One by one, the family exchanged glances at each other, doubtful and hopeful glances all at once before Emma gave the final nod and David left the shop, he assumed to fetch the dog. It was only once he'd gone that he turned to his fearless defender, realizing that their lunch had been interrupted yet again.
"Belle…I'm sorry that we-"
"It's fine," she assured him with a hand on his arm, smiling gently. "I'll stay."
Stay. Stay to watch. Stay to see him help. Stay to defend him. He couldn't help the smile that broke out over his face. He was beginning to enjoy having someone on his side a bit too much. If the others weren't there, he would have kissed her, but Emma chose that moment to clear her throat as if reminding him that they were, in fact, still present. He sighed in irritation of all they'd interrupted.
"In the back," he snapped before he led Belle back ahead of them. The sooner this was over, the better.
Fortunately, David returned quickly, leading the spotted dog into the back room on a leash. He smiled as he crouched down and urged the beast over to him. "Hey boy, good boy!" he cooed, using every trick to befriend the animal that Mr. Oak had taught him in his youth. The dog responded with a couple of happy licks as he stopped perfectly in front of him.
"I ah…didn't know you were such a dog person!" Belle said with a chuckled beside him.
"Well…a long time ago, in another life, I got to know a sheepdog or two." Yet another part of his life she had no knowledge of yet, a part he wanted to tell her about, a part he could be telling her about now over lunch if it weren't for this mess.
"That's fascinating," Emma drawled sarcastically. "But unless you can speak dog, how is Pongo gonna tell us anything?"
"With magic, of course," he commented. "It won't allow us to communicate, but it will allow us to extract his memories."
"Extract?!" David stressed his heart rate hitching.
"You don't have to worry. He won't feel a thing," he assured them. He wouldn't do this if it hurt the beast. Aside from the fact that Belle would never forgive him, he wasn't that much of a monster.
"Why should we trust you?" Emma argued. "You could just as easily use magic to fool us."
"Because I'm not going to be the one using magic…you are." He smiled as they have finally arrived at the best part of his plan, the part most informative and important to him.
"Me?" the girl questioned. "How?"
"You have it within you, told me so yourself," he pointed out before glancing to Mary Margaret. "You witnessed it, didn't you?"
That was a calculated guess. Emma hadn't said that Mary Margaret had seen it, but he assumed that by now, if she hadn't seen it herself, she'd at least heard about it. The look of nervousness and lack of denial from the Queen confirmed his suspicion.
"Emma, you don't have to do this," Mary Margaret pointed out as if her daughter was about to drink poison instead of performing a moderately difficult spell.
"If it tells us something about Archie's death, then so be it," she responded.
Excellent.
He carefully removed a box from his cabinet and searched inside to collect a memory keeper he'd once gotten from Clopin. Powerful things in their world somehow Mr. Gold knew it had transcended worlds somehow to arrive in this one as a "dream catcher" to another group of people.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked of Emma.
"A dream catcher," she responded appropriately, sounding almost as nervous as her mother.
"Well, it's capable of catching so much more," he explained.
He gave the artifact a bit of magic, just something to spark it to life after so long, and then summoned Pongo's gaze up to him and dragged the catcher down the dog's head, neck, and along his spine. It glowed as he did it, burning brighter and brighter before he finally pulled it off the animal, and he judged for himself the weight of what he'd collected. What he saw inside of it was interesting, very interesting indeed.
"What is that?" Belle asked beside him.
"Memories," he answered, standing up and shifting a bit so that she could see for herself there was no harm to the beast or in what he'd done. "Now, Miss Swan…you show us what happened?"
"How?" she asked as he presented it to her, and she reached out to take it. "It's just a jumble."
Was it now? A "jumble"…not nothing. That was very informative indeed. But with a bit more teaching, perhaps…
"Will it," he pressed. "Will it, and we shall all see."
Emma swallowed. Her heart sped up as she took a breath and looked into the catcher; her eyes flickered with concentration, her brows knit together as her muscles strained. There was a spark in the air, something made of magic, something powerful and strong that made the side of his mouth twitch into a smile-
"I can't," she responded.
He held in his laugh though it was hard given how predictable that had been. She'd felt it too. She had to have felt it inside herself. Now she just needed to learn not to run from it.
He took a step closer and nodded at her. "Yes, you can."
