Author's Note: I've been captivated by this couple since the moment I saw 'Skin Deep'. The possibilities are enormous and they hit an insane number of my pairing buttons as a writer. There are so many fabulous stories out there that I had to think long and hard about what I could bring to the party. And what I wound up with was this. Like an episode, this will jump back and forth between the fairytale world and Storybrooke.

Summary: The thing about the curse is it takes things from you. Things that make you who you were, and you never even know you've lost them, can't feel the space where they should be. But Gold remembers, and she is not Belle.

I like small weapons, you see-the needle; the pen; the fine point of a deal-subtlety. Not your style, I know.
– Mr. Gold (Rumplestiltskin) "Desperate Souls" 1x08

Prologue

The cracks are beginning to show. Regina can see them shimmering just under the surface, feel them spiderweb beneath her fingers as little by little her previously iron control fragments, and pieces start to slip away.

And she knows who's responsible.

It's not Emma, despite what Henry says, the assertions her son makes in the too-loud stage-whisper of children whenever he thinks she can't hear. Even if the self-righteous blonde is this 'savior' Henry keeps rambling about, (What a ludicrous title, as if any of them would truly be saved by going back.) it won't be because of anything she does on her own.

No, she's a pawn. A tool. An uncharacteristically blunt one for this particular craftsman, perhaps, but that doesn't stop Regina from recognizing Gold's handiwork. From seeing the thread he began to spin ages ago running through recent events, the way he's woven himself into the story ever-so carefully. Regina's traced the pattern, run through it over and over-Emma to Henry to Gold. Emma to Henry to Gold.

A slender thread perhaps, but there all the same.

It all comes back to Gold. Always Gold.

After the sheriff's race the suspicion becomes a record scratch, a needle stuck in a groove, until she can't stand it, until she absolutely has to know.

And now she does.

For nothing more than a piece of chipped china.

Certainly not one of Rumple's better bargains, but then there had always been something about that girl that unbalanced him, tipped the scales.

Good to know some things haven't changed.

Now that they've put their cards on the table, Regina knows it's only a matter of time. Their uneasy detente started disintegrating the moment Emma stepped foot into Storybrooke, devolving into guerrilla attacks and border skirmishes. A full-scale battle isn't far off. In a way Regina almost looks forward to it, if for no other reason than to watch the newly-minted sheriff squirm. It's been a small private amusement of hers, how oblivious Emma seems to be to the infamous deal-maker's hold. Perhaps she feels a few of the strings - a bargain struck, a favor owed. (Regina can only guess how deeply Gold's managed to put her in debt) But it's obvious from her demeanor, her careless contempt, that she still believes the thread can be snapped if she doesn't like the price.

Won't realize how completely she's been caught until Rumplestiltskin flicks his hand and makes her dance.

But Regina knows.

After all, theirs has been a very long war. One spanning decades and worlds. She's had a great deal of time to study her opponent. For the past twenty eight years she's done little else (in Storybrooke there's almost nothing else to do), and there's something she's discovered, something it took coming to this awful, boring little town and watching Gold operate without his magic, watching him still manage to slide in and out of people's lives for little more than his own entertainment to see. But see it she has.

And it's going to make all the difference.

For what she's discovered is this:

Gold plays by his own rules perhaps. But at the end of the day he still plays by rules.

Regina on the other hand . . . cheats.

Blatantly. Boldly.

So as Gold starts to finally move his pieces into checkmate slowly inexorably close in on her with the cool unhurried confidence of someone who thinks he's winning, Regina knows what her next move must be.

She upsets the board.

The business with Katherine is what finally decides her. Things are progressing too rapidly, too quickly. It's not the woman's insistence that she's going to leave Storybrooke which gets Regina's attention (The town will take care of that bit of nonsense on it's own. However much she hates Rumplestiltskin, she has no doubt that the wretched little imp's curse contains no loopholes he didn't intend. She highly doubts spoilt, insipid Abigail was ever interesting enough to catch his attention, let alone earn herself special consideration).

