"You must have a starting point in mind."

Returning to the mansion with Belle means he can scrutinize every detail of the place. She's a lovelier sight than her husband, but Rumpelstiltskin had a way of dominating one's focus. Every inch of the place not covered in mahogany boasts trinket after trinket. Jars and plates with intricate patterns, landscapes, model ships—everything so decadant.

"I saw it while I was hiking a while back," she says, opening the curtains. Streams of light glitter against the glass bottles and vases displayed everywhere, no doubt accompanied by a story in their etchings. Aye, he thinks, running his fingers over the bust of a woman with a crown of braids on her head—stories. Every item, every piece of furniture now reminds him of a book; one must actually spend some time with it to discover its story. Of course Belle would be drawn to it.

"I kept an eye on it for a while and never saw anyone come or go. Look, you can see the ocean from just about every room. I, uh, the ships that are everywhere...you don't recognize any of them, do you? I had hoped that was a clue."

He shakes his head, traipsing around the first floor listening to the sound of his footsteps. The place should feel foreboding, what with his history with it and its habit of hiding portals, but during the day, with the light pouring in and the openness of it all, he wagers perhaps this Sorcerer or Author or whoever it is that lives here wouldn't mind breaking out the brandy and discussing his or her collection with a waltz playing in the background. Still, something gives him an unsettling feeling.

"Let's start with the passage Henry found," he suggests.

Leaving the open area of the ballroom and parlor renders the house an enormous ant farm, corridor upon corridor, a room with a winding hall leading to another room. Down a darker hallway, he pulls the lamp Henry told him about into the room with the blank books...endless blank books that could stack themselves around the entire town, he muses. Intricate magical mysterious objects at either side of him? A counter with more objects of unknown origin before them? Powerful loner figure running it all? The pawn shop at least had price tags on everything to keep one grounded. He grabs Belle's arm.

"Hold on. We're not going to pull anything off a shelf and stumble upon another hidden room full of dead wives or the like. I'll give Henry a call...blast, he's at school. Wait." The corner of his mouth curls up as he whips out his phone and pushes the appropriate button, stealing a quick glimpse at his and Swan's picture before he brings it to his ear.

"Hey, what's up?"

"We're in the room with the books. Did you or Regina happen upon anything else while you were in here? Nothing that leads into another room?"

"No. It didn't look like it led to anywhere else. Just a room off on its own. You only create two ways out when you're afraid you can't get out the first way." She pauses and he hears the rustling of papers in the background, her words earlier about getting caught up on paperwork with an exasperated "finally"coming to mind. "I did stop at the town records, though."

"And?"

"Well, not much, but neither that mansion or the Apprentice's house are owned by Gold. Guy owns more than half the town, but not either of those houses. That's all I was able to find, though."

The Dark One and his comforts, he thinks, snorting. How comfortable he must be now, in the Land Without Magic. Crippled, dirty, poor, and all alone.

"Thank you, love. It puts one at ease to know he hasn't touched most of this." He paces around the first table lazily, noticing Belle pushing her palm against the ladder rungs and cocking her head in confusion. "I'll call you back if we find anything."

"Okay. Bye."

"What are you doing?" he calls over to her, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. His voice must have stirred her out of some train of thought for she jumps about a mile into the air.

"Oh! Well, I'm sure it's nothing...but, well, you can look for yourself—there's no dust. I thought something looked strange, and there's no dust on anything." She answers his raised eyebrow with a shrug. "I cleaned a whole castle; I notice these things. Even the pawn shop would get dusty when Rumple neglected it. Henry had his work cut out for him when he cleaned it up, but this place? Spotless."

"Emma and Henry talk so often of how reality differs from the stories they grew up with, yet there always seem to be constants. One would think there would be a clue of some kind as to the identity of whoever lives here, Sorcerer or Author. Or both," he thinks out loud. They would be better suited for that kind of searching than he would, however.

"Well, other than the whole thing reminding me of The Great Gatsby house just before a party, there's nothing I see that comes to mind."

"Just before a party," he repeats, glancing up at the shelves above their heads. Licking his lips, he frowns. "When we searched the Snow Queen's house, it was just about empty. It was nothing more than a place to sleep until she succeeded, changes of clothes, groceries... Not like here. Fruit in the bowls in the other room, all these knickknacks, and, as you said, clean—it either means the owner is fine with us lurking about, or, worse, doesn't care."

