Chapter One Hundred and Two—"That Which You Found"
They'd found the trailer lying on its side in a ditch, but hadn't been able to right it. So, Tamara had unhitched it while Greg nursed the SUV back onto the road, and then they'd headed out of Storybrooke. That had been six days ago, immediately after they'd miraculously turned back from being flying monkeys, and they'd spent that time outside of the magically infested town regaining their bearings. They'd almost stayed away, almost decided not to contact the Home Office at all and just try to disappear into the real world, but in the end, they'd both known that would be wrong. Magic had to be destroyed. Storybrooke's mere existence was a stain on the face of the world, and it was their responsibility to deal with that.
So, they headed back into town on the morning of March 23rd, six days after they had become human again. They were going to destroy magic, or die trying.
She didn't ask how Walsh had managed to get the keys to her cell; Zelena just grabbed the opportunity for freedom with both hands and hurried out of the hospital's basement. Having been a nurse there, she knew her way around well enough to avoid notice, which meant she made it out the front doors without anyone realizing she had escaped. Of course, if Walsh had been smart enough to let her out sometime other than in the bright hours of the morning, things would have been easier, but the so-called 'Wizard of Oz' was as much an idiot when human as he was when a monkey.
Still, Zelena would take what she could get, and now she needed to find her pendant. She remembered hearing her bitch of a little sister talk to the outlaw about hiding it, which meant Zelena had a pretty good idea where it must be. She really didn't like having to walk halfway across town to get to the firehouse, but she figure that Regina's precious little outlaw was more likely to hide it there than in his home. And if it isn't in the firehouse, I'll find it. I'll be able to feel where it is, I know it, she told herself.
Six days she'd spent in that dreary asylum, six days since her mother had died. Since Rumplestiltskin murdered her. Zelena was not going to allow that to stand. She wasn't. She was going to get her pendant back and then she was going to have revenge. First, she was going to kill Rumple's precious little wife and then get the dagger. Then she would kill her stupid, arrogant sister, but only after having Rumple kill Regina's little lover while Regina watched. Then she would kill Snow White and her precious prince. Zelena would finish the work her mother had started, and she knew that Cora would be proud of her for it.
So, she headed down Bayview Street, which paralleled Main Street and waited until she hit Number 1 Road to head towards the Fire Station. A few people glared at her when she took a right onto Main Street, but Zelena didn't care what they thought. She knew her pendant had to be there. She'd sneak in the back, and—
A trailer-hauling SUV had been headed down the road just as she turned on to Main Street, and when Zelena went to cross to the north side, it skidded to a stop right in front of her, tires screeching and breaks squealing. Zelena spun to face the driver as the trailer tried to jackknife, glaring.
"You almost hit me!" she shouted at the driver, a dark-skinned young woman who looked at her with wide eyes. "How dare you? Do you have any idea who I am?"
The driver didn't answer, of course. The idiot woman just stumbled out of the car, accompanied by the man in the passenger seat. Both stared at Zelena hostilely, until the woman finally demanded:
"Do you even remember us, you witch?"
She's crazy. Why would I remember someone insignificant? Zelena wondered, scoffing out loud. "Of course not."
"You turned us into flying monkeys," the man spat.
"I turned a lot of people into flying monkeys," Zelena retorted, and she never saw the two guns come up. She was too bored with the conversation, too eager to regain what was hers and get her revenge. So, Zelena turned away even as Greg and Tamara both drew handguns and pointed at her. She started walking, heading again for the north side of the street and glad that there weren't many people around to witness that scene. After all, word getting back to her sister that she had escaped would be very inconvenient—
Two shots rang out, and Zelena collapsed to the ground.
The idea of having Gold as a father-in-law was more than just a little creepy, but Emma figured that if she could embrace the rest of this fairytale stuff, she could wrap her mind around that, too. Besides, he was Neal's dad, and they seemed to be doing okay now. That made Gold family, and, well, that meant Emma was going to figure out how to get past all the awkwardness that was inherent with this. Besides, he'd helped her save Henry even before he knew about her and Neal, and that meant a lot to Emma.
