A/N: Primary canon reference: S1E5—That Still Small Voice

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rumpelstiltskin was in a good mood the following evening, as he prepared to close up the shop. Things were falling into place more neatly than he'd originally anticipated. True, the Curse was still intact, but the first cracks had appeared in its surface and those fissures would only continue to widen and grow.

The Savior wasn't yet a believer, but that would come. And meanwhile, she owed him a favor.

In the act of turning the 'Open' sign about, he paused. Was she truly in his debt? He wondered. Because in fact, he'd never had any plans to make off with Cinderella's infant. He'd struck that contract only as a means to an end—to force the heroes' hands and ensure that when the Curse struck, he'd be in no position to escape its power. He'd balked at just such a leap into the unknown once before and because of that cowardice, he hadn't seen his son in over two centuries.

By the time he'd taken hold of that oh-so-lovely pen, the Curse had been mere months away. When it struck, he'd been where he'd wanted to be. A pity about Prince Thomas, but all magic did come with a price and if he didn't exact it, then the magic itself would.

And then they'd awakened here. Funny how, with all the false memories the curse had supplied, it had still left the contract more or less intact. In keeping with the norms of this realm and this time period, it had led him to believe that he was procuring an infant for a black market adoption, and Ashley to believe that she was providing that infant. For the twenty-eight years in which time had been frozen, none of that had mattered. The baby had been in no danger of being born and he'd been in no danger of having to locate the non-existent adoptive parents.

On Emma's first evening in Storybrooke, he'd been going on his rounds collecting rent. And then she'd spoken her name and he'd remembered himself and his past in a sudden flash of clarity. Oh, he'd kept his composure until he was out of Mrs. Lucas's establishment. And then, seeing the clock across the square reading 8:17, he'd almost been ready to break into a jig—twisted ankle and all!

…Until Ashley Boyd had trudged past, a shopping cart half-full of groceries in front of her very-pregnant belly and sobered him up again. What on earth was he going to do with a child? He certainly wasn't ready to raise it himself! Nor could he go about posting flyers on telephone poles like he was some pet owner trying to find homes for an unexpected litter of puppies! And yet, he couldn't void the contract either. There was no magic, here, true. And perhaps, there was no price then that had to be paid. But he had his reputation and magnanimity wasn't part of it.

It had almost been a relief when the girl had broken into his shop to steal the contract. True, he could have gone to the sheriff. And had he still been 'asleep', he likely would have. But as he was patching up the cut on his temple, he realized that, if he played his cards right, not only could he avoid having to raise or rehome the child, but he could have the savior in his debt and under his control as well.

And when you controlled a person, you need no longer fear them.

Yesterday, he'd taken the first step on the road that would lead him back to Bae.

This evening, well, he wasn't quite about to dance that jig, but he was actually whistling as he began sweeping up one final time.

At least, until the ground beneath his feet trembled and shuddered so violently that he tumbled to the shop's wooden floor.

Eyes wide, he lay sprawled there for nearly a full two minutes before he braced both hands on the display case and staggered shakily to his feet, as he wondered aloud, "What the hell was that!?"

Out on the street and turning his key in the lock a few moments later, Rumple noticed a number of people emerging hurriedly from homes and places of business, their eyes darting about wildly. He wanted to ask what was going on, but in this land, knowledge was power and he wasn't about to reveal that he was lacking it now.

His eyes narrowed. An inordinate number of cars seemed to be heading eastward, toward the…

The old mines. Well, that part of Storybrooke was honeycombed with underground passages. It wouldn't be completely surprising if the ground above them had collapsed.

It never had before, though.

He shook his head. Of course it never had before; the town had been frozen in time for the last twenty-eight years! Perhaps, if it hadn't been, such tremors and cave-ins would have been a regular occurrence.

But perhaps, there was more to it than that.

Rumple wasn't entirely certain he wanted to see whether there was. Without magic, without two good legs under him, he was under no illusions about his ability to defend himself or flee, should there be another trembling, or worse. All the same, he was curious. Moreover, by the time he walked the two blocks between the shop and his home and car, he'd be in no danger of being the first to arrive at the mines. If there was any further danger awaiting, he'd have plenty of time to peel off in the opposite direction without ever getting out of his car!

Under the circumstances, he decided, it was worth the risk to satisfy his curiosity. He even quickened his pace as much as he could comfortably do, in order to reach his car with a bit more alacrity.

