Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The call came in the early morning just as Sheriff Humbert and his co-deputies, Swan and Locksley, entered the office.

Emma was the first to pick up. "Sheriff's station, Deputy Swan speaking."

The voice that answered, a man's, sounded rushed and anxious.

"I know where Nick Gold is. Follow the trail in the northwest corner of the woods. There's an old farmhouse not far from the toll bridge. Check out the storm cellar but be careful."

"Who is this?" Emma asked just as the line went dead. "Hello?" Hanging up, she relayed the message to the others.

Nicholas Gold, the local pawnbroker, had gone missing a year ago. He hadn't taken anything with him--his cellphone, wallet, and, perhaps most importantly, his cane, which had been found at the house when his wife and sons returned to find him gone.

The officers had done their due diligence, but every lead they got turned into a dead end. Nothing had come up in over four months and now, out of the blue, they go this call. The information was oddly specific but, as it was the first seemingly solid lead in so long, they agreed to follow it. *******************************************************************************************************************************************

Snow covered the ground from the night before as the trio made their way past the bridge toward the farmhouse, in accordance with the tipper's information. The house was on the far side of town and was allegedly abandoned, so no search had gone that far. Emma and Robin walked up the front steps and peered through the front windows. there were several cups on a table and a pot on the kitchen stove.

"Somebody is definitely living here, maybe more than one," Emma whispered. "It looks empty right now though."

The three carefully made their way around the house until they spotted the storm cellar several yards away. Upon reaching it, however, they discovered it was locked. Robin ran back to the squad car, returning a few minutes later with a lock breaker. The lock snapped in little time and Graham led them slowly into the darkness, guns drawn. When they reached the bottom, the only sound to be heard was the squeak of a wooden wheel. Robin reached up to turn on a dangling lightbulb.

Nothing could have prepared them for the sight that met them in the dim light.

A cage, the floor strewn with bits of wool and thread.

Nicholas Gold, sitting at a spinning wheel in the center, spinning frantically as he muttered to himself over and over.

"Spinning cleans the mind, soothes the soul. Cleans the mind. Soothes the soul. Cleans the mind. Soothes the soul."

The trio lowered their guns.

"Mr. Gold?" Emma uttered.

The wheel instantly stopped spinning but the man’s gaze did not move from it. "All that glitters is not Gold, down here in the dark and cold," he he murmured before letting out an almost maniacal giggle.

A shiver ran down Emma’s spine at the unnerving laugh as she turned to Graham and Robin.

“We need to get him out of here,” Graham stated.

With a nod from the sheriff, Robin stepped forward with the bolt cutters to break the lock on the cage door. The snap of the lock sent Nicholas reeling to the back of the cage, his bad leg causing him to fall to the ground.

“No, no please,” he cried out, his face panic-stricken and hands shaking as Emma slowly stepped inside. “Please leave.”

“Mr. Gold, it’s alright,” Emma said calmly, crouching to his level. “It’s me, Emma. Emma Swan, remember?” Upon closer look, she could see the cuts and bruises that nearly covered Nicholas’s face and hands. His suit was also a mess, as though it hadn’t been changed or cleaned in weeks. There was also blood, some on his hand, some dried on the floor. What the hell happened here?

“No, leave, leave,” he repeated. “You don’t understand what they’ll do if they find you here…”

“You don’t need to worry about them; you’re safe now, and we’re going to get you out of here,” she replied. And then they would find whoever ‘they’ were, and fast.

“No, it’s not worth the risk,” he went on, wincing in pain as he tried to back away farther from them. “As long as I stay in here, they won’t go after my family again.” His hands flew to his face as he began rocking back and forth a bit. “Have to do what the witch says because, if not, they take my family to Oz…”

That made her pause. Whoever was keeping him down here was clearly holding his family’s safety over his head. But how, and what did he mean ‘again’? Let alone Oz...

“Your family is safe, Mr. Gold,” Graham stated from where he stood outside the cage. “You have my word.”

Robin headed back upstairs to call for backup and an ambulance while Nicholas tried to take in the words.

“They’re safe…?” he repeated, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“Yeah,” Emma answered with a nod. She slowly extended her hand for him to take. “They’re really worried about you. They’ll be happy to know you’re free now.”

