at the hospital, where Whale had declared him to be fine. Even the cut on his head was only superficial.

"I can refer him to Dr. Hopper for a mental health eval," Whale went on, "but, it's my opinion that whatever caused this blackout is the same phenomenon we observed when he came out of his coma. Moving around, acting out, not remembering it later…"

"We will figure it out," Emma said grimly. She remembered that he'd spoken to Mary Margaret earlier, though he apparently didn't remember it now, and asked the doctor how functional David could be during one of these blackouts.

Whale frowned thoughtfully. "Well," he said, "people in similar states, even under sleep medication, do all sorts of things. Cooking, talking, driving a car..."

A look of sick horror came over David's face. "You want to know if I could've made that call," he realized. "Or more. You… You want to know if I could've… What, kidnapped her? Killed her?"

While Whale was trying to calm him down, Regina stormed in, demanding to know why David didn't have a lawyer present and whether Emma had read him his rights.

"No," Emma snapped, "because he's not under arrest. We're just talking."

Regina made a scoffing sound. "Right," she said sarcastically. "Just talking."

"What are you doing here?" Emma asked.

That was when Whale interjected—to Emma's disbelieving ears—that Regina was still David's emergency contact. Even David looked surprised at that revelation.

"I thought that changed to Kathryn?" he said.

"Well, Kathryn's currently unavailable," Regina reminded them, fixing her gaze pointedly on Emma. "Some people haven't found her yet. Stop trying to place blame and just find her.

"There's a whole lot of Maine to search, Regina," Emma said with some irritation.

Regina gave her a broad smile. "Well, you've covered this room," she said, too cheerfully. "I suggest you branch out."

Emma bit back the angry rejoinder she wanted to make and left the room to call Ruby in private and let her know that she was going to be a while longer.

Neal's cellphone vibrated, and he looked at the caller ID and smiled. "Hey, you," he said cheerfully.

Emma didn't return the greeting. "Tell me you found something," she ordered. "I've just had Regina breathing down my neck."

"I gather it wasn't as arousing as when I do it," Neal quipped and was rewarded by a growl on the other end of the call.

"She was mashing down every button I've got and she knew it," Emma retorted. "I hate that I knew it too, and I still let her get to me. So… anything?"

Neal hesitated. "We haven't found her," he admitted carefully.

"But you found something?"

"I don't know," he admitted. He told her what he and Jim had uncovered near the site of the accident. "Problem is, about twenty yards into the forest, even that rubbed-out trail went away. It hasn't rained in the last couple of days and the undergrowth is too thick for it not to have been disturbed if someone went crashing through."

"What if it were someone…" Emma stopped and Neal could practically picture her frowning on the other end of the call. "There any truth to that old Hollywood stereotype about Native Americans being able to slip through a forest without leaving any sign they passed by?"

Neal raised an eyebrow. "I know there are Passamaquoddy and Penobscot in this state, but I don't know if there are any in town." In fact, if everyone in this town had come over from the Enchanted Forest, he was willing to lay down good money that there weren't.

"Me either, but if that's actually a thing—the skill, not it being some… Native American superpower, I mean—then maybe there's someone in town who knows how to do it." A rueful note crept into her voice, as she went on, "With the way my luck is going, there are probably a couple of dozen if there's one, just to make for more suspects."

Neal smiled. "Considering that a lot of prey animals have good instincts about running off if they hear a noise, I'd guess that most decent hunters learn how to move silently without leaving clear traces, Native or not," he said. "I don't know how much hunting gets done in these parts or who might be doing it, though. Fishing, sure, but I don't think anyone's stalking a lobster through the wilderness park." He sighed. "I'll keep trying to pick up the trail, only…"

Emma waited an uncomfortable twenty seconds, before she prompted him. "Only?"

He sighed. "It's possible that whoever was here didn't haul her off through the woods after all. Suppose someone grabbed her, hustled her into a car or the back of a van or something… and then laid a false trail to make it look like they'd dragged her into the forest?"

Emma groaned. "Seriously? I wish that didn't make as much sense as it's making right now."

"Well, I don't know if I'm right," Neal admitted, even though his gut told him he probably was. "Jim and I are going to keep at this. Maybe we'll pick up the trail again. All the same, if you have any other ideas or leads in town…"

"I'll follow them up," Emma sighed. "By the way, I sent Ruby down to the old bridge where I picked David up. She's got good instincts, but maybe you could head over there when you're done and lend a hand? She's new enough at this that she might miss something."

"Hey, even us seasoned investigating types can miss stuff," Neal grinned. "Sure, I'll check up on her. See you later."

As Neal approached the toll bridge, he heard a scream that chilled his blood and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. An instant later, Ruby came running toward him, her eyes wide, and her long dark hair streaming behind her. One high-heeled boot caught on a tree root and she stumbled and fell heavily to her knees.

"Ruby!" Neal exclaimed, hurrying to her side. "You okay?"

She shook her head and frantically motioned for him to stay back. Then she turned her face to the ground and was promptly sick.

"Hey," Neal said softly. "Here." He handed her a bottle of water, taking a moment to break the cap's seal first. "Drink."

Ruby nodded and took a gulp. She coughed, sputtered, and raised the bottle to her lips once more, this time taking a smaller sip.

"You okay?" Neal asked again. She wasn't okay. She was trembling and looked as though she might vomit once more. "Easy," he said. "Easy."

Ruby took a deep breath. Then, with a shaking hand, she pointed back to the direction from which she'd come. "B-box," she whispered.

"Box?" Neal repeated.

"Jewelry box," Ruby gasped. "Heart."

"What?"

She took another breath. "By the bridge. There's a jewelry box. W-with a heart in it." A sob escaped her. "I-I think it's human. I-I think it's Kathryn's."

He opened the box just long enough to ascertain that it did, indeed, contain a heart, before snapping it closed and taking Ruby back to the station. He called Emma to let her know what she'd found and that they were on their way, so she was a good deal calmer than she might otherwise have been when Ruby handed her the box.

"You okay?" Emma asked.

Neal nodded tersely, but Ruby shook her head. "I don't know what I am," she admitted.

"It's going to be all right," Emma did her best to reassure the young woman. "We can figure out what happened now. Ruby, you did good."

Ruby looked stunned. "This? Is doing good?"

"Jim and I've been combing those woods for hours," Neal said softly. "You uncovered the first solid lead we've got."

"Yeah," Emma nodded. "It's amazing. First you found David, and now this. I know you say you don't know what you are, but whatever it is, I got to say… I'm impressed."

Ruby winced. "Don't be," she said. "I'm scared out of my mind."

"But you did it anyway," Emma said. "Grab a seat. I'll get you a coffee."

"Got anything stronger?" Ruby asked, settling into a chair.

"Afraid not," Emma admitted. "But I'll make it a really strong coffee." She realized that the carafe was empty and remembered with some irritation that she'd finished the canister that morning. She headed for the back room, hoping that there would be another canister there. Neal followed.

"What happens now?" he asked.

Emma sighed. "Now? I turn that box over to the lab and find out if it's Kathryn's. I hope so," she added. Then she caught herself. "I mean, really, I hope it turns out to belong to a-a… deer or a horse or something else not… human. But if it's human, and it's not Kathryn's…" Her face seemed to have grown several shades paler, while she was speaking. "…Then I think we might have some kind of ritual murder going on here."

Neal whistled. "And here I thought this was supposed to be a quiet little seaside town."

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Three

Emma didn't sleep well that night. She knew she must have tossed and turned during what slumber she did get, because she woke up at least twice to find Neal rubbing her back and gently trying to soothe her—a clear indication to her that she'd probably kicked him awake. He tried to deny it and claim she'd just been moaning, but her lie detector hadn't been fooled and she'd apologized.

When she'd finally dragged herself out of bed and into Granny's for a morning coffee it was to see Ruby smiling apologetically to her from behind the counter. "I just…" she murmured, "I don't think I want to deal with the stuff you have to deal with on a regular basis."

Emma understood. Still, she couldn't help replying, "I didn't think what we found yesterday was a regular thing in this town."

"It's not," Ruby said quickly. "But I realized something else, yesterday. Every time you'd need me to check something out, I wouldn't be just investigating some random stranger. I'd be checking into my friends. And maybe I'll find out things that," her voice dropped to a whisper, "that I don't really want to know. Things I'm better off not knowing. I don't mean about what happened to Kathryn," she added quickly. "Of course I want to know where she is and if that was her heart I found, then who was responsible. But… if I find out how many times you have to book Leroy for drunk and disorderly, I'd be worrying every time I see him in the Rabbit Hole, even if he's just there to shoot pool. I don't need to know who's a litterbug and who plays loud music at 4 am if they're not keeping me awake. She shook her head again. "And I don't want to investigate people I care about and find out that they've got things in their pasts that…" She took a deep breath. "Am I just sticking my head in the sand?" she asked, looking as though she was fearful of the answer.

Emma sighed. "I get it," she said. "And you're right. If you're not with the department, you've got that luxury. But if you change your mind and you want to come back…"

Ruby clasped Emma's outstretched hand in both of hers. "I won't, but it's nice to know I could," she said with a relieved smile.

There was a fax waiting for Emma when she got into the sheriff station a short while later. She lifted the pages out of the tray, noting that it had come from the crime lab where she'd sent the fingerprints she'd lifted from the jewelry box the day before.

She looked at the second sheet and her eyes widened. "No," she said aloud, her voice barely above a whisper. "No way." She thought about accidentally-on-purpose filing the fax in the paper shredder instead of the filing cabinet, but for all she knew, the lab had sent a duplicate copy to the mayor's office. Or the Mirror. No, she'd have to do this one by the book, even if she knew it was a work of fiction.

She'd wait until evening to follow up on this, though. There was no way that she was going to burst into a classroom and arrest a fifth grade teacher in the middle of her workday!

If she hadn't had to cite Walter Dormer for being illegally parked in front of a fire hydrant, Emma probably would have reached the school ten minutes before it let out. She would have waited outside Mary Margaret's classroom and quietly asked to speak with her privately. She'd be lying if she were to say that it didn't cross her mind to leave Walter snoozing in his vehicle and stop off at his home to drop off his ticket later that evening, or even forget the whole thing, but what if a fire broke out on Main Street before he woke up and drove off? She wrote the citation.

As a result, she arrived at the school just in time to see her friend climb into her Jeep Grand Waggoneer and drive off. Stifling an oath, Emma waited a moment before following. In all likelihood, her friend was going home and Emma would still be able to do what she, sadly, needed to with some discretion.

She blinked with surprise when the Jeep continued past Mary Margaret's building without slowing, but continued to follow, wondering where the trail was taking her. As sheriff, unlike Ruby, she didn't have the luxury of choosing not to find out.

Emma wasn't really surprised when she realized that Mary Margaret was headed for the animal shelter. Even though the schoolteacher had assured her that she'd ended things with David, Emma knew that her feelings for the man still ran deep. Mary Margaret had been genuinely worried when she'd seen Emma take David in for questioning the other night, and she'd been genuinely worried yesterday upon coming across him in his 'sleepwalking' state. You could be a good friend, even if you weren't dating the guy. You could also be trying to salve a guilty conscience, if it looked like an innocent was getting fingered for something you'd do— Emma squelched that thought quickly. It didn't matter where the evidence was pointing. She knew Mary Margaret, and there was just no way that her friend could ever…

Emma's jaw set as she pulled into the shelter's parking lot. She pulled into a spot right up at the curb in front of the building, got out, and went inside.

"Well, there has to be an explanation," she heard Mary Margaret saying, as she turned the doorknob.

David was speaking in a lower tone, and she missed the beginning of his reply, catching only, "… but I don't think it's a good one," as she stepped into the room. Both turned as one to see her and David asked quickly, "What is it? Did you find her?"

"We found a box," Emma said slowly. She saw confusion on both faces, as David asked her what that meant. "We think it… We think that she…" She paused until David prompted her once more to go on. "There was a human heart inside it."

"Oh, my god," Mary Margaret whispered, clapping a hand to her mouth as tears filled David's eyes.

"No," David whispered. "No."

"We're going to send it out for some tests," Emma went on, "but there aren't any other missing people."

Mary Margaret looked at David, who was weeping on a low sofa against the wall. "Maybe you should go," she said softly.

Emma wished she could, but she forced herself to continue. "There's more."

David looked up. "What?"

Emma took another breath. "There were fingerprints inside the lid of the box. I ran them through the records of everyone in town, and there was a match."

"Arrest me," David said at once. Over Mary Margaret's protest, he repeated, "Arrest me, Emma. Do it!"

Emma shook her head. "David," she said slowly, "the fingerprints weren't yours."

He blinked then. "What?"

Emma's voice was steady as she delivered her bombshell. "They were Mary Margaret's."

Mary Margaret was silent in the back of the squad car. As Emma kept her eyes on the road, she glanced at her passenger in the rearview mirror from time to time, as she sat there, white-faced and tight-lipped, her eyes wide, but strangely blank. When they arrived back at the sheriff station, and Emma held the back door open for her, she exited woodenly and let Emma steer her into the building toward the camera and the white wall with the height lines clearly marked in black.

She blinked when Emma took the first picture. It wasn't until Emma told her to turn to the right for a profile shot that she found her voice.

"Emma," she gasped, "this is a mistake! I-I didn't kill Kathryn!"

Emma winced. "Of course, you didn't," she assured her friend, hoping that her instincts were right. Her superpower wasn't detecting any lies at the moment, but—her cynical side reminded her—that didn't mean that Mary Margaret hadn't arranged it. Maybe even with David, she thought. Then she ruthlessly squelched the idea. Innocent until proven guilty, she told herself. And she's doing a pretty good impression of innocent. "But," she went on, "while I am your friend, I am also the sheriff. And I have to go where the evidence leads."

Mary Margaret was far from mollified, not that Emma could blame her. "Which points to me? Emma, yesterday it was David. There's something not right here."

She had a point. There was something not right. Not just with the situation, but with the entire town, and every time Emma managed to forget it, something happened to remind her. "I know," she admitted, "but, your fingerprints were on that box, and his are not. So, now we have to deal with this." She had to act like she didn't suspect anything amiss, because she suspected that Graham had died, right when he'd realized that there was something funny going on. Now, Kathryn seemed to be dead, too. Was there a connection?

Last month, you thought she was the mastermind, Emma reminded herself. Last week, you thought she was faking her disappearance. Now, you think she's a victim of a conspiracy that only you and maybe Henry think exists. Calm down and look at the facts.

Not privy to Emma's ruminations, Mary Margaret kept talking, her words tumbling frantically from her lips. "Evidence that says I cut out Kathryn's heart…and buried it in the woods. This is insane."

She did have a point, Emma had to admit. Mary Margaret didn't look as though she could have physically dragged Kathryn from her car, never mind overpowered and murdered her. But right now, that didn't matter. "If I don't book you," she explained carefully, "with all this evidence, it's going to look like favoritism. And then, Regina will have cause and she will fire me. And then, you know what she'll do? She'll bring in someone who will railroad you." She waited for the comprehension to dawn in Mary Margaret's eyes, before she continued. "So, please – just try to be patient and trust me. We can't even move forward till we verify the heart belonged to Kathryn. And I am still waiting for the DNA test results. But, in the meantime, you need to bear with me. I have to ask you a few questions."

Mary Margaret nodded shakily. "This is crazy," she managed. "I would never hurt anyone."

Emma sighed. "Here. Let me get you a cup of coffee before I take your prints." Actually, her friend seemed jittery enough without giving her more caffeine. "Or better yet, herbal tea."

Mary Margaret nodded again.

Neal was sanding down a grandfather clock in Marco's garage, when he heard a light step behind him and a familiar voice. "Got any dinner plans?"

He looked up with a smile. "What time is it?" he started to ask, just as his stomach rumbled. "Uh… later than I thought." He pulled out his phone and turned it on, wincing when he saw that it was nearly half-past seven. "I guess I lost track of the time. Granny's?" He frowned. "Wait. Did you fix dinner hours ago and come looking for me when I didn't get home?"

"No," Emma sighed. "I've just… been having one hell of a bad day. Granny's sounds great, but," she realized that by now, the word had probably got out about Mary Margaret's arrest and she had a suspicion that the odds of her and Neal having a quiet meal out were somewhere between slim and nil, "could we get take out? I don't know if I want to show my face around town right now."

"That bad?" Neal asked, getting to his feet and brushing sawdust off his clothes.

"Probably worse," Emma admitted.

"Let me put this stuff away," he said, gesturing toward the tools scattered about him, "and sweep up. We can talk in the car when I'm done."

Neal was shaking his head by the time Emma had finished. "There is no way," he said slowly, "that that woman could have possibly…"

"I know!" Emma exclaimed. "And the way Regina was gloating! I mean, she was acting all sympathetic at the interrogation, but in an 'I totally get what you must have been going through to have been driven to commit murder,' way."

"Sounds like gaslighting to me," Neal murmured.

"Yeah, or something like it," Emma nodded. "I don't know if that's exactly it, but close."

"There any bad blood between those two?"

Emma frowned. "Regina doesn't like Mary Margaret for some reason, but when I asked Mary Margaret about it, she said she had no idea why, and I believe her."

"Might be worth asking around town," Neal suggested. "Maybe… I dunno, something happened a long time ago, that Mary Margaret forgot about or didn't think was anything important, but from Regina's perspective it was major."

"Maybe," Emma said thoughtfully. "Although I've been around here long enough to hear some of the local gossip and nobody seems to have even noticed."

"Nobody?"

"Well, Henry," Emma admitted. "But you know… him and that book."

Neal tilted his head in confusion. "What's his book got to do with anything?"

"I told you that he thinks Regina's the Evil Queen and Mary Margaret's Snow White? With that belief, everything makes perfect sense. At least, to him."

Neal nodded sagely. "Yeah, I hear you," he said. "Actually, if he really believes that book… it sort of does fit."

"What, that Regina thinks Mary Margaret's prettier than she is and she's jealous?"

"You didn't read it," Neal replied.

"I've read Snow White. And watched the movie."

"But you didn't read her story in his book," Neal repeated.

Emma frowned. "I skimmed it. Why?"

"Because in Henry's book, Regina—and yes, that was the Evil Queen's name—was going to elope with a commoner, and her mother murdered him."

Emma blinked. "Okay, that's an original backstory, but what's that got to do with Mary Margaret?"

"Snow White," Neal corrected. "She's the one who told Regina's mother."

Emma frowned. "Even if that's true, what the hell has that got to do with Mary Margaret and Regina Mills? I-I mean, even if Henry believes his book is true, it's not like Regina does!" Her eyes widened slightly. "I mean, there's no way, she could believe it," she insisted. She paused. And then, almost plaintively, she asked, "Right?"

"Hey," Emma said, when they were driving back from Granny's, "mind if we make a pit stop?"

"You didn't think to do that before we left the diner?" Neal quipped and Emma swatted at him playfully.

"Turns out, you can get a search warrant approved over the phone," she explained. "Something I did not know until today. I figured I'd have to go in person, and when I called the courthouse to see if I had to make an appointment first, they put me on hold for, well, long enough to make me wonder if they had to review their procedures. I wouldn't think that they get to swear out a warrant very often. Then the judge came on the line, they told me to write out the warrant and call back with a recording device, and I'd read it out and…" she shook her head. "Sorry."

"No, I'm fascinated," Neal murmured.

"Seriously?"

"Nah. So…?"

"So, as long as Mary Margaret's loft is on the way, and I have the warrant approved, I guess maybe I'll save myself a trip out tomorrow and just take care of it now. Shouldn't take too long," she added. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she didn't do it, so there shouldn't be anything to find, but I might as well get it over with." She sighed. "Plus, I'm pretty sure that if I leave it till tomorrow, the way word gets around in this town, I wouldn't be surprised if the press is waiting for me when I'm done and someone shoves a microphone in my face and starts popping flashbulbs."

"And you want me to phone you if I see Sidney lurking in the rosebushes now."

"Sidney?" Emma asked, as she pulled up in front of the building. "Definitely. Though, as far as I know, he's off the Mirror staff, so it'll probably be someone else. Dunno who, though, so just…"

"Suspect everyone?" Neal grinned easily. "Don't worry. I got your back."

"Thanks. Like I said," Emma repeated, reaching into the well between the front seats and lifting out the leather satchel containing her crime scene investigation kit, "this shouldn't take too long."

Neal watched, as Emma pushed open the door to Mary Margaret's building, let out a long breath, and leaned back in his seat. He'd been trying to carefully sound Emma out, try to get her to at least try to be open to the possibility that Henry's narrative was more than… the overactive imagination of a kid with issues. He knew that it was going to be a pretty big leap to 'Fairy tales are real and this town is full of people who used to live in them,' never mind, 'Oh, and you're from there, too, and while we're on the subject, so am I,' but he didn't have a clue as to how to even suggest that Emma take a running start at it.

Maybe it was a positive if she was starting to think that Regina was buying into it. She might not think the book was real, but surely, considering that other people might was a good thing, right? Unless it played into her theory about the town being some kind of brainwashing experiment. Neal groaned. He wished he didn't think that that theory was actually more plausible, albeit slightly. Hell, if he didn't know the truth, he might even have agreed with her. Problem was, he did know the truth. Bigger problem was that he knew Emma, and when it came to magic, she didn't have a believing bone in her body.

It would be a hard conversation for him to have with just about anyone, except maybe Henry, but he didn't know how to even start having it with Emma. She'd reject the direct approach out of hand, and so far, his subtle attempts were going clear over her head. There had to be some middle ground, some way of cracking her skepticism, but damned if he knew what it was.

He needed proof. Something more convincing than the clock Henry had mentioned starting to keep time again… or the man Henry had identified as Prince Charming waking up from a coma when Snow White started reading to him… or an earthquake hitting town the day Emma became the town deputy… or… Crud, he could see the proof that was piling up practically by the day, but he also knew if you went in knowing a thing was true, you could more easily pinpoint all the pieces of corroborating evidence. For Emma, there was a rational explanation for every single one of those pieces, and he needed to find something that would shake her out of that complacency! He…

He looked up, as Emma opened the driver-side door and sank down in the seat with a sick expression on her face. "What?" he asked, pushing his ruminations aside, as he took in her too-pale face and her slightly unfocused eyes.

"I found something," Emma said, her voice almost too calm.

"Something," Neal repeated.

"I heard a noise," Emma said dully. "It startled me; I'd just been thinking how quiet it was in there, and then… the heat came on."

"Uh… okay." Neal knew there had to be more.

"The heater… it's that kind where there's a fan in the vent. Which always struck me as weird, because to me, fans are for cooling, not heating, you know?"

She was babbling. "Emma…?"

Emma exhaled. "The fan blade sounded like it was… hitting something. And when I went to the vent, to see what it was, I found…" She unfastened the clasp of the satchel and pulled out a large Ziploc bag. She opened the bug's door again to turn on the cabin light.

Neal's eyes widened. The item in the bag was long, and most of it was wrapped in cloth. However, above the cloth, Neal saw something that he recognized at once. Maybe it wasn't Papa's dagger, but he knew the hilt of a hunting knife when he saw one.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Four

"You're not thinking that she…" Neal's voice trailed off, as Emma shook her head.

"I don't want to," she said. "I-I mean, of all the places to stash a murder weapon, the heating vent is… I mean, why even hold onto it? Wouldn't you chuck it in the lake or bury it in the woods, or something?"

Neal nodded. "Yeah. I would. You probably would, too. Of course, we're a couple of cynical ex-cons."

"Neal."

He held up both his hands, palms out in a placating gesture. "Just playing devil's advocate, okay? I don't believe for one second that Mary Margaret Blanchard is some stone-cold killer. But I do believe that given the right scenario, just about anyone could snap and commit murder. If she'd planned to kill Kathryn, then yes. Unless she was planning to kill again, she'd find some way to dispose of the murder weapon. And even if she was planning to, she'd find a hiding place for it that wouldn't announce its whereabouts every time it got a little too cold indoors. But if it was something unplanned, if she just… snapped somehow… then she might not have been thinking clearly. And if she wasn't thinking clearly, if she panicked, then yeah, I can see her stashing it in the heating vent." He frowned. "Was that the only thing you found?"

Emma blinked. "Why? Isn't it damning enough?"

"No, I mean," he swallowed. "Okay. Was the blade wiped clean?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You dusted for prints?"

"I couldn't find any," Emma said. "The killer probably wore gloves."

"So much for unpremeditated, then," Neal murmured. "I guess a crime lab would still be able to detect blood traces on the knife, at least enough to confirm whether it's actually the murder weapon. Was there blood anywhere?" He asked. "In the apartment, on the stairs, in the hallway…?"

Emma hesitated. "I… I don't know. I didn't see anything in the apartment, but," she frowned, "I sort of stopped looking after I found the knife."

Neal sighed. "Come on."

"What?"

"I know a thing or two about covering tracks, or at least knowing what needs to be covered. Mary Margaret wouldn't."

"I guess I don't either," Emma admitted.

