Once Upon Another Time

by Anti-Kryptonite

"Kill me," Zoso hisses. "No," Rumplestiltskin decides. (Rumplestiltskin controls rather than kills, Bae negotiates rather than runs, Cora delegates rather than confronts, Regina cooperates rather than rebels, and still the curse is cast, the Savior comes, the boy believes, and worlds are torn apart by a father's love. How much really would change if one decision was altered?)

12. The Price Of A Curse

-Flashback-

---

There was a flavor in the air he didn't recognize. Distinct and expansive, it lent the manor a grander, more beautiful atmosphere. Rumplestiltskin breathed in deep, once, again, again, and then trapped the feeling in his chest. For the first time, when he turned from his spinning wheel to face the room where once Bae had run and played and laughed at their new riches, he didn't have to cling to just some confusing flashes of a future reunion. Instead, Rumplestiltskin treasured the scent of roses and thought of bold blue eyes, daring mouth quirked into a smile, warm hands reaching for his so fearlessly.

"Belle," he whispered, the name slipping from him on an exhale of that new, enticing flavor: hope.

"What was that?" Zoso asked (taunted). "Master?"

"You heard me." Rumplestiltskin made himself face the Dark One without hesitation or flinch. The dagger was oh so heavy in his hand; its constant whispers, however, were actually not the strongest thing on his mind. Even the dagger, he realized with a thrill, couldn't drown out the echo of Belle's voice.

I am devoted to you.

She chose him. She was choosing him right this second, standing and invoking his name before her father and the brute who couldn't possibly deserve her.

But then, Rumplestiltskin didn't deserve her either. Whatever brawny knight it was she didn't want (didn't choose like she had him, coming alone and of her own volition and never once even attempting to find a way out of their deal), the brute had offered her and her town something. Some kind of military aid. Some form of help against the (nearly) unstoppable flood of ogres flooding their land. And what did Rumplestiltskin offer her?

Not soldiers. Not medical supplies. Not food. Even the roads he controlled were open only because she paid for those routes with her tea in a chipped cup, her presence in a too-empty manor, her voice breaking through the black hole of the Dark One's constant niggling.

"This isn't one of your usual deals," Zoso observed. For just an instant, Rumplestiltskin imagined that there was a touch of admiration in the voice of his constant burden (his most insidious enemy; his greatest friend). But of course, like every miniscule trace of hope he attached to the Dark One, it was disappointed. "The price will be accordingly steep. And since it's your choice, you'll have to pay it."

"I know." Rumplestiltskin swallowed hard. The feel of his crutch was so familiar (so engrained in his sense of who he was), but he'd grown equally accustomed to the ease of painless movement. The lack of scar tissue and aches in his ankle. The fresh start magic had granted him. "I will pay it."

Zoso drew his face back into the shadows of his hood. As he always did when he was taken aback by something. Rumplestiltskin had, in the past few centuries, grown far too amused by the moments he managed to inspire the action. Today, he hardly noticed. His attention was already split pretty evenly between the girl on the road back to him and the weight of his body distributed between two evenly balanced feet.

"Better a cripple than a coward," he murmured (but what if he ended up both? what if every evil deed he'd committed and had committed in his name couldn't tip the scale away from the beggared spinner, the lame coward, the limping runaway?).

He'd only been brave a few times in his life. Once for his father (who'd scorned his courage and reverted him to a sniveling, abandoned child). Once for his son (who'd been stolen away anyway, a few years later, the dagger Rumplestiltskin had burned down castles and consciences for as useless as the crutch he clung to). He could be brave one more time (for Belle, this young woman who told him he wasn't a monster and sipped tea while teasing him as if he weren't the dreaded Spinner).

"We need to end the Ogre's War." Rumplestiltskin nodded and forced Zoso to meet his gaze. "And I'll pay for that end with eternal pain."

"Eternal," Zoso hissed. "You know this is irreversible. Once you do this, you can't undo it."

"Yes, yes, I do know what irrevocable means." Rolling his eyes, Rumplestiltskin hoped his sarcasm hid his terror (his second thoughts). "Now, do you want to drag this out a few weeks longer or shall we get it over with?"

"Just so long as you don't change your mind before the task is completed."

A low blow, but then, if anyone knew him well enough to bring up past crimes not shrouded in legend, it was his resentful shadow (all those years insisting he'd never be like his father, yet here he was, employing a shadow to do his dirty work).

"I won't change my mind," he told himself.

Zoso's hand was cold, direct contrast to the warmth of his walking stick. Rumplestiltskin hid his shudder and let the magic wash over him.

Far away, towering ogres vanished in broad daylight.

Inside him, bones shifted.

(Belle's eyes were so blue. They sparkled like the brightest stars in the sky whenever she looked at him. They were the purest thing he'd ever gazed into.)

Miles and miles removed, whole armies of blind, gray-skinned monsters turned into pillars of flame before dissolving into ash.

Inches beneath his skin, muscles tore and snapped while ligaments and veins swelled and bruised and turned misshapen.

(Belle's voice was warm and thick as sugared tea. The way she said his name could so easily bring him to his knees. The words she directed his way, forgiving and kind and seeking understanding rather than dishing out condemnation, were enough to distinguish her as utterly unique among all the worlds and generations he'd outlived.)

On some distant battlefield, soldiers dropped their weapons and gaped at the suddenly clear horizon, blue and clean and unmarred by war.

Within a dark manor, a cripple fell, panting and quivering as pain, oft-recalled but nearly forgotten, roared back into anguished life, setting his nerves on fire.

(Closer and closer, Belle came. Leaving behind better men, stronger, braver: I am devoted to you.)

The lush carpet nearly abraded his knuckles as he scrabbled for his crutch. It rolled, clanking, before coming to a stop against the toe of Zoso's boot. The Dark One cast a shadow between the windows Belle had pulled open for the spring sunshine, his eyes gleeful and alight with some spark Rumplestiltskin instinctually wished he could quench.

"Well done, Master," he said in that grating whisper Rumplestiltskin couldn't escape even in his restless dreams. "I must admit, I didn't think you'd actually go through with it."

It was second nature by now, as natural as breathing, for Rumplestiltskin to look for the knife in his back. He'd been waiting for Zoso's betrayal since he'd first decided not to kill him (part of him even thought it'd be a relief when it finally came; he deserved it, after all, and he wouldn't blame Zoso for turning on him), but Bae still waited in his future. In some ways, this quest had become as much Zoso's as his own, their combined magic and years turned into a shared obsession.

But he still kept an iron grip around the hilt of that curved dagger. Because he needed Zoso to help him find his boy. Because he was afraid of an unleashed Dark One taking vengeance for centuries of captivity. Because he and Zoso were bound together in blood and oaths and useless worlds left in their combined wake. (And because, the simplest and truest reason, he'd had nothing else to hold onto since a portal closed yet again between him and the person he loved now.

Until now. Until Belle.)

"Is it done?" he asked. His voice made him recoil. It was the same voice that haunted his fears, the same specter that dogged his steps, the ghost that would not be laid to rest.

The voice of a quivering coward deciding which corner to hide in.

"As you commanded." Kneeling before him, Zoso offered the crutch with a nudge. "Perhaps I shouldn't have doubted you, but even I can't deny this proof: you really do love this girl."

Rumplestiltskin snatched up the stick and levered himself to his feet. Zoso didn't make a move to stand upright. His hood had fallen back along his shoulders, leaving his face bare before Rumplestiltskin (all unmasked respect and unfamiliar approval).

"Her name," Rumplestiltskin said, "is Belle."

"Right. An unimportant girl from an inconsequential town with no evident presence in the future. And you managed to really truly fall in love with her."

This didn't bode well. Rumplestiltskin had been so careful to keep Belle away from Zoso until now. He didn't like the gleam in Zoso's eyes now as he completely missed the point.

(Nothing about Belle was unimportant. Nothing she said or thought or dreamed was inconsequential, not to him.)

"You don't know what you're talking about," he muttered. Hard to be intimidating while being held upright only by a very uncertain grip on a three-hundred year old stick, but he did his best (Belle deserved that). "And love has nothing to do with why I chose to end the Ogre's War. That endless fighting simply wasn't in my plan."

"I don't see why the plan matters anymore, Master, now that you've managed to shorten our timeline." Zoso shook his head. "Neverland was a mistake incited by Cora, but this…this is a stroke of genius. If I'd only known you were capable of falling so thoroughly in love, I'd have recommended it myself a century or more ago."

In this eternal chess game he was playing with the Dark One, admitting to ignorance was practically giving away a key piece. But whether it was because of the pain (the worry over whether Belle really would come back to him) or because Zoso was playing another mind game with him, Rumplestiltskin actually had no idea what he was prattling on about.

"Stop talking about love," he snapped. The dagger turned icy cold at the inadvertent command, but instead of betraying the usual resentment, Zoso only shrugged with an appeasing smile.

"Very well, but just know that I'm impressed. Depending on a secondary curse-caster was always a risk. This is infinitely better."

Rumplestiltskin stared. The dagger wasn't the only thing cold or heavy or overwhelmingly ancient.

"You think I…" Swallowing, he tucked the dagger into his belt, hidden from sight by the dangling ends of Bae's shawl. "You want me to cast the curse? With…with Belle's heart?"

He could barely even say the words. Revulsion choked him.

"Isn't she what matters most to you now?" Zoso's smile was so horrifying that Rumplestiltskin actually gagged. "Well, almost. The thing you want most besides your son. So very clever of you. Do you think we'll find Baelfire right away? Or will we have to wait for the Savior even if we're the ones making the rules?"

