A/N: Sorry this is late - went on a trip to my grandparents last week - but I hope it makes up for it in quality! Also, this is the last chapter I have completed currently, and I haven't yet watched season 3B, so there will be a short hiatus - hopefully not too long! I do hope that that doesn't deter you from reading and reviewing though! Please enjoy, and a huge thank you, again, to roberre for her great beta-ing job.

The bags were unbelievably light, even when he held them all together in his hand, a fortune worth kingdoms now laid at his feet as he waited for the Blue Fairy to come to him. It had taken him three years of concentrated effort (longer than he'd hoped, less time than he'd realistically thought it would take), but he'd finally succeeded in attracting the Reul Ghorm's attention. A cold smile marred Rumplestiltskin's mouth as he watched the night sky for signs of the fairy's appearance. No wishing on a star for him; the bags leaning against his ankles would do all the work for him.

"I still think this is a mistake," Zoso muttered, his voice crackling in the way that had long ago grown more familiar to Rumplestiltskin than any other sound. Once, it had frightened him; now it only made him roll his eyes. "We had a plan—no need to deviate from it."

"Our 'plan,'" Rumplestiltskin reiterated patiently, "would take us decades longer. I'm tired of waiting. We don't need a curse when we can use the bean the fairies have."

"The seer said—"

Rumplestiltskin snarled, whirling to face the Dark One before he could finish his sentence. "The seer is a liar! She said Bae would end up fatherless, but he won't! The fairies will give us the bean, and we'll save Bae!"

"Of course, Master," Zoso agreed, no trace of his earlier irritation present in his voice. "I simply think we should be cautious. The Reul Ghorm is as ancient as I am, and just as powerful in her own way. She'll be furious at us, for what we have taken, and will not be eager to grant us any favors."

"Good thing I'm not asking a favor, then," Rumplestiltskin said, his voice sliding up an octave as it did when he couldn't bring himself to care about the conversation any longer, and he tidied his rage away so that he could go back to standing in the moonlit clearing, leaning on his staff (a symbol of who he was now rather than the mark of weakness it had once been), the weathered shawl that had once warmed at Bae's proximity looped around his neck as it always was, its ends hanging down to conceal the dagger tucked into his belt. He'd acquired a castle in the centuries since his son had been stolen from him, but it had never been home, and he carried with him everything that mattered.

Zoso was silent for several moments longer, allowing the stillness of the forest around them to sink more heavily into Rumplestiltskin's consciousness, thick and cloying, building on his impatience as memories and futures spun endlessly through his mind. It had been hundreds of years since he'd last seen his son, so many decades longer than his life should have spanned (but that was where a Dark One with the power to spin back time came in handy), that the memories should have long since dulled (but the Dark One had helped with that, too, etching them indelibly into Rumplestiltskin's mind so that he would never forget the son who loved him and had screamed for him as he was ripped from this world). Hundreds of years, and yet he could not bear to remain a moment more, could already feel every nerve in his body writhing in anticipation of movement.

He couldn't stay, not for even a day longer. He had the ability to see the future now, had stolen it from the seer and stood over her body as she foretold his doom and Zoso tsked and commented that he should have been the one to acquire the prescience rather than Rumplestiltskin, and he could still see the many cloaked and winding paths that would lead to a curse large enough to rip everyone from this world (just as Bae had been), powerful enough to erase who they'd been (just as the feeling of a heart turned into ash in his hand had destroyed the man Rumplestiltskin and left a stranger—a monster—in his place), complex enough to provide for a savior and a way to leave its confines and enter the world where Bae would be.

But that would mean staying here. That would mean going back and facing her further down the road and manipulating her into casting the curse. That would mean pretending his heart wasn't currently a mess of sharp slivers grinding in his chest (as it had been since the night a decade ago when she faced him in a moonlit meadow and showed him the box with her own heart, packed and tidied away).

"I only hope this isn't because of Cora," Zoso said just then, able to read Rumplestiltskin as easily as he summoned his magic, bringing up her name because he knew, somehow, that Rumplestiltskin's thoughts had returned to her.

It was hard to think of anything else. He'd thought she could alleviate his loneliness (thought one monster could love another). He'd given her his secrets and his teachings (his heart and his future). He'd fooled himself and ignored the darker hints of his foretellings (ignored that no one could love him, no one would choose him; ignored that he had no right to happiness).

He'd loved her, and she'd betrayed him.

Well, he'd gotten his own back for that, in kingdoms and betrayals and penniless coffers and magic that no longer achieved what she wished, and now…well, now he was done with this world that had given him only pain and heartache, done with it because it had nothing left to offer him (at least not now that he'd stayed long enough to ensure she would never be queen, never have power, never beat him again, and he'd never known just how empty revenge was until he'd watched her head bow in defeat). He didn't need a curse; he only needed fairy dust, and at his feet, he had fairy dust enough to power the entire Enchanted Forest for three years. Fairy dust enough to demand the Blue Fairy's assistance.

"Cora isn't worth our time," Rumplestiltskin finally muttered, and he hated that Zoso would be able to tell he was lying, hated the featureless, knowing look the Dark One directed his way. Sometimes he felt as if Zoso were on his side, almost a friend, and others he felt as used and worthless as he had all those lifetimes ago when Zoso admitted he'd wanted Rumplestiltskin to kill him and take on the curse himself. It didn't make for an easy time between them, that constant uncertainty, but Rumplestiltskin didn't care. He needed Zoso to rescue Bae, nothing more.

His only warning that the Blue Fairy was approaching was Zoso closing his mouth over whatever remark he was about to make and sinking into Rumplestiltskin's skin, taking his customary place. He'd warned Rumplestiltskin that it might not fool the Blue Fairy, but at this point, Rumplestiltskin didn't really care whether it did or not. What matter if it became known (to more than Cora) that he was only the master of the Dark One rather than the Dark One himself, when he wasn't going to be here for much longer anyway? It was a secret that had allowed him to move on from the travesty that had occurred in that portside town (from the crater that marked his son's passing and the corpse that had once been his wife), a secret that had given him some distance from the grief that had threatened to send him mad, separated the loving father he'd been from the numb murderer he now was—but it was, ultimately, a secret he didn't need anymore.

With Zoso sinking familiarly into his bones and his veins, Rumplestiltskin straightened and faced the star falling toward him, resolving into a tiny winged fairy, her wand clasped in one small hand. She glowed with an azure nimbus, but his eyes penetrated the aura as easily as he saw through the dark (Zoso wasn't the only one who'd picked up new tricks in the centuries spent collecting knowledge and power), and he could see the cold, angry expression cast over delicate features.

"Rumplestiltskin," she said, and despite himself, he shivered to hear his name on her lips (power spilled out like ink on contracts around them). But Zoso lent him power in his very skin, his flesh and blood and bone and marrow, and fairy dust lay at his feet as if it were regular dust gathered from peasants' feet and millers' hands and children's faces, and he was not weak any longer.

"Fairy," Rumplestiltskin returned with a sneer. He tightened his grip on the bags of fairy dust, reminded himself of the spells he'd watched Zoso cast over them, tying them to Rumplestiltskin's proximity. It was hard to believe he was so close to finally finding his son. So close to being able to give up all this darkness and isolation and heartbreak (to put it behind him and pretend it didn't matter next to the touch of Bae's hair beneath his calloused palm and the scent of his young skin and the sound of his voice). So close. Only moments more. Only this one last deal.

"Who would have thought the Dark One would ever summon a fairy?" Her voice tinkled in the darkness, like icy diamonds skipping across placid lakes, plink-plink-plinking a path out into dark, cold water. She was pristine and perfect, each edge chiseled smooth, each ruffle placed just so, each word precisely chosen. It was a game to her as much as to him, her poise as much a façade as his madness, her kindness and her goodness proffered as easily and as misleadingly as the simplest of his deals. She claimed to come to those who needed her most, but Rumplestiltskin looked at her and knew the lie of it. She came because he'd stolen her fairy dust. She came because she wanted something he had. She came, now, because he was too powerful for her to ignore (and she had not come when Bae needed her most because Bae had had nothing to offer her).

