A/N: Some dialogue lifted from S1E10: 7:15 a.m.

Chapter 33

Rumpelstiltskin was in a good mood when he left his house the next morning. He was almost to the end of his front walk, when Marco's truck drove by and Rumple noted that the passenger seat was occupied by the handyman's new employee.

He smiled as he approached his shop. Judging by the sour expression on Mayor Mills' face, he'd wager that the woodcutter had finally found his missing children. Clearly, that old compass had done its job and pointed the sheriff in the right direction. And here came Mary Margaret, racing past the mayor and calling out an apology over her shoulder, as she avoided the collision date that she'd faithfully kept for the last twenty-eight years. She certainly seemed in an all-fired hurry to obtain her morning coffee, he noted, as she ducked into Granny's. Really, she might use her time more efficiently if she'd brew her own at home.

A moment later, David Nolan hurried into the restaurant from the opposite direction. Ah. Rumple rather thought he was beginning to understand.

"Something strikes you as funny, Gold?" Regina's icy voice cut into his ruminations.

Rumple shrugged. "Actually, the opposite." He inclined his head in the direction of Granny's window, through which they both now had a full view of David Nolan sitting down opposite Mary Margaret.

Regina scowled. "He's married."

"Oh, I'm sure it's quite innocent," Rumple remarked. "After all, they're in public. His wife," he motioned to a parked car several yards away, "awaits. And one scarcely thinks that they're about to surrender to the heat of passion on a two-top table in full view of the customers. Still, considering that Ms. Blanchard has been waiting an inordinate amount of time to find true love, well," he sniffed, "it is a pity that she seems to have found one who's already taken." He shrugged. "I suppose I was appreciating the irony."

"I doubt Kathryn would appreciate the irony," Regina retorted.

"Well, that may be the reason I'm not sharing my observations with her. Interesting how Mr. Nolan found a parking spot that doesn't afford his wife the best view of the window, though, isn't it?"

Regina opened her mouth to respond, when a motorcycle ripped past tearing through a puddle and she took a quick step backwards to avoid the splash.

"Who is that?" Rumple asked. He hadn't budged from his spot; he'd correctly gauged the radius of the spatter zone and known that he would be spared.

Regina shook her head. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"Me, dearie?"

Regina took in a sharp breath. "He was talking to Henry this morning, just before he left for school."

"From the glimpse I caught," Rumple deadpanned, "he seemed a bit old to be a student."

"Not him!" Regina snapped. "Henry!" Then, more seriously, "You really don't know who he is?"

Rumple shook his head. "On that, dearie, I'm currently as much in the Dark as you are. Perhaps more so," he added. "But I doubt our curiosity will be satisfied standing here on the curb. I suppose I'd best get on with my day. A pleasure speaking with you, Madame Mayor."

"I'm not done with our conversation, Gold," Regina informed him.

"I am," Rumple replied easily. "So, if I might proceed to my shop? Please."

He managed to conceal his smirk at the mayor's discomfiture until he was turning his key in the lock of the shop's door and lifting the latch.

Neal had to admit that a couple of centuries in Neverland had its upside: Pan's games had forever cured him of any fear of heights he might have once held. Not that it had ever been a strong fear; if it had been, he'd never have scaled the wall of the Darlings' house when hunger had made a thief of him, but there was a qualitative difference between climbing solid stone with plenty of handholds and whip-like trees with barks that could go from sap-sticky to soap-slippery in the blink of an eye if Pan willed it. Usually, Pan had cared enough for his playmates that injuries from those tricks were minor. Usually. Today, standing on the cannery's slanting roof with Marco, despite the stiff winds, he felt sure-footed enough that if he'd had to, he could almost have dispensed with the safety harness.

"Pass me that pry-bar, son," Marco called to him from the eave below, and Neal drew his mind back to the present.

"Hang on," he shouted back. "I don't think throwing it's a good idea!" He wasn't sure if he heard a laugh from his employer, or if it was only the wind, as he made his way down the slope. He bent down to hand Marco the tool, and as he rose up slightly, preparing to turn for the ascent back to the ridge, his gaze dipped past the handyman to the ground below.

