Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Note to Mir: 1) They'll probably work out a grudging "enemy of my enemy is my friend"/"you can't choose family" type acquaintanceship, a sort of combination of Regina's relationships with Rumple and Snow; Emma can be manipulative like Rumple, which Regina respects, but she is also gullible in an arrogant way like Snow, which Regina loathes. I suppose their relationship will depend on which qualities Emma brings to the particular magical shitfest party they are attending. 2) Tink seems to be channeling Anya from Buffy. OUAT really needs an Anya. 3) The Shadow Train may or may not return. If it doesn't, my headcanon tells me that it should have stopped servicing Storybrooke after the Dark Curse broke, but the Blue Fairy is using it to smuggle to another magical universe fairy dust that the Dwarfs "mysteriously" don't remember mining. To whom and for what purpose? Will Tink, Nova, or Leroy ever discover the truth and force everyone to go on yet another stupid magical true love field trip? I have no idea! But you KNOW that bitch is one shady lady!

PART II

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RUMBELLE IN THE JUNGLE

It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times.

And Charles Dickens could suck his dick!

Rumplestiltskin was in a foul mood as he paced Dr. Hopper's outer office. The tale of two worlds and identities that had consumed his life was spiraling well out of his control, and whenever things were not completely in his control, both Rumplestiltskin and Mr. Gold bordered on panic attacks... which he generally curbed by redirecting that terror into anger and smashing things with his cane.

But he couldn't ransack Dr. Hopper's anteroom. Then he'd be in for anger management issues too, and probably have to join Jefferson and that idiot ex-fairy in group sessions!

Mr. Gold paced the room, a very uncomfortable thing to do, but the pain helped curb his fears as well.

It was the best of times because his son had returned from the dead.

It was the worst of times because his own life was speeding toward an end avoidable only in the premature releasing of an ancient evil that would latch onto his grandson's mother no matter what he did to try and avoid that, and apparently, if it did so, she would not be as prepared and able to wield the power as he'd hope for in his Plan B and would instead hasten this world toward a horrible ending filled with an even more absurd glorification and rewarding of violence and evil than was already the case thanks to Snow White's idiot heart-splitting.

There was something very wrong with that woman. She wasn't that dimwitted in the beginning. But then, magic always came with a price... well, magic and repeated head injuries.

Which brought his thoughts to Belle.

Had he unwittingly lead his beloved to develop Stockholm Syndrome? Was it a consequence of simply being repeatedly knocked out and tied up by a variety of villains regardless of his own treatment? Or, what he suspected most, was it a consequence of Regina's "Lacy" spell after the Dark Curse had broken, eliminating the fail safes he had put in place to assure no permanent brain damage to those brought to this world (which he doubted was still in place for Pan or Snow White's casting)?

Regina was a creature of impulse who did not plan out everything, particularly where safety was concerned. She would neither have cared nor had the patience to assure that Belle's mental faculties remained sound after her little "prank" was done.

No, Rumple was ninety percent certain that his beloved had suffered brain damage, perhaps irreversible - at least without some worrying price. It had to be. It was only after she was un-Lacy'ed that Belle began to exhibit uncharacteristic behavior.

She was a woman of justice, yet she had inexplicably forgiven Hook and even offered him sympathy as he'd moped outside Granny's after the Coronation. She had also become manipulative, something she had never been, at least not in a devious way. And most troubling of all, she had seemed unconcerned about his confinement and shared mind with his son and what long-term mental and emotional trauma that might have caused him. The Belle he knew would have insisted he go to see Archie. It shouldn't have taken Bae to make that call!

And she had taken Rumple's side in the matter when he'd grumbled about it instead of telling him that his son was right, which he had hoped wouldn't be the case, thus confirming his suspicions that something was wrong with Belle. Oh, she didn't seem put off by the idea of helping him, just not remotely concerned that it hadn't been her first thought.

There was an epidemic of un-empathizing going around this town, and it couldn't just be the Moneky Herpes and whatever sluts and contracted syphilis from Hook and his many generations of skanky bootycalls who'd popped out infected little brats that Rumplestiltskin had bartered off to various royals - like Eva, for instance. Magic couldn't cure the strain Hook was carrying around like a diseased bat, but it could delay the onset of the worst symptoms - and death. Really, poor Eva would have died before her daughter's sixteenth birthday whether or not Cora had poisoned her. She'd been doomed by her father.

Rumple had been able to prevent the disease from passing on to little Snow - or so he'd thought. Perhaps he had been wrong, though. Perhaps it had merely gone dormant in her brain and had only recently begun to grow and spread, eating away at her brain tissue.

