Gold limps to stand beside Jefferson and lets out a noise of distress. Streaks of scarlet smear the blonde's face and bedding from the blood-drenched rags tied around her wrists, below which crimson gore paints the exposed skin up to her elbows. He muses with horror that the Sheriff looks as though a young child has taken it upon themselves to apply her makeup; her eyelids bruised deep violet and her pale skin patchy with chalky pallor, apart from at her cheeks where twin spots of fever stand out in stark relief.
"Emma?"
No response, and he doesn't think it has anything to do with the tea. Placing a calloused hand on her forehead, he hisses through his teeth at the sheer heat emanating from her skin.
"Damn it! Why didn't you say something?!"
He snaps at the Hatter who scowls at him, wiping blood-dirtied fingers on a nearby swatch of bedding with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose.
"You came barging in only a few moments after I did! I heard a noise and came to check on her, and she was in the middle of some sort of seizure! You're a damned fool to have left her injuries unattended!"
"I didn't think she'd get sick so quickly."
"Sick?! She's fucking dying! Look at her! Look at the amount of blood staining the fucking sheets!"
"Enough! Go get some ice."
"She doesn't need ice, Rumple! She needs a hospital."
"Well, she can't! Alright?! She can't. So, shut up, and help me bring her fever down."
Gold snarls as he moves the blonde onto her back. Brushing sweat-dampened hair away from her flushed cheeks, he watches the madman scurry from the room with glittering brown eyes. Growling under his breath, he pushes the Sheriff's dress up around her hips and wrestles her woollen tights down in an attempt to cool her down.
"Oh, you stupid girl! You stupid, stupid girl!"
He scolds the blonde angrily. Ignoring the pale flash of her thighs distractedly, he strips the sodden bandages from the blonde's wrists and yells over his shoulder.
"Where's that fucking ice?! Get me a bowl of warm water and some clean fabric while you're out there; there's a shredded shirt next to the sofa... And see if there's any bleach!"
Turning back to the Sheriff, he grimaces as he drinks in the butchered flesh of her arms, feeling uncharacteristically nauseous.
"What the hell have you done to yourself, Emma? What have you done?!"
He mutters quietly, and he's glad the Sheriff seems out for the count, hoping dully that the reason lies in the drugged tea forced upon her and not in the amount of blood she's lost, but unable to say for certain. Glancing up as Jefferson reenters the room with a bucket of ice and the remains of the blue shirt he has been using to patch her up, he takes them from him distractedly.
"You can't seriously be thinking of using this on her..."
Jefferson growls, his tone tinged with alarm, as he holds out a residue-crusted bottle of bleach. Gold regards the offering with a furrowed brow, pulling at one of the blonde's arms to expose the delicately veined inside of her elbow.
"The wounds are well on their way to getting infected, if they aren't already, and I don't have any antiseptic-"
"-Then get some! Call someone! Shit! I don't know! But you can't pour bleach over the woman's arms!"
"You seem mighty concerned for a man willing to kill her not half an hour ago!"
"Yes! Kill her! I want to kill the Savior! I want to get Grace back! But, I don't want to torture some poor bitch who's torn herself to shreds! Give me a gun and I'll shoot her in the fucking head; put her out of her misery! Fine! But I'm not going to just stand here while you inflict that kind of pain on her in an attempt to keep her alive; Saviour or not."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
The pawnbroker demands breathlessly, pushing the bottle of bleach back into Jefferson's hands.
"Get her help, Gold! She needs medical help."
"Fine! Take this..."
Gold reaches for his ruined jacket at the end of the bed and pulls a clip of bills from the breast pocket.
"Go to the hospital and look for a man named Whale-"
"-That's Victor-"
"-Yes, but he doesn't know that. Find him and tell him that if he comes back with you, this money is his. No questions, and not a word to anyone, or he receives nothing. Understand? Tell him to bring whatever devices and gadgets will fit in that little suitcase of his, but not a mention of the Sheriff or of her condition! Yes?"
"Yes."
