Hook hadn't been allowed near little Neal ever since what had been dubbed the "Miners' Day Incident." He couldn't even remember using the language the boy had picked up, and he had no idea how he'd gotten so drunk he'd ended up standing on a chair and using those lyrics to a tune the dwarfs were singing. Neal had repeated those words in school and had been suspended for a week, and the Charmings still hadn't forgiven Hook.
The worst of it was, that language was becoming a habit for Neal, and the only thing the pirate could think of was to erase those words from the boy's memory completely. The only way he knew how to do that was with a memory potion, and he only knew one place to get that. Hence, why he was breaking into the pawnshop in the middle of the night.
In the Gold family home, an alarm went off. Rumple had had his home and shop broken into too many times, and had long ago rigged a magic alarm to alert him to a break in wherever he was. It took only a second to magically transport himself to the shop, and catch Hook red handed with a bottle of potion in his hand. A snap of Rumple's fingers had Hook frozen.
"You know, if there's one possible way to make hate you even worse, it's stealing from me," Rumple told him. He wasn't sure why exactly Hook wanted a memory potion, but what was stolen didn't matter as much as the act of stealing. He put in a quick call to Emma. As Sheriff, she was going to finally do the right thing and lock the pirate up. He would make certain of that. He could have killed Hook then and there, but he knew who'd be blamed if the pirate ended up dead. Besides, there would be some entertainment when Emma showed up. She came in without even knocking.
"Okay Gold you said someone- Killian? What the Hell?"
"Didn't expect to see him here?" Rumple asked, unfreezing the pirate.
"Swan, listen. This is not what it looks like!" Hook protested.
"Please do tell us how you being in my shop well past closing time with something of mine in your hand isn't what it looks like," Rumple told him.
"You were stealing from Gold? What did you even need from him?" Oh, she was angry. Not at Rumple being stolen from, but at him keeping something from her. She took the bottle and looked at the label. "Memory potion?"
"Look I wasn't stealing it! I was just- er- I was just-" He couldn't come up with a convincing lie, so he tried an unconvincing one. "The Crocodile had me under a trance! He's trying to set me up!"
That was so ridiculous Rumple couldn't help laughing. He could disprove that lie in two seconds.
"Miss Swan, you're still able to tell when you're being lied to aren't you? You know he's lying now whether you want to admit it or not. Don't trust your own instincts? You can use a dream catcher yourself to test my memories and his. He's not under any magical influence. Also, lying to an officer counts as obstruction of justice. Stealing from a shop counts as a class C burglary. The lock on the door is broken, so we can add a charge of breaking and entering with intent to steal."
Hook was looking worried now. Those charges added up to a long time in jail.
"Look Swan you're not really going to arrest me, right?"
"Actually, she has to," Rumple told him. "You've already gotten away with more than one count of attempted murder. This time, you're not getting away with anything. I'm more than a little tired of our sheriff not doing her job."
Emma ignored him.
"Killian you still didn't tell me why you wanted the memory potion. Gold can prove he didn't bring you here. You may as well just say."
So Hook ended up admitting he was going to slip it to Neal.
"You were going to use magic to wipe my little brother's memory?" Emma groaned. "Would you even have had any idea how much to safely use?"
"Uh, no?" He hadn't really thought of that.
"Do you have any idea how wrong that could have gone?" she demanded. "Look I really don't have any choice but to bring you in. We'll sort this out in the morning."
Rather than comply, Hook actually tried bolting from the shop. Rumple magically blocked him before he got anywhere.
"I think now we can add in resisting arrest," Rumple said cheerfully.
"Shut up!" Emma snapped. "You don't have to be enjoying this so much! Will you stop keeping a list of his charges already?"
"No," he answered simply.
She rolled her eyes and was about to lead Hook away when Rumple stopped her.
"Wait one moment." He'd noticed a lump under Hook's jacket. Pushing it aside he saw the knife. "And there's a charge of carrying a concealed weapon."
Emma glared hard at him.
"I don't need your help to handle this," she told him.
"Actually, without my help you would have let a thief escape just a moment ago." He smirked. "You're welcome."
Emma looked like she wanted to slap him, but had no choice but to take Hook away. Charges were most definitely going to be filed. As a lawyer, Rumple was going to see to it Hook was going to jail for a long time. Not as long as he would have liked, but at the very least he'd be where he couldn't do any damage for awhile. No doubt Emma and the pirate were going to have a heated argument on the way to the police station.
Arriving back at home, Rumple went back to bed. The alarm had woken Belle for a moment, but she'd been too tired to get out of bed.
"Rumple? What was that?" she asked sleepily.
"Don't worry about it. There was some trouble at the shop, but it's taken care of now."
She gave a tired moan and drifted back to sleep, leaving Rumple to laugh in silence. Oh, he was going to enjoy court in the morning.