Mark slowly walked down the half-empty streets of Storybrooke, hands jammed in his coat pockets as a million thoughts were rushing through his mind. He felt his anger boil once again at Henry, anger that the young man would dare call him by the same name that had been haunting him for nights on end now.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Mark stopped to rub his hands down his face, feeling his shoulder start to flare up worse than usual, most likely caused by his restless sleep coupled with stress.

Reaching inside his coat to grab his pill bottle, Mark let a quiet curse escape his lips as he realized he left them at home in haste to follow Henry to the library. Letting out a deep breath, Mark put a hold on his anger and hastily adjusted his pace to make his way back home. Maybe it was just a reminder he needed some time to relax for a bit; what with all that's been going on, he had little time to himself anymore.

Accompanied only by the sounds of his own breathing, and his heavy shoes on the sidewalk, Mark's house had just come into view when suddenly, an unseen force, wielding the strength of a freight train seemed to crash into him, sending him forcefully to the ground.

Ignoring the searing pain that came from his skinned hands, Mark was about to see who, or what had hit him when a flood of memories all began hitting him at once. Voices began to fill his mind, overlapping each other in a sea of muddled confusion as visions, memories began replaying themselves in front of him. And he knew them...

---

Mark saw himself, dressed in work clothes and holding a woodcutters axe in hand, holding his hand out to shake another's, a friendly smile crossing his bearded face as he introduced himself, "Name's Nick Chopper, it's a pleasure to meet you."

*~*

He saw the woman from his dreams, his wife, Catherine walk up to him, a fond look in her eyes as she caressed his cheek with one hand, the other placed on a rather obvious bump on her stomach. "Just a few more months..." She said to him, her voice ghostly in effect.

*~*

Time seemed to jump past in front of him, as next he was standing inside his small college, looking over his wife who was practically drenched in sweat, a heavy tiredness in her eyes as an unseen man placed something swaddled in blankets into her arms while saying, "It's a boy..."

"A boy..." Mark saw himself say, hushed veneration in his tone as a wide smile broke out on his lips as he looked down at his son, his boy.

"Oh, Nicholas...what are we going to name him?" Catherine asked quietly, looking up at her husband with a soft expression.

Mark saw his expression become curious for a few moments, as if thinking the decision over before answering, "How about Mason...?"

*~*

The scene rapidly switched on him again, the images turning into a blur before landing a few years later, with Mark seeing himself put on a flat cap in preparation for a journey; slinging his axe on his back.

"Papa! Papa!" A young voice called out to Nick Chopper as he turned around to find the source, a short lad, no older than five running up to him. "Mason! I thought I told you to stay with your mother?" Nick reprimanded seriously, though his eyes remained warm and kind.

"I want to go with you..." The boy objected quietly, hugging a homely stuffed dog toy to his chest tightly, as if fearful it might run off.

"Ohhh, I see..." Nick Chopper responded, crouching down so he was at eye-level with his son. "You know you can't come with me, Son...you're *just* not old enough, yet. And I need you here to take care of your mama for me. Do you think you can do that?" He asked patiently, taking time to brush some hair away from the boy's face.

Mason nodded soberly, furiously scrubbing away tears that threatened to stream down his cheeks. "Good. I love you, boy." Nick said as a farewell, kissing Mason on the forehead before rising once again, following a small crew of three others into the woods.

*~*

The scene jumped once more, now taking place a year or two later, the entire population of the village was gathered outside as an intimidating, green-skinned woman walked amongst the villagers; who flinched back in fear at her presence.

"I am in need of a new servant! And one of you diseased cretins will have to do." The woman said cruelly, looking in-between all who had gathered with a sharp eye. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe..." She said quietly, under her breath, though loud enough for those in the crowd to hear.

Finally, she shot a hand out, pointing at a single member of the group. "I want her, bring her to me." The woman called impatiently as Catherine stepped forward, a truly frightened look in her eyes as she kept her head held downwards.

"Yes, you'll do *perfectly*." The green-skinned woman said in a voice that was almost cheery.

"Stay away from her." A voice called out warningly as Nick, himself pushed through the crowd, an angered look in his eyes.

The woman couldn't help but laugh haughtily, pointing to herself mockingly as if to add emphasis to his outrageous statement. "What? You mean me?" She asked, tauntingly. "I don't think so." She added on, her tone becoming more serious now.

Nick, with sudden haste, grabbed his axe and charged at the woman, holding it up to strike. The woman merely smirked as a wave of her hand was enough to freeze Nick in place with magic, an obscure, unnoticeable glow radiating off his axe blade for just a split-second.

"My, my, quite pesky. You know, this could have been very easy...but you had to go and make things complicated." The woman lectured in an almost singsong voice, her eyes kept peeled on Nick. "But don't let me tell you how badly you've erred...let your loved one do it for you." The woman added before promptly plunging her hand into Catherine's chest, a dark grin forming on her lips as she knew that there was absolutely nothing Nick could do but watch the torment.

Catherine made a pained groaning sound as the Witch pulled her heart out of her chest, holding it in her hand like one would a delicate artifact before giving it a sharp squeeze, causing the young woman to fall on her knees in pain; tears streaming down her face. "Please..." She managed to say amidst pained wheezes and short breaths.

"Aww...does it hurt? Here, let me take care of that for you." The woman assured in a calm voice before squeezing Catherine's heart in her hand forcefully, applying more and more pressure until the heart crumbled to sand and dust in the Witch's hand.

A scream rang out from amongst the crowd of still villagers, who could only look on, horrified, as Catherine fell dead; the life fleeing from her body before she could even hit the ground.

"Bring me their next of kin!" The Witch cried out amongst the villagers, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground as a single, unwilling villager brought Mason forward, the boy kicking and screaming all the way as tears poured down his face, calling desperately for his papa to come save him.

"Hmm....well, I'll find some use for you." The Witch said nonchalantly before causing Mason to fall into a deep sleep with a wave of her hand.

Lifting the boy up off the ground in her arms, Zelena took one last moment to point at Catherine's still body on the ground. "Let that be a lesson for you *all*." She warned lastly before climbing on her magic broomstick and flying off into the air...

Nick Chopper felt the spell dissipate off him, but it didn't matter. All he could do was stare at the lifeless body of his wife, his hands cupping his face as he slowly fell to his knees, dropping his axe haphazardly to the ground.

The other villagers watched Nick with varied expressions of guilt, sadness, and pain. Nick slowly crawled over to his wife's body on the ground, letting his hand run over her face to close her eyes, his own landing on the silver heart-shaped locket around her neck...the same one that he bought her in the early days of their marriage.

With gentle hands, Nick unhooked the locket from around Catherine's neck, cupping the jewelry in his hands as he let out his grief...

---

Mark sat silently in the middle of the streets, hunched over as a sense of loss so profound caused him to lose his touch with reality. Hands shaking as tears began to creep down his cheeks, Mark could barely hold onto his composure as memory upon memory, thought upon thought of his loss and his failures crept back into his mind.

His throat tightened painfully, making it difficult to breathe as he finally let loose all the pain and anguish he had been holding in without knowing it. His body racked with choking sobs, Mark let the tears flow as they would, both unable and unwilling to hold them back anymore. Never had he felt so lost, or so alone in his entire life.

A distant sound of thunder seemed to slowly bring him back from the brink of hysteria as Mark wiped the tears from his eyes, seeing a large purple cloud that seemed to sweep through Storybrooke.

Not moving from his spot on the street, Mark closed his red, bloodshot eyes; and let the smoke come as it would...

She couldn't do it; she couldn't go back out there, not after the pain of seeing Knox again did to her heart. She thought she could handle it, he just wanted to talk but she allowed her emotions to get the better of her, and ended up hurting them both than what was necissary. It wasn't his fault; dammit, so why didn't she feel guilty about directing her anger towards him?

Putting in her time card for the day, Ruby headed out of the diner through the back exit thirty minutes after she was sure that Knox was gone. The last thing she needed was for him to try again; emotionally there was no way she could get through that.

Her lanky arms wrapped around her torso tightly, willing it to bring some sort of comfort as she walked down the sidewalk, feeling her feet carry her where she knew she needed to be. The Toll Bridge wasn't that far of a walk from here, and it was a good thing because with her entire body feeling numb with hurt, she wasn't sure she'd be able to make it too much longer.

She thought she could make it, but she hadn't even reached the bench for the town's only bus stop before she collapsed down onto her knees, her arms holding herself steadfastly harder and harder as the silent tears began rolling down her cheeks and she was gasping for breath.

Mary Margaret. That's who she should be mad at, not Knox. If she hadn't found Mary Margaret, if David Nolan had never asked her to join the search party...if only she had known then what she had known now...

"I wish she never woke up!"

Ruby sobbed violently and let her back rest against the poles that held up the bus bench.

"I wish she just died in that coma! I can't do this, I can't keep pretending that everything is okay. What am I going to do if Knox and Mary Margaret come into Granny's? I can't keep hiding. That stupid, stuck up, overly smiley little bi-"

Ruby felt her entire body lurch forward, as if pushed by a sudden hurricane wind. What seemed like someone else's entire lifetime flashed through her mind, bringing tears of happiness to her eyes, replacing those of pain. She knew now, she knew everything!

"Snow..." Ruby breathed out reverently, wiping a tear from her cheek.

Ruby picked herself up off of the sidewalk and glanced around frantically for her long-lost friend. She sniffed the air as naturally as if she had been in her wolf form, picking up Snow's scent not too far away. Bright whites flashed as her lips spread into a wide smile, the tears of joy streaming down her already red cheeks as she kicked off her black high heels and bounded down the street in the direction of her friend.

"SNOW!"

Looking up from his homework, Mason's brown eyes happened upon his mother. He liked it when she slept, she didn't hold the stress in her face that this town inflicted upon her when she did. He supposed it came with the job of being Mayor, as he didn't clearly understand what all there was to be stressed about when you could practically do whatever you wanted, but at nearly nine years old Mason was able to deduce that the heavy weight his mother held on her shoulders went farther than just her job.

Mason uncrossed his legs and swung them over the side of the bed, setting his math book down on the bed where he had been sitting and went to refill the glass of water he had insisted his mother drink with a handful of asprin for the pain. She must not have planned on falling asleep since she remained in her work clothes, but he dared not wake her. She needed her sleep.

He went into his mother's master bathroom and refilled the glass of water in the sink, putting the bottle of asprin away in the medicine cabinet before returning to his mother's side and setting the glass down on the desk as quietly as he possibly could so that it would be there for her when she woke up.

He halfly sat on the edge of the bed on her side and reached forward to kiss her cheek lightly, surprised that a tear suddenly squeezed out of his eye and rolled down his cheek. He quickly wiped it away with the back of his sleeve and returned to the foot of the bed where he sprawled out comfortably and took up his math book again, but his heart wasn't into homework any longer, instead his thoughts drifting to the person who had done this to her.

Of course he knew plenty of people that spoke badly of his mother, but he didn't know anyone that would actually take action and try to harm her. Mason slammed his math book closed with an agitated sigh, knowing that studying now would be pointless.

"Gods help whoever hurt you mom, I'll break their nose just like I did Augusts, and I won't even feel bad about it because you told me that it's always the right thing when you stand up for those you love. And I do love you mom, more than-"

A shockwave went through the house, though nothing seemed to be immediately effected but Mason himself. His stomach began twisting into strange knots, leaving him feeling very queasy as a headache suddenly reared in his head and caused him to close his eyes.

He saw a woman, skin as green as the skin of an apple and lips as pink as a rose and flashing her stunningly white teeth. Another woman was there, golden eyes as bright as the day with a small nose and exotic angular features. He knew this woman, she was his -

"-Mom?" Mason called out, slightly panicked as he opened his eyes wide once more. Regina must have sensed his distress as she sat up immediately, locking eyes with her son and saw the tears beginning to stream down her face.

"Mason! What-" Regina pushed herself away from the head of the bed and crawled over the few feet to her son, wrapping her arms around him comfortingly and ignoring the blinding sting that came from her injuries.

"She killed her!" Mason sobbed uncontrolably into Regina's chest, holding tightly onto her as if she were to disappear on him. "Don't leave me! Don't leave me like she did!"

Confusion and concern knitted onto Regina's face as she began to rub small circles into Mason's back, letting her lips kiss the top of his thick head of hair.

"Mason, what are-"

Regina's eyes snapped to her left and out the window. Out of the corner of her eye she had seen something, the only thing that could pull her attention away from her hysterical son, the only thing that could answer her questions in a way he never could and the only thing that could potentially save her life.

A billowing cloud of purple was headed their way, engulfing everything in it's wake without mercy. This meant two things. One, just as Gold said the curse had been broken and the people of Storybrooke were waking up. This would have caused an incredible amount of distress in The Queen if it hadn't been for the second fact; magic was coming.

"Hold on." Regina said pulling Mason closer to her still, feeling his head rising to see what it was that his mother was looking at through the window but Regina put her hand on his head, keeping it down as the fog slipped in through the cracks and devoured the both of them.

"Mom! What is this? I'm scared!"

"Shhh...Mason don't worry, everything is just perfect." Regina consoled him, unable to help the smile spreading across her lips as the smoke cleared around them. She laughed as a single tear of joy rolled down her cheek and kissed Mason once more on the top of his head.

"Don't be scared Mason, it's magic, magic is here, and it's going to help us. I promise, I will never let anyone hurt you the way she did." Regina had no idea who this 'she' was that he had been distressing about earlier, but the smile on his face and the relax she felt in his muscles put her mind at ease that it was the right thing to say; and it was true...nothing would ever come between her and her son so long as she drew breath.

No doubt the people of Storybrooke would be at her doorstep within minutes, demanding her head on a spike just as Gold had said, but with magic, she would be quick to show them that she still held the power that she had lost over the last few weeks.

"Starting with that insufferable Henry Carlyle..."

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez, Tanderbolt, and I as Rumpelstiltskin, Robert Leland, and Belle*~*~*

"You freed Belle, you had to of known I'd go after Regina."

Mr. Gold lay back in his cell, the tiny cot of a bed providing little to no comfort for the older gentleman as another shooting pain came down on his back and across his chest, causing him to grit his teeth and suck in a painful breath. His skin was coated in a light sheen of sweat, and in previous request by the Storybrooke Sheriff his suit jacket had been removed prior to being locked in his cell, g Mr. Gold to claw open the first couple buttons of his dark blue dress shirt and loosen his tie in a futile attempt to try and feel cooler.

In the thousand or so years he had been alive, Rumpelstiltskin had never gone through so much pain, even dwarfing the time he broke his own leg to return to his bitch of a wife Milah and the light of his world, Baelfire. A quiet whimper came from the pawnbroker as he slumped down even further onto the bed, his head resting crudly against the cement wall corner of his cell, just inches now from lying flat on the bed. But he wouldn't give in; this pain was something he could endure, even if the corners of his vision had gone black and his lungs felt as if he were breathing through a coffee straw.

Robert was not in a great mood, and Gold's comments did not help.

"I was hoping to arrest Regina right after I dropped off Belle. I had no idea she would be at your store. I also thought you were more of the type to make long terms plans for revenge. Someone your age must have some pretty impressive patience,"

Had he not been in so much pain, Mr. Gold might have chuckled at that remark. Instead, he shifted himself on the bed in hopes to find a more comfortable position to no avail and grunted in his discomfort, letting the sweat instead fall from his face and onto his silk shirt, too tired to even grumble about how impossible the stains would be to get out.

He instead concentrated on his breathing, which was proving to become a steadily increasing demanding task. Part of him just wanted to give up; to give into what his body was screaming for and let his eyes flutter closed, but the moment he did, flashes of the smile on his daughter's face caused him to snap them back open. He had to stay awake...for Baelfire, his entire world.

"I've wanted her dead for a long, long time." He admitted with his lips curling up into a snarl, pushing past the pain though causing an increase in his already ragged breathing.

Gods Belle, hurry!

Robert was still doing paperwork, not paying much attention to the pain Mr. Gold was in.

"You're not exactly helping your case here. I'm not very fond of either you or Regina, but I'm the sheriff of this town, and I am guided by the law, not by my personal judgements. You should be glad about that, I don't know what would have happened if I still had that curse on me."

Mr. Gold had a pretty good idea, but he held his tongue, mostly because it was taking every bit of strength he had to just keep awake and he didn't feel like explaining how none of that would even matter in the next few minutes; provided of course that stupid cat did his job correctly.

Thunder rolled in the distance; at first Mr. Gold believed that his hearing had started to act up on him but when it sounded again, closer this time, he made a last-stitch effort to sit up on the cot, a feeble smile tugging at his thin lips. He managed to get his shoulderblades to rest against the cold cement wall, craning his neck to look out the window to the right of Robert's desk but it was just out of his view. However, all Robert had to do was look up, there was no way he could miss the sunlight the room held within it had been suddenly cut off.

Robert looked out the window and and saw a purple cloud heading towards him, it was wide and tall enough that he couldn't see the edges. It was moving fast, too fast to move away from. He said "What is that?" before reflexively covering his mouth with his arm.

"Magic..." Mr. Gold answered with a wolfish smile. He didn't need to see the immense purple cloud to know what the Sheriff was talking about, he could feel it. Not even a handful of moments passed before the purple fog began seeping in through the cracks and seams of the Sheriff's department. Mr. Gold found himself standing with immaculate ease and grasped the bars of his cell, willing to get closer and inhaling the smoke with a deep breath as it overtook him and everything inside.

Belle my angel, you did it!

After the cloud hit, Robert found himself unable to continue his paperwork. Gold's words confirmed what he feared, magic had returned. He felt mentally and physically different, like the old Roland he remembered. He got up to look directly at Gold, and said "I guess I was stupid to think that I could ever get out of a deal I made with you. With the way things are going, maybe you'll end up regretting it as much as I do."

"No one breaks deals with me dearie." Mr. Gold replied as the purple smoke dissapated around him, seeming to cling to him a bit longer than anything else in the room. The staggering, haggared, sweaty man was gone, replaced with a man standing tall despite being locked away behind iron bars. His face looked and felt fresh and despite the disheveled appearance of his once ironed pristine clothing, he looked in even more power than he had ever before.

The pain...the pain was gone...everywhere! Albiet his leg but he of course was used to that before he had gotten his power. It had only been five years, but he swore that never again would he take the feeling of being a truly healthy man for granted. Was breathing always this wonderful?

"Let me go; I'll deal with Regina, and then you'll no longer have to answer to anyone but yourself." Mr. Gold said, his voice sounding dark, matching the nearly black color his eyes had melted into from the sheer exhileration of magic filling his veins once again after so long...the power.

"You know I can't do that." Gold was an enemy of Regina, releasing him would endanger her. The code of chivalry wouldn't allow him to do something like that. "Fortunately, the laws here require due process. You can leave as soon as your hearing is finished, shouldn't be any more than 48 hours." Robert had to attend to the evidence regarding Gold, he went into the other room to package the cane properly.

Mr. Gold outwardly scoffed, his blackened eyes rolling as he took two steps back away from the bars. Sure, he could wait until the hearing...or he could even get in a phone call to the DA who happened to owe him a handful of favors...but Rumpelstiltskin was never known for his patience.

He raised his hand, feeling the magic flowing through his fingers, itching towards blowing the iron bars clean off the cement wall. His time being locked up was finished, and no one had the right to decide otherwise than himself. His eyes narrowed and began to pull the magic out from within his core when suddenly a gunshot caught his attention; the bullet skipping off the ground in the center of the room and spinning uselessly until it rolled into the wall on the left.

"Next time it will be between your eyes you filthy bastard!" Mo French had entered the Sheriff's office, reloading the 9mm pistol with the most unsteady hand Rumpelstiltskin had ever seen and raised it once more to point at Mr. Gold. It would have been worthy of a light chuckle if he hadn't been followed in by a group of ten or so other people, all eyes glaring daggers at The Dark One but still stayed back apprehensively, unsure exactly what it was that purple smoke had been all about.

Half the town believed that it was magic, as stated by Mother Superior, the other half didn't know what to make of it and became mad with fear. Clearly, this was a small portion of that half.

Mr. Gold simply returned his hand to his side and walked back up to the barrier the metal bars provided, getting a good look at those who wished for his head on a spike before letting his eyes rest back on the town florist, a flickering smile playing across his lips. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or feel disappointed at their numbers, perhaps there were others still in the process of regaining their memories...or perhaps he only came second on their list; right underneath Regina.

"Mr. French! What can I do for you?"

XXX

Thunder clapped and the wind howled as Maurice guided his horse that pulled the heavy cart of merchandise through the forest. The old man knew that he needed to find shelter and soon. There was honestly no way that he would be able to last through this storm if he stayed out any longer. He kept a hand on the horse's reins, and his other hand clasped tightly around a bag of gold coins. His white knuckles around that bag showed that the money was quite important to him...probably more so than life itself.

He looked up around to see only dead trees, until the streaks of lightning illuminated a dilapitated castle nearby for a brief instant. He smirked to himself. Finally! Shelter! He guided his horse up the path, and with some struggling, they finally reached the castle. Maurice led his horse to the stable that was conveniently placed nearby. After that, he went to the front double doors and knocked, praying that someone would show the merchant mercy, at least until the storm let up.

When there was no answer, he knocked again, this time more urgently but as the rain continued to fall and soak through to his bones, there was still no answer. Looking around his surroundings once more, he took note that the place hadn't looked touched in years; perhaps it was just his luck he had come across an abandoned castle? Maurice clapped his hands together, attempting to warm them the best he could with the bag of gold clutched still tightly in his right hand and tried the knob, finding it to turn with a bit of effort, feeling the rusty tumblers creak and threaten to break and pushed the door open. The door creaked loudly. If anyone were inside, they would no doubt be alerted to his presence now.

