Chapter 23
Granny's B & B, Room 8, 2 pm
"Have you been smoking again?" Tamara demands. "You told me you'd given up drugs." She'd turned her back to him. He knows the routine: a lecture will follow, no matter how hard he argues against the accusation, and only when he pleads guilty (whether he is or not) and promises to mend his ways will she allow him to look her in the eyes again. She will forgive him and wisely, she will never bring the transgression up again; that's one of the things he loves about her. She fights clean. Though, come to think about it, he wonders if she fights fair: he's never won an argument yet. She's like that with other people, too: if she can't charm them (and most of the time she can) she'll argue them into the ground.
"A little weed now and then hardly counts as 'drugs,'" Bae mutters, then instantly regrets going there. Before she pries open that can of worms, he switches the subject. "Tam, babe, you've got to believe me. I mean, I could've just waited until you saw it for yourself, let you freak out and then you'd have been ready to believe me, but I thought I'd be a gentleman and prepare you for it."
She flashes her beautiful teeth. "You're telling me this town is full of"—she waves her hands in the air—"tooth fairies and elves and—next you'll be claiming the mayor is Santa Claus and the city council is his eight tiny reindeer!"
He has to chuckle at that, though she wasn't trying to be funny and his laugh only provokes her. He forces his mouth into a straight line. "No, actually, the mayor is an evil witch. I don't know any of the city council, but I'm pretty sure Santa and the Tooth Fairy don't live here."
"Why are you telling me this? Surely you can't think this is funny. Punk your sophomoric drinking buddies all you want, but I'm your fiancée, Neal. I deserve your respect."
"You do, you absolutely do, and that's why I'm telling you all this." He runs his hands through his hair. "Because I love you and I want to be completely honest with you. I guess you could say I should have told you when we first met, but you'd have thought I was an escapee from the loony bin and you wouldn't have wanted anything to do with me."
"That's right, and I'm having serious doubts about it now."
"Please." He walks around to the foot of the bed and kneels at her knees, trying to compel her to look at him. She doesn't. "I'll prove it to you tonight; it's easy enough done. But I wish you would take me on faith. I mean, what kind of marriage are we going to have if you don't believe what I tell you?"
"I'm trying, Neal," she seems to be struggling between tears and anger. "I'm really trying." She sucks in a deep breath. "Okay. Let's start from the beginning."
His joints ache—he is, after all, more than 200 years old—he'll have to save that story, and the magic bean and Neverland and the Dark One for another hour. One page at a time, that's all he dare attempt. He stands to stretch and pulls up a rocking chair so he can hold her hand as he starts from the beginning.
"The town we have come to, it's a very unusual place. It sprang up wholesale—everything you see, all the buildings and the streets and the stoplights and everything—out of nothing, all at once, about thirty years ago. It was created by magic, and the people who live here were brought here by magic. There are five people in this town who have magic, and I'm connected, one way or another, to all of them."
Storybrooke General Room 304, 4pm
"Mr. Gold?" A hand gives his arm a little shake. "Mr. Gold?" His eyes fly open and he's staring sightlessly into green eyes—no, he realizes after he blinks, not Milah's. These eyes have never ridiculed or mocked.
He draws in a breath. His throat is dry; he sits up and takes a sip of water to get his voice to work. "Ah, Ms. Nolan." Snow, David and Emma have gathered around his bed—and then he sees the small figure standing just behind Snow and he scowls. He frosts his tone: "And you've brought Mother Superior with you. Have I taken a turn for the worse?"
"Sorry to disturb your sleep," Snow apologizes. "We knocked but you didn't hear us."
"We've got a problem we need some expert advice about."
Gold smiles faintly. "I presume I'm the expert? I can never resist your flattery, Sheriff Swan."
"It's Cora. She's going to live." The sheriff folds her arms as if this thought annoys her greatly.
"Yes, I believe you shared that prognosis with me yesterday. Or was it the day before?" He frowns, a little worried that his mind is still hazy.
"She's improving by leaps and bounds, health-wise, but getting her heart back hasn't improved her morals any. Instead of being an emotionless witch intent on power and destruction, she's like a manic-depressive rage-aholic witch intent on power and destruction."
