Questions to Answer:

1. Who is Dove's girlfriend? Dove is dating Babette, the feather duster from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (also known as Fifi and Marie).

2. Is Hook's backstory with Balefire the same? Yes, Hook did hand him over to Pan in the past, which is probably why he's so against harming children now—he has yet to forgive himself for that.

Chapter Twenty-Three—"Coming Home"

Emma found Keith drunk and face down on the floor after the fire was out and she slunk away from the little Mills family reunion. She hadn't known what else to do after Cora had so nastily told her that she wasn't welcome at their little party, and despite the apologetic glances Regina sent her way, Emma wasn't about to stick around when she wasn't wanted. Henry was all right, and that was what mattered. Emma had arrived after the fire had been in full swing, having been answering what turned out to be a prank call about a robbery on the other side of town, just too late to help at all. In fact, she'd show up just in time to see Errol Forrester burst out of the library as a hero. Otherwise, she probably would have run in there herself, and would have been a lot less effective doing so.

That didn't matter now. The crowd had died down and she'd headed into the sheriff's office to try to do something useful, only to find Keith passed out drunk. He looked like he'd started out sitting in her chair—there was a half empty bottle of whiskey on her desk—but slid down to the floor and somehow flipped over onto his face. The entire station smelled like vomit and cheap liquor, making Emma grimace as she came in. Her already foul mood just dropped right into the crapper, and Emma kicked her deputy.

"Get up," she snapped. "You're fired."

Keith rolled with her kick and blinked at her blearily. "Wha…?"

"You're a drunk and a lecher, and a horrible cop. You're fired. Get out of my Sheriff's Station," she replied, feeling better already. Perhaps it was wrong to take her frustrations out on Keith, but that didn't mean Emma was wrong. Keith was a disaster, and no one in Storybrooke trusted him to do the right thing.

"You can't fire me," her (former!) deputy slurred.

"The hell I can't," Emma retorted. "Get up or crawl out, but I'm done with you."

Keith was drunk enough to try to get up, but not sober enough to manage. He landed back in a heap, sitting cross legged now. His teeth even rattled a little when he hit the ground, but he didn't seem to notice. "I'll tell the mayor lady," he objected, swaying. "She'll fix your everything."

"I bet she will." Despite herself, Emma was smiling. A fantastic idea had occurred to her, so she taunted Keith: "In fact, why don't you go see her now? Tell her how horrible I am to you."

"Don't see if I won'." Somehow, Keith managed to lever himself to his feet, using her desk for balance. She'd have to disinfect it when he was through. "She'll fire you. No me."

"Go find out," she urged him, wishing she could see Cora's face when Keith interrupted her celebratory dinner.

"I will. Jus' you wait," he replied, staggering out. Emma watched him with satisfaction until she realized that Keith had left her with both a half-drunk bottle of really crappy whiskey that she wouldn't use as lighter fluid and a trashcan full of vomit.

"You forgot your damn bottle!" Emma called after him, but Keith was already stumbling down the street.

Groaning, she looked at the trashcan and decided to throw the entire thing in the dumpster; that would probably be easier than trying to figure out what various diseases Keith had puked into it and somehow disinfecting it. At least he made it into the can and didn't leave a mess on the floor, Emma told herself. Then she braced herself for the stench and grabbed the trashcan, lugging it out the back door and towards the dumpster out back. A vague yelp and a crash drifted in through the still open front doors, and Emma sighed.

The likelihood of Keith making it all the way to Cora's without passing out was low, unfortunately. Emma would probably have to dig him out of a gutter later, but at least the keys to his rusty old truck were still sitting in the sheriff's station. He wouldn't be driving drunk, and Emma could start a search for a new deputy in the morning. Anyone had to be better than Keith Law. Hell, hiring that smarmy marina owner would be better than this! Keith had no morals, no self-control, and no respect for the law at all. Even in this screwed up town, Emma could do better than that.

Maybe Ruby wants a job, she thought with a smile. She was talking about leaving Granny's…

Rumplestiltskin and Belle had a marriage's worth of kisses to make up for, not to mention twenty-eight years of not truly being together and several months of recent separation. So, the second kiss became a third, and then a fourth, and then they finally broke apart, laughing and holding tightly to one another. He knew she would have questions, and he'd give answers that Belle wouldn't like, but for the moment Rumplestiltskin just closed his eyes and treasured the feeling of having his wife safe in his arms, and knowing that their beloved daughter was watching Disney in the next room. Belle seemed to feel the same, because she buried her head in his shoulder for what seemed an eternity, clinging to Rumplestiltskin as desperately as he was clinging to her.

