"Hey." Gold said coming in from outside. Surprised to see Belle up.

"Hey. What are you doing up?"

"I was going to make you breakfast."

"No that's my job… I'm the maid, and you look like you hit a truck."

"Hit by a truck I think is what you mean."

"Well what ever it is I may or may not mean, you need to rest." Belle said looking him up and down. "You look pale, your sweating a lot, and the dark rings under your eyes tell me you haven't been sleeping."

"Oh I've been sleeping, just not peacefully." Gold said slowly going up the stairs.

He hadn't told Belle, but he had been harvesting her hairs the last few days from her pillow. He had managed to make about 6 true love potions just last night, but he had been noticing that he was going through them more and more quickly, and 6 had barley cut it yesterday.

But he knew he had to keep what he was doing a secret, the less people that knew the better, and if he asked Belle for some of her hair, she would ask why, and right now lying would be too hard to manage.

Maybe he could treat her pillow with a small amount of hair removal potion, just enough to encourage them to come off, but right now he wasn't feeling well enough to trust that he wouldn't accidentally put to much on and cause Belle to be bald.

So for now he uncorked his first potion of the day and threw back a caffeine pill to go with it. And after finishing them off, went to sleep.

A little while later Belle came up with breakfast, but found Gold asleep.

She was going to leave, but then noticed the empty vial on the floor.

"What are you doing there?" She said picking it up.

It didn't seem like it had anything in it, or had had anything in it for some time. So she pocketed it and left. Taking the breakfast with her.

Belle was curious, obviously. What could he possibly have been doing with an empty vial?

Of course several things came to mind when she thought about it. A simple sleeping draft to allow for a more peaceful rest, any number of regenerative elixirs to help with what was appearing to be poor health, although she was sure he wasn't actually sick, she didn't even think he could get sick.

Of course she realized it could've been nothing. Having been with him for some time, Belle knew it wasn't odd for him to be carrying around empty vials, never knowing when one might come in handy.

But there was something in the back of her mind, that little voice that everyone hates that just won't shut up; telling her that they are was something more to it than that.

But there was time to worry about that later she was sure, right now she was busy getting ready to go out and do some much-needed shopping.

After spending about two hours taking care of entertaining the children, she had managed to put them down for a short nap.

Then entering the kitchen she had thought it would be a good idea to take stock and make sure that there was plenty of everything.

There wasn't of course, and she had remembered Gold mentioning earlier that Winter, his previous maid during the curse, was the one that usually did the shopping. But as Winter had left it seems that she was the one who is probably going to have to do the shopping.

It was just; she wasn't entirely sure how to go about it.

She understood the basic mechanics of course; she had been to marketplaces before.

But the ideas that the butchers, the bakers, and the candlestick makers, were all under the same roof, and that not only could you pay with plastic cards, but the fact that here they had paper for money, and that the 10 cent, yes that was the word they used, coin was smaller than the 5 and the 1 cent coin was very strange.

And then there were all of these odd objects that she had absolutely no idea what category to put them in.

Books that were mostly filled with pictures and which used colorful words to describe actions and sounds, with odd names like Hulk, or Wolverine. And then these books like Hulk but with real people, saying how someone had only a year to live. One or two of these books, called Playboy and Penthouse she could see sitting up behind the register. Along with these odd boxes with camels on them, along with these unusual tins, with the name Marlboro on top, describing how whatever product was inside was mint, cinnamon, or original flavored.

Then there were these interesting, she didn't even know how to describe them. Twinkies were a conundrum all on their own. She understood that they were icing filled, but they did not have the thick icing to which she was used to. And how did they manage to get the icing inside? She had absolutely no idea. And the breading that was around them was very unusual.

I then there were some more unusual objects that she had found inside of the washrooms at the house. Tampons and pads, whatever they were for she had absolutely no idea. And we and she had asked Gold, he merely blushed and stammered for a good five minutes. Swearing under his breath and cursing that Emma wasn't there at that moment.