"Or what if there's a spell on the place so that he only disappears when someone's coming? He wouldn't even have to disappear, just...make himself invisible and follow us around until we get fed up and go..." she trails off, holding herself and stifling a shiver. Gods, he prefers doing this sort of thing with Swan. She doesn't spin ghost stories out of an investigation at any rate.

"And with that cheery thought, I'd say we finish up here before we're apt to hearing chains rattling in the attic," he says with a touch of irritation in his tone. Gesturing, he waits for her to go back out first.

"Sorry. It's just...anything seems like a possibility anymore." She steps out of the, the library, he'll call it for now, with a mopiness in her shoulders. He shouldn't have said that. A gentleman would be mindful of what she's just lost and the effect that monster would have had on her. Inhaling, he tries again.

"What do you say to a search on the Apprentice's house tomorrow?"

"You think something will turn up there?" she asks with a hopeful tilt of her chin.

"I know it's a good deal homier than here, and if an Apprentice is anything like a cabin boy, he's the one more likely to have some records on hand."

She smiles up at him. It will come, a rhythm to working together. It's not always instant and clear. In fact, he really only recalls one time when he fell so easily into a pattern with another person that it felt like they had been a team forever. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but that's not to say lightning can never strike again at all. She jumps back against the wall in mock fright when he closes the passage and laughs, and he surprises himself at how much he hopes she'll have a reason to bring out that playful side more and more.


Glancing out the window of the Beetle, Killian raises an eyebrow at the encroaching treeline. They've turned off of the main street, away from Granny's, toward the school. Twisting, he watches Swan with a pointed look, elbow still draped alongside the door. It doesn't unnerve her, as he knows it wouldn't, so he peers over at Henry in the back. The boy is leaning forward with one arm dangling off his seat and the other dangling from hers, smirking as though he's conquered the world.

"Come off it, lad. What's funny?"

Henry coughs out a laugh and shares a look with his mother.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm the target of something?" He shouldn't bother. He won't get an answer. Instead, she pulls the car into the empty lot, boundless in how the white lines stretch from one corner to the next. She stops in between two of them and turns the key. At once the hum and all the car noises he's grown used to die down into silence.

"Switch me spots," she says, her close-lipped smile so wide it puffs out her cheeks. He mirrors this challenging, coy look, and, when he's certain this isn't a bluff of some kind, he cocks his head so it falls back against the head rest.

"You don't think I can drive it?"

"No, no, I'm hoping you can drive it. You know how long I've had this?"

"We think you should learn," Henry intervenes. At last, a neutral voice in all this anarchy. Masking a small amount of discomfort with a frustrated sigh, he decides that if she's not bluffing, he might as well.

"I know how attached you are to your vessel, Swan. If I turn out to be more skilled than you..."

"That's not going to happen," she scoffs, opening the door and stepping out. He follows suit and edges to her side. Twirling the keys in her fingers, the challenging look never leaves her. She sets her chin on the roof of the car and waits, just waits. He quickly adopts a swagger and snags the key ring on his hook.

"I'm presuming there is something to be gained by all this?" he inquires.

"What, like a bet?"

"If you're having second thoughts, I'll understand."

"If you can't drive a full lap around the building without slamming on the brakes and then parallel park between those two posts over there..." She points back behind her to a wide space of gray. "I get my morning coffee free for a month, because, you know, you'll be paying for it." She gives him a shrug. Mirroring the tiny bursts of swaying she's doing...fetchingly...he inches closer to her.

"And if I can?" he whispers down to her throat, watching her eyelashes flutter, her blush deepening.

"What did you have in mind?" she whispers back, voice growing huskier by the second. He fingers the hem of her jacket and tugs her even closer at a lazy pace.

"I can claim it at a later time." He won't win this game he's started; he knows that much. When Swan wants to be seductive, she rocks her hips a certain way, lets her hair slide down in front of her shoulders, and...strokes his hook in a vice-like grip as she is now with her darkened eyes fixed on him in such a way he wouldn't be surprised if she's unaware she's doing it. Swallowing, he holds her gaze until she backs up and proceeds to take her time following the perimeter of the car around to the passenger seat.

