Gold gritted his teeth as Juliette lurched in the air. The cheeky tones of the cabin address going bing-bong punctuated the groans of half a ton of trembling metal.

Half a second later, the voice of his regrettable first officer filled the sixteen-passenger jet.

"Apologies for the turbulence, folks, but you know how it is — the Captain and I were just fixing ourselves scones with jam and cucumber sandwiches on our ten-piece tea service. Distractions will happen. Luckily, it's my turn to pour — the Captain sloshed everywhere on take-off, I'm sure you felt the china chip — but I've got the kettle and saucers well in hand. Of course, that doesn't leave much room to actually fly the plane, but…"

"Jefferson!" the Captain groaned in the background, and the speakers switched off. They hit turbulence again.

Flight – flying in a giant metal tube thousands of feet above the ground, specifically – was an abomination of nature and science, as far as Gold was concerned. That he owned and operated a charter plane, in addition to his other enterprises, must have been a cruel trick of fate.

If men were meant to fly, they'd have wings; if metal was meant to fly, it bloody-well wouldn't form in the center of the Earth. Miss French, his clever stewardess, had attempted to explain once that the combined forces of lift, weight, thrust, and drag conspired together with Bernoulli's Principle – the increased speed caused by air flowing over the curved, upper-half of the wing – to propel the aircraft quite reliably, so long as they maintained the correct take-off and landing weights and a reasonably maintained fuel tank.

Of course, that bloody well didn't explain how planes managed to fly upside down or perform the acrobatic loops he associated with sport pilots, like that bastard Jones. So far as he was concerned, the highly scientific explanation "we don't actually know" wasn't comforting.

Juliette hit turbulence again and Gold clung to his seat. There was no logical explanation for flight, just as there was no logical explanation for why he so regularly endured it. It all came down to spite – humanity's need to spite the natural order by building wings, and his own deeply personal need to spite Milah. He'd be damned if the JLY-RGR sat in a hangar when he could be flaunting it in front of his ex-wife and her damn fly-boy on the tarmac.

The plane lurched, Gold paled, and he prayed for a stiff Scotch to soothe his troubles.

…

"Oh my," Belle cooed, buckling into a seat across the aisle from Mr. Gold. She passed him half of a whiskey — the other half had sloshed over her fingers and onto the floor — with an apologetic grin. "The pilots do get carried away with the cabin address on cargo flights, don't they?"

Gold mumbled his assent and downed his drink in a single gulp.

"Don't worry," she prattled on. "Juliette's a tough old bird."

Far from being comforted, Gold looked as though he meant to be ill on his shoes. She'd never understood why a business owner and prolific landlord who also ran a lucrative legal practice chose to spend his days running a charter airline that hemorrhaged money. Or, more accurately, why he tended to fly with them, when he wasn't busy, even on flights like this one, where they shuttled crates of old museum pieces back and forth.

Technically speaking, the pilots were more than capable… well, they were adequately capable, of managing these flights all by themselves. Honestly, they didn't even need her except to bring the coffee they were too lazy to get up and make themselves, though she was certainly grateful for the work.

When Juliette evened out, Belle set to work tidying the cabin and wiping down the galley. Whatever the reason, she didn't mind flying when it was just the pilots and Mr. Gold; it made for less work all-around, and it was always entertaining. Still, a keen observer would note that — far from the international globe-trotting she'd aspired to when she applied for this job — she was essentially employed with a glorified delivery service.

Not to say that they didn't get abroad. Who could forget the time they flew a documentary crew to the Congo to film mountain gorillas? She saw a whole swath of Africa, from the air, and even got to leave the airport for an hour or so. Or the time that funny man who insisted on night-flights to Hong Kong, so they'd done seven different legs of a trip so that the plane was never flying when the sun came up. She spent a whole three hours in London, that trip.

Well, it wasn't as though Storybrooke had an international airport, or a very cosmopolitan client-base, for that matter. M3P, Gold's airline — air dot, he called it, since you couldn't put one jet in a line — shared the Storybrooke hangar with two or three private planes, a sea plane, five sport planes, and an emergency services helicopter. So, on the whole, she got to travel a bit and still got to come home and take care of her father, which just wouldn't have been an option flying out of places like JFK or Newark.