Once inside, Maurice flipped his cloak's hood off of his head and he looked around. There was no light, except from the brief instances from the lightning. Everything in here was a wreck, and covered in dust. Nobody could have lived in a place like this! Not comfortably anyway.

With the assumption in mind, Maurice started to look for a place where he could sleep for the night. However, his search took a while, due to the grand size of the castle. In one of the rooms he stumbled into he took a quick inventory of the objects inside. A long, dark oak table, a spinning wheel, and ten or so pedestals showcasing various items. It was upon one of these pedestals that he spotted something quite...rare? Exquisite? Unique? Whatever the term...it was definitely something that would earn him a lot of money!

A pale pink rose, made out of from what he could tell, crystal. The soft glow that came from the inside of the crystal petals, with smaller white lights falling slowly and gently to the surface of the pedestals that the pink rose was placed on. The rare artifact also seemed to be shielded from the thin layer of dust by a glass large cylindrical lid.

Maurice walked up slowly to the artifact, almost like he was entranced by the glow, and he slowly and carefully removed the glass lid so he could get a better look at the glowing rose.

"Lost are we?" The ominious silence of the Dining Hall was crudely interrupted by a sudden voice, followed immediately by a giggle. Maurice whipped his thick neck around in surprise to locate the source of the voice as his heart leapt into his throat in surprise. Suddenly, he felt the top of his white, clammy hand being swatted away and turned his neck once more and let out a quiet cry of surprise as he came face to face with a beast.

"We musn't touch what isn't ours, dearie! The consequences could be quite...unsettling..." Rumpelstiltskin chided, flashing the portly man a rather wicked smile through the darkness.

A streak of lightning flashed across the stormy sky, the light coming in through the thickly curtained windows to reveal the green and gold complexion of the monster of the castle. He looked human enough if it hadn't been for the obscure skin color and dead eyes; and that smile...teeth rotted and black, it was a wonder they were all still intact. Still, the tan silk shirt layered underneath a golden colored vest complimented by black leather pants and shoes would give someone reason to believe that he was indeed human...and wealthy.

Maurice stumbled backwards a few steps after his hand was swatted away and while the beastly man in front of him spoke. He stuttered, snapping back to his senses, and trying to regain his composure, "Ah! My-My apologies! I-I thought this castle was abandoned,"

He slowly started backing away from the man in front of him, not quite sure if the person was more man or more of a beast. Could this person be reasoned with? Or would he just behave like a beast? But a darker part of his mind whispered plans and ideas in his head on how to get the rose from the beast.

He added as he took another step back, "I came in here for shelter from the storm,"

"Yes...that much is clear..." Rumpelstiltskin said in a bored tone, letting his dark eyes scan the merchant with great detail, seeming to size him up. Once he was satisfied, Rumpelstiltskin turned from the man and began walking away, snapping his fingers once and in turn, the candelabras in the room lit, illuminating the dark room with enough light that would be considered 'comfortable.' He turned back to face Maurice in a bit of a flourish, his hands dancing around a bit as if he didn't know what to do with them.

"I suppose I could let you stay...for a price of course..." He said letting the child-like giddiness back into his voice, a small giggle coming straight afterwards as his still dark eyes glanced at the pouch the merchant was holding fast to.

Maurice blinked at the mention of the price. He was a merchant! He was an expert in trading! From what he could tell, the man may not ask him for the money...he looked wealthy as he is. But even so, the possibility was still there. He asked the man in a completely calm and negotiable manner, "What would you like in return? I am a merchant, and I have a wide variety of wares I can offer you,"

Rumpelstiltskin giggled for the third time that evening, his torso twisting on his hips side to side with the eagerness of a child just itching to open his birthday presents.

"I have no use for your wares...or your gold..." He assured the man, though his dark eyes lingered on the satchel in the man's hand for a moment longer. With a slight shake of his head, Rumpelstitlskin flourished his right arm into the air, a small cloud of purple smoke encasing the satchel and as the cloud of magic disappeared, so did the bag of coins. "...and neither will you." He added on, his voice dropping to a low snarl, the lit candles in the room flickering at The Dark Ones words.

"You intruded on the wrong castle dearie! And now, for your insolence, you will serve as my slave until I have no further use of you, but don't despair! I have quite a few spells and potions I'm eager to test out before we're through!" Rumpelstiltskin shouted with his arms waving in every-which direction, and though his voice level remained raised, he bantered between jovial and angry, as if unsure on which one to pick.

Maurice sputtered after the coins were taken and he said that he would be a slave, "Wh-Wh-Wha-WHAT?!" He started to beg, sweating profusely in fear at the man and at his predicament, "No! Please! I have six daughters waiting for me to come home! They need me!"

Rumpelstiltskin let out a shrill "NYEAHH!" expressing his amusement.

"You should have thought of that before you entered The Dark Castle. Everyone knows they don't leave here without something special to trade, and in your case, it's to be your freedom!"

Maurice interjected, now paling in realization about who the man was "Y-you're Rumpelstiltskin? But I had no idea that this was The Dark Castle to begin with! I'll leave immediately, that should render such a trade null!"

"Mmmmm...." Rumpelstiltskin hummed, seeming to seriously consider the man's words. "No." He then said indefinitely and waved his hand once more, covering Maurice in a thick cloud of purple smoke and removed him from the Dining Hall.

With a quiet huff, Rumpelstiltskin adjusted his golden colored vest and turned to head out himself, the candles extinguishing by magic as the grand double doors closed with a resounding thud as he made his way back to the tower where he would continue his evening unbothered.

The old man soon found himself shrouded in purple smoke and he soon found himself in a prison cell. He stumbled over to the bars and he clasped the cold metall in fists and he called "Please! Please, let me go! I'm sorry!" He cried, begged, and plead throughout the time that he was in the prison cell, but it seemed as though his cries fell on deaf ears.

As the hours passed by, he felt his throat start to dry from dehydration, making it difficult for him to continue his cries. He was also starting to become desperate. He started to even consider trading one of his daughters away for his freedom. If Rumpelstiltskin was indeed a man, then a woman would certainly be something he was interested in...right? No...no he could never wish his fate on the jewels of his life, and so the idea was immediately dismissed.

XXXX

A complete day passed by before the thick wooden door of Maurice's cell creaked open, however there was no one on the recieving end of the dungeon, as if the door had been opened by magic.

Maurice blinked in surprise at the sound and the sight of the cell opening ever so slowly. He stood up shakily, and he cautiously looked out, as though expecting Rumpelstiltskin to pop out of nowhere, and cast some kind of spell on him. When he was sure enough, he stepped out of the cell, and planned on leaving the castle.

As soon as he reached the top of the staircase, there was a small tray laid out on a circular table with a couple slices of stale bread and a tankard of water.

He noticed the small tray, and he gently moved it to the side so he could try the door first. However, when he tried the door, he found that it was locked. He swore under his breath at that discovery. From what he had seen of this dungeon thus far, he doubted that there was any other exit.

"Do that again and I'll skin you alive." The familair voice called out to the portly man, though it held no hints to whether he was joking or not. Rumpelstiltskin had, at some point, materialized himself sitting on the edge of the table next to the tray that Maruice had pushed away with little interest.

Maurice jumped at the voice, and turned to face Rumpelstiltskin in shock and fear. How could he have not noticed The Dark One there before? Maurice asked in fear, "That's not the worse you intend to inflict on me, is it?"

"Now you're catching on dearie." Rumpelstiltskin giggled softly.

Tears started to well in Maurice's eyes as the gravity and despair of the situation started to become fully realized in his mind. He didn't dare to let them fall though. He soon gathered up the courage to request the imp, "Before you end up killing me, could you at least let me write to my daughters? At least let me say good-bye to them. This is a very small thing compared to what you intend to do to me,"

Rumpelstiltskin's dark eyes rolled at Maurice's pitiful pleas, feeling nauseated already and it wasn't even tea time.

"Yes yes yes, so long as the blubbering stops!" He said raising his hand to his head, attempting to rub away the rising headache. He flicked his opposite wrist, the tray of bread and water replaced with a blank piece of parchment and ink quill.

Maurice fell silent as the parchment and ink quill appeared. He went over to the table and he started hastily writing on the parchment, trying to make sure that his tears didn't land on the parchment and smudge the ink. He wrote of his plight, and how he would never return home. He wished his six daughters, all by name, the best in life, and to be happy.

When he finished, he set the ink quill back into the ink pot, to show Rumpelstiltskin that he finished writing the letter.

Rumpelstilstksin hadn't moved from his perch atop the table, bending at his torso and neck to read over Maurice's words more out of boredom than of paranoia.

"How nauseatingly romantic..."

When Maurice indicated that he was done he snatched the letter away from Maurice and with a flick of his wrist, the letter was folded, sealed, and then gone from the castle entirely.

"Now then, if you're done babbling like a child..."

Maurice chuckled bitterly "If you thought that was babbling, then you clearly know absolutely nothing,"

Rumpelstiltskin hopped off of the table, clearly unmoved by the merchant's words and began heading towards the Dining Hall when Maurice addressed him once more in an utterly serious tone.

"You don't know what it's like to have a daughter..."

The Dark One halted in his step, his back hunching over slightly as he kept it facing the merchant. A muscle in his cheek twitched and his blood began to boil hot under his skin. He turned slowly to face Maurice, the once jovial, childlike expression he held gone in an instant and replaced with nothing but malice.

"And that just goes to show that clearly it is you who knows nothing!" He breathed out through clenched teeth. Rumpelstiltskin's fingertips began to crackle, white spurts of what looked like electricity dancing around his hands until finally The Dark One waved his hand in Maurice's general direction. A trail of black smoke went from his fingertips to the merchant, covering him entirely and shrinking with the merchants body until all that was left was a rather large cockroach where Maruice had once been.

"Let's see if being the slimy little cockroach you are for a few days won't teach you a little something. Best hope I don't forget you're here or better yet - best hope that I don't accidentally step on you." Rumpelstiltskin let out another giggle, but his heart wasn't into it, making it all the more frightning. He scoffed as he watched the cockroach scurry away, the snarl never leaving his lips until it was gone entirely.

XXX

"What are you waiting for? Shoot him!" One of the townspeople called behind Mo French.

"While he's still locked up!" Another one chimed it.

"No! Not until I find out the truth!" Mo yelled back at the townspeople cowering behind him, all of which seemed to have no regard whatsoever for the Sheriff who sat behind his desk. It was clear that the rules had changed.

Mo took a tentative step forward, testing the waters to see just how close he could get to the monster before it snapped. "My girl; what happened to my girl?" He asked, his lower lip quivering as he attempted to keep his tears at bay. "I know you did something! I know you were there! You have her locked up somewhere don't you? Just as you did in The Dark Castle, forever a prisoner because of my mistakes!"

"Glad to see your memory is all there." Mr. Gold slightly mumbled, unblinking as he stared the barrel of the gun down, more interested in the tears that began streaming down the chubby man's cheeks.

As soon as he heard the gunshot, Robert dropped what he was doing and ran towards the direction of it. The mob was thick and hard to pass through, but his newfound strength helped him create a path. He saw Moe French holding a gun, and tackled him from behind, trying to wrestle him to the ground. Immediately the townspeople that had followed Mo French into the Sheriff's Department became outraged, shouting obscenities at the Sheriff, begging him to see reason behind their purpose there, some even going as far as pushing past the others to charge Robert themselves and pulling out their own concealed weapons.

Robert got his hand on the gun, but was immediately assaulted by almost a dozen townspeople. He was still on the ground with Mo, and the mob rained down stomps and kicks aimed at his head. Robert took the hits and rose to his knees, surviving the onslaught. The townsfolk had now managed to draw their weapons, swinging at Robert with knives and blunt objects while the pawnbroker watched with amusement behind bars. After the first hit, Robert realized that his life was in danger, and he had no other choice. A thunderous bang echoed through the police station, Robert had fired the gun. He didn't have a chance to aim because he too busy trying to block the attacks, and the bullet hit a target he didn't intend to.

Belle hurried back to the station once the fog cleared up. She wanted ton confront Mr. Gold about lying to her. However, the thought perished when she saw the mob bum-rushing into the station, all with weapons raised.

Mr. Gold's eyes snapped up from the pitiful fighting before him as he felt a new presence in the building, his suspicions only confirmed when he saw a glimpse of Belle's chestnut colored hair.

Despite the chaos once inside the Sheriff's station, she heard her father's voice amongst the crowd. She pushed her way through, until a bang ran through the air and a sharp pain went through her left shoulder.

She widened her eyes at the pain and she screamed loudly as she fell to her knees while the crowd went silent. After she screamed she heard her father's voice call out to her. She couldn't hear him though. She lifted her hand off of her shoulder and saw blood on her hand.

It took a moment before Mr. Gold could even register what had happened, his blackened eyes looking at the smoking gun being held in Robert Leland's grasp; Belle on the floor. He was sure she was crying out, but he heard nothing, a deafening ringing in his ears followed immediately by his mouth hanging slightly agape.

There was a loud boom and the bars of his cell were blown completely off followed by large chunks of cement, all hurling towards the crowd of townspeople at an incredible speed but he did nothing to stop it. He immediately rushed to Belle's side, scooping her up to hold against him once on his knees, cradling her head into his chest.

"It's alright Belle, it's alright...I can stop this..." He cooed, his accent so thick he hardly even recognized it as his own voice; it had been centuries since he truly spoke with the dialect he was born with, something he just eased into no longer using that became his norm after becoming The Dark One.

The pain didn't seem to cease until Rumpelstiltskin reached her and held her close to him. Her ears rang, and whatever Rumpelstiltskin said was an auditory blur. Her vision grew hazy, as the sharp pain in her shoulder seemed to come back and she could only mumble "Rumpel..." before she passed out, her chest still rising and falling with every breath her body took.

"No, no no no!" Tears began to sting the corners of his eyes as he looked down on his beauty, feeling her lose consiousness in his arms. Quickly, he ran his hand over her shoulder where the most blood seemed to be pooling out of, feeling her injury by magic and reaching out with it until he no longer felt the presence of the bullet embedded into her flesh. He bent his neck down to kiss her cold, sweaty forehead delicately before scooping her up in his arms as he stood.

His eyes immediately happened on Robert, the tears gone and in their place nothing but detestation. He dared anyone from the watching crowd to do something, to say something to him, but especially daring for Robert to make some sort of comment about needing to get back into his cell. His nostrils flared when Mo opened his mouth to say something but then clamping it back shut immediately as he met the monsters black eyes.

There were a thousand thoughts flying through Robert's head at this moment, but he did not vocalize any of them. He stood up and backed away from the mob, keeping an eye on everyone involved and making his way to a secondary exit. Today had been a very bad day for him, and it was far from over.

Mr. Gold's right leg shook violently under the added weight as he stood to his full height, holding Belle closer to him still. He'd rather endure breaking a thousand bones again than to lose sight of Belle, even for a moment. He'd be back for his things later, now he needed to tend to the one of the two people that made living worthwhile. A cloud of purple smoke encased both Belle and Mr. Gold, vanishing beneath it until nothing was left but his cane and suit jacket, folded neatly on a nearby chair outside the cells.

XXX

It had been a month since Maurice had left the six sisters, and it had only just been last week when Belle received the letter from her father. It was an understatement just to say that Belle and her older sisters were shocked to hear that their father was now The Dark One's slave, all because he intruded into his castle.

Belle immediately headed out to go and find Rumpelstiltskin's castle herself, despite her sisters' warnings and pleads asking her to do otherwise. It had been a week of travelling until she finally reached The Dark Castle. When she saw the tall and ominous tower, she was sure that this was place she was looking for.

She took in a few deep breaths, bracing herself for meeting with The Dark One, before she walked up to the large double doors and knocked on the door loudly and called for Rumpelstiltskin. The doors swung open almost immediately, allowing Belle entrance, and yet no one was there to have opened the door for her.

Belle entered cautiously, and she looked around warily. As she entered, and looked through the castle eventually finding a stone staircase that led downwards, she called "Hello...? Is anyone here...? ...Papa?"

Soon she found the dungeons, and she called after she heard movement, "Hello?" The sounds of movement grew louder, and a familiar voice answered, "Belle? Belle, is that you?!" Overwhelmed with joy, Belle rushed over to the cell and she called "Papa!" When she reached the cell, they held each others' hands, and Maurice asked in worry, "Belle! What are you doing here?!" His daughter answered, "I had to come find you, after reading that letter...!"

Maurice shook his head and he said "Belle, no! Don't worry about me, you need to get out of here, before he realizes that you're here!" Belle answered "But I can't just leave you here!"

"I think...you'll find...you can..." Rumpelstitlskin's voice cut in, the Imp seeming to appear out of nowhere as he stood out in the open behind the female. His green eyes scanned the newcomer over carefully, his brows furrowing in the slightest unsure what to make of her quite yet.

He was garbed in his usual brown dragon-hide jacket today, the sharp points and rigid fabric making the small man look all the more imposing as his eyes began to melt into a darker color as he continued to examine the female, his head tilting ever so slightly to the side in curiosity.

"Your father belongs to me now dearie, no one breaks a deal with me!" He chided with a smile.

Belle and Maurice widened their eyes at Rumpelstiltskin's presence. Maurice stared in fear, while Belle whirled to face him, almost standing in front of her father protectively. When he made his chastisement, she narrowed her gaze at him.

Maurice spoke up, "Belle, please! Just leave! I don't want that...that beast to do anything to you!"

Rumpelstiltskin placed a hand over his heart and let his jaw drop, exaggerating greatly that his feelings had been hurt.

Belle seemed to ignore her father as she said to Rumpelstiltskin "What if I took his place...Rumpelstiltskin," Maurice gasped at what Belle said and he shouted desperately in an attempty to protect her, "BELLE, NO! DON'T YOU DARE SAY SUCH A THING!!!"

Rumpelstiltskin's fingers twitched at the female's request, his head tilting once more as he surveyed the beauty in front of him. Certainly he could get more work out of a woman than the portly merchant...males just never seemed to make good caretakers...or test subjects.

"You would do that?" Rumpelstiltskin asked her with genuine curiosity, unsure what to make of her request.

Belle answered his question seriously, "Yes, I would, in return for my father's freedom from his servitude to you," She kept her eyes on Rumpelstiltskin, as though trying to find any sign of any trickery or deceit on his part. Maurice begged once again, "Belle, stop! What about your sisters? What about Gaston?! Don't forsake them for my sake!" Belle turned to her father, and she said "I'll be alright, Papa. No one decides my fate, but me,"

Rumpelstiltskin's eyes bounced back and forth between father and daughter, his smile only growing wider and wider with each passing word.

"It's forever dearie..." Rumpelstiltskin reminded Belle, looking back at her with just as much intensity, almost daring her to back off.

Belle looked back to Rumpelstiltskin and she reaffirmed, showing that she wasn't backing down from this deal, "My father will be safe from you, correct?"

The Imp put his hand back over his heart, though this time without the mockery.

"You have my word." He promised with a slight bow.

Belle promised after he gave his word, "Then I shall stay here and take Father's place...forever,"

"DEAL! NYEAHH!" The Imp bounced up and down on the balls of his feet in excitement, flicking his wrist and letting the door of Maurice's cell open to give the merchant his freedom.

As soon as the cell door opened, Maurice stood up and he went over to Belle and he hugged her sadly, "Oh Belle...! No...!" Belle hugged back and she said sadly "Tell my sisters good-bye for me, alright Papa?" Maurice openly sobbed after Belle spoke, causing tears to fall from Belle's eyes as well. He seemed to be unwilling to let go of his daughter and lose her forever.

Rumpelstiltskin's fingers twitched again in anticipation. There were one too many people in his castle now. A small swirl of purple smoke slowly built up at Maruice's feet, the bag of gold he had confiscated the first day Maurice had come into his castle appearing once again.

"Unless you enjoyed your time as a cockroach, I suggest you go." He said, attempting to break up their sickening goodbye.

Maurice backed up when he saw the cloud of purple smoke. He had thought that the imp was going to try and turn him into a bug again, but instead the gold coins appeared at his feet. He nodded silently in response to Rumpelstiltskin's warning, and picked up the gold before he left the dungeons and castle, while Belle stayed in the dungeons.

As soon as Maurice had gone, Rumpelstiltskin approached the woman, perhaps he should start using her name now that she was bound to him forever.

"Here, let me show you to your room..." He let his green hand hold the small of her back before pushing her back into the cell that had been previously occupied by her father and shut the door quickly, trapping her inside with an echoing giggle.

Belle fell to the ground in the dungeon when he pushed her in. She heard his giggle, and she didn't bother screaming or shouting about how he couldn't just leave her there. She had expected that she would be in the dungeon, considering she said that she would take her father's place.

She went to the small cot that was in the room and cried silently as the imp left.

Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez, Ghost Shadow, Guardian Angel Haruki, and Tanderbolt

Snow was still struggling to process her reunion with David, her memories engulfed her in a sea of emotions. She looked into his eyes and said "I thought I lost you forever,"
This gave David cause to smile, letting the rough pads of his fingers caress the side of her silky smooth cheeks.

"It's gonna take a whole lot more than The Dark and Sleeping curses to keep me from finding you." He answered with an airy laugh. His beady, wettened eyes glanced down for a moment to her stomach, a pang of dread rushing through his face causing the color to quickly drain. "The baby..."