Rumplestiltskin looked at her, and he hated her.

"Who would have thought a fairy would stoop to consorting with us 'creatures of darkness'?" Rumplestiltskin retorted with a giggle that had come to him in the darkest, slowest of nights when Bae seemed farthest away and Zoso's voice grated and nightmares of deals he'd made and crimes he'd committed hung around him like ghosts. The hand gestures, the rolls of his eyes, the flourish of his hands, all of it came naturally to him by now. He'd been playing this part so long he'd almost think he'd imagined any other if it weren't for the crystal-clear, pain-real memories etched into his mind and soul.

"This is low, even for one as dark as you!" the Blue Fairy retorted, her wand pointed to the bags he held in his hand, and if not for the binding spells Zoso had cast, Rumplestiltskin was sure he wouldn't have held them any longer. "That fairy dust is for everyone in this land—not just for you, but for those who need it most."

"Well," Rumplestiltskin sneered at her, "at the moment, I'd say I'm the one who needs it most. And seeing as you're here, oh so courteously come to my call," and he bowed, elaborately, sarcastically, with the most mocking grin he could conjure slathered over his face, "I would guess that you'd agree."

She drew back from him as if he'd genuinely surprised her (as if she was just now realizing the depths of desperation that would drive even the Dark One to a feat as bold as this). "What could you need fairy dust for?"

Rumplestiltskin was frozen, motionless, struck with simultaneous, conflicting feelings of confusion, shock, and fury. "Do you think only 'creatures of light,' such as yourself, can experience pain?" he asked her, and maybe he was taunting her, maybe he was prowling forward like an animal, maybe Zoso was shifting within him warningly, but none of that mattered next to the sight of this fairy who could have saved Bae and hadn't. "Do you think you hold a monopoly on wishes? I've granted more wishes in a mere year than your fairies have in decades, spent more magic on bestowing the desires of these petty mortals' hearts than you have ever dreamed, and magic, as we both know, always comes with a price. Do not, fairy, think for a moment that you are the only one who has ever paid that price."

"And do not think," she said, all calm purpose and aloof neutrality, a star unmoving before the ferocity of sun and tide and storm alike, "that wishes are to be confused with deals. I know what you offer people, Rumplestiltskin. I have heard your name whispered from mouth to mouth until it has transformed from name to legend to nightmare to magic. I have witnessed the consequences of your deals and the price of your magic. And I know who you are."

"Well, congratulations!" Rumplestiltskin shouted, so abruptly, so violently, that the fairy started back despite herself. "You must win a prize for that deduction! Tell me, O wise fairy—if you truly know who I am, why does a Dark One merit so much more attention than a lame spinner?"

"Because a Dark One threatens the futures of everyone in this land," she replied immediately, "and because a spinner, lame or not, father or not, did not ever wish upon a star with a pure heart."

Rumplestiltskin swallowed back his denials, his cry that he had wished on more stars (on snowflakes and baby's breath and cotton dancing in the wind, wished with everything he was, wished with every beat of Bae's tiny, precious, pure heart), that he had screamed to the heavens and whispered to the shadows his wish, his greatest desire (wanted to grab her in his hand and rip her wings off and tear at her until he could figure out what made her tick, what made her fly and appear and disappear and look at him with such kind, sad eyes), and yet it had never mattered. No one had saved Bae. No one had even tried until he'd reached out his own hand and plucked a knife from flames. Until he'd invited darkness into their home and watched his son vanish into another world.

But it didn't matter.

This world had nothing left for him. His son was in another world (the worst of all worlds, where anything was possible and fathers disappeared and shadows ripped children from parents), his wife was dead by his own hand (and he was a monster, now, something so much worse than a coward, so much less than a spinner), his own legend was something he'd long since tired of (year after year after immortal year, dribbling away like sludgy sand through frozen hourglasses, until the face in the mirror was one he no longer recognized and all the mirrors shattered when he neared), and the only woman he'd thought tainted enough to love him had ripped out her own heart rather than face a life with him (has promised him a future, then ripped it away, and he'd been left alone again, abandoned for power, for flight, for things that were worth more). He'd made his mark, he'd fulfilled his deals, he'd manipulated and wheedled and insinuated until all was in place, but he was tired of it. Decades more, a curse that would rip away everything (but not at his hand, no, never at his hand; he'd become so very, very good at making sure another, scaled hand performed his murders and his crimes, his magics and his curses), decades more of waiting and waiting and waiting, all while watching that heartless witch rule over what remnants were left.

No. The seer had been wrong. He had another way. Another world. A shortcut.

"Threatening futures," he hissed, silent and graceful now, dressed in leathers and silks and bristling armor of the finest materials (and still none of it could hide him away). "Yes, about that." He lifted the bags of fairy dust slowly, almost indolently, and watched the Blue Fairy's eyes widen, locked on the collection of his recent thefts.

"Why are you doing this?" the Blue Fairy demanded plaintively, her hand reached out as if to save the dust from whatever nefarious fate he had planned.

Rumplestiltskin formed an elaborate shrug as if it were a dance. "Because I can!" he trilled. "And," he added, lower, deeper, more dangerously, "because you have something I want."

"I?" She drew back, but there was cunning in her eyes, calculation in the slant of her mouth, the curl of her hand around her wand. "What could I have that the man who would be Dark One could want?"

A slight chill wafted through him, a shiver up his spine, at the odd, intentional wording of her question. Zoso stirred within him, uneasy, wary. "Careful, Master," he breathed without breath, whispered without sound.

"Oh, I think you know," Rumplestiltskin said, careful (oh so careful when these were his last moments in this world) not to give away his sudden tension. "And come, come, dearie, three bags of fairy dust for one measly little bean seems like a deal all in your favor."

"Which makes me hesitant to accept it," she retorted, and it was the first answer of hers he'd actually liked.

"Let me put it another way…" He swung the bags carelessly from his hand, letting sparkling dust fall to litter the forest floor, trod beneath his feet like useless dirt. "You give me the bean, I give you the fairy dust; you leave me alone, I leave your world alone—seems to me a win-win situation for you, wouldn't you say, dearie?"

"Dumping this world's problems on another is hardly a solution." The Blue Fairy scowled at him, and for the first time, he could not read her expression. "I know why you are desperate to leave this land, Rumplestiltskin, but I have to wonder—are you certain this is the right choice?"

Rumplestiltskin was filled with black, oily rage, creeping through him until Zoso had to swell within him in order to be large enough to contain it all. He could feel himself straighten, fill out, taller and broader, his eyes filled with malevolence. "It's a little late to be asking that question!" he snarled. "Easier to ask it centuries ago, before we'd already walked down this path, don't you think?"

"I think you are alone and unloved and afraid," she said softly. "I think you are lost and you don't quite know how to get back to where you should be."

"I think I know exactly where I want to be," he trilled out with a laugh and a dancing step. "And all I need's a bean. So what do you say?" He swung the bags between them again, let a flicker of fire spark from Zoso's presence to his fingers, glinting like amber gold against rainbow-sparkled dust.

The Blue Fairy tensed, all icy anger and aloof worry. "Fine!" she snapped. "The fairy dust for a bean."

"The last magic bean," Rumplestiltskin reiterated, carefully, lest she try to trick him as he'd tricked others before.

"The last magic bean," she admitted.

"And no lies!" he added, wagging a finger before her.

"We don't do that," she said haughtily, and then a bean was in her hand, glowing like a nebula of stars, green and small and full of promise and hope (and nightmares, oh so many nightmares).

Rumplestiltskin went breathless, and it was Zoso who moved to speak through him, to grate out the undoing of the binding spells and to reach out to catch hold of the bean while the three bags of fairy dust vanished at the fairy's behest.

