Chapter Ninety-Two—"Hearts and the Heartless"

Emma, David, and Robin watched in silence as Regina teleported herself, Snow, and Bae towards the Gold home. The crowd had mostly retreated, but there were still several people milling about curiously. But Emma ignored the stares. They had work to do.

"You want to help us hand out hearts?" she asked Robin.

"You got them?" the outlaw asked in surprise. "Even Will's?"

"I think he got his own back," David replied dryly. "But we got the others. There are more than we expected."

"Yeah, like a lot more," Emma cut in, walking over to pull the truck's tailgate open. The front end was a little dented, but old trucks were sturdy, which meant David's rust bucket had survived hitting Cora rather well. She glanced at her father. "I still can't believe you ran Cora over."

He grinned briefly. "I was out of ideas, and she definitely didn't see it coming."

"Damn good timing, too," Robin added, looking at the stack of heart boxes. "And yeah, I'll help. Are they labeled?"

"Thankfully," Emma answered, reaching into the truck and grabbing an armful. "I think a lot of these people don't even know their hearts are missing."

"Like Grumpy, you mean?" David asked, reading the labels on a few of the boxes. "Or Abigail. Who's Ingrid of Arendelle?"

"I know her," Emma said softly, swallowing hard. She hadn't picked up the so-called memory stone that Ingrid had tried to give her; for all Emma knew, it was still on the ground by the docks. But she still felt something stirring when she thought of the older blonde woman. The feeling wasn't quite recognition, but it was close, and Emma wished she could know if Ingrid had been telling the truth or not.

I remember all my foster homes, don't I?

"Isn't she the lady who runs the ice cream shop?" Robin asked as David shrugged. "Roland thinks she's wonderful."

"I'll take that one," she said impulsively, reaching out to grab the box. Any Given Sundae was close by, anyway. It wouldn't take long to return the heart—provided Ingrid was still alive to receive it. "I'll be right back."

Glancing at the heart as she walked, Emma decided that it wouldn't be red and beating if Ingrid was dead. The beat was erratic and uneven, but the heart was still thumping away, so that had to mean the 'Snow Queen' was breathing. Quickly crossing the street and heading towards the ice cream shop, Emma found herself checking the heart repeatedly, just to make sure it was all right. She wasn't sure why she was worried, but she was—

When she reached Any Given Sundae, the store was dark and empty.

Regina hadn't felt this nervous in years, and she shouldn't have been. But Snow had told her about the Nightmare Curse Cora had put Henry under while they were organizing who would go where, and just knowing that made Regina want to be sick—and made her doubly determined to kill her own mother. How could she do that to a child? To my child? Regina wondered furiously. But she knew the answer. To her mother, Henry had never actually been family. He'd always been adopted, always in the way. She'd let Regina adopt him because she wanted her perfect daughter to have a perfect life, but Henry himself was immaterial. He was a prop to make their family look better.

Joke's on you, Mother. I adopted my great-nephew, and he's part of my family, not yours! she thought viciously. Yet again, Cora was giving her every reason to choose the half of the family that didn't include Cora—or her insane sister. Regina found that she didn't regret the fact that Robin had shot Zelena in the face at all, probably because Zelena had been the one to stick her with a sleeping curse in the first place. There's just so much love in the Mills family that it kills me.

"Regina? Are you all right?" Snow asked as they landed outside Gold's ridiculous pink mansion.

"I'm fine," she snapped a little too quickly, which caused Snow to smile and squeeze her arm.

"Nervous?" her sister said gently, and Regina made herself nod. "Don't be. Henry has missed you terribly."

"He's told me all about you," Baelfire piped up, leading the way up the walk. "Kid's crazy about you."

That was something of a relief, even if Regina wasn't sure she wanted Rumple's son hanging out around her child. Then again, there did seem to be something between him and Emma Swan…and, well, she wouldn't put it past Rumple at all to have set thatone up. Maybe that's why he was in this world but not in Storybrooke. Did Rumple send him over ahead of time to keep an eye on the Savior? Regina knew that she'd never known about all of Rumple's plans, and it was very like him to send over an insurance policy in the form of his own son. He doesn't trust a lot of people, but I've seen him with the kid that's here. He takes care of his own, she reflected, following Snow and Baelfire in the door.

"Bae?" Belle's voice called from the other room, preceding the brunette by a second or two. "Is that you?"

"Yeah. Along with Snow and Regina."

"Wonderful!" Belle said, walking into the front hall and stopping cold. "You're bleeding! What happened?"

"It's not mine," Bae said tightly. Belle looked like she wanted to say more, but a new voice interrupted.

"Mom?" Henry had been right behind Belle, and Regina felt her knees go weak.

"Henry!"

Rushing forward, she wrapped her son tightly in her arms, and for once he didn't complain that ten was too old for bone-crushing hugs. Henry just hugged her back like his life depended on it, and Regina could hear her little boy sniffling a little bit, determined as he always was not to cry. They held onto one another for a very long moment before Regina was able to make herself pull back enough to cast a critical eye over her son.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Henry smiled. "I'm fine, Mom."

