Chapter 37
Gold's House 12:00 pm
Although she created it, Regina has never been inside Gold's house, so when he suggests, "I think we're ready to proceed to the bedroom," she accepts the offer with great curiosity; she's aware, however, that the suggestion is far from salacious. It's time to test the cloaking spell, and until the arrival of the Lost Boys, the three guest bedrooms were the least used rooms in the house, and therefore the most expendable, in Gold's mind. They make their way up the stairs from the basement to the kitchen, and there Gold, his leg dragging, must pause, disguising the interruption in their journey as a tea break. Regina starts to object when he pours water into a tea kettle: why doesn't he use the microwave and speed things up? But it occurs to her that he may be delaying a bit because he needs the rest, so she makes herself useful by searching for cream.
"You said the Lost Boys are staying with you?" she remarks. "They've almost cleaned you out." She pulls the refrigerator door wide so he can see the empty interior.
"Looks like they'll need to order take-out tonight," he agrees. "And we shall have to drink our tea black. I'm out of sugar too."
Regina fakes a shudder. "Too uncivilized." She conjures a fridge full of food, including a plate of scones. Seating herself at the table, she watches as he busies himself with preparing a tea tray. "What does it feel like?" she asks abruptly.
She's asking about the loss of magic. He could pretend he doesn't know what she means, but that would simply waste time. Once she asks a question, even one she has little real interest in, she will persist until she has an answer. In the old country, they wasted many an afternoon on trivial matters of magic because of that stubbornness of hers—the same stubbornness that wrestled her impatience to the mat through two years of piecing the Final Curse together. His back turned toward her, he needn't control his expression, but he does anyway, out of long habit. He is Mr. Gold, who's always prepared because he always plans ahead, and therefore he is unflappable, and that's what he puts into his voice when he answers, "I suppose I don't know yet. The pain of my injuries gets in the way."
"What does that feel like?" she asks. She's not being nasty; she really doesn't know. Emotional pain, she's felt more than her fair share; but physical pain. . . the last time she can remember feeling physical pain, she was fifteen and fell off Rosanante as he leapt a hedge. The broken wrist that she received she and her father hid from Cora for two days; when Cora learned of it, of course she insisted on curing it with magic. And that has been Regina's medicine ever since: any ache, from saddle sores to the miscarriage she has suffered in the second year of her marriage, has been immediately eliminated with a dose of magic.
So too had Rumplestiltskin treated injury and illness in the early days of his power, but he'd learned restraint, first from Bae, then from his own growing understanding of the laws of magic. For anything created, destroyed or altered by magic, even something as small as a plate of scones, payment must be made: if not by the mage, then by some innocent. Magic doesn't care who pays the price, only that the price is paid in full. He learned that the hard way when he settled the Second Ogres War with a display of magic pyrotechnics—and the day after he'd led the young soldiers home from the battlefield, he discovered that their mothers had been stricken with a pox that left them barren. Since then he'd been fanatical about adhering to the laws of magic. If a problem could be fixed by hand or by herb, he fixed it so, resorting to magic only at the last.
"You've been too profligate with your power," he remarks. "Sometimes it's less painful in the long run to take a few hits up front. If its price goes unpaid too long, magic charges a high interest rate."
"You think like an old man," she complains.
The kettle whistles, ending that discussion. He serves the tea and swallows a pair of acetaminophen caplets before drinking. "Elevate the leg," she reminds him, and he props it on a chair. Subtly, though she catches it anyway, he massages his temple.
"I can heal your injuries," she offers. "As payment for the tea."
His eyes light up and he deliberates. A cup of tea is hardly sufficient payment; for restored health, he would have to surrender something significant. Magic no longer speaks to him, but he can easily imagine what it would demand: surrender the tea cup—not the one in your hand; the broken one in your safe.
"Now is not the time to start acting noble," Regina reminds him. "Your injuries are interfering with our work. If we lose, it'll be on your head."
She doesn't get it, he thinks. It's not a game they're playing: "win" and "lose" are not the outcomes here. Then he realizes that having recently shaken Death's left hand, he's afraid. As old as he is, he's just discovered he loves life. Maybe she's right to oversimplify the situation, if doing so will eliminate the knot of fear tightening around his imagination.