None of that, however, explained why she was at the shop that morning. No, that was Ingrid's doing. As much as Emma wanted to view her former foster mother with a healthy amount of doubt, Ingrid did have a point when she told Emma not to leave this Elsa—whoever she actually was—inside some enchanted urn. Ingrid had said that Rumplestiltskin had the urn last, though, and Emma figured that it if was anywhere, it was inside the pawn shop. Judging from a few comments of Regina's, all kinds of things from the Enchanted Forest had ended up in Gold's shop. It was the logical place to start, and Gold was the logical man to talk to.
But the front of the shop was empty when Emma walked in, and no one emerged from the back despite the ringing of the bell as the door slammed shut behind her. "Anyone here?" Emma called. "Gold? Belle?"
She figured that they were both probably there; Neal hadn't said anything about how badly Cora had treated Gold, but Emma wasn't blind. She'd seen a lot of crappy stuff in her days as a foster kid, and had seen a lot of people hurt. She wasn't quite ready to go so far as to say what Gold was suffering from PTSD, but she wasn't certain that wasn't the case, either. He'd sure reacted like an abuse victim when Grumpy had grabbed him six days ago, and Gold had been a virtual recluse since killing Cora. He hadn't even opened the shop until today, and Emma had figured that she should leave things alone until Gold was ready to face the world.
"We'll be right there!" Belle's voice called, and Emma tried not to tap her foot as she waited. Was it terribly wrong that she hoped Gold needed a few minutes to make sure he didn't flip out and turn her into a snail, when the other option was that the Golds had been doing something unimaginable with one another in the back? Eww, Emma, don't think like that, she told herself firmly. The man was her son's grandfather!
Fortunately, only a minute or two passed before the Golds emerged, and fortunately, they weren't straightening their clothes or doing anything else that would indicate they'd been mid-tryst. Thank goodness.
"Emma," Belle greeted her with a bright smile. "What can we do for you?"
"I need some help," Emma replied, glancing at Gold. He still looked tired, despite having been free from Cora for six days, and Emma recognized wary tension in every line of his body.
"With what?" Belle again, and Emma found it interesting that Gold was letting her take the lead.
"I'm, um, looking for something," she admitted, wondering if this was a fool's errand after all. "Something Ingrid said you had."
The last was directed at Gold, whose eyes narrowed slightly in realization. "You're looking for the urn. For Elsa of Arendelle."
"How'd you know?"
Having knowledge everyone else didn't seemed to bring Gold back on balance. "Your former foster mother and I had a remarkable conversation when we were both Cora's guests," he said wryly. "She told me a remarkable tale about a prophecy and sisters she feels she will now never find."
"Yeah, um, she told me some of that," Emma admitted uncomfortably. "And, well, I'm not looking to get into all of that, but Ingrid had a point. Whoever this Elsa is, she doesn't deserve to be stuck in some bottle for the rest of forever."
"Rumple, you didn't…you didn't put her in there, did you?" Belle spoke up, which made Emma blink. She'd just kind of assumed that Gold had been responsible, so she watched with interest as he turned towards his wife.
"I'm actually not at fault this time, sweetheart," Gold replied with a slightly sheepish shrug. "I missed the details of the encounter, but Ingrid seems to have put her niece in the urn. I merely acquired it afterwards."
"And you left her in there?" Belle demanded, crossing her arms.
Gold blinked, seemingly not quite comprehending why that would be a problem. Emma almost spoke up, but she decided to wait and see what her future father-in-law said, instead. He cleared his throat uneasily. "Honestly, I didn't expect to hold on to her for long. I offered Ingrid a deal that I expected she'd take, but she never did. Instead, she found another way here."
"That doesn't make it right," Belle insisted, and Gold shrugged again.
"I'm the Dark One, Belle. 'Right' didn't sit so well with me until you came around," he replied, and Emma watched something unspoken pass between the two.
"You need to make it right," Belle said softly, putting a hand on his arm, and for a moment, Emma was pretty sure neither remembered she was in the room. It was cute, and it reminded her vividly of her parents, but she really wasn't here for cute.
"So, uh, you'll be forking over that urn, yeah?" Emma interrupted. "Seems like it's probably about time we get this Elsa out of the urn, particularly if it's going to help promote domestic peace in the Gold household."
"It's not that simple, I'm afraid," Gold replied. "The urn is in the vault of my castle."
"You have a castle?" Emma asked before she could stop herself. "Where?"
"In the Enchanted Forest, of course."
"Oh." Emma felt like an idiot for her previous question, but she really was still kind of new at this fairytale thing. "The curse, um, destroyed everything back there, right?"
