Chapter Twenty-Four—"Out of Book"
Rumplestiltskin vanished out of the great hall almost as soon as he'd finished explaining—rather more honestly than Belle expected—what he'd become. She was proud of him, but also too smart to follow him; the last two days had been rough on him, and she knew he needed his space. He'd bury himself in work for a little while, and when Rumple was ready to come up for air, Belle would be there.
"That went better than I expected," Bae commented quietly, moving over to join her. Belle had headed over to the spiral staircase on the north side of the hall—it led to the library, and she was still hunting for any more books that included references to the Heart of the Truest Believer. Rumplestiltskin's—or rather, Merlin's—memories were useful on that front, but Rumple had difficulties sorting through them without battling through the haze that three decades of pain put over them. Belle hated to ask him to do that when she could just find the answer in a book, and his encounter with the Black Fairy had unnerved him enough that she didn't want to. Even if he was trying desperately to hide that.
"Their reactions or him explaining?" she asked as Bae walked up the stairs with her.
"Both, I guess. Though I'm not sure why Pop thought they'd react badly. I don't think any of them really appreciate the difference in power levels we're talking about here, except maybe Tink and Regina. And Regina sure as hell didn't look surprised."
"I think he told her," Belle agreed. The odd friendship between Regina and Rumple was often hard to understand, but at least she and the Evil Queen had cleared the air between them long before they'd found Rumplestiltskin. Belle wasn't ever going to forget the twenty-eight years that Regina had locked her up for (technically it was almost thirty, if she counted the time in the Enchanted Forest before the curse was cast), but she was willing to forgive. Regina was trying as hard as Rumplestiltskin was, and that counted for a lot.
Not that Belle was going to expect an apology this side of the next decade. Maybe Regina would think of it someday, but until then, Belle could work with her.
Bae shrugged. "Probably."
Neither said a word as they reached the library, and Bae held the door open for her. Belle shot him a smile. He really did remind her of Rumplestiltskin in the small ways—although watching Baelfire snarl at the Blue Fairy had certainly highlighted the similarities between father and son. She was so glad that they'd finally made peace with one another, and not only because she knew how badly Rumplestiltskin had wanted to reconnect with his son. She and Bae had become very close in the year they'd thought his father was dead, and although Belle would never really view him as a son (not with how much older than her Bae was!), he was still a very close friend. Family, even if her relationship with Rumplestiltskin wasn't official.
"So," she asked as they sat down on a couch in the library. "What's on your mind?"
"Who says I have to have something on my mind?" he countered, sounding disturbingly like his father.
Belle just gave him a look.
"Okay, fine," Bae relented. "Maybe I do. I'm kind of surprised Papa told them. Is he okay after yesterday?
They were probably the only two people who'd been in that room that didn't look at Rumplestiltskin and think of the sheer power he'd displayed during the christening. Bae was like Belle; he wondered how his father was holding up after facing off with the woman who had tortured him for a year. Also like Belle, he clearly understood that Rumplestiltskin would never admit to weakness unless forced, particularly where half their world could see it. He's told me more than once that he'd rather be evil than weak, Belle mused. I just hope that these powers give him a third option, even though it's not one he's used to having.
"More or less," Belle answered honestly. "His nightmares kept him up most of last night." And her, too, but that was all right.
Bae grimaced. "He never told me how bad it was, but…"
"It was bad."
Belle would never forget the sight of Rumplestiltskin hanging limply in those chains, bloody and frightened, looking ready to die. She'd never forget how Regina had told her how he wasn't likely to survive the night, holding her True Love in her arms and knowing she was about to lose him again. Whatever the price attached to his new magic, Merlin's magic, Belle was grateful for it. Without it, he probably would never have been able to recover from what the Black Fairy had done to him, even with Tink's help. He still had nightmares, and probably always would, but Belle was at least able to help him through them, and Rumplestiltskin was finally learning to accept the fact that she always would.
"I figured," Bae said quietly, glancing away for a moment. "It still bothers him?"
"More than he lets on." Although Belle hated talking behind Rumplestiltskin's back like this, Bae was the one person she knew he trusted aside from her. "But he's getting better, truly."
"Good." His voice was a little gruff, and Belle squeezed his arm. By some miracle, despite his experiences, Bae was less emotionally handicapped than his father, but neither of them was especially great about discussing sensitive issues with one another. After a moment of silence, Bae asked hesitantly: "He can do this, right? Protect Henry?"
