What a day she was having. The morning was so blissful and then it all went to shit. It was already a lot when her ex decided to show up in the city all of the sudden right when they finally got together, but now he missed the afternoon when it was their biggest problem.

Why does everything bad under the sun have to happen now? Couldn't they get a break for a week? Couldn't he get a bit more time to learn how to be a supportive boyfriend?

Unfortunately, Bigby had to put his grumblings away and get to work. He walked between stains of Rose's blood, it was hers without a doubt, he smelled it from away, stomping carefully to not destroy the evidence. He took a closer look at all of the furniture scattered around the room - none of it was broken, what a chance if a murder took place here? All of the living room was grotesquely covered by blood, except by the stereo… must've been a miracle. The records were on the floor, but only the ones from the back shelf, curious as well. Was that an old toaster on the carpet? Yes, it was, and it was damaged. Maybe more of a fight took place in the kitchen then…

When he walked there, he didn't see any blood. Unexpected tidiness of the kitchen was more than he needed to support his theory about what happened here. Well, it wasn't exactly tidy, there was a lot of garbage in there, but nothing unusual for an apartment that hosted a house party every weekend. Nothing compared to the living room. Only thing that he could not make sense of were holes drilled in the freezer walls. Why was it like that? Was anything put on there? He had no clue if it mattered at all.

His nose wasn't helping him very much at this time. The stench of blood was so overwhelming he barely felt anything else. Jack was here often, he smelled some mundies that used to visit… He couldn't find out anything about how the blood got on the floor and walls of the whole living room and none of the other rooms, as he checked the bedroom and the bathroom as well. He had to figure it out from the evidence. Bigby wished he could detect how much blood was spilled, as that would tell him if there was a chance Rose was still alive, but for now it was one of the missing pieces.

With what he found, he decided to keep Jack in custody until the case was closed. After all, his smell was the only one that stood out.

"Jack, I'm taking you in," he said as he walked back in the corridor.

Snow was as surprised as Jack was. Later he will have time to explain it to her.

"What for?"

"Resisting arrest."

"But I didn't, you asshole," Jack said, at the same time trying to hit him. Not very well planned. Why do they always try, what's the point? He of course avoided the punch and incapacitated Jack within seconds.

"Now I can add attempted assault to the charges. Let's go."

"This is an abuse of authority and I have a witness!"

Well, he looked at Snow and she didn't rush to Jack's defense.

"Is he the one who did it?" she asked.

"We'll see," Bigby answered.

After he put Jack in the arrest, they could finally talk one on one in his messy office. They didn't even sit down, he started talking as soon as he closed the door behind them.

"The blood is all hers, but the whole scene was very badly staged," he stated.

"How can you be so sure?"

It was plain to see how worried she was. Until now she was putting more effort into hiding it.

"There's no way a brutal murderer would gently put furniture, lamps and such on the floor instead of throwing them all over the place. At least some of it would be broken. Only damaged item in the whole scene was an old toaster that had no business being there anyway, as in the kitchen there was no trace of violence, it was probably just deemed worthless so it was added to the mess. Stereo was somehow spared, there wasn't even a drop of blood on it." Now for the hopeful or hard to swallow part. "It makes me think Rose took part in the mystification, maybe she even did it all herself."

"So she is alive then!" Snow went with hope, but he couldn't hide from her arguments against the version of events where Rose would be found alive and well.

"I wouldn't be so sure…" he said, warily cooling down her enthusiasm. "She could stage suicide to look like a murder or the person who worked with her, by that I mean Jack, might have used the opportunity to kill her."

"Why would Jack kill his girlfriend? He's scum, but not a murderer." Great question.

"No idea. I have no hypothesis on the motivation of any of this. I arrested him to stop him from getting in my way. I don't know what he might be up to."

She still wasn't convinced. He didn't blame her.

"Couldn't it be possible that someone else took part in it? Maybe one of the mundies she was partying with?"

"Mundies wouldn't leave a message like this. It was one of us. Rose didn't have much respect for the rules, but I don't think she would reveal her fable nature."

"Maybe some other fable than Jack took part?"

He shook his head in doubt.

"I only smelled the two of them."

"You might be missing something, someone who uses magic could get her. She had shady business with The Cut Above."

"She did. Maybe it had something to do with it, maybe it didn't." No evidence either way.

"I want to be there when you question Jack." Of course she wanted to be there. She was going to walk beside him for every part of his investigation and he could do nothing about it.

"I'd prefer you leave it to me."

