Jefferson turned his hat portal into a lucrative business. It turned out that there were all kinds of things to be had in the 23 other worlds that the Enchanted Forest population wanted. And there were things from the enchanted forest that others in the 23 other worlds wanted too. And then there things in other worlds that people from other worlds wanted.

He was a guide to other worlds by the time he was 16. He thought of himself as a businessman with a flair for style who could get any goods that were demanded of him. When he wasn't acquisitioning or outright stealing items for trade, he was using his gift to lead others into the worlds where they could learn or vacation or settle old debts toward those that had wronged them and escaped into these worlds' years before.

It made no difference to Jefferson, the goals of these people. It was probably horrible to say, but as long as he got paid then what they did was their business. He just brought them there. It wasn't his care what they did with that privilege. They'd just find another portal jumper to take them and he'd lose good money.

Besides, he saw how humanity treated each other. He'd seen it in every world with how they treated their so called loved ones and strangers. He'd given up on it all a long time ago. He was out for himself and that was alright. At the end of the day, everyone was. He just admitted it more freely than what was socially acceptable.

Rumpelstiltskin paid him especially well and when he was sixteen, he could afford a house on the richer side of a prestigious town.

Well he could afford it when he was fifteen thanks to the amount Rumpelstiltskin paid him but Jefferson was reluctant to set out from the Dark Castle. He enjoyed the imp's company and (Probably unfortunately) felt like the imp was the only one that truly understood him. They took each other's eccentricities in stride and there was an unspoken agreement that a backstabbing might come from one of them one day but until that happened they would be the closest thing to friends that men like them could be.

So he bought a house. It was glorious expensive house with a huge yard and in the back was the forest and inside there were dark stone walls and a marble floor with a grand staircase at the entrance that led to the bedrooms and he got the biggest one since he was the master of the house. And he could decorate it according to how he wanted, which he'd never gotten to do. Even when he had his own room at Rumpelstiltskin's castle (Not the one where the wives or mistresses were kept, thank gods), Rumpelstiltskin would glare at him and redo anything Jefferson tried to move around.

He kept five servants on hand. A cook named Louie that he'd convinced to come with him from some kingdom by the sea, the head butler by the name of Peter who Jefferson relied on to run the house while he was away, Peter's wife Annabelle who was the head housekeeper, their ten year old daughter Ayna who did mostly errands and cleaning, a gardener named James and a carriage driver named Johann.

And then came the problem that he always seemed to face. He was secure and he was well off but it…didn't feel like enough. He couldn't fit into the society that he'd surrounded himself with. He hadn't grown up rich like most here had, he hadn't acquired it by hard work either. He was just different and they noticed. Everyone always had and other than a friendly invitation every now and again to attend some party or a greeting on the street or a job that needed doing, he was ignored.

Even his outer appearance stood out. The men there practically wore dresses over their pants and called them 'robes' to show how rich they were. Poor people needed range so they could work but apparently covering your legs in this side of town meant that you were well off and didn't have to work. Jefferson preferred to wear long coats and pants. His job required that he have range and well…he was never much a fan of velvets and satins. He liked leathers and silks much like his teacher did. For him, they were restricting but comfortable and they made him stand out and look remarkable.

And if they didn't ignore him on appearance alone, he knew that his social life had a lot to be desired. He was a loner by early nurture, and cared little about the games that the upper society played in which they pretended to care but loathed each other. He also ignored the invitations to court several eligible young ladies. He was a man that travelled much and had seen many things and made enemies along the way. Some of them being in the same town he lived in. Sometimes he had to fight to get himself and a client back through the portal and when he started coming home injured was when those invitations came to a crawl and then to a stop. No one wanted their daughter to court and marry a man who went on dangerous jobs. They were too young to be widows.

Or else they found out he was acquaintances with Rumpelstiltskin which was also just as likely.

