He was ready to get this over with. In fact, he was beyond ready to get this over with. Working on a team was not particularly something that he enjoyed, but he understood that it was the safest thing for his family in this situation. Damn whether or not he owed Mary Margaret a debt! Baelfire was why he was doing this. He was going to figure out Regina's plan for them, and he was going to get back as quick as he possibly could so that he could monitor Baelfire and make sure he was far away from the situation.

That was the reason why, when David pulled a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and said, "let's go, we'll take the truck," he stepped forward and cut him off.

"Actually, given the immediacy of the situation, I'd rather travel my way."

He used his magic to transport both himself and David out of the apartment. But they didn't go to the cemetery, not yet. Instead, he'd merely moved them down the street.

"Your shop?" David questioned when they arrived.

He nodded as he moved into the back room. "We're about to go into Regina's lair, and there's a good chance we might just stumble upon her again, and only one of us is actually armed with something that will be capable of stopping her."

David nodded in agreement until he reached into his black bag, pulled out a potion, and moved to hand it to David. The former Prince looked at it for a moment and then finally took a step back as the true meeting dawned on him.

"Me? I've got a gun."

"And Regina has magic," he countered, holding up the potion he was offering to him. "If she attacks, I daresay this will do you better than that. It's a binding potion. All you have to do is toss it at her and it'll make her body stiff as a board. I'll do the rest from there."

"How is that better than a gunshot wound?"

He fought back the urge to roll his eyes. What an idiotic question. "Fair point considering Hook shooting Belle at the town line still has her in the hospital with a gunshot wound. Oh, I remember…that's not why she's in the hospital. And why not? Because I healed her."

"Twist it all you want," David snapped, taking the potion. "But I still say a bullet will slow anyone down if aimed just right."

"And I say that just as the pen is mightier than the sword in certain cases, so too is magic is far more effective than a bullet on occasion. This is one of those occasions. That will stop Regina."

"Fine. So, we use magic to catch her. What do we do once we've caught her?"

For that, he already had a plan. He reached into his bag and pulled out a spare entrapment potion. It was orange, waiting for the drop of blood from its target to activate it. Once Regina was handled, he could easily take that from her and then pour it around a cell, and just like that, the Evil Queen would be contained.

"We take her to the prison, trap her with this while we work through our options."

"Wait…" David breathed suddenly. "Why don't we use Mary Margaret as bait?"

He stared at David, unsure where such a suggestion or thought had come from given who it was coming from. David wanted to use Mary Margaret as bait? Prince Charming was volunteering Snow White to draw her mortal enemy closer. And he'd thought the notion of the gun was idiotic…

"Well, in the Enchanted Forest, you gave her that potion; she can't hurt her."

He sighed. That was where it was coming from. "That potion only worked in that realm. As soon as she brought you here, that spell no longer held up. And making more of it requires Regina and time. Neither of which we have at the moment. We have to improvise. We'll figure out her plan before she can enact it, and if we run into her, then we'll have our own plans," he assured him, grabbing another potion that would weaken Regina's magic enough to make her easier to deal with and ensure Mary Margaret's safety until they could get her to the jail cell and figure out what to do with her.

Plan in place, David appearing prepared, and magic in his back pocket, as usual, he determined they were prepared. It was time to investigate the tomb. It was time to learn what Regina was planning.

He'd never been inside of the family mausoleum before. He'd suspected for a long time that it was where Regina was keeping her magic in this realm, but he'd never investigated it for himself before the Curse broke. There was never really a reason. And even before that, other than having her looked after, there was not much he could do while the Curse was in place to look into it. Months ago, he would have been thrilled to finally have this opportunity. The pressure of wanting to get in quickly, understand where Regina's mind was at, and get back to protecting Baelfire was too overwhelming to let him feel any bit of that excitement.

But, now that he was here, he realized that some of that anticipation was unnecessary. The second he used magic to force the doors open, he realized…

"We're too late…she's already moved her."

"She's not here?" David confirmed.

No. He didn't sense Regina there any longer.

Her magic, certainly. There were heartbeats galore, too many to distinguish thanks to a wall of hearts that he suspected Regina probably kept somewhere in the tomb. He knew her too well to think she'd let that little shrine from the Enchanted Forest go.

And there were two coffins.

Two. Not one. One of them was the coffin that he'd set a flower upon not long ago. The other he assumed was Henry Mills, Regina's father. But the other…it still had a faint trace of magic still on it. Regina had moved it herself then. She probably placed it here after they'd talked. But the other coffin…it had magic on it too. Walking up the stairs and into the tomb that was all too easy to sense. But…why? Why would Henry's coffin have magic on it too? He couldn't discern any particular spell on it. It just had traces of magic. That didn't make sense.