"Alright... You better hurry... As had the Queen... Now go. And remember to cover the door back up when you leave!"
Watching as the Hatter collects his coat and makes for the door, Gold turns back to Emma and soaks fresh fabric in warm water and cleans away the worst of the blood. He doesn't dare touch the damaged flesh at her wrists for fear of opening up her wounds, but wraps two strips of fabric loosely in place to protect them. Using the remaining scraps of his shirt, he fills the fabric with ice and creates a makeshift cold compress before fishing out a loose chip and running it over chapped lips.
"I daresay I'm going to be in a spot of trouble once the Mayor finds you, dearie. Just promise me you'll hold up until then?... Don't ruin things for me now...This was all for him. All for my boy. If you give up on me now, well... Then everything was a waste. Not just my life for all these hateful years, Emma, love, but yours too... I don't regret suggesting the Queen cast her curse, Miss Swan, but please don't think for a second that I take joy from the fact that in doing so you were raised the way you were... Or weren't, as the case turned out to be. It was never about you. It was about Bae... Magic just always comes at a price."
Regina pulls her nightgown closer to her slight frame as she turns the page; dark eyes drinking in curious words as her mind struggles in its battle to process her duel realities.
That which she remembers. That which exists on the page.
She has forbidden herself from reading any of the tales that refer to the Queen - to herself - save for those in which her story and that of Rumplestiltskin are intertwined. It's a peculiar feeling; reading a narration of events she can recall vividly. Visually. More peculiar still is the way the book serves to fill in the blanks. The parts of the story where she - where the Queen - was busy enjoying her dinner or washing her hair while someone else took centre stage.
Another character.
Most bizarre.
She has learnt a lot since settling down with the heavy hardback and a glass - which all too soon became a bottle - of wine. It's only now, though, that she finds herself reading the chapters she imagines are key to this whole wretched situation.
To the Curse in general.
She reprimands herself for the hundredth time for not insisting Henry allow her to inspect the book sooner.
Such fancies are fickle, however, and deep down, she knows it. The boy would no more have let her read the pages of his book a few weeks ago than she would have given the information they yielded the attention she does now.
It seems the Savior needed to be present for more than just the breaking of the Curse.
I need you.
She had known, of course, that the Dark One's son had disappeared long before she'd been born. The story was a legend amongst her people, and certain rumours and whispers had concluded it to be true. Yet, the way in which Baelfire had been lost to his father is something she is finding out only now.
And, suddenly, everything makes sense.
The Curse.
Gold's curious go-between behaviour while dealing with herself and the Sheriff; a puppet master between his two starring acts.
Bae is here, in this land, and everything she had thought had been for her benefit had been for Gold's.
This realisation angers her. Infuriates her. Almost ruins her. But as she seethes within the lonely shadows of her drawing room, she realises that one of the reasons it bothers her so much is the fact that Emma ended up playing a pawn in the Dark One's tricks with even less consent than she had. She knows her own heart well enough to be aware that the fact she is even able to even think about such a thing while dealing with her own serving of betrayal goes to show just how much she's grown.
"He needed me to get him here. And now he needs you to find his son."
And, to know where to send the blonde to look... Gold will need magic.
Everything she has worked to build will crumble.
Snow, Charming, and the rest of the hateful idiots that sought to ruin her in that other world will do the same in this one.
For she is the Evil Queen.
And they will all know it.
It's not just them who will know it, either... No... Henry... Emma... They will know it, too... And to see it with their own eyes will be little like reading about it in a storybook...
"What happens if I find you - if I convince you to feel love for me - only for you to realise who I really am? What I am?"
The brunette twists the silk of her nightgown uneasily inside her fists.
She'll leave you...
No... No, she won't... She can't... Surely...
Care to wager on that one?
Didn't think so.
Closing her eyes as she wills her logic and anxiety to hush and leave her be, she sniffs miserably.
"What will be, will be. I'll find her for myself, and I will find her for Henry. And, if she needs my help, I will give it to her... Even if the consequences end up hurting my best interests in the process... I will do what I can to help her."