Well, here I am again with another chapter. I hope you are all doing well, and that you enjoy this story. Here, most of the focus will be on Leonard and Penny, whom I feel I have neglected with my focus on the rest of the Big Bang Theory gang, although Graham does get the chance to talk a lot. I hope I have characterized everybody pretty well, or as well as can be expected.

"Five thousand or more each?" Leonard asked inside the police cruiser, stunned about the bail price.

"Well, somewhere around there, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure." Graham said. "But it's a good thing that you two confessed or at least admitted to a sense of guilt and responsibility for what Henry did and how you two responded." Graham remarked, glancing up at Penny and Leonard through his rear-view mirror. "Perhaps the judge, if this case does go to trial, might be lenient on you two for that reason alone. And perhaps Regina might let you two go for a plea bargain or some other kind of arrangement, seeing as how Henry was safely returned and seems fine for the most part." Graham laughed. "Heck, I might even add in a few words of my own since I don't have to deal with arresting seven people now instead of just two."

"You think so?" Penny asked. "Thank you."

"It's possible, anything is, I suppose." Sheriff Graham said, frowning. "Although Regina can be a hard woman, not easy to please, and she's not easy to budge on any type of issue when she wants to have everything go her own way. Believe me, I know."

I bet you do, Leonard thought to himself, having seen the sheriff coming out of Regina's house just as they arrived there, which made him believe that the sheriff and mayor of Storybrooke were having an affair or at least just dating. He wasn't sure about the ethical issues involved there, if either one of them could get into trouble for dating each other when that might influence their working relationship and cause local corruption if they sided with each other, but the affair might cause a stir in the local population and negatively affect their political and professional careers and ambitions.

But Leonard didn't want to bring up that topic when such an accusation could lead to more trouble with the sheriff and mayor of Storybrooke, and he didn't want to anger Regina again, not when that might make things worse for himself, Penny, his friends and even Henry. He had to think of everyone else, after all. Neither did he want to upset this sheriff, who was a pretty good guy, from what little Leonard could tell about him. They might need him to side with and defend them to Regina, and the only way that could happen was if they convinced him that they were good people.

"Are you sure you can't change her mind?" Penny wheedled.

Sheriff Graham, who was about to nod, hesitated. "Well, she can be persuaded, I suppose, given on how firm or soft she is with a subject, with the right argument and the direct approach, although I think she might be very firm in this case with Henry's welfare at stake."

"Good to know. Yeah, I guess I would be, too, in her case." Penny sighed. "I just wish that she might budge enough to see that Henry is my son as well as hers and, even though I gave him up to be adopted by her, I'm still concerned for his safety and welfare as well. I wouldn't have jeopardized him, when he was my responsibility for a little while, and even though it was a shock and surprise when he turned up at my front door, I handled the situation as best I could to bring him back home safely as soon as possible."

"That's nice, I suppose." Graham said, nodding. "You might want to mention that at trial, perhaps the judge or jury might take pity on you then."

"Ugh, this is hopeless." Penny moaned as Leonard patted her on the back.

"Hey, don't worry or stress out too much." Graham said. "Everyone has a weakness or a tipping point, and Regina has reached and crossed over that point several times already, though with my helping her to pull back on her demands." Graham said. "But she still gets herself and everyone else around her into binds that she can't control. She might get into trouble one of these days for being too demanding and authoritative, but she just wants to know that everything is under control. That's always been important to Regina."

"Controlling. She sounds nice." Leonard sighed. "No wonder Henry thinks that his adoptive mother is the evil queen from his storybook."

"Oh, quit talking about that. We are dealing with some real things here, not just fantasy." Penny said.

"Oh, you know about that?" The sheriff asked, surprising Leonard as, for a moment, he almost believed the sheriff would tell him the fantasy was true. "Henry showed us all his storybook at one time or another, trying to convince us of our identities or ask us some questions." Graham said, reassuring Leonard that reality was the way he always thought it was. "I'm the wild huntsman, apparently, who was raised by wolves, spared Snow White's life, and got his heart taken out of him by the evil queen for his trouble. Actually, since Regina is supposed to be the evil queen, then I suppose she still has my heart in her possession." Graham commented.

"Hey, don't blame me for Henry's obsession." Leonard told Penny, not commenting on Sheriff Graham's trouble. "I'm not like Sheldon, obviously, encouraging it. But I do believe that Henry's obsession with his storybook is related to the people around him. Henry is coping with some serious problems and issues with his mother controlling him and his adoption and he wants to resolve them somehow, even if it is by identifying the people surrounding him with fantasy characters."

