Chapter 2: The Airport

A/N. Thank you, Travelg and Scifigrl10, for the faves! In this chapter, Mr. Gold travels in high style.

"Pull over here."

"Pardon me?" His ears are still ringing from his companions' impromptu concert of the past hour—their full repertoire consisting of an off-key and lyrically incorrect version of "Call Me Maybe" (he's embarrassed that he even knows they got the lyrics wrong). So he's in no mood to be challenged; his polite "pardon me?" is not a request for repetition of an unheard statement, but rather an implied warning: are you quite sure you want to provoke me?

She does. Blithely she repeats, "Pull over. We'll be in Boston in another 30 miles, so I'm driving."

"Indeed not—"

"Look, Gold, I promise to handle your car like it's a newborn in a bassinette, okay? It just makes sense for me to drive. Look at you: you're hunched over that steering wheel like a sixteen-year-old with his first hangover riding the porcelain throne. And we haven't even got into the real traffic yet. By the time we get into town, it'll be rush hour—and believe me, in Boston, rush hour isn't just the name of a Jackie Chan movie. For my kid's safety, I'm driving. Besides, I know where we're going; I grew up here; and you don't have a GPS system."

"What is this 'GPS' you people keep on about," he mutters. "Sounds like a social disease." But he ignores her command and keeps on driving, white-knuckling it as a sixteen wheeler suddenly looms large in his rear view mirror and he can't change lanes because he's boxed in between SUVs on a six-lane highway. The trucker blares his horn and Gold jumps in his seat, banging his knee on the dash.

In a warning of her own, Emma hisses, "Gold. . . ."

In a move of utter faith and hope, he swings the Caddy into the right lane, earning an angry honk from a soccer mom in the SUV he's cut off. Henry glances back at them and observes longingly, "Hey, they've got a TV in the back seat."

In another mile Gold manages to slide the Caddy over another lane, between a Dodge Ram and a Toyota. The Dodge suddenly hits his brakes and Gold has to swerve to avoid hitting him. A string of curse words that would make a sailor blush issues from Gold as he guns his engine and weaves across three more lanes to take the next exit and pull into a 7-11. His hands are steady on the wheel, but as he slams the transmission into park, Emma notices his knees are shaking, and when he pushes his door open, he has to hang onto the seat to get to his shaky feet. He takes in a deep breath of cold air and releases it, then says oh-so-smoothly, "Perhaps you would like to take the wheel for a while, Ms. Swan."

"Pit stop!" Henry crows, and before anyone can tell him otherwise, he flings the back door open and dashes inside. "Sorry," Emma apologizes. "Guess he needed to use the john."

"That probably wouldn't be such a bad idea," Gold says, his hand protecting his belly. "When that large truck blasted its horn. . . ." he leaves his sentence unfinished and scurries into the convenience store to vanish into the restroom.

They're waiting for him, leaning against the bonnet, when he returns. He doesn't chastise them for the armload of junk food with which they've littered his backseat, though he is horrified to see a boat of nachos swimming in melted cheese teetering precariously on the edge of the seat. He counts no less than six kinds of candy, all of it either the melting kind or the sticky kind, among the bags of chips and the cans of sodas. He closes his eyes briefly as the odor of hot dogs smothered in onions greets him when he opens the passenger-side door. Ah, well, he'll have Dove deodorize the car when they get back home (Storybrooke, home? Egads. But that's where Belle is, so yes, Storybrooke is home.)

"You okay, Mr. Gold?" Henry stuffs a Dorito into his mouth as he peers up at the man who, Emma wonders, may be his grandfather.

"Good lad, Henry," Gold murmurs as he pats the boy's shoulder. He reaches into the little plastic bag bearing his own purchases and rips open a box of Digel. Popping four of them into his mouth, he settles his aching body into the passenger seat, wordlessly hands the keys to Emma, then eases his head against the headrest.

"Get in, Henry. Don't make a mess." Emma slides behind the wheel, adjusts the seat and the mirrors—and snaps the radio on to something loud and raucous and slightly obscene.

With a groan Gold closes his eyes. He keeps them closed as Emma darts in and out of traffic; he can't bear to watch.

"You decent, Gold?"

"I haven't been 'decent' in 150 years. But if you're asking whether I'm fully attired, the answer is yes."

The door joining his room to theirs swings open and they're standing there, framed, their faces freshly scrubbed, their hair combed, looking like they're ready to have a family portrait taken. He is seated in an armchair, staring at the TV; it's turned off. He has one shoe on, one off, his hair's askew, and his tie is crooked.

Henry bounds in and lands on Gold's bed, bouncing up and down. He spent yesterday crammed into a backseat and needs to burn off some energy. "Hey, Mr. Gold!"

"Henry," Gold acknowledges. He's still staring at the TV.

"You ready for breakfast?" Emma asks.