"You've been behaving yourself? Eating your vegetables? And—"

"I'm fine, Mom," he repeated, sounded more like a ten-year-old now, and Regina tried hard not to smile indulgently.

"Don't you get smart with me, mister," she said as sternly as she could manage—which, at the moment, was not very sternly at all. "I've been gone for a while, and I was worried about you."

"I wasn't under a sleeping curse," he tried to point out. "Or locked away with a crazy person."

Ugh. Regina did not want to talk about her sister right now, so she pointed out: "No, you were under a nightmare curse, which is much worse. Have you been sleeping all right after that? No relapses?"

"I'm okay, really." He gave her his best smile, the one calculated to melt Regina from the inside out. "And my dad is here! My birth dad, I mean, not Gramps."

Gramps. Regina filed that one away. Apparently that was what Henry and David had settled upon, though she'd ask David to make sure he was all right with it. She knew that David was in a rough spot with Henry. After all, Regina wouldn't have liked becoming 'Aunt Regina', but David's real self had also never actually been Henry's dad thanks to the curse. It was complicated, so she didn't argue for now. Besides, the fact that Henry's birth father had shown up was far more significant—

She twisted to look at Baelfire, whose blood-covered hands Belle was still fussing over. "You?"

"Guilty as charged." He gave her a sheepish smile.

"How the hell did that happen?" Regina snarled before she could stop herself.

Bae snorted. "The usual way. Emma and I—"

"Spare me the gory details!"

"Mom," Henry pleaded, clearly embarrassed. But she ignored him, still glaring at her son's presumptive birth father.

"Did your father set this up? Because if he did, I swear that my mother will be the least of his concerns! It's one thing for him to have set up me adopting Emma's son, but for Henry to be his own grandson…!" The rant ended in a wordless snarl of fury, and only then did Regina notice the way everyone was staring at her.

"Rumple doesn't know," Belle finally said softly, and that made Regina blink. "None of us did, until Emma told Bae."

"He always knows," Regina protested, trying not to roll her eyes.

"How could he? I didn't," Bae pointed out, and Regina blinked in shock. "I didn't even know Emma was from back home until Pinocchio told me, and believe me, that didn't turn out well."

"That's kind of an understatement, Dad," Henry piped up, and Regina looked down at her son. He looked perfectly comfortable with this large, messed up family he now had, utterly happy to be surrounded by his adopted mother, birth father, grandmother (who was also maybe his step-adopted-mother), other grandmother (who looked younger than Baelfire, so did that make her a step-grandmother? and/or step-adopted-aunt), and a pair of toddlers who had just wandered in. Henry always wanted a big family, Regina thought, swallowing back her own doubts and insecurities. I can try for his sake.

"So," she said as brightly as she could manage. "I guess we're all related, huh?"

Henry grinned. "Well, except for Roland, but you and Robin can fix that."

"Henry!" all four adults said together, although Snow and Bae were obviously trying not to laugh.

"Your mother just woke up from a sleeping curse." Surprisingly, the gentle chiding came from Belle. "It's probably not fair to bring this up quite so quickly."

"But I bet Robin woke her up," Regina's unrepentant child said immediately, and she felt herself flush.

"He did," she admitted.

"See?" Henry's grin only grew. "I knew it!"

Regina groaned. Wonderful as it was, she still hadn't managed to wrap her mind around the fact that Robin had woken her up with True Love's kiss. Part of her really wished he was here now, but he was helping Emma and David return hearts to those who her mother had taken them from, and that was important. She had plenty of family here—her son, her sister, and the Golds, who were somehow related to her through Henry, weird as that was. Still, despite the oddity inherent in this twisty family tree, Regina didn't feel alone. The last weeks had been full of nothing but howling loneliness, but now Regina felt warm. Accepted.

She knew there was still a battle to be fought, but she would luxuriate in this moment, just for a little while. She needed it.

David found Leroy at Granny's sitting at a back corner table with Astrid. Since the convent had been destroyed, Tink and Astrid had moved into the apartment right next door to the grumpiest of the dwarves, and no one really blinked when Astrid spent most of her time with Leroy. Oh, Blue didn't seem happy, but she was busy trying to rebuild the convent. She was also still more than a little annoyed at fact that the Charmings weren't prepared to utterly hate the Dark One for Cora's actions, which meant David had actually seen very little of the senior fairy in the last few days. He didn't want to admit that was a relief, but Blue had always been Snow's family patron, not his. He'd been wary of her ever since his first encounter with 'Blue' turned out to be Cora—who it turned out could impersonate the senior fairy all too well.

There's probably a lesson somewhere in that, he thought now, walking across the diner with the box in his hands. Neither of the pair noticed him—they were too occupied by one another, with Grumpy laughing at something Astrid had said. Or maybe he was just laughing about the broken salt shaker whose contents were all over his burger.