And then there were just a few other things that really did just confuse her completely. Strawberry or grape jam mixed in with peanut butter, whatever peanut butter is, because she had no idea. Jars of red pickles, baby dill pickles, then Jumbo dill pickles, and sweet pickles. And then there were all of these unusual sauces, like green salsa, and red salsa, and ketchup, mustard, brown mustard, deli mustard, spicy mustard, and dijon mustard.

And then there were all these weird cans that supposedly squirted out all sorts of foods. She had managed to find squirted out cheese, squirt out white cheese, squirt out blue colored cheese, and squirt out red colored cheese. Then there were all sorts of icings for cakes and this stuff called whipped cream.

So after about an hour inside the store, Belle was about a hair's breath away from just giving up and saying she wanted one of everything or leaving and attempting to return with somebody who actually had an idea as to what on earth was going on with all of these crazy things.

"Hi Belle." And Belle turned to see a young woman about her age with Brown hair with a slight tint of red in it walking up to her. "You might not remember me, I'm Ruby, or Red is in Little Red Riding Hood."

"I don't get the reference." Belle said standing up to shake Ruby's hand.

"I guess that's what happens when you're locked underneath the hospital for 28 years." Ruby said chuckling. But then she noticed the look on Belle's face. "Oh, I am so sorry I did not mean to actually say that."

"Yeah, well you did." Belle said turning around to leave.

"No, wait." Ruby said lunging forward grabbed her arm. "I'm sorry, it's this curse, Ruby had about as much subtlety is an ogre crashing through a forest, and just about as much tact. Turning her off isn't exactly easy or possible so far."

Belle seemed to ponder for moments, but then her face suddenly lit up with an idea. "I'll forgive you under one condition." She said, and then when Ruby motioned for her to continue Belle motioned towards the aisles. "I understand the things on these shelves about as much as you or I probably know about ogre meeting rituals; bit of help would go a long way to helping me forget about that little comment."

"Well sure, what you need?"

Belle looked around, it just so happened that they were in the toiletries aisle. "What are these, I saw from the bathroom, but Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't or couldn't explain to me what they were."

"I think I might know why." She said taking a box off of the shelf. "These are called tampons, and most men, even The Dark One, would rather fight a dragon one-handed then have to explain what these are."

It turned out that Ruby was actually extremely useful. Knowing what to buy and what not to buy, and explaining what the purposes and uses of all the many objects were.

"Organic, that's just the word they used to they can slap another two dollars on the price, if pesticides or fertilizers actually hurt people, they'd be illegal, or companies just wouldn't use them because of the bad reputation it would get them."

"That my dear is what is commonly referred to as a comic book. The goal is to tell the story with as few words as possible and with as many people being punched as possible, it's how parents in this world are able to trick children into wanting to learn how to read."

"And what about this magazine, the Enquirer? It says this person's going to die in six months."

"Yeah, I think was the eighth time they've been told they have six months to live, the first time was five years ago."

"And what about the two up there behind the counter, Playboy and Penthouse?"

"For the sake of your innocence, I'm not going to tell you."

"And what is this thing, a sl-ing-key."

"That's a slinky, a toy for children."

"Small children?" Belle said instantly thinking of Rumplestiltskin's children.

"Not unless you want to spend the next three hours of your life untangling the child from it, it's definitely something for slightly older children, who they handle the emotional distress of their toy breaking."

"And what about these, Legos?"

"A choking hazard for small children, unless of course you get the super jumbo blocks that they won't be able to stick in their mouths. And just a fair warning, ask anyone what the five most physically painful things anyone can ever experience is, and the first three they might disagree with, but number one will always be childbirth, and number two be stepping on a Lego."

"They have live lobsters here, alive, in a tank." Belle said looking at the tank next to the meat counter.

"Yes they do."

