Once Upon A Happy Beginning

Chapter Twenty: The Crocodile, The Swan, The Pirate and The Bookworm

Killian

"CROCODILE!" I yell into the shop as I burst through the door, Emma storming behind me.

"Pirate. Miss Swan. How can I help you? You're not coming to slap me again, are you? My wife and my son are sat in the room behind."

"I won't slap you if you don't give me a reason to."

"What's going on here?" Belle says, entering with a sleeping Gideon in her arms. I'm forced to find both myself and Emma gazing towards the babe, both knowing that we want that. Desperately. Just without even a fraction of the tense unrest between the couple's matrimony. 

"We're just going to ask a few routine questions. Sheriff duty, you know." Emma lies.

"Of course..." She says, uncertainly, "Why do I feel I'm missing something?"

"I assure you, my dear Belle, you aren't. Is she, dearie?"

"She might be. I guess we'll have to see if I require any collateral from you so that you'll behave during my questions."

"Miss Swan, I assure you that–"

"Alright, Crocodile. Heard anything about where Emma and I went on our honeymoon?"

"Can't say I have."

"Well, we had a delightful time in the Caribbean. Well, until Swan's magic failed her and she collapsed."

"Emma! Are you alright?" The ever sympathetic Belle tried to ask.

"Thanks, I am. But riddle me this, Gold. Why did I have magic outside of Storybrooke. Oh... hang on. You knew."

"Rumple! What are they-"

"You stole my papers." The Crocodile announces as if this is the single most obvious thing he's heard in his life. 

"What papers? Rumple?"

"The ones, Belle," My wife's delicate voice says, "That showed where a patch of magic was in this world. Outside of Storybrooke."

"I- I- I was going to say something. I needed more research."

"Before, or after, dear Crocodile, you knew that Robin had been wandering around the unknown waiting to get a passage off the island back to Regina, after his 'death'"

"Robin's alive?!"

"Yes, and we had to bring him back with two other people. Two others that your husband brought there, through a time portal of all things. Oh, and you should also know. Zelena is furious that you never told her you knew how to cast a time portal."

"Hang on one minute, Miss Swan."

"Like I told you last time I was here, I'm married."

"Regardless. I have never been able to cast a time portal before; surely you remember the ingredients Miss Swan? Brains of an intellectual; well I would hardly use my own. A resilient heart? Definitely not Madame Mayor back when I knew her in the Enchanted Forest. Courage? Where from? As your husband will testify, if I could get my hands on any of that, surely I'd use it for myself. Innocence? Who's truly innocent around the Dark One?"

"May I present an alternative theory?" Emma asks, ever so cooly and Sheriff-y. 

"Be my guest, I have nothing to hide."

"Now then Crocodile, is that ever the truth?"

"Occasionally, I suppose," Belle says, half curious to Emma's theory and half protective of her Rumple. I guess I'd be too, if it was Emma being interrogated.

"Let's start with a motive. I wonder; what's the one thing you've regretted your entire life? Regretted enough to willingly wait until someone you met when she was eighteen had enough vengeance to cast a curse, one that would leave you waiting an additional twenty eight years until you could actually think of righting that wrong? Would you, or would you not, if given the chance, choose not to abandon Baelfire?"

Rumplestiltskin grew unsteady in his stance, and his eyes flickered between Emma and me and Belle. I could've laughed. The coward was back. 

"A heart? Simple. I think Belle is quite a resilient young woman. You're married, aren't you? With a son? I daresay you've won her heart. Even without a physical object, isn't The Dark One capable of drawing on power from even hours away?

"Courage? Didn't my Dad give you his cloak? Say the one that he wore in every battle; to draw on its sentimental strength. You had my Dad's bravery.

"Brains? You appear to still have yours in your head, but Zelena managed her spell. Whatever she used, wasn't the real thing.

"And we all know that you have a bit of a habit for taking unborn children. Did you ever tell Belle that you tried to bargain for ours?"

The silence was incredible. I didn't know whether to be in awe of my Swan or to be in glee at the Crocodile standing there dumbfounded. Guilty. Belle tucked Gideon safer into her motherly nest and took a tentative step towards Emma and I; fury, sadness, anger, confusion, fear and lostness bubbling in her eyes. 

When the name fell from her lips, she wasn't any of those things. No. Mrs Gold was just pained. "Rumple?"