This month's prompt: "You have a lot of nerve saying 'Hello' like nothing happened." Archie gambles on a risky final exercise, with results he's not fully prepared for.

Archie had a secret. Not a very big one, certainly in comparison to the secrets unacknowledged in this very room, let alone in this town, but just the same, he'd prefer these people didn't find out. He didn't want them to lose confidence in him. So he tucked the two legal pads he'd been carrying under his arm, hooked his hands into his jeans pockets to hide the fingernails he'd bitten to the quick just now and plastering on an easy-going smile, he strolled into the game room.

Hook quirked an eyebrow and gave him a bit of a nod, but Emma, scowling at a trio of playing cards spread out before her, didn't break her concentration. Archie supposed he couldn't blame her: judging by the cards facing up, she had a difficult decision to make. He leaned in the entrance, allowing her to make it undisturbed; he hazarded a guess as to what her choice would be. She sucked in a breath and announced her decision: "Hit me." It was the choice Archie expected: she was an all-in kind of woman.

Hook lay a Jack atop her exposed cards. Groaning, she pushed back from the card table. "That's three you owe me, love." Hook winked at her. "I promise not to collect all at once."

Archie sauntered over to the table and peered down at the game-breaking Jack. "What were the stakes?"

"You don't want to know." Emma flicked the air, knocking the topic aside.

Hook shifted a bit in his chair so he could face both his companions at the same time. "Did all go well with my future in-laws, Doctor?"

Emma gave his shoulder a shove. "You know he can't talk about that. Confidentiality."

"That's correct. As agreed, this particular exercise is a private one. And entirely voluntary." Archie distracted them from his wavering smile by seating himself across from them. He took a moment, seemingly to admire the spacious room with its many entertainment offerings, ranging from the traditional—a chess game set up in the quietest corner, an unfinished jigsaw puzzle taking up a dining table near the entrance, mahjong near the fireplace and pachisi at the windows—to, anachronistically, an X-box at the other end of the room. "It seems Merlin had wide-ranging interests," he mused, and Hook murmured in the affirmative, but Emma pursed her lips slightly. He'd failed to take her in with his casual act. He supposed there would be no actual harm in revealing to her the reason for his discomfort—as close as mother and daughter had grown, Snow would probably tell Emma all anyway at lunch—but he'd laid down the confidentiality rule at the beginning of this exercise, so he needed to stick to it.

Besides, he expected to have to use it pretty quick.

Hook threw a glance over his shoulder at a miniature grandfather clock on the mantle. "This exercise must be a short one," he estimated. "You were with David and Snow less than an hour."

Truthfully, he'd been with David and Snow less than a half-hour, but after that, he'd retired to his bedroom to think—and chew his nails. Not that the exercise had gone badly—quite the opposite. It had turned out far better, he supposed, than he had prepared for. He'd kind of counted on his time with the Nolans as a chance for trial-and-error, to expose in a smaller and less dangerous way whatever bugs there were in the process, so he could fix them before he proceeded to the other two couples. The Nolans' exercise had taught him something, true, but most likely not something he could apply here.

"Well, then, shall we proceed?" He emboldened his smile.

"We're not going to get anything out of you about what David and Snow did, are we?" Hook surmised.

"Be glad of it," Emma tossed at her fiance. "He'll keep our secrets too."

Hook shrugged. "I was hoping to have some basis of comparison."

"So you could figure out how to win this round."

"It's not a contest," Archie reminded them as he pressed a key on his phone. "None of these exercises are. There's no right answer, no points to be assessed. That said, let's review the rules. Rule one-"

Emma counted it off on her forefinger. "Everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

Hook supplied the next. "Tell the truth or keep your mouth shut. No pressure to participate."

"We gotcha, Arch. Let's hear the details."

A clattering in the hallway drew their attention. Using this distraction, Archie set the legal pads and a clutch of pencils in front of his clients, then hid his chewed fingernails under the poker table. "Just in time," Archie stood as Ruby rolled in a chalkboard. "Thank you, Ruby."

The waitress reached into her apron pocket for a box of chalk. "Here you go, Archie." The box was unopened; he hadn't had call to use the chalk during his time with the Nolans. "Lunch is in the stove. Ring me about ten minutes before you want it served."

