Henry, Grace, Ava and Nick peered out from behind the shrub, looking up at Mr. Gold's three-story mansion.

"It doesn't look like anyone's home, does it?" Nick observed.

"Well, we might as well check," Grace replied. "After all, it's a big house. I'm sure Belle's in there somewhere."

"Okay, let's go," Henry announced, leading the way up to the porch steps. Upon reaching the front door, Henry paused until his friends were all standing with him before resolutely knocking on the front door. However, his knock was met with nothing but silence, with nobody appearing through the stained glass window affixed to the door.

"Maybe they really aren't home," Ava wondered.

"Where exactly could they be, then?" Grace asked. "Mr. Gold doesn't have a job anymore, since Mr. Cassidy took over the shop. And Belle hasn't been back to the….Henry? What are you doing?"

Henry, who had been staring intently at the front door, had suddenly crouched down so his eyes were level with the door handle. Instead of answering Grace's question, he dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out two small pieces of wire.

"What are you doing? Nick asked.

"Something my dad showed me," Henry replied, jamming the wire pieces into the lock on the front door. Grace, Ava and Nick all shared a mystified look as Henry worked the lock. After a few moments, they were rewarded by the sound of a telltale click.

"Okay then," Henry stated, pushing the door open. "Let's go in."

"Henry, I don't know about this," Ava muttered, looking down at her feet. "Isn't this a bit too much like breaking and entering?"

"It's not like we're trying to do anything wrong," Henry reasoned. "Besides, you're one to talk. You remember how we met, don't you? You and Nick were trying to steal from the Dark Star Pharmacy."

"That was different!" Ava argued, her face flushing at the reminder. "And our mother isn't the town sheriff."

"You should perhaps listen to your friends, boy," Mr. Gold announced, appearing in the doorway so suddenly, it made the four children jump in surprise. "Things usually don't go well for those who try to break into my home."

For a brief moment, they were all rooted in place, unable to say anything. But then, after glancing over at his friends out of the corner of his eye, as if to remind himself they were still there, Henry was able to gather up his nerve.

"Was that a threat, Grandpa?" he asked. Immediately, Mr. Gold turned his head towards Henry, eyeing him intently. For a second or two, Henry was sure he saw a flash of emotion in Mr. Gold's otherwise schooled expression, but it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared.

"What are you all doing here?" Mr. Gold asked, looking about at the children in turn. "I believe school is still in session."

"We wanted to see Belle," Grace declared, stepping forward. "It's been over a week since she…since she left with you. And she hasn't called, or even showed up at the library. Even her father hasn't heard from her!"

"Perhaps she doesn't want to talk to any of you," Mr. Gold suggested. "Either way, I don't see how it's any of your concern."

"It IS my concern!" Grace shouted, striding towards Mr. Gold, her fists clenched. "It's my concern because I care about her! And I know she cares about me, too! And I want to know why she hasn't been in touch! She's even missed the Storybrooke Scout's mother/daughter brunch!"

"And why would she have gone to that?" Mr. Gold challenged. "She's not your mother."

Grace opened her mouth to respond to that, but she closed it quickly, an unmistakable blush forming on her face.

"I…I know she's not," she mumbled, visibly abashed. "But…I…."

"Ah," Mr. Gold said suddenly. Immediately, Henry and his friends all looked up at him, noticing the sudden change in his tone of voice. "I see what this is! You're planning on stealing her away from me, aren't you?

"What? No, that's not…"

"Of course, I knew I recognized you. You're Jefferson's daughter, aren't you? He put you up to this, didn't he? He knew he couldn't come and take her away again, so he sent you instead, thinking I wouldn't dare harm a child."

"That's not true!" Henry jumped in. "Jefferson doesn't even know we're here! Nobody does!"

"Don't bother," Mr. Gold snarled. Without another word, he lifted up a hand. Upon noticing this, the children all visibly tensed up, fearing what he was about to do. On pure instinct, Henry shifted his feet, positioning himself in front of his friends in order to try shielding them. For the briefest of moments, he thought he saw Mr. Gold's eyes settling on him, with his extended hand suspended in midair. But then, Mr. Gold waved his hand in a sweeping motion, and the four children vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Once the smoke had cleared, Mr. Gold remained motionless for a little while longer, simply staring at the spot where the children had stood. After a while, he stepped backwards into the house again, closing the door with an emotionless look on his face. Unbeknownst to him, the sound of the door closing managed to mask the creak of the floorboard upstairs as Belle retreated back into the shadows. If Mr. Gold had looked upwards and saw the look on her face, he would have realized she'd witnessed his confrontation with the children.

