Prison

"ARAYA!"

Rae jerked awake at the sound of her name being shouted through the air. She had fallen asleep on the sand of the beach, and the sun was showing that it was already afternoon. Sitting up, Rae hesitated upon realizing who the voice belonged to: Prince Charming.

Just as she rose to her feet, the man himself appeared on the pier with a look of relief in his eyes. "Thank God. We've been looking everywhere for you."

He approached her, but Rae backed away with her hands raised in front of her: shaking, but threatening none the less. "Stay away from me!"

"Hey easy, I'm not here to hurt you!" Charming countered, raising his hands in surrender. "Your father's been worried sick, and he asked me to help find you."

"That's what you told me last time," Rae argued. "Why should I trust you this time?"

"Because I understand now," Charming explained gently.

Flashback

Rae was worried…very worried. While her father being gone for days at a time was not a new occurrence, his being wrong about the length of time he would be away certainly was. A few hours – that's what he had told her. Just a few hours, and then he would be home again. He was just going to adjust a deal he had made, and that was all.

That had been two days ago. She had heard nothing from him since he had left, and now she was beginning to panic.

She had no one in the world to go to at the moment. Aunt Regina had not spoken to her father since the argument on the balcony, Belle was gone, and Killian had left on his quest. There was no help to be had, no one to ask for advice, and no way to know what to do.

Her father's plans were usually well thought out and planned months if not years in advance, that much she had learned, but she could not help feeling that something was off this time. Rae held fast to the idea that her father would have told her if he had been planning on being away, and her recently found bold side was beginning to insist she investigate the matter herself.

However, there were several problems with that plan. One, she had little to no information about where her father had gone to make the deal, and therefore, no way of finding him. The other problem was that she had never been out of the castle before other than to visit her aunt or to see Killian at the docks. She had no idea where all her father could go with magic to make his deals, and she had no way of knowing what she might face upon leaving the safety of her home.

Still, the pull to find out what was wrong became too strong, and Araya spent the entire night of the second day of her father's absence doing the one thing she had promised him she would never do: invade his workroom.

Her father had always warned her that the most dangerous things were in his workroom and in his vault, and to never go in either unless he was with her, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Rae couldn't help but wonder if maybe there was some clue or other to where he had gone so she would be able to find him.

Carefully, she pushed the creaking door open and peered into the dark room. As soon as she set one foot over the threshold, candles lit themselves all over the room and illuminated a messy worktable, shelves upon shelves of magical artifacts, potions of every color, and yet another smaller spinning wheel in the corner. Rae stared around in awe of the amount of magic in the room, and yet her shoulders slumped in defeat at the same time – there were so many objects in the room that it would be impossible to find any useful clues.

"Daddy!" Rae called in despair. "Where are you?"

She gasped as a light flashed in the center of the worktable, and a gold locket appeared once the light had faded. Cautiously, she approached the table and gasped when she saw a note attached to the locket with her name on it in her father's handwriting!

Her hand shot out and seized the note and quickly unfolded it.

My Dearest,

If you are finding this, it means that I have had to leave you earlier than I wanted. You know I always have plans, and I'm sure you're concerned that I've been gone longer than I said, but I want to assure you that everything is alright. Everything that is happening is according to plan, and I need you to trust me, now more than ever.

This locket is going to be very important soon. I want you to keep it with you AT ALL TIMES! Do not leave it anywhere, and do not let anyone else even touch it. No matter what happens next, Rae, I want you to understand how much I love you. You have been such a blessing in my life, and even though I never deserved it, you have loved me without question – thank you for that.

Be safe, my child.

Papa

Rae folded the note and pressed it to her heart while she struggled to process what she had read. He was gone, and she had no idea where, but it was evident that he had known he was leaving…he just hadn't counted on it being so soon.

Clenching the note tightly in her fist, Rae made up her mind. She was going to go after him and try to help in whatever it was he had planned. The alternative was going to her aunt and be number two on the Enchanted Forest's hate list. Glancing around the room, Rae tried to decide what she should take with her as weapons. Several of the potions she recognized, but others were foreign to her. In the end, she pocketed a few of the ones she knew and one she didn't before carefully picking up the locket.

It was clear to her right away that it was full of magic. She could feel it running through her, and she could only wonder why her father had put so much importance on a magical locket when she had an endless supply. Still, she had learned never to question her father, so she clasped the locket around her neck and, taking a deep breath, left the safety of the castle.

Prince Charming sighed as he and his men stopped for the night yet again. They had been searching for days for the mysterious daughter of the Dark One, ever since he had been caught and imprisoned. Several of the people had insisted upon her existence, saying they had seen her with Regina. Unable to simply do nothing, Charming had agreed to search for her; perhaps they could use her as leverage to stop the curse that was coming.

Knowing that sleep would not be coming anytime soon, Charming offered to take the first watch while his men got their much needed rest. For hours he sat staring into the fire, but suddenly, he heard a rustling near the camp and shot to his feet.

Carefully, he crept closer to the sound and drew his sword. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Come out here, now!"

He shoved the bushes aside to reveal a very frightened young woman looking up at him with wide eyes. Charming immediately lowered his sword but did not sheath it. "Who are you?" he asked with a bit more gentleness in his tone.

"I'm looking for my father," the girl replied.

"That doesn't tell me who you are," Charming pressed. "Maybe I can help you, but I need to know who you are first."

"I'm not supposed to say," she whispered.

"Alright, why don't you come and get warm by the fire, and we can talk about trying to find your father?"

