![Mr. Gold](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d94/Malfoys_one_and_only_girl/240x160StorybrookeGold.gif?t=1407788619 "Mr. Gold")![Evelyn Hyde](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d94/Malfoys_one_and_only_girl/Female%20Characters/hairstyles-for-medium-length-hair-curly.jpg "Evelyn Hyde")

He was being stupid. This whole thing was entirely stupid and yet here he was, standing on the porch of one Dr. Faye Stevenson, left hand stuffed deep into his suit jacket pocket and his right holding fast to the head of his cane, staring down the door with a scowl prominent on his features, as if it had just insulted him.

It was her fault, somehow he knew it was. It was very rare he made house calls, especially on the subject matter of this particular visit, it was far too out of character for him to be there and yet, there he was, bringing up his cane to tap on the door to knock but then putting it down again.

He should just go home, stop by the convenient store and pick him and Belle up some ice cream and call it a night.

Gritting his teeth, Mr. Gold raised his cane once more and tapped the cane on the door three times before withdrawing as if the door would open up and snatch him whole. He felt his feet moving away from the door the moment he lowered his hand, his body ready to flee in only giving the doctor half a second to answer but something made him stop, and face the door once again.

The door eerily creaked open, but there didn't seem to be anyone opening the door on the other side. It was as though a ghost had opened the door for him. The inside of the house was pitch black, and a familiar, and yet unfamiliar, woman's voice called to him, 

"Do come in...Don't be shy..."

Mr. Gold hesitated at first, though in hearing the voice he hadn't quite been expecting put him at ease. He had always gotten along better with Hyde despite their rather... forced first meeting back in The Dark Castle. She was certainly easier to talk to than the optimistic, book-smart Heather Jekyll. He could only handle one Belle at a time in his life. He just hoped that in light of recent events, Evelyn wouldn't be *too* upset with him. With her immunity to magic, he didn't have much for an escape plan, and didn't have the foresight to bring his pistol with him.

Putting on the mask of the terror of Storybrooke, Mr. Gold stepped inside, shutting the door behind him finding himself quite at home in the dark room.

"I must admit, I wasn't expecting to find you here Miss Hyde." He called out to the dark room, unable to pinpoint the exact spot of the woman. "What brings you out this evening? A child to frighten? A man to ravage? A mayor to not kill?" He paused for a moment, hearing another sound that was not at all Hyde's voice, but another woman's... faint, far away, and haunting.

*I know you...*

*I walked with you...*

*Once upon a dream...*

It took Mr. Gold all of four seconds to realize that this other woman was nothing more than a song playing through speakers somewhere in the house, though didn't have much of a chance to think more on it before he heard Hyde address him once more.

Hyde's dark and sardonic laugh seemed to echo throughout the halls as Hyde answered, 

"Why, you of course. It's not often you make house calls, so I figured, Hey! I might as well greet you, so you don't have to deal with the ever so irritating Jekyll." 

She then laughed again, this time clearly thinking about having an upper hand in something. 

"And don't tell me you would pass up a chance to control that mayor? Because I certainly wouldn't. Especially considering the...*circumstances* these days." The word circumstances came out in a bitter tone, as Hyde seemed to recall something unpleasant to say the least.

Mr. Gold scoffed outwardly, moving through the hall a bit and by what little memory he had of the house, managed to find the service that held the brandy and ice on the small table beside the two chairs in front of the living room's fireplace. Hooking the head of his cane around his arm to allow him the use of both hands, he prepared two glasses and filled them both halfway up before pouring them each a drink.

"I'd prefer her dead, actually." Mr. Gold replied, sounding as pleasant as if talking about the weather. "One less head of the ever growing hydra to worry about..." He finished pouring their drinks and picked his up, leaving Hyde's on the service for her to collect if she ever decided to stop playing hide and seek. "You can come out dearie, there's no need for *you* to be shy." He called, using Hyde's own words against her. He casually walked until he stood stock in front of the fireplace, watching the flames lap at the wooden logs in hunger, in the pause hearing the song continuing to play on.

*I know you....*

*That look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam*

*And I know it's true*

*That visions are seldom all they seem...*

Hyde couldn't help but laugh at his words, and she said, 

"Oh I'm not shy..." He would be able to see her behind him if he turned around as she picked up her glass and she finished, her voice now clear and easily detected. "I just like a good game now and then."
 
