I don't own OUAT at all. I just had an idea for a story after reading an interview with the showrunners who said that all the lands and characters of Oz were not off limits for future seasons. This is how I would write in my favorite denizen of Oz- The Wicked Witch of the West. But before we learn how Miss Elphaba (using the Wicked universe name for her because I like it, not because it's a crossover) knows our dear Rumple, before we find out how she ended up in a land without magic, before we even get Gold out into the world beyond Storybrooke, we must begin at the very beginning...
Mary Margaret was rooting through her jewelry box at gunpoint. Her fingers slipped over thin silver bracelets, smooth opal stones set into cheap settings- the rings were somewhere at the bottom of the heap. This had to be, she thought in the moments where she wasn't concentrating on her collection, the calmest robbery in the history of Storybrooke. Gold had the barrel of his gun pressed politely into a part of her back where a shot would cause damage but not death, and his gloved hand on her shoulder was there for purely directorial purposes. It appeared that he did not intend to hurt her at all.
"All the trouble your prince went through to get you that ring, dearie, I thought you'd be wearing it," Gold said dully as he waited for her to find what he had come to steal.
"Took it off for cleaning," she lied, and found it in the bottom of the box. The green peridot stone was of inferior quality and the silver was scratched nearly white, but Mary Margaret knew that all of the jewels in this world or the next could not have been more valuable. She held it out to Gold, who had to pocket his gun to reach out and accept it with his free hand. Once he had the ring, he touched it gently to his cheek and closed his eyes for a moment. A thousand possibilities rushed through Mary Margaret's head- this could have been the perfect moment to rush him, kick his cane out from under him and run out of the apartment, knock him on the head with a lamp and vault out the window onto the fire escape- anything that would let her keep her ring and incapacitate the vile wizard who was invading her home. She reached behind her for the lamp on the nightstand where her jewelry box was and was prepared to crash it down on the pawnbroker's head when he opened his eyes again.
He really did have the blandest, strangest eyes. Snow White remembered how they were supposed to be. A nasty bright amber that took up more than half the given space. Pinpricks for pupils, a deadly glee always lurking behind them. She had hated those eyes and feared them when he turned his evil gaze upon her. In Storybrooke, Rumplestiltskin's eyes were pure black, two ink blots dropped in the yellowing white of an aging man's eyes. And they were sad. Sad and desperate.
Mary Margaret remembered what the ring was meant to be used for. True love would always follow that ring, regardless of who was wearing it. And even if she couldn't believe that true love was even a part of Mr. Gold's emotional vocabulary, she moved her hand away from the lamp. He needed this ring to find someone, someone he at least thought he loved, and simply didn't know how to ask.
Gold slipped the ring into his pocket and crossed the kitchen in a few limping strides. He had almost reached the door when-
"Wait!" Mary Margaret called out to him and Gold turned around. His hand was already in his pocket again, no doubt closing around the mechanism of his revolver. For a man who so loved to hear the sound of his own voice, he was oddly silent.
"I'll make you a deal. I won't tell anyone about this…if you bring it back after you find her."
Gold had the audacity to look confused, if only for a split second. Then, he smiled the way he did when he was about to say something clever. It only seemed to affect half of his face. He lifted his cane and pointed it directly at Mary Margaret- no, at something right behind Mary Margaret. She turned to see that it was Henry's school picture, framed and set on her nightstand.
"That boy is the truest source of love you will ever know in your short life, Princess," he said, and continued out the door. Before he closed it and limped down the hallway, Mary Margaret could have sworn she heard him say-
"Deal."
