Note: This chapter starts before Belle calls Rumplestiltskin's name at the end of Chapter Twenty-Six.

Chapter Twenty-Seven—"Old Grudges"

Belle, Ruby, Emma, and Hook had finished climbing the rock wall at about the same time that Rumplestiltskin hijacked Norco's storm. A few flying monkeys approached cautiously as they struggled upwards, hovering in midair and making laughing noises at the quartet, but none came close enough to do any harm. Knowing they were watching didn't help matters, though, and Belle wondered who they were reporting to. At one point, Emma tried valiantly to blast them aside with magic, but the one monkey she hit was only replaced by two more. Still, at least none of the monkeys tried to bite them.

She was the last one over the edge, breathing hard as Ruby helped her up. Belle had no problem with heights, but climbing wasn't exactly her strong suit. She'd also grown painfully aware of the fact that she was the least fit member of their team. Probably because of that, Belle took some perverse pride in the fact that she'd been right on the obnoxious pirate's heels. Of course, Hook was a bit handicapped, but at least Belle hadn't slowed anyone down. And at least Hook seemed a bit contrite about his past actions, which made her dislike him a little less.

"I hate heights," Ruby grumbled for the fifteenth time. Belle gave her a wan smile in response.

"I think I'm beginning to hate climbing," she replied, brushing herself off. Not that any of them were exactly paragons of fashion at the moment, having worn the same clothes for the past several days, but Belle at least preferred not to be dripping dirt everywhere she went.

"Try doing it one handed, love," Hook put in, looking seriously unhappy with the situation. Only Emma seemed unaffected by the lengthy climb; it hadn't looked that far from the bottom, but the climb had taken almost an hour. Now they were all tired and cranky, and it was a darn good thing that the King's Cave was only a few hundred yards away. If Belle was remembering the map right.

"No, thanks," she replied, trying not to think of who'd cut off that hand. In the grand scheme of horrible things Rumplestiltskin had done, cutting off Hook's hand hardly ranked very high, but Belle did still feel a flicker of pity for the pirate. A flicker that would be a lot bigger if he'd never tried to kill me, anyway.

Still, she'd accepted his apology, so Belle resolutely pushed that thought aside. Hook had made his choices and Rumple had made his, and they had come to some sort of terms during their time in Neverland. She'd probably never like Hook—it was hard to like a man who'd shot you, after all—but Belle could accept that he was on the right side. They were allies, and Belle could live with that. Even though Hook had disappeared for much of the first year of the war against the Witch, he was with them now, and that was what mattered most. Particularly since he'd decided to stick around even after Emma had made her choice and it hadn't been him.

"So, which way?" Emma asked impatiently. "It shouldn't be much further, right?"

Belle already had the map in her hand to confirm that. "Not at all. The King's Cave should be up that hill and to the right. Less than a half mile, I think."

"It's about time," Hook muttered, and even Ruby nodded at that.

"Yeah, I'm—Look out!"

A sudden noise made them all look up, and Belle's heart sank as she noticed a dozen monkeys in the sky, swooping towards their group. Teeth and claws were evident now, and the creatures were already screaming with anticipation of cornering their prey.

"Run!" Emma shouted, and they all shot forward, racing around a bend as the monkeys bored in, screeching loudly enough to wake the dead. Somehow, Belle managed to draw her sword as she sprinted, and she could see that the others had done the same. Running and fighting at the same time was surely counted as a Very Bad Idea, but they were out of options, so the quartet ran for all they were worth.

Pounding around a corner and feeling her breath echo in her ears, Belle almost missed the first monkey coming down. But Ruby did not, and her excellent reflexes saved the day; the wolf girl leapt forward with surprising agility and skewered the monkey in mid-air, all without breaking stride. Hook took out the second monkey and Emma the third, which made the others draw back a little bit. That didn't give the humans much breathing room, but it was just enough for them to make it around a second corner—and suddenly there was a cave in the distance. There wasn't time to verify that it was the right cave, of course, but the map clutched in Belle's sweaty left hand had indicated that there should only be one cave this far up the mountain. Its mouth gaped open like a giant black maw wanting to swallow them, but anything had to be better than a flying monkey attack.

