Belle stirred and for a moment she thought she was back in New York, but the smell wasn't right. The air smelt a bit musty and old. She woke up and to her disappointment she found herself on a couch back in her Storybrooke Victorian home.

What time is it? How did I make it to the couch? She wondered.

She sat up immediately and looked around the living room for a clock. The face-clock on the mantle read 9:36 p.m.

Where's Rumple? He was on the porch, no… that was a dream, wait… was it?

"Rumple?!" Belle called out into the void. She got up and headed toward the basement. "Rumple?" she called out again.

"I'm down here," he answered back.

Belle descended the stairs and upon the bottom could see that he had been busy. For the past few hours of their arrival he had apparently unearthed equipment, organized potions bottles and categorized ingredients. It wasn't until she saw Lily's jacket on the work table that she realized what he had been up to.

"Lily's jacket?" Belle questioned.

"I needed something of hers for the tracking spell to work. For the past few hours, I've been searching and assembling the right ingredients together to create the spell. As you can see, there's a lot down here I had to look through."

"Is the spell ready?"

"Not yet..." he said as he added a drop of something silver from a potion bottle, "I'm afraid the last ingredient I need is in my shop."

"Rumple… let me come with you when you go to the shop."

He glanced up from the work table with a raised brow, "What's wrong?"

"I just… had this strange dream that you were apologizing to me and…" His face twisted with concern as she started to rehash the tale to him. Upon seeing that there was no merit to finishing the tale and that nothing would come of it, she shook her head to disregard it. "…um, nevermind. It's probably nothing. This place is starting to get to me as I'm sure it has already with you." Gold remained stoic; neither confirming nor denying her assumptions about how he was handling magic. She continued, "So long as Merlin and Arthur are out there and the town remains cursed, I don't think we should split up. I, personally, would feel much better knowing that you were nearby."

Gold nodded understandably, "Alright. You're right. There's no telling who we can trust and you're the only person I trust at the moment. The last thing we need is for one of us to get cursed."

Belle exhaled a sigh of relief at his reassurance. She looked around his work table as he waved his hand over the items. Potions, herbs and other items were magically storing themselves in boxes and slipped perfectly back on the shelf behind. Apparently, magic was coming back to him more naturally than she had expected. Then a thought occurred to her, when they found Lily would he want to leave again, leave magic? She had only asked him once when they were living in New York, whether or not he missed it and his answer was, "So long as I have you two to live out the rest of my life with." It was then that she realized he had never really answered her question.

"Rumple…"

"Mmm?" he said as he collected Lily's jacket.

"We're not going to stay in Storybrooke. Our home is in New York, right?"

It took him a beat to respond, "Yes, of course." He hesitated, the tone of his voice filled with reluctance. "…Once we find Lily, we'll head back home."

"Ok," she said with uncertainty.

He started to get up from where he sat on the stool, but as soon as he did he wavered. He was fatigued. Magic may have healed his physical body, but his mental acuity was faltering. He had driven all morning, worked in the basement all evening, all while he worried about losing his daughter. It was enough to tax anyone. He leaned forward, placing his two hands on the work table and closed his darkened eyes.

"My love… what's wrong?" observed Belle concerned about his welfare. She came forward and placed a hand on his back to comfort him.

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You look exhausted. You need to sleep."

"Well, good thing I'm the Dark One because I've always been a light sleeper."

"But you did sleep, even as 'The Dark One' you did sleep if only for a little," pointed out Belle. He wasn't moved by her plight. She lifted one of his hands and held it within one of her own as she beckoned, "Come… rest. For me."

He quickly slipped his hand out of hers and pounded the table. Out of stress and frustration he shouted unintentionally, "Belle, I can't lose another child! I can't lose Lily like I did Bae!"

"We," emphasized Belle reminding him that Lily was her child too. She laid her hands delicately on his arm to soothe him and tried to look into his eyes. "We won't lose our child. If we don't try to rest, we'll miss something because our eyes were too tired to see it and that will only set us back in finding her. We have a plan so please," she begged of him, "Please try to rest."

"It's late at night. There's nobody guarding the shop twenty-four, seven. We should make one last attempt to enter the shop while we have the night to cloak us," negotiated Gold.