"How long have you been awake?" Belle asked quietly, drawing back so that her voice was no longer muffled in his suit jacket.

Ah. He might have expected it would start here, but Rumplestiltskin knew better than to lie to Belle, or at least not about this. She knew what his plans had been, and she was really only looking for confirmation. He forced himself to shrug slightly. "Ever since Miss Swan showed up."

"That long?" Why did that make her wince?

"Yes." He tried to stop there, he really did, but the next words tumbled out anyway. "I wanted to wake you up earlier, Belle. I really did. But it wasn't safe. Cora—"

"She's hurting you," Belle cut him off, and Rumplestiltskin wished to hell that Lacey hadn't known so much.

He looked away.

"Rumple?" her voice was soft, as was the hand that touched his cheek and gently brought his head around to face her. But he couldn't look at her, so Rumplestiltskin closed his eyes.

"I don't want to talk about it," he whispered.

"Oh, Rumple." Suddenly, her arms were around him again, and Rumplestiltskin felt Belle's lips brush his cheek as she pulled him close. Letting out a shaky breath, he allowed his head to drop onto her shoulder, let himself feel safe and whole for the first time since he'd woken up to find himself in hell. He could be strong for Belle. He had to be. Just this once, he needed to be the strong one. Belle and Gabi had gone through enough today.

Belle held him in silence for several long moments before asking:

"What's going on? Why are you letting her?" She leaned back again to look him in the eyes until Rumplestiltskin had to look away once more, and this time Belle let him. He didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to think about it, and damn it all, he was starting to shake slightly. Belle's voice dropped to a whisper when she added: "Why can't you stop her?"

"I suppose it's partially my fault." With an effort, Rumplestiltskin pulled himself back together, retreating behind the mask of self-control that Gold had always been so good at. He tried to sound flippant with his explanation, but he was afraid it just came out slightly broken. "When I gave her the information she needed to cast the curse, I had Cora insert a caveat that she would have to do whatever I wished, so long as I said 'please'. I intended to use it, if worst came to worst, to keep you both safe. But I must have given her the idea, because she inserted a few of her own."

"They force you to go to her," Belle guessed immediately, and Rumplestiltskin nodded miserably.

"Yes," he admitted. "And I can't fight it. The only magic here is the curse, and it's too strong. And if I try too hard, she's going to realize that I know exactly who I am, and we can't afford that, not yet."

"What about your pleases?"

Rumplestiltskin shook his head. "Gold doesn't know about them, so I can't do that on purpose. And besides…I don't know what will happen if we both try to use them at the same time. It'll likely come down to which one of us used it first, and Cora has more than one."

"Oh, Rumple," she whispered again, pulling his head close with one hand so that she could kiss him on the forehead. He melted into her embrace, feeling the months—or years, depending upon how he looked at it—of loneliness rolling through him like a curse cloud. "I'm so sorry you've had to deal with this alone."

"But I didn't," he said honestly. "Lacey…"

"Lacey loved you," his wife finished for him, and he could finally hear a slight smile in her voice.

"And Gold loved her." Now Rumplestiltskin pulled back to look at Belle, a smile tugging at his lips. "True Love wins out," he said softly. "The curse didn't tie either of us to anyone, so we found one another."

Rumplestiltskin had always believed in the power of True Love—he had watched it at work too many times in his study of magic to doubt—but he had never really experienced it firsthand. Oh, Belle had nearly broken his curse, and the power he'd felt behind their kisses in Amorveria had been extraordinary. But he had never even imagined that his love for Belle might be pure enough to withstand the Dark Curse, to circumvent it and to find a way despite every obstacle thrown in its path. He was such a dark creature, with such a damaged soul, and Rumplestiltskin had always imagined that tainted the love he felt for Belle, even though it was one of the few pure things in his world. But here they were, having fallen in love not once but twice, and he could not bring himself to doubt any of it.

"So we did," Belle replied with a brilliant smile, and despite the horrors lurking in his mind, Rumplestiltskin kissed her again. Belle wasn't Cora, and even Lacey had always been able to soothe away Gold's pain and fears.