"Sounds good."

She paused on her way out to inform Emma, "Grilled cheese and tomato soup."

"Thanks, Rubes."

After she'd gone, Archie moved over to the chalkboard. "Shall we proceed? Remember, after you hear what this exercise is about, you can say no. I have to admit, it could be risky. And this is only my second go-round with it."

"Ah ha," Hook snapped his fingers. "That means the Nolans blew it."

"Not at all," Archie snapped. Then he straightened his shoulders and selected a stick of chalk from the box. "The exercise works like this. I'll be posing a question. Well, an incomplete scenario, really. You'll fill in the missing dialog. And then we'll discuss ways that each couple can release those negative feelings and prevent them from returning."

"An all-day exercise, huh?" Hook wondered. "For most couples."

"It can certainly feel like it," Archie admitted. "You'll be emotionally drained and physically worn out by the end, but I think you'll sleep very well tonight, with your consciences clear. And we'll be taking a big step forward for the future."

Emma smiled at him encouragingly. "It sounds worth a risk."

"I'm putting up a sentence. . . a prompt. . . .I want you to read it, then think about it as it applies to your relationship. Take your time; think it through. In every relationship, no matter how close, no matter how loving, there are situations that never get dealt with. Perceived slights, unintentional insults, ill-phrased remarks that lead to hurt, and if the hurt isn't dealt with, it can grow into resentment. Bitter feelings that are never brought out to the light and discussed in a calm, healing way can become time bombs that explode when neither of you is equipped to cope."

Emma nodded, looking down at the pencils. "Sometimes when there's no chance to say you're sorry or that you forgive the other person." Archie suspected she was thinking of Neal.

"That's what I hope to accomplish here. If there are such time bombs in your relationship, to deal with one of them now, while we can focus on it and not muddle it up with other issues. I hope to teach you tools that you can use when you're out there, on your own."

"In the real world," Emma muttered. "With the Tamaras and the Gregs and the Zelenas that steal people away from you."

"So: read the sentence, think about it. Take all the time you need. Then on those pads, I want you to write out how you could finish the sentence." He raised his hands in a halt gesture. There was no hiding his broken nails now, but perhaps they wouldn't notice once he began to write on the chalkboard. "Again, if you find this becomes too uncomfortable, even painful, you can end the exercise at any time."

"And then what, Doc?" Hook wondered.

"We'll talk about something else. Something relevant but less dangerous." He turned his back to them and began to write. "But I'd appreciate it if you'd start this and see if you can continue."

The couple read the sentence aloud together: "'You have a lot of nerve saying "Hello" like nothing happened.'"

"Okay, so we're going to use that as a conversation starter," Hook affirmed, but his mouth fell open as his fiancee grabbed a pencil, hunched her shoulders and immediately began to write on her yellow pad. "Or, more like an argument starter."

"Don't think of it that way." Archie couldn't help himself: his thumb flew into his mouth and he began gnawing on the remainder of a fingernail as he too watched Emma scrawl sentence after sentence. "Think of it as a chance to fix things before they get irretrievably broken."

Hook tore his eyes away from Emma's flying pencil back to the chalkboard and he silently mouthed the prompt.

A crinkling of paper as Emma flipped to a second page.

With a long sigh, Hook picked up a pencil. He stared at his empty pad. He stared at the board. He stared at Emma again, trying to peer over her shoulder, until Archie cleared his throat in warning and Hook returned his attention to the chalkboard. Eventually he wrote a single word. He stared at it.

"There's no rush," Archie whispered to him. "It's more important that you put a lot of thought in this."

Hook's forehead wrinkled as Emma turned another page. "Uh, you did say, just one scenario, right?"

"Just one."

"I write big," Emma sniffed.

Hook stared at his single word again. He bit the eraser. His frown smoothed out and his eyes glazed over as he submerged himself in memories. Slowly, a second word appeared on his page, then a third, then a full sentence. His head bowed as he centered himself on the words.

