After Graham released Mr. Gold from his cell with a restraining order and a court date, the prisoner went straight home and found his wife and daughter asleep in their beds. He accidentally woke Mrs. Gold when he tucked himself into bed beside her. She asked him where he'd been. He told her he'd had a business meeting with Jefferson that had run so late he'd opted to crash in his guest room instead of coming in late and waking her. She scolded him for not calling her and taking so long to come home. He told her he'd had important business to attend to during the day as well and assured her that this was unlikely to happen again in the future. She rolled over and ignored him for a few minutes. He could tell she was hoping he'd apologize, but that simply wasn't something he did. A small part of him longed for th days when all would have been forgotten in a week.
"We're having a picnic in the woods tomorrow," Mrs. Gold finally said. "Dr. Hopper is coming. So are Helena and Virginia."
"That sounds absolutely lovely," said Mr. Gold. "But I'm afraid I won't be joining you. The shop hasn't been open in two days. Antiques don't sell themselves, you know." Mrs. Gold didn't respond. "But I promise I'll be home in time for dinner."
Helena twisted the fingers of her right hand through her messy ponytail as she waited for Granny to come out from the kitchen with her order. She glanced at the clock, willing the brownies to bake faster. As is, considering the amount of time it would take to walk from here to the place in the woods where Kayla had told her they were having the picnic, she would probably be at least ten minutes late.
"Whoa, Helena." Helena barely glanced when Dr. Whale slid into the barstool beside her. "What happened to you? You look like you were just thrown from a horse."
"I've been volunteering at the stables," Helena answered simply with an edge of irritation. She had spent the morning in bed reading and dressed in a hurry when she remembered what time she was supposed to meet Mrs. Gold and Kayla. She'd realized too late that her midnight blue sweater was streaked in multiple places with that unique combination of dirt and horse sweat that came from being nuzzled.
Dr. Whale nodded at Helena, then shamelessly let his eyes travel from the sole of her boot to the tip of her ponytail.
"Your outfit is a little loose," he said to her quietly. "You don't make it very easy for one to imagine what you look like without your clothes on."
"Which is definitely my main objective in life."
"Here you go," said Granny cheerfully, setting Dr. Whale's order in front of him in a to-go box before he could offer Helena another fashion tip. "I'll have the brownies ready in ten," she promised Helena before slipping away. Helena smiled gratefully. She spent a minute drumming her fingers on the countertop and wondering if there was a way she could save one of the brownies and sneak it to Henry. He'd been living on hospital food for weeks now.
"Good morning, Helena." Helena knew it was Sheriff Graham addressing her before she looked over her shoulder and greeted him with a smile. "Nice sweater."
"Thank you."
He took a seat on the barstool next to her, waved Ruby over, and asked her for his usual to-go lunch order.
"Next time you see Henry, thank him for suggesting that we hire Ruby part-time," said Graham. "I assumed he wanted her for office work. I had no idea she'd turn out to be the best damn tracker I've ever met in my life." Ruby blushed as she walked away.
"I will. I'm glad things have worked out so well for both of you."
"They definitely have. If things keep going the way they are, I may offer to recommend her for a detective school in Vermont. She'd be the first person ever to leave Storybrooke for college."
"That's very generous of you," said Helena. The more she learned about Storybrooke, the more isolated it seemed to her.
Graham cleared his throat. "So. What are your plans for today?"
"I'm having lunch with the Golds and probably spending a few hours at the stables. Why?"
"The nuns are having a charity event tonight at six. It's to raise money for the hospital."
"Oh," said Helena. "I didn't know about that. Where are they having it?"
"Over by the church. It's a pretty far walk from town, so, since you still don't have a car, I was wondering…maybe you want to go together?"
"Sure," said Helena, glancing at the door behind the counter again to see if Granny was pulling her brownies out of the oven.
"Great. Should I pick you up at 5:30?"
"Yeah, that would…" Helena turned back to face Graham, and it was only then that she saw the smile on his face. "…be perfect."
If the fact that the sheriff was grinning like a schoolboy wasn't proof enough that Helena had just accidentally agreed to go out on a date with him, the look on Ruby's face as she bounced over to with Graham's order was. "Here you go!" she squealed, waving him over to the register. Then, behind Graham's back, she gave Helena a wink and a thumbs up, leaving the other woman to mask her surprise long enough for Granny to return with the brownies.