"You know how he feels about family, Bae."
He shook his head. "I'm not doubting that he will. I just want to make sure it's not going to destroy him. That he won't…I don't know what."
"Turn back?" Belle asked quietly.
A silent nod was the only response she got. No wonder he didn't want to ask Rumplestiltskin about this. Belle squeezed his arm again and looked into brown eyes just like the ones she knew so well.
"I don't think he can, Bae," she replied honestly. "And I know he doesn't want to. He values his freedom too much. And his family."
"Good." Finally, a smile crept its way onto Bae's face, and Belle could see that just sharing his doubts had helped him. She smiled back, but was surprised when he added: "So, when is he going to marry you, anyway?"
Belle started. "What?"
"C'mon. It's not like you two aren't practically married, anyway," Bae retorted, his eyes suddenly dancing. "When are you going to make it official?"
"We haven't…really talked about it," she hesitated. "Not since Storybrooke, anyway."
"Well, if it's me you're worried about, don't. I'm never going to call you Mom, or anything—being older than you would make that really awkward—but you're already family."
Belle had to swallow before she could find her voice. "Thank you, Bae."
Tinker Bell travelled to the fairies' lands the day after Blue left the Dark Castle for the last time, hoping to find that the senior fairy had indeed not chosen to remove the fairies from the war against the Black Fairy (few bought into the fiction that the Witch was the main enemy any longer; it was painfully obvious who was behind her) altogether. But she returned disheartened, glumly telling Regina that her friends amongst the fairies expected to be told to guard their own borders and only reach out to help those Blue felt deserving of their assistance. Regina, in turn, fetched Rumplestiltskin and—interestingly enough—Emma, and the three magic users sat down with the possibly-former fairy to talk strategy.
"There are hundreds of fairies," Tink said desolately. "How are we going to make up for that? Especially with Emma having no training at all. No offense."
"Actually…Regina's going to help me fix that," Emma replied after a hesitation, and Rumplestiltskin felt his eyebrows try to mate with his hairline.
"Really?" he couldn't help drawling.
"Shut up."
"Upset she didn't come to you?" Regina tried taunting him, but the smile in her eyes was friendly enough. For her.
Rumplestiltskin snorted. "I'm sure she will after you two try to kill one another for the umpteenth time."
"Hey!" Emma objected, but Regina shrugged elegantly.
"Probably."
"Can we get back to the topic at hand, please?" Tink pleaded, and Rumplestiltskin found himself very grateful for the fairy's level-headedness.
"Maleficent will be with us, particularly if the rest of the fairies aren't," Regina pointed out. "And no offense to your former colleagues, but the three of us—and even Emma, once she starts figuring things out—are worth at least our weight in fairies. When they're tiny."
Holding back a snort was beyond him, and Rumplestiltskin didn't try very hard, either. Regina's acidic sense of humor always had been to his tastes, particularly when they were throwing the barbs at one another. Still, amusement aside, there was work to be done—and with the exception of the Savior, none of them at this table were particularly likely ones to be the world's only hope. Time to change that, if I can. "There are others," he pointed out slowly. "Some are more minor magic users than others, but we'll have an advantage when it comes to getting them on our side."
"What, your good looks and charm?" Regina shot back immediately.
Rumplestiltskin laughed humorlessly. "No, that the fae will likely kill them given half the chance. Danns' a'Bhàis won't tolerate opposition if she can easily destroy it, and alone, they are all easy targets. United with us, they may just survive."
"You really do have Merlin's powers, don't you?" Tink interjected before Regina could respond, looking at Rumplestiltskin levelly. "And his memories?"
"Some of them." And he didn't like admitting it, wished he could change this subject easily, but three sets of eyes were now fastened on Rumplestiltskin, and he regretted telling the others the truth two days earlier. Henry might have been right—at least the Charmings hadn't decided he was evil incarnate again once Rumplestiltskin had admitted he was now more powerful than he'd ever been as the Dark One—but it still left him damn uncomfortable.
"Do you know what happened between the two of them? Blue and the Black Fairy, I mean." Tink asked the question he hadn't expected. "We only know stories. Legends, mainly. What does the Black Fairy want?"