The Blue Fairy cocked her head slightly, studied Rumplestiltskin closely, curiously. "The Dark One," she said musingly, but Zoso made Rumplestiltskin look up at her calmly, so she shook her head and then straightened to her full diminutive height. "I hope you find what you're looking for, Rumplestiltskin." And she was gone, as ephemeral and scarce as diamonds in the life of a spinner and his son.

Zoso stepped out of Rumplestiltskin and shook himself exaggeratedly. "Of course she does," he growled. "If you don't find what you're looking for, you're back to messing in her territory."

"Who cares?" Rumplestiltskin murmured, his breath warming the bean held so delicately in the palm of his hand. "We are going to find Bae, so it hardly matters."

"Right," Zoso agreed sarcastically. "Because Neverland isn't going to have dangers of its own. You do realize why no one ever travels there voluntarily, don't you?"

Rumplestiltskin waved the matter aside (no use speaking of it when he had nothing left to hold him here, not even cowardice enough, any longer, to keep him from the world where his father had disappeared forever), instinctively checking to make certain he had his scarf, his knife, his staff, all with him, the bean safe in his hand (everything he needed in this world; everything he could give up the instant he was holding Bae again). "That's what magic is for, to protect us and to find Bae. He's there, the globe said so, and all we have to do is find him. Then we can do whatever he wants."

Zoso folded his hands in front of him and nodded soberly. "Beautiful plan," he remarked. "Very detailed and specific. I foresee no problems."

"Good thing I'm the one with the foresight, then," Rumplestiltskin snapped. And without waiting another instant, without any further ado, he tossed the bean down and wished for Neverland (for the second time in his life; for the last time).

For Bae.

The green tornado was every bit as terrifying this time as the last two times, every bit as violently horrendous and loud. But it was a path to his son, so Rumplestiltskin stepped to the edge (with a Dark One rather than a cowardly gambler), and he jumped without hesitation.

And, like Malcolm before him, Zoso followed after.

There's a bell over the door of his shop that rings and tinkles—or sometimes clangs, depending on the desperation of the one entering—its sobering melody whenever anyone braves his shop. Gold hates it more than anything, this relentless, laughing bell. He knows Cora (or was this sadistic move planned by Zoso?) had it placed there expressly to torment him, and he knows (though does not admit) that it does hurt him. Every time he hears it, he tells himself to take it down, but he never does. And now, as it rings above Emma Swan's head (making her start and look up warily), he thinks it only fitting that a bell, of all things, should mark the moment the savior first comes to him of her own free will.

"Ah, Deputy Swan," he says, and winds between the glass counters to stand in the center of his shop. He sets himself there, hands on his cane, feet spread apart. There is some question, after all, as to whether the savior will allow him to work diagonally of her or will fully oppose him. And he has learned, in his centuries, to expect the worst, always. The bell is reminder enough of that.

Emma takes a careful step forward (choosing her own battleground), sets her hands in her back pockets, her gaze focused and intent on Gold (her own battle stance of choice). "News travels fast around here," she says dryly.

Gold allows himself a tiny shrug. "You've been deputy a week. I'd have had to be purposely deaf to avoid that piece of news by now. But I'm sure," he adds, with a touch of deference, a shade of irony (a painter selecting his varying hues to set the mood of his masterpiece), "Sheriff Nolan has made a wise choice. Certainly the best option open to him considering…"

As expected, Emma narrows her eyes at the way he purposely lets the sentence trail off into nothing. "Considering what?" she demands, as blunt as her mother, as compassionate as her father.

Gold pauses, as if he is surprised by her lack of knowledge (though he thinks at this point he'd only be surprised by her if she possessed knowledge of things beyond sight in Storybrooke). "Well," he says softly. "I suppose if he hasn't told you, I shouldn't either. A man's secrets are his own."

And he is satisfied, because with these few words he has ensured that the curious, headstrong savior will pursue this until she discovers David's curse-induced illness (and then she'll have even greater reason to break the curse, won't she?), and thus he has paid for whatever kindnesses David Nolan has shown him over twenty-eight years. Done, and done.

"Interested in antiques?" Gold (not Rumplestiltskin, just Mr. Gold) asks serenely in the instant Emma takes to digest his vague answer. "I'm sure there's something in my shop that can interest you."

"No." Emma casts a distrustful glance at the whole of his shop, surveying and dismissing it with that single look, without thought to what treasures she is missing. (Just so does everyone do upon sight of dust motes and clutter; just so did everyone do in their old world when they came up against his darkness and his façade.) "I didn't come here for anything from you."

Gold frowns at her skeptically (and he's playing his part, of course, but some expressions come more naturally than others). "Then what could you possibly be here for?"

Something in what he says makes her regard him a bit more closely. "I came to warn you," she says slowly, as if just now recognizing her own motives. And perhaps she is. She seems a woman driven by instinct, by reaction and gut feelings. A raw, more primal sort of person than he is used to dealing with. A fascinating blend of her parents, stripped down to the basest elements, natural strengths allowed to shine undimmed.

"A warning?" Gold resettles his hands on his cane. "You do realize, I hope, that an unsolicited warning doesn't count as a favor fulfilled or a debt cancelled."

Her sigh of exasperation is large and gusty enough that if his prized objects were all dusty as the clutter makes one think, they'd all be swept clean and polished beneath the force of her irritation. "No wonder you don't have any friends," she mutters.

Gold feels himself go rigid, stiff, his mask all plastic and contrived so that he cannot twitch by even the scarcest iota lest it go shattering outward. (Because once he'd had the love of a son, boundless and pure, and it had been stolen from him; because once he'd had the companionship of the best soul he'd ever known, friendly and accepting, but he'd thrown it away on the whim of a whisper.)

"There's a man here," Emma says, oblivious to his pain (they always are, and he is grateful for it). "A stranger."

"Yes, I'm aware," Gold says, and he can't help that his words emerge dry and hollow, rattling one against another. He turns and makes his way back behind a counter, takes up his position there. (A retreat, but one he cannot avoid.)

Emma presses her advantage, steps closer, advancing but stopping before she reaches his barricade. "Well," she snaps, shifting her feet, her hands at her side (changing her battle stance, her mode of attack, now that she has made him change his own). "Are you aware that he's just a bit too curious about you?"

Slowly, purposely, Gold tilts his head, stares at her. And speaks not a word. (Let them hang themselves, give over all their desperate desires and darkest fears to you—Zoso's lessons, ringing in his ears as clearly as if he'd just spoken them hours before.)

"He's asking questions about you," Emma continues. "He's also been tracing your usual routines. In fact, I'd almost say you have your very own stalker."

"Really." He cuts the word off so it doesn't emerge at all as a question. It's interesting, he thinks in a detached way, that she doesn't seem to assume he knows this already. Interesting that for all she glares at him with piercing eyes and calls him out with fearless words, she still hasn't seen past the mask he presents to outsiders (and in this, he is Storybrooke, tied to the constructed town with the origin he gave it, the manipulations he worked, the similarity of their positions). Interesting that for all her skepticism and wariness, she does not guess that he is more than an old pawnbroker with a limp, more enough to be well aware of the moments Jones follows him, scampering from rooftop to rooftop above him, peering at him through his old spyglass. Interesting for many reasons, he thinks, but for now, it is all just barely enough to keep him above the virulent swell of fury and hatred and terror trying to sweep him away to stranded depths.

"He doesn't seem to think too much of you," Emma says with a half-shake of her head. As if she doesn't understand the kind of ruthless malevolence Jones is capable of (but he thinks she is aware of it, even if she pretends she is not, and he thinks that perhaps just the mere threat of harm to her son, to her guardian, would be enough to rouse her own dark depths and send them roaring to the surface).

There is only one word Gold can use (Rumplestiltskin could use so many more, violent and abusive words, but Gold can use only this one because there is still, for all Jones' unwelcome presence, no sign of Bae). "Interesting," he says, and that is all.

Emma's brows rise almost to her hairline (an expression she's inherited from Snow). "Interesting?" she repeats derisively. "That's all you have to say?"