XXX

5 years ago...
Snow took this moment to reflect on recent events and future plans. Regina was her mortal enemy, and always would be. Both of them had put forth a great effort to destroy the other, and so far all attempts had failed. Snow had grown tired of this cycle, and thought about other things while she stood alone in the courtyard. She knew that there was more to life than killing Regina, otherwise it would be pointless to plan any further.

Before everything happened, Snow wanted to raise a family. For a long time she feared for their safety and delayed her dreams, but now she was tired of waiting. Her and Charming had gotten quite good at evading Regina, and raising a family would give her a new purpose in life, another goal to strive towards. Still though, she wanted a guarantee. Snow knew that he alone had the power to guarantee the safety of her child, should she ever have one, and she would be willing to accept his bargain. She sighed and muttered "Rumpelstiltskin" as a formality. When nothing happened, she cleared her throat and said the name of The Dark One again, more sure this time with a hint of anxiousness.

"What do you want?" The shrill voice of the infamous Imp called behind her, sounding rather agitated for being summoned at such a late hour, however the ever so tantalizing grin on his face offset his tone entirely. It truly was an impossible feat to know what kind of mood The Dark One was in simply by looking at him. He sat plainly on the stone bench just behind Snow White, one leg crossing over the other with his knotted fingers clasping tight to his knee. His dark eyes searched the face of the new Queen, his smile faultering only slightly as he seemed to be mulling over something in his head.

She had long given up trying to read Rumpelstiltskin's emotions, she wanted to get to the point quickly. Snow said "What's Regina up to?"
The Dark One rose from his sitting position, his shoulders shrugging in high exaggeration as a low chuckle came from his throat, though turned his hands out in question as if he was unsure.

"Well that's quite the question dearie," He said taking a moment to wipe of a speck of dust resting on the shoulder of his brown, dragon-hide coat. "whats it worth?"
"Voluntary exchange is a fundamental moral principle, I do not expect nor desire that you give me anything for free. I am not a parasite that demands or takes unjustly, I will pay the price you name."

Rumpelstiltskin seemed to think her request over, his fingers fidgeting as he looked upon her thoughtfully.
"There is a man," He began, the shrill, childlike tone replaced by something else entirely, something more...human. "you may know him as Jefferson, a good friend of your Prince-turned-King. You'll tell him to meet with me in a weeks time?" He asked, stating his price.
Deals with Rumpelstiltskin were never as innocent as they first appeared, but this one had no obvious red flags. She said "I accept. Now will you answer my question?"
The Imp once again shrunk back from Snow with a light giggle.

"You're worried about The Queen's threat." He observed, keeping his smile plastered to his face as he watched the new Queen's eyes darken on him. "Fear not! For I can ease your mind!" He sing-songed with a slight flourish of his arms before letting his smile fall completely, and looked back upon Snow White with a great intensity, suddenly grim and serious.

"The Queen has created a powerful curse, and it's coming. Soon you'll all be in a prison. Your prison; all of our prisons will be time. Time will stop, and we will be trapped, someplace horrible, where everything we hold dear, everything we love will be ripped from us while we suffer for all eternity; while The Queen celebrates victorious at last! No more happy endings..."

Snow's face remained cold, she hid her worry and displeasure at the answer. Perhaps the only thing more dangerous than making a deal with Rumpelstiltskin was letting him know your hand. "But we are alive? Until I'm buried, Regina hasn't won. My very existence is intolerable to her. If she wins, either I am dead or she didn't want to kill me."
"Well," Rumpelstiltskin began, the child-like tone returning to his voice. "there is the small matter of a piece of fruit..." He giggled and waved his hand at his own comment, brushing it aside. "I assured you once before that The Queen will be unable to harm you and your family in this land, and that is the case...in this land. The prison to where we are to be sent to is uncertain, and I can not guarantee the safety of that little thing growing inside of you." His hands came out of ther showy flourish and gestured towards Snow's stomach.

She didn't appreciate his crudeness, but her annoyance was quickly swept aside by her shock at the news. She wanted a child, and had been trying to concieve, but didn't think that it was already on its way. "I'm pregnant? Even I don't feel anything different, how can you know for certain?"
Rumpelstiltskin turned his head, a sideways glance with a raised eyebrow in a non-verbal 'really?'

Snow immediately decided that she did not want to spend any more time pondering exactly how Rumpel could see inside her body. As despicable as he was, he didn't lie, and she couldn't think of any way he could be wrong. She glared at him and said "Ok, so I'm pregnant. Earlier, you said that it may not be safe for my child, what did you mean by that?"

"Just exactly what I said!" The Imp replied with a fast-paced flourish of his arms, clearly growing irritated with the conversation already. Why was it that people always had a hard time believing his words? Gauging the look on the new Queen's face, Rumpelstiltskin scrunched up his nose in annoyance and flicked his wrist. When the small amount of violet smoke had cleared, a small envelope was held fastly in his hand, in the center a golden wax seal pulsing with white magic.
"Mmmm...here..." He said handing her the letter with obvious reluctance and a breath of hesitation.

It was useless trying to get Rumpelstiltskin to elaborate on anything. She cautiously walked forward to pick grab the letter, and examined the seal. It wouldn't open for her right now, so she put it out of her mind.
"It won't open." Rumpelstitlskin said unable to keep his eyes from rolling at the obvious. Well, obvious to him. "Not until you are ready. Keep it in a safe place dearie, that letter will guide you once the curse has broken. A lot can happen in five years..."

Everything he said only raised more questions. She didn't know what curse he was referring to, and his comment about five years was equally cryptic. Snow raised her voice to ask him something "So, her curse doesn't last forever, she doesn't win? What's happening in five years?"

The Imp seemed rather giddy in his response, his otherwise lopsided smile growing with the glee in his dark eyes.
"There is much I do not know of this new land we are to be imprisoned in, but there is one thing I am most certain about...you." Suddenly he was gone, not even a cloud of blood red smoke to be seen as per his usual exit. The only proof of him being there to begin with being the letter now in Snow White's posession.

The sound of metal scraping against metal filled the air where the Imp's giggle had once been, drawing Snow's attention to the gardens in which James had just walked out of. Even by the blue moonlight she could see that the color had been drained from his face, his beady eyes staring at the spot where The Dark One had just vanished from as he carefully sheathed his sword. He finally brough his bright blues to look upon his wife, his face undreadable as he asked quietly,
"Snow?"

Seeing Charming calmed her down, she walked to him with arms outstretched. 'Were you there the whole time?"
"Long enough." James replied, keeping his hand on his hip where his sword rested, and unmoving towards Snow's embrace. "You...you went to him? Even after all we've gone through?" He asked, a hint of hurt in his voice.
"We both know that he is the only one who could give us answers. In times like these, I think we need every little bit of help we can get."

Charming sighed and used his free hand to run his fingers through his sandy colored hair. She was right; she was always right...but that didn't mean he always had to like it.
"But you're...we're..." He paused, the first letter of his next word getting stuck on his lips for a moment or two. "...pregnant..." He wasn't sure if he was asking, or confirming.

Either way, he wasn't sure how to take it given what Rumpelstiltskin had to say about their future.
"It's what we wanted, isn't it? We knew we were taking a chance, and we still don't know what's going to happen. All we can do is stay together and stand strong. Not everything he said was bad."

"You're right." James said letting his hand loose from his hip and placed both hands on Snow's shoulder's delicately, staring intently into her eyes as he face melted away from the unsure to something more determined; braver. "You're absolutely right. You are going to be a wonderful mother Snow, let's just hope that she inherits your intuition." He cracked a smile, a glint of humor in his eye as the realization slowly began to settle in within him; he was going to be a father!
XXX

David's words reminded Mary Margaret of another concern, the life of her unborn child. Being reunited with David overwhelmed her with happiness, thinking about the baby was more unsettling. They were in the new land that Rumpelstiltskin had warned her about, and Regina was as big a threat as ever.
"It'll be alright. With both of us, there's nothing-"

"SNOW!" Ruby ignored the painful, small bits of asphault beginning to embed in her bare feet as she ran down Main Street, finding Snow and Charming in front of the Clock Tower. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked upon her best friend, alive and well and...alive! The waitress didn't stop running until she had her arms wrapped firmly around her best friend's neck in a tight hug and as she was taller than the raven-haired woman, she settled for resting her chin on the top of Snow's hair.
"Easy Ruby, you're going to knock her over!" David remarked with a light chuckle, stepping closer to the two women to put one arm around Mary Margaret, and the other behind Ruby, putting himself into the hug which didn't go unnoticed by the two women.

"You're alive! Dear Gods you're alive!" Ruby sobbed quietly into her friends hair, years and years of penitenced guilt building up in her heart finally coming undone in a painful, yet welcome release. She couldn't even bring herself to acknowledge David, not just yet, not when her and Snow had so much to catch up on, emotions and all.
Mary Margaret was glad to see another friend. Her time in the hospital had told her very little about the inhabitants of Storybrooke, most of the faces there were unfamiliar to her. She put aside her questions for a moment to talk to her friend.

"I'm glad to be awake. Rumpelstiltskin told me the future would be bleak, but it can't be that bad if I've got you around. Before we do anything else, I think we should work on finding somewhere safe, we can catch up after that." She looked at the clock tower, pondering how long it would be before more people came looking for her.
"Where? How?" Ruby asked pulling out of the awkwardly positioned three-way hug, now looking over both her friends with equal adoration as Charming moved beside Snow to wrap his arm around her waist lovingly. He looked so much better at Mary Margaret's hip than Knox did. "Regina is still Mayor, still in control, and Mr. Gold..." The waitress shuddered, unable to keep the goosebumps that crawled over her flesh at the very thought of the man in the pawnshop.

"Maybe we could leave town, go somewhere else. This world is huge, Regina can't be everywhere. As long as she is here, the enchanted forest is safe, and we will find our way back there some day."

David didn't look so convinced.
"Is there a reason we weren't...you know, magically put back into The Enchanted Forest?" He asked more towards Snow than Ruby. "I mean, Regina's curse is broken, so what's keeping us here?"

"Good question." Henry's voice called out behind the trio, apparantly having snuck up behind them with Heather in tow.
His eyes landed on Snow, awake, alive for the first in what seemed like forever, a wide grin appearing on his face before speaking again. "Hello Snow." He greeted simply, unsure of what else to say to her.

Snow didn't recognize the man who greeted her, and he was with one of the doctors from the hospital, who didn't resemble anyone she remembered from The Enchanted Forest. It was bewildering to encounter more new people. When the male spoke, his voice sounded familiar to her, and she said "Cheshire? You've changed a lot since I saw you last."
"Human again, yes...Oh, how I missed it - and missed you." He said in a tone that was completely serious, yet warm at the same time.

Heather ignored Henry's answer to Snow as she looked at David and Ruby, while the emotions that came from how Henry looked at Snow were pushed to the back of her mind. She recognized both David and Ruby from the brief moment David had seen Hyde, and from when she tended to Ruby's possible internal injuries back in Rumpelstiltskin's castle. She didn't say anything to them though, knowing David wouldn't recognize her and it would raise suspicions.
She suggested, the British accent leaking back into her voice, "Anyways...I don't suppose we could ask Regina, or anyone else who could know, about this matter?"
"Gold." David answered Dr. Stevenson indefinitely, eyes narrowed in the slightest as if speaking the name physically caused him pain. He ignored the subtle exchange between his wife and Henry, as there was more to that tale than either of them were letting up, and also ignored the daggered looks he got from both Mary Margaret and Ruby at his suggestion, instead keeping his eyes trained on Dr. Stevenson for the moment. He tried desperately to recall who she might have been before the curse, but the face wasn't striking any remote resemblance to anyone he knew. "He's our only other option." He finally finished, moving his gaze from Faye, then to Henry (again, unable to put his face to anyone he knew outside of Storybrooke), and back to his wife.

"If those are our only two options, then we're screwed." Ruby sighed and brought her fingers to her temples were her headache wasn't seeming to get any better.
Henry practically scoffed at David as he mentioned speaking to the Dark One.

"And what do you have to trade with the Imp in return, Your Majesty?" He asked the prince with enough condescension in his tone to match Regina's herself.
David bit the inside of his cheek to keep from lashing out at the clear shot to his authority. There would be a time for questions, and more importantly answers, later. For now, they needed to decide what the next best course of action to take was. He looked to those gathering around him and Snow, the assumed leaders since the regaining of their memories, their King and Queen. Still, there was one thought that David was unable to shake, and felt that he should voice his concern to the group.
"That purple smoke; where did it come from and what did it do?"

"It's magic." Henry put bluntly, though there was a small sense of pride in his tone. "And it was Rumpelstiltskin who arranged its return...that means he has it - and so does Regina." Henry added in a more affable tone; putting his own hatred for the prince aside to discuss a common issue. There was an audible groan heard throughout the group, none of which were happy to hear the news.

"I don't think the Queen will be open to taking visitors, especially considering she could incinerate us with a flick of her wrist." Henry said lastly, a dry edge to his voice.
"Then we find another way." David said meeting Henry's steely gaze, his own eyes holding nothing but hope and optimism in return.

Brushing a hand through the gray fur of the wolf’s back, up through the fur of the neck, finally reaching the top of its head. Gentle scratching along behind one ear, then the other, the wolf let out a single huff before playfully ‘attempting’ to nip at his fingers. Feeling the sharp teeth graze his fingertips, the shade paid no mind, but did draw his hand back for a moment in hesitation.

As if understanding the gesture, the gray wolf leaned closer to him, and he returned his hand to the fur of its head. Letting the shading of the fur seep into his being…the recent memory of not the beast, but its shadow, was brought into his mind.

The wolf watched the shade reach a hand down and under the wolf, wiggling off of the object it hid just in flattened tufts of grass that had just previously been under it. The object itself was noisy, the beaded string rattled easily with each movement, though the gray of the embroidered headdress was nothing to scoff at. Looking it twice over, the piece was elegant yet plain; the beaded portion was to veil the face of the wearer.

Gently brushing dust off here and picking the grass off there, the shadow leaned over the now still wolf, placing the headpiece onto it…

XXX

Awake before his eyes even opened, red of the sun was seen before Knox realized he could feel the warm from the same source touching his eyelids. Cheek felt slightly colder and numb, and there was a moment where it was much needed for whatever reason, then a moment when he just needed turn away from the glass. Squinting, blinking his eyes lightly before keeping them closed again. The tow truck wasn't moving anymore, and was instead parked at the side of the building.

Reaching into his jacket pocket with his sore arm and hand, the man put on his sunglasses calmly and properly opened his eyes, blankly staring out his window at purple clouds high up in the air blowing away much too quickly to be normal…and his cracked window. A vague memory of freaking out in the vehicle was there, a man awashed in memories that shouldn't have felt as foreign as they did, but it was gone as quickly as it had surfaced. Was that him?

Almost, it was almost like he was outside of himself, that recollection. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, a memory of confusion. Frustrated, in a diner throwing an empty mug at a wall, being unable to heal that...human...betrayal at losing the moon, shock at that Ivan being deceptively strong and breaking his arm, Baba Yaga--or was it that sister of hers? Fucking his mind with her magic...the one fight with Day that he has actually lost, didn't even know the man had it in him to fight dirty...opening a bloody sack to...!

Almost pitching forward in the car, Knox almost emptied the contents of his stomach onto the next seat. Shakily holding his head in his hands for a few minutes, willing away the memories over and over again like a prayer...it was gone, and he felt gone. From where he sat in the car, he could see the driver of the tow truck just a few metres outside, speaking to another individual before carelessly leaving him behind.

Paying no mind to this, none at all, Knox stared blankly ahead as he pulled his gloves on. Half asleep or not even all there anymore, a gloved hand was pressed to the broken glass…hard. The crack grew with the exerted force, harder he pressed as more cracks formed, before he finally withdrew. Clenching his hand into a fist, he drew his hand back as if to smash it with force, but instead lent the free hand to the action of simply opening the door.

Leaving the tow truck and continuing down the sidewalk on unsteady feet, for a moment Knox couldn't remember where in town he was, or the layout of the town for that matter. What came back to him for the moment were a small memory of a different many towns, and the clock tower of this one. The clock tower was the center of this town; he’d be able to navigate from there.

Turning to walk down his chosen path, it was only then that Knox realised how heavy he felt physically, and yet felt like so much more weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Heavy, yet light. Humans, full of contradictions. Lethargic? Sluggish. Laying down anywhere and just sleeping during the day seemed to hold much more promise.

Mindlessly staring over at the passing scene of an old man and his granddaughter, his mind's eye and actual vision were obscured and overlapped with a series of distant memories...an old man with his granddaughter, an old man with a young tavern wench, an old man with his daughter, an old man with a wife much too young for him, an--

Blinking in rapid succession with the vague images and memories passing through his head, Knox blinked slowly and just saw...an old man and a young girl. Strangers to him. He continued on his way.

*~*Collaboration between Ghost Shadow, YoshiSkittlez, Major Ursa, Guardian Angel Haruki, and Tanderbolt*~*

The citizens of Storybrooke began to gather in small groups on the streets. The air was filled with cries of joy as one by one, they were reunited with the people lost to them; lost with their memories that had so suddenly come back to them. The small groups began to get larger, and soon it was safe to say that every single resident of Storybrooke was outside, either in the middle of a tear-jerking reunion or out looking for a relative or close friend they had yet to be reunited with.

The masses began migrating closer to the Clock Tower where they found their King and Queen and looked to them for leadership. Among all the mixed emotions put on each and every one of their faces, there was one emotion that all of them wore plainly in unison. Fear. Fear of what had brought them here, fear of what had caused them to lose their memories and live under false identities for five years, fear of not being back where they belonged in The Enchanted Forest, and of course fear of what the haze of thick purple smoke had brought after their memories had been restored.

"So what are we waiting for? Let's get Regina!" Leroy shouted, voicing his opinion above all the other chatter in the growing crowd. His dark eyes happened on Mary Margaret; Snow, his best friend and Queen. He gave her a nod, a simple gesture of understanding; nothing had changed despite what Leroy may have done in Storybrooke, he would forever and always be loyal in the face of his Queen.

"We-we can't! Not without a plan." Archie answered Leroy, surprising himself in the courage he found in his own voice to be heard over the commotion.

Ruby pulled her attention from Snow and Charming to look on Dr. Hopper; Jimminy Cricket. She left her small groups side to bravely face the growing mob and put her hand on Dr. Hopper's shoulder.

"I'm going to need your help. These people are scared and confused, I can offer a sort of help finding lost loved ones if you would open up your office for any counseling these people may need. I can't help but to feel we were the lucky ones when our memories returned."

Dr. Hopper nodded and clutched onto the handle of his umbrella, looking for the courage he had displayed just moments ago. The two shared a soft smile before Ruby left with Archie, arm in arm. In the large thrall of things, Ruby hadn't even been alerted to the pointed scent of the one person she yearned to see; to talk to. Instead, Ruby missed the near seven-foot tall man as she hurried away to make preparations. There was only a moment when Ruby stalled, a portly gentleman brushing against her arm abruptly so quickly, Ruby only caught the backside of the man as he tilted his brown fedora down over his face a bit. Thinking nothing of it as the people of Storybrooke were all granted an instance or two of sheer rudeness, Ruby and Archie continued on.

The man in the fedora grimaced as he pushed past the waitress, his hand holding tight to the thin arm of Sister Charlotte, a nun under the pretenses of Storybrooke, but in actuality a mere child with eyes bursting with curiosity.

"Not so fast mister! I'm just as eager to get to the surprise as you are, but I don't wish to fall onto my face in the process." The dark-haired girl giggled.

"We must hurry miss Alice! We can not be late! Oh, my mistress will be so angry with me if I'm late." A quick look to the pocket watch previously tucked tightly into his breast pocket caused a moment of exclamation. "Oh dear! Oh my! We are late! So so so so late! Hurry miss Alice, we must not keep my mistress waiting!" The man pulled Alice's arm with much urgency as they ducked out of the main streets of the town to head towards the woods. Sausage-like fingers popped the pocket watch back into his breast pocket and then to his trousers where he seemed to be urgently fishing for something.

Just as they were rounding the corner of the last building that would put them out of sight of the growing crowds, Alice's bright eyes happened on a face that made her heart grow light and threaten to fly out of her throat.

"EDRIC! OH EDRIC!" The girl stopped suddenly to wave at her older brother, elated tears threatening to slide down her fair cheeks. The older gentleman she was with, however, growled quietly and grabbed fast onto her arm again, pulling her back onto the course he had set out earlier.

Henry had become nearly overwhelmed with the sheer amount of people that seemed to swell around the clock tower, frantic voices and tearful reunions happening all around him.

His head darted left and right, as there was merely one other person he was looking for amidst the congregation.

Starting to mix faces together after seeing so many gathered at once, a bright, loud voice seemed to call out his name, and he knew instantly who it belonged to.

"Alice?" He called out, swiveling sharply towards the direction the voice came from, just barely managing to catch a glimpse at his sibling on the skirts of the crowd, waving frantically at him.

A beaming smile began to form on his lips until he noticed the man holding onto her arm...the same man he so carelessly dismissed in the newspapers that Ruby first brought his attention to.

Without another word, he left Snow and Charming's side; beginning to push his way through the crowds to reach Alice, ducking and sidestepping with agility that even surprised him. He had waited so long for this moment, and nothing was going to stand in his way.

Mary Margaret saw the crowd gathered before her, recognizing almost everyone. She never forgot a face, and from the looks of it most of the enchanted forest was here. It had been years since she had seen a crowd this size, but she held her anxiety in check. She followed Henry, wanting to protect one of the few people she knew that she could trust. He was running after that Alice girl she'd heard him talk about, who always sounded like a good person in his tales of the past.