She sipped at her brandy, not at all fazed, and she commented, "I thought you would be happy Regina is still alive...especially considering your *sweetheart* came back to you,"

"Out of pity." Mr. Gold practically spat the words out before he had a chance to think on them, swirling the contents around in his glass before taking a good, hard drink. He knew Hyde was behind him now, he could *feel* her there, but didn't bother to even face her now.

*But if I know you,*

*I know what you'll do,*

*You'll love me at once....*

*The way you did once... upon a dream...*

Hyde scoffed and said casually, 

"If that were the case, then she would never have listened to Jekyll when we met her again that night."
 
"A point I've been meaning to speak with you about." Mr. Gold said finishing the rest of his drink in his second gulp before turning finally, seeing Hyde standing there with the drink he had made her. As he walked back over to the tea service, he said, "Belle seemed to know you... well, your other you... care to inform me on what I missed?" He asked, refilling his drink.

Hyde smirked and she sighed a bit before explaining with a slight roll of her eyes. 

"You didn't miss much. Belle and Jekyll made very brief awkward small talk with Belle mainly asking if I killed the mayor...yada yada. It's thanks to my...abilities that Jekyll was able to tell her about your true intentions, why you sent me to kill the mayor in the first place. After that, she decided to go back to you."
 
"An err she was sure to realize in the morning had I not-" He swallowed his words immediately. The last thing he wanted to get into with this... sadistic shell of a woman was the subject matter of his night terrors. He had a hard enough time talking with Belle about them, and even then it was brief and evasive. He took a drink once more, buying him time to collect his thoughts and keeping his back to Hyde. "She knows too much, about me, about my past... why I do what I do... nothing but pity for a broken man can come from knowing all that..."

*But if I know you,*

*I know what you'll do,*

*You'll love me at once....*

*The way you did once... upon a dream...*

Hyde raised an eyebrow at his statement when he quickly bit back his words. When he made his last comment, she scoffed and said, making it very hard to discern if she was mocking him or not, with a hidden bitterness, 

"If that's the case, then you are definitely an innate *liar* and *storyteller*. Tell a story in the correct way, with the right twists and alterations...and the listeners will see you in a favorable light."

Taking just a moment to top off his glass, he turned to face Hyde once again with a half laugh and a half smirk at what he assumed was supposed to be an insult, though it far missed the mark with him.

"Truer words were never spoken I'm afraid." He said tipping his glass to her before taking another drink. "But I must either be *really* good, or your heightened senses are failing you to think that's all there is to me; lies and stories..."

*I know you...*

*I walked with you...*

*Once upon a dream...*

"I'd say it's your talent...and that Jekyll is quite a nuisance." Hyde uttered the last part as though she had been swatting away a fly, without moving a single hand. She then walked a bit, her stride somewhat akin to that of a predator circling prey, with her drink in hand, and she said to him, "But you didn't come here just for *gossip* on your sweetheart and my annoying counterpart. There's another reason you wanted to make a pit stop here..."

Somewhat relieved at the change of topic, and then again not really as to what it had changed into, Mr. Gold finished off his second drink before nodding, returning the empty glass to the service on the small table. 

"How's your arm, Miss Hyde?" He asked seemingly out of the blue. "Over my years of observation, I believe I have come to the conclusion that you and your... counterpart have what I call 'sharing the damage."'

"Same as you saw it last time." Hyde simply answered with a perked up eyebrow at his question and with a brief roll of her eyes at the obvious statement about sharing the damage. She commented in a tone that clearly showed that she was curious as to what his point was, "Your observations are correct."

*I know you....*

*That gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam*

*And I know it's true*

*That visions are seldom all they seem...*

"Well that can't make you very happy, now can it? Being punished for something- something you... had... no control over..." It was then, while he spoke that he realized why he was there, why he had been overcome with guilt after learning about Faye's nightmares. He wasn't there to protect Faye, wasn't compelled in wanting to help *her*, no, he was there for *Hyde*, for they shared more in common than he realized. She, like him, had been given the terrible burden of bearing through something she had absolutely no control over, and was forced to live a life by it.

Hyde had a wider smirk on her face, like a predator that had cornered its prey with no way for it to escape. She didn't answer his question, and she relished the look on his face as the thoughts ran through his head. She only whispered two words eerily that wouldn't interrupt his thoughts, 

"*Go on...*"

"There... there was someone I knew once... someone I was very close to... once..." Mr. Gold began, his eyes staring off in the general area of the feet of the chairs in front of the fireplace, seeming somewhat transfixed as he spoke, unaware that Hyde was even there.