She brought him peace. Belle was the light that had invaded his soul, the person who had brought him closer to the man he had been than Rumplestiltskin had ever been as the Dark One. Being with her was like coming home, and Rumplestiltskin allowed himself to revel in this moment for as long as it lasted. There would be plenty of challenges to come, and Cora remained a terrible danger in their lives, but he wanted to savor this moment. He had missed Belle so much, and he could tell by the way her hands held tightly to him that she'd felt the same.

"I guess this answers the question of where I'll be sleeping tonight," Belle murmured in his ear, and a chuckle snuck out of Rumplestiltskin before he realized.

"I suppose it does," he replied, smiling hard enough that the muscles in his face twitched a bit. Gold's face wasn't used to joy, and it felt a little strange.

Concern crossed Belle's face, and he saw her hesitate before she asked: "Can we stay, though? I know you're trying to keep Cora from knowing, but…"

But Lacey didn't have the money to stay at Granny's for long, and jobs were hard to come by in Storybrooke, Belle didn't have to say. Cora's tactic of burning down the library—and Rumplestiltskin didn't want to even let his temper contemplate Cora's reasons for doing that, not when he couldn't afford to let his curse off its leash—had done more damage than almost anything else. It deprived Belle of her job and her home in one fell swoop, not to mention all of her belongings. Cora undoubtedly expected both mother and daughter to suffer, or for Lacey to be forced to give up Renee in order to go back to her father's. She'd probably block Lacey from getting another job, too, just out of pure vindictiveness. And Rumplestiltskin was not about to let that happen.

"I thought," he said contemplatively, "that Gold might hire Lacey as a live-in maid. If you want to stay…?"

He couldn't discount the fact that she might be angry enough to want to live elsewhere, and—

"Of course I do, you silly man," Belle replied immediately, lifting a hand to smack him lightly on the shoulder. Relief coursed through him, and Rumplestiltskin smiled. "Even if I am a terrible maid."

"Well, then. That should keep you both here, at least. Though people will talk," he added hesitantly.

"I don't care," his brave wife replied. "I want to be with my family, and that includes you, Rumplestiltskin."

Hearing her say his name like that made him close his eyes again, melting into her touch as Belle's fingers brushed his cheek. He had been so worried for her earlier, so ready to rush right into that fire after Belle and Gabrielle both, but what could a cripple do in the Land Without Magic? For once, it had not even been his own habitual cowardice holding him back, but by the time Rumplestiltskin had heard about the fire, it had already been raging and the outlaw-turned-firefighter had already gone in. He'd been able to do nothing but watch helplessly and pray that another man could save his family. I suppose that I really should be grateful I never killed Robin Hood, Rumplestiltskin thought suddenly, and contemplating that little quirk of fate made him snicker aloud.

"What?" Belle asked curiously.

"The irony is rather beautiful. You stopped me from killing Robin Hood all those years ago for the sake of his wife and unborn child…and now he's saved my wife and child."

She gave him a cheeky smile. "I thought you just 'missed'?"

"Of course I did," Rumplestiltskin replied, leaning in to steal another kiss. He would never forget that day, and now he owed the outlaw twice over: first, for providing an opportunity in which the terrible Dark One realized that he was honestly and truly in love with his maid, and second, for saving his family when he could not.

"I'll go grab 'em, if you like," Mel Anzo—whoever he actually was—told Regina as she tried hard not to fidget uneasily. She shouldn't be here, but David was off getting Henry cleaned up, and she needed to do this before she could face her mother at that horrible dinner she had planned. Celebratory my ass, Regina thought angrily. She wants me to know she still has all the power. That she can hurt anyone she wants to, and that I can do nothing to stop her.

"Thanks," was what she said out loud, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to look dignified. She'd looked up Errol's address in the phone book, and was only slightly surprised to find that he and his son lived with the humongous firefighter. She hoped like crazy that there wasn't something going on between them—but no, she didn't. Maybe there was, and it wasn't her concern at all.

Except she wanted it to be.

"Hey, Regina," Errol's voice suddenly said, and her head whipped around from where she'd been staring at the doorbell.

"Hi," she replied awkwardly, trying on a smile that felt entirely too natural. What was it about this man who could make her knees go weak? She'd only met him a handful of times, first when she'd saved his son and then when he'd saved hers from a far greater danger.

"What, uh, can I do for you? And do you want to come in?" he asked, stepping back to clear space for her to come through the door. Behind him, Regina could just make out a very rustic looking apartment, with a deer head on one wall and a crossbow on the other. It looked like a place owned by two bachelors, complete with a stack of random shoes lined up against one wall and some sort of electronic gaming system or another by the television.

