Notes: I am not really doing Queens of Darkness in this story. Maleficent appears but she's based more on the glimpses we had in the past three seasons and just about none of the hints we've had for the second half of season 4.

Also, I am not personally familiar with the New York Public Library, although I did look at a few pictures online. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a subbasement where things like furnaces and heating systems go, but I didn't actually see one on the floor layouts I could find online.

Keane's Bakery is a reference to Robert Carlyle's movie, Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dance and Charm School.

X

It hadn't been long ago—not long at all—that Rumplestiltskin had found his way to the subbasement of the New York Public Library to talk with a dragon.

He had wanted to linger in the library proper. The building, so he understood, dated back to the 19th century, to the height of the lords of industry, emperors in all but name, who had built this place with more extravagance and ostentatious display of wealth than the palaces of Fairy Land.

Belle would have loved it.

He shoved that aside. He wasn't the authority on what Belle would love, was he? Look how wrong he'd been.

I wanted to be chosen.

He'd chosen her from the start, no matter how mockingly. She was the great treasure, the wonder, the miracle worth all the lives of a kingdom. Like one of her well-loved tales, she was the noble-born daughter of a great knight for whose sake a valiant (or not so valiant) warrior would fight all the armies of darkness single-handed.

That the valiant warrior was small and scaled and had a tendency to giggle over the bodies of his foes was beside the point. That he laughed at the sight of Ogres running like so many fat chickens when, perhaps, he should have been busy slaughtering them was a personal foible, nothing more. They were defeated. They were gone. They weren't coming back anytime soon.

And he would do it all again and more, if she would just look at him the way she used to. . . .

Not that it mattered, now. Not that it had ever mattered. The people of this world spun a pretty whimsy out of the old tale of a princess and a loathsome frog—repulsive, slime green, warts growing over its diseased flesh like a moldering fungus, and corpse-cold—but even they knew the true story. In the tale they never told the little ones still innocent enough to believe in their happy endings, the princess hated the frog and loathed it all the more for its desperate, pathetic efforts to win her love. In the end, overwhelmed with disgust, she threw it against the castle walls, smashing it to pulp.

The story had amused him when he'd first read it here. How else did they thing it could have ended?

How else indeed?

Zelena had murdered his son. Rumplestiltskin had destroyed his own mind to keep Bae from death. He had given up his freedom, letting himself be caught in Zelena's obscene web to try and hold onto him—

For nothing. Everything he'd done, everything he'd endured, it was for nothing.

But, even now, even knowing how it would end, he would he do the same. He saw himself holding his dying son on the cold ice beneath a winter moon, he tried to imagine fighting for the dagger instead of Baelfire—to save Belle, to save himself, to save all of them—and he couldn't. He was weak and a coward, but Rumplestiltskin couldn't let the last sight of his dying child be of his father choosing that cursed blade over him again, no matter the cost.

And he couldn't let Zelena live, not after everything she'd done. Couldn't the Charmings see that? She would have torn the life out of their infant son, gutting him with magic the way the Huntsman had gutted deer with his knife but with far less love and not a drop of mercy. Gods, he would have helped her. At her command, he had traced the patterns of the spell in the earth, he had torn the newborn babe from his mother's arms, he had placed him on the cold ground to die before taking his own place in the circle of sacrifice.

They would have let her live. They would have given her chance after chance until Zelena destroyed them all.

And they leashed him like a dog. They didn't even murmur an objection as Zelena's sister picked up the dagger and ordered him like a trained beast.

He could not let Zelena live and, knowing there was a way to be free of the dagger's curse, he had to take it.

I chose you, he silently told Belle. I always chose you.

It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Even for the most loving of princesses, the story always ended the same way. No matter what she promised, no matter how she tried to endure, there would always be a moment when she saw the truth, when the touch of the loathsome frog became too much for her to bear.

Now, I see only the beast.

