With David gone, he was free to show weakness, to reach his hand out to one of the counters to help steady himself. His cane helped, but it suddenly wasn't enough. He was short of breath. He felt dizzy, like the room was spinning uncontrollably around him, morphing and changing before his eyes while it all stayed still and the same. He felt like he might be sick, but even as he stood there, huffing and puffing, staring down at the floor to try and get his bearings, he was aware that what he was feeling wasn't a physical sensation. It was a mental one. He was overwhelmed.

Over one hundred and fifty years he'd been working on that Curse…that was over one hundred and fifty years he'd been trying to find a way to the Land Without Magic to get his son back! And now, here they were. Here he was. He'd been here for years and yet this was the first opportunity for it to all hit him, the reality to truly sink in. He'd made it. Baelfire was here, in this world, somewhere! He had to find him. Now! But first…

He finally picked his head up and looked around the shop. His shop. What a strange and peculiar feeling. He knew who he was. He was Rumpelstiltskin, The Dark One, father of Baelfire. But now he was also Mr. Gold. No first name. He'd never thought that was strange before until now. Whenever he-Mr. Gold-had thought of himself he'd always thought of himself as Mr. Gold or Gold. It was his preference. He'd never considered that an oddity. It was the power of the Curse. He knew every answer to the state bar exam, knew how to stand in front of a judge, to litigate, he knew how to run a business, how to assess antiques, how to drive, he knew an infinite amount of facts and actions he hadn't known before-but he never thought twice about having no first name. Ironic, at home, he'd been a man who preferred to trade in names, and so the Curse had given him none. But it had upheld Regina's deal. The Curse had given him power. He had wealth and land, just as he'd wanted when he talked to that werewolf what seemed like eons ago! He owned Storybrooke, in addition to a home, a cabin, a fine car…and this shop.

This shop…

He felt as though he'd never seen it clearly before now, like all his life, in all his time here, he'd been living in a fog, and now the fog had cleared. He looked at the shop with new eyes, looked at all his treasures with fascination. For everything he knew about each one of them, there was now a new story.

Wands, Mr. Gold thought in his head. A collection of six, used in pagan worship during the seventeenth century to direct magic. Pawned by an elderly man, they'd become his when he defaulted on his loan.

But that was a lie, he now knew. He'd collected those wands himself. Gotten all but one of them from a dead gypsy. The other he'd gotten from personally destroying a Fairy. They were used to channel fairy magic.

Necklace, Mr. Gold thought the moment he spotted a damaged snowflake necklace hanging in a frame. Sold to him by a woman who was looking to pay for some books for school. It wasn't worth paying money for repairs, so he'd left it.

But that was Anna of Arendelle's necklace, the one he'd taken when he'd gone to take the Sorcerer's Hat from Ingrid and left with her niece in an urn instead. He didn't see the urn anywhere, and Mr. Gold knew that he didn't have it. There were a few things here that had been in that room, they would need to be protected, but the urn, which he hadn't thought to mark as he had so many other objects before him, was missing. Still, the wands, Anna's necklace, the globe he'd seen in his vision, Robin's bow, Geppetto's parents-or what was left of them, Snow White's boat…they were all here. Even…

He took his cane and hurried over to the hatbox that he'd once given Jefferson. He wanted to peer inside, but Gold knew it was empty even before he could open it. The hat was gone. Odd. He hadn't marked either the hat or the box, and yet one of them had made it back to him. Strange.

Cane in hand, he took one final look around and then let himself wander into the back room. Another strange sensation. He wanted to rummage, he wanted to root around his shop and locate every little thing, to identify where things were…but instead, he stayed perfectly still. He didn't have to "root around." He knew where everything was. The medallion, the one that would summon the wraith to him, was safely stored. In the safe were the adoption papers for Cinderella, called Ashley here, that would assure him a favor from Emma one day.