"Don't be a fool. A little magic now to get you back on your feet may prevent someone you love from getting hurt later."
It's a temptation beyond endurance. Belle would understand: she wouldn't see it as a betrayal but rather a small sacrifice she'd make without hesitation, to have him whole again. "In my shop, there's a velvet bag. It contains something important to me. The magic will know where to find it. Take it."
She calls upon magic to find the bag; when it does, she starts to tell magic to take the payment, but some message being sent back to her fingers informs her that this object bears special meaning to Belle too. . . and Regina owes Belle, big time. A strange impulse seizes the queen: she takes this opportunity to balance the scales a little. With a flick of her hand she returns the velvet bag to its shelf in the display counter, and instead instructs magic to take as payment Henry's plaster handprint.
Smiling in secret satisfaction, she rises. She could do this from where she's sitting—she could do this even as she sips her tea—but out of respect (for the magic or for him?) she rises, kneels beside his chair, calls the magic forth and sets her glowing hand on his knee. He gasps as the magic courses through his veins, sears the nerve endings in his leg, wraps itself like an electric blanket around his thigh and his ankle. A thousand times faster and more powerful than the morphine drip Whale had administered yesterday, the magic whirls through his organs and swirls in his brain. His body laps it up; his soul fires up; he's starved for it; his cells attempt to store it. He shouldn't have accepted this, he can't handle this, his addiction returns with a vengeance and he clutches his hands uselessly, begging the magic to bend to his will, but it's not his and it can't stay. When it withdraws, his body is healed but his soul is in worse pain than his leg ever was.
"What's wrong?" Regina stands over him. "It worked, didn't it?"
He nods, and when he opens his eyes she has a hunch what's going on, for the irises have turned gold. "Oh," she breathes. Hastily, she calls her magic back home, and when she looks again she's looking into Mr. Gold's eyes.
"I fixed your ankle too," she says, hoping to compensate for provoking his addiction. She's had a little experience in that regard: she remembers the wretchedness of going cold turkey. "You won't need your cane any more."
Leaning against the table, he stands, testing the leg. Little by little he shifts his weight toward the right until he's standing unaided and balanced. He picks up the tea tray and carries it to the sink: for the first time in thirty years, he has the use of both hands as he walks. "Thank you," he says.
"I've been meaning to ask you about that." She puts the cream back in the refrigerator. "Why didn't you heal that ankle yourself months ago?"
He unloads the dishes into the dishwasher, and again his back is to her. "Busy with other things, I suppose." He hesitates a moment before releasing his tea cup to the dishwasher.
"Well, back to work," Regina says brightly. "Take me to your bedroom."
"Be careful how you say that, dearie."
Sheriff's Office 12:30 pm
Emma is blazing a trail through the forest of emails between the Restitutio Initiative, Tamara and Greg. The primary point of contact for the field officers is an individual whose signature line and email address identify him only as Linus. Emma assumes it's a first name, but who knows; it may not even be real. She discovers that Greg and Tamara have been using aliases.
She's been taking notes all morning, and now her notes are so plentiful and disorganized that she asks Snow to come in and sort them out. Snow develops a tri-level system of organization, by date, by sender and by subject, and under each of these, subcategories; she then types the notes into three outlines. Both women realize they are proceeding as if prosecution is possible, when it's not: this community has less than two days left. But order gives them a sense of control, and besides, somewhere in these notes may lie clues to Pan's defeat.
As she's cutting a swath through the emails, Emma keeps coming across copies of emails exchanged between Tamara and Neal; Tamara not only blind-copied the emails over from a personal account to this business one, she also copied every one of the messages for Greg, probably as a way of keeping him informed, for surely these messages couldn't have reassured him of her emotional fidelity. The messages fluctuate between flirty, funny, thoughtful and passionate. Emma has qualms about reading these messages, especially Neal's replies, but they're evidence and help to clarify Tamara and Greg's plans.
They also help Emma to see how Neal fell for Tamara (or, Emma's hoping, deceived himself into thinking he did).
At one point Emma releases the mouse and scoots her chair back from the laptop. Snow pats her hand. "What's wrong, honey?"