"You didn't spend as much time breaking into other people's houses and cars as I did," Neal pointed out. "Not planning on playing 'Whose Past was Rougher' here, but, well, I think I spent more time on the streets than you did, and as to how I didn't end up in the System, one, where I was living, it wasn't what you'd call thorough. It wasn't that hard to fall through the cracks if you kept under the radar. And two, I learned pretty quick how to stay under that radar, and a lot of that involved learning how to not leave any evidence about what I'd been doing or where I was holed up. So. Do you think that Mary Margaret would know how to do the same, or would you guess she'd get a little sloppy?"

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "So, if she was sloppy, we'll find more proof to tie her to Kathryn's murder, and if we don't, it's either because she's innocent or because she's very good?"

"If she were very good, she wouldn't be hiding the murder weapon in her heating vent."

Emma smiled. "Good point. Okay, you're officially deputized. At least for tonight. Come on."

"If it's official, don't I have to fill out some paperwork?"

"You want to swing by the station, do that, and then come back here?" Emma demanded.

"No."

"Then come on." She grabbed the evidence kit and got out once more. Neal followed.

The loft, Neal noted, didn't look much different than it had the last time he'd been here. Still relatively tidy, though hardly immaculate. Clean, not sterile. It didn't look as though someone had come back here in a panic, casting about frantically for a good place to hide a murder weapon before shoving it in the first out of the way spot she could think of.

Of course, it didn't mean that Mary Margaret couldn't be some sort of cold-blooded killer, but from what Neal had seen of her, he doubted it.

"No sign of blood anyway," Emma said. "I found a couple of hairs that aren't hers, but they aren't Kathryn's either." They were brownish-gold. It would take analysis to confirm it, but Emma thought she had a pretty good idea that they were David's. She'd found them on Mary Margaret's pillow. It didn't prove anything that hadn't already come to light: she'd known that Mary Margaret and David were having a relationship before Kathryn did. Still, if David and Mary Margaret had planned this together… David committing the murder and Mary Margaret helping him dispose of the body (or dispose of most of it, anyway, she thought with gallows humor), and the murder weapon… maybe finding David's hairs here was significant after all. She moved back to the heating vent, and one eyebrow shot up. "You put on those gloves?"

For answer, Neal held up his hands, so that Emma could see that he had, in fact, donned the thin rubber gloves she'd handed him earlier. "Great," she said. "I need a J-lift."

"A what?"

"Kinda like sticky tape with a backing card. Should be in the evidence bag. Pass me one?"

"Found something?" Neal asked, passing her the object she'd requested.

"Not sure," Emma admitted, taking it from him. She used the tape to pick up some tiny red fragments from the frame surrounding the heating vent.

"What's that?"

Emma took out a plastic evidence bag and dropped the object inside. "Not sure," she said again, "but it's not blood. I… think it could be… Tweezers!"

It took Neal a second to realize that she was asking him for them, not describing what she'd found. Once he'd passed them to her, she used them to pick something up from the floor and hold it aloft triumphantly. "Looks like someone broke a nail getting the vent cover off."

"I get the feeling you don't think it was Mary Margaret."

Emma met his gaze with the faint smile that told him that she'd finally found something helpful. "Think back, Neal. When have Mary Margaret's nails ever been long enough to break?" She paused for a moment, thinking. "One sec." She almost ran into the bathroom and yanked out the vanity drawer. "Clear, pale pink, shimmery pink, rosy pink… huh. I don't think I've ever seen her wear lilac, what was she thinking?"

"Find what you were looking for?" Neal asked from behind her.

Emma shook her head. "No, and that's a good thing." She held up the bag once more. "Whoever's this is, they were wearing dark red nail polish. Mary Margaret's all neutral pinks and pastels. So, unless she used the last of her Revlon Vixen," she named a shade she thought she'd seen on a bus shelter advertisement earlier that year, "and tossed the empty bottle but somehow held onto the hunting knife, I'm betting that whoever it was who was messing around at the vent wasn't Mary Margaret."

"Got any suspects?" Neal asked.

Emma sighed. "The obvious one, but I think it's too premature to jump to conclusions." She sighed. "For now, I'll act like I'm convinced by the frame job and treat Mary Margaret like she's our main suspect. But meanwhile, there's another story here and another case we've got to build."

"I'm in," Neal said at once.

"You're my deputy," Emma grinned. "You'd darned well better be."

"Back again, Sheriff?" the crime lab receptionist greeted her pleasantly the next morning.

Emma smiled. "Got something new for analysis," she said, passing over her evidence, now carefully sealed in a manila envelope. "Let me know what you find out."

The receptionist's eyes widened slightly as Emma released the envelope. He'd been unprepared for the weight of the hunting knife. "We'll get right on it," he said. "Should have something for you by tomorrow. Probably not everything; some tests take longer to run, but something."

"Great," Emma said. "Oh, and this, too," she added, passing him a smaller envelope, similarly labeled.

The clerk nodded and turned to his computer. A several moments later, the printer powered on, and two forms shot into the output tray. "Sign here, initial there… And on this one; that's your copy. Thanks, Sheriff. We'll be in touch."

Emma smiled and took the forms.

Emma hated having to tell Mary Margaret what she'd discovered, but she didn't want her friend to be surprised by the evidence against her. The heart in the jewelry box was bad enough, but the potential murder weapon surfacing wasn't helping, and Emma had to admit that she didn't know whether the broken fingernail was going to exonerate her—or whether it even was a fingernail. For all she knew, the crime lab might determine that it was something else entirely. Before she could even mention the latter, Mary Margaret went chalk white. "The heating vent?" she repeated. "Emma, I don't even know where the heating vent in my bedroom is."

Emma sighed. "Well, someone did, and they put a hunting knife in there. I checked for signs of a break in, but there weren't any."

"You don't believe me," Mary Margaret sounded as though she was about to cry.

"Of course I do," Emma assured her. "But what I think doesn't matter. The evidence is piling up by the hour. And while I may have found something that might help, it might not be enough."

"Wait, you found something good?" For the first time, Emma could see hope shining in the schoolteacher's eyes. "What was it?"

Emma hesitated. "I don't know if it's good," she said. "I don't know if it means anything. But whether it means anything or not, right now? You should be thinking about hiring a lawyer."

"An excellent idea," said a calm voice from behind her and Emma started as she spun to face the newcomer.

"Mr. Gold," she said, wondering why she should be surprised. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled. "Offering my legal services."

Okay, that did surprise her. Since when did a shopkeeper have a criminal law degree? "You're a lawyer?"

The curl of his lips turned his smile to a smirk. "Ever wondered why I was so adept at contracts?" He turned to Mary Margaret.

"I've been following the details of your case, Miss Blanchard. And I think you'd be well-advised to bring me on as your counsel."

Mary Margaret eyed him doubtfully. "And why is that?"

Gold shrugged. "Well, because the Sheriff had me arrested for nearly beating a man to death, and I managed to persuade the judge to drop the charges."

Emma fought down a surge of temper. "Asserting your influence isn't what's needed here. We need to find the truth."

"Exerting influence may be exactly what's needed here," Gold countered.

"What's needed here," Emma gritted through clenched teeth, "is for me to do my job."

"Well, no one's stopping you," Gold retorted. "I'm only here to help."

"Enough," Mary Margaret broke in, and they both turned to look at her. "Please go."

Emma eyed Gold once more. "You heard her."

"No," Mary Margaret said nervously. "I was talking to you. Oh, Emma, he's right. I need help. And you need to do your job, or else I'm screwed. So, just please – do your job the best you can, and you'll prove me innocent. Until you do, I need some practical help."

Emma hesitated. "Trust me," Gold said. "This is in Miss Blanchard's best interests."

Emma gave in. "Good luck, Mary Margaret," she said. "I hope your best interests are what he's looking out for."

Stomping out of the office would be childish. She was going to walk calmly to Granny's, have a coffee and a bear claw, and come back in an hour, because that was what mature adults did. Even if they really, seriously wanted to stomp.

Henry was seated in a booth when Emma entered the restaurant, an empty mug in front of him and a concerned look on his face. "Hey," she greeted him.

Henry repeated her greeting half-heartedly and Emma sighed as she sat down. "You know I'm going to help Mary Margaret as best I can, right kid? It's just that right now, my hands are tied."

Henry nodded. "I know, and I know she'll be okay. Good always wins," he added, but Emma noticed that he wasn't smiling when he said it.

"Well, then," she replied, trying to sound cheerful, "there you go." Henry didn't answer. Instead, he ran one of his fingers along the rim of his empty mug. "Henry?" Emma asked. "What's wrong?"

Henry turned worried eyes on her. "It's August," he said finally. "Emma… he knows about my book."

Emma blinked. "Is that all? I mean, I know you're keeping it hidden from Regina, but seriously, kid? You carry it everywhere. Most of the town knows about it by now."

"No," Henry said, his voice moving into a higher register as he continued. "He knows that the stories in it are true! He told me!"

"Henry," Emma said, "I think he was just stringing you along. Sometimes… some people think it's… funny to do that." And if she ran into August anytime soon, she was going to punch him. Or put sugar in his gas tank. Or find some pretext to arrest him or… Oh, hell, she knew damned well she wasn't going to do more than make sure he understood that what he was doing wasn't funny at all!

Henry shook his head. He looked like there was more he wanted to say, but instead, he reached down to the seat beside him, hefted his book onto the table, and flipped it open. "I don't think he was," he said, whispering now. "I think he knows. I think he's going to be part of Operation Cobra."

"Henry…" Emma started to protest. Then, when he looked up from the page, she sighed. "You want another hot cocoa?"

Henry smiled for the first time.

Emma hesitated before pushing open the door to Gold's shop and waited until he'd looked up at the sound of the jangling bell. "Well, well," he greeted her. "Sheriff Swan. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Emma paused for a moment longer. She seriously did not trust this man, but he was Mary Margaret's lawyer. And this might be useful information. And Emma meant to do everything she could to give her friend her best chance in the face of the evidence mounting against her.

"I… uh… found something," she said slowly. "Something that might help your case. Crime lab's running analysis on it now, but if it shows what I think it will, it'll prove that someone else was in Mary Margaret's apartment, messing around with her heating vent."

Gold's eyebrows shot up. "Do tell," he said, leaning a bit closer toward her over the counter.

Emma hesitated only another few seconds before she disclosed her information. "…I don't know whose it is," she admitted. "And it's probably better I don't start making wild guesses before the facts are in. But if we can prove that someone else was in her apartment, someone who had no business being there…"

"Yes," Gold nodded, his voice almost as soft as a whisper. "Indeed. Thank you, Sheriff. You were quite right to bring this to my attention."

"Just trying to be helpful," Emma replied, her lips twitching in a slight smile.

Gold sniffed. "Well, you've certainly been that," he acknowledged, picking up a knickknack from the glass case beneath the counter and making a great show of dusting it off.

After Emma had gone, Rumpelstiltskin smiled. It seemed that Storybrooke's new sheriff was far more thorough that he'd thought, and far more thorough than Regina had expected. His smile dimmed somewhat. Although he'd led Emma and Mary Margaret to believe that he was a lawyer, it was more accurate to state that he had a fair general knowledge of the law, and how it might best be turned to advantage. When it came to the actual workings of a courtroom, he had some general ideas, mostly cobbled together from John Grisham novels and sundry films and television programs.

While such fictional sources needed to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, Rumple knew that as defense counsel for Ms. Blanchard, he was entitled to have access in advance to all of the evidence that the prosecution was going to use to build its case. As far as his understanding went, because his task was to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case, that requirement to share evidence was not reciprocal. It was a moot point, for in the end, Rumple knew, there would be no trial. That did not mean, however, that Sheriff Swan's disclosure was unimportant. For once Ms. Blanchard's innocence was established, there was certain to be an investigation into how the evidence to condemn her had been manufactured in the first place. Rumpelstiltskin could see no advantage at this point in allowing the Evil Queen to know that she'd slipped.

He pulled out his phone. "Ah, Mr. Orvosh. This is Mr. Gold." He frowned. "Yes, of course I've received your rent. That's not the reason for my call." He shook his head, as the evidence lab technician started babbling apologies. "That's quite enough," he said, after a moment. "I'm calling with regard to something that Sheriff Swan left with you this morning. I would presume you're still running tests? Well, perhaps you can answer three questions for me, based on the information you've already uncovered."

He sighed. "No, I realize you're not required to, Mr. Orvosh, but then I'm not required to raise your rent, now that I've authorized that improvement to the property." He paused for a beat. "The deck? It would seem ameliorate the market value. Yes, I thought you'd see it that way. First," he began, "from the evidence submitted, were you able to ascertain whether the items in question were taken from the person of Mary Margaret Blanchard?" He smiled. "Second, were you able to ascertain whether the items in question were taken from Katheryn Nolan?" His smile grew wider. "Third, have you discovered to whom the items do, in fact, belong?" He shook his head and affected a sigh of disappointment. "I suppose that last bit was too much to hope for. Well. You keep running your tests. But when you do obtain your results, I expect you to divulge them to me directly." His voice hardened. "And nobody else." The technician started to protest and Rumple cut him off in mid-sentence. "You know, Mr. Orvosh, there is that clause in the agreement you and I struck for the financing of your car, where it states that I have the right to demand the full principal balance owing at any time, at my discretion. Now, while I would normally be loath to do so, well, that is quite the Miata you're driving, is it not?" He smiled once more. "Splendid. I must thank you for your time and your cooperation, Mr. Orvosh. I bid you good day."

After he'd ended the call, he pocketed his phone with an air of satisfaction and resumed his dusting. It was, of course, entirely possible that he would yet need some favor from Regina, and if so, he could always alert her to the trap being laid for her before it had the chance to snap shut. And if the need for such a favor failed to materialize, well, it seemed that the Evil Queen had, at long last, obtained sufficient rope with which to hang herself.

"It was Regina." Emma nearly spat the words out before she could hang up her jacket in the vestibule later that evening.

Neal, halfway to embracing her, stopped, his eyebrows rising almost comically. "You got the report from the crime lab?"

"No," Emma sighed. "They don't have a match yet, but they were able to confirm that it wasn't Mary Margaret. They're still looking."

"Okay," Neal said, "but… Look, I'm not disagreeing with you. At all. But we've been over this already. From what you've been saying, it definitely sounds like Regina has it out for Mary Margaret—"

"Because she believes Henry's book," Emma deadpanned, and Neal wasn't certain if she was being serious or sarcastic. He shrugged.

"Or because Mary Margaret beat her to the last parking spot once, or her blueberry pie won first prize in the town fair over Regina's."

"Kinda think Regina'd go more for apple," Emma muttered.

"Fair. Anyway, we can't go with a gut feeling. We need proof."

Emma nodded. "I haven't got that yet. It's still circumstantial, but…"

"But?"

"Henry swiped a ring of skeleton keys, o-or duplicate keys, from her office. They had skull-heads on them," she added in an undertone. "And one of them unlocked Mary Margaret's apartment!"

Neal's eyes widened. Then he shook his head. "I'm guessing the others unlocked other houses?"

"Probably," Emma shrugged. "I guess."

"Okay," Neal said. "First thing tomorrow, I'm going to look at installing a combination door lock for this place."

"You think she'd…" Emma stopped. "Of course, she would. I think she probably hates me more than she does Mary Margaret."

"Yeah," Neal said heavily. "But the other thing is… if she's got keys to get into every place in town, it's shady. I don't think it's illegal unless she actually uses them; otherwise every locksmith in the country would be up on charges, but that's the problem. Just her having the keys… it gives her means and opportunity."

"She was Kathryn's best friend. With David having an affair with Mary Margaret… that's motive."

"Yeah. But unless we can prove that she actually used the key, it's still not enough. And even if she did, breaking and entering doesn't prove that she planted the knife or had any intention of framing Mary Margaret. What if she went to the apartment, not to plant evidence, but to hunt for it?"

"What, now she's Nancy Drew?"

"It's not that farfetched. Kathryn, her friend, is missing. She knows that Mary Margaret and David were having an affair. She suspects Mary Margaret wanted Kathryn out of the way, but she also knows that the town sheriff is a friend of Mary Margaret's and doesn't exactly feel the same way about her. What if—and I'm still playing devil's advocate, I know, but what if—Regina feels that going to you with her suspicions is only going to further convince you that Mary Margaret is innocent, because the accusations are coming from her and you don't trust her? What if she felt sure that you'd never believe her without evidence and went looking for it?"

"And she broke her nail on the heating vent, but missed the knife?" Emma asked skeptically.

"Maybe she got there before the knife was planted. Or maybe she saw the knife, tried to retrieve it, broke her nail and realized that if anyone found it, they could use it to place her in the apartment. She looked around for it, didn't find it, panicked, and ran out."

"Somehow, I can't imagine Regina panicking."

"Screwing up majorly can do that," Neal pointed out. "I'm not saying it happened that way. I'm saying that as it stands, there's more than one way to spin the evidence. And that's assuming that the fingernail was actually Regina's."

"Who else's could it be?" Emma asked, wondering aloud. Then she sucked in a breath. "When Kathryn first disappeared, I wondered whether she wasn't faking her abduction to implicate Mary Margaret and maybe David. Well, now a heart has turned up and assuming it's hers—I haven't got the lab report on that yet either—that would seem to put that theory in the trash. But what if I'm discarding it too quickly?"

Neal blinked. "Huh?"

Emma smiled as she went on excitedly, "What if Kathryn was trying to frame her o-or both of them, and something went wrong?" Her jaw dropped as a new idea occurred to her. "Neal… what if it was Kathryn who broke into Mary Margaret's apartment, and someone caught her?"

"You're not thinking Mary Margaret—?"

"No," Emma said. "At least, not on her own. And maybe not at all; she's… really not that great at keeping things secret, from what I've seen. But what if Mary Margaret had given David a key, and what if when Kathryn broke in, David was in the apartment waiting for Mary Margaret to come home. He's strong enough. And he's been having blackouts. Maybe…"

Neal frowned. "Before you get too far ahead of yourself, maybe you ought to check with Mary Margaret. If she didn't give David a key, then…"

"Then we're back to suspecting Regina. Who might not have the only skeleton keys in town." She brought the heels of her hands to her forehead with an exasperated groan. "This is getting more convoluted by the minute, but you're right. I'll ask Mary Margaret about it in the morning."

It had been a long, stressful day, and she found herself nodding off more than once during dinner. When she was done, she mumbled something to Neal about making an early night of it, and promised herself that she'd ask Mary Margaret about the key, first thing in the morning.

Unfortunately, a resolution made when a person is half-asleep isn't always uppermost in their mind when they awaken all too soon. And as it happened, an early morning phone call from the crime lab, followed by another from the D.A.'s office barely five minutes later, quickly pushed any thoughts of the previous evening's conversation completely out of Emma's head.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Five

It was Kathryn's heart. Emma couldn't say that the news came as a surprise, but damn, she'd hoped that there was some other explanation. Right. Some other explanation for a heart in a jewelry box. Sure. Maybe Disney was filming a live action remake of Snow White around here, and they needed a (totally realistic-looking) prop heart for the huntsman to present to the queen, and it had somehow fallen out the back of the truck when they were done filming for the day. Of course.

She suspected that the only reason her mind had gone there was because Henry kept bringing up Snow White every chance he got. Meanwhile, the results were in, Kathryn was dead, and her heart had turned up in Mary Margaret's jewelry box—a detail that definitely disproved the movie theory. Emma sighed. She was going to have to break it to Mary Margaret this morning.

"What about the hair and the fingernail?" she'd asked.

"We matched the hairs to David Nolan," the answer came. "Still running tests on the fingernail. Unfortunately, we don't have everyone's DNA on record."

Emma frowned. "But you have everyone's fingerprints?"

"Well, not everybody, of course," the technician replied. "Obviously, we have records for anyone brought in on criminal charges. Also, teachers and other educational personnel, caregivers…"

The technician continued his recitation, but Emma's mind was already elsewhere. Mandatory fingerprinting for teachers certainly explained why Mary Margaret's fingerprints would be on file. "Thanks," she said, interrupting him. "Let me know if anything else turns up."

The next call, which came almost as soon as she'd hung up the phone, was from the DA's office. "Tomorrow morning?" she repeated. She knew about the right to a speedy trial and all, but she hadn't thought that it would be that speedy. Mary Margaret's arraignment was less than twenty-four hours away. From there, she would be sent out of Storybrooke to stand trial in a matter of days!

She had to talk to her. Even if Gold didn't want her to have more contact with Mary Margaret than absolutely necessary, there were some things that Emma knew she'd rather hear from a friend.

But first, she was going to stop off at Granny's and get her a decent breakfast.

Mary Margaret was already looking miserable when Emma showed up at the sheriff station with a short stack of pancakes and a side of sausage for her breakfast. Her face fell still further when Emma told her that the DNA of the heart Ruby had found was a match for Kathryn's. "All this evidence tells me one thing for certain," she continued. "That you are being framed. And I think Regina's behind it."

"Then why am I still in here?" Mary Margaret demanded. "Why don't you confront her?"

Emma sighed. "Because belief isn't proof. If I can find evidence to support my belief, that'll be a different story." Mary Margaret started to protest and Emma barreled on, "If I don't do this right, things will end up worse for you. Every time I've gone up against Regina, she's seen it coming, and I've lost."

"So, what makes this time any different?" Mary Margaret asked skeptically.

Emma smiled. "Because, this time, she doesn't know I suspect anything."

"Why would she do this to me?" Mary Margaret asked, sounding as though she might be about to cry.

"I don't know," Emma admitted, "but I'm going to find out. And I promise, I won't stop until I expose what she's up to."

Mary Margaret tilted her head to one side. "And how are you going to do that?" she demanded. "This is her town."

"I'm working on it," Emma said. "I have faith in you. And now, I need you to have faith in me." Mary Margaret was clutching the bars of her cell with both hands. Emma covered one of them with her own. "Can you do that?" she asked.

"Of course," Mary Margaret said, but Emma could tell that she didn't. Not quite. Not really. Not that Emma blamed her for it, but it still pained her. "Sorry," she said. "I know it's a rough start to a lousy day—"

Mary Margaret laughed bitterly. "You told David he and I could have a few minutes alone?" she asked.

Emma frowned. "Yeah, he asked me this morning while I was waiting in line at Granny's." Truth was, she'd ordered the short stack and sausage instead of opting for a muffin or sandwich in order to give them a bit of extra time, after putting a quick call through to the custodian to let him know to let David in. (She'd hired Winston Blythe on Leroy's recommendation, and so far, she hadn't been disappointed. Blythe might like happy hour at Granny's a little too much, but happy hour ran from five to seven, and he came in to clean the station in the early morning, long after he'd sobered up.)

"Yeah, well, if he asks you again, tell him 'no'," Mary Margaret sighed. "Last I looked, 'cruel and unusual punishment' was still forbidden under the Eighth Amendment."

"Ouch," Emma murmured. "That bad?"

Mary Margaret sighed. "Worse…" She squeezed Emma's hand tightly as she went on to elaborate.

Emma was still seething in sympathy for Mary Margaret when she stepped into Gold's shop. The schoolteacher needed more friends around her now, and David joining the ranks of the accusers when he'd so recently been under suspicion himself was a new low. Especially, Emma thought to herself, if Kathryn's murder really was a two-person job. Emma had absolutely no sympathy for people who let their partners take the rap for their crimes while they escaped justice. She wouldn't want to stay with a person like that and she had nothing but respect for Mary Margaret for feeling the same way.

For a moment, Emma considered that David might genuinely not remember if he'd colluded with Mary Margaret, but then she remembered how Ruby had described him when she'd stumbled on him down at the toll bridge. You didn't plan a murder when you were sleepwalking. Maybe you could carry one out, but not to the extent of overpowering a victim, dragging her away from her car, and either carving out her heart or holding her still so someone else could. No. Maybe David was innocent, but if he was involved, then he'd known what he was doing.

Of course, if he was guilty, well, there weren't very many people out there who could fool her lie detector, but if he believed he was telling the truth, then that was a different story.

What the hell was she thinking? For David not to know if he was a murderer, he needed to have some… pretty serious mental health issues—which wouldn't preclude his being a murderer, but you'd think she'd have noticed! Well either that, or some sort of self-hypnosis, but that was… insa—Sorry, Archie, she thought quickly, and drew her focus back to the purpose of her mission.

Gold wasn't behind the counter, but when Emma called his name, he came in at once from the back room. "Just taking inventory," he greeted her. "What can I do for you, Miss Swan? Any developments in the case I should be aware of?"

Emma took a breath. "Bad news, I'm afraid. The heart Ruby found was Kathryn's." She looked at Gold, carefully gauging his expression for signs of concern, but his face
betrayed nothing as he gave a slight nod. She took another breath. "I still haven't had the results from the crime lab on the fingernail," she continued, "but I know. She's being set up." Whether by Regina, David, or the both of them somehow remained to be seen, but she knew Mary Margaret was innocent.

Gold snorted at that, and now he did smile. "And this surprises you?" he scoffed. "Show me evidence, and we'll get this over with immediately."