"Not…precisely," he said slowly, and Belle seemed to catch on quicker than Emma.
"Jefferson's hat can take us there, can't it?" she asked softly.
"The Mad Hatter?" Emma echoed. "He can take us to the Enchanted Forest?"
Gold let out a breath, his eyes flicking to his wife. "He could, yes."
"There are a few things in the castle I'd like to bring back, Rumple," Belle pointed out, and Emma just watched her turn big blue eyes on her husband. This is an entirely different type of magic, she thought, and Emma knew that Gold was going to give in long before he did. He argued a little, but even Gold seemed to know that it was pointless. Before too long, he'd agreed to go back to the Enchanted Forest and had promised to bring the urn back so that Elsa could be freed.
Regina stepped onto the street just in time to watch two people shoot Zelena. She and Snow had been in Granny's for a late breakfast, just enjoying a little time together before tackling another day of trying to fix Storybrooke, and when they heard the tires screeching, they'd assumed someone had gotten in a car accident. Instead, they came outside to find two strangers shooting Zelena, and at first Regina was too shocked to move. Snow actually reacted first, shouting for both shooters to stop when they started to run away—but neither did, of course.
"Regina!" Snow snapped, and somehow her voice got through the fog. "Stop them!"
Waving a hand, Regina used magic to yank the guns out of both culprits' hands and then turned the asphalt under their feet into quicksand, stopping both cold. That gave her and Snow time to hurry to Zelena's side, but it only took one look at her (half!) sister to tell Regina everything she needed to know.
"She's dead," Regina said, feeling like her voice belonged to another person. There was a strange emptiness in her heart—not really grief, but more like a slight sorrow for something that they never had and now would never be.
"Oh, Regina," Snow replied softly, and a gentle hand landed on her arm. "I'm so sorry."
"You know…" she said slowly, still studying Zelena's pale face. "I don't think I am." Looking up at Snow's predictably horrified expression, she shrugged. "Zelena hated everything I am and hated everyone I love. Sooner or later, she would have tried to destroy our family. Maybe it's better that she never got the chance."
"She still deserved better than to die like this."
"Did she?" Regina wondered. "At least it was fast." Faster than Mother got, for all Rumple didn't actually make her suffer, she thought. I suppose this might be considered a mercy in the long run.
"Let's, uh, deal with these two," Snow said uneasily, gesturing at the pair struggling against the street that had swallowed them up to their knees. "Whoever they are."
"Now that's a good question," Regina replied, turning on Zelena's killers. Both were still fighting to get free, so she decided to leave them where they were for the moment. "Who the hell are you two?"
"People that bitch turned into flying monkeys!" the woman spat furiously, and Regina snorted back a very inappropriate laugh.
"Well, unless you want me to call you Monkey One and Monkey Two, some names would be really helpful," she pointed out.
"Regina!" Snow hissed in an undertone, but Regina just gave her sister an unrepentant look.
"What?"
The two strangers exchanged a loaded glance, and watching the way they looked at one another set warning bells off in Regina's head. Finally, the woman answered: "Tamara Martin and Greg Mendell. We're from out of town."
"You're from…where?" Snow got in before Regina could process that information, but once it sank in, her stomach dropped out.
"Not from here," Greg snapped. "We're normal people, not from this magically-infested hellhole."
"Hellhole?" Snow echoed, sounding shocked. Regina, however, really wasn't in the mood.
"Well, I'm glad you don't like Storybrooke," she cut in, waving a hand and yanking both visitors out of the asphalt. And, well, if they slammed down a bit hard on the suddenly-solid road when they landed, that wasn't her problem. "Because I'm pretty sure no one here likes you much, either. But, since we're a law-abiding sort of place, we'll just throw you in jail while we figure out how to express that dislike."
"Law-abiding?" Tamara echoed, sounding incredulous. "You people are all abominations! This place needs to be destroyed, not—"
"Oh, shut up," Regina cut her off, waving her hand through the air once more. Immediately, Tamara and Greg vanished in a cloud of purple smoke, reappearing in (Regina hoped) the sole empty jail cell. Either that or they'd wound up in with Keith Nottingham, who had been released on bond last night and then picked up that very same morning for drunk driving. Again. "I am so sick of this crap."
"This is going to get messy," Snow predicted.
"Tell me about it."