Belle then went over to the counter next to the crabs and saw all sorts of seafood. A couple of large slabs of salmon, different sizes of shrimp, scallops, clams, mussels, and crabs, either whole or just the clause. Then Belle suddenly jumped back when she saw a white cloud coming up from the bottom of the shelf. "What's happening?" She asked in both awe and fear.

"They're called sprinklers. They use them to spray water over the vegetables to help keep them cool and fresh. They also use them on the seafood, but because it's so much colder it comes out more like a cloud instead of a spray."

"So let me get this straight. These are called corndogs, they are hotdogs wrapped in corn bread. But they are not made of dogs, but originally pigs, and hotdogs were made of beef, but these ones are made of chicken." She said then pointing to the symbol of a rooster on a foster farms jumbo corn dog's box.

"What can I say, it's tradition."

"And a hamburger can be made from beef, vegetables, or chicken, but it's never actually been made out of ham."

"They originated in Germany." Ruby said, but Belle just gave her a blank look. "It's another country, which means a different language, which means that their names don't necessarily mean what we think they mean even though they sound similar to certain words we have."

"So is there any food served here which name sounds like what's in it?"

Ruby had to think for a moment, a very long moment. "Meatloaf." She said seeing the package knew the corndogs.

"So what's in meatloaf?"

"It really depends on what kind it is, but scientifically it is made out of the substance that does resemble the food commonly referred to as meat."

"That bad?"

"Like I said it depends on what kind it is. But normally yeah."

Gold's house.

"Can you finish putting the things away? I just got a goal up and check on Rumpelstiltskin, he didn't look like he was feeling too well this morning."

"The Dark One, sick. Are you sure you shouldn't have him in quarantine, only going up to check on him with a hazmat suit that gets washed in a mixture of alcohol and bleach, hiring a hazardous waste company it take care of his Kleenexs?"

"No. I'm sure he has been working himself too hard trying to get Emma and Snow back. I swear if he falls asleep at his desk, with how hard he's been working, his hands and feet would continue mixing potions and holding his eyes open so we can look through books while he slept."

"Now that is something I would pay to see." Ruby said.

Belle just nodded in agreement and went up to see Rumple.

When she opened the door she saw that he was still asleep, maybe a little uneasy of a sleep, so she decided to quickly close the door and leave.

Granny's Dinner

Ruby had somehow convinced Belle to go to the local dinner for food. She had called Merlin to look after the kids because they would be waking up any time now and Dove was off with David. Dove had decided to let David have the Sheriff position, though Dove had said that if he thought for a minuet David was slacking off of his Sheriff duties, he'd be demoted to Janitor.

"So what's it like?" Ruby asked.

"What is what like?" Belle countered.

"Being Rumple-bloody-stilskin's true love/ maid/ person who watches his kids for him and his wife. If it were me I'd be a little miffed at the idea of watching my true love have kids who aren't mine."

"Well, I'm not really the jealous type."

"And no one's given you grief over being with the guy?"

"No more then you could expect considering I haven't been put of the house. How about you, considering who you are I'd be surprised that people don't bug you."

Ruby looked at Belle warily for a moment. Did she know about her special time of mounth. "What do you mean?"

"Being the town sleep with anything male and breathing, or that's what Rumple called it. Can't be the best reputation to have had before."

Ruby let out a sigh she didn't know she had been holding in. "No. Nobody really brings it up. I guess it's just one of those things everybody agrees to not mention, like now the nurses mentioning that they slept with Whale, it's just better some things are left forgotten." They continue to sit in silence for quite some time.

But after Belle had ordered her third iced tea, Ruby figured now would be a good time for her to learn another fact of life in this world. "Belle, how often did you drink back in the old world?"

Belle sputtered for a moment but then looked at her friend. "Rarely, never more than a glass of wine, why?" She said with an awkward smile, looking around the room as if there was some clue as to why they had started on this conversation.

"Well there's an interesting fact about a short to long island iced tea, it's not actually a tea as in made from tea leaves and brewed in hot water."

"Then what is it made out of?"