A man he recognized was glowering up at him with a fury so palpable that Neal was glad he'd put on the safety harness after all. And even from several yards up, he had no trouble recognizing August W. Booth. The guy had said something about coming here to 'make sure that the savior believed', Neal remembered now. Guess he'd finally made it. But why the hell was he looking at him like that?

Neal debated coming down to find out, but before he could make a decision, August had donned his helmet, hurried to his bike, and motored away.

It wasn't until David had left the diner that Mary Margaret spotted Emma seated one table away, nursing a cup of coffee. Wincing a bit, she moved over to join the sheriff. "I-I know what that probably looked like," she said guiltily.

Emma blinked. "You know what what probably looked like?" she asked, trying to act as though she hadn't noticed.

"I was…" Her voice trailed off.

Emma waited for a moment before sighing. "I get it."

"He comes in here every morning at seven-fifteen to get coffee."

"Yeah," Emma said gently. "For him and his wife."

"I know!" Mary Margaret replied. "I know, I know. I just… like to come here to see him."

Emma smiled faintly to take the sting out of her next question. "So, you're a stalker?"

"No!" Mary Margaret exclaimed. Then, in a more subdued voice, "Not really. Maybe… a little bit. I mean, it's not like I'm following him…"

No, Emma thought, as Mary Margaret kept talking. She wasn't following him. She was just committing his regular routine to memory was all.

"…I can't get him out of my head," her friend concluded.

Emma gave her a sad smile. "Maybe the first step is not showing up here tomorrow?"

The schoolteacher gave her a reluctant nod. "Love's the worst," she said sadly. "I wish there was a magical cure."

Roofing job done, Neal opted to walk back to the house later that day, declining a lift from Marco. He still had a lot to think about, after reading Henry's book. He passed by the antiquities shop and thought about going inside. After a moment, though, he kept walking. Soon, he knew, he was going to have to have that meeting. He'd been thinking about it since he'd realized that Emma wasn't leaving town anytime soon. It was only a matter of time before the curse was broken, and once it was, he knew that Papa would come looking for him. He was still safe for now; Papa didn't expect him to be in Storybrooke, so asleep or awake—and 'asleep' was looking less likely all the time, Papa wasn't searching for him. Once the curse was broken, though, that would change. And once Papa learned the truth, he'd also know that his son had been here for months and never revealed his identity.

If he was lucky, Papa would only be hurt and not angry.

But Papa had been hurt so much in the past. And as hurt and angry as Neal had been all these many years, he didn't want to be the cause of more pain. Not as much pain as he was likely to cause if he left things that long, anyway.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he'd stop the shop and he'd say… He'd say… What the hell was he supposed to say? 'I'm Baelfire,' would probably do for a start. But then what? Papa would be overjoyed. He'd have questions. They'd catch up. And… Papa wouldn't want to let me out of his sight, not after two hundred years apart. If I felt suffocated for those last weeks before I used the bean, what will it be like now? And what the hell do I tell Emma? How do I explain to her that everything she thinks she knows about me is wrong? How do I make her believe? How…?

One thing was certain: the moment he disclosed his identity to Papa, the repercussions would fall fast and hard. There would be no shoving the genie back into the bottle on that one. It would change everything. He… He wasn't ready for that. Not yet. Maybe he never would be, but he knew that if they stayed here or, more to the point, if Emma stayed here, sooner or later she was going to break the curse and then the truth would have to come out.

Eleven years ago, he hadn't wanted that, but eleven years ago, Storybrooke and its people had only existed for him in the abstract. Now that he was getting to know them, he was realizing how selfish it would be to leave them in their current state. It wasn't a horde of faceless people, most of whom hadn't been born when he'd left the Enchanted Forest. It was Mary Margaret and Granny and Marco and Nicholas and Ava and so many others he'd passed and smiled at on the street these last few days. Old people, young people, kids… Emma had to help them. She would, too; of that Neal was certain, and he was more okay with that than he thought he would be.

And before that happened, he was going to talk to Papa. He'd have to. But it didn't have to be today.

He squelched the urge to turn back toward the shop and kept walking.

Emma got home about a half hour after Neal did. She sank down onto the new-to-them sofa they'd bought second-hand the day before with a loud groan.