"Grumpy," David said, and the dwarf and fairy looked up.

"David," Astird greeted him with a smile. "Do you want to join us?" She made to move over, but David shook his head.

"I just came to return something to Grumpy, actually," he replied, feeling awkward. How long had Cora had this heart? How many plans of theirs had Grumpy inadvertently betrayed? It wasn't the dwarf's fault, of course, but there was no way to know. The boxes were labeled, but Cora hadn't put dates on them. He couldn't blame Grumpy, because David knew too well what it was like to have your heart stolen, but the idea was still worrisome.

"I didn't think you had anything of—" Grumpy cut off as David set the box on the table. "What the hell is that?"

"Your heart. We found it in Cora's vault."

"But I—I—she can't. Can she?" That was genuine horror on Grumpy's face, and shock. He didn't know.

"I don't know how or when, but it appears Cora did take your heart," he replied, turning the box so that the dwarf could read the label.

"Maybe there's another Grumpy in town?" Astrid offered weakly, looking horrified.

"Astrid, you have to believe that none of what we have is because of her," Grumpy said hurriedly. "This is me, I swear. It's not her. No one's putting me up to this right now, and my heart's in that box right there!"

Astrid put her hand over his, and even from where he was standing, David could see how gentle her touch was. "I know that, silly. I'm just worried for you. Not having your heart is a terrible thing."

"Oh." Grumpy gulped, and then looked back up at David. "What…what do I do now?"

"Well, I'd suggest we start by putting your heart back in," he said, trying not to sound like he was stating the obvious.

"What if it's a mix-up? What if Cora mislabeled the hearts on purpose?"

"We'd know by now if she had," David replied. "We pulled forty-two hearts out of her vault. Thirty-one of them were people living in Storybrooke right now, and you're the last one."

"Oh."

David looked over at Astrid. "Do you want to do the honors?"

"I don't know," she replied nervously. "What if I mess it up? What if I break his heart somehow? I'm always so clumsy—"

"I trust you," Grumpy cut her off, and David felt a smile tugging at his lips.

"All right," Astrid said quietly, taking the heart out of the box oh so gently. Her hands shook slightly as she and Grumpy both rose, but Astrid's aim was true when she pushed the heart back into his chest. A look of pure wonder and delight crossed Grumpy's face as his heart settled into place, and he looked more alive than David could remember seeing him for quite some time.

"That's uh, my heart," Grumpy said gruffly. Astrid giggled.

"I'll, uh, leave you—" David started to say, and then cut off when the dwarf grabbed the fairy and kissed her. Astrid squeaked in surprise, but certainly wasn't arguing as she kissed him back just as passionately. Neither was listening, so David didn't bother to finish his farewell. He just backed away, gave Granny a smile, and headed out of the diner.

Zelena's face hadn't taken much skill to heal; if the Wicked Witch had ever bothered to learn something other than dark magic—or had even been able to set aside her towering fury for a moment or two—Zelena should have been able to do it herself. But her first two attempts had left her horrendously scarred, which meant that an increasingly irate Cora ordered Rumplestiltskin to do it. His own shoulder was still bleeding, since Cora was angry enough at him that she refused to let him heal himself, but he did the job easily enough, despite the way his head was spinning dizzily.

"That hurt!" Zelena snapped peevishly, throwing him back with magic.

Rumplestiltskin hit the wall hard, coughing out a gasp of pain as the bullet in his right shoulder shifted slightly. Cora's 'no using magic without permission' rule still stuck, which meant he was defenseless and in pain, so he just let himself slump against the wall for support. Cora had used her own magic to mitigate the wounds she'd suffered from having been run over, but Rumplestiltskin had no doubt that she'd use him to finish the job off and tie up the loose ends. Not to mention the fact that she likes making me pay the price. Cora thinks she can avoid the cost of magic because she's ordering me to do it, but what she doesn't recognize is the massive reckoning to come.

Still, healing her would be worth whatever price he did have to pay. Watching David Nolan run the Evil Queen over had been a treat worth any price, and just thinking about it brought a twisted smile to Rumplestiltskin's face.

"Did you enjoy hurting me, Dark One?" Zelena snarled, noticing and misinterpreting the expression.

Common sense told Rumplestiltskin to keep his mouth shut, but he was fairly sure that he was already in for world of pain for playing with Cora earlier—and making sure she would get hit by the truck. So, there was zero reason not to run his mouth. "Well, now that you mention it…" he drawled, and then shrugged a one-shouldered shrug. "Actually, no. Unlike certain people in this room, I've never enjoyed pain."

Zelena's eyes went wide with rage, but it was Cora who answered, her voice very soft.

"It's almost a pity you don't, Rumple," she said, walking towards him quietly, her grip on the dagger all too firm. "Because if you think I've forgotten your antics out in town, you are sorely mistaken."

Rumplestiltskin swallowed hard and had to fight to meet her eyes. "I don't think you've forgotten."

"Well, then. The reasons for your punishments should be extremely clear, shouldn't they?"