No. No no no no no!

"Leave me for now. Return tomorrow at dawn."

It was too loose a command, but their uneasy truce worked because he gave Zoso some freedom (and because Rumplestiltskin was the one with foresight; glimpsing the future had saved him from several of Zoso's previous rebellions). The Dark One bowed without even a trace of mockery or irony and then vanished, leaving Rumplestiltskin alone.

Alone with the whisper of temptation that didn't come from the dagger or from Zoso. It came from within. From the past. It came whispered in his own voice.

I will do nothing else. I will love nothing else!

A vow he'd made to Baelfire, reiterated to the monster named Pan, and swore to the Dark One himself, repeated to his own reflection (what few he could bear to gaze into) over and over again, until it was as much a law as that of gravity and magic's price.

And he'd broken it.

The front door creaked open—not slowly, but surely. The result of a hand confident of its welcome. Only a few entered the Deal-Maker's lair so boldly, and only one called his name with that note of pleasure.

"Rumple?"

I don't care what we have to do or who we have to kill or what magic we have to learn or how many lifetimes it takes!

His own words echoed in his ears louder than the dagger's whispers ever had. For Bae, anything was expendable. For Bae, he'd dare anything, do anything, kill anyone.

(For Belle, he'd thought just hours before, he'd dare anything. Do anything. Cause himself as much hurt as he'd ever physically known.)

His heart was lodged in his throat, but as he turned, Rumplestiltskin caught sight of his own face, a pale mimicry trapped on the uncovered windowpane in a trick of honest sunlight.

He looked old (but not as ancient as he truly was).

He looked worn (but not as threadbare and close to rubbing completely away as Zoso knew he was).

He looked tired, and pained, and alone, beaten down and left behind and spit upon (he looked like what he was).

A bizarre mixture of truth and lies, there was only one thing Rumplestiltskin truly gleaned from that single glimpse.

He'd never deserved Belle (not as a self-maimed coward and penniless spinner). He never would deserve Belle (not even when he reunited with the son, his own son if not his flesh and blood, who hated him and might never forgive him for the atrocities committed in his name). He shouldn't even have Belle now (this monster he'd become, this beast always waiting, lying hidden, beneath the shell of Malcolm's son, like the lady waiting to be followed, where's the redeeming attribute, under this persona, no, this one, no, under none of them at all, just a trick of light and dark and child's play and now you've lost everything you gambled).

"Rumple!" Belle was already smiling when she entered the drawing room, but she brightened still further when she caught sight of him (an impossibility that endlessly fascinated him). She set down her basket of straw and danced toward him.

Rumplestiltskin stepped back, forgetting that his leg was ruined. With a lurch and a stagger, he clattered back against the wheel, saved from an even more ignominious fall by Belle's hands grasping his upper arms.

"Rumple, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Good news," he suddenly remembered. "I received word while you were dillydallying at home."

"What word?" Belle peered down at his feet, all solicitousness and concern (Rumplestiltskin shuddered to have eyes, especially hers, staring at his flaws so closely). "Is it one of your legs? Who could hurt you?"

She was so close.

Grab hold of her heart, a whisper from the past (one he'd obeyed without question, without hesitation, without regret—until now).

"Why, word from the front, of course!" His voice was too shrill, his mannerisms too manic. He couldn't smooth them out, desperate to quell the voice he'd obeyed once before, over a green portal, about to once more lose everything (and now, again, for the third time). "The ogres have been vanquished. Unexpected retreat, you know how these things are. The war's over. Turns out you didn't need that knight in useless armor anyway."

Belle's eyes (so pure, magical, almost, if he didn't know that she was innocent in a way magic never was) narrowed as she studied him. Her hands were warm, like concentrated sunlight, as they slid down his arms. He braced for their absence, then involuntarily flinched when his hands were enveloped in those sunbeams.

"Wait." She stepped closer (too brave, too naïve, so heartbreakingly, heart-crushingly, trusting). "The war's over. And your ankle's hurt."

"You're far too single-minded," he tried to tease. It came out strained, something not helped along by the tremor of white-hot agony burning up his ankle as he shifted his weight (only incidentally, he would swear, swaying him nearer the allure of Belle's clean scent). "I've told you that every time you get too caught up in a book."

"Magic always comes with a price," Belle murmured. She was clever (he adored her quickness because it was intelligence married to common sense and bound with kindness), but Zoso's words in her voice was a perversion (she didn't have a price, demand a balance; wasn't nearly as cruel a mistress as magic was). "Rumple…you didn't."

He told himself to put distance between them. (He didn't listen. He never listened.)

"Don't be ridiculous." The words died in his throat and were buried in the pit of his stomach by a flurry of fireflies when Belle stepped closer yet.

"Why? Why would you do that, Rumple?" She was so close (not close enough). She was so warm (he was burning up). Her eyes were big enough to swallow him whole (not green like a portal, nor isolating like a curse; big and vast enough to contain a world enough for both of them).

Pull it out. That whisper. Stronger than the dagger's constant temptations.

His hand closed over hers. The other lifted to caress her cheek. Goodness—no. No, not goodness (like a princess of all black and white). Kindness. Kindness paired with bravery and mixed together with just a touch of oddity to create the most potent potion of all (one that could affect even the dreaded Spinner). Her cheek fit the curve of his palm so perfectly he couldn't possibly be expected to give her up.

How long had he been alone? (Forever.) How many people had offered him unconditional love? (Only one.) Was there anyone else in all the realms so preciously singular? (Just her.)

Though he was doing the opposite of drawing away, it was Belle who pressed closer. Belle who tilted her head up toward his. Belle who brushed her lips over his in what was so obviously her first kiss that he fell in love with her all over again.

Crush it, the past hissed.

And for this—a kiss, an embrace, youth and beauty and charm—he would be defeated.

Bae would be forgotten. Abandoned. Left behind by yet another parent.

"No."

Rumplestiltskin's hands shook as he pushed Belle away. His heart shriveled up into the cold, dead thing it really was as he limped backward, setting the spinning wheel between them. His taste of hope evaporated into nothing even while his lips still tingled with the feel of Belle's.

"No, this can't happen."

"But, Rumple, it's all right." Her own hope still shone like power and magic and a portal before it snapped closed. "Don't you see? I love you! I want this. I told Papa and Gaston that I choose you."

Milah had left Bae. Defenseless, beautiful Bae. And for what? For a pretty face and sleazy charm and the lure of some distant horizon.

Rumplestiltskin was not Milah. He would never turn into her. Bae had at least one parent who would treasure him properly.

(But Belle was no Hook. She was so much better and brighter and bound for wonderful things outside of the dark manor he'd imprisoned her within. She could never end as simply another heart discarded in his wake.)

"I don't want you," Rumplestiltskin (the Spinner) said. His face was carved of stone. "It was fun playing with you, but the game's over now," Rumplestiltskin (the Deal-Maker) said. His hands were a statue's, one locked around his crutch, the other the hilt of the dagger. "Go now. Never come back," said Rumplestiltskin (the failed father, the weak coward, the man who eventually fell to every temptation).

Crush it!

Belle crumpled. Just for a moment. Just long enough for Rumplestiltskin's perfect memory to etch every iota of her heartbreak into his soul like dirt to cast upon his grave and spit to rain upon his ashes. Then, he watched as she built herself back up. As she reclaimed the strength so integral to her and so alien to him (as she proved, yet again, another of the many ways he didn't deserve her).

"No," she said, defiant and unbowed. "I don't believe you. You traded your leg for an end to the war. You kissed me. We can be happy together. Rumplestiltskin. I know you're afraid, but—"

"Get out!" he roared. His limp had been gone centuries, but the way of walking as evenly as possible while live coals grated in his joints came back as if he'd always been limping (as if he'd only been fooling himself that he could ever be anything other than a cowardly cripple). He couldn't unwrap his hand from the dagger (crush it crush it crush it) so its inherent power built up shadows in his wake.

And Belle recoiled. She was finally afraid of him.

(It was the only gift he could give her.)

"If you ever try to come back," Rumplestiltskin hissed in her face, "I'll send you to the ogres."

He'd have to. Anywhere away from him. Anywhere so that he couldn't kiss her, beg her to love him, sully her with his tainted love (offer her in trade for the son he'd never deserved either).

Anywhere so that he couldn't reach her heart.

(Crush it and you can cast the curse today. Kill her and you can be reunited with Baelfire so much sooner.)

"Why are you doing this?" she begged. She fell back, though, and she was good and kind and beautiful so he let her make her own choice about how to let him go (give him up the same way everyone else ever had). "We could have been happy, Rumple. But you can't believe in happiness for yourself. You won't let yourself be anything but the villain you think makes you strong."

"Get out," he whispered.

Her heartbeat thundered in his ears. His hands were turning white with the force of his twin grips, all that kept him from succumbing to the tempting whispers he couldn't even blame on Zoso or the dagger.

These whispers were all his own.

(Crush it. Reunite with Bae.)

"You're a coward, Rumplestiltskin. And now all you'll have to keep you company on your throne is your dark shadow and a chipped cup," Belle said, her face folding into resolve.

And it was done.

She was saying goodbye.

She'd leave.

I am devoted to you.

(Maybe she was just as much a liar as everyone else.)

"Rumple…"

One last chance. She waited, offering him the opportunity to fix this.

The thing you love most.

"Get out," he said for the third time, and like ancient magic invoked by the rite of threes, she did.

"You'll never be happy if you're always just expecting the ending," she said (truth, truth, but she was a liar because it'd only taken a few shouts and a kiss to drive her and all her devotion away).