"Alcoholic beverages. Mostly tequila, gin, vodka, rum, and triple sec; with some lemon juice or some other type of fruit juice. And a dash of cola for coloring." Ruby said smiling.

"So which one of the alcoholic ones?" Belle asked having no idea what any of those strange names actually meant, other than rum of course, as she knew enough about pirates and ships to know that that was fair drink of choice.

"Everything before lemon juice." And a moment later Belle's eyes widened realizing just how many more types of alcohol there was in this drink anything else. "The good news is you ordered a short Long Island iced tea, instead of an extra-long or a regular. Meaning you're only half as drunk as you could be. The bad news however is that you're also two or three times more drunk do you ever been before."

"And when were you going to tell me about this little, interesting detail, about this tea that is not really a tea."

"I thought you knew."

"Well guess what, I didn't." Belle said standing up from the table, but then she realized just how unstable her legs were.

Ruby quickly got up and helped steady her. "Are you going to need help getting home?"

"Probably."

Ruby helped Belle slowly leave the diner, and they managed to make it halfway down the street. "Are we still friends?" Ruby asked.

"Yes." Belle said smiling. "But if I fall flat on my face right now, you're the one that gets to explain to Rumpelstiltskin why."

"And they say you don't have a cruel bone in you, that's downright premeditated and malicious." Ruby said. But she and Belle both new that from the smiles on the other person's face, they were joking.

As they continued down the street Belle pointed to a building that was all boarded up. "Which building is that?"

"Oh that's the library. Apparently Regina had a closed on account of the fact she was hiding a Dragon underneath it."

"A library." And Belle instantly perked up. "Can we go look inside?"

"What part of the words "closed" and "Dragon" in that sentence was unclear to you?"

"Oh I understood all of the words perfectly, especially the word library which trumped all the others. Besides didn't Emma kill the dragon that was underneath the library?"

"Well yes..." Ruby said hesitantly.

"That should be safe, I just want to look through the windows and see if it would be a fun project to work on. After I'm done being a full-time live in maid, I'd like to do something with my time other than dusting and folding laundry."

"You forgot diaper changing and honorary vomit cleaner."

"I guess said, something else to do."

They walked over to the library as quickly as they could, Ruby helping Belle stay upright as she looked through the windows. And even though there was a rather large amount of newspaper covering the windows very thoroughly, there was the occasional open space where she was able to look through and see shelves upon shelves of books.

"Excuse me, Miss?" A voice said behind them, causing both Belle and Ruby to jump for turning around and seeing a homeless man.

"Oh, you startled me."

"I… I was just wondering if either of you had any spare change?"

"Oh, no. Sorry, I… I don't have any money."

"I'll have anything either." Ruby said.

"What… What about a friend? Are you meeting anyone here?"

"Uh, no. Why?" Belle asked, thinking perhaps the man was hoping that they would be other people coming that he could ask for money.

"I just wanted to make sure." He said turning around.

Belle and Ruby each looked at one another with an odd look, but they both managed to give one another at visual conversation women are able to have to say that they both figured it was probably just a man curious to see if there would be anyone else could ask for money.

That is of course and tell he swung around holding a wooden beam and hit Ruby in the back of the head.

As Ruby fell forward she pushed Belle is that she fell back against the library hitting her head against the hard wall. And poor Ruby fell to the ground with a very unpleasant sounding thud.

Gold's Home.

Merlin knew something was off when he could feel that somebody had penetrated one of the border wards.

Gold had made sure toward the house right after magic had come back Merlin's help. But in order to prevent any unfortunate and hard to explain accidents should somebody come to the house for help, they had decided against anything to deadly if one of them was inside of the house.

But due to Gold's deteriorating state due to the process, which Merlin hoped would be completed soon, they modified it slightly so that the wards became little more then a magical alarm system when Marlon was house, but when Gold was alone in the house, or with only Belle there, they became quite a bit more unpleasant.