Quietly ducking back into the upstairs bedroom, Belle stood with her back against the door, her heart racing in fear and anxiety. Grace and Henry had been there, along with two other kids she partially recognized but couldn't quite place. While she hadn't seen exactly what Rumple had done to them, she didn't think he would have actually hurt them. In spite of everything, she still wanted to believe he wasn't capable of harming a child. But even as she tried to reassure herself of that, an old memory resurfaced, and she remembered of that time when he'd stolen a couple's baby. And, try as she might, she couldn't find the courage to confront him about what she'd seen and ask what he'd done directly. Especially since the tone she'd heard in her voice had been nothing short of chilling. In that one moment, he almost sounded like he'd done back in the Enchanted Forest.

Fighting back a shiver, Belle clutched at her chest, trying to force her heartbeat to slow. Almost subconsciously, she reached into her pocket and extracted her phone. After pausing to listen carefully for any sound that would indicate Mr. Gold was coming up the stairs, she started to dial a number. But she stopped herself when it registered whose number she was dialing. Letting out a shaky gasp, she quickly hit the 'back' key, mentally kicking herself. She knew that she wouldn't be able to handle hearing his voice right now. Still, she knew she had to call someone. Somebody had to be notified as to what had just happened downstairs. Rapidly, she started to mentally run through a list of possible phone numbers she could call, but she quickly rejected each one. While she knew she had no real reason to think Rumple would be monitoring her phone to keep track of who she was contacting, a part of her didn't want to risk it. After a moment, however, she realized there was one person she could call without risking any suspicion. And so, after licking her lips to try and get enough moisture in her mouth to speak, she began to dial. After about two rings, she was rewarded by a telltale click.

"Hello?" the distinctively familiar voice greeted on the other end.

"Neal?" Belle whispered into the receiver. "It's me."

Regina stood unmoving in front of the long-term cell in the former psychiatric ward, still warring with herself and wondering why she was even there. After all, she seriously doubted that her sister would be any help. But she could not stop herself from remembering the conversation she'd had with Neal and Archie during last night's Valentine's Day Ball. Not even the son that he'd worked so hard to find again had been able to convince Gold to agree to assist them in any way in the fight against Arthur. Regina couldn't pretend that hadn't taken her by surprise, even though Neal had admitted he had partially anticipated it, considering he hadn't been able to convince his father to give up the lure of the Dark One's power centuries ago, either.

'I still felt I had to try, though,' he'd said. 'Arthur only found out how to resurrect my father because I had to go and open my big mouth. So I guess this mess we're in is kinda my fault.'

Regina let out a heavy sigh at the memory of that statement. As much as she didn't care for the man, she couldn't deny she felt a certain amount of respect towards him now. And if a moron like that had the fortitude to try and make up for something he'd done, albeit unintentionally, what would that say about her if she wouldn't try to do likewise? Sure, she couldn't see how she bore any of the blame for this particular situation. But she might as well try to do what she could to fix things. And apart from herself and Neal, there was only one other person in this town who really knew how Rumpelstiltskin's mind worked.

With that thought in mind, Regina opened up the cell with the key she'd gotten from Nurse Ratched and stepped inside. Right away, she saw Zelena sprawled out on her cot, staring up at the ceiling.

"Finally," Zelena said the moment Regina had stepped inside, starting to sit up. "I was wondering when you…."

Zelena's words trailed off when she'd reached a full upright position and turned to face her. Immediately, Regina saw Zelena's eyes widen slightly in surprise, being replaced by an irritated glare seconds later.

"Oh, it's just you," Zelena scowled turning away.

"Were you expecting someone else?" Regina huffed, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm hungry!" Zelena complained. "I thought they were finally getting around to bringing me my food!" Regina narrowed her eyes in suspicion. While she couldn't put her finger on exactly why, she still had the distinct impression that Zelena was lying to her and really had been expecting someone else. But who would she possibly be expecting?

Despite her lingering suspicion, Regina decided that it didn't really matter. Besides, there were more pressing matters.

"Listen, Zelena," she began. "As much as it pains me to say this…. I need your help."

"My help?" Zelena scoffed. "What would you possibly need my help with? Your life being so perfect and all."

"It's about Rumpelstiltskin," Regina pressed on, choosing to ignore that last statement. "Seeing as you were his student, too, I thought you might know how one might go about convincing him for help."

"What does it matter if I did?" Zelena challenged. "Rumpelstiltskin is dead, remember?"