Perhaps he had miscalculated with the Curse as well, failed to spot some innately malicious side-effect hidden in the original orb that was amplifying all of these negatives, still working against the Savior's ability to break it... though given it had been broken, yet not entirely, and was being recast over and over in different variations based upon the intentions and ingredients of the casters... well... trying to figure it out now was probably futile without permanently self-destructing the town and sending them back to the Enchanted Forest using the remaining energy of the Curse that sustained it being hidden and magic-filled and then closing that hole in the universes.

And that wouldn't be easy. Each time the Curse was cast and the matter/engery transfer occurred, the soft spot between the universes grew softer and thus harder to permanently close.

Of course, the big problem was if this happened too many times and the universes attempted to combine. A small magical pocket was one thing, and a dangerous thing at that he'd foolishly created, but if The Enchanted Forest and the Land Without Magic attempted to coexist, an impossibility, one of those universes would be obliterated in a horrific storm unlike anything ever seen before.

Which, he supposed, from what little Bae had told him about the future alternate universe was probably what ultimately happened. That future Dark One cast one last Curse and kaboom: reality over. In that case, it seemed it was the fairy tale world that ceased to exist, which was certainly something to take under advisement in any future portal-creation here.

If it came to Us vs. Them, it wasn't going to be a small town in Maine or the minimally populated feudal state forest they came from that took down the technological Goliath of seven plus billion souls.

The door to the office opened, interrupting Rumple's pacing and Regina exited, looking surprised and annoyed that she'd been caught.

"I am signing Henry back up for therapy," she stated with a snooty look. "He's had too much interaction with the pirate and Emma's stint at single parenting was clearly substandard."

"No doubt," Rumple agreed, discerning that her defensive remark wasn't a lie, but also not the whole truth. He was no fool. And everyone in town had heard by now that things between her and Robin were on the rocks. Rightly so. That man was a doofus of the highest order, and even a deluded villain with an ego the size of Antarctica like Regina at least deserved someone she could have intellectually stimulating conversations with, particularly about magic, the vice she was trying to turn into a virtue... or had been, anyway, before her mother derailed that.

Rumple sympathized, even if he disliked Regina immensely due to her lack of patience, gratitude, and always storming into his shop demanding things when she, at least, should have the wits to know better!

"I suppose you're here to make some shady deal," Regina scoffed while the bumbling new receptionist flipped through a calendar to make an appointment for Henry.

"No. My son threatened me. He's forcing me to go to therapy."

Regina snorted. "I guess Henry's sperm donar does have bigger balls than I thought."

While Rumple glowered at her calling Bae that, he wasn't able to get in a snide remark as Dr. Hopper interjected a chipper, "Mr. Gold, come on in."

The hour was one of the most excruciating that Rumple had ever endured. When it was done, Dr. Hopper smiled cheerfully as he always did - in that extremely annoying way because no one should be that pleasant all of the time!

"We've made real progress! Next time, we'll have Belle join us. It's all well and good to read about PTSD, but she needs to know what you're feeling, and something tells me you won't be forthcoming with your nightmares and this magical heart diseases business otherwise."

"Fine," Rumple grumbled and then limped out of the office... and paused to find Hook sitting in one of the chairs on a hot pink donut pillow.

"Why are you sitting on that?"

Hook glowered at him. "Because Nurse Ratched arse raped me with some magical spy glass! And then she further tormented me by saying they only had pink cushions! I am physically and psychologically damaged."

"That sounds accurate," scoffed Rumple.

"Shut up, Crocodile!"

Rolling his eyes and flipping Hook off, Rumple left the office and made his way to Granny's where Belle was waiting with an iced tea.

Tinkerbell promptly brought them both hamburgers and a basket of fries.

"Is that Henry's book?" Rumple asked.

"Are you trying to deflect from my asking how your session went?"

"You can ask Dr. Hopper's opinion next week when you're supposed to join me," sighed Rumple.

Belle frowned, but let it go and confirmed, "Yes, but it's different than the last time I read it. There are more details now. Neal said it's likely the result of removing the Author, which seems a good hypothesis. That Pinocchio's story wasn't included seems very likely his ability to influence the book from the inside."

"Yes, probably," sighed Rumple. Bae wouldn't tell him what he'd done with the page. And, worse, he'd had someone - probably the damned ex-fairy - place a spell on it so Rumple couldn't find it to release the little turd and blackmail him into using his skills to change things as a quick fix for his heart condition.

As such, the plan to extort Hook and kidnap the Apprentice had been delayed. Not that the pirate would be any good as muscle when he was staggering around crying about his bloody arsehole.

