{ enchanted forest }

22. { and straight on 'til morning }

"How could you put Winter through this," Mary Margaret asks. Her face was contorted into an expression of disbelief and anger. She brought Winter, a defenseless young girl, into this mess. 

Regina curls her lip up and snarls. "Well, excuse me, but I wasn't left much choice when they were electrocuting me!"

She crosses her arms before her chest, huffing out a noise of annoyance. "Also, I didn't think the name would mean much to them, but then I forgot that Neal was in a relationship with that bitch!"

David and Mary Margaret both shush her, signalling to quieten down with their hands while anxiously looking around. "Don't say that! Emma has just lost him.." Snow mutters softly.

They tell Regina to stay in bed while they go and get Henry, who was still being looked after by Granny. They drive down to the park with Emma, where they see Gold as well. Snow tells her daughter to go and speak with her son. They stay behind to talk with Gold and inform him about Neal.

Gold didn't want to listen at first, until David tells him that he was shot by Tamara and fell through a portal. He inhales a shuddering breath when he realizes his son, the one who he had been trying to reunite with for so many years, was dead. 

David swallows the lump in his throat away. He couldn't imagine being in Gold's shoes at the moment, receiving the same news about Emma. It was too heartbreaking. But there was the pressing matter of their coming doom that needed to be discussed, even at a sensitive time like this.

"Greg and Tamara, they took something from Regina. A magical trigger, a fail-safe in the curse that can destroy Storybrooke," he explains. Snow adds that, once they activate the fail-safe, it will work as a self-destruct. Everyone that was not born in this world would die.

"I know this is hard, but we need your help," David says. Snow clings desperately onto her husband's arm, her wide eyes pinned on the Dark One. "Winter needs your help too. They're going after her." Gold remained silent during their explanation of the situation, but then he tells them no.

Mr. Gold moves away from them, but David wasn't going to give up so easily. He takes a step forward and asks why he would not go after the people who killed his son in cold blood. Gold turns around and explains that it was not them who killed Baelfire, but himself. Because he brought magic into this world. Now he was dead. Magic always has its price and now he was willing to pay it.

"Gold.. they're after Winter too," Snow reminds him again. "We'll die. You'll die." Gold shakes his head. "The barrier I've put around Winter will protect her. Perhaps my last act of kindness to her will be to put her out of her misery."

Without another word said he turns around and leaves the playground. 

●

Hook, Greg and Tamara enter the mines in search of an object unfamiliar to the pirate. He asks if their employers would want them to die in a mine collapse, considering the mine didn't look exactly safe. That reminds him that he doesn't know who was the employer of the two and so he asks.

However, he received a very vague answer from Greg, who told him it was not his or their concern. "Not your concern? So you're telling me you don't know who commands you?" Tamara sighs in exhaustion. She tells him that they, unlike him, believe in something. Something sacred.

In the meantime Greg had walked ahead and found what they were looking for. A dwarf's pickaxe. He didn't understand what they would want with one, so the two explain it to him. Tamara holds up the black diamond they took from Regina, telling him that this was what she had on her when he delivered her to them.

It was a trigger, they explain. And their people told them that a dwarf's pickaxe was able to activate it. Hook inquires if Rumplestiltskin would not be immune to this. Tamara remarks that none of them would be and that, once activated, nothing could stop it.