There were a million answers he could provide; Danns had never been simple. But the root of the sisters' conflict had always been about power, about humanity itself and who would steer the course the future would take. Powerful as fairies were, their fates were tied to humanity's far more than either sister would care to admit. It was simply the way of things in their world. They were the closest to deities that the Enchanted Forest possessed, the granters of wishes and the arbitragers of fate. But some wished to serve more than others.
"Power," he answered slowly, finding the word inadequate. "Toys."
"Toys?" Emma echoed warily, clearly catching the implication right away. But then, their Savior had always been smart, even when she drove him mad.
"The conflict between Reul Ghorm and Danns' a'Bhàis has always been over humanity. Reul Ghorm wants to protect humans, to be our 'loving' guardian and to keep us on the right path. Danns' a'Bhàis has always wanted…more. She wants control, to toy with humanity as she wishes. That's what they fought over."
It was an oversimplification, but the actual story would have taken hours to explain.
Regina's eyebrows made a fair bid at mating with her elaborately coifed hair. "Are you telling me that the blue insect really is the better of the two? That's she's actually trying to help?"
"Well, if you're willing to live by her rules, I'm sure she's goodness incarnate," he replied dryly.
"And if you aren't?" Emma demanded.
"Once there was a balance of power," Rumplestiltskin answered her question obliquely. "Neither fairy could overpower the other because Merlin was certain to side with whichever was losing. However, he never actually needed to—because if either turned their back on him to concentrate on her sister, that left too much power unchecked. Eventually, Danns moved to change the status quo, from which resulted the curse that yours truly inherited." He gestured at himself with a flourish and a wry smile. "Of course, that didn't do her much good. Reul Ghorm managed to somehow get the Heart of the Truest Believer in her chest, and that put a bit of a damper on her ambitions."
"You talk like you know her," Tink said with a frown. "The Black Fairy."
That made Rumplestiltskin blink. "I suppose I do. Or my memories do, anyway." He shrugged, but decided not to let them in on the interesting fact that the Black Fairy still thought he was Merlin. No, that was best kept to himself. Instead, Rumplestiltskin waved a hand dismissively. "How is not important. What does matter is that we do have to counter the fae in any way we can. And for that we need every magic user we can find."
"I vote Tink plays the diplomat," Regina piped up immediately. "Swan here is likely to shoot them if they disagree, and you and I don't exactly have the best reputations."
They shared an oddly understanding smile over that. Regina was the one person who probably knew exactly how out of place Rumplestiltskin sometimes felt. Both had lived in darkness for so long that sometimes even thinking of being something else was unsettling, and even if they were both trying to be better, sometimes old habits died hard. Not to mention well-earned fearsome reputations.
"I quite agree," he replied, watching Tink smile. Rumplestiltskin hated fairies on principle, but he was pretty sure that he'd have to make a permanent exception for Tinker Bell. "And actually, I have idea of something far better for you to do, Regina. One that will utilize your talents perfectly."
She rolled her eyes, clearly hearing how his sense of humor wanted to jump into this conversation. "And what's that?"
"I want you to pay your sister a visit."
"That went better than I'd expected," David said to Bae a few hours after the battle. It was their third battle in as many days; the pair had left the Dark Castle the evening after the Blue Fairy had shown up, returning to the army to start working on winning the war once and for all. Three successive victories left them both feeling pretty good, and although neither was willing to count the Witch out yet, her newest general didn't seem to be on par with the last two. Shan Yu was a fierce bastard, to be sure—and apparently had a grudge against Mulan for reasons the younger woman hadn't yet fully explained—but he wasn't brilliant. Their last pincher move had trapped Shan Yu between Baelfire's cavalry and Mulan's shock troops, and between the three of them, they'd almost managed to destroy his entire army.
Almost. A quartet of ogres prevented their last victory from being a total victory, but still, they'd done damn well. And Bae hadn't had to call in his father to deal with the ogres, either—they'd lumbered off with the rest of Shan Yu's forces in retreat, which really made the day better. Ogres always suck, Bae thought to himself with a smile, looking out over the army's camp. But we got the better of them today.
"Tell me about it," he breathed in response. Mulan was off with Grumpy, who wasn't doing as well as the dwarf would like others to believe. Oh, Grumpy tried to pretend he was okay, but there was obviously a hole where his heart used to be, and Bae knew nothing but time could heal that. If anything could at all.
"Something the matter?" David asked him.
"Nah. Just thinking deep thoughts," Bae replied with a smile. "Likely to drown myself if I keep that up, though."