The next day—having given in to Belle's pleading and already traveled to the Enchanted Forest with the Hatter—Rumplestiltskin sought the Savior out. Rather, he called her and asked her to meet him down in the mines, not far from the place where they had each once faced off with the Jabberwocky. Just thinking of the unsettling terror he had felt that day left him a little off balance, but not as much as Rumplestiltskin had expected. So much had happened in the eighteen days since the curse had broken that he'd almost forgotten that particular trauma; he was still shaky for other reasons, but memories of how Jabber had made him feel were so far from the top of that list.
"You know, this really isn't my favorite place," Emma said, walking up with all the subtlety of a drunk elephant.
"Nor mine, Miss Swan," he replied, turning to face Storybrooke's sheriff. "But I do believe that I have something you'll want."
"You got the urn?" she asked, her eyes going immediately to his hands. Those hands were, of course empty.
"I did. And I'll make a deal with you for its return," Rumplestiltskin smiled slightly as Emma frowned, enjoying himself perhaps a little too much. "I'll even tell you how to free Elsa, though I suspect Ingrid already knows that little trick."
"I thought you said that you wanted to make things right."
"No, Belle said that," he reminded his future daughter-in-law. "She'll always be a far better person than I, and much more helpful."
"Yeah, I think a four year old could have figured that out," his future daughter-in-law grumbled. "I suppose that's what I get for listening to your son when he says you're trying to be better."
That stung a little, but Rumplestiltskin made himself shrug, figuring that he deserved it. "Believe it or not, dear, I think you'll like this deal," he said calmly, drawing a small scroll out of his pocket. "All it requires is you to use a touch of your magic to place a protective spell over the town."
"A what?" Emma blinked.
"A protective spell. I do believe you're aware of the…visitors that shot Zelena?"
"Yeah, I've got them locked up in a jail cell at the moment," she replied, studying him closely. "So…you're giving me a way to keep other people out?"
"Right in one." A twisted smile twitched onto his lips. "I'm glad to see that Henry didn't inherit all of his intelligence from my side of the family."
"Very funny, Gold," Emma snapped, but he could tell that she wasn't really annoyed.
"To each their own." Rumplestiltskin shrugged again and offered her the scroll. "This spell will keep anyone who wasn't born in a magical realm outside of Storybrooke. All you need to is read the words on the scroll, and magic will take care of the rest."
"Why me? Why can't you do it?"
"I'm a creature of dark magic, Miss Swan," he replied honestly. "You, however, are the opposite. I've written the spell. If you cast it, Storybrooke will be protected by the strongest of both light and dark magic—by the woman who broke the curse, and by the man who twisted pieces into place to make it happen." Rumplestiltskin paused, watching realization dawn on Emma's face. "So, do we have a deal?"
"You could have just asked me, you know," she retorted, grabbing the scroll.
Rumplestiltskin shook his head. "Magic always comes with a price. By demanding something in return, I mitigate some of that price so that neither you nor I—or Storybrooke—will have to pay it."
"Huh." Emma unrolled the paper and studied it, glancing at Rumplestiltskin a little curiously. "I guess Neal was right about you. You are trying."
That frank—and perhaps even accepting—look made him uncomfortable, so Rumplestiltskin stepped sideways, needing to put some space between himself and the girl his son loved. "I'll always have my demons," he said as flippantly as he could, hating the way emotion made his voice rough. "But for my family's sake, I'll try to contain them."
"You and me both." Emma quirked a smile, and then began to read.
She released a very confused Elsa from the urn later that day, Rumplestiltskin heard, causing a very confused reunion between aunt and niece, given how the former had removed the latter's memories of their last encounter. Somehow, Emma managed to get the two snow sorceresses to talk to one another without either turning the town to ice, and eventually, Jefferson departed for Arendelle with both Elsa and Ingrid in tow. They had a long way to go before those family issues could be cleared up, too, but like Rumplestiltskin, Ingrid was trying. They'd both learned a thing or two while under Cora's control, and neither was about to let this second chance go.
Two weeks after Cora's death, Snow and Charming insisted that Storybrooke hold a city-wide celebration. Half block party and half old world ball, the party started around noon and continued well into the evening, filling the town with laughter for the first time in living memory. The curse had broken twenty-five days ago, and now that a calm seemed to have finally settled over Storybrooke, everyone was able to get their bearings. Families were reunited, friends balanced out their old lives with their new, and life generally went onwards and upwards. Particularly now that the town was protected by a barrier spell, and their visitors from outside had been tossed outside that barrier—without memories of what they'd done in Storybrooke or what they had seen.