Emma sighed. "Yeah, well, that's the thing. So far, there isn't any. I'm hoping the lab report will change that, but until it comes back…" Her voice hardened. "But even if it doesn't," she went on, "Mary Margaret didn't do it. I know that now."

His thin smile broadened and Emma thought she saw a glint of approval in his eyes. "Look who's suddenly become a woman of faith." His eyes narrowed. "Why are you here, Miss Swan? To spin conspiracy theories?"

Emma took another breath. "I need help."

"From me?"

His voice was way too innocent, but Emma bit back the acid retort she wanted to make and pushed on. "Every time I've gone up against Regina," she admitted, "I've lost. Except for once, when I became Sheriff. When you helped." She didn't really believe that David had anything to do with this, apart from being a lousy friend after the fact, which wasn't a crime even if it felt like it ought to be. Besides, if he was involved, Emma didn't think it would be nearly as hard to bring him to account as it would be Regina.

"As I recall," Gold pointed out, "you don't exactly approve of my methods."

She didn't, but that was beside the point. "I approve of your results," she said. "And this time, I have something more important than a job. I need to save my friend."

Gold met her eyes with an intense gaze. "And you're willing to go as far as it takes?" he pressed.

Emma didn't blink. "Farther."

Gold's smile was back and it was even wider. "Now we're talking. Fear not, Miss Swan. Powerful forces may be at work in this town, but something tells me you're more powerful than you know."

After leaving the shop, Emma headed out on patrol. Driving always calmed her nerves, and with everything that had been happening recently, she needed to relax. She found herself driving down quiet residential streets, and off to the farms that dotted the outskirts, even checking out the cannery. After she was sure she'd driven up and down every inch of Storybrooke at least twice, and some areas more, she stopped off for dinner at Granny's.

The supper rush was in full swing when she got there and it was dark before she stepped out of the diner and back into her car. Her route home took her past the sheriff's station. On impulse, she turned into the lot. Now that Gold had agreed to help her, she was hopeful that this whole sorry incident would be over soon, and that Mary Margaret would be exonerated. And while she didn't have any concrete details to share, with her friend facing arraignment in the morning, Emma thought that she might try to buck up her spirits. She doubted Mary Margaret was getting much sleep tonight.

As she exited, she saw a black Cadillac pull into the spot behind her. Face expressionless, she watched as Gold got out. "I suppose great minds think alike, Miss Swan," he greeted her."

"Excuse me?"

Gold shrugged. "Miss Blanchard is my client. I presume that you're here to bolster her spirits, just as I am."

Emma hesitated only for a moment before sighing. "Okay, you got that right," she admitted, bristling at his too-knowing smile.

"Well, then," Gold said pleasantly, stretching out his arm as though to usher her into the station. "Shall we?"

Neal was relaxing in front of the television, watching an old episode of Hardcastle and McCormick when his cellphone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and smiled. "Hey, gorgeous," he greeted her. "Coming home soon?"

"You still wanna be deputized?" Emma asked, clearly in no mood for gentle flirtation.

Neal turned off the TV. "If you need me out there, sure. What's up?"

"Mary Margaret's gone," Emma replied.

Neal shook his head in confusion. "You mean, they've already moved her to county? I thought the arraignment was going to be here."

"It is," Emma said. "But she's not. Her cell's empty."

"She's running," Neal realized. He took a breath. "Sit tight; I'm on my way."

"Good thing I got club sandwich trios for supper," Emma sighed. "If you make it to the station in the next few minutes, your fries'll probably still be warm."

He was there in less than fifteen minutes to find Emma leaning against the wall by the empty cell. "Anyone else know she's gone?" he asked.

Emma sighed. "Henry and Gold."

"What?"

She sighed again. "I stopped by to check on her and found Henry waiting for me. He thought," she rolled her eyes ceiling-ward, "I helped her escape. And in case you need to hear it from me," she added, "no, I didn't."

"I believe you," Neal said at once. "What about Gold?"

"She's his client," Emma reminded him. "He was going to talk with her about the arraignment."

"And she wasn't there when you came in."

"She wasn't here when we came in," Emma repeated. "The arraignment's at eight tomorrow morning. If we don't find her by then…"

"She'll be screwed," Neal finished.

"Yeah, and if we're caught helping her—either of us, but especially me—we'll be, too."

"We gonna let that stop us?" Neal asked, his tone casual.

"Hell, no," Emma retorted. "I'd rather lose my job than my friend."

Neal grinned. "Just making sure we're still on the same page."

Emma's answering smile was fainter, but it was tinged with relief. "Our best, and her best chance, is still convincing her to come back and—"

"—trust the system?"

Her smile dropped. "I wish you hadn't put it that way." She shook her head. "I wish I wasn't part of the system."

"But that puts you in a position to help her, right? I mean, help her within the system."

"I hope so," Emma said. "But with all the evidence coming in, there's not a whole lot I can do. Not legally."

"Well…" Neal said, "You can always officially undeputize me. That'll give me a little more leeway, if I find her."

For a moment, Emma's smile returned. Then her expression hardened again. "It's a nice idea," she admitted, "but we can't go that route. No," she went on. "You take Herbie. I'll take the squad car. You're better with the woods than I am, so you cover everything west of Main Street; I'll go east toward the ocean. The plan has to be to try to convince her to come back and face the music." She winced. "I don't see her lasting long out there as a fugitive."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Neal," Emma continued. "If you're going to help, we've got to do this by the book. I don't want to find out later that you smuggled her out of town or something."

"You won't," Neal assured her. "I get you."

He waited for her tight smile of comprehension. He might still help Mary Margaret escape, but if he did, he was going to make damned sure that Emma didn't find out about it!

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, Neal reflected, as he drove through Storybrooke's wilderness park. He didn't really expect Mary Margaret to stick to the road; if she had any sense, she'd take one of the hiking trails, where a car couldn't go. If it had been him, he would have left the trail entirely, opting to take his chances in the thick undergrowth, but if Mary Margaret didn't know how to get her bearings, she'd likely wander in circles, and if she didn't know how to hunt or forage, her best bet would be to find her way to Route Six and follow it out of town. At least, if she was thinking rationally, and not running scared.

The trees were clustered thickly and it was a foggy night. After a few more moments, Neal sighed and pulled over to the side of the road. Taking a flashlight from the glove compartment, he got out and stooped to examine the side of the road. He wasn't surprised that he found no tracks. He waved the light upwards, checking whet the vegetation had been in any way disturbed. He didn't believe so, but it was hard to tell. He proceeded on foot, pausing every few steps to see if anything looked amiss.

So intent was he on his task, that he didn't realize the tree he'd slapped his hand on wasn't a tree until it emitted a startled grunt and toppled. Unprepared for his support to give way, Neal barely had time to process that he'd just inadvertently shoved a man over the edge of a gully before he tumbled down after him, instinctively flinging up an arm to protect his eyes from the twigs that beat at his face and snapped off as he crashed through them.

"Are you all right?"

Neal groaned and opened his eyes to the anxious face of a man in his mid-thirties, who was bending over him. He tried to move his limbs gingerly, noting almost in passing that he seemed to be lying on hard ground, with a tree root pressed uncomfortably into his back. After a moment, he grunted and managed to sit up. "Nothing seems broken," he said. "I'll probably ache tomorrow." His flashlight hadn't gone out when he'd fallen, making it easy to spot barely a foot away. He reached for it and flicked it off to conserve the battery.

The man chuckled. "I guess I'll feel the same way," he said. "Though the fact that I broke your fall may make me feel better about it."

In a rush, Neal realized why he'd awakened outdoors, flat on his back, and was currently sitting on the forest floor in the middle of the night. "I am so sorry," he said. "I-I didn't realize anyone else was out here and I thought I was leaning on a tree and…"

"At six feet tall, I get that a lot," his companion said easily. "No real harm done. What are you doing out here at this time of night, anyway." Before Neal could answer, the man's eyes widened. "Hey. You're the sheriff's… husband?"

"Not yet," Neal said easily. He thought fast. Obviously, the fewer people who knew that Mary Margaret was on the run the better. He couldn't tell this guy the truth. But what other reason could he have for being on foot in the woods? There shouldn't be much in this area besides trees and wild animals. A memory surfaced in his mind. He'd been in Alaska when Emma had first come here. And when she'd been driving back to Boston… "We had someone call into the station about a wolf in the area. I'm… kind of the outdoorsy type, so Emma asked me if I wouldn't mind checking it out."

"A wolf?" the man repeated. "And you're out here alone?"

"Yeah, well, it's probably someone letting their German shepherd off-leash in the area for a run. Even if it's not," he shrugged, "most wolves are pretty shy of humans, unless the human does something stupid like feeding them regularly, or getting between a mama wolf and her cubs. Anyway, I wasn't planning to confront one; I was just seeing if I could find any tracks or… scat or something."

"At night?"

"I've got a day job." He held out his hand. "Neal Cassidy."

The man took it. "Jefferson."

"That a first name or a last name?"

"It's…" Jefferson stopped. "Here. Let me help you u—Oof!" He staggered and dropped to one knee.

"You're hurt," Neal exclaimed, scuttling over to examine his new friend's leg.

"I just landed wrong when I hit," Jefferson groaned. "I don't think it's serious." He struggled to rise, gasped, and sank back down.

"Better let me help you up," Neal said, making sure that he looked at the tree trunk before using it to brace himself this time, just in case. Once he was standing, he held out his arm to Jefferson once more. "I'm only parked a couple of hundred yards from here," he said, turning on the flashlight again and noting with relief that the ground was sloping upwards gently only a few yards from where they'd fallen. Getting back to the road wasn't going to be difficult at all. "I can give you a lift to wherever you were going."

Jefferson sighed. "I don't live far from here, but much as I want to think I could probably tough it out on my own," he winced, "I'm not really that stoic. Thanks."

"Turn here," Jefferson directed, and Neal's eyes widened as he took in the enormous mansion looming before him. "Who else lives here with you?" he asked.

A shadow seemed to pass over Jefferson's face. "Nobody," he said, as Neal parked on the side of the drive. "It's just me."

Maybe Neal only imagined the note of bitterness in his companion's voice. "Better let me get you inside, then," he said, already getting out of the car.

"Thanks," Jefferson said, leaning heavily on Neal, as they made their way up the walk and then up the stone stairs to the front door.

Once they were inside, Jefferson invited Neal to have a seat. "I don't know about you," he went on, heading for another door at the opposite end of the room, "but I could do with some tea."

"Want some help?" Neal asked, starting to get up. "If your ankle's twisted, you should probably be resting…" His voice trailed off. Jefferson wasn't limping now. In fact, his step, as he moved across the sitting room, was quite spry.

Jefferson turned to face him and his smile seemed to freeze. He took a step toward Neal, affecting to totter and bent over slightly, his hands sliding under his jacket as he gripped his midsection. Then he straightened and shook his head sheepishly. "Oops," he said. "Guess you caught me."

"Huh?" Neal's eyes grew wide as he realized that Jefferson's right hand now gripped a tiny handgun. Beretta 3032 Tomcat, his brain supplied automatically. He might not be able to carry a gun, but in his work as a bounty hunter, he'd made a bit of a study of them. "What the hell—?"

"This would have been a lot easier if you'd just drunk my tea," Jefferson said evenly. "But since you didn't…" His voice hardened. "On your feet. Keep your hands where I can see them. Now, we're going to walk upstairs, nice and slow."

"You're making a huge mistake," Neal said, as he moved to comply. "I'm not just Emma's fiancé; I'm her deputy. Once I miss a check-in, she's going to come looking for me."

Jefferson chuckled. And then, in a voice that though soft, still succeeded in chilling Neal to the bone, he replied, "That's what I'm counting on."

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Six

"I didn't know she had a deputy," Jefferson went on, speaking calmly as they headed for the stairs. "I thought it'd be her tonight. But when you tumbled into my lap… or onto my back, well, never let it be said I can't improvise."

"Tonight?" Neal repeated. "You thought she'd come… tonight?"

"Keep moving. Oh, and don't try anything stupid, like pretending to trip on the stairs. If you do anything other than walk straight ahead, I will drop you."

"Touchy, aren't we?" Neal remarked, but he swallowed as he carefully placed one hand on the bannister.

"To answer your question, yes I did think she'd come tonight. Second door on the right," he added, as Neal reached the top of the stairs. "Don't open it until I tell you. You see, Neal Cassidy…" he drew a step closer and poked the muzzle of the Beretta into his back, while resting his free hand on Neal's shoulder, "Okay, turn the knob."

Neal did, and his eyes went wide, as he heard a muffled cry from within.

"…I do believe I've found that wolf you were worried about."

It had been an hour. Emma pulled over on a stretch of road that ran parallel to the beach and called Neal. She wasn't overly concerned when the call went to voice mail; Herbie predated cell phones, so of course he didn't have a hands-free option and it wasn't exactly great optics for the sheriff's SO to be caught talking on his phone while driving.

"Hey, I'm just checking in. I'm a mile past the cannery and so far, nothing. Let me know if you're having better luck. Love you."

She ended the call and waited ten minutes for a response before starting the car again. It didn't come. Now, she began to feel the faintest twinge of worry, but she pushed it away. If Neal was checking out the woods, phone coverage could be spotty. He might not have charged his cell recently. He could have turned it off; he did that sometimes when he didn't know the area and didn't want to be distracted. She drove along the road for another five minutes before she hit the fork that would take her back to the main part of town. She could do with a coffee and, with any luck, Neal would have the same idea right about now and they'd meet up in the line at Granny's.

Seeing Mary Margaret bound to a chair, her eyes wide with terror above the gag in her mouth sent Neal's thoughts into a whirlwind. They'd been so caught up in figuring out what had happened to Kathryn that they hadn't even thought to wonder about the kind of person who'd carve out their victim's heart and put it in a jewelry box as a grisly trophy. Normal killers didn't do stuff like that, but a serial killer might.

He spun to face Jefferson. "It was you, wasn't it? First you murdered Kathryn, now you've abducted Mary Margaret to…" He didn't finish his sentence. Mary Margaret was frightened enough. Still, he couldn't help thinking, And after that… am I next?

Mary Margaret whimpered. And for the first time, Jefferson's poise faltered. "I haven't killed anyone," he said quickly. "And if you do as you're told," his voice turned steely once more, "I'll keep it that way. Now. You're going to take out your phone. You're going to call the sheriff. And you're going to tell her that you've found someone she needs to talk to. You'll deliver that message, word for word, and then you'll end the call. Do that," he smiled tightly, "and maybe you both live to see sunrise. You try anything stupid, you say anything else, no matter how innocuous and," he leveled the gun and pointed it at Mary Margaret, whose eyes grew even rounder as she struggled in her bonds.

"Okay, okay," Neal said, fighting to keep his voice calm. "Don't hurt her. I'll call Emma." He cautiously reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

Jefferson shook his head. "Not yet. Give it to me."

"What?"

"Hand it over," Jefferson repeated. "I wanted you to understand how important it is that you follow my instructions. That's why I had to bring you upstairs. But having you alert and active is a liability. So now," he said, turning the gun back to Neal, "I want you to open that door on the left and walk inside."

Hesitantly, Neal pulled open the door and found that it led to a closet.

"Inside," Jefferson repeated. "When you first came in, I offered you a cup of tea. I'm going downstairs to get it ready for you; you're sure to be thirsty after talking on the phone. After you've delivered my message to the sheriff, you'll drink it. I promise you it won't do anything worse than put you to sleep for an hour or so."

"What about Emma?" Neal demanded.

"I won't hurt her," Jefferson said. "You have my word."

"For all that's worth."

"You also don't have a choice," Jefferson reminded him. "There's something I need, something only she can accomplish. I was hoping that her friend's safety would suffice to ensure her cooperation, and perhaps it will, but if hers won't," he shrugged, "now I have you."

"Then let Mary Margaret go," Neal said. "You don't need two hostages."

Jefferson shook his head. "As sensible as that sounds," he said, "I found her yards from the town line and aiming to cross over. And while I don't expect you to understand this, believe me when I say that it's in her best interest that she doesn't."

"You've been talking to Henry," Neal murmured.

"The queen's father?" Jefferson asked, startled. "I haven't seen him since I got here."

Neal tried not to let his own surprise show. "Henry Mills. The mayor's adopted kid. My son."

"Oh, that Henry," Jefferson smiled. "With his book of stories that aren't quite as fictitious as you think. If you knew what I know, you'd see that for yourself." His voice hardened. "Inside. Now."

As Neal obeyed, he took a deep breath and blurted, "What makes you think I don't?"

He was rewarded with a chuckle. "Nice try," Jefferson said, shutting the closet door behind him. A moment later, a key turned in the lock and his captor's retreating footsteps told him that he and Mary Margaret were alone in the room.

The hinges were on the other side of the door. Neal fumbled blindly in the tight, dark space, made tighter by the garment bags and wool coats at his back, as his mind went through the possibilities. He could wait for Jefferson to show up. Odds were, he wouldn't be able to handle the gun, unlock the door, hand Neal the phone, and force him to down a cup of tea; the guy only had two hands!

Two hands, and another hostage tied to a chair. Neal wouldn't be able to risk rushing him when the door opened. Not if it might mean the gun going off and Mary Margaret's getting hurt or worse. He pulled out his wallet and opened it, running his fingers over the thin edges of his credit cards. He wished he had more light; any card he used would be destroyed with what he was about to do, and he wasn't sure how he'd be able to get Visa or Amex to mail a replacement to a town that didn't officially exist. Of course, if Jefferson was lying about the tea being harmless, replacing a credit card was going to be the least of his worries.

He tugged out a card at the back of the wallet and brushed his fingertips over its face. Smooth, he noted. Credit cards were embossed. He should be able to sacrifice this one. He wedged the card into the crack between door and jamb, right where the bolt ought to have been. It wasn't a deadbolt, he thought with relief. It shouldn't have been; closet doors seldom were, but Neal wouldn't have put it past this guy to have put one in. He forced the card onto the slanted side of the bolt with one hand, and turned the knob with the other. It took a moment, but the latch bolt did slide across the card and the door opened.

Neal exhaled and glanced at the piece of plastic in his hand. MTA CharlieCard, he smiled. Yeah, he didn't imagine he was going to be using Boston transit anytime soon!

Mary Margaret's back was to him and the school teacher seemed to be slumped forward. Neal wondered whether she was asleep, but as he moved to untie her she sat up straight with a stifled gasp. "Easy," he whispered. "It's me. Neal. Hold still, I gotta work fast."

As soon as her hands were free, she loosened her own gag and sighed in relief. Then she tensed once more. "He'll be coming back," she whispered. "We have to get out of here!"

Neal shook his head. "I don't think we can get out of the house," he said regretfully. "He knows this turf; we don't. The odds of our getting out the door and into the car are…" He frowned, thinking. "Okay," he said, as the last of the ropes fell away. "Into the closet."

"What?"

"Into the closet. Try to get behind the coats and stuff. With any luck, he won't think to look there. And if you hear a gun go off, you stay where you are, understand?" His voice was grim. "If he gets the drop on me, he probably won't want a witness. You can't let him know you're still here. Whatever happens to me, you try to lie low until you hear him go out again, then run. Got it?"

Mary Margaret swallowed hard and nodded.

They heard a tread on the stair and both froze. "Closet," Neal ordered. "Get in as far as you can; I'm right behind you. Now!"

As soon as they were both inside, Neal shut the door and gripped the inside knob tightly, hoping that Jefferson wouldn't notice that the lock had been tampered with. It was only a few seconds later that they both heard him step into the room.

Almost at once, the air was punctuated by a muffled oath. Then a key clicked in the lock of the already unlocked door and Neal waited until he felt the knob start to turn before he released it. Jefferson, gun in one hand and Neal's phone in the other stared at him wild-eyed.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

Neal tilted his head. "How the hell would I know?" he countered.

"It's all unraveling," Jefferson muttered, seeming to be thinking out loud rather than talking to Neal. "It won't work. She has to get it to work!"

"What?"

Jefferson pressed the phone into Neal's hand. Then, he yanked him out of the closet and shoved the nose of the pistol into his back. "Move," he commanded, propelling Neal toward the chair Mary Margaret had vacated. "Sit. Now call the sheriff. You remember what you have to tell her?"

Neal nodded. "That I've got someone here she has to talk to." He frowned. "Where's… here?"

"Three-sixteen Shaughnessy Drive," Jefferson told him quickly. "She asks anything else, you tell her it's a long story and you'll explain when she gets here. You deviate from that script one iota, you even give me reason to suspect you're trying to warn her, and I will take the head shot. If you're lucky," he added, "it'll kill you. Then again, I've never tried firing this on a live person before. I've been told that the brain's a tricky thing. Depending on where the bullet goes in, you might end up paralyzed… brain damaged… comatose… And what if there's still a part of you that knows what you lost and who you used to be, and it's screaming inside you that it wants to come out, but it can't?"

Neal tried to keep his face impassive, but his hands went cold and he was sure that Mary Margaret could hear his swallow from the back of the closet. "I understand," he said slowly. His mouth was dry, but he wasn't going to ask for water; who knew what this guy was going to put in it?

Jefferson smiled. "All right then," he nodded toward the phone. "Call her."

Neal wasn't at Granny's, and he still hadn't answered her message. Emma was starting to worry, just a little. She was just about to call him again when her phone rang. As she looked at the Caller ID, a smile sprang to her lips. "Hey," she said, answering. "Find anything?"

"Sort of," Neal's voice was calm, but there was a tension underlying it that told Emma that he was holding back. "I've found someone here that you need to talk to. I'm on Shaughnessy Drive, number… uh…" There was a pause and then another voice spoke in the background.

"Three… one… six."

"Three one six," Neal repeated. "Come now."

"Why not just give him the phone?" Emma asked. "I'll talk to him."

"It's more that there's something he needs to show you," Neal said.

His voice was still calm, Emma noted. A puzzled frown creased her face. Why wouldn't he sound calm? "Neal? Everything okay?"

"Sure," he replied, but without the cheerful laugh that usually came through in their phone conversations. Instead, there was just this supernal, almost flat calm. Emma's mind flashed on that one time when they'd gone for a picnic in Round Mountain Park, back in Arizona and come across a western diamondback.

Emma, I want you to listen carefully. Most snakes won't bother you if you don't get too close. Now, I want you to slowly step backwards. Okay, good. Now another step. Another one…

There had been that same eerie, careful calm in his tone then that she was hearing now. "Neal?"

"You need to come here," he said again flatly. "I'll see you soon. Love you."

The connection ended. Emma stared at her phone. She'd never thought that hearing Neal tell her he loved her could sound so… off. He was in trouble and she was probably walking into a trap.

Or maybe Mary Margaret got the drop on him, and she's holding him at gunpoint. A terrified person with a deadly weapon? Yeah, that'd probably get him sounding like he'd just found another snake… But then, who the hell was that other voice in the background?

She hadn't recognized it. She didn't think it had been David's—unless he'd been trying to disguise it. It would have made sense if it had been. If Mary Margaret and David had conspired to murder Kathryn, or David had helped her escape and Neal had surprised them trying to leave town... Maybe Mary Margaret had cooked up that story about David's hurtful accusation, just to make it look like they weren't working together.

She wasn't lying, though. My superpower confirmed that much, but even without it, Mary Margaret's a terrible liar.

It wasn't a lie if David had actually said those words, though. But would either of those two have thought to fool her superpower that way? Emma frowned, trying to remember if she'd ever mentioned that talent to either Mary Margaret or David. Then she realized that it didn't necessarily matter if she had. Henry knew about it, and while Henry could keep secrets, he was a kid, he often wore his emotions on his sleeve, and if he didn't think that her superpower was a secret, he could have told it to either of them in passing.

The night of the party, he tried to 'prove' David was Prince Charming by asking him if he'd ever used a sword! He's not exactly subtle.

Emma grimaced. Then, she pushed back her chair from the table and got up to leave. Right now, Neal was in trouble, and whether the reason behind it was Mary Margaret, David, or some other player, she wouldn't find answers just sitting on her ass.

She'd been in Storybrooke long enough to know that something was weird about this place. Maybe she was closer to figuring out what it was than she thought. Maybe this was the part where she finally got to meet the person—or the people—responsible!

Either way, she was going. And she was going to be as wary and on her guard as Neal had been when they'd seen that rattlesnake!

"All right," Neal said. "I did what you asked. She's on her way."

Jefferson nodded. "So it would seem. And," he added, "for your sake, I'd hope so. Right. Arms on the armrests." As soon as Neal had complied, he reached into his pocket with his left hand, keeping the gun trained on Neal with his right. A second later, he frowned, and stooped slightly to the right, as he dug deeper into the pocket.

Neal saw his chance. Surging to his feet, he gripped the gun barrel, moving sideways as he delivered a blow to Jefferson's wrist with the side of his hand. Caught off-balance, Jefferson fell to the ground. He started to rise, but fell back when he realized that his own gun was now trained on him. He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay," Neal said. "Get up. Nice and slow."

"You don't understand," Jefferson said, making no effort to rise. "If she can't get it to work, I'll never get my daughter back!"