But the person who was coming to the door was not Belle, and when Marlon opened the door he was even more surprised to see that it was Ruby, sporting a rather unattractive bruise on her face. "Did you lose a fight with a street light or something?"

"Ha ha, very funny. It was actually a fight with a wooden beam and the sidewalk next to the library. But the important thing is that when I came to, Belle was nowhere in sight, or the annoying homeless guy that hit me."

Marlon's eyes went wide but otherwise didn't respond. He quickly ran to the house to grab his staff, all the while thinking.

The number of people who would been interesting Belle because she was in the employee of the Dark One was, well, it would probably be faster to make a list of people who would be interested in someone like that.

But know that wasn't it, Merlin knew that. For a person to be desperate enough, and by extension stupid enough, to in broad daylight hit two people on the side of the street, and then kidnap one of them, that was a particular type desperate. And it narrowed the field considerably, but it didn't reassure him all that much.

The only people that were on that list, where either crazy, or complete and utter morons.

Okay actually there wasn't that much of a distinction between the crazies and the morons. But everyone on that list was also rather dangerous, and wouldn't have any problem killing her.

And going around town to every one of their houses or places of business or hangouts would've taken far too long even with magic.

He managed to think of all of this in the time it took him to grab his staff returned to the front door. "Would you be able to track her?"

"No. Whoever it was that to occur was either very smart or very clumsy, when I woke up all I could smell was alcohol and astringent. My nose won't be able to smell anything for the next week or so."

Maryland muttered something under his breath. "All that is unfortunate. Go get it Sheriff and tell him to meet me where it was you got attacked. I might have something that'll help us find her."

Merlin's Home.

As Merlin walked into his study, he knew what he had to do, but he stopped by the liquor cabinet on his way up.

Because he would do this, he would do it for his friend.

His responsibility.

He took a swig from the bottle.

He never said he'd do it sober though.

He then went up to a locked box.

No one would notice it, it looked plain and unimportant, and considering it fit perfectly into his desk so it would sink in and look like it was part of the desk's face, it didn't really matter how flashy it was.

But as any mage knew, looks are very untrustworthy. This box was unbreakable. The blood lock which was the surface defense was actually the easiest thing guarding the box to break. The slightest attempt would put a Dark One in the hospital for a month; actually trying to open it would kill even Gold, or at least render him without a physical form for 100 years.

The wood was not wood, but pure magic, pulled out of a battle field from where a great battle between hundreds of wizards had fought and died. It had taken 500 years for it all to seep down into the ground. Waiting for him to be able to mine it out and turn it into a rather large number of extremely useful items.

But this box was the one that he guarded most carefully.

Opening it for him was quite easy, just a touch here and a turn there and the lid popped right open.

And inside there were two black pouches. Simple velvet pouches with a red string tying each one of them closed. He took out one of them and after closing the box and replacing it into his desk, he opened the pouch and took out the contents.

Some fiery red hair.

"I am sorry for what I must do now, and I hope you can forgive me and understand that this is the only way. I made a promise to you that I would complete no matter the costs, and sacrificing this last piece of you is the only way I can fill the promise I made. I hope you can understand and forgive me. And know that I do this because is the only way."

The Road outside of the Library.

"This is the place where we got attacked." Ruby said pointing to the ground where there was a small amount of blood from where she had probably hit her head.

"So what if he got for us, some kind of locator spell like the one gold gave me to find Jefferson." David asked remembering how he had to follow a hat to where the man was because nobody could figure out where he had gone after the wraith attack.

"That only works if we have something that belonged to her, which we don't. And Ruby's incapable of sniffing her out for the time being. But luckily there other ways to find people with magic." Merlin said pulling out a vial.

David looked at it rather confused, it seemed to suggest have a bit of clear liquid up with some, hair.

Looking at it closer David was right, it was red hair. "What's that supposed to do."

"The light of love. In ancient spell developed by the nursemaid of the daughter of some King. She was in love with the enemies son, and so obviously the two fathers attempted to keep their children apart from one another. In order to meet with one another they would travel through the dark woods, a supposedly haunted area that separated the two kingdoms."