As one, the four dove through the opening, whipping around to face the suddenly larger flock of monkeys—and then the ground rolled wildly under their feet, dropping the quartet to the ground with no warning. Belle hit her right elbow hard and lost her sword, and could tell from the various yelps and swears that the others were hurting too. But most of the human noises were drowned out by the still-screeching monkeys, so Belle groped for the sword even as her head came up to watch the flock of monkeys approach. She struggled to her feet, thrown off balance by the still-shaking ground, noticing that Emma had done the same but Hook and Ruby were still trying to pick themselves up. The monkeys were almost at the cave opening—

And then that no longer mattered as a giant bared wall slammed into place in the entranceway, caging them in and locking the monkeys out. Several monkeys slammed into the heavy metal bars and screamed in fury, but the sudden protection held. The quartet was too far into the cave for the monkeys to reach them with teeth or claws, although several did try, and the chorus of frustrated shrieks only grew louder when the monkeys failed.

"Well," Emma panted. "That was good timing."

"You can say that again," Belle managed to agree around her own heavy breathing.

To her right, Ruby finally made it to her feet as the ground stopped shaking, and Hook did, too, even though he was far closer to the new metal cage-like wall that was blocking the monkeys out. The pirate stared at the bars for a long moment, frowning, while Emma continued:

"Let's back up a bit in case those monkeys get more feisty. Anyone got a flashlight?"

Ruby laughed. "Not in this world, Emma. But I can make a torch."

"Good. I've done those magic light-ball things, but I'm still not really great at them," the Savior replied with a crooked smile. "But don't tell Regina I said that, will you? She'll only go on about me not practicing enough, and—"

"Shut up, Swan."

All three women twisted to look at Hook, who was still staring at the bars. Emma's mouth dropped open in surprise, and even Belle felt her eyes widening. Hook was nothing if not polite (sultry, full of innuendos, and entirely too suave, but polite), and he always went to great lengths to treat Emma like she was, well, a princess. So the suddenly sharp command came as a huge shock, and all three of them stared at the pirate. Twisting, he finally looked at them over his shoulder, seeming half-amused, half-exasperated.

"Have any of you lovely ladies noticed that there's now no way out of this cave?"

"Uh." Ruby's open-mouthed surprise covered all three of them, and Belle found herself exchanging a glance with Emma, who seemed equally mortified.

But she squared her shoulders and looked back into the darkened cave, which seemed to continue backwards further than the small amount of light coming through the opening could illuminate. Belle spoke as cheerfully as she could manage: "We'd better go onwards, then."

She really didn't like the idea of crawling into dark, possibly small, places, but if they were going to find the Janus Stone—and a way out of this cave—they had to. Belle wasn't exactly afraid of the dark or afraid of the unknown, but she really didn't like creepy and crawly things (like bats, snakes, or other creatures), and didn't those always live in caves in stories? The last thing Belle wanted to do was step on something that might bite her. Being a firm believer in facing her fears didn't mean that she wanted to face those fears today, and while Belle was willing to take a deep breath and do her best, her stomach still fluttered a little at the thought.

But creepy crawlies had to be better than flying monkeys that would turn you into one of them if they bit you, didn't they?

"Yeah. Let's get moving," Emma said decisively, just as Ruby finished cobbling together two torches. She handed one to Belle and kept one for herself, a decision that make perfect sense in Belle's mind—Hook was a hand short, and Emma probably needed both hands if she was going to successfully work any type of magic.

Of course, that meant Belle wound up leading the way while Ruby brought up the rear, but she could manage as long as she could see where she was stepping. By the time they'd made it a few yards in, however, it became very clear that there was nothing natural about this cave. And nothing crawly. Belle should have been relieved…but she wasn't. So far as she knew, crawly things lived in caves. If there were none of them here, that meant something else was bound to be.

Tightening her grip on the torch, Belle led the way deeper into the cave.