"Well, quit. We can't have the Enchanted Forest's newest knight doing that. Not this soon." David's grin didn't help much; Bae still found himself turning red.
"Will you quit it with that?" he asked, embarrassed. He still wanted to kill his father for not warning him. Or David for the same. Either one of them would do, really. He turned on Emma's father with a scowl. "I still can't believe you didn't tell me."
David laughed. "The look on your face was worth it."
"Bastard."
"Nope," the king replied cheerfully. "I might have been a shepherd, but never a bastard. My parents were married, thank you very much."
Bae could only roll his eyes, but David's serious response to the question made his mind suddenly turn to that subject. He'd used "bastard" as a light-hearted insult towards a friend, but David had approached the topic like a King would—or like anyone who'd spent their formative years in the Enchanted Forest. Here, being born out of wedlock left a taint on any child, and even high-born bastards were often ostracized by society. Back in the Land Without Magic, having only one parent was a depressingly normal tragedy that some children faced, but here… No one looked at things the same way. Not when both parents were alive but unmarried, or even just separated. Hell, Bae remembered the scandal Milah leaving had caused, even though they'd thought she was unwilling. The town had talked of nothing else for months, and he and his father had been sneered at even worse than before, because everyone knew Milah, and knew she'd "asked"for something like that to happen.
Henry. God, how could he not have thought of that before? By the antiquated feudal rules of the society Bae now lived in, his son was a bastard. Henry was royalty on one side, but according to a screwed up world he hadn't even been born in, he was a bastard. How long would it take before someone realized that? Bae wasn't foolish enough to think that the years in Storybrooke had made anyone's opinions change, and that meant Henry would pay the price for his parents having been products of the world they inhabited when he was conceived. And there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it, not thirteen years after the fact.
Unless—
Well, that did mean he really was going to have to have the conversation he'd been planning on having with David. And now would probably be a good time to bite the bullet and man up. Mouth suddenly dry, Bae forced himself to speak up, noticing how David was eyeing him curiously, probably wondering why he'd gone so quiet.
"So, uh, speaking of, well…people," he started, inwardly cursing himself for sounding so foolish. He wasn't some nineteen year old kid! Bae was almost three hundred years old, and even if he'd spent the bulk of those years at fifteen, that was an enormous amount of life experience. And I bet Hook would get this out without missing beat. He'd probably sound convincing, too. Not frowning was hard, so he took a deep breath instead.
"Go on," David urged him, and at least the damn man wasn't smiling too much. Or laughing at him. Bae'd have killed him if he'd started laughing.
He wished he had pockets to stuff his hands into. Really, he did. Squaring his shoulders didn't help, but he took the plunge anyway.
"So, I never really asked you about how you felt about, y'know, Emma and me," Bae said as casually as he could manage. "I mean, I know we kind of stuck you with Henry before you really met Emma and all, and that I'm kind of the odd afterthought that happens to be Henry's dad. But, uh…how do you feel about us now?"
Man, that was seriously the least graceful way he could have phrased the question, but at least it was out. David looked to be fighting back a smile, but was he laughing at his idiocy or something else?
"Baelfire, are you asking permission to court my daughter?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I am." At least he didn't beat around that one. How crazy was he, asking to court a princess? They can knight me, but I'm still a spinner's kid from the Frontlands. Even if Pop is, well, different now. This was going to be a disaster, but Bae loved Emma, and always had. He'd screwed up enough between them, and he wanted to make things right. To do things right. For Emma.
"Usually, men ask that question before they take a princess to a ball," David pointed out.
"To be fair, she asked me and not the other way around."
David laughed at Bae's crooked smile; thankfully, the other man was used to his off-beat sense of humor. And Emma had asked Bae to go with her. We're never going to have a traditional courtship. I really hope Snow doesn't expect that. David was more realistic, but Snow…
"Why am I not surprised?" was all the king said before shrugging. "I think you asking is kind of redundant at this point. You two already have a kid, and Emma's my age, sort of. And saying she's got a mind of her own is kind of an understatement. Even if I told her to stay away from you, she wouldn't."
"Do you want her to?"
"No." David looked him right in the eye, and Bae was ever so grateful for how direct and honest the man was. "You have my blessing, for what it's worth. Emma's another matter."
"You can say that again," he breathed. "I'm working on her."
David grinned. "Good luck. But I don't think you'll need it."