Quietly, Archie wandered away from the chalkboard to look out a window. His heart was pounding in his chest with both hope and dread. Behind him he heard pages crinkling and chairs scraping. At least, this time the exercise was producing some results.

Well, perhaps, the experiment with the Nolans had, too. He'd settled them in the never-used nursery ("Why do you suppose Merlin would want a nursery? He never had any children, did he?" Snow had wondered.), where he thought they'd feel most at home, and with a chalkboard behind them and yellow pads before them to remind Snow of school, he'd explained the project. After fifteen minutes of blank stares, Snow had tossed her pencil aside and David had shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Arch, I've got nothin'."

"Nothing?" Archie had echoed. He'd imagined all sorts of outcomes, but not this one.

"For me either," Snow had admitted.

"Something he did that upset you. Something that took a lot of nerve-Something he should have known better—something that he did know better, but he did it anyway," Archie had urged. "Every couple has them. Violations that, left unspoken, can build into resentments."

"That's just it, Arch," David had volunteered. "Yeah, we have 'em; of course we do. Small crap like leaving the cap off the toothpaste-"

"Dirty dishes in the sink-"

"Dirty diapers in the kitchen garbage pail-"

"And bigger stuff. Yeah, we've been through a hell of a lot of stuff that could've broke us up. Sleeping curses. Curses on the town line. Memory loss."

"Our grandson being kidnapped. Finding out we have a grandson, at age thirty," Snow had blinked. "Finding out we have a daughter as old as we are."

"Finding out we belong in another realm. In another life."

"That we're the rulers of a kingdom of two thousand people who are waiting for us to figure out what to do. And that we have magical enemies crawling out of the woodwork. Dragons and giants and abominable snowmen."

"There have no doubt been moments when each of you did something that the other resented-"

"Sure," David had stared at his hands in guilt. "I was a coward with Katherine. I knew what was the right thing to do and I didn't do it. And I made it a hundred times worse when I didn't stand up for Mary Margaret against that fake murder charge." He grasped Snow's hands. "I was a jerk and a coward and I'm sorry."

"We talked it out, though. And I know that coward wasn't really you. And when I went against what we'd decided together about Cora, and I cursed her and killed her, I was wrong and I paid the price for it. I should have listened to you. I'll never again chase after revenge."

"Me neither," David had confessed. "I went against your advice and chased after my father's killer, and look how that turned out. But that was the last time, I promise."

"It was, Archie," Snow had explained. "We learned our lesson. We're so much better as a team than we are apart. We make each other better. Keep each other from falling off the edge into the dark. We know that now. We respect what we have together."

"And we take care of our marriage. We talk things out. We apologize."

"We forgive and move on. We don't let resentments grow." Snow had pushed her legal pad away. "So no, Archie, there's nothing for me to write."

David had done the same. "Me neither."

After a long silence, Archie had gathered up the empty legal pads. "Snow, David, I'm happy to say, you have no need for this exercise. Perhaps all you really need today is just some peace and quiet together."

Snow had linked her arm through her husband's. "Do you know what I really want right now? Beyond the garden there, I saw the North Woods. I'd like to go for a long walk."

"Just us," David had agreed. They had stood up together. "If you're through with us, Archie?"

"I think a walk in the woods is exactly the right prescription."

"We'll come back when we get hungry."

"I think we're finished," Emma brought Archie back to the present.

He turned to find that while Hook had completed half a page in his small, sharp handwriting, Emma had worn down three pencils and filled her notebook with her large loops.

"Very good." Archie came away from the window and seated himself at the poker table. "Captain, suppose we start with you."

Plucking at his beard nervously, Hook read from his notes: "Okay. Now don't be pissy, Emma, right? We're uncovering the jetsam. So. . . . 'You have a lot of nerve saying "Hello" like nothing happened.' Like you didn't make me a Dark One and try to hide it from me by taking away my memories-"

Oh yes. Archie folded his hands as he listened, not only to each word, but to each word choice. Yes, there was work to do here.

And that was another of his secrets: Archie needed to be needed.

