"There was stuff in his car. Receipts, insurance information...his name is Greg Mendell." Emma explained to the worried crowd, inserting a USB drive into the outsider's phone. The phone beeped furiously in her hand as the drive flashed blue. Suddenly, the lock screen disappeared. Emma quickly began thumbing through his browser history as the citizens of Storybrook huddled around her.

"Pictures of him alone at Eastern Seaboard tourist locations, a Linkedin account...he takes pictures of his food." She muttered, flicking her thumb back and forth against the touch screen. "I'll keep looking, but he seems like a well documented, ordinary Joe. Or, Greg..." Emma bit her tongue. There was no such thing as ordinary, not in her line of work. Something felt off.

"So-" Ruby interrupted, nervously thumbing one of her bright red hair extensions. "Whatever's kept random strangers out of Storybrooke for the past twenty-eight years is-"

"Gone." whispered Mary Margaret. "Anyone can just drive in. This is bad."

"Let's try not to overreact," Emma tried to assure the crowd, but to no avail.

"Hook doesn't know where Cora is," Emma segued, "and God knows what she's going to do. With other people here, it's not going to be good for anyone."

"We need to find Regina," Mary Margaret interjected. "Before Cora does, I don't want to think about what damage they could do together. This could not come at a worse time!"

"It's okay," breathed Emma, trying to comfort her mother. "The guy's being patched up right now, he'll probably be off on his way by morning."

"Not exactly-" sounded a voice from behind them. A very worried Dr. Whale walked briskly towards the huddled group.

"Not quite, he's bleeding into his chest cavity. It's not a full stream, but soon he'll start drowning in his own blood. There's something else, too. A scar."

"So?" Emma asked. "Lots of people have scars. It doesn't-"

Her jaw dropped to the floor. Whale had pulled up a photo on his phone of Greg's chest. There was a massive, gnarled, barely healed gash across his heart. The skin was burned heavily, but something was seriously wrong.

"Please tell me those are dead pixels, Whale." Emma whispered hoarsely, eyes wide at the screen.

"They aren't, Sheriff. Areas of the affected skin are glowing blue."

"Gold, there you are!" Whale hurried up to the panicked Rumplestiltskin.

"Any insight? Is this magic?"

"I don't care, now let me pass." Mr. Gold barked, attempting to shoulder his way through. Emma firmly grabbed his arm.

"Gold, this is serious. You were there. You need to-"

"No, I don't!" Gold snapped, wrenching his arm away from the sheriff. "I owe you NOTHING. You owe me, in fact! Oh, but I will tell you this. That driver saw ME throwing some magic. So, instead of trying to get him out of here, you better be hoping he dies, because if he doesn't, then he'll be driving buses up and down Main Street. So glad I don't give a damn!"

Mr. Gold pushed Emma aside with his cane and stormed off, as quickly as his damaged leg would allow. He darted immediately for the ICU before Mary Margaret hurried after him, a knowing look in her eyes.

"What, Miss Blanchard?" He hissed.

"She's going to be okay, Rumplestiltskin...I promise."

"And how are you so sure?" Gold snarled. "What's been done cannot be undone! She's GONE, and no amount of magic can bring her back!"

oOo

Coulson lay barely conscious in his hospital bed.

'Go survey the field, Agent Coulson. I'm sure it's just a bunch of bored scientists who simulated a blast. Rough 'em up a bit and scare them away from doing something actually dangerous.' Phil thought, mentally mimicking Fury's gruff voice. He began coughing furiously, feeling his throat clench uncomfortably around a thick plastic breathing tube. His first undercover location job since the Tesseract incident, and he manages to crash the company car into...a pirate? Wouldn't be the first time. Renaissance Fest '84 got a little heated. Perhaps he was just jaded. He struggled to remember the details. A massive wave of Gamma radiation just appeared in an uncharted area of Maine, and resulting in a faint reaction similar to the Rosenbridge. He drove out from Manhattan to the town in question, some tiny forsaken corner of the country. There was an older man, and fire, and a girl. A crying girl...The man had scared her. She was shouting something before the airbag deployed.

"Who's Belle?"

"Pretty name," Coulson thought, the pain medication finally fulfilling it's duty as he drifted off to sleep.

So that's the prelude! I'm kind of obsessed with OUAT, and decided I have enough OUAT/SHIELD headcanons to fill an entire fanfiction. I'm so sorry about the lack of Prime updates. I'm in the dash towards my junior thesis, and things got insane. Chapter 7 is running through beta, and should be up soon. This fic will also provide a backdoor sequel to Prime (which should wrap around 10-12 chapters,) so stay tuned!

Love,

DC