A/N: I've been writing pretty steadily, so I thought I'd post the next chapter a bit early. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, added to story alert, and favorited! Hope you continue to enjoy - and I'd love to hear what you all think!
Disclaimer: Various plot points, characters, and dialogue are all taken from multiple episodes, which are written and owned by others. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 2: Out Of Concern
Emma was still wondering exactly how Gold had managed to talk her into this. There was no way in the world she needed to be risking her precarious good will with Regina and her stolen moments with Henry on this escapade Mr. Gold had been so all insistent on dragging her along on. It hadn't been that long ago he'd gone after a thief all on his own and Emma had found him beating the guy senseless with his cane, so surely common sense alone should have made her hesitate before following him. Or at the least she should have made it a requirement that he consider this her favor discharged; she hated having that hanging over her head.
Her misgivings lasted all the way up until Mr. Gold somehow managed to crack the code on a door labeled Exit. A pretty high-security appliance for a door in a hospital. Odd enough that he did it without pausing, as if the numbers changed to whatever he demanded they be as soon as he put hand to keypad—and she might not entirely put it past him; he was scary enough to intimidate even a door—odder still that the dark stairwell was obviously not leading to an exit since it was going belowground. Oddest of all that there was a nurse guarding the shadowed corridors beyond, a single red rose sitting incongruously on the desk in front of her.
Mr. Gold didn't even stop to look at the nurse—Emma was almost sure he didn't even see her—just kept on walking. Of course the nurse didn't like that one bit, and her halting cries echoed strangely in the basement that was way more sinister than it had been on the blueprints Gold had shown her when presenting his case as to why she needed a warrant to search the hospital.
Emma grabbed hold of the nurse and tried to explain things to her, but the nurse wasn't listening, and when she took a swing at Emma, the sheriff had excuse to cuff her hands behind her back. Being official had its perks.
She let out a curse when, looking up, she realized that Gold hadn't—naturally—waited for her. The tap of his cane on the concrete floors, the determined tread of his uneven steps, the rigidity of his expression, it all seemed very foreboding. Ominous even, and Emma didn't think that was just because she'd been listening to a lot of Henry's babbled, and unnecessary, warnings not to trust Mr. Gold.
Odd, though, that out of everyone in town, Henry can't find a place for Gold—well-known and cranky and surely memorable in any incarnation—in his book of fairytales.
Exasperatedly, Emma shook off the extraneous thought, damping the now-constant presence of Henry in her thoughts, and shook a finger at the nurse. "If you move from this chair, I won't only have you up on charges of assaulting an officer of the law, I'll charge you with obstructing justice, got it? Since you didn't want to see it the first time, I'll let you examine the search warrant—and what all it entails—when I get back."
She would have liked to have pressed her for more information—if Regina was behind this as Gold claimed, she knew the nurse wouldn't be in her custody for long—but Gold was gone already, and whatever reason he had for coming down here so single-mindedly, and with such an uncharacteristic lack of fore-planning, Emma wasn't sure she wanted him to accomplish it. In her mind, he was better than Regina only because he pretended to be on her side, and maybe more dangerous because he actually knew the meaning of the word subtlety.
"Gold!" she yelled after him, but her voice rang back at her, making her jump, so she gave up and followed the distant sound of his cane clicking against the floor. She kept a hand on her gun, remembering the unnatural strength that had burned beneath her hand when she'd grabbed hold of him to stop him from beating French into a pulp. For all his frail appearance, Gold had a nasty reservoir of strength hidden beneath those designer suits.
She came around the curve of the corridor in time to see Gold casually use his cane to trip a strange-looking man holding a mop and standing in front of a series of locked doors. Locked doors? In a hospital basement? Behind a locked door claiming to be an exit? Yeah, not exactly normal here. Not that anything was in this crazy town.