"Rough day?" Neal asked.

"Not on the working end of it," Emma admitted, leaning back and closing her eyes. "Nice to have a sofa we didn't need to buy flat-pack or we'd probably still not have taken it out of the box."

"Oh, we would have taken it out of the box as soon as we brought it back here," Neal retorted. "And then, we'd have the frame half-assembled and arguing over which screw goes where and where the allen key's got to until we decided to call it a night and make a fresh start in the morning, only now it's two evenings later and we've kind of got used to having a half-constructed sofa in the living room."

Emma groaned again. "You know us too well. Anyway, Mary Margaret confirmed this morning what I told you I'd figured out last night: she's still seeing David. Not seeing as in dating, at least, but… seeing as in tracking his routine and making sure she bumps into him at least once a day."

"Not good," Neal agreed. "Not illegal, but not good."

"Nope. I don't suppose you ran into the new guy in town?"

"Huh?"

Emma leaned forward a bit. "Regina told me to see what I could turn up on him. Apparently, he's been talking to Henry. Of course, it would help if she'd had a name for me; it's not like Google image search is going to be useful."

"Did he give one to Henry? A name?" Neal asked.

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "I haven't had the chance to ask him. He does keep secrets from Regina," she added thoughtfully. "Maybe he knows and isn't telling her."

I know that feeling, Neal thought. The truth was that there was no good reason not to tell Emma who the guy was and what he'd done in the past. No good reason, apart from the questions Emma might ask.

Why would he turn us in? What did he have to gain? Why did he have it in for you? Did he follow us here? All questions that Neal knew he'd be asking in Emma's place. And if he didn't have answers that were plausible, sensible, and accurate enough not to tip off Emma's lie detector when they rolled off his tongue, things were going to get even more complicated.

"There any cocoa?" Emma asked, sinking back into the sofa once more.

"Yeah, sure," Neal said. "You want me to make it for you?"

"Please. Sorry," she added. "I mean, you're probably tired from the roofing job. I can do it."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Neal reassured her. "It won't take a minute. Well. Maybe a minute. Or two."

"Thanks." Emma shook her head. "Don't know why I'm this tired. Actually, I do. Graham wasn't as on top of the paperwork as I'd thought. The files are a mess and I've been straightening them up because I thought I should, you know? It's not hard work, but it's pretty boring," she added. "I guess it took more out of me than I thought. And then Regina burst in on me and got me a little nervous."

"Nervous?"

"Yeah, like what if the new guy's some… kidnapper or something. And don't quote me the statistics," she added wearily. "I know most of the time the kidnapper is someone the kid knows, like a non-custodial parent… But I wasn't going to mention that," she snorted.

"Of course not," Neal agreed with exaggerated relief.

"Hey, I'm not stupid."

"No, but sometimes we all say stuff without thinking. Glad that didn't happen. I'll make you the cocoa." And hope you'll forget that I never answered your question about whether I'd met the new guy in town.

It took a good night's sleep and a chance to mull things over to convince Neal that not telling Emma something about the newcomer was probably silly at best and downright dangerous at worst. So, at breakfast, he asked her to sit down, and he quietly told her about the first time he had crossed paths with the man. "He told me his name was August," he said, on his second cup of coffee by now, "though that could be an alias."

Emma's eyes were wide. "And he tipped off the cops that night? Why? Was he some PI the jewelry store hired?"

Neal shook his head. He'd rehearsed this bit carefully in his mind, still not sure he fully believed in Emma's 'superpower', but not wanting to inadvertently set if off if it was really a thing. After all these years, he still wasn't sure that it was a thing. Even so, Emma usually did have a knack for knowing when someone was lying outright. "Actually," he said slowly, "from the way the guy was talking, he's… kind of got a thing for you. Or had one, anyway."

"What?"

Neal nodded with a half-shrug. "Yeah. Apparently, you and he were in the same foster home when you were a baby. He cut out early, but… he tried to keep tabs on you and, now I'm not necessarily disagreeing with him here, but he kind of thought I was a bad influence on you."

Emma's groan was practically a growl. "Seriously? He tracked me down and tried to step back into my life after seventeen years? Obsessive, much?"

