A/N – I haven't said this in a while since it's clearly obvious but… I do not own Once Upon a Time or Ocean's Eleven.

I wish I had come up with Neal and Gold's dialogue in the second half of this chapter but it is almost word for word from the movie. Sorry, but you can't improve upon perfection!

(Also, when he refers to 'casino cages' he is not talking about actual cages. They are the secured areas not accessible to the public.)

Chapter 9

David Nolan pulled up to the small, ocean front house and rubbed his eyes tiredly. It had already been a long week and now that the team was assembling tonight, there would be no slowing down.

The morning after Mr. Gold's visit, he had packed up his few belongings and drove to the sea side town of Storybrooke. Once there, it was an easy matter to charm the Casino's Human Resource Manager into hiring him on full time as a Blackjack dealer.

He didn't even have to use one of his many other fake id's; his current alias of James Prince had a flawless background with the added benefit of Casino experience. It would seem that Mr. Gold's timing, as always, had been perfect.

He walked up the stone path through the sprawling garden and rang the bell. Speak of the Devil and he shall appear! Mr. Gold answered the door himself, dressed in an expensive black suit, accentuated with red tie and matching handkerchief. If his cane had been a pitchfork he could have been mistaken for Satan himself.

"Good evening, David," he said with his signature smirk. "It's a pleasure to see you again."

David reached into his flannel shirt pocket and pulled out a memory stick. "You mean it's a pleasure to see this?"

"Well done!" Mr. Gold smiled brightly, taking the precious object from his hand. "Did you have any trouble acquiring it?"

"The woman guarding it was definitely a spitfire, but I was able to distract her long enough to complete my task." He rolled his eyes at the older man. "I have to take the old dragon out to dinner sometime next week."

"Ah! I do believe the term is Cougar. Take her someplace nice and we'll add it to the overhead expenses. Our bankroller is quite generous."

He looked around the small but elegantly furnished room in appreciation. It was a beautiful house. It was the kind of home he planned on having once he finally retired from the con game.

"You are the last to arrive," said Mr. Gold, placing the memory card in his own pocket. "I think it's time for us to get this meeting started, don't you?"

They headed down the softly lit hallway towards the back of the house. A slight figure entered through the glass patio doors and almost collided straight into him. He looked down in astonishment as he realized the young woman's face was one he had been dreaming about for months.

"Is it really you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Mary Margaret," he replied disbelievingly. "I never thought I'd see you again!"

"Oh," said Mr. Gold, a little too casually for his liking. "Do you know David? What a lovely coincidence."

"Yes! We once…" she faltered. "I'm sorry. I don't understand. What did you call him? His name is James."

He looked down at his feet and ran his hand across the back of his neck. "It's David, actually. I'm kind of a…a con-artist."

He looked up guiltily, just in time to see her fist flying towards his face.

For such a tiny thing, her punch popped a wallop. He staggered, leaning against the wall for support, stars shining in his eyes.

"Not the face, dearie. We need his good looks as well as his charming personality to pull off this job." Mr. Gold gave him a steadying arm then patted him on the back sympathetically. "I'll give you two a few moments to catch up."

"Mary Margaret," David sputtered, not sure where to begin. "I'm so sorry. Just let me explain."

She turned her back on him, leaning against the kitchen table. When she spoke, her voice was cold and empty. "What about your fiancé? Does Kathryn know? Does she have any idea who she's really marrying?"

"I broke off the engagement soon after I met you. I couldn't go through with it."

"Because you realized it was wrong to lie to her about who you are?"

"Because I couldn't lie to me anymore!" He ran his hands through his hair. Had it been long enough he would have pulled it. "I kept telling myself that the marriage didn't matter; that it was just a job. But it wasn't. I didn't want my marriage to not matter. I may not be able to afford to quit the game just yet, but after meeting you…I realized that I could afford to marry for love. I couldn't marry Kathryn, not even temporarily, when my heart clearly belongs to someone else."

He reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear but she jerked away from his touch. "James, don't. It's too painful. I don't even know you!"

"Everything I said to you the night we met was the truth."

"Everything but your name and what you do for a living! Who are you really? Are you James or this David person?"

"I'm both! Listen. I'm betting that almost everyone in your back yard right now has gone by more than one name. They are both. We are both! It's just our names that have changed; not who we are inside."

Mary Margaret laughed humorlessly. "I thought it was just my luck to finally meet my Prince Charming the night of that Charity Ball, only to find out he was already engaged. A successful, sophisticated businessman who helped out a damsel in distress when she was attacked by paparazzi; it seemed too good to be true! Now I know you're just some… scruffy looking scoundrel who probably thought that Nutty M&M would make an easy mark! All you had to do was gain my trust and then you'd have my trust fund. Well it's not going to work."

"Mary Margaret, you were never a mark," he said softly, placing his hands on her shoulders. "My name is really David Nolan and I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, poor as poor can be. I needed a way to help my family keep the farm. That's how I met Mr. Gold. He gave me a small part to play in a con he was pulling and I never looked back. I'm not ashamed of what I do; I'm able to support my mother so she doesn't have to work her fingers to the bone anymore. I may be a thief…but I am an honorable one."