He didn't mind the practical shunning. In fact, he welcomed it. They still needed him when they wanted something and he still got paid. Otherwise they didn't bother him and he couldn't be happier. He much preferred the company of his servants who he took his meals with downstairs. He looked to Peter and Annabelle for advice and saw them as role models for how a happy marriage should be. Of course he'd had the hatter and his wife before but he was at an age where he couldn't really understand things and now that he was older, he could. He enjoyed his time with them, even Ayna, who seemed to think she was in love with him had become a bit of his family.

For three years, he built up his reputation. By the time he was 19, he had a house either bought or built in every land that he had access to. Barely anyone ran those though. He visited most of them frequently enough that he could run the houses himself. Anyway, they were just shelters for him to wait out the job if waiting was required.

And then, on his last day of being 19 years old, he collapsed into bed and pulled the covers over his head. It had been a rough journey. His client had INSISTED on going to Oz but he died of a heart attack as soon as soon as the trees talked to him. (Rumpelstiltskin was secretly terrified of those things too. When he went to get an apple, one of them backhanded him.) And not only was it pouring rain but he had to drag the man's body back to get through the portal and he was fighting flying monkeys as well. He was sore, he was cold, and he just wanted to go to sleep.

"Not paying a visit, dearie?"

Jefferson jumped at the sound of the voice and reached for the knife under the pillow. The flames on the lanterns came to life and he saw Rumpelstiltskin sitting on the chair opposite of the room with a book in his hand.

Jefferson squinted his eyes. Oh, he just wanted to go to bed! "Hm?"

"Well tomorrow's your birthday, dearie! We usually spend your birthday together."

Jefferson tried to remember…was his birthday tomorrow? Or at least the day that he had picked out FOR his birthday? He didn't know, time passed differently between all the worlds. Some were faster, some were slower, "It is?"

Rumpelstiltskin gave an exaggerated eye roll, "Where are my manners, I didn't get you anything!"

"I think I know where this is going," Jefferson muttered.

"How would you like a job?"

"I just got BACK from a job!" he said, "I didn't get paid!"

"Well, Oz is such an experience that it pays for itself."

Jefferson wished that tree had slapped him harder when they first went three years ago, "Tell me what it is and I'll think about it."

"There's a monster I have to create…unfortunately she's holding back and I hardly have time to wait for what's going to inevitably come in time."

"Can't you just go and find a monster? There are plenty out there."

"Yes, but none of them have the set up that I need as well as this woman has."

"And what is it that you want me to do?"

"I need you to go get Victor Frankenstein."

"Oh no," Jefferson groaned. They'd had a few more meetings since the initial one. And while Jefferson…tolerated him a little better, the man still had a God complex that almost made Rumpelstiltskin look tame in comparison. Jefferson would shudder to think about what would happen to him if he was as condescending to his teacher as Victor was to Rumpelstiltskin.

"He needs a heart for his brother. I just need you to put on a show for our Queen Regina. Break her spirit a little, and take him back home."

"And what's in it for me?"

"Well, anything you want dearie. The payout for this one will exceed anything you've ever gotten."

What did he need with more money when he had plenty of that? "No."

Rumpelstiltskin blinked, "Excuse me?"

"I don't want money."

"What do you want then?"

Maybe Jefferson was tired and that's why he thought it up. He was honestly…bored with everything he had. He wanted to try something different, he wanted to try something new. He was still a bit lonely even with his servants surrounding him. At the end of the day they were still his servants and he was their master. He craved companionship; he still craved that family that he'd been begging Rumpelstiltskin for since he was five. He was tired of going to bed alone…well sure he'd had women before but that wasn't the same as just having one to spend the rest of your life with…to have one person to trust like Peter did Annabelle and several others in this town did to their wives (Except unlike most of them, he wanted to actually love her.)

And Rumpelstiltskin was a big fan of true love, so…

"I want a companion," he told him.

Rumpelstiltskin giggled, "Why don't you just say you want a wife, dearie?"

"It seems wrong to buy a wife for corrupting another woman," Jefferson muttered.