"Not anymore," Regina admitted. "He's back."

"Back?" Zelena repeated, sitting up a little straighter. "What do you mean, he's back?"

"It's a long story," Regina said. "But simply put, some idiot went and resurrected him. And now there's some mad king trying to overthrow the town, trying to force us to surrender Rumpelstiltskin's dagger. Except Rumpelstiltskin is not doing a thing to help us, not even to offer shelter to the people who have had to evacuate their homes. He's just holing himself up in that mansion of his with Belle, and…"

"Belle went back to him, then?" Zelena interrupted.

"Yeah. She was trying to keep him from harming Jefferson, so she surrendered herself over to Rumpelstiltskin again. As far as we know, he's keeping her with him, and…."

Regina suddenly paused in her explanation to begin looking closely at Zelena. For the span of a heartbeat, she thought she'd seen Zelena's impassive expression break, but she wasn't quite sure. For all she knew, it had only been her imagination. Nevertheless, she begin eying her closely.

"Why do you care, anyway?" Regina asked.

"I don't," Zelena replied with a smug grin. "Anyway, I don't know why you bothered coming to me with all of this. Even if I did know what you could do to get through to Rumpelstiltskin, do you really think I'd tell you?"

"No," Regina answered with a shake of her head. "I already knew coming to you was a waste of my time. But as Rumpelstiltskin's son showed me, it's better to at least try."

With that, Regina turned and left the cell, closing the door behind her. Once she was alone, Zelena's haughty expression melted away. Silently, she pulled her knees up to her chest and bowed her head. In that moment, she looked more miserable than she'd done since she first arrived in Storybrooke. Although, Regina was not able to witness that, as she was already heading back down the hall. As she neared the stairs leading up to the main floor of the hospital, Nurse Ratched appeared in her path.

"Excuse me, Madam Mayor, but…."

"I'm not the mayor anymore," Regina reminded without sparing a glance at her.

"Yes, of course," Nurse Ratched acknowledged, almost apologetically. "I know you said you left your phone with me because you didn't want any interruptions. But it's been ringing almost non-stop. It looks like someone is desperate to get in touch with you."

Frowning in confusion, Regina looked down at her phone, which Nurse Ratched was handing to her. Upon taking it, she saw she had twelve missed calls. Some were from Mary Margret, but the rest were from Emma. Sighing heavily, Regina decided to return the latest call from Emma, wondering what was so important.

"Miss Swan," Regina began once she'd picked up. "What exactly is so important that you and your mother would blow up my phone?" Almost immediately, Regina's face paled significantly upon hearing Emma's response. "What do you mean Henry's missing?!"

Miles away, Henry, Grace, Ava and Nick rematerialized within a cloud of red smoke.

"Where are we?" Grace asked, looking around.

"I think we must be in the woods outside of town," Ava surmised. "Mr. Gold must have sent us out here."

"Oh," Nick sighed, his shoulders slumping in relief. "That's good to hear. I heard stories about what he was capable of doing to people. I was sure he was about to do something bad to us. Like turn us into snails or something."

"He probably went easy on us because we're just kids," Henry guessed. "In my storybook, it never said anything about him harming children."

"It probably doesn't hurt that you were there, either," Grace pointed out. "After all, you are his grandson. I think he might have a bit of a soft spot for you."

"I suppose," Henry shrugged. "Anyway, I'm sorry we weren't able to get you to see Belle,"

"It's okay," Grace replied, giving him a sad smile. "I appreciate you trying at least."

"Well, I guess we better start trying to find our way back into town," Ava suggested. "Though I suppose we're going to be in a lot of trouble when we get back. They must have noticed that we're missing from school by now."

"I guess you're right," Henry grimaced. "Well, guess we might as well get it over with."

However, just as Nick was pulling out his mother's old compass from his pocket so they could navigate back into town, they all heard the sound of a branch snapping from behind them. In unison, they looked back and saw a few men on horseback were standing amongst the trees, looking right back at them. One look at their outfits was enough for the four friends to identify the men as some of Arthur's knights.

"RUN!" Henry shouted.

Needing no further instruction, the children all attempted to flee, but to no avail. Within seconds, the knights had managed to overtake them, snatching each of them up off the ground effortlessly.

In the middle of town, Emma, David, Killian and Michael Zimmer had congregated around Granny's, all with the same anxious look on their face. After a while, Jefferson emerged from inside the town diner, where he had been borrowing Granny's phone to call Mr. and Mrs. Grace.

"Anything?" David asked the moment he saw him step outside.