Heather Jekyll noticed that the crowd grew larger, and the noise grew uncomfortably louder. She heard one of the men in the crowd shout about going after Regina, and she looked to the person who had played the part as the therapist when he spoke up. However, Hopper's words seemed to fall on deaf ears after a voice very familiar to Jekyll shouted above the crowd, "That witch has to pay, NOW! BEFORE she does anything else to us!"

Jekyll muttered under her breath with an irritated groan (and almost rolling her eyes), "Frankenstein..." As the crowd roared in agreement, she marched up to where Frankenstein's voice came from, unaware of Henry's sudden absense, and she called out to him, determined to prevent a panicked mob from forming, "Frankenstein! Victor Frankenstein!".

Frankenstein turned to the familiar voice and he sneered "Ah. Jekyll...so you're here," Jekyll ignored his sneer as she glared at him seriously and she asked him "What the hell do you think you're doing?! Are you out of your mind?!" Frankenstein sneered "We're about to make the witch who did this to us pay! That's what we're doing!"

Jekyll pointed out angrily, "You're riling everyone into a frenzied panic! You're going to get them killed!"
Frankenstein let out a "Tch!" in annoyance at Jekyll's true point. He retorted, "And I'm supposed to listen to a sham of a scientist like you? You're just a woman, Jekyll! A foolish, sentimental woman who has no place in science!"

Jekyll gritted her teeth at Frankenstein, and stood still as the man led a crowd to get torches and head for Regina's house. Jekyll swore under her breath angrily at Frankenstein "God dammit!" She breathed through her nose, trying to calm herself down, and not give Hyde any reason to take over and cause trouble.

In his mind, there was a ruined tower in the middle of the forest. However, it wasn't the clock tower of the town's center, and Knox's mind had led his body astray. Stepping through the woods, unconsciously using a light step that didn't crunch leaves or snap twigs underfoot, his ears caugh--stepping back behind a tree, with a row of them aligned just right, a rounder middle aged man came into view.

From down the path, within his line of sight without Knox being in his, the rounder shape of the man came closer. A young, doe-eyed girl was being tugged along, a sad amount of naivety seemed to pour off her very person. Knox remained silent as he removed his sunglasses, though the girl became a certain kind girl of his past in his eyes, his sharp eyes had instead honed on the man's face.

Beady little eyes of--! All the eyes of--beady eyes darting here and there suspicious. Eyes of a thief. In an instant, Knox wasn't in the present. His mind travelled back in time, no less than two thousand years ago...though the memory wasn't no longer full, without details missing here or there, he remembered the hunt.

Letting them pass without so much a word, so a breath, the tall man ducked around a bare tree and weaved through the low branches poking out from his left right and the spaces above. Feet were careful, cautious, and quick...within moments, neither seen nor heard, he stood ahead of them once more, among the tall trees. With the path of bared dirt leading down and around the tree he stood hidden behind, he waited for the man to approach, feet crunched more heavily on the leaves and broke twigs.

Coming up so close his tree he could hear the man's breathing, a thicker leg tried to step up over a protruding root of the nearest tree, and at the same time the round beady eyed man just about let go of the girl's hand. In an instant, Knox stuck a leg out and kicked the standing thick leg of the man out from under him.

The portly man didn't know what hit him. One moment he was huffing and puffing while receeding deeper into the woods, and the next minute he was flat on his back, weezing for breath and staring up to a rather imposing man who had caused him to lose his footing.

Stepping out of his hiding spot, Knox slowly tilted his head at the man, unblinkingly staring him down with a cold grimace, "You have thieves' eyes, I should fix that."

The eyes of the larger man skipped over Knox to land on the girl, Alice, who had remained standing and watching the scene with a rather curious expression held in her deep eyes. With a small twitch of his nose, the man reached his sausage-like fingers back into his pocket where it had previously been before the fall, the object of which he was after now seeming to fall into his open palm rather than having to dig for it.

"Glad to oblidge, really I am, but there is just one small thing keeping you from doing so." He said closing his hand around the tiny object he had procured from his pocket and with a movement quick for such a large gentleman, tossed the very object he had in his hand to his left. "I'm late."

The bean bounced a good foot or so before it embedded itself into the soft soil of the forest. Immediately the winds began to pick up and the surrounding dirt began to swirl, as if the very ground underneath it was giving way. Green light suddenly shot up from the earth, the dirt surrounding it crumbling down into a steadily growing gaping hole of magic. Alice took a couple tentative steps away from the swirling green vortex, raising her arms up to her eyes to shield them from the flying debris that was getting sucked into the hole.

*~*~*

After most of the crowd left (and Faye's failed attempts to convince the crowd not to listen to Frankenstein), Faye looked around and finally noticed that Henry, Mary, and Knox were missing. She asked out loud "Henry...?"

A voice she knew all too well echoed in her mind in reply, "He's gone hunting for rabbit, Jekyll. You juuuust missed him,"

Jekyll thought to herself silently "Which way did they go?" The doctor felt her head jerk to the right, towards the direction where the forest was and she could hear Hyde sneer in response "That way. Better hurry, Jekyll," The last statement sounded foreboding, and Jekyll took off running in that direction, leaving some people behind to stare at her in a confused manner. She ignored someone asking rudely as she ran "What's eating at her?"

*~*~*

Henry continued his frantic sprint through the crowds, just managing to break through when he caught glimpse of the back of Alice's head as she was being carried off by the round man.

Furrowing his eyebrows distrustfully, Henry hurried off into the woods; coming across the scene of the fat man lying on the ground, looking up at a (somewhat-senile) looking Knox whilst Alice stood off in the distance. Before he could say anything or react, something was thrown out of the portly man's hand, Henry unable to catch a glimpse of what it was before it buried itself into the soil.

Mary Margaret caught up when Henry stopped running, and saw the puzzling scene. The security guard who claimed he was married to her was there, standing over an almost unconscious fat man. She didn't trust him very much to begin with, and this scene didn't reassure her.

The security guard's stare-down was broken, as his hair whipped around his face due to the pick-up of the wind. Eyes slowly moving away from the rotund man on the ground, the man's words rolling and rattling around in his head, and to the source of the bright green light cast upon the forest. His eyes watered from the painful light, but he didn’t avert his gaze for several moments.

The entire environment seemed to shift around the small group, the trees swaying violently as green light erupted around them. Henry was forced to shield his face with his arm, eyes squinted as he struggled to make sense of what was going on, when suddenly, it hit him.

"A portal..." He said, too quiet to be heard amidst the chaos. Immediately, he struggled to make his way over to his sister, hoping to shield her, to keep her out of the portal's reach. Every step felt like a ton of bricks as it seemed that the forces of nature themselves were trying to pull Henry in. "HOLD ON!" He cried out in Alice's direction, hoping she could hear him. Just as he raised his foot to take another step, a particularly violent gust of wind threw him off balance, sending him falling to the ground.

Glancing back down at the man, then at the green portal, then the tree Knox had previously been hiding behind…reached an arm out, he grasped onto a particularly sturdy low-hanging branch. For a moment longer, holding onto the branch rather securely with no difficulties, the man remained silent.

“I’m glad we’ve gotten over this impasse.”

With an impossible strength, Knox ripped the thick limb branch from the tree, swinging it down upon the portly man in a wide arch. The portly man, surprisingly was not harmed as he quickly rolled out of the way, unlike the others unafraid of what the blinding green vortex held for them. There was little time, however as the portal was due to close at any moment if no one jumped in. He was still a great lengths way from the portal himself, but Alice, she was teetering on the edge and looking into the flashes of green with wide interest.

Henry clawed for any bit of stability he could find, burying his hands deep within the dirt as he could feel himself slowly succumbing to the portal's infernal grip. He heard nothing but a ringing madness, the tearing gusts and the roaring of the portal filling his mind; leaving him hardly able to think of a solution.

Blue eyes landing on Alice as she seemed to edge closer to the portal's edge, Henry could do little but watch. "Alice, no!" He cried out, hoping he could grab her attention amidst the noise.

Scrunching up his nose in a rabbit-like fashion as it twitched, the large man raised his arm and let out a small shout as a pulse of what could be considered either wind, or even possibly magic, came from his right palm, being the quiet force that sent Alice toppling over the edge and into the green light. Looking content for the first time since he had arrived in Storybrooke, the man quickly bent down to retrieve his fallen fedora and placed it back onto his balding head. He quickly shot Henry a glance before making his way towards the portal himself and moved to make the jump.

Henry's head quickly shot between Knox and the round man as he struggled to keep himself hoisted, a slight relaxation of the fingers being enough to pull him towards the portal another good foot.

Feeling his feet edge closer and closer to the whirlpool, Henry only had a few moments to see Alice fall in; her physical form seeming to dissipate away into the field.

He didn't say anything, he couldn't - he had failed again. Why was it that every time something good happened, something worse came in to counterbalance it?

Faye ran as fast as she could through the woods, until she caught sight of a light and when she was close enough, she stopped, and gasped as she saw what appeared to be a hole in the ground, shining with green light, and the wind that was coming from the hole was trying to take Henry, Mary Margaret, and Knox. She looked around quickly, trying to find something she could use to help them, but there was nothing. She tried to call to them over the cacophony, "HENRY! KNOX!"

She wanted to move closer but Hyde stopped her, purring and taunting, "I would stay back if I were you. If you get too close, you'll be falling down the rabbit hole as well," Faye swore under her breath, trying to figure out what she could do to help them.

Lifting the branch once again, stumbling a bit with the unknown force of the open portal, Knox looked sidelong at the round man getting up and recovering from his fall. Another much harder fight surfaced in his mind, letting it lead him the large branch was chucked off to the side before the finally outright launching himself at the man.

Putting the guy into a headlock, Knox stepped up with expectations of flat ground…his memory; the one at the very surface had solid dirt. Eyes widening almost comically as he stumbled and fell with the man towards the green lit portal, his mind finally gained the much needed clarity. No prey, no hunt, no justice, no ground...just one big, terrible mistake he’d made.

Henry cocked his head to the side, catching the fat man slowly get up to his feet and put his hat on before Knox pulled him into a headlock, the both of them falling into the portal together.

He had come too far now, too far to let his plans crumble around him. He abandoned his sister once - one time that he regretted for years afterward, and he wasn't going to make that same mistake twice.

With a deep, shaky breath, Henry let his eyes shut tightly before letting go of his anchor, feeling himself get sucked into the portal, where darkness surrounded his vision.

However before Faye could do anything, Henry and Knox fell, causing her eyes to widen and she screamed in fear, "No!" She needed to do something! But...why couldn't she move!? She felt paralyzed! She kept telling her body to move, but it wouldn't heed her. What was she supposed to do?! Why couldn't she do anything?!!

When Henry fell into the portal, Mary Margaret stopped trying to fight against being pulled in. She very well couldn't have allowed Henry to go after the girl on his own, and she wasn't able to offer much resistance anyway. She was further away than he was, but the portal still pulled her in before closing up completely, the ground looking untouched as if they, and the portal, were never there.

Soon enough, Mary Margaret followed down the hole as well, and it closed up after them. Jekyll's body shuddered and her eyes were wide. She spoke up in shock, "No...NOOO!" She then hurried over to the spot and she started to dig at the ground desperately, never caring that she was blemishing her white doctor's coat with the earth, and the dirt was under her nails. She spoke desperately as she dug "No! Nononononono! This can't be happening! GOD DAMN IT! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"

She soon gave up on digging, and she remained on her knees, tears pouring down her face, her breath ragged as she tried to keep herself from crying. She not only lost a friend that she made during her time in Storybrooke, but she also lost Henry. Henry was the only person she felt comfortable around in The Enchanted Forest, the only person that she could talk to.

"This is why you should've let me take over, Jekyll. If I was in control now...dear Henry would still be with us," Hyde sneered/taunted. Jekyll said to herself angrily "Shut up! You would've only made things worse...!" She and Hyde spoke no more to each other as Jekyll cried silently.

As delicately as he could, Rumpelstiltskin laid Belle down onto the soft, plush comforter on the bed in one of the spare bedrooms in his large, Victorian-styled house. Carrying Belle up the stairs proved to be much more problematic for his lame leg than he had initially given thought to, but he refused to give up now and detour his thoughts away from getting Belle safe and comfortable; away from the ever so seemingly growing mobs outside running this way and that, unclear of where it was that they needed to go or what they needed to be doing. No, he would not stop to help himself with magic, Belle was his priority now, and although he knew she would be fine, nothing would be good enough to make her comfortable once again, but at least here he could try.

He rested himself down on the edge of the bed by Belle's side, the pain in his right leg immediately easing into a tolerable throb but his mind was far from his own pain as he gazed down onto Belle's soft face. It was strange seeing her looking so calm and peaceful. Usually her brows were knit together while trying to force her stubborn ideas on him, or perhaps scolding him for poking into the kitchens when she had been busy cooking his meals to snatch a quick bite before it was ready.

Gone was the fire; the passion in her features, replaced by nothing short of angelic beauty and Rumpelstiltskin was having a hard time trying to decide which side of Belle he liked to look at more. There certainly was something entertaining about Belle's 'ferocious' side, and something very warm and sincere in her restful state, a state he had only caught a glimpse of a handful of times in The Dark Castle when he would spin straw into gold and watch her read on her couch nearby with confused interest without her knowing.

Mr. Gold's nostrils flared for a moment, breathing out a heavy sigh that came from deep within his chest as he let the back of his knuckles run down Belle's cheek ever so softly; a ghost of a touch, fearful that if he pressed any harder, he would wake her.

A large brush appeared in Mr. Gold's opposite hand by magic as he lifted his hand softly caressing Belle's face and adjusted himself on the bed a bit closer to her, moving her with the upmost of care so that her head was resting in his lap and began to run the brush through her hair. He knew that it was an all-for-naught effort, as he was going to be very clear that she get herself a warm shower or bath the moment she woke up, as he was sure Regina never gave Belle more than perhaps a wet rag a handful of times during the five years she was held in the asylum, and her chestnut hair would get tangled yet again, but it was all he could do to keep his hands busy while he waited for her to naturally wake; lest he dissappear from his home for just a minute to pop in on Regina.

Before Mr. Gold could even think of leaving to see Regina, a soft groan came from Belle. Her brows knitted together slightly, before she opened her eyes to see Mr. Gold. Her vision was blurry at first, but it soon cleared and she was able to see Mr. Gold's face clearly. Her vision was also assaulted by the pinkish color from the walls.

She murmured confusedly, as she tried to recall what had happened from the hazy fog of sleep, "Rumpel...?" She remembered that she was heading for the jail to talk to Rumpelstiltskin when she felt a pain in her shoulder and she had fainted in Rumpelstiltskin's arms. The pain in her shoulder was gone, and it was clear she wasn't in the Sheriff's office anymore. Where was she...?

"Shh, Belle it's alright. I'm here now." Mr. Gold set down the brush and let his fingers run through her halfly-combed hair instead as he urged her to sit up a bit. He held the back of her head to his chest, resting his cheek against the top of her hair and holding her close, still fearful that if he ever looked away from her, ever stopped touching her, she would vanish into thin air.

Belle sat up, and she got a better look at her surroundings. She asked curiously, "Rumpel...where are we?"

Mr. Gold eased his hold on her a bit so that she had a more free range to look around, letting his hand slip from the back of her head to hold onto her upper arm gently. He pressed his lips into a thin line, thinking over his answer before replying.

"Think of it as The Dark Castle, but smaller." He said before his lips turned into a sly smirk. "Which means less cleaning for you I suppose..." He couldn't help but to jab at her teasingly before his face fell serious once again. "We are in my home - our home - just as The Dark Castle was before the curse..." He paused, letting his hands finally fall from her to rest them in his lap where it took most of his concentration to keep from fidgeting, his brown eyes lowering from Belle's gaze and to his hands as a sudden realization came to him.

Belle wasn't bound to him anymore, she had no reason to stay, not with him. He quickly cleared his throat and moved to stand up from the bed, at last giving Belle the space he assumed she wanted.

"...if you wished it." He finished, his voice carrying the uncertainty he held in his heart. He kept his eyes from her to look at some obscure painting on the wall that he hadn't ever really seen before. His dark browns moved across the room as he awaited her answer, unable to push aside the thought now if he had ever been in this room of his home before...

Belle smiled a bit at his teasing jab, but it went away when he moved and amended his statement to if she wished to stay. She answered Mr. Gold,

"Of course I'd like to," She then added a teasing jab of her own, with a smile and laugh, "The Dark Castle certainly does look pretty in pink,"

His body stiffened a bit at her answer as he turned to look at her once more. Either he didn't hear her latter comment, or he just plain ignored it. There was a glint of something that almost looked like happiness in his eyes, but the rest of him looked the same as he always did; cold and indifferent. On the inside he could feel his heart pounding with joy, but his own insecurities kept his emotions from rising to the surface.

"Belle, you're not...you don't have to stay here..." He started, struggling deeply for the right words. "Our contract doesn't abide here in this land. You're...you're free to go if you wish, return to your father and sisters...and I can't stop you...I won't stop you..."

She noticed the happiness that was in his eyes, she could see it, but she grew serious when he spoke, showing his insecurities. She answered seriously, "I want to stay here, Rumpelstiltskin. I'm not staying because of a contract,"

Mr. Gold wasn't so sure, but didn't press the matter for the time being.

She then said seriously, recalling what she wanted to talk to Mr. Gold about, standing to her feet, "More importantly, Rumpel...Why didn't you tell me...? That I was bringing magic here...?"

His body stiffened once more, even tighter than it had just moments ago and he let his eyes look away from hers again, finding a spot on the wall behind her to be easier to look at. He licked his lips, a sort of nervous habit he had developed here in Storybrooke whenever he had to pause and think on the right words to say. With his memories intact and Regina none the wiser, he had learned very quickly that the words that came from his mouth were just as important as the air he breathed.

"Belle..." He started in a slight warning tone, letting his eyes close for just a moment. He knew that she would ask, he hadn't expected anything less of her, and yet the time he spent in a jail cell just wasn't enough to help him prepare for the answer. Hell, he could have spent another five years thinking on it and he still wouldn't have the answer...not the right one anyway.

"How long has it been since you've had a bath? The ones in this land are far more convenient than what you're used to. You don't have to fill buckets or even worry about the water going cold over time." He said suddenly, his disposition changing just as quickly as he extended his hand out to her in hopes that he could push the matter for another time and show her to the bathroom where she could get herself cleaned up.

Belle clearly wasn't falling for the evasion. She feared the worst when Mr. Gold avoided her question, and she said to him, her fear showing through

"Rumpel, please...answer me,"

She asked Mr. Gold, scared of the answer she may get, "The...the woman you mentioned...she is alright, right?"

"Yes, yes she's fine." Mr. Gold said quickly, suddenly feeling the pain of standing on his bad leg for a prolonged period of time without the aid of his cane and shifted his weight uncomfortably. He didn't have to see Dr. Stevenson to know that she was alright, he knew Henry, and though it might have taken him some time Mr. Gold knew that he would eventually get around to the answer for waking her up.

"I uh, I sort of have a deal with her. Couldn't just...let her go without breaking it in a rather...complicated way..." He shifted his weight again with a pained wince before taking a step towards the doorway. His good cane was still at the sheriff's station, however he did have a spare in his bedroom just down the hall, one that seemed to be calling out to him very loudly now. He had grown so used to the people of Storybrooke forever associating him with a bad leg that he didn't even pause to think that Belle had been left unaware.

"C'mon, I'll show you how to work the bath..." He tried again.

Belle was relieved to hear that the woman he mentioned was alright. But when he limped and winced in pain, she noticed and asked, ignoring the bath comment again, "Rumpel, what about you? Are you alright?"

Mr. Gold wanted to make some comment about never being better now that magic had been restored to him, but that would just lead right back to the conversation he was working so hard to keep from having.

"Fine, sweetheart, just fine." He assured her and reached his arm forward, this time taking the initiative and grabbing onto her wrist to issue her out of the spare bedroom that had, unspokingly, become her bedroom, and led her away from the door frame he had initially intended on exiting through, and instead walked with her to a second door on the adjascent wall that had been closed.

He had realized, through the sheer amount of pain his leg was experiencing at the present moment, that it would be quicker to go through the door that joined Belle's room to his room to then use the bathroom connected in there rather than to go down the hall to the second bathroom that was separate from any bedroom in his home. He grabbed his spare cane on the way, relieved almost immediately as the pain left only a tolerable ache as his weight was lifted from his leg.

He ushered her into the rather large bathroom, using his cane as a sort of prod to make sure she didn't try to object and get out of taking a bath again to talk some more. It only took him a few moments to explain the taps to Belle, he had even turned on the water for her to a comfortable temperature to start filling the large jacuzi tub before he felt that he had given her enough information to work for him to feel comfortable enough to leave her on her own.

"Just relax, take your time and drain the tub when you've finished." He said to her for what felt like the hundredth time. "I'll just be downstairs finding you something to eat. Regina sure did take pleasure in making you thin didn't she?" His lip curled up into a snarl, uncaring how much hatred he was showing towards The Evil Queen in front of Belle.

Belle could only follow when he held her wrist and led her through the door to the other bedroom, where he grabbed a cane, and then to the bathroom. She paid attention to his instructions, but she didn't forget about talking to him about magic. When he mentioned the Queen, she looked at him seriously with raised eyebrows, and said his name in a tone that would remind him that he promised her not to go after Regina, "Rumpel...I'm ok."

