Chapter 28
Granny's B & B, Granny's suite 8:20 am
Granny's face offers both a frown and a surprised grin as she hangs up her rotary-dial phone (she also has a cell, but she's installed rotary phones in the guest rooms because customers find them quaint). Mr. Dove has been here nearly two hours now and he's determined to stay at Henry's side "for the duration," he says (he peppers his speech with military expressions because his cursed memories told him he had been a Navy Seal before coming to Storybrooke). Granny has known Dove long enough to realize he takes his duty as seriously as if he were a royal guard protecting a crown prince during an attack on the castle, so she has done all she could to make her visitors comfortable, providing them breakfasts, a checker board, and access to her personal DVD collection (lots of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, stuff she knows Regina would never in a hundred years allow Henry to see—so of course Granny invites the boy to choose whatever he likes).
So when she hangs up from speaking to Ruby, she's only slightly troubled when she has to ask a favor of Dove. "The diner's getting really busy. Seems the New Yorkers emptied out Gold's fridge yesterday so they've come to the diner for breakfast."
She needn't ask her question. Dove assures her he and Henry will be just fine on their own for a couple of hours, and if something happens that requires Granny and Bessie (Granny's crossbow), he'll call. Granny has no doubt about it, so she grabs a clean apron from her dresser and dashes off. When this current threat is over, she thinks, she'll relish the opportunity of thanking Frank for taking over her babysitting duties—even though she knows he's here on Gold's orders. Poor Mr. Dove, rattling around all alone in that two-bedroom ranch style house of his—he's a widower, don't you know—or at least, his cursed memories had him thinking so until very recently. He eats dinner at the diner all the time, so she knows all of his favorite dishes: she'll just show up at that big old empty house some night with a sack of groceries. . . .
Dove watches her go. He recognizes the gleam in her eye; he has a pretty good idea there may be some home-cooked Yankee pot roast in his future and he doesn't mind a bit. Just one problem, though: a gent can't very well call the lady he's courting "Granny." What a buzz kill that would be, eh?
Once Granny's out the door, Henry loses interest in checkers and begins to indulge in a little intel gathering for Operation Preying Mantis. The odds are against him, but if he's sneaky enough, if he's sweet enough, he thinks he just might manage to squeeze out of Mr. Dove one or two of Mr. Gold's lesser secrets. Maybe he can even wrangle an invitation inside the Dark Lair. Heh heh heh.
Granny's Diner 9:20 am
Bae is idly inspecting his phone for messages as Emma, water-logged from her fourth cocoa, asks yet again, "Where the hell is she?"
Bae shrugs. He won't bother to voice an answer, since Emma didn't seem to hear him the first seventy-two times when he said "she's probably getting in some extra training." But up until nine o'clock, when they were talking heart-to-heart about Henry and catching up on each other's lives and remembering some of the good old times (ignoring certain salient facts of their criminal past), he had thought things were going really good. Too good. Made him uncomfortable, to feel so comfortable talking to Em. . . sitting with her. . .eating breakfast, laughing, making plans for the future. . . wondering if she still uses that lilac shampoo that makes her hair so silky and great-smelling. . . wondering if she still sneaks glances while she's kissing a man. . . .
With a deep sigh he tries calling Tam. No answer.
Em orders a fifth cocoa. Woman always could hold her chocolate. As Ruby adds a dusting of cinnamon, Bae suggests, "How about if we go for a walk while we wait? We've been sitting here all morning and my legs are cramped." He offers his patented dare-you-not-to-be-charmed grin. "Come on, Em, show me around the town square, huh?" He taps his phone. "When she's finished her workout, she'll call. It's not like she's going to run off without me and her car."
She's about to cave in, though she thinks it's dangerous (what, strolling around town on sunny spring morning with a former lover? Damn right it's dangerous!). He's about to cave in, to anything she might suggest: a ray of sunshine is lighting up her gold hair and her pure-as-a-mountain-stream baby blues and his knees have passed cramped and moved into the jelly stage. If she slides into that half-smile of hers, he swears his knees will leave the jelly stage and become water.
And then her phone rings. Her part of the conversation consists of three words: "Sheriff Swan" and "thanks."