Before Gold can answer, Henry says, "This place is cool. Did you look around? There's a gym, a swimming pool, a restaurant with a fireplace. I've never been to a hotel before. We went looking around last night. What did you do?"

"Oh, I stayed in, watched a movie."

"We did too! We saw Brave. What did you see?"

Gold casts a meaningful glance at Emma. "Flight. And after that I couldn't sleep so I watched the late show: Airport. And after that the late late show: Snakes on a Plane."

"Oooh," Emma says. "Henry, why don't you go on downstairs and get us a table in the restaurant. We'll be right down."

Henry trots off. They watch him go, then Emma moves to the Louis Vuitton, which lies open on a stool meant for that purpose; she finds his hairbrush and goes to work on his cowlick. The strange part is, he permits it.

"You gonna be okay today?"

"Of course," he says too quickly.

"You didn't sleep last night, did you?" He doesn't answer, so she continues, "You know those weren't documentaries you watched last night, right? Every day, 2500 flights take off from airports all around the U. S. And every day, 2499 of them get to their destination without any incident whatsoever. You know that, right? Odds are better that you'll get hit on the head by a meteor than—you know."

"Meteorite," he corrects.

"Huh?"

"Meteorite is the term for a piece of a meteor that hits you on the head. It's a meteor when it's still in the sky."

"Whatever." She inspects her handiwork and tosses the hairbrush back into his suitcase, then straightens his tie. "Put your shoe on." She begins sorting through the stuff in the suitcase.

"What are you doing?" he starts to protest, but she puts up a "talk to the hand" hand.

"You're gonna leave most of this in the car: the jackets, the ties, the vests." Clothes are flying now, some of them onto the bed, some of them onto the floor.

He yelps and rescues the clothes from the floor, smoothing them tenderly, like a father would soothe a roughed-up child. "Waistcoats," he corrects in a murmur. "Do you realize, Sheriff, just one of those three-piece suits costs five grand?"

She clicks her tongue. "They're going into the trunk of your car, where they'll wait patiently for Daddy to come home. You'll take what can be fit into a carry-on. I'm not waiting at the baggage check for an hour just so you can wear your three-piece suits."

A third pile is building at her feet and he stares helplessly as it grows larger. "My toothpaste, cologne, shaving cream, razors—what are you doing now, Ms. Swan?"

"Those go in the trunk of your car too."

"But I need those things!"

"We're staying at the freakin' Ritz, Gold. They will provide. You can't get any of this through the security check."

"What?"

"Contraband. Every bit of it."

"Since when did shaving cream become a controlled substance?"

She grins at him. "Not illegal, Gold, just not permitted in your carry-on. Because you might be a terrorist."

"And I might take the pilot hostage with a tube of toothpaste." She gives him a suspicious look and he admits, "Well, yes, I could, but how much harm could the average man do with Colgate?"

"It goes, Gold; it all goes." She pats his arm in sympathy as he mourns the loss of his hygiene products. "Never knew you were so attached to your toothpaste."

"Back in the old country, I had a bit of a dental problem. Besides, I don't want to meet my son looking like a slob," he complains.

"Gold, you could walk through a car wash during a hurricane and you'd still look put-together. Now come on, get your shoe on."

He sits down on the edge of the bed—which, she notices, he's made, with tight army corners—and pulls his shoe on.

"What's this?" she finds a wooden box and opens it to display a pair of small bottles containing a blue liquid.

"Retrieval potion," he says, "I can't find Bae without it."

She stands with her hands on her hips, thinking, then gets an idea. "Okay. Use a little hocus-pocus to slap labels on 'em: Clark's Pharmacy, and the address and phone number, and then your name, and then Nameda. Got that? N-a-m-e-n-d-a."

"Which is?"

"It's a kind of medication I read about in the Boston Globe this morning. If anybody asks, you've got early stage Alzheimer's, okay?"

"And that is?"

She gives him a strange look. "A disease that affects the memory." For just a moment his eyes light up, but Emma has to squealch his hopes. "No, nothing like what happened to Belle."

He nods and resumes tying his shoe, and she resumes her ravaging of his luggage.

"Ah ha!" She reaches into her jacket for her phone and after ascertaining that he's preoccupied with his shoe, she sneaks a quick photo of certain neatly folded articles of clothing in his suitcase.

"'Ah ha' what?" he has the shoe on now and ties the lace. After inspecting it, he's dissatisfied with the unsymmetrical bows he's made, so he starts over.

"I win the other pot. You're a briefs man." She waves a pair of his black shorts over her head. "Ruby bet me double or nothing it was boxers."

"Is nothing sacred in your world?" he sighs tiredly. "Ms. Swan, kindly refrain from manhandling my undergarments."