With a sigh, Emma kept a hand on her gun and called out, "Don't move," to the orderly—or janitor, or whatever he was—now on the floor. Not that he looked to be that motivated at anything he did, but Gold certainly wasn't paying any attention to him. In fact, the pawnbroker was already stopping before a door that was completely unmarked, not even casting a glance to the other doors, as if he already knew what was behind each one. The other doors, Emma noticed, did have names beside them, all but the one door Gold was intent on—the door he had actually stopped for when nothing else had been able to make him stop moving since Emma had found herself agreeing to get the search warrant.
Though come to think of it, when exactly did I decide to let him come with me on this search?
"Who has the keys to these doors?" Emma demanded of the silent janitor. She wouldn't put it past Gold to just walk right over the door and expect it to fall down in front of—
Emma gaped. The door was opening.
Gold had put his hand to it, Emma had looked down at the janitor, and now the lock was undone and the door was yawning open. Inside, dim darkness lit only by fogged and grated windows was split by the shaft of light breaking around Gold's suddenly still form and casting his shadow across the room.
The janitor beneath her tensed, and Emma put a restraining hand on his shoulder, but her throat had suddenly seized up on her and she couldn't say a word, could only stare at what happened next.
A girl lay on a crude pallet attached to the cell—no other word for what that room is—a girl who slowly looked up, looked toward the door, pushed herself up with one thin arm. Dark hair spilled over her shoulders like liquid and eyes so clear and blue they seemed to catch and refract the light were locked on what had to only be a sharp silhouette to her—Mr. Gold.
"Belle." It was a harsh, choking sound from Gold that Emma only gradually translated into the single-syllable name. She would have given a lot to be able to see his expression, but his back was to her, his hands wrapped around the handle of the cane he leaned so heavily on. The emotion in his voice—emotion! Gold!—was plenty, though. Plenty confusing. She had never heard so much pure emotion coming from Gold, wafting off him like the stench of that wool he'd treated during his plot to make her sheriff.
Emma almost moved when Gold did, but the janitor made as if to move too, so she had to stay where she was, holding onto him and watching, frozen in shock.
Gold took a slow step forward, and another, even the tap of his cane sounding different, less confident, more tentative. The girl's expression was perfectly illuminated by the flickering lights in the hallway, a heart-wrenching blend of hope and wonder and joy, all almost overshadowed by disbelief and just a hint of uncertainty.
"Belle," Gold said again, a whisper that Emma heard only because of the unnatural acoustics of this hidden dungeon—a dungeon! Oh yeah, Henry's definitely going to have a field day with this one.
Gold came to a halt just beside the girl and looked down at her, dark eyes cast in shadow, his hair hiding whatever Emma might have been able to glean from his profile.
The girl still hadn't looked away from him, hadn't even blinked, as if afraid that if she did, he would disappear and the door would be locked again. Emma felt a slow rage beginning to boil up within her at the stark injustice of this all, but before she could spew forth the furious questions building inside her, she was once again struck speechless, this time by the way the girl lifted a hand to trace pale fingers along the curve of Gold's jaw. And Mr. Gold, the man who would probably step aside if anyone tried to help him right himself from an uncharacteristic stumble, the man who didn't even like to shake hands, the man who avoided all human contact—Gold just stood there and watched the girl unblinkingly, and if Emma hadn't known better, she would have thought he trembled beneath her feather-light touch.
The girl whispered something then, something Emma didn't quite hear, though it sounded like a short phrase that ended with 'skin' or perhaps 'thin.' And then the girl smiled—more the hint of a smile than a real thing, but still breathtaking judging from the quick catch of air in Gold's throat—and she danced her fingers over his cheeks. "You look different," she said, loud enough for Emma to hear, though it was only a low, hoarse murmur, the words accented. "What happened to your leg?"
And suddenly Emma knew—knew even without her previous suspicions—that Gold knew this girl, that this girl knew Gold, that there was a 'she' Gold had been beating French up over.
"Belle," Gold said again, as if he were incapable of thought outside that name, and Emma remembered, not the strength of his muscles, but the very real pain she'd seen in him when he castigated Moe French for whatever crime he thought the florist had committed. Looking around now at the dark basement, locked doors, and the girl's ragged condition, Emma thought she might actually agree with Gold that a crime had been done here.