On her second visit, it became obvious that the Dark Castle wasn't what it used to be. The place was strangely…quiet. Not quiet in a physical sense, necessarily—Maleficent had visited multiple times during Rumplestiltskin's antisocial days and knew how truly silent this castle could be. But this was different. Maleficent knew this castle. In fact, she' been there while the place had been under other ownership, too—her own Forbidden Fortress wasn't that far away—and she had never felt this.

The Dark Castle had always been aptly named. Pretentious, but accurate. Maleficent was old enough to know that Rumplestiltskin hadn't built the place; he'd merely taken it from another dark sorcerer who had set himself up as king of the surrounding lands. Rumplestiltskin had probably been unaware of the great public service he'd done the world in getting rid of Atlantes, and Maleficent had never bothered to tell him. The Dark One had built upon the existing spells after moving in, rather than starting from scratch, which meant that the feel of the castle had remained fairly constant over the many centuries Maleficent had known it. Until now.

Now, the Dark Castle felt…cleaner. Walking through the front gates felt different than ever before, and not from what had happened when the Dark Curse ripped through. She hadn't noticed this during the christening, but then there had been so much happening, and she'd been rather distracted by the excellent opportunity to torment so many royals. (Maleficent had only given a few of them chills, and none of those had been terribly important. Save her idiotic little princess' husband; he had been fun to toy with. And it had been long overdue.) No. This was a different quality of magic entirely.

A chill ran down her spine. Regina was right, it seems. How amusing. The (willfully) fallen fairy didn't know if her old friend had told Rumplestiltskin that she'd shared his interesting secrets, but—

"The bastard remains here, My Lady," a somewhat familiar voice said as Maleficent made her way through the south garden. Arriving a few minutes earlier, she'd found—much to her annoyance—that teleporting straight into the castle was outright impossible, now, thanks to whatever magic Rumplestiltskin had worked. So, she was in the midst of taking the long (and not unpleasant) walk through the gardens, until she stopped cold, also recognizing the voice that answered:

"You have done well, King Hubert," said the motherly know-it-all—but there was something off in the delivery. She didn't sound nearly as self-satisfied as normal. Maleficent's eyes narrowed.

"Thank you," the father of her second sleeping princess' True Love said gravely. "What would you have me do?"

"Slip this into his bedchamber," the Blue Fairy's voice replied as Maleficent eased herself around a corner enough to see the pair of them, first pausing to throw a bit of invisibility magic on herself. "It will lead him through the gates where he can be spirited away to safety. And then you alone will have saved our world from the greatest of evils."

Maleficent barely managed to hold in a derisive snort. It wouldn't do to be spotted; Maleficent had been on the receiving end of Reul Ghorm's fury once before, and she had no desire to repeat the experience. She would cheerfully leave such idiocies up to Rumplestiltskin—who would kill the condescending senior fairy, if there was any justice in the world—or to Regina, who was just crazy enough to do something that stupidly heroic. Regina's always been…extreme. It's her heart that's the problem, but at least she never went her mother's road and tried to take it out.

Of course, she'd known Cora. She'd known every major magical user over her six centuries as an evil(fairy-turned) sorceress. The century and a half Maleficent had been a good fairy no longer seemed to matter; she'd split with Blue and her all knowing 'goodness' and had never looked back. Oh, she'd turned a curse or two in her time, and tormented a few well-deserving souls (nevermind her reasons for targeting Aurora and her mother; both princesses deserved what they had gotten, even if no one would ever see it her way except Regina). But this was—

Oh. Her musings had made her miss King Hubert's response. I really must stop doing that. Maleficent had always been a tad distractible; Blue had once called it her greatest weakness. But, Blue had never been honest enough for the then-purple fairy to care what she thought of her. And now I'll show them just how honest you are. Regina had told her about the attempt to make peace with the Blue Fairy, but obviously Blue was too good for that!

"I will be waiting," Blue replied to whatever Hubert had said. "Please, act quickly. This must be accomplished before Rumplestiltskin returns. He may no longer be the Dark One, but his motives are anything but pure."

