"David!" Mary Margaret called as he bound out the door.

"I've got him. Henry stay here," she barked out before walking out the door with Robin Hood following after her quickly. They were going to the jail, to see Zelena, because the only one who would be able to explain why the portal had opened so suddenly, was the witch…and possibly the two of them.

"We should go too," she stated going after the three of them, only to find her hand caught in his own. When she glanced back at him questioningly he only looked nervously around the small diner at the people that were staring out the window…and at them. "We can talk outside," she settled pulling him out the door with her and wrapping her hand around his elbow. It was perfect, they were talking as he wanted to, but also following after the other three, keeping them in their sight. "We should go," she insisted again, urging him onward. He only pulled back.

"Let them handle it," he seemed to beg. She could understand that. It was painful, hard to go and see Zelena, especially since it had only been yesterday that she'd had power over him. When it was her, when she'd been finally set free, Regina was the last person on earth that she wanted to see. And if he hadn't been there with her when she'd seen her the first time she would have dissolved into tears. She knew what it was asking him to go and see her now, but it might be good for him. Seeing his captor behind bars might bring him some feeling of closure and justice. Besides, there were other reasons that she wanted them to go.

"Rumple," she insisted dragging him forward. She'd love to stop and discuss it slowly, but the others had already piled into a car and were on their way. "Between all the research I did and everything you know about Zelena's plan, they might need us to put this together, to figure out why this happened…" It was his choice. It had to be. If he didn't want to go she wouldn't make him. But that couldn't stop her from going with them. "You don't have to go, I won't make you, but I am going to help them. Please, come with me. No one knows more about this than you! I'll be with you the entire time, I promise I won't leave your side!"

He sighed when they arrived at the car and looked around for a moment as if searching for something to say, an argument to make that would allow him to stay behind, but in the end he silently unlocked the car and drove the two of them the short distance to the jail where she eagerly got out of the car and followed after the others. He took his time, for a second she almost thought to herself to slow down because he had his cane, but that was a year ago! He was just being slow, shuffling his feet, as if he really didn't want to be here. Fortunately, the walk was so short that even going slow she could keep an eye on him behind her and one on the others in front, even when David picked up the pace to run the last few steps.

"Zelena," she heard him state, "she's gone!" Her blood turned to ice. Gone?! Gone! How was that possible, she was powerless and they'd sealed her in with blood magic! She shouldn't have been able to escape!

"No!" Regina argued. "She was here when I left her!" She rounded the corner and gazed into the cell she'd set the entrapment spell around. It was empty. She didn't know how that had happened, if she'd failed or Regina's blood simply wasn't as strong enough as the fairies had suspected, but her absence explained one thing.

"Well, if-if she escaped that would explain the time portal," she realized, and it would also tell them where to find her...in the past.

"Impossible," Regina refuted, "without her pendent she's powerless! How could she have escaped, let alone open a time portal without magic!" All good arguments, good points that she couldn't disprove or offer any kind of solution for. But she might not need to. Regina's face was changing, from confusion to revelation, as if she'd just solved everything. "Unless you did something to her!" she stated, staring at…her?! Her! She did something to her?! No. Not her, she was staring just over her shoulder.

Rumpelstiltskin.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint but no," he argued quickly, in his cocky over confident tone. But she didn't need to look around them to feel every eye still trained on him. No, he didn't do this, he wouldn't do this! Not after she'd asked not after he'd promised…nothing. Her heart fell. No…she hadn't fallen for it again! Hadn't let him distract her again so he didn't have to say the words! He wouldn't. Would he? "Well, even if I wanted to Belle has my dagger," he went on, "she would certainly curb any homicidal tendencies."

She had to fight not to shiver at that statement. She hated that dagger, hated having it in her possession, hated that they'd left it behind in his shop at a time like this, and most of all hated that her possession of it could influence him to do things instead of his demeanor changing because of him. But, as he'd now just informed everyone in the room, he was right.

"It's true," she admitted, suddenly feeling like she wanted nothing more than to go back to the shop and find a better hiding place like she should have insisted only an hour ago before all this had happened, somewhere Zelena would never find it! She should have refused to settle for "it'll be fine".

"Well, if she escaped," David muttered looking at a television screen she hadn't noticed yesterday, "let's find out how." She gave him a reassuring glance as she realized what David was fiddling with. Security cameras.

"Wonderful," she heard Rumple mutter as they gathered around the small television. Of course, any police station would have security cameras, would need them. Now they'd see, now they'd all see that it hadn't been him, he hadn't given into temptation. And really when could he have? Last night? She'd been away from him for maybe a half hour and now she knew, in that half hour, he'd taken the books back to the basement, made them dinner, showered, and called the man from the paper. There simply wasn't time! Was there?

She glanced back again. He was the only one not gathered there with them, that still stood in that same place he'd always been, hunched over the desk. Confidence? Or…no! No, he'd changed, she couldn't let herself doubt it! He gave her a small encouraging smile and a nod that should have made her stomach ease, but didn't. He didn't need to. She'd know soon enough. And it killed her to know that after everything they'd been through her mind still wanted to know for sure, still needed solid proof that he hadn't used their engagement as-

Zelena was on the television screen when she looked back, pacing, looking like a tiger in a cage, so much pent up energy that for the first time in her life had no outlet and then...and then black and white screen zig zagged and spiked with static.