"So how does some ancient Romeo and Juliet spell help us?" Ruby asked.

"The original spell called for the girl to place a piece of her hair into the vial containing the liquid and it would glow brighter the closer she got to him. Fast-forward a few thousand years and it's innervated to a simple spell you can place on anything, say, a ring." Merlin said giving David and knowing glance. "But the original works if you don't have the person who's in love with you to find their lost love. All you need is for somebody to have the hair of their true love in a vial, poor the spell in, and then add a single hair from the person who is in love with the person you're trying to find." Merlin said producing one of Gold's hairs.

"So this will allow us to find Belle." Ruby said smiling.

"Yes."

"And who's Harry you using to power the spell?" David asked.

"What it surprise you to know that I once loved and lost." Merlin said.

"What happened?" David asked, because he could clearly see that there was quite a bit to the story, and that it wasn't very pleasant.

"What happens to the true loves of all those cannot die, they do." He said simply before uncorking the violent placing Gold's hair inside. He then shook the violent began to glow.

But gave it also notice of the red hair inside of the vial began to burn away. "What..."

"The price of magic my boy, the price of magic." Merlin said before he began walking.

It didn't take them long, Merle in keeping a good pace as he watched the vial carefully to see as it slowly began to glow brighter and brighter.

What surprised him was that's the glow led them towards the Game of Thorns flower shop. "While this might be the place, it is her father's shop after all."

Flashback

"Who are you? What… What do you want from me?" Belle said rather angrily towards the man who had hit her friend over the head and had kidnapped her.

"I'm just a man who procures hard to find objects. In this case, the object was you."

"So then who put you up to this?" Belle said, thinking a few rather unladylike words about the man who had hired this man to kidnap her. But they all went out the window when the door opened and her father walked in.

"Belle…" He said in a very emotional voice. And he smiled when she got up to hug him. "Oh, I've missed you, Belle."

"Father…"

"I'm so sorry this is how we had to be reunited. Please understand. I had no choice."

"But to kidnap me?"

"After the curse broke, I searched all over for you and discovered the Dark One still had you captive."

"He wasn't holding me captive. I chose to be with him."

"Are you saying you fell in love with him?"

"But I fear it is over now. He has a wife who he loves."

"Yes, yes he does. Oh this is wonderful Belle, you can come home. I would welcome you back of course, as long as you promise that you don't love him anymore and that you will never see him again."

"No, no. I'm not a child! And I enjoy my life, enjoy working for him and helping with the children and being useful."

"You don't understand what that man will do to you. What he's already done. And you can't possibly want to help care for another man's children, even though he's not a man but some monster and those children are no doubt as evil as him."

"No, you don't understand. It's my life! And those children actually wonderful, and he's kind to me. And I need to go back and make sure that there all right, they must be hungry by now."

"Then I don't have a choice. I'm sorry. Do it."

Belle was very confused as to what her father could've meant, that is on tell Smee grabbed her. "What? Father. Father, what… What are you doing?! Stop!" But Smee didn't listen to her.

"Goodbye, Belle. I love you!"

"Father!"

Present.

A bell jingled above the door as Merlin walked in, followed by David and Ruby. After quickly glancing around the room, a wizard was very certain that Belle was not here. "Michael, what a pleasant surprise. What can I get you?"

"No flowers today Moe, thank you. Just walking about town and thought I might stop in to see if anything spoke to me. Was hoping to buy something nice for a friend." Michael then made a show of looking around the room for a moment. "On second thought, maybe there is something. Oh but perhaps your daughter might be the better opinion, you know, woman's intuition and all that. I'm afraid this friend has made his lady love rather upset."

"Oh, I'm sorry but my daughter hasn't been here."

"Really. How strange." Merlin said looking hard at the man. "She hasn't come to say hello to dear old dad after 28 years of being away."

"No. Unfortunately not, I doubt if she ever will to be honest."