"We can wait. Merlin and Arthur may be powerful, but there is only two of them. With you, Regina, Emma, and Henry we outnumber them. Let's try and enter the shop tomorrow. If we can't enter, we can ask Henry or Regina for help when we see them tomorrow. If we are stopped by the Dark One dagger, they can still retrieve the missing ingredient for us. In either case, it can wait till the morning."

"How do you know that whoever took Lily isn't harming her?" said Gold thinking of only the worse.

"The letter only demanded that we come to Storybrooke. There was no threat to her, or even to us for that matter. We're here in Storybrooke just like the letter asked. We did our part and paid the ransom. The ball is in Arthur's court now. We are going to find her, but not tonight and not like this," reasoned Belle.

"Alright," conceded Gold after much reluctance as she took his hand in hers. Along the way, he grabbed his daughter's jacket and followed his wife back up the stairs to the main house. He hung Lily's jacket neatly over the back of one of the chairs in the dining room and reached for her hand again. He made his way towards the stairs as if making their way to their old bedroom when he felt her pull back. He turned around and noticed her hesitance, "What's wrong?"

"I can't… this isn't our home anymore. Let's… let's just…" she pulled away from him and made her way toward the living room. He followed after her and flicked his wrist towards the fireplace. A fire place sprung to life as she sat down on the couch. He continued to look at her curiously, wondering what she wanted to do. The magic took her by surprise as the fire roared in front of her. It was odd seeing him openly use magic again, but ignored it temporarily; the fire's warmth was comforting.

"Hold me?" she asked as she sat down on the couch. He sat down beside her on the couch and opened his arms out to receive her. She curled up next to him staring at the fireplace, resting her head comfortably on his shoulder. As soon as she closed her eyes he waved his glowing purple hand over her face. He kissed the top of her head.

"I'm sorry, my love. I don't want to see you get hurt. I'll be back," he promised as he gently moved away from her. With careful hands, he rested her head delicately onto a pillow and had her legs elevated onto the couch. He conjured a blanket out of thin air and laid it perfectly over her body. Before exiting the front door he casted one last glance at her. She wouldn't understand if he told her, but he had more plans beyond tracking their daughter.

He turned away from her and headed toward the door. He slipped on his overcoat suit jacket and left the house disappearing into a cloud of dark magenta smoke. When the cloud dissipated, he found himself in front of his Pawn Shop again. He inhaled deeply. He almost forgot how good it felt to wield magic again; almost too good. He looked around at the darkened main street. The coast was clear. He pulled out the keys to the Pawn Shop and unlocked the door. He went inside the old shop and moved nostalgically around the room, reacquainting himself with the new surroundings.

Henry had certainly been taking care of his shop as evident by the organized groupings of like items. As he walked towards the back of the shop his hands hovered over the glass cases. His fingertips brushed the surface every object his hands passed over, reading each one like brail remembering the history and story behind each one. As he touched he remembered and somewhere deep down, he felt himself turning. Reverting. Changing. He remembered this feeling… this feeling of power, and it was insatiable.

He spun around to look at the entirety of his shop from the opposite end of the room. All of these things were his. Were… his.

Rumple shook his head. Something had taken over him and he completely forgot why he came to the shop to begin with. His missing daughter! Rumple went straight to the back of shop and searched for his black bag of potions. He looked high and low and found it resting inside a glass cabinet. He pulled it out and sat it on the work table still there. He opened it and found the necessary vial to complete the tracking potion. He pocketed the liquid and made his way back out to the front of the shop. Suddenly he felt his head spin and vision blur. He had been awake for almost twenty hours and his fatigue from the day made him more susceptible to his Dark Curse. Whether or not he wanted to admit it, magic was affecting him more so than he realized. He leaned forward onto one of the counters and started rubbing his eyes when something caught his eye. A green twinkle.

Zelena's pendant. It wasn't in the shop before, he thought to himself. The last he remembered of the object Regina had kept it in her family's vault. What was it doing here? Perhaps Henry brought it out of her vault to combine it with the rest of the other items in the shop to preserve his family's legacy, he speculated. It was a stretch, but it was the only theory that made sense to him.