"And you thought kidnapping was the way to go?" Neal demanded. "Emma and I are bounty hunters. Bailbondspeople. Or at least, we were before she got the sheriff gig. Finding people is what we do and these days, we don't even charge for it!"

"She's not lost!" Jefferson protested, reaching for the chair. Maybe he only meant to use it to help him stand, but Neal shook his head.

"Uh-uh. Use the wall."

Obediently, Jefferson scuttled backwards on the palms of his hands and the soles of his boots. "What I mean is," he said as he moved, "she's only lost to me. I mean… I know where she is. But I can't get to her. I can watch her… day in, day out… happy with her new family. She doesn't remember who I am."

Neal frowned. "Look, if CPS took her, I'm not sure Emma or I can help. You don't need cops; you need a lawyer."

"No!" Jefferson cried. Bracing one hand on the wall, he struggled to his feet. "It's not CPS. It's the Curse! The Curse tore my daughter from me and made her forget that we were ever a family. And it let me remember. I need the Savior because she's the only one who can get it to work!"

The pleading in his voice almost made Neal falter. He'd heard that level of desperation before and he knew the lengths to which it could push a person. No, Jefferson wasn't about to become the next Dark One, but Neal suspected that he might have considered it, had it been an option here. And knowing what his father had become out of that self-same level of desperation wiped out the sympathy he'd been feeling. "Get what to work?" he snapped. "You aren't making sense?"

Jefferson hesitated. "Come with me and I'll show you."

"Okay," Neal said, exhaling. "But walk slow, keep your hands where I can see them, and no funny business."

It was nearly a full five minutes before Mary Margaret dared to emerge from the closet. She made her way to the window, opened it and peered outside. A gust of cold air blew her short hair back and chilled her through her wool coat. Then she looked down and began to shiver all the more. She couldn't—

She had no choice. It was the window, or the front door and she couldn't assume that Jefferson wouldn't be able to overpower Neal and take back his gun.

Never mind that she was now a fugitive and Neal had just called Emma—the sheriff—and told her to come here. She had to get out of here while she still could! She tried to look down, but it was dark and she couldn't tell how far it was. She was on the second floor, but what if the back of the house was up against the edge of a ravine?

If she didn't want to find herself tied to a chair or locked in a cell, she had no choice. She had to risk it. It was probably better that she couldn't see how high up she was. She swallowed hard. The window was wide enough for her to fit through, at least she thought it was. Bracing her hands on the window sill, she pulled herself up. For a moment, she sat on the sill, her legs dangling in the night air. Then, she slid to her left, bracing her side on the window frame. She rested a tentative palm on the exterior wall and felt flaky bark on narrow dry branches. In the summer, Mary Margaret thought, this house was probably covered with leafy vines, but it was too early in the year for that now. Meanwhile, she thought—she hoped—that the branches would take her weight.

Taking hold of one of the thicker branches with one hand, she slid off the window sill. As she started to drop, she instinctively slammed her free hand against the wall, fighting the urge to scream. It slapped against more dry branches. Hardly daring to breathe, she cautiously slid one foot upward, pressing the toe of her shoe against the side of the house until she found a toehold. It took another long minute before she was able to find purchase for her other shoe. She'd done it! She was safe; as safe as she could be outside a second story window. Now… now, she just had to get down.

It probably wasn't more than sixteen feet from the window sill to the ground, but it seemed like forever before Mary Margaret's shoes sank onto damp earth. By then, there were slivers of bark embedded in the palms of her hands, there were bits of twigs in her hair, and her coat had acquired bits and pieces of both—and likely left behind more than one tuft of purplish wool.

Still, Mary Margaret thought, as she stole away from the grounds and made her way cautiously down the road, she'd done it! She was still free. She wasn't far from the town line. Not more than a mile or two, and then…

A Cadillac Brougham sped past her, swerved, and came to a stop several yards ahead, blocking her path. The passenger-side window rolled down, and a familiar face leaned toward her.

"Going somewhere, Dearie?" Mr. Gold asked with a faint smirk.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Seven

"So," Neal said evenly, keeping the gun trained on Jefferson, "since Henry's book isn't the fiction everyone says it is, who are you?"

Jefferson chuckled. "I don't know that I'm in it. I've worn many hats in my time: adventurer, thief, mushroom seller, father… But I never slew a dragon or fought an ogre. I didn't make my fortune with a talking cat or get cursed to be a frog until a beautiful princess kissed me. I'm Jefferson, and the Queen's Curse neither stole away my memories nor changed my name. That's my curse," he added bitterly.

"Why?" Neal asked. "If the Curse gave everyone else false memories, why would it spare you?"

"It didn't," Jefferson laughed bitterly. "It just didn't take away the truth. I have two sets of memories and that, my dear deputy, is more than sufficient to drive any man mad, especially one who was already more than halfway there to start with."

"Explain," Neal said.

"In here," Jefferson said, motioning to a closed door. "I need to open it."

"Okay," Neal said, watching closely.

"I've been trying to find a way to get home for twenty-eight years," Jefferson said, turning the knob and pulling the door open. "Unfortunately, that path has eluded me. I'm hoping the Savior will have better luck, because if she can't get it to work…" He flicked the light switch and Neal's eyes widened. "…Then my Grace and I can't ever be together again."

Storybrooke wasn't on Google Maps. Storybrooke wasn't on any map. Normally, Emma found that annoying. She'd watched enough Gilligan's Island reruns to accept that there might still be some 'uncharted desert isles' left, but how the hell did you have an uncharted coastal town in New England? She'd read somewhere that cartographers sometimes stuck nonexistent town on maps—paper towns, as they were called—almost like a watermark so that they could prove it if someone copied their work illegally. Storybrooke was practically the reverse situation.

Unfortunately, Emma wasn't entirely sure where Shaughnessy Drive was. At this hour, there were few cars on the road and no pedestrians walking in this part of town. Neal's message had unnerved her. She didn't really know that he was in trouble. Maybe the person who he wanted her to talk to was just really nervous and Neal had been trying not to spook him. Maybe she'd read too much into his tone and her imagination was running wild.

She considered. She didn't really fancy turning on her police lights and frightening some poor motorist when she only wanted to ask for directions. Regina would have a field day ranting about 'abuse of police powers' or something, if the person she stopped turned out to be the kind of person to lodge a complaint with the municipal government. Not to mention that if Regina asked her to explain why she'd been looking for the street in the first place, Mary Margaret's escape was likely to come out. Emma was still hoping that she could find her friend and convince her to return before anyone was the wiser. She gritted her teeth. She was already in a hole, here, and she definitely didn't mean to dig herself in any deeper!

She pulled over to call Neal and ask for directions, and shook her head when the call went to voicemail. It figured. And now she was getting worried again. Think. That whole super-calm tone he was using? He was using it because he didn't want me to panic. I have to stay calm or I might just drive past the right street sign without noticing it. It's not like I haven't checked the town out before; I know I've passed Shaughnessy Drive before. I just can't remember where! She heaved a sigh and started driving again. Sooner or later, she'd either find Shaughnessy Drive, or she'd find someone on the road that she had legitimate grounds to pull over. And if they could point her in the right direction, she'd be happy to forgo writing a citation and let them off with a warning!

"M-Mister Gold," Mary Margaret stammered. "I-I was only… I mean… I mean, it's not what it looks like. I…"

"You're taking your daily exercise in the dead of night with neither police escort nor ankle monitor?" Gold asked dryly. The car door opened. "Inside."

Mary Margaret obeyed unthinkingly. "I… I…"

Her lawyer shook his head. "Where are you running off to, dearie?" he asked gently.

"I don't know," Mary Margaret admitted. "Out of town, I guess."

"And then?"

"I…" She shook her head. "I haven't thought that far ahead."

Gold sighed. "If I might offer some advice, to you—not as a lawyer, but, as a…" he caught her raised eyebrow and smiled self-consciously. "Well, as someone who's had to run a time or two in his life, there is a marked distinction between running away from a place and running toward one. In the case of the latter, one ceases to run once one reaches one's goal. In the case of the former, however, the running never stops. Dearie," he continued softly, "is that truly what you wish for yourself?"

Mary Margaret shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Everyone believes I killed Kathryn. Everyone knows I was having an affair with David. Last week, I couldn't get more than two people to volunteer to raise money for the convent. This week, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a mob clamoring for my head outside the sheriff's station complete with torches and pitchforks!"

"Ever stop to think that it might have had more to do with the convent than the candles?" Gold asked mildly. He chuckled at her expression. "Just trying to buck up your spirits. And I scarcely think that everyone believes the worst of you. I certainly don't. And I doubt that the sheriff or her significant other is quite ready to pillory you either. Likely not young Henry, for that matter."

"That's four," Mary Margaret said glumly. "And even you're not sure about three of them." She lowered her eyes and when she raised them again, there was a spark of anger in them.

"David asked me if I had anything to do with her murder. David!"

"After you supported him when he was accused."

"Yes!"

Gold shook his head sadly. "It always hurts when those we trusted betrayed us. Were I in your place, I daresay I might have had much the same response. Somehow, though, I did think you were made of sterner stuff."

Mary Margaret blinked. "Why?" she asked in genuine surprise. "I'm not a hero or a-a leader or anything. I'm a schoolteacher!"

"Yes," Gold nodded. "A shaper of young minds. That's a task that requires a certain strength of character; one I've never doubted you possessed. Until now."

"That's not fair!" Mary Margaret protested. "My life is a shambles, I'm about to be arraigned for a crime I didn't commit, most people think I did it and considering that Kathryn's heart turned up in my jewelry box and the murder weapon in my apartment, if I didn't know better, I'd think I did too!"

"Ah, but you do know better," Gold returned. "And so do I."

"And the arraignment is tomorrow."

"An arraignment is not a trial," Gold pointed out. "And unless you're able to foresee the future, you can't say what the outcome will be."

"Maybe I can't foresee it," Mary Margaret countered glumly, "but it's looking pretty predictable from where I'm sitting."

"Oh, come now," Gold chortled. "Surely you've not lost all hope?"

Something seemed to register on the schoolteacher's face and she flinched. "It's funny," she said slowly. "I always have seemed to hope. For love… success… a happy ending." She snorted. "Fat chance of that happening now, I guess."

"I wouldn't give up on a happy ending quite yet, dearie," Gold said with a soft smile. "After all, there's hardly any guarantee of happiness at any other point in the story. Perhaps you just need to hold on until you're past the middle, hmm?" Seeing Mary Margaret's skeptical look, he shrugged. "Well. I've said my piece. As your attorney, I can hardly counsel you to break the law. I can only assure you that, well, I'll be at the sheriff's station in…" he looked at his watch, "…precisely eight hours and fifteen minutes." He smiled at her confused look. "It's currently eleven thirty-five. Your arraignment is at eight. It would hardly do for me to come bustling in at the last moment. Now. If you're there waiting for me, we'll proceed as though this incident never transpired. And if you're not, well," a touch of sadness crept into his smile and a wistful note into his voice, "I hope you'll at least consider having some destination in mind. It truly is better that way." He sighed. "Well," he said again, "Well. I suppose you'd best be off. It'll take you some time to get where you're going, particularly as I'm sure you'll be taking pains not to be spotted by anyone else. Whichever decision you make," he continued, still smiling, "I'm sure it'll be the right one." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Whatever it is. Good night."

Mary Margaret eyed him searchingly for a long moment. Then she leaned over and opened the door. "G-good night, Mr. Gold," she said, casting apprehensive glances in all directions before she stepped out. "A-and thank you."

"You're the Mad Hatter," Neal breathed. "Wait. Alice in Wonderland wasn't in Henry's book."

Jefferson shrugged. "I would imagine that just like anything else, when you're crafting a story, a fair bit gets edited out," he gestured toward the scraps of fabric that littered the ground, "left on the cutting room floor." He frowned. "Just how is it that you're so quick to accept what every sane person dismisses?"

Neal smirked. "You're assuming I'm sane." Seeing Jefferson's irritated look, he sobered. "Let's just say," he continued carefully, "that there's enough going on here for me to think that there's a chance Henry could be onto something. I'm not ready to swear to it, but I'm not ruling it out either. So, convince me."

"You're already convinced or you wouldn't have recognized me."

"I recognize who you believe you are," Neal said, lifting up a top hat from a display head on one of the shelves. "I'm not saying you're right. Not saying you're wrong either. Just… need more to work with."

"Yes, well if your sweetheart does what I require of her, you'll have it," Jefferson returned. "It would be better if she does what she's meant to for everyone, but I'm self-centered enough to be satisfied if she helps me. The rest of the town can keep on as it is; once my Grace and I are free of it, I don't much care." He glared at the old-fashioned cuckoo clock on the wall. "How long does it take for her to get here?"

"Want me to call her again?" Neal offered.

"Probably a good idea," Jefferson nodded, and Neal pulled out his phone. He had to take his eyes off Jefferson to turn it on and bring up his contact list. He was pretty sure he knew Emma's cell number by heart, but it was so much easier to just press her name on his touchscreen.

"I don't know if she'll be able to pick up," he admitted. "If she's dri—"

The scuffing of a boot made him look up, just in time to see Jefferson charging toward him, a wicked pair of sewing shears thrust out before him like a dirk knife.

"No way," Emma muttered, when she realized where the lights she'd seen through the trees on the road had been coming from. "Have I been driving in circles?" Sighing, she pulled into the parking lot of Granny's Bed and Breakfast. Would you like a forest view or a square view? Emma heard Mrs. Lucas's voice clearly in her mind asking her that question, the night she'd decided not to drive back to Boston after all. Naturally, if you could see the forest from the motel, there was a pretty good chance you could see the motel from the forest.

She parked the car and headed up the steps, hoping that they hadn't locked up for the night. Based on her past experience, front desk clerks and gas station attendants could almost invariably be counted upon to give good directions!

It wasn't the first time someone had come at him with a blade, and Neal would lay odds that this time, he didn't need to worry about dreamshade. Still, the techniques he'd learned in Neverland for disarming an assailant without getting himself stabbed—or nicked—in the process were still hardwired into his reflexes and it was no time at all before Jefferson was on the ground, Neal's knee on his chest, his elbow on Jefferson's wrist, and the shears lying harmlessly several inches out of Jefferson's reach. "Want to try again?" Neal demanded, pressing down hard with his knee.

Jefferson grunted and shook his head.

"What the hell was that about? I'm trying to help you, dude! Or at least, I was," he added. "Before you tried to kill me!"

"I wasn't trying to kill you," Jefferson gasped. "Just incapacitate you until she gets here." He grunted again and Neal eased up the pressure somewhat reluctantly. "I already lost half the leverage I thought I had; I couldn't risk your walking out of here before she gets it to work."

"Gets what to work?" Neal demanded in exasperation. "What is this place—some kind of… of hat-making sweatshop?"

"It's a workshop," Jefferson managed. "All for the purpose of creating one, very special hat."

"Keep talking."

"I'm a portal jumper. I need the Savior to craft me a working hat. In this land, she's the only one with a chance of being able to do so!"

"The savior?" Neal blinked. "You used that term earlier. Are you talking about Emma?"

"Don't play the fool with me," Jefferson snapped. "You know who she is; I can tell. And yes. This is a land without magic, but the Curse is magic and the Savior is the only one who can break it. That makes her the only person in this land with magic and magic is what it will take to get my portal to work!"

"Portal," Neal repeated.

"My hat! But I can't get it to come out right. Only she can. And she must!"

"Jefferson," Neal said carefully, "Emma doesn't have magi—Ooof!" All at once, Neal found himself on his back and incapacitated. Jefferson quickly reached into Neal's pocket and retrieved the small handgun.

"Well," the hatter said grimly as he trained the gun on Neal once more, "for your sake and mine, you'd best hope she finds some."

Mr. Gold sat in his Cadillac for a long time after Mary Margaret Blanchard had disappeared into the night. The frightened spinner he'd once been was berating him for not offering more reassurance to a fugitive on the run. He was no stranger to terror and alienation. He had a fairly decent idea of the thoughts that were doubtless running through her head.

On the other hand, he could hardly have told her that Kathryn Nolan was alive, well, and shut up in the basement of 115 West 10th Street, a Nantucket-style heritage house that was currently uninhabited. He'd been trying to unload that white elephant for close to thirty years, he thought with dry humor, though his inability to do so was proving useful now.

At any rate, Mary Margaret was hardly in any real danger. When the right time came, Gold knew that he would produce Kathryn Nolan and the schoolteacher would walk free, exonerated in the eyes of all. Unless, of course, she'd decided to do something foolish like cross the town line of her own volition now.

Gold fervently hoped that she had not. He doubted that the Curse would allow it; something was bound to happen that would force her to turn back before she stepped over. While he didn't imagine that the 'something' would be lethal, once the schoolteacher had made use of the key Regina had slipped into her cell, he'd taken it upon himself to give her a gentle nudge in the right direction. Or, at least, the direction he wanted her to take.

A wry smile spread his lips. Ms. Blanchard would be fine. After all, she was a Hero. That sort always did manage to triumph in the end.

It had been fortunate that he'd decided to call on his client this evening, or at least, to see whether she'd made use of the skeleton key that Regina had planted in her cell. Had he not done so, he wouldn't have ventured out in the night, this close to the town line, in order to ensure that matters didn't get too far out of hand. Now, however, he had one more errand to run. He glanced over his shoulder at the to-go box from Granny's in the back seat. Kathryn would be waking up in less than an hour, if he'd calculated the proper dosage of sedatives in her last meal. He needed to ensure that the food behind him would be waiting for her—and similarly doctored—when she did.

He turned his key in the ignition, sent a brief look skyward as though Fate was up there reading his mind, and commenced the drive back into town.

"You're not going to do anything," Neal said quietly, as Jefferson roped him to a chair. "Emma knows I'm here now and she's definitely not going to help you if I'm dead."

"I'm not going to kill you," Jefferson sighed. "Not unless she—or you—leave me no choice."

Neal shook his head. "I've known killers. Tracked a couple. You're not that type."

"As a rule," Jefferson said, "you're probably right. But everyone has a breaking point and after twenty-eight years of watching my daughter living her life in someone else's home, happy, laughing, totally unaware that those aren't her real parents and I'm barely ten minutes away and she's completely forgotten me?" His voice had been rising in pitch and volume as he spoke and now, it was nearly a shriek. "I'll do what I have to."

"No," Neal said, his voice clear and confident. "You won't."

The doorbell rang then, and Jefferson caught up a cloth handkerchief, brought the square's opposite corners together, and began rolling it into a gag. "And what makes you so certain of that?" he asked, leaning over to press the fabric between Neal's lips.

For answer, Neal brought his hands up to Jefferson's neck, a loop of rope still dangling from one wrist. "Because…" he grunted, "I know a thing or two about creating slack in a cord!"

Jefferson's eyes bulged and he brought his hands to Neal's forearms trying to loosen them. Then, all at once he went limp. Neal froze. He didn't really want to kill the guy after all! "Hey," he said, relaxing his grip slightly. "Hey," he slapped Jefferson's face lightly. "You okay?"

Jefferson groaned. His eyelids fluttered open. And then, without warning, he swung his fist directly into Neal's eye. Neal roared and stumbled back, releasing him as he crashed into the chair. The chair toppled over, and Neal toppled on top of it. He struggled to his feet, only to see Jefferson climbing onto the broad window sill. "Hold it!" he yelled, charging for the window.

Jefferson looked at him, and then out the window at the drop below. And then, without a word, he jumped!

Neal sprang for the window, even though he knew he was too slow to reach his target. He looked down with a puzzled frown. With all of those branches… you'd think he'd have heard something, but Jefferson seemed to have vanished into thin air. Well, that, or he was clinging to those vines outside, Neal thought, still frowning.

The doorbell rang again and he hurried downstairs to let Emma in.

Emma turned off her flashlight and shook her head. "Nobody came down here," she said. "The ground's muddy and there aren't any footprints. Plus," she turned on the light again and panned it over the tangled vines, "if anyone had climbed down, I'm pretty sure they'd have disturbed a few tendrils."

"Could he have climbed back inside through a first story window?" Neal suggested.

"Through the security bars?" Emma asked skeptically, and Neal gave her a rueful smile.

"Sorry. Wasn't thinking," he admitted.

"Yeah, well, sounds like you got a little shaken up. Are you sure it was this window?" she asked. "Because over there, where the light's on… someone did make it down. I found footprints. There's crime scene tape in the car. We should—"

"Don't bother," Neal said. "It wasn't him."

"How do you know?"

"Because that's the room where he was holding Mary Margaret."

Emma blinked. "You didn't tell me she was here."

"I was gonna. Sorta got distracted by the guy with the gun who almost stabbed me with a scissors and was going to give me some drugged tea. Anyway, he nabbed her, too. I untied her and told her to hide until the coast was clear." He sighed. "Looks like she either thought it was or didn't want to wait around for the cops to show up."

"You're the cops, too."

"I didn't tell her that."

"So she's back on the run," Emma sighed.

Neal nodded. "Do we keep looking?"

"No," Emma said. "As close as we are to the town line, if she meant to cross it, she's got to be long gone by now. I'll… head back to the sheriff's station and see what the procedure is for alerting state troopers; there's probably some… code or… id number I have to give them or something."

"Now?"

Emma pointed to the sky, where the sun was now climbing. "It's already almost seven. There's no point in going home. If Mary Margaret's running, she's a fugitive and it's time to involve other law enforcement agencies. And as much as I wish I didn't have to, if I don't follow protocols, then any chance I've got at saving my job goes out the window."

Neal swallowed. "We could always forget about playing cops and go back to Boston," he suggested in a tone that made it clear he wasn't serious about it.

"Not like this," Emma said. "Not if it means losing Henry. Not if it's because I failed. Not if it means letting Regina win."

Neal sighed. "Well, it's a good thing our rent is cheap and I've still got my day job, then," he said. "C'mon. I won't let you face the mayor alone."

"You mean I need some big, strong, guy to protect me?"

"You don't need anyone to protect you," Neal said seriously. "But if you want some support…"

Emma's somber expression lightened briefly. "I can always use some of that," she admitted. "Let's head back to town."

"You know," Neal said, as Emma slammed her car door shut, "I could go after her. I mean, just because you've got to deal with law enforcement in town—"

"Until Regi—I mean, everyone else—finds out that she got away on my watch—"

"Which isn't your fault."

Emma shook her head. "C'mon, Neal. We're bounty hunters. We find people."

"Typically, it takes us longer than eight hours to do it."

"And typically, the person in custody isn't a friend. Because Mary Margaret is, it complicates things. Regina could make a case that I let my personal feelings interfere with my ability to do the job, and I don't even know if she's wrong!"

"Unless you left her cell door unlocked…"

Emma shook her head uncertainly. "I don't think I did, but I know she's not guilty. What if I subconsciously…"

Neal put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. You didn't. And even if you did, that doesn't make her any less a fugitive."

"No, but it does make me negligent," Emma said, pushing open the door to the sheriff station. She sighed heavily. "Looks like I didn't lock this door before we tore off looking for her," she pointed out.

"I could comment on the benefits of locking the barn door after the horse is gone," Neal murmured. "But in any case, doesn't that cleaner come in after hours? Sounds to me like he's the one who forgot to lock up."

A wave of relief washed over Emma and she smiled at him. "You're right," she said, just as a Mercedes pulled into the lot.

Emma forced herself to smile as Regina emerged from the car and made her way toward the entrance. "Good morning, Sheriff," the mayor greeted Emma, nodding pleasantly toward Neal. "Cutting things a bit close timewise, aren't we?" She pushed past the two of them without waiting for an answer and proceeded down the hall. As soon as she stepped inside the main office, she stopped short.

In her cell, Mary Margaret lowered the morning newspaper calmly and greeted Regina with a smile. "Madame Mayor."

"Good morning," Regina returned calmly, as Mr. Gold stepped forward. His smile was polite, but carried just a hint of smugness.

"Excuse me," he said, "but my client isn't having any visitors."

"Of course not," Regina returned, still eyeing Mary Margaret.

Gold offered to see her out, leaving Emma and Neal alone with Mary Margaret.

"I'm… glad to see you," Emma admitted.

Mary Margaret nodded apologetically. "Emma, I know I shouldn't have, but I was so scared and I felt trapped, and I wasn't thinking and then I found—"

"Hey," Emma said, holding up her hands. "Save it. It's okay. You panicked, you calmed down, you came to your senses… I'm just glad you came back before things got too out of hand. We've got this. Okay?"

Mary Margaret exhaled and nodded. "Okay," she said, but despite her brave face, Emma could hear the doubt in her voice.

Neal was smothering a yawn as he and Emma arrived back at the house. "Adrenaline high's fading," he murmured. "I feel like I'm about ready to crash."

"I'm tired too," Emma said. "But glad Mary Margaret decided to come back before things really got… complicated."

"Yeah." Neal rubbed at his eyes. "I'm just going to let Marco know I can't make it in this morning. Probably not a good idea for me to be operating power tools today. You going back to the station later?"