She shook her head, despite the fact that she really wanted to say yes. "No thanks. I…I'm expected at my mother's. I just wanted to stop by and say thank you. You saved my son's life."

"As you saved mine."

"It's hardly the same. I—you ran into a burning building for Henry, and I…I just needed to thank you. To your face," Regina stuttered. "Because he means the world to me, and I don't know what I'd be if I lost him."

"And I don't know what I'd do without Jamie," the handsome man replied, reaching out hesitantly to touch her arm. "You don't owe me anything. I was doing my job."

"That doesn't mean I shouldn't thank you," she retorted.

Errol shrugged. "Then you're welcome, if you insist." His smile was crooked. "Besides, your boy was very brave. You should be proud of him."

"I am." Now, at least, her smile could be unrestrained.

"I can only hope that my Jamie grows into the same sort," he replied. "I envy you the stability of your married life. Raising him without my wife is…hard."

"What happened to her?"

She shouldn't ask. She really shouldn't.

"An accident," Errol answered, looking distant and broken. "She hit a tree driving to a friend's after we had a fight, and it caused a car fire. We got there too late, and by the time I pulled her out, she was dead."

"I'm so sorry," Regina replied, and it felt so inadequate coming from the woman whose mother had undoubtedly set that tragically horrible backstory up.

"It was years ago," was his quiet answer. "Jamie barely remembers her, but…"

"I know how you feel." She shouldn't have said it, but her mind was full of Daniel when the words tumbled out, and surprisingly, Errol didn't point out that she had a husband who was supposed to be the love of her life.

"I think those we love never really leave us," he said instead, squeezing her arm gently. "Perhaps we move on, but they're never truly gone. I've heard it said that we live in the hearts of those we leave behind, and I like to think that Olivia will always be with me."

Regina wasn't sure what to say to that—she only gave him a watery smile and fled, knowing she looked like a fool but unable to do anything more.

2 Years Before the Curse

The Queen's guards had wounded her and then dragged her in the cell to die. They hadn't even had the decency to put them in a cell together; instead, they'd shoved Robin into the cell next door, and not even been kind enough to put his bleeding wife within reach. Instead, Marian was sprawled six or seven feet away, too far for Robin to even grab her hands while she lay bleeding out and struggling for air.

"Take care of Roland," Marian whispered hoarsely, and Robin nodded frantically, trying to choke back his tears for her sake.

"I will. I promise," he replied fiercely, all the while wondering how in the world he was going to keep that oath.

He'd screwed up. They'd been so overconfident, and it had brought them here, where Marian was going to die if someone didn't give her help quickly…and where Robin would undoubtedly be executed soon after. The Evil Queen, after all, was not known for granting mercy to thieves, even those with small children at home. Worse yet, this was Marian's first job since Roland's birth. Their precious boy was less than two years old, and both of his parents had been caught by the Evil Queen's guards due to his carelessness. Robin hadn't believed that the Evil Queen could reach the summer palace so quickly, and the reward offered for stealing the Janus Stone from her would have been enough to feed the people of Sherwood for over a year. Maleficent wanted the Stone—rumor said in order to keep it away from Queen Cora, who would use it to control all manner of fell creatures—and the Merry Men had hardly been in a position to refuse the Mistress of All Evil, particularly after what had happened with Will Scarlet and that damned mirror.

"I love you," Marian said next, her voice growing ever quieter.

"And I will always love you," Robin swore around the lump in his throat. "Until my dying day."

He knew that day was not far away, and even if it were, there was nothing that would ever heal the whole in his heart that even the thought of losing Marian was already beginning to cause.

"Goodbye, Robin," his wife whispered, and she was gone before he could say more.

The guards left him in the cell next to his dead wife for nearly a week, 'awaiting the Queen's pleasure', they said, and forcing Robin to watch as Marian slowly began to decompose. By the time the captain of the Queen's guards, the legendary Huntsman, showed up, he'd cried every tear he had to cry and felt like the shell of the man he had once been, broken and lonely and beyond hoping a miracle could wake her up.

I had two stolen years with her, he tried to tell himself as the Huntsman slid a key into the first of three locks (Robin had picked them all at least twice, until the guards grew smart enough to chain him to the back wall). And Roland will live on as proof of our love. He may barely remember either of us, but perhaps John and the others will tell him stories of us so that he can know us through that. Listlessly, Robin looked up at the Huntsman, unable to stop himself from asking:

"Is it finally time?" He was ready to die. Looking at Marian's so-still face for the last six days, beautiful even in death, had made sure of that.