"So it's my fault then that Henry has these fantasy obsessions because I gave him up to be adopted by this Regina character?" Penny asked, angry.

"I'm not saying it's your fault!" Leonard cried. "I'm just saying it's a coping mechanism! Henry doesn't fully understand everything going on around him, the reasons behind his adoption or why his adoptive mother and people in general act the way they do. He's just trying to explain their actions or reasons through stories of his own so that he might be able to fully appreciate them. Henry will someday understand why you had to give him up. Maybe if you sat down with him and had a talk, maybe then he might be able to let go of his fantasy obsessions, but it's not your fault."

"It certainly feels like it." Penny grumbled.

"Really?" Graham asked, having listened intently to Leonard's explanation. "Wow, that all does sound fascinating. Where did you pick up all of this information from, professor?"

"My mother is an expert child psychologist, who understands this sort of thing better than I do, but I still pick up on some tidbits here and there from her research, studies, and experiments. I was just thinking of what I had learned from her and applied it here." Leonard shuddered. "Half the time, when I was a child, I was the subject of some of her experiments."

"No kidding, huh? That sounds ruthless. Was that allowed?" The sheriff asked.

"I'm not sure." Leonard shrugged. "She usually got her way, whatever she did. She explained that it was her parental right to care for me the way she did, and as an individual, I could operate within my own rights, although it didn't always feel that way to me."

"Oh, Leonard," Penny said, rubbing his shoulder.

"Nuts, that's what it sounds like to me." Graham said, shaking his head as he parked the police car at the station.

"Well, here we are. I'm sorry for the conditions, folks," Graham said as he escorted Penny and Leonard into the sheriff station, "But we've only got one cell with one cot right in the middle of the station and I have to escort you to the restrooms whenever you do have to go. By the way, do any of you have to go right now?" He asked as they passed by the restrooms.

"I may have to go. Penny?" Leonard asked, feeling uncomfortable with the whole situation of being under arrest.

"No, I'm good for now. I went to the restroom at the gas station before we got here." Penny said, trying not to panic and remain cool when she didn't want Leonard to get any more upset than he already was. She could tell, even though he wasn't in full panic mode, that he was on the brink of it.

"Well, that's good news at least. I don't want to deal with you both going at the same time." Graham grinned, securing Penny in the cell and then waiting while Leonard went to the restroom before putting him in the cell. "We usually don't expect to have more than one person under arrest at any given time, not like Los Angeles or other cities, I expect." Sheriff Graham said, having contemplated this for awhile. "They must have dozens of people under arrest at any given time in jail, and then hundreds more already in prison."

"Yeah, that's probably true." Penny said, slowly nodding to get on Sheriff Graham's good side. "But not in Storybrooke, right?"

"No, Storybrooke is a peaceful little town. We don't have much of a crime rate out here." Graham said before he added, "We're not prepared for this kind of situation, but I may be able to scrounge up a sleeping bag for one of you to lie on the floor. I like to go camping." He added. "Good exercise, and it gets me outdoors in the open air in the woods, which I love. We really have a wonderful forest surrounding Storybrooke, pristine land which hardly anybody has touched. I'll go get the bag." He left them for a minute.

"Welcome to Maybury." Leonard grumbled to himself. "With Sheriff Andy Griffith."

"Well, he seems nice, at any rate." Penny hissed before Sheriff Graham came back with a sleeping bag. "Thank you. We appreciate it." She said, smiling as she accepted the sleeping bag through the bars.

"No problem. Pleasant dreams to you all. Good night." Sheriff Graham said, leaving them soon with almost every light turned off in the station, save for one in the hall.

"Perhaps I should have taken him up on that offer of using the restroom earlier." Penny grumbled. "Here, Leonard, you take the sleeping bag."

"Well…all right." He added, seeing the look on her face and deciding to be chivalrous. He settled down on the floor in the sleeping bag, she took the cot, and they tried to fall asleep. But in the wee morning hours, Leonard groaned in his sleep. "No, please…don't, don't let me go. Papa, please." He whimpered.

Penny groaned as she stirred and woke up, saying, "Leonard? Leonard? Hey, is everything okay with you?" She asked, kicking him slightly.

Leonard gasped as he fully woke up. "What—what happened? Is it an earthquake? Why am I on the floor? Where am I?" He asked, frantically looking around in the dark.

"Police station in Storybrooke, Maine, remember? We got arrested bringing Henry back." Penny said.

"Oh, right, right, I thought that part was still in the nightmare." Leonard sighed.