"Sorry, but no."

"He'll be easier to talk to tomorrow and it's getting late now anyway. I know closing hours have never stopped you before, but maybe you should go home and get some rest."

"Will you join me?" She looked up at him.

"In a moment. Do as I say, not as I do. I'll steal your assistant for Thursday and we'll find out how much blood Rose lost."

"I'll be waiting for you in my apartment."

Before she left, she touched his hand and they exchanged a longing look. All he wanted was to follow her to her bedroom already.

"Blue? I have a job for you. Snow allowed me to borrow you for tomorrow."

"Okay…" he answered hesitantly. He was about to leave the office.

"First thing you do in the morning is take a camera and go to this apartment." Bigby took a piece of paper from Blue's desk and wrote down Rose's address. "Photograph the crime scene, I trust you to not mess up the evidence while doing it." The view should not be too shocking for a former soldier like Boy Blue. He was tougher than he appeared. "Then you wait for Flycatcher. I'll send him to you with pre measured packages of blood that I will convince Doctor Swineheart to give us, lots of foil and cleaning equipment. You will meet in an apartment above Rose's with the same floor plan, I already made a call to rent it."

"Then we put foil on everything, recreate the scene, count how much blood it took and clean everything up?"

"Exactly. You're the head of the operation." Bigby smiled at how easy it was to work with him. "Call me if you have any trouble. And please, keep the doors closed at all times. When you're done with everything, clean Rose's apartment as well. We wouldn't need to preserve the evidence much longer and we don't want any mundies to see it by any chance.

Snow was having a cup of tea in the dining room, when he entered her apartment carrying a bag with some clean clothes. As he walked in the room, he saw that she was watching in the mirror Rose's place, now plunged into darkness.

"I was trying to see if anyone's trying to get back there… I tried asking about Rose, but it didn't work."

"Even my magic might be blocked," added the Mirror.

"If she's using a magic item to hide, maybe she's pretending to be dead to escape something," Bigby said, Snow was more skeptical.

"Or someone doesn't want us to find the body."

He didn't answer.

She finished her tea and got up. They moved to the living room, where he put the bag on the floor. As soon as they took their places on the couch, he put his arm around her and she lay down her head on his shoulder.

"I was scared she was hurt because of me," Snow said quietly.

"I highly doubt that." Bigby tried to sound reassuring, he hoped it worked.

"I know we have no reason to think that." He turned to kiss her temple and caress her hair. "Why is she with him?"

"Maybe she likes bad boys."

"I don't get it." Before he could riposte, and he wanted to, she added: "Don't say anything."

"I'm not saying anything." But he couldn't stop himself from smiling slightly.

"I don't know how it got so bad between us. We used to be very close as children. I wanted her to live with us when I got married. I wanted to fix our relationship after I got divorced, but it was her who wouldn't want to. And I don't know why. Now I might never know."

"I know how it feels. I remember when I thought you were dead and…" It was a mistake to assume he wouldn't get a lump in his throat while talking about it. "I thought I'll never get to see you again and tell you how much you mean to me." He first wanted to say 'how much I love you' but decided to not throw this word around too much. Not yet at least.

They were holding each other in silence for some time. He didn't know what more to say and did he need to? It didn't feel like it. She opened her mouth to say something a few times, and when she finally spoke, she changed the subject:

"I'm going to be crazy mad at her if she's alive."

"Maybe she had a good reason to hide."

"Whatever it is, she could come to me and we would find some solution. She's so immature."

She probably preferred to die, but he didn't say that, Snow already had teary eyes.

"I hope you'll get to chide her."

"And then she won't talk to me for another century." She got up. "Let's get your clothes to the closet."

There was a first for everything in a relationship, this time they were going to sleep clothed and without having sex before. He was just in his briefs, she was in some silk nightgown that felt nice under his hands when they were lying tightly embraced. They didn't talk much until the end of the night aside from where to place his stuff in her walk-in closet. He still couldn't believe it was really happening and last evening wasn't a dream.

Her silence worried him, but it was understandable. He was fine with his best use being something to hold onto sometimes.

"Are we going to interrogate him first thing in the morning?" Were the first words he heard her say as she woke up.

"He might be still asleep, and I'll get him breakfast before we go to him. Aside from that, Snow, I am going to interrogate him. It's my investigation, not ours."

Thankfully, she didn't argue about it. It could easily go awry. Still though, he had to keep their work relationship in place, wasn't it what she wanted?

"So what hour?" she asked.