Hyde smirked and she clarified, 

"You're talking about innocent, little, Baelfire...aren't you?"

Mr. Gold was taken aback by the use of his child's name, but then quickly recalled that he had spoken with Heather Jekyll briefly about it when she had been in his castle.

*But if I know you,* 

*I know what you'll do,*

*You'll love me at once....*

*The way you did once... upon a dream...*

"Y-yes..." He said slowly, feeling his body turn to pour himself yet another drink, feeling a bit braver in his words now that Hyde could only see his back. "She's the reason I became The Dark One, I needed the power... to get her back."

"And yet...you never found her? Not even after a couple dozen lifetimes?" Hyde asked quietly, in a whisper that was inviting him to answer, and yet remained eerie and haunting.

"It wasn't that simple!" He replied with a snap, threatening to close down on her altogether. He paused to take in a few, calming breathes, the alcohol finally making its way through his blood stream to where he could feel the effects and continued. "You may or may not have been paying attention when I was speaking with Doctor Jekyll earlier, about portals and how hard they are to come by..."

Hyde chuckled and said, 

"Don't worry, I remember your discussion. But one point bothers me: You had Henry come to our world, find us, and bring us to you...and yet you never had him help you use that same method to go and continue your search? Strange, don't you think?"

He tried to laugh, but his heart wasn't in it.

"That's because the hat in which you came through only had access to other worlds *with* magic. Bae... my Baelfire... she was sent to a world without magic." He said simply, using his arms to once again gesture the here and now of Storybrooke. "It's what made Regina... necessary."

Hyde chuckled and said, 

"Ah...but the funny thing is that our world didn't have magic. It had science like this world...but no magic. This makes things curiouser and curiouser..."

"It would seem that way to someone who hasn't the knowledge and experience I've spent countless lifetimes building up." Mr. Gold said with a weak smile. "Your land, a very curious one at that, is a fragment of time stemming from *this* land. But since your land was not at the current time and date of today, it was created by nothing more than a thought... *with* magic."

It was then that Mr. Gold heard the silence of the room, an odd sound for reasons he didn't quite understand until the song that had been his greeting started up again, repeating the same words as before.

Hyde let out a thoughtful hum in response to his answer. She then asked quietly, 

"Now what about the mother of Baelfire? Surely you care about finding her as you do about finding Baelfire?"

"She's dead." He said at once. "Died a long time ago." He shook his head, refusing to let his thoughts linger on Milah for longer than was necessary. "Bae is all that matters now. I've spent centuries planning for this curse. Every deal I've made with a purpose, with getting me closer... and now that I'm here... I can not leave Storbyrooke, not without forgetting who I am and forgetting who I'm looking for. It's always been one thing after the other, a vicious cycle that's determined to keep me away from finding my girl..."

Hyde seemed to be silent for a bit after hearing the answer in regards to the mother. She listened to him talk about Bae and that everything he did was for her. She then asked quietly, her maniacal grin gone, 

"When you find her...what do you intend to do? And what makes you think you'll be able to recognize her when you do find her?"

This seemed to perplex the Pawnbroker far beyond what he had been showing before. Finishing off his third drink entirely, he staggered himself over to one of the chairs before the fireplace and sat down, needing the grounding to keep his head from spinning so much.

"All I want... is to deliver a message..." He said resting his head in the palm of his hand, elbow in turn resting on his knee. "I don't know what to expect when I do find her, I don't know if she'll still be the little girl I used to sing lullabies to at night, or if she's a grown woman with a family of her own... or even if she's an elderly woman somewhere in her 80's with the memory of a goldfish. I don't know how I'll know it's her, but something tells me that I just will..."

Hyde's eyes seem to narrow slightly in skepticism at his first answer. She listened to him answer her second question in detail, while walking slowly and silently to stand behind the chair he was sitting in, and didn't comment on his statement. She asked him intently, 

"What is the message that you want to deliver to Baelfire? What is it that you wanted to tell her?"

"That..." He paused to clear his throat, hearing his voice beginning to crack from the first word. "That her Papa loves her, and that he's spent entire lifetimes looking for her... never stopping..." He managed to get out with a great effort on his part to keep himself from breaking down entirely. "If she's to be a grown woman in this land, her memories of me have probably all but faded away, given only speculation as to why she grew up without a father and hated me for it... but if she only allowed me the one thing to say to her, that would be it."