“A-and you’ll take me to them?” he asked, seeming to calm down a bit at the idea. “Please, I...I need to see Belle…”

She offered a small smile as she held her hand out a bit further. After a few moments, he nodded and slowly took her hand. Struggling to stand as he continued to tremble slightly, he tried to keep his weight on his left leg when he took a cautious step forward.

“Need to see Belle…” he whispered again before he suddenly seemed to sway. By the time Graham made it to Emma’s side, Nicholas had fallen into their arms unconscious.

Damn, she thought as the duo each took one of his arms over their shoulders and slowly made their way out of the cage that had been the poor man’s home for the last year and back upstairs. Outside, Robin was waiting with the ambulance.
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Hours passed before Nicholas started coming to. Just as he was about to slowly open his eyes, the light weight of a hand on his arms had him panicking once more.

He quickly pulled his arm away and shielded his face. “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, please,” he begged, heart pounding.

“Hey, it’s okay; it’s just me,” a gentle voice replied. A voice he doubted he would ever truly hear again. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”

Cautiously lowering his arms, he slowly opened his eyes and looked once more into the most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen. “Belle…” he breathed, a shaky hand reaching up to touch her cheek. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, a smile spreading across her face as she tenderly placed her hand over his, eyes slowly welling with tears. “It’s me. You’re safe now, it’s alright.”

“Belle...my Belle…” he repeated reverently, his own tears falling unbidden.

He looked away for a moment to quickly take in his surroundings. He was lying in a hospital bed, his right leg propped up as belle sat by his side. The dirty suit he’d been wearing had been replaced with a hospital gown and he was hooked up to several machines, including a heart monitor that beeped a bit slower as his breathing evened out.

“I knew I’d see you again,” she murmured, carefully sliding his hand from her face and holding it tight as he fixed his gaze back on her.

He latched onto her hand like a lifeline. “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry,” he whimpered. “I-I couldn’t get away o-or they’d...I’m sorry…”

“Shhh,” she whispered, gently stroking his hair with her free hand as she tried not to think of what Emma had told her about where they had found him. “It’s not your fault. You’re safe now.”

Still exhausted, Nicholas soon drifted back to sleep, Belle whispering to him once more that he was safe. It didn’t take long, however, for him to be awakened by the sound of footsteps approaching the room. Sitting up, his attention was drawn to the doorway, where a young man stood. Neal. Belle smiled and motioned for him to enter the room.

Nicholas’s eyes grew wide and he tried to push himself back further in the bed in an attempt to get away from the visitor. “You’re not real…” he muttered, voice wavering as he raised a shaky hand to point at his son. “You’re dead…” He was free from his cage--wasn’t he? “You’re a vision, a-another hallucination…”

A confused expression crossed Neal’s face as he stopped in his tracks at his father’s words for a moment. “Listen to me,” he said carefully after sharing a worried look with Belle as he slowly neared the bed, hand stretched out slightly. “It’s me, I’m fine. I’m alive, you just--”

“My son is dead!” the older man yelled as the ‘vision’ stopped right by him. “They decided to punish him because of me! You’re just here again to remind me of my failures! Go. Away.” With that, he took a weak swing at the ‘vision,’ hoping would leave again.

Instead, Neal calmly grabbed his father’s hand and held it close. “Please, Papa…”

Solid.

Nicholas guardedly released Belle’s hand as tears filled his eyes once more. “Neal,” he whispered as he drew his son into a fierce embrace with all his strength. “My boy…”

Neal smiled as he sat beside him and returned the embrace. “It’s okay, Papa. You’re safe now, we all are.”

Moments later, the door opened again. Dr. Whale entered, Emma and the Sheriff right behind.

“Welcome back, Mr. Gold,” Victor said, offering a small smile. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. There were many...troubling signs when you were brought in, but that can wait.”

“Until then,” Graham chimed in. “Emma and I have a few questions for you. We understand this is a delicate situation, but please understand that we would not ask if it was not extremely important.”

Nicholas’s hands began to tremble once more. “I-I’m afraid I don’t remember much…

“That’s alright,” Emma stated. “We believe you may have been drugged...more than once… There may still be some things you can answer. The main question is--who did this to you?"

Chapter Text

“Who did this to you?”

The question hung in the air as they waited for Nicholas to answer. Even with the traces of the drug still in his system, Graham and Emma figured–or at least hoped–that he could remember enough to give them a name, or at least a description.

But once the question was asked, Nicholas could barely speak, his heart beginning to pound again as thoughts of the cage–of her–flooded his mind.

