+ + + + + Irritation

"You didn't destroy it," Gold was irritated with her. "Emma, please. You've got to trust me. You've got to destroy the quill."

Emma was throwing up in a bucket as she had done for every morning now for about nine weeks and her forbearance was limited. "Regina is going to try to enslave you? kill you? That's what the creature told me."

Gold nodded. "If she thinks she is more powerful than I am, she will take my heart out. She will try to turn me into her slave. If that doesn't work, if she can't do that, she will just kill me."

Emma retched again, recovered and asked, "But aren't you more powerful than she is?"

"I was much more powerful. But now, not really. I have a few tricks that have backed her down a couple of times and, while we've been in Storybrooke, she has always believed that I have more power than she does. But my truth spell will wear off and when it does, she will realize that she has the upper hand and come after me. She's been waiting to do this for many years."

Emma nodded. Gold had never been so earnest, so sincere. She had always had a little trouble reading him, but everything that came through right now seemed real. He was almost afraid, not a feeling he had very often, if ever. "All right. I trust you. Next time. I'll break it. Will that do it?"

"It should, princess. It should."

Regina was feeling something. Something different. She went to Sidney. He was one of the few she might be able to trust with this.

"Ask me something, Sidney," she started. "Ask me how I feel about Mr. Gold," she directed him.

Sidney shrugged but complied. "Madame Mayor, tell me how you feel about Mr. Gold."

There was some compulsion there, but with only a modest effort she was able to overcome it. "I hate the sonofabitch. I wish he were dead," she managed to say. And then she smiled.

"Thank you Sidney. Thank you very much."

This was going to be sooo good.

Regina dropped by the pawnshop that afternoon. She was dressed in her usual simple, elegant style, her hair combed, her lipstick refreshed. "Mr. Gold. I just wanted to check up on Henry and make sure that he had a good night over at his new parents' house."

"He had a fine night," Gold replied. He didn't say anything else.

"That's good to hear. I really want him to be happy. Do you believe me?"

"I'm sure you're telling the truth."

"Are you, are you sure?" she smiled brilliantly. "Well, of course you are." She paused for a moment, then added, " I'm sure Emma told you about what I said about you."

"What was that?" Gold feigned ignorance.

"That I'm still in love with you. I am, you know," she ducked her head in a demure pose.

"Are you, my sweet?

She spoke slowly, her eyes half-closed, looking at him from beneath her long sooty lashes, "Can you, could you ever give me another chance?"

Gold looked at Regina closely. "To what end, my dear? I'm married with a child on the way. I've just regained custody of my son. I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize what I've worked so hard to get."

Regina leaned forward. She really was a beautiful woman. "Then we would have to be oh so clandestine, so very secret. You're good at moving around and not having anybody notice you. I remember how you could just show up at one end of a hall when everyone was looking for you at the other end. Would you, could you consider coming to me tonight?"

She was very, very close. Her full lips, almost touching his. It was a moment of weakness (or was it a coolly calculated manipulation? He wasn't sure.). Gold cautiously reached up and put his hand behind her head, entwining his fingers in her hair, and drew her in for the last fraction of the distance to his lips. She closed her eyes as they kissed, slowly, softly, so different from the rough, controlling kiss he would give her when putting a spell on her. This was almost tender, an expression of forgiveness, of hope, of renewal.

"Come to me, will you?" she pleaded.

It was a long moment before he answered. "Yes," he finally said. "It will be very late. Wear something white. I weary of seeing you in black."

"Of course," she smiled at him, a sweet, happy smile. She turned and left the store.

Well damn, he thought.

He sat back after supper. They had gotten take-out from the Diner given both of their work schedules. Henry had shoveled his down, apparently getting his healthy appetite from his mother, had then asked to be excused and had gone upstairs to play with his new computer. Emma and Gold were alone.

"Emma, I need to share something with you."

She looked up from of her favorites, an apple cobbler. "Oh oh, this sounds like a 'we have to talk' thing."

"Yes, it is." He pushed the remnants of his supper around his plate, not eager to make eye contact.

"Well, spit it out," Emma urged him.

"Regina has asked me to come to her."

"You told her, 'no,' right?"

He didn't answer.

"You told her, 'yes'?"

He looked up, caught her eye and nodded.

"You bastard! We haven't been married a month and you're going back to an old girlfriend already! I know our marriage isn't a typical one, but damn. At least do me the courtesy of appearing to be faithful and not flaunting your affair with Regina. If I weren't carrying this baby. . . " she stopped and gulped, angry tears threatening to well out of her eyes.

Gold watched Emma, actually pleased to see the jealously she was expressing.

She swallowed, pulled herself together and continued ranting, her apple cobbler forgotten. "Why does it have to Regina? Of all the women out there, Regina is the one I have the hardest time with."

Gold was quick. "Are there some other women that you would be ok with me seeing?"

Emma made a face, shooting daggers at him with her eyes. "If you're still looking for a threesome, forget it. I can't believe you're doing this! I can't believe you're telling me this!."

Gold waited until she took a breath and said quietly, "She's going to try to kill me."

Emma sat back, this news startling her, taking the wind out of her anger. "What? How do you know?"