"So," Henry asked Emma with a grin as they watched David shove Baelfire into the impromptu swordfighting contest that someone had started. "Did you ever imagine it might be like this when I blackmailed you into coming here?"
"No," his adopted mother snorted. "Not in a million years. I'd have checked myself into the psych ward if I'd ever imagined this."
"But you like it," he teased her.
Emma glared a little, and then relented. "But I like it, yeah. It's weird…but it's home."
"Told you so," Henry couldn't resist gloating a little, and he didn't even grumble when Emma reached over to fluff his hair. He was too happy.
His birth parents were getting married in a month—really really married, not just on paper but for actual real. They'd even gotten a house together, one that Henry had a room in, just like he did at home. Bae and Emma had moved in just that morning, both of them grumbling about how Grandpa Gold had refused to charge them rent and kept calling it a wedding present. His adopted mom was finally happy, too, even if Henry had been wrong about who Robin turned out to be. He'd hoped that Daniel had still been alive, but somehow Regina had found a second True Love, and he knew that she was happy with Robin. Sooner or later, he'd get a younger stepbrother out of that deal, and Henry thought that was great.
His adopted dad was back with his True Love, and Henry couldn't help but laugh when Snow jumped into that mock swordfight and promptly walloped his grandfather/adopted dad. They'd been elected co-mayors of Storybrooke by popular acclaim, which was pretty weird but seemed to work out well enough, since it wasn't like they did anything without the other, anyway. His other grandparents were True Love, too, and even if Henry had never expected to find Beauty and the Beast as part of his family, he thought it was pretty cool. Belle was great, and Grandpa Gold told all kinds of funny stories about how his dad had been as a child.
For a kid who had felt so very alone when he'd been the only one to believe in fairytales, Henry had wound up with a far bigger family than even he could imagine. And it better than he'd ever even hoped.
"So, here we are," Robin said as they danced, and Regina found herself smiling before she even knew where he was going with this.
"Here we are," she agreed. Robin and Roland had moved into the sweeping Nolan house almost two weeks ago, and although there had been some awkward moments—like the time she discovered that Roland really liked to climb into bed with his father at the most inopportune times—so far life had seemed almost like a real honeymoon. Now that Emma had moved out, leaving Regina and Robin at one end of the house and Snow and Charming at the other (with two boys in between and the Charmings already talking about building a nursery for the next one they were planning), Regina felt like her life was finally on the track she'd wanted it to be, and she was almost afraid that she'd wake up.
With her luck, if she did, she'd find herself plain Regina Nolan, her mother's executive assistant and still stuck in a miserable marriage to her brother-in-law. Don't think like that, she told herself firmly, but still hadn't shaken away the habitual pessimism until Robin reached out a finger to poke her in the nose.
"Hey!"
He grinned. "Sorry to distract you from your dark thoughts, love, but I thought we might enjoy ourselves, instead of being unhappy."
"I'm sorry," Regina whispered. "I'm just…sometimes I think I'm terrible at being happy. I keep waiting for something to go wrong."
"If it does, we'll face that together," Robin promised. "No matter what happens, I'll be by your side, as long as you'll have me."
"As long as I'll have you?" she echoed, snorting. "Who says I'm ever going to let you go anywhere?"
"Tie me down if you want," he replied, eyes twinkling. "I'm a big boy. I can take it."
Regina knew that her laugh startled everyone around them, but she didn't care. She was dancing with a man she loved, she had her family back, and life was good. This was what she'd always dreamed of, and she wasn't going to let go now.
"They're staring," Rumplestiltskin complained, and Belle snickered.
"Not at us," she replied, highly amused by her husband's scowl. He didn't answer, just glaring at her with an expression that plainly said yes they are, and Belle just leaned in to kiss him lightly. "And if they are, who cares?"
"I do," he said rather petulantly, and Belle bit back another snicker.
"You agreed that coming to the party was a good thing," she said softly, wondering if this was just Rumplestiltskin being Rumplestiltskin, or if he was having another moment where crowds made him nervous. Slowly, Belle reached up to run her fingers through his hair, playing with the ends and feeling some of the tension eek out of him.
