For longer than he'd care to admit, the three of them just stand outside the car, arms folded, no one wanting to voice a bad idea. He does know a place full of town records and tilts his head at the possibility of Anna showing up in a census or, better yet, a phone book, but if it were that painless, surely Anna would have understood the significance of an ice wall, would have recognized her own sister's magic and found her herself.
He also wonders if now is the time to talk out the encounter with Rumpelstiltskin and his dagger charade, only for Swan's phone to break his concentration.
"Hey, Mayor Mom, what's up..." Her face immediately becomes a series of straight narrow lines, a quick glance over at him indication enough something is wrong. "We'll be right there. Don't let anyone leave."
"What is it?" Elsa asks.
"We need to make a detour at the mayor's office. Sounds like more ice problems."
It's become too common a scene for his liking—everyone standing around in a state of confusion refusing to be helpless in some magical conundrum. It should bother him more than it does that Marian lies stretched out on the office sofa, her features lined with frost.
"What happened?" Swan asks.
"Perhaps you should ask your new friend," Regina snaps. "After all, it was her monster that attacked Marian."
"Well, to be fair, we did provoke the beast," he interjects, glancing over at Elsa. In spite of himself, he likes this ice woman, so devoted to finding her sister that giving up is not an option, and he'll not have arguably the person who has inflicted the most danger upon Storybrooke slinging insults.
"But this isn't my magic. Someone else did this," Elsa argues. Someone else also won't let the wall come down. He raises an eyebrow, knowing the two are connected and yet he can't come up with a single solitary reason why this yet-to-be-seen villain would first ensure no one could escape and then only target a person who had only just arrived in town. Marian didn't seem like the type to have scores of people waiting in line to exact revenge on her for anything.
"Oh, and we're supposed to trust you?" Regina counters in a mock sugary tone.
"You can trust me. If she says it was someone else, it was," Swan snaps back, and the two stare at each other for a moment, much more familiar with the hate just simmering under the surface than...whatever they wanted to call the relationship they'd forged in league against all the other recent threats.
"So how do we break the spell?" Henry asks. Thank you, lad, he breathes, having forgotten he and Snow and David were even in the room. Apparently he's not the only one who can sense how volatile the office's atmosphere has become.
"The only way to cure a freezing spell is an act of True Love," Elsa explains, her expression wincing at some harrowing memory. Odds are, if she knows what to do, the ice woman's past may be a little more sordid than meets-the-eye.
"True Love's Kiss," Regina mutters, her entire stance changing into something more hunched, more resigned. She shoots a hopeless look at Robin.
"Well, then there's no time to lose," he sighs, kneeling down in front of his wife, just looking at her, his fingers tracing her hairline all the way down to her jaw...willing himself to love her again, or at least love her truly. It's not an enviable position, Killian thinks, especially not when there is about to be concrete proof the emotions can't be forced. His lips linger on her, curling back at the cold that must be emitting from hers. "What's wrong? Why isn't it working?"
"I've seen this once before, when Frederick was turned to gold," David says in a hushed voice, sharing a look with Snow.
"Who the hell's Frederick?" Swan asks, her heels coming off the floor, perhaps hoping to be able to track this old acquaintance down.
"Long story," Henry says.
"So the cold is acting as a barrier?" Robin springs up, his face pleading with Regina, then the rest of them, and back to Regina again. "Is there nothing we can do?"
"Well, every curse is different. I need more time to study this one." Regina leans over and holds Marian's hand, sets her palm on the woman's forehead. It's sincere, he notes with wide eyes, nigh motherly; she couldn't have been gentler with her lover's wife than if Henry himself had been positioned on the sofa with a fever.
"I'm going to find who did this before it happens again," Swan vows, already breathless and starting for the door.
"Well, I hope you're bringing backup."
She spins back around before she even starts a debate with herself whether or not to listen. She tosses her hair as she does so, fully aware she's being baited but unable to not take it.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Well between the monster and the cave-in...seems like the Savior needs saving these days."
He'd love to point out that it's not in anyone's best interest that the Savior has had some bad luck, but it hasn't even been a full twenty-four hours and Swan fortunately spells out the real problem before he can utter a word.
"I think you're bitter and you're taking it out on the wrong person." To the point, but even Regina picks up on the subtle warning in her tone. "I'll be fine."