Rumplestiltskin found the room he had been looking for. Odds and ends, long forgotten by the world above, were stored here, covered in dust, lying haphazardly around an ancient, unused furnace. It had the look of a magical fortress, he thought, a dark wizard's redoubt forged from black iron.

"Maleficent," he whispered. "I summon thee."

With a blaze of fire, the furnace roared to life.

X

Will settled on Tom Clark's store for all his one stop shopping needs. It was close to the pawn shop, had a good selection, and (most importantly) was easier to walk around in after closing without the neighbors noticing than the supermarket.

They may not have had security systems in the old world, but Will had snuck past his share of magical defenses and killer guardians. Compared to that, Tom's security code (7VII) wasn't even a challenge.

Once inside, he grabbed a bag and started going through his list. A couple boxes of saltines—check. A few cans of soup (the flavorless, cheap stuff—easy on the stomach—and the kind meant to for people with working taste buds)—check. The bread Tom stocked was about 50% preservatives and 50% Styrofoam. It could sit there for years without going bad. Will ignored it. But, the donuts came fresh every day from Keane's Bakery. There were a couple of twists left, an old fashioned, and an apple fritter. Will left the apple fritter. He grabbed some peanut butter and jelly. He checked over the fruit, but the stuff looked ready for a compost heap (never trust a man who always had a cold to notice when food went bad). So, instead, he grabbed some juice and ginger ale. And nylons. He couldn't forget the nylons.

Will shifted things around on most of the shelves, trying to hide that anything was missing, until he got to the beer. Tom had a good selection. That was something you could always count on with Dwarves. But, Will needed to find just the right stuff. He had what looked like the right one, but he held it up to the faint light coming from the street lamps outside to be sure. Yep, Emsworth Homebrewed. It was a local brew. They didn't produce that much, and what they did make was almost entirely bought up by places like Granny's (rumor had it Granny paid in pies and brownies, as well as cash, to make sure she kept her most-favored-customer status) . Tom's was the only place that sold it off the shelf.

This time, Will shoved a couple boxes of the other brands to the side, to make it look like someone had been searching. He thought about making it more obvious—maybe leave some empty bottles or even break a few?—but it was better to keep things simple. With his luck, a passing bag lady would hear the glass breaking and call the cops before he made it out of the store. Besides, the Dwarf hadn't been born who wouldn't notice if his beer was missing. All Will had to do was make sure the trail led back where it should.

Will walked over to the counter. The drawer of the cash register was open and empty. The money would be locked up for the night in a safe somewhere. That was all right. Will wasn't taking any. He dropped three twenties into the open drawer. If the beer wasn't enough of a clue, this ought to help Tom figure things out.

As a final touch, Will checked the break room. As he'd hoped, Tom had some of Keane's bread back a there for himself (Will wondered if the bread out front had been sitting there for twenty-eight years. Had anyone ever been desperate enough to buy it?). He also found some of Keane's English muffins. Of course, that meant he had to go back for butter.

Will went over his list one last time then checked over the store. It looked good. All right, then. He hit the security code and exited. Once he was outside, there was just one more thing to do. He got out Snottingham's wallet again. Yeah, there was Snotty's ID. There was also another hundred dollars left, plus a few smaller bills and some change.

Will pocketed the five twenties and left the rest, so it wasn't too obvious Snotty had been cleaned out. Then he dropped the wallet just outside the pharmacy's back door where Tom would find it in the morning. Knowing Tom, he might even call the sheriff to report the lost wallet before he stepped inside and put together the rest of the story Will had given him.

Snottingham was still sitting in the back alley when Will got back to him. As expected, Snotty and his stomach's contents had parted ways. Will got out the Emsworth Homebrewed. He poured some of it down the sewer (a crying shame, but it had to be done) and some of it down Snotty's shirt (it smelled a lot better than the stuff Snottingham had spewed onto it). Then he wrapped Snotty's hands around the empty bottles, one by one, making sure there were plenty of fingerprints, before leaving them littered around him, dropping the last one in his lap.

