First things first. A big thank you to everyone who has reviewed, followed, favourited, or even read and enjoyed this. I know I haven't responded to most of you personally, but I also knew this chapter was going to be up fairly quickly. Expect a bit more of a wait for the 3rd chapter as that's the one I've barely started writing yet.

When thinking about the kind of stage antics BoL get up to, I have envisaged a sort of cross between Queen and Muse, so keep that in mind. I didn't want to go into precise detail about the entire gig, because that would have been tedious. Thanks to Amanda for coming up with the idea that BoL were like a steampunk/FTL version of Muse. I have been listening to the band continuously as I wrote which really helped me visualise the concert. Their outfits are roughly what they were in The Doctor.

Which leads me to this. Happy birthday Amanda, I've been sitting on this chapter for a few days so I could post it today for you. xx

At least travelling with a portal jumper gave a much smoother ride than the first times she had attempted it. If the doorway wasn't a shimmering surface behind her, Emma would have assumed that she had just passed through an ordinary door.

Around her was the dank atmosphere of an alleyway. Once the door was shut, the portal just looked like a doorway into the building it was set into, Emma hoped Jefferson was right about no one else being able to see it. Looking around, she tried to find a way towards the front of the building, hopefully once she was on a street she would be able to find her way to the concert.

Stumbling onto the street, Emma looked around to get her bearings. Shadows were deep, the street being lit only by light spilling from windows. The darkness didn't mean the street was empty however. She watched small groups of people (mainly female) hurrying all in the same direction, as they walked into the lights Emma noticed scarves and shirts in varying shades of red, gold and green. Either things were a bit Christmasy around here, or these people were headed to the Believe or Leave concert.

Choosing to believe the latter, Emma fell in with the crowd. Another red-clad woman glanced at Emma and smiled when she saw Emma's shirt. It wasn't long before they reached what Emma assumed to be the concert grounds. The setup was similar to small town fairs and music festivals that Emma had seen. Directly in front of her was a collection of small tents selling their wares, food and drink stalls and behind those she could just make out a significantly larger tent she supposed to be the stage.

Before she reached those however, she had to fight through the large crowd milling around, waiting to get into the gates. Waiting in the queue, Emma listened to the conversations around her. Debates between friends over the merits of each of the band members had Emma giggling to herself - still unable to picture either Gold or Whale as rock stars. When the discussion switched to who was the bigger fan, Emma found herself drawn into the debate when they started canvassing others in the queue on how many times they had seen Believe or Leave, all around Emma were astounded when she admitted that this was her first time.

Working her way to the front of the queue, Emma searched through her pockets for the slip of paper Jefferson had given her. Presenting it to the guard at the gate, she waited while he read the message. Reaching the end the guard looked up and leered at her, "Don't see too many of these, what did you do to earn this?" Taken aback, Emma snatched the ticket out of the guard's grip, "I know someone connected with the band - that's all" she said as haughtily as possible. The guard laughed as he waved her through, "Oh, I bet you do"

One of the girls she had been talking to in the line ran to catch up with Emma. "What was that about?" Emma shook her head, "he turned sleazy when he saw my pass." she showed the girl the paper, pulling it back slightly when the girl gasped. "This is - I have always dreamed about having one of those and this one is from Jefferson!" Emma shrugged in confusion, so the girl continued, "that pass gets you anywhere, backstage into the green room, anywhere! I've met a couple of girls who have managed to get one, but they've always been from Frankenstein, and a couple from Rumplestiltskin that have been given out in return for deals done. I've never seen a Jefferson pass" Emma eyed the paper before folding it and putting it away more carefully than she had the first time. She could go anywhere? How safe would that be? The last thing she needed was Gold realising that there was something strange about her, that would be very bad indeed.

Scoping around for a good spot to watch the show from, Emma set her self up not too far from the stage, she was able to see everything, but hopefully wouldn't be crushed by a lot of people, her mosh pit (or whatever the FTL equivalent was) days were long behind her. Snippets of chatter floated around the grounds as she studied the stage. Emma had always gathered that technology in The Enchanted Kingdom was sort of medieval and so far both her experiences here backed up that assumption. How a rock band were going to work under those conditions was a little puzzling. The stage itself gave away no clues, from what she could see it was almost completely empty, a few guitars on one side. Around the stage itself there was no movement, no lights. The grounds seemed almost full now, looking at her watch, Emma realised she had been in her spot for about half an hour, if there wasn't a support act, she guessed the band would be starting soon.

Tendrils of purple smoke began to flit around the audience - as people started to notice, the cheers and clapping began. Initially cautious at the evidence of magic Emma guessed that this was a signal that the band was about to arrive, given the increase of excitement. She also realised that this was going to be how the concert was run, this world lacked electricity, but it did have magic and very few people knew how to wield magic as well as The Dark One.