He hadn't noticed it until now, but the shortened version of his name rolling off of her tongue so easily caused a sudden chill to roll down his spine. It was different when Regina used his name like that; a night and day difference. His expression softened immediately and he let his eyes close for a moment, quelling his anger by remembering the promise he had made to Belle in his shop.

"I know." He bent his head forward slightly, pausing to give Belle all the time in the world to move away from him if she so chose before planting a soft kiss on her forehead before moving himself over to the linen closet and hung up a fresh, new, fluffy white towel for her to use when she was done. "Let me know if you need anything else." He said sincerely as he headed towards the door to leave her to her privacy.

Belle never chose to move away, keeping her hands lingering on his hands. They didn't part until after he kissed her forehead, and she nodded in response to his last statement "I will, thank you," As soon as he was gone, prepared the bath for herself. She made a mental note to bring up the subject of magic up, as soon as she can. For now, she could focus on her hygiene.

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez as David Nolan and Rumpelstiltskin, and I as Dr. Heather Jekyll and Evelyn Hyde*~*~*

Faye quickly calmed herself down, and wiped away her tears. She thought about what she should do, and after she did, she nodded to herself in turn. She quickly brought out three empty spare glass cylinders from her lab coat, and filled them with the dirt from the area where the portal was, and from outside of the area (as a control sample). She hoped to do some tests on the soil, and see if the chemical components of the dirt will give her answers.

After she corked the cylinders, she pocketed them in her coat, and she headed for town, where she intended to break the news to David and Ruby.

When she reached the town she noticed that people were crowding around David for answers, or they were crowding around Frankenstein in preparation to go after Regina. With the crowd that was around David, there was no way she was going to be able to talk to him. Besides, they were more likely to listen to him then they were going to listen to her.

However...Faye couldn't see Ruby anywhere, so it looked as though talking to David was her only option. She went around the crowd, and she called "Mr. Nolan!" (addressing him as Prince Charming was only going to give her away that she met him before as Hyde). She called "Mr. Nolan! I need to talk to you! It's about Ms. Margaret!"

David caught sight of Faye through the corner of his eye, a slight breath of relief coming over him as he ignored the shouting citizens of Storybrooke for just a couple seconds to give her his attention, either not fully hearing what the doctor had to say or not able to hear her at all over the uproar.

"Dr. Stevenson! There you are! Where did you guys head off to? Where's Snow? She's always been so much better at this...talking thing than I am..."

Faye answered David, her worry for their friends clear in her voice and facial expression, "Henry...Knox...and Ms. Margaret...They-They fell down some kind of hole and they've disappeared! I don't know what happened!"

She continued honestly and guiltily, "I came too late...I couldn't do anything...I'm so sorry..."

"WHAT?" David exclaimed, not at all in anger but in surprise and confusion. "Where? Show me!" The rioting crowd behind him no longer mattered as his blue eyes focused intently on Faye. Snow always came first, no matter what. And if she were in some sort of danger...

David shuddered, not wanting to think about it.

Faye nodded at him in response to his request, and she answered "Follow me then," She then led him away from the crowd and into the forest, right to where she saw the portal. She was glad that she had eidetic memory, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to retrace her own steps.

When the both of them reached the area, she said to him, "Here....The portal was here, but it closed after the three of them fell in,"

David looked at the ground carefully, though it didn't take much to spot the area in the earth where it looked as if a child had been busy trying to dig a hole to reach the other side of the world. It made sense now; the first time Faye had said 'hole' but this time, she called it a 'portal' and that's just exactly what it was.

She took out the cylinders of soil, and she said to him, "Hopefully...Hopefully I can perform some tests on the soil samples and get some information that may help...but the chances may be slim..."

David covered his mouth with his hand, rubbing his palm against his lips as he tried to think past the tears that were nearly blinding him as the realization hit him harder than gaining his memories back. Snow was gone, again he had let her fall through his grasp and this time, he didn't even know where.

"We...we have to keep this quiet..." David said at last, feeling his tears receding back. He was a King dammit, he couldn't allow to have anyone see him cry. "If word gets out that Snow is...missing..." He paused, unable to bring himself to use the correct term of 'gone.' "...then we'll have a much bigger problem on our hands than just an angry mob." He let out a tired, anguished sigh and lowered himself to balance on his haunches, his eyes never leaving the hole in the earth where his wife was last seen. He reached his hand out tentatively to touch the soft soil. He wasn't sure why he was surprised when that didn't suddenly bring Snow back to him.

Faye could tell that he was in anguish and was holding back tears, just like she was. Normally she would leave the man to mourn, but there was still another problem. She asked David, "What about Ruby? She...needs to know that Knox is missing. The two of them were close, from what I've noticed..."

Mentioning how Ruby and Knox were close reminded her of her own pain at the fact that Henry was missing. She added under breath, knowing that Ruby may feel the same, "...She would want to know..." Faye herself would've wanted to know if something happened to Henry.

"I..." David shook his head and stood back up, forcing himself to look away from the spot of dirt that very well could have been Snow's, Knox's and Henry's grave. His hands balled up into tight fists until his knuckles turned white. He wanted answers dammit! And just as he had said before, there were only two people here in Storybrooke that would even have a phantom of an idea as to what was going on. "Leave Ruby to me, as her good friend, and not as her King, I owe it to her..." He said before his face shifted slightly, a more determined role of Prince James taking over the uncertainty of David Nolan coming into view.

"We need answers, and I'm afraid that either Regina or Mr. Gold might be the only ones who have them..." He was asking, and not asking at the same time. He had his hands full with trying to keep the people from killing their mayor...Queen...but he wouldn't ever ask anything like going to Rumpelstiltskin on his behalf...not unless he was desperate and he was quickly coming to find out, he was exactly that.

Faye came to realize the situation as well, and she dreaded the fact that she had to go to Mr. Gold, since it is up to David Nolan to make sure the people didn't kill Regina. She sighed through her nose and volunteered for the inevitable, "I'll go and talk to Mr. Gold, and see if I can get any answers from him. Hopefully, you'll be able to get an answer from the Mayor,"

"I'll do what I can." David promised before putting both his hands on her shoulders, meeting her eyes directly. "Don't worry, we'll find them. Snow and I have been in this position before; many times in fact, and I always find her, this time won't be any different."

Faye looked David in the eyes when he reassured her, and she nodded, slightly admiring his confidence, and commented "I hope for everyone's sake that you're right," She herself wasn't too sure. There was no proof, and she didn't know David Nolan enough to know what he and Snow had been through, except from the fairy tales she read before...

As soon as David's hands were off of her shoulders she walked with him back to the town at a fast pace. When they reached the town, they parted ways rather abruptly, as the crowd that had once gathered around David had completely disappeared, and David only had to guess once as to where they went. Faye easily recalled Gold's medical file and recalled his address. After searching the address on her smart phone, she headed there immediately. As soon as she reached the...absurdly pink house, she rang the doorbell, trying to quell the fear that grew in her heart.

There was a light shuffling sound from behind the door that grew louder with each moment, turning from a muffled, inaudible sound to the sound of a cane thumping on the hardwood as he neared the door. His silhouette could be made out crudly through the colorful stained glass windows as he reached for the door knob and pulled open one of the beautifully hand-crafted cherry wood twin door.

There was a look of surprise on the Pawnbroker's face for a split second before his thin lips curved into a slight smile, one hand held tightly onto his cane while his other remained behind his back.

"Angry mob of one? You're going to have to do a lot better than that, Dr. Jekyll." He paused to turn and face a small desk that was pressed up against the wall leading down the short hallway from the door way and opened up the drawer, stashing the gun in his opposite hand back inside and closed it back up before turning back to the doctor. "I don't suppose this would be a good time to ask for a refill on my Fentanyl prescription?"

Faye rolled her eyes slightly at his joke about her being an angry mob of one. When he asked about the perscription, she answered with slight sarcasm, "A better time would be after a regular check up. But that's not why I'm here,"

She sighed through her nose and said "I need help from someone who is an...expert to say the least, in magic,"

Mr. Gold's once well-mannered, practiced smile turned...wolfish, his golden tooth catching the light as what sounded like a chuckle came from his throat.

"Well that's not something I'd planned on hearing today." The Pawnbroker made a quick glance over his shoulder, hearing the faint sound of the pipes running through the walls as an indication that the bath water was still running. He turned back to Heather Jekyll and jerked his head a bit. "Around back, take the stairs down to the basement, we can talk there." He finished, his voice practically in a whisper before shutting the door on Heather's face, the distinct sound of tumblers turning indicating that he had locked the door.

Faye felt a chill roll down her spine when she saw his fake smile turn into a predatory one. When he fell silent, Heather strained her ears and caught the sound of water running through pipes (thanks to Hyde). She listened to his whisper carefully, and after he closed the door, she headed for the back, while Hyde told her that someone else was indeed in his house (as Jekyll suspected), and from the extra scent (something along the lines of vanilla, brown sugar, and peaches) that lingered on Gold, it had to of been a lover.

Faye went down the stairs to find herself in a familiar place; A laboratory. Though hidden with what looked like years and years of random stored pieces of furniture (including a single spinning wheel that seemed to be the center of the entire room) it was clear what the main use of Mr. Gold's basement was intended for. She looked around and noticed the windows that let sunlight in above. She also noticed the chemicals, but she knew better then to let her curiosity make her touch and examine the miscellaneous vials. She stood in the lab, waiting for Rumpelstiltskin to come.

He wasn't too far behind, the sound of his cane on the cement stairs giving him away well before he had opened up the door. He shut it quickly behind him, eying Heather out of the corner of his eye as he walked down the stairs to the main floor of the basement. He stopped a good few feet in front of Heather, somehow knowing the limits of the light being filtered into the underground room as over half of his person was cloaked in nothing but darkness.

"What is it you want dearie?" Mr. Gold asked, a hint of the Imp from The Enchanted Forest tickling at his tone.

Faye answered Mr. Gold in a serious tone, her facial expression betraying no emotion what so ever, "Henry Carlyle, Knox Kowalski, and Mary Margaret fell into some kind of portal and now they're missing. I need to know what happened to them, and if they're still alive, be able to communicate with them, and help them back to Storybrooke,"

"A portal?" Mr. Gold asked, genuine curiosity in his voice as well as a lack of empathy towards the situation. He thought Heather's words over carefully, unable to help but glance at the watch on his left wrist, keeping track of how long he was to be down here. "And...what is it you would be willing to do for me...should I agree to help?" He breathed out a quick laugh at his own statement and shook his head. "Oh, that's right, you don't have a choice, do you. Not after the deal you made with me back in The Enchanted Forest." He quickly gauged the look on Heather's face before continuing. "The contract still stands dearie, you are bound to me, as my apprentice. I can simply ask anything of you, now can't I?"

Faye clenched her teeth at his comments but she kept herself calm despite the anger she felt towards him. She retorted, "It only stands if you intend to uphold your end of the deal. I couldn't help but notice that you were quite...friendly to Evelyn Hyde,"

"She peaks my curiosity." Mr. Gold said simply, his wolfish smile returning once again before he pressed on with what was on his mind. "You actually have nothing I want Dr. Jekyll, and aside from a prescription refill Dr. Faye Stevenson is also of very little use to me." He took a moment to inspect the handle of his cane, seeming bored already with the conversation.

Before Faye even realized what was happening, her consciousness was pushed to the back of the mind and everything around the both of them went pitch black dark except for the light that filtered in from the windows above them. Jekyll, who had been standing away from the windows, was now enshrouded in darkness.

A familiar voice to Gold spoke up with a animalistic and jovial sneer, "And yet, you clearly want something from me, Imp," The light from the light bulb above them flickered back on to show Evelyn Hyde, standing right where Jekyll had been, with a sadistic grin on her face.

"Indeed I do." Mr. Gold said dropping the bottom of his cane back onto the floor, done 'examining' the handle it seemed as Evelyn Hyde now had his full attention, the wolfish grin never faltering on his face. "Tell me, Ms. Hyde...ever kill anyone?"

Evelyn Hyde's grin seemed to widen, and answered evilly, "Of course...it's like sex only there's a winner,"

The wolfish grin on the Pawnbroker's face only widened at her response. He twisted his cane around in his grip as an airy chuckle left his throat.

"Then Ms. Hyde, I have a proposition for you..."

*~*Collaboration between Ghost Shadow, Guardian Angel Haruki, YoshiSkittlez, and Tanderbolt*~*

Nick wasn't sure how long he had been crying in the middle of the street. All he knew was that the purple cloud he saw spread throughout Storybrooke had passed over him, leaving him seemingly unharmed.

Rubbing his eyes for a few moments to clear away any last remnants of tears, Nick stood up to his feet; looking about his surroundings. Though he never knew Storybrooke, at least not in his original life...he could tell where to go, as though the five years in a lull had imprinted themself to his memory.

Hearing what sounded like mass clamor from the clock tower, Nick made his way down the roads until he found himself at the outskirts of a large gathering of people, voices calling out over each other in a variety of emotions: sadness, joy, rage, confusion, and even fear.

Dr. Whale led the huge crowd to the front of Regina's house, with torches and weapons in hand. He didn't have to say anything, the crowd shouted everything for him, calling for Regina to come out and face justice, or else they would set her house on fire.

Nick pieced through the crowd, trying to recall all his mental faculties; memories crossing over each other as he struggled to determine what was real, fake, old, or new. But one thing stuck out amongst all the others. Mason, his son was here...in Storybrooke. He had spoken to him, rescued him, and he hadn't the faintest idea who the boy was - until now.

In an instant, instinct took the place of reason, and Nick knew he would have to rescue his boy from Regina. Though he had no clue who the Mayor really was, the populace's reaction towards her was...less-than-savory.

Quickly heading away from the town square, Nick's pace hurried into a sprint as he carried himself down the neighborhoods until coming across Regina's large white house, a moderately sized mob already forming outside carrying medieval weapons and torches.

Eyes landing on Dr. Whale, who seemed to be heading up the mob, Nick pushed past the crowded masses until he was within speaking distance of the doctor.

"Whale," Nick began, his voice deathly serious. "Give me an axe." He practically demanded. Nick was going to get his son one way or another; he wouldn't lose him again.

Dr. Whale answered Nick deadly serious, his anger directed at Regina, not at Nick, "Leroy has an extra axe. I'm sure he'll lend it to you,"

The crowd continued shouting, and a couple were even close to Regina's house, ready to drop the torch and set the house on fire.

Nick nodded curtly before turning his attention to the former town janitor, managing to (after a bit of arguing) acquire the spare axe; a tool that now felt so familiar to him, given his past occupation.

Stepping up to the front door, ignoring any premonitions of magical defence, Nick didn't even bother to demand Regina's surrender before lifting the axe up over his head and swinging it down with all the strength he could muster; making a nice-sized gash through the wood.

Yanking the axe out of the hole, Nick raised it once again before bringing it down, sending splinters of wood flying from the impact. He would be able to cleave through the entirety of the door in just a few minutes, leaving only Regina to stand in the way of his son.

The large white door suddenly swung open by a force that hadn't come from the former Mark Dufresne's axe. As the door opened, an ill-timed axe swing came down nearly clipping the ear of the curious-eyed eight-year-old boy who had opened the door. He didn't seem too startled by the blade coming down so quickly and so close to him, only blinking rapidly in succession a few times before tilting his head to the side a bit, staring right up at Nick Chopper and into his eyes.

"Are you here for my mom?"

Upon seeing the door swing open and Mason's bright face appearing before him, Nick suddenly dropped the axe with a loud clatter to the floor, inwardly thanking God he hadn't hit his own son.

"Mason...it's me: Papa." Nick said softly, seeming to ignore the other members of the mob that had gathered as he squatted down to eye-level with his son, a soft expression on his features. And yet, he felt a certain emptiness inside...as though he was unable to feel the full extent of his joy, his love. But why? Waiting to answer this question another time, Nick simply looked into Mason's eyes; gauging for any reaction.

Mason seemed to study the older gentleman's face, his eyes looked concentrated, but everything else about him seemed...completely blank.

"Why do you want to hurt my mom?" He then asked after a prolonged period of silence between the two as the crowd behind Nick Chopper was anything but quiet once they discovered the boy was fine.

Standing to his full height, Nick's expression shifted from one of confused perplexion to dismay as it seemed that his own son didn't recognize him. Opening his mouth to speak, he was suddenly interrupted by Regina's voice from inside.

"Mason!"

The bright eyed boy turned from the man to look upon his mother coming down the stairs, fluffing out her hair as she walked to the door, taking his wrist and pulling him away from the angry mob. She had forgotten all about the injuries she had sustained earlier that morning, coupled with a good makeup job and her blood pumping pure adrenaline didn't even give her reason to remember she should be hospitalized.

"What can I help you with Mr. Dufresne?" Regina asked with a pleasant smile, taking a moment to look past him and at the others crowding around her porch.

Nick's eyes moved from Mason's up to Regina.

"My name is Nick Chopper." He corrected in a serious voice, before touching on the next issue. "What did you do to my son?" He demanded in a tone that bode no indulgence.

"Excuse me? Your son?" Regina rested her hand on her hip, her brown eyes narrowing on him in a cold stare. "My son had no parents, so I took the route any respectful person would and adopted him. It's a solid, legal binding...Chopper..." Regina tilted her head to look on his face thoughtfully, her eyes softening just a bit. "Nick Chopper...must not have been very important back home, name doesn't ring any bells..."

"Mason had two very loving parents, Mayor Mills." Nick began, using her title out of more spite than respectful formality. "He was taken from me, as was his mother-"

"Mason? Do you know this man?" Regina asked, turning to her son and cutting off Nick rather abruptly. The wide eyed boy looked back to Nick and then Regina, shaking his head no.

"Is he really my papa?" He asked Regina.

"Of course not. Real fathers don't abandon their children." Regina replied, folding her arms across her chest, looking back at Nick now with a smirk playing on her red lips.

Nick could only look between the Mayor and his son as they spoke, the comment on fathers never abandoning their children causing tears to sting at his eyes - though they never got further than that. He wanted to yell, to fight, to take his boy back home. But he wouldn't, he couldn't. Something was holding him back, holding him away.

Moving to step off the porch, Nick gave one last, longing look in Mason's direction.

"I'll fight for you, son. I always have." He said lastly before turning his back to the two of them, brushing past the mob with complete indifference; the only thing he felt was his shoulder aching terribly.

Dr. Whale spoke up angrily, raising his weapon, "That smirk isn't going to last forever Regina. You took everything away from us and now-"

"What?" Regina snapped back coldly, stepping further into the arch of the front door so she was more than halfway outside now. "Now you're going to kill me?"

He answered her with a glare "Eventually, but first...you need to suffer,"

Regina finally took the first step out of her home, pushing Dr. Whale in the middle of his chest harshly and forcing him to take a step backwards.

"Listening to you and Chopper over there has been enough suffering for all of us." She replied, pushing on his chest once again to force him off her porch completely.

"That's right." Regina said, now addressing the entire mob, catching the back of Nick Chopper as he pushed through the crowd to walk away, perhaps home to cry or to The Rabbit Hole to drown his sorrows, she could really care less. "Well my dears..." Regina began to raise her arms, willing the magic to flow through her veins. "...here...she...is!" She flattened her palms and watched with amusement as the entire crowd ducked down to escape her wrath...except...except nothing happened. There was no magic, not even a puff of smoke...absolutely nothing.

"SHE'S POWERLESS!!!" A man shouted after he stood up from his ducking position, and another shouted "GET HER!!"

"What?" Regina looked at her hands as if they were a piece of faulty equipment. She didn't understand. How was this possible? Magic had been brought to Storybrooke and yet...she couldn't wield it?

After the man shouted, Dr. Whale and the crowd followed him to Regina. Dr. Whale was the one to grab her wrist and shoved her against a column.

Regina was abruptly reminded of her injuries the moment her back made contact with the stone pillar of her porch, a harsh whimper and wince coming from her as she was unable to surpress it.

"Mom?" Mason called out, worry coming over his young face as he looked upon Dr. Whale with confusion. "What are you doing? Let her go!" The small boy threw himself at Dr. Whale, getting in a lucky shot as his knuckles clipped the side of Dr. Whale's jawline and continued wailing his fists down in a blind rage. "GET THE FUCK OFF MY MOM!"

Dr. Whale shouted in pain when Mason managed to land a hit on his jaw, and continued wailing on him with attacks weaker than the first. The scientist snarled "Back off!" and shoved him into the mob, where he was restrained by the other men.

He then looked back to Regina and he snarled "Now...where were we? Ah, yes," He then grabbed Regina's throat, like a certain woman before him did, and started crushing her windpipe.

"HEY!" A clear voice rang out loud and clear over the crowd, recognition immediately hitting on all ears and the rioting group quieted almost immediately as David Nolan pushed his way through the group and towards Dr. Whale, Sheriff Leland trailing behind him. After he had parted ways with Dr. Stevenson he had gone straight to the Sheriff's office for Robert's help. He had hoped that the Sheriff wouldn't be too busy to lend a hand, but ended up walking in on some sort of post-accidental-gunshot business in another group led by Moe French, the town flourist.

"Now that's enough!" David yelled at the people, gripping onto Whale's wrist harshly and pulling it from Regina's throat. Snow may have been better at talking to large groups, but when he had enough, he made it nice and clear. "This is not the way!"

Dr. Whale looked to David and he snarled "Now, why the bloody hell should I listen to you?" Some of the people in the crowd seemed to agree, echoing the question, while those who knew David remained silent.

