After he'd sent Belle outside, he'd sat in the Great Room by himself for a little bit, tea and cakes in hand. He'd intended to bask in the glow of sweet, blissful privacy, but with her gone, and only the fire in the grate to listen to and watch, he'd soon grown bored. Part of him had wished she hadn't brought up her conversation when she had, that she might have waited just a few more minutes so that they could have ended things much closer to the end of teatime rather than the beginning. He had vowed not to be entertained by her, and that was, so far, proving to be a difficult vow to keep. After so much solitude in this castle, he had to admit it was nice to have another body around. But he'd made a vow, and he intended to keep it. So with a wave of his hand, he'd sent the tea and cakes back to the kitchens for her to clean up when she was done and retired to his bedroom. It was the one place he could trust at the moment. He'd just sent all of his laundry out with Belle, so she had no reason to come into his room. At the same time, it was the only place he could trust himself not to watch her in the cauldron…another vow he'd made that he was determined to keep.

He itched to do it. His fingers twitched and rubbed against his palm as he fought back the urge to go to his Tower and watch her, see her reaction to his little joke! So instead he sat at his wheel and began to spin. He could always count on spinning to clear his head, to focus him! He needed to focus right now. With Regina's transformation into the Evil Queen, there was so much to do and so very little time to make sure it happened in. He was just beginning to make a list in his head, to pour every thought he'd ever had about his maid out into the thread he spun, and regain the concentration that she'd stolen from him when he felt it.

Something was wrong. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but something was very wrong.

His magic was on alert. But why? It felt like someone had just entered his property, an intruder! But the signature was so low, so small…he wasn't one to risk it…

In a flash he was in his Tower, he waved his hand over his cauldron. "Show me the intruder!" he demanded. No picture appeared in the water. No intruder. Well…no, not now. Before he tried the cauldron again so foolishly he felt inside himself for the magic he'd felt, but it was gone. The warning was lifted. There was an intruder, but there wasn't anymore? But…who was likely to set foot on his land accidentally? And with such a low warning, it had been barely noticeable…

He scrambled over to his table and grabbed his crystal ball. "Show me the Apprentice!"

There he was. In his home, sweeping the floor just as he almost always was. Not him. So who?

"Show me the intruder!" he demanded of the ball. This time the result was different. Unlike looking in the cauldron, a single image came to him—a dog in the woods. White with black spots, it was no more than a pup. He watched as it wandered around the wood, raising its nose to the air to smell something or other, then began digging in the ground with his paws. He was confused. An animal wouldn't have set off his magic!

But that would...

A moment later the pup transformed itself into a little boy of perhaps six or seven and he understood. A shapeshifter. He watched as the boy pulled a coin from the dirt, bit into it, then ran away smiling, leaving him utterly baffled. A boy. A shapeshifting boy had come onto his property and left? He supposed that could have made sense. The puppy probably didn't even know he'd come onto his property. By the back woods there was a small hole in the wall of his property that he never really cared about before just because he had his own protections. The dog probably got in that way. He'd probably just smelled money! And yet…

He glanced over at the place that his curse was hidden. Nothing had changed. The magic there was the same. In the Great Hall, he looked over his collection, one item at a time, all present, all accounted for…except for one.

Where was Belle?

Usually, this time of the day, she was finishing up the second room she'd cleaned and was heading down to the kitchen to start dinner. He'd sent her out to do laundry, and he hadn't spied on her, but he had a feeling that had probably kept her from her schedule. Still, it was possible she was working on laundry and dinner as the kitchen door was near the place outside that she'd hung her lines. It was right next to the gap in the wall.

He hurried out of the Great Room and down the stairs to the dungeons and the kitchen that she used. Nothing. The fire wasn't lit, the food he'd taken from the market in the village below was still waiting for her to decide what to do with it. And his maid was just the right kind of annoying that if she saw a cute little puppy, she'd follow it…

He rushed outside into the damp and fog of late autumn.

"Belle?!" he called out, looking around. There was no answer, but he wasn't looking at her workspace just now, that was around the corner. And he had sent her out a cloak. If she had the hood up, perhaps she couldn't hear as well?

It was far-fetched, but the image of the boy in the crystal ball was reassuring. In the image, the dog had been alone. That meant he was panicking needlessly. He would turn the corner and find her there. His collection would be complete. He'd make up some excuse to get her back into the house until tomorrow when he could protect the barrier against shapeshifters and repel animals. It was an extreme measure for one shapeshifting dog, but now that he was so close to Baelfire he couldn't afford these kind of distractions or breakdowns in his security. His peace of mind was worth it.