He never broke his gaze as he made his way around the counter. He pulled open the glass door and reached for the emblem. The emerald weighed heavy in his hands as he gazed at it. This was Zelena's totem; a tether for all of her magic. It made him remember his previous master and wondered who his current master was now. Why hasn't he or she revealed himself yet? The new master had only made one command of him so far and it wasn't anything sinister. Could this new master be on the side of good? Could it be Arthur? Could it be someone he knew already and didn't want its identity to be revealed too soon?

The dagger. He could have sworn that it was protected by blood magic. Nobody could have gotten access to it but him. Just like… the house.

The broken protection and preservation spell. Both of them were protected by blood magic too; destined for Henry when he came of age to inherit it. Belle mentioned that Henry must have broken it, which was why he shirked off his suspicions earlier about someone breaking into the house. It's Henry, thought Rumple. He felt convinced Henry was his new master. Henry had Cogsworth and during the seven years that he, Belle and Lily were gone he must have ventured to his Dark Castle in the Enchanted Forest and discovered the hidden compartment protected by blood magic.

Suddenly he felt the pull of the dagger and its command…

GO BACK TO YOUR WIFE.

"No!" shouted Gold back defiantly. He placed the pendant into his pocket and exited the pawn shop. He had fought against the Dark Curse before when Zelena was in control and knew all too well that to fight against it was futile. Despite what he already knew, he stepped out into the street and shouted into the dark desolate void, "I know who you are! So why don't you reveal yourself already?"

No response. No big reveal. Why? He felt the pull again. Like last time, it resonated within the depths of his rib cage and shivered up to his brain. He fought the command with all his might, but this time it felt different. At first he thought that he had actually overpowered the curse because his feet still remained planted to the ground, but then something felt wrong with his heart. At his defiance, the message repeated itself again and again getting louder and louder each time.

GO BACK TO YOUR WIFE. GO BACK TO YOUR WIFE. GO BACK TO YOUR WIFE. GO BACK TO YOUR WIFE. GOOOOOO… BAAAAAACK… TOOOOO… YOOOOOUUUUUR… WIIIIIIIIIIIFE…

The message deafened his own thoughts and consumed his entire being to the point where magic forced his body to move on its own accord and he submitted to the call.

"Henry," he groaned while clutching his heart. When he couldn't take it anymore he engulfed himself in dark purple smoke and disappeared from the front of the pawn shop. When he reappeared he collapsed by Belle's side in the foyer. Belle, woken up by the dagger's command, had been searching for Rumplestiltskin around the house before his arrival and was about to head out the front door when he suddenly appeared by her side.

"Rumple!" called out Belle with alarm and noticed immediately that he was clutching his chest like he couldn't breathe. She knelt down on the floor next to him and moved in closer to support him. At first she was upset that he had left her without telling her, but was more concerned about why he was holding onto his chest and not speaking to her. "Rumple, what happened? Where were you? What did you do?!"

In a strained voice he replied, "My heart… It's Henr… I'm sorry…"

"What?"

His eyes rolled up to the back of his head and closed, passing out on his side and collapsing onto her lap in the hallway. Belle cried out to her husband as she tried to rouse his lifeless form, "Rumple? Rumple!"

Did that feel like a short chapter to you? Yeah, I think it was a pretty short chapter too. I will try to send out the next one tomorrow or Tuesday.

Thank you CrypticCobra, SkyBlueSw, Imusicluver23, NatalieMosherRumbelle, Grace5231973, ladybugsmomma, and Montreat11 for your reviews on the previous chapter. How awesome it was to hear from all of you!

Last chapter… Ok, so I received a lot of interesting feedback on the Henry twist. I hope I didn't turn any readers away from my risky take on the character. As a writer, I just couldn't pass up on the opportunity to throw on a different shade to his character. However, my story is just heating up and there's a lot left to the story to tell. Anything can happen to any of the characters, including Henry. And if you are still reading my story, then you've decided to follow me down this curious rabbit hole of mine. You're brave and I applaud your curiosity. Bravi! Just know this, not everything is as it seems. Here's to hoping I see you next chapter too! Thanks for reading. Cheers.