Emma dozed only long enough for it to be dark outside. Well… 'Dozed' was using it incredibly loosely. She wasn't even sure she had slept. She just felt like she was awake the whole time but when she looked over, the fireplace was nothing but warm coals and Emma wasn't sure she remembered the fire going out.

But how could she sleep when her mother was in Rumpelstiltskin's castle? She couldn't. She had to get to her mother and fix this. Rumpelstiltskin thought Emma was important. She knew that Rumpelstiltskin also thought that her mother was not.

Which made her expendable.

Emma changed out of her gown. Jefferson hadn't locked the door. Had he forgotten? Or did he think that she wouldn't leave? Well that was insane.

Emma had a faint idea of where the kitchen was. She could pack a small bag of food just in case. However, she didn't think she really needed to get far before Rumpelstiltskin snatched her up.

Emma slipped out of the door. She leaned heavily on the rails and hopped down the stairs. She thought her foot was in pain earlier? She had no idea was pain was because it was agonizing now.

She couldn't waste energy getting food. She needed to get to the stables; there was no way that she could walk on this foot.

She made it downstairs and leaned on the front table. Alright, this was going to be a lot harder to get done than she thought. Emma hoped there was something she could lean on in the way toward the stables. If there wasn't then she was in trouble.

"What are you doing, Alice?"

Emma froze at the sound of Jefferson's voice and looked over at him. She thought he might take some blankets and go to another room but he had planted himself right at the roman couch at the entrance and gone to sleep.

Emma looked over her shoulder towards the front door. She wouldn't make it without him grabbing her if he really wanted to, but she was certain he wouldn't because of how it'd went the last time he'd put his hands on her without her consent.

But Emma wasn't going to play this game with him, "Where do you think I'm going? I'm getting her out of there."

"Alice-."

"Don't worry about him hurting you," Emma told him, "I'll make him leaving you alone as part of the deal."

"Do you really think he won't find some way out of that?"

"Just watch out for my mom," Emma told him, "Get her home."

"Alice," Jefferson stood in front of her, "He won't let your mother go, he's going to use her to get what he wants. She's going to be leverage. He'll word it in such a way that he doesn't have to let her go."

Emma gave a stubborn scoff and held her ground, "Then I'll make sure that he won't."

"Alice, he's been doing this for a lot longer than you have. He'll find a way to keep her. If he doesn't, do you know what he'll do? He'll still find a way to hold your mother hostage. Rumpelstiltskin will tell you that he'll go and get her again if you don't work with him in the way that he thinks you should."

Emma felt her heart start to race and she knew that he was probably right, "I can't just leave her in there."

"No one's saying that you have to," Jefferson told her and he almost sounded like he meant it, "But as I've said before, we have to be smart about this."

"Well I'd like to hear your solution for what I should do!" Emma said, "Because I don't see a way that guarantees us all being safe and free. It's better that it's me than my mom, she's been through too much already."

"And what do you think it'll do to her if you just blindly walk in to save her without thinking?" Jefferson demanded.

Emma held her ground, "Maybe he'll let me go."

"Alice, he doesn't even know what he wants with you yet. What makes you think he'd let you go?" He stepped closer, "He's not going to torture your mother. She hasn't done anything wrong to him."

"I thought you said she's stabbed him."

"If Rumpelstiltskin killed everyone that tried to stab him, there wouldn't be many people in this world," Jefferson told her, "And he knows that how well you work with him will probably depend a lot on how she's treated."

"And what's stopping him from just…taking me, killing you, and threatening my mother if I don't work with him?"

They heard something creak upstairs and both looked up towards the stairway.

Jefferson leaned closer, "It appears that our walls have ears."

Emma didn't say anything but kept her eyes to the hallway. It had to be one of the servants….did they expose them or did they stay quiet?

Jefferson walked to a table and grabbed a couple of small packs and his hat, "Nothing's stopping him. Hence I'm taking advantage of my honeymoon while I get the chance."

Emma saw what he was doing. He was getting them out of there; Away from Rumpelstiltskin and Regina and their spies so that they could come up with a plan.

At least Emma hoped so. She didn't detect him lying but she'd been wrong before.

"He'll kill you if you take me out of the realms," Emma told him.

"No," Jefferson said, "He'll kill me if I lose you. But he'll also kill me if I want to keep you so you'll understand I'm in a very precarious position still. Although I do know that it's not safe here."

Emma knew that Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't kill him. Well, at least according to her timeline. She didn't think that things in the past could change but she wasn't sure if she always came to the past or if she was actually changing things, "I'm not leaving my mother."

"Alice, the imp knows you're not going to abandon her," Jefferson promised, "And he knows that we'll be back but we need to be smart about this and the smart thing isn't staying here."

Emma licked her lips and looked down at the hat, "Last two times I went through that, it didn't end well."

"That's because you don't know what you're doing," Jefferson told her, "And luckily for me, I do."

"If you knew what you were doing then we wouldn't be in this situation," Emma told him almost lightly.

Jefferson pouted, "I do know what I'm doing. Everyone just doubts it."

He spun the hat and stood back as the room filled with a purple smoke. Emma stepped back and eyed the hat warily "Where are we going?"

"Someplace quiet, where we can think," he held out his hand, "Shall we?"

Emma swallowed. It felt wrong to run. It felt like she was abandoning her mother in the way that she felt she'd spent 28 years being abandoned. She was leaving this realm which meant that she would have no idea what Rumpelstiltskin would be doing to her mother and she'd be even more powerless to stop it.

But if Jefferson was right…there was no way they could do anything here without one of them getting captured or killed and they couldn't strategize with several eyes watching them.

She needed to get Jefferson by himself. She needed to see if there was really another agenda to his wanting to get her out of there. Emma hoped she was wrong, she just hoped he was still a self-serving man who was doing this to save his own skin. But if he wasn't, she needed him alone so that she could persuade him to her side.

Running and living to fight another day was the best solution. But Emma felt like such a coward for doing it.

And after her mom let her go to protect her, Emma felt like she could do better. She just didn't know what 'better' was. Jefferson was right; she didn't know what Rumpelstiltskin wanted to do with her

"Yeah," Emma took his hand. He gave her what normal people would think of as a comforting smile and tightened his grip.

And together they jumped.