"Let's not pretend this is anything other than a way for you to exercise your demons, dear," he rasped, dredging up the last of his courage.

At least this time they were going to hurt him for something he had done. That gave Rumplestiltskin some small but pitiful measure of control over the situation. He didn't want to be hurt, was terrified of the pain, but at least if he acted out, he knew the cause of the pain. He could rationalize it to a certain degree, could find a way to endure. Otherwise, it was just senseless torture designed to break him, and Rumplestiltskin could only bear that for so long. She's fraying at the edges, he told himself desperately, watching the fury in Cora's eyes and using it to measure how badly he was going to be hurt before the day was out. It won't be much longer.

It can't.

Emma returned Geppetto's heart in the old man's shop, giving him a smile before the heading to the apartment upstairs. It wasn't Geppetto's fault that August had lied to them yet again, or at least Emma didn't think so. At the very least, she wasn't going to yell at Geppetto. She was planning to reserve that for August, who opened the door after she banged on it a little harder than necessary.

"Hey, Emma," he said all too casually. "Did everything go all right? Zelena left here in a really big hurry and I started to worry—"

"But you just sat here in safety, didn't you?" she interrupted, shoving past him and heading into the apartment. Good. Henry's Book was still on the table; she wasn't going to let this lying son of a bitch hang onto that one moment longer. In fact, Emma stalked over to pick the Book up even as August closed the door, deciding that she wasn't going to waste much time here.

"I didn't know what else to do," August argued. "All we'd talked about was me distracting Zelena."

"How did you turn all human again, anyway?" Emma asked as the thought occurred to her. "Was that part of services rendered for lying to us?"

"I—that was when my father was a prisoner. I told you that once he was out—"

"Was that before or after you neglected to mention the part about Cora still had his heart?"

Blue eyes went wide. "How did you know? Is he all right?" August turned for the door, as if he was about to run down the stairs to the shop, but Emma's voice stopped him cold.

"Oh, your father's fine. I just returned his heart, which we found with everyone else's. Except yours. I'm beginning to wonder if that's one part of you that's always been made of wood," she snapped.

"You got it back?" August gasped, looking like Christmas had just come early—and like the insult she'd just thrown at him didn't matter at all.

"Do you even care that you could have gotten all of us killed?" Emma demanded. "Or is this all some giant game for you, like sending me to jail was some 'grand' idea? Do you give a damn about anyone else?"

"Of course I do! But if I'd told you, they would have killed him!" he replied, finally looking a little anguished. "Papa told me that I should help you anyway, but if you knew Cora had his heart, you would never have believed I was telling the truth."

"I'm not sure I'll ever believe you're telling the truth again," she told him flatly, the anger draining out of her. He wasn't worth it, was he? All Emma saw when she looked at August was a man who had lied to her repeatedly, who had pretended to be her friend, and who had sent her to jail. Then he'd endangered her family, all without even letting them know what they risked on his behalf.

"Emma—"

"Don't." She held a hand up, looking him right in the eye. "We're done. No more trying to be my friend, no more offers to help. Do whatever you're going to do, but stay away from me and my family. And if I ever find you talking to my son ever again, Neal punching you in the face is going to be the least of your concerns. Got it?"

"I understand," August whispered, and Emma didn't bother to look at his hangdog face again before she stormed out.

"What happened?" Belle asked Bae after Regina, Snow, and Henry departed. Regina even took Roland with her, saying that she and Henry would drop him off at Robin's later. The little boy did seem delighted to see her, and Belle had no objection to letting him go along, though she did feel a little guilty

"Long story short? Emma shot Pop to stop him from killing Robin—Cora'd ordered him to—then David hit Cora with his truck. But she survived that somehow, and summoned him out of there after she left," her stepson replied, looking tired and a little defeated.

"Emma shot him?" she gasped before she could stop herself. He's got to be okay. Only the dagger can kill him, and Bae just said that Cora summoned him away. Still, not panicking was hard. Belle had already been able to tell how badly Rumple was hurting when she'd seen him during their war council, and the thought of adding being shot on top of that broke her heart.

"In the shoulder, yeah. He was up and moving, but…"

"We've got to do something," Belle said, swallowing back her pain and her fears. "Jefferson came by this morning while all the chaos was going on. He told me that Cora knows about the plan to dump her in Neverland."

That brought Bae up short. "What? Oh, damn."

"Jefferson also said that she has the heart of someone who was on the war council."

"Grumpy," her stepson breathed. "Yeah, we found his heart down there. David should have returned it by now, but that doesn't help much, does it? He heard all our plans."

"Grumpy?" Belle felt like a knife was twisting around in her gut. "He came by yesterday…said he wanted to see how I was. But he seemed off."

"Well, now you know why." Bae frowned. "All right, then, what's Plan B? There's got to be some other way to get rid of her. Henry's Book talks about a cage the dwarves and fairies built to hold Pop. Do you think we could do that again?"