And then Emma was surprised once again—and since when am I not surprised by the things happening in this town?—when Gold's knees buckled and he sank to the very edge of the cot and breathed out, "You're alive."
Again, the girl said that phrase or word Emma couldn't quite catch and then there were tears in her large eyes that seemed to swallow up her face. "You came for me," she said, her voice suddenly clear and perfectly understandable, and she blinked, sending those tears free to trickle down her cheeks, and she slipped her arms around Gold's neck and clung to him as if she didn't want to ever let go.
Emma thought that would surely be the most surprising thing to happen all day—and there had been quite a few surprises for a Friday already, even in Storybrooke—but was proven wrong an instant later when Gold let his cane clatter to the floor and wrapped his arms around the girl, burying his face in her hair. He was a small man, short and seemingly frail if not for his aura of power, but the girl was smaller, and he enfolded her easily, curling in around her as she shrank into him, her shoulders shaking.
"Let's get out of here," Emma said, finally succeeding in getting words to emerge past her tight throat. She couldn't help but throw a glance over her shoulder. Dead end in front of me, narrow hallways behind, and I can't believe Regina isn't here already to tell me why a secret underground dungeon isn't any of my business. Come to think of it, she thought acerbically, she'll probably be this girl's emergency contact too.
The other locked doors glared accusingly at Emma, but the janitor obviously didn't have keys on him, and Gold didn't seem to be in any hurry to open them as he had the girl's door. In fact, he didn't seem to have heard Emma at all, still wrapped around the girl. A stirring of uneasiness slithered through the pit of Emma's stomach, and she sure hoped that hug was fatherly.
"Come on, Gold!" she snapped. "Let's get her out of here."
The girl withdrew from Gold's embrace, then, just enough to look up into his face. Gold loosened his grip, but he didn't break the girl's suddenly frightened stare. "You'll stay with me," she half-stated, half-asked.
"Yes," Gold said, the word almost a sob—causing Emma's eyes to pop nearly out of her face. He raised one hand to smooth down the girl's hair, the single most tender gesture probably anyone had ever seen the ruthless pawnbroker make. "Yes. I'll protect you."
With a shake of her head, Emma tore her eyes from the startling scene and looked down to the man lying stomach-down on the ground. I should have recruited some backup, she thought wryly. How was she supposed to handle getting the girl upstairs to safety—hopefully without letting Regina see her, just in case—restraining the janitor, and collecting the nurse? It all would have been a lot simpler if Gold hadn't rushed her and she'd thought to bring some backup with her. But bitter as the thought was, she knew Gold had been right that telling anyone would just bring word of this that much more quickly to the mayor.
"Come on, Gold," she said again.
Gold let one arm drop away from the girl, and he started to help her stand with the other, but the girl—Belle—stopped him. "I'm sorry," she murmured brokenly, her eyes flicking from Gold's shirt to his face and back again. "They already gave me the pills today. It makes it hard to stand or move. Hard to think."
It was probably a very good thing that Gold had dropped his cane and Moe French—or anyone else connected to this travesty—wasn't around, judging by the sudden dangerous tension in the rigid set of Gold's shoulders and back. Emma didn't have to see his expression this time to know just how cold and implacable it was. An instant later, though, he was tucking one of Belle's curls behind her ear and soothing her. "It's all right. I won't let them hurt you."
"I know." And Belle smiled at him! At Mr. Gold! Smiled fondly! Emma Swan had never fainted before in her life, but she figured this day might just go down on the calendar as the day. "You always keep your promises, and it's forever."
"Forever," Gold said, and Emma didn't blame him in the least for the tightness in his voice. The man was probably even more surprised than the sheriff.
"Into the cell," Emma commanded the janitor, tugging on his shirt and shoving him ahead of her. He shambled forward, face expressionless, seemingly ignorant of just how much trouble he and everyone else associated with this dungeon was in. "We're going to get the girl to safety, then I'll come back and take care of you. Got it?"