She slammed the doors behind her. Rumplestiltskin didn't watch her go. Instead, he turned his wheel and lost himself in the endless revolutions and told himself it was for the best.

Of all the deals he'd ever made, he'd bestowed on her the greatest: her freedom in place of his deadly love.

---

-Storybrooke-

---

The hospital's a bustling reminder of everything David's been doing his best to forget. The beep of machines, the hurry of scrubbed nurses, the sight of Dr. Whale—all of it brings back the echo he can't escape (six months to a year which has now become one to two months if we're lucky). He's been here too many times, so much of it completely alone (just a few treasured hours here and there flirting over a perpetually unread book while green eyes gleamed at him with the mirage of a future), and one day soon, he will die here, alone as in life.

David would give anything to not have to be here. It's only the gold badge weighting him down and the uncharacteristic look of near panic on Gold's face that keeps him from slamming through the exit doors. Though he can't say when or exactly how it happened, he knows he's somehow become the closest thing to a friend that Mr. Gold has, and he's not sure the man has ever needed a friend more than today.

"Why won't they just tell me how she's doing?" Mr. Gold all but growls. David wraps his hand around Mr. Gold's bicep (which might just grant him his wish for a quicker death) and holds him back when he looks as if he means to lunge for the nearest nurse.

Mr. Gold twitches away from David's touch but stays in place otherwise.

"As far as I know, you're no relation to her," David says as calmly as he can manage. The elevator doors ding open with that chime he hears in his nightmares, the melodious precursor to hours of agony as poison slips through his veins in search of cancer and whatever other collateral damage it can manage. "Besides, they need time to actually examine her."

"If anyone even thinks of trying to hide her," Gold snarls.

David studiously looks away. He's proud of Emma for having the presence of mind to get Jones put in an undisclosed room while his bruises are looked over. For all that Gold's menace has until now been largely made of secrets and threats, David can't erase the image of him, savage and nearly unstoppable, diving onto Jones and mercilessly beating him. He has no doubt that if it weren't for Emma's quick thinking, the pawnbroker would have murdered his kidnapper without a second thought. Without a single passing regret.

"How do you know her? Belle. You've never mentioned anyone in your life before."

"Yes, well, some things are like a delicate flame, too quick to be snuffed out at the least wrong move."

Something in Mr. Gold's face flickers. Softens. An expression so vulnerable there between sharp angles and dark shadows. Something David never thought to see in the pawnbroker (a reflection he isn't ready to recognize himself in).

Gently, David maneuvers them to a few chairs out of the way. Mr. Gold refused any medical assistance, but David's sure he appreciates the chance to sit (though he knows better than to expect any thanks for it).

"Who is she?" he asks quietly.

Everyone deserves a chance to talk about the things they love most.

Mr. Gold turns on him with a sneer that dies in slow degrees, leaving only that vulnerability behind. "No one," he whispers. "No one of consequence."

"I don't believe you." David focuses all his attention on Gold and the slump of his shoulders (does not look up at the too-familiar nurse passing by; she's the one who usually checked him in for his weekly torture appointments, before he stopped coming). "There's a reason you were ready to kill a man for her. Not to mention a reason you went out there ahead of us. Unless you're going to try to convince me that Jones kidnapped you from the shop…?"

Nothing.

David shrugs. "Anyway, Jones obviously knew that you care about Belle. The things he said…this was all a trap set for you."

"Jones knows what our illustrious mayor tells him," Gold scoffs. "And Cora has always been ready to believe her own conclusions rather than actual real information."

"So you don't care for this Belle," David says levelly. He makes sure not to look too smug when Gold's expression vehemently denies any chance of apathy. Satisfied that his point is made, he throws Mr. Gold a bone by changing the direction of the conversation (the pawnbroker might be more amenable to answering questions if he's relieved the personal inquiries are over). "So you think Mayor Mills is involved somehow?"

"You don't?" Mr. Gold looks away, a blank slate again. "Nothing happens in this town that doesn't somehow tie back to Cora."

"That sounds like prejudice."

"And you sound beaten." Though the words are harsh, Mr. Gold looks as close to concerned as he gets.

David swallows back his first answer (tamps down the constant pain and the growing exhaustion and the apparently obvious defeat). "Why don't we go over everything from the beginning," he says instead. Pulling out a notepad and pen, he's grateful that Mr. Gold doesn't draw attention to the shaking of his hands. "What was it again that made you think something illegal was happening at that cabin?"

"I told you, I have eyes and ears all over town. Everyone prefers to store up good credit with the man who might have exactly what they need sometime in the future."

It's no more than the truth, so David wonders why he sounds like he's quoting a script he couldn't care less about.

"You're going to have do better than that." David tries to look unaffected as he admits, "This is more than just a kidnapping or assault. It's a murder investigation."

"Oh?"

David hesitates before speaking, but really, what are the chances that Mr. Gold doesn't already know this?

"We found Graham's body," he says. "The forest ranger. We went to ask for his help and stumbled over a shallow grave."

"Well, I didn't do it." Mr. Gold shrugs, completely unconcerned (it's as if there are two people within him: the one who cares and snarls and fears and this cold-hearted monster who sees lives as nothing more than pieces on a board).

It takes far too long to get down Mr. Gold's report, not least because even an ineffectual sheriff can tell just how much Gold omits from his account. He pretends to complete ignorance about anything aside from reports of a girl being held at the cabin. He gives either monosyllabic answers or turns questions back on David whenever he seems to lose interest, and anytime David thinks he might learn something interesting, Mr. Gold pulls out the lawyer jargon that allows him to weasel out of anything concrete.

(Or maybe it's just David. Maybe he's never been the right choice for sheriff and it's only now that his sickness has stripped away all his pretenses to reveal the truth about his failures.)

By the time David gives up, Dr. Whale comes by with a report on Belle's condition. David chooses to pretend he doesn't realize Mr. Gold stands within eavesdropping distance (this way, he'll save Dr. Whale the bullying threats Mr. Gold would levy at him later).

"She's physically fine, if a bit anemic and weak. I prescribed her a steady diet of vitamins and exercise and as much time in the sun as she can handle. More concerning is her mental state." Whale shakes his head (David tries not to connect the gesture with his own bad news, one to two months, if we're lucky). "She says she doesn't remember ever not being locked up."

"Does she have any idea where she was kept?" David asks as he gears himself up for hours more of obtaining yet another warrant and going on another arduous search.

"She said it was somewhere dark and possibly underground, but that's all she knew." Pursing his lips, Whale lowered his voice. "She says there were two others in cells beside hers. She claims she never saw the third one, but one was a young woman like her."

"Three people locked up? Possibly all young, beautiful women?" The pit of David's stomach tightens with nausea. This sounds too much like the kind of case he hoped never to have to worry about in this kind of small town.

"Did she ever see her captor?" Emma asks, startling him as she joins the conversation with no warning. He doesn't mind since she sets herself right at his side. At the brush of her arm against his, some of his tension eases. Her badge glows in the harsh hospital lighting, somehow more brilliant than his own. David falls back a bit and lets Emma's questions about logistics and witnesses and necessary proofs shroud him from his surroundings (from his own incompetency).

"I've called Dr. Hopper and asked him to come in," Whale's saying when David's attention is caught by the sight of a familiar collection of contrasts: black hair and white skin, quick gait and soft movements, small height and great presence.

Mary Margaret, closer than she has been in weeks and weeks. Only a few yards away, in fact, focused on something in the opposite direction of him. She's so beautiful it nearly staggers him. The volunteer tag clipped to her shirt brings up countless memories of shared lunches, stolen moments out of time that were like priceless treasures in the wasteland of his life. The only bright thing he had to look forward to (a delicate flame snuffed out almost without effort).

David doesn't look away in time. Mary Margaret spots him, and for one moment that stretches, they lock eyes. It's been so long since he last let himself really look at her. Since he said goodbye and she let him (since he drove away from one of only two things still tying him to life).

His heart flutters like a dove trapped behind his breastbone.

Mary Margaret turns and walks away from him.

It's what he wants her to do. What she needs to do. What he asked her to do.

(It's everything he needs her not to do. It's exactly the opposite of what he hoped for.

But then, why shouldn't she? It's not like he has a future for her to fight for and it's good, it's good, that she finally recognizes that.)

David has to get out of here (before he crumples). With a wave to Emma to let her know he's headed out, he stumbles his way down the dreamlike corridors (they show up endlessly in the nightmares that populate his scattered sleep) and outside to his squad car. He feels as if he's in a daze, even as he tries to keep himself focused on the drive back to the station. To the piles of paperwork all still just as haphazard and messy as when he left (all overdue and filled with rambling words that die off whenever the pain bests him or the trembles make him drop his pen or his mind simply shuts off).

It's a mess, all of it. And useless. None of this paperwork holds any solutions for any of the people who need him most (the ones he's failed the worst).

Dawn Somnus, still missing even after all these years, though when he first became sheriff, he vowed that he would help Robert and Maggie find her.

Billy, alive now only because of a miracle. August, doubtless still traumatized over how close he came to being punished for a crime that never even happened.

Three people locked away for years, maybe even for decades, with not even a hint to account for who they are or who locked them away. Two of them (one of them Dawn, the woman he's failed without end?) still trapped, hidden somewhere in this deceptively innocent town.

And Graham. Poor Graham, so solitary, so skittish around people, but always so willing to help when called upon. Graham, with a knife-wound in his heart and dirt poured over his glassy, startled eyes.