He tilts his head. "What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know," she snaps. "How about a little reaction to the fact that a stranger is stalking you. Or…" She frowns, turned speculative and insightful so quickly it manages to surprise him. "Is he not a stranger to you?"

"I've dealt with many people," he says casually. "Not all of them are happy with the fine print."

"I'll bet," she mutters.

"Come, Ms. Swan," he chides with an amused smile, "You're not regretting your own deal so soon, are you? Your friend is safe, after all, free and innocent, and you yourself have found a job and a home. I'd say it hasn't turned out too badly for you so far."

"I'd say you're taking credit for a lot you had nothing to do with," she retorts acerbically, and she shifts, restless, impatient. Confined and eager to be on her way (out of the monster's lair) now that her warning's been delivered and her conscience assuaged.

"Ah, yes," Gold murmurs. "Because Mr. Booth wouldn't have already been tried, convicted, and sentenced at the mayor's behest if I hadn't been present to ensure the proceedings were done at least halfway legally—dragging them out long enough to keep Mr. Booth safe until our missing mechanic could wander back into town."

Emma frowns, and squints at him as if that will make him suddenly come into clear, sharp focus. She hesitates, then asks, "And have you decided what favor you're going to ask of me?"

"Oh, not yet." He waves a careless hand. "But don't worry—I know how uncomfortable it can be, owing someone something. I'm sure I'll be able to think of a way you can repay me, especially now that you're deputy."

"What does that mean?" she demands, full of bristling edges and sharp suspicion (and if she were her father, she would draw her sword and hold it between them, all steel and blade and protective instincts).

"Merely what I said," he lies (because whatever favor he asks of her, this woman who finds missing people for a living and knows how to live and move and think in and of this world, he doesn't really think that a position as deputy will help too much). "And," he adds serenely, "I'm glad you've decided to stay. I didn't have the chance, earlier, to offer my welcome. Children can be a very powerful motive, can they not?"

She looks at him, subdued and silent, but beneath that edged stillness, he senses a maelstrom within her.

"Children are precious," he tells her, gently lest that maelstrom explode outward to destroy everything in its path and leave her in shattered pieces behind it (he's been where she stands; he's felt his blood surge and his insides roil with conflicting, complementing fury and terror). "Use your time with him wisely, because that's the thing about children—before you know it, you lose them."

There is a frown caught half-formed across her features, a frown, a stare, a picture of confusion she can't quite mask. She stares at Mr. Gold (and sees a glimmer of Rumplestiltskin) as if she's never seen him before (the monster beneath the man), as if he is a rare breed she's never encountered (and he is, but she can't know why, not yet, not until she believes). But she says nothing, stays silent, because she is strong and stubborn and defiant and she will not admit to her astonishment.

So he takes pity on her (a parent separated from her child; a parent given another chance with her long lost son) and offers as much of a smile as he can summon. "Now, if there isn't anything else, Deputy Swan…?"

And as quickly as that (taking the retreat he offers her), with a shake of her head and shoulders and the resettling of her stance (standing down and letting her weapons ease), she reclaims her poise and her brash boldness. "Yeah," she mutters, awkward and confident at the same time. "Well, if this Jones causes you any trouble in the future, don't say I didn't warn you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he says snidely (because he can only soften so much without bending and folding, and that is not something he can allow with both Cora and Jones after him).

She casts him a last glare as her parting statement, and that bell rings with a clatter that sends rippling bruises across his battered heart, and she is gone. But her warning echoes with the fading remnants of the bell, rattling around in his shop between relics of a world long gone and treasures of a world he helped create.

Jones is watching him. From afar. Quietly—and yet blatantly enough to draw attention to himself. Captain Jones, or Captain Hook as he styled himself after adjusting to the loss of his hand (as Rumplestiltskin could never adjust to the loss of his son), has never been the subtlest of creatures, but he is wily and cunning in his own way, and Rumplestiltskin does not think he is as careless as his actions this past week make him seem.

It is a test. Bait, laid out in moments of letting Mr. Gold spot him on the rooftops with his spyglass and conversations with townsfolk where he lets his interest in Mr. Gold be known, and now the pirate waits, to see if Rumplestiltskin will take the bait, will betray himself and his memories. He waits to take his vengeance, until he can be certain that it is Rumplestiltskin and not Mr. Gold he approaches.

And there is no magic, and no Zoso, and still there is no Bae, so Mr. Gold must step carefully. He cannot allow himself to betray the fury and the terror and the panic and the cold, crafty calculation running through his veins. He must be cautious and pragmatic. He must not think of his boy, missing after all this time, gone when he should not be (when he should be with Hook as so many of Rumplestiltskin's foretellings had shown him, leaving him sweating and so full of nightmares he could not sleep for decades upon decades). He cannot be Rumplestiltskin (a monster, but oh so powerful and moved so far beyond what Jones knew of him), but rather Mr. Gold (quiet but sinister, ignorant but oh so much more dangerous than most care to admit).

It's hard, to keep to his old routines when he longs only to attack Hook and crush his windpipe and pull his tongue from his head until he begs to tell where Baelfire is, but nothing in life comes easily, and this is only more of the part he's played for three decades. So he tinkers in his empty, lonely shop until lunchtime, when he walks, as he always does, down to the library. Not to enter it, nor even to look at it overly, but just to remind himself (in a more silent way than the bell) of what he could have but doesn't (because that's what he does: he loses things). He makes his usual circuit, his cane sounding its regular tap-tap-tapping against the concrete sidewalk, the townspeople avoiding him (save Dr. Hopper who gives him a slight smile and a nod as he passes by), and still it is not enough. Rumplestiltskin was as much a creature of habit as Mr. Gold, and his silence, his routines, prove nothing.

When he sees her, stumbling down the street, her grace turned to purposelessness, her elegance to submissiveness, her skirts so much more tamed in this world, he is first startled and then inspired. It is a move even Zoso would have smiled at, a gambit he feels right with that sparking in his bloodstream, that thrill of adrenaline shooting through his mind like fireworks, illuminating what he needs and casting what he doesn't into shadows.

Of course, he thinks. Of course it should be her to give him this edge, this reprieve from Jones' thirst for vengeance.

If any of the townspeople watched him rather than pretended he did not exist (and he is glad they are back to normal now, back to dismissing him and fearing him from a distance), they would stop and stare to see him deviate from his routine. To see him turn from the direction of his shop and cross the street to make sure his own path intersects with that of the lowly nun walking, head down and eyes downcast, back toward the abbey.

"Good day, Sister Bleu," Mr. Gold says, smoothly, innocently.

The woman who was once a fairy (the servant of the people who was once a star shining in the heavens) looks up, astonished and wide-eyed to see the pawnbroker standing before her, stopped in her path as if willing to converse with her. Mr. Gold has never interacted with the nuns, never betrayed his lingering dislike and distrust. But he has never had reason to stop one and smile pleasantly and make conversation as if they are acquaintances, and now he does.

"Mist—Mister Gold," she stammers, and this is Cora's revenge on the Blue Fairy who shunned her and dismissed her attempts at magic, but Rumplestiltskin shivers at the ecstasy of the moment, as if it is he who planned it and carried it out. To see the woman who shone with goodness and glowed with kindness and sparkled with righteousness now reduced to a penniless, all-but-homeless, anonymous woman—to see the leader of good magic, the brightest star of light, nothing more than one in a long line of identical nuns serving their clumsy Mother Superior with her exuberant smiles and generous gestures (her schemes that leave the abbey bankrupt, her mistakes that leave the nuns with nothing, her ineptness leaving them all as ineffectual workers of good), is to see some form of justice dispensed. The monsters of the dark are left to make their dealings in secret, and the monsters of the light are left nibbling at the crumbs on the edges, and Rumplestiltskin feels, for just an instant, the lingering vestiges of his admiration for Cora stir and lift feebly from the ashes of all their past.

