There was a problem.

He knew there was a problem deep down in his soul. The second David had gone to sleep, Regina had moved around Henry and, almost mother-like, positioned her former enemy's body on the cot as if it would bring him more comfort. She rolled him onto his back, picked his feet up off the floor, and folded his hands over his belly.

And then they'd waited.

And waited.

And waited.

With Henry, it had been quick. He'd been asleep and awake again in less than an hour, but with David, the time ticked on and on and on. Thirty minutes…one hour…then two. Henry stood dutifully by his grandfather's bedside, watching him for any change, any sign that he was stirring. Regina kept watch beside her son. He worked his wheel, did a few odd jobs, tinkered as he waited and watched the clock, pretending as though he wasn't nervous when that was all he felt.

"Come on…come back," Henry begged at two hours and fifteen minutes. "Should he be in there so long?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Regina for the briefest of seconds before turning back to David.

"I'm sure it's fine. I imagine they're just catching up," Regina assured him behind his back.

But then she turned to glance at him, her own eyes questioning and filled with worry and panic. Should this be taking so long? she practically begged of him.

He shook his head as dread crept over her face, and she began to accept what he'd already put together. As the afternoon faded far too slowly into the evening, he began to think once again about calling Belle that night. He avoided it, again because she didn't have the phone in his pocket and because he still simply didn't want to worry her. Though things were looking bleak, they weren't over yet. That night when the world went dark, he'd observed her lights on in the library, at least knew that she'd gotten home from lunch okay and was fine for now. If anyone or anything with magic, namely Cora, went over to that library, he'd know it. That was what got him through the night. That, and spinning.

He spent the night in his shop with Regina and Henry, at least for the most part. He'd tinkered a bit but mostly spent some time at his wheel as they'd waited, though, with every passing second, he felt less and less hopeful that anything would happen. At some point, Henry dragged a chair over to the cot, slowly curled up in it, and eventually fell asleep. Certain that Henry was asleep, he and Regina began their own conversation as he began to consider alternative plans. He didn't let her know that was what the conversation was about, not with Henry so close, even if he was positive the boy was asleep. But if he was going to come up with something, he needed information. He needed the facts that Dove had not provided.

"Word on the street was that David was looking for Fairy Dust last week."

Regina nodded. "They found it too. On the night of the full moon, down in the mines, dozens of crystals, fairy dust in its raw form."

"What would a former Prince want with such a thing?"

Regina sighed as she shifted in her own seat. "Jefferson's hat…we used it to banish the wraith to our world, and that was when Mary Margaret and Emma went through the portal. David tried to jump through it as it was closing, and he destroyed it. He was hoping that with enough Fairy Dust, they'd be able to repair it so Emma and Mary Margaret could get back through."

That was unlikely. Fairy dust hadn't crafted that hat for Jefferson. His grandfather had, a Portal Maker, one of the last in their world. And yes, Jefferson could always travel between worlds going and coming at leisure, but he always needed the hat with him. Apparently, David hadn't allowed them to take it with them. Still, the thought of using the hat to get to their realm and bring them back…it was worth a shot, even if it was grasping at straws.

"Where is the hat now?"

"Gone," she answered. "Spencer, he…he caused the trouble with Ruby as a distraction. It was all a ploy to steal the hat from David and take his family away from him. He burned it in front of David."

He held in his disappointment, doing his best to focus on his spinning and keeping their conversation casual, but he couldn't help but want to kill the man for wasting such precious magic all out of revenge. Somethings never changed. People too.

Finally, in the earliest hours of the morning, Regina too began to succumb to the boredom of waiting and began to look tired herself. She wasn't the Dark One like he was, merely a human. And while he could spend the night here, awake, and watching David, much like Henry, she couldn't. Or if she tried, she'd be worse for wear because of it. It was well past midnight when he tapped on her shoulder and told her to take Henry and go home to sleep. They could come back in the morning.

She didn't argue. And neither did Henry when Regina roused him just enough to sleepily walk out of the shop. He locked the door, continued his spinning, knowing, truly in the deepest part of his heart, that he was no longer waiting for David to wake. He was waiting for Cora.

