He didn't particularly enjoy being a regular patron of the Blind Witch's establishment. Hell, he had barely enjoyed being a regular patron at Granny's, but at least after this experience he could honestly say the food was a better deal with Granny. Still, food was food, and if eating it and being here once a day helped him to better blend into the city's denizens…so be it.

For that reason alone, he'd found a routine in the last few days. In the morning, he went to the library, picked up whatever books he felt might be useful, read during the day, went to Granny's in the evening, and when he returned home, he worked his magic.

He was trying to form a connection, trying to get a message through to the Enchanted Forest. The crystal ball he had worked and showed him images of whoever he wanted to see whenever he wanted to see them. So far, all he'd seen was a lot of nothing at Regina's old castle, or should he say Snow White's mother's castle, Belle and Baelfire were camping outside for some reason, and Emma and Henry appeared to be in a city of some kind. His best guess on their location was New York City, but only because it looked like New York City. But for all he knew, all cities looked the same, and they were in Chicago.

With the knowledge that the crystal ball provided, he set to work on a cauldron, one like he'd had in the Enchanted Forest, that would show nearly the same thing. It was just an experiment, really. He wanted to see if he got the same results that he would have in the Enchanted Forest. The experiment was somewhat successful. When he checked in on places in the Underworld, looked in on Milah, spied on the library, or wanted to see the diner, he was gifted with the kind of perfect image he expected. But when he tried to look in on his father or tried to spy on the man known as Hades, who apparently was in charge but he'd never met or even seen, when he wanted to see the ferryman, the cauldron came up blank. The crystal ball wasn't much better than that. He saw something moving around inside of it when he'd tried to summon those images, but they were no more than shadows. Faces were impossible to make out. It was just a never-ending darkness that filled the ball. But unlike the ball, when he used the cauldron to try and see into other worlds, the results were mixed. He saw nothing of Henry and Emma, and Belle and Bae came through blurry.

The results of those experiments weren't great, but they were enough to spur him on to the next thing, the next step in his progression. He needed to get a mirror working. Mirrors were always the way he'd listened in on conversations in the Enchanted Forest. If he stood any chance of getting a message through to anyone, he'd have to use a mirror to do it. Enchanting a mirror in the Enchanted Forest was easy, but here it was proving to be difficult. He kept having issues with-

"Are you the Dark One?"

The words caught him by surprise. He was unaware just how much he'd tuned out the din and hustle and bustle of this filthy excuse for a diner until he looked up and saw a boy, barely a man standing at his table. He had what appeared to be a guitar or other musical instrument over his back, a messenger bag at his side, and he was wringing his hands together almost nervously as he looked down at him intently. He swallowed as he looked him over, taking in the unkempt hair and the clothes...he looked normal, but he just couldn't be sure. He hated the feeling like every interaction in this place was a test.

"No," he lied. "Not anymore." He couldn't let anyone in this place even catch a whiff of him suggesting that maybe he wasn't dead. As far as they were concerned, the power had passed on from him when he'd killed his father, and now he was here waiting just as Gorgon had been.

"But you used to be!" the boy pushed, moving his instrument aside and taking the unoffered seat across from him. "You…" the boy picked up his head and looked around the diner as if to check if people were listening to him, obviously unaware that people didn't have to be looking at you to listen in. "You know magic…"

He whispered the words as if they were an accusation no one could find out about. But he didn't quite see the point of that. Everyone knew that he had magic. He'd already had three people arrive at his doorstep in the last few days to make requests of him, and now the boy was here, presumably because he'd heard the news too. There was no secret. Usually, he loved working with the ignorant because they were always eager to please, but he was tired of it. He just wanted to focus on getting out here! But, he reminded himself, that might not be for some time. And until then...

"Yes, of course," he stated outright, dutifully playing along but making no attempt to keep his voice down.

The boy sighed with something like relief. "You are the one! The one she said could help me."

"She?"

"Listen, I know this seems improbable or like I'm crazy, but…I'm not dead."

If it smelled crazy and looked crazy and sounded like crazy…

"Difficult to believe for someone who's in the land of the dead."

"I know but…I'm not. My girlfriend, she died, bitten by a snake and…I couldn't bear to leave her, so I talked to some friends of the family, and they were able to find a sorcerer who was able to open up the portal and summon the ferryman. He gave me the power to get to the Underworld so that I could find her and bring her home but…Hades has her. He keeps her in his dungeon. I don't know why. Maybe it's because he knows my mother, maybe it's because I failed once before. But I need help to free her so I can get her out of here and save her. The blind girl I talked to, she told me that you had the answers! Please, you have to help us be free of this place!"

A blind girl told him all this…he glanced over at the Blind Witch, who was standing at the counter wiping glasses with a filthy rag, her hazy blue eyes unfocused despite the fact that he was certain she'd heard every word they'd said. Apparently, this was the place for gossip, just as Granny's was. He'd deal with her later. But as for the boy…

Where to even start?! He was like a teenage girl, pouring his heart out only what came out happened to be important details, only halved. They all hinted at something much greater without actually revealing it. Hades keeping his girlfriend prisoner because he knew his mother. A friend of the family was able to summon the ferryman to bring him here. The fact that he was alive, but his girlfriend was dead, and he'd followed her down to this place. The idea that he might have a way to get free of this place…yes, that was the one he was interested in. But how to go about it?

