Chapter One
"You two take that side, we'll take the other," Emma Swan ordered. "And don't try to sneak off before the hour's over."
"Of course not, dearie." Rumpelstiltskin had a hard time straddling the line between realities, but he liked to think he did it with style. "Wouldn't dream of it." He grinned conspiratorily at the beauty beside him, the one wearing the peasant blouse and loose jeans she'd chosen from the depleted inventory at the Fa-la-la Boutique after her escape from the hospital. He wasn't much of a security guard, what with his bad leg still acting up, but he insisted on accompanying her.
Secretly, she thought it was romantic, even when he let her walk ahead of him. Probably just watching me go, as he likes to say. She smiled back.
"Hey! Eyes on the perimeter." Emma called. At the pawnbroker's sarcastic smirk, she added, "I'm serious, Gold-I see you two making googly eyes again, I'm throwing you both in the brig! In separate cells!" Too bad "the brig" is only the bathrooms at Granny's-whichever one wasn't being used, anyway.
Rumpelstiltskin turned back towards Belle, only to see her vanish in a puff of purple smoke. "BELLE?" He looked for the perpetrator, waiting for her to slink out from behind a bush or a building. No such luck. "Regina! Don't think you can hide her from me, your majesty." I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve.
"Gold!" Emma sprinted to his side with Charming on her heels, surprising him. "We'll get her back."
"Oh, I know we will, Ms. Swan."