“You look as awful as you sound. What, you’re not enjoying your cage? Not appreciating your jailer?”

Fear gripped him as he recalled her cruel laugh. Trying in vain to keep his hands from shaking, he cast his eyes to the ground as he felt every gaze on him.

“Mr. Gold?” Emma piped in.

“Yes, Mistress,” he answered quickly without looking up.

The reply was met with confused and worried glances shared between the others. It came so easily, almost as if it had been a practiced or expected response.

After a moment, Belle gently took his hand again. “Nick,” she whispered.

The touch and whisper startled him slightly as he forced himself to focus his attention on her. His grip on her hand seemed the only thing keeping him in the present.

“Who did this to you?” she repeated carefully.

It took another minute for him to find his voice. “Zelena,” he murmured, not breaking eye contact with his wife.

“Zelena Mills?” Graham asked to clarify. “The mayor’s sister?”

Nicholas could only nod, wondering slightly to himself at the unmistakable flash of shock and anger in his wife’s eyes.

“Alright, thank you,” the sheriff said as he began to walk out of the room to call David and Robin with this new information before being stopped by Emma.

“Hold on a minute,” she said before turning back to Gold. “When we were down there, you kept talking about ‘them’ finding us, what ‘they’ would do if we got caught… Was there someone else besides Zelena keeping you there?”

After a minute of struggling to remain calm, Nicholas slowly nodded once more, thinking of the last order from his other attacker.

“Kiss my boot.”

“J-Jack Hordor…he was t-there too…”

The officers nodded their thanks as they headed out, all the while Belle tried to smile as she assured her husband that he had done great.

“I’ll be right back,” Neal uttered before quickly walking out of the room. “Emma!” he called after the deputy.

Emma stopped at the sound of her name and walked back toward him. “Hey, you should go back in there; your dad needs you. I’ll talk to you tonight.”

“Yeah, I will,” Neal replied as his hand balled into a fist he stuffed into his pocket. “But there’s something you should know first. Zelena Mills? This past year, she was a teacher’s aide for my brother Gideon’s class.”

Robin was shocked when he and David got the message about who they were to bring in for questioning.

Zelena Mills, his sister-in-law.

She wasn’t always around–the sisters had had a strained relationship for as long as he had known them. Still, given his connection, at least he knew where she would be–Granny’s Diner. Despite the tension in the Mills family, his mother-in-law Cora always demanded her daughters meet with her weekly at the diner for lunch.

“We play this cool,” David reminded him as the duo walked through the door. “Can’t make a scene.”

Robin nodded, grateful to find Zelena alone at the usual booth.

“Robby, David, so good to see you,” the redhead said with a smile as the two approached her. “How is little Roland?” she asked her brother-in-law.

“He’s good,” he answered quickly.

“We need you to come with us to the station,” David intoned.

Zelena shrugged, “Sorry, no can do. It’s our weekly family lunch. Mother’s orders, though you’re more than welcome to join us.”

“This won’t take long,” David insisted, keeping his voice low so the other patrons wouldn’t take notice. “I’m sure she’ll understand. We have a few questions.”

“You clearly don’t know my mother,” Zelena muttered, seemingly annoyed as her smile fell. “What’s so important about these questions that they can’t wait? Don’t I have a right to know what this is about?”

Silence fell for a minute as Robin contemplated how to answer her. “This is about Nicholas Gold,” he responded, keeping his voice low as well. “He’s been found.”

The men waited for her reaction in silence, thinking perhaps she’d ask what that had to do with her. Instead, they watched as a smile returned to her lips.

“Well, it certainly took you long enough,” she mused as she slowly rose from her seat. “Very well. After you, Deputy.”

With that, David keeping a careful hand on her arm, the officers began leading Zelena out of the diner. Just as they made it to the door, Regina and Cora Mills entered, four-year-old Roland in tow.

“Papa?” the boy asked, looking from Robin to Zelena to Regina. “Where are you and Aunt Lena going?”

Robin heaved a sigh and ruffled his son’s hair as David led Zelena out to their cruiser. So much for not making a scene. “It’s alright, little man,” he answered before looking at his confused wife and annoyed mother-in-law. “We need to bring her in for questioning regarding a case. I don’t know how long it will take…but she’ll likely need a lawyer. I have to go.”

With that, he walked out to join his partner, leaving his family and the others to watch on in silence.