"No," Jefferson muttered, running a hand down his face. "They said they both saw Grace boarding the school bus this morning, so she left for school alright. And they didn't notice any indication that she was planning anything before that."

"What were they thinking?" Emma vented. "They all know this isn't a good time for them to just up and ditch school like this!"

"Try not to panic, Swan," Killian urged gently. "Remember, Henry's a very resourceful lad. And Grace and the twins all have a good head on their shoulders. I'm sure they couldn't have gotten into too much trouble."

"Even so, I'll feel better when Regina gets here with her locator potion," Emma replied.

"Are you sure we have to wait for Regina?" Michael asked, cradling two objects- a hairbrush and a pocketknife- in his hand. "I thought you were able to use magic, too."

"Yeah, but we only just started covering locator spells in my lessons," Emma explained. "I'm not quite confident enough to attempt it now, considering we can't afford to have the spell go wrong."

"Okay," Michael grunted, still not looking too happy. "I just wish I didn't have to rely in her to find my children, considering she was also the one who led to us being separated back in the Enchanted Forest."

"I know how you feel," Jefferson sighed, giving a strange, slanted smile. Briefly, the two fathers shared a look of mutual understanding.

David was just making a movement towards the pair with a clear intent to comfort them when their attention was caught by someone shouting.

"Emma! Hey, Emma!"

Turning, everyone saw Neal making a beeline towards them. Upon reaching them, he bent over slightly, with his hands resting on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath. It was glaringly obvious he had ran the whole way there.

"Hey, Neal," Emma greeted civilly. "I take it you heard?"

"Yeah," Neal muttered in between breaths. "I just got a call from Belle."

"From Belle?"

Neal, upon hearing the strain in Jefferson's voice, looked up sharply, slightly taken aback by the pained expression on his face.

"Um, yeah," Neal confirmed, surprised to find he suddenly felt awkward speaking to Jefferson about the matter. "She wanted to tell me that…Henry and his friends had shown up at my dad's place."

"Wait, they went to Gold's?" Emma asked in clear confusion that was reflected in everyone else's expression. "Why would they possibly go there?"

"I don't know," Neal admitted. "All I know is that they showed up there. Belle said she saw Papa and them confronting each other. She didn't hear how the conversation started, but she overheard voices and came to see what was going on. She reached the top of the stairs in time to see my dad poofing Henry and his friends away. But she couldn't tell me where he poofed them too."

"Well then," Emma decided, feeling a rising fury growing inside her. "Looks like it's time we paid Gold a visit. For his sake, he better not have done anything to them."

Within his private tent, Arthur hovered over the table where the broken hilt of Excalibur had been laid out, deep in thought. For not the first time, he wondered how much longer he'd have to wait before he could restore the sword to its whole state. Especially now that the missing piece was so close. If only those fools in this strange kingdom would see reason and surrender the dagger. He had already boxed them in, at it couldn't be that much longer before their supplies ran out. How much longer would they be able to hold out? Surely it was only a matter of time before they were willing to give up either the Dark One or his dagger.

Arthur was abruptly pulled out of his musings when he heard someone moving outside his tent, with an unmistakable intent to enter. In a flash, he'd grabbed Excalibur to return it to its sheath. He couldn't risk anyone finding out the truth about his legendary sword. But when he turned to face the person who had entered his tent, he couldn't quite hold back the sigh of relief upon seeing it was Guinevere, his beautiful queen. She was one of the only ones who he'd trusted with the truth.

"Arthur, my love," Guinevere began, curtsying in respect. "Forgive the unannounced intrusion, but your men have returned from their patrol. They found something that will surely interest you,"

Right away, Arthur felt his curiosity piqued. With a simple nod of acknowledgement to Guinevere, he stepped out of the tent, walking with purpose. Upon exiting, he quickly caught sight of the knights he'd previously sent out on patrol and immediately realized what Guinevere had meant. His knights were standing guard around four young children. The children were all kneeling on the ground, with their hands bound behind their backs. But it was their attire that really caught Arthur's attention. They were all wearing the outfits he'd previously seen on the schoolchildren from the school that had almost been attacked by that snow monster, on the day they'd first arrived in this land. These children undoubtedly belonged to the people of the town they called Storybrooke.

Slowly, a cunning smile formed on Arthur's face. He knew that the people of Storybrooke naturally treasured their children. Surely they could be convinced to surrender the dagger in exchange for the safe return of their young ones. It seemed the fates had finally found favor with him at last.

AN: Cliffhanger! Dun-dun-dun!