"It should probably be expected, considering she had no heart for two hundred years. I've never known anyone to go so long without a heart, but my guess is, she will eventually adjust."
"Yeah, well, in the meantime, we've got to bring her to justice," David says. "But since you and Regina stole all the fairy diamonds, you're going to have to come up with some other idea for keeping Cora locked up."
"I have to?" Gold's hackles rise at the challenge. "And when, pray tell, was I elected sheriff?"
Emma and Snow exchange a roll of the eyes. These two so-called grown men seem determined to spar their way through this world just as they did the last. It's such a waste of time: two little boys pushing and shoving, each attempting to prove himself king of the hill.
"Consultant," Snow corrects. "A volunteer consultant."
"'Volunteer' as in 'free of charge,'" David amends. "I'm tired of your games. We're not making any more deals. You'll participate because it's in your own interests."
Snow explains, "We need your advice. Please. As long as Cora's loose, we're all in danger."
"Including your son and grandson," Mother Superior reminds him.
Gold peers past Snow to the nun. "And you? Your magic has returned, hasn't it?"
Mother Superior seems both angered and embarrassed. "It has, but you know as well as I do, I need that fairy dust to cast a spell strong enough to hold Cora."
"Or me," Gold bites.
Mother Superior's head rises; she understands his reluctance now. "I assure you, Rumplestiltskin, we have no intention of attempting to imprison you."
"I have a non-interference agreement with you, remember?" David says. "I never go back on my deals."
"Very well." Gold has an understandable dread of prisons, especially those of the prince's design, but as the prince is a hero, his word is his bond. "Two options remain. That is, if we were in the old world, we would have these two options. I can't be certain if either will work here, since neither has been tested. Both, let me emphasize, are temporary fixes. The first will buy you a few weeks perhaps. Paint the bars of the cell with squid ink. Repeated applications will be necessary, as the power of the ink dissipates when exposed to air."
"You have more?" Snow asks anxiously. "I'm afraid the vial you told me about is all gone."
"I have a small quantity. Perhaps it can be produced synthetically. I shall release the ink I have to a chemist for analysis."
"That will take time," David objects. "Time we don't have. She gets out of the hospital on Monday."
"The other option will buy you more time, but never forever: banishment to a land without magic."
The four standing before him exchange a puzzled look.
"Yes, I know about the bean field you've been hiding," Gold says impatiently. "Just as you"—he glances at Mother Superior—"can detect the expenditure of dark magic, so can I detect the expenditure of fairy magic." He leans forward in warning. "And you need to know that what I can detect, Regina can detect."
"I'm beginning to have second thoughts about stopping that wraith," the sheriff mutters.
Snow chastises her, "Emma! No one deserves a fate like that."
"Well," Emma says defensively, "our lives would be a whole lot simpler. No Regina means no Cora and no Hook."
"Banishment is a just punishment," Mother Superior speculates. "A merciful punishment, considering all Cora's done."
"In a land without magic, she couldn't hurt anyone again," Snow muses.
"Don't underestimate her, my dear," Gold cautions. "But with temptations removed, with the ability to commit mass destruction removed, without position or wealth, Cora would have to depend upon others to survive. I don't doubt that she would lie and manipulate her way back into some position of strength, but it's unlikely she would rise far." He realizes he is also exposing his own vulnerability: what can stop Cora can also stop Rumplestiltskin. He narrows his eyes at David. "Don't forget our deal, prince."
"But the beans aren't ready," Snow points out. "They won't mature for another two months, Anton says."
"Their maturation can be sped up." He plucks an unopened bud from a get-well bouquet on his nightstand, and he passes his glowing hand over it. When he returns the bud to the vase, it's in full bloom.
The visitors fall silent for several moments. Finally Snow, the least convinced of them, speaks. "We should send Regina too."
Four mouths drop open.
"Well." Snow sounds just like her daughter as she goes on the defensive. "Families shouldn't be separated. And Cora and Regina can learn to depend on each other."
