Who: Rumpelstiltskin, Clint Barton, others later (poke me and ask first?)
Where: Rumpelstiltskin's cabin to start, then the hallway beyond (2nd floor)
When: Midday
Warnings: Potential violence, but doubtful. Will update if necessary.

His last thought had been she must know this won't end well for her. Giving Henry what he wanted. Letting them through.

Why, then, was he just now waking in his bedroom? 

It took him a moment to ask that question, because it wasn't like waking, none of the familiar grogginess, the oddly pleasurable ache of muscles coming awake as one tried to shake themselves from their dreams. He was just there, sitting up in bed, the covers crumbling from his chest onto his lap. Gone from the well in an instant to this split-second of happening. If he were not so very awake, he might have thought, perhaps, that he had just dreamt about their encounter at the fountain, but immediately he knew he could not recall what happened next.

A dream, itself? No.

No, certainly not.

He threw the covers off himself, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to rise, and his hand immediately reached for where he usually placed his cane before bed.

It was not there.

That wrinkle of disharmony allowed him to focus a little more closely on his hand as it crossed into his vision, the odd glimmer of light that danced across his skin, now dark like swamp water. The sight of it and the knowledge that he recognized it drew a choked gasp up his throat. The mirror on the other side of the room stood covered, and he rose, at first bracing for familiar and uncomfortable pain and weakness in his ankle, but now unsurprisingly he found none there and strode to pull the drape away (a precaution taken after Regina started to show signs of progress in re-learning her magic).

The span of nearly three decades might as well have been a week to him, when one compared that to how long he had truly lived, but it suddenly felt much, much longer than any other time he had known, all because he face he saw looking back at him in the mirror was one he hadn't seen in all that time. The visage of Mr. Gold -- his old face, albeit a better-groomed version -- was gone. Perhaps he expected this to return to him someday, when the power that trapped the citizens of Storybrooke where they were would be broken completely, when the dagger could once again kill him, or perhaps if he ever returned to the Enchanted Forest (with Bae).

Some proper warning might have been considerate, but he could live with surprises, to a degree. Either way, he knew he could benefit from a quick jaunt through the town, to perhaps ascertain the reason for this change. Perhaps it had affected others.

...But this would trouble Belle, he realized. He could cover it. Tell her when she was ready, could be eased into it. It was never really his way back in the Enchanted Forest to disguise himself, to make his appearance more human for the comfort of others, though this had been something Zoso had done in order to earn his trust in the first place. Perhaps he saw some dishonesty in it, or he knew he was good enough to get what he wanted without it. Today was not like those times, however.

The shimmering skin, the muddy eyes -- all remained. He did not command it away, but perhaps part of him expected that he had. Some spells before had been little work but simple will, and he certainly willed it away, but there he stood. The Dark One. And he could not remember the spell that would disguise him. In all the years he had been in this town, he had never forgotten a spell, though he lacked the ability to use them.

Tea. A cup of tea would calm him. He'd collect himself, see if it came to him or if he could at least decide what to do.

...These would have been precisely the things he would have done, if the hallway he stepped into were anything resembling the one in his house. A long corridor, with many doors on each side, of which his was only one. Staggering some, he looked back, seeing, still, his bedroom, in his house, but the place outside was something much different, and given the distance from one door to the other, his room should not have fit there at all, unless the others were false.

But he knew magic when he saw it.

"What is this?" he uttered, low and controlled.

Someone passed him, and he was quick to address that question toward them with a short, "You."