She guffaws as she finishes her sorting. There is now a sad little pile of shirts, slacks, and socks that she sets onto the bed; everything else gets dumped into the Louis. "We'll stop by the hotel gift shop after breakfast, pick you up a regulation-size carry-on bag." Snapping the suitcase shut, she brushes off her hands dismissively. "There. Ready for breakfast?"

He nods and reaches for his cane. As they leave the room, he shuts the light off, and as he shuts the door behind him, she notices the dark circles under his eyes. "Nervous about the flight or about Bae?"

"Not nervous, no." He fumbles with the electronic key, then examines it. "How can this possibly be called a key?"

"It'll be okay." She shakes her head. "It won't be easy, but it'll be okay. Now, how about a big old plate of biscuits and gravy with a slab of ham?"

"How unexpected. Haut cuisine at an airport hotel. Ms. Swan?"

"Yes, Mr. Gold?"

"Those statistics you cited earlier, about airplanes-?"

"Yeah," she says slowly. "I made them up."

He glances back longingly at the door as he follows her down the carpeted hallway. "Can't I at least keep the mouthwash?"

"We'll get you a roll of Certs."

As they approach the airport, the temperature inside the car seems to drop, growing downright chill in the area of the passenger seat. Henry gives up his attempts to pry a word out of Gold and instead watches the sky, the huge steel birds lifting their long noses, then their long, shiny bodies into the air. "Cool," he breathes.

Gold pretends to be concentrating on the road, but out of the corner of his eye he's watching the sky too. A whisper of agreement escapes him: "Cool." And then he turns his attention to the terminals, four of them, each one the size of the Storybrooke Library and the City Hall put together. His eyes dart back and forth and a frown forms between them, deepening as Emma swings the Caddy into a space in Long-Term Parking. She tosses the keys to Henry, who unlocks the trunk, and as he's removing their three carry-ons, she takes a picture with her phone. "So we don't have memorize the space number," she says, showing Gold the picture.

A little of the tension goes out of his shoulders. He's lost here, but she's not; he'll follow her, all the while pretending he's walking beside her, just as sure of where they're going as she is. He takes his new travel bag from Henry, and in an entirely coincidental imitation of the boy, he slings the bag casually over his left shoulder. He gives one last longing glance for the Louis Vuitton before Henry closes the trunk and hands him the keys.

But Emma doesn't lead them to any of the long buildings in the distance; she leads them to a little plexiglass-walled shelter, where they join a crowd other people, some of whom are in business suits. Gold secretly appraises the suits and, though he's in a coat and his own Hugo Boss three-piece isn't visible, he stands a little taller in the knowledge that what he's wearing can compete and win in this environment.

A pint-sized bus arrives and they all climb on—and then the trouble begins.

Every seat is filled and still people keep climbing on every time the bus stops at another shelter. A pair of little old nuns board with their suitcases on wheels; Henry leaps to his feet to offer his seat to one of the nuns. Gold's expression darkens. He's struggling with his values: his strict adherence to old-world courtesy. . . and his absolute determination to take every opportunity to punish every nun, out of loyalty to Bae. Emma and Henry, hanging onto the ceiling straps, sway over him; they say nothing, because after all, he does have a bit of a disability and therefore he has a right to a seat. The bus lurches forward and the standing nun stumbles, and that tears it: Gold growls deep in his throat and, leaning on his cane, hauls himself to his feet. "Please be seated," he mutters—and then rips the hated word from his tongue: "sister." He takes the nun's elbow and assists her in lowering herself to the seat.

As the bus pulls up to one of the buildings, a chime rings and a computer voice rattles off a bunch of names and some of the riders spill out. Gold is bumped into, his cane is knocked out of his hand, and his carefully polished shoes are stepped on before the bus lurches forward again. When it stops, Henry announces, "This is it!" even before the computer does. Gold struggles to keep his balance as he follows the lad and Emma off the bus. He wants to ask how Henry knew they should get off here, but that would be revealing ignorance. The crowd sweeps them inside the terminal.

Gold's mouth drops open. He's just walked into Chaos, or a modern interpretation of it. He should know: he vacationed on Chaos, a little island just off the West Highlands, one summer, the year after he'd become the Dark One. Emma grabs his arm and tugs. "Over here. Get your driver's license out." As she leads her guys to a long snaky line of passengers, she yanks her phone and her driver's license from her jeans. She shows both to the grim individual in a uniform and he flashes some sort of blue light onto them before returning them. "Show him your driver's license," she urges Gold.

"Am I driving somewhere?" he puzzles, but opens his wallet.

"You have to take it out," Mr. Grim sounds utterly bored.

"What?" Gold glances at Emma and hisses, "Is that some sort of crude remark?"

"Your driver's license," Emma explains. "Hand it to him."

Gold obeys, his license is scanned and returned to him, and Emma pulls on his arm to get him to move forward.