Again trying not to snort—a very un-fairylike quality, she'd been lectured back in the day—Maleficent turned away from the travesty of a King being masterfully manipulated by someone more than twenty times his age. Hubert was always a bit of a stuck-up idiot. Why did I try to seduce him so many years ago? Making a face, she headed into the castle and threw a spell out to find Regina, only then remembering to remove the invisibility magic on herself. Her long strides ate up the ground quickly, and her thoughts kept her busy while her magic pinpointed the Evil Queen's location. At least he was good looking, then. Now he's just rather…dumpy. Perhaps she'd only been bored when she'd decided that seducing him was a grand idea. Yes, that had to be it. Boredom made Maleficent do the darnedest of things.

"What in the world are you doing here?" Regina's voice cut into her thoughts before Maleficent managed to make it past the great hall. She'd swapped to musing on other previous lovers—most better looking or at least more interesting than Hubert—and had settled on her memories of a previous Dark One who had been quite the catch. Thinking of past lovers helped her forget the one that had mattered most, the one that Blue had—Don't think of Diaval. Dozens of others had come in the six centuries since her doomed love, and they were so interesting. There was plenty to distract herself with. So she hadn't been expecting to run into Regina so soon at all, and jumped when the other sorceress appeared.

"I was bored," she answered honestly, remembering her reasons for arriving at the Dark Castle in the first place.

"Is that it?" Regina asked without the mocking rancor that the Evil Queen would usually have employed. But then, they'd been one another's only true friends for a very long time, and a part of Maleficent wished they were still that way. Regina had made other friends after casting the curse, however, and had even found True Love. Where did that leave her?

Out in the cold, that was where, unless she wanted to join this merry party of sorcerers Rumplestiltskin seemed determined to assemble. It was the only choice—and yet thinking of the days before the Dark Curse still made her heart ache.

"Did I mention that your outlaw once stole something from me?" she asked instead of admitting to her own loneliness, even though Maleficent knew that Regina saw right through her—just as she'd once seen right through Regina. "He and that…merry band of his."

Regina snickered. "Robin mentioned it, actually."

"I chose to let them live," she replied, gesturing airily. "Hunting them down would have been so…bothersome. That, and the fools who actually had the looking glass used it to run away."

"To Wonderland? Good riddance to them. One trip there was more than enough for me."

Trips. Oh. Trips. Maleficent had almost forgotten about Blue, but remembering made her always simmering anger rear back up again. If it hadn't been for Reul Ghorm's arrogant insistence that she walk away from love, the Purple Fairy would never have become Maleficent, and—she shook her head. Maleficent didn't particularly care about young Henry for his own sake, but the boy did have the Heart of the Truest Believer in his chest, and Maleficent remembered all too well what Blue could do with that.

And he was Regina's son. That mattered a great deal.

"The Blue Fairy is here," she told her friend, focused now that her anger lent clarity to everything. "I overheard her speaking to King Hubert in the courtyard."

"Hubert? What does she want with that dumpy fool?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Maleficent smiled when Regina's words echoed her earlier thoughts. They really were so much alike. "Your son."

"What?" All traces of humor left Regina's expression; the Evil Queen went white with fury and Maleficent could feel power crackling around her.

Always straight to the power, Regina. Never much for subtlety…

"Hubert has some talisman to draw your boy to the courtyard so dear Blue can steal him away. I suppose this means your little…détente with my old mentor has failed."

"I'll kill them," Regina snarled, just in time for beautiful, determined, and justice loving Snow White to show up.

"Kill who?" the sleeping princess turned queen asked curiously.

"Hubert, that rat bastard." Regina wheeled towards Maleficent. "Where is she?"

"He was in the courtyard—"

"Regina, wait!" Snow exclaimed, grabbing her arm before the Evil Queen could stalk out to where Hubert had been last seen. "What's going on? You can't just go after a King and—"

"The hell I can't!"

Really, there were times that Maleficent remembered why she'd gone evil. Some people just oozed goodness so muchthat they gave her a headache. Looking at the dismayed expression on Snow's face, she completely sympathized with Regina's onetime desire to use a sleeping curse on the girl. Snow didn't remind Maleficent of Aurora—much—but there was definitely something to be said for just being evil and getting rid of the people who annoyed you so very much.