It was that sentence, those words that didn't sit right with Merlin. There was something off about them. "Well then." He said with a broad fake smile. "Best be off then, things to do." He said extending his hand for a shake.

One that Moe was eager to return with a smile.

That is of course and tell he felt himself freeze. "Now I'm only going to ask this once." Merlin said, his smile morphing into a very serious look. "Tell me where Belle is now, or I will find some better use for your tongue."

"Michael, please..." The man begged.

"It's actually Merlin, your daughter is a friend, and so is Rumpelstiltskin. You're going to tell me exactly what is going on? Why is it that you won't tell me that Belle was here earlier, probably after she was abducted?"

"It was the only way I could see her, get to her while she was in that beast's home."

"I'm going to choose to ignore that insulting remark in favor of you telling me more." He said squeezing Moe's hand a little bit, but David had a feeling that there was something a little more magical to it considering how much pain it seems to cause the man.

"He will destroy Belle like you destroy everything else. Well, I won't let that happen."

"What have you done with her?" Merlin asked calmly

"There's only one way to get her…"

Merlin cut him off by squeezing his hand again. "What have you done with her?

"I have to make her forget about him. No matter the cost. Even if it means she forgets me, too."

Merlin's eyes widened as she realized what the man was saying. "He's sending her across the town line." He then drew the vial out of his jacket and whispered some words. He then set it down and drying out a knife cut Moe's hand.

Merlin was at least nice enough to heal the wound before turning away and putting a drop of blood into the vial. It then began to glow red as he picked it up and whispered a few more words.

And then the shop around them melted away.

A moment later the group of them were standing outside one of the old mine entrances. And they could hear voices inside.

"Please! Please, please stop. What are you doing?" Belle was yelling and pleading.

"Sending you on a little ride under the town line. Once you cross, you'll forget who you were in the other realm and who you loved." Another voice said.

But Merlin didn't wait for him to finish whatever it was he was doing. He simply walked through the entrance and with a wave of his hand, caused the man to fly up against the rocky wall.

And then smiling looked over at Belle. "You're late getting home." He said to the woman as if she wasn't handcuffed to a mine cart.

Belle just looked at him shocked. "Yes, or I was in the middle of being taken against my will."

"Yes I suppose that could make anyone late, just don't let it happen again." And with a wave his hands the handcuffs opened. "My charming Sheriff, would you mind helping her out." He then turned towards the man who had been cutting belt mine cart. "Mr. Smee, as I live and breathe. I'm truly amazed that a rat like you is still breathing. But I can think of one person who will be most happy to hear that, maybe this won't be such a bad day after all."

Michael then turned his gaze over to where Belle and David were standing, seeing that she had righted herself and was dusting off her skirt, Merlin thought now was a good time to raise his hand and snap his fingers.

After snapping his fingers, the group found themselves in Gold's bedroom.

Everyone there other than Belle and Merlin were instantly uncomfortable, especially seeing a sleeping dark one in his bed, beads of sweat rolling down his body.

Merlin simply waved his hand causing Moe and Smee to fly backwards into chairs, with some rope magically producing to bind them.

He then walked over to Belle and, with a quick this might hurt, pulled out one of her hairs. He then went over to Gold's bed and found one of his hairs on the pillow.

He quickly them both into a vile and shook them around a bit. A few moments later he had created another true love potion, and gave it to Gold.

When the man in the bed began to shake violently, Merlin quickly ushered them all out of the room.

Of course after closing the door he heard the two men that were tied to the chairs yelling for him to not forget about them. With a sigh he transported them into two chairs in the hallway, where they were quickly bound once more.

"So what's going on in there?" David asked.

"Just a little magic this and that, nothing you would understand." Merlin said.

David probably wanted to ask more, but the sound of rumbling, and seeing light flashing underneath the door, the group was rather distracted.

But a moment later the rumbling stopped, and after a minute of quiet the door opened and there was Mr. Gold standing with his cane, looking at the group curiously.

