+ + + + + Crossing a Line

It was early evening. "You bought a dress," he was surprised when Emma came down the stairs in a pretty floral dress, full skirt, square neckline. "Very pretty. I approve."

"Well, all I had were jeans, t's and leather jackets, so I did stop at one of those nice shops you had mentioned. This set you back alittle."

"Well worth every penny, I assure you." He got up from where he had been reading. "Ms. Swan, I want to show you something downstairs very quickly. Then, if you like, we can go out to eat someplace fitting for your new dress."

"Sure," Emma innocently followed him down to her old bedroom, at the bottom of the stairs.

"Have you gotten everything out of here?"

"I think so, moved it all up to your bedroom." She shook her head. "Still think it's a mistake but this whole thing is a mistake."

He stood between her and the door. "Ms. Swan, there is something I have to go and do that I am afraid you will try to stop me from doing."

Emma was immediately on high alert. She reached for her gun, her phone, her walkie-talkie and realized she had none of these on her person at the moment.

"You think that Regina is responsible for Margie's situation and letting you think some other girl was dead. You are going to go and have it out with her. You shouldn't do that. Nothing good can come of it. And I'm afraid one of you will lose your temper completely and hurt the other one."

"A realistic concern. We haven't done that so far, but we have come close." He had already started backing out of the room. Emma tried to make a dash, but he was too quick and closed the door between them. "There is something different about this room, my dear. You had called it a dungeon room. Well, you were correct. The lock is on the outside. It is quite secure," he called in through the door as he latched it shut.

Emma was furious and pounded on the door. "You can't do this! Don't do this! Let me out!"

He was calm and quiet when he replied. "I'm so sorry. As someone who's been locked up a couple of times, I know how you're feeling. I don't like doing this, but I have to be sure you won't try to intervene. You have a habit of intervening in things you shouldn't, Ms. Swan. It's probably your least attractive quality. I tolerate it because you have so many other attractive qualities. I regret I will have to owe you supper as my visit with Regina isn't scheduled until very early in the morning. I will be back to get you out for breakfast, my sweet."

He could hear some interesting language coming from dear Emma. She was quite angry. If she'd had active magical energy he would be feeling some stings, but fortunately for him, in this world, she was only spewing words, including some colorful profanity. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, the yells, screams, and curses were already muffled and when he shut the hallway door, all was quiet.

Now to wait until time to visit Regina.

+ + + + + Reckoning

Regina awoke with his hands on her throat. Gold was sitting on her chest, straddling her, his knees drawn up to under her arms. This all seemed too familiar.

"Tell me, tell me why I shouldn't kill you?" he demanded.

She gasped, "What, what are you talking about?" She struggled to push him away, to get his hands off of her throat.

"You lied about Belle. She lived. She's alive in this world. You have her locked away in a mental institution, probably drugged out of her mind. You're keeping her from me."

"Get off of me, you maniac. You want to talk, we talk. But not with your hands around my throat." She was furious but still cautious enough not to challenge him directly, not here, not now.

He shifted to the bottom of the bed, still within striking distance. "Talk, bitch. Save yourself."

"Listen, I probably did you both a favor. She was locked away in a tower. No one would have anything to do with her, after being with you."

"I never touched her."

"Yes, but you know everyone assumed you had kept her as your whore. You are a monster after all. No one believed she'd remained a virgin after being your prisoner for all those months. Which, why was that? She's a beautiful girl. You didn't practice that much restraint when I was your girl," Regina shrugged and continued, "Well, anyway after she had been with you, no one wanted to have anything to do with her. She was left all alone, completely by herself. Poor thing."

"She could have come back to me. She would have been welcome. I would have given her a home"

"Did she know that? Didn't you tell her to go, that you loved your power more than you loved her? That she could never, ever love you, no one could ever, ever love you?" Regina drew herself up. "Why would you think that when she was absolutely destitute, shunned by everyone who ever cared about her, rejected by the man, pardon me, the creature, she loved, that she would have returned to that creature? I would think that she would have been afraid that you would have killed her."

"Why did you tell me she killed herself?"

"To protect you, Rumple dear. If you believed she was dead, you would get on with things. Otherwise you were going to be moping about, pining for the little virgin. I couldn't let that happen with you. It would have made you so much less of a resource, so less powerful."

Regina got out of the bed and continued. "But you may be right. I shouldn't have lied. You would have gone after her. And there it is: The Choice. Your love or your power. You couldn't have both. You can't have both. If she'd been with you, I'm sure she would have gotten around to kissing you and would have turned you back into an ordinary man."

Regina considered this and smiled. "An ordinary man. Do you know how much I would enjoy having you as an ordinary man? Do you have any idea of what I would do to you? I would take years to take my revenge. A little. Every day. Every way. I'll admit it was my original intention, but you resisted it and chose power over love. Such are the fortunes of love and war."

She leaned in at him, "Don't you see I helped you out?"