"The honorable thing to do would have been not to lead me on. Or Kathryn."

She stalked out the door and headed to the makeshift bar. David followed her, hoping to get her to see reason.

"Good evening everyone," said Mr. Gold, suddenly addressing the small crowd. He looked calm, cool and collected; everything that David was not at the moment.

"Has everyone had enough to eat?" Gold looked over at his son, Neal, who currently had six jumbo shrimp sticking out of his mouth, apparently for the amusement of a young boy who grinned mischievously.

"Is everyone sober?" He looked over at Leroy who was slumped in a beach chair, an empty glass tipping precariously from his hand. "Close enough. No one here is on the line yet. What I am about to propose to you is both highly lucrative and highly dangerous. If that's not your cup of tea, help yourself to as much food as you like; drive safely, no hard feelings. Otherwise, please follow Miss Blanchard."

Mary Margaret sent David a scathing look before marching back towards her patio door, a double Scotch in hand. He watched as the guests filed into the house one by one, until there was only himself and two others left.

A man David did not recognize sat on a bench overlooking the crashing waves on the deserted beach. The stranger did not look up as Mr. Gold ambled slowly towards him, his cane tapping rhythmically with his steps.

"You must be my son's friend, August. From Hawaii, right?"

August nodded in reply and took another drink of his beer.

"It's nice there," continued Mr. Gold quietly, always a dangerous sign. "Do you like it?"

"Yeah," replied the younger man.

"That's wonderful. Get in the God damn house."

The young man exhale noisily as he got up from his seat and walked slowly to the entrance. He stopped to grab another beer, saluting them with the bottle on the way.

"Arrogant jerk," David commented once the man had disappeared through the sliding door. "He deserves a punch in the face."

"It's almost as bad as falling in love in a love con." Mr. Gold shook his head, a slight grin tugging on his lips. "Really, David, I thought I taught you better than that."

"I told you already. I never fell in love with Kathryn."

"I never said you did." He patted David on the back and led him inside.

…

"Ladies and gentlemen," began Mr. Gold, looking at his guests seated around Mary Margaret's stylish living room. "The four blocks of beautiful Atlantic coastline, otherwise known as the Storybrooke Casino, Hotel and Convention Center, is the most profitable casino east of Las Vegas."

He nodded towards an attractive blonde woman who immediately began typing on her laptop. An image appeared on the large flat-screen television that hung above an ornate fireplace. David instantly recognized the images as the data from the memory stick.

"This is the Vault. It sits beneath 200 feet of solid earth and safeguards every dime that passes through the businesses above it. And we're going to rob it."

From the sounds of impressed grunts around the room, David surmised that few members of the team had been aware of their target.

"This is courtesy of David Nolan, the new Blackjack Dealer at the casino," Gold continued, nodding to David in thanks. The computer generated map of the Casino's secured areas flashed across the screen as he spoke. "This place houses a security system that rivals most nuclear missile silos. First, we need to get in the casino cages, which anyone will tell you takes more than a smile. Next, through these doors, which takes a six digit code changed every 12 hours. Past those, lies the elevator. The elevators won't move without authorized fingerprint identification…"

"Which we can't fake," added Neal

"And vocal confirmation from both the security system within the casino and the vault below," continued Gold.

"Which we won't get."

"Furthermore, the elevator shaft is rigged with motion detectors."

"Meaning if we were to manually override the lift," explained Neal, "the shafts' exits would lockdown automatically, and we'd be trapped."

"Now once we get down the shaft though, it's a piece of cake. Just a couple of guards with machine guns and the most elaborate vault door ever conceived by man." Gold looked around the room, meeting ten pairs of wary eyes. "Any questions?"

"Can't we just dig a hole and blow it up?" asked Leroy gruffly.

"No, tunneling is out," replied Neal. "There are sensors monitoring the ground one hundred yards in every direction, meaning if a ground hog were to nest there, they'll know about it. Anyone else?"

Jefferson puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. "You said something about good news?"

Mr. Gold smirked. "The Gaming Commission states that a casino must have enough cash on hand to cover every chip in play. Meaning on a weekday, by law, it must carry $50 to $60 million. On a weekend, between $80 to 90 million. On a fight night, like the night we're going to rob it… $120 million without breaking a sweat. There are eleven of us, all with an equal share. You do the math."

"What about me?" asked a little voice.

Gold smiled indulgently at the young boy. "Henry, you're ten. You can share Emma's take."

"But I can help!" he insisted.

"I'm sure you can, lad. I'll tell you what. If you can help us out then I'll buy you a new bike. Are we in agreement?"

"Make it a trip to Disney World and you got a deal."

"I have a question," said Granny, fingering the rings around her necklace. "Say we get into the cage, and through the security doors there, and down the elevator we can't move, and past the guards with the machine guns and into the vault we can't open…"

"Without being seen by the cameras," added Neal sheepishly. "Sorry, we forgot to mention that part."

"Yeah, well, say we do all that. We're just supposed to walk out of there with $120 million on us, without getting stopped?"

Every eye turned to Mr. Gold. "Yeah," he replied simply.

"Oh," said Granny, removing a small bottle from her purse and taking a couple of pills. "Okay, then."