But the moment passes, and Storybrooke comes back into focus around him, and it is only one more victim of the curse before him, and Mr. Gold's smile withers and dies (and that echo of his feelings for Cora falls back into dust). If Jones were not watching, if Gold weren't doing this to prove that he is not Rumplestiltskin (for Rumplestiltskin would never smile at a fairy and strike up a banal conversation with the Blue Fairy of all people), he would make his excuses and leave. But he is proving a point and Jones is watching, so Mr. Gold forces the hint of a smile.

"A bit cold lately," he says, because nothing is duller, more normal, than speaking of the weather, but Mr. Gold has time and patience to spare for such meaningless prattle. "I do hope the abbey is warm enough."

Sister Bleu looks stunned to hear him professing concern for her and her sisters (as well she should, he thinks testily), but she manages to stammer out a reassurance.

"Wonderful," he says. A longer conversation might cement the moment, the reassurance, for Jones, but too long standing here and Cora might hear of it and suspect him of waking her enemies against her (might lead to him saying something he shouldn't or doing something he can't do quite yet), so he musters up yet another smile and continues on his way, ignoring Sister Bleu's disbelieving eyes following him down the street.

He doesn't want to cause suspicion, doesn't want to do anything but give Jones time to assimilate what these last minutes mean, and so he cannot simply turn and head straight back to his shop. Instead, he takes a long walk around the block, the clock-tower always visible from the corner of his eye, before he returns to his shop.

By the time that bell rings over his head, his leg burns, his hand is cramped around the head of his cane, and his neck prickles with the feel of the pirate's eyes on his back. But his mind is sharp and cool and clear as diamonds in the sky, and he has bought himself more time to wait and watch and plan, and if there is one quality he possesses above all others, it is patience.

As much as things are spiraling out of direct control, as drastically as her quiet realm is changing, Cora is still in control (still holds power like straw turned to gold at her fingertips), because she is aware of several things. First, Captain Killian Jones has come to town, strolling in as casually as if there is no curse separating Storybrooke from this grimmer world, and he is as wearyingly intent on Rumplestiltskin as ever, skulking about as if she will not notice him. Secondly, Rumplestiltskin is very good at hiding his own awareness, so good that she begins to believe there has never been a Mr. Gold at all, only a Rumplestiltskin wearing a mask that fits as close as bone. And thirdly, she is aware, very much aware, that the changes in her town can only mean this Emma Swan is the savior she was warned of (the infant she had sought yet never found), and that the pirate offers her the opportunity of gaining an ally.

Alliances are tricky things, and Cora usually prefers to avoid them when possible (she learned, upon waking in this world and finding things somewhat different than she'd been promised, that allies offer a fraction of advantage and a world of disappointment and betrayal), but with only three people in town knowing the truth—and one of them being a Rumplestiltskin who has something to do with Emma's arrival—it is the pragmatic thing to do to approach Jones and offer him Rumplestiltskin in exchange for aid. After all, it is not as if she has any use for the old man anymore, and the pirate has always had a knack for finding whatever it is he needs no matter how impossible it might seem.

She doesn't approach him immediately, though. First, she watches him from afar (spying on the spy), lets her newspaper editor approach him, sees how familiar Jones seems to be with the technology of this world, his car parked outside Granny's, his room paid for with a credit card in the name of Jones. He has been here a while, Cora decides, and he is looking to kill Rumplestiltskin, and the only thing she can't quite figure out is how he managed to find her hidden town.

Jones likes to frequent the Rabbit Hole (when he isn't stalking Mr. Gold, who does a spectacular impression of the ignorant), a low, dark establishment Cora has never stepped foot inside before this but that suits him like a hand-shaped glove for his left stump. He makes casual friends who feed him information, and gathers a few weak-minded individuals around him as cronies to replace the crew he's lost somewhere between Neverland and this world without magic. They know nothing he wants to know, can offer him no advantage, but Hook is a pirate who has always liked to surround himself with gibbering rats to remind him of his 'innate' superiority, so Cora rolls her eyes and lets him have his crumbs of power.

As often as he hunts his dangerous prey or carouses with rats masquerading as men, there are still moments when he is alone. When he walks down dark alleyways with no one else around. When he is most susceptible to the approach of someone who can give him exactly what he wants. For a price (she did not have Rumplestiltskin as a teacher for nothing, after all), at a time of her choosing (alliance or not, she is the one in charge), and, most importantly, for her own reasons (because it is not easy to forgive Rumplestiltskin for holding her heart and thinking he can defeat her).

Cora holds her coat close to her side, clasps her hands in front of her, and steps into the open behind Jones. "I know you," she says. "Or should I say, I know of you."

The pirate whirls at her first word, suspicion and alarm and danger casting edges and shadows across the planes of his face for only an instant before they melt away in favor of a smile closer to a smirk and wide eyes that scream innocence so loudly it can only be a lie. "Really?" he asks, as if they do not stand alone in a shadowed alley in a corner of town where no one would hear either of them scream (most likely, he thinks it will be her screaming, but she will never scream again, certainly not for filth like him).

"I do," she says, and smiles back at him, the curve of her lips as real as his own.

"And why would you think that?" He tilts his head and studies her, and for an instant, she swells, complacent and content with the power of her name and reputation. For an instant, she is the Wicked Queen again, a title so much more rewarding than mayor of a town no one knows about.

"Because unlike everyone else in this town," she says, "I remember—who I really am. Where I come from." It's easy to tilt her head in apparent amusement, to smile as if he shakes the joke with her even though only one missing person could truly share it. "And, of course, the stories of a legendary pirate who traveled to new worlds."

"A strange story," he says with a shrug and a flick of his eyes to gauge how alone they are, how close she is to him, how easily she will fall beneath his attack. "One you're likely to hear only in select places."

"Well, this isn't my first journey away from home." Cora shrugs delicately. "And when in far realms, one hears of the most peculiar kinds of people."

"I see. And just who might you be?"

She thinks he knows already. There is a gleam in his eyes, a tension to his body, and he angles away from her rather than looms over her. He knows she is dangerous (but perhaps he is only a survivor, able to tell with no more than a glance and a word who to charm and who to kill). Regardless, she takes pleasure in breathing out her name, feels a visceral thrill surge like alcohol through her veins. "Cora," she says. (Not Mayor Mills, not a useless title and a name that speaks of humble beginnings; just the name that breaks and topples and rules without shattering itself.)

"Ah." Hook betrays no surprise, and Cora allows herself pleasure in that, too, that her name is recognized even as far off as he has traveled. "The Wicked Queen, spoken of with particular fear in Wonderland."

Cora smiles through the pain (through the memories, through the feel of silk and skin and bone beneath her hand, the heart held pulsing in her fist, the startled, betrayed look in his eyes when it turned to powder and fell to become the foundational ground of Storybrooke). "I prefer 'Her Majesty.'"

"Don't we all?" Hook leers at her. He means to be off-putting, but she only finds him amusing; her smile turns condescending. "Now," he says, straightening, "if you'll excuse me, I—"

"I know what you want," she interrupts him, her voice like velvet unfurling slowly, languidly. It's easier to convince everyone of her power, to frighten them, by showing no sign that she cares one way or the other (this lesson she learned on her own; Rumplestiltskin has still not learned it). "And I can get it for you…if you do something for me."

Hook scoffs, black and angular against the light limning his form. "I highly doubt you know what I'm after, Queen or not," he says, and he turns, as if she will let him leave so easily. As if he thinks her as blinded as all her subjects.

"Rumplestiltskin," she whispers. The name echoes, sucked in by the damp stone buildings boxing them in, soaking into misty air. She almost imagines that the very bones of Storybrooke shake to hear the name spoken out loud after all this time. An alien name, once silvered with magic, now spoken in a world that laughs at it and thinks it nothing more than any other name, ineffectual and childish.

Hook freezes in his tracks, as porous and trembling as their surroundings. The mask, when he turns back toward her, has fallen like brittle paper away from his features, leaving only the blank remnants of his character behind.