Again, she swallowed hard before giving a small nod, as if she understood what he hadn't said, as if it was all clear to her. And then she glanced back at the catcher, closed her eyes tight, and again it began. The race of her heartbeat, the furrowing of her brow, the strain in her muscles…and then the spark. Only this time, it was as if she'd grabbed hold of it, as if she'd recognized what it might have been last time and was clinging to it…her magic. It tasted delightful, even if it was some of the strongest Light Magic he'd ever been faced with. Intoxicating, delectable, extraordinary…and so very, very dangerous if it ever went up against his own. If it ever clashed.
A storm raged around the Savior, a cloud of black on the streets of Storybrooke as streetlights were destroyed, and she held the dagger in her hands. The Darkness found her.
"Emma, you're doing it!" David's voice tugged him out of his vision, the first he'd had in far too long. But one he couldn't dwell on at the moment, not at a time like this even if it if did feel like the Seer was trying to tell him something. Because there, in the keeper, were memories. Clear images of the night before, a traumatic event he'd plucked from the dog's mind for her to see.
Archie answering the door, "Regina!" He let her into the room, and the pair began to talk, words that the canine mind could not come to terms with. And then Regina reached forward, put her hand around the grasshopper's neck, and-
"Oh!" Mary Margaret threw herself into David's arms at the same time he felt Belle shudder and stir behind him. She didn't squeal or cry as Mary Margaret did, but he could still feel her heartbeat, tuned to it as he was, smell the fear pouring off her. He'd been honored that she'd wanted to stay during this, but he hadn't thought to consider the effects of potentially watching the woman who had threatened her life for decades kill another human being in front of her eyes.
"You were right all along!" Emma breathed as he managed to wrap his hand gently around Belle's.
"I'm sorry, Emma," David breathed as he comforted Mary Margaret, though what he was sorry for he wasn't positive about. Frankly, as Belle teetered on the edge of breakdown herself, he didn't really care. Nor did he care why Regina had suddenly decided to murder the bug when she'd been so against killing the biological mother of her child, her real threat, days ago. He just wanted the shop back again so he could calm Belle down.
"And now if you are quite satisfied that I am not the murderer you're seeking-"
"We'll go," Emma finished for him quickly. "We have to find her! We have to catch Regina and make sure Henry is okay so she can't hurt him!"
And that was that. In the blink of an eye, David had whispered something encouraging to Mary Margaret that forced her to pull herself together so they could go. Emma was out the door so quickly she forgot all about the dog. He watched them go before turning back to Belle.
"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry," he whispered. She wasn't crying, not yet at least, but the hand he moved over her arm confirmed that she was trembling. Obviously, and understandably, shaken from what she'd seen. "I'm so sorry you had to see that."
And then she gave in. She launched herself into his arms with a desperation that made him hold her just as tightly as she was holding onto him. How could he not, after the way she'd defended him in front of them, stayed by his side, endured those memories…she deserved every last ounce of comfort he had to give. So, he hushed her and cooed her. He rubbed her back the same way he did when they were in bed, hoping it might ease her as it did her nightmares. He made sure only to tell her true things, that she was okay, that she was safe. He reminded her that Regina had yet to come after her since she was free and promised her that if the bitch knew what was good for her, she wouldn't dare try now, for if she did, it would be her last day on this earth.
Finally, she peeled her head up off his shoulder, and he could see the tears that had gathered in her eyes. "I knew you hadn't done it."
The words were like a punch to the gut, shocking. They were unbelievable simply because he could see that she believed them. Every last one of them. She'd known he hadn't done it…from the beginning, she'd known. His defender, ally, lover, and True Love…so many new experiences, new thoughts, and emotions swirled inside of him every time they were together. And sometimes it was so overwhelming the best he could do was pull her closer and let her hold him as he held her.
Rumple gets to be a lot of things in this chapter, and I really love that. I love watching him flawlessly move from one role to another, whether he means to or not. He's commander, host, teacher, lover, and oh yeah, Seer. Did you catch that little vision in there? Any guesses for what that was?
Thank you so much, Grace5231973, for your reviews of the last chapter. I hope that you'll enjoy this one as well. I know these roles that Rumple plays sort of pass by quickly in the chapter, but I hope it's still fun to watch him manage to be what everyone in the room wants and needs him to be all at once. He's a complicated man, our Rumple. Peace and Happy Reading!