"It would take too long," she shook her head. "That cage took them months to build in the Enchanted Forest, and I don't even know if there's enough fairy dust here." She remembered how she and Rumple had watched from afar as that cage was constructed; he'd been amused, and Belle had been worried sick. Now, she simply wished things were that simple. "Besides, it would give the fairies first crack at getting the dagger, and I think you agree with me on what a terrible idea that is."

"No argument." Scowling, Bae started to pace. "There's got to be some way to stop her. Maybe Regina can help set a trap or something."

"No," Belle said, crossing her arms. "We've been avoiding the obvious way to get the dagger back and concentrating on who that contract can keep safe, but I say we stop. I'll make myself a target. Cora will go after me, and—"

"Whoa, slow down! No way am I letting you do that," he cut her off, stopping cold to stare at her with wide eyes. "Papa wanted you safe, not right in the line of fire!"

"And I'm not going to stand around safely while he's being hurt!" she shot back. "It's the easiest way, and whatever Cora does, I know Rumple can heal."

"That's crazy. She could kill you, or worse."

"Like she's already doing to your father?"

Belle knew it was a low blow even when she said it, but she was done. Eight days had gone by while she worried for Rumple, dreading what she knew Cora was doing to him. She couldn't do this anymore, couldn't wait for some grand plan or some chance encounter to end Cora's enslavement of her husband. Rumplestiltskin had been convinced that Cora wouldn't wait too long before breaking the contract, so Belle would damn well give her the opportunity.

Bae, however, just winced. "Look, I asked Emma to marry me," he said quietly. "We both know Cora's going to go after her—and her parents—before long. Hell, Cora's already said as much. Can you wait for Emma to give me an answer before you do something crazy?"

"I don't want you to have to choose who takes the risks," Belle said as gently as she could. "I know you love Emma, and her family shouldn't have to be in danger for this to work."

"They're already in danger. Besides, Cora tried to rip Emma's heart out and failed—I think Emma's got magic, which will really screw things up if Cora goes after her, particularly if I can get Emma to marry me."

That made Belle blink thoughtfully. "Emma with magic?" she said slowly. "Oh…of course she does! She's a child of True Love."

"What's that have to do with anything?"

"Rumple told me about it when Gabi was two, once she started noticing everything magical. He said children of True Love are a lot more likely to be magical than others, something about magic being drawn to them. I imagine Emma becoming the Savior only made her stronger." Suddenly a little worried, Belle peered at her stepson. "Are you all right with that?"

"Yeah." He shrugged self-consciously. "I think so, anyway. I mean, I ran away from magic more than once, but upon more mature reflection, a lot of what I was running from—at least the second time—was Neverland, Pan, and all of his nastiness. Papa…well, he was a lot worse in the beginning, but he seems a lot more like him now. Or at least what I've seen of him does."

"He is," she said quickly. "Truly. And that's…that's why I can't wait on this, Bae. I've got to do something. I can't leave him to be hurt more."

"Give it a day, okay? I'll talk to Emma tomorrow, or tonight if I can get ahold of her."

"I can't." Just thinking of what Rumple was probably going through right now was enough to make Belle feel sick.

"Why not?" Bae demanded, and then shook his head. "Actually, no. Don't answer that. Instead, tell me why the hell Pop looks so terrible. I get that Cora's a psycho bitch and hurting him, but there's something else going on here, isn't there? Something you've been trying really hard not to tell me."

Belle looked away. She hadn't meant the conversation to turn this direction, but she really should have known this was coming.

"You told me that Cora and Pop were in a relationship before he met you," Bae said as she studied the far wall. "Emma said that Cora did something under the curse to make it look like they were having an affair—were they?"

Say something vague and let him make his own assumptions, a voice inside her said, and it almost sounded like Rumple. But that wasn't Belle's way, so she squared her shoulders and spoke the truth in a whisper. "Not one he was willingly in, even as Gold. Cora never wanted him willing."

"Oh. Oh."

"Yes." Belle didn't want to say more, and fortunately, Baelfire didn't ask. A long moment passed in silence while he digested this information. Belle just kept staring the wall, willing her tears back and thinking about what she could do to get Cora's attention. How can I make her angry enough that she forgets the contract? She doesn't have a copy, but she's smart enough to know that going after me will break it—even if she doesn't believe that'll automatically give Rumple the dagger back, she thought. So, what can I do?

"Okay, I get why you don't want to wait," Bae said softly, putting a hand on her arm that almost made Belle jump. "But give me two days, all right? We can't be sure Cora won't just kill you if she decides to go after you, and I know Papa won't think that's worth getting the dagger back for. Let me see if we can do this another way first, all right?"

Belle closed her eyes tightly. He was right…and she could use the two days to plan, anyway.

"All right," she said softly. "We'll do it your way."

The damn 'heroes' had stolen all of her hearts.