"I know. I just…"
"We don't have to stay long," Belle picked up quickly when he trailed off. "Honestly, we've probably been here longer than most people expected us to."
"I'm not going to run away just because I'm a little uneasy," her ever-stubborn husband growled. There were times Belle really just wanted to smack some sense into him, but she knew that would be counterproductive. And besides, she loved him the way he was, even when he was difficult.
"Then what do you want to do, Rumple?" she asked.
"Not be stared at," he repeated, and this time she didn't hold back her laugh.
"Then you shouldn't have given me True Love's Kiss in public, silly," Belle chided him playfully, and was finally rewarded with a slight smile. "They're all trying to figure out how the big, scary Dark One managed to find True Love. I think they're envious."
"Of you, maybe," Rumplestiltskin replied, and the way his voice dropped sent a shiver down Belle's spine. "Because if anyone's envious of me, it's only because I have the most beautiful woman in the world in my arms."
"I think you're very handsome, myself," she said, leaning in to kiss him again.
"I think you're the only one."
Her True Love really could be an idiot sometimes, couldn't he? "Trust me," Belle said, thinking of the several women she'd noticed eyeing her husband. "I'm not."
Rumplestiltskin looked very different in this world, and she wasn't surprised that others appreciated his human form. She loved both sides of him, of course—and had been rather happy to see his old, golden-scaly self when they'd gone to the Enchanted Forest for a day—but she wasn't blind, even if her husband was. Rumplestiltskin would probably never think much of himself, but Belle knew better, and she was content to spend the rest of her life reminding him of her love.
Sometime after dinner had been served, Jefferson finally knuckled under. "I still think this is a terrible idea," he grumbled.
Belle elbowed him. "It's only going to get worse if you keep putting it off, you know."
"Can't you, you know, want to go cavorting around magical realms instead?" he whined. "That would be so much easier."
"Do the brave thing and bravery will follow," his friend told him, and Jefferson wanted to strangle her. Not that he would. Strangling the Dark One's True Love—and hadn't that little fact shocked the town!—was probably a good way to wind up flapping in the wind alongside Cora's ashes.
"Oh, shut up," he muttered, and made his way through the crowd to where Snow White—or now Mayor Blanchard (which differentiated her from Mayor Nolan, he supposed, despite the fact that they were married)—stood with her daughter, watching Henry swordfight with the other mayor. Belle stopped a few feet short of their destination, of course, giving him an encouraging smile but leaving Jefferson to do this himself.
It's not my fault, he tried to tell himself. I was cursed. But he still hadn't been able to shake the guilty feeling of being an utter creep, of having stalked someone who he actually rather respected, and having scared the hell out of her, too. So, Jefferson cleared his throat and hoped like hell Emma wouldn't arrest him. Both women turned to look at him right away, with Emma—who he didn't think he'd actually talked to since the curse had broken—giving him a hostile look that said she was contemplating hitting him.
"Look, if you're here to be a bother—" the sheriff started, but Jefferson cut her off hurriedly.
"I'm here to apologize," he said. "For everything, really. I was…well, I was one hell of a jerk to you. And I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, Jefferson," Snow said, and for a moment the haunted smile on her face reminded Jefferson of the (then) heartless princess whom Cora had forced to go to Oz with him. "You were cursed, just like the rest of us."
"I still feel like a prat," he admitted. "And I wanted to tell you that. I'm not—well, I'm a lot of things, but you're not really my type."
Snow laughed, and it was so unlike anything his cursed memories recalled of Mary Margaret that Jefferson actually felt sick with relief. "I'm not sure if I should be complimented or insulted by that," she snickered.
"Complimented," Jefferson replied. "Definitely complimented."
They shared another grin, until Emma spoke up.
"Guess I won't be throwing you in jail after all," the sheriff said a little grudgingly. Then she shrugged. "That's probably a good thing. I'm out of space."
"So long as you don't ask me to dump any of them in Neverland, we're all good," he quipped, and was surprised to see Emma's face darken.
"So long as you don't mention that place around Henry," she replied, suddenly all seriousness. "Neal's still trying to convince him that it's a nightmare land, and not the kind of place kids have fun."
"It is," Jefferson confirmed. "In fact, you ever need a few terrible tales to add to Baelfire's, just call me up. I wouldn't want my daughter interested in the place, either. Pan makes Cora like nice and cuddly towards children."