Probably not the right protocol—okay, definitely not the right protocol—but she didn't have many choices here. Emma was much more concerned with Belle and whoever else was locked up than all the protocols and rules she hadn't yet gotten around to studying up on.
Emma stepped forward, prepared to help Gold sling the girl between them, but she came up short when Gold braced himself, slipped an arm under the girl's legs and the other behind her shoulders, and then stood. "Mr. Gold," she began, but his eyes skipped over her without seeing her, and the girl was tucked apparently safely in his arms, her forehead leaning against his shoulder, and with only a tight mouth and grim eyes to give away the Herculean effort it required, Gold carried the girl out of the cell.
Closing her mouth and shooting another warning glance at the janitor, Emma bent and scooped up the pawnbroker's forgotten cane, then closed the door on the janitor and followed Gold through the dark, close hallways.
It took her a moment to process the echoes caused by their contrasting footsteps and realize that Gold was murmuring to Belle, a constant stream of words that rose and fell in pitch in a way she'd never have thought the man had in him. It was hard to pinpoint individual words, strain though she might, but she caught enough to realize he was relaying how far they had to go to get her out of here, how she'd be able to see the sky, that spring was coming and he knew how much she loved spring.
What? Emma frowned, her hand tightening over the smooth enameled finish of Gold's cane. Only an idiot would miss the fact that the old pawnbroker and the young victim had known each other before—considering that Belle had been surprised by Gold's limp, it had probably been a while ago, which made Gold's tenderness for a young woman all that much more worrisome—but Emma was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the sight and thought of Gold as compassionate and tender and open enough to even care whether anyone he knew liked spring better than any other season.
Despite herself, she couldn't help but wonder who Henry would think Belle was. Probably Beauty, Emma found herself thinking, not nearly as sarcastically as she'd have thought. After all, even without her name, it sure looks as if she's got the Beast wrapped around her little finger. Only, Emma knew Mr. Gold, or at least was learning about him, and he wasn't wrapped around anyone's finger, didn't answer to anyone; he was always in control, and he valued people only so long as they held something of value to him. So…what did Belle have or know that made Gold so careful of her?
The nurse was sitting where Emma had left her, her jaw clenched, hands still cuffed behind her back. With a sharp nod, Emma made her stand, then pushed her ahead of her, keeping a hand closed around one of her arms. She probably should have read her some rights, but then, as tight a hold as Regina had on this town, Emma doubted she'd be able to hold her past an interrogation room.
Gold's step checked, briefly, when he caught sight of the stairs ahead of him. After that slight hesitation, though, he just tightened his grip over Belle and lifted his foot to the first step.
"Let me help," Emma demanded, images of the pawnbroker and girl tumbling down the stairs flashing through her mind. She was perturbed by the ensuing sight of Belle's hand tightening over a fold of Gold's suit jacket and Gold's own hand splaying farther over Belle's back.
"Too narrow for all of us," he said shortly. And he brought his right foot to join his left on the step, then stepped up, again with his left.
It was a slow, painful journey up the steps, and Gold felt each step carefully before trusting Belle's weight to it. Emma hovered behind, her hands up as if she could right him should he tip backward, though more likely his leg would give out under him and send them sprawling downward, right on top of her and the grimly silent nurse. The stairwell seemed much longer now than it had when descending it, and Emma found herself feeling almost claustrophobic, even more so than when she'd descended into that mineshaft to rescue Henry and Archie.
Belle's grip on Gold never loosened, and she kept her head leaned against his shoulder, though by the lights gleaming off her pale, heavy-lidded eyes, Emma could tell that she had tilted her chin up so she could stare at Gold's face. Her expression was too nebulous for Emma to interpret it, but her death-grip on his jacket seemed explanatory enough. For whatever reason, it sure looked as if Belle thought Gold, and Gold alone, could protect her.