He talked very quietly. "My truth spell is wearing off. She suspects that her powers are now equal or stronger than my own. She's been waiting for this a long time. She has often considered, but has never had the confidence to try to take me down. She has that now." He got up and began pacing. "She will first try to seduce me, because, as she told you, she still loves me, or what passes for love with Regina. But even if she were to be successful at getting me back into her bed," he stopped pacing and looked at Emma, "and I will do everything I can that she not succeed there, she still wouldn't trust me and the first moment she could, she would take my heart, literally take my heart, like she did with Sheriff Graham."

He turned to Emma putting his hands on her arms. "Emma, she takes hearts the way you might take someone's shoes. She stores them away and, should she become displeased with the person, she destroys the heart and so. . . "

Emma completed the sentence, "destroys the person. That's what happened to Graham, wasn't it? It looked like a coronary, but it was Regina."

Gold nodded, "Destroying his heart. Exactly. The person looks the same, but they aren't the same. If she could do that with me, she would control me and my power. It would make her far more dangerous than she is now. She would enslave me and, when she got tired of me, she would kill me."

"Then why go?

He released her and began to pace again. "If I don't go, she will know for sure that her powers have surpassed mine and she would certainly come after me. If I go, there's still a good chance I can back her down. I've done it before. If I go, she won't know for certainty and any doubt works in my favor."

Emma pushed her food away. "Gold, I am afraid. I know I've always said that I don't like you, but, well, maybe, in some ways, in a lot of ways, I, maybe, I, well, maybe I do, some. . . like you," she finished lamely, adding another "some," for good measure and a final "maybe."

"Emma, that's wonderful to hear. An undying, overwhelming declaration of 'like'." He stopped pacing, turned and smiled at her. "Well, know that I 'like' you too, very much. I always have, since you cut down Regina's apple tree, since you stormed into my shop when you thought I had started the fire at the mayor's house, since you arrested me for assault. I've always 'liked' you, Emma."

Emma felt warm all over. "I don't want to lose you, and especially not to Regina."

Gold came over to her. He leaned down and gently kissed her. "Then do the right thing, Emma. Go to sleep, destroy The Red Feather. I'm trusting you to do this. If you don't, all is lost."

He paused and quietly added, "Emma, if I go to her, she will expect sex. I will only be able to stall her with foreplay for so long."

"Are you asking my permission?" Emma asked him.

"I'm going to do what I have to do. I will need your tolerance. I would like your forgiveness."

Emma took a deep breath. "OK, I'm fine if she goes down on you and if you do that thing with her that you're not actually touching her."

"She's going to expect me to. . .uh. . .reciprocate. I always have, And she's going to expect me to touch her."

"Well hold off on 'reciprocating' as long as you can. And please try not to actually . . . " Emma searched for the right word.

Gold finished for her, "fuck her. I believe I can do that, provided you move on destroying The Red Feather."

Emma had several last thoughts, "What if I don't have the dream tonight? You know, I can't control it. What if I have the dream but then don't have The Feather. What if I can't fall asleep?"

"I'm pretty sure you're going to have the dream tonight and you'll have The Feather." He thought over her last problem. "You often are sleepy after I've attended to you, I will be sure to give you my best before I leave to see Regina."

With his conscience as clear as it ever could be, Gold had then lingered over dessert, helped Emma clean up from supper, and finally went up and visited with his son. Henry had picked a bedroom on the top floor, next to the room Emma had selected for herself long ago when she first had threatened to move out. It had a large window that looked out onto the street. Henry was involved with his new computer, something Gold was not comfortable with, sharing with Henry that computers never quite worked right for him, but he was able to listen to Henry extoll the virtues of various and sundry programs and utilities.

It was a quiet, nice father-son time, both of them trying to find some common ground besides Emma. Gold already knew that the child had a quick mind and an excellent memory. He could see both himself and Emma in the child's thinking; nonetheless he was startled when Henry spoke.

"Can you do magic?"

"You mean like take a rabbit out of a hat?" he evaded the question.

Henry persisted, "No, I mean like real magic. You know."

Unfortunately, Gold did know. "Sometimes," he hedged. "Sometimes everyone can do magic."

"But you can do it all the time, just like my mom," Henry hesitated, correcting himself, "like Regina can do. My mom, Emma, she can read minds and knows if people are telling the truth. Sometimes I know when things are going to happen before they happen. Like I knew mom was going to have a baby and I figured out that you were my real dad. But you can do other stuff, I think, a lot of other stuff."

"Sometimes," Gold admitted. So Henry had inherited the Talent of precognition from him and perhaps, likely, some of his mother's empathic abilities. If he was manifesting here in Storybrooke under the magic-stifling umbrella, how powerful would he be in Fairyland? Gold had not known if his possessing The Dagger would affect his offspring, but now, it did seem that it had. He knew for certain that Henry had certainly not had any fairies blessing him in his cradle.

"Can you teach me?" Henry asked his father.

"Perhaps, if you have an aptitude." And I survive this night in a state to manage it. "We'll talk more about it tomorrow. I don't know if your mother, Emma, would approve."

Henry smiled, "With my mom, a lot depends on how and when you ask her something."

So Henry had also inherited a certain deviousness from his father.

Next Gold and Regina have a showdown

Emma pays a price for magic