"How about we all stay away from there, then?" Snow suggested, and Jefferson nodded emphatically.
"Best idea I've heard all night."
"You know, somehow I never imagined this the day you came to make me a prince."
Hearing the voice made Rumplestiltskin turn to watch David walk up. He'd retreated off to the side while Belle socialized, simply content to watch her work her magic on people. Now she was talking to that fairy that had taken up with Hook, and if his eyes didn't deceive him, the pirate was actually apologizing to Belle for that incident at the clock tower. Rumplestiltskin might have allowed Belle to talk him into not pressing the matter when Hook's idiotic pursuit of her had made her fall down those half-completed stairs, but he certainly hadn't forgotten the matter—yet he hadn't expected the pirate to be brave enough to offer a genuine apology, either. Apparently being in love is good for him, the Dark One thought, and then turned his attention to his pet prince.
"If it's any consolation, I hardly expected this, either," he replied with a wry smile.
"I thought you were supposed to be a Seer," David protested lightly, holding out a beer in offering.
Blinking, Rumplestiltskin accepted the red plastic cup. He wasn't generally a beer drinker, but Granny's brew wasn't bad, and he wasn't fool enough to turn down an offer that he understood to be laden with symbolism. David held his own cup out in an informal toast, and Rumplestiltskin returned the gesture before taking a sip. At least it wasn't warm, which improved the taste remarkably. And it's not like any poison they come up with can kill you while there's magic here, his inner voice of paranoia pointed out. Or like I suspect David's trying to poison me.
"The future isn't that easy to predict," he admitted. "Being a Seer is like having the pieces to a thousand different puzzles and none of them are labeled. There's no telling where they go. Sometimes you can pick out the most important ones, but usually you're just guessing."
"So, you never saw this coming, huh?" the other man asked, gesturing at where David's daughter and Rumplestiltskin's son were laughing together, both having clearly had a beer or two too many as Bae tried to teach Emma archery.
"Not for a moment," Rumplestiltskin smiled. "I'm fairly sure I would have tried to prevent it if I had."
"What, is my daughter not good enough for your son?" David demanded, and it took Rumplestiltskin a moment to realize that the prince was actually joking with him. Still, there wasn't really a safe answer to that, was there?
"Um," he snorted out a laugh, shrugging helplessly. "Honestly, she's probably exactly what he needs. She's bullheaded and strong, and she can keep up with him. All I ever wanted was for him to be happy."
"Yeah, us too," was the soft reply. When their eyes met, Rumplestiltskin felt understanding flash between them, and for the first time, he started to wonder if he might actually fit in with this odd family of theirs.
"Well, then," he replied once he could find his voice. "Here's to their happiness."
"To all of our happiness," David said with a grin. "I think we've earned it, even if you didn't expect things to happen like this."
No, this was not the way things were supposed to happen. Had things gone according to Rumplestiltskin's original plan, Regina would not have been dancing with Henry, laughing and smiling like she hadn't a care in the world. Any number of things might have changed, some better, and some worse; there was no telling how things would have been different. Still, for all the discomfort and nightmares this road had caused him, Rumplestiltskin would not have changed a thing, even had he been able to. Against all odds, he had found his son again, had earned Baelfire's forgiveness, and reunited his family. Rumplestiltskin was damaged, yes, but he'd finally learned that time could heal wounds, and thanks to his (far larger than expected) family, he would have that time.
They all would.
FINIS.
A/N: Wow, it's been one hell of a ride. Thank you SO much to everyone who has stayed with me for this long journey—and to those of you who have joined us along the way. I almost didn't write this behemoth at all, and I certainly never expected it to be so long once I decided to! This is definitely the longest story I've ever written, and I can't believe it's done.
I don't plan on writing a sequel right now, but I will be open to prompts in this universe on my tumblr (the link is in my profile). I'll also continue poking away at "True Love Wins Out" when time allows.
For anyone who is interested, I also now 18 chapters into an alternate Season 5 fic, titled "Ruins of Camelot". It's another ensemble fic, but one in which I can promise: no gratuitous memory wipes, no long-term Rumplestiltskin-in-a-coma (he wakes up in chapter 1), and Baelfire will eventually return.
Thank you all again for being so awesome and for sticking with me through this roller coaster of a story!