He curled one side of his mouth and let out a small huff of a laugh. "That's quite a story…if it's true."

"Please, sir, why would I lie?"

A fair question.

"Hope," he answered, pulling from his experience with Belle. "Men can do and believe all sorts of crazy stories for love. How do I know this girl of yours isn't already in the next place, and this is how you chose to cope?"

"Because she's not."

"How do I know that she's not alive and well, and you are the one who is dead and has been driven to insanity?"

"Because I'm not!"

"How do I know this isn't just-"

"Because it's not!" he screamed, throwing his fists down onto the booth and making the table jump and the silverware rattle. If the entire diner wasn't listening before, now they certainly were. "Sir, this isn't a game to me, or a lie, or something I'm doing to cope! Hades has my hope, he has her trapped in that dungeon of his, and I shall have no hope until she is released, and we are on our way home."

"And how do you intend to do that exactly?" he plied, hiding his satisfaction that the boy had fallen into the trap he'd set. "If this story is true, you said yourself that the girl is dead, thus she belongs in a place like this. What makes you think that she will live again, and how, if she did, do you intend to return with her to the land of the living? Do you plan to summon the ferryman again?"

"No, the ferryman made it clear that he only takes souls to the Underworld, not from there. The magic required to use his services to go back and mark a living creature to stay is greater than what exists in the world. The cost is too high. It's impossible."

"Then how would you evade capture in Hadestown once you've stolen his property."

"She is not his property!" he stated again with angry tears in his eyes. "Eurydice belongs to no man."

"Except for you."

"She chooses to be with me. Just as I choose to be with her wherever she is, even if that means crossing the river of hell to be by her side."

"And yet you are not by her side because she'd managed to find her way into Hades' dungeons which means, boy, if you are looking to save her, you have to have a way to make her live again and take her beyond this place. How would you ever manage such a feat of the gods?"

The boy got quiet. He hung his head and clenched his fists together. A sniff could be heard that had even him looking around the diner at how much attention they'd drawn. All of it, it seemed. The other souls here were whispering to one another and shaking their heads, but they weren't even trying to hide that they were focused on the pair of them.

"Please, sir, I just need you to trust me. I can get Eurydice home, but the girl said that if we had any chance, it was you that would have to help us. We need your help."

Eurydice…he knew that name, and because he knew that name, he knew the name of the boy before him and remembered a bit about the story that went with the names. He felt pity for the lad, truly he did. To be separated from one's True Love was a feeling that threatened to break him every minute of every hour of every day. But until he had a way out of here, the Blind Witch was wrong; he could be of no use to him. Doing this would take more time than he was willing to give.

"I can't help you, Orpheus. The tale is already written, and I'm afraid you are destined to fail just as the dead are destined to be among the dead."

"I can change my fate!"

"No one can change their fate. Doesn't this land prove that?" He slid out of the booth, glared at the Blind Witch for everyone to see, then sent out a flare of dark magic that had her taking a step away from him as he passed to the door-

"Are you in my tale?!"

He stopped in his tracks. The diner was so quiet the boy hadn't even had to call out very loud for him to hear.

"What?" he questioned, turning back. If the boy was comfortable doing this in front of everyone, then they may as well make a scene.

"If my tale is written, then I assume you've read it. Are you in it?"

He had not read his tale, only heard about it from a blurry memory the Dark Curse had given to Mr. Gold. And as it was, his memory of that tale was old and uncertain, but there was one thing he did know for sure.

"No, we've never crossed paths before."

"Then maybe that's the reason it failed. Maybe this is a different chapter, one that's unwritten, one that had just been waiting for you to make the story a success."

Sympathy washed over him. If Belle were here, she'd want him to help the pair. She'd want to assure him that everything would be fine, that they understood, and they'd vow to make this right. But Belle was a better person than he was, and she may not have him by her side, but at least she had Bae in the world of the living. He had nothing but a reputation to uphold and a secret to keep close.

"Or maybe it's because you fail to have a plan," he shot back cruelly before leaving the diner with guilt twisting his insides.

Welcome back to the main plot of our tale. I had to give this story a plot. What's the point if there is no plot, no lesson to learn, no takeaway? There isn't one. It's just a bunch of chapters placed into a fiction with nothing to bind them together. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of my favorites from greek mythology. What can I say? I'm someone who loves star-crossed lovers. Their tale has gotten some attention in the last few years since the musical Hadestown was released on broadway in 2019. Hadestown, the musical, is where I got a lot of the inspiration for Hadestown, this fiction. Orpheus and Eurydice are basically pulled almost directly from that show. If you've never seen it or heard it, I HIGHLY recommend listening to the cast recording. It's a wonderful show. And at least one song on there will help you out through a certain chapter here, though it's not required for this fiction. When I was looking for a plot to pair with this fiction of in-between times, Hadestown and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice came to mind.

Thank you so much, Jennifer Baratta and Rsbeall12, for leaving your reviews. I'm really excited that we're starting to get into this and really hopeful that you'll like what I've conjured up for this little fiction. Between you and me, I'm a bit surprised that Eurydice and Orpheus never really showed up in OUAT, to begin with. In season five, they both got a name-drop and reference to their tale, but that was it. I'm really looking forward to expanding that legend a little more here, and I'm hoping that you will enjoy it. But, before we go too far, Rumple's gotta meet another old friend. Make your guesses now because they're coming at you next. Peace and Happy Reading!