"Well, I like that battle plan, so I'm with you, Swan," he says. If for no other reason than not wanting to be stuck with Regina and the frozen love triangle they'd been doing a rather fine job of avoiding up until now.
"No. Take Elsa to the sheriff's station. Keep her out of sight. Once people get word of this, they're going to be calling for her head."
Back to avoidance then. Now's not the time to be running hot and cold, love, he considers saying, but with a woman icing over and the even icier stare coming from Swan, he instead bares his face if she decides to read him.
"I'd rather save yours than hers. There's someone dangerous out there..."
"I don't have time to argue with you on this! Can you for once just do what I say?" She proceeds out the door without looking back, without waiting for anyone. Exhaling, he catches Elsa watching him out of the corner of his eye, her rigid stance indication enough she's not thrilled about this, either.
"We're leaving then," she concludes with only a cursory glimpse at Snow and David.
"Right this way," he sighs.
He leads her down as much of the interior of the town hall as they can go, the streets most likely already teeming with hotheaded townspeople ready for a scapegoat...although a scapegoat with ice powers makes a limited amount of sense. Out the back way, they could walk behind the buildings to the station. They could, but they won't, he decides. Swan's anxious to prove her competence, fine—even though she has nothing to prove to anyone, but even she will have to admit through all the stubbornness that nothing about this makes any sense. Someone takes advantage of Elsa sealing up the town. Someone ensnares an innocent woman for no reason...because surely if Robin feared for his wife he would have mentioned it or voiced some suspicion...and it all screams desperation to him. Desperation for what, he doesn't know, but it's too showy, anonymity not a goal by any stretch. If the culprit wants to be found, on his or her own terms, of course, then it all may be a bid for Swan's attention. And they therefore wouldn't be someone lying low from the Dark One.
Out the back door, he holds out his arm for her to wait before they tiptoe out past the dumpsters and then break into a run into the alleyway. They can cut through that onto the main street and get some answers from the crocodile, real ones.
The darkness around them in the alleyway gives way to daylight all too soon, Killian needing to stop so abruptly Elsa almost catches his heels.
"Wait," he whispers at him with his hand held up, allowing a couple to walk on past. Really, if unaware of the wall and what had just transpired at the mayor's office, the day could pass as mundane, a pale sun lurking behind the clouds and all the beige and gray shades of the town in their full regalia.
"All right, coast is clear." Not hearing Elsa trotting next to him, he half-turns to see her hanging back, sour-faced, but in a steely fashion. "That means go, love."
"I'm not coming with you. There's someone out there with powers like mine. I need to find out who. I, I can't just hide out in some sheriff's station."
He likes that kind of smile, that abrupt one that apologizes for making a decision, not because it is a decision made, mind you, but that they know full well they'll do it whether you like it or not. It always opens the person up to be surprised.
"Oh, well, that works out quite nicely then, because that's not where we're going."
"It's not?"
Stop feigning being slow on the uptake, lass, and enjoy catching a break...
"With Emma running into danger? Not a chance in hell. And the sheriff's station's that way."
"And what's that way?" she asks, gesturing to the portion of the street behind him. Raising an eyebrow, he grins.
"With any luck? Danger." Her halfhearted apprehension gives way to fascination as she hurries up to him.
Swan knows him too well, knows how rapidly cabin fever would set in if he just waited around at the station while she bought right into some villain's cry for attention. Magic worked against her last night, but it won't today, not when there is a whole shop of magical tools at their disposal, and that crocodile, thinking he was so clever, that his own wife will stay fooled forever. Oh, he knows Belle well enough to know their alliance wouldn't be enough to dissuade her from not believing him. But, as he's learned over the years, words don't necessarily need to be believed; they just need to be acknowledged as genuine, and Belle is too intrepid a woman to not want to prove him wrong. She would use the dagger to show him, show the pirate who attacked her only a year ago, how wrong he is, would conjure up some harmless task for her husband to perform and when he didn't...
It won't even come to that, he tells himself. The coward won't allow it to go that far. Straightening his back, he makes sure he strolls inside.
"I must apologize, but I'm really rather busy today," he says without looking up from the counter.
"And here I was hoping for a warm hello from the newly-reformed Mr. Gold!" Just how did he not burst at this confining life of being Mr. Gold? Mr. Gold might have the town under his thumb, might be the ruler of this little shop, but it didn't lend itself to magic, or the passion of seeking it out, for that matter.
"This is still a place of business, so unless you have something to offer me, I'm afraid I can be of no further help."