Cora takes a step nearer him, slowly, confidently. "You want Rumplestiltskin dead to sate your eternal thirst for vengeance," she says, his secrets held ransom in her mouth. "Too bad he's not here."

"Don't play games with me, Cora," Hook snarls, his smirks and leers vanished like steam before fire. "He's definitely here—I've already found him."

"Ah, yes. Mr. Gold." And she laughs, to feel Storybrooke settle back down into submission at this more mundane name. "A pawnbroker, relatively harmless, though a bit more of a schemer than I might prefer." Her smile slips away, and she lets a glimmer of her own reality peek through her masks, honesty to meet sincerity. "He doesn't remember who he is, and thinks Rumplestiltskin no more than a fairytale. Hard to get your revenge on a man who doesn't even know who you are or why you're after him."

He arches a brow at her. "And you can make him remember?"

"I'm the one who cast the curse that brought everyone here. Don't you recognize all these people you've been fooling for the past week?"

"Yeah," Hook shrugs and runs a thumb down his chin. "Been a little while since I was last in the Enchanted Forest. The faces are a bit different."

"Well, every one of them is from our world. I brought them all here, cursed them to their now hopeless lives." She'd felt little of the victory she'd expected, waking in this cursed town that first day; she'd felt only hollow and old, as if the lack of magic reminded her of what she'd once been. But now, saying the words out loud, claiming this curse for the first time…well, it makes her feel even more like the Wicked Queen than Hook's recognition did. It makes her feel real, makes her blood sing with long-belated triumph. "I turned Rumplestiltskin into Mr. Gold," she says smugly, wonderingly, "and I can turn Mr. Gold into Rumplestiltskin."

Hook deliberates, silent, for no more than an instant before he forces a smile and spreads his arms wide to her. "Well then…what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to find out everything you can about Mr. Gold," she replies instantly. "Where he goes, who he talks to, where he keeps everything—his habits and routines."

A few drunken men exit the Rabbit Hole and stumble past the alleyway, their voices distant and fading behind them. Neither Cora nor Hook turn to look at them, neither willing to break the stare of the other. Finally, after a breathless moment, Hook blinks at her. "Let me get this straight…you want me to tell you everything about Mr. Gold, so you can give me Rumplestiltskin? How does that work exactly?"

"He might have something I want," Cora answers, tightening the sash of her coat.

"Rumplestiltskin?" Hook asks, gaze more astute than she likes. "Or Mr. Gold?"

"Both," she says shortly. "Rumplestiltskin realized its value; Mr. Gold may not. Whether he recognizes it or not, I need the object. It will lead me to an associate of his."

"I thought you said you're the one who brought everyone—why don't you already know where this certain person is?"

"There were a few loopholes," she admits grudgingly (and newly recognizes the blessings in existing among a town full of people who don't know enough to question her). "Surely you must know magic always presents a cost."

"Mm," he hums noncommittally. "And just who is this associate?"

Cora studies him a long moment, weighing the pros and cons of letting him into her confidence. Allies are dangerous things, temperamental and delicate, this pirate perhaps more than most considering his complete disregard for anything but seeking his own ends. But he is here, and he will help her because no one else can possibly give him what he wants (or so he thinks, and so Rumplestiltskin will allow him to think lest he find himself vulnerable and weak before the magic-less pirate), and in the end, it is better to have an ally who understands what is at stake. If he chooses to betray her at a later date, he will pay.

"In our world, he went by Zoso," she says, and is rewarded by Hook arching a doubtful brow at her.

"Zoso?"

"The Dark One," she elaborates. "Rumplestiltskin controlled him."

Hook nods in sudden understanding, his expression immediately comprehending (and Cora feels that perhaps she made a mistake in telling him). "The dagger," he says.

Tense and wary (more wary than she should need to be for a simple pirate), Cora narrows her eyes at him. "Yes. The dagger. I want it. You find me the dagger, I control Zoso, and then I'll bring Rumplestiltskin back for you to kill. Without the Dark One on a leash, Rumplestiltskin is less than nothing."

"So," Hook drawls, leaning against the molding brick wall behind him, "you get the Dark One, I get my vengeance, and Storybrooke continues in ignorance."

"A perfect deal," Cora says.

"If it all works out." Hook straightens and drops his arms back to his sides. "How do you know Zoso didn't keep his memories? Maybe he already has his own dagger."

"The loophole he used to hide allowed only one person to retain their old memories—and I have mine." She smiles, then, careful not to give a tell at the almost-lie. As many lessons as he taught her unknowingly, by unwilling example, she does have Rumplestiltskin to thank for imparting the importance of wording such as this. Almost-lies and nearly-truths are so much more fun (and so much safer) than direct deceit.

"And what if something goes wrong or this Mr. Gold"—his lips curl up over the name—"does realize the importance of his dagger? Maybe it's just me, but I don't particularly fancy facing the Dark One, not unless I'm sure Rumplestiltskin won't be walking away from the encounter either."

"Oh, don't worry. I have a contingency plan for that." Cora laughs, then, and steps right up to Hook, runs a hand down his chest and lets her voice lower to a rumble. "A certain valuable chess piece I've been holding in reserve for quite a long time. You see, I have something Rumplestiltskin wants."

"Really?" Hooks scoffs. He doesn't step back, but he is rigid beneath her gloved touch. "You obviously don't have the dagger and that's the only thing Rumplestiltskin cares about."

"The only thing?" she murmurs, and watches his eyes narrow, feels his solid muscles turn to iron. His masks disappear again, his eyes old and bitter and perhaps just the tiniest bit frightened. "What I hold isn't a thing. It's a whom."

He is still. Motionless. He doesn't even breathe. "A person," he says, his voice so soft she can't feel the ripple caused by it though she's only inches away from him. "A person he wants?"

"Yes, someone Rumplestiltskin actually does care about." She lets her lips twist over that, then banishes the bitterness as useless. "The only person the infamous Rumplestiltskin—and, I believe, even Mr. Gold—would sell away his own soul for."

Hook swallows, the noise audible in the quiet alleyway. He looks all around then, as if this person will magically appear before him, and Cora notes that she wasn't mistaken earlier—he is afraid. He is terrified, and not of Rumplestiltskin. He looks as if he is haunted by ghosts (and alliances always fall apart, and she will need a failsafe for him, too, so she tucks aside this observation for later).

"And where are you keeping him," the pirate asks, "this chess piece of yours?"

"Oh, Captain," Cora smirks, "like I'd give that away to you. Don't worry. I'm keeping her very safe."

There is a long moment of silence before Hook relaxes beneath her touch. His masks fall back over his features, and he stares at her in puzzlement. "A woman? He cares for a woman?"

Cora lets out the hint of a laugh. "Belle is her name, and yes, he does care for her. In fact, she's the only one Rumplestiltskin has ever let get away."

"Interesting," Hook breathes, and Cora smiles (a real smile, or as close as she can come to it anymore).

He's hers (Rumplestiltskin and Mr. Gold; Hook; Zoso; all of them). Her playthings. Her pawns.

Her victims.

"So," she drawls, "is it a deal?"

And when he smiles at her, she smiles back.

Mary Margaret hates the end of the month for two reasons. She hates that it is when rent is due even though she doesn't get paid until the first of the month, and she hates the dinners Cora hosts on the last day of each month for those in town she considers influential (or simply wishes to cow). Not that Mary Margaret is invited to these dinners, of course (or that she wants to be), but when she still met David for interludes of flirtation and possibilities at the hospital, he was always quiet and withdrawn before and after the monthly dinners, and she herself was tense and edgy.

"Thank you," Regina says yet again, and Mary Margaret manages another smile, though she can feel them getting tighter, more brittle, with each repetition.

"It's nothing," she lies, flicking a careful glance over Regina's shoulder to the door to make certain the mayor doesn't surprise them all with a confrontation. "You know I like spending time with Henry."