"What was that?" Regina asked. "What just happened?" Zelena? Or…

"Yeah, we could use an upgrade," David commented, messing with it and muttering something frustrating under his breath that she couldn't make out. "Oh, here we go!" he stated as suddenly the picture cleared again. Zelena wasn't pacing this time around, but she was there, clearly alive and clearly still imprisoned. But…no, she wasn't. They watched in shock and even horror as she raised her hand into the air as she'd seen him do a million times with his own magic, draw it down over herself and…she turned into stone? Glass? It didn't matter. Because as soon as she'd become…a statue, she supposed, she watched as she cracked and crumbled, fading into a pile of dust and ash that rose into a cloud of smoke and…vanished! The smoke vanished! Did that mean she was dead, or had she simply escaped as a cloud of dust! She couldn't tell the screen wasn't clear!

"Well it seems her great escape was of a more permanent nature," he pointed out behind her. Death then, suicide, to be exact. With no outlet, her energy had turned inward. "I won't ask for an apology," he stated angrily and she felt a stab of guilt because he was right. He deserved an apology, but not just from them, from her as well. For doubting him. He wouldn't do something like that again, not after everything that had happened between the two of them. And as much as she hated to admit it, he was right and so was Regina yesterday when she'd given her the dagger. He couldn't have harmed Zelena. She shouldn't have needed to see the proof to believe him.

"She must have had just enough residual magic to do herself in," Regina conceited, returning her attention to the matter at hand. It seemed to be the only explanation. She didn't have enough to escape her bonds, didn't have enough to put her plans into action…death would have seemed like her only way out. "And when she did…when she was gone the magic in her pendant had no tether, it was set free!" Regina explained, suddenly realizing why the portal had managed to open itself up. "Her last wish fulfilled."

The last ingredient fulfilled. The words she'd used only yesterday after Regina had given her the dagger came flooding back into her mind. I'm, I'm defenseless now! No magic! I'm innocent! Whether or not she was actually "innocent" was debatable, but obviously the portal had seen her as innocent enough. How ironic, nine months waiting for Mary Margaret's child to use the innocence and magic it would possess and in the end everything she needed had been inside her all along. She'd been resilient enough, determined enough to figure out the spell. She'd been smart enough to learn the past and arrange the magical elements to create the spell. And though she didn't particularly agree with what her courage had brought, standing up to the world in order to fulfill this spell took a certain kind of bravery. It was a coward's bravery, the kind of bravery needed to run away, but in the end it was still bravery. She was all she'd needed, it really was a terrible irony!

"How do we unfullfill it?" Robin Hood asked the group, addressing the new problem. Zelena was dealt with, the portal was all that remained to worry about. Now what?

"Excellent question," Rumple commented, "but until we figure it out, no one should go near it. A trip to the past could have catastrophic repercussions." David shook his head and reached into his pocket.

"And Emma and Hook wandered off alone," he muttered. "I'll call her and Mary Margaret see if anyone has seen them. Maybe we can set up a barrier around it of some kind."

"What part of 'no one should go near it' was unclear?" Rumple stated angrily. "Portals, like the kind that took us to Neverland are designed to draw people in. This particular portal has never been achieved, documented, or studied before, the strength of its pull is unknown. Warn the town and warn your daughter, but until then no one goes near it!"

"And how do you propose we keep people away from it if we can't guard it?!" David argued. "That thing in the sky is only going to attract attention. You know the people in this town, Zelena declared war on Regina promising death and destruction and people showed up to watch like it was a Saturday night at the movie theater!"

"We use word of mouth," she insisted stepping forward between David and Rumpelstiltskin. She had seen him open his mouth and after facing the possibility of seeing his captor again, being accused of murder, and having everyone in the room seemingly ignore his orders she knew that whatever he was going to say wouldn't have been polite. But fortunately for her, working with the dwarves while she'd been in Neverland, not to mention Regina and Robin Hood in the Enchanted Forest, had given her the ability to intervene before small spats became big fights. The easiest way to curb arguments, in her opinion, was to offer a solution. "It doesn't take long in this town for news to spread, we'll just start telling everyone now and by tomorrow afternoon no one will go near it if we tell them there is a protection spell around it."

The room was quiet for a moment as the group stared at her, then turned their gaze on one another. How was it possible, after everything that had happened in the last week, they still acted beyond surprised when she came up with ideas like this?

"It's not a bad idea," Regina said slowly, thinking something over in her mind. "Tell everyone it's protected by something with a little kick in it and it might work. Quickly, if we go back and tell the seven loud mouths…"

"So, it's back to the diner then?" David questioned looking between her and Rumpelstiltskin, his phone still in his hand as if he was about to make the call to Emma at any second, or at least as soon as they formulated their plan.

"At the moment," Rumple sighed after a moment, "telling people to stay away is really all we can do."


Ah...suspicious, suspicious. And, even if we don't know it, it's for good reason. I didn't want that, or the scene with the dagger frankly, to just come out of nowhere so I've been doing my best to try and build up this feeling of uncomfortable suspicion, a sense in Belle that something isn't right. I hope that I've done an okay job with that!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Meredith Pechta, Agent 66, Sara K M, Raizen Yusuke, LaurieAHancock, Onlyinyourdreams77, Deweymay, Katido, and my unnamed Guest for your reviews on the last chapter. I'm glad that we are all on the same page! Yay! Peace and Happy Reading!