Rolling his tongue inside his mouth, he glances down at the car, rather, well, how to describe it... Cute. With its yellow colored curves and domes, it doesn't quite demand to be taken seriously and here he is expected to operate it. In every way it should be inferior to a ship. With a longer exhale than he wants, he bends down and slides into the driver's seat...scrunched up against the wheel.

"You can adjust the seat," Henry tells him as his fingers roam the levers and bars just under the seat's cushioning. At last it creaks back.

"I get to get my bearings," he tells them, seeing her officious nod out of the corner of his eye. He's seen her do it countless times now, drive the key into the slotted lock that starts...something. Mimicking her movements, he turns the key forward and cracks a grin at the familiar vibrations under them.

"Good job. Now take it for a spin," she dares.

"You make it sound so impossible, love. Let's see. There's this thing here." Another lever, but the one with the letters notched above it. He needs to manhandle it into "D," apply pressure to the pedal, and they should be on their way.

"Brake."

"I'm not breaking anything."

"No, you need to have your foot on the brake when you switch gears." Her arms tense, jaw setting as if she's beginning to regret this. Brake is the one on the left. That much he knows, for the other one actually makes the thing go. He's got this. In fact, it's downright measly in comparison to the number of steps it takes to sail a ship out of the docks, releasing lines, manning the capstan, and the like. He licks his lips and closes his eyes for one brief second, knowing as soon as his foot switches to the other pedal, they'll start to move. Easy, he tells himself, remembering a few times when the sudden change jerked him forward.

They're off. They're actually off, and while he knows it's too early to laugh, a lone chuckle escapes him anyway. His hand on the wheel, he lifts his head to look out the glass partition, "windshield," rather than at the wheel itself.

"Not bad," Swan says, forcing her head to lean back and fake some relaxation. "Just, just go slow. Ease into the turns."

"You sound as though you want me to win," he says to the glass.

"I don't want it out of commission," she corrects him. "You're coming up on the corner of the building."

About to tell her he can see that, he spots her leg jutting out like it can hit another brake. That is what he should do, to maintain control, he tells himself. The car slows without too much bumpiness, good sign. Now he can make the turn. Flexing his fingers so he can tighten his grip, he whips the wheel toward the school.

Something's gone wrong. It turns and almost throws the three of them into the right side of the car.

"Jeez! What was all that about?" she blurts out.

"That's all it takes to steer the bloody thing? A helm actually makes you earn it."

"You only do it that way when you're flooring it!" Henry calls from the back, pulling himself back up into a sitting position.

"Who told you that?" Swan almost shouts at him, her eyes wide with fear as he straightens them out. Bloody hell, they're creeping up on the other corner and he's got to do it all over again.

"Grandpa. When he taught me how to drive. Killian, just push more on the gas and let the car slide for you."

"Stop telling him things!" she shouts with enough panic to alert him to, for the time being, tune the lad out and keep from crashing into the large metal fence to their left...or the building to their right. Easier this time, he thinks, holding his breath. It really takes almost no force to turn the wheel, but he supposes, in hindsight, that makes sense. With their bodies only slightly thrusting forward, he makes the turn.

"That was better," she sighs, wiping strands of her hair out of her eyes. She's still leaning forward, though, her fingertips pressing into the dashboard.

"I don't get what all the fuss is about," Henry chimes in again, and Killian isn't sure if he should heed what will come out of his mouth next or not. "Most of the time on the road you're just going in a straight line and if you start to veer, that's what the horn's for."

"Is that what it's for?" he asks her. He'd laugh at how her palm holds her falling forehead, but he should be looking through the windshield.

"That's... No, that's not what it's for."

"Don't get mad at me! I think I've seen Grandpa maybe follow the speed limit signs, like one time. I'm thinking they're more like guidelines than actual rules."

"Henry, stop talking." She's bunched her fist up to her mouth to keep from laughing.


In between bites, he glances over at Belle about to stab her fork into a stamp pad instead of her salad.

"Belle."