If Tom called the sheriff tomorrow—and he would—she would come checking for Snotty. If she decided to check the alley (and Will thought he could make sure of that), she'd find a hung-over drunk lying in a pool of Tom's beer. Even Snottingham wasn't stupid enough to explain he'd been attacking a woman instead of robbing a store.

Besides, odds were, he wasn't getting charged with anything. Sure, it looked like Snotty had waltzed in after hours. But, he'd paid, hadn't he? And he was one of Sheriff Swan's boyfriend's pals, wasn't he?

Which was just as well. Mrs. Gold wouldn't feel some crazy, heroic urge to go in and clear him if he got off with a slap on the wrist and a warning.

Heroes, he thought with disgust. They'd tell you to ignore it if someone stabbed you through the heart. Then they'd tell you you were a beast and hang you out to dry if you tried to stop someone from stabbing them. The only smart thing to do was steer clear of the lot of them.

That's what Will meant to do when he went back into the pawn shop. He put away the food and put the nylons on the table at the head of the little bed where he'd left Mrs. Gold. That was it. He was going to leave. If Mrs. Gold ever figured out Tom's wasn't the only place he'd pocketed an item or two, he wasn't going to be around to hear about it.

Then he made the mistake of looking at her. She was so small—small and thin. Even in her sleep, he could see the dark shadows under her eyes. Her face was gaunt, the bones pressing against the skin. He'd bet good money, if anyone wrote books tiny enough to fit (and if Mrs. Gold didn't kill anyone who checked), her ribs were sticking out enough to use as shelves. Bloody hell, she was supposed to have friends, wasn't she? There was the man-eating werewolf and her heavily armed grandmother, not to mention all the little kiddies coming in for story time and, oh, yeah, the completely insane royal family and their tart-eating daughter. She even had a drunken Dwarf in her corner. Didn't any of these people notice something was off?

It wasn't his business, not anymore. Look what happened when tried to play the hero. People wound up dead. Little kids who didn't understand magic made wishes for things they couldn't have and paid for it with their lives.

Getting Mrs. Gold breakfast, framing Snotty, that was more than anyone had any right to expect from him. It was time to get moving.

OK, he could make sure the shades were in place and the curtains were drawn. And he might as well make sure the alarm was off on that stupid clock—if anyone needed to talk to Mrs. Gold, they could do their part and come looking for her instead of expecting her to get up and come looking for them. She looked like she'd run herself ragged long enough.

And . . . Will had been trying not to think about magic. He thought about the things he needed and how he would get back to the woman he loved, but that as far as he went. It made life easier. He was just Will Scarlet, a thief and a Knave. He wasn't—he didn't—he tried not to think about being something else, about being bound by magic and forced to do whatever his master demanded, even when it was a wish he would have died rather than grant.

He thought of brown eyes, empty and lifeless, staring at nothing.

He thought of blue eyes, confused and full of pain as the woman he loved was struck from behind, reaching out to him as the life drained away from her.

He should leave.

He didn't. There were charms in the room. He knew enough to recognize the ones made to protect the store and the people inside it.

It was safer, he told himself as he put them in place. What protected Mrs. Gold would protect him. That was the only reason he was doing it.

He settled down on the floor. He'd slept on worse—he'd been locked up in worse, sometimes by people who just had to share their ideas about how the execution in the morning should go. Anyway, it was better than sharing the alley with Snotty.

Will closed his eyes and tried to forget about the rest of the world. It was quiet and dark. The only thing he heard was the soft, almost silent sound of each of Mrs. Gold's steady breaths.

X

Not long before—not long at all—flames in a black furnace shaped themselves into eyes, the bright orange of iron ready to be shaped, blinking against the white heat.

"Rumplestiltskin," the flames rumbled. "What do you want?"

"The same thing you do, dearie," he said. "A way home."