"Sometimes being the sheriff is a real bitch, you know? These are evidence. There are strict rules about how and when I can share them with people outside the investigative team."
"But you're thinking you'd like to show them to Neal," Snow surmises. "To help him get over her."
"And feel less stupid for being made a fool. These messages show she was a real pro, a con woman with a whole group of people advising her how to manipulate him. I mean, check this out: here's this person Julia advising Tamara when she should sleep with Neal for the first time! Shouldn't he be told about this? And not just told, because he won't believe it unless he sees these messages for himself."
"Think carefully, honey. Would it really help him to see these messages? You may be able to get around the legalities of showing them to him, but would it be for his good or for your own satisfaction?"
"You're only making it harder," Emma mutters.
"Love is about the tough choices," Snow remarks. "Doing the right thing for your loved ones, even when it hurts, because you have to honor your relationship with honesty."
"In other words, you're advising me not to tell him about any of this."
"No, I'm just trying to help you see the whole picture." Snow smiles a little. "By the way, did you notice just now when I insinuated that you're still in love with Neal, you didn't correct me?"
"Well, you're going to think what you're going to think regardless of what I say—just like any mom does."
Dove's House 12:30 pm
As a thank-you for Dove's hospitality, Bae has prepared lunch for the three of them, giving Dove an opportunity for a nap. Bae takes advantage of this chore to create a teaching moment for Henry: they have a great deal of fun slapping out hamburger patties and slicing potatoes for fresh French fries. As they work, Bae finds that Henry's a sponge: for the price of a little attention, a word of praise and a bit of patience, Bae purchases admiration the likes of which he hasn't experienced since his short-lived stay with the Darlings. In fact, Henry reminds him a lot of Michael, the youngest and most impressionable Darling, that is, until. . .
At first, Henry's filled with questions about the Enchanted Forest and Neverland, but Bae pushes those inquires off and talks about the sort of stuff he's seen the fathers of this world talk to their sons about: sports and bikes and cars and video games. How easy it is to impress the kid, Bae finds; and how easy it is to fall into pride every time Henry's impressed. They're both starved for this sort of connection, so Bae keeps the conversation light; the hard truths must be explored, but later, when both father and son are assured their bond can survive the challenge.
Ah, but Henry's spent his life around adults, so when Dove awakens and joins them at the kitchen table, the kid bends the conversation in hopes of leading Bae into those more dangerous subjects. What starts out as a statistical analysis of the Yankees' chances for another World Series becomes a request for stories about the games Bae played when he was a child, and somehow, with Dove's quiet participation, that conversation leads around to the relationship between young Bae and pre-curse Rumplestiltskin. "Emma lied to me about you being a fireman," Henry says, "because she thought it would hurt me if she told me the truth. But I think it's way better to have a real father who's just kinda regular, like, does things wrong sometimes, than to have a fake father who's a hero."
"Heroism comes in all sorts of packages, Henry," Dove points out. "Sometimes it's a sword-fighting prince on a horse, but sometimes it's a pawnbroker never giving up on finding his lost son. And sometimes it's a son who sees all the mistakes his parents have made but forgives them because he also sees all the love they have for him."
Bae shoots Dove a pissed-off look. "I thought we were talking about baseball."
"Something I've observed about successful baseball teams, Master Bae: like successful families, they learn to forgive the errors so they can help each other get home safe."
"Bad pun," Bae comments.
"Well, I'm not much of a writer," Dove admits. "But I know the family you're lucky enough to be welcome into needs for you to want to be a part of it, and I know a guy needs to feel needed."
"He also needs to feel he can trust his family, that they're not going to chicken out on him."
Henry chimes in, "I trust you, Neal."
Bae reaches out with a napkin to wipe up the blob of ketchup that's about to land on Henry's shirt. He sighs, his mind made up. "Who's gonna teach you how to throw a curve ball if I'm not there? Mr. Dove, can we borrow the keys to the pawnshop? We need to see if Dad's got a catcher's mitt we can pack to take to the Enchanted Forest."
Dove fishes out the keys. "While you're there, look in the cabinet that the cash register sits on. Here's the key for it. You'll find a ball signed by the entire Murderers Row. He bought it at auction last year, intending to give it to you someday. You should pack that too."