"Even though that's what you're doing," Rumpelstiltskin pointed out and put a finger to his lips thoughtfully, "I think I might know someone who might be available."

"I want her to want me as a husband," Jefferson said quickly, "Not like she was forced or manipulated into it."

"The lady I have in mind has been looking for a husband for a while dearie, I think she'd come to like the specimen I picked out for her."

"Would she accept my work?"

"Chances are that she'll end up needing your hat too, you two can team up."

Jefferson looked at him reluctantly, "Would she love me?"

"Of course she would dearie! Only the best for the boy I practically raised! It might take some time and hard work though. I imagine you'll have to learn to love her the way you expect her to love you but no one said marriage was easy."

He said that in a way that made Jefferson think he had experience in the matter. He didn't push Rumpelstiltskin to give him any information though. Rumpelstiltskin's past was something best left buried.

"Oh, but there is one thing," Rumpelstiltskin said, "I'll give you the finer details on what you and Victor are supposed to do once we've acquired him but if you're serious about me finding you a wife then she's going to need something from you."

"And what's that?"

"Well, she's made enemies as well and a royal passport surely wouldn't come amiss. If you can get that from the queen then…I can talk her into at least coming to view you so to speak. She has to have a choice in this as well as you pointed out. And if she refuses then I imagine we can find someone else."

Not the most noble way to get a wife but he trusted Rumpelstiltskin to do right since Jefferson had done everything Rumpelstiltskin had ever asked him to and more, "Deal."

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Regina was…many things. She had a presence that he noticed, she was attractive and she was desperate…

…but she clearly wasn't smart.

Jefferson only counted himself a good actor when he was flirting. He was a lot more direct with men about what the price of what they wanted would be, but when it came to women, he had learned how to play them to get what he wanted.

But it was a lot harder to do when the woman did not want to be flirted with. He tried with Regina…he'd failed spectacularly when he realized that she was still in love with her dead boyfriend that she kept preserved in a glass case (Disgusting. No wonder Victor nearly wet himself in glee; the grave robbing butcher) then he faltered and he thought several times that she saw through the act.

Well she was either too hopeful, too brokenhearted, or too stupid to see any of the small looks he gave her to see if she was buying it and she seemed to ignore the fact that Victor was practically reading lines that he'd written on his arm in order to fool her.

Rumpelstiltskin had told her that bringing back her boyfriend was impossible, and they made a spectacular show of proving him right. Somehow that corrupted her. Jefferson wasn't going to question it because like with all his other clients, it wasn't his job to question. Maybe she wasn't all that stable in the first place.

Oh well, it wasn't Jefferson's place. He's done his job, he'd gotten his royal passport and as soon as Regina had become corrupted and he took the arrogant body butcher Frankenstein back home and then returned, Rumpelstiltskin had appeared to him and told him to wear his best clothes.

For tomorrow he met his wife.

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The autumn was a warm one and Jefferson was certain that this day was the hottest one he'd experienced for months. Even the cooler confines are the Dark Castle seemed sticky and he'd had to slip out of his leather long coat just to be able to breathe.

"Well, well, well, dearie," he heard the signature high pitched voice of Rumpelstiltskin echo off the walls as he came into the room, "It took you long enough, I was waiting for hours!"

"Sorry," he said and fanned himself with his portal just for some circulation in the room, "Not everyone can jump from one location to another with the drop of a hat. Well…I could but not in two different spots of the same world."

"Yes, yes, yes," Rumpelstiltskin waved him off with his hand, "There's no need to remind me every time, I know how you work."

Jefferson didn't have the patience for this, he wanted to get down the mountain where a nice cool bath waited for him and since there wasn't a potential fiancé in sight.., "I know you probably want me to run off to find some portal for you but if you recall, I haven't even gotten paid for the last job you had me do."

"Actually, that's why you're here," he said dismissively, "You asked me to find you a bride willing to travel worlds with you as payment of creating my monster for me and as I told you before I had a potential lady in mind."

