Author's Note: Just to make it clear, I'm not sure how many more chapters there will be of this. I still haven't decided how to end it, but my initial plan was (and is) to put up a chapter a day until it's finished. Of course, the fact that I stop doing my schoolwork to write this doesn't make my mother happy, but what can I do? It's Gold's fault! Or, no, wait...it's Regina's fault. Yeah, I'll tell my mother that when she gets angry with me for working on this instead of schoolwork.
Thanks to nochance and Marcie Gore, as well as all the other wonderful dearies (XD) who have reviewed this story thus far. And now, for the fourth chapter...

-X-X-X-

There's nothing you can do to take the pain away
You may find broken dreams are the price of the games we play
Closing the door, you hope the world will disappear
Then you open your eyes and you find everyone's still here.

Tasmin Archer - "Hero"

-X-X-X-

Mr. Gold spent the rest of the day running circles in his own head. Everything that had happened in the past week-as well as the rest of his life-kept repeating themselves, and whispers of everything Baelfire and Belle had said that week haunted him.

He nearly lost his courage several times, but when night fell, it returned.

Gold knew that he couldn't spend the rest of his life being a coward. No matter how many times he hid or ran away, there would always be another soldier or another witch. There was no escape.

And so he had to take matters into his own hands. His life was in the hands of fate no longer.

He would determine his own destiny, and if it ended with his death, than so be it.

Mr. Gold picked up his dagger, casting one last glance at the name on the blade before carefully putting it back into its leather sheath.

He felt slightly awkward carrying around a knife, even though he was wearing an expensive suit. He supposed he could put on his old leather garb; he had brought it with him to this world as well.

But he decided against it. Leather was not the best thing to wear on a hot summer night. Keeping his hand near the pommel of his dagger, he opened the door of his shop and walked outside into the night.

It was warm, and slightly humid, as he had suspected. He made his way down the street, keeping to the shadows. There were too many people in town who enjoyed meddling in other's affairs.

Mr. Gold stopped outside the mayor's office, and took a look around. After a few minutes, he deduced that Regina had already gone home. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or frustrated. There might be more attention called to us if I was to confront her in town, but if I confront her at home, Henry will be there...

No. He would think of that later.

Even though Gold no longer needed a cane, it still took him a good hour to reach Regina's mansion.

When he got there, he was unsurprised to find that Regina had put up a magical barrier around her house.

"Did you think that would keep me out, dearie?" Gold whispered. He cast some magic of his own, and, with some difficulty, managed to get the barrier down long enough to get inside the yard. The invisible barrier sprang up again moments afterwards.

He moved with a silent tread, making his way towards the front door.

A sudden flare of light blinded him momentarily, but he still had instinct enough to throw himself to the side. He hit the ground hard and rolled several times before stopping.

Resisting the urge to wince, he sat up. The fireball Regina had hurled at him had destroyed the picket fence around the yard.

Gold staggered to his feet, fixing his eyes on the shadowy figure of Regina, who stood on her front doorstep.

"Nice try, dearie," he said. "But you missed."

"On purpose," she said. "I wanted to hear what you had to say." She sneered.

"Oh, of course you did," Mr. Gold said. "The thing is, I don't have anything I want to say."

"Then I suppose you came here to kill me." Her voice had a derisive, mocking tone to it.

"Indeed I did," Gold replied. "You didn't think you'd get away with murder without facing the consequences, did you?" He could not keep his words from shaking with rage, though he just managed to keep his face unreadable.

Regina laughed. "You've thought your son was dead for ages. Now that he is, it's not much different."

"But he was alive!" Gold snarled. "I saw him, I was talking with him, and then you had to come along and rip his life away from him! Do you expect me to let you get away with that?"

"My, such temper." Regina's face was hidden by shadows, but Gold could hear the smirk in her voice.

Mr. Gold reached for his dagger, and snapped his arm back up, moments away from throwing.

Before he could, a loud crack sounded, and fiery pain exploded in his shoulder. The shock of it made him fall to his knees, and drop the dagger.

"Bringing a knife to a gunfight, Rumpel? I thought you would know better than that."

Before Gold could answer, there was the sound of running footsteps, and Henry appeared in the doorway behind Regina.

"Mom, what's going on? Why did you shoot Mr. Gold?" He sounded confused and a little scared.

"He was asking for it." Regina's voice was cold. "Henry, go back inside."

"But, Mom-"

Hearing the conversation, Gold realized the possibility of another type of revenge-one that would be so much more worth it than just killing Regina. Struck by the irony of it all, he began to laugh. It was mostly his normal laugh, but held undertones of the high-pitched, rather manic laugh he had used when he was Rumpelstiltskin.

Regina stared at him. It had to have been a strange sight; an expensively dressed man, clasping a hand to a bleeding gunshot wound in his shoulder, laughing like a madman.

"What's so funny, you imbecile?" she snapped, aiming her gun at him again. Henry darted back inside the house and turned on the porch lights, so that he could see just what was 'wrong' with Mr. Gold.

It took several minutes before Mr. Gold could regain his composure. He gazed up at Regina was a supercilious smile. "Oh, Regina?" he called, a slightly singsongy tone to his voice. "Where's your son?"

Just as she turned around, he snapped his fingers, and Henry vanished in a puff of amethyst-colored smoke.

Regina spun back around to face Mr. Gold, screaming curses. "What did you do with him? Bring...him...back!"

Mr. Gold laughed again. "A life for a life, Your Majesty," he taunted.

She let out a frustrated shriek, and fired the gun several more times. But Gold had already snapped his fingers and disappeared as well.