"Yeah, probably," Emma replied. "I want to stop by the school and catch Henry at lunch, first, though."

"You mean without risking a confrontation with Regina."

Emma shook her head. "If Regina wants a confrontation, she's usually got a pretty good idea of where to find me. This town isn't all that big and, since I can't exactly knock on her door and ask if Henry can come out to play, she knows there's a decent chance that if he's not with her, he's with me. No, I…" She took a breath. "I do want to spend time with him, but I'm hoping he'll let me borrow his book again for a while."

Neal came wide awake almost at once. "His book?" he repeated. "Why?"

"Because there's more to it than meets the eye," Emma said.

"You think so," Neal said carefully, a wild hope beginning to surge within. If she was starting to believe that, then maybe she might be able to wrap her head around the truth of his past.

"Sure," Emma went on, oblivious to what Neal was thinking. "I mean, Regina doesn't want him to have it. Mary Margaret gave it to him and suddenly her life's been turned upside down. There's a stranger in town who's telling him that the stories in it are true, and last night, you just met a guy who was telling you the same thing."

"And you're starting to believe it, too," Neal said, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

Emma shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous. I don't know who my parents are, but I'm pretty sure they're not Snow White and Prince Charming."

"Then…?"

"Henry's book may not be real, but all the same there's something weird going on in this town. I don't if it's mind control, or brainwashing, or if this whole place is some sort of top-secret research base and everyone here is putting on some… show to keep me from finding out the truth, but somehow Henry's book is in the middle of it all. Maybe if I read it through more carefully, I'll find a clue to the key that'll crack this whole thing wide open!"

She hugged him. "Go on, get some sleep. I'm going to head over to Granny's for coffee; all we've got here is instant and I think I could use her cold brew." She kissed him. "Sweet dreams."

Neal watched her go with a smile that dropped as soon as the front door closed behind her. Emma's little speech had just jolted him awake far more effectively than any cold brewed coffee ever could have managed. Sooner or later, he knew, she was going to find out the truth, but until she came to that point on her own, there was no freaking way that he could tell her about his past. Once he did…

Once he did, it wouldn't matter that he'd only kept it from her because he'd known she wouldn't have believed it. Emma would never forgive—or trust—him again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Eight

Despite his misgivings, Neal was exhausted, and it wasn't long before sleep claimed him. By the time he opened his eyes, the noonday sun was bright in his eyes. Four hours and a bit weren't nearly long enough, but Neal got up anyway, dressed, and made himself a cup of coffee. He slapped a couple of pieces of American cheese between two slices of buttered bread and put them in the microwave for half a minute.

There was a message from Marco telling him not to make a habit out of 'these late nights' and to be there at seven tomorrow morning, but there was a cheerful note underlying the gravity of the handyman's tone that bespoke more tolerance than irritation. Neal still felt bad about it, though; far worse than he'd felt about stealing those watches from that other boss all those years back. He'd get an early night tonight, he promised himself, and tomorrow he'd make sure he was on Marco's doorstep at a quarter to seven.

His resolution made, Neal sat down to his lunchtime breakfast, and thought about what to do with his day. When he was done, he got his jacket and headed down to the sheriff's station.

Emma wasn't there, but Mary Margaret called out a friendly greeting from the confines of the holding cell. Neal turned and stepped closer. "Wasn't sure I'd see you back here," he admitted.

Mary Margaret took no offense. "I wasn't sure I'd be back here. Or," a shadow seemed to fall over her face, "well… earlier last night, before you came, I wasn't sure if I'd be anywhere today."

"Yeah," Neal said softly. "How are you holding up?"

Mary Margaret seemed to give the question serious thought. "I'm not sure," she said thoughtfully. "Last night, everything seemed to be crashing down around me, people I thought I could rely on…well, one person anyway," she amended, lowering her eyes, "were accusing me, and as much as Emma was saying she was on my side, she wasn't helping me, and then I found the key in my cell and—"

"Wait," Neal cut her off. "You found a key?"

Mary Margaret nodded. "I-I thought maybe Emma had put it there, because she knew I was innocent and it was the only way she could help me." She winced. "Stupid, right?"

"No," Neal said. "Not stupid, but not Emma either. Where's the key, now?"

"I lost it in the woods," Mary Margaret admitted. "Okay, I chucked it. Even if Emma had helped me escape, I knew other people were going to come after me and if they found the key on me, there would be questions about how I got it and if it was Emma… even if it wasn't Emma, I didn't want anyone to get in trouble for helping me."

Neal nodded. "I hear you. Like I said, it wasn't Emma, though it does beg the question: who else would have had a key to your cell?"

Mary Margaret frowned. "I don't know," she said slowly. "That… that is an excellent question."

Neal didn't need Emma's talent to know that the schoolteacher was telling the truth. "Mary Margaret?" he asked quietly. "Why did you come back? You weren't more than a mile or so from the town line; twenty minutes of walking and you'd have been past it. It must've taken you more than three times as long to get back into town and we both know you didn't do it."

"Thank you," Mary Margaret said, smiling for the first time since they'd started talking. "I think I needed to hear that. And to answer your question… it was Mr. Gold."

Neal blinked. He hadn't been expecting that answer. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he found me after I escaped and we talked and… I realized I didn't want to spend my whole life running away from my life. So I came back to face it."

Neal sucked in a breath. "What exactly did he say to you?" he asked, wondering whether she could hear him over the sound of his own heart pounding.

Mary Margaret hesitated. "I'm not sure I remember everything, she said slowly, "but he said something about having had to run a time or two himself and how it made a difference whether you were running from a thing or towards one…"

Neal wasn't sure how he managed to keep his composure until he was out of the station and back in his car. If Mary Margaret's memory was as good as it had sounded, then… Then Neal didn't know what to think. Oh, Papa probably had some agenda; he'd wanted Mary Margaret to come back… But if he had her in the car, why didn't he just lock the doors and drive her back? Maybe he couldn't have dragged her inside, kicking and screaming, but according to Emma, he was there when she found Mary Margaret's cell empty; they both knew she was a fugitive. All he had to do was call Emma. Or the sheriff station, if he didn't have her direct cell. So, why hadn't he? Why had he given Mary Margaret a-a pep talk that, from the little bit he'd learned long ago in the Enchanted Forest and the bit more he knew now after having read parts of Henry's book, could just as easily have been one Papa might have wished someone else had given him?

It didn't sound like advice that one would expect to hear coming from the Dark One.

Plus, if Henry was right about 'bad things' happening to people who tried to leave, Papa might just have saved Mary Margaret's life.

Sure, he had an agenda. He had to. But for the first time, Neal found himself asking, 'So what?' Papa had still saved her. If someone made a big donation for a tax write-off or to see their name on a donor plaque instead of—or in addition to—the worthiness of the cause, would it have been better for them to keep the money because the motivation wasn't entirely pure?

Of course, if Papa had saved her to set her up for something worse, then that was different, but had he?

Neal didn't know, but for the first time in a long time, he found himself thinking about what might happen if he were to seek Papa out and tell him who he was. He wasn't planning to. He reminded himself firmly that Papa could have come to this land with him, but had chosen his power over his son. He reminded himself that no matter how long ago that had been, no matter how many regrets Papa might nurse, it was still Papa's fault for letting go. He reminded himself that he was still angry.

The problem was that he didn't really feel angry anymore. At least, not as angry.

And he was still thinking about telling Papa.

He was still thinking about it the following morning, when he woke up early, ready to make up for leaving Marco short-handed the previous day. Emma was still in bed, but she'd left Henry's book on the kitchen table. Neal reached for it, flipped it open, and started turning the pages.

His eyebrows shot up. Jefferson was in the book. His face pulled into a frown. Jefferson might be in there, but not as the Mad Hatter. It looked as though he'd been working for Papa. He breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't disclosed his identity to the man last night. As desperate as Jefferson was to get free of this realm, Neal had no doubt that he would have sought Papa out and tried to cut a deal. Something along the lines of safe passage for himself and his daughter in exchange for sure knowledge of Neal's whereabouts.

Despite his ruminations yesterday, Neal was very glad that Jefferson couldn't make that deal. He might be toying with the idea of letting Papa know who he was, but if he was about to do so, it would be at a time and place of his own choice. He kept reading and let out a low whistle. He wasn't nearly as… opportunistic as his father could be. All the same, he had to admit that knowing that Jefferson had more than one reason to oppose the Evil Queen just might prove useful at some point.

For now, though, unless he wanted to risk letting Jefferson guess his identity, he intended to give that mansion near the town line as wide a berth as he possibly could.

Rumpelstiltskin watched the sleeping woman dispassionately. Her breathing was slow and regular. Her clothing was mussed and filthy, her hair hadn't seen a brush in days, and she seemed far paler than she should have been for having been indoors for less than a week.

He drew closer to check her pulse and was relieved to find it strong. Her survival was non-negotiable, and while he hadn't believed her to be much the worse for wear after her abduction, there was always the risk that she'd react badly to the sedative with which he was dosing her food, or that she'd sustained some injury he hadn't yet detected. Thus far, however, all was well. His gaze fell on the tray of food, nearly half of it still there. If that was all she was eating, he might need to increase the dosage, lest she awaken to soon. He didn't believe she'd be able to escape the confines of this cellar, however he would prefer to forgo being assaulted, in the event that she attempted to escape by overpowering him.

In the end, though, he decided against it. If all the food she had available was drugged, then it didn't matter if she ate half of it, fell asleep, and ate the other half when she awakened. He brought his hands to his face to assure himself that the woolen muffler was still securely wound about it from nose to chin. Dark sunglasses and a blue parka, its hood pulled forward, served to further conceal his features. That the jacket was far removed from his usual sartorial choices was an added benefit.

He quickly collected Kathryn's unfinished meal and set another, fresher one down its place, together with a bottle of water. Then he made his way upstairs.

As he padded carefully along the bamboo hardwood floor, he felt a slight pang of irritation that the Curse had given him that pink monstrosity, instead of this classic Nantucket-style home. Although he did own it, and could move in here quite legally, if he so chose, he knew Regina wasn't the only person in town who was awake. She'd forced him to reveal himself with that chipped cup, but the fewer people who knew he wasn't bumbling about blind and clueless, the better. He didn't want to deal with Jefferson popping in to plead with him to restore his daughter to him. (It would happen sooner rather than later, if the Savior ever stopped dawdling and did as she was meant to. For now, though, he was quite unable to do as the one-time portal jumper desired—and he much preferred it when those about him didn't realize how powerless he truly was.)

He could handle Jefferson, if it came to it, though. The Snow Queen was another matter entirely. He was not about to confront her until such time as the Curse broke and he'd retrieved the potion from where it had been stashed for safekeeping nearly three decades ago.

For now, it was better if both of them presumed him to be asleep still, and for that reason, he was going to return home to his far-too-pink domicile, at least, for the time being.

One day, though, he thought with a thin smile, as he let himself out the back way, he rather thought that this house would be a fitting home for the Dark One. For now, though, there were other matters that required his attention.

Neal was driving to Mr. Clarke's to pick up an emergency roll of duct tape, when he spied Emma coming out of Granny's up the street. He slowed, looking for a parking spot, when he saw David Nolan hurry up to her. From the slump of David's shoulders when he walked away a moment later, Neal imagined that Emma hadn't told him anything he wanted to hear, but he waited until Emma was alone again before approaching her.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Emma replied, greeting him with a smile and kiss.

"Everything okay?" Neal asked, jerking his head in the direction in which David was retreating.

Emma shook her head. "He was looking for an update on Mary Margaret I'm not sure he's entitle to," she said heavily. There was a buzzing sound from her pocket and she pulled out her phone. One eyebrow shot up.

"Trouble?"

"Gold," Emma said. "Which… usually turns out to be the same thing," she added.

Neal sniffed. "You've noticed," he said, keeping his tone light. "What does he want?"

"A pretrial meeting with the prosecutor," Emma said.

Neal frowned. "Since when does he need your permission for that?"

"And Mary Margaret," Emma continued. "How does that even make sense?"

"You're going to turn him down?"

Emma shook her head. "Not my place. Like it or not, he's her lawyer, he's supposedly acting in her best interests, and it's her call." She sighed. "Of course, she doesn't get to make that call if he can't talk to her. I have to get back to the station to let him in. Want to come?"

Neal shook his head. "I have to pick up some duct tape and get back to work. Hey," he added. "Don't let him sweet-talk you into doing anything you don't feel right about, you got me?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah. Call me when you're done with work. Maybe we'll go out for dinner."

"You got it."

Several hours later, Emma was still asking herself how Gold could have thought that a meeting with the prosecutor—a smarmy guy named Alfred Spencer, who reminded her a little too much of Ross Anderson—would be a good idea. She'd had a ringside seat so that she'd been able to watch him rip Mary Margaret to shreds. To make matters worse, Regina had been sitting right beside her when he had.

It was enough to make her want to hurl the vase of flowers that Sidney had brought in that morning against the wall, but she wasn't about to let Regina see her lose her temper. It could wait.

She'd been a bit taken aback when he'd brought in the flowers, reminding him that she was currently in a relationship. He'd stammered and mumbled something apologetic about his not being able to find anything to incriminate Regina, and she'd played along and pretended she believed he wasn't still deep in the mayor's pockets. If he thought that she was buying his pack of lies, he wouldn't feel the need to act sneakier. At least, that was the theory.

Now, alone in the office, she was still asking herself why he'd brought them. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe this was just 'small town hospitality'. Maybe. All the same, she rose to her feet, picked up the vase, carefully brought it into the bathroom, lifted out the flowers, pressed down on the stopper, and tilted the remaining contents into the sink.

She was only mildly surprised when a small round device, not unlike the one she'd planted in Regina's office some weeks ago, poured out with the water. "Sonofabitch," she murmured. Then, just in case someone was listening on the other end at that moment, she added a few more choice words, ending with an angry, "And I hope you rot in hell, Alfred Spencer!" Then she went back into the main office, picked up a Lucite paperweight, carried it into the bathroom, and flung it—hard—against the wall.

Emma wasn't about to lie: that had felt good. She took several deep, calming breaths. Then she refilled the vase, replaced both flowers and bug, and left the vase in the bathroom. The next time she wanted to send Sidney or Regina on some wild goose chase, she'd have the perfect way to do so. Meanwhile, the bug could stay in here, where the only conversations it would pick up would be the ones she meant it to!

The crime lab still didn't have a report on the finger nail or the polish she'd found in Mary Margaret's loft. The feeling of catharsis that had washed over her evaporated with that bit of news. Through the Plexiglas walls of her inner office, she saw Mary Margaret sitting slumped in her holding cell and couldn't bear to see her friend's hopelessness and have nothing to say that might lift it. She'd told Mary Margaret to trust her, and now Emma couldn't say that Mary Margaret was better off for it.

Suddenly, she felt like she couldn't be at the station for another minute. She grabbed her jacket. She'd brought Henry's book to work with her today, and she scooped that up too, as she all but sprinted for the door. Her car was in the lot, but while a drive might be relaxing, Emma felt that a good brisk walk might do her more good. A sea breeze blew back her hair and she welcomed its bracing chill. Gritting her teeth, she walked into the breeze, letting it blow through her clothes as she headed towards its source.

August found her at the pier an hour later, while she was rifling through the book's pages. The stories were… unconventional, but fairy tale retellings were kind of a thing—even if they weren't her thing. (Well, not usually her thing; if you twisted her arm hard enough, you could probably get her to confess that she'd enjoyed Ever After a great deal more than she'd thought she would. There was something deeply satisfying about a Cinderella who didn't need to be rescued by her handsome prince, and even got to rescue him for a change.) Unfortunately, these stories weren't being especially helpful right now. Henry seemed to act as though the book held all the answers to what was going on in his life and, even though she'd known it was silly, this afternoon, Emma had been desperate enough to look inside it for herself. So far, she was coming up empty.

"What you doing?" August asked, after he'd observed her for several minutes.

Emma glanced up with a groan. "Grasping at straws," she admitted. The bug in the vase only proved that someone wanted to listen in on the doings at the sheriff station. It didn't exonerate Mary Margaret or implicate Regina. She wasn't entirely sure it implicated Sidney—he could always claim he hadn't know it was in there. She knew she was being spied upon, but it didn't help Mary Margaret one iota.

August sat down beside her with an easy smile. "Still trying to find a way to prove your friend's been framed?" he asked.

Emma nodded glumly. "Every time I go down a path I think leads somewhere, it ends up being a dead end. I used to think I had these great instincts… Or a superpower. Or… Ah, I don't know."

"It sounds like you got a case of writer's block," August told her, and despite his smile, there was a seriousness underlying his words. "Only," he added, "without the whole writing part."

Emma had never thought herself much of a writer, but if August was as he claimed to be, then he might know what he was talking about. "Maybe," she allowed, and glanced back down at the book.

August didn't leave. "You know," he said, "when I get struck by a block, I usually reread what I've done, rather than plow ahead blindly. Sometimes, I find there'll be a little nugget of inspiration left behind."

She wasn't sure she understood. "You mean start over?" she asked. The idea of beginning the investigation all over again from square one didn't appeal to her, and more to the point, it wasn't as though she could slap a boot on the 'wheels of justice' that were poised to roll off out of town with Mary Margaret aboard to put things on pause while she recovered old ground.

August shook his head. "I mean," he said, "when I start writing, I usually have one idea. And then, in the middle, I may get another idea, and things are different.

Emma's eyebrows lifted. "So, your perspective changes."

"Exactly. When you started this investigation, what was it about?"

"A missing person," Emma replied promptly. "Then, it became a murder, and then a cover-up."

August nodded. "And if you knew that then, maybe you would have approached things differently."

Emma pondered that for a moment. Then she rose to her feet.

August followed suit. "Where you going?"

Emma was already moving. "Scene of the crime."

August grinned. "I'll drive," he said, falling into step behind her.

Emma remembered what Neal had said about August's fixation with her. He seemed normal enough, but all the same, maybe driving off with him wasn't the best idea. Even if she'd already done it once. "No," she told him. "I'm fine."

August didn't back down. "No," he said. "You're not. You look like you haven't slept in days. And, let's be honest – it was my idea."

There wasn't much she could say to that, and as drained as she felt right now, it was just possible that August might turn up something that she'd overlook. She sighed. "All right. Come on." Her instincts told her that August really was trying to help, but if she was wrong? Well, she had her gun with her, not to mention a bunch of self-defense classes under her belt. She'd be fine.

Kathryn probably thought the same thing, she thought, but despite that misgiving, she climbed up onto the motorcycle wrapped her arms around August's waist, and held on.

"Hi," Henry greeted Neal, who glanced up from his brown-bag lunch.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

Henry shrugged. "It's my lunch, too, and school's just down the street. As long as I'm back before the bell, nobody'll care."

"Except your teacher, your mother—"

"She's not really my mother, you know."

Neal sighed. "Legally, she is, and there are different kinds of 'real'." He rose to his feet. "C'mon. I'll walk you back."

Henry nodded reluctantly and fell into step beside his father. It didn't take long before he perked right back up again, though. "So, that guy who grabbed Ms Blanchard," he said. "Do you think he's got Belle, too?"

"Huh?" Neal was already regretting that he'd told Henry anything at all about that night.

"Well, if he wanted Ms Blanchard or you, so that he could blackmail my real mom, maybe he's got Belle so he can blackmail Mr. Gold."

"You think he's been holding Belle prisoner for twenty-eight years, without anyone knowing about it?" Neal asked skeptically.

Henry shrugged. "You weren't here before the Curse started breaking. Nobody knew how much time was passing except me."

Neal shook his head. "Sorry, Henry, but that kind of disproves your theory. I mean, are you saying that Jefferson kidnapped Belle twenty-eight years ago, just because one day, Mr. Gold was going to wake up and he wanted to make sure he had some… hold… over him when he did?"

"Who says Mr. Gold's been asleep all this time?" Henry asked. "If it were my Curse, I'd want to be awake for it."

"Being awake for it is what made Jefferson a little… unhinged," Neal pointed out, even as he found himself remembering the way Papa had been after he'd become the Dark One. Papa was losing his grip more and more every day back then. Would he have cared if insanity was the price to pay for remembering who he was? Would it have made any difference? Or maybe he thought the Curse would make him sane? Seeing the way he is now, maybe it did… Papa was awake now, but had he been so for all this time, or was that a relatively new development? And if it was, what had triggered it? He realized that Henry was talking again and blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"According to my book, the Blue Fairy knew that my mom—that Emma—was going to be the savior and she told Snow White and Prince Charming. If they told everyone else, then Jefferson would know. And he'd know that if he ever needed Rumpelstiltskin's help, and he didn't want to lose out in a deal, then he'd need something—or someone—that Rumpelstiltskin wanted."

It made sense, Neal had to admit. "I don't want you going to his house on your own," he said firmly. "If there's reason to suspect she's there, then we get a search warrant first." Honestly, he intended to keep himself, Emma, and Henry as far away from that creep as possible.

"Okay," Henry sighed. "Hey, maybe my mom has a secret room in the basement." His eyes grew wide. "Or maybe in her vault!"

"Henry," Neal sighed, "we can't just go breaking and entering all over town. I mean, I'm Emma's deputy now," he pointed out. "We have to do things by the book. Not to mention that the mayor would probably kill me and ground you for life," he added, only half-joking. "So," he said firmly, "you find me some sort of proof without going skulking around in places you aren't supposed to be, and if it's good enough, I'll get that warrant." They were at the school gates now and Neal placed both hands on his son's shoulders. "Otherwise, you need to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble." He smiled. "Can't have the wrong people finding out about Operation Cobra, right?"

Henry sighed. "Right," he admitted reluctantly, just as the bell went. "Gotta go," he said at once. "See you, Dad!"

Neal watched him slip through the gate and into the throng of students hurrying back into the building. "See you… son," he murmured.

At Emma's request, August drove the motorcycle to the toll bridge in the woods and parked beside it. Both slid off, Emma a bit more easily. "Ruby found the box with the heart right over here," Emma said, bending down, "just by the shore." August didn't reply and when Emma glanced over her shoulder, she realized that he was wincing and rubbing at his leg. "What's wrong?" she asked.

August shook his head. "Nothing."

"It doesn't seem like nothing," Emma replied with a worried frown. "Here, let me look."

August backed away. "No," he said quickly, "it's okay. It's just a shin splint. Just…let me walk it off. Sorry," he said a moment later. "I know this must be hard on you."

"Yeah," Emma muttered. "That's an understatement." She stooped down and began clearing rocks away from the place where the box had been buried.

August drew closer. "I don't know you that well," he said, "but, it seems to me, that aside from Henry, Mary Margaret's the closest thing to family you've got." Seeing Emma's frown, he smiled. "It's okay to admit it."

"You don't think you're leaving out Neal?" Emma asked wryly.

"Yeah, sorry," August said, not sounding sorry at all. "I guess he's close to it, too."

"You know, trying to waltz into my life twenty-eight years after you waltzed out of it is… kind of weird, and more than a little creepy, right?" Emma asked him, not looking up. She was gratified to hear his embarrassed swallow.

"He told you."

"He's my fiancé. We talk." She was debating whether to tell him that she was also aware that he'd played a part in getting her and Neal arrested, when she spied something in the sand that definitely wasn't another stone.

"Uh… Should I ask what else you talked about?" August asked.

Emma plucked up the thing that had caught her interest and her eyes widened. "August," she exclaimed. "Look."

August was beside her in a moment. "What is it?" he asked.

"It's a shard," Emma breathed. "From a shovel, I'll bet. It must've broken off when it hit a rock. If we can find the shovel that it broke off of, we can prove that Mary Margaret didn't bury the heart. We can prove that she's innocent."

August smiled slowly. "And I'm going to guess you know exactly whose shovel it is."

"Oh, you know it."

Neal was surprised to find a visitor on his doorstep when he arrived home later that day. "Madame Mayor," he greeted her, his tone carefully neutral.

"Mr. Cassidy," she returned pleasantly.

He raised an eyebrow. "Can I… uh… help you with anything?"

Regina nodded. "Actually, I came around to apologize," she said. "When Ms Swan came to town, she and I got off on the wrong foot. And while I suspect that she and I will be at odds, so long as she refuses to believe the evidence staring her in the face and prefers to think that I've somehow… framed Miss Blanchard," she sighed and rolled her eyes slightly skywards, "I see no reason that you and I need to be enemies as well."

Neal frowned. "Um… okay," he said. "So…?"

Regina smile grew warmer. "Since it seems you're staying," she said, walking briskly back to her car and popping open the trunk, "consider this a housewarming gift."

Neal took the largish, square, flat box in both hands hesitantly. "Thanks," he said, wondering what she was playing at.

"I love my son, Mr. Cassidy," Regina said, still smiling. "But I'm not blind to the fact that he is a deeply sensitive and," her expression turned sad, "deeply troubled young man. I worry that he's managed to bring Emma into his delusions, and now she sees me as some sort of villain. It's my hope that you'll be able to continue as you have been thus far, helping her to distinguish between reality and fantasy in a way that my son is, as yet, unable to."

"What?"