"Because no matter what Regina did, it doesn't justify this." David said letting his eyes narrow on Dr. Whale for a brief moment. "We're not murderers here."

Dr. Whale sneered in response to David, "We're not from this world in case you've forgotten,"

What had seemed like a good day for Robert in the morning continued to be terrible. It looked like he would have to deal with a third violent incident in one day, something that was inconcievable in the Storybrooke he remembered. Robert approached Dr. Whale from behind, and said "Doesn't matter what happened, there are rules for you to follow. If you want to remain awake right now, I suggest you calm down." His tone of voice was harsh and growling, more menacing than his usual deadpan.

"We have a lot to figure out, and this isn't the way to do it. Regina's death won't provide any answers. She needs to be locked up...for her safety but more importantly for ours." David directed his attention to the multitude of the crowd, who all seemed to be...content (more or less) with the idea of having Regina locked up.

Regina was the first to look at Robert, her eyes narrowing; daring him to come any closer to her but David was quick to put his own eyes on the sheriff, his own eyes telling him the exact opposite.

Robert stood still, making sure no one resorted to violence. His curse had returned, and he could not arrest Regina even though he wanted to. He was still sheriff, but he was also under Regina's command, and it was impossible for him to work against her. Robert spoke up "You should've brought Graham. I can't do this, much as I want to I can't. I'm still bound by that stupid deal I made, it came back when the magic returned."

Regina's lips turned up into a smirk as David pinched the bridge of his nose, folding one arm over his chest to tuck his hand underneath his armpit. He could hear the crowd behind them growing noisy again. He didn't have time for this; he didn't have time for anything! Snow was gone, he should be spending time trying to figure out how to get her back. Graham was dealing with the small mob that had broken into the Sheriff's station, he couldn't be in two places at once. David released his hold on his nose and stepped up to Robert, reaching his hand to Robert's hip and snatched the cuffs from his belt.

"Then I'll be your hand." David said to Robert with a nod before turning to face Regina. His eyes met The Evil Queen's, neither of them speaking a word but their eyes spoke volumes as Regina held out her wrists and David slapped the cuffs down on her wrists.

Regina looked down at the metal cuffs now constraining her wrists before shooting a sideways glance to her son who had pulled himself from the hold of the men who had been restraining him from before.

"What about Mason? You can't just leave him unattended he needs me."

"Actually, he doesn't." David said giving Regina a rather cheeky grin. Regina's eyes narrowed, confused. "He has a father, after all..." David nodded over to Robert to take the boy to find Mark - Nick...whoever he was now. Mason might not have remembered, but he knew Mark long enough to know that he wouldn't lie about something like this.

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez and I*~*~*

The jail door slammed shut on Regina and David took careful measures to make sure that it was locked up tight with the keys that Robert had been more than willing to hand over to him...temporarily of course until some of their questions got answered. Thankfully, there were two cells in the Sheriff's station, as the first one to Regina's immediate left was lacking a door and most of the outside wall.

"So I'm a prisoner now." Regina shot coldly to David, watching him lock up the door.

"If the curse is broken then why didn't we go back?" David asked, getting right to the point of asking questions.

"Because there's nothing to go back to." Regina said simply, going over to sit herself down on the provided 'bed' in the cells, her legs threatening to give out on her completely if she didn't sit down soon. "That land is gone." She watched with what looked like satisfaction as the color seemed to drain from the faux-prince's face. He simply shook his head no a few times before removing himself from the jail cell. He just didn't have it in him right then to ask what might happen if someone were to use a portal to return to a land that was no longer there.

Heather, who was now walking down the sidewalk with her complexion now paler than a white sheet. She felt sick to her stomach as she recalled the deal over and over again in her mind. She shouldn't have gone to Mr. Gold...! She walked silently, but as quick as she could, to where she thought David Nolan may be right now...the prison.

She walked in to see that her hunch was correct, and her blue eyes filled with guilt and horror looked at Regina briefly, before landing on David Nolan. She said to him, her hand trembling as it stayed on the door frame, "Mr. Nolan...I need to talk to you...outside..."

David felt his shoulders drop immediately, and perhaps his head hung a bit lower as he heard the 'I have bad news' tone in the doctor's voice. What now? What else could possibly make this day any worse?

"Yes?" He asked with little-to-no enthusiasm. They were well out of earshot from Regina, but that didn't stop David from taking Faye's arm and leading her out into the hallway...just in case...

Heather sighed as she calmed herself down enough to speak properly, "I'm afraid we've got another problem. The monster....The monster, Evelyn Hyde. She's here in Storybrooke, and she's going to attempt to murder Regina,"

David's face went from grim, to confused.

"Evelyn Hyde? Is...is that a name I...should know?"

Heather slapped her forehead at her own stupidity and said "Oh right...Evelyn Hyde isn't from the Enchanted Forest...so you wouldn't know who she is..."

She bit her lip, trying to think of a way to explain who Hyde was, without giving herself away. She told David that Evelyn Hyde is a murderer with supernatural abilities, and that she was quite infamous in her original world, London 1885.

"Evelyn Hyde will stop at nothing until she achieves her goal. She is a dangerous woman who must not be underestimated. The worst part about her, is that she can disappear without leaving a trace behind, and she is immune to magic," Heather finished.

"She's the mysterious woman that's been walking around Storybrooke." David observed outloud, making the connection.

Heather nodded and agreed with his vocal observation, "That's what I think as well," She then said to him, "She will attack tonight. You need to get Ms. Mills somewhere much more secure. Mr. Nolan,"

David let out a small laugh as he crossed his arms over his broad chest.

"Regina will be fine. There's no place more safe for her right now. Look, I know a lot of people want Regina dead right now, myself included but I owe it to Snow to be the better man here, it's what she would have wanted. So...so maybe I can talk to Evelyn? Try to bring her down a bit? Where is she at now?"

Heather shook her head as she answered with a lie that easily rolled off her tongue and made her sick to her stomach, "I don't know where she is now, and this is no laughing matter Mr. Nolan! Hyde is a monster for a reason,"

"As if two monsters in this place weren't enough..." David sighed.

She then warned him, "Mr. Nolan, are you going to be watching over Ms. Mills?"

"I-" David took a good look into Heather's eyes, she was pleading and even though in his mind he was going to reply with nothing but a no, it was her eyes that got to him. "Alright, I'll look after her tonight if it will make you feel better. Did...did you get any answers from Gold?" He asked, changing the topic to the more pressing matter on his mind.

Heather answered "No. He would only give the answer for an...unreasonable price,"
She then said "I'm sorry to ask you to stay and watch over her, but I think we may need Regina alive," She then said "No matter how scared you feel...or what threats Hyde throws at you...be ready to knock her unconscious, or if worst comes to worst, kill her,"

"You really think it's going to come to that?" David asked, skeptisism in his voice only for the fact that he hadn't the pleasure of meeting this...Evelyn Hyde personally before. She was only known to hang around bars, a place David Nolan never had any interest in.

Heather nodded and answered, this time with grim confidence, "Yes. It will come to that," She then sighed and said "I'll get to work on the soil samples. Do what you want with the warning I just gave you. But whatever you do, don't run from Hyde. She has a...primitive way of thinking. If you act like prey, you are as good as dead,"

"Noted." David adjusted his arms over his chest, but kept them crossed, the mention of Faye getting to work on the soil samples bringing what Regina had told him to the surface of his mind. He debated on telling Faye, but what would he tell her exactly? They had no idea what that portal did; where they had been taken...it would only cause the good doctor to worry over what could potentially be nothing. So instead, David gave Faye a smile and a nod before heading out of the building. If he was going to be babysitting Regina all night, he needed to get a few things.

Heather watched him leave and as soon as he was gone, she sighed through her nose and let out a single tear. She had warned David...and lowered her chances of surviving the night. If she wasn't going to live after tonight...then so be it. She didn't think she could live with Hyde's deeds any longer. She headed for her house after giving a silent and distant apology to Nolan, Mills, and Henry.

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez as Rumpelstiltskin and I as Evelyn Hyde and Belle*~*~*

After Rumpelstiltskin uttered his famous words 'The deal is struck', Hyde's grin seemed to widen.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Imp,"

However, after Hyde said that, she said "Congratulations, Mr. Gold. You have now lost your humanity..." her blackened eyes darted behind Gold for a brief moment, and her grin widened,

"Oh I've lost that long ago dearie-"

"-And your girl..."

Hyde walked past Gold casually and walked up the stairs, passing by a certain someone without laying a hand on her...and disappeared into the sunlight, leaving instead Heather Jekyll to walk on into Storybrooke. The person Hyde walked past was none other than Belle.

Mr. Gold turned his head towards where Evelyn had been looking past, finding Belle's angelic face looking into the basement from outside. His heart and stomach seemed to suddenly switch places in his chest, but his body otherwise remained vigil, ungiving to anything he might have been feeling right then. Technically, he had done nothing wrong.

Belle had seen the whole incident and her jaw had dropped and hurt was clear in her eyes.

Mr. Gold headed up the stone stairs and out the door, letting himself out into the lavish, green back yard of his home only stopping when he was about four or so feet from Belle, letting both of his hands rest on the top of his cane. He noted that she had put the clothes she had taken from his shop back on and silently swore, forgetting once again that she was in need of something much better. Though shopping in the middle of a town-wide panic didn't sound like the best of ideas, and he had all but exhausted his magic by getting them from the Sheriff's station to his home, so magically conjuring up some at least temporary clothes wasn't the answer either...perhaps he could convince her to put on one of his pajama suits - no -
no he couldn't even do that without feeling he would lose all primal control of himself...shit.

It was hard looking past the hurt she held in her blue eyes, but again he felt as if he hadn't done anything wrong. He twisted the cane underneath his hands a bit nervously and fashioned a soft smile.

"Hey."

Belle found her words once again, and she said to him, hurt lacing her words, "Rumpelstiltskin...you lied to me again...! You said you wouldn't kill Regina. How could you?" Her eyebrows knitted together as she spoke and she was doing her best to keep herself from shedding any tears.

"What? Oh no, I kept my word." Mr. Gold assured her, braving a single step closer to Belle. "I...will not kill her..."

Belle took a single step back when he braved a single step forwards. She pointed out "You toy with words...just as you toy with people. Are you even going to help the first woman at all?"

"The first wo- ah, that." He stopped himself after realizing just how much of their conversation she must have seen. "They're the same person. It's a bit...complicated...but yes, I am going to help her. I've yet to break any of my deals, and this one will be no different."

Belle shook her head and she stated in disappointment and hurt "Rumpel, you still lied to me. You're still making the wrong choices. I thought you changed..."

Mr. Gold scoffed, unable to hold his tongue.

"Oh what, in the hour you've known me?" Immediately he winced, regretting the words coming out of his mouth before he was even able to finish.

Belle took another step back as though she had just been slapped by his scoff. She closed her mouth, and she turned around, walking away in complete silence.

"Belle...I'm sorry..." He called after her, feeling his heart and stomach switching places again.

Belle only stopped once and she looked at him briefly. Her hurt expression was covered with a stubborn and stern mask.

"Belle I'm sorry..." He said again after meeting her eyes, the pleading clear in his voice. "I am."

Belle didn't answer, she instead turned and continued walking away until she was out of his sight. She headed off to go and find her father.

Mr. Gold shook his head, his nostrils flaring as a moment of heated anger pulsed through him, causing his arm to raise his cane and brought the handle down on the pane of glass that served as a window into the basement. The glass shattered upon impact, the sound somehow helping in his fit of rage. He shouldn't feel bad about this, he wouldn't. Every step closer to finding Baelfire was a step away from Belle, and even though the small, personal steps inbetween provided enough of a wedge between them to make him realize that he couldn't have both. He was stupid to think that he could, he didn't deserve her, not one bit. Perhaps...perhaps this was best. A single tear squeezed itself out of the corner of his eye, falling to the grass beneath his feet as he hobbled himself back into the house, shutting the sliding glass door with more force than necessary but surprisingly the glass remained intact.

"Now where did I put that bottle?"

It had only been a handful of hours since the curse had been broken and already the town seemed to have come to some sort of acceptance with the fact that they all had questions and no one to answer them. Regina was locked away for their protection, and Mr. Gold was nowhere to be found. Not that anyone would have gone to them for answers anyway after hearing Moe French brag about leading a small group to his jail cell (that in itself was a completely different story to be spread through Storybrooke, though no one got the details right) only for someone else who had been in the group to relate that Rumpelstiltskin had his magic back, and broke out of his cell to vanish into nothing.

So with Mr. Gold gone, that only left Regina and no one in Storybrooke had it left in them to face the (arguably) lesser than two evils, despite the new knowledge that not only was she locked up and powerless, but badly injured as well. Even with that, they knew The Evil Queen to still be dangerous, and so it was decided amongst themselves that they didn’t need answers after all, they just wanted to go home.

David found himself walking back down main street, hands stuffed tightly into his jean pockets with his head looking down at his feet as he walked. There was so much going on in his mind at once he was drawing total blanks, unable to concentrate on one thought long enough to even know what he was thinking about. It was too much; if Snow where here, she would know what to do. David stopped walking and picked up his head as a thought came to him. If he couldn’t have Snow to help him, then he could have the next best thing.

David hurried across the street and over to Marco – Gepetto; the older man greeting his new king with a cheery smile as he swept away the last of the leaves that had been littering the front porch of his shop for the last few days.

“Hey Marco, have you seen Red anywhere?” David asked.

“Sure, sure. Last time I saw her it was about ten minutes ago. She was following Leroy and the other dwarves as they headed out of town. Not a bad idea if you ask me; if we can’t go home, then perhaps we can-“

David didn’t hear the rest of what Marco had to say, his hears were filled with an inaudible ringing the moment he heard ‘out of town.’ They couldn’t leave! Could they? David took off down the road, there was no time to get his pickup truck, he’d get there much faster if he just ran.

XXX

“This, gentlemen, is our mission. The great barrier of our existence; does it remain? We must investigate…the line.” Leroy capped the can of spray paint, a bright orange line now permanent on the road where Storybrooke ended, and the world beyond began. He looked to his fellow dwarves, all looking upon him with leadership and as much as he didn’t want it, someone had to do something.

“I made straws. Shortest crosses. Draw.” Leroy handed out the different-sized straws to his friends, none of which were brave enough to even look at the length of theirs and instead closed it up tight in their hands.

“With the curse broken we can cross right? Should be no problem, yeah?” Happy asked.

“With magic back it could be even worse now.” Sleepy groaned.

“Like, vaporize us.” Doc added on.

“Let’s go home.” Bashful pleaded, finally causing Grumpy to reach his limit.

“GUYS! We are the Royal Guard! Dwarves loyal to Snow White! This is our chance to prove ourselves to the prince. We must do this!” There was a mix of apprehension and anxiety among the crew, but no one said anything otherwise. “Show your hands!”

The seven dwarves gathered together and revealed the straws they had picked, the straw in Sneezy’s hand being the shortest as was brought to everyone’s attention with a series of sneezes.

“You’re up snotty.” Leroy grabbed Sneezy by the arm and began to guide him to the town line.

“You know, what if we found a turtle and sort of nudged it over first?” Sneezy tried.

“Oh, for the love of-“

“WAIT!”

Leroy had quickly been interrupted by a female’s voice and the entire group turned to find Ruby staring back at them, wide-eyed of what she was seeing before him.

“You can’t just push him over Leroy, what if something happens?”

Leroy lessened his grip on Sneezy (of which immediately took a good few steps away from the line he had nearly been forced to cross) and took a couple steps towards Red.

“Well it’s not like we have much of a choice sister. We drew straws, fair and square. He has to go.”

“Why?”

Leroy exchanged glances with his fellow dwarves.

“Well…no one is exactly volunteering now are they?” He asked, looking back to Ruby.

“Really?” Ruby looked over the face of each and every dwarf, none of which (aside from Grumpy) able to look her back in the eye. “What is the matter with all of you? Snow would have crossed that line in a heartbeat if it meant knowing something about the safety of her people.”

The was an uncomfortable shuffling between the dwarves, but none said a word. Ruby sighed and shook her head.

“Fine, I’ll go-“

“What?”

“No way sister!”

“We can’t let you do that!”

Ruby ignored the pleas of the dwarves and walked past them, teetering over the orange line that Leroy had painted on the pavement.

“What if it does something to you? We won’t ever be able to forgive ourselves if we let you do this.” Leroy tried again, hoping to reason with the stubborn waitress.

“Please, in case you’ve forgotten I’m a werewolf. Nothing this barrier can do could be worse than that.” Ruby joked, but not a single smile was cracked from the dwarves. Ruby sighed, letting her own smile fall as she realized that no matter what she did, her decision wouldn’t make the dwarves happy. “And you don’t need to feel that way guys. I’m doing this for Snow; for David. It’s the least I can do after I-“ She stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Mary Margaret had promised that they could talk about things later, but for now, this was all she could do. Without another moment’s hesitation, Ruby took the step over the town line the very moment that David had caught up with her.

“RUBY! NO!”

Robert was glad that the mess at Regina's house cleared up without any violence, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. His calm wouldn't last long, as he had to stop by the sheriff office to cover for Graham's break. He knew it would mean seeing Regina again, but his duties as sheriff overcame his personal preferences. Robert walked in the station to the jail cells, one of them still lacked a door. He sat in the corner and tried to avoid looking at Regina while he filled out some paperwork.

"Are you angry with me?" Regina asked from within her jail cell. She had reduced herself to sitting up on the bed with her back pressing up against the cold, brick wall for some support, her hands folded neatly in her lap but her eyes looking upon Robert keenly.

"It is not proper for a knight to be angry at his lord." He said those words with a bitter tone of voice, thought there was sincerity behind them. Robert kept his gaze fixed on his paperwork, he was currently filling out the forms explaining the riot earlier.

Regina outwardly smirked and rested the back of her head against the brick wall behind him, an air of smugness radiating off of her despite being beaten within an inch of her life just hours ago.

"Are you sure it's wise for you to be here Robert?" She asked suddenly. "I could tell you to do anything..."

"It was either this or leave the station unguarded. You can give me orders, but choose them carefully. You and I both know that there are some things that I can't do even if you command me to."

A white smile flashed across her red lips but she settled herself back into her (less than) comfortable position, clear that she wasn't going to put him to use just yet. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, the faux-prince was right; the cells were the safest place for her right now given her physical condition. She had no desire to be back out in the throng of angry peasants, at least not until she got her magic back.

"Well, the least you could do is find me a comfortable pillow." She grumbled, lost in her thoughts for a moment. "And not because I'm ordering you, but because it's the gentleman thing to do."

He actually bothered to look up from his paperwork before saying "Unfortunately, that's all we have here. The budget is tight, perhaps you should take it up with the mayor. I could look into getting one when Graham gets back." He sometimes liked sarcasm, it fit his cold demeanor.

Regina's brown eyes rolled at his remark and folded her arms over her chest, wincing when she realized her ribs still hurt like hell and had to settle for putting her dainty hands back into her lap again.

"Then go to my home and get one." She snapped. "You know the bedroom well enough..."

He collected his papers and stood up. Graham would be on his way back soon enough.

"Of course I know it, it's a crime scene. Even when I was free for those five years, you were still in my head. I don't know if I'll ever be able to escape as long as I am alive." Robert walked out of the station, knowing that his words were useless. Regina would never feel remorse for what she had done.

Regina watched Robert leave with her signature smirk never leaving her lips, even holding it after she heard the door of the room close shut. Perhaps jail-time wouldn't be so bad after all.

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez as Mr. Gold, Regina Mills, and David Nolan, and I as Evelyn Hyde*~*~*

Running her hand over her knuckles, Regina willed for the magic to be pulled from within her fingertips as it had so easily come to her time and time again. Magic was back, it had to be. She could feel it, and yet, there seemed to be this...barrier, this wall keeping her from being able to use it. As soon as she could heal her injuries she would have less to fear from the citizens of Storybrooke, and she could get her son back, but as Regina tried once more to heal just the simplest of scrapes on her knuckle, nothing happened.

Graham looked up from the office desk, shaking his head at Regina in pity. She had been at it for hours now, and as much as he didn't want Regina to get her magic back, he only wished that he could have done something to help her, but the deputy just raised his coffee mug to his lips and instead took a drink. As soon as the warm liquid filled his belly, his eyes grew incredibly heavy and slowly let his head fall back; eyes shut and asleep.

"Magic is different here...dearie..."

Regina wasn't sure how she missed the sound of Mr. Gold's wooden cane clicking on the hard surface of the Sheriff's office, but his voice was unmistakable. She turned her attention from her injured hand to the shadow of a man that stepped out from behind his hiding place, stopping to let the light of the quickly setting sun settle in on his features as he stared at her coldly.

Regina looked over at Graham next, realizing then that her 'security' had been put under some sort of spell; she was truly alone with the monster before her.

"I noticed. I assume this was all your doing?" Regina asked, pushing herself up and off of the bed to hold herself against the bars. The last thing she wanted was to make Mr. Gold feel as if he had the advantage here; even though it was painfully obvious it was just that.

"Most things are." Mr. Gold took a look over at the busted jail cell next to Regina, his dark eyes settling on his folded up suit jacket and cane and with a small flourish of his wrist, they disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

"Get to it Rumpel, what do you want? You here to finish the job?"

"No, no, no. You're safe from me." Mr. Gold adjusted his grip on his cane, enjoying watching Regina's face visibly wince as he did so before relaxing his hand back onto the handle.

"I feel so relieved." Regina replied, rolling her eyes.