David grabs the trashcan, filled with the urge to vomit, as he tallies up the proofs of his uselessness.

And of course, there's the worst failure of his entire career (worse because he actually tried, tried and tried and tried and all with nothing to show for it): Regina. Still under Cora's thumb. Still cowed and mistreated and hurt. The first person he tried to really help. Turns out, she'd been right not to trust him to be able to follow through on his promise to save her.

There's one clean area of David's desk. One piece kept carefully clear save a single sheet of paper. David shoves away the trashcan and pulls open the second drawer down. The paper's exactly where it was the last time he checked on it, as he does compulsively (only once on good days; on bad days, it's hard for him to look at anything else). For all he's known that he'll need this page eventually, for all that he's tried to prepare for it, he's somehow hoped that he wouldn't have to use it.

As if there'd be a miracle for him (as if he deserves one).

A fool's hope, now as dead as he is (a ghost, not quite ready to relinquish his last grip on the world of the living).

Resolutely, David pulls out the page. His eyes skip over the typed lines (it's a mistake to ever trust his deteriorating penmanship) and focus on the important pieces. Effective immediately. I regret. Letter of resignation.

David takes hold of a pen, hovers the tip over the blank line at the bottom of the page, waits out a particularly strong tremor, and signs his name (it feels like he's signing his own death certificate).

As easily as that, the single stroke of a pen, he cuts the last tie holding him to life.

David places his resignation on top of the messy piles and thinks he should have done this weeks ago. Months ago. As soon as Emma accepted his job offer, he should have stepped aside (he doesn't deserve the friendship she's so carefully, so earnestly, entrusted him with). He convinced himself he was helping her, preparing her, but the truth is that she's already far better at this than he has been in years (than he's ever been; at least she's actually solved crimes rather than simply stand as witness to what others refuse to see).

"David, what other cell options do we have here?" Emma's already talking as she bursts into his office. David tries not to look too guilty. "Once Jones is discharged, I'll need a place to stick him and his accomplice, but I can't get the idea out of my head that Gold would see them as nothing more than sitting ducks here at the station."

"There are some holding cells at the courthouse."

"Too easy." Emma grimaces and leans against his desk. She's putting on a brave face, but David can tell she's shaken. She was the one who stumbled over Graham's body, the one who called it in and still insisted on following David down to Cora's cabin.

But she's strong. Valiant, even (though David feels a little embarrassed that every time he sees her, he can only think of words more fitting of knights and heroes than bounty hunters and deputies). She still has the strength and the courage to actually confront Storybrooke's heroes rather than just learning to work around them.

(Rather than admitting defeat like he's grown all too used to doing.)

"I never knew Gold had such a temper on him." Emma snorts. "I had him pegged as a mastermind, not a thug. You were right when you warned me about how dangerous he is."

"Any man's dangerous when the people he loves are threatened."

Emma shoots him a strange look. "You sound like you actually agree with his reaction."

David begins the long process of standing without waking up every ache. "Gold is a man of extremes so, yes, obviously, I think his reaction was extreme. But whoever this Belle is, she obviously means a great deal to him. And maybe he clings more explosively because he has so little to cling to."

"So you don't know who this Belle is eith—" Emma's voice dies. David follows the line of her eyesight even though he knows exactly what she's looking at.

The letter of resignation (like a smoking gun).

"What is this?" she demands.

"I think you know," he says quietly. He's glad he's already made it to his feet. "And come on, we've both known this was coming."

"Really?" Emma arches a sardonic eyebrow, but there's a catch to her voice. "David, what…what is—"

"I have cancer," he cuts her off (a man can only hear so many people ask what's wrong with you before it starts to go to his head). "And I don't have much time left."

Something breaks in her eyes. "No. There must be something—"

"There's nothing more the doctors can do that won't take away more than it gives."

Emma's often skittish, even defensive, around anyone who comes too close to her (aside from August, and even he keeps their contact to a minimum, small grazes and almost-brushes), but that look on her face (a fragility that makes her seem like a little lost girl) draws David closer. He reaches up his hands (slowly) and places them on her shoulders (carefully) and pulls her close when she allows him. She tenses, then relaxes and leans in, an increment so tiny it wouldn't mean anything in anyone else. It's enough for David, who wraps her in his arms and lets her pretend the shudders shaking her body are only his.

"I believe in you," he whispers into her curls, and feels her draw in her breath, a sharp little sound that betrays far too much about how little she's had anyone to believe in her before. "You'll be an amazing sheriff. You're already an amazing person."

Her arms move to circle his waist, her face hidden from view. "Maybe if I talk to another doctor, someone who's not drunk as often as Whale, there might be—"

"I'm ready," he says (and he'll be dead before he can figure out if he's telling the truth). "I'm so tired, Emma. This place…it isn't easy."

Emma draws away, bristling and standoffish as her defenses come back up. David regrets the end of the moment (for all her strength, there's something about her that makes him want to coddle and protect and spoil her) but lets her go. Holding on too tightly only ever backfires.

"Well. Any last bits of advice about this new situation?" she asks with a show of bravado. David pretends not to see the tears she swipes away (tries not to feel too pleased that someone, finally, needs him because all it will do, in the not-too-distant end, is destroy her).

"Trust yourself," he tells her. "You'll handle all this better than I ever did. Who knows? You might just end up saving the whole town."

"I'm no savior."

"You can be." He offers her as earnest a smile as he can muster (easier with her than anyone else).

"It's funny you should say that," she says with a fake laugh. "I've been reading this book…" She shakes her head. "Never mind."

"Here." David unclips his badge and places it on her palm before folding her cold fingers over it. He thought he'd miss it the instant the weight no longer kept him anchored, but actually, he feels relieved. Light as air. As if he could drift away, free of any responsibility dragging in his wake.

Save one. One last thing to see to.

"I won't promise that I'm not going to keep pestering you with questions."

"Feel free to do so, as long as possible. I'll always help however I can." He finds himself staring longingly at the exit (for so long, this office was his haven; now it seems only a prison). "Although, considering that at least one girl's been locked up for years right under my nose and I had no idea, it seems evident that I don't have all the answers."

Emma looks down at his badge. "Maybe I need a listening ear more than I need answers."

He doesn't mean to, but his hand brushes along her cheek, a tear like molten lava falling on his knuckle. To his surprise, Emma doesn't flinch away.

"I'll be here," he promises, "as long as I can be. And I'll always be willing to listen."

Then he leaves because he might not be any good at noticing crimes being committed, but he can tell Emma needs a bit of space (no one really likes crying in front of witnesses; especially when they can't help the situation).

His squad car sits where he parked it. David runs his hand along the door but walks past it (it's not his anymore).

Exhaustion presses him down, nearly as heavy as his badge had been, but if he's going to let go of all his responsibilities, then he has one more place to go.

Regina's in the stables, as he knew she would be. On the nights Henry meets with Archie, she finds ways to be out of the house. And since Cora disdains stepping into barns if she can help it, it's an easy hiding place for the Mayor's daughter.

"David," Regina blurts when she notices him. It's probably the surprise, but she looks almost guilty as she faces him. The horse she was brushing snorts his displeasure with her stillness, so she steps out of the paddock. "What's wrong?" Her eyes drop to his belt before narrowing. "Where's your badge?"

"Emma's wearing it now."

Something passes across Regina's face, a shadow he'd name jealousy if he didn't know better.

"So," she says brusquely. "I assume this is your goodbye then."

He offers a faint smile. "You had to be expecting it."

If there's anything he was ever able to give Regina, it's friendship (at least, he hopes she thinks of him as that and not as a failed rescuer).

"I didn't think it'd be this soon," she admits, and turns to put away her currying equipment (uncomfortable, probably, with what that admission betrays).

"I put it off as long as I could."

"Did you?" she snaps. David studies the arrows of straw underfoot, an easier sight than the stiff line of Regina's back.

"I didn't only come to say goodbye," he says. "I came to say…I'm sorry."

He doesn't need to look up to know that Regina stiffens. Every time he's tried to bring up his failed attempt to hold Cora accountable for all her abuse, Regina acts as if all her bones are made of ice and her veins are ropes tightening, threatening to snap her into a million pieces. It didn't take too many attempts before David stopped trying. Before he began avoiding her (avoiding the reminder of his shame). Now, he regrets that almost as much as he does his failure.

"I know now that I'll never really understand your relationship with your mother. Or what kind of peace you've bartered for in order to be happy. And much as I've tried, I guess I'll never understand why you kept your silence when I most needed you to speak."

"Is there a point to this?" Regina snaps. Safe in the paddock, with her hands resting on her horse's withers, she's cloaked in shadows. The defensiveness he recognizes in her reads as irritable impatience. Despite how painful it is to pull these long-buried truths into the open, David nearly smiles to hear the open anger.

(Regina only ever bristles when she feels safe to do so. When she knows that there will be no retaliation, no tales carried to her mother, no betrayal. Her barbs, David has learned, are a gift, her trust a treasure even though it's as prickly and hard to pin down as a burr in sheep's wool.)

"I guess I just didn't want to go without letting you know, once and for all, that I don't blame you. I know you think I do, but none of this is on you. It's on me. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I didn't listen when you said you weren't sure about my plan. And I'm sorry that I did the same thing Cora did, even if in a different way—I silenced you."

The horse nickers and nudges his nose against Regina's shoulder. She sways. "That's a lot of sorrys."

"Then here's another for your collection: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come and give them to you."

"David…" Regina sighs, the bark dissolving from her voice. She sounds tired (as tired as he feels in every flawed cell in his body). Her face falls into illumination as she leans it against her horse's shoulder, all bold curves and vulnerable secrets. She looks as easily broken as his brittle bones.

