Storybrooke's courthouse was a small, single-story building made up of clapboard and gray stone, just across the street from the much bigger, fancier, and more modern city hall. It had one of those brass plaques by the main entrance from the Storybrooke Historical Preservation Society, which — from what Emma'd heard — was made up of a bunch of the cranky, gray-haired grandmothers Storybrooke seemed to have in abundance, and the Mayor. Ruby had told her that they met every week to complain about their neighbors and make it a pain in the ass for anyone to try to even try to build a shed.

Dr. Hopper was waiting for her outside, his breath frosting in the gray morning air. Emma jogged up the last few stone steps to meet him, her hands jammed deep into her pockets for warmth. She really needed to remember to bring her gloves. This April was not messing around. "I know, I know, I'm late, I — Whale not here yet?"

"He went to get some coffee," he told her, nodding in the direction of Once Upon A Grind, a small cafe that had opened only a few weeks earlier. "I don't think he's been getting much sleep the past few days. I told him black and sweet for you?"

"Uh, yeah," Emma said, and told herself it was stupid to feel surprise. Archie was that type, to pay attention and remember the little details about people. "Thanks." He gave a small shrug and fussed with his umbrella. "Sorry I'm late, I, uh..." She glanced away for a second. "I went to see Mr. French."

Dr. Hopper didn't answer for a moment. "It didn't go well, I take it."

"You could say that." It was a gray day, and blustery, and threatening rain later because it was only just barely too warm for snow. The wind was a whip, and it yanked Emma's hair every which way and slapped her in the face with it. She clawed a hand through her hair, and told him.

She had found Mr. French in his shop. The closed sign was up, but the door was unlocked, and Mr. French was in the back, putting together a vase of lilies. Emma had tried to be delicate, and politic, and all of the things that other people were much better at, but it basically came out as: So why haven't you gone to visit your daughter yet?

Mr. French had protested, nearly dropping his shears, that he'd wanted to — he really had — but the Mayor said it wasn't a good idea. My Lacey's going to have to go back, she said, Mr. French insisted, his expression so innocent and childlike that Emma had to fight back the urge to shake him and tell him to wake the hell up. The Mayor says that it wouldn't help to visit and get her hopes up, Mr. French had said, make her think she might come home. I just want to do what's right by her.

Emma had bit back the are you fucking kidding me that would have been her first response, and gone for instead, I get it. You're just trying to do what's best for her.

She had not added that he was a moron if he believed one damn word Regina said, because he did believe it. She could see it on his face.

"How can he be that stupid?" she bit out, mostly to herself. "How can someone be that stupid and trusting?"

"You think it's stupid to trust people?" Dr. Hopper asked.

"To trust Regina? Yes," Emma tossed back. "It's like he doesn't even see her — doesn't even see who she is."

"I believe that's…rather a common trait," Archie said, looking down at his shoes. "I, um, gather you didn't tell him we were going to speak with Judge Arnaud this morning."

Emma shrugged, about as innocently as she could manage. It really wasn't very much, but she didn't need to pretend. Not with Archie. "Figured it wouldn't help our case if he was bleating to the Judge about what Regina told him his Lacey needed."

"Or if he told Mayor Mills," Archie said. Accurately.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, doc," Emma said, doing her best to shift into her official sheriff's voice, which was kind of ruined by the fact that her teeth were starting to chatter, "but as I understand it, what we're trying to do here is get an impartial and objective opinion in the case. And considering Regina's involvement, she is not really in a position to be either."

"As opposed to Mr. French," he remarked.

Emma glared at him. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Miss French's," he said simply.

Emma looked away, angry at him, and feeling stupid because she wasn't really angry with him, and feeling angry that she felt stupid about it. She knew that Archie — that Dr. Hopper — was rational and logical and all that, knew that it was a good thing he was, and knew that she should try to be reasonable, too. But she didn't want to be reasonable right now. She wanted to be angry at someone, and he was the only one here. She'd been carrying the anger, a prickly red hot ball of it, under her ribs ever since she stepped out of that damn flower shop. Emma hunched her shoulders and tucked her head down against the wind that was battering at them. Her goddamn scarf, too — why did she keep forgetting her goddamn scarf? "He's her father, Arch," she said, scraping her hair out of her face as the wind whipped it mercilessly. "He should give a shit about what's happening to her."