A lone guitar could be heard over the screaming fans, Emma strained to see anything on the stage, but it was still dark, the riff gradually got louder, and as it reached a peak, the melody crashed into an opening chord. On the beat, Mr Gold - Rumplestiltskin (Emma couldn't call him anything else when he looked like that) appeared center stage in a cloud of purple and gold smoke, a single, magical light glinting off his strange metallic skin.

Gradually drum and organ sounds joined the guitar, at the end of a bar, a purple dervish wound its way from the left of the stage only to dissipate leaving Jefferson standing behind an organ. The melody repeated itself twice before there was a flash of lightening and where it struck the stage - slightly right of center - appeared a set of drums, Victor Frankenstein sitting behind them, cymbals still ringing. Without hesitation he continued drumming. The audience reaction at each of the members was predictable. Some things never changed no matter what world you were in. Emma's ears were already ringing, partly from the lightening crash and partly from the screams of the fans surrounding her. She had to admit, Believe or Leave certainly had the showmanship down to a fine art. Halfway through the first song and she was already impressed.

Rumplestilktskin was a surprisingly active and flamboyant frontman for the band. He was considerably less dramatic as Mr Gold, but the stage moves he made felt like over-exaggerated versions of the ones she was used to. Each crafted to get a response from his audience and he always got it. Emma had never seen Mr Gold as a sex symbol and had wondered why Belle was so adamant that her boyfriend should be classed as "a hottie." For the first time, Emma realised that Belle wasn't alone in that feeling. Hundreds of girls were salivating over the contents of Rumplestiltskin's skin-tight leather pants and Emma could kind of see the appeal. He had the talent to back up the self-confidence that he exuded and in a performer that was a powerful and sexy thing. Shaking her head to clear it of the disturbing thought of a sexy My Gold, Emma turned her attention to the other band members.

For the first time Emma regretted standing so far back from the stage. While she could see perfectly well, she wasn't close enough to really see what a young Frankenstein and a young Jefferson looked like. She knew Jefferson was about 19 at this time, and assumed that Victor would be a couple of years older than that. From the outfit she could see, Victor certainly looked like a steampunk mad scientist, leather coat buttoned all the way up, John Lennon style tinted glasses and... Emma giggled to herself, was his hair curled? The drum kit obstructed any further view she had of him, so she looked at the final member.

A guitar slung across his back, Jefferson was still playing the organ. Emma was used to his extravagant dress sense. She had never realised how closely it mirrored his wardrobe in the magical realm. His penchant for scarves and waistcoats had not begun in her world. If anything the clothes she was used to were sedate in comparison. Like the others he didn't shy away from wearing leather at a tightness that surely had to be causing some discomfort. Flashes of colour from his scarf were only emphasised by the blackness of the rest of his outfit, including the overlarge hat perched on his head.

As one song came to an end, Jefferson stepped away from the organ and swung his guitar to the front, gripping it and strumming a test chord. At the same time, Victor picked up a bass guitar and moved to stand slightly in front of the drums. Without seeming to concentrate on it, they started the new song as one. From these new positions, Emma could see that Jefferson's full length coat was sleeveless to free up his arms for some of the fast and complex guitarwork that he was focused on. This time, Rumple took the rhythm guitar part, combining it with vocals. Victor pacing behind each step in time with the beat, not looking at the audience, focusing on his guitar.

Believe or Leave reminded Emma of someone, some band she had heard, but she couldn't place who. These guys were outrageous. Rumple prancing around the stage singing, creating smoke stairs so Jefferson could be standing above the audience whilst doing a guitar solo, Victor getting down on his knees at the front of the stage while singing a love-soaked power ballad, somehow managing to sing to 5 different audience members at once. Each crafted moment of extravagant stage antics was well polished now, but Emma would bet that they had originated from a spur-of the moment act on some previous occasion that had been so popular with the fans that the band kept it as a gimmick.

Emma wasn't sure if it was just a stage persona, but Jefferson seemed disinterested, almost bored with the whole show, He rarely looked at the audience and had a brooding air. It did mean that when he deigned to make eye contact with a particular member or section of the audience they went crazy, so maybe it was just a game, playing hard-to-get. If he wasn't showing his emotions physically, they were certainly coming out through his music, there were angry guitar solos, delicate and fragile piano melodies and some broken and mournful chords coming out of the organ.

Looking at her watch again, Emma noted it had been nearly 2 hours. Somehow despite the time, energy levels hadn't dropped, either on stage or in the audience, band and fans were still going strong, Emma wasn't sure how, she was exhausted from the small amount of dancing that she had done in between trying to see everything and taking a few discreet pictures with the camera in her phone.

Finally she heard Rumple announce this would be the last song. Her adventure was about to come to an end. Emma's hand drifted towards the pocket where her pass was kept, the night didn't have to be over yet.

TBC

In the next chapter - Emma gets herself backstage, keeps her distance from Rumplestiltskin, tries to avoid the advances of one Dr Frankenstein and makes a better first impression on Jefferson than he made on her.