"No," the other man replied with what seemed to be regret. "Her Majesty has a special death planned for you. You're to be the…entertainment at next week's fair."

"She's going to use me to further intimidate her people, you mean," Robin said grimly. He wasn't sure why that could still anger him, but it could. He wasn't even from this kingdom, and he still hated the horrible queen who ruled over her people with an iron fist. Perhaps she just reminded him of his own corrupt and venal prince, only crueler.

"That is her intention, yes," the captain of her guards replied, stepping into the cell.

"Then why are you here?" Robin asked as the Huntsman crouched to unlock his shackles. "And why in the middle of the night?"

He'd barely bothered to mark the passage of time, but it was dark outside. Near midnight, if Robin's reading of the few stars he could see outside the barred window was correct.

"You are not the only one who hates the queen," was the unexpected and soft reply. "I'm setting you free."

Robin twisted to stare at the Huntsman, but the black-clad man only shushed him and helped him to his feet. Robin felt weak from a week without food and barely enough water to live on, but the thought of freedom gave him strength. He was halfway to the door before he hesitated, turning to look back over his left shoulder at the motionless corpse in the cell next to him, the husk that had once been the love of his life.

"We must go," the Huntsman hissed urgently.

"Marian…"

"You can do nothing for her, but live in her memory. Now come, before the guards I have relieved grow suspicious."

He was right, even if the thought burned. And Robin couldn't even ask the Huntsman to make sure his beloved's body was taken care of; the man was already risking too much by freeing him, and Robin was certain that the Evil Queen would have plans for their bodies, if only to put them on display to terrify the peasantry. So, he cast one last look at his wife, memorizing her features and swearing to himself that he would let her live on through Roland. I will never forget, Robin swore silently, and then allowed the Huntsman to lead him to freedom.

"She doesn't really know me," Rumplestiltskin said sadly, standing with an arm wrapped around Belle in the doorway to his living room and watching their daughter sleep. Gabrielle—Renee!—had fallen asleep in front of The Little Mermaid while her parents reacquainted themselves with one another.

"Oh, Rumple," his wife whispered, and he felt her arm around his waist tighten. "She always liked Gold…I think she knows more than we give her credit for, even if it's not on a conscious level."

"You do?"

Belle nodded. "She never liked Tony—Gaston—or any of the other men Lacey tried to date. Only you."

Hearing that warmed his little black heart in ways Rumplestiltskin hadn't known were still possible, and he managed to give his wife a slightly watery and very crooked smile. He'd tried so hard not to think on how much he missed both of them in the months that had passed since he woke up, but the emptiness of the damn pink mansion had only grown with time. Now, however, having them both here was something of a miracle. Despite how it had happened, despite the terror of that fire and his growing rage with Cora (because there was no doubt in his mind, none at all, that Cora was responsible for this fire; not in this town and not with the triumphantly acid way she'd treated Lacey immediately afterwards), he was so very happy to have them home with him that Rumplestiltskin could burst.

Kill her, the curse whispered in his mind for the thousandth time.

In time, Rumplestiltskin promised it, watching with a smile as Belle woke their daughter up. It was bath time, and he'd already dispatched Dove to the store. Dove wouldn't be able to do a complete shopping this evening, but he'd be able to pick up some necessities for both of them. The rest could wait until tomorrow.

Kill her now! The dark voice he knew so well howled, and Rumplestiltskin stepped on its rage with an effort.

He couldn't afford to kill Cora. Not yet. Doing so would deprive the Savior of an enemy to focus upon, and the mob of a villain to go after when the curse finally broke. Under other circumstances, Rumplestiltskin would have had no problems filling both roles himself—not if it got the job done and the curse broken—but he had a family to protect, now. Cora had wanted revenge, and she had made this curse so much worse than it had to be. Every little vindictive action had an associated price, and that price was Cora's to pay. He's see her do that before he killed her, before he watched the life drain out of her eyes in revenge for what she had done to him and for what she had tried to do to his family. He would kill her, but Rumplestiltskin wanted to let Cora taste the bitterness of defeat, first. And then he could enjoy her death.