He couldn't park close to the site of the disturbance, but then, that was probably for the best. If the earth wasn't done shaking and trembling, the weight of too many people and cars in one place might well end… well, uncomfortably; he would have had to care about those individuals before it could be called tragic.

He watched as a police vehicle made its way to the crowd and stopped a short distance away. His eyebrow shot up. Graham's presence was no surprise, but why was Emma Swan with him?

Before he could begin to speculate, the mayor's Mercedes pulled up and Regina swept out. Almost before her heels touched ground, she was ordering the crowd back from the site and directing the sheriff to clear a perimeter.

Marco's voice carried clearly over to Rumple in the night air, telling Ruby that one of the old mine tunnels must have collapsed. He nodded to himself; his guess appeared to have been correct. He barely had time to appreciate that, however, before a new revelation reached his ears.

"Actually," Emma was saying, "I work for the town, now."

"She's my new deputy."

The bright searchlight over the mine entrance illuminated briefly the six-pointed star now gracing Ms Swan's belt, and a slow smile spread across Rumple's face. The new fissure in the ground heralded a new crack in the Dark Curse. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before it shattered completely.

And then, he would, at last, be free to find his son…

Two days later, Rumpelstiltskin's son had a frantic—and furious—Emma on the other end of his phone. "C-calm down," he said, as soon as he could get a word in edgewise. "Regina did what?"

"She got to Archie! Henry's shrink," she added. "I think I told you about him."

"Uh… yeah. The guy who let you have his notes on Henry and then said you stole them?"

"Yeah, she was behind that too," Emma snapped, but her voice was marginally calmer. "Anyway, now that I'm a deputy, that's not going to happen anymore."

"Still not sure that's such a good idea."

"It's just temporary," Emma told him, as she had the day before. "Until I'm sure Henry's okay and…" Her voice trailed off and Neal knew that she hadn't thought much farther ahead than that.

"And then, what happens? Are we bringing him back to live with us? Fighting for custody? Driving up to Maine every other weekend?" Neal probed. "I-I mean, don't get me wrong. I want to get to know him, too, but we need some kind of long-term plan, here."

"I know! But short-term, Henry needs us. Well, me, for now but eventually, us. Because he is not okay! He's got issues, yes, but now his shrink is telling him that they're going to have to lock him up if he doesn't 'let go of his delusion' and now he's freaking out!"

"Calm down," Neal said again, but he was fighting a surge of anger himself. Everyone else in that place might be delusional, but not his kid! And he couldn't share that knowledge with anyone without sounding… No wonder Henry was so frustrated. He'd be, too! Instead, he had to play dumb for now, and once Emma found out the truth, things were really going to hit the fan. "Is this something that… Archie… told you, or are you going by what Henry said?"

"He wasn't lying, if that's what you're asking," Emma said.

"No, but he's ten. Kids misunderstand stuff. They hear wrong. Maybe Archie said something along those lines, but Henry read more into it. You told me he's imaginative." All true, but he still felt like crud trying to pretend he didn't believe what Henry was telling Emma. From everything Emma had been sharing with him over the last little while, Henry might be the only person in that place—aside from the mayor and, maybe, Papa—who knew what was really going on.

Emma, of course, was oblivious to his dilemma. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Maybe. Maybe it is just a misunderstanding. I just dropped him off at Regina's before I called you. I'm supposed to join Mary Margaret for dinner, but that's not for a little while, yet. Maybe I'll swing over to Archie's and ask him about what happened. I don't know if it'd be a breach of confidentiality, but maybe there's something he can say, or maybe if Henry gives him permission to talk to me… Can he do that? What with him being a minor and all, I mean? Maybe he'd need Regina's permission. Good luck with that one."

"I… I don't know," Neal admitted. "But it doesn't hurt to try. Just… Emma? Go in calm. Henry might have heard something Archie never said."

"I hear you," Emma acknowledged. "I won't go looking for a fight." Before she ended the call, though, Neal heard her add under her breath, "…unless he gives me one!"

Emma meant to take Neal's advice. She really did. So, instead of storming into his office, she knocked politely. Archie didn't answer, but when Emma tried the knob, she found that it turned easily. The psychiatrist was sitting beside Pongo on the leather couch with an expression of self-loathing on his face. He was holding a glass containing a clear amber liquid and, as Emma came closer, she caught a whiff of scotch. She wondered whether Henry had been the last patient of his day, or whether Archie regularly drank during office hours. Well, nobody said a shrink was immune to having issues. "Archie?" she asked. "Help me understand. The last time we spoke, you told me not to take away Henry's fantasy life. You told me it would devastate him. Why…?"

