Cora was dying. Not physically, not even magically, but the sudden spike in Cora's abilities reflected the inner turmoil she was experiencing, and it wasn't good. Only a month before the wedding, and after she'd set out to set a piece of paper on fire and instead had lit the entire table on fire, she confessed that what he suspected was true. Cabin fever, as he'd sometimes heard it described, could happen in a cabin or a hovel, but Cora was proof that it could spring up even in the biggest of castles among those who felt the loneliest and those, like Cora, who were doted upon by servants and fiancés. Their stolen meetings in the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning were enough at first to counteract her busy schedule, but it no longer was. When that had happened, he wasn't entirely sure; it had been developing for so long. But now that it had happened, he could see all too easily how the castle had become her cage. When she placed her head at the window and gazed out into the village she once despised, what he really saw was her straining at the bars of her jail cell. There was a part of her that was dying inside from it, eating up part of what she'd been before and replacing it with something else, something cruel and cold.

"Where were you?!" she demanded when he was only a few minutes late for their lessons. She was upset, but his mind was still thinking the wheels turning with the information he'd gathered since they'd last been with one another.

"Forgive me," he begged with a smile, walking over to steal a kiss from her. "I got held up with some research for a deal."

"What research? What deal?!" she practically screamed at him. In fact, he was certain she'd have screamed louder if not for the late hour. "Who were you with?!"

Was it jealousy he saw in her eyes, the same kind he sometimes felt when she spent the day with her Prince Henry? Or was it something more?

Something more…that was what he chose to believe. It wasn't who he'd been with or what they'd been doing merely that he had been out in the world with someone else while she'd been here, parts of her soul rotting away in his absence.

"I was with no one. Simply doing a bit of…reconnaissance," he giggled, slipping over to the fire and into her chair.

She crossed her hands over her chest and narrowed her gaze. "For what…"

"A legendary object for which I've been searching for quite a long time."

She was in a sour mood, but the truth was that now that he'd found this object, he was in a happy mood. No, he knew, according to the Seer's Prophecy in his head, that was not the way he was destined to get back to Baelfire, but he was a firm believer after all these years that every little thing he could have in his store hold would be helpful. Even this, ludicrous as even he admitted it was.

"And when will you go about making a deal for this…'legendary object'?"

Now it was his turn to meet her angry gaze with a cautious one of his own. He didn't come over here night after night to be examined or tested, and he certainly didn't come over here to have his plans scrutinized by her, especially when he was positive that he wasn't the real problem.

"When the time is right," he commented. "I've identified the weak links in the chain and set the wheels in motion to create an environment that might place my prize right in my lap. Tell me, dearie, is it really me you are angry with, or Henry, for dragging you out for a walk in the gardens for the hundredth time this afternoon?"

He'd hit the nail on the head, an expression that she'd never understand because he found it wasn't bound to be useful in this land, but it was still the best thing he could think of to describe the thoughts he saw changing before his eyes. Her face softened, her shoulders slumped forward the iron grip she'd had on her arms fell away as they dropped to her sides. She let out a sigh and walked over to sit down upon the arm of the chair he rested in.

"I'm really starting to hate that garden," she stated. "I'm sorry, my darling. I never intended to-"

"Quite alright, quite alright," he dismissed, moving his arms around her waist so that he could place his forehead just at the small of her back. "I know you've been feeling trapped here, like a firefly straining against the jar a child puts it in, but…I've got a plan, a surprise!"

"A surprise?!" she exclaimed, turning to face him. Ah, now there was the light in her eyes he loved to see. "For me?!"

"It's not ready quite yet, but I promise, when it is, it will be an experience you'll be thrilled to take."

It was only a few days after that everything was ready. While she spent her days becoming a princess and courting her future husband, he spent his days in a different Kingdom altogether, where the King was a savage man who had captured a beast, a man trapped by a witch in a terrible curse that could not be broken. It was the fate of the scorned lover that she never wanted to see his face again, and so she'd given him the head of a bull and the mind of one too. The Kingdom called the beast the Minotaur. Many years after the curse was cast, none other than the King himself came into procession of the Minotaur. He'd had a labyrinth constructed to house the beast. A King like that had never been gifted with a wife, no woman would have him, and it had only made his hatred of the fairer sex grow. He had plenty of half children by those he took advantage of when he needed his cock stroked but none that would inherit his Kingdom. For sport, he'd issued a challenge. Every year seven of the most beautiful men and women were rounded up, imprisoned, and every day for one week, they were let loose in the minotaur's labyrinth. If they managed to kill the Minotaur and find their way out, then the King would adopt them, and they would inherit the Kingdom. But no one was ever successful. The Minotaur's appetite was insatiable. He'd eaten every last offering that had been lost in that dark maze. The longest had lasted two hours.