Mrs. Gold watched her eleven-year-old daughter look around at their world with the disturbing tense concentration that she'd seen in her for as long as she could remember.
"Do you hear that sound?" asked Kayla.
"What sound?" asked Mrs. Gold.
Kayla put her fingers to her lips. Then Mrs. Gold heard it. A soft, distressed whimper.
"I'm sure it's nothing," said Mrs. Gold. "Probably an animal in the woods." The young mother leaned over and tenderly brushed her daughter's dark curls off of one shoulder. "You're not still worried about your father, are you?"
"Of course not," said Kayla. "He's the one who's safe."
"Safe from what?"
"Mayor Mills."
Of course. Because Mayor Mills was still the evil witch who'd cursed them all.
A moment later, Mrs. Gold and Kayla heard a rustling sound. Then the source of the noise stepped into view. It was Pongo, stumbling and whimpering with his leash dragging behind him. Leaves and mud clung to his leash and paws, and blood trickled down his left leg.
"I told you!" said Kayla as she scrambled to help the Dalmatian. She pressed a handful of paper napkins to the open wound on his shoulder.
"He probably smelled our picnic and tried to run here ahead of Archie," said Kayla's mother.
"No!" said Kayla. "Everyone we invited is half an hour late. What if something bad happened to them?"
"Sometimes people are just late. Calm down, child."
Helena grunted as she trudged up the mossy path in her paddock boots, wondering how she was going to tell the sheriff that night that she hadn't actually meant to agree to go out out with him, and, simultaneously, if that was what she actually wanted to do.
On the one hand, she had a mentally ill brother in the hospital in Storybrooke. On the other hand, she had dozens of children back in Boston on her caseload. And at some point, she was going to have to face up to the fact that she needed to go back to work. Staying in Storybrooke forever wasn't an option. And when she came back to visit, her focus ought to be on Henry and Virginia and her other friends, not on the hot sheriff with the perfect hair and the perfect accent. Everyone in her life was always telling her that she needed to stop stressing out and focusing on work so much, but right now that seemed to be less of an option than ever.
Helena stopped for a moment to adjust the container of brownies in her arms and check her watch. She'd been walking through the woods for longer than she'd anticipated, but that was partly because when she'd passed the orchard she'd thought she'd heard someone following her and opted to take a slightly less remote path than the one which would have gotten her where she was going the quickest.
Just a few minutes later, Helena found Mrs. Gold, Kayla, and Pongo at the picnic blanket.
"Sorry I'm late. I hope the brownies make up for it."
"Of course," said Kayla holding her hands out to take the Styrofoam container. "Where's Virginia?"
"She got called in to work at the last second," said Helena. Apparently the owner of the stables wasn't feeling well and wanted Virginia to help out with the morning turnouts. Helena had a sneaking suspicion that her friend was going to start working full-time soon.
"Dr. Hopper's supposed to be coming as well," said Mrs. Gold. "Have you seen him today?"
"No," said Helena.
Mrs. Gold smiled and looked away. Whatever Dr. Hopper's concerns were about Henry that he felt he needed to pick Kayla's brain about, Helena obviously didn't know.
For the next little while, the three chatted amicably about family and work and school over sandwiches, lemonade, and brownies. Mrs. Gold rattled off the excuses her husband had given her for not coming home the previous night, and Helena believed it easily and with little thought. Kayla frowned. "Did he say what he was talking to Jefferson about?"
"A new rental agreement for his house and businesses. I'm sure it was nothing particularly unusual."
Any change in this town was unusual, and surely something that ran all night couldn't amount to night.
Helena could see that Kayla was deeply concerned about what had happened and felt sad for her. From the outside, the Gold family seemed to have such a lovely life. But obviously something was causing this child to constantly feel apprehensive about the state of her universe. Dr. Hopper had explained to Helena that Henry had constructed his fantasy world to cope with a harsh reality. In Kayla's case, it appeared that her fantasies were making her reality worse.
"What are we going to do with Pongo?" asked Kayla when her mother started packing up the picnic basket.
"I can run him down to the animal shelter," Helena offered.
"No!" said Kayla. "This is Dr. Hopper's dog."
Helena frowned. "Has anyone heard from him since he was supposed to meet us here an hour ago?"
Mrs. Gold shook her head. She and Helena exchanged worried glances.
"Kayla, why don't you and Helena take Pongo by the shelter and have David clean his wound?" Mrs. Gold glanced at Helena, who nodded in compliance.
