(Directly following this.)

When Mary Margret left he took the book to the library, along with his tea, heavily spiked.  He took his time removing the paper, building up his courage.  He knew what he would find, but knowing and seeing were different.

Mark Leroy's cramped writing took up most of the pages, but there was a more delicate script as well ( Read more... )

She was afraid.  his wife wasn't afraid of many things, but he was one rare exception.  She wasn't afraid of him, but rather for him.  Afraid that he was fragile, or worse, broken beyond repair.  Afraid that she, with her strength, could hurt him in his weakness ( Read more... )

There had been tea, to start with, when Archie and Nick first sat down in Archie's den.  Sometime over the course of their conversation the tea had become laced with whiskey, and by the time the more mundane had been talked out and they'd gotten to the real meat of the conversation the tea as abandoned completely in favor of straight shots of ( Read more... )

He knew that Belle didn't make a fuss about her birthday, so when she mentioned going out to dinner with her dad on Sunday night he just nodded and told her to have fun, and offered to take her patrol that night.  She, of course, told him she'd do a sweep when she got home; she didn't like him being out at night alone ( Read more... )

Following this thread

He calls Belle from the cabin, to let her know that he'll be late.  He'd been caught in the storm, he explains, and is closer to the cabin then the house.  He'll be home when the rain lets up.  His hand is tight against the table when he speaks, the wood biting into his palm.  The pain helps to focus him, to stop from blurting ( Read more... )

The Slayer was in Storybrooke.  That much the Council had been able to tell him, but beyond that they were of little help.  It was a small town, at least.  There weren't that many teenage girls, and he'd been able to cross some of them off his list just through observations or carefully worded questions he'd asked Belle.  She was a quiet girl, a ( Read more... )

"Belle!"  Rumpelstiltskin had (patiently, in his opinion) looked for close to ten minutes for the woman who was supposed to be his caretaker.  It annoyed him that she was so difficult to find.  He'd been gone a week, so it wasn't as if she had much actual work to do, so where she could be he didn't know.  He'd checked the kitchen (and stopped for a ( Read more... )

There were things about this cursed land that Mr. Gold liked.  He liked takeaway food and sauna bathtubs.  He liked fine Irish linen and silk sheets.  He liked walking down the street and seeing people scatter, afraid of him for a reason they couldn't have explained if they'd been asked.  He liked that no matter how much power Regina welded it wasn ( Read more... )