Of course, Emma knew, that could just be because Gold's the one she saw open her cell door. She well knew how easy it was for ill-used victims to mistake gratitude for something deeper, and Gold certainly wouldn't be the type to not use that against a young beautiful girl. Even more than the rage still simmering inside, the sheriff felt the mere sight of Belle tap that well of protectiveness inside her; no one else should have to go through the sort of things Emma herself had gone through, certainly not alone.
Belle murmured something, and something very like a chuckle escaped Gold, either that or it was a breath let out through clenched teeth. As well it might be. Even in the shadowed dimness, it was obvious the pawnbroker was tiring rapidly.
Finally they reached the door, and Emma let out a huge sigh of relief when it opened at a nudge from Gold's strategically placed shoulder. Light spilled down the stairwell and noise issued back into existence with such suddenness that Emma almost flinched. Gold staggered up and out into the hospital's brightly gleaming sterility and then stood there panting, his body half-turned to situate his own self between Belle and the others in the hospital.
"Hey, someone help us over here!" Emma called out, discarding secrecy. Those who had seen the strange quartet emerge into the well-used hallways broke free of their gaping surprise and others who hadn't yet noticed them turned at her yell. Emma tightened her hand over the nurse's arm to fix her at her side, but kept a sharp eye on Gold, not sure what he planned on doing with the girl.
"It might be best to take her somewhere Regina can't find her," Gold said quietly as a doctor shouted for a gurney to be brought.
Emma glared at him. "We will. But not until after she's been looked at by a doctor. We need to at least find out what they doped her up with."
Gold hesitated, then inclined his head. "Very well."
Belle had buried her face in Gold's jacket as soon as the lights and noise had broken over them, but now she looked up slightly, eyes wide and washed out under the harsh fluorescent bulbs, skin too pale and stretched too tightly over sharp bones, hair ragged and tangled…yet she was still beautiful. And so obviously, horribly fragile as she stared pleadingly at Gold.
"She…she won't take me back again?"
"No," Gold promised without a single mention of payment for his protection. "Never again."
Emma filed away the 'she' Belle had mentioned for later thought, and called over the hospital security guard. She handed the nurse over to him with stern instructions to take her straight to the police station, where she was to be held for questioning, and all the while, she watched Gold like a hawk, ready to leap between him and the girl the instant he made any threatening moves or statements. She didn't trust his newfound altruism and didn't expect it to last any longer than it took him to get to the point about whatever he thought he needed from Belle.
But Gold settled Belle on the gurney they brought him, kept hold of her hand and walked with her to an exam room, disentangled their fingers when Emma insisted the pawnbroker leave for Belle's examination, glared threateningly at the doctor, disentangled his hand from Belle's yet again, and stepped outside. There he stood very still, mutely accepting the cane Emma handed him, his dark, intent gaze fixed on the door to Belle's room, deaf to all of Emma's questions and warnings. And when the doctor came out of the room, Gold stepped inside, murmured reassuringly to Belle—who was wide-eyed and panicking until her eyes fell on him—then stood in the doorway where she could see him and he could see her, and listened to the doctor talk about the possibility of a build-up of addictive drugs in her system and the potential effects of withdrawal Belle might suffer without the daily dosage.
"Are you listening?" Emma demanded of Gold, impatient and frustrated that he'd given not a single sign he was listening to the doctor's spiel. Not that I want him to, she reminded herself. He led me to her, but she's my responsibility now, not his.
"Of course," Gold said shortly, his voice more strained than Emma had ever heard it, tighter even than when he'd spoken of calling in favors while sitting in her jail-cell. "She's been terribly hurt, awfully mistreated, and has a dreadfully long recovery time ahead of her. Now if that is all…?" And he walked away from Emma and the doctor and rejoined Belle, who had not yet taken her eyes off him, only watched him, standing there in the doorway. As soon as he stood at her bedside, she reached out a hand for his, and he wasted no time in letting go of his cane with his left hand to grasp hold of hers.
"What happened to your leg?" Emma heard Belle ask him again, but he only shook his head and smoothed his thumb over her hand and looked at her with an expression that wasn't fatherly at all.