"Ten a.m. I will manage to talk to Doctor Swineheart, Flycatcher and Grimble before that. And don't tell Jack we know it was staged, I want to know what he wants us to think."

"It shouldn't take long, Jack," Bigby said as he and Snow entered the cell.

"No, take your time, I'll tell you anything you want. I will cooperate. I want what's best for Rosey." He looked down to show how despondent he was, when really most of all he was stressed. "There was so much blood, my God."

"We don't know how much blood actually was there, it was spread thin. It's possible she didn't lose enough to bleed out." Having Snow stand in the corner as he was laying it out was not ideal, but what was he to do? She had to know what they'll be talking about, it was her choice.

"Okay. I believe you're right."

"Do you know where she is?"

"No." What a shame it wasn't a lie. Could make his job a whole lot easier.

"For how long have you been dating?"

"Almost four years."

"But not four years straight."

"What do you mean?" He planned to just stick to the facts he was sure Jack was aware of.

"A year ago you two were screaming at each other on the street, I almost had to intervene. And that year Rose attended the Remembrance Ball with Bluebeard."

"That was only to make me jealous." Well, Bluebeard and Rose for a fact had sex not that long ago, but… no point in saying it now. "He's the one you should talk to, you know his reputation with women, maybe he got mad when he saw her back with me." Maybe.

"I will, but let's finish here first. You have an apartment in the Woodlands, but you own a key to Rose's place and spend most nights there, right?"

"Right."

"Why not the night before last?"

"I was out late with some friends, I didn't want to wake her up, I'm not sure." Now they were getting into some prevarication territory.

"Funny, Grimble doesn't remember you coming in late or at all."

"He was asleep behind his desk like he always is."

"You'd be surprised by how much he notices." He looked at Snow to see how she was holding up still. She was nervous, but she was keeping it together. "You're always trying to beat the system. I remember you tried to sell a map to your remaining magic beans."

"Why are we talking about this? I was just selling my property."

"Except the map was fake and you lost your magic beans a long time ago."

"So what? Why does that matter? Maybe I lied about the beans, that doesn't mean I would kill my girlfriend. I'm not violent."

"Not now, but you used to kill giants…"

"And? You can't bring it up, it was in the old days." Now he was not only stressed, but also angry. "Or does that protection only apply to low-rent cops?"

"Stop arguing," Snow ordered with a weak voice and teary eyes. "Jack, just tell us if you killed her." He should be mad at her for cutting in, but he was about to ask the same question and finish this conversation anyway.

"No, of course not!" And he was honest.

"Can you think of anyone who could hurt her?"

"I already told you about Bluebeard, you know what he used to do to his wives, right?"

"You can't bring it up," Bigby said as he closed the door behind himself and Snow.

"I'm sorry for that," said Snow.

"It's fine. Let's take a break before talking to Bluebeard. I'm sure you have other stuff to do."

He intentionally didn't say anything about her getting emotional, he knew how she would react and it would do nothing to convince her to leave the case to him. Also, he had something else to do as well."

Bigby was planning on looking for him, but it turned out he didn't even have to try. Charming was staying around Woodlands and it was extremely easy to catch his trope, so within minutes Bigby found the prince in the Branstock Tavern and… Cindy? It was none of his concern, but… really?

"We need to talk."

Charming turned back from the bar and looked at him with contempt. It wasn't the first time they met, but surely the first time in centuries. Now when Bigby saw him, it was bizarre to him that he spent so much time being angry and envious of this man. How could someone be with Snow and not appreciate it? You had to just be an idiot for that.

"I thought so."

He got up and they walked to a more secluded corner where they were drawing less attention.

"First of all, did you reveal your fable nature to any mundy or mention Fabletown in any way?"

"Of course not." Honesty, unexpected coming from him. So a cheater, but not a traitor.

"Why are you back?"

"I don't need to answer this, I'm a citizen."

It looked like this arrogance wasn't a pose, it was just his personality. Was he always like that? How did she keep up with him for years?

"You don't have to tell me, if you want me to keep suspecting you of the worst."

Charming sighed, annoyed.

"If that will stop you from wasting my time, I'm here purely for business." Who the fuck was he trying to steal from now?

"What kind of business?"

"It does not concern you, I will talk to the deputy mayor."

Bigby laughed at that, almost losing his cigarette.

"I'm very curious to know what you think you can offer to her."

"Are you done? If so, go take a bath and leave me alone."

Actually, he had more important things to do as well. And Snow had one more problem to worry about.

"Let's say we're done."