Bae whistles in appreciation. "Must've cost him a hundred grand."
"More," Dove confesses. "It cost more than just money. The price of hope is faith."
Gold's House, 2 pm
"Formula Three," Regina announces as she raises the parchment to her lips and blows the spell free of the page. A greenish sheen fills the open doorway, and when it dissipates, the bedroom has vanished, or appears to have. "So far, so good."
Gold has strapped the magic-dampener onto his wrist. Regina can't come near it without endangering herself, but Gold could wear it until Kingdom Come without suffering more than a heat rash from the leather. He wonders what would have become of the Enchanted Forest if Charming or Blue had possessed this band. . . or if Regina or Maleficent had. He wonders what he himself would have done with such a device. It's one thing to defeat an enemy in a magic fight, but quite another to render him or her helpless—humanized.
"Here goes." He walks across the threshold and neatly sidesteps the pile of clothes the Twins have left on the floor. "Damn it." The cloaking spell should have made those clothes, and indeed, the entire room, invisible to him, but Tamara's cuff has blocked the magic. He turns around to face Regina. "Do you see the room too?"
Regina slaps her hands against her sides in frustration. "On to Formula Four. You really should tell your houseguests to tidy up a bit."
Sheriff's Office, 2 pm
The sheriff's phone rings while she's out on a bathroom break, so Snow takes the message. When Emma returns, Snow reports, "That was the medical examiner. The preliminary report on the autopsy shows the cause of Tamara's death was asphyxiation by magic."
Emma clicks her tongue. "Yesterday, I would've said Storybrooke's the only town in the world where you can get a finding like that. But now we've got to add Phuket to that list."
"I wonder what the Bermuda Triangle conspiracy theorists would make of this," Snow muses.
"I don't suppose the DA's office will be all that interested in pursing a case, considering this town's probably going to be non-existent tomorrow."
"I don't think anybody's even seen Spencer in months," Snow winces. "But if they did want to open a case, what would you tell them?"
"Justifiable homicide."
West Woods, 2 pm
"Fellas, look here!" Nibs crows. He's crouching on the muddy bank of the Neowa River, studying something on the ground. As Belle and the Boys approach, he points out what he sees: "A man's footprints leading into the water. It's too far to swim across, so most likely a rowboat or motorboat picked him up here."
"What makes you think it was Mendell?" Twin One asks.
Nibs swings around and points to an object in the mud behind him. It's a brown newsboy cap, size 7 and 3/8, just like the one Emma had warned them to look out for.
As Twin One takes photos of the scene with his phone, Slightly studies the far side of the river. "Boys—and Belle—what say we take a little drive over to the other side of the river?"
Gold's Basement, 4 pm
"I think it's safe to assume that there's more of these." Gold yanks the magic dampener off his wrist and sets it on his lab table. "And it's four o'clock. The meeting is at six."
"Are you giving up?" Regina asks. "That's a first."
"Not giving up, just changing tactics." Gold seats himself at the spinning wheel and runs his hands over the soothing wood. He wishes he could lose himself in spinning for a couple of hours; surely then he'd work out this problem.
"How's your leg?"
He tests it. Funny how quickly he forgot the burn injury, now that it's gone; yet the limp is so deeply ingrained in his psyche that he's been favoring his right ankle all afternoon. "Perfect."
"So what's Plan B?"
He runs his hands through his hair, and an image of a balding old man holding his daughter (granddaughter? great-granddaughter?) on his knee leaps from his memory. He reaches for his phone; he wants nothing so much as to call Belle and tell her about their seven True Loves, but urgent work must be accomplished. Besides, he cautions himself, Belle might be a little freaked out when she hears that number. Even if Belle and Bae are two of the seven, that's still a lot of Probabilities.
He'd better make sure he persuades the hospital's OB/GYN to relocate to the Enchanted Forest instead of bailing out for New York.
"Rumple? Do you have a headache?"
"Just thinking. Plan B. Plan B is the Blazing Saddles plan." He stands. "I'm glad you watched the movie with me, because otherwise, Plan B would sound kind of ridiculous."
"Blazing Saddles, you said? Rumple, I think it's time for your meds."