Regina's smile returned in full force. "It's not lost on me that Ms Swan has become a great deal calmer and more methodical since your arrival. I can only chalk that up to your influence, and hope it continues." Before Neal could say anything further, she went on, "Well. I'm sure I've already taken up too much of your time and it's late. Have a good evening, Mr. Cassidy."

And then she was off, her heels clicking on the pavement as she circled to the driver-side door of her Mercedes and got in.

Still holding the box—a bit less than three feet by three feet by his guess—Neal went inside shaking his head. He hadn't wanted to be rude, but he was glad Regina hadn't kept him much longer. He really needed to use the bathroom.

He set the gift box down in the living room, leaning it against the wall on his way upstairs. By the time he emerged, his thoughts on the dinner he wanted to have waiting for Emma when she came home, he'd forgotten all about it.

Mr. Dove looked down and pulled his phone out of his pocket. The message was brief. "Collect her tomorrow. Leave her in the alley beside the diner at precisely 5:30PM. Do not be seen.

Dove frowned a bit at that last instruction. He had no difficulty avoiding being heard, but at six-foot-nine going anywhere without being seen would be a bit of a challenge.

However, he thought with a grim smile, he had never once failed Mr. Gold, and he had no intention of beginning now. He headed toward Granny's to map out the best route for the task ahead.

Neal's welcoming smile faded when he saw the man trailing into the house behind the woman he loved. "What is he doing here?" he demanded.

August turned to Emma. "I told you," he said in a low voice, but one that Neal was clearly meant to overhear.

Emma sighed. "Yeah, you did. Neal, we can deal with the past later, when Mary Margaret's been exonerated. Right now, though, making that happen is more important than that." She held up the plastic baggie with the metal shard, dangling it before Neal's eyes.

"What's that?"

"Piece of a shovel used to bury the jewelry box with Kathryn's heart," Emma said. "At least we think so. Just waiting to confirm."

"Waiting? Don't you have to take stuff like that to the crime lab?"

"They still haven't got back to me on that finger nail," Emma scoffed. "No, we're going a different route."

"What are you—?"

Emma smiled. "We know Regina's involved somehow. I don't know if this comes from a shovel that belongs to her or not, but Henry's going to let us know when it'll be safe for us to check her garage and see if we can find a match."

"Hang on," Neal said. "Now, you're involving Henry?"

"Beats the sheriff breaking into the mayor's house. Now, do you want to come along, or would you rather wait by the phone in case Regina hears a noise after all and dials 911?"

Neal sighed, just as the oven timer rang. "That's dinner," he said. "You guys want to eat before we betray our office, or should I just put everything in the fridge for later?"

He eyed August meaningfully. "We're not done," he pronounced.

August shook his head. "I didn't expect we would be," he said. "But for now, how about a truce?" He held out his hand.

Neal took it slowly. "Truce," he agreed. "For now."

Emma smiled a bit too heartily.

A half hour later, Regina stepped into the upstairs bathroom and closed the door. Then, carefully, silently, she opened it again and left it partway open. She drew the shower curtain, reached in, and turned on the cold faucet. Then she tiptoed stealthily down the hall.

"…package is secure," she heard her son's voice in a loud whisper.

There was a crackle of static, likely from that infernal walkie-talkie she was currently pretending not to know about, and then she heard Miss Swan's voice saying something about a code book.

Henry sighed. "She's getting in the shower and the keys are under the mat."

Regina stepped into her home office and cautiously tweaked back the thick curtains. When she saw one figure scurry up her front steps, retreat back down a moment later, and head toward her garage, two others following a half-step behind, she smiled. She could head downstairs and surprise them all right now. She had to admit it was tempting. But if she did, then they'd know she'd been expecting them and she wasn't quite ready to show her hand.

Besides, this way, Regina knew that not only would Snow White finally pay the price for the murder she'd instigated oh so long ago, but she'd have the satisfaction of seeing Emma Swan watch her friend get carted away, knowing she would be tried for a crime she hadn't committed, and yet unable to prove it. Regina knew first-hand the excruciating agony caused by seeing a guilty party evade their just deserts. With any luck, that pain would haunt the sheriff for years to come. Better. It would finally teach her that in this town, only one person was assured her happy ending and that person was neither Mary Margaret Blanchard nor Emma Swan.

Let them find the damaged shovel now. By the time they returned with the search warrant they needed to collect it, it would be long gone.

Nearly two hours later, Emma and Neal returned home, angry and dejected. "Where is it?" Neal demanded, almost before they got out of the car. "If it wasn't there, than where is it?"

"Ask August," Emma muttered, leaning against the hood. "He probably chucked it off the pier or something. I've got half a mind to storm over to his motel room and—"

"Emma…"

"He's the only one we talked to. We didn't even tell Henry what we'd found."

"You don't think Henry would—"

"We were on a walkie-talkie, Neal. It's not like Regina couldn't have been listening outside his…" Her eyes widened. "Listening outside his door," she repeated slowly. "If she heard us talking… What's the range on a walkie-talkie?"

Neal frowned. "Can I see?" He looked at the device Emma passed him. "Handheld police issue," he said slowly, "might get you two to five miles. This is an ancient model; I'd have to look it up and that range might deteriorate due to wear and tear or aging or whatever. Thing is, even if you were standing on the town line and Henry was standing on the beach, how long would it take you to reach him?"

"Half hour… forty-five minutes, tops," Emma said. "If Regina overheard and knew we were coming, she'd act fast. But… Henry said she was in the shower."

"Yeah. I can run a tub faucet, too. Doesn't mean I actually step into it." He sighed. "Henry might be great at keeping secrets. Keeping the fact that he has secrets secret is…"

"I don't know," Emma said slowly. "I mean, it fits, but Henry's been keeping things from her for weeks. Does she always pretend to take a shower, just in case he's waiting for an opportunity to…?"

Neal's eyes grew wide. "I wonder," he said slowly.

"What?"

His key was out. "Listen, when we go inside, change the subject. Especially in the living room. I want to show you something, but we're not going to talk about it until we're back out here."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just a hunch. Well, actually, if it is what I think it is, feel free to vent. Just don't mention walkie-talkies or spying or," he turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Then without pausing or missing a beat, said, "She really ought to install softer lighting in that front hallway. Up close, I could see her crow's feet."

"What?" Emma blinked.

"Yeah," Neal said. "Well, I mean, you said she's been mayor forever. Stressful job. Not surprised it's taking a toll. I mean, she's got to have a bunch of grey hairs under that dye job."

Emma laughed, catching on. "Neal, seriously, I'm not feeling so lousy that I need to lie and attack her looks." She frowned thoughtfully. "She does need a paper bag for her personality, though."

Neal led her into the living room and motioned toward the gift-wrapped box, even as he said, "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you act catty before." He smiled suggestively. "I like it." He quickly steered Emma out of the hallway and upstairs to the bedroom.

"She dropped that box off this afternoon," Neal said, serious once more. "She told me it was a housewarming gift, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a bug."

Emma nodded slowly. "Sidney pulled something like that the other day with a bouquet of flowers at the station. Figures she'd try the house, too." She sighed. "Well? I guess we'd better open it."

Two minutes later, they were lifting a round wall mirror with a brass frame out of the box. It was nice enough, Emma supposed. It looked like the kind of thing a person might find in Ikea or Target—tasteful, not junk, but not the kind of thing you oohed or ahhed over either. At least, not usually.

"It's beautiful," Emma breathed, flipping it over and noticing a bit of tape—colored to match almost perfectly the backing of the mirror. "Seriously, does she do this for everyone who moves here?"

She pulled the tape back carefully, not in the least surprised to find the listening device it had been concealing. "I know exactly where to hang this," she gushed, heading for the basement door. She walked down the stairs, then up, and then down again, before she slid the mirror into a gap between two pieces of decrepit furniture and covered it with a tarp.

"Took you a minute to make up your mind?" Neal asked, when she came back up.

"I'm hoping she thinks I brought it upstairs instead of down," Emma said. Then, sharply, "What are you smiling about?"

"She's panicking," Neal said. "She knows we're onto her and she's starting to get sloppy. It's just a matter of time before we get her for good."

Emma's answering smile fell away almost at once. "That's all well and good," she cautioned, "but time is one thing we have… and Mary Margaret doesn't." She shook her head. "She faces the grand jury tomorrow. And if they indict, then the case falls out of our jurisdiction and goes to County Court." She took a breath. "Neal, she'll be sent out of Storybrooke.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Nine

Emma didn't fall asleep easily that night. Worry over Mary Margaret kept her awake. The two listening devices she'd intercepted were also worrisome. Her thoughts about the town being some sort of brainwashing or mind control experiment were easier to dismiss as paranoia and conspiracy theory idiocy in the clear light of day. In the darkness, though, she couldn't shake the nagging notion that it wasn't paranoia if they really were out to get you.

And weren't they? Since coming to this town, she'd been arrested. Her car had been sabotaged. Regina had implied that she had spies everywhere and now there were the two bugs she'd found. Were those the only ones? Or had she been meant to find them so that she could pat herself on the back for having done so and not go hunting for a dozen or so more that were better hidden.

She pressed her body down into the mattress and clenched the blanket in her fists, as she told herself firmly that she was not about to get up and start tearing the house apart at this hour!

She looked at Neal, sleeping soundly beside her, and wished that she could dismiss her worries so easily.

Sighing, she glanced at the red LED display on her alarm clock. It read 2:29. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and rolled over.

When Neal stretched, got up and headed for the bathroom, she pretended to be asleep, if only because she knew that they both had a busy day tomorrow, and having a conversation at this hour would do neither of them any good.

Neal braced his hands on the bathroom sink and stared down into the basin. He was glad that Emma was sleeping soundly. He wouldn't wish what was going on in his head tonight on her or on anyone. Well… maybe on Felix; damn but he still hated that smarmy bastard, even after all this time.

He couldn't believe he was thinking about this. He'd spent a couple of centuries hating his father and—once he'd learned that Papa had come to this land—avoiding him as much as possible, even as invisible cords seemed to be steadily reeling him in closer. Reeling him to the point where he was actually toying with the idea of cutting a deal with Papa in order to clear Mary Margaret's name. And yes, okay, to stick it to Regina while he was at it.

If he had to guess, he'd wager that Papa didn't really care about Mary Margaret's innocence or guilt; he was just sitting back and enjoying the show. That idea gave Neal hope, because if railroading Mary Margaret was all Regina's idea and Papa had no 'horse in the race,' then Papa might be open to a deal that would result in Mary Margaret's being cleared of all charges. If, on the other hand, Papa wanted Mary Margaret to suffer, then he wouldn't deal, and Neal would only have one card left to play.

Fortunately, that card happened to be an ace of spades.

Unfortunately, once played, things would never be the same again.

Then again, the same would hold true if Emma broke the Curse and, Neal realized, he wouldn't be upset if she did. No, he didn't want to deal with Papa, particularly not a Papa who knew who he was. Neal wanted to put off that conversation as long as possible.

But there were a few thousand people in this town who didn't deserve the sort of hazy half-life that they were living under the Curse. It had taken Neal a long time to figure out who he was. As long as the Curse was in effect, these people never would.

That wasn't fair. Worse. It wasn't right.

Neal swallowed hard. Somewhere in the middle of his reflections, he'd made a decision.

Tomorrow, Mary Margaret would face a dispositional conference—probably the final step before the trial date would be set. Unless Mary Margaret changed her plea to guilty, in which case the court would skip the trial and move straight on to sentencing. Neal didn't think she was likely to do so. And with Regina running the show or, as August had explained to him eleven long years ago, being the only person in town who could get a happy ending as long as the Curse was intact, there was only one way that hearing could go.

If it did, when it did, then Mary Margaret would be transferred out of Storybrooke to the county jail to await trial. And if there was even the slightest chance that Henry was right about the danger should anyone under the Curse leave town, then Neal knew he couldn't let that happen.

He'd reveal himself to Papa before it did.

Neal went back to bed to pretend to sleep until morning.

Neal's heart was pounding as he approached his father's shop. He was going to do this. He had to. He didn't even need to do all that much, really. He could just walk in, look Papa in the eye, and say it. I'm Baelfire. How hard could it even be?

And yet, with every step, his heart seemed to drop into his stomach, his hands felt colder, and his shirt clammy and clinging with perspiration. Or maybe he shouldn't have worn a jacket on this unseasonably warm morning.

This was ridiculous. Rumpelstiltskin might still be the Dark One, but he was also still Papa. And here in Storybrooke, sometimes, Neal could almost forget how… volatile Papa had become. Almost.

His eyes narrowed as he saw Moe French making his way down the street, leaning heavily on a pair of wooden crutches, a stiff cervical collar clearly visible about his beefy neck. Neal bit his lip. As cool and collected as Papa seemed here, he still had his temper and Neal knew he couldn't forget that.

All the same, he was momentarily relieved to find that the store wasn't open yet. He looked up at the town clock and his relief vanished. It was a quarter past nine. In the weeks since he'd come here, he'd never known the shop not to open promptly at nine on the dot. Had something happened to Papa?

He started to walk down the street in the direction of the pink mansion where he knew his father lived. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd do when he got there, particularly if Papa didn't answer the door when he knocked. If his father was lying inside injured… But if he wasn't, and Neal broke in and he came back… What the hell was he supposed to do?

So caught up in his musings was he that he never heard the step behind him until a strong hand closed on his elbow, another on his shoulder, and he found himself unceremoniously jerked into an alleyway.

Emma didn't want to enter the sheriff's station that morning. She stalled as long as she could at Granny's, but after Ruby refilled her coffee cup when she'd drunk down an inch of her java, she met the server's eyes with a guilty wince, laid down a bill and some coins for a tip and, leaving her car on the street, slowly trudged the three blocks.

As she came down the hall and into the main office, she forced herself to meet Mary Margaret's eyes and watch the spark of hope in them fade as they took in the look on her face and the slight shake of her head.

"I'm sorry," Emma mouthed miserably.

Mary Margaret turned her head to the wall, her shoulders slumping.

Emma reached through the bars to set a muffin and a sealed drink box of orange juice down on the edge of the cot.

Mary Margaret never turned around.

"I'm sorry," Emma whispered. Then she went into the glassed-in inner office and tried to busy herself with paperwork.

From time to time, she glanced up at the cell. Mary Margaret never moved. The breakfast Emma had set down remained untouched. Emma bit her lip and tried not to look as often. She failed miserably.

Neal twisted loose and settled into a fighting stance, even as his attacker stumbled, staggered back, and slapped his hand against the side of a building to steady himself. "What the hell…?" Neal gasped as he recognized his attacker.

August held up both hands palms out. "I just want to talk," he said, panting a bit.

"Yeah? Assaulting a guy and dragging him into an alley isn't exactly the best opener.

"Sorry about that," August said. "I didn't want anyone to see what I have to show you."

Neal groaned. "Not that damned typewriter again," he snapped.

August shook his head. And then he slowly rolled up the leg of his loose cargo pants.

Neal's eyes widened. "What the hell…?" he asked again, this time far less angrily.

August sighed. "I guess your dad must've told you a time or two that all magic comes with a price? Let's just call this Fate's way of handing me the bill."

"What?"

"Well, back when we met the first time, I told you who I was. Turns out my humanity came with a bit of a shelf life. See, when the Blue Fairy… uh… I think you know her as the Reul Ghorm? Anyway, when she turned me human, she told me that it would last so long as I stayed selfless, brave, and true." He paused for a beat. "I didn't."

Neal frowned. "Okay," he said slowly. "But why are you telling me this? I mean, I'm sorry it's happening. Seriously. But I couldn't begin to fix it and the Reul Ghorm…. Blue Fairy… whatever, I mean even if she could, it's not like she can remember how right now, right?" His frown deepened. "Or did the Curse not affect her?"

"It did," August sighed. "I've already gone to see her and she has no idea who I am or who she is." He shook his head. "I need you to talk to Emma. You have to help me get her to believe before it's too late."

Neal's eyebrows shot up. "It's not just your leg that's turned to wood, is it?"

"The other one's getting stiffer," August said. "I think it's going to go next. Then, probably an arm…" His voice was dull, but Neal could hear the undercurrent of fear as he kept talking. "If I revert to wood completely in this world, that'll be it for me. In a world with no magic, I'll go back to what I was when my father carved me—just an inanimate wooden puppet."

"Again," Neal said slowly, "I'm sorry. That sucks. But why are you coming to me?"

"Because Emma breaking the Curse is my only chance. She does that, I think we all end up back in the Enchanted Forest and then, whether I live out my life with a wooden limb or two, or as a magically-animated puppet again, I'll still be better off than I am now. But she can't break the Curse until she believes in the magic and until she believes in herself. I thought I could get her there, but from what I've seen so far, there isn't enough time unless…"

"Unless?" Neal prompted when August was silent for too long.

"Unless you help me."

Gold arrived at the station barely ten minutes after Emma had sequestered herself in the inner office. At his request, Emma unlocked Mary Margaret's cell and led the two of them to an interrogation room. "I… uh… need to lock the door behind you," she said apologetically.

Perhaps, she only imagined the flash of panic in Gold's eyes and perhaps, it was only in her own mind that Gold replied just a bit too quickly, "Yes, yes, of course, dearie."

She indicated the bench just outside the door. "I'll be right here," she said. "Knock when you're ready. Oh, and… uh… you can pull the shades," she indicated the cheap Venetian-style blind over the door's thick window. "If you want more privacy."

"This room is soundproof?" Gold demanded.

Emma nodded. "Yeah. And there's no one-way mirror in there either," she added. "I checked."

Gold sniffed. "And if there were, dearie, I doubt you'd be foolish enough to be in the room beyond listening in," he said. "Why that would likely result in a summary dismissal of the case against Ms. Blanchard."

Emma hesitated for a beat. "You guys sure you don't want to talk in the holding cell?" she asked straight-faced.

Humor glinted in Gold's eyes and he snorted as he shot her a quick smile. "This will suffice," he assured her. "If you've reading material you'd care to peruse while you wait, try to find something that won't prove so absorbing you miss my knock."

Neal was frowning by the time August was finished talking. "I won't deny I've been thinking about it a lot since… well, even since before I got here," he said. "As soon as Emma told me that Henry had turned up and where he'd come from… I mean, a town called Storybrooke?"

August chuckled. "Yeah, kind of a giveaway if you know what you're looking for. Or not," he continued. "I mean, there's a tourist attraction up in Canada in the BC Interior called the Enchanted Forest, but that's an amusement park." At the look Neal gave him, he shrugged. "I've done a bit of travelling. Partly for the adventure of it and partly because I was curious about whether you were the first person to open a portal into this realm. If someone else had made it here in the past, or a bunch of someones, like a… I don't know, some kind of exploring or colonizing mission, it wouldn't exactly be weird to name your new settlement after the place you'd left. Or what are New York and New Jersey and London, Ontario even doing in North America?" he asked, spreading his arms slightly apart in a shrug. "And there are places in Scotland like Glen Shee—that's 'Fairy Hill' in Scots Gaelic, but the people up there are pretty normal, even if they sound like your Dad. Maybe some of them are a tiny bit likelier to believe in magic, but I mean, you can find a few people like that anywhere. As far as I can tell, though," he continued seriously, "if anyone else did cross over, there's no way to tell now. They've likely been here for centuries and considering that just last year, a woman in Ghana was burned for witchcraft… Knowing how much more common those accusations were a couple hundred years back, I'd say it was a safe bet that telling people that they came here from another realm probably wasn't an idea anyone would have entertained."

Neal shook his head. "Yeah, I hear that. I mean, I turned up in Victorian England and maybe they weren't executing witches there, but if I'd gone around insisting that magic was real, I could've ended up in a place like… Bedlam." He suppressed a shudder when August didn't even pretend to deny it.

"Anyway," he went on, "I go back and forth on it, but I guess I'm not totally opposed to Emma doing what she has to. Thing is, I don't know how to convince her that Henry knows what he's talking about without telling her about me. Emma doesn't trust many people," he continued seriously. "I'm probably at the top of her list. And no matter how I spin it when I talk to her, all she's going to hear is that I've been lying to her about who I am and where I'm from since the day we met."

"Lying? Or just not being open?"

"There's a reason why in court you have to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Lies of omission are still a form of dishonesty and…" And too much like something Papa would do without a second's hesitation. I'm not him.

"But you'll help?" August persisted.

"I want to," Neal admitted. "I was actually on my way into the shop to talk to my father about it." He saw a flash of panic in August's eyes and shook his head. "If there's a way to get his advice without telling him who I am—"

"He'll drag it out of you, you know," August said.

Neal sighed. "If that's what it comes down to, so be it, but I hope not."

"Well, he's not at the shop now," August said. "I saw him heading to the sheriff's station half an hour ago."

Neal groaned. "Right. The trial. He's Mary Margaret's lawyer." He brought his hand to his forehead and massaged it. "Well, I can't confront him there, not when he's helping her." He stopped. Was Papa really helping Mary Margaret? He wondered. "And not where Emma might overhear," he added more confidently. "I'll have to try later."

"Or…" August said slowly, "maybe I can convince her and you won't have to blow your cover."

"You think?"

"Look," August said, "I'm betting you've told her not to trust me, and I don't blame you for it if you have," he smiled at Neal's quick nod, "but maybe tell her that we've talked and you're convinced I'm not such a bad guy?"

"I'm not convinced," Neal warned.

"Give me time," August said, still smiling, but with a wheedling note of desperation in his voice. "It's not like I've got a lot of it left."

"Oh, are those really necessary?" Emma demanded. She was leading Gold and Mary Margaret back in the direction of the holding cell and was brought up short by the two grim-faced men with county bailiff badges on their uniform shirts who were waiting in the outer office. Or, more to the point, she was brought up short by the long steel chains that were neatly laid out on her desk. "Look at her," she snapped. "Do you seriously think she's going to make a break for it?"

Gold spoke up. "I do believe, gentlemen, that the sheriff has a point," he said quietly. "You may dispense with the leg irons and belly chain; standard handcuffs should more than suffice for restraint."

"When a prisoner is being transported from jail to a court hearing—" one bailiff started to say.

Gold cut him off. "Yes, that makes a certain amount of sense when the prisoner is being driven a fair distance. In this case, the courthouse is a scant three blocks away."

The second bailiff nudged his fellow. "We're running late as it is; she's got to be there in twenty minutes."

The first bailiff sighed. "All right," he said, picking up the cuffs. To Mary Margaret, he said only, "Hands."

White-faced and round-eyed, Mary Margaret obeyed.

"It's chilly out," the second bailiff said. "She got a coat?"

Gold was taking his overcoat down from the hook on the wall where he'd hung it earlier. Now, he draped it over the schoolteacher's shoulders. She blinked in surprise before lowering her head once more. Then, her eyes found Emma's.

"Could you…? I-I can't go," she swallowed hard, "out of town with Mr. Gold's coat. Would you bring me mine from my apartment? Please?" Her face fell again. "I don't know where my key is. Do you have it?"

"I…" Emma frowned. She'd taken Mary Margaret's purse and everything in her pockets after arresting her, hadn't she? "I should," she said slowly.

"Fret not, Sheriff Swan," Gold said. "As Ms Blanchard's landlord, I can allow you onto her premises at your convenience."

"Thanks," Emma said.

"Will you be coming to the proceedings?" Gold asked.

Emma nodded. "Yeah. I have to."

She didn't, not really, but Gold only ducked his head once in acknowledgment. "Well, then. As trials don't happen every day in this town, and as one might expect attendance to be high and parking at a premium, perhaps you'll allow me to drive you?"

She'd been meaning to walk, actually—it would have given her a little time to think—but something in Gold's voice made her paste a tight smile on her face. "Okay," she said. And then for the second time in as many minutes, she thanked him.

As he made his way over to Marco's workshop, Neal found himself wondering whether he'd given in to August's proposal too easily. No, Papa hadn't been at the shop. No, Neal wasn't sure he wanted to approach him to ask for help. Not when the ask would, at the very least, end with Neal parting with something he wouldn't want to. What it would be, he couldn't say, but even before Papa had become the Dark One, he'd had an art for intuiting just what it was a person prized. That talent had resulted in a young Baelfire always getting a birthday gift that had been truly special Even when money had been scarce, there had been woven scarves, new fleece linings for his boots, or a toy boat of the finest wicker, waterproofed with lanolin and every bit as good as the one the peddler had asked eight copper for. Once Papa had become the Dark One, though, he'd used his knack to determine just what it would hurt some hapless soul most to lose and then demand that as the price for his aid.

Neal wasn't sure himself what price Papa might demand from him, but he knew that whatever it was, it would still be a bargain compared to the cost if Papa were to learn who he truly was. It was that factor more than any other that had prevailed on him to take a step back and let August try to handle things.

That, and August had promised him to keep the truth about his background from Emma, at least for now. Soon, sooner than Neal liked, he knew that that truth would have to come out, but not now.

Still, as Neal pushed the workshop door open, he couldn't help but ask himself whether he was only entangling himself more tightly in the web of deception that he'd been weaving for himself over the last dozen years or so.