"Well, as it turns out, I do have something to offer you. My silence." Ah, the affluent shopkeeper facade cracking enough to allow a murderous glare. Killian pauses, letting him break an invisible sweat. He shifts, takes on that condescending tone just so he can hear it come out of someone else's mouth. "See, I know that that dagger you gave Belle is a fake."
"Is that right?"
"I've hunted you a long time, my old crocodile, and I know you better than most. And I know that you would never let anyone have power over you. Not even Belle."
"And you expect her to believe you without a shred of proof?" Not even denying it, the cad. There he stands, expecting him to be a buffoon and be deterred by such trifles. Pretending he's thinking it through, he smirks at the lack of amusement on the face staring at him.
"Well I could ask her to summon you with the dagger. And then, when it doesn't work—proof."
"That's a very dangerous insinuation."
His heart quickens at the deathly whisper. It takes more effort than he'd care to admit to remain stone-faced and unreadable. Just as his throat hitches, he manages to cover it.
"So we have a deal?"
It takes an eternity for a smile to stretch across Rumpelstiltskin's face, only the beginnings of teeth showing themselves as he lets out a soft, piteous sigh.
"I do hope Miss Swan is worth it," he whispers.
Never you mind, he tells him with his smug grin.
"Good news!" he calls over to Elsa, who has been busying herself by skimming over the relics and trinkets on the far end of the counter behind the glass. "He's agreed to help."
She wastes no time, addressing him without fear as she makes her way to them.
"This hair is from Marian. Someone cast a freezing curse on her. We need to know who it is."
Examining the hairs, he transfers them from one hand to the other, holding them up and ever so slightly smoothing them with the pads of his fingers.
"Well, you're in luck. Magic can change forms, but never be destroyed," he reminds them. "We'll simply return it to its natural state." Hovering one hand above the other, he sweeps it around until the ends of the hairs sway in time with it and dissolve into nothing more than snowflakes.
"Snowflakes," Elsa scoffs, watching them flurry around with an expression that says she should have known. She looks over at him, but he isn't the one who can give them new information.
"Magic similar to yours, dearie, though not quite the same. Much like a snowflake, each person's magic is unique," Rumpelstiltskin explains, watching the little blizzard in his palm with a hungry look. He'd have a taste of every person's unique brand of magic if he could, and, gods, he did not just blackmail the bloody Dark One for more snow and pretty words.
"Poetic," he grunts. "How does that help us?"
"Well, magic seeks out like-magic, so if I set this free..." He blows on the snowflakes and like a swarm of bees, they flutter together in a loose huddle toward the door. "...it should find its way home, back to the person who cast it."
He won't thank him, merely glance over at Elsa to signal that it's time to continue this on foot for who knows how long. Swallowing and shuffling back out onto the sidewalk, he remembers the last time he followed magic out of the shop. Not this time, he thinks, keeping his chin parallel to the ground. A little cloud of snowflakes is not going to lure him into some witch's trap again. Fate may like being cruel to him, but Elsa has had a streak of only good luck upon escaping the urn.
The snowflakes whip right and left into the woods...of course. It's been long enough that the idea of the crocodile sending them out with the intent to get them lost has crossed his mind more than once. A shame he didn't bring along a supply of breadcrumbs to mark their route; however, his hook works fine for marking notches into the trees that run along the path.
"What are you doing?" Elsa asks as he digs the hook into the tree with more force, two careless slashes.
"Leaving a trail I'm more accustomed to outrunning bad weather than following it," he says.
"Snow isn't bad." Well, a queen who can control it and never had to sail through blizzards would say such a thing, wouldn't she? Flashes of icy waves crashing onto the deck fill his mind, each droplet feeling more like the tip of a sword than liquid. "And we're following magic."
Semantics.
"Try to outrun that, too, when given the chance." He won't deny he's owed his life to magic on more than one occasion, but few people are as community-minded about it as Swan is. A soft chuckle from Elsa, her eyes still on the path in front of them, pricks the hairs on the back of his neck. "What's so funny?"
"It's just that Emma has magic and you clearly don't want to outrun her."
"More like the other way around." He flexes his tongue, fixing it so it presses against the back of his teeth. Barricading the town, nearly freezing Emma, laughing at him—he should despise Elsa, should be reluctant to dignify her little observation with eye contact, let alone words.
"Maybe she feels the same way about pirates as you do about magic."
