I don't own any characters from Once Upon a Time.

A couple of scenes and some dialog in this chapter were taken and modified from Nikita Season 1 episode 5. The Guardian (I don't own anything from that show either) (-:)

Thank you so much to everyone who read/favorited/followed my story. Reviews are very much appreciated!

A few days after their memories returned, Charming's "We Are Both" speech seemed to keep the residents of Storybrooke from going over the edge. The school and the stores on Main Street opened for business and Granny's diner served hot chocolate and comfort food once more; but for a group of people on the brink of madness, the after-shocks of the curse kept on coming as another explosion brought the town to its knees.

The manager of the Storybrooke bank walked Lee out of his office smiling politely and asking if there was any other way that he could be of service. A few hours later, when he told his story to Sheriff Swan, the bank manger would say that he saw Lee Gold glance toward the entrance, stop, and tense. If he had seen her face at that moment he would have noticed that her entire demeanor changed. She looked like a predator spotting her prey in the distance and calculating the next move as she slowly moved in on her hunt. She whispered to the manager to press the silent alarm and the man quickly ran back toward his office. At that moment two gunmen burst into the front door and yelled for everyone to get down as bullets from huge semi-automatics rained into the walls and glass partitions of the room. In a few minutes, the tellers finished stuffing whatever money they had available into sacks the men threw at them. When they heard the police siren outside, the sound angered and agitated the bank robbers. One of them grabbed a child from her mother's side and shouted to the other to get out. It was at that moment that the manager heard Lee Gold's voice.

"Wait", she slowly got up from the floor and started moving toward the gunman, "Take me. I'll make a better shield."

After that things happened very quickly. He saw the man point his weapon and yell for her to get down. And then he saw Lee strike out, her elbow connecting with the gunman's throat, and heard the gun clatter to floor. She twisted the man's arm behind his back and positioned his body in front of her as the second gunman began to fire. He watched her pull out a gun from her coat pocket and fire a shot that took down the second gunman as a flower of blood bloomed on her upper arm.

The bank manager remembered glancing outside the window, hearing the siren of the EMS unit, and seeing Sheriff Emma Swan run into the bank. Lee now held the first gunman kneeling on the floor. Emma hand-cuffed him quickly, walked outside, and put him in the back of the patrol car. The paramedics carried in a stretcher and tended to the second bank robber. By then almost everyone was running outside into the bank parking lot and a crowd of spectators had formed behind the yellow police tape that Charming had the presence of mind to string around the area.

Gold had just come back to the shop after rescuing Belle from the mines following her father's failed attempt to send her over the town line underground. Noticing the commotion at the bank, he stopped and watched the proceedings from the front door of the pawn shop. He saw the paramedics load the man on the stretcher into the EMS vehicle and take off toward the hospital with the siren wailing. Only then did he see Lee briefly speak to Charming, carefully get into her car as if she was protecting an injury, and drive away. As fast as he could, Gold made his way over to Granny's Inn.

When no answer came to his knock on the door, the pass key to all the rooms of the inn he owned, allowed easy entrance. It was obvious that Lee didn't hear the knock. The bathroom door was open and water was running from the tap in the sink. He quietly crossed the carpeted room and stood by the bathroom door. Even though he was clearly visible in the mirror hanging above the vanity she failed to see him because at that moment she was definitely not concentrating on the mirror. And what held her attention almost made him light headed with nausea. An empty syringe lay on the vanity top, beside it was a surgical knife covered in blood, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a small bowl with red tinged liquid. A large bullet was emerging from the flesh of her upper left arm pulled by a pair of bloody tweezers held tightly in her right hand. The bullet made a soft plopping sound as it dropped into the water filled bowl and only then did she look up to see him standing there. Her eyes registered only confusion and surprise. Quickly she scooped all the instruments into the sink, turned off the tap, and hastily placed a gauze bandage onto the wound.

"Here, let me see that", were the first words out of his mouth as he moved to help her.

"No, it's all done", and her words were almost an order, "What are you doing in here?"

"I came to see if you were all right. Why didn't you go to the hospital to treat that bullet wound?"

"I am fine. I can easily take care of this myself. If it was something more serious of course I would go to the hospital. Now, if you will excuse me."

She was extremely pale from the blood loss and desperately needed to lie down to recuperate. More than anything he wanted to help her but knew that she would use every ounce of her quickly fading energy to appear strong, that she would not allow herself to show weakness until she was alone in the room.

As he stood beside her, he could not help gently placing his hand on her arm and sending a pulse of magic to heal the wound.

"Thank you. You didn't have to do that." Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Of course I did, Lee."

Her smile was the only thing to show that even though she had summarily dismissed him from her room, she was still just a little pleased to see him. Walking down the stairs of the inn the realization that she could have been killed forced him to reach out and grab the railing to keep from falling.

However, he was now even more certain about what he had to do. He pulled a cell phone out of the pocket of his suit and started making some long overdue phone calls.