(David wonders, suddenly, if burdening her with his regrets is just as selfish as never saying them aloud would be cowardly.)

"Well." He clears his throat. Swallows. Backs toward the wide doors. (If he thought this would help him find closure, he was obviously mistaken.) "I guess that's all."

"David, wait." Regina abandons the protection of the paddock, though she keeps one hand behind her on the latch. David doesn't begrudge her needing that anchor (he wishes he had one himself still, but they're all gone, drifting away from him like balloons floating up into the sky, pop-pop-popping the farther they fly). "Don't apologize, okay? Not for caring about me. You…you're the only one here who really has."

"Mary Margaret," he tries to say (her name burns on his tongue).

"I should have spoken up," she blurts, the words out so quickly he has to think to separate them into individual syllables. "I meant to. I wanted to. It's just…"

"It's okay. I don't blame—"

"Henry," she breathes out (like a secret; like a prayer). "He was my escape. And if I'd helped you…if I'd turned against Mother… Well, you had to know she'd find a way out. And then she never would have let me have him. I needed him."

(I needed someone. He hears it, spoken in his voice as much as hers. That's all they've both wanted: someone to care, someone to hold onto, someone who'd fight for them, someone to find them in the dark no matter how long it took or how much effort it required.

He cannot resent her for finding her person just as he cannot resent Mary Margaret for not searching for him past his good intentions and overwhelming fears.)

David thinks of the pale young woman he'd noticed more and more after he first clipped the sheriff's badge to his belt. She'd been as much a ghost then as he is now, all quietness and flinches and bruises peeking from beneath her sleeves. He thinks of the hero he wanted to be, the good person he thought could triumph over Mayor Mills. The breakfasts he slipped to Regina, the timid conversations he coaxed her into, the smiles he treasured receiving.

All of it vanished the instant he tried to pull Cora in for her abuse of power.

And without a witness, without those words he needed from Regina, his case dried up like ashes in the wind. Cora went free and David began to think good couldn't defeat evil.

He's thought for so long that it was fear that defeated Regina. But now he thinks about how just mere months after his failed attempt, Regina showed up with a baby cradled in her arms. She'd smiled, beamed, really, despite the long days where she couldn't seem to calm Henry down.

Of course. It all makes so much sense. She found her own escape. Made her own rescue. Regina might be cowed, David thinks, but she's not broken (and perhaps, in the end, she's stronger even than Cora).

"I understand," he says, and Regina smiles a tremulous smile at him.

"Keep fighting," she tells him. "You never know what you might find if you hold on long enough."

David laughs. "You too, I guess."

"David!" When he looks back over his shoulder, she can't meet his gaze. "Thank you. For trying."

The last weight falls away. And finally, finally, David feels himself drifting upward, unconstrained, a balloon headed for the sun (waiting, every second, for the final pop).

---

"I don't like this," the puppet says. Gold doesn't bother replying. Booth has done nothing but complain since he pulled him from Marco's shop. One would think he's too dense to realize that fulfilling a deal has nothing to do with preference.

The night is almost over. He'd deliberated over coming earlier, but everyone thinks that truly evil deeds always happen at the darkest, deadest parts of the night. That's when the valiant heroes keep their guard up the highest. Gold prefers these early hours of the morning when the sky just barely shows hints of the sun clawing its way above the edges of the world.

"Gold!" August actually grabs his arm, and for an instant, Gold has his cane raised, a snarl on his lips. Then he sees the camera swiveling in the corner ahead of them (galling, to have to feel grateful to the boy, but such is life without magic). "Now," August says and pulls him ahead before the camera returns on its timed turn.

He supposes he should be glad the savior has an ounce of cunning on her side (must be from her mother; Snow has always tried to deny the ruthless streak that runs through her but it's there all the same). All he can manage is annoyance.

"All right," August says once they're headed down the stairs of the courthouse. "I told you where they're being kept and got you in. What now?"

"You know, playing the part of a good law-abiding citizen doesn't really suit you." Gold smiles thinly at the puppet boy. "We both know your past is a bit more…checkered…than all that."

"Yeah, well, Emma will kill me if she finds out I'm working with you. And while she might feel bad about hurting me, she's not going to be anything but overjoyed to have an excuse to go after you."

"Keep watch." Gold pauses long enough to pin him with a hooded stare. "You'd do well to remember that you haven't had much luck finding out about the pirate or any of his companions. Allowing me to question him is still more me than you."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm still on the hook for the deal, got it." Shivering, August situates himself at the end of the hallway with a clear view of the stairs. "Would you just hurry?"

A grudging seed of respect has Gold turning soundlessly toward the makeshift cells ahead. The holding cells upstairs were evidently too obvious; Gold supposes Emma hoped their empty state would have him dismissing the courthouse entirely (without August's helpful information, he might have).

The first cell holds the portly man, red beanie still on his head. The terror that blanches his face when Gold nudges him awake with the point of his cane is almost as empowering as the sound of his name in this magicless world.

"Smee," he names him (names hold power in a thousand ways, not least in how his possession of it rings as dangerous as magic itself). "You held a gun to an innocent woman's head. And one to my back. And all for a pirate I assume is your captain."

"I don't know anything!" the rat blurts. He's probably telling the truth.

Gold keeps silent.

"Look, I used to serve on the Jolly Roger, right? I could find things, special things of value. Captain Hook liked that and I liked a steady job—you can't blame me for that, can you? Please, don't hurt me. I just do whatever my captain tells me."

"What a sterling defense," he says flatly.

"Please!" Smee backs into the corner of the cell (a picture that rings too familiar, too true, too pathetic). "If I knew what he wanted here, I'd tell you."

"I know what he wants." Gold takes a single step forward. The man shakes. "He wants me dead, but not until I've felt pain. A common story that doesn't interest me in the slightest. What does interest me is how Hook escaped Neverland. How long he's been in this world. How he knew to come here."

"We…" Opportunism is a trait Gold knows well. He watches it steal its way over Smee's fear, straightening his spine, bringing him forward a few steps (giving him hope that will be crushed all too easily). "I'll tell you."

"If…?"

"If you promise not to hurt me. Maybe let me go?"

"Don't push your luck. Tell me."

The man spills out words that he surely thinks are so simple as to not be secrets (he'd spill them even if he thought they were precious jewels, though), and Gold ponders on Hook's hypocrisy. All those times he scorned Rumplestiltskin for cowardice, claimed he and his would never show the same fear—and his right-hand man, this rat for sale, makes Rumplestiltskin (even the Rumplestiltskin before the dagger) seem a veritable hero.

By the time Gold leaves that first cell (complete with a threat that will last only until Hook threatens Smee himself; a clue that will send the pirate down the wrong path even if he sees it for the plant it is), he's so tense that his ankle can't bend at all and his hand has spasmed closed over his cane.

The next cell is deeper, darker, but Gold's master key (swiped from Cora and passed along by Regina) opens it easily.

The pirate's waiting for him. Arranged leaning back against the wall, his eyes flashing in the dim light, his mouth curled up in a smirk, he's a picture of confident insolence that he wants Gold to be taken aback by.

(Rumplestiltskin is too busy trying to restrain himself from drawing the gun at his back and sending every bullet from its chambers into the man's chest.)

"Had a little trouble finding me?" Hook asks. "I expected you much earlier."

"And I didn't expect you at all. Pan's grown soft in his old age."

A crack in Hook's mask. Gold pretends to miss it.

"Escaping him wasn't an easy feat. Not nearly as easy as you made it seem."

Gold smiles. "Nobody escapes Pan."

"Baelfire did."

And this. This is why Gold is here. This is why Gold has made it this far without striking Jones stone dead. (This is why he can't believe anything Hook says.)

"You said he fled when he heard I was coming."

"Fled to this world. He had to capture Pan's own shadow in a coconut painstakingly carved with the patterns of Neverland's stars, but your boy has more bravery than a thousand of you. Makes you wonder who he got it from."

The familiar insinuation rolls off Gold like consequences from a fairy. However, he lets his eyes twitch as he looks away (never give an enemy any indication where the true weaknesses lie; a little misdirection saves a lot of trouble).

Hook's smile grows bigger. "I told Pan I'd hunt him down."

The snarl, the sudden movement forward, takes almost no effort at all, too real to be wholly a façade. "If you touched him—"

"I wouldn't hurt Milah's son," Hook snaps, all offended pride and affected concern. As if Gold doesn't remember the real reasons Milah and Jones had come to see Bae. As if Rumplestiltskin could ever forget the trade they'd wanted to make, the deal they'd offered (the dagger they'd really wanted).

(Still want?)

"I had to make it look good, though, didn't I? Let Pan think that I hated Baelfire as much as I hated his father. Tell him I'd do anything for a touch of revenge. Play his game until I could follow Baelfire's footsteps out of Neverland."

"Complete with your ship and crew."

For the first time, Hook betrays a bit of emotion that Gold actually believes (well, aside from his thirst for vengeance; Gold doesn't doubt that at all). His eyes go hooded as he looks away. "Had to leave my ship behind. It was a necessary sacrifice."

"Not much of a pirate anymore, ey?" Gold mocks him.

Hook lunges for him, barely stopped by the tip of Gold's cane placed, with no little force, in the middle of his breastbone. "Go ahead and laugh, Crocodile! Gloat all you like. I know where your son is—and you never will."