Lunch was three hours late. By the time Archie came round to the library to fetch them, Belle and Gold were both deep into books, hers Undaunted Courage and his Team of Rivals. They were sharing a couch, her bare feet propped in his lap, his hand resting idly on her ankle. When Archie interrupted them, Belle was about to sit up and point out to Gold a quotation in her book. They both looked a bit annoyed initially at the interruption, but their expressions soon softened. With his damp hair clinging to his forehead and the creases lining his eyes, Archie suspected he looked tired. Well, he should: he'd earned it. But he was also holding his chin up in pride (and relief) that his experiment had proven successful: downstairs, in the chandeliered dining room, at the twelve-seat mahogany table, Emma and Hook sat side by side, just as drained as Archie, but still talking to each other. Fortunately, as he led the Golds into the dining room, Hook and Emma weren't talking about anything intimate or consequential.

Ruby was placing the last of the platters onto the dining table. By her suggestion, they would be eating family style, passing dishes back and forth and serving themselves. This egalitarian approach, along with the hearty American fare, would somewhat counteract the formality of the furniture. "Snow and Charming won't be joining you," Ruby said. "They packed a picnic."

With the Golds on one side of the table and the Swan-Joneses on the other side, Archie felt a bit squeezed in the middle of this huge table, but after some fortification from soup and salad, he felt sufficiently revived to attempt to create a conversation between the opposing forces. "So, Belle, what plans do you have for the library? I heard something about new computers?"

Emma's ears perked up at this news. "Good idea. Those PCs you have now are no better than Apple II-E's."

"I'm planning a fundraiser for the computers. I hope to buy ten for the public, plus one for a catalog and one for the circ desk," Belle was squirting ketchup onto her sandwich. "So after those arrive, we'll be starting some basic computer classes for adults, taught by Henry and some kids from the high school. As for the collection, I plan to develop a college and career prep center."

"With the curse lifted from the town line, our graduates will be wanting to move on to more opportunities in the big city," Archie remarked. "I'll be offering career counseling services."

Emma shot a quick glance at Hook. "Henry. He'll be graduating in two years."

Around a mouthful of pickle, Hook suggested, "I'm sure the lad will find all sorts of new adventures out there in the big wide world, as I did when I was young."

Emma fiddled with her spoon. "I'm not sure I want him out there in the big world."

"As nature intended, love. Mothers wish to hold on, but sons must make their mark upon the world."

Gold objected, "They don't always have to leave town to do that." Emma threw him a small smile. "I'm sure we could find plenty of opportunity for him here. But if he chooses to leave, he'll have all the support he needs. Financial and otherwise."

"Thank you, Gold."

Gold looked down into his soup bowl. "It's what I owe Bae."

Hesitating slightly, Archie decided that, after his earlier success, he could venture back into risky territory. If a bridge of common interests could be built between Emma and Gold, perhaps the animosity between Gold and Hook could be diminished. "I never really got to know Neal. Mr. Gold, I'm sure you have some stories about his growing up."

"Oh, yes, he has a thousand of them," Belle giggled. "Tell them about the time Bae roped the neighbor's bellwether." She reached out to touch Emma's hand. "It's hilarious. The roots of Bae's joy riding career."

Emma's eyes brightened and fixed on Gold. "I'd like to hear that. If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," he answered softly. "I'd rather like to tell it. Perhaps, afterward, you could share some of your memories?"

"Yeah, I could."

"Well, then." Gold scooted back from the table and settled more comfortably in his chair. "In our village there was a farmer who owned a very large, very ill-tempered ewe. . . ."

Lunch had ended on laughter. Encouraged, Archie sent Hook and Emma out for an afternoon of recreation, but summoned the Golds back to the library, where he thought they'd be most comfortable. "Saved the best for last, Archie?" Belle teased, but her voice was a little shaky.

Pushing the chalkboard ahead of him, Archie ducked the question, which he recognized as halfway serious. What she needed to hear from him was that in his professional assessment, her relationship with Gold was salvageable. After positioning the board, Archie stood back and brushed his chalk-dusted hands against his trousers. He happened to feel Gold's eyes upon him, and it made him nervous—Gold's cold stare always did, even though Archie had come to learn that the coldness was a facade. But to retain their confidence, he had to exude confidence of his own. Quite possibly, he was their last hope. So he steeled his spine and turned his head to look Gold in the eyes, and what he read there—in the eyes, not in the straight line of the mouth or the set of the jaw, but in the creases around the eyes, the slight elevation of the brows, and a certain shine in the pupils that could be burgeoning tears—gave Archie all the confidence he needed.