Archie held the glass casually in his lap. "Of course, if therapy isn't working, you adjust it," he said.

Emma hesitated. Archie's statement was factual, but… "Henry was in tears. Do you really believe that whatever adjustment you tried today was in his best interest?"

She was trying to get him to say something that her superpower could react to. Instead, the psychiatrist's face hardened. "I do not need to justify my professional decisions to you, okay?"

Every word of that answer was true, but Emma still saw red. "Is it Regina?" she demanded. Archie looked away, but not before he blinked rapidly. Tell of a guilty man, Emma thought. "Did she threaten you?" she pressed. Then, more softly, "What could be strong enough to drown out your own conscience?"

"Look, if you don't leave, I'll call the sheriff and have you trespassed," Archie shot back.

Clearly, he'd either forgotten or hadn't heard about her new job. She was reaching for the lower edge of her jacket to pull it back and reveal the deputy's star on her belt, when the phone in its pocket started to ring. She pulled it out, checked the call display and, seeing a familiar number, answered. "Hello, Madame Mayor," she said, fighting to sound professional. "Nice work."

"You with him?" Regina demanded, evidently feeling even less need for social niceties than Emma did at the moment.

"Yes, I'm with Dr. Hopper," Emma returned. "And guess what? You left your fingerprints all over him when you tried—"

"Not him!" Regina cut her off. "Henry. Is he with you?"

Emma's eyes widened. Still irritated, but now feeling a faint stirring of alarm, she said, "I dropped Henry at your office an hour ago." She saw a sick look come over Archie's face, as she listened to Regina informing her that Henry wasn't there. "I don't know where he is," she replied, her anger shifting rapidly to worry. This isn't Boston, she reminded herself. This is a small, friendly town, where everyone knows everyone and people don't lock their doors at night. Henry's fine. But then why did Archie look so nervous?

The psychiatrist let out a long breath. "Oh," he said miserably, "I do."

Emma didn't want to believe that Henry had gone back to the mine tunnel. She had a horrifying thought that Archie might have been right to try to scare her son out of his fantasies if they were leading to something this dangerous.

Get a grip, she told herself. He's a kid. Kids do dangerous things because they don't know better. It's not like you never hid out in a cave when you were about his age. Just because you know how stupid it is now doesn't mean he does and it doesn't mean he's losing his grip on reality, either!

All the same, as she and Archie searched the area by the tunnel entrance and shouted Henry's name, she couldn't help feeling relieved not to hear an answer. "I don't think he's here," she said, as Pongo raced up with something in his mouth.

Archie held up the candy bar that the dog had brought him. "I think he is," he replied. "He had these with him."

The ground was starting to shake again. "Henry!" Archie shouted.

Emma wondered whether that might not be making things worse. Didn't loud noises trigger stuff like avalanches and cave-ins? But from the look of things, a cave-in might happen anyway, and Henry's hearing them call might be the best chance he had of getting out of there. She added her voice to Archie's.

The rumbles were getting worse. Archie was closest to the tunnel entrance. Seeing him debating whether to proceed inside, Emma cried out his name, trying to reach him, when another tremor knocked her off her feet.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. She watched Archie slip past the caution tape blocking the way into the mine. She was trying to get up, but she was too slow and the ground was shaking too much. And then, the entrance collapsed and she was staring at the rocks and rubble, while Archie and Henry were trapped on the other side.

Rumpelstiltskin winced as a delicate Balinese music box slid off the shelf to crash to the floor. When he bent to pick it up, he noted that the thin wood had cracked in several places. The tremors were getting worse. He wondered whether he'd made some miscalculations with the Curse. Perhaps, when Emma succeeded in breaking it completely, the town itself would shatter in turn. And what then of its inhabitants?

He looked about at the sheer array of objects that surrounded him, some heavy, some fragile, some heavy and fragile. He swallowed hard. Perhaps, he considered, it would be prudent to close up early today and find someplace less dangerous in which to weather these quakes.

Or perhaps, another visit to their source—oh, not too close, mind, just close enough to see whether there had been any new developments since yesterday—would be in order.