"I made a promise to someone that I won't kill you." Mr. Gold explained, his Scottish accent coming out thick and letting Regina know the sincerity of his words, but more than that, the Pawnbroker had been drinking...and heavily. She hadn't noticed it before, but looking upon him now she was sure she was right.

"Who could illicit that from you?" She inquired, shifting uncomfortably behind her cell. Mr. Gold winced, but opened his mouth to speak a single word that nearly brought tears to his eyes,

"Belle."

"Oh yes, your ring leader. Pulling the leash a bit tight don't you think?" Regina smirked, attemping to gain the higher ground now that a raw nerve had been struck. She didn't know what that nerve was, but putting together the hurt in his voice and his current phyisical state, she could only assume that something bad had happened between them.

"What you did to her; what you did to me...keeping her alive so you could kill her when it suited you; a fate worse than death. Unfortunately, I don't have the energy to offer you the same courtesy."

The lights suddenly flickered on and off rapidly, the sound of some circuit almost shorting out echoed throughout the room. But after five flickers, the light stayed on, and the atmosphere grew slightly heavier and darker...almost as though something dangerous was coming.

Instinctively, Regina took a step back from the bars keeping her locked in, her eyes glancing at the lights overhead as she felt a spike of adrenaline shooting into her bloodstream Her eyes landed back on Mr. Gold, who hadn't looked away from Regina, as if he had be expecting them to do that. Of course he was expecting the lights to flicker, he had done it! The question was; why?

"I met a friend, you see. She, like you, is unafraid to get her hands dirty. I believe you've met her once before." Mr. Gold's dark brown eyes glanced to Regina's neck, a smirk crossing his lips.

"Come out and say 'hello' dearie!" Mr. Gold called out into the open air, a slight trace of the Imp back from The Enchanted Forest teasing in his delivery.

The lights flickered on and off again, until this time, the light went out and left the two in complete darkness. The air grew heavier and heavier, along with the feeling of imminent danger. All was silent, until a familiar voice purred giddily,

"My, my. Oh, how the tables have turned. Nice to see you again...Queenie,"

The lights suddenly switched back on to show Hyde standing right in front of the bars, with a disturbing and terrifying smile, and simply stated "Boo!" in greeting.

Regina jumped back, the sudden familiar face in her own giving her quite the fright as her back pushed up flat against the stone wall. Her wide eyes looked from the woman and back at Gold, the man statue-like throughout the entire ordeal. He could see it in her eyes, she was pleading. She needn't say a word, he knew her well enough by now most of their conversations had been carried silently anymore.

"Belle may not love me the way I had hoped, but what you did, Regina, I can not forgive." Mr. Gold said to Regina calmly, but that didn't keep Regina from spotting a ghost of an emotion that shadowed across his features for a fraction of a second, an emotion she didn't quite understand, coming from him, in that specific moment; regret.

"Good night Regina. Give your mother my best." He attempted to scoff, but it only came out as a half-enthused smirk before the Pawnbroker looked upon Hyde and then stalked out of the Sheriff's Station to leave the monster to her work.

Hyde remained still and grinning, looking at Regina and relishing her fear while Gold spoke to her. After Gold said his good byes to the woman and stalked out of the office, Hyde stated in a growl, "Now where were we...? Ah, yes,"

She looked at the bars that blocked her from getting to Regina. She let out a growl like "Hmmm...." as she clasped her hands around two of the bars, and pulled them away from each other. The bars seemed to bend easily in her grasp until they broke. When they broke, she shrugged and tossed the broken bars in her hands behind her, allowing them to fall to the floor with a loud clang.

"You don't have to do this." Regina managed to choke out, not realizing until then just how dry her throat had become. "Whatever it is Gold promised you, I can double - no, triple!"

Hyde walked into Regina's cell quickly and she grabbed Regina by the throat and slammed her down into the floor, leaving her alive to feel the great pain. She hissed seriously "Sorry dear. But the deal is already made!"

"Deals are made to be broken. Especially his. I know the way he works, he gets what he wants while you...settle."

She chuckled, "Keep squealing, I love hearing desperate words!"

She then leaned forwards and quietly whispered in Regina's ear, so that not even the imp could hear if he ever was listening, "Perhaps...if you cooperated with the faux-Prince and the good doctor...I may reconsider. Answer wisely, and answer now, because your time is running out..."

Regina swallowed hard, goosebumps traveling up her neck and down her arms as she felt the woman's hot breath cascading over her skin.

"Whatever it takes, I just want my son..."

Hyde smirked at the answer, and she only whispered "Just do as the prince and doctor say then..."

She then backed away from Regina's face slightly, her hot breath still could be felt on Regina's skin, "Now...which method of death do you prefer?" She then asked "Strangulation? Dismemberment?" She then laughed "No, wait! How about having your heart physically ripped out from your chest?! That seems like the perfect death for you,"

Hyde seemed to be taking her sweet time, relishing the fear and panic that came from Regina, only raising her head when she detected another person's scent nearby.

"How about neither?" David asked as he walked into the room. The sound of unsheating metal filled the quiet air as David pulled a sword from his hip, a sword recently acquired. He was just happy that Mr. Gold hadn't been in the shop when he had gone looking for it.

Regina's brown eyes shot to the Prince-turned-King and couldn't help but to roll them.

"Oh please, I'm to be rescued by the shephard?" She asked, disappointment in her voice.

"If I were you, I wouldn't start getting picky Regina." David replied curtly before pointing the end of his sword in Hyde's general direction.

Hyde's smirk seemed to widen when David piped up, and she slowly stood up after letting go of Regina's neck. She turned fluidly to face the prince, not the least bit intimidated by his sword. She sighed and said "Well, well! The prince has finally come to the rescue then!" She then asked in a teasing voice "Where's your red-hooded wolf friend, hm?"

A muscle in David's jaw twitched at the mention of Ruby, but he said nothing to the woman in front of him.

She merely shrugged before he could answer, and she said "Well, as much as I would love to stay and chat, maim, kill, play lions with you, or whatever your preference is...I oughta get going. Ta. Ta," The lights flickered on and off once again, before leaving them in darkness. When the lights came back on...Hyde was no longer standing in the room.

It seemed as though she had disappeared.

Regina looked to the spot where Hyde had once been before looking back to David, who looked just as confused as she was as to what the hell had just happened.

"Well...that was...easy...?" David said sheathing his sword back onto his hip.

"You almost sound disappointed..." Regina pointed out, looking at David between the bent bars that had allowed Hyde into her cell.

"I've had more...engaging battles before." David shrugged before taking notice of the shape Regina's jail cell was in and groaned. "We really need a better system here. Might as well come out Regina, I can't keep you in here like that."

A smile of confidence came from The Evil Queen as she did as David had suggested and stepped outside of her cell, looking back on it for a moment with a look of total detestation before looking back to Charming.

"Well then, thank you for your...daring and heroic rescue..." Regina started before narrowing her eyes on him. "...but I've got it from here." She stared David down before letting up with a soft smirk before she turned to leave.

"Regina..." David called after her, causing her to look back to him. "Don't make me regret this."

The Evil Queen met Prince Charming's eyes, a small scoff coming from her throat in reply before turning to leave once again.

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez and I*~*~*

Belle had no idea where to go after she had left Rumpelstiltskin. She asked around as to where her father was, and she managed to find his home, despite that some of the people were still somewhat upset about the current circumstances.

As soon as she reached the house, she knocked on the front door and she called "Papa? It's me,"

As she waited, she couldn't help but think to herself. Should she really have left Rumpelstiltskin?

There was a hurried sound of multiple locks being undone from the other side of the door before it flew open, the portly face of her father looking upon his daughter standing on his porch with wide eyes or surprise and relief.

"Oh Belle," Moe pulled his daughter into him in a tight hug, holding the back of her head into him gently. "Oh my darling Belle, you've come home again..."

Belle smiled at her father, and she hugged him back and she answered happily, shedding a single tear, "I missed you, Papa,"

"I know my girl, I know." Moe said patting his daughter on his back with his opposite hand. "I missed you too."

After a few more moments, Belle backed away and she asked her father, "How are my sisters?"

"Fine, fine, they are all fine." Moe assured Belle before gesturing for her to come inside. "All have their own places now, just like back home." His beady little eyes took a quick glance to Belle's shoulder where she had been shot. He had seen the monster himself heal her with magic, but he couldn't help but to feel ill towards the man just the same. If it hadn't been for him, she wouldn't have gotten shot in the first place.

"Come, take a seat in the living room. I've just brewed up some fresh coffee..."

Belle walked inside after her father invited her in, and she asked as she did, "Coffee?" The asylum personnel never provided her with coffee, so she remained unaware as to what it was. She looked around the house as she made her way to the living room and sat down on a nearby couch.

Moe didn't seem to hear her query, as he was already in his small kitchen filling up two mugs with the blackened beverage and brought it to her, setting his own on the coffee table as he handed Belle's to her before taking a seat in a dusty old, dark purple recliner.

"You can come and work for me, Belle." Maurice said, diving quickly into his fantasy that his daughter was once again there to stay. "You'll like the flower shop, smells just like our garden back in Avonlea."

Belle accepted the cup of black liquid and she took a sip as her father stated that she could work for him in the flower shop. She answered "Thank you, Papa,"

"And you can stay here, of course. It's not much of a home, but it's better than anything that monster kept you imprisoned in..."

Belle raised her eyebrows and she said reprimandedly, as she set her cup of coffee on the side table, "Papa! Rumpelstiltskin isn't a monster. He's just a man who has made a lot of mistakes,"

Moe scoffed as he took his mug from the coffee table before him.

"Not a monster, bah! He's poisoned you my girl, poisoned your thoughts but we will get you through this, just as we did before when you finally came to your senses and married Gaston."

A noticable flinch came across the older gentleman's face as the name of his deceased son-in-law. It was no secret that Gaston and himself were close and he had taken the news of Gaston's death quite hard; which brought him to a second realization...

"The beast...the one cursed inside you...is it-?"

"I don't know...but it hasn't...appeared...in five years," Belle clearly looked guilty as she recalled that she almost killed her own father and sisters, when she had killed Gaston as a beast. The mere memory and her father's scoff, gave her more reason to do what she thought was right.

She stood up and she said to him, "I think I'll find my own place to stay. It was nice to see you again, Papa,"

The older man blinked as he stood up in protest, hastily setting his coffee mug back down onto the table before him.

"No, Belle, you can't...stay here." He pleaded, before his beady eyes grew wide with realization. "You're going back to him again...aren't you?"

Belle shook her head and told him what she had in mind, "No. For tonight, I'll get a room at Granny's Bed and Breakfast, and then I'll look for my own place tomorrow," She then headed for the front door and said "I'll see you later, Papa,"

"There's no need for that, my girl." Moe said following after Belle, relief in his voice when she said she wouldn't be returning to Rumpelstiltskin. "Why won't you stay here where it's safe?"

She looked to him as she opened the door and she answered seriously, "Because I think it's best if I stay away..." She then turned around, and she said to him as she headed out of the door "Good night, Papa,"

Moe French could do little but to watch his little girl walk out on him once again. He knew better, she would return to that monster just as she had before. The bitter taste of detestation came upon his tongue as he lashed out with a simple sentence,

"Your mother would be ashamed of you."

Belle easily heard his simple sentence, and she felt hurt by his words. She whispered as she continued on her way to Granny's Bed and Breakfast, with a tear falling down her cheek,

"No one decides my fate, but me..."

*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez and Ghost Shadow*~*

Nick, (or Mark as he decided to keep calling himself for convenience's sake) bustled around his house in a slightly hurried manner; Mark Dufresne never had children, and as such, he had to try and make his home as kid-friendly as possible. After first changing into an outfit that made him look slightly less than a navvy, he got to work organizing the somewhat bland spare bedroom he kept (even though no one ever visited him).

Finally stopping after his constant moving this-way-and-that, Mark took a moment to scratch his head before looking down at his son, a slightly sad smile on his face. "Sorry it isn't very vibrant, yet. Tomorrow I'll try and get you some posters or toys or....something." He put in a slightly awkward voice, still trying to come to terms with the fact that, in the boy's eyes, he was nothing more than a complete stranger who claimed to be his father.

Mason, who had been seated on Mark's couch upon arrival while the man went about cleaning the rather modest-looking house just blinked at the fireman when he had approached.

"It's okay Mr. Do- uh, Duhfress- Mr. D. I have toys back in my room at home." He said simply letting his bright brown eyes then wander to the bare minimal decorations around the fireman's home. "Mom just bought me a new spy kit, I was wanting to play with it tonight but I guess I can do that tomorrow once I get back home."

Mark couldn't help but look down at his son with saddened eyes - how could he make Mason remember?

"You can call me 'Dad', you know." He said kindly, smiling hollowly in an attempt to defuse any awkwardness, though part of him knew that wasn't possible.

"Why?" Mason asked, a lack of emotion in his voice as he continued to stare at the blank wall in front of him. "You're not my dad..." He blew out a small breath of air from his nose. "...I never had one..."

To say that Mason was affected by the events that had happened on Regina's porch earlier that day had would be an understatement. It had taken Robert nearly an hour to try and calm the boy down enough to be taken to Nick, and since then he hadn't spoken a word until just a few moments ago. Not even Grip, Nick Chopper's German Shephard who had been trying the best part of twenty minutes to nudge the boy with his nose wherever he could reach couldn't pull the boy from the quiet reverie he had slipped into. Mason lifted his gaze from the wall and back to the firefighter, his eyes changing from empty to angry in the blink of an eye.

"Why were you trying to hurt my mom? What did she ever do to you? I want my mom!"

Mark remained silent for a good amount of time, weighing out what would be the best thing to say: how could you convince a child you're his father when he doesn't even think he had one?

In an instant, Mason seemed to become emotional...angry, as if Mark was some villain who 'stole' the boy from his mother. A pang of pain seemed to go through him; after all this time, so many years he had found his son again, and yet, it was as though he was still lost.

"Mason..." Mark began in a comforting tone, crouching down by the couch. "Mayor Mills....Regina isn't your mother. Your real mother was named Catherine, and she died when you were just a lad." Mark tried to explain empathetically, though the words pained him coming out, harsh memories replaying themselves in his mind. Reaching out a hand, he attempted to stroke some stray har out of his son's face; a gesture he had repeated dozens of times before back in Oz.

Mason recoiled back quickly as if Mark's hand were a snake. He jumped up from the couch and took a few steps away, his brown eyes wet from the tears that threatened to fall.

"She is too my mother! You don't know anything about her!" He shouted, his hands balling up into tight fists. "She may have not given birth to me, but she took me in and gave me a home which is more than I can say for anyone else here. She loves me, and I promised to protect her. Please," The tears began to stream down the boys cheeks. "Take me to my mom."

Mark stood up slowly, his face a mixture of empathy and hurt at the same time. "I'm sorry, Son." Was all he managed to say at first, appearing to almost age before his son's eyes, years of guilt and sorrow weighing down on him.

"I wish I could give you what you want, Mason, but I can't." He added; finally realizing that no matter what lengths he went to, the boy would still hate him.

"You're no father." Mason shook his head no angrily, though his voice kept calm. "And even if you were my papa I'd choose Regina. I'll always choose Regina!" Mason stormed past Mark and made his way down the hall, picking a room at random to hide in (which turned out to be Nick's spare bedroom anyway) and slammed the door shut. Muffled sobs could be heard the moment the door was shut followed by a very quick shout of anger and a small 'thud' indicating that something small had either hit the wall, or the floor.

Letting his eyes follow Mason before the boy disappeared in the spare room, Mark chose to merely take a seat in an armchair, letting his son have time to grieve.

Sighing deeply, Mark looked up at the ceiling, letting a few shaky breaths pass, trying to formulate words in his mind.

"I need you, Catherine....now more than ever." Was all he said, letting his eyes now look out in front of him once again. Back home, it seemed that anytime Mason was sad, hurt, or angry, a few comforting words from his wife was all the lad needed - but she was gone, and Mark had no choice but to face this new ordeal alone.

*~*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez as Rumpelstiltskin and I as Belle and Dr. Faye Stevenson*~*~*

Belle walked through Storybrooke, realizing that she had no money on her person. How was she going to get a room at Granny's if she couldn't pay? She continued to walk on until she bumped into a figure wearing a white Doctor's jacket. The two stumbled a bit away from each other, and Belle started "Oh, I'm so sorry-"

"-No, no. I should apologize, I should've watched where I was go...ing..." The figure was none other than Faye, the woman Belle saw earlier. Faye seemed to pale a bit and she stated out loud, "It's you...! You saw the entire discussion..."

Belle nodded noticing how Faye seemed to get scared after seeing her. Belle nodded and said "Oh! Yes...I'm Belle. Who are you?"

"Here I'm known as Dr. Faye Stevenson...It's a pleasure to meet you, but I wish we met under better circumstances,"

Belle nodded in agreement. She asked "Rumpel mentioned that you were his apprentice...does that mean...that you're his new love now?"

Faye seemed to switch from pale to a slight shade of green as she answered with a repulsed look on her face, "No! No, of course not!" Faye shuddered at the thought, which seemed to make Belle chuckle a bit.

Belle then noticed that Faye's clothes weren't covered in blood. She asked "Wait...are you going to...?"

Faye caught onto Belle's question and she answered "No. She already tried, but she's still alive...thankfully," Belle sighed and she said "Rumpel didn't get what he wanted..." She then realized what that meant and she looked to Faye in concern. The good doctor clearly noticed and she said "Don't worry, I can handle whatever is thrown at me," Belle sighed with relief and said "That's good to hear,"

Faye was silent as she nodded. After a few more moments of awkward silence, she said "He didn't do it out of bloodlust you know..."

Belle blinked and asked "What?"

Faye clarified, "Mr. Gold. He didn't send Hyde to kill Mayor Mills out of pure bloodlust. Hyde and I could tell what his intentions were...he did it to protect you,"

Belle blinked at the revelation, and she immediately decided to go see him. She said to Faye, "Thank you, Faye. I'll see you later," Faye nodded and said to her "Have a good night. And please...don't tell anyone about what you saw,"

Belle smiled at her and nodded saying, "Don't worry. I won't," Faye was surprised that Belle easily accepted, but she wasn't going to complain. Belle walked off, and Faye continued on her way back to her house.

*~*~*

Belle soon reached Mr. Gold's house. Not a single light was on in the Pawnbroker’s home, the darkness of the cloudy night seeming to envelop it into its open claws. It was a strange occurrence in Storybrooke; as the regulars would remember (if they ever had the misfortune) of walking by Mr. Gold’s home during the night and notice that at least the front room always had a light on; however dim a light none-the-less. But not tonight, tonight not even the light of the moon could illuminate the darkened house. Looking at it now, one would get the feeling of death.

There was, however, one light that had been lit on the entirety of Mr. Gold’s property. It was dim, and very easy to miss, but a soft light did come from the basement rather than the house itself. Light flickered out onto the gardens on the side of the house through the still shattered glass window the man had taken his cane to beforehand, having not bothered to clean it up.

Inside, a single candle had been lit, sitting promptly on a small circular end table in the corner of the basement having long been forgotten about. The flame flickered and hissed, threatening to go out as the flame had reached the bottom of the candle long ago, merely running on fumes anymore. The Pawnbroker didn’t seem to notice as he raised a metal flask to his lips once again and drained it dry of its contents.

Mr. Gold sat on the built-in seat of his spinning wheel, his free hand turning the wooden wheel in slow circles and filling the room with a dusty, creaking sound. There was no straw in the grinder; nothing to spin, but he kept going, his eyes lost in the trance of alcoholism combined with the lulling sound of the creaking spinning wheel.

He didn’t need the alcohol anymore, he had only turned to it to help dull the pain the lung cancer had impeded onto him; but just as magic had once been an addiction for the Imp back in The Enchanted Forest, he found that even now, as The Dark One once again, he simply couldn’t let go. He needed it, now more than ever. Belle was gone, left him for good this time he was sure, and not only that but he had just sent a monster on arguably his closest friend in Storybrooke.

Regina may have had her flaws, her many, many flaws, and the two fought with one another more than anyone else in the small town, but the two had come to a mutual understanding a long, long time ago as a realization came that they weren’t so entirely different from one another; that they needed one another despite their total detestation for the other.

Love came in many ways, shapes and forms; it didn’t necessarily mean the emotion had to be romantic. It vexed the Pawnbroker when he had realized back at the station that he might have cared for Regina in some dark, twisted way, a time when it was too late to do anything about it. He would choose Belle’s safety over the friendship of the Evil Queen any day, that much was certain, but just knowing that didn’t help to dull the pain in his blackened heart where he felt a hole beginning to form, right in between the holes created by Belle and his daughter, Baelfire.

Belle noticed the light, and she headed for the basement. She knocked lightly, only to find that the door opened a little from her touch. She opened the door carefully, and she spoke softly, but hopefully loud enough to catch his attention, "Rumpel...?"

She entered the room slowly, as if he may lash out again.

The creaking of the spinning wheel had stopped and Rumpelstiltskin turned slowly to find the source of voice he heard through his ears, and felt in his heart. His appearance had become haggard. The suit jacket had been done away with long ago, leaving him in a simple blue collared shirt with a black vest over the top; however the buttons were either undone or missing. His suit pants fit him a lot more loosely now as his belt had been lost at some point and his once kempt hair splayed out in various directions, either sticking to the sweaty skin on his neck and forehead or sticking out in random directions. But perhaps the most noticeable change in the usually pristine-looking Pawnbroker were his eyes; blackened and glossed over, as if blind; dead.