"We can do this," he assured them. "We will do this, one step at a time." He motioned to the couch upon which he'd found them resting earlier; they accepted the implied invitation and sat down, somewhat primly (their posture, he noted, mirrored each other's). He'd learned from their first session that tea was important to them, a held over social convention from their Enchanted Forest days, a relaxant and a subconscious communication prompt, so he'd had Ruby bring in a fully loaded, formal tray, which was waiting on the coffee table. He scooted a comfortable chair up to the table and leaned forward, his hand on the teapot. "Shall I pour?" He didn't really need to ask; he always poured. It was part of the routine from their therapy.

"Thank you, Archie," they both said, accepting the tea he'd prepared precisely how they liked it. He allowed them a few moments to sip, and when they sat back in the cushions, he knew they were ready to begin.

"Resentment is the emotional bacteria that, if not expelled, will infect a relationship, possibly kill it," Archie began. "I believe that each of you harbors some powerful resentments. The two of you have hurt each other often enough."

To their credit, neither offered a denial. Belle took the brave first step. "Do you think we're strong enough to deal with this now? Our relationship, I mean; is it strong enough? Won't digging up the hurts of the past just drive us apart?"

Surprisingly, it was Gold who answered. "Ignoring the shadows of the past will only make them loom larger in the future." He stared into his teacup. "A lesson I learned from Milah, but all these years I've pretended didn't apply to me." So low Archie could barely hear him, he murmured, "Fear of what I might lose caused me to ignore the fact that I was losing everyone I loved."

"Yes." Archie leaned back in his chair. "You're strong enough." He stood up. "Although, yesterday's rules still apply: you can refuse to participate, but if you do participate, you'll tell the whole truth."

"No twisted words," Gold promised-in Archie's mind, unnecessarily. The sorcerer knew what was at stake this time: Gideon's kidnapping had been the flame that had burned down Gold's house of fantasy. Archie believed Belle realized that too; it was why she'd picked up the pieces of their marriage.

He distributed the pencils and legal pads, then crossed over to the chalkboard. "You'll be writing a continuation to a prompt." Belle's eyes brightened; they were in her wheelhouse now. "I'll write a starter sentence on the board; you'll finish it. The 'you' refers to your spouse." He turned his back long enough to put up the assignment, then he stood aside, giving them time to read it.

"'You have a lot of nerve saying "Hello" like nothing happened.'" Belle cast a hasty glance at her husband, who nodded.

"A greeting I've deserved, too many times." He handed her a pencil. "Go on, Belle."

"'You have a lot of nerve. . . .'" Belle stared at the blank page.

"Please," Gold urged.

Belle pressed the pencil to the paper.

As he had done for the other couples, Archie walked away to give them space. He strolled along the ceiling-high shelves, casually perusing the book titles, until he found one that caught his attention and he brought it down. He read the first paragraph; it kept his interest and he read a second. He'd just settled down in an armchair to begin the second chapter of The Personal Dreams of Carl Jung when Belle called him over. "I'm finished, Archie."

He set the open book aside with the intention of returning to it at bedtime. A glance at her face prompted him to reach into his vest pocket for the package of Kleenex he always carried, but Gold had already beaten him to it, offering her his handkerchief. Her body language revealed her to be caught between anger and guilt; she needed to cry, but she drew upon her childhood lessons and held herself firm. Without urging, she picked up her notepad and read, "You have a lot of nerve saying 'Hello' like nothing happened. I know you love me. I don't doubt that. I love you too. And I wanted so much to help you, after everything Zelena put you through, and after Bae—after she murdered Bae. When you proposed to me, I thought, this is the beginning of the healing. You'll realize how much I love you and I'll never leave you, and you'll trust me, confide in me, and I can take care of you. But from the beginning the marriage was a lie. You swore your love for me on a fake dagger, so that you could go behind my back and kill Zelena. Did you really think I would never find out? Was the proposal even real? Did you really want to marry me, or was that a manipulation too? And while I was sleeping in ignorant bliss, you got up out of our honeymoon bed to plot how you could get more power. You made a deal, Rumple, a deal that would leave this entire town shattered by madness. You were going to snatch Henry away from his mothers and cart us off to New York, never to return. You would have even lied to us about how they all died, wouldn't you? You imprisoned the fairies. You made a slave out of Hook. You would've stolen Emma's magic if she'd let you. And all this time you left me sleeping, when all I ever wanted to do was to love you. I could've helped you, Rumple, but you wouldn't let me. You hid yourself from me. None of the torment we've been through would've happened if your proposal had been real."