Once she had realized that, Cora's fury had increased tenfold. Earlier, she had been understandably distracted by her own painful experiences early that day, not to mention Rumplestiltskin distracting her so that Snow's damn prince could hit her with the truck. Cora had not enjoyed that experience at all, and she had taken her anger out on the convenient target who also happened to be the most deserving. Now, however, she was momentarily sated—with Rumple as a whimpering ball at her feet—and capable of more rational thought. That, of course, meant she realized what she had lost.

Most of the hearts were meaningless, knickknacks collected or minor forms of revenge. Some of them had been useful in limited ways, but were no longer necessary, particularly once the heroes knew whose hearts had been stolen. She could rebuild her collection easily enough, frustrating though it was. However, she had an ice sorceress currently imprisoned in her cellar, and allowing Ingrid to know that Cora didn't have her heart would be downright dangerous. There was a reason why she had stolen that heart in the first place.

"Zelena, dearest," she beckoned her elder daughter—who, despite her monumental error in allowing her sister to escape, remained loyal and reliable—to her side.

"Yes, Mother?" Zelena approached eagerly, clearly aware of her own failure and eager to atone.

"Go fetch a hair from our visitor downstairs, and make sure she is still unconscious," Cora told her. "Please."

"Of course!"

Once Zelena had disappeared, Cora turned back to the shivering and shaking Dark One on the floor.

"You," she snarled, gesturing with the dagger. "Get up."

Rumplestiltskin staggered to his feet immediately, still bleeding from that bullet wound she hadn't allowed him to heal, along with several other recent injuries. Cora remained utterly furious with him and was not nearly done with his punishments, but she would use him first. He was swaying and clearly in agony, but the beauty of the dagger was that Cora did not have to care about that. He would obey whatever commands he was given, because he had no choice.

"Stop the bleeding and clean yourself up," she ordered. "Do not heal yourself or lessen the pain in any way. Get dressed."

Cora waited until Rumplestiltskin did so, watching with narrowed eyes as her former lover tried to pull himself together even as he clothed himself in another of his beautiful suits. Rumplestiltskin's self-control was shattering, and although there were times that she missed his poise, she also enjoyed the fact that she had been the one who could turn him into a terrified and trembling mess. His wary gaze kept skittering away from her once he was done, and the fact that he was so obviously afraid made Cora feel a little warm inside.

"Zelena will bring you one of Ingrid's hairs," she said coldly. "You'll use it to find her heart, which you will fetch and bring directly to me. Understood?"

"Yes." His voice was hoarse, and Cora always knew she'd made progress when he resorted to simple, one word answers.

"Good. Oh, and you will kill anyonewho gets in your way. I suspect the Savior or her parents have the heart. Murder any one of them that attempts to intervene, no matter how slight their attempt."

A shadow of anger entered his eyes; Cora knew that Rumplestiltskin hated killing on her orders, which was why she kept making him do it. But he didn't argue; Cora knew he didn't have that in him at the moment. "I understand," the Dark One whispered.

"You had better. Do this quickly—and please me—and I may let you heal yourself some upon your return."

Brown eyes met hers, an almost inaudible whimper of hope and agony filling the air between them. Rumplestiltskin knew her well enough to know that she might well be lying, but Cora also could see the hope in his eyes. He was in enormous pain, both from the gunshot wound and the punishments he had earned, but Cora didn't care who saw that. Still, offering him a tiny carrot would keep Rumplestiltskin from creatively misinterpreting her commands; it would bring him back quickly and with the heart she needed. He had a surprisingly high pain tolerance for someone so frightened by torture—Cora supposed that was due to his curse—but he was still eager for any respite.

Zelena returned with Ingrid's hair within a few moments, and Cora sat back to watch Rumplestiltskin work out the complicated locator spell that would find not Ingrid—they knew exactly where the 'Snow Queen' was—but her heart. He really was unbelievably talented and so studied, even like this, and Cora did enjoy watching him work.

Particularly when she knew that the way his hands shook in pain was because of her.

Emma drove the bug back down to the docks by herself, needing to know. She'd brushed Ingrid off when the older woman had tried to offer her the so-called memory stone, but everything in her life had gone even more crazy today, and Emma needed answers. She'd found Ingrid's apartment earlier, hoping to find her there, but no one had been home. That meant Ingrid was either dead or Cora's prisoner, and Emma found herself more than a little worried for her. But if she couldn't find Ingrid, despite driving around town with Ingrid's heart in a box on her passenger seat, the only answers she could possibly find would be in that little blue stone—assuming it was still where Ingrid had dropped it two days ago.

But she had to know. She'd found pictures of herself in Ingrid's apartment. Pictures of her, as a kid, with Ingrid. There'd been school work, too, pictures drawn and a thank you note that Emma knew was in her own teenaged handwriting. Emma didn't know enough about magic to figure out if someone could have duplicated that, but her instincts told her that what she had found was real. That meant she had known Ingrid, and Emma wanted to know why.