"Maybe he does," Archie said. His voice was gentle, and Emma didn't look at him, couldn't look at him. Didn't want to see that look on his face, the one that said he understood she wasn't just talking about Mr. French. "I don't know what's in his heart, Emma, and neither do you. I believe it's possible for him to care, and…and — "

"And still be a shit father? Well, he should be here." She stopped, the last word coming out of a throat that was way too tight, and tried to concentrate on not shivering.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, and then sighed. "Here." Archie pulled off his scarf and offered it to her.

She shook her head. "I'm okay."

"You're freezing."

"No, I'm — " The not died in her throat as Archie took a hesitant step closer and looped the scarf around her neck. She blinked at him in surprise, and his cheeks went pink — from the cold, obviously. It was cold out here. "Uh, thanks…" Emma said, giving in and wrapping the rest of the scarf around her neck. The dark blue wool was warm and it smelled like his office, like peppermint and leather and old books.

"You're, um, cold," he said awkwardly, shifting away from her as Dr. Whale came up the steps, taking them two at a time, a cardboard carry-out tray of coffee in his hands.

"You're late," Dr. Whale said, prying a coffee free and shoving it at her.

Emma found she didn't have it in her to toss back a sarcastic comment. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Come on," Whale said, and strode into the courthouse without waiting for a reply.

They had arranged to meet Judge Arnaud in his chambers, which were just off of the one, and only, courtroom in the entire courthouse. The chambers seemed rather small, though to be fair the entire courthouse was kind of small, having been built back when the town was first founded and people were presumably smaller, though that was mainly Emma judging from the vintage clothing Mary Margaret liked to wear. But the Judge's chambers probably weren't as small as they looked, partly because they were crammed — albeit, tastefully — with heavy floor-to-ceiling bookcases, brimming with leather-bound law books, and big wooden chairs that looked like they could have come from the set of The Tudors, and an actual globe on an actual globe-stand made of…cherry? Emma guessed. Some kind of red wood that had been polished to the point where it glowed. And, in the center of all this, drawing the eye like gravity, was an enormous mahogany desk that seemed to take up about half the space in the room.

But Emma figured the room also seemed because it was occupied by Judge Arnaud, who was a massive bear of a man in a three-piece suit, complete with a silk handkerchief stuck in his jacket pocket. He looked like he could have stepped right out of one of those old-fashioned, turn-of-the-century boxing posters. He certainly had the mustache for it, huge and red and groomed into a little twisty curl on either side.

The Judge came out from around his desk as they entered, stretching out his meat-slab arms expansively, and offering Dr. Hopper one colossal hand. "Archibald! So good to see you again!" The Judge's voice, which had an unexpectedly sweet, Southern drawl, boomed with the force of a foghorn. "And Dr. Whale, aren't you ever the ray of sunshine? Sheriff — " Emma held out her hand and was almost yanked off her feet by the force of his handshake " — I don't believe we've been properly introduced, though I had the very great pleasure of voting for you in our most recent election. Sheriff Humbert mayherestinpeace would be very proud of the job you're doing."

"Nice to meet you, sir," Emma managed, fighting the urge to massage her aching knuckles.

"Oh, please, 'Remy,' my dear, always 'Remy' to a pretty lady. Though — " he winked at her " — perhaps 'Your Honor' would be more appropriate, just as this present moment. Do sit down, everyone, please." The Judge chivalrously held out one of the cushioned wooden chairs in front of his desk for Emma, before settling behind the desk in his…well, the only word Emma could think of to describe it was throne. "I understand you all would like to talk to me about one of the patients at our fine hospital."

"Yes, Your Honor," Archie said, and concisely explained the circumstances behind Miss French's escape from Storybrooke General, their discovery of Miss French herself and the hitherto unknown psychiatric facilities at the hospital, and their concerns about her confinement and treatment therein. And he used both 'hitherto' and 'therein' during his explanation, which Emma had to give him points for.