She let the notepad drop to the coffee table.

Archie held his breath. She'd thrown down the gauntlet; they waited for Gold to respond. Gold had three choices: he could deny Belle's interpretation of events. He could make excuses—lord knows, after all he'd been through, he had a warehouse of valid excuses. But neither of those two choices would be the one to move the couple a step towards closure. Gold had a history of wrong choices, a genealogy of wrong choices; he needed to fight the impulse to try to take the easy way out. If only he could realize that in the long run, the difficult way could prove to be the easy way.

Gold was staring at his hands as if they were foreign objects. Was he thinking about the magic they contained? The magic that had fed him, protected him, kept him alive all these years? Or was he thinking about the Dark voices behind the magic, Nimue's and Zozo's and the others, and the black voice of the bullied and twice-abandoned little boy who wanted to lash out in broken-hearted anger?

"I did." They could barely hear him. He let his hands fall to his knees and looked up at Belle. "I did all those things," he said more clearly. "I hurt you, I hurt Henry, I hurt Gideon and I dishonored Baelfire's memory. I was wrong and I regret all the pain I caused you. And I know my promises are meaningless now, but I will fight with my last breath to be truthful with you."

Archie released his breath. Whatever happened next, whatever choice Belle made, Gold would be better now. Not healed, not good, but better. And with each step his way would be easier.

"I think you have been. I forgive you." Belle squeezed his hand, then looked to Archie. "It still hurts like hell."

"It will, for a long time," Archie said. "But it will get better."

"I do mean it: I forgive you. But it's kind of hard to feel it under all the anger and injured pride."

"This is something we'll work on," Archie assured her. To give them a moment to decompress, he refilled their teacups, then he sat back and pointedly looked at Gold's notepad. "Mr. Gold. You've written nothing."

"I had thought I have nothing to resent."

"Not even when I exiled you?" Belle pressed.

"It was a just punishment. And you made the town safe from a monster who had grown out of control. But I see now, this isn't the whole truth." He raised the legal pad. "It's true that I was hurt by some of the things you did, but I never blamed you, sweetheart. I thought I deserved it all, and worse. Until. . . ." The first page of his legal pad suddenly filled with writing in a language neither Belle nor Archie could recognize. Gold lay the notebook onto the coffee table beside hers and took her hands in his. "In the Underworld, when I learned that we were going to be parents, I sincerely tried to change, to be truthful with you. Circumstances conspired against me; my past caught up with me and again I failed repeatedly to make the right decisions, but I was honest with you. As much as I could be, after three hundred years of deception. You wouldn't listen. I understand why, but when you shut me down, I felt that I was alone again, that saving Gideon was all on my shoulders, and I fell back on lies and deals. It worked, Belle, didn't it? I freed us from Hades. I couldn't see why you wouldn't listen to me, when it seemed my solutions were working. I could have freed Gideon from his fate too. I still think, if I'd used the Shears—but we didn't discuss it or anything else. You ran away from me when we should have been working together to save our son. And in the end, rather than let me anywhere near him, you sent him away. You sent our son away."

Archie held his breath again. This was Belle's test; whether the relationship would take another step forward was up to her now. She was twisting the handkerchief instead of using it to cope with her tears. "I should have known you would never hurt him. I did know; after all you went through to rescue Bae, twice sacrificing yourself to keep him alive. You would have done no less for Gideon. But I was hurt and angry and full of fear, and I listened to the darkness in me instead of looking into your heart. Please, Rumple, say it. For yourself, as well as our marriage, you need to say it."