Jefferson tensed, these deals usually came with a baseball bat attached and Jefferson worried that he'd somehow missed a contingency when they were going over the negotiations for the deal they'd conducted.

Rumpelstiltskin signaled to someone in the hallway behind him and brought her in. The first thing Jefferson noticed was the hard blue eyes and a stone face. Her blonde hair was pulled in a braid that was tucked behind the vest that she wore. Her pants, shirt, and vest gave away no femininity.

She was a warrior before she was a woman.

"Karenina Van Helsing, hunter of monsters meet your…possible new betrothed," Rumpelstiltskin put an arm around her and gestured to Jefferson, "Jefferson; hatter, portal jumper, and the only man that can do what he does with a royal passport that'll get him into areas of the 24 known magical worlds that you could never hope to see, my dear."

Jefferson stared at her as she studied him. Well, she was a hunter, which meant that she could take care of herself and he wouldn't have to worry about his enemies harming her. She was a hunter of monsters, which meant that she needed him and his ability to get around to do her job and so she would accept his work.

When neither one said anything, Rumpelstiltskin practically bounced on his heels, "Bit shy are we? I find that to be a bit disappointing, the two of you are usually FAR brasher than this."

The girl looked him over one last time, her thoughts hidden with a mask of no emotion and she looked at Rumpelstiltskin, "He'll do."

Jefferson didn't know why, but there was a part of him that felt insulted even though he knew that he was inspecting her as much as she was inspecting him.

It was then that he noticed the scars. She'd seen some vicious battles. One ran down her cheek, another ran diagonally from her nose to her top lip…but the worst one was a large jagged scar that ran along her jugular. She'd probably only survived that one out of sheer luck

Or the imp that stood between them.

Could it be that this woman was as broken as he was?

He was aware that the imp was watching him now. The woman…Karenina he believed the imp had said had fixed her eyes on the ground at his feet. She knew he'd seen her scars; she was just waiting for the rejection to come…

"I think we can work something out," Jefferson said. The words were out of his mouth before he could consider if this was what he really wanted or not. Did he want her or was he just trying to find a way to alleviate the boredom and loneliness.

Karenina looked up when he accepted the offer. Surprise crossed her face and she looked at Rumpelstiltskin and then at him. She had expected him to send her away it seemed. The idea that he would do so filled him with a bit of shame when he saw the same look in her eyes that haunted his sometimes.

"Wonderful," Rumpelstiltskin practically squealed at proposal that felt more like a business arrangement, "Well, let's not get in the way of true love dearies, we have a wedding to plan!"

Jefferson looked at his new…betrothed and saw the blush creep in her cheek as she subconsciously pulled the collar of her vest over the scar and then looked at him. He could see the doubt in her eyes now that the Imp was out of the room, "You agreed."

He tried to put of a cavalier attitude to flirt with her, "Don't blame me, you said that you wanted me first."

He held out his elbow and she took it but they kept a bit of a distance between them.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked as he led her to the carriage that was waiting.

"I'm not sure about anything," he replied and held the door open for him. He did have SOME manners after all, "Never have been. I'm not much of a fan of certainty."

"So, you're not certain that our little partnership will work out right in the end?"

"Oh absolutely not my dear. True love is for children who believe that fairy dust will solve all their problems."

She looked at him again and he wondered if perhaps he'd said the wrong thing.

"Good," she said at length, "You aren't living in a delusion. I think you and I shall more than likely get along."

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Karenina said nothing to him as they made the arduous journey from the dark castle to the village where the inn was waiting

It was going a lot slower than what he thought it should be and he KNEW Rumpelstiltskin had done it on purpose. No carriage was this incredibly slow. He should've just ordered his driver to take him but Rumpelstiltskin terrified the man so now they were at the imp's mercy and his quip about how the 'two lovebirds should have some time to themselves' sort of gave away his intention to let them get to know each other.

It hadn't really worked.