Judge Arnaud then questioned Dr. Whale, who laid out the results of his examination of Miss French, and a few choice words about the hospital in general, his staff in particular, with an ominous. Then the Judge turned his twinkling and particularly piercing gaze on Emma. "And you, Sheriff? What are you here to tell me?"

"That if Lacey's been held in that place against her will, it's a crime," Emma said.

Judge Arnaud sat back in his chair. "That is a serious claim."

"Yeah. It is."

"It may be," Archie put in. "Our concern right now is that we have no way of knowing what, exactly, was going on, or if Miss French's confinement was in any way justified. Her files are next to non-existent. There is no evidence that Miss French ever received regular mental or physical check-ups. There is no evidence that there was even ever a proper evaluation of Lacey French, which at best is an egregious oversight. At the worst, it is…"

"A crime," Emma said. "At worst — someone has held this girl in a…freakin'" she amended at the last second "prison cell for years. You should go see it, Your Honor. It's a prison cell."

"Right now," Archie continued, "the most important thing is for us to determine Miss French's state of mind, so that it can be ascertained whether or not she belongs in a hospital. If that's the case, we can arrange for her to be treated in a proper psychiatric facility, where she will be assured of regular treatment. Or of any treatment, actually," he added. "If she is not…"

"If she is not," Judge Arnaud interrupted, a glint of steel behind that jovial, lord-of-the-manor air, "well, then we have a rather more troubling matter on our hands. I am going to grant your request, doctor," he declared, brandishing a fountain pen and signing the order with a flourish. "And I must say, I for one will be very interested to hear the results of your evaluation."

There was a knock at the door. She tried pretending to be asleep, but it didn't work. Not when the machine next to her started beeping frenetically. She heard the footsteps enter the room, but it wasn't the Woman's; slowly, she opened her eyes, her fingers wrapping around the metal bar of her bed rail. Not the Woman. A man. The rather beige man, the one she'd met…yesterday? The day before that? Time was tricky, even up here with the sun to help her. She had met him earlier, in the police station. He was wearing a fussy little sweater vest, and he had a trench coat draped over one arm, and a long umbrella with a curved wooden handle hooked in his elbow.

"Good afternoon. The nurses told me you were awake, but if you're tired I can come back later." He had a nice voice. The kind of voice that made you want to listen. Behind his round spectacles his eyes were gentle. The bright silver coil of fear in her chest unwound slightly. "Do you remember me?" he asked, when she didn't say anything.

She nodded.

"Do you remember my name?"

That wasn't really what he meant. It was a test. She was good at tests; the Woman was fond of them. She licked her lips, but didn't answer.

"It's Archie Hopper. Dr. Hopper, actually. I'm a psychiatrist. I'd like to talk to you for a bit, if that's all right with you?" he said, and she felt herself frown. He was asking her? He was really asking her if she minded? She wondered what he would do if she said no, if he would stroll back out the door and leave her alone.

No. He wouldn't. She knew this test. The Woman liked it, liked to play that she had a choice, a say, that she had something that was hers. And then the Woman would laugh, and win. So when he gestured to a chair and asked, "May I?" she nodded again. He pulled the chair away from the wall and set it so it faced her bed. Then he draped his trench coat neatly over the back, and hooked his umbrella in place before sitting. "I understand that you have been...under the care of this hospital for some time, Miss French — "

"Fre-nch." She jumped, her voice startling her almost as much as it did him. She hadn't meant to say that. She hadn't meant to say anything.

"Yes," he said carefully.

She bit her bottom lip until it bled, trying to hold back the words and the terrible, terrible need. Trying to be strong. But the need to know was stronger than the need to keep silent. She swallowed, and still it came out in a raw, painful croak that was barely like words at all. "I'm...Miss French?"

"Cecelia French." He watched her for a moment. "I understand your father calls you Lacey."

She felt the tears running hot trails down her cheeks. She couldn't seem to stop them. They filled her eyes and blurred her vision and she was shaking, sick to her stomach and shaking. "Lacey. My...name is Lacey."

"Yes," and his eyes were kind behind his glasses.

Lacey buried her face in her hands and sobbed.