David wasn't waking. There could be many reasons for it. It could mean he'd never found his way to the Red Room, or Mary Margaret hadn't met him there, or the theory about kissing in the Netherworld hadn't worked. Hell, for all he knew, Mary Margaret had met him there but had been torn away from the world as Aurora was! She could be dead for all they knew, captured and killed by Cora…or worse, her heart could have been taken. He didn't have a favorite theory, only drew one conclusion he didn't care for.

Without a clear line of communication, there was no telling if they'd received the message, which meant that they had to assume the worst. The worst, in this case, meant that Emma and Mary Margaret were dead. And Cora was coming. And she could arrive any moment. If this didn't work, they'd need to come up with another plan, and they'd need to come up with it fast, which meant that he needed to come up with a plan.

He thought about what he knew, about all the information that he'd acquired since they'd first interrupted his lunch with Belle. There was a way here from their land. Why there hadn't been one before was a mystery he didn't need to dwell on, though he'd be willing to bet it was because he'd brought magic to this world. All that mattered now was that there was a way here, and Mary Margaret, Emma, and Cora all knew it. They were all racing to get to the same portal. He didn't see Cora being willing to share, and frankly, he couldn't see Mary Margaret being willing to share with Cora either now that she was older and wiser to Regina's mother. But, to be honest, he doubted that would be the problem. Cora was older than both Mary Margaret and Emma. She was far more cunning than either of them and had more fight in her than appeared. Besides, she had magic. If it was a race to the portal and they didn't have squid ink on their side, he very much so doubted it would Emma and Mary Margaret coming through the portal.

There was a portal…if they couldn't stop them from forming it and coming through on that side…maybe they could stop them on this side.

It was worth a shot.

He had an idea about that, one born from thinking too long into the night and letting his mind wander. At some point, he'd thought about Jefferson's hat and how fraudulent magicians in this world enjoyed pulling rabbits out of such things. It was an idiotic concept until his mind had drifted to another "hat-shaped" object in Storybrooke, one that magic had been pulled out of, one that held the promise of returning lost things. Portals couldn't just open anywhere. They drew their power from sources of great power, which was why it would take a great amount of power to block them. They wouldn't be able to summon a barrier, to block it off completely, but perhaps a net.

If he used a great amount of power, both Light and Dark, he might be able to create some sort of trap, something that would kill anyone who tried to come through it. He had Fairy Dust in the mines that was unused, he had a Fairy wand to channel it, he had his Dark Magic, and he had Regina, a woman of neither Light nor Dark Magic. If she could give him a kernel of her power, open up a channel between them for him to use what he had…it might just work.

But to what goal?

Belle wasn't going to like this. He knew it the moment he'd had the plan in his head. She was going to hate it. And he was trying so, so hard to be on his best behavior for her. This would ruin all of that. But what was the alternative to not doing it? He'd only just saved her from her father, if Cora came here, if Emma and Mary Margaret led her here, Belle wouldn't stand a chance against Cora not unless Cora decided she didn't care. And he very much so doubted that would be the case. He was trying hard to be the best person he could be for Belle. But if Cora killed her, the best person he could be would never be enough to bring her back.

If he set this trap, it could work. He'd lose Emma and Mary Margaret if he was wrong. But if he was right…

What choice did he have?

A chapter wholly and completely inspired by that simple 15-second scene of Henry waiting for David to come back and wondering if it should take as long as it was. It's a bit of a filler chapter, but it's a pretty pivotal filler chapter given the situation. I had to find a way to get Rumple from where he was, a man on his best behavior, determined to do only good things, and unaware of certain events in town to the point of willing to throw "best behavior" out the window to do something questionable that uses new knowledge that he has acquired. And I wanted to get him there in a non-evil way. I did want him to struggle with this a bit. In other words, I didn't want him to fall back so easily into "time to be the Dark One, let's just kill them all!" I wanted him to really consider what the loss would be, the repercussions of losing Emma and Mary Margaret, and weigh that against losing Belle because I think this hangs on him. After all, we know at the end that he apologizes to Emma and Rumple, saying that he's sorry...it doesn't happen often. So when he does it, one can only assume that not only is it a big deal, but it's something he feels strong guilt over.

Peace and Happy Reading!