"Be aware, my dears, the combination is much more powerful than the sum of its parts. There are only two ways your blood feud with Regina can end: one of you dies or both of you die." Gold knows David has the stomach for the fight that must eventually come, but Snow is years away from ready. It's to her he addresses his words: "When you are ready to discuss elimination, not removal, we'll talk again."
"I won't kill her, if that's what you're saying," Snow insists, as he knew she would.
"Monday morning, then," Gold agrees. "I shall meet you at the bean field."
Storybrooke General Room 666, 4:15 pm
Regina is raging, and when she shows her mother why, Cora rages too. Through a handheld mirror, Regina shows Cora a view of Rumplestiltskin's hospital room and the little confab that's taking place there. The view extremely limited: only David's shoulder and Snow's forearm are visible, due to the tiny size of the mirror that's attached to a ribbon on one of the get-well bouquets on Rumple's nightstand. But the sound comes through crystal-clear, and Cora recognizes every voice.
"They think they can get rid of us," Regina fumes. Cora shushes her to listen to the rest of the meeting in Room 304. When Rumple pronounces the day of the sentence in so nonchalant a tone ("Monday morning, then," Regina repeats, mocking him), Cora throws the mirror across the room and shatters it.
"You should have listened to me, Regina, when I told you to destroy them. We had them all standing there beneath us; we could have eliminated the entire lot in one stroke, and then we could have taken Henry." Cora reminds her. "Perhaps now you'll follow my guidance."
Regina pretends to ignore the barb. After all, now that she and Cora have been cast as pariahs, each woman is all the companion that the other has. They will have to get along, for neither can bear to be completely alone. "We're taking Henry and getting out of here," she decides.
"My magic has yet to return. I require another day of rest, but that leaves us plenty of time to steal their plan out from under them." Cora drums her fingers as she thinks. "You will find out where this bean field is."
"Rumple practically handed it to us. Wherever there's been an expenditure of fairy magic, he said. I'll harvest a supply of beans for us and destroy the rest."
"Sunday morning, then," Cora decides. "And we shall find a world for you, my darling, to reign."
Rabbit Hole, 6 pm
Emma and Mitch the bouncer meet them at the back door of the tavern. "Sorry to interrupt. . . whatever you were doing," she apologizes.
"Just supper," Ruby brushes the apology off, but it's obvious from the way she and Slightly are dressed that the supper had some significance to it, before Emma's phone call interrupted it. So she adds, "At La Tandoor," and that clarifies the situation: Emma now understands she's interrupted a date.
"It's okay. We got doggie bags," Slightly says. "Is she hurt?"
"Almost broke her fool neck," Mitch growls. "Climbed up on the bar and started dancing, yelling something about 'Coyote Ugly.' Slipped on a wet patch and fell. I grabbed her and locked her into the boss' office. She was raisin' cain there too, pounding on the door and knocking stuff over."
"Anything she's broken will be paid for," Ruby assures the bouncer. "Mr. Gold will—"
"That's just it. We'd rather not involve him," Mitch interrupts. "He doesn't think too highly of us."
"Let me guess: he owns the building," Ruby muses.
"No, actually, it's one of the few he doesn't own. But he does own the houses and apartments that our wait staff and bartenders live in. Anyway, I stopped her before she could do too much damage."
"I don't want to have to take her in," Emma says. "It's Belle. After all she's been through, she deserves a break. . . . Besides, Gold would hit the roof. We've had all the drama we can handle for now."
"No, jail's the wrong place for her," Slightly says. "She's not to blame."
"I've just never seen her act this way." Mitch rubs his neck. "I don't know her real well but my wife and I were helping out with restoring the library before her accident. She always seemed like such a sweet, quiet kid."
"She is," Emma says between her teeth. "And she will be again. She's not herself right now, and you're right, Slightly, it's not her fault. That's why I called you, Ruby. To see if you'd take her home to sober up."
"Of course." Ruby glances apologetically at Slightly, who shrugs.
"No problem," he says. "We'll keep watch on her till she falls asleep, and then maybe we can have our dinner, watch a little TV? The movie channel's been running a Bogie and Bacall fest this week."