Crap. He pulls up one of his phone's photos of Tam so he can remember what he is. Yeah, Tam. Sweet smile, affectionate nature, ambition, confidence, style. A woman who's going places. What's not to love there? Whereas Em—well, she's still kind drifting, isn't she? Still hesitant to get involved, but once she finally commits, she's all the way in. And once she cares about a person, it's for life, and it's with everything she is. Yeah. He can see it in her lit-up eyes. She still cares about him.
He always could read her like a picture book, and vice versa. He fiddles with a spoon so she won't see what's in his eyes, and so he doesn't notice the squint she's shooting at him as she says, "That was the ME's office. We got a homicide."
Before he can speak, her phone rings again. Her questions are succinct: "What?" "Where?" "When?" "Where are you now?" She ends with "All right, start asking around the inn to see if anyone saw him leave. Just don't knock on Room 1. That's Mary Margaret and David." She starts dialing, squinting against the sun. "Mendell snuck out while my deputy was on a bathroom break." Her dial complete, she sips her cocoa as she waits for her call to be answered. "Yeah, this is the sheriff. Who's this?. . . Okay, look, remember that little trip to New York we were gonna take tomorrow to find Hook? Yeah, well, it might be on again if we can wrap up this job here. You up for a different manhunt?" To whomever she's speaking, she gives a clinical description of Mendell and Tamara. "Got no idea where, but I'm sure they're still in the area. Here, here's a picture of Mendell, and here's one of Tamara." She emails her conversant photos of the fugitives. "Search the town, all the alleys, empty buildings, see if you can find either of them, and if you do, put them under arrest and call me. . . Yeah, I hereby deputize the whole bunch of you. Hey, where's Gold?. . .Crap on a cracker! You got his number? Call him, tell him the sheriff orders him to get his ass home before he's next on Tamara and Mendell's list—aw, hell, he won't take orders. Tell him he needs to get home to protect Belle. Now hit the streets. No shooting!"
She tosses a handful of bills onto the table and stalks over to the counter to talk to the dark-haired waitress. He drags himself from the booth, struggling to stand because his legs really have lost circulation. "Em! Wait, what are you doing?" he calls after her.
"I'm done waiting. I've got a murderer to catch."
"Wait, I'm coming with you."
"No you're not," she barks. "This is a murder investigation. You're impeding." She turns to Ruby. "I need your passkey and your nose." Then the two women start outside. "Room 8. We need something with Tamara's scent."
Bae follows despite the sheriff's command. Truth be told, he's not really sure if his intention is to protect Tam—or to protect Em.
Gold's House 9:25 am
Nibs hangs up. He doesn't have to explain the sheriff's message: he'd put his phone on speaker so his partners could hear every word. The twins whoop; they don't have weapons in this world, but they still have their fighting skills—and they still have a taste for battle. If they can't hunt Hook, these other fugitives are the next best thing.
Belle too has heard everything, and she urges, "Wait a minute." She runs upstairs, and when she returns five minutes later she's dressed in jeans, hiking boots and a t-shirt. The twins exchange a small smile; knowing now that she keeps clothes in this house gives them a pretty good idea of the nature of her relationship with Gold. "Lucky bastard," Twin One mutters. Belle overhears that and snaps, "I'm the lucky one. Now come on, I got something to show you."
She leads them to a corner of the attic, where a pair of steamer trunks is collecting dust. "Under the circumstances, Rumple won't mind you borrowing a few things, if you take good care of them." She flips the lids on the trunks to reveal an assortment of old-world weapons, primarily swords and bows. They start to reach in but she slams the lids shut. "Just one thing. I'm coming with you."
"Aw, Belle, do you know what Rumplestiltskin will do to us if you get hurt?" Nibs begins, and the other Lost Boys, reverting to type, complain about the fighting skills (or lack thereof) of girls.
"No Belle, no weapons." She seats herself upon one of the trunks.
The boys continue to argue against her—except for Slightly. He waits for a break in the noise, then raises a warning hand and says matter-of-factly, "We need her. She knows her way around this town. We don't. She's coming."
"But what about Rumplestiltskin?" Nibs presses.
"His orders, if I recall correctly, were for us to stay with her and protect her."
"I don't remember him saying we had to stay in the house." Tootles is the first to give ground.