She shouldn't have gone. Emma knew it the minute the trial started. It wasn't just the flashbacks she was having to her own court appearances—it was the knowledge that much of the prosecution's case against her best friend was bolstered by the evidence that Emma herself had supplied.

There was still no word on the fingernail. She couldn't figure that out. The crime lab had taken less than seventy-two hours to confirm that the heart in the jewelry box had been Kathryn's—something that had shocked Emma, since the same results in Boston might easily have taken over a month. At the time, she'd assumed that big city crime labs had more of a backlog, but now she found herself wondering whether someone—like Regina—had somehow pushed the lab to prioritize getting results on the heart, jewelry box, and hunting knife. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. Storybrooke probably didn't see too many murders and Emma could understand the need to find the guilty party sooner rather than later, so long as they were looking for the guilty party, and not merely a guilty party.

Emma didn't want to think that someone was deliberately slowing down the results on evidence that might establish Mary Margaret's innocence. She'd been surprised that Gold hadn't seemed overly concerned when she'd mentioned her frustrations to him on the short drive over.

"Don't fret yourself, Dearie," he'd told her. "I think you'll find that in the end, the items you discovered will have next to no bearing on Ms. Blanchard's case."

"What do you mean?" Emma demanded. "Someone cut Kathryn's heart out of her chest with a knife found in Mary Margaret's heating vent and then went and planted that heart in her jewelry box."

"Well, I grant you that it appears to make a strong case," Gold allowed, "but it's still circumstantial."

"Yeah? Well contrary to what you hear on TV, 'circumstantial' isn't a synonym for 'flimsy'."

Gold had chuckled at that. "Worry not, Sheriff," he assured her. "It's been my experience that Good has a way of triumphing in the end."

He'd sounded so self-assured that Emma had believed him. And so, she'd sat in that courtroom on an uncomfortable wooden bench in the public gallery, waiting for him to pull a rabbit out of his hat. And until the jury returned to the courtroom to announce that they had voted to indict and the judge banged down her gavel and declared that Mary Margaret Blanchard would be transported to the county seat in Ellsworth, there to stand charged with first degree murder, she'd half-believed he would.

When Mary Margaret was led out of the courtroom, her wounded green eyes cast about and locked on Emma's looking for some sign of hope or reassurance. Emma could only shake her head sadly in response and kick herself for having trusted Gold.

"Was this the coat you wanted?" Emma asked softly, holding up the blue wool garment. "You… uh… forgot it at the animal shelter."

Mary Margaret looked up. "Thanks," she mumbled.

"Is it the one you wanted?" Emma asked again. "There's still time for me to go to your apartment to grab another one if—"

"They're probably going to take it away once I get to county, right?" Mary Margaret asked, her tone dull. "I'd better enjoy this while it lasts, because after today, I don't think I'll be wearing anything that isn't a bright orange jumpsuit."

"I think those are just for transport," Emma said, trying to sound upbeat. At the look Mary Margaret gave her, she apologized.

Mary Margaret shook her head. "I wish they'd just take me already," she said. "Why do they have to wait till a quarter past five?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "Maybe the bailiffs normally work nine to five and they have to handle transportation after hours?"

"Until today, I didn't even know that this town had bailiffs," Mary Margaret sighed. She turned her face away. "I… don't feel like talking anymore right now," she said.

Emma nodded. "I understand," she said. "I… uh… I'll just head into the inner office and try to get some paperwork done. If you change your mind, just shout."

Mary Margaret didn't reply.

The time dragged on uncomfortably as Emma pretended to work. It felt like five-fifteen would never get there. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead in her hands as she wondered how things were going this far south this quickly. Less than two weeks ago, Mary Margaret had been taking her morning coffee at Granny's and accidentally-on-purpose running into David. It felt like a lifetime ago. And now…

"Sheriff?"

Emma started and looked up guiltily at the soft inquiry. Gold was standing in the doorway to her office and the clock read ten minutes past five. She must have dozed off. And Gold had caught her. And why the hell did that bother her?

"I'm afraid the bailiffs have returned," Gold said gently. "You'll need to unlock the holding cell."

If she refused to do it, Emma thought wildly, then they wouldn't be able to take Mary Margaret away. But the delay would be temporary. Eventually, they'd just call in a locksmith to get the cell open and cart her off and Emma's defiance would have accomplished nothing besides, maybe, losing her job as sheriff and ending the day in a holding cell herself. Hating herself, she reached for the keys and went to assist the bailiffs.

Mary Margaret had her coat on and Emma forced herself not to look away as her friend was handcuffed again. "Mary Margaret…" she began, but Mary Margaret only bit her lip and didn't turn toward her. And then the bailiffs led her away and Emma turned furious eyes on Gold.

"You told me you could fix this," she snarled. "That's why I came to you. So that you could make sure Regina didn't win."

Gold raised his eyebrows. "She hasn't yet," he replied.

The calmness in his voice only stoked Emma's anger. "Well, she's going to. And now, my friend is going to pay for me trusting you."

Gold sighed. "Look, Sheriff," he said a bit condescendingly, "I know this is emotional, but it's also not over. You must have faith. There's still time."

"Time for what?"

Gold smiled. "For me to work a little magic," he said.

"What?"

"Sheriff, I realize that you've been under a great deal of pressure. I doubt you've slept well in the last three days." He sighed. "Come."

Emma tilted her head. "Excuse me?"

"I couldn't help noticing that your coffee carafe is empty. Allow me to treat you to a cup at the diner."

"I can make a new batch," Emma said.

"The fresh air will do you a world of good. Or would you prefer to pretend to deal with administrative tasks, while eyeing an empty holding cell?"

When he put it that way, Emma took her jacket off the hook. "Good point," she said. "Whose car?"

"You know, Sheriff, it's a sad thing to realize that on any given day," he leaned pointedly on his cane, "despite everything, I likely walk more than you do. We can be at the diner in less than ten minutes."

Emma's eyes narrowed, but she fell into step behind Gold and started out down the five short blocks to Granny's. As they neared the diner's parking lot, she sucked in her breath. "The corrections van," she said. "It's here."

"No doubt, the driver wished to fortify himself before the journey ahead," Gold remarked, just as a loud scream pierced the air.

Emma took off in its direction at a run. Rounding the diner, she found a trembling Ruby, her green eyes wide in a far too pale face. "Ruby!" she exclaimed. "What's going on?"

Ruby pointed a shaking finger toward the narrow lane between the diner and the high wooden fence about the lot. "She… she's in the alley," she managed.

"Who?" Emma asked. "Ruby, what's happened?"

Gold reached them. "Miss Lucas?" he asked, concerned. Ruby didn't answer. Her breath came in rapid gasps, as her trembling grew worse.

"Stay with her," Emma ordered, already moving toward the alley.

Her breath caught, as she saw a body lying face-down on the pavement. Looks about five-eight… filthy clothes… Can't tell if it's a man or woman from here… She bent down and, with no small measure of trepidation, took hold of the figure's shoulder to roll them over.

She stifled a scream of her own as the body turned far too easily. Frightened blue eyes in a white, dirt-streaked face framed by long blonde hair that was stringy and unkempt—

Kathryn!

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty

She was filthy and frightened and looked as though she’d been wearing the same clothes since her disappearance, but Kathryn Nolan was very much alive. “Easy,” Emma said, keeping her voice low. “Easy. You’re safe.”

Kathryn’s eyes darted in all directions.

“Do you know where you are?”

Her forehead creased and her eyes narrowed in an anguished frown. For a moment, she didn’t reply. Then, “Granny’s.” It was barely a whisper.

Belatedly, Emma realized that maybe she should have led with something easier. “Do you know who you are?”

This time the answer came at once. “Kathryn Nolan.”

“Do you know who I am?”

Kathryn brought a hand quickly to her forehead. “Sheriff,” she said, wincing. And then, a moment later, “Swan?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of summoning an ambulance.” Gold’s voice was very close. “One might think that the hospital possesses both the professionals and the equipment to assess Mrs. Nolan’s condition, as opposed to your little game of twenty questions.”

The fact that Gold was probably right didn’t do anything to combat the surge of annoyance that leaped up within her as she turned her head to face him.

Unperturbed, Gold continued, “Might I suggest that you go inside to inform the bailiffs of this new development? Unless you’d prefer them to finish their coffees and set off again while you sit there arguing with me.”

Emma bit back a profanity. “Stay with her until the ambulance gets here,” she snapped. Seeing a flash of panic in Kathryn’s eyes, she added, “Try not to scare her.” Then she pushed herself to her feet and raced toward the diner.

Mrs. Lucas hadn’t turned down the heat, even though the evening was warmer than usual for this time of year. August opened the window, letting in the sounds of the outdoors—but no gust of cool air accompanied them. With a sigh, he turned and headed into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.

A glimpse of his reflection brought him up short. The glistening perspiration looked just a bit too much like the sheen of linseed oil on carved wood. If Emma didn’t realize her destiny soon, one day in the not-so-distant future, it would be.

He was relieved that he’d been able to talk Baelfire out of approaching the Dark One. August had a plan, and it would fall apart in a heartbeat if Rumpelstiltskin knew who Neal Cassidy truly was. For a brief moment, he thought about offering to divulge that bit of information to the Dark One himself, but he quickly reconsidered.

There was magic in this land. Not much of it, but it was there. Once, centuries ago, the Dark One had held fast to his magic and let his son go to fall into another realm. August suspected that, even if the Dark One had spent the intervening years trying to find a way to follow Baelfire to this ‘land without magic’, he would only do so if he were able to find a way to bring his own magic with him.

“I will always find you, Pinocchio. You carry my magic inside you and magic always calls to its own.”

Long ago, the Blue Fairy had told him that when she’d brought him back to Papa after one of his many escapades. She hadn’t specified—and he hadn’t thought to ask—whether she could always find her magic or any magic, but if it were the latter, then that would also mean that the Dark One would also hear the call of whatever small magic was scattered about this realm. And if magic meant that much to him, then the Dark One had probably been collecting it all this time.

On the plus side, a Dark One with magic was a Dark One in a position to help August with his current situation.

On the minus side, a Dark One with magic was a very dangerous person to cross.

If August went to him and tried to offer Baelfire’s whereabouts in exchange for the cure he needed, there was a good chance he’d find himself locked up for interrogation in someplace a bit more out of the way than a holding cell at the sheriff’s station. And the last person who’d tried withholding information from the Dark One was still recovering from his injuries.

No, August realized. The best way to get the help he needed was to convince Rumpelstiltskin that he was Baelfire. And if he was to do that, then he needed to get on with it. Before the real Baelfire beat him to it.

“Whoa, wait,” Neal said when he could get a word in edgewise. “Slow down. You’re saying that Kathryn’s been alive all this time? Then… whose heart was in the jewelry box?”

“I don’t know,” Emma snapped. “There hasn’t been another missing person report since before Kathryn disappeared. But believe me,” she added, “I’m going to have a bunch of questions for the crime lab in the morning.”

“And Kathryn? Or did you already talk to her?”

“She wasn’t up for answering questions,” Emma said. “Not exactly surprising. I left her with Gold and Ruby and ran into the diner to make sure the bailiffs released Mary Margaret. Would you believe they actually wanted to drive her down to Ellsworth anyway and wait for the paperwork to come through? I had to argue with them for a good ten minutes and even then, they insisted on driving back to the sheriff’s station instead of letting her go on the spot. By the time we got back outside, the ambulance had come. I figured they had things under control, so I headed back to the station to get Mary Margaret’s release paperwork done. I called the hospital afterwards and they’re keeping her overnight. Probably a little longer. I’ll go in the morning.”

Neal nodded. “At least you found her before Mary Margaret left town.”

Emma started to nod. Then her eyes widened. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I did.”

“Emma?”

“Henry told me that—except for the two of us and August—people don’t come to Storybrooke, and they don’t leave it either.”

“Well, it’s not like there are any major tourist attractions here,” Neal interjected.

Emma didn’t smile back. “Yeah, and this is right in the middle of tourist country. First seaside town I’ve visited with only one bed and breakfast, no other hotels or motels, and almost nobody staying.”

“It’s the off-season, don’t forget.”

“I know, but when I first came here looking for a room, they acted like I was the first person who’d ever tried to check in. And there’s more. Ashley tried to drive out of town and crashed her car. Kathryn, same thing.”

“I’m not going to make a sexist crack about women drivers, just so you know. But, well… you did total a sign yourself.”

“After downing some cider nobody told me had a higher alcohol content than normal,” Emma shot back. “Something’s not right here.”

“You seriously think this place is a giant mind control experiment?” Neal asked.

“I don’t know. Neal, I know it sounds crazy but, I do think there’s something screwy going on. Why does everyone who tries to leave get… stopped before the town line? Three people—me included—had car accidents and…”

“Mary Margaret had hungry guards?” Neal frowned. “Or are you starting to think Henry’s right about there being a curse on this place?” he asked, his expression serious.

“I’m not that far gone,” Emma snorted. “All the same, four people have tried to leave. Four people were… prevented from doing so.”

“You left a couple of times.”

“Yeah, but even that first time, when I dropped off Henry, got back on the road, and turned around again? I’d made up my mind to stay. I just hadn’t realized it yet.”

“And the town…. Or some weird… force… knew it?”

Emma sighed. “Neal, weird stuff keeps happening. Someone is trying to keep this town… cut off from the rest of civilization. Something is keeping everyone here. I don’t know how. Maybe there’s some sort of… mechanism like that electronic… wheel clamp thing that locks your shopping cart if you take it too far out of the store. Maybe there’s that same kind of things on all the cars here, locking them down at the town line.”

“Uh… I don’t think—”

“And Kathryn turning up just in the nick of time to save Mary Margaret? We’re being played, Neal. Big time. I don’t know if it’s by Gold or Regina or some… secret mastermind we haven’t met, but believe me, I’m going to find out.”

In the moment it took Neal to collect his thoughts and close his gaping mouth, Emma had pushed back her chair and retreated in the direction of the bedroom. He got up to follow her and then sat back down again. Planting an elbow on the table, he rested his forehead in his hand. He needed to tell Emma the truth. If she’d been at least open to the idea of magic or curses, he might have tried. But every time she started spouting this CIA mind control theory, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but he didn’t have the words to dissuade her either.

August woke up with a start shortly before dawn. His leg—his good leg was jerking spasmodically. Panicked, he gripped it and found himself sliding out of bed. He landed heavily on the floor with a thud that horrified him. Unhurt, he rolled up his pajama leg and felt a sick chill wash over him. He gripped the nightstand, hauled himself upright, and reached for his phone.

A moment later, a startled voice answered. “Hello?”

“You’re up?” August asked, trying to stay calm. No point freaking out a kid just because he was getting more scared all the time. “Good. Look, things are taking too long. We need to speed them up. Uh, I forget. It’s Saturday. What time does Gold open the shop? Okay. Meet me there at ten to nine; we need to do this first thing before anyone else gets there…”

Neal knew he had to speak to his father. The conversation was going to happen—either now or down the road, once the Curse broke—and if it happened now, Neal thought he’d have a little more control over the situation. If he left matters too long, then when the Curse broke, Papa was going to come hunting for him. Sooner or later, Papa would realize that his son had been here for weeks, right under his nose, and then the confrontation would happen anyway and Neal wouldn’t be able to choose when or how.

Plus, once the Curse broke, he was going to have a lot of explaining to do to Emma. If he had to deal with a justifiably-angry fiancée on top the father he’d never wanted to see again, but who had spent the last couple of centuries or so trying to find him, he’d… he’d… Well, truth be told, he didn’t know what he’d do, but he really hoped he wouldn’t turn tail and run like…

Like the knight commander said Papa did all those years ago in the Ogre War.

Neal winced. Back then, he’d not only loved his father; he’d looked up to him. His not-quite-fourteen-year-old self had bristled at the insult, but his anger had been nothing compared to the pain he’d felt when he’d realized that the knight commander had been speaking the truth. At the time, he’d wondered how his papa could have fled the battlefield, leaving the others to be slaughtered by ogres. Later, in his bitterest moments, he’d even wondered whether Papa had, perhaps, been supposed to act as a sentry and that it was because he had run that the battalion had been massacred.

Well, if Henry’s book had the right of it, the running had been a bit more figurative than literal. Had Papa been afraid to fight? Yes. But he hadn’t abandoned his fellows or deserted his post. He hadn’t run. But if the boy he’d been had thought less of his father when he’d believed otherwise, what would the man he was now think of himself if he fled from the woman he loved, the son he was coming to, and the father he was coming to realize he’d never truly hated as much as he’d thought?

He looked up from his coffee as Emma came into the kitchen. “Going into the station?” he asked, seeing that she was already wearing the brown sheriff’s jacket.

Emma shook her head. “I’m going to the hospital to see if Kathryn’s able to make a statement. Hopefully, she’ll remember something about where she’s been or who took her there. Does Marco need you today?”

“Nah,” Neal said. “I’m probably going to take things easy. Maybe I’ll head out in a bit and take a walk.”

“Sounds good,” Emma grinned, leaning in for a kiss. “We’ll talk later. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

He watched her leave and settled in to finish his coffee. At five to nine, he pushed back his chair, got up, and went out, headed in the direction of Papa’s shop.

He was halfway down the block, when he saw a number of round objects hurtling in his general direction. On reflex he flung himself backwards, pressing his body tightly against a nearby storefront. A moment later, he realized that the road was littered with an assortment of multi-colored rubber balls in various sizes. As he watched them roll to a stop, he saw Jim Jeffries come running up, a furious look on his face. When he saw Neal, he slowed and walked toward him.

“I’d love to get my hands on the idiot who didn’t make sure that the back was secured before I drove off with these,” he said, gesturing toward the Pontiac Acadian parked half a block away, its hatchback wide open. “Unfortunately, I’ve got this nagging suspicion it was me.” He sighed. “Don’t suppose you’ve got time to lend a hand before some other car comes barreling along?”

Neal grinned. “Hey, anything for a guy I was doing search and rescue with less than two weeks ago.”

“You heard they found her, right?” Jim asked seriously.

Neal nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes it helps living with the sheriff. You get the inside scoop a little sooner. Assuming it’s not confidential, of course,” he added.

“Right. Say, do you know how she’s doing? Kathryn?”

Neal shook her head. “All I know is that she’s getting looked at in the hospital.”

“Do you think that she and David are going to reconcile?”

Neal frowned. “I don’t know. I mean, he was having an affair. Not my business, but that’s kind of hard to let slide. If it were me, anyway. No judgment if the two of them do want another go at it, but…” His voice trailed off as he registered the tiny smile on Jim’s face and the flicker of hope in his eyes. “Oh my G-d,” he said. “You love her!”

Jim actually blushed. “It’s… it’s not like that. We’ve known each other forever; par for the course in a small town, I guess. We’ve always gotten along, but after she took up with David, I figured I’d missed my chance.” He winced. “Is it sleazy of me to think that maybe I’ve got a second one now?”

Neal shrugged. “Not if she and David are calling it quits. But I’d check first.” He bent down and scooped up two of the balls.

“Thanks,” Jim said. “I’m taking them over to the square. Monday’s field day for the elementary and I was asked to bring over some of the gym equipment.” He snorted. “Bet it’ll be a long time before they ask me again.”

“Well, not if we get all this stuff reloaded and delivered,” Neal said. And then, more seriously, “Don’t lose hope.”

Jim blinked and gave him a cautious smile.

Kathryn didn’t remember much about her ordeal. She’d been in a basement somewhere, then drugged—or probably drugged all along, Emma thought. Then she’d been dumped in a field and started walking to town, collapsing in the diner’s parking lot.

Just before Mary Margaret was going to leave. As if someone wanted to keep her here. Why?

Everything was just a bit too… Emma didn’t even know what. But there was something behind the scenes that was keeping everyone here; she didn’t think Henry was wrong on that part. Not a curse, of course; that was silly. But if this town was an artificial environment, like a test zone, then it would make sense to keep the subjects confined here.

She’d been able to come and go. So had Henry. Neal hadn’t tried, she didn’t think. But Henry had been brought in from outside. She and Neal had come voluntarily. Maybe the people who were part of the experiment were being kept here, and outsiders were free to leave anytime? Or maybe only some people were stuck here?

Emma’s mind was going a mile a minute. I keep going back and forth over whether Regina’s in charge, or just another… victim? Test subject? Maybe she’s a bit of both, sort of here to keep an eye on the others, but also being observed and tested. What if she got tired of being stuck here in a small town where every day is pretty much like the next, and she gave the testers some kind of ultimatum, like… Like, “Get me a child to raise, or I’m out of here, and if you try to stop me, I’ll tell everyone what’s really going on!”

She turned that theory over in her head and decided it made sense. It explained how Henry could have ended up here, and how Regina seemed to be in charge. It didn’t explain why nobody remembered a mayor before she’d taken office…

Kathryn doesn’t remember where she was or who abducted her or…

Drugs? Maybe something in the water supply? And now, after some time had passed, people were building up a tolerance and starting to wake up? Only, why wasn’t Henry affected? Or her or Neal, for that matter?

Again, she thought about brainwashing. Conditioning or post-hypnotic suggestion might keep people from thinking about leaving, but Kathryn showing up right before Mary Margaret was due to be driven out couldn’t be coincidence. And she and Ashley had both thought about leaving.

It felt to Emma like she was staring down a kaleidoscope, trying to make sense of the colored glass patterns. And just as it started to come together, someone gave the thing a twist and everything shifted again!

And whatever was going on, Emma sensed that she was getting closer to the truth every day. A dead sheriff, a schoolteacher falsely accused of murder… Quaint seaside towns in Maine—at least those not named Cabot Cove—didn’t get this kind of stuff. Not all at once, anyway.

She smiled grimly. Whoever was running this show, whatever their plan…

They were getting desperate.

And it was just a matter of time until she found out why.

Rumpelstiltskin was having a rather perturbing morning. His first customer of the day had been young Henry Mills, there to purchase a gift for Miss Blanchard to celebrate her release. He’d been delighted to help with that. He’d always had something that might, in others, have been termed a soft spot for the lad, though it was only since his mind had awakened that he’d realized that it was because Henry reminded him so of Bae at that age. And of course, Henry’s adoration for his teacher annoyed Regina no end and Rumple certainly didn’t mind annoying Regina!

Finding August Booth poking about in his back room with some feeble excuse about mistaking the shop’s back door for its entrance, however, had rattled him more than it should have. He didn’t keep anything incriminating back there, nothing that someone like Booth would recognize, at any rate.

And yet, there had been something about the young man’s reaction when confronted that had made Rumple think that Booth knew exactly whose shop he’d crept into and what its owner was capable of. The notion, of course, was preposterous. Booth had only recently arrived here and had no idea what was really going on. Doubtless, much like Cassidy, he’d heard a few too many rumors and believed more than half of them.

And yet, unlike Cassidy, he’d come sneaking into the shop, looking for… what, precisely?

Rumple couldn’t say, but he was beginning to think that there was more to August W. Booth than he’d originally assumed. Perhaps…

No. No, he wouldn’t dare to hope for that. Not yet. But there weren’t many people not of this town who knew anything about him, in this land or in the other.

Then again, perhaps Booth was just an opportunistic thief, come in while Rumple was serving a customer to see if there was anything of obvious value that he might abscond with.

He didn’t know and he couldn’t act until he did. He didn’t suffer robbers gently, but if Booth was who Rumple suspected he might be, then he dared not react as he would to any common burglar. If he wasn’t, well, that would be a different matter entirely, but until he knew the truth, he could do nothing but watch, wait, and worry.

And so, he welcomed Regina’s presence, when she stormed into his shop, steaming with tightly-contained rage, as she snarled, “You broke our deal.”

Neal had been trying to avoid his father for so long, that he couldn’t help but appreciate the irony of his current situation. He managed to help Jim reload the balls in the back of his car and even managed to secure a tarp and some good cord to keep them from bouncing around.

When he got back to the shop, though, it was to find a familiar Mercedes parked in front. No, there was no way that he was going to talk to Papa in front of the Evil Queen. He’d just wait until she was gone before he went inside.

A new thought occurred to him. Regina had attempted to bug both the sheriff station and their home. Was he absolutely positive that she wasn’t similarly monitoring the shop? Papa was smart and he knew who he was dealing with and what she was capable of, but until very recently, that had not been the case. If Regina had planted a bug in the shop at some point during the twenty-eight years before Emma’s arrival, it was just barely possible that it had gone unnoticed. And if it had, then there was no way that he was about to let Regina know just who he was. That bit of intel could give her leverage over himself, Papa, and Emma, depending on what she wanted to do with it. No, he’d have to find a way to get Papa out in the woods, away from prying ears and eyes. It was the right idea, but far easier said than done.

He was heading away when he saw a familiar figure lounging against the mailbox on the corner.

“Still can’t bring yourself to go in?” August drawled.

Neal sighed. “It’s complicated. At first, I didn’t know if he’d changed. I still don’t, but I think… maybe.”

“And if Emma breaks the Curse and his skin goes all gold again?”