"I think you might just be a little overly optimistic. As usual," Bae shot back. "Can we go back to planning battles now? That's a lot easier than planning my love life."
"You got it, Sir Baelfire."
David dodged as Bae swung at him playfully.
"Jerk."
"I'll be fine, Rumple," Belle said for the fifteenth time—she was counting. It was his own fault that the look she gave him was exasperated. Yes, she loved him to pieces, but he was really quite silly sometimes. "I know it could be dangerous, but it's going to be a lot less dangerous than what you're planning on."
His expression was innocent, and Rumplestiltskin spread his hands out in a gesture that clearly said he had no idea what Belle was talking about. Brown human eyes were wide and guileless; this human face of his really was much better at hiding his inner thoughts than Rumple thought it was. But Belle knew him better than that. She glared, so he shrugged a little. "I'm not exactly planning anything dangerous, Belle."
"No. You're just going to go investigate where the fae are hiding."
"I already know where they're hiding," he corrected her. "I just want to see what else they're up to."
"Rumple."
Relenting—she could see it in the way his shoulders sagged slightly—Rumplestiltskin stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her from behind. "If I promise I'll be careful, can I worry about you?" he asked plaintively.
"Maybe." Despite herself, Belle chuckled, nestling against his chest. The longest they'd spent apart since his return had been three days, but the mission Belle had volunteered to join promised to take much longer than that. Rumplestiltskin was going to take them on the first leg of their journey, but they'd proceed on foot from there, and none of them knew for sure how long looking for the Janus Stone would take. All Belle knew was that she needed to do something, and there were likely to be any number of traps around such a powerful magical object. Emma needed someone with a brain along, so she'd volunteered.
"I know why you need to go," Rumplestiltskin murmured into her hair. "I just…I'll miss you."
Turning around in his arms to kiss him lightly, Belle felt a smile softening her own determination. True Love could be such a nuisance sometimes; she felt incomplete when she spent too much time away from him, and she knew Rumple felt the same. Particularly now, when he was still fragile in odd ways and struggling to accept what he knew he had to be. "And I'll miss you."
They held onto one another in silence for a long moment, just savoring the closeness. There had been a time when Belle had known she'd never have this again; she'd railed against the knowledge that he was dead and explored every possible way to bring him back, but nothing had worked. Searching for the dagger hadn't helped, either; there'd been no sign of it, and eventually Belle had been so caught up in the war that she'd had to put her efforts on hold. Neither she or Bae had ever admitted to giving up, but a day had finally come when she'd had to admit to herself that Rumplestiltskin had been gone for good. That knowledge had torn a hole in her heart that could never have healed…until they found him in Bremen, and Belle's broken heart had mended instantly.
Still, she knew her infuriating True Love well enough to know there were still some topics he might never broach, which left Belle doing the hard emotional work. As usual. She didn't particularly mind, but there were times she really wished Rumplestiltskin was a little different in that respect. He is a little better, she reminded herself, remembering her surprise when he'd asked her to kiss him in front of hundreds of people. He was usually so much more private than that, and she was proud of him for being willing to show others their love. Still, the ball was definitely in her court, and Belle had a plan.
"Maybe when I return you'll make an honest woman out of me?" she suggested as casually as she could, remembering her conversation with Baelfire a few days earlier.
"Hm?" he asked noncommittally, but Belle felt Rumplestiltskin's sudden tension and knew he'd gotten the hint.
"My father was talking about sending suitors after me again," she told him, remembering her dances with her father and grimacing. "I told him not to bother."
"Belle, you—"
Leaning back to look in his eyes, Belle had a finger on his lips before Rumplestiltskin got to the third word. She knew he was speaking out of habit, but she still had no intention of letting him finish. "Don't you dare tell me that I deserve someone better than you, Rumplestiltskin," she told him firmly. "I love you as much as you love me, and I am not going anywhere. I will not leave you. Ever."
"Belle…" The wonderment mixed with pain in his eyes made her heart clench, and Belle kissed him again.
She knew his insecurities, after all. She knew that a part of Rumplestiltskin would always wonder when she would leave, because he'd loved so very few in his long life, and most of them had left him in one way or another. Belle wasn't offended by that knowledge, not anymore; she knew it wasn't a rational fear. For such a powerful man, he was still unbelievably timid when it came to his personal relationships, and Belle knew that sometimes he needed her to be the strong one.