"I wouldn't believe a single word out of your mouth about him." Gold shoves the cane deeper into the pirate's chest, backing him against the wall, shaking with the effort it takes not to drag the cane up to his throat—so easy to push and push until this voice from his nightmares, this scornful laugh and lying tongue, are silenced forever.

But no. Waste not, want not.

"Don't ever speak his name again," Gold hisses, so close he can smell the saltwater layered through Hook's lousy excuse for blood. "If you do, I'll peel you one strip at a time and send whatever's left back to Neverland in a box complete with game-pieces and a prize."

He's so close he catches every second of Hook's fear that he tries to cover with a loud laugh and big bravado. He's so near he hears the catch in Hook's breath. The skip of his heart.

Gold doesn't fool himself that it's due to his own threat.

All Hook's big talk about bravery and courage and fighting for what is a man's. All of it, and he's so petrified of Peter Pan that it leaks out of every one of his pores.

One last painful shove with his cane and Gold turns to the door. He's halfway through when he turns back. "Where'd you get the car, Jones?"

The light is brighter, simulating the encroaching daylight outside. More than bright enough for Gold to spot the bit of confusion.

"A man's got to live, and I refuse to be content with squalor." Hook shrugs expansively (Gold wonders if there's anything real about the man at all or if he's been playing parts so long that he's only a collection of facades; Gold might have related if he weren't, at his core, a father—that can never be forgotten or replaced). "The car's mine."

"It's the only thing that's yours." Gold slips the leash he's placed on himself just enough to let the roiling menace show through, a hint of the lightning stirred up by all the times his name has been spoken in this town built of his own magic and intent and pain. "My son will never be. And neither will the vengeance you seek so avidly. If I were you, I'd get used to this cell."

Hook starts to say something (another threat, a Crocodile to try to wound) but Gold smiles at him.

"Well, actually, you might not have time to get used to it. I guess we'll see how long my patience lasts—the urge to kill you might prove too tempting."

He slams the door over Hook's sudden lunge for him. The lock clicks with a satisfying snick.

Gold's smile falls away.

It's not much of a victory that he walks away with. Not much more than a few half-laid plans, a couple seeds planted on the off-chance they might sprout, and a dread he doesn't want to face.

(He never thought he'd be happy if it were only Cora he had to worry about.)

"Finally!" August exclaims when Gold joins him. They head up the stairs; quite the sight, Gold imagines: a man who limps even with the aid of a cane and a younger man who limps as if his leg refuses to bend at all.

"You're getting worse," he observes.

"I'm trying to tell the truth," August grits, "but how can I when it sounds so crazy? Papa would be scared of a psycho and Emma would pity me. Lies are the only thing keeping me here."

"Soon permanently."

Booth stops them to wait for the camera's circuit. "You said you'd help me."

"Hard to do without magic."

Only when they're outside the courthouse, the doors tidily locked behind them, does Gold pretend to relent. "Fine," he says, "if you're in that much of a hurry, I might have something you can do to hurry our reluctant savior along."

The boy hesitates. "I don't want her hurt. And I can't betray her. She's the closest thing to family I had during all those years I was alone here."

"If I wanted to hurt the Savior, I'd have killed her myself as soon as she stepped foot into Storybrooke," Gold says impatiently. "You do realize her death will break the curse, don't you? A failsafe I ensured in case something went wrong before she could reach her twenty-eighth birthday."

"What? No, I didn't know that." August looks thoroughly shaken (which means he won't be thinking clearly; perfect timing, then). "Why would you—"

"I'm going to get you an address," Gold interrupts. His ankle hurts (his memories surge) and he's cold (he's lonely). He doesn't want to be here anymore. "When I do, I want you to visit it and find out whatever you can."

"What do you mean?"

"Hook's address," Gold specifies. "He said the car is his. That means it will be registered to whatever identity he has here, and whatever we can learn about that means we'll be one step closer to figuring out what his game is."

And how he got here. Rumplestiltskin knows Peter Pan, and nobody escapes (except Bae, because Malcolm knew, didn't he, what would hurt Rumplestiltskin the most, and any capitulation is worth the needles he can poke in the son that once threatened his stay in Neverland). The pirate's arrival is too coincidental to be anything other than a powerplay.

But from Pan alone? Or is Cora working with them too?

"What does Hook have to do with breaking the curse?" August asks. "I don't see how this is helping Emma."

"A new player enters a town no one should be able to find, and that doesn't bother you? I'd say wood really doesn't have much of a survival instinct"

The comment clearly stings. Booth's jaw works as he looks away, his gloved hand massaging the side of his leg.

"Tick-tock, dearie."

"I can't!" August cries, whirling on Gold with a shambling grace that rings familiar (one cripple recognizing the coping mechanisms in another). His eyes are wide, the darkness cloaks the color of his hair, the stubble on his jaw, and in this moment, Rumplestiltskin can see the boy he once knelt to deal with. "Don't you understand? I can't do this! I'm not…I'm not good enough. Everything I've done and Emma's no closer to believing in magic. Whatever you give me to do, I'll just fail. The Blue Fairy obviously recognized that a long time ago."

Rumplestiltskin freezes into stone at this reflection of himself (of the man he once was but refuses to ever be again) in front of him.

"You're never going to feel like you're good enough," he says. His voice is even. His tone measured. (The Deal-Maker will not falter at such a rudimentary stumbling-block.) "You're never going to feel like you can actually do everything expected of you. You're never going to feel you're enough. But that doesn't mean you give up."

How many centuries did he work solely on faith and blind trust and scattered premonitions? How many decades did he travel from world to world despite hating every moment of it? How many curses failed, spells fizzled, portals went nowhere, ideas sputtered into uselessness? An uncountable number.

(But Bae is worth it all. Worth every sleepless year, every excruciating de-aging spell, every memory charm. Every failure. Every setback. Every iota of patience.)

"You keep going anyway," he tells the puppet who's become a man. "Keep trying. If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly. If you're going to mess up, do it on purpose. If you're going to try for something, try for something that matters. Tell yourself you're right—lie to yourself. Do whatever you have to do, but do it without looking back. Make the journey worth your inevitable regret."

"Why?" August whispers.

"Because then you're the one with the power," Rumplestiltskin says with a palm-up gesture. "You're the one on the outside, the one who can walk away when interests don't align. And because no matter how unworthy we are, there's someone who thinks more of us than we deserve, and even if we're going to eventually fail them anyway, we have to at least pretend they're not throwing their love away. So you lie and you don't look in the mirror and you don't let anything sway you from your goal—most especially yourself."

(He gave up Belle. If he could do that, if he could walk away from her blue eyes and clear spirit and offered happy ending…there's nothing he can't do to find his son.)

"Okay," August sighs. "I'll do it. But when this is over—"

"The curse will be broken," Gold promises (he needs the reminder as much as the puppet does). "Just be ready to leave."

Gold doesn't bother heading back to his shop. Miss Swan might be a bit too trusting, but Cora is anything but. He's felt her eyes on him since he followed Belle (so fragile, so defenseless, so alive) to the hospital, and if she hasn't confronted him herself, it only means she's biding her time. Waiting for better circumstances in order to confront him with the upper hand.

How long has he been pretending to be weaker, lesser, just to let her feel powerful?

No more.

She hid Belle away. Buried the brightest soul he's ever known under dirt and bars and blank spaces. Erected a grave and a stone and a lie he swallowed (there was never going to be another ending, he'd known; he'd only been surprised it came so quickly).

It's time Cora remembers just whose town this really is (time the sparks that have been building since Emma first set foot in Storybrooke are unleashed).

"Madame Mayor," he greets her as he steps into her office.

Cora betrays not even a whisper of surprise (which means she's startled or she would have pretended to some uncertainty). Her gaze is level. Dark amber eyes, twisted lips, aging skin, fair hair—Gold can't quite remember what ever drew him to her.

(A twisted spirit like his, a thirst for revenge like the one he kept carefully restrained, a desire to be more, to be better, just like he'd nourished secretly since he'd first been ostracized for his father's reputation—all these things had fooled him into thinking they were matched. All it should have done was repel him to see the things he most hates about himself in someone so much less beaten down.)

"You took something from me," he says without preamble.

Smiling (like a cobra), Cora says, "You threw her away. Was I not supposed to pick up after you? Come now, Rumple, we've known each other too long to pretend this is out of character for either of us. If I remember correctly, you tried to take someone from me that I disposed of."

"Rescuing Henry from Wonderland was all your idea, dearie. You must have tired of not having a puppet to play with."

The lines around Cora's eyes draw tight. Her voice is cold as a corpse's when she says, "You gave me the means. And we both needed Henry."

"Ah, yes, the foundation to our pretty little town. Your revenge and my retirement."

"An interesting way of putting it. I wasn't aware you'd retired."

"Haven't I been perfectly cooperative these past three decades?" Gold strides closer to the desk, swipes a finger over the picture frame she keeps there, facing her. It's empty, he knows, but she likes visitors to think she has a heart somewhere (and she does, just kept carefully locked away). "Haven't I allowed you your victories? Your daughter so obedient and docile. Your stepdaughter cowed and compliant. Your rival ruler dying silent and alone. Your throne, so stable and uncontested. All of this I gave you—and you took the only thing I wanted."

"Not the only thing, surely," Cora says with a smile she seems to think is alluring. "Didn't you once give me a speech about a son—"

Gold slams his cane down against her desk and leans in close. "Leave. Belle. Alone. If you touch her again, if you talk to her, if you even speak her name…I'll tear down this kingdom I gave you brick by brick and salt it with your daughter's blood, with your tears—and with the shredded remains of your heart. But not before I drive you to your knees until I finally allow you your last breath."