"Are you okay? You were talking in your sleep." Penny said, trying to recall what he was saying. "You said something about your father, Papa, letting you go."

"Oh, that's a weird dream. An old dream." Leonard frowned to himself. "I can't remember, but I think I dream about a man who is not my father, yet he is, letting me go at the edge of a hole and I fall…for miles upon miles." Leonard shuddered. "A horrible nightmare."

"Well, I'm not letting you go, and neither are you letting me go, right?" Penny asked, sitting down beside Leonard. "We're stuck together like glue, no matter what." She smiled.

"That's the way I feel, too." Leonard said, smiling as he kissed her.

They nuzzled together inside the sleeping bag and then on the cot, waiting for dawn. Leonard couldn't entirely shake off the effect of the dream, though the details faded from his mind. It felt ominous to him somehow that this old dream, which he thought had died out years ago, should so suddenly return and recur on almost every night ever since Henry came into their lives. Even though it was superstitious, and he knew that the dream was probably recurring only because of all the added stress in his life, he almost thought that it was a sign, somehow, that things were going to go horribly wrong here in Storybrooke.

Eventually, Sheriff Graham arrived at the station, opening it up. "Well, congratulations you two for surviving a night here on your own, and things are starting to look up for your case."

"What do you mean? What is it?" Penny asked, coming up to the bars as Leonard sat up on the cot.

"Looks like you two have a defense attorney! Our very own Mr. Gold here has volunteered his services, free of charge." Sheriff Graham said, indicating the gaunt, tousled-hair man hobbling into the room at that moment. "Which is very rare indeed," Sheriff Graham added.

"Thank you, Sheriff." Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin said, eying the man before turning to his defendants. "Miss. Swan." He said, smiling and bowing his head at the young would-be actress who would be savior of this town, if everything went according to plan. The morning light captured her glory and beauty in full radiant revelation, with a heavenly smile on her face as she appreciated him. "And…uh, Mr. Hofstader?" He said, inclining his head to look beyond her into the shadows, where the young man sat sulking in sullen silence. Mr. Gold couldn't get a very good look at him with his head down.

"Doctor or Professor Hofstader, if you would be so kind." Leonard said crisply, not really wanting to look up at the man who, though he may seem nice, still rubbed Leonard the wrong way and gave him a case of goosebumps and the shivers when he first walked in and spoke. There was something funny going on here, which Leonard did not fully understand, but he found himself disliking Mr. Gold instantly and not trusting him.

"Professor Hofstader." Mr. Gold said, the ice in his voice enough to chill anyone to the bones if they had an ounce of blood left in them, yet the professor did not seem to be too affected.

He instantly disliked this professor, too, although he wondered why there was so much animosity here. There had to be a reason, possibly related to a former life in the Enchanted Forest with Rumplestiltskin? But the professor, so far as he could tell, seemed unfamiliar to him, although he definitely had a lot of clients in his time, some of which he might have forgotten about or ignored. He couldn't remember all of the faces of the people he had dealt with.

"Leonard, be nice, we need him." Penny insisted. "He can call you anything he wants to, so long as we can hire him free of charge."

"Listen to your girlfriend, my boy. You might live longer." Mr. Gold added, grinning at the thought that anyone would do anything possible if they could get something expensive that they desperately wanted for free. They never thought about any hidden, extra charges, though.

Penny frowned at Mr. Gold, grinning like an imp; no wonder Henry thought that he might be Rumplestiltskin. Don't be ridiculous, Penny's inner voice said as she shook her head. Soon she might start believing in fairy tales as well, and then where would they be? Sheldon's and Henry's theory was just getting to her, that's all.

"I don't want him to defend us, or defend me at least." Leonard said, still not looking up at Mr. Gold. "You can hire him for yourself if you want to. You deserve a good lawyer who will help you be with Henry. He needs you." For some reason, Mr. Gold felt oddly touched by that sentiment.

"Leonard, you are being ridiculous. I have no idea where you are getting this stubborn streak from, but I am not letting you give up your only chance of getting out of here, all because you have some insane grudge over a minor insult." Penny remarked. "Is it worth losing your freedom over? Or else would you rather have me refuse Mr. Gold's services, too?" She asked. "Because I will if-"

"No, I don't want you to stay here if you don't have to." Leonard said, sighing as he finally looked up at Mr. Gold. "All right, I suppose I will accept his services." He still didn't like the man, though.

"Finally. Good choice." Mr. Gold said, approaching the cell bars and getting a better look at Leonard, who he still did not recognize, but there was something troubling about the aspect of the young man, something that nudged a spot in his mind. He would figure it out, though.