So, she parked her car and headed toward the bench where she and Bae had been sitting two nights earlier, watching the ground as she walked. Emma needed to know what was true and what was false. Could magic fake pictures like that? Or, worse yet, could magic make memories that someone could insert? Or could someone take away memories, like Ingrid said she had done to her? She had so many questions; there was so much she didn't understand, and Emma hated feeling like this. But—Wait a minute, she realized. A week and a half without someone to turn to on these matters had made her into an idiot, and Emma rolled her eyes as the realization hit her. Quickly, she pulled out her phone and called Regina.

"What, you've been gone for ten minutes on your mysterious drive, and you're calling me already? You could have just stayed home if you wanted to talk," Henry's mother answered the phone dryly.

Well, at least her long sleep didn't seem to have changed Regina one bit. "I need to ask you a question," Emma retorted, trying not to sound defensive and failing. "Then I'll leave you alone."

"No, it's all right," Regina said, sounding a little more congenial. "What's wrong?"

"Can—can someone erase memories with magic?" There. She'd said it, and it didn't sound half so stupid as it had in her head.

"Sure, though it usually takes a potion and some pretty careful spell work," was the immediate response.

"You can't just…use a memory stone or something?"

"A what?"

"So, you've never heard of them," Emma sighed. So much for wanting to believe Ingrid. Had that whole act been part of Cora's plan, just a way to distract her?

"That doesn't mean that memory stones don't exist," Regina said. "As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not the be-all, end-all of magic. Who told you about them?"

"Ingrid."

"The chick with the ice magic that almost killed Graham?"

Emma had reached the bench, and she started looking around, trying to find where the stone had dropped. She didn't know why she even bothered to look for it, but she still wanted to find the thing, even if it was just a pretty rock used to fool her. "That's the one."

"Well, I've never even heard of her type of magic, so memory stones could be a subset of that. They aren't actually ice cubes, are they?"

"I sure as hell hope not!"

Regina hesitated before saying: "Emma, I don't even know if Ingrid and her ice magic are from the Enchanted Forest, so whatever you're dealing with, it could be dangerous. Be careful, all right?"

"I'll be careful," she promised.

"You want me to come down there?" Regina pressed.

"No, you really don't need to—oh! I found it." Bending over, Emma reached out to grab the small stone, thinking she'd bring it back and have Regina look at it before she did anything else. Maybe it was just a hoax…but maybe there was something important going on here, too.

"Don't touch it!" The words came through the phone a split second before Emma's fingers touched the stone, and she jerked back just in time.

"Why not?"

"Because if it is real, the memories might hit you when you touch it. Even if they aren't yours. I have no idea how this works. The stone might knock you unconscious, and the last thing you want is my mother to find you when you're napping on the side of the road or something," Regina said dryly. "Her hospitality is a little lacking these days."

"Oh." Emma swallowed hard. "Then, um, how do I bring this back? I don't want to pull you away from just getting home—"

"Don't stupid, I'll just teleport. Tell me where you are, and I'll be there in a moment."

Cora had well and truly trapped him this time. She was getting better at keeping her commands airtight, better at eliminating loopholes before he could find them…or perhaps Rumplestiltskin was in too much agony to think straight. Either could be the case. Even walking had become a challenge; he could feel himself swaying with every step, dizzy and almost drunk on the pain. His curse was the only thing keeping him on his feet; Cora had given him commands, so follow them he would. The demon, the darkness, inside him would make sure that he obeyed, even had he actually been in the midst of dying. But of course he was not. He was the Dark One, and only the dagger could kill him.

That didn't keep the blood loss from making him woozy or the pain from making it hard to think, though. That's probably the idea, Rumplestiltskin thought, remembering the many books he had read about his own curse. Some clerics believed that the best use of the Dark One was to put him or her in so much pain that they could no longer resist commands, that they could no longer look for a way to defy their 'masters'. They even argued that the Dark One should be taken so close to the brink that performing magic without a specific command was utterly impossible—though, fortunately, Rumplestiltskin was not yet so far gone. He didn't think Cora wanted to do that to him…but he couldn't be certain. And I don't want to find out.

For now, however, the burning pressure in his mind made sure that he would do exactly what she said, so he followed the locator spell he had created to where Emma Swan's car was parked near the docks. For a moment, his heart leapt into his throat, dread making his chest tight. Rumplestiltskin didn't like killing, and he particularly didn't like doing so as Cora's merry little marionette. And he really didn't want to kill Emma Swan; the Savior was one of their best chances of taking Cora down, especially after that little magical display in the earlier battle. Bae also knows her, he thought brokenly. He hadn't missed the silent interaction at their first meeting, and he had also noticed how they'd run into that fiasco side by side. His son had a history with the Savior, and Rumplestiltskin didn't want to kill someone who might be Baelfire's friend.

Fortunately, the car was empty when he looked through the driver's side window. It was off, too, but the engine wasn't cold—that meant Emma was nearby and he needed to move quickly if he didn't want to have to kill her. But the hair he'd enchanted was floating near the car, doing loops by the passenger side window, which meant the heart was here. I'm not sure what possessed our dear Savior to put Ingrid's heart in her car, but I'm grateful, he thought dizzily, waving a hand at the passenger door, willing it to unlock.