It wasn't that he wanted to go back to the mine entrance, but an active imagination was both blessing and curse. If he didn't see for himself what trouble might be brewing, his mind would only conjure up hypotheticals that were bound to be worse. That such conjurings would have no physical substance in this land was immaterial. Tangible or not, to his mind, they would be solid enough. And the only way to prevent such imaginings was to see the reality with his own two eyes.

Preferably from an isolated vantage point, where nobody would witness his terror, should his worst imaginings prove accurate.

"Did you have something to do with this?" Regina stormed up furiously and Rumple blinked.

"What, me?" he asked, for once genuinely mystified. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

Regina's agitation didn't lessen in the slightest. "My son is down in those tunnels!" she snapped. "Archie went in after him, just before the entrance collapsed. If I find out that you sold him a-a map, or a flashlight or…"

All at once, Rumple realized that the mayor's anger was concealing another emotion, one he understood far better than he liked: fear. And while he couldn't say he disliked seeing her off-balance, he knew too well what it meant to feel anxious for a child's well-being. He shook his head and replied, a good deal more gently than he might have had her anguish had a different cause, "I assure you, Madame Mayor, this escapade is not of my making."

Regina seemed like she was about to ask something else, but then she spun on her heel and went back to the collapsed entrance, where workers were trying to break through. Rumple watched, as she approached one of them, seemingly to consult with them, while Pongo barked his worry. Softly, he drew closer, in time to hear Marco assuring the sheriff and his new deputy that Archie could be depended on to keep Henry safe until they broke through.

Just then, the ground shook again and Rumple sank to one knee, as his cane dug into the sand. He looked about quickly but, as nobody seemed to have noticed him. He wasn't sure if it was better not to have been spotted in so vulnerable a condition, or whether he could have used the assistance that might have been forthcoming if he had been.

"Stop!" Regina yelled, as he fought to get upright on his own, wincing as his hand came down on something sharp. He knocked it aside, then frowned as he realized that it was an unusually thick piece of glass. It didn't look like it had come from anything nearby. It might be nothing, but on the other hand… He slid the shard into his pocket, just as Regina cried out, "Stop, you're making it worse!"

"I am trying to save him!" Emma shouted back, both women seemingly heedless or ignorant of the dangers posed by loud noises in this situation. "You know why he went down there in the first place, don't you?" Rumple's ears pricked up at that. "Because you made him feel like he had something to prove!"

And yet, she'd tried to lay blame at his door. Well, if Emma was correct, then it appeared that the good mayor had been projecting and, while Rumple couldn't yet see how such knowledge might be turned to his advantage, he filed the insight away against some time when it might be.

"And why," Regina demanded in a tone that was no less angry for all that it was softer, "does he think that he has anything to prove? Who's encouraging him?"

"Do not put this on me," Emma snapped, as Pongo started barking again and the rumbling grew louder.

"Oh, please!" Regina retorted as she stormed off. "Lecture me until his oxygen runs out!"

As the dog continued to bark, Emma followed the mayor, her furious expression yielding to one of concern. "We have to stop this," she said quietly, but not so quietly that Rumple couldn't hear her. "Arguing won't accomplish anything."

Regina turned to face her. "No," she admitted. "It won't."

"What do you want me to do?" Emma asked, and Rumple nodded to himself at the mayor's reply.

"Help me."

Well, if Regina could put her love for her child over her hatred for the lad's birth mother, Rumple thought with a measure of satisfaction, Henry might just stand a chance, after all. He frowned, though, as Regina kept talking.

"We need to punch through the ground," she was saying. "We need something big."

"Like what?" Emma asked.

"Explosives!" Marco interjected, and Rumple's heart sank.

Yes, in the absence of magic, those might well get the job done. But they might also bring several tons of rock and sand down into the mine shaft burying anyone trapped inside! Marco had to know that. But if they didn't make the attempt, then it was only a matter of time before another tremor would do the same thing… if the air didn't run out first.

Rumple watched as Regina pulled out a phone, evidently to order the explosives from, well, wherever one would order such things in this town. Then, slowly, he turned around and made his way back to his car. There was nothing he could do here but worry. And he could do that just as easily back in town.

"But he's okay?" Neal asked Emma later.

Emma heaved a sigh. "Yeah, he's fine. Better than fine, actually. At least, I think so. Archie couldn't really tell me that much, because of confidentiality and all that, but I saw him talking to Regina after we got him and Henry out and she didn't look happy when she walked off."

"And you think…"

"I think he stood up to her. She had that same look on her face as she has the couple of times I've done it. Only, I don't think she's used to it."

