Nightmare Come Alive

Bae shifted in his sleep. Something was waking him, some sensation that threatened to ruin his peaceful sleep, punctuated by the memory of his kiss with Morraine. It reminded him of the time the Blue Fairy brought August back to life and inadvertantly roused and drew him.

August. He really ought to pay that puppet a visit at some point.

In the morning, he decided, rolling over, getting comfortable, and trying to go back to sleep.

But the sensation persisted. He groaned, still barely conscious but coming, and started to rub the sleep from his eyes. Instead, he rolled onto his front and continued his quest for sleep. The sensation crept closer, and Bae got his forearms under him, ready to shoot up and give the intruder a piece of his mind, when he felt a point, sharp and cold, press into the nape of his neck. And he froze.

Adrenaline completed his waking cycle, but his rational mind was still quite strong, telling him not to make any sudden movements for fear of swift and sure decapitation. Slowly, he turned his head, testing his boundaries more than anything else. He steadied his breathing and took in the sensation to his left. It was distinct from that of the knife pressed to his neck, and when he focused on the knife, he recognized its power, its magic.

And there was no way in hell his father would turn the knife on him.

Someone else was here, and this was getting very dangerous, very fast.

He maneuvered so that the tip of the knife barely touched his neck, and he managed to make it to his side, where his hand shot up and grabbed the hilt-

-from midair.

No one was holding the knife, so what was suspending it?

The thought barely crossed his mind. The presence had reacted violently to the lack of the knife in its possession; it lunged toward him. He rolled off the bed and stumbled back, the knife in a position chosen more for slashing than stabbing, and he peered into the darkness, toward the shapeless mass that blotted everything behind it out. Oh, gods. It really was here, in his room, and try as he might, he couldn't find the voice to call for his father.

The cloud crept toward him, and he inched toward the door, the knife in front of him. He opened the door with his free hand and moved onto the balcony overlooking the foyer. The mass approached him, and he leapt over the banister. The mass followed, condensed into a familiar form, and in Bae's shock, he released his grip on the knife.

A cold hand shot out from the cloud, and the rest of the woman followed. Bae's breath caught in his throat upon seeing Regina's frozen gaze and expressionless face. In one fluid movement, she whipped the knife out of his hand and pointed it at him as if it were a sword. Her lip curled up in a smirk. She shifted her grip on the knife and sliced through the air at an angle, but there was no doubt as to where he was aiming.

She was about to slash through his neck.

OUAT

Bae started and blinked, confused as to why he was back in his room. His first thought was that he was waking from a nightmare. But that was his rational mind, and his blood was pumping. He rolled over, waiting for the cold touch of his father's knife.

But if he was dreaming, he felt something, and he never felt anything in his dreams. The sensation of evil and desperation even lingered on his skin. In his need to shake it, he all but leapt out of bed, walked onto the balcony, and had to pause. Something long and silver caught the light of the sunrise, which was still red-orange.

He moved down the stairs, feeling for anything other than his father and the knife, namely the sensation that he felt in his dream. If it could be found again.

Relax, the still stupidly rational part of him said. You were dreaming.

But I'm a sensitive, he responded, and I never feel anything in my dreams. If this is anything, anything at all, then either I'm evolving or Regina's breaking out of jail. Or both.

The last filled him with dread, but he continued on nonetheless, until he stood not one foot from the knife, staring down at his shadow and the decoration on the blade. Rumpelstiltskin's name wasn't facing up. Was that an accident? Or was it posed?

He turned and walked back up the stairs, following the faint trail of the Dark One to his father's bedroom. He opened the door to find Rumpelstiltskin sitting on the bed, staring at his hands. "Papa..." Bae whispered. "Papa."

"Bae?" Rumpelstiltskin stood and walked over to his son.

Bae leaned in, desperate for something other than the strangeness of the morning, and winced. The fabric of his shirt barely brushed against his neck, but he was wounded. He reached up and felt the collar, torn near the collarbone, and when he looked down, he saw some blood outlining a tear in the material that stretched for the better part of a foot across his chest and toward his side. "Papa," he said, stepping back and skinking to his knees. "What happened to me? What's going on? What happened last night?"

"Bae, there...she came."

"I didn't dream it."

"No, Bae."

"What happened after she..."

"Tried to kill you? I walked out onto the field of battle, and it stopped. It stopped, Bae."

"Then how did I wake up in bed?"

"I think the shock and the confusion were too much for you. You didn't seem to know where you were. You fainted, Bae." Bae curled into himself and leaned toward his father, who took him into his arms. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"I felt her. I felt her closing in, ready to kill me."

"It's over now."

"Where did she go?"

"She disappeared before I could do something suitably painful to her. Gone in a cloud of smoke."

"How long was I in the basement, a few days ago?"

"What?"

"How long was I in the basement, talking to...to Zoso?"

"A little over twenty-four hours."

"That's why all those people were there?"

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. "They thought you'd disappeared, that you'd been killed."

"Did you?"

"I had my fears, Bae, but I trust you. If you didn't survive, I know you'd have put up a fight trying." He pressed closer to his father, who tightened his hold on him. Rumpelstiltskin stroked Bae's hair, and in spite of everything, Bae began to relax.

"I thought I was dreaming the whole time," Bae whispered. "Now I find that last night really happened...Papa, I'm so confused."

"It's alright, Bae. It's alright."

"It's strange, so strange. I felt everything, but I felt like I was dreaming. Now, I've been awakened by magic before, but the knife, and Regina..." Bae shook his head. "I have no idea what just happened."

Rumpelstiltskin opened his mouth, ready to reassure his son, but he knew what he was about to say next was an outright lie. Bae must've sensed this, because he pulled back and stared blankly at him. Rumpelstiltskin knew exactly what his boy was thinking, and he knew he was thinking the same thing. "She's out of her prison," Bae whispered. "She found a way. The magic here, it's just waiting to be used, and she's giving it a chance, something to do. If you didn't show up when you did, she would have the knife, and I would be dead."

"No," Rumpelstiltskin said fiercely. "No," he repeated, more gently. "I'd never let that happen." Never. He took Bae's head in his hands and kissed his son's forehead.

"Papa, wars have casualties."

"I know."

"These things happen, people die. I'm not familiar with a field of mass combat the way Morraine is, but I've seen carnage. The gods know Sherwood had no shortage of it." Bae couldn't help but smirk, though the events of the previous night didn't merit such lightheartedness. He smiled, leaned into his father, and allowed himself to relax.

OUAT

Emma returned from the filing cabinet and picked up her bag lunch, flopping into the chair and heaving a sigh. Finally, she thought, opening the bag and pulling out a sandwich in a small plastic bag. "Yo, Reg, as long as you're there, maybe you want my-" Emma looked up from her sandwich at the cell across from her, blinked, and wiped her eyes. "Working the late shift is doing a number on me. There's no way..."

She stared at the cell, but Regina wasn't waking up. The vaguely body-shaped lump on the bed was still as a rock. "How did I fall for that?" she asked, setting the sandwich down on her desk. She continued to take in the scene, and her jaw hung slack.

She walked over to the cell door, tried it, found it locked and holding fast. She looked back to her desk; the keys to the cells in the office were still on her desk. "Oh, damn," she whispered.