It didn't. Narrowing his eyes—as his heartbeat sped up in terror he could not control—Rumplestiltskin forced himself to focus harder. His second attempt unlocked the doors, but not before his curse threw a little jab of pain at his mind for not obeying Cora's commands quite expediently enough. Hurry, hurry, hurry! his inner demon taunted him. Can't keep the mistress waiting!

"Shut up." Whispering the words out loud told Rumplestiltskin that he was starting to lose it, more than a little, but he couldn't stop himself. Still, there was a familiar box on the front seat, so he bent inside the bug to grab it—and almost toppled over when his balance failed, barely catching himself on the seat with his left hand.

Of course, that meant the half-healed dagger wound in that shoulder flared up painfully, making him hiss in pain. Still, that was better than catching himself with his now-useless right arm, which hung at his side limply. His shoulder was a wreck, and healing it would take forever if Cora allowed Rumplestiltskin to do so properly, but that was a problem for another time. Now, he needed that damn heart. And then she might let him heal himself. A little.

He knew better than anyone that Cora would probably make him suffer longer, but Rumplestiltskin was running out of resistance, so he and straightened as much as he could. Even as he staggered away from the car and gestured the door shut—which took three tries, not a good sign, and even then it didn't latch properly—he sensed magic coming from further up the docks, and he squinted to find its source. Regina had just appeared next to Emma not a hundred yards away, and the two were studying something on the ground. They hadn't noticed him yet, which meant there was no time to lose. Bring the heart directly to me, Cora had demanded, and Rumplestiltskin had no choice.

His hands were shaking when he gripped the box, afraid of having to bend over if he dropped it.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, not sure what he was apologizing for but feeling like he should all the same. It was one thing to be a villain under his own control; being someone else's puppet was altogether different.

Closing his eyes, Rumplestiltskin took a deep breath and teleported himself back to Cora's home, back to the painful world in which he now existed.

He never heard Regina's shocked yelp, or saw Emma collapse to the ground.

The memories hit her harder than Regina had expected. She had told Emma that they should bring the stone back to study it, but typical stubborn Emma had pointed out that there wouldn't be a safe time to figure this out, so she might as well just do it now before something else exploded. Then the damn girl had just picked up the stone and fallen right over.

Fortunately, Emma's little magical-induced collapse only lasted about a minute, otherwise Regina would have started trying to pull her out of it. But Emma managed to sit up after it was over, her eyes wide and unfocused as she stared at the stone.

"Well?" Regina demanded impatiently. She really didn't have times for games played by some so-called Snow Queen; they had a lot bigger problems to deal with! But Emma had been dead set on figuring this out right the hell now, so Regina had come to back her up.

"She wasn't lying," Emma whispered.

"About what?"

"Ingrid. She told me that she was my foster mother. I found pictures of us at her apartment…and she wasn't lying. She was telling the truth," her niece said softly, staring at the stone and blinking. "She tried…she tried to get my magic to come out. She said I should have magic."

Regina frowned, offering Emma a hand up—which it took the younger woman a moment to notice. "How would she know that?"

"I don't know." Emma climbed to her feet, and finally looked at Regina. "But I do, don't I? That was…that was why Cora couldn't rip my heart out."

"It looked like magic," Regina answered cautiously, feeling so far out of her depth. "But I don't know. I've never seen anyone use magic by accident before."

"Why would I have magic?"

"I don't know," she answered, hating the way Emma's eyes were huge and looking at her for answers. "Look, I'm not an expert. I know a lot, but…I don't know everything. Rumple's always been the expert. These are the questions I'd usually ask him."

"He's kind of occupied right now," Emma pointed out dryly, but at least she stopped giving Regina that lost and confused puppy look.

"Tell me about it," she groaned. "Look, let's head back to the house, all right? We can figure this out there. It's better than being in the open where Mother can do something nasty."

"Good idea," Emma agreed, and they walked back to the car in silence, only to find the passenger side door ajar when they got there.

"Forgetting to lock your doors now, Sheriff?" Regina teased her, hoping to lighten the mood. "I didn't think our crime rate had gone down that much—unless Mother's started ripping hearts out of first time offenders."

"I didn't—oh, crap." The blonde looked like someone had just ripped her heart out, shocked and slightly terrified, and Regina knew for a fact that hadn't happened.

"What?"

"Ingrid's heart. I left it right there on the front seat, and now it's gone."

"Well, shit."

A/N: My apologies to anyone whose review I didn't respond to—FFN has been glitching, and I'm having a hard time logging in to answer. But please know that the reviews are VERY much appreciated! I'm also sorry for the late update, but I couldn't get logged in to post until now, either.

Stay tuned for Chapter Ninety-Three—"Finding Weaknesses," in which Emma tells her family about Neal's proposal, Rumplestiltskin and Ingrid have a heart to heart, Cora calls another war council, the heroes plan their next move, and Henry decides to take matters into his own hands.