"As touching as that little display was," Rumpelstiltskin turned in surprise to see Regina back in the doorway. "Time's up. I'd like you out of my house."

"What about our deal?" He stood where he was, next to Belle. He hated the idea of that woman anywhere near her.

Regina cracked a bitter smile. "Unfortunately, it takes time to actually erase the memory of someone. Although I'm happy to see that you will do it," That was true, he would do anything for Belle, and they both knew it. "Things need to be hunted down, people need to be threatened…it's actually harder work than you might think, Mr. Gold," she moved her icy gaze to Belle. "I also hate the fact that I have to lose my only leverage with you. You may not be as powerful than me, but you have proved to be troublesome at times. Besides"—her eyes snapped back to him like a rubber band—"Henry will be home soon."

"And what if I refuse to leave?" He stood up and tried to look as tall as possible.

"Then I will kill her. And believe me, I don't bluff," That Mr. Gold believed. He turned his back to the Mayor, and his face back to the girl on the floor.

"You won't hurt her?"

"Why on earth would I?" Regina seemed offended at the thought of it.

"When can I see her again?" He looked down at her. Belle's hair was tangled, she was dressed in a hospital gown, but she was still as beautiful as he remembered. Rumpelstiltskin had to fight to turn back towards the door.

"Two days from now, Wednesday."

"And why not tomorrow?" He asked, trying to read the mayor's expression. She looked truthful, but why couldn't he come the next day?

"I have errands to run," she acted like that explained it all.

Rumpelstiltskin opened his mouth to argue, but she beat him to it. "Leave. I'm tiring of this conversation already, and I have a feeling that we may have it more than once," Her eyes opened wider, daring him to challenge her.

"Fine," he resigned, "I'll leave," and then just as an attempt to remove the victorious smile from his opponent's face he added, "but I'm coming back first thing on Wednesday."

She didn't argue, and Mr. Gold was almost disappointed. He turned towards the door to leave. A hand flew on top of his shoulder and stiffened, as if not used to human contact. "But believe me when I say if you tell anyone about this girl, our arrangement, anything," the Queen stepped in front of him, and in her tall heels they were looking eye-to-eye. "this girl will disappear forever." He swallowed, and her smile strengthened. "And however you may hunt her down, tear this world apart flower by flower"—she turned so that she was now talking directly into his ear and lowered her voice to a whisper—"you will never find her."

Rumpelstiltskin walked out the door, up the stairs, out of the mayor's house and down three streets to his own. He kept his mouth clamped firmly shut whenever he passed anyone on the street, despite the fact that no one had actually made small-talk with him in years.

-RBRB-

The girl's eyes opened slowly, as if she'd been given more sleeping pills recently. She wondered when that had happened, since she didn't remember taking any blue pills the day before. It was when she was trying to remember the last time she'd taken any non-regulatory pill that she noticed that she was staring at a stone ceiling, sitting on a stone floor, and in some place she'd never been before.

At first she was frightened, and had to turn facedown and bury her head in her arms to get her breathing back to normal. Then she was just curious. It was obvious she wasn't in the doctor's office or anywhere else scary. There wasn't anyone around her, and the basics of the room were the same as her old one. Maybe she had just changed rooms. Or maybe this was the same one as before, and they'd just redecorated. Maybe they did screw up her medications and she was seeing the real room for the first time.

Speaking of her medications, she suddenly noticed that she felt more alert than she had felt in a long time. It scared her, to be totally in her own control and she yearned for more pills to deaden her senses and take her to sleep. She couldn't remember a time that something this strange had happened to her, because for as long as she could remember she had been the girl in the dark room. Only now she was in a different dark room, and she felt like a different girl. She didn't even know her name, and for the first time in her life that bothered her.

She was angry. She couldn't remember that happening either. "Hello?" She said loudly, hoping for someone to hear her. "Hello!" She wanted more pills, she wanted to know her name, hell, she even wanted people.

The girl banged her fists into the wall, ignoring the pain. "Someone get me out of here! I want…" she trailed off. There was a terrible moment when she realized that she didn't know what she wanted, she just knew that she was unhappy and for the first time, she wanted to be able to do something about it.

She hit the wall as hard as she could, then cried out as she felt something tear into her back. Like a spark exploding into flame, her whole body roared in pain. She fell to the floor screaming as she was overcome and started to fall unconscious.

She saw a teacup falling to the floor, a ugly man's face. And then she was gone.

Before she fell into complete unconsciousness she heard a woman's voice say something distinctly, although the words made no sense.

"We couldn't have Henry hearing you, could we, Belle?

AN: I decided to power through and add another chapter today, just because I'm going to be gone for the next few days and won't be able to update. Thank you so much for all the reviews and story alerts! It makes me so happy to see them all. For this chapter, I'm going to ask for ten reviews, although please don't stop there! It takes 20 seconds of your time, and the more you review the more chapters you get!

Oh, and did you hear that Emilie de Ravin (Belle) is coming back for an early May episode?