The fork hovers over the pad as she wakes up from her reverie and she summons a grateful smile at him. It hadn't sounded that appetizing at first, greens with broccoli, dried cranberries, "blue" cheese, strips of chicken, and diced cucumbers, but the chopped pecans and some tangy dressing drizzled over it renders it one of his favorite dishes of this world, perhaps second to the noodles with the melted cheese over it. Next to them, up on the wall, they've constructed an information board. Two days after he'd been given a second chance to live, Swan, Regina, and Henry had approached them with the idea to merge two quests, and, if his thoughts stop to linger on it, neither one promise much for him. The book had an Author. Of course it did. All books do, but this Author presumably dealt out fates that never fail to come to fruition with as much consideration as dealing out cards for a game. Regina might not ever cease in annoying him, but she differs so much now from the woman who had magicked his hook to remove one heart, and, for all her efforts, the man she loves might as well be in another world.

"I, I wouldn't dare suggest either of you owe me anything." Regina tried to address them with as much dignity and patience as she could. "But maybe we could help each other."

"We've all had to say goodbye at that town line before. I think it would be nice if someone got to say hello there for a change," Belle had told her, reaching out and taking her hand.

"Distracted?" he asks. She blushes and makes up for her dreaminess with several hearty bites, crunching the cucumbers at record speed before downing her iced tea as if it was something stronger. It had been a full week since they'd become unofficial members of this "Operation Mongoose," and the name didn't really boost either of their spirits.

"No, well, yes, I am," she says. "In fact, I should ask you—what do you think of dating?"

"Each other?" he asks with a tactless grimace.

"No! No, no, no. I, an opportunity of a sort has cropped up and..."

So someone was willing to brave the most vindictive former lover of all time to have a chance to be with Belle. Smiling, his eyes scan the library, avoiding their information board for now. As objectively as he can, he considers the potential of a beautiful, sweet, intelligent woman now not only a bonifide hero but an available one as well, and concludes that it's a wonder someone hadn't jumped at the chance earlier.

"Do you have feelings for him?"

"That's the hard part. I'm not sure. But I know I like being around him. He's funny and gentle and he's got this very frank, blunt, way of speaking that...ever since he first spoke to me, I just don't want to stop talking to him." She bites her lip and twirls her fork, shuffling around some of the crumbly cheese. "It feels natural, and then I stop to think—I've never actually been courted this, this way before."

"It's not quite a thing you can be too old for, and that's coming from me. You're in your what? Upper fifties?" Leaning forward, he grins and stuffs his mouth with another bite. A thought hits him, or, rather, a notion of having been here with all of them from the beginning, being swept up in a curse that would have deprived him of his memories but implanted new ones. Misery might have been part and parcel of the whole ordeal, but he remembers time restarting—how his heart and blood had surged, the adrenaline fearing all of him would regress back into hibernation so it worked as if every second was its last. To be here, under the curse's restrictions but also free of his past, would things have been better? Would he have wasted so much time on revenge that he would have passed Swan on the street and not bothered with a backward glance?

"Who is he?" he finds himself asking.

"I think I'd rather keep things on the down low for now, sorry," she says in an uneven tone, tilting her head at the awkwardness of it. But thinking of her admirer clearly leaves her in a daze, so he'll lighten her embarrassment a little.

"Not boast-worthy. I understand. Not everyone has Emma's taste."

The back of her hand shoots up to her mouth to avoid spitting out her gulp of water.


He welcomes the onslaught of information tonight, the bombardment of baked onion rings not being as delectable as fried ones but still better than fries, that this mixture he's stirring of flour, buttermilk, salt, and pepper will go well with the cayenne and crushed "chips" Swan has in another bowl as she prepares the oven. Not prepares, he reminds himself. Preheats. At least the scent of the onions isn't as potent. The rest of the ingredients, along with Snow's vanilla candle behind them on the island counter and Henry's pine-scented attire after a "field trip" to the forest, have pushed out that smell and replaced it with more pleasant ones.

"Hang on. I've just put all the rings on the sheet," Swan says, doubling back to her station to readjust her arrangement. Finally satisfied with it, she checks the mixture over his shoulder. He holds his breath at how the entire right side of his face heats up at her proximity, but she moves and gathers the rest of the flour into a transparent sack.

"What's that for?" he asks.

"You put the onions in the flour, then you coat them with what you've got there, and then roll them around in the chips and the cayenne before you bake them. It's pretty easy." Taking one all-too-brief second to lay her head on his shoulder blade, she perks back up and turns around. "Hey, kid. Is that about ready?"