"You sure you're not reading too much into it?" Neal asked. "Not that I doubt you," he added quickly. "But sometimes, we all see what we want to see."

There was silence on the other end and Neal imagined that she was thinking things over. "Maybe," she said after a moment. "But something tells me she's too used to things going her way around here and now, they're… not."

"Is that good or bad?"

Emma hesitated again. "I'm not sure, but I think I need to stick around to find out. I mean, if it's bad, I was the first one to do it. First adult anyway," she added. "If I'm setting her off, well, I feel like I should be here to help with the fallout."

"Fallout?" Neal repeated. "What do you think she's going to do?"

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "She tried to scare me off when I first got here. Since it hasn't worked, she can either back down or try harder. My money's on option B."

"Emma," Neal said, "you know, I'm not going to be out here that much longer. We're closing in on Scanlan. Once he's back in custody, and I come home… Are you planning on staying in Maine?"

He heard Emma's hard swallow through the phone. "I wish you'd been here this afternoon," she said, speaking slowly, as though she was trying to marshal her argument on the spot. "It wasn't just the official rescue workers on the job. It was… Marco, the town handyman, troubleshooting. And Ruby—I told you she works at the diner-slash-bed-and-breakfast—in her pickup truck, ripping the grate off the air shaft, so we could get down there. And for about ten minutes, I actually saw something… vulnerable… in Regina. Or at least she decided getting Henry back meant more to her than putting me down. Okay," she added, "that didn't last long once I got him and Archie out of the mine, but it was something, for as long as it lasted. Two people got trapped and… the whole town pitched in to help." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I've never been anywhere where that's happened before. And I kind of… want to be. At least, for the next little while."

Neal was silent for a long moment. "So… where does that leave us?" he asked apprehensively. The pause unnerved him even more. "Emma?"

"Couldn't you… come up here?" Emma asked hopefully. "Just give it a week? If the town doesn't start to grow on you, I'll turn in my deputy star and we'll go back to Boston. But I think you ought to see this place first. G-d, you've got to meet your son!"

"That much," Neal replied, "I definitely want to do. But pulling up stakes in Boston and starting fresh in some small town in Maine… I don't know…"

"But you'll try for a week?"

A week. Even in a small town, he should be able to avoid running into his father for a week. And with any luck, after all this time, Papa probably wouldn't recognize him anyway. Especially if Papa was still Cursed, like August had told him everyone in the town would be. He couldn't be sure—if anyone had managed to keep their memories intact over the last twenty-eight years, Papa surely had—but maybe not. Still, Neal reflected, if they should meet, so long as he kept any conversation with Papa to a minimum and made sure not to use any turn of phrase that might remind Papa of years gone by… He could probably handle a week. He'd get to know Henry. And once they were back in Boston, he'd use part of his payment for bringing in Jeremy Scanlon to hire the best family law attorney he could find to see if he and Emma had any chance of getting Henry back. "Yeah," he told Emma. "I'll try for a week."

It wasn't until he was back at the shop that Rumpelstiltskin took the time to examine the shard of glass more closely. It was too thick to have come from a window, that much was certain. It was slightly convex, so he imagined it could have come from a jar or bottle, but the curve was small enough to make him think it would have been a vessel of considerable width and that there really ought to have been more fragments about. Perhaps there had been and he'd simply failed to notice them.

He turned the heavy shard over in his hand, frowning a bit. He had encountered the like once, he thought. He held it up close to the lamp on his counter and was so startled by the shifting rainbow of colors dancing over the piece now that he nearly dropped it. Only one variety of glass, to his recollection, bore that characteristic: glass melted from the sand found in a fairy dust mine. Glass worked by dwarfs. And for its like to suddenly surface now…

A broad smile creased Rumpelstiltskin's face. If he'd had any doubts that the Dark Curse was breaking, they were now allayed. The Savior might not know why she was here, but it seemed that such knowledge was less relevant than he'd originally thought. She would fulfill her destiny in due course. He knew that now. She simply wouldn't be able to help herself.

He wrapped the shard carefully in a clean handkerchief and tucked it away in a drawer for safekeeping. In the days to come, when he watched the Savior stubbornly blind herself to the truth as it became more and more obvious, when he began to despair of her ever recognizing her power and potential, he would find occasion to take out the fragment, unwrap it, and remind himself that in due course, all would transpire as it must. Until then, he would wait as patiently as he could, and be prepared to nudge matters along when he saw the opportunity.