Belle was startled at the sight of Rumpelstiltskin's blackened and almost dead eyes. The realization that her leaving had done this to him had sunk in completely, and Belle couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty. She didn't have any words to express her sadness or guilt at the sight of his condition.

The Pawnbroker took in Belle's presence slowly, his face remaining completely placid until, moments later (due to the alcohol slowing his mind down) his thin lips twitched into a half smile, if for a brief moment.

"Hey."

Belle answered, her lips giving a slightly sad smile in return, "Hi," Her throat felt dry and she wasn't sure what to say to break the tension that was in the air. It took her a moment, before she stated, "I'm back..."

The words processed slowly, but he understood them clearly. However, instead of looking elated or even happy for the briefest of moments, he shook his head slightly.

"Why?"

"Because, I was worried about you," Belle answered with complete honesty.

I was worried about you. Words he hadn't heard directed towards him once in his life but what made it worse in his already aching heart was that he knew Belle meant it. Mr. Gold remained silent as he turned his attention back to the spinning wheel and watched it turn.

Belle sighed through her nose when he turned back to look at the spinning wheel. She remembered how it helped him forget...

She then stated out loud, her voice showing that she wasn't angry at all, "Regina's alive," There wasn't a single hint of malice in her voice. Just a statement that simply gave a reason as to why she wasn't angry with Rumpelstiltskin.

The creaking of the spinning wheel slowed, but did not stop, and the Pawnbroker kept his back to her.

"Then you got what you wanted." He said a bit coldly, before letting up a bit. "And I'm fine Belle, you can go."

Belle blinked at his words, and she asked, repeating his last word, confused and worried, "Go?"

His shoulders fell as he stopped spinning the wheel once again and swiveled around on the seat and looked up at her thoughtfully.

"Because despite what you might think, I'm still a monster." He explained.

Belle kneeled so that she could look him in the eyes better, and she placed her hands gently on his shoulders. She said to him in response, "But don't you see? That's exactly the reason I have to stay,"

A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. He stooped down at the waist a bit to set the empty flask down by his feet before sitting up straight agian, putting a gentle hand on the side of her face and meeting her gaze.

"I will never understand you Belle..." He started, the flicker of a smile gradually returning to his lips. "...but I'll sure as hell try."

Belle simply smiled happily at his answer, and she lightly kissed him on the lips. Mr. Gold's arm reached out and took a hold of Belle's waist, pulling her back up onto her feet and then down onto his lap where he reciprocated her kiss, content to just hold her to him for the rest of the night.

“C’mon…c’mon! Light damn you!”

Regina slammed down the small, unlit candle onto the table in front of her and buried her hands into her hair in frustration, tugging at her roots as she let out an agitated groan. How was she supposed to get Mason back if she couldn’t even perform the simplest of spells?

It was sheer luck that psychotic woman in the sheriff’s station had instead agreed to make a deal with Regina rather than rip out her heart, and at the time (she could only assume that it was out of fear) Regina was willing to make any sort of deal for her life, but as she looked back on it now, she had no intention in bending to the will of Dr. Faye Stevenson or that dubious false prince. Gold may have always honored his end of the deal, no matter how twisted or unexpected it was, but Regina had no such reputation.

After a few fuming moments, Regina let go of her hair and picked up the candle once more, focusing all of what she had left in her to summon the magic back into her blood, but as she stared down the unlit wick until she started to develop a headache, she realized that it wasn’t going to happen, not tonight. Angry with Gold and puppet strings he pulled to bend the curse to his will, but more importantly angry with herself, Regina stood and hurled the candle halfway across the room, only stopping when it hit the wall head-on and chipping off a small triangle of paint.

A sudden knock at the door caused Regina to jump. There weren’t very many people that would be knocking on her door this time of night, and of those people none of them wanted Regina alive. Regina flexed her fingers, hesitating for a moment before going to the door. She had nothing to hide, she refused to hide. Regina opened the door and felt her jaw nearly drop to the floor as a pair of small arms rushed into her to wrap around her waist.

“Mason?” Regina tried pulling away the boy so she could get a good look at her adopted son, but he clung to her tighter once he felt her trying to pull him away.

“I snuck out, the window didn’t have any screens or anything and I snuck out.” Mason sobbed into Regina’s chest, hugging her tighter still. “I went to the sheriff’s station, but no one was there. I knew they couldn’t keep you in there very long, you haven’t done anything to stay in trouble.”

Regina had to settle for running her fingers through the boys mess of brown hair, feeling her heart beginning to warm once the initial realization that her midnight visitor was in fact, not there to kill her.

“Come inside Mason, you’re home now and everything is okay.” Regina ushered the boy inside and shut the door, making sure to lock it up tightly. She'd have to call someone in the morning about the damage the left door had undertaken earlier that day, and couldn't think of a better person than a certain fireman for the job.

*~*Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez, Ghost Shadow, Major Ursa, and Tanderbolt*~*

Launched through the portal, propelled down by the force of gravity, for the few moments he had let go of his hostage. And, quite sudden as their tumble through the portal, it was just as sudden when Knox and the rest of them were being launched out of the hole in the earth.

The shadow man barely caught the flash of green light as him and the rest went aerial. Brown dirt, green grass, dusty tree roots, thick trunks, wide branches, thin leaves, the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds...for a moment, the momentum of their toss up slowed, and the bird song as they flew overhead was almost relaxing. Then, they dropped out of the air.

None of them went higher than tree tops, but the fall would have been hard on the humans, in comparison to Night...right? No, still...Knox felt indescribably human, still. Human...still human...falling wasn't going to be good for him, just had to protect him mortal self. And, heck, though his power over shadows had returned, his powers as the Night were a fraction of what they'd been. On the bright side, his head didn't seem to be scrambled up by his own memories...

Letting himself drop, slamming into the shadow of a tree cast into the dirt and grass, the shadow flowed over him like water...and Knox was launched out and forward through the shadow on the side of another tree. It had been too long since he used just straight shadow trick, but the shadow man easily seemed to grasp it since his return.

Since he was now standing upright, Knox had the honor of being able to catch sight of the rest of them fall, flinching (just barely) when the woman he previously thought to be his wife hit the dirt floor. Not his problem anymore. In contrast, the shadow man couldn't help it when the round man dropped like a sack of potatoes, his chuckles bubbling up from him quietly...as he approached the downed man. Even now, the round man was trying to get up and run like a rat scampering for the nearest hole to slip into.

As the darkness began to reform over him, Knox narrowed his eyes at the fleeing man, and willed the man's shadow to just stop. Casually just walking after him at a leisurely pace, tendrils of darkness dug into the man's shadow behind him as the shadow man finally stood beside him, "And, where are you going?" Asking this in a quietly pleasant tone, setting a hand lightly on the man's shoulder...a particularly sharp tendril shot through the round man's foot.

The fall hurt even she landed well. Snow was glad that she couldn't feel an injuries afterwards, and saw Knox and the mysterious man a few yards away from her. He was still chasing that man, and Snow looked around. The years in the woods had given her a good knowledge of trees, and this was clearly not a forest in Maine. To her, it looked like her old homeland. If she could survey a bit more, she'd have a good chance at figuring out exactly where they were.

Henry was the last to fall through the portal - or at least his clothes were. Every article he had on his person landed in a small heap on the forest ground, though the young man was nowhere to be found.

A small heap seemed to rustle underneath Henry's coat and shirt; as if there was something trapped underneath the garments.

Without warning, the Cheshire Cat's head popped out of the shirt's collar, his trademark grin quite apparent, though his appearance looked different...in place of the rather mangy black cat was a neater, more healthy-looking feline, his black coat replaced by one of smoky gray, purple-pink stripes ran all the way down his body from the ends of his ears to the tip of his tail.

Slinking his way out of the shirt and shaking himself for good measure, Cheshire sat back on his haunches, looking around him as if something was lost or missing. "She fell through the portal first....why isn't she here?" He asked to no-one-in-particular, not disclosing who this 'she' was.

Rising to all four legs, tail stiffened, the Cat began to start disappearing and reappearing in different places at random; each time taking a few moments to sniff about before continuing his nearly-frantic lookaround.

Finally staying still longer than a few seconds as he realized Alice had not been brought to the Enchanted Forest with them, the Cat let his nearly-luminescent eyes land on Knox, who seemed to be interrogating the portly man.

"Of all the miserable, wretched, cowardly creatures that I've had the misfortune of meeting, you are certainly the most spineless of them." The Cat spat hatefully as he approached the duo, his head cocked straight at the portly man, fiery anger burning in his eyes as he continued to speak.

"Where. Is. My. Sister, you cretinous bastard?" He asked with as much venom as he could muster, his fur standing on end as his usually strange grin now looked malicious and predatory. He paid no mind to Knox or Snow during this time, entire focus on the man he recognized as none other than the White Rabbit of Wonderland.

Eyes flicking over to the fluffy, colourful cat, Knox blinked a few times before finally realising that it was speaking...with Henry's angry voice. Almost letting go of the man, he instead tighten his hold after hearing the rest of it, fingers digging into the shoulder, "So you are a thief." It seemed a little bit interesting that, even in his hazy-memory stupor, he had identified correctly.

The larger man winced harshly away from the Cat, though was unable to lift a foot as it had been spiked down onto the ground with his own shadow, courtesy of the towering man standing above him. The tears that had fallen from the inital pain of his own shadow being driven into his foot stained his plump cheeks, but despite the tears; despite the flinching, the man was smiling, his crooked teeth bared in a wide grin, rivaling even that of The Cheshire Cat's.

"Gone." He said simply, his grin never ceasing. "My mistress will be so pleased with me, oh yes, yes she will." The man then started humming to himself, his eyes pulling away from the cat at his feet and instead up into the sky as he watched the clouds roll by.

Eye twitching ever so slightly at 'Gone', though the shadow man was never a friend of Henry's, Knox didn't particularly like what was going on at the moment. Still, this man would be the key to his return, had to be. It would be in his self interest to keep the rotund man within grasp, for now forcing him to spill his secrets would be the most pertinent course of action.

Taking the man's wrist in hand, "How about a way to send us back...?" Knox squeezed hard, before moving his free hand to start plucking out nails from the plump hand, like a young girl does with flowers...

"Back away from him..." The Cat called out in an almost commanding tone as he was surrounded by a cloud of teal-colored smoke, fading away to reveal him once again in human form, having seemingly conjured a new outfit out of thin air to clothe himself.

Henry slowly looked at Knox now, as if waiting for the man to walk away from the portly man; seemingly unaware to the almost...shadowy aura that seemed to surround the former security guard.

Snow did not trust Knox or the man he was now threatening. His dark aura was intimidating but it was not enough to prevent her from speaking up. "Let's find out where exactly we are and why before we do anything else. We can't let him get away, and we will find an appropriate punishment for him, but that will take time. I don't quite trust your judgment enough to leave this solely up to you, Knox." she said, adding emphasis to the last word. "Now, Henry, if you have a moment it would very helpful to explain what is going on."

Irritated by two individuals now heckling him to halt, "Tch." Knox let go of the portly man, and even stepped away, before finally crossing his arms and shooting Henry a pointed look, "The woman indeed has a point. How do you know this thief?"

"This...wretch," Henry began, taking a moment to bridle his anger which threatened to boil over before continuing, "is called the White Rabbit. He hails from my homeworld...Wonderland." Henry finished with a deep sigh, as though it had drained him physically to say the name of his own home.

"He did nothing but make life miserable for all the inhabitants. God forbid one is five minutes late to pay their taxes, am I right Leveret?" Henry ranted, practically spitting the White Rabbit's name venomously, eyes narrowed hatefully. It was plain to see that the two of them had their fair share of less-than-harmonious interactions before.

Snow nodded when she listened to Henry speak. She trusted him to keep a handle on the situation, and figured now would be a good time to scout the area. One could never know what danger lurked in the forest, especially if Regina had left some forces behind. She walked out of sight and into the trees.

"Cheshire Cat is smart, yes he is. Recognized me in this strange new form he did. My Mistress will be most displeased...but-" The White Rabbit paused to giggle. "-but I was not late." He added on with a wider grin yet.

"Late. For. What?" Henry demanded harshly, any semblance of his former cheerfulness gone in the blink of an eye, replaced by steely anger.

"Does the Queen want my sister? Answer me!" He ordered sharply, wasting no time beating around the bush.

The White Rabbit tilted his head thougtfully as he brought his attention back down from the sky and let his beady black eyes land back on Henry.

"Sister? Oh! The Cheshire must mean Alice, surely he must." He began to hum again before starting to sing a soft song to himself. "Alice, come out, don't shout, don't make me pout Alice, come out; where are you?" The White Rabbit giggled once again and rocked back and forth on his rather small feet.

"Wonderland she is, and Wonderland she stays. My Mistress will see to that of course, reward good, loyal Leveret handsomely she will. Cheshire Cat is powerless against my Mistress, Cheshire should not have come but he did OOOH he did! And now my Mistress shall have what she wants."

With ever word coming out of this White Rabbit's mouth, the shadow man could feel his temper rising ever so slightly. With his mouth pressed into a firm line, and his eyes narrowed, Knox shot Henry an impatient look, "We're getting nowhere, fast...if you plan to beat the answers out of him, well, get on with it."

Stepping away from the deplorable thief, the shadow man made a sweeping gesture in a rather sarcastic manner to the man still bound, as if presenting a choice cut of meat to Henry, "As you will, time is of the essence."

When Snow got back from scouting, she saw Knox and Henry still staring at the man. She shot Henry a look that said "are you handling this" before she prepared to share what she found. Before they could speak, she said "Be sure to ask if he knows anything about why everything is ruined here. The nearby village has been ransacked, and you can plumes of smoke for miles along the horizon. It's an ugly sight."

Henry, clearly irritated at Leveret's apparent insanity, turned to look at Snow before speaking again, "Look at him, he's a bumbling wreck...I doubt there's anything we can get out of him...unless..." Henry seemed to stop in mid-thought, his expression turning from exasperation to pensiveness.

Before Henry was allowed to finish his thought, there was a sudden, deafening roar coming from within the destroyed thicket not twenty feet away from them.

The loud roar was enough to cause Henry to immediately stiffen, shifting his attention to the thicket. "Oh no...oh no, no, no, no, no." He said in rapid succession, frantic thoughts overcoming him as, in a split-second he transformed himself back into a cat and immediately began sprinting off in the opposite direction, not even caring to look back at Knox or Snow during this time.

Once he felt himself just focused enough, he teleported up into a tall tree to wait out the battle, confident in his own safety.

Hearing a loud roar, Knox stood still, turning his head automatically in the direction of the sound. Not exactly one to wait around for the thing that produced the roar to just up and appear, especially when his darkness of the night being significantly weakened for whatever reason, Knox let out a frustrated breath and let go of control over the man's shadow. The tendril stuck into the foot whipped out and rejoined the rest of the man's produced shade, just as Knox turned on his heel and jogged over to the nearest tree.

The Ogre barreled through the thicket towards the group, drawn towards the noises they had been making. No tree or shrub was spared as the looming, fifteen-foot creature charged at them, roaring again in his anger, loud enough that the ground beneath their feet began to tremble.

The White Rabbit took off immediately after his own shadow released it's hold on his foot. He wasn't quick by any means, but he had watched the transformed cat run at the very first sign of danger, and Leveret wasn't too far behind.

Taking a moment to turn to the direction of where Mary Margaret was standing, "Clear out, unless you actually desire your head being stove-in against the nearest standing tree." With his corner of his mouth twitching up in a most mischevious manner, Knox had a feeling this human woman...would do alright on her own. Offhandedly shooting her a wink, he cupped a hand to the side of his mouth and mouthed the words "good luck" soundlessly, before finally dropping into the very shadow of the tree...

Ogres were bad news, Snow didn't need anyone else to tell her that. This was not a good sign, and she ran away as fast as she could. Henry could teleport, and Knox could hide in the shadows, but she had no resource except her own two legs. Neither of them displayed much bravery or compassion right now. She would talk to Henry about his cowardice, but she hated Knox even more, presumably his shadow powers would have something that let him oppose the ogres. After five years of rest in Storybrooke, it looked like she was on the run again.

The undergrowth of the forest became uprooted with each step the Ogre took, leaving a dead trail of freshly underminded earth behind in it's wake. The cat was too small for his eyes to catch onto, but the round man running towards the tree the cat had climbed up onto was an easy enough target. With another roar, The White Rabbit lost his footing and face planted into the dirt in front of him, just in front of the tree. Whimpering, Leveret rolled over onto his back only to find the Ogre hovering over him; hunched down but still a skyscraper in comparison to The White Rabbit.

Leveret put up his hands in front of his face, as if shielding this way would somehow save his life; his whiney voice muttering incoherencies as he waited for death to overtake him at long last.

"Hey!"

What looked like an armored soldier ran out into the clearing, sword drawn as the figure ran towards Snow but slowed when the figure realized that it wasn't who she was looking for. Still, they needed help and so they picked up the pace again.

"Your friend fell behind and needs our help." Although the figure was covered head to toe in what could be assumed as male armor, the voice was clearly female though Snow wouldn't have time to think on it as the armored female gestured over a hundred yards or so to Leveret shrinking under the imposing figure of the Ogre. "You good with one of these?" The female then asked and hurriedly shrugged a bow and quiver off of her back and tossed it over to Snow.

Snow grabbed the bow and began to pull an arrow out of the quiver. "Plenty good." She needed that Ogre dead as soon as possible, and the rabbit wouldn't be of much help if he was killed. When she had drawn back the bow, she whistled to draw the beast's attention. As soon as it turned its head, she released the arrow. It hit the eye of the Ogre, and the massive creature slumped to the ground while it let out a pained yell. Before going any closer, Snow looked at the person who had handed her the bow.

Once it was clear that the Ogre would not be getting back up, the woman pulled off the armored helmet shielding her face and immediately the woman's long, raven-black hair fell from the top of her head to rest on her shoulders, her brown eyes looking upon Mary Margaret intently, as if studying her.

Rising out of Snow White's shadow, Knox glanced over at the the newcomer. Her appearance reminded him of a certain moon dweller, though definitely not from the same country exactly, past or present. Shrugging off the memory trying to resurface that moment, the shadow man crouched down by the creature, staring at the corpse curiously as he rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. A large bipedal creature...powerfully built, possibly as capable of wielding weapons as it is just generally throwing large projectiles...

"Snow? Snow White?" The woman asked, clearly perplexed and confused as she sheathed her sword and held the helmet fast to her hip.

Many people in the Enchanted Forest recognized her, which could be very troublesome at times. Regina was in Storybroooke now, so that made the world a little safer. Snow wasn't sure, but the woman she talked to looked like a general from a neighboring kingdom that she had heard about, possibly even met before briefly. That made it less likely for her to be working for one of her enemies, but Snow still did not feel relaxed. "That's me. The proper title is more elaborate, but I'll let it slide. Do you know anything about why there's Ogres everywhere?"

The woman immediately bowed to Snow, a strange gesture coming from a woman in this land, though it still held respect.

"We had thought you, along with the rest of the kingdom had perished." She said coming out of her bow. "I still have questions, as I'm sure you do as well, but we can not talk here; it is not safe." The woman said gesturing vaguely oviter to the fallen Ogre, the stench of it's quickly rotting flesh starting to pick up in the light breeze of the evening air.

"There is a refugee camp not far from here, but we must hurry if we are to get there before nightfall."

"Hm...the plot thickens." The Cat's currently disembodied voice commented as he appeared in-between Snow and the manly-woman.

"Impressive work, my dear - wonderful aim." He complimented to Snow in a nonchalant manner, his grin widening as he appeared almost ignorant to the fact she was nearly killed.

"Glad to see you're back, Henry. We'll have a lot to talk about on the way back to camp." Snow stated bitterly before turning to the woman who had lent the bow and arrows. "Regina sent the whole kingdom to a strange land, that's where they are. It's a very large world, with many inventions I've never seen before, but people there have some strange notions. They use paper for money, and they even think that commoners should choose the king. I'd also like to hear what has happened in our absence."

Nodding in agreement to Henry's last statement, Knox let out a low whistle as his eyes quickly scanned the damage on the monster before he stood up and turned to Mary Margaret with a smirk.

"I knew interferance was the incorrect way to go about this, sometimes the balance is maintained in a way I approve..." Slowing towards the end, as if realising what was coming out of his mouth...and absolutely loathing it, his smirk upturned into a deep scowl. It was like his need to maintain the balance that he must, as the Night, was trying to reassert itself.

Feeling restless at this almost immediately, the shadow man crossed his arms and dully stared over at portly man who knelt before the ogre, seemingly in a state of shock. Letting out an impatient sigh, Knox held out a hand and made a grabbing gesture, which was followed by the round man being secured by his own shadow yet again. Wrapping him close like a blanket, cold like chains, Knox cleared his throat loudly and gestured for Henry to make his way over to their prisoner.

"Sighs are longing vocalised, and I so very long to return back to Storybrooke...are you going to continue, or could it possibly be that you want me to take it from here?"

"Look, guys..." The armored female said realizing now that there had been more to Snow White's group than her and Leveret, as a talking cat and a shadow man had since made their presence known to her. "We really should get a move on. Ogre's hunt by sound, it's only a matter of time before the others-"

There was a gutteral rumbling in the distance, like thunder, but to the practiced ear of a warrior, or even an adventurer, they would know that sound to be the roar of an Ogre; miles off yes, but still searching. The female gave the group a respected nod before turning into the opposite direction, leading those who followed back into the forest as the sun finally began to kiss the tops of the trees, scattering an unaturally red sunset across what had once been, in all it's glory, The Enchanted Forest.