"Right," Regina says, nervous and tense. Her make-up is impeccable, her sleek skirt and jacket look as if they come straight from magazines Mary Margaret can't afford to even look at, her hair is smooth in the right places and curled up at the ends, and still she is wan and worried, eyes tight beneath mascara, lips bitten beneath gloss, knuckles white beneath crisp sleeves.

Tests. That's what these dinners really are, Mary Margaret thinks, not for the first time. Tests of Regina, to see if she will bring Henry this time (as Cora always demands she do yet never calls her out for failing to do), to see if her daughter can match up to whatever demands Cora places on her concerning the others she invites.

Tests of the others, too. Spencer, the only one besides David and Regina that is invited to every meal, and Mary Margaret isn't sure what Cora expects of him, but she knows that there is something there, something he must do or show to make Cora invite him again the next month. Sometimes, the District Attorney is there, and sometimes he is not. Sometimes there are others, and sometimes there are only a handful, and Mary Margaret thinks that maybe the fluctuating numbers are their own kind of test, too (and tries hard not to think too much about what it might prove to the mayor).

And, of course, a test for David. He never spoke of it, not really, not in so many words, but it was there in the things he didn't say and the bitterness that crept along the edges of his voice in the days he'd meet her after the dinners, in the abstracted distance to his gaze that even her best attempts couldn't break. She knows (though she can't remember how, or who betrayed it, or when she first discovered it) that it was at one of these monthly dinners that Cora defeated David's grand plans for exposing her and saving Regina from her mother's clutches. It was at one of these dinners that David lost his hope and his faith and his steadfast belief that they would one day be able to see what Storybrooke could be like without Cora in charge.

But that was a long time ago, and it has been a month since she's last spoken with David, and right now, Regina and Henry need her, so Mary Margaret pushes aside her own helpless bitterness and turns to give a better attempt at a smile to Henry. "We don't mind staying up here and having out own little dinner, do we, Henry?"

The boy nods and grants his mother a dazzling smile that does more to reassure her than Mary Margaret's ever could. "It's okay," he tells Regina. "We'll be fine. Mary Margaret said I could eat cereal."

"Cereal?" Regina tilts her head curiously, one hand framing Henry's cheek as if she's afraid to let go lest he vanish right in front of her. "That's what you want for dinner?"

"It's better than sushi," the boy points out with an exaggerated shudder, and Regina lets out something close to a laugh.

"Whatever you want," she promises, and then it's time for her to leave. Mary Margaret hates watching her go (feels like a coward for sending off the sheep to dinner with the wolves), but she is relieved anyway because once Regina is gone, there is no need for Cora to come into the back of the house where Mary Margaret and Henry take refuge.

"Be careful," she tells Regina (for all that the words are useless and she has no authority at all to make certain her friend isn't harmed), and closes the door, wishes there was a lock for it, just in case. She lets her hand rest on the doorknob for a long moment, marshalling her strength, before she turns back to Henry with a smile fixed in place. (Wrong, this is all wrong, the entire situation, but it is what it is, and this is Storybrooke and that means it won't change, so no use regretting it when all they can do is live with it.)

"It's okay," Henry tells her, his tone so kind, his expression so reassuring that Mary Margaret is frozen beneath the conflicting compulsions to laugh, to swallow back a lump in her throat, to hug the small boy, and to take him, hold onto him, and run until he is far, far away from the mayor and her manipulative power-plays.

Instead, though, she only smiles and nods. "Right. So. What kind of cereal do you have?"

Henry's resilient and compassionate and wise, but just enough of a child that he is distracted by sugary cereal, enthusiastic and eager and able to distract her in turn from the stilted nightmarish façade happening downstairs in the elaborate dining hall between vases of ornate floral arrangements and glistening chandeliers and too-long tables (from the knowledge that David, whom she hasn't seen for weeks and weeks, is so very close, trapped in place where he wouldn't be able to run from her should she confront him about his caginess and his absences and the rumors of his growing weakness).

He's also helpful, so she thinks he's right behind her when she stands to take their dishes into the kitchen, thinks that he is following her with the milk and the cereal. But when she turns, he isn't there, and the room where they ate is empty, and terror starts to grow within her, a hard knot of panic, because she promised Regina she'd watch over Henry but now he is gone and the mayor is so close and—

And there he is, sitting at the head of the stairs, peering down, down, down at the edges of the dining room where light spills out and voices echo and spiral through cavernous rooms to reach his ears.

"Henry!" Mary Margaret hisses, but the boy only turns and shushes her before refocusing his attention on the remnants, the pieces, of action below that can reach them. Mary Margaret has only the best of intentions (is eager and afraid, her hands itching to pull him away and back to safety), but then it's David's voice that reaches her, touches her, caresses her, confidence and weariness in equal measures, and instead of leaving, she finds herself plopping down next to Henry. Her hand curls over the railings of the bannister, side by side with Henry's smaller hands, and the lacquered wood is cool against her forehead as she leans forward, strains, desperate to hear more of David's voice.

"The case is still ongoing, due to Billy's condition and memory loss, not to mention all the blood," he's saying. His tone is professional, but Mary Margaret doesn't need to see him to hear the tension underlying his voice. "I'm sure you understand, then, that I can't discuss it with anyone."

"Oh, come now!" snaps a voice Mary Margaret can't quite place. Perhaps Mr. Herman? "We're all respected leaders of the community here; we all know the meaning of discretion. You can surely tell us if you think the outsider is really innocent. That blood didn't come from nowhere."

"And a man wandering lost and dazed for eight days?" Spencer added, his bass voice unmistakable. "Almost impossible to believe it was all accidental. I'd say it points to drugs or some other equally illegal means of getting a man out of the way."

"Pure speculation," David says, and now there's a thread of steel blatant for all to hear. "I hope your paper relies more on facts than rumors."

Cora's laugh is light and merry and so cold that Mary Margaret half-expects the shuddering breath she lets out to expel frosted mist before her lips. "Funny that you would caution against listening to rumors," she says, all light tone and heavy implication. "I think we all remember how far you fell the last time you let your imagination get away with you."

There is silence for a long moment. Mary Margaret wants to leap to her feet, charge down the stairs, come to his defense, lash out at them that they all know what really happened and it isn't David's fault. But she is frozen, motionless, afraid to even breathe in case Cora and that roomful of her cruel minions turn their attention to her (and she wonders if David has stopped seeing her because he realized she is a coward).

"Mother…" Regina's voice is soft and breathy, but it is there, a pale, faded echo of the defense Mary Margaret wants to provide for David, and it is too short, too little, and overlooked with hardly any trouble at all, but at least it's something. At least David knows he is not entirely alone in that room.

"I think his imagination has run away with him again," Spencer states as if Regina didn't speak at all (Mary Margaret can see Cora in her head, conducting her symphony of allusions and shadowy accusations with a twitch of her finger, a roll of her eyes, a thin smile; a maestro of broken dreams and painful reminders). "Hiring the other outsider as his deputy? Surely there were better options."

"She has experience and was looking for a job," David says, so quietly Mary Margaret has to press her temples painfully against the warming bannister to hear him. "And it's in the budget—I have the authority to hire a deputy if I need one."

"Oh, yes," Cora says, and the false sympathy in her voice is so cloying that Henry actually makes a gagging noise. "And we all know how hard things have been getting for you lately, David. Dr. Whale's very concerned for you, as are we all. I simply hope another deputy is the right decision for you to make. It's obvious you're going to have to step down eventually—might as well not put it off too long."

There's something heavy, something impossibly slow and ponderous moving outward from the pit in her stomach, and Mary Margaret has to stand before she turns to stone. Has to reach out blindly and grab at Henry's shirt and pull him up, back, away, trying to save him (save her) from hearing anymore (hearing Cora and her flock of carrion-eaters circle David and tear him to pieces, strip his dignity and his respect and his remaining days from him chunk by bloody chunk).