"Is there some form of party going on?" He said looking at the group. But then his eyes turned hard when he noticed Moe and Smee sitting in the chairs.

"You were just in there, on your deathbed or something from the looks of it." David said.

"Was I? I hardly noticed." Gold said waving his hand. And then the plum of purple smoke David disappeared along with Ruby. Gold then looked towards Merlin. "So what it Belle's idiot father do?"

"Oh just the usual, charging too much for second-rate flowers, kidnapping his daughter, hiring scum to throw her over the town line, normal everyday things."

Gold then looked at Moe, with a very obvious disdain, and then looked over to Belle. "Are you hurt?"

"No." Belle answered.

"Would you like something terribly violent and unpleasant done to him?"

Belle looked at her father this time. "No."

"Very well." Gold said smiling as he turned to Moe. "Your daughter has seen fit that I should grant you mercy, and as is a good day I'm inclined to do so." He said before bring his cane up to push against the man's throat. "But please understand this mercy is temporary, and the once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. I do not want you going near her again without her express permission, unless she is on fire you are not to go near her, and then you are only to do so if you have a bucket of water to throw on her. You are not have contact of any kind, or try and stir up any trouble. Should you try and hurt her or me or what's mine, I shall make your life so horrible that a living hell would sound very nice." And then with a snap his fingers Gold transported Moe back to his flower shop.

He then turned towards Belle and Merlin. "Thank you for the help the last few days, want you to go out and have a hamburger at Granny's, on me." He said smiling.

"Will you be joining us?" Belle asked.

"Oh no, I have children that I must see to it, make sure they still remember what it is I look like."

Belle smiled and was more than happy to leave, but then she remembered that there was someone else there. "What about him."

"Oh don't worry." Gold said smiling. "I'll deal with the kidnapper."

Gold could see that Belle was about to make a fuss. Raising his hand he silenced her. "I promise I am not going to do anything unpleasant to him because of his kidnapping you."

Belle seemed pacified with this, and so picking up her coat allowed Merlin to teleport her to Granny's diner for a hamburger.

Gold simply turn towards Mr. Smee and smiled a deadly smile. "After all, I have so much more I could use as a reason to make your life terribly unpleasant." He said before grabbing a chair and swing it around so he could sit facing the man. "I can you and I have some things we need to talk about."

And Mr. Smee looked at him with horror in his eyes.

Hi, I'm back. It's been 3 long months but I am back.

Sorry it took so long, my only excuse is that I had school, real life (really, put a warning on that thing), and a dear old Family friend passed away.

On the note about the friend. She was a wonderful old lady, it's a mercy that she passed the way she did because her health was not good and this was the least unpleasant way she could have gone, she was truly wonderful, and the world has suffered a great loss with her passing.

School as always is a soul sucking pile of unpleasantness and pain, avoid if possible. Thank God it's summer.

And as for life, please see previous answer about school.

Now my reviewers who may or may not remember my name.

Grace5231973, thank you, I liked the few nice moments I got in that chapter as well.

Guest, unfortunately I have taken many art classes in my time, they were all a waste of it, I couldn't draw Emma's out fit to save me, and I looked for somewhere in the universe a picture of a female version of Rumples outfit, but the lack of gender-swap fanfic (thank God for that) means that the search was for not. Just try and picture Emma wearing Rumples outfit when he was dealing with Cinderella the first time in Price of Gold, only more feminine and with a plunging neck line.

Twyla Mercedes, for whom my Easter eggs were all for not. But yes, a generation difference and the fact that my E-Eggs were using more obscure references would explain why they weren't noticed. *sigh*

But glad you liked the magic, hope to do more with Emma and learning to use it, a lot more.

And lozzy035, yes she is learning in her sleep, too bad that doesn't work in real life. (Once again see previous comment about school).

So, what do you all think of this Chapter. What did Gold and Merlin just finish doing?

And also, I have a new pole up, feel free to vote and such.

And as always please Review.