The Black Fairy's Wand, he knew without searching, was not in his possession. Another oddity. He had marked that wand, but he could also remember the Blue Fairy entering his property when he'd been imprisoned. If anyone was bound to take it and place a spell over it powerful enough to keep it from him in this Curse, it would be that bitch. He smirked. She wasn't a fairy here, just a human. Mother Superior, she ran the convent of nuns that he hated so. They were always late on their rent. Perhaps he could have some fun with that now that he was awake. Figured…she always played the role of Holier-Than-Thou back home, so it seemed in the Curse she did too.

Belle's chipped teacup…it was there, sitting in the back, set aside from the world because he'd been meaning to fix it despite never finding the chip that went to it. He felt a certain amount of thankfulness for that chip. If it wasn't there, he might have accidentally sold it by now. Or…

His eyes fell on the cupboard across the room. Inside was the saucer to the teacup, the one that he placed a spell on so that when the two were reunited, Pandora's Box might be revealed. He knew nothing of the box except…maybe he did. In front of that cupboard, he was aware of a hollow place under the floorboards. Gold never thought much of it but in front of the cupboard in his castle was where he'd hidden Pandora's Box. What was the chance it was there now? He didn't move to find out. He doubted it would work at the moment. He could feel magic in the air, but it was weak. Every last ounce of it in this world was being used to hold the Curse together. If he wanted to get Pandora's Box, he was going to need magic. And he needed the girl for that.

Emma.

Nearly everything he needed was here in his shop, even if Gold hadn't known it; a genie lamp, his old spinning wheel, David's sword, before he'd taken it, of course, invisible chalk for protection spells, his spell bag was most valuable at a time like this…but the egg he'd had David hide was missing. In the belly of a beast. The Library…

There had been stories for years that a dragon lived in the basement…local lore. Only right this moment, he had a feeling that it was a little more than local lore. Same for the well, the one in the middle of the woods was said to have the ability to return that which was lost. He smiled. Gold's history of this town was going to be quite helpful. He knew where the potion was, and he knew where the well was. All he needed now was the Savior, Emma, to get it for him. Where was she?

David was out looking for her at the moment. But he'd rather find her before David did. In fact…he should have…he recalled the vision he'd had in the Enchanted Forest, the one that had told him he needed Emma's name to become his trigger word. In that vision, when he woke up, he was at Granny's, in the little bed and breakfast. In that vision, the Savior stood before him. In that vision, David was nowhere to be seen. This scenario, clearly, hadn't been that scenario, but then…how was this possible? The Seer was wrong? But the Seer was never wrong? She might sometimes warn him when a vision was a possibility rather than absolute, but that vision was absolute. It shouldn't have happened this way. Why had it?

Something was wrong. If it wasn't the Seer, then something else wasn't right. But what?

The time!

He hobbled across the room to the place he kept his books. He had a theory, just one, but he needed dates to figure it out. His books were complete, they went back for decades, and naturally, it was all in his handwriting because the Curse was cleverly detailed but wading through the hazy memories Mr. Gold had, he noticed a problem. While Gold had memories of writing it all down, he couldn't find an actual memory of doing it before 1983. That meant everything before that was filled in by the Curse. They'd arrived in 1983. It was 1992. If they arrived in 1983, just after the Savior was born and sent here…the child's twenty-eighth birthday…

His head spun again, this time with disappointment and sorrow as his theory was confirmed. He felt…he felt like he had after he'd gotten back from Neverland without his father. He felt like his hopes were dashed. He'd been so excited, so ready to go and find Baelfire. But it wasn't going to be happening any time soon. Emma wasn't here. Not yet. At the moment, she couldn't have been more than...what…nine? Ten? He was still practically two decades away from getting back to his son.

But if Emma was still two decades away from arriving and breaking the Curse, why had David come in asking for her now, memories and all. And, for that matter, why had he never seen David before this moment in this town?! Was it his memory? Was he just too hazy to recall him? No. No, he was certain he'd never laid eyes on David before in this shop, but…

He had a memory, a memory that wasn't actually a memory, but rather something that had been implanted into Gold's mind. It was a memory of a windmill, one that was in his shop right now. It had been brought in by a woman who claimed it had come with a house she and her husband had just bought. Her husband, the woman claimed, couldn't stand it. The woman was familiar to him. It had been the former Princess Abigail, Midas' daughter, and David's former fiancé…in this world, she was called Kathryn, and she'd had a husband also named David, but he'd never met Kathryn's husband, he hadn't been with her on that day or ever again because…he'd left. The talk of the town…