Henry lays across the sofa with his feet dangling over the arm, and Killian can scarcely blame him. The lad had come home with his backpack filled to the brim with books and folders, the bulk of it being geometrical proofs. He'd guessed a long time ago he was more adept at those kinds of puzzles than Henry and tonight had confirmed it, the two of them sitting at the table with their heads in their hands as they sorted through each of them. That had been when David and Snow had the baby and all his equipment ready for their dinner with Aurora and her husband. When they'd finished, Henry had staggered to the sofa and collapsed into it. However, his mother had told him to prepare the Netflix for "Star..." Bloody hell, what was it called?

"Don't those things have to bake for twenty minutes? Why do I have to get Episode Four up now?" he calls back to her with a muffled voice. A quick peek over the counter reveals it's because he's buried half his face into the cushion.

"Episode Four?" He turns back around to see Swan already dipping the onions in the makeshift breading. "Don't I have to see the three before it first?"

"Those do not exist!" Henry shouts with some vehemence in his tone.

"Uh, this is the one most people see first. Trust me. I think you're going to turn out to be a Star Wars fan."

Following her lead, he coats the onions and places them back on the tray, his arm against hers. The two of them in a kitchen, not even making a meal together but a snack to make this Netflixing even more enjoyable... To think how far away something like this felt last year...

"I should have come here when the first Dark Curse was cast," he says to the rings on the cooking sheet. She gives him a quizzical eyebrow as she picks up the sheet and slides it into the oven. Her brow furrows as she sets the timer.

"Why?"

"I could have started some kind of life for myself." She tugs on the belt loops on his trousers, luring him closer and looking up at him until her chin is almost in his throat.

"You would have been miserable."

"I already was, and you know what they say, a change is as good as a rest." Something inside him flies into a jittery frenzy at his arm snaking around her waist so his hand can hold the small of her back, but so far he maintains control, so long as he doesn't start staring at her lips...damn.

"Yeah, but the way the curse worked, you would have been given all these hints at your real life, but it would have been twisted around so you're not happy. Like...you might still have had a bo—ship, and might have gone out finding things with it. But then you would have had to turn around and give it all to Gold or something like that." Blinking the name away, her hand grazes its way up his torso and settles over his heart. She clenches her fingers and pulls away from it, choosing to rub his back instead.

"Would I have gotten to see you?" he murmurs, the rest of the room starting to fade from view, and he can feel how high the question has raised her temperature. The heat and the hazy background create a thrumming sensation in his head.

"Well, I would have still been the sheriff and you and Gold both attract a lot of law enforcement-related attention, so yeah." She brushes his lips so quickly her taste doesn't even linger. "And you also have to keep in mind, Gold remembered before everyone else. He and Regina and just a couple of others knew about the curse before it was broken, and I'd say it would have been amazingly out-of-character for him to not use that to his advantage and make you even less happy than you already were."

Aye. Aye, it's bad form to jump to the conclusion that a change is better just because it's different. He'd probably have made all the same wrong choices here that he made in the Enchanted Forest. He'd have gone after the Dark One the second he'd been given his memories back, but if he had seen her first...if they'd had a chance to talk and spend time together without his vengeance looming over their heads...

"I'd daresay you're right, Swan, but you're leaving out a key factor."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Coy Swan. He can't resist that. He answers by pulling her right into him for a kiss. Ever since she'd put his heart back where it belonged, he's found restraint more and more repellant. His hand fumbles with the hem of her shirt so he can feel the burning heat of her bare back. She shivers, a full body shiver, opening her mouth wider and pushing off his jacket at the same time.

"Hey, you want me to go ahead and start it—oh jeez! There are children present!" Henry screeches at them, plopping back down into the sofa to avert his eyes.

They sigh into one another, the same old story. Whenever she's at her most inviting, someone or something interrupts, even in this new tranquility he has to tell himself daily is not merely the eye of the storm.

"I am browsing apartment ads," she mutters, her tongue flicking out to lap up his taste on her lip.

"Promises, promises," he whispers into her ear, the aroma of the onion rings imbuing the air around them, and, in perfect rhythm with her shallow breaths, the light above them flickers on and off.


A/N: Coming up? Some close calls in those missing six weeks...