"Check below," David insisted.

He glanced over his shoulder at David standing behind him, looking around the tomb with the careful eyes of a soldier.

"Mary Margaret said that she found Cora's heart in a chamber below the tomb. Maybe she's hiding out."

Below. Well, that explained that. There were no stairs in sight, but if that was true, then he had a feeling he knew how to access the secret entrance.

He held his hand out in the direction of Henry's coffin and used his magic to move it aside. There. Beneath it, there were stone stairs that led down. The sound of beating hearts grew louder, and the smell of magic, Regina's magic and Cora's…yes, this was certainly where she'd been keeping her magic. But Regina herself?

David went first, and he followed after him, noting that he didn't bother to hold the potions he'd given him like some kind of fool. Fine. If he wanted to sacrifice himself to Regina, he'd still live in the end. David wasn't his concern. Not that there was anything to be concerned about. He stepped down the stairs after David only to find the lower-level empty. Regina was truly gone. And in a rush, it seemed.

He'd been gone twenty, maybe thirty minutes total before returning with David. It appeared that was all the time that Regina had needed to move her mother and rummage through the lower floors. Regina usually kept her magical sanctuaries neat, her supplies well ordered, the same as her mother. What he saw now resembled neither Regina nor Cora. In the room furthest to the back, items were sprawled about on the floor, tossed haphazardly around in all directions, indicating that whatever she'd come to find she'd located in a rush, not leaving herself time to put things in order. He'd been right when he'd left…he'd apparently made things worse.

"Well, it appears we just missed our dear Queen," he muttered, poking at what appeared to be a gown on the dusty floor. Bluish-purple…he recognized it. It was the gown that Cora had been wearing when she'd come to him in the shop, just before he'd left to find Bae. And that chest over there…it had Cora's scent all over it, not to mention her tastes.

"What is this?" David asked beside him.

"These are Cora's belongings," he answered. And it appeared that Regina hadn't been rifling through her own things but rather through Cora's. He didn't need any hints to know what she'd been doing or looking for. Planning to kill the woman who had tricked her into killing her own mother with one of her mother's spells…that had Regina's dramatic and bullshit plans written all over it.

If it weren't for the fact that Cora was a genius at crafting spells, then he probably wouldn't have worried as much, but as it was Cora was a genius at crafting spells. He hated to see what this plan of Regina's could do with a spell like that.

"Looks like Regina's planning to use one of her spells on Mary Margaret," he repeated out loud for David's benefit before finding a small chest on a nearby shelf.

The chest was familiar. He'd seen it dozens of times when he'd been training Cora and even beyond that when he'd gotten a glimpse into her laboratory. It was the chest that she kept her rare ingredients in, items that were more than just thistle and oregano and pig's blood. He knew the chest and its ingredients well, mostly because Cora was meticulous and deliberate in just how she stored her things and where. He was to blame for that. He'd taught her to use the same damn system that he used!

Suppressing a growl, he grabbed the small chest and brought it out into the light, where he could see it better. "Something's missing," he commented as David came closer. "Chimera blood…and viper's eye."

Fuck.

He needed to swear even before his mind started to contemplate what she'd want with those ingredients because neither of them were good. After his mind actually took time to consider what curses required them and eliminated the obvious ones that would do Regina no good in this situation, he was left with only one option…suddenly, he needed to swear again.

Fuck.

He knew what she was doing.

"What kind of curse do you need those for?" David asked out loud for him.

"It's the Curse of the Empty-Hearted."

"Judging from the expression on your face, I take it that's bad."

"Worse…"

Regina wasn't just trying to have her cake and eat it too. She was trying to use the cake she had eaten to make more…ordinarily, he wouldn't have panicked. But with Cora's spell on her side…

Fuck.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't let them go to the tomb first without stopping at the shop for David, because...really...what's the plan, man?! They don't decide until later to kill her and does he really think that a gun will work against her. I mean, yes, David totally would think such a thing, but you know who wouldn't? Rumple. Without the "shoot to kill" order, Rumple is going to take one look at that thing and say, "that's really inefficient given our goal, and it might even make things worse for me." Rumple would, in my mind, want to stop at the shop and get David something a little more clever. Not that David would use it, but it just didn't sit well with me having Rumple not think that through.

Thank you so much for your comments on the previous chapter, rsbeall12 and Grace5231973. I hope you've enjoyed this first exploration that Rumple has into Regina's lair. Finally! I've been dying to get him in there all season, but this is really the first chance he's gotten. I liked sending him to explore and showing that he really doesn't need it. Wall of hearts, magic coffins, the same system he uses for his ingredients; he's really proving in this chapter just how well he knows Regina. Peace and Happy Reading!