“Maybe it won’t.”

August shook his head. “Guess you’d know better than me,” he said.

Neal winced. “Not really. And there’s also the risk of someone else finding out,” his gaze flicked meaningfully toward the mayor’s car.

August nodded. “I hear you, bro.”

“We aren’t brothers,” Neal informed him pointedly.

“Okay, okay, sheesh!” August raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Try to be friendly and get your head bitten off,” he continued in an undertone.

Neal sighed. “Sorry, but seriously? This is something I need to work out. Not really looking for a sounding board or a shoulder to cry on. I’ll talk to him, but it’s got to be at the right time and in the right place—which probably won’t be the shop.”

August shrugged. “Got it. I’ll back off. But if you change your mind…”

“Noted,” Neal said. His phone vibrated and he pulled it out. When he saw that it was Henry who’d texted him, he smiled. “Anyway, nice chatting with you, but I’ve got someplace to be. Later.”

August watched him walk away and breathed a sigh of relief. Baelfire hadn’t told his father who he was yet. And from the sound of it, he wasn’t about to anytime soon. His gaze flicked to the shop, just in time to watch the mayor exit, stomp over to her car, and drive off.

He waited a few more minutes before walking over to his motorcycle. As he drove slowly down Main Street toward the convent, he wondered whether the Dark One was watching.

He devoutly hoped so.

When Regina had been a child younger than Henry was now, she’d slipped away from her etiquette tutor relying on the oft-respected excuse of small children who could not always wait until the end of a lesson to seek out a commode. Then, after ascertaining that her mother wasn’t about to come striding around the corner, she’d quickly donned her outer wear and, with a squeal of glee, gone out to join Daniel on the frozen castle moat.

Smiling shyly, the older boy had handed her a pair of ice skates, showing her how to put them on and stooping to ensure that they were properly fastened. Preparations complete, the two had joined the other laughing children of the castle already on the ice.

At first, Regina had slipped and slid, but under Daniel’s gentle coaching, she’d found her balance and soon, she’d been gliding as though she’d been doing this all her life. She’d wanted to try some of the leaps and twirls that some of the more seasoned skaters were performing, but this part of the moat was too crowded for practice. Moving with purpose, she skated about the corner, hoping for a clear area.

She got her wish. The ice was deserted. Free, she glided swift and sure ten yards further… fifteen… she was nearly twenty yards away when she heard a dull crack. Looking down instinctively, she saw that the opaque gray surface of the ice was marred by a frosty white line. As she watched, the line lengthened and branched into two. The ice trembled beneath her feet and she realized her peril. Hastily, she turned back the way she came, the cracks growing and widening into fissures below her. She wasn’t going to make it!

She must have been screaming, because at once, Daniel had been there. He’d seized her arm and flung her with all his might into the banked snow on the side of the moat farthest from the castle. Then he’d raced after her.

The ice gave way completely when Daniel was three inches from the snowbank, but even as he tumbled into the icy moat, Regina took firm grasp of his jerkin. Mollo, apprenticed to the blacksmith and three years older was suddenly beside her and gripping Daniel’s other arm. Another girl, her own arms muscled from long hours in the castle laundry came to assist. Together, they pulled him from the water.

“The others?” Regina gasped, as they started removing Daniel’s skates.

“Heard you screaming, milady,” the girl said tersely. “We’re all safe.” She motioned several yards away, where the other palace children were clustered. By now, a sentry had noticed their plight and drawbridge was lowering. Her mother and father were standing in the arch of the palace entryway, her father's eyes worried, her mother's lips tight with disapproval.

Regina spoke quickly. “Daniel saved my life, Mother,” she said. “I went out too far on the ice and it started to break.”

“So I see,” her mother said coldly. “As I recall, you have an etiquette lesson at this time. How is it that we find you here?”

Regina flinched and lowered her eyes.

“Go to your room,” Cora ordered.

“Have a physician see to the stable boy,” her father spoke for the first time, squeezing Regina’s arm as she passed. She looked up with a grateful smile, before she hurried into the castle to await whatever further punishment would be forthcoming for her actions.

Now, Regina once again felt the sick feeling of the ground shuddering and giving way beneath her. Kathryn was alive, Mary Margaret was free, and Rumple didn’t seem to care. In fact, he’d all but admitted to being behind yesterday’s events.

It made no sense! He was the one who’d told her about this curse in the first place! He’d lulled Snow White and her charming husband into a false sense of security by telling them that she was powerless to harm them in that realm, and then told her how she might carry everyone in the kingdoms to a different realm. It had been perfect! Nearly perfect, she amended. All magic came with a price and this one hadn’t come as cheaply as she might have liked, but she had no regrets.

But now, it seemed that Rumple wanted the Curse broken, and she couldn’t fathom why. She flashed back on her visit to the shop this morning.

“This is going to raise all kinds of questions about where she was and how the test results were faked.”

She’d thought that Rumple had just been being a bastard as usual, and merely overlooked the ramifications in his glee at getting under her skin. Irritating, but if he’d got her into this mess, he could damned well get her out! Instead, he’d smirked at her and drawled, “Oh, yes. And, um… And who put the key in her cell.”

Her breath caught. “It’s all going to lead to me, isn’t it? You son of a bitch.”

Rumple snorted. “While that assessment might be accurate, it’s hardly relevant, dearie. On the other hand, that fingernail you broke at Ms Blanchard’s loft? The one found by Sheriff Swan? Oh, I can’t wait to hear how you’ll explain that one, dearie, once the results of the analysis become public.”

She was back on the cracking ice again, trying to regain control. “This doesn’t make any sense,” she protested. “You and I – we’ve been in this, together, from the start.”

“Oh, have we?” Rumple asked, and suddenly, she was no longer sure. Still she persisted.

“You created the curse for me. The curse that brought us here, and built all this. Why?”

Rumple smirked. “Well, you’re a smart woman, Your Majesty. Figure it out.”

She couldn’t. Not for the life of her. What the hell was Rumple playing at? Why had he given her the Curse so she could revenge herself on Snow White, only to yank her victory away in the end?

“He never cared about my revenge,” she whispered to herself. “He’s been playing his own game from the start and now, he’s thrown in with my enemies.”

She sucked in air through her teeth and clenched her fingers about the edge of her desk.  Then a malicious smile parted her lips. “It looks like I’ll have to stop the Savior on my own.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-One

Neal had never been a fan of huge social gatherings. When he'd been a boy, Papa had avoided them. In Neverland, being in close quarters with the other Lost Ones generally meant being extra careful that nobody was going to try to stick a knife in your ribs. (Technically, of course, that was against the rules, unless Pan told you to do it. In practice, Pan generally didn't mind, so long as your intended victim wasn't somebody he cared about—and, apart from Felix, who Pan cared about could change from day to day or minute to minute. Bae had learned early never to let his guard down.) Even once he'd escaped Neverland, the lessons had stuck. When you were relying on con artistry and petty theft in order to eat, it helped if you had a clear path to the nearest exit at all times.

There were altogether too many people in Mary Margaret's loft. Neal didn't know more than half a dozen well enough to have a conversation after the usual pleasantries. So, he did what he usually did at these things: he grabbed a plate and headed for the buffet.

Over to one side, Henry was talking to August. Emma was talking to Mary Margaret. Whale was talking to anyone female who hadn't managed to find another conversation, and Ruby was speaking animatedly with a young man Neal recognized as one of the town mechanics.

He had two party sandwiches and a cheese skewer on his plate when Henry rose to present Mary Margaret with a card and gift.

"We're so glad you didn't kill Mrs. Nolan," Mary Margaret read the card aloud.

Neal winced and wondered how long he needed to stay before he could excuse himself without seeming rude.

Oh, to be ten again and not realize how… uncomfortable that message sounds! Henry was beaming as Mary Margaret read the card aloud, but Emma found herself wishing that the ground would open up and swallow her before Henry asked her to what she thought of the message he'd added to the card. Seeing her son beaming, she suddenly wanted to get him out of the loft before some well-intentioned busybody pulled him aside to gently (or worse, not so gently) explain to him that some sentiments didn't sound nearly as right on a card as they did in a person's head.

"Hey, Henry," she called to him, "we should get you home before your mom finds out you're here. That won't be pretty."

Suspecting nothing, her son nodded and let her lead him to the door. When Emma pulled it open, she was startled to find David Nolan on the other side of it. She cast a questioning glance over her shoulder to see Mary Margaret's face harden with disapproval. Emma's lips tightened. She couldn't blame her.

"Hey, Henry," David greeted him. "Leaving already?"

"Yeah," Henry nodded. "Got to get home and do homework."

David nodded back and started to step inside, but Emma moved to block him swiftly. "She's kind of tired," she told him. "I think if you just give it some time."

"I just wanted to—"

Emma pasted a smile on her face as she looked down at her son once more. "Hey, Henry," she said, "why don't you head home with David?"

David wasn't pleased at her suggestion, but he acquiesced a bit awkwardly. Emma heaved a sigh of relief and went back inside.

Rumpelstiltskin normally wouldn't have attended a social gathering such as this, but as Ms Blanchard's attorney, he thought it simple courtesy to put in an appearance. He would smile, help himself to a canape or two, offer his congratulations to the schoolteacher, and then withdraw.

Such had been his plan, right up until the moment when he'd made eye contact with August W. Booth across the room. After one frozen instant, the younger man had ducked his head and called a far too hearty greeting to the mechanic who seemed to be forever bantering with Ruby Lucas.

Rumple frowned. It might well be that Booth was embarrassed at having been caught in the back room of the shop earlier, but Rumple rather suspected that there was more to it than that. Particularly since Booth hadn't had a believable excuse for being in the back room in the first place. Rumple kept most of the shop's valuables either locked in display cases on the shop floor or locked in his safe. True, Booth might not have known that when he'd slipped inside, but what had he been searching for?

He winced. He was no detective. And with Booth now trying to avoid him, he wasn't going to glean as much as he'd like through quiet observation. On the other hand, Storybrooke's new sheriff was not merely a bail bondsperson, but also a private investigator. He looked about the room for her and spied her in the doorway sending young Henry off with… A faint smile flickered on his face. No, in light of his recent behavior, Rumple warranted that David Nolan was far from welcome here. He waited until Emma had closed the door once more before approaching her.

"Hard to let him go, isn't it?" he asked her. "Your son."

Emma winced. "Yeah. Pretty much the hardest thing. Speaking of something we weren't talking about, was it you?"

He wasn't surprised that she guessed the truth, but he'd never confirm it. By now, she wouldn't accept a direct answer from him in any case. So he bantered back, neither bolstering nor allaying her suspicions, but his mind wasn't in it. So, when she admitted that she didn't know his game, he shrugged. "Well," he said mildly, "you keep working on that one. My question's about something else – what do you know about him?" He jerked his chin in Booth's direction.

From the expression on the sheriff's face, he wasn't the only one wondering about the man. "Goes by August," she said after a moment. "He's a writer. Typewriter wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in stubble. Why?"

There was a time to play games and a time to be serious and this was one of the latter. He took a breath. "He was poking around my shop today," he told her quietly. "August Wayne Booth. Clearly a false name. There's one thing I know about – it's names."

Emma didn't seem fazed by his statement. "Writers go by pseudonyms," she shrugged. "What does it matter?"

In and of itself, she was quite right. Booth might have any number of reasons for not using his true name, but Rumpelstiltskin was only concerned with one—and he couldn't exactly share it with the likes of Ms Swan. Instead, he asked her simply, "You trust him?"

Her reply came at once. "Yeah. A lot more than I trust you."

He snorted at that and moved toward the punch bowl. When he glanced back in her direction, however, he noted that she was watching Booth a bit more closely, her expression a great deal more concerned than her glib response to him seemed to warrant.

"I could have walked Henry home," Neal said, when Emma informed him that he'd gone.

Emma raised an eyebrow. "He could have walked home on his own, too. It wasn't about getting Henry out of here, it was about David."

Understanding dawned. "Mary Margaret didn't want him here."

"He flat-out asked her if she murdered Kathryn," Emma said. "That's an ugly enough question when it comes from someone who doesn't matter to you, but when it's someone you trusted and thought you knew, it doesn't just sting. It's like getting knifed in the back by the person you most trust to have it."

Neal swallowed hard. "I hear you. It's just… rough. I mean, I know they had feelings for each other and I can't help thinking that maybe if they sat down and talked, they could move past this."

Emma frowned. "Not exactly our business, and I'm not so sure it's something we should be rooting for. I mean, if I found out that someone I cared about trusted me that little, it would almost be as bad as finding out that everything I thought I knew about them was a lie." She shook her head. "If Mary Margaret wants to give him a second chance, that's up to her, but if you ask me, she's better off without him." Her eyes fell on the refreshments table and lit up.

"Whoa. Ashley just brought a pumpkin pie. I'm going to grab a slice before it goes. You want anything?"

Neal shook his head. "No, I'm good," he said absently. "Enjoy. I'm just… gonna mingle." And try to figure out a way to tell you the truth before it's too late, but something tells me it already might be.

Rumpelstiltskin's heart was pounding in his chest and his hands were sweating. Once he'd ascertained that Booth was breakfasting downstairs in the diner, he'd made his way up to the young man's motel room and picked the lock on his door. This oughtn't take long. A man who came to town on a motorbike didn't have the wherewithal to carry much in the way of possessions, and Booth's were out on in plain view. He began rifling through the papers on the table, not really expecting to find much, but one never did know.

He looked at the next page and his blood ran cold as he realized that he was holding a sketch of an all-too-familiar dagger.

"Who are you, Booth?" he whispered.

But of course, he knew. There weren't many people about who knew about that blade, and most of those who did had forgotten its existence. But Booth hadn't been here for twenty-eight years. His memories were intact. And if Booth knew about the dagger, then he was on a very short list of people who did.

"Bae." The syllable was barely more than a puff of air on his lips. It couldn't be. How would Bae even know he was here, much less how to find him? But who else could he be? And if Booth was truly Bae, then why hadn't he come forward?

You coward! You promised! Don't break our dealllllllllllllllllllllllll!

Rumple swallowed. Was Bae here to reconcile? Or did he have a darker motivation? And was he so certain that Booth was indeed his long-lost boy? There were others who knew about the dagger, after all, and they hadn't all come over with the Dark Curse. If one of those had tracked him here, if Booth was in their employ…

If, if, IF! But how could he know?

He bit his lip. Then, he carefully replaced the paper where he'd found it. For now, he'd keep an eye on the young man. He'd note who he spoke to and he'd learn what he'd spoken about. Then, and only then, would he act.

But oh, how he hoped it was Bae!

One floor below, Sidney looked up as Emma slid into the seat across from him. "Hey," she greeted him.

Sidney returned the greeting with a friendly smile. "Things really worked out, didn't they?" he said. "For your friend?"

Emma's jaw set. "You told me you could help me with Mary Margaret, and I wanted to believe it was true. Even after you tried to make me think that Regina's playground plans were plans for a luxury house built with expropriated funds."

Sidney flinched. "That was an honest mistake."

"If it was, it was sloppy reporting," Emma informed him. "I thought at the time that you might just have been angry enough and drunk enough to jump to conclusions without fact-checking," she paused for a beat, "especially since you had just got fired from the paper. You told me Regina was behind it, but if the work you were turning in was as poorly vetted as the lead you handed me, it occurred to me that… maybe she didn't have as much to do with it as you thought. But then, there was this." She laid a small device on the table.

Sidney flinched again. "Is that a bug?" he asked too quickly.

"Oh, for God sakes, Sidney," Emma snapped, drop it. You tried to fool me, you spied on me, and you reported it all back to that sick, crazy woman. I can't even imagine what she has on you, but it must be something huge."

Sidney shook his head. "She's a good Mayor," he protested.

"She tried to get Mary Margaret convicted of a murder that didn't even happen!" Emma exclaimed. "You're in a lot of trouble. There is a DNA trail in a basement of some house out there, and I'm going to find it. And she's going to go away."

"Maybe," Sidney allowed. "But, I wouldn't bet against her. She's an amazing woman."

Emma frowned in disbelief. "Do you… Are you in love with her?" When Sidney didn't reply, she exhaled angrily. "Fine. Whatever. Here's the thing – before you know it, I will have that evidence. And you need to think long and hard. You can either help me and help yourself, or you're going to go down with her, too."

"We'll see," Sidney said, picking up his coffee cup once more and taking a long sip. "We'll see."

Some thirty minutes later, Rumpelstiltskin watched from the safety of his Cadillac, as August Booth stepped out of the diner onto the main street, climbed onto his motorcycle, and drove away. Rumple waited a moment before turning his own key in his ignition and following.

It wasn't difficult. Booth's transportation made a fair amount of noise and, while Rumple turned onto a side street every now and again, it wasn't as though the young man was trying to evade him. He didn't seem to notice that he was being tailed, but then again, why would he?

Rumple's eyes narrowed as he saw Booth turn onto St. Meissa Way. The convent? What business would Booth have there? A moment later, his eyes opened wider. Booth wouldn't…

…but Bae might!

Neal had been debating a visit to the convent since the day he'd recognized the Reul Ghorm as Mother Superior. Even if she didn't know who he was—or know herself, for that matter—she might still be able to give him good advice about how to proceed. So when Marco told him that they were going to repaint the refectory, Neal thought that he might have his chance.

He was laying down drop cloths when Marco groaned. "The paint," he said. "The Mother Superior, she ordered the glossy finish, not the matte. That's fine for the door and woodwork, but it's gonna show every imperfection on these old walls. Go tell her and ask what she wants us to do."

Neal nodded. They couldn't start with the trim. If they did the walls later, then inevitably, some paint would drip onto the baseboards. Best case scenario, the convent could order the right paint and they'd come back another day to do the job. But if they couldn't exchange the paint and didn't have the budget to buy more, if the Reul Ghorm insisted on using the paint they had regardless of its suitability, then he and Marco needed to know that now, before they started on the job.

He was just outside the mother superior's office when he heard voices coming from inside.

"Emma!" Mary Margaret blinked. Then her lips curved in a welcoming smile and she stepped aside to let her friend enter. "This is a surprise."

"Yeah," Emma said, stepping into the loft. "I know. Yesterday was a celebration, but today I… wanted to see how you were doing. I mean… Well, after everything you've been through in the last little while, maybe you're finding it a little harder to just… pick up where you left off."

Mary Margaret sighed. "I'm all right."

"Yeah?"

She hesitated. "No! I just sent David packing and I know it was the right thing to do. Not because of Kathryn," she added at a rush. "Because he thought I could have killed… And yes, he's sorry he accused me and he's right, it was a good setup. I mean, if it hadn't been, you wouldn't have arrested me and I wouldn't have been arraigned and on my way to county when Kathryn turned up, so I do understand but even though I do, he still should have trusted me, right?" She winced. "Or at least, kept his suspicions to himself. Or… oh, maybe I'm better off this way, knowing that he thought I could have… But I mean, everyone—almost everyone—thought the same thing and…" She exhaled. "How can you know you did the right thing and still second guess yourself?"

Emma hesitated. "If we're going to have this conversation, I don't mind, but… do you still have that whiskey?"

Mary Margaret snorted. "Oh, hell, yes. And right now? It actually sounds good."

"I don't know," Neal heard a familiar voice say. "It's been so many years since I've seen him. I don't know if it's fair to disrupt his life. And if it turns out to go not like I've been dreaming… If he's managed to forget me…"

"A father can't forget his son," a gentle voice chided him.

"Not normally, no. But he might have wanted to. When I left… it was messy. There was a lot that should have been resolved and wasn't. I-I want to reconcile with him, but I don't know if I can risk getting hurt again if… if it's going to be the same as it was before."

There was a long pause. Then, "Only you can make that decision, child. But if you give in to your fears, you may find that you've closed a door that that won't open again later."

"That's my biggest fear," the other person said. "I-I mean, I love him. I do. But trusting that things will work out after all this time. I don't know. It's funny. I've spent so much time fantasizing about a reunion, but it's been so long. It feels like a big ask."

"If your heart is in your dream," the Reul Ghorm quoted softly, "no request is too extreme. And Fate is kind."

"Not in my experience," the first voice sighed. "But maybe you're right. I'll think about it anyway. Thank you, Reverend Mother."

The doorknob started to turn and Neal quickly darted into a wall recess behind a white plaster statue. From there, he got a full view of August Booth exiting the office and making for the stairs to the front door. Poor guy. He must have found his father here. That had to be rough on him: seeing a parent, and knowing they'd forgotten you'd ever existed. Neal winced. It was also rough seeing a parent and knowing that they hadn't. Interesting that August was dealing with the same kind of thing he was. For just a moment, he contemplated running after him and telling him he understood. But that would have meant admitting he'd been eavesdropping. And Marco still needed to know what to do about the incorrect paint.

He slid out from behind the plaster saint and knocked lightly on the mother superior's office door.

He was falling again, down through the portal, the winds whipping at his hair and clothes. He couldn't see the ground or the sky or anything at all but the swirling green vortex, but he knew. Papa wasn't with him. "You coward! You promised! Don't break our dealllllllllllllllllllllllll!" He shrieked the words, but there was nobody to hear them, not Papa, not Morraine, not the Reul Ghorm… He couldn't even hear himself over the howling winds and lightning lashings of magi—

"Neal? Neal! Hey…"

Suddenly, he wasn't fighting the vortex winds; he was tangled up in his bedsheets and Emma was lying beside him and shaking him awake. "Emma?" he groaned.

"You okay?" she asked. "You haven't had one this bad in a while."

"In a while?" he repeated. "When… when was the last one?"

Emma shrugged. "Maybe a week ago? But you weren't screaming that time, just thrashing around like usual."

Neal propped himself up on one elbow and turned to face her. "How… usual?" he asked, not certain whether he really wanted an answer.

Emma hesitated. "You used to get them almost every night before Arizona," she said. "Then, it went down to maybe… I dunno… once every other month or so? It's been worse since you came here, though. I guess… probably three or four times a week, but usually, like I said, you toss and turn for a bit and then you settle down." She paused. "First time I've heard you scream like that in years."

"Sorry."

Emma shook her head. "It's not your fault. Uh… you want to talk about it?"

Neal shook his head. "I think I need some air. What time is it, anyway?" His eyes fell on the red digital display on the alarm clock. It was a quarter past ten. Right. He'd turned in just after supper, exhausted after a long day's work on top of three late nights and early mornings. "Would it be really bizarre if I drove off to the wilderness park at this hour? There's just… something about nature at night that's sort of relaxing."

"Hey, if it'll help you calm down," Emma said. "This isn't Boston. Even out in the boonies, Storybrooke's usually pretty safe at night. Especially now that we know that Kathryn's okay and there never was any knife-wielding serial killer…"

Yeah, but I think I'd better steer clear of Jefferson's house, all the same. Neal hesitated. "You don't mind? Maybe it really would clear my head."

Emma shook her head, already settling back down on her pillow. "Go for it. But text me if you're not back for breakfast."

He didn't need the flashlight on his phone. He hadn't had a flashlight in Neverland and he'd learned quickly that torches could help someone hunting you pinpoint your location all the more easily. And while jungles were usually too humid to burn, when the weather was controlled by a youth who thought rainy days boring, the trees could indeed get dry enough to fall prey to a flaming spark and a good breeze. Thankfully, Hook's navigation lessons had helped him find his way in the dark, even on land.

The constellations were different here, but the techniques were the same. Neal made his way carefully along the trail, trusting to the moonlight to help him avoid exposed tree roots, depressions in the soil, and other potential pitfalls. And he did need to think. If he left things too long, Papa would find out who he was. It was inevitable. Neal's best chance was to try to take control of the situation now, come clean at a time of his choosing, instead of waiting and dreading the moment. But he had to plan the where and when of it all and he had to do it soon. Before—

"You were right, Bae." Neal froze when he heard the familiar voice in the trees, not more than five yards away from him. "You were always right. I was a coward, and I never should've let you go. I know it's little consolation, but… I just want you to know, that ever since you left, ever since you crossed the barriers of time and space, in every waking moment… I've been looking for you. And now that I've finally found you… I know I can't make up for the past, for the lost time. All I can do is to ask you to do what you've always done. And that's to be the bigger man… And forgive me. I'm so sorry, son. I'm so sorry, Bae."

There was a thickness to Papa's voice and Neal felt tears stinging his own eyes, as he heard the rustle of dead leaves and the faint snap of a twig. Papa knew. Papa knew! And if Papa truly meant what he was saying—and he sounded like he did—then it was going to be okay. He just needed a minute to compose himself, or at least to wipe away his tears, so that he wasn't so blinded by them that he got shredded by black locust or some other thorny plant. It was okay. Papa knew where he was. It was—

"Oh, my boy. My beautiful boy. Can you truly, truly forgive me?"

Neal swallowed hard. Yes, he thought he could trust his voice now. He opened his mouth to respond, just as he heard someone else speak.

"I forgive you, Papa."

Stunned into speechlessness, the words he'd been about to say died on his lips. And as shock yielded to fury, a question burned white-hot in his mind.

What the hell?"

Chapter Text