"Helped me out? You must have been rehearsing this shit! Even as accomplished a liar as yourself couldn't make all this up on the fly. Every step you took has been to cause me grief or pain. To bring me down. You took away my choices. Telling me Belle had died was one of the greatest agonies of my life. I thought I was partly responsible. As you said why would anyone want her after she had been with me. I blamed her father and took my anger out on him. And here, I could have been helping her. You kept her from me. I cannot forgive you."

"Oh well, then, go and get her," Regina snapped and rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you can get daddy's permission. Set her up with private nursing care. Put her up in one of the rooms in your house. Go on and take her out to the park for a picnic once a week."

"I will do what I think is best for Belle. But," he stood. "I still have to decide what to do with you. You have crossed me yet again and I cannot let this go unpunished."

Regina became alittle wary. She had not seen him quite this angry, quite this determined in some time. Now that he was out, as it were, he would not hesitate to use what power he had. But, she reassured herself, his powers were bound and, now in this world, limited even further. She should be safe.

"You wanted Rumplestiltskin, my dear You would have been better off leaving him silent and impotent, but now that you insisted on letting him out. . ." he stood and gestured, waving one hand in the air in a gesture more typical of his fairyland counterpart. He gave his high-pitched laugh before continuing. " Now, I know you are thinking that my powers here are going to be quite limited, a pale reflection of what I was once capable of."

He continued, "Did you know the spell they used was limited and would bind only the amount of magic I was using at the time of the binding?" He laughed again. "So I wasn't using very much. It was necessary for them to imprison me, so that you would come and get the final step of the spell. I was the one who arranged to give them the idea of binding my powers."

"Now," he explained, "it does take some little effort. But I'm still capable of this," and with both hands raised he snapped his fingers and Regina became a rat. "I believe this was your last transformation of choice. Now, I could just leave and you would remain this way, but with our new sheriff in town, if you disappeared, well, she might arrest me on suspicion of your demise and, although remote, I don't want to risk jail time for your death." The rat hissed and approached Gold. He shoved it back with his cane. "I'm not risking you biting me, Regina. I'm sure you're toxic." He set the cane aside and snapped both fingers on both hands again and Regina was on the floor. She quickly righted herself, shaken.

"Rumple, darling, please. . ." She tried to right herself, but Gold had picked up his cane and held it over her.

"Stay there for the moment, dearie. I'll think you'll hear me better if you are on your knees." He watched Regina reluctantly remain on the floor. She was trembling, with fear or anger, or likely both. "You are to behave yourself. I don't want a single wisp of trouble out of you."

Regina raised her hand as if to strike out at him, but then lowered it.

Gold laughed. "As long as you hesitate, you are not ready to confront me. Your powers are no match for mine. You remember that. I have so many ways to punish you and now that you know that I have not forgotten a thing, you know I will not hesitate to come at you."

He came up to her and pulled her to her feet. "My dear, there is no one who loves you and there never will be. But there is someone you love, as much as you are capable of the feeling." He stood very close to her, face to face. "And I'm going to take him away from you. Your son, Henry. You're going to lose him. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon. Enjoy your time with him." He pulled her over to him and kissed her on the mouth. "And don't interfere with me and Margie-Belle. Don't interfere with me and Ms. Swan. I have so many ways I can punish you, cripple you, kill you, if I need to," he promised her. "You will behave, won't you, dearie?"

Regina was livid but did not trust herself to take try to him down, not right now. She had pushed him to reveal himself and had gotten more than she had bargained for. She knew him well enough to know he would not tolerate any disrespect or any challenges from her right now. But she also knew he would sooner or later get distracted by one of his little whores or one of his many 'deals' and get slack and then maybe she would have her chance.

She lowered her head, as if she was defeated and contrite. She made her lip tremble, just a little, as if she was genuinely sorry. "I will not interfere, I promise," she said in a tiny, sweet voice. "Rumple," she allowed one hand to touch his arm as if she were about to caress him. "It's been so long. I've missed you."

He was momentarily puzzled. "Regina, am I to understand that even though I have just knocked you around, magically speaking, you are suggesting that we. . . that we. . ."

"You know how good it can be between us," she persisted. "You remember some of the things I used to do for you, some of the things you did to me," she was at her most charming, most inviting. She actually looked vulnerable and luscious.

Gold hesitated. They had had some good times together. It wasn't impossible that they would, at some point in time, unite again as allies. . . or lovers. And Regina was absolutely lovely, her dark hair tousled, her nightgown pulled low revealing her generous bosom.

But then he shook his head. "I may actually be developing scruples." He backed away from her, "Maybe another time, dearie. I'm still pretty pissed at you and I'm thinking 'viper's nest' when I look at your bed." He did smile at her on the way out. "But I do remember, my dear. We had some of our best times after I had. . . uh. . .disciplined you, didn't we? That was well played."

Well damn. It had been worth a shot. For all his magic and all his power, Gold was still a man and, like any man, could sometimes get led around by his dumb-stick. So, it hadn't worked this time, but there would be other times. Emma Swan just wasn't fascinating enough to keep someone like Rumplestiltskin interested for long.