No, it's the letter. Giving her husband and his lover her blessing? Granting them unearned happiness out of what? The goodness of her heart? Please.

It's simply too pathetically pat, too horrendously easy . . . like something out of a fairytale.

The idea scrapes at Regina's skin, crawls its way through her blood. And she swears she can hear Rumplestiltskin laughing.

Later, she will think she did it just to shut him up.

"Release her."

If the nurse is surprised by the command, by her employer's sudden change of heart after twenty-eight years, she doesn't show it. Doesn't ask for confirmation or explanation. But Regina wouldn't have expected her to.

Such trivialities are unnecessary between them. The nurse will do exactly as she's told. She always has, ever since the day long ago and faraway, when an evil queen took her heart.

So by tomorrow Rumple's girl (whatever her name is. Regina can never be bothered to remember) will be free.

The girl will be free, the basement will be converted to storage, and the nurse will be dead.

And then things will get interesting.

Because you see, Regina may not be one for subtlety, but she's not lacking in patience. Oh no. Any gardener must have that in spades. The careful, time-consuming process of planting a seed and waiting for it to sprout, to flower.

Regina's always been an excellent gardener.

And she's nurtured this particular seed for years.

Time to watch it bear fruit.

It's Emma who finds her, of course.

And someday when Emma has started to believe she will recognize the way she seems to stumble into the middle of every major Storybrooke event as part of a larger pattern, a deeper truth.

But today is not that day.

So today it's just that she's a one woman police department in a town with too little crime and too many busy-bodies. So when strange, barefoot girls are spotted sitting on the ledge of the clock tower . . . well, guess who gets the call.

Really, she thinks with a sigh as she starts to climb the steps, quaint is so incredibly overrated. If it wasn't for Henry . . .

It's only after she gets up there, that Emma realizes she has no idea what she's going to say. (Crisis counseling, not exactly a big emphasis in her previous life.)

"So hey, don't suppose you want to come down from there?" she ventures, and immediately cringes in regret because that's got to be the last thing you say to a suicide case. Okay, yeah, she should probably work on this part of her skill set.

But the girl doesn't seem to find anything strange or unsympathetic about the request. Just shakes her head vehemently. "Not yet," she mutters, "Haven't seen it all. Not yet. This is west and I've seen east. Watched the sun rise. In the east, I mean. Not the west. It still rises in the east, just like I remembered. Got that part right. But I still need to do north and south. Need to check."

And maybe months of humoring Henry, of playing into the fantasy have taught her a thing or two, because rather than simply slapping a set of cuffs on the girl and hauling her back from the edge, Emma finds herself asking, "Check what?"

"The world."

The words are breathed more than said, an exhale of something almost like wonderment, as if this girl has never seen anything quite so beautiful before.

And okay yeah, maybe Emma's not exactly up on 'Suicide-Prevention-101,' but she'd bet her life that no jumper sounds like that.

Like the whole world's opened up to them, like they've just been presented with a banquet of possibility and are so giddy at the prospect they can't decide where to start.

That's when it hits her - whatever this is . . . it isn't an ending, but a beginning.

Somehow she's wandered into the start of the story.

A story that's starts with a beautiful damsel in a tower . . .

Oh, Henry's gonna have a field day with this one.

Sure enough within ten minutes of meeting Storybrooke's newest mystery, Henry's asking, "Who do you think she is?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out, kid," Emma murmurs distractedly as she types the young woman's description into the missing person's database.

"Really?" he pops up from the chair to come around and peer at the computer screen, face falling when he sees the Maine State seal in the corner. "Oh, you mean here."

"Where else-" she catches herself just in time to keep from completing the thought. Pushing away from the desk, Emma turns her chair to face Henry and leans forward in the posture of a co-conspirator. Dropping her voice a little, she says, "Hey look, I thought it would be a good idea to know as much as possible about who she is here. After all, isn't that how you figured out Archie and Mary Margaret and everyone else?"

Henry's eyes narrow in a way that says he's not really buying it, against her will Emma feels a small thrill of pride. Whatever else is going on in the kid's head, he has inherited her nose for bullshit.