"Tell me what happened," Snow urged her stepmother, and Maleficent didn't bother fighting the urge to make a face.

Had she been in her friend's shoes, Maleficent would just have hurled a curse at the queen (a harmless one if she wanted to be nice) and gone off to do what she felt needed doing. But Regina had apparently changed enough to hesitate for a moment and turn back her way.

"Maleficent?"

"Maleficent?" a new voice demanded, making all three of them wheel to face the pink-clad princess coming down a nearby set of stairs. (Stairs Maleficent had been certain weren't there a few minutes earlier; damn the castle's sense of humor! It had probably brought her there on purpose.) "What is she doing here?"

"She's my guest. Is that a problem?" Regina snapped before Maleficent could bother to say a word to her second sleeping princess.

Your mother was smarter than you, dear, she didn't say. Instead she smiled at Aurora, the idiot king's daughter in law. She fit right in with Philip's family, though the boy was smarter than his father. Aurora, however, was deathly pale and staring at Maleficent as if she was going to curse her again. Maybe I am. Then the girl turned to gawk at Regina as if she was just as horrible.

Maleficent snickered. They don't call us evil for nothing!

"I—"

Snow cut Aurora off with a squeeze to her arm. She had to let go of Regina to do so, but the Evil Queen stood still while Snow said to Maleficent's pet princess: "Aurora, this really isn't the time. Regina, what were you saying about King Hubert?"

"He's working with the Blue bug to take Henry away," Regina snarled. "And if either of them so much as lays a finger on my son's head, I'll kill them both. Slowly and painfully."

"Wait. How do you know this?" Snow interjected before Regina could really get ranting. Pity. Maleficent had always enjoyed Regina's infuriated diatribes.

"Maleficent overheard them talking."

"Wait, you're going to believe Maleficent?" Aurora gaped. Her obvious fear might have been funny if Regina's stepdaughter hadn't looked doubtful as well, and that would only slow things down.

The former fairy rolled her eyes. "I have no reason to lie to my friend, you insignificant little girl. Go back to your foolish prince and spawn another useless royal child, and leave higher intellectual matters to those of us who can rightly manage them."

Aurora looked too stunned to speak, but Snow stared at Maleficent in shock. Regina, however, seemed to be fighting to hide a smile before she turned back to the matter at hand, giving her stepdaughter a hard look.

"You can come or not. It'll probably be nicer if you're the one asking Hubert the questions, but I damn well will have the answers I need," she told Snow in a tone that booked no argument.

"Right." At least Regina's princess is smarter than mine! What I wouldn't have given to have an intelligent opponent. Mine still resembles a bit of a fish, with her mouth gaping open like that, Maleficent thought as Snow squared her shoulders. "Let's find Hubert and find out what's going on. Nobody's taking Henry. Not today, and not ever."

Well, that covered that, and Maleficent found herself striding back into the courtyard alongside the Evil Queen and Snow White. She'd never really reflected on how odd it was that Regina's son was her stepdaughter's grandson, but danger to the cute little boy did indeed seem to unite those two. Of course, Aurora tagged along, saying something about how she could reason with her father-in-law, and shouldn't they let the army know that something was going down? Regina ignored the simpering girl—who wasn't really simpering, but Maleficent felt no reason to be fair to Aurora—and Snow just brushed her off, telling Aurora that they'd backfill Philip later. Probably around the time they told Snow's Prince Charming and Regina's boy's father, who were with that same army.

Oh, their family tree was so complicated. It was almost enough to give Maleficent a headache, but there was no way she was going to miss this confrontation. Not if Regina was actually going to try to go against Blue. She might even help.

A/N: Next up is Chapter 28: "Old Debts", in which Belle calls on Rumplestiltskin for help and Regina confronts the fairy who is trying to kidnap Henry.

Meanwhile, do you think that Maleficent is right and there is something "off" about the Blue Fairy? Also, who do you think will be waiting when our heroes make it to the Janus Stone?