These Dreams

In And Out

"We've been over it again and again," Regina said, stirring her coffee. "Britain, hopping, ribbons...it's making no sense."

"We've found four people that had items with a British flag on them in their homes, but no luck there," David said. "Hopping could be alluding to rabbits, and The Rabbit Hole has a selection of British ales on tap - we checked the place top to bottom and still nothing. I don't even know where to start with ribbons," he finished, with a touch of exasperation.

"Belle," Snow said, rocking the baby back and forth in his car seat. "Is there anything else? Anything at all?"

Belle got up, pacing around Regina's office while she thought. "Ribbons might be nothing. Emma and I were discussing them, but only in passing - and Hook wasn't there for that."

"That still leaves something British and something hopping," Henry said, writing it down in his notebook. "Are you sure they said 'hopping'? Were they actually talking about rabbits?"

"No," Belle answered him. "We weren't discussing rabbits at all. Emma just kept talking about how she liked to hop and Killian claimed he wasn't a hopper. It was quite nonsensical, really."

"Wait - a hopper! Dr. Hopper? Are they talking about Archie?" David asked.

Belle's eyes went wide. "He was in the dream!"

"So we need to search Dr. Hopper's office," Regina said. "Let's go."

"Where does Britain come into play, I wonder?" Belle mused. "They were clearly putting the two words together. "British" and "Hopper."

"What about Cricket?" Henry said, sitting up in his chair. "It's a game. A British game."

"Henry!" Snow exclaimed. "That's brilliant!"

"I can look in the library," Belle said. "There may be an instructional book about cricket."

David nodded. "Snow and I can put the word out around town - maybe somebody has an old cricket set in their closet or something."

"It is played with balls," Henry said. "Wooden ones."

"And we should search Archie's office, just to be safe," Snow added.

"I'll stay here and keep working on a tracing spell," Regina offered. "I can't track the sphere directly - it resists that, but I can track things my mother may have touched. That'll cover quite a lot, since she was in town, but if it works, it may narrow our search down a bit."

"Sounds like a plan," David agreed. "So...we'll meet back here tomorrow, if nothing shows up tonight."

"Nothing?" Belle asked. "Or no one?"

###

Mr. Gold's opened his eyes slowly, with an odd sort of calm, considering he'd just been blown to bits a split-second ago. He passed a hand across his eyes, then he looked over at Hook, still and unmoving despite his exertions in the dreamscape. It would be easy, so very, very easy to burn him to ash, or just weight him down and roll him into the sea. He'd be trapped forever in that God-forsaken land of madness, and it wouldn't pose a single threat to Emma.

He knew the pirate too well. Even the sight of Milah hadn't entirely broken that resolve. The pirate was determined to save his love and he would do it, even at the risk of his own life and happiness. The centuries, it seemed, had taught them both the folly of a self-centered existence, and only through the sloughing off of that slimy and foul-smelling skin of their former lives had either of them been able to find a piece of happiness.