Dagian spent so much time on the couch outside her baby's hospital room that she realized that she might as well just moved out of the house and put it there.

The doctors and nurses endured it. Dagian didn't know if it was because she was the mother of the dark one's child or because they just didn't care as long as she stayed out of the way.

Dr. Whale brought her a pillow and she brought a blanket from home. She was certain that Whale was trying to hit on her but for the most part she ignored him just like she did everyone else. She was only here for her baby. Rumpelstiltskin had offered to take her position there if it meant she went to sleep for a while at home but she just…couldn't. She'd failed her last baby; she didn't want to fail this one too.

So she tried to sleep; despite the lights being on, the noise that surrounded her, the milk that filled her breasts painfully, and the gurneys and people that bumped her couch.

She was dozing when she heard her baby start crying and her body responded automatically. She was going to need a new shirt now; she wondered if Rumpelstiltskin was nearby, she should call him.

Dagian put her coat around her shoulders and stood. She'd better go get a payphone, when Rumpelstiltskin visited the baby; he often brought her a few changes of clothes. And then he'd go to the baby's room to tell her he was proud of her and he loved her and then he'd take about half a hundred photos.

She looked into the baby's room to see her ex-husband holding their baby. He gave Lily a small tender smile while he sang a quiet song that he used to sing to Bae to get him to sleep.

"Rumpelstiltskin?" she called out but he didn't seem to hear her. She moved toward the door to confront him.

She saw a flash of black cloth move to her right but paid it no mind until whoever was wearing it grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her backwards. Her head slammed painfully on the hospital floor and her vision went blurry.

Dagian tried to scramble up but whoever attacked her grabbed her and shoved her into the wall. Dagian gasped when she saw a man with dark hair and blue eyes come into her vision, "What did I tell you would happen if you tried to leave without my permission, my dear?"

He grabbed her by the throat and she screamed for Rumpelstiltskin who only glanced up with limited interest before smiling back down at his daughter. There was a flash of a blade in the man's hand and she screamed as he drove it into her abdomen.

"NO!" she reached out to push him away but only found she reaching for air.

It took her a few seconds to realize that it was just a dream. She let her hand fall to her side and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds until she was sure that everyone that she knew was staring had resumed their business.

Rumpelstiltskin stared down at her; she only vaguely remembered resting her head on his leg a few hours ago with the promise that she'd only rest her eyes. How long had he just sat there while she slept? "Are you alright?"

"Just a nightmare," she whispered and sat up.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Just promise me that if some rather handsome insane man that I don't recognize ever corners me and has a knife, you'll save me instead of cooing at our daughter."

He tensed, she would've missed it if she didn't know what to look for, "What an odd dream…"

Dagian studied him, "Do you know something about him?"

"Well how should I know? It's your subconscious," he gave her a cup of coffee that he'd been drinking from; "You look terrible by the way."

Dagian scowled, "You're so sweet."

"When was the last time you were home?"

"Probably the same day that Regina stormed the town hall and made off with her kid."

"That was three days ago! What do you do all day here?"

"Sleep," she replied and stretched her back, "And wait."

"What happened to your job?"

"Well it seems since the curse broke, a lot of bakers happened to come into existence," she said, "And they're all better bakers than I am."

"You need something to keep you busy," he muttered more to himself than to her, "You can't just sit here for the next month."

Dagian leaned back and looked at him in amusement, "And what would you suggest."

"The newspaper."

Dagian scoffed, "Oh, right."

"You were Sidney's most trusted journalist and editor," he reminded her, "He interrupted many a romantic night between you and I when he needed a story to be done. You probably know about as much about keeping that paper running as he did."

"Ironic because he doesn't really know about running a paper darling, he's a genie."

"I mean his Storybrooke identity woman, you know what I mean."

And so what do you expect me to do?" she asked, "Get the paper going and interview people with a baby strapped to me?"

"Yes, if that's what you want"

Dagian thought about it, sitting here gave her a lot of time to think. She'd realized pretty quickly that other than having her daughter and finding her son she didn't really have much of a purpose here. Perhaps if she had this paper then it would give her that purpose…she could use it to help find people, to report stories and families that could reunite and give the town the morale that it was desperately craving now.

"I sort of like the idea," she muttered.

He smiled, "I think I like it too."

Dagian looked at him, "What's the price?"

He tried to look offended, "Darling! You'd ask that of me?"

"Yes," she replied bluntly.

He shrugged clearly not caring to keep the façade up, "Belle wants to meet you."

Dagian rolled her eyes, "Rumpelstiltskin. No."

"She wants to make sure that I didn't hurt you or that you don't have ill will toward me for what I did to you."

"I don't," she replied and took another sip of the coffee, "You may relay the message."

"Well that's a bit harsh, darling, do I detect envy?"

Dagian gave a heavy sigh, "I don't envy her Rumpelstiltskin, I'm just not very eager to see the girl you immediately replaced me with."

"We were divorced," he reminded her.

"I know," Dagian said, "But the Dawn personality that you so…kindly blessed me with spent years trying to make you happy only to feel every day that she was failing because she knew that you were only content. The fact that this girl makes you happy by just existing is something that doesn't sit right with her. Does that make sense? It's not logical, I know, but its how she feels."

"I know," he said, "Will you at least think about it?"

"I suppose I must," she replied. After all, she knew that she and Belle were going to be in each other's lives for a very long time if she was actually his true love and they were trapped in the same town.

"It's a start I suppose," he said, "Now I wasn't kidding when I told you that you looked horrible, you need to go get some sleep. I'll stay here with the baby."

Dagian rubbed her temples, "Don't leave her."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he promised, "Just try and get some sleep."

A/N: I try not to put in author's notes because I think it risks people getting pulled out of the story. But I do have to stay this for last night's episode.(Do not read if you have not seen it) I hated their version of Rumpelstiltskin's first wife. It does not sit right with me personally that Milah leaves their son for long periods of time to go out drinking and then decides she loves a pirate because he tells her good stories. So she runs off with a man she barely knows and is perfectly content to let her new boyfriend bully her husband by challenging him to a duel that everyone knew he had no chance of winning and seemed to be fine with him believing she was kidnapped, raped and killed so that she could abandon her responsibilities to go sailing with bloodthirsty pirate bullies.

And then when she makes her return she doesn't even ask about her son and then she tries to turn it around on Rumpel by making it sound like it was his fault for her leaving. I don't buy that her misery was caused that much by the town because they chose not to show us anything of that. In fact they showed a scene with one of the women coming to tell Rumpel that Milah might be in danger. Everyone probably looked down on her because she belittled her husband and neglected her kid.

I know how hard it is to try and make some woman that abandoned her young son and the husband that loved her somewhat sympathetic. That was the goal of these two stories was to present a flawed yet somewhat sympathetic person trying to atone for a mistake she made and spent years regretting and trying to atone for. And while it might be hit or miss with the readers, I like to think that my character had slightly better reasons for leaving (Conscription into the war, abuse from the townsfolk and the threats of the dark one) than Milah had. Am I saying that I'm a better writer than the writers? Of course not. I just think they dropped the ball on this character.

But in other news, Hook will be in this story since he's going to be important to the mythology but obviously he's not going to be DAgian's true love. In fact I"m going to change it up a little.