"Everything okay, Mom?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Gold. "I have some calls to make at home. You just take care of Pongo." She left in a hurry, praying that her daughter's suspicions about the world weren't too close to being true this time.
Thwunk. Splat. Thwunk. Splat.
Henry was sitting up on his cot bouncing a ball off the wall. He'd made the ball out of some edible food-like substance that had appeared on his tray that morning. He had memorized every crack and smudge on the cement and every stain on his cot and blanket. He thought of the people whom he had arrested over the years and wondered if this was some sort of payback. Even prison must be more entertaining than this.
"Do you believe in past lives, Henry?"
Henry turned to his roommate/cellmate/father and shrugged. "I've never really thought about it before. Why do you ask?"
Daniel shifted his position on his bunk so that he was facing Henry. "I told you that I've started remembering things about Virginia and my horses, right?"
"Yeah."
"Some of the other things I'm remembering…" Daniel let his voice trail off.
Henry raised his eyebrows and stopped bouncing his homemade ball, giving the other man his full attention.
"They don't feel like things that could have happened in this world."
"How so?"
Daniel clicked his tongue. "Purple smoke taking up all the airspace around a house. A woman reaching into my chest and grabbing my heart. Everyone was dressed unusually…" Henry nodded seriously. "Sorry. Forget it. I probably sound like I'm crazy right now."
"No, no," said Henry. "Not at all."
The look on Daniel's face made it clear he thought Henry's response a bit too enthusiastic.
"Dr. Hopper asked me not to talk about it, remember?" Henry almost seemed apologetic about the fact.
"Did I have some sort of mental health issue before I lost my memory?"
"No, nothing like that," said Henry, suppressing a grin. "It should all become very clear to you soon."
Although Henry didn't dare ask his father about the having-his-heart-grabbed phenomenon, he had a few guesses as to how that could have happened. And because he hadn't told him about any of those things before, it could only mean that this recovered memory was very real.
As David cleaned and patched up Pongo's wound, Helena tried to assure Kayla that his owner was probably fine, that the dog had probably either slipped or been attacked by a wild animal. Her assurances seemed to fall on deaf ears. David had tried to have Kayla feed Pongo treats to distract both the child and the dog, but the Dalmatian was far too tense to be interested. He kept looking around frantically, as if something terrible was about to happen, and after a certain point Kayla followed suit.
"Here we are," David cheerfully handed the leash to Kayla. "All better. Do you want to take him home for me?"
"Sure," said Kayla, even though she was sure that no one was home at Dr. Hopper's house right now.
After they left the animal shelter, Helena asked Kayla what she was planning on doing with the Dalmatian.
"Not sure. I'll probably ask my parents if I can keep him for a few days. I'm not letting Dr. Hopper's dog go to a shelter."
"You know Storybrooke's animal shelter doesn't put any of its animals to sleep, right?" Helena remarked after a moment of thought. Mr. and Mrs. Gold certainly didn't seem like dog people to her. "And whatever Dr. Hopper is up to, I'm sure he wouldn't like the idea of you giving away his dog."
Kayla clutched the leash nervously. Just then Pongo began to bark frantically, and the sound of sirens followed. Helena kept the child and the dog off to side of the road as Graham's police car approached. When he saw the three of them, he slowed down abruptly and brought the car to a screeching halt about ten feed ahead of them on the road.
"What's going on?" called Helena as Graham lowered the passenger side window.
"You three should let me give you a ride," said the sheriff. He sounded like he was just trying to be polite, but his facial expression gave away his concern for their safety.
Helena helped Kayla load Pongo into the back and sat in the front seat herself. The dog settled on the middle and right passenger seats as if it were a couch, rested his head on Kayla's leg, and began whimpering softly with every breath.
"What exactly happened?" whispered Helena.
"Miss Ginger called me a while ago and said she heard someone in the woods panicking and screaming for help. I thought nothing of it at first-you know how she exaggerates-but then Mrs. Gold called and told me…"
"…that Archie was missing and his dog showed up to the picnic injured," Helena finished.
"You know I can hear you, right?" muttered Kayla, who sounded more frightened than irritated but was trying to hide it.
"I'm sure everything's fine, Kayla," said Helena, not able to hide the concern in her own voice. No one believed her.
The three humans spent the rest of the ride in silence, Kayla trying in vain to comfort the dog, Helena's awkward situation with the sheriff forgotten.
