When he left the shop, the first thing he did was round the corner and then disappeared. He took himself into the library, up into the clocktower, where he found the minute hand and checked to ensure his dagger was still firmly attached. It was. That was good. It meant that the pirate hadn't targeted this dagger, only the shawl. Though, now that he thought about it, that was scary in its own way. For a pirate to take a simple shawl when jewels and gold and other treasures so clearly priceless were within reach suggested that Hook wasn't looking to make a fast buck. He was seeking to hurt him but not to kill him. Hook wanted to deeply wound him right down to his soul. Suffering was going to be the name of the game. How he'd found out about his experiments and figured out that he needed the shawl…that was beyond his knowledge, but only for the time being.

As he stretched his senses out over the library, he felt no other presence there, not until he felt the familiar presence of Belle coming back. That was relieving. It meant that she was alone, Hook had not returned to the library, and he hoped it would stay that way. He trusted that if Belle had returned, she'd remembered to lock the door, though he knew that a locked door wouldn't be enough to keep Hook out if he wanted to come back. He already had the shawl; it would be all too easy for him to go after Belle again, to truly destroy every last drop of happiness in his life out of revenge the way he'd destroyed Milah in anger.

He didn't want to waste time, not with Belle on her own, not with Bae's shawl in the balance. At the moment, Hook was the only one with more information on him than Belle. Anything Milah knew about him was something he had to assume Hook knew. Hell, anything his father knew about him, he had to assume Hook knew. There was a reason he'd taken that shawl, and so there was a reason he had to take it back before it was too late. He needed to find Hook. Now. And he knew exactly where he was going to look first.

Ordinarily, for the task of tracking down an individual, he would have called Dove. But as of last night, that was entirely unnecessary when it came to William Smee. His own magic was invested into the potion he'd poured over that hat of his, and if there was one thing in this world he knew how to find right now, it was his own damn magic. It was like a beacon, calling out to him even from across town. Or down the street…

Idiot.

He wasn't even trying to hide, and yet the bag and the speed at which he was walking and his shifty little eyes darted around suggested that he knew that he'd be looking for him. He was wearing his hat, the one capable of crossing the town line. He probably thought he'd be safe there. Not a chance.

He used his magic to take him across the street just as Smee rounded the corner of the Rabbit's Hole. When he felt his magic draw closer, he threw his hand up and tossed a wave of it back at him, sealing around his throat so that it was difficult to breathe.

"Leaving town, Mr. Smee?" He turned and saw his magic force Smee against the brick wall as he struggled, the bag swinging by his side as he sneered at him. "I spared your life. And this is how you repay me? That object you stole from me – I want it back."

"I gave it to Hook!"

Hook. Funny how Hook was suddenly in Storybrooke.

"And where is he?"

"I don't know," he choked out, putting his hand uselessly to his throat. "W-we met on a rooftop. He didn't tell me anything."

Naturally. He knew nothing. He was just a man for hire. He'd hired him to get the bean and failed. Moe had hired him to hurt Belle. Hook had probably hired him to fetch that shawl while he'd distracted Belle. He could respect a man who earned a living doing tasks of questionable legality. He could not respect a man who didn't have loyalty to him in performing those tasks. Three strikes…

"And why would he? Hook knows exactly what you are, Mr. Smee – a sniveling rat."

He channeled his magic into his hands, gathered it there as he summoned up a wonderful image in his head of Smee becoming exactly what he was. With a turn of his hand, he released his magic, and in a puff of black smoke, Mr. Smee was no more. He melted away, clothes and all except for one item so touched by magic that it alone was the sole survivor of his spell.

Smee's red hat lay on the ground. Beneath it was a small, slight movement. With a sweep of his cane, he moved the hat aside to reveal a clean black rat, looking up at him with fear as his nose twitched. Perfect.

"Now, scurry off," he commanded of the rat. It circled around the hat once, as if convinced it might be able to drag it away with him, but on second thought, he abandoned it and hurried away from the scene.

Smee was useless. He thought to use his magic to track him down, but his memories of how he'd been unable to find Hook in the store before were fresh in his mind. Where he'd been all these years, why he was making an emergence now, where he'd gotten magic…there were many unknowns in all of this. So, he turned not to magic but rather the one thing that he knew. The sea. That was the one constant in Hook's life. He'd always been a Captain, always been a pirate. He couldn't be sure what their conversation had included before she'd called him earlier, but even Belle had known he'd been a pirate. When a person was scared or hiding, they looked for something familiar, something they knew. In this world, that was called "home-field advantage." For Hook, that meant returning to the sea or his ship. Whatever it may be.

He had experience with most ships in Storybrooke harbor. Hell, he owned most of them! And he made it his business to know his property intimately even if he never physically stepped foot on board. There were many familiar vessels in Storybrooke harbor. One by one, he walked the docks, glancing at each ship, letting Mr. Gold do what he'd always done.

The Elizabeth a crabbing vessel in the property of one Will Turner.

Voyager, a yacht owned by a young girl named Morgan who had hopes of sailing around the world before she reached eighteen; that was a rough dream to have in Cursed Storybrooke.

Louis' Bayou a large craft that hosted dinner on the weekends with a jazz band as it sailed the harbor-tourist attraction.

Milo Thatch, The Dream, Tantor, The Ark, Kwango Kate…it was useless! He made it to the empty last dock and was almost thankful there was nothing to see. Every ship he recognized, every one of them had a story that he knew, and Mr. Gold knew that none of them belonged to a pirate or even a one-handed sailor! Coming had been a waste of time.

