In Storybrooke, Mr. Gold strives to be the man Bae used to love--until Belle is kidnapped to Neverland. If he resumes his Dark One powers to save her, can he control them? In the Enchanted Forest, Emma battles ogres, zombies and her ex to get back h...
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Mr. Gold (Rumplestiltskin): If we were welcome, I feel confident an invitation would have been extended. (The Queen is Dead)
When Ruby reached August's father's den and the source of the laughter and the music, she stopped in the doorway. Her shoulders, hips, and feet wanted to join the partiers playing Dance Central, but then her thoughts strayed to Billy and she folded her arms instead. The last time she saw him, she'd begged off going dancing at the Rabbit Hole. At the time, she'd had only one hour's grace until moon-rise. Check with me this weekend, she'd told him and sent him on his way.
Ruby drew a deep breath and released it in a sigh. Now that the weekend was here, her last chance to step out with Billy was gone forever.
Observing her friends gyrating in imitation of the digital divas on Geppetto's big-screen TV, Ruby recalled trying out "Electric Circus" dance moves with Billy back in junior high. The fact she'd actually spent her childhood trying to absorb Granny's woodland secrets—and Billy had spent his piling up dirty linen with his mouse siblings, arranging toiletries on dressing tables, and hunting down lost stockings to spare Ella her stepmother's abuse—none of that mattered. Her implanted memories of him were as dear as if they'd really happened.
August ambled up next to Ruby, and she gave him a half-smile. As the next song started, she considered taking a turn in remembrance of Billy. Instead, she said, "Why don't you show me how it's done?" When the Enchanted Forest's most agreeable liar took the floor, the saucy sales clerk from the kitchen appliance store—the one with the mass of golden curls—jumped up beside him.
Ruby watched them a moment, flinging out their arms to form Y-M-C-A, smiled, and shook her head. August won't miss me. She backed out of the den and started down the hall, heading for the coat rack. Then someone called out her name.
Turning, Ruby saw Ella. Her prince-slash-cannery-worker-slash-guitar-hero husband trailed her, their one-year-old daughter Alex asleep over his shoulder.
"How you holding up?" asked the woman whose childhood memories of Billy were real.
Ruby gave Ella a hug. "Okay... until something reminds me of him. And frankly, tonight lots of things remind me of him." She sighed. "I shouldn't've come."
"That's not how Billy would've seen it." Ella patted her shoulder. "You know what he told me the night of Thomas's ball? Go have a good time for the both of us."
Her husband smiled and hitched their daughter a little higher. "You'd have loved seeing Billy play footman. By the time Ella showed up, I'd greeted so many stuck-up princesses, I was zoning out. Then this beauty opens the door of her carriage with a big grin on her face. As her man helps her down the steps, he says something that makes her squeeze his hand. As if that's not enough to make me curious, behind her back, he winks at me, points at her and mouths she's the one."