Ha! Shows how little she knows.
"I've worked to change...though in fairness, being a pirate is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly a charming one like me-self." It elicits a smile, which was the point, but he shakes his head at how defensive she's rendered him. Emma loves him. Those three words cause his breath to hitch, still too incredible to truly believe, but she does, and he loves her and hasn't had any interest in hiding it. In fact, it would be mad not to want to be with her after all this time, so who is some ice woman new to town to contradict any of that? And what does she know about pirates, or magic, or Swan...or why other than that comforting, glorious invitation to share her bed with her last night she's been evading his company and he's so damn frustrated about it all...
"I think your self-appreciation is blinding you to a simple fact—this isn't about you. It's about her," she says knowingly, her smile not yet leaving her face.
"Is that right? A few short days and you know Emma so well?"
"We're a lot alike," she answers, almost shrugging but then curving her mouth into a frown. "When you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, it can be hard to let people in, to trust them, even when they want what's best for you."
He nearly stops, trying to read her. She isn't Swan, so it doesn't come as naturally, but the wrinkle between her eyebrows, the faraway look in her eyes—she knows what she's talking about. That orphan look, that familiarity with being alone most of the time, wanting, craving contact but at the same time fearing it...
Swan trusts you, he tells himself. Doesn't she? After all they'd been through... He'd thought she did, but perhaps somehow she'd built her walls even higher right under his nose. He'll have to keep trying. It's what he's told himself in one way or another since he'd bloody met her, and here he was miles from where she believed he currently was.
Well, if it's a choice between her trust and her safety, he'll have to settle for the latter.
Elsa's sensed he is in no mood to discuss his personal life any longer, the duration of the journey in a brooding silence. If Swan doesn't trust you after all this time, what else can you do—no, no, no. That will have to wait. Dragging the heels of his boots into the dirt keeps him in the here and now, his eyes glued to the snowflakes. Flurrying once more, they settle onto the jagged remains of a young tree already topped with snow.
"I'd say we're on the right track," he says to himself.
"Yes." Folding her arms, she waits, scanning the woods on her tiptoes, her usual calm demeanor wavering. A white figure emerges from a row of trees, so pallid it gets lost in the air behind the foliage. Just a glimmer of a silhouette indicates it is a woman walking by. "There she is, look."
"Get down," he orders her, guiding her by the small of her back down behind a fallen log. Seeing the woman open her arms and manipulate the snow fails to add much sense to this calamity. Woman freezes someone and traps everyone within the town only to hide out in the forest? He's tempted to rise just a little in order to get a better look, but a voice screams in his head. It's magic. She's doing magic and he is not going to be stuck against that with only Elsa's volatile powers to defend him.
Reaching into his pocket, he stares at his phone and sees the reliable screen that has Swan's name on it. Then the button Henry had shown him—it gets easier every time.
"What is that thing?" Elsa whispers.
"It's a device for...talking..." he trails off, suddenly too aware of how poorly he can explain it. "I don't bloody know. I press the 'Emma' button and she answers, usually." Now is not the time to figure out the specifics of such a process. The ringing gives way to an all-too-casual "Hey, this is Emma. Leave a message."
That beep afterwards. He hates it. How? How can she not answer in the midst of an investigation?
"Why should I carry around this ridiculous thing if you're never there when I use it?" he blurts out, inhaling and glancing back around to make sure the woman didn't hear him. Sighing and lowering his voice, he adds, "We found the person who froze Marian. Get to the west edge of the woods right away."
Ending the call, it occurs to him if she does call back, the woman will hear it...but Swan's used to this sort of thing. She'll know from how low he talked into the thing to not call back.
Then again, if Elsa is fool enough to be standing up...his hand flies up onto her shoulder and doesn't hesitate to apply enough pressure to bring her back down.
"What the bloody hell are you doing?" he scolds her.
"Sorry. I've never seen someone like me before." Her brow furrows. "She doesn't look evil."
Need we go back and inspect the frozen woman lying stiff as a board on the mayor's sofa, he considers shouting at her.
"Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving, love. So let's just stay out of sight. I haven't a fondness of icebergs and I'd rather avoid being turned into one." They'll just have to sit and wait for Swan to arrive...precisely what he had been against doing in the first place. Setting his jaw, he wonders if this whole endeavor will end up a disaster.
A/N: Coming up? You guys are in for a treat.