She watched him, and when he looked at her she turned away and looked out the window.

"You should have a ring," he said finally. It was only fitting that the groom gives his bride-to-be a wedding band. He couldn't really say that he had one on him; it wasn't something that he carried around. He'd looked but he couldn't find the right one if he didn't know the girl Rumpelstiltskin wanted him to pair up with.

"My work wouldn't allow me to wear one," she told him quietly.

He kept a ring on his index finger and one on his ring finger. Without hesitating, he slipped the one off his index finger and held it out for her, "You don't have to wear it, but you should have one anyway."

She reluctantly accepted it and tried it on her ring finger. It was too big but she placed it on her thumb.

"There," he said and looked at her with a smile, "Now none of your enemies will know that you're taken. You can just wear it there."

She gave an amused smile, "And what about you?"

He moved his ring from his right hand to his left, "I'll wear it. The other women wont' leave me alone if I don't and you don't seem to be the kind to tolerate competition."

She frowned, "I'm not sure I know how to be a good wife. I imagine you'll grow tired of me and seek out someone else."

"No I won't," he promised. He was normally better at this flirting thing, why was he tripping over his words? "And you don't have to worry about being a good enough wife. I'm not sure I know how to be a good husband. I've only ever seen two in my lifetime. So I suppose that's another reason why Rumpelstiltskin felt we were well matched. Neither of us knows what to do"

She smiled slightly but watched him through careful eyes, "You should also know that it may be impossible for me to have children."

He tilted his head, "Why not?"

"I was injured during a fight…and it might not be possible."

He shrugged, wanting children or not wanting them wasn't part of why he wanted a companion. Well sure he wanted children one day but if she couldn't give them to him then it wouldn't be a deal breaker, "That's alright I suppose. If it happens it happens, if it doesn't…well…I don't really see us as parents anyway but stranger things have been known to occur."

She looked at the ring on her thumb, and then reached across the carriage and kissed his cheek.

He hadn't realized that small acceptance had been that important, but he could see several reasons why she hadn't been married yet because she didn't fit society's standards for what a woman should be. His acceptance of her must've been big in her mind.

But then again he didn't fit society either.

He felt like now that she shared something with him, he should share something with her as well. It was only fair.

"No one's ever loved me," he told her, it felt odd showing his vulnerable side this fast but she was about to be his wife. If he showed it to anyone then it would have to be her, "Not in the family love that most get. And I can be quite ruthless and self-serving and I may not know how to treat you all the time…so when I hurt you and I know that I will…I should tell you know that I am sorry because chances are, I won't realize it until after it's done."

She nodded, "Well…I suppose you and I will have a lot to work on then."

"I suppose so."

The carriage slowed down to a crawl and Jefferson looked out one of the open windows

They were arriving.

He looked at her, their little interaction made him feel a bit more confidant now, "How did you get involved with a monster if you hunt and kill monsters anyway?"

"I only fight monsters that I know I can kill," she told him, "I've yet to find a way to kill this Dark One of yours yet. So he hires me out to defeat other monsters for him and he pays me. Well at least until my brother who was also a portal jumper was killed when we were bringing him a vampire because he'd never seen one."

What in the name of the gods was a vampire?

"What about you?" she asked, "How did you get roped into this?"

"Corrupted someone."

"Is that a story I'll hear eventually?"

"Maybe someday, but it's quite boring," he said, he really didn't know how he'd stayed awake for any of it, "What's a vampire?"

She narrowed her eyes, "You've never been to the world without color?"

"Four times but it didn't impress me; I tend not to go to other worlds unless I get paid to."

The carriage pulled to a stop and he opened the door and climbed out, he held out his hand for his betrothed who accepted it and climbed down. When she walked beside him, he also noticed that she had a small limp but it wasn't that noticeable, "I think your dark one is more excited about this than we are."

"He's old," Jefferson told her, "If an event pulls him out of his daily routine of scaring people then he's always more excited about it than the actual participants."