Emma didn't like where this was going. Ashley and Alexandria were proof enough of Gold's ruthlessness, her own election as sheriff enough incentive to know just how adept he was at manipulation, and the cold gleam in his eyes—as if he could not be touched by anyone's pain or love, could not be touched at all or touch anyone else in turn—too unsettling to trust him with a young, troubled, abused, and beautiful girl. Emma didn't trust Gold as far as she could throw Leroy, and she sure wasn't about to let him anywhere near Belle without her supervision.
Unfortunately, Belle didn't seem inclined to let her rescuer out of her sight or let anyone else touch her. She had only allowed the examination because Gold asked it of her, and now that he was back, she was done with the doctors. Emma couldn't say she blamed her, but she was taken aback by how attached the girl was to Gold already. Just how exactly did they know each other before? And how close were they? If Belle doesn't remember him without a limp, she had to have been impossibly young when Gold saw her last!
"No," Belle said, clearly and resonantly, when the doctor moved forward to give her a light sedation. With her near-panic attacks and the drugs flooding her system, he'd recommended letting her sleep off the majority of the drug's immediate disorienting effects. Belle tugged her arm free of the doctor's grip and turned once more toward Gold. "Please."
With a quick flicked glance to Emma, Gold took the girl's hand and leaned forward. "Shh, Belle. Everything's different here. What they give you will help. You'll sleep and then wake up better, like magic."
"And…" Belle searched his face for something; Emma couldn't tell whether she found it or not. "And you'll be here when I wake up?"
Emma opened her mouth, but Gold's answer was immediate. "Yes. I'll be here."
And so Belle let the doctor inject the sedatives, and she watched Gold, her hand held in his, until her eyes fluttered closed. Leaning heavily on his cane, Gold bent forward. He whispered something to Belle, and Emma inwardly cursed the hum of activity outside the room that covered his words.
"She should sleep pretty restfully," the doctor said, and nodded at Emma's thanks.
"Gold," Emma said, her voice cutting into the quiet descending around them as the doctor left. "What is going on here? How did you find out about that place? What was that place? Who is that girl? And why does she look at you like—"
"All your questions will be answered," Gold said, almost dismissively. He sank down into a chair, carefully, a wince of pain spasming across his face as he settled his cane between his feet and leaned on it. Emma felt bad for him until she reminded herself that he could manipulate with the best of them. "But not now. Now I need to make arrangements to take her away from here. She can stay with me; I can protect her from Regina."
"Stay with you?" Emma gaped at him. She hated feeling like she was two steps behind, but Gold and Regina were both too good at their twisted games and maneuverings and it was growing to be a familiar feeling. "Are you crazy? She's not going with you—she's not going anywhere until I find out who she is and what happened to leave her trapped—"
"Her name is Belle French," Gold interrupted, a flash of impatience burning like real gold through his shadowed eyes. "She worked for me, cleaned and organized my shop, brought dinner when we worked late, that sort of thing. Regina wanted to use her against me and her father signed her over, claimed she was insane. Of course, they told me she was dead. Killed herself because she was unhappy with her job. With her life."
As if the day hadn't been strange enough already, Emma couldn't detect a lie in Gold's clipped words. It was always hard to detect falsehood with him as she could with others—he was too crazily good at slipping in the tiniest of falsehoods to poison all the truths he presented just so—but this time, there wasn't even a twinge of uncertainty. He was telling the truth; he meant what he said.
"Sheriff Swan, I respect the fact that you want to protect her." Gold finally looked up, finally met her gaze, and Emma had to forcibly prevent herself from taking a step away from the intensity locked there. "But she's not safe in this hospital. How many people here have already called the mayor, already told her what's happening? How many of them could slip her something dangerous without us being able to tell? She'll only be safe when she's outside of Regina's reach, and if you believe nothing else I say, believe me when I tell you that there is nowhere more outside of the mayor's reach than my home. I'll hire a live-in nurse to help through the aftereffects of what they did to her, and you can stay with me as well, to begin with, to settle your fears about how I might…mistreat…her."