"You—" Cora smiles over gritted teeth. "Come now, Rumple, let's not be enemies. We've worked together too long now."

"Have we?" Gold smiles his own smile, a baring of his teeth, as he lets the power of his spoken name (even in truncated form) wash over him. The flare of magic in his eyes makes Cora flinch away. "Whatever truce you think we've had…you broke it when you locked Belle up. Now, every breath you take—every beat of your missing heart—is only at my mercy. And I think we both know how little of that virtue I possess."

Finally, Cora falls silent. (Finally, she recalls the days when she was the impoverished student and he was the master doling out crumbs he thought might prove useful to him.)

"I'm giving Belle the library," he says coldly. "Whatever she decides to do with it, you will do nothing to interfere. And, Cora," he meets her seething gaze, "I'm not asking. Remember what you dealt to me in return for the last ingredient to this curse of yours."

"You asked me for what you first wanted from me."

Gold strokes the side of that empty picture frame again. "And who could ever forget what that was?"

"You've already turned her against me by giving her a son," Cora bites out. "What good would killing her do?"

"I guess we'll find out."

When Gold strides out of her office, he feels almost like himself again (for the first time since the curse's smoke began to rise from their old world; since he stared down at scrolls dashed through with red ink and knew the feeling of true betrayal; since blood stained his hands and stole his heart and sealed his fate).

When he returns to his shop, to the little stool in front of his spinning wheel, he feels as if he can still win this.

(But this time, he dares not speak the precious name of his son aloud, not when so many of his old ghosts are coming back to haunt him.)

---

It's a strange feeling, being free. It doesn't quite feel real. In fact, she (Belle, that's who she is, who she's chosen to be) spends most of the first several days in the hospital pinching herself, touching the window, brushing her fingers over Dr. Hopper and Dr. Whale and the nice girl (Ruby? Yes, that's the name; there are so many to remember now) to make sure she's not just dreaming them up.

When the woman with the golden hair and the golden badge and the weapon she once pointed in her kidnapper's direction (and then in her rescuer's, Gold's, direction) hidden at her side tells her that she's free to go, Belle doesn't understand her.

"I thought I was free," she says slowly. That's what Dr. Hopper had told her, over and over again, every day. It's what Ruby assured her of. (Gold promised that she'd be safe.)

"Well, yeah, but…" The woman (what was her name again? it had stung like antiseptic in a cut when she spoke it) looks uncomfortable. "I mean, you don't have to stay in the hospital anymore. Turns out you have a place to go now."

"I do?" Belle turns that over and over in her mind but cannot get it to make any more sense. Eventually, she just lets Dr. Hopper (Archie, he said, you can call me Archie because I think we can be friends) help her pack up the clothes Ruby brought her, and she follows the golden-haired woman down endless white hallways.

"This isn't where I was locked up," she muses. "It's too bright. Too clean."

The woman (Emma, Belle suddenly remembers) actually winces. "We're going to keep looking."

"I will too," Belle promises. Gold told her she was good. He told her she's a hero. A good hero would save her friends, so Belle will do everything she can. She wants the brave girl to be able to hum with sunlight on her face. She wants the strong one to be able to stop enduring and to live.

They get in a car. Dr. Hopper assures her it's safe and that it will take her to her new home. Belle's never actually had a home before (she's decided, all on her own, that the cell doesn't count; Gold told her that she didn't belong there) so she's eager to see what it's like and agrees to tolerate the loud, far-too-fast ride.

"How do you know your name?" asks Emma (Belle smiles to remember the name so easily this time). "You said you didn't remember anything but the cell. Did anyone down there call you by name? What did they look like?"

"I am Belle," she says (abruptly terrified that this one thing she can call her own will be taken away).

"I know you are," Emma says softly. "I just wondered… Anything you can remember could help us find your friends."

Friends. Belle's never thought of her two fellow prisoners as friends, but she likes it. She likes it a lot. She is free, and she is a hero, and she has friends.

"No one called me by name down there," she murmurs. "There were only honey-eyes and a shadowed form that sprayed me down occasionally and slid a food tray under the door."

Emma stops the car on a street that looks much like all the others: intriguing and wondrous and new enough for Belle to spend hours and hours exploring. There's so much variety out here, in freedom. So many new things to look at. So much industry and beauty and curiosities.

"Here we go." Emma makes a face before she opens her door (doors open so easily, out here, in freedom) and comes around to Belle's side of the car. It takes Belle a minute, but she's grateful that Emma gives her the time to figure out how to open the door herself.

Belle pulls the tab and pushes. The door opens. (If only her cell door had ever done that…) Another wondrous perk of being free.

"The library." Emma gestures to the huge building on the corner. It has a tower that strains toward the sky (Belle curls her fingers into her sleeves so she doesn't do the same thing) with a clock on it. She can't remember when she learned about clocks, but she recognizes it and smiles to see the hand move (another minute of freedom). "It's yours now, compliments of a benefactor who wants to remain anonymous."

"A benefactor." Belle tastes the unfamiliar word. Speaks it, lets it sit on her tongue, then swallows it back.

It tastes nearly as strange as freedom.

"This whole place?" she blurts out when Emma uses a key (Belle's mind still boggles when she thinks of keys and locks and how easy it can be for doors to be opened rather than closed forever, so she carefully looks away) to open the front doors. The interior is dim and dusty, but she can see rows and rows of books stretching along all sides of her. There's an elevator against the far wall, and a little staircase backed up into a nondescript corner.

Belle immediately gravitates toward the staircase (she is nondescript and little just like them). Emma nods and follows her up, up, up to a landing with another door. Belle holds her breath until Emma pulls out another key and swings this door open too.

Inside, there is a little…home. Yes, this is a home. It's small and cozy, colorful and warm. Belle drifts from the blanket-topped couch to the bookcase waiting for adornments to the kitchen where there is food in cabinets and in a big white cupboard that lets out cold air when she pulls it open. She finds a bedroom complete with a bed all made up with soft blue and green blankets, and a bathroom complete with a window so even there, she can't feel too hemmed in.

"Home," she says, and smiles.

Emma smiles at her. "Home. If you need anything, Ruby will come by every morning with some breakfast, okay. And Dr. Hopper will come see you until you feel up to going to see him. And Dr. Whale might come by occasionally just to make sure you're gaining weight and feeling healthy. If you remember anything at all about where you were locked up, please tell me, okay?"

"Okay." Belle stares at the keys Emma places in her hand. Cool and ridged and tiny—objects of freedom (they're the most beautiful things she's ever held). "Emma?" she asks when the woman turns toward the door. "Is my benefactor paying for the food Ruby's bringing? And the doctors? Because Dr. Whale said people usually paid him, and I think they probably pay Archie too, and Ruby says she gets money tips when she delivers food. But I don't have any money. Do I?"

For a long moment, Emma stares at her (Belle's surprised she expected differently; maybe she is getting used to freedom if she's already expecting answers to all her questions). Finally, she sighs and loops her hand behind her badge.

"Look," she says, "I'm not entirely comfortable with all of this, but Mayor Mills backed it so there's not much I can do about it. Not in this strange town anyway. But…Belle, I think you should be careful, okay? For some reason, there are some really powerful people interested in you, and the last thing I want is for you to get caught up in their power-plays."

"I don't know what that means."

"I know." Emma's smile is friendly and bitter all at once, a strange combination Belle doesn't remember ever seeing before. "Let's just say that you don't have to worry about paying for anything, but if anyone ever comes asking you for favors in return, don't listen to them. Tell me and I'll handle it, okay?"

"Because you're the sheriff."

"Because I don't think anyone should be used and manipulated and taken advantage of," Emma corrects. "But, yes, also because I'm the sheriff."

It's quiet, when Emma leaves. Belle tries to hum to herself as she explores her home, but it's not the same as the strong girl's—her friend's humming so she stops. She looks into every cabinet, under every piece of furniture, touches every blanket, unpacks her things in the closet, puts on a soft, warm sweater she finds hanging there already, and finally curls up near the window. From this high up, she can see down the street.

Sometime while she was familiarizing herself with her home, the sun had set. Belle remembers watching for the color gradient along the edges of her high window in her cell, eager for the changes in color. Eager for anything to break up the monotony of her days. But here, after so few days, she didn't even notice when it slipped away.

Belle breaks down and sobs. She cries because she missed the sunset and because her friends probably didn't. They probably watched with just as much eagerness as she used to feel because they don't have anything to distract them from it. They're alone. Shut away. Probably even more disconnected now without her in the middle to bring them together.

In the darkness, blurred by her tears and the frost creeping up the panes of glass, a golden light catches Belle's attention. She looks toward it and sees a sign at the end of the street. She can't read, of course (another thing she's forgotten, but when Dr. Hopper gave her a card with words all across it, she found herself too embarrassed to admit that it was gibberish to her so now she can't ask for anyone to teach her), but she likes the look of it. It's cheery, bright, especially alluring against the vastness of the dark night.

Belle spends the rest of the night watching that light. It never goes out, only fades into the background once the sun has risen to cast light over all the world (but Belle still finds she likes the lit sign the best).

When Ruby knocks on the door with breakfast, she isn't alone. There's a man and a woman with her. The man isn't much taller than Belle, and he has a beard. Belle tenses for an instant (her two men kidnappers both had hair on their face), but then the man smiles, his eyes so friendly, his face so earnest, that Belle relaxes.

"Hey, Belle," Ruby greets her cheerfully. "Robert and Maggie wanted to introduce themselves and I thought you might want some company."