"I know, I know," Neal replied. "The whole thing seemed so… crazy, I didn't think he was serious at first. I mean, I couldn't even tell you if he wanted us both arrested, or if he was hoping that they'd nab me and let you go." He shrugged once more at her startled look. "You were a minor; possessing stolen property isn't nearly as bad as actually stealing the property. I guess it's possible that they'd have let you off with a warning. Or possible that he thought they would anyway." He was overdoing it, he thought, and he closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "I don't even know. I had a lot of time to wonder about it when I was locked up in Globe, but it's all speculation on my part. Anyway," he tacked on, "I'm not saying that he's same guy you encountered, but… I did see August here in Storybrooke yesterday and while I wasn't exactly going to vault off the cannery roof to say 'hi', guy saw me gave me a stink-eye like you wouldn't believe. And he was on a motorcycle," he added. There, he thought to himself. That was better.

Emma absorbed that. Then she angrily downed the last of her own coffee. "I guess the only way to find out for sure is to ask him," she said decisively.

No. Not better. "Emma…"

"Don't worry," Emma said. "I'll be careful. Guy's obviously got some… mental health issues if he's been fixated on me for this long. But if he tracked me here, then it's just a matter of time until we have some kind of confrontation that's not in front of our kid. I can hide in the house and wait for it, or I can have it when I'm ready for it and maybe he isn't." She got up from the table and walked over to the closet, taking the brown sheriff's jacket off the hanger and leaving her red one where it was. "I'm not exactly going to tear the town apart looking for him," she huffed, as she pulled on the jacket, "but if I see him, I'll be ready."

"Emma… don't—"

The door closed behind her before he could finish his sentence and he massaged his forehead with a groan. "That," he muttered to the empty room, "didn't go nearly as well as I hoped it would…"

Emma's day didn't get much better. Mary Margaret had bustled into the sheriff station late morning, having just encountered Kathryn Nolan at the drugstore. "She was buying a pregnancy test!" Mary Margaret exclaimed.

Emma blinked. "Uh… well, she and David are married. I guess they're doing what couples… do."

"Yes, but he… a-and I…!"

Emma shook her head. "He made his choice weeks ago. Now, if he's changed his mind, that's one thing. But if he's trying to have both of you, it's… not going to work. You know that."

"I do!" Mary Margaret groaned. "And I don't think he is. I mean, I might run into him at Granny's every day, but we just talk. I like running into him. I look forward to the conversation. But then, I go to school and he goes to…," her face fell, "her. That's all."

"So then why are you so upset to find out that she might be pregnant?"

Mary Margaret looked at her helplessly. "I'm not, I just…" Her shoulders slumped. "I am. I have no right to be, but I am. It just feels like if she is, it's all over. Only, it's already all over. Isn't it?"

Emma winced. "You tell me."

"It's over," Mary Margaret said firmly. But before Emma could nod approvingly, the schoolteacher tilted her head to one side and mumbled, "I think…"

After Mary Margaret left, Emma tried to busy herself with paperwork. Graham had really let it pile up and, while a sleepy seaside town didn't have a fraction of the law enforcement work a city like Boston might, a city like Boston had multiple precincts to spread the cases around. This was going to take a while.

By the time Emma looked up from what had been one hell of a disorganized file, the sky was darkening. She frowned. It wasn't even half-past three. Looked like there was a storm brewing. She stepped out onto the street and her eyebrows knit with worry. It was going to hit soon and it was going to be bad. She debated going home early, but she still had a mountain of paperwork to wade through. Emma sighed. If the storm hit before her day was done, maybe she should count on staying late at the station. True, the house was less than ten minutes' drive away, but didn't most accidents happen within five miles of home? She didn't want to drive through a storm if she could avoid it. Maybe she ought to just pop by Granny's now and grab dinner—something cold like a pastrami sandwich, so she could bring it for lunch tomorrow if she did get home for supper.

She sent a quick text to Neal, so he wouldn't worry, and made sure she locked the station before she left.

Emma took a quick look around as she entered the diner, and her jaw tensed when she saw the stranger seated alone in a booth. Steeling herself, she walked up to him and announced, "We need to talk."

He gave her an amused smile and countered, "Why?"