"You—" Whatever Emma was going to say—and even she had no idea what that was—was lost when Belle began to murmur uneasily in her sleep, her head turning one way and then another.
"Belle," Gold whispered, softly, quietly, a breath of air shaped around her name that wasn't meant for any ears but the girl whose hand he reached out to cradle between his. As if by magic, Belle calmed, quieted, stilled, her hand limp and hidden beneath Gold's grasp. Just like he's going to try to do to her. Emma knew Gold and others like him; they didn't know how to love, only knew how to suffocate, to control, to possess, but Emma wouldn't let Gold do that to this girl who'd already been through hell.
And yet…and yet there was something infinitely fragile, something delicate and frail, in Gold's expression, in the way he leaned toward Belle, in the slow sweeping of his thumb over her knuckles, in the quiet murmur of his reassurances, in the way he'd almost killed himself to carry her out of that dungeon. Maybe, Emma found herself thinking, maybe…maybe he really does care for her.
"Fine," she heard herself saying. "When the sedative wears off, we'll ask her what she wants to do. If she wants to go with you"—and much as it pained her to admit, Emma wouldn't bet anything on her not wanting to go with her rescuer—"she can stay with you. But I'm staying too and if at any time, I find evidence you're hurting her, she's gone and I'll pull up a restraining order on you so fast you'll think she pulled a disappearing trick."
"An odd request to make of the one person who led you to her so that she could be rescued," Gold said, his voice a sibilant hiss, and all fragility was banished before the menace lurking in the edges of his accented voice. "But I agree to your terms, Sheriff Swan, save one more condition—I will stay away from Belle only if she herself asks me to."
Eyebrows raised, Emma opened her mouth to deny the condition, but Gold was already standing, leaning more heavily on his cane than she'd ever seen him do before, one hand yet holding onto Belle's. "Well," he said briskly. "I should go set up the paperwork and make the proper…polite arrangements. I'll ready a few guestrooms. I know you're eager to finish up your grand rescue of the other prisoners belowground and your interrogation of your own prisoners, but don't leave Belle until I return. She shouldn't be alone."
And he was gone, limping away more quickly than it seemed he should be able to, his free hand clenched into a fist.
"Hey, I didn't agree to anything!" Emma yelled after him, but he gave no sign of hearing her and Emma herself couldn't even believe her own protest. She had agreed to something, the same way she always seemed to when around him, pushed and manipulated and prodded and tricked into doing exactly what he wanted.
Well, I may have let him go for now, but if he thinks I'm going to stand aside and let him turn this girl into a puppet, he's got a very painful correction coming to him.
Belle shifted again, once more stirring uneasily in her sleep. Narrowing her eyes, Emma took a careful step nearer her. With a glance over her shoulder, feeling almost guilty for some unaccountable reason, she reached out and cradled Belle's hand in the same way Gold had done. Only, when he'd done it, the girl had instantly quieted; now, however, she yanked her hand away, let out a tiny whimper. Emma took hold of her hand again, but it didn't calm Belle.
In fact, Belle didn't calm until Mr. Gold came striding back through the hallways, something sharp and hard and almost triumphant glittering in cold eyes and stiffening angular joints, to take his place once more at the girl's side. The instant he took her hand and whispered her name, she calmed and returned to the restful sleep the doctor had promised.
Another mystery on top of a hundred others presented to her just this day alone.
Emma couldn't wait to hear Henry's interpretation of the events of the day, couldn't wait to see his so-intelligent eyes shining with vibrancy and imagination, his mouth curled up in that irrepressible smile, his hands moving in gestures to complement his words.
Of course, thinking of Henry made her think of the other mystery presented today—a mystery besides Gold and the rescued girl.
Where was Regina?
And why hasn't she shown up to protect what she sees as hers?
Emma wished she knew the answer. She had the feeling that not knowing was making her vulnerable. And she needed every advantage over the mayor that she could find.
Henry depended on it.