However, those dark thoughts faded as he followed Belle up the stairs, listening to his daughter protest sleepily that she wasn't tired. She was still Renee, because he had no way to wake her up; a child of three wasn't emotionally mature enough for a kiss of True Love to work in this context, even that of a parent. But Belle was right. Renee was very much Gabrielle, from her sleepy smile to the pouty face she put on at the thought of a bath. Apparently she was at the age where bath time was evil time, and a pang tore through Rumplestiltskin's heart as he thought of how much he had missed.

Yet he knew that today's little accident would have been nothing compared to what Cora would have done if she knew about Belle and Gabrielle. She would have made them suffer far worse fates than they already had if she knew how much they meant to Rumplestiltskin. As painful as the time apart had been, at least it had kept his family safe.

"I'll go childproof the guest room," he told Belle as she took the now-cranky three year old into the bathroom. "Dove should be here soon."

"Next time, you get the bath, and I get the easy part," his wife retorted, but she softened her glare with a smile.

Rumplestiltskin just snorted and ducked into the next room, sweeping his eyes around it and quickly starting to pick up anything that might hurt a child. He was glad that he'd grabbed a trash bag on the way up, since in this world without magic he had to do everything the hard way, and he had no intention of keeping most of the ugly antiques that the curse had decided to furnish this room with. Tomorrow, Belle and I will sit down and we'll draw up a shopping list for Dove, he decided, wishing that he could openly take Belle and Gabrielle shopping for every toy and bit of clothes his daughter could handle. But he couldn't. Not yet. Someday, perhaps when the curse was broken, they'd have that much freedom, but right now he had to maintain the fiction of "Lacey" being an employee. Oh, there were plenty of people who would assume that they were intimate. They would probably think, he realized with a grimace, that it was part of what Lacey was being paid for. But there was no helping that. Time would let the truth come out, and Rumplestiltskin was nothing if not patient.

He'd finished clearing out the room, and bringing in some extra pillows and blankets, by the time Belle got their daughter cleaned up. Rumplestiltskin had even found an old undershirt of his that would do for a nightshirt for Renee; it would be big on her, but at least it was something clean. So, he handed that over and watched with a soft smile as Belle dried off and dressed Renee, carefully combing her hair until it was tangle free. By then, Renee was bouncing and impatient, and was starting to get curious about this house she had never visited before.

I doubt she remembers ever spending the night anywhere other than the apartment in the library, Rumplestiltskin realized as he trailed Belle into the guest room. Renee had a tight grip on her mother's hand, but had insisted on walking herself, and she was looking around with wide eyes.

"This is going to be your room, all right?" Belle said to her with a smile.

"All mine?" Renee asked, and she was smart enough to glance at the man who she knew as Gold.

"For as long as you want it, princess," he replied solemnly, and was rewarded with a toothy smile.

"Read me a story?" Renee asked him in response, and Rumplestiltskin felt his heart turn into a puddle of goo.

"Gladly," he replied, leaning his cane against the wall so that he could pick his daughter up. The bed was close enough that he could limp there, bad leg and all, and he wanted to be able to hold his little girl. "I even do voices."

Her brown eyes—eyes that were painfully similar to the ones he looked at every day in the mirror, ones he had once all but forgotten he had—went wide. "You do?"

"I do," Rumplestiltskin promised, sitting on the bed and settling her in. Belle sat down on their daughter's other side, looking at him with shining eyes, and Rumplestiltskin had truly forgotten what it was like to be this happy. "And I'll even do one better, if you like. I'll tell you a real story, one you're not going to find in any book."

"Is it a good story?" Renee wanted to know, and Rumplestiltskin reached for his wife's hand as he tucked the blankets in close to his little girl.

"The best," he answered. Fingers squeezed his, and Renee nodded.

"Okay."

"Then, once upon a time, there was a beautiful young lady who lived in a place called Avonlea. She was brave and very smart, but her kingdom was under attack by terrible creatures called ogres…"

A/N: Thank you SO much to everyone who left me a note after the last chapter! I really appreciate hearing from everyone. Now that the fire is over, how do you think that Storybrooke will react to Lacey and Renee moving in with the terrible Mr. Gold?

Next up: Chapter Twenty-Four: "In the Crossfire," in which Emma gets involved in the fire investigation, Henry asks about his birth father, Mary Margaret and David deal with their growing attraction, Cora plots against Emma, and Belle and Rumplestiltskin discuss what has been happening to him—much to Rumplestiltskin's discomfort. Back in the past, Cora and Regina have a spat, Snow and James come to an understanding, and Rumplestiltskin battles with his own curse in his early days as the Dark One.