"Because," she stopped. Yes, this was probably the guy that Neal had warned her about, but there was just the smallest possibility that he was wrong. He'd met a guy once, at night, eleven years ago, right before their lives had taken a major change in direction. Yesterday, he thought he'd recognized him, but it was more than a decade later, and Neal had been up on the roof. She didn't doubt that Neal believed that this was the same guy, but maybe it was just someone bearing a resemblance. Meanwhile, Regina still wanted her to investigate, so she'd do that. She wasn't, however, about to bring up any past that he might have with her or Neal. "You're suspicious," she finished firmly.

The smile became a smirk. "Sitting here, out in the open, drinking coffee," he chuckled. "I wonder what kind of hell I would've raised had I ordered a donut."

If this was the same guy, Neal would have thought he was a pain in the ass, even if he hadn't been trying to warn him away. "You were talking to Henry," she snapped.

His eyes opened wider, and while his voice stayed friendly, he still sounded as though he was enjoying some private joke. "You mean the little kid who came up to me asking me questions? Is that unusual for him? Being curious and precocious?"

She wasn't the one who had to answer questions here and she wasn't about to let herself get sidetracked. "What were you doing outside his house?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "My bike broke down," he said. "It happens."

Finally. A straight answer. Maybe she could get another one out of him. She eyed the large box under the table, the same one that had been on the back of the motorcycle last night. "Your mysterious box," she said, eyes flicking toward it, "What's in it?

The smirk returned. "It's awfully frustrating not knowing, isn't it?" he said, sounding as though he was musing aloud.

Emma wasn't amused. "Just tell me."

"Why?" he asked. "Is it illegal to carry around a box in these parts?"

"No, of course it's not," she snapped, though for a moment, she wished that she did have the power to draft a law or two, instead of just enforce the existing ones.

"You really want to know what's inside it, don't you?" he drawled, clearly enjoying himself.

"No," Emma retorted. She did not want to get pulled into some head game. Even so, she was curious, and he knew it, damn him. Besides, if the box turned out to contain some sort of bomb, she'd spend the rest of her life—no matter how long or short it might be—wondering if he would have showed her, had she asked, and whether she could have prevented… whatever damage it might have caused. "Well, maybe," she allowed, hating herself for even pretending to play his game.

The stranger chuckled. "I'm going to make you wait," he said. "You're going to have to wait a long time and watch me carry it around. Hauling it to strange and mysterious places. And with each passing moment, the mystery will become more tantalizing. Your imagination will inflame, but so will your frustration. Never knowing – only guessing – what could possibly be inside that box? Or, you could let me buy you a drink sometime and I'll tell you right now."

Emma blinked. "You want to buy me a drink?" she asked, nonplussed.

More serious than he'd been until this point, he nodded. "Yes."

Emma wasn't about to forget Neal's warning. If this was August, and he'd told Neal the truth, then he'd been fixated on her for twenty-eight years. Not sane. Not normal. But if he was a threat, either to the town, or to her, or to Henry, as Regina feared, she had to find out. She knew how to defend herself against a stronger attacker and she was armed. It should be all right. "Okay," she said. "A drink it is."

Without another word, the man reached under the table for the box. Setting it down in front of her, he opened it, revealing an old-style typewriter—the kind that even her last underfunded high school had chucked out ages ago in favor of electric models. "Really?" she groaned.

The man smiled. "I'm a writer."

"That's why you're here?" Emma pressed.

His smile broadened. "I find this place provides…inspiration," he replied. "Don't you?" And with that, he closed the box, locked it once more, and rose to his feet.

"Wait," Emma called. "Have you been here before?"

"I didn't say that," he replied.

"Have we met before?"

He blinked and for a moment, his smile faltered before it returned in force. "I didn't say that either." He hefted the box, evidently, preparing to leave.

"Hey," Emma called again, "What about that drink?"

His smile broadened. "I said sometime."

Then he was striding away. For a moment, Emma debated following him, but she could see that the sky looked darker outside than it ought to at this time of day, noticeably darker than it had half an hour ago, even. Bad weather was definitely imminent. Instead, she opted for walking up to the counter to place her to-go order, so that she could make it back to the sheriff station before the storm hit.