Ruby smiles in relief and links her arm in his. "Let's go get her, then."
The bouncer leads them in. Even though it's a Friday evening, it's still too early for a crowd, so the nine or ten customers in the bar are all regulars who come by most nights for a few drinks after work. This is the highlight of their day: they have no families, no church, no volunteer work, no hobbies and in some cases, no jobs. As they pass through, Ruby recognizes some of them from the old world, and she thinks that Regina must have hated these people even more than she hated Snow, to have given them such a small life in the new world.
In a few moments she has reason to wonder if Belle is one of Regina's worst hated.
Mitch unlocks the office door. Belle's lying belly-down on the desk, never mind the papers and pens strewn under her. Her already too-short skirt has ridden up, exposing a thong. She's swinging her legs as she croons into a computer mouse and pounds on the keyboard as if it were a piano.
"Good grief," Emma grunts. She grabs Belle's arm and pulls. "Come on, Belle, on your feet. You're going home with Ruby."
Belle rolls over onto her back. One of her stilettos goes flying as she kicks her legs in the air and the heel strikes Mitch in the chest. He catches it, grabs her ankle and sticks it onto her foot.
"Get up, Belle!" Emma is losing patience. Slightly comes around to the other side of the desk and between the two of them, they push Belle onto her feet.
"Who's Belle?" She croons a few more lyrics. "'Why do you people keep calling me Belle? Leggo o' me," she leans into Slightly. "Unless you're gonna buy me a drink first."
Slightly pushes her upright. "If you're not Belle, who are you?"
She runs her hand down his chest. "You're kind of cute. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you."
Emma and Slightly half-carry her to the squad car. The B & B is only a few blocks away, but Emma's not sure that in those heels and that condition Belle can walk the distance. They get her into the back of the car, then Ruby and Slightly climb in on either side of her, lest she take the notion to climb back out again. "Who are you?" Belle peers at Ruby. "I seen you somewhere."
Ruby's had a little experience—all of it unpleasant—dealing with drunks, both in the diner and in her spotty dating history. She will humor Belle to keep her under control, and she'll watch for indications that Belle's about to hurl. "My name is Ruby Lucas. You live in the inn that I run."
"No, I live in a 'partment on First Street." She points. "Over that way."
"Well, you're going to stay with me tonight. All right, Belle?"
"Not Belle. Name's Lacey. Like my bra." Belle pulls her blouse up to reveal her pink bra. "See? Lacey. L-A-C-Y." She frowns and lowers her blouse. "There's suppose' to be a 'e' in there somewhere."
"I'm sorry, Slightly," Ruby sounds regretful but resigned. Finally, a decent guy, and she's losing whatever chance she may have had with him.
He gives Belle a little shove to force her off his lap, which she seems to have decided would be more comfortable than the middle seat. "There's time yet, Red," he answers quietly. "After we've arrested Hook, I'll be back."
Ruby smiles and settles back into the car seat.
Storybrooke General, Room 304, 6 pm
One hour until Bae.
Gold has a decision to make within the next hour—so he turns on the television and flips through the channels as he enjoys the chicken noodle soup Dove brought him for supper. He finds the classic movie channel; he'd dearly love a Western right now, preferably a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda, but he'll settle for a John Wayne. Instead, it's Dark Passage, tonight's entry in a Bogie and Bacall fest. It's the last thing he needs, a movie to remind him of Belle. Whenever she was in a playful mood, she'd call him Steve, and he'd call her Slim, nicknames that the characters of To Have and Have Not called each other. And when they were in a public place and she wanted to get him alone, she'd whistle, a reference to a line from the movie: "put your lips together and blow."
Gods, he misses his Slim.
"I thought I had a good life here," Bacall's character is saying, "but your going away doesn't make it seem good any more. I've sort of joined your team and... and I don't look forward to being without you."
Bogie's character answers, "When I leave here, you're off my team, and lucky to be. Nah, I've got the Indian sign on me. It seems I can't win."
Yeah. Ditto. Belle should've never joined Team Rumple.