The girl followed him to the fire where they were met by one of the knights. He quickly pulled Charming aside as the girl sat down. "That's her, sire!" he whispered hastily. "I was there that day, and I can swear to it!"

"This is the daughter of the Dark One?" Charming asked with a shocked glance over his shoulder. "She doesn't seem all that dangerous."

"Perhaps it's a trick. It wouldn't be the first time the Dark One disguised a weapon."

With a final glance over his shoulder, Charming sighed. "Alright, we'll take her to the castle, but we won't let her know what's going on. She said she was looking for her father, so we'll play along with that story to get her to cooperate for now."

The knight nodded and hurried to inform his fellows of the plan.

Rae followed behind the prince with more than a hint of trepidation. She knew who he was, and she didn't trust him at all, but at the moment, she had no other choice if she wanted to find her father.

"Where are you taking me?" Rae asked as they began to descend a set of stairs rather than make their way towards the palace.

"We have a man imprisoned here that might be able to help you," Charming explained. "His magic is legend. If anyone can help you find your father, it will be him."

They rounded many corners as they traveled deeper and deeper underground until Rae finally caught sight of what could only be a magical prison cell. She could feel the magic practically radiating off of it, but behind its magic she could feel a very familiar magic.

"DADDY!" she shrieked and tore away from the guards towards the cell, waving a hand over her shoulder to keep the guards from following her.

There was sudden motion inside the cell as Rumpelstiltskin quickly appeared with a look of utter dismay on his face. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I was worried about you!" she cried reaching out to take hold of the strange bars hiding him from her.

"NO! Don't touch the bars!" he warned. "They are designed to block magic – you could die if you touch them." He reached through the bars and gently touched her cheek. "You were supposed to be safely hiding at home," he sighed. "Why did you come looking for me? My note told you I was safe."

"I was still worried. You talked like you weren't going to see me again," Rae explained gently. "Daddy…what's going on? Why are you here, and what is Aunt Regina up to?"

Rumpelstiltskin lowered his voice. "She has unleashed a curse that will take us all away from this land to a place without magic. None of us will remember anything from here, and there's nothing that can stop it."

Rae paled at her father's words. "That's why you put magic in the locket: to keep me safe in this new land."

"I had no other choice," Rumple agreed. "I trust you're wearing it even now?"

Rae pulled aside the edge of her cloak to reveal the gold of the chain. "I have to get you out of here," she whispered hurriedly. "I cast a spell on the guards to keep them at bay, but it won't last much longer. Let me absorb the magic here, and then we can-"

"No, Rae," he interrupted quietly. "I'm right where I want to be when this curse hits. It's important that I be here; you have to trust me."

"I'm not just going to leave you here!" Rae cried. "They could-"

"What, kill me?" Rumple chuckled. "Sweetheart, you know better than anyone that they can't do a thing to me. You're the one that's not safe here. You need to leave, now before they wake up and put you in one of these too."

"I'm not leaving you," Rae argued.

"Too right you're not, missy!" a guard snarled in her ear as he seized her from behind.

Rae screamed and struggled, but another guard joined the first and held her fast.

"Put her in the other cell the fairies prepared," Charming ordered, glaring at her. "Don't let her near him again, am I understood?"

The guards nodded and began dragging Rae away even as she continued to scream and fight, now fearing for her life.

She could faintly hear her father's shouts and threats on the air as the guards chained her in place and left. The magic of the bars was slowly beginning to work on her, and she lost consciousness to the sound of her father desperately shouting her name.

Back in Storybooke

"What do you understand?" Rae hissed, refusing to lower her hands.

"Your father warned me that someday I would understand how he felt having to watch us chain you up like that. When I put Emma through that wardrobe and couldn't go with her, I understood. I would have done anything to be able to protect her, and it broke my heart to hear about all she suffered without me. I can only imagine that's how your father felt that day. So, when he told me you were missing this morning, I knew I had to help to try and make up for what I did. He's so worried about you, I've never seen him this vulnerable."

Rae pressed her lips together. She hadn't forgotten about her father's hunt for Bae, but if Charming was really telling the truth, could she consciously hurt her father for the sake of her own pain? "Where is he?" she said finally.

"He went looking for some woman named Belle. I guess she went missing too. He said you would be too angry with him to talk to him, so he asked me to look for you," Charming added when he saw the look on Rae's face. "Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what you two fought about, but I do know that he looked beyond desperate when he came to me. He loves you, more than any of us thought possible, to be honest. Why don't you come back with me?"

"Go!" the voice urged suddenly in her ear. "He's worried about us!"

"So now you decide to be nice?" Rae mentally replied.

"It's Daddy," the voice said simply.

"Alright, I'll go with you," Rae sighed.

Charming smiled and guided her away from the shore and towards the town again.

In the Enchanted Forest

Killian leaned against a tree and sighed, toying with the pendant around his neck. The image of his mystery woman was fading more and more to that point that he sometimes wondered if she was even real. What was worse, he was beginning to look at this Emma Swan more and more each day, amazed with her strength and mystery.

She was a person he would love to figure out, but wasn't that betraying someone important to him? If only he could remember something, anything about the woman from the tavern! But her image still refused to come to him.

Instead, he was beginning to picture Swan in her place, and, for reasons he could not explain to himself, that made his heart ache to the point of tears. "What is happening to me?" he sighed to no one in particular as Cora grinned evilly out of sight of the pirate.

Her evil plan was working.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Soon, I promise, the flashbacks will give way to events in the present, but you do need to know Rae's history to understand everything. Thank you to all my readers, and please leave a review! I'll be back as soon as I can be (end of the semester at college is a busy time)! Thanks everyone!