To Archie's surprise, Gold blurted, "Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry at you, Belle, for sending our son away, and with her. Knowing how I feel about fairies, and why, yet you gave our son to her, to the Ruel Ghorm, and look what happened. We almost lost him forever. And we may never know the full extent of the lasting harm that his time with my mother did to him." Archie had seen him angry, had seen him confused, had seen him aching, but he'd never seen Gold express such naked pain. "He's my son too. He needs me too. You can't shut me out of his life."

"You're right. I wasn't thinking clearly."

"That's right, you weren't. You could have easily protected him from everything-the Shears, from my mother, from me-just by driving out of Storybrooke, away from the magic, safe from all this crap. I'm angry, Belle, that you would have taken my son away from me."

Bravely, she accepted his criticism and Archie could breathe again. "You have a right to be angry. I was wrong. And I will never again forget that Gideon needs you in his life just as much as he needs me."

It was disconcerting, Archie thought, to see raw hope in the Dark One's eyes. Few people even recognized the sorcerer as a man, with a heart as vulnerable as their own. "We'll talk things out, from now on. I'll let you in and you won't shut me out. Can we do that, Belle? And if we can't mend our marriage, at least we can give Gideon his best chance."

"We have to try." Belle offered a watery smile. "I want us to give us our best chance too."

He had no idea where Gold had acquired a cell phone, but in the morning, as he joined the couples for a farewell breakfast, Archie spotted the pawnbroker out in the garden, flagrantly violating the no-phone rule. Ah well. The weekend was over, anyway. Archie walked into the kitchen, paused to sniff at Ruby's special blend of coffee percolating on the stove, then reached into a cupboard for the box of confiscated electronics. He carried it on his hip back into the dining room.

"Ah, back to modern civilization, I see." Hook fished his phone out first. "I've missed you, Angry Birds."

Emma distributed the rest and she and David immediately checked their text messages. "Hey, the town survived without us." She turned her phone around to show her father there were no messages. Then she frowned. "Nothing from Henry. Do you think he-"

"I think he's been studying for his semester finals, like he was supposed to," David assured her.

Snow had a finger poised to dial. "Archie, is it okay-"

"It's okay. Tell them you'll be home right after breakfast."

Ruby backed into the dining room, her arms burdened with a fully loaded serving tray. "Doctor, there's a helicopter coming."

"A helicopter?" Archie scrambled over to a window to examine the skies. "Nope, I don't see-"

Ruby set the tray down and tugged at her earlobe. "Yeah, but I hear. The wolf thing, you know. It's about five miles off."

The garden door swung open and Gold sauntered in. "That would be Mr. Dove with Gideon."

David grunted. "You're taking a helicopter back to Storybrooke? Gold, it's only five miles."

Snow finished her phone call. "A little over-anxious to see the baby, are you?"

Belle, with a suitcase in each hand, appeared in the dining room just in time to explain, "We're not going home yet. We thought we'd extend our holiday and see Boston." She set the suitcases down and came to her husband's side, accepting his arm around her waist. "We have some catching up to do."

Gold informed Archie, "We'll be back on Thursday in time for our appointment."

"You've got time for breakfast with us, don't you?" Snow urged. "After Ruby went to all this effort."

"Of course," Belle said.

Emma reached across the table to snatch a strip of bacon from the platter. "Sounds like another winner, Doc. Three for three. We'll have to do this retreat thing again sometime."

"Maybe when the babies are a little older," Snow suggested. "Hook, would you pass the toast?"

Archie leaned back as the bowls and plates started making their way around. He gave himself a mental pat on the back as the Golds sat down, side by side, and the sorcerer picked up the platter of pastries. "Bear claw, Ms. Swan?" After Emma had speared one, Gold offered the platter to Hook. "Captain?"

After a moment to recover from his shock, Hook helped himself to a Danish. "Thank you, C—Gold. Some toast?"

"Three for three," Archie mused. "I do believe so." The entire group laughed—even Gold chuckled—at a joke David shared, and Archie nodded to himself. "It's a start. A very good start."