He had to get back to the shop. He had that pirate's hand stowed away in a backroom somewhere. He hated to bring it out and use it on this, but if he'd once used a potion he intended to use on the Blue Fairy prematurely for Baelfire, then he was sure as hell going to use that hand to get his son back and ensure Belle's safety! In fact, whatever magic the pirate was using to hide himself, there was a chance that the hand would be immune to it because it was part of the pirate himself. And if it didn't work? Then he was back to using the old-fashioned methods, scrying or a locator potion, maybe something new to take him to the shawl. Maybe he could-

"Mr. Gold!"

He kept walking. Kept his eyes straight in front of him, unwilling to let one of his tenants, who he was sure just wanted to negotiate a new loan or perhaps get a lower interest rate, stop him. Gold's work could fucking wait until he had his son.

"Mr. Gold!"

But something about the voice shouting after him had him pausing on the dock. It had him stopping to furrow his brow in confusion because he knew that voice. It was familiar to him, but…it was impossible. Dr. Hopper was dead.

"Rumpelstiltskin!"

The shouting of his name finally forced him to turn and what he saw…he couldn't have prepared for. He'd seen many things in his life, many that didn't make sense, but this…this defied reason.

"Dr. Hopper…" he breathed as the red-headed doctor struggled to catch up with him. Obviously out of shape, he was pale save for red exertion in his cheeks.

"Mr. Gold," he finally huffed out, coming to stand before him, letting out a sigh of relief as he hunched himself over at the waist and supported his weight on his knees. This wasn't possible. Not by any means, and yet he felt no magic on the man suggesting it was a trick of Regina's or glamor of any kind.

"You're alive?!" he balked, trying to wrap his mind around it. It wasn't just that Belle had gone to the funeral; he'd seen the man die. He'd seen the memories Emma had brought forth from the dog, unaltered by him. Emma could have altered them herself, but…she'd been under the impression it was a frame job; she'd been supporting Regina and shocked by what she'd seen. To have conjured something she didn't want was…well, it was nearly as impossible as the dead coming back to life and yet…

"It was a trick," Archie huffed out. "A setup!"

"Regina-"

"Not Regina…another woman, older, dark hair, maybe his mother…" he explained, finally standing up as tall as he could while still gasping for air. He was in bad shape, which was odd because he knew the cricket wasn't. He walked Pongo twice a day; he was healthy. It could only mean he'd been contained for so long. "She's working for Hook! They were keeping me tied up on his ship to frame Regina! Belle found me. Set me free-"

"Belle?"

He didn't understand half of what Archie was saying, but all at once, he knew the danger of what his clues pointed to. Belle. Hook's ship. Mysterious woman. A dangerous situation indeed. His stomach clenched. Belle on Hook's ship…considering what became of Milah when she'd gotten onto Hook's ship…

"She sent me for help."

"Belle set you free?" he clarified, hoping against every logical thought he had that he'd misunderstood. "Belle was on Hook's ship?"

"Yes! That's what I'm trying to tell you!"

He'd barely gotten the last word out before he reached forward and grabbed the man by the collar. Damn wherever he'd been or what had happened to him, he had to get to Belle!

"Where is she?! Where is Belle?!"

"She stayed behind!" he cried. "I tried to get her to come with me, but she stayed! She sent me for help, to find you. I don't know why she stayed. I don't know!"

He did. He knew why she'd stayed behind.

The shawl.

That woman! She'd tried to get it back. How she'd done it, how she'd figured out where Hook was before he did was a mystery to him, but it didn't matter now. She'd longed to be a hero for him, for Baelfire, for herself, and now she was going to get herself killed over it because she hadn't a clue what she'd walked into.

"Where is she, Dr. Hopper?!" he stressed, trying to calm the man through any means necessary.

"On the ship. She wanted me to find you and take you to her, to bring you to the boat."

"Where is it?"

"It's…" Hopper turned so fast that he had no choice but to release him or trip. He observed as the man looked down the dock, then left then right, and by the time he looked down the empty dock again, he felt a knot in his stomach. Something was wrong.

"It was there a minute ago!"

"Where?" he demanded.

"I don't understand. It was just there?!

"Where?!" He questioned, hoisting his cane into the air as if it were a club. No more "there's"! If he was to help Belle, he had to know "where"!

"The end of that dock!" Hopper screamed and cried against the intimidation. He pointed in the direction of the empty dock. "I've been free for no more than a minute or two; he couldn't just disappear. It's like…like…"

"Magic," he finished for him, staring at the empty space.

This stupid dumbass chapter! It's a plotline fail that is also shared with Moments. It drove me crazy when I wrote it then, and it drove me crazy when I wrote it now. Basically, in this episode, the writers and the director went more for "cool looks" rather than logical explanations when getting to Hook's ship. In Belle's version, she cleans up the books when she finds a knot on the floor, looks it up in a book, and has an "ah, yes, I now know exactly who he is and where he's hiding" moment that makes exactly zero sense. Rumple suffers from the same problem; they just give him a little more leeway in time so that I can explain it with above. The scene with Dr. Hopper never happened in the show, I had to invent that, because otherwise, there was no reason for Rumple to know where Hook's ship was so that he could step out of the shadows all dark and menacing when Belle's in trouble (which is also dumb, but we'll get to that later). So, I explain it by having Rumple go to the dock as a familiar place for the pirate and having that be the moment Archie is freed and can come bounding after him, bearing all sorts of essential surprises. So, how's that...did I fix it okay enough?

Thank you so much, Grace5231973, for your review of the previous chapter. Annoying as it was, I enjoyed infusing some amusing Easter Eggs and little hints at the future into this chapter. Archie drops a big one that, at this moment, sort of goes over Rumple's head because he's so worried about Belle. Did you catch it? Peace and Happy Reading!