Hyde remained silent at the answer, her facial expression was now unreadable as she looked at Mr. Gold while he spoke. It was as though she was trying to see into his soul for something specific. The pawnbroker, however, kept averting his eyes and only stared into the ornate fireplace, lost in his own thoughts for a very long, quiet while. The song had played through the silence on repeat two more times before he seemed to rouse himself from his current state of mind and used his cane to help him back out of the chair.

Reaching into his suit jacket pocket, Mr. Gold fished out a small necklace by the chain and tossed it over to Hyde, counting on the woman's supernatural reflexes to catch it without bringing harm to the piece.

"It's all I can manage for now... had we been in The Enchanted Forest and I had use of my personal stock of ingredients I'd have something stronger." He started, going back to the bar service, having to squint his eyes a bit to locate his empty glass that he was sure he had left there just a few moments ago.

Hyde easily caught the necklace and she looked at the charm on said necklace as he spoke, which was just a simple crescent moon. She pocketed the necklace and asked, some of the words in her question sounding like a purr or sneer,

"Hmm? Cute necklace, but what's this for?" When he tried to find his empty glass, she picked it up, and she stated "I think you've had enough to drink for tonight. Wouldn't want you to die from alcohol poisoning, now wouldn't we?"

Frowning as he found his glass in the possession of Hyde, Mr. Gold flicked his wrist in a lazy fashion and the glass disappeared fromy Hyde's hand and into his own before turning his back to her and refilling it for a fourth time.

"If my body succumbed to such a pitiful ailment, well... I would be a very poor Dark One, now wouldn't I?" He responded, taking a quick drink before turning to face Hyde once more in order to answer her previous question.

"The rules might not apply to you, as you have an interesting immunity to most things magic..." He started, swirling the contents of his glass. The ice had all but melted, only a pinch of tiny shards remained but he didn't move to put in more ice, content with just drinking it straight and warm now. "So long as you fall asleep in Jekyll's body and wear it, she will be able to control her nightmare and the fires will no longer be a problem."

Hyde didn't react at all when he had used magic to take his glass from her. She nodded once to concede to his statement about his Dark One comment. She listened to his explanation about the necklace, she raised an eyebrow and she commented,

"....And I suppose you would like something in return?"

Finishing off his fourth glass, Mr. Gold set the tumbler back down on the table, raising his hand up a bit and shaking his head no. The light of the flickering flames managed to illuminate a moment on his face, professing on the outside what he had been feeling on the inside for so long. He looked worn, tired; the creases on his skin a bit darker, showing his older age, the mask of the Storybrooke Pawnbroker Terror gone and replaced with nothing more than an old, broken man.

"No, this one's on me." He replied and put his hand back down to rest on his other hand holding onto the head of his cane. "Just see that Doctor Jekyll gets the message." He added with a nod, apparently in having no wish to stay a moment longer.

Hyde chuckled at his answer after a moment of well-hidden surprise, and said, 

"Well, isn't that kind of you?" She then answered his comment, and said "There's no need. She's awake. You already gave her that message," She didn't say or do anything when he made the move that he wanted to leave.

He nodded in understanding, trying to force a smile out of common courtesy but it just wasn't in his heart. 

"Well then, *dearies*..." He addressed them both, now aware that Heather Jekyll was aware of their conversation. "have a pleasant evening." He gripped onto his cane and started walking back towards the entry hall, staggering a bit in his step that had nothing to do with his bad leg.

Hyde simply nodded in response, and with an eerie smile,

"Take care on your way back."
 
Mr. Gold scoffed at Hyde's words as he opened up the front door and let himself out, tripping over the threshold a bit as he shut it behind him, the words of the song he had been forced to listen through at least a half-dozen or so times now on a repeat in his mind, unable to shake the lyrics even if he wanted to.

*But if I know you,*

*I know what you'll do,*

*You'll love me at once....*

*The way you did once... upon a dream...*

Gods he needed Belle...

After Gold had left, Hyde rolled her eyes and she commented to no one in particular with an eerie calm, 

"This...This doesn't change a single thing." before she switched back to Jekyll. Jekyll immediately muttered, 

"Why would he...? Why would Gold...?" She then snapped out of her reverie when she noticed that the song was still playing. She went over to the IPod dock and paused the song.
She grimaced, "My dark side likes Disney favorites...No wonder I was bullied in primary school!" She then looked at the necklace in her hand and she muttered "If Gold lied about this...I swear...!" But he hadn't been lying, Hyde would have been able to pick up on that...She then placed the necklace around her neck and got ready for bed, wearing the necklace Gold had given her.