It was a fascinating beast, but the Minotaur was only a small part of the plan he had to fetch his future property. In that same kingdom, there was a girl from a poor family. It was an old story. Her mother and father had loved each other truly and had more children than they could take care of. A couple of years ago, things grew worse when the father had died from disease. Now the family was near destitution. But one of the girls, she was beautiful; dirty constantly, but beautiful. And on her shoulders, completely unaware of the magic it possessed and the wealth she could gain from it was a fleece of gold. It should have been an easy sale, and it might have been if not for the fact that he'd learned the fleece had sentimental value to her. Her father had given it to her just before he'd died. And now everywhere that Mary went that fleece was sure to go. It would take an offer of something more important than money to get her to part with it. And so he'd made arrangements for her to be on the same street while the King was passing by one afternoon before the Minotaur's offering week. Now, he was happy to hear that she, and that wonderful fleece of hers, had been locked away in a jail cell, awaiting her opportunity to go into the maze and kill the Minotaur.

He'd left her there for a couple of days, left her family to try unsuccessfully to break her out, left her to unsuccessfully try to leave on her own, left her to learn for herself that there was no escape. Not without help.

The night before she was to be offered, he appeared in Cora's room with Donna held tight in his fist.

"Get dressed, I have a surprise for you…" he informed her.

"A…doll? I grew out of those before I ever grew into them, Rumple," she commented, looking over the puppet in his hand. But her skills were growing, and after only a second, he watched her face as she located the magic that rolled off of it. "A magic doll?"

He pulled Cora away from her bed and set the object upon it. With a wave of his hand, the doll became Donna once more, sitting there properly, hands folded in her lap as her eyes stared blankly ahead. Cora jumped at the sudden presence, then watched as he waved his hand one more time and Donna's long blonde locks became dark brown, her long face shortened, her lips plumped, her toes reached to the floor, and her ordinary peasant gown became the beautiful white and flowing nightgown Cora wore over her shoulders now. Cora was speechless as what looked back at her now was not Donna, but herself.

She stood motionless as he stepped up to the doll, reached his hand into her chest, and withdrew her red beating heart. "Your name is Cora in this form. You will finish reading your book by the fire, then go to bed. If someone knocks on the door, tell them you're not decent and tired, you'll talk in the morning. If they insist on speaking tonight, tell them you'll meet them in the ballroom in five minutes and say the name of Rumpelstiltskin three times."

He whispered the instructions into her heart, and when he put the thing back into her chest, she took a great gasp of air, and looked around the room. She ignored their presence entirely, then went to the fire, picked up the book Cora had been reading a moment ago, and began to read just as she'd been ordered. It wasn't perfect, but it would fool someone enough to give them time to return before people truly started to question her.

When he turned back to Cora, her eyes were wide, still staring at her new doppelganger with a mix of awe and horror before he turned and put her hand in his own. "I have a deal to make tonight. I wondered if you'd accompany me?"

For a moment she simply stared at him, doing nothing so that he wanted to look behind him and make sure that Donna was still in the chair and the real Cora before him, but before he could she breathed out an "oh, yes!" and launched herself into his arms. Cora kissed him in a way that no doll could ever fake. He would have been happy to stay there all night, to continue kissing her and maybe even doing a little more than kissing finally, but he'd been planning this deal for some time now and if they didn't go to her tonight tomorrow morning Mary would be dead and who knew what that Minotaur would do to it while he ate her, how it would affect the magic of the fleece. They had to go tonight, he explained to Cora, and in only a few minutes she was dressed warmly, the fake Cora was stretching by the fire as if tired, and he was explaining that to take her with him she was going to have to hold on tight to him.

"Teach me how!" she urged, a montra by which he swore she lived by. She was so fiercely independent that any suggestion that she rely on his magic resulted in an insistence that he simply just teach her.

"Later, there's no time now."

"Rumple…" It was the closest thing to a whine he'd ever heard her utter.

"I will teach you, but…I've been working on finding this object for years and it's taken me weeks to set this deal in motion. I don't have time to teach you when it's at stake."

She didn't like that response, she didn't like it at all. "After, then…you'll teach me to come and go as I please after."

It was half a request, half an order. But he didn't have time to negotiate, the time was ripe. This had to get done.

"Of course," he agreed holding out his arm so that she could move closer to him. There was only one last thing. "Before we go, you need to know that when I broker a deal, I may say some things you don't understand or don't agree with, but I promise...with you I've only ever spoken truth. Anything you hear tonight-"

"Is just part of the act, I understand, Rumple. Let's go!"

I originally intended this chapter to be with the next chapter, but then they both grew and I separated him. I'm sorry that means this chapter sort of becomes filler for the next one, but the deal they are going off to make is actually a really important one for Chronicles. This character that will benefit in the end is one that I think the writers meant to use more, if scripts I've seen are to be believed, but we only ever really see him once or maybe twice, no lines at all. They didn't use him much in the series beyond season one, but I found a lot of use for him, or should I say, his family, in this fiction. Any guesses?

Big thank yous going out to Grace5231973, MissAmande, and Jennifer Baratta for your reviews on the last chapter. And a special shoutout to Grace who caught the little gem of last chapter! The globe Rumple looks at, when he wants to find his son it points him to Neverland and Rumple thinks it's wrong and has found his father. He doesn't realize that at this moment Baelfire is in Neverland and therefore the globe did its job. As to this chapter, Donna makes another appearance. They're pretty helpful tools to have in his box, aren't they! Peace and Happy Reading!