"Okay, how about this. Have you ever heard of a parallel investigation?"

"No."

"It's something police do sometimes, when two teams work the same case from two different angles, so nothing gets missed. That's what we should do here. You go out there and talk to her. I think she likes you. So go learn everything you can to work it from your end, and I will work it from mine."

"Are you just making this parallel stuff up?"

"No way, cross my heart. In fact-" Reaching into her desk-drawer she pulls out the deputy's badge and drops it in his palm. Her fingers hesitate briefly at the memory of Graham once doing something very similar, but she shakes herself out of it and forces a smile, "There. Now you're official."

Henry closes his tiny hand around the badge with reverent disbelief. "Really?"

"Really." Emma nods, swallowing back the sudden swell of emotion that sometimes threatens to overwhelm her at the sight of Henry's joy, and tries to give him a stern look. "Just remember to report back to me whatever you find out. A deputy always reports back."

"Don't worry. You can count on me," he throws over his shoulder, already halfway out the door of the office.

"I know I can, kid."

Suddenly he skids stop and turns on his heel, coming back over to grab the book. "Almost forgot-"

"Maybe you better it leave here. I'm not sure she ready for that quite yet."

He pauses as if considering the question then nods in agreement. "Yeah, you're probably right. Hey, you said she was up in the clock tower . . . do you think she's Rapunzel?"

"I don't know . . ." Emma hedges. She doesn't know the woman's story yet (and she is a woman, not a girl as Emma once thought), but somehow she thinks the last thing her mysterious new charge needs is to be told she's a fairytale character made legendary for her status as a hostage. "Wasn't Rapunzel a blonde?"

Henry just shrugs, unperturbed by this minor detail. "Yeah, but Archie's supposed to be a cricket."

Emma doesn't really have an answer to that.

Two hours later Emma is ready to throw in the towel. It's not that there are no missing person's reports matching the woman's description (slender brunette, washed-out blue eyes, parchment pale skin). It's that there's too many, and none of them are from Storybrooke. She knows that detail shouldn't matter, but it does. After all with the exception of Booth and herself no one come to Storybrooke. For some reason the idea that there's now a third newcomer seems more improbable than the idea she's a famous fairytale princes who materialized out of thin air.

Oh, dear god, Henry is rubbing off on her.

Emma groans. She cannot be running a police investigation based on the operating principles of a ten year old's delusions.

And yet . . .

Scrubbing a hand over her face, she leans back and tries to watch Henry surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, making sure to do her best not to be too obvious about it. It turns out the girl, woman, princess, whoever she is (Dammit she's got to find something to call her) is far more comfortable with heights than she is with people.

She's a strangely skittish thing for someone who thought nothing of dangling her feet over a ledge seven stories up. When Emma had finally gotten her off the tower onto the ground, the crowd had almost been too much for her. Even Henry, who has to be the least threatening thing in Storybrooke seemed to overwhelm her at first.

Not that you'd know it now . . . Emma watches them sitting over on the couch heads bent together as Henry prattles on about something with the intent seriousness of children. Maybe if she can get Henry to come with her, she'll manage to convince her new found charge to come back with her to Mary Margaret's tonight. Maybe not precisely legitimate, but Emma's still too leery of the system not to skirt it whenever she can.

So yes, maybe there are a few things here or there that ping something in the back of her mind, that make her wonder if the woman's all there (not the least of which is she still can't get her to give her name), but it's nothing she can't ignore for the sake of making sure people who really care are looking after Storybrooke's latest possible princess.

Logging off the computer, she gathers up her things and starts to make her way out of the office.

"All right, so I was thinking-"

She's cut off by the tap of Gold's cane on the floor tiles. "Sheriff, I wonder if I might have a moment of your time-"

He never gets the chance to tell her what he needs her time for though because at that instant three things happen all at once:

Gold rounds the doorway into the station.

Emma's mystery woman looks up.

And all hell breaks loose.

A/N: All comments, thoughts and criticisms greatly appreciated.