"I promised you forever," she whispered against his lips, their foreheads touching. "Forever is what you get, and if this is all you want—"
He started to cut her off shakily. "I don't—"
Belle kissed him again to shut him up. "We'll talk about it when I get back," she said, knowing he needed time. "All right?"
"All right," Rumplestiltskin echoed, and Belle felt his arms tighten around her. "I promise."
He was making progress. She hadn't even had to ask him to promise that, and Belle smiled.
"Are you sure you can come along without it getting awkward?" Emma asked Hook, wishing so hard that the answer was no. But really, with this odd little group they'd assembled, how could it not be awkward?
Belle and Ruby were valiantly pretending to ignore their conversation, standing near the large table and joking quietly with one another. Gold was off talking to Emma's mother, of all people—apparently, they'd agreed to share the Henry watching duties between them while all three of his parents were off doing various missions and David was off with the army. The two of them seemed to be getting along better these days, and Emma was damn glad for that. Gold—Rumplestiltskin, she reminded herself, finally understanding the difference between the two—was probably the best chance they had of winning this damn war. Emma was far too practical to get wrapped around how ironic that was. Besides, she was quite literally sleeping with the man's son, again, so Emma supposed that she couldn't cast too many stones in that direction.
"What exactly do you mean?" Hook asked warily, and Emma could see the hurt in his eyes. Her heart clenched in her chest; Hook was a good man, and she hated doing this to him. Nothing would change her attraction to him, but in the end, Emma knew that attraction wasn't enough.
Besides, which Henry had already found her in bed with his birth father two mornings earlier, and that was practically the equivalent of taking out an ad in the paper. In full color. By now, she was quite certain that her parents knew she was back together with Neal, and Gold probably knew, too—assuming Neal hadn't just straight up told him. Damn, am I ever going to get their names right? Neal/Baelfire had told her he didn't care what she called him, that she'd met him as Neal, and he was fine with her calling him that if she wanted to. Maybe it could be a pet name of some sort, he'd joked before Regina had delivered him and David back to the army, and Emma could only laugh.
Now, however, she took a deep breath and tried to banish the crooked half smile that remembering put on her face. "You know what I mean," Emma replied as gently as she could. "I'm…Neal and I—Baelfire and I—are going to try to give this a shot. For Henry. And for…for us."
"I see." Hook rocked back on his heels, eyes wide with shock, and Emma bit her lip.
"Look. I told you before we went to the christening together," she plowed onwards as calmly as she could. "I don't want to hurt you. You've become one of the best friends I'll ever have. But I won't lie to you. It isn't fair."
The pirate shrugged. "I appreciate that," he said gruffly, and Emma stepped forward to put a hand on his arm.
"If you're doing this to try for another chance…just don't," she pleaded. "We've got to find the Janus Stone, and we can't afford to be distracted."
"I'll do the job, love. I always do," he replied with a pained smile. "And if friends is what you want to be, that's what we'll be."
Emma knew she was hurting him, and wished there was some other way, but all she could do was offer him a smile and a hug. Hook really had become a good friend, and Emma didn't want to lose him because of some stupid love triangle she'd never meant to get into.
"Thank you, Killian," she said quietly, glad that he hugged her back.
"You're welcome, Swan."
She was spared from having to come up with something else to say by Rumplestiltskin showing up. Belle greeted him with a smile, of course—and damn, didn't a part of Emma envy them, a thought she'd never expected to have—and somehow the older man resisted the urge to say something obnoxious. There's a first time for everything, I suppose. Gold's passing up the opportunity to be an asshole. I suppose he has changed. Good thing, because someday the sharp-tongued manipulator might just wind up as her father-in-law.
"Everyone ready?" Rumplestiltskin asked mildly.
Emma glanced over at Ruby and Belle before looking at Hook again. They all nodded, so she straightened her shoulders and replied: "Yeah. Let's go find this rock of yours."
A/N: Obviously, "Quiet Minds" was a bit heartbreaking in so many ways. That said, Baelfire will be alive and well for this fic—although I do have a few character deaths in mind coming up, I will promise that he isn't one of them!
In the meantime, stick around for Chapter 25: "Looking in the Mirror", in which Emma and company continue on their quest, Tink gets in trouble, and Regina goes to see her sister.
PS - "Out of Book" is a chess reference, where a player avoids theory and plays a new or unorthodox move, which may confuse a "book" or conventional player.