"Sheriff told us to go," Curly reminds them. "Sheriff's orders trump Rumplestiltskin's orders, right?"
Nibs socks him in the arm. "In what world?"
Belle stands and starts to distribute swords and bows.
Convent 9:40 am
Sometimes it's kind of messy having two distinct personalities in one head, shouting at each other. Gold has passive-aggressive tendencies that have resulted, throughout his Storybrooke life, in a policy of non-engagement: he just doesn't get involved in other people's problems, unless he can see a clear opportunity for himself. Rumplestiltskin, however, ever since gaining power, held to a policy of swift and hard retaliation against any attack to his person, his property or his pride.
Where Bae is involved, any counterargument Gold may throw out is flimsy. Rumplestiltskin wins. He will launch a preemptive strike against the deceiver who is threatening his son—even though she is his son's lover.
Even though he will probably lose his son's love in the process.
Rumplestiltskin isn't sure whether Cora's attacker intended to kill her or whether the death resulted accidentally from whatever sort of device or power that had been used to drain Cora of her magic. It's clear, though, that any practitioner of magic will be a target, and living on the edge of town with a group of nuns makes the Blue Fairy the most vulnerable of the five remaining mages, especially on a Sunday morning, when they're in the middle of mass. Rumple's not too keen on exerting himself for the creature whose magic took Bae from him, but under the circumstances, he'll make an exception.
His phone vibrates and in a hasty conversation Belle delivers Emma's warning, then informs him of the mission she and the Lost Boys are undertaking. He begins to launch a plea for her to stay at the house, locked in, but she interrupts, "Is that what you're going to do? Are you coming home, like Emma suggested, and protect yourself?"
He's already lost that challenge, he realizes. "Keep your phone with you, sweetheart, and if anything happens, call me. I'll be there before you can hang up."
She assures him she'll take no unnecessary chances. "Since you're not coming home, what are you going to do?"
He hesitates to admit his intentions, but in the weeks of her amnesia, he learned a costly lesson: he was wrong to keep secrets from her. Not only for her sake, but for his own, he needs to confide in her. "I think Blue's likely to be the next victim, so I'm at the convent."
Her voice softens, for she knows full well how he feels about the fairies, especially Blue. She does not, however, congratulate him for putting his hatred aside for the common good; it's what she has expected of him all along, although in the past he's repeatedly failed her. "Call me if you need us. For that matter, call me if you don't need us, just so I'll know you're okay."
He chuckles a little. "I love you, Belle."
"I love you too, Rumple."
At the end of the dead-end street, well beyond curious eyes, he pauses long enough to cast a spell—upon himself. He becomes again the scales-skinned, golden-eyed imp clad in leather. . . the imp who will have no compunction against acting with extreme prejudice. His mouth a tight line, he walks up the porch to the front door and rings the bell.
Mayor's Office 10:40 am
Regina's exhausted. It's not just the past nine hours that have worn her down; it's a lifetime of struggle. She was born a princess, raised in comfort, gifted with magic: why has her entire life been one fight after another? Her head turns automatically toward the framed photo on the corner of her desk, one she snapped herself: Henry standing in the entranceway to his kindergarten classroom. He's waving and beaming because he's about to begin his first day of school and in another moment his mommy will walk away, leaving him, and he will be on his own in this new environment, independent, breaking the first of the apron strings that have always bound him. "My little man," she had called him that day.
Now that Cora is gone, Regina can begin the first day of her new life too. . . can't she? Or are the apron strings unbreakable?
A creaking floorboard brings her to her feet. She relaxes just a little and her mind shifts into planning gear when Hook sails in. His expression signals humbleness and embarrassment—but he's such a liar that Regina doubts if he's even capable of telling the truth any more, so she watches and listens for a hint of what he really wants from her. "Captain," she greets him, "you look like you've had a rough time." It's not sympathy she's offering; the comment comes with gloating. She does wonder how he managed to return from New York with his ship having been commandeered away from him. Did he fly, and if so, however did he manage to get past the TSA with his metal appendage? But that story will have to wait, for he swallows his pride and asks her to protect him. He starts yammering about some conspiracy between the outsiders that would endanger the whole town.