Henry protests (quietly, so quietly, such a young child to already know so clearly the consequences of having Cora's attention turning on him) and David says something else, something about being fine (but he's lying, he's wearing a mask, he's doing as he always does and pretending he's fine even though he's dying right in front of them all), but Mary Margaret doesn't listen. She's not powerful, not strong, not a warrior or leader or anyone capable of standing against the mayor, but she can slam the door between Henry and those poisonous words (the reminder of David's mortality and the proof of how bad his prognosis is), can stand like a barrier between Regina's son and Regina's mother (and David is still out there, alone and unprotected and vulnerable, and she wants to reach out and grab him, wants to bring him into her flimsy protection, but he's too far away, outside her reach). She only strong enough to pretend she'd strong. It's not enough, not nearly enough, but it has to do.

Henry watches her with wide, knowing eyes, and when she offers to play a board game with him, he gives her a reassuring smile and lets himself be distracted (agrees for her sake, takes care of her, just as he does so often for Regina), and they spend the next hour throwing dice and moving game-pieces and drawing cards, letting forced laughter and determined cheerfulness drown out the sound of pain in David's voice, the malevolent triumph in Cora's, the oily satisfaction in everyone else's (the silence from Regina, forced to sit down there and watch and smile at her mother's barbs).

When Regina finally knocks at the door Mary Margaret closed (a timid tap-tap-tap-tap, quiet but persistent), Mary Margaret is more than ready to be done with this day, this evening, this favor. She rises and moves toward the door, but it's already swinging open. When it creaks aside to reveal a wan, hunched Regina, Mary Margaret instinctively takes her into a close, tight embrace (remembering that one quiet word to distract from David). She feels Regina's shoulder blades beneath her hands, beneath her silk blouse, sharp and protruding and quivering ever so slightly. Mary Margaret clasps her tighter, gentler, then pulls her inside the room and closes the wooden door once more (sets the barricades and raises the moat and pretends this fortress actually has walls).

"You're all right," she says once, firmly, and steps aside to let Henry rush into Henry's arms and prove her right.

Maybe she should stay awhile, make sure Regina and Henry have survived another of these monthly meetings, but this might be her only chance, her only opportunity. For right this moment, she knows where David is and she reach him (the man, not the sheriff), and if she can reach him, then maybe she can hold on, can keep him with her.

So she gives both Regina and Henry another encompassing hug, and slips away, down the staircase, out the back door, around the lawn until she sees the squad car sitting there across the street. (And only now does she remember she left the milk out, sitting on the card table she and Henry ate at, but it's surely spoiled already and she can't turn back, has to be brave and press on and call out his name.)

"David," she says, as if she saw him just by chance, as if she walks by the mayor's house every day.

He startles, then turns to look at her, and her heart jumps a bit at the immediate smile springing to his lips (small and tight and even pained, but it's there). "Mary Margaret," he says, like it's a dream (like he doesn't think she really exists in his life).

"David," she says again. "It's good to see you."

"You, too." He hesitates for a second, but he closes the car door he opened before her call and turns so he can face her. Mary Margaret takes a tiny step back, tells herself it is because he is taller than she expected, not because she is afraid and her heart threatens to rattle out of her chest.

She takes a deep breath, but he's looking at her like he's drinking her in and this is what she's wanted to say since her breaks at the hospital started becoming lonely and quiet, so she gathers her bravery and admits, "I've missed you."

"Yeah." His smile is caught between dopey pleasure and strained regret. "I've missed you too."

"You have?" Mary Margaret bites back her grin before it can scare him off. "Well…where have you been? I haven't seen you at the hospital lately."

"Yeah." David stares a moment longer, making her blush in the cold night air, before he shifts and looks away. "I haven't been going."

Her stomach drops through her feet. "What?" She frowns at him, certain she must have misheard (seeing all over again the shadows like bruises on his face, the shakiness of his hands, the way he leans back against the car; hearing all over again Cora's "Dr. Whale's very concerned for you"). "David, you…"

"I don't have to," he says, and for all he should sound like a petulant child, he sounds calm, like a man who's made up his mind. It terrifies her down to the very marrow of her bones, a cold, clammy chill that makes her suddenly go dizzy and as shaky as him.

"You can't…" she starts, but has to stop before she looses what she really wants to say ("You can't die!"). "You can't give up," she says instead.

David's smile is almost pitying, the very opposite of comforting. "I'm dying, Mary Margaret." It's the tear he can't quite hide, trickling down his cheek, that breaks through her chilled numbness to let her know this is real, this is happening, and any chance she has of stopping it is slipping away like an untrained bird from her hands. "I've always been dying," he continues obliviously, as if he doesn't realize he's crying. "I just used to think there was a chance I wouldn't."

"There is!" she interrupts furiously. "There's always hope!"

He squints, and at first she wonders what she's said that he doesn't understand until she realizes that he's just keeping more of his tears from falling. "Five months," he says softly (a death knell). His hand shakes when he wipes away his single tear, and no more fall, and he looks drained of everything. "I have five months left, and there's nothing they can do. So I can't see you anymore."

Swiftly, urgently, she takes a step forward, reaches out a hand to grab hold of him (to yank him away from death's door), but lets it fall before it reaches him. He is standing right in front of her, but she feels as if there is a great divide like a chasm cutting between them, a distance she can't bridge. "I don't care!" she insists (and tastes the lie of it, heavy on her tongue). "We can still—"

"No." David shakes his head, his unearthly calm fracturing. He takes in a shuddering breath, leans back farther against the car. "I care," he says more quietly. "Mary Margaret, when I'm with you…when I'm with you, everything's perfect. It's beautiful—you're beautiful—and I start to think of what it would be like to have today and tomorrow and the next day. To have a future with you. To be like this forever. I start to hope."

Her smile is tremulous, fragile, because he's saying everything she's ever wanted to hear him say, but she knows this isn't a happy ending. She knows, somehow, that this is goodbye (and she wishes she'd gone back to save the milk, instead of seeking him out and forcing this conversation and losing her chance to pretend that they still had a hope of a future).

"But then," he says slowly, "you leave, or I leave, and I'm alone again, and reality comes crashing back down on me. There is no tomorrow, no future, not with or without you. There's just the cancer and five months." He swallows. There is another single tear winding a tragic trail down his cheek (and she wonders if that is all the pain eating him up from the inside out will let him betray). "And that's okay," he says, belying the tear and the pain his voice. "It is. I'm okay with dying."

"David," she whispers, but he acts as if he can't hear her. As if he's already gone and she's speaking to his ghost.

"But I'm not okay with hoping with you and then being disappointed without you over and over and over again. I can't do that, can't keep dreaming and waking up and then dreaming again only to wake up again." David nods, as if he's rehearsed this speech and finally said it just the right way. "So that's why I haven't been going to the hospital. It's why I haven't been seeing you. I thought it would be better for you to be mad at me or to hate me than for me to break your heart as much as mine."

Mary Margaret shakes her head, eager to overcome this and get back to the place where they're together and happy (and the cancer is something neither of them acknowledges). "David, that's ridiculous," she says.

He flinches, then, heavily, as if she's struck him. Then he nods, slowly, disjointedly, his tears locked back away beneath flawed skin. "Ridiculous," he repeats flatly. "Well, ridiculous or not, I can't do this. To you or to me."

She isn't quite sure how, but she's hurt him, has struck at him as much as the sickness inside him has. "David," she says (his name, over and over and over, an echo of things leaving, gone, missed opportunities), and starts forward, but he's already gone, already opening his car door and ducking inside and slamming the door shut between them (and she slammed a door, too, but that was to protect and this is to shut out). He stops, then, his hands clenched over the steering wheel, his eyes fixed straight ahead, and Mary Margaret freezes, filled with as much hope as regret.

"Goodbye, Mary Margaret," he says (soundlessly since the door's between them, but she reads his lips and the slow, lingering way he shapes the words), and then the engine roars to life and he's beyond where she can reach.

She stands alone in the street, in the dark, in front of the mayor's grand house, and she wonders why nothing in life ever turns out. She wonders why she's always losing.

She wonders if she will ever recover from this.