"Belle?" he called out rounding the corner and seeing linen's on the line blowing in the mountain breeze. "Belle?!" he cried again, his voice so angry and gravely he half expected to hear an answer right then and there. It was the kind of tone that should have sent her running. But it hadn't. He felt odd suddenly. Numb. Why couldn't he find her?

"Where have you gone?"

Her things were there, the laundry was on the line, the fires were lit. But she obviously wasn't present. Running. He'd used a tone that should have sent her running, but now he wondered if it was possible she could have run in the wrong direction? If maybe the boy and fate had been on her side and she'd taken a window of opportunity to flee. She wouldn't…

"Don't tell me you've done something stupid like running away!" he called into the forest. As soon as he announced it, he knew it wasn't so. He'd been cruel to her, perhaps. He'd chastised her, called her lazy, snapped when she'd gotten a bit too close to the truth of his past. But he'd done far worse than that since she'd arrived and yet she'd remained. She was a smart girl. Running away didn't seem her method of revenge. If she wanted to make him feel her anger, she preferred to give him the cold shoulder. Besides, she understood the terms of their deal, and he didn't think she'd risk having him go back on his promises to her village. And, to top it all off, she wasn't stupid. She'd watched him with Robin of Locksley, was right by his side as he hunted the man. She knew that if she ran, he'd catch her eventually. No…she hadn't run away. She wasn't the type and she was too smart for it. So then where was she?!

Suddenly a bird drew his attention to the sky. He'd been listening to the thing squawk since he got outside only now it became an annoyance and-

Something winked at him in the sky. The bird was flying away, but something was coming closer to him, falling from the thing's claws. He took a step back as the round object dropped at his feet. A sand dollar?

He reached down and picked it up, and only then could he feel the magic within it. A small spell, one that used Dark Magic instead of Light. Dark Magic and a raven…he chilled.

He held the dollar in his hand and waved is other over it, forcing the magic to come out in a swirl of orange and yellow and…there she was! Belle. She was struggling in the message. Her hands bound with rope as she tried to loosen her bonds.

"Rumpelstiltskin," she exclaimed nervously. "I'm...I'm supposed to ask you for...for that Gauntlet from Camelot. Bring it to the base of Demon's Bluff at midnight or..." he watched as she stopped to collect herself and glanced around her. "Or I'll be killed," she finally cried with a gasp.

He felt himself take a breath that he somehow felt he couldn't expel as suddenly he heard a great laugh, female, come from the message. Belle looked around again.

"Rumple, help!" she cried before the message disappeared. Her last two words echoed. Her shriek was undying as he finally felt that breath he'd been holding onto leave his body.

"Ah!" he growled.

No! Captured! He knew she wouldn't have left on her own. She was too smart to run but not smart enough to be captured?! All for the Gauntlet?! And damn him! Damn him for giving her that cloak and not putting some kind of tracking spell on it so he couldn't find her! But who-

He looked skyward, to the place the raven was circling. He knew who. There was only one woman that knew he had a servant here at the moment, who used black birds in her bidding, and who had threatened him the last time he'd seen her. He wouldn't put it past Regina to do something like this after what he'd done to her.

"You!" he cried at the bird. "I know where you came from! Tell your master I know who she is, and she's just crossed a line!"

And now, he'd have to cross of few of his own!

If I've done my job right then this chapter should make this scene a bit less...lucky, perhaps? I don't know, I remember watching it and feeling like everything was just a little bit too perfect. But hopefully, past chapters have helped to make it seem a little more in line. The reason he's stopped watching her, how Belle got out without him sensing the witches, and because of a few chapters back it should even make sense why he suspects Regina here. "But Sara, I've seen this episode, he doesn't suspect Regina." On the contrary, we've had so few opportunities to showcase it you might have forgotten, but my fictions always re-add deleted scenes. There aren't many for Rumple in the Enchanted Forest (at least I hope I haven't missed any) but there is one coming up next!

Thank you Grace5231973 and Jennifer Baratta for your reviews on the last chapter. I really do appreciate those and I'm so happy to hear that you like what is being done thus far. I hope that you don't mind my take on the boy. I'm an animal lover so the idea that evil people would take a puppy for a trap and then just abandon it in the woods bothered me. The shapeshifting thing made me feel a lot better thinking that the boy was just happy to find some money and then run home to his parents. Hope you don't mind, Peace and Happy Reading!