"What was that about?" But before he can complete the question, they're herded into another line. Gold gapes in horror as he watches hundreds of people, all of them strangers, begin to strip, very matter-of-factly yanking off shoes, coats, suit jackets, sweaters, belts, watches, bracelets and necklaces, and willingly they surrender all these items into little gray plastic bins, which they then place on a moving roller belt.

"What is this public strip-tease?" Gold gasps. He watches the bins trundle along until they disappear inside a metal box. "Sheriff, shouldn't you do something? They're stealing these people's clothes!"

"Shhh, Mr. Gold, don't attract attention," Emma hushes him—and to his continuing shock, she and Henry too begin to strip and dump their clothes into bins. " You too, Mr. Gold; take 'em off."

"I beg your pardon!" He clutches his coat, lest one of these crazies tries to steal it off his back.

"Take 'em off and put them in a bin," Emma reiterates. She's removing her swan necklace and her sheriff's badge.

"Here?" Gold's eyebrows shoot up. "Emma, I'm flattered and somewhat intrigued, but I must remind you, I'm in a committed relationship, even if she doesn't remember my name and shrieks in terror whenever I enter her room. Besides, there are children present."

She bursts out laughing and turns her back on him momentarily to empty her pockets of coins and keys. She swallows her laugh, though, when she glances back at him to find he's unzipping his fly. "Gold!"

The horrors are far from over even after Emma educates him on the public strip tease. His trousers rezipped, Gold falls into line between Henry and Emma, the former leading by example, the latter whispering instructions into his ear. Another bored uniform orders him to surrender his cane, and with gritted teeth he raises it; he's in mid-mutter ("Oh, I'll give you my cane, all right, right up your—") when Emma kicks his good ankle and urges, "Just put your cane up there on the conveyor belt."

"And how, pray tell, shall I walk without it?"

"Lean on me," Henry appears at his side.

That takes some of the steam out of his indignity. He sets a hand on Henry's shoulder and the boy takes a little of the man's weight. "Thank you, Henry." They move forward a couple of yards.

Now they've come to some sort of tiny circular room. He wonders if it's a changing room in which they may re-dress, but their surrendered clothes have disappeared into the abyss and besides, the little room is open on two sides. "I got to go inside," Henry says. "I'll meet you on the other side."

Henry enters the little room. A uniform orders him to stand spread-eagle; there's a flash of light, then the uniform permits Henry to exit the little room and collect his clothes, which the metal box has spit out. Henry re-dresses and smiles encouragingly to Gold. "It's okay, Mr. Gold."

"You're holding up the line, buddy," someone complains, and a uniform orders Gold to enter the little room. Gold attempts to do so, but he stumbles; Emma breaks his fall and explains to the uniform, "He needs help. He can't walk without his cane."

The uniform comes at Gold with a wand. He raises a warning finger. "Back away, fairy, or you shall taste the wrath of—"

"He's, uh, it's his Alzheimer's, you know?" Emma pleads as she sees two other uniforms start forward, their hands on their handcuffs. "Sometimes he thinks he's in a magical kingdom. Give him a minute and he'll be okay."

"We'll do the pat-down," the first uniform says, a twinge of sympathy in her voice. She sets the wand aside. "Hold your arms out and stand with your feet apart."

His face reddening, Gold complies—until the uniform places her gloved hands on his inner thigh. "Madam, you will unhand my person immediately or I shall find my cane and do to you what you are attempting to do to me."

As Emma slaps her palm to her face, the crowd behind them bursts out in applause.

An hour later, they're standing awkwardly in a cramped office. They've missed their flight, of course, and quite a crowd of uniforms has gathered in the small space to deliberate Gold's fate. Emma produces her badge every time someone new enters the room. "You must understand, he's never flown before and he's been having a bad reaction to the new medication he's on for his Alzheimer's," she keeps saying. She's lying through her teeth but she does it so sweetly. Gold's record comes up squeaky clean, and between his puppy-dog eyes and his cane and his impeccable manners and attire, he's built a small fan base for himself among the lady uniforms. With Sheriff Swan's vow to provide better preparation next time for her aging friend, they are finally released.

"What do we do now?" Henry asks as he leans against the Caddy.

"We could drive," Emma suggests. "It's only about four hours." She runs her hands through her hair as if trying to wipe away the horrible memory of their airport experience.

Gold stands straight-backed on the concrete, watching the little buses roll by, watching the steel birds take off. His hands are folded atop his cane, giving the illusion of serenity. "I believe we've had enough of this world's transportation woes for one day," he says. He snaps his fingers and his Louis Vuitton suitcase appears at his side. "Lady and gentleman, you will not be required to remove your clothing or surrender your toothpaste. You need not fasten your seat belt nor place anything in an upright position. Our flight time will be just under thirty seconds. Thank you for flying Air Rumple."

He waves a hand elegantly and they and the Caddy vanish.