It reeks of double cross—won't Hook ever learn that when it comes to manipulation, he's strictly bush league? But it's kind of dull having no confidante, now that Cora's gone and she's burned the Belle bridge with Rumple. And Hook is such a pretty toy; he'll make an enticing distraction for a certain former dragon lady who's blocking Regina's path to a device that will make all her problems disappear.
The thick lashes fringing his blue eyes lower when he learns of Cora's passing. "It seems Providence has brought us together," he says. "I offer you a share in my revenge. When we have eliminated this immediate threat, I shall be happy to go crocodile hunting with you." To seal their partnership, he offers her the only memento of Cora that he has: an enchanted leather bracelet.
As he slides it onto her wrist, she thinks she can sense a wisp of Cora's presence. She seizes the edge of her desk as she's suddenly overcome with grief that she should hide from Hook but can't. The pirate encircles her with his arms, offering a second gift: the right to be weak for just a few minutes. She allows him to support her as a spell of dizziness overtakes her.
Storybrooke, East Side 11 am
The Lost Boys and the library caretaker are performing a thorough, systematic search of every alley, garage, warehouse and abandoned building in town, beginning at the far east side and moving west. Belle leads the way. Doors open to her without hesitation—everyone trusts her—and Nibs quickly admits it's a good thing she joined in. They move efficiently and tirelessly, and an interesting thing happens with each citizen they warn: the citizens express more concern for the welfare of Belle's posse than for their own safety.
Watching these Storybrookers shower Belle with affection and relief for her restoration, Slightly gains a deeper understanding of why his employer sent him here. Emma may be the product of True Love, but Belle is certainly its most ardent ambassador. He has no doubt that if this town can survive the coming invasion—for the intel he's received from his own "home office" indicates that Tamara and Greg are just the first wave—it's going to see a remade Rumplestiltskin. Who knows? Love is in bloom everywhere in Storybrooke; why should the imp be left out? With Belle pulling and Bae pushing and Henry running ahead, Rumplestiltskin may just decide to walk the path of Love.
Granny's B & B, Granny's Suite 11:15 am
Mr. Dove sits in a straight chair he's borrowed from Granny's kitchenette. He's reading the newspaper and glancing periodically at his phone, hoping for some word from the outside world. He's an infinitely patient man, but he would prefer to be included in the action. From messages delivered periodically by Granny, he knows that the entire town is on high alert and posses are scouring the countryside as well as the town.
He reminds himself that, as much good as he could be doing out there, he's doing just as much good in this hotel room, guarding Henry. As he watches the boy play a video game, Dove speculates about why Gold sent him to protect Henry instead of Belle or Bae. The boy must be a more tantalizing prize for Tamara, but after five hours with him, Dove has yet to determine why. Apart from his lineage and his upbringing, Henry seems an ordinary boy, a little quieter, a little lonelier than most. Maybe it's just that all the grown-ups in his life are powerful people and to get to them, Tamara and Greg might attack Henry.
Dove turns to the comics section. He's enjoying "Peanuts" when Henry suddenly drops the Game Boy, sits bolt upright and cries out, "Mom!"
Dove leaps to his feet, tossing the newspaper aside. "Henry! What's wrong?" He rushes forward, reaching out, and Henry blanches. "Mr. Dove! It's my mom; they're hurting her!" And before Dove can grab him, Henry vanishes.
Into thin air. Just vanishes. Dove stands in disbelief for a moment, then picks up his phone and calls his boss with the bad news. The phone rings a dozen times before turning over to voice mail.
Dove storms down the stairs of the inn, shouting for Henry.
Convent 11:15 am
Rumplestiltskin is pacing the perimeter of the convent, in a way only he can: his pacing consists of moments of spontaneous teleportation broken by minutes of walking in long, stalking steps. He's placed a barrier spell around the entire building and the nuns inside have been forewarned. To enter the convent, an intruder will have to take Rumple down first—not impossible, but very, very difficult.
"Rumplestiltskin!"
He spins, but the call isn't coming from behind him.
"Rumplestiltskin!"
In fact, it isn't coming from outside him. It's coming through his blood, making his skin prickle, his nose tingle and the magic burn in his fingers. For the first time in this world, he's being magically summoned. For just a second he's confused; he can't remember what to do; it's been thirty years—
"Grampa!"
Rumple surrenders to his magic and he's gone.