"If it's too much all at once, we can come back another time," says the man (Robert, yet another name to remember).

Belle hesitates (but she is free now and that means people). "It's okay," she says. "I only have two chairs at the table."

"I don't mind standing," says the other woman. Tall and black-haired, she's different than anyone else Belle has seen, and she tries not to stare as Ruby sets down a basket of food.

"Great!" Ruby offers Belle a hug (it startles her, but she tries to mimic Ruby's movements and doesn't entirely dislike it). "I have to race back to help Granny with the breakfast rush, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Or if you're feeling up to it, you could stop by the diner for dinner."

Belle smiles and tries not to hurry Ruby out of the room. It still feels crowded with Robert and…the woman…there, but Belle is used to two people. She pretends the woman (Maggie!) is the brave girl and Robert is the strong one until she sits at the table and can look at them a bit longer. Then she decides that Maggie is the strong one and Robert is the brave one. If they were friends, he would hum to reassure her and Maggie would pound the walls to try to protect her.

After they've unpacked the basket and Robert has explained what a cinnamon nut muffin is, after they've opened the white cupboard (refrigerator, Robert names it) to pull out chilled orange juice (so crisp it almost makes Belle cry again because she wishes she could share it with her friends), Maggie steps up to the table.

"Belle," she says in such a blunt way that it takes a minute for Belle to realize she said her name, "we came because we wanted to ask about the two others who were locked up with you. We were hoping you could tell us about them."

"I…" Belle uses the tip of her finger to pick up the crumbs that fell from her muffin. Once, a long time ago, a mouse came to her room. She would drop little grains from her porridge for the little creature until it came up nearly to her hand. But then they set traps and she was woken in the night by a snap! and Belle never saw the mouse again.

(She feels like she's a mouse now, following these crumbs, about to step right into a snapping! trap.)

"I'm sorry to bring up such bad memories," Robert offers. His voice carries an accent, but it's different from hers. Different from Gold's. (She wonders how many different accents, different voices, there are in the world. She wonders if she should have spoken in her cell, should have made the others speak so she could read some truth in their own accents.) "It's just that we've been searching for someone for a very long time. She…her name is Dawn. She's the only girl I've ever loved. Maggie and I have been looking ever since she first vanished, but we've never found any clues. So when we heard that there was someone locked up with you…we couldn't help but hope it might be Dawn."

"I…" Belle stares out the window (the wide, open, bright window). Stares at the blue sky and the sunlight shining inside through sheer curtains that drift in the breeze. Stares and reminds herself that she is free (and she doesn't deserve it).

"Did you ever see the other two?" Maggie asks. "Can you describe them?"

"Please," Robert softens Maggie's impatient questions with a plea that rips at Belle's heart. "Anything at all… I can't give up hope."

Gold told her she's a hero (Gold looked at her as if he would have chosen for her to be freed over her other two friends).

"Does she…have blue eyes?" Belle closes her own eyes to try to remember that one snapshot moment. Her kidnapper's arms around her, the honey-eyes glaring so sharp and so cold and so poisoned. And that window, the tiny little window in the door, being forced open to reveal a pale face. "I saw her once. Just her face. She has blue eyes and skin like mine. And she's so brave. She always hums. It made it easier for me not to give up, whenever she hummed. Do you think she forgot the words? Is that why she doesn't sing anymore?"

Robert sways in his seat. Maggie places her hand on his shoulder and he clasps his hand over hers. Both of them share a look so filled with emotion that Belle feels it to be as full and as indecipherable as a whole book. Then they turn those gazes to her, and she feels sick.

(She's not really a hero. She's not actually good, not enough to really, truly wish she were in the cell and her friend were here instead. She's not even beautiful, not sitting next to the striking form of Maggie. Gold was wrong. No wonder he hasn't come to see her again now that they are both free.)

It's almost lunch by the time they finally leave, packing up all their questions they kept pulling out no matter how many times she shook her head in ignorance. Belle's so exhausted she can't even imagine leaving her home for the rest of the day, and she's glad when Archie doesn't come, when Dr. Whale stays away, when she's able to just pull out a packet from the cabinet that turns out to be crackers with peanut butter spread between them and eat them by herself.

Freedom is so strange. Before, she would have given anything to share her cell with the other two. She would have begged on her knees for the chance to have someone with her. But here, after so few hours being questioned by two desperate souls, she's so relieved to be completely alone.

(Maybe she really isn't suited for freedom.)

That night, the lit sign calls to her again. Belle dozes on and off, but when she jerks awake for the fourth or fifth time, she feels suddenly claustrophobic. Suddenly, she's absolutely certain that the door is actually locked. The keys Emma gave her are probably gone, she lost them, and now she won't be able to open the door. She's trapped here, stuck until she can give the correct answers that will lead to her friends' freedom (to the right prisoners being freed), and even then, if the door ever opens again, she will find herself back in that dank, shadowed hallway. Around her, there will only be doors, endless doors, all inset with those little shuttered windows.

Belle's nearly sobbing, almost hyperventilating, as she snatches for the keys in the pockets of her sweater. They turn slick in her sweaty palms and she drops them, once, twice, a third time, and now she is sobbing, shaky gasps that sound like little screams. The key misses the little hole, glances against it, goes in. It's stuck so Belle (is that even her name? did she steal it from the other girl, the brave one?) beats her hand against the wood.

"I am Belle," she whispers. She breathes, breathes, fights back tears, breathes, twists the key.

It turns. The door opens.

Freedom.

Freedom consists of walking, endlessly, down streets, up avenues, along drives, beside roads. The cool air is brisk and refreshing (and real) and bit by bit, night after night, Belle learns the confines of Storybrooke (her new prison). If she catches sight of anyone else, she freezes, motionless in the shadows, until they're gone, and only then does she resume walking. She's a ghost, an echo, a phantom inhabiting the outside world in proxy for the other two still waiting for her to find them (a little mouse with no one to coax her close and trap her).

Every day, Belle eats Ruby's breakfasts and ventures down to the dusty library to stare longingly at books she can't read. A few have pictures, and if she's feeling very brave, she will take them up to her home and trace her fingers along the world they reveal to her. Her little bookcase gradually fills up with tall, glossy books that only serve to make Belle feel even more trapped than she did that second panicked night.

Every night, she walks Storybrooke to examine every building. She looks for any with basements. Any with tiny, half-hidden windows buried in the ground. She looks, soundless, straining her ears for any hint of a hum, of pounding fists.

All she finds is that lit sign. She thinks she can guess at what words adorn it. She's seen a figure within, thin and confident and walking with the aid of a cane.

Mr. Gold. His is the only name she's never forgotten, not even once. His is the only building she comes back to, over and over again, entranced by the golden glow of his shop. The lit window where occasionally she catches sight of a shadow spinning something round and upright. His building has no basement, no half-buried windows, no place to hide three prisoners (so she shouldn't come back to it, but she can't help it). She passes it on her way out of the library; she passes it on her way back.

Eventually, she realizes that he watches her. There's no spinning wheel in the window anymore, only a slender shadow standing there watching until she makes it safely back home.

One night, Belle realizes that she's tired of passing by the shop like a ghost. One night, she remembers that he thinks she's a hero (and she doesn't want him to ever realize what a mistake he made naming her Belle).

One night, Belle walks right up to the shop, raises her hand, and taps on the glass.

Mr. Gold opens the door.

Belle studies him and realizes her impressions of him in that cell in the woods weren't wrong. He's carved through with years (centuries, the emotion in her eyes makes her think), of history she can't quite comprehend. His face is distant, even profiled by the lit sign that's so drawn her night after night. She has the sudden feeling that if he were to disappear in this instant, even if years were to pass before she saw him again, she would recognize him instantly.

When he steps back to let her into the shop, she smells fire and spice and brisk, fresh air. Dust and paper and ink. He watches her come to a halt in the middle of his crowded, close shop, and for all his composure, his shoulders are rounded and he seems too small.

Beneath her stare, he closes the door behind them without even looking (practiced, each motion rehearsed, a part he's played a thousand times) and then takes one step forward. He has a cane (did he before?), and with it in hand, with that slant to his hips as he leans his weight onto his good leg, he seems achingly familiar and…just right. As if everyone she's looked at, everyone she's met (all the names swirling through her too-light head), have all come up short because she was measuring them up against him.

He, however, fails none of her expectations. From his silvering hair to his blunt hands to his black-tipped feet (from the joy when he saw her to the grief as he accepts her perusal), he is as he is and that is enough.

Belle (Belle because he gave her that name) looks at him and he looks back as if he's willing to wait forever to hear whatever she has to say (as if she's the honey-dark eyes looking into his cell, caught on the threshold of keeping him locked away or opening the cell door to brilliant, swathing light).

That's wrong. She doesn't want to talk at him. She wants them to talk together, as they did in their cell in the woods.

Her mouth opens. He waits.

She doesn't know what to say. Words have abandoned her as surely as the written language. His sign drew her in, warm and golden and bright. His eyes trap her, dark (but not poisoned honey or salted bitterness; rather, they burn gold) and filled with hesitancy and guilt. And hope—shattered, repaired, fractured again, left behind to die but instead it survived in undusted corners (hope, but hope he doesn't expect to be fulfilled).

It's strange. Freedom has given her the chance to learn people outside of herself; he is the first she thinks she can read. A mystery she can actually uncover. Layers she wants only to unfold a bit at a time.

(She wants to say the right thing. She wants to say something that won't fragment that hope any further but bring it out, tentatively, slowly, into the light.)

"Who are you?" she asks.

(It's absolutely the wrong thing to say.)