"We need to come up with a viable way to remove and contain him," Belle continued as she dipped some salty fries in ketchup. "He sounds like a megalomaniacal homicidal lunatic who wants to destroy our entire world to get on the New York Times Best Seller List. As much as I love books, that's insane. But the moment anyone looking for a different story learns about him, they'll try to get him one of those magic quills and ink, and do we really know that destroying all of the blank books that Merlin presumably created will make it impossible to use that magic?"

"No, we don't," Rumple conceded. "We don't even know if Merlin actually created the books or if it was some task he set upon his apprentice, and I don't that old creep would say. All I have discerned is that the paper in the books is magically... harmonic with the ink. Quite likely, the pages were created from magical trees, which could explain why they are extinct, or at least assumed to be. But that doesn't mean they are or that they don't exist in other worlds. Pinocchio acquired just enough of both to use in his typewriter to find Bae, which means there has to be a seller of it somewhere in this world - which he could tell us if he wasn't a six year old boy."

"Rumple, you're not thinking of re-aging him! Geppetto just got him back!"

"Geppetto is a psychologically damaged man who chose to associate with a cricket who killed his parents and recreate his childhood trauma through building himself a child using an endangered magical tree instead of making connections with actual humans and not cutting down endangered magical trees. He then caused Emma to grow up an orphan because of his fear of losing a puppet. The man is mental. He shouldn't be raising a child."

"Okay, you may have a point," Belle conceded, "but at least leave him be until it's absolutely necessary to find out where he bought the paper and ink, Rumple. From what Ruby said, before I decided to hate her for leaving me tied up and completely forgetting about me," she amended, "August was very obviously looking to get into Emma's pants and purposely misled her into still thinking Neal had betrayed her. Those two don't need yet another horny idiot in leather complication!"

"You may have a point," Rumple agreed, "though I don't know that the pirate is going to be up for any competitive courting. I understand there was some 'accidental' tearing while removing some polyps that may or may not have actually existed," he snorted.

Belle rolled her eyes at his gleeful look. "Rumple, don't be insensitive! I know Hook has done some horrible things, but Nurse Ratched is a medical professional, and whatever personal vendetta she has against him, she shouldn't have taken it out on him while he was incapacitated and in such a... delicate way."

"A cursed degree does not a professional make. The woman is as much a sadist now as she was in the Enchanted Forest. And the pirate should just be grateful he doesn't have to shit in a colostomy bag. I know you are a forgiving soul, Belle, but the man beat you up and shot you," Rumple sighed. "Forgiving me doesn't mean you have to forgive everyone who hurt you, particularly as he is not sorry in the least!"

"Well, perhaps not, but he helps me organize the books when no one else seems to even notice the Library exists."

"Yes, well, people are wary of entering a place built on top of a dragon's lair and currently occupied by the ghost sand monster of said sorceress who was trapped in incorporeal form, unable to die, in order to guard a doomsday device, and even with that gone has been left in torment, because that is how Regina repays friendship."

After swallowing a bite of burger, Rumple amended, "On an aside, Regina is going to therapy again. And sending Henry again as well."

"About time," sighed Belle. "That woman's a stone cold lunatic. And between the car related property damage and Hook teaching Henry to cheat - and getting Henry to teach him how to use his new phone to take upskirt pictures of the waitresses... thankfully, Tinkerbell confiscated it and kicked him in the butt."

Rumple snorted. "No wonder he was particularly mopey at Hopper's. I swear, he is the most spineless, whiny, 'delicate' villain I have ever met. And I once spent a weekend in Far Far Away Land listening to a very short egomaniac wax delusional about true love and dark magical conquest."

"I didn't know," interjected Tinkerbell as she brought the check, "that you had a twin in Far Far Away Land."

"Just for that," hissed Rumple, "no tip!"

"Impotent geezer!" the ex-fairy accused.

"Incompetent slut!"

"You wanna take this outside, old man? I'll punch you in the tits! I may float like a fairy, but I sting like a motherfucking chimaera!"

"You also have anger management issues!" snapped Belle, grabbing her coat. "The both of you!" she amended as she wondered for the bazillionth time what she really saw in Rumplestiltskin other than her older man in a fancy suit fetish. "You've reminded me why I like the solitude of the Library."

Also, Belle mused as she considered the ruberband she found in her burger, the food at Granny's was getting pretty bad since Ruby had quit. She probably shouldn't have read that Upton Sinclair novel, now that she thought about it...

AN: Far Far Away Land is from Shrek. The two universe storm thing is from Fringe. Oh, and did you catch my geeky title puns?

Next up: Neal has a chat with Robin.