The vehicle barreled along the dirt road through the woods and pulled up at the exact site where Helena and Kayla had been enjoying a picnic just a few hours before. Mr. and Mrs. Gold were both waiting, along with Ruby and Marco. Everyone climbed out of the car in unison, and Kayla walked over to her parents with Pongo's leash in her hand.
"Mom? Dad?" Mr. and Mrs. Gold were softly talking and holding each other, and both turned around to address their daughter. Pongo flattened his ears and immediately lunged at Mr. Gold, who used his cane to block the attack.
"Pongo, no!" yelled Kayla. The dog sat back on his haunches, but he barred his teeth and growled at the man.
Marco, who everyone knew was Archie's best friend, stepped over. "I'll take him."
But as soon as Kayla unwrapped the leash from her wrist to hand it over, Pongo stood up and bolted off toward the trees. After sprinting about fifty feet, he froze and looked expectantly back at the group of humans.
Marco whistled. "Pongo, come!"
"I think he wants to be followed," Helena remarked. Graham looked to Ruby, who took off after the animal. Then Graham pulled Marco aside to ask him some questions. Mr. and Mrs. Gold pulled Kayla into a group hug. Helena helplessly stepped back and shoved her hands in her pockets. That was when she realized she was shaking.
"Is there anyone here who can tell me who the last person who saw Dr. Hopper was?" asked Graham loudly after a few minutes. Before anyone had a chance to shake their heads, they heard Ruby shriek. "Everyone stay right here!" said Graham. Then he took off at a run into the woods.
"She's doing it, Papa," said Kayla softly. "Mayor Mills is figuring out that her curse is being threatened and going after all the good people in town." Mr. Gold wordlessly hugged her more tightly. His wife turned to him and gave him a look that told him she wished he'd said something.
A few minutes later, Graham emerged from the woods with Pongo trotting beside him, and everyone turned to them.
"Is Ruby okay?" asked Helena gently.
"Yes, she is," said Graham, handing Pongo's leash to Marco. "She just…she found something." He raised his voice. "It would be best if all of you could find someplace else to be. Stay in a group. Be safe."
"Wha…what did you find?" asked Kayla, now on the verge of tears.
"We're not sure," said Graham. "It could mean anything. Everyone please just clear out of here."
Kayla opened her mouth to protest, but her parents each took one of her hands and firmly led her away.
"Helena?" said Graham quietly. She looked up, and he waved her over. "Do you think we could go out some other time? I have a feeling I'll be working late tonight."
"Of course. I understand." Helena glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was close enough to hear what they were saying to each other. "So…what do you think happened to Dr. Hopper?"
"Like I said, I'm not sure." Then Graham hesitated and whispered, "But it's not good."
Graham sat down at his desk at the sheriff station, his mind and his heart heavy with confusion and sadness. He'd sent Ruby to bring the evidence to the lab for testing. It could mean anything, he had assured everyone. He wasn't sure.
The sum total of his evidence was an injured dog and the doctor's muddy jacket on the forest floor ten feet away from a candlestick with blood on it. He couldn't determine exactly what had happened to him from that information. Professionally, Graham couldn't yet rule out even the possibility that Dr. Hopper was the attacker and not the victim. But everyone knew that couldn't be it.
Graham heard someone enter the sheriff station and looked up expecting to see Ruby. Instead he saw the mayor. Somehow, her presence wasn't as intimidating as it used to be, but still he greeted her with, "What can I do for you, Mayor Mills?"
"You can tell me why you haven't arrested that snake in the grass yet."
"I…I beg your pardon?"
"Is it because you have feelings for her? Because I will not stand for that getting in the way of you doing your job. I made you sheriff, and I can take it away just as easily."
Graham stood up. "I'm sorry, I don't understand? Who exactly do you think I'm supposed to be arresting and why?"
"Ms. Stable, of course. She is the only person in this town who we-the real denizens of Storybrooke-haven't known for decades. Therefore, she's the only person who could conceivably surprise us by doing something like this. I can't imagine anyone else we know being so callous as to kill the kindest soul in this town. Can you?"
"That's no excuse for convicting someone without evidence, Mayor Mills," said the sheriff. "I intend to treat Helena the same way that I would any other potential suspect, which means that she, like everyone else, is innocent until proven guilty. I'm sorry."
The mayor shook her head. "You're not sorry enough. I just hope you come to your senses before you let another innocent die."
"We don't know that Dr. Hopper is dead," the sheriff protested.
The mayor slammed the door behind her on the way out.