He gripped his cane tight and focused on the floor, trying to sort through memories that weren't actually memories was giving him a headache. That could be the Curse. Many spells and curses that affected memory had a tendency to give the victim headaches when poked or prodded too much. If the Curse had been broken entirely, he might not have been feeling it, but since it wasn't broken, it was fighting back, trying to pull him under. He didn't have the magic to fix it, but Gold had Tylenol around to help. Of course, if the headache was brought on by magic, he doubted acetaminophen would help. Then again, neither was standing here gawking at words he'd never known before like Tylenol and acetaminophen. Focus. He had to focus and not grow so overwhelmed. The talk of the town, Kathryn, David…sort the memories…

The talk of the town was that David had gone away. They'd been married one day, and the next David had gone. The gossip was that after an argument, David had left Kathryn and hadn't been seen since. They'd all assumed he'd run away somewhere, but…that wasn't possible. The Curse would have made sure of it. He'd been here, all this time, but where?

Memories. So many false memories to work through, so much haze to gaze through. Where had David been?!

He knew where…the hospital. He had another memory, another cursed memory, something his mind was convinced he'd experienced, but he knew he hadn't.

Focus!

Sheriff Graham had brought a picture by once of a man who was in a coma, John Doe, they'd called him. The picture had been a polaroid taken hastily of a man in a hospital bed, wires and tubes sticking out of him so machines could monitor him. The sheriff, Regina's lover, the hunter from the Enchanted Forest who had rescued Snow and allowed Regina to take him in turn…

He breathed. He tightened his grip on his cane.

The hunter had brought the photo to him because he'd wanted to know if he recognized John Doe as a tenant. He was in a coma after being found suspiciously on the side of the road, and they had no clues as to who he might be. He hadn't either, not at the time, not in the memory. But now, he did.

The man had been David. David had been in a coma in the hospital all these years. So when David said the flower woke him up…did he mean it figuratively or literally? Or both. Regina would know. She was the maker of the Curse. She'd be awake just as he was and a few memories, real and true memories, that he possessed of their encounters together suggested that she was very aware of who she was and where she was from, but…he didn't want her to know he was awake, not until the time was right. And there was no way to have this conversation with her without revealing his own knowledge. This wasn't that time.

But right time or not, Snow and David had awakened early and were searching for their daughter; that was why her name was uttered ahead of schedule.

The pixie flower…the flower that awakened them; those flowers grew in the presence of great evil. He'd been in this town a decade already. He'd never seen the flower and knew there wasn't magic enough to grow them all in the Curse. The magic the Curse had was too busy sustaining itself. But maybe…Snow, Mary Margaret, had found the flower. She always was the target of Regina's rage. Maybe if the women had an encounter and the Evil Queen said something particularly cruel or wicked, perhaps it would allow one flower to grow. It was, as they said in this world, a fluke. Only he'd been awakened early as well. And Emma was ten, and if her parents left to find her as they seemed so determined to do…

He had to fix this.

This was a fun and interesting chapter to write because when you get right down to it, Gold has a lot of knowledge, not only in this episode but when he awakens for the second time, that he really shouldn't have. So not only did I have to contend with the trauma of waking up and having him realize he's actually two people with two full sets of individual memories, but I also had to come up with ways for Gold to possess answers that Rumple doesn't have. I had to get him to discover that they've been awakened early, that David's in a coma, that there is magic in the town, and so much more. At times it was a bit trippy to write, but also really fun.

Thank you, Jennifer Baratta, Alarda, and Fox24, for your review on the last chapter. I really hope that you enjoy this one. I know it's not a big action chapter, but it was fun realizing that Rumple would not react like the rest of us would. I, personally, would probably root around, even with all my knowledge, just to hold the precious items I hadn't realized I'd lost. I liked having the realization that Rumple would just sort of stand there and be like, "yeah, I know it's there, I don't need to touch it," as he bounces from one object to another. Peace and Happy Reading!