Moments later, everyone was at the hospital. Belle was getting checked out, making sure there was no harm caused to her. The stranger was getting prepped for surgery. And Hook had awoken to find himself cuffed to a hospital bed. At least he wasn't in much pain as before.
He sat up more to find that Emma was leaning on the other end of the bed. "Where's Cora?" she asked.
He looked over at Emma, then down where his hand was handcuffed to the bed.
Meanwhile, Hook awoken to find himself in a hospital room. He looked around and saw his hook missing. He looked up at Emma, sitting at the end of the bed. "Where's Cora?" She asked.
Hook started to get up but found he was handcuffed to the bed. "Again? You're really into this, aren't you?" He attempted to move again but found it too painful. "Damn, that hurts."
Emma stood up and walked to the front of the bed. "Told you. You cracked a few ribs," she explained again. "Where's Cora?"
"You look good, I must say, all "Where's Cora?" in a commanding voice. Chills."
"You have all sorts of sore places. I can make you hurt." Emma lunged forward as if to press on Hook's ribs but, at the last moment, pulled her hands back, making Hook relaxed.
"I've no idea where Cora is; she has her agenda. Let's talk about something I am interested in, my hook. May I have it back? Or is there another attachment you'd prefer?"
"You're pretty chipper for a guy who just failed to kill his enemy, then got hit by a car."
"Well, my ribs may be broken, but everything else is still intact, which is more than can be said for all the other bad days I've had. Plus, I did some quality damage to my foe."
"You hurt Belle."
"I hurt his heart. Belle is just where he keeps it. He killed my love. I know the feeling."
Emma leaned down to Hook's level. "Keep smiling, buddy. He's on his feet, immortal, has magic, and you've hurt his girl. If I had to pick dead guy of the year, I'd pick you." Emma turned and started to leave the room as Hook kept trying to free himself, but the pain was too much for him, and he was still handcuffed.
While Emma was talking with Hook and Mr Gold was with Belle, David, Mary Margaret, Ruby, the Doctor, the Professor, and Leroy were standing in the hospital corridor, crowding around Mary Margaret, holding the outsider's phone. They were trying to hack into it. They wanted to know who he was.
"We've got to get into his phone," David said and reached over to grab the phone from his wife. "Let me guess another passcode."
"You can't guess," Mary Margaret pointed out. "There are a million possible combinations."
"Ten thousand," the Professor corrected. "Ten thousand," Mary Margaret repeated.
The Doctor reached over, grabbed the phone from David, and then took out his sonic. "You can't try another code. You've tried enough," he said.
"If you lock it up, it'll reset itself and delete all its information. We don't want that." After a quick whir from his sonic, the Doctor unlocked the phone, and he began to skim through the phone's contents. "Now, let's see … his name is Greg Mendell. There are pictures of him along the Eastern Seaboard; he has a LinkedIn account and tweets pictures of his food." He paused, then looked up at the others. "Twitter," he said in a distasteful tone. There seemed to be a lot of tweeting and twittering in the twenty-first century. Pocketing the phone and sonic, Emma turned up – approaching them from behind.
"So, have we found anything out about the stranger?" Emma asked.
"Yes. His name is Greg Mendell. And he seems like any other human on Earth," the Doctor said.
"There was stuff found in his car," Emma said. "Rental agreement, maps, receipts."
"So, whatever's kept random people from stumbling into Storybrooke for the last 28 years ..." Ruby started.
"… Is gone," Mary Margaret finished. It was an uneasy thing to think about. But the apparent thought.
"Anyone could drive," David said. "Why are my instincts telling me that's a bad thing?"
"'Cause you've seen ET or Splash or any other movie where they find something magical and study it to death," Leroy said. "Think what they'd do to a werewolf."
The Doctor looked up. "No wonder why everyone keeps invading you," he said. "They all think that you're going to dissect them. Like a pre-emptive strike."
"His friends and family? They're going to come looking for him soon," Mary Margaret said.
"Let's try not to overreact," Emma said.
"Leroy's right. We don't need outsiders here," David said.
"Hook says he doesn't know where Cora is. And God knows what she's going to do. With other people coming here, that's not going to be good for anyone," Emma said.
"Do we know where Regina is hiding?" Mary Margaret asked.
The Professor shook his head. "No. Wherever she is, she picked a good spot. She may have even skipped town."
"But what if she didn't? What if Cora finds where Regina is first?" Mary Margaret asked. "I don't wanna think about the damage those two could do together. This could not have come at a worse time!"
"It's okay. The guy's being patched up now. He'll probably be on his way home by morning," Emma said as Doctor Whale approached them.
"Not quite. He's bleeding into his chest cavity. It's not a full flood, you know. But soon, he'll be drowning in his own blood," Doctor Whale said. "So make it stop. Aren't you a doctor?" Emma asked when Mr Gold was coming down the stairs after visiting Belle.
Doctor Whale saw him and went over, with the others following. "Gold. You fixed me. Now fix him. Please. It will take you seconds and cost you nothing."
Mr Gold was silent for a moment. "No," he finally said. "No. Just... no?"
"Yes. I owe you nothing, Whale. I owe none of you anything. And some of you owe me. So yeah, just no. Oh … And point of interest, the driver saw me throwing some magic. So instead of trying to get him out of here, you better be hoping he dies because if he doesn't, he will be driving tour buses up and down Main Street. So glad I don't give a damn." Mr Gold turned around down the corridor to leave the hospital.
"I'm going to go after him. He's been through enough tonight," the Professor said before following Mr Gold.
"Look. Letting him die is easy. I can do that. If that's what you decide," Doctor Whale said.
"Let's take this somewhere private," Emma said before everyone walked down to the small staff room.
Once everyone was there, Doctor Whale closed the door. "It's not murdering if we let him succumb to his injuries."
"Pretty sure it is," Emma said.
"Of course we save him," Mary Margaret said.
"We can try to save him," the Doctor said. "He at least deserves that."
"Well..." Leroy started to say.
"Leroy!" Mary Margaret said.
"We gotta think it through. We save him and kill the town. Is that better?"
"So, we have to choose between our lives and his," Ruby said.
"We can worry about the town later," David said.
"Which doesn't mean we should abandon it," Mary Margaret said.
"I know, but let's worry about Storybrooke after saving a life," David said, then turned to Doctor Whale. "Dr Whale, prep for surgery."
Doctor Whale nodded, and then left the room.
"Anyone else notice he's drunk off his arse?" Mary Margaret asked.
Before the Doctor's coat started to vibrate and play the Star Wars theme song, everyone looked at each other. The Doctor fumbled around before pulling it out and looking down at the screen. He then looked up at the others. "Someone's looking for Greg," he said.
"How long before they come here?" Emma asked.