Now if only she could get Mr. Gold to calm down and the pilots to take things a little more seriously.

"All I'm saying," she heard Jefferson preening from the cockpit, "is that a riddle game is a better way to spend the flight than playing the Flight Manual Quiz Game. It's not my fault you lack imagination, David, really."

"Why is a raven like a writing desk is is not a real riddle, Jefferson," David groaned. "It's just more of your typical nonsense. Besides, we have to review the Flight Manual – it's a Federal regulation."

Jefferson gasped, offended, and Belle stifled a giggle. Well, maybe they didn't have to take things too seriously. After all, their combined antics certainly livened-up the place. David was just such a Boy Scout — so easy to wind up — and Jefferson… Well, there was a reason Jefferson had been fired from every major airline with terminals in Maine. He tended to the eccentric, and he liked to push people's buttons.

The plane hit some mild turbulence again, and the Captain announced that they were nearing their descent.

Belle could see Gold white-knuckled in his seat – he hated landings almost as much as he hated take-offs, which was saying something - and she grabbed a packet of biscuits from the cupboard. The poor man — he always needed a distraction — and she'd been clever enough to stock up on his favorites the last time they stopped-over in Scotland.

"Jammy Dodger?" she offered, pulling one out of the sleeve for herself.

Gold grimaced and ignored her. Funny, usually a biscuit did the trick. Belle wrapped two of them in a napkin, bent down, and tucked them inside his suit pocket – not concerned in the least if she got crumbs on his pocket square. Mr. Gold just stared at her, dumbfounded, like she'd sprouted an extra head. She turned to move up the cabin when his voice snapped at her.

"Will you please sit down before you bloody-well break something?"

Yep, that was Mr. Gold — terrified to fly, too proud to drive, and laboring to maintain the illusion that a flimsy bit of nylon across his lap might prevent anything bad from happening.

She took her seat next to him after securing the galley, and they landed after twenty minutes of awkward silence. David really needed to get a better grasp of the "beginning our descent" time-line.

…

"Explain to me again," snarled Gold, staring down his nose at his cut-rate pilots. "How we ended up in Crabapple Cove instead of Storybrooke?"

"Well, you see Mr. Gold," Jefferson began, exuding that easy confidence that clung to him like a second skin. Gold envied him that, sometimes.

"Not you," he snapped. "I want to hear it from the Captain." He rounded on David Nolan like a flash.

"There was a holding queue at Storybrooke, and we were low on fuel, so I diverted, per standard air safety protocol," Nolan informed him, jaw quivering a little.

"And you didn't think to announce that change to the cabin? You bloody well announce everything else."

"No, because you would have tried to talk me out of it," David responded, as though it were the most simple, obvious answer in the wrold.

"Damn straight I would!" growled Gold. "Do you know how much it costs to land at Crabapple Cove? How much I'll pay in landing fees, take-off fees — God forbid that we'll need a hangar overnight — and never-mind the cargo being late!" Spittle flew from his lips, but Gold had no intention of stopping.

"I can't compromise air safety for econo—"

"You bloody well will if you want to keep working! I—"

A soft, small hand patted his shoulder.

"Air traffic control says we can take off in thirty minutes, once they're done refueling, as long as the Captain files the flight plan soon," Belle informed him, and the good bit of shouting he'd intended to do got stuck in his throat.

"Fine. Thank you… Miss French."

She smiled like he'd offered her a diamond, and excused herself back to the cabin. If his cheeks were flushed, he damn sure wasn't going to acknowledge it in front of the likes of Jefferson and Nolan – both of whom were shooting furtive looks at him.

"I'll make you a deal, dearies," Gold hissed, taking back the upper hand in a few quick syllables. "You're flying to Atlanta in two days, bringing me a shipment of ante-belleum antiquities for my shop. You get back to Storybrooke on time, on budget, with no unnecessary scratches or nicks, and I'll pay you each an extra hundred dollars.

"But," he emphasized this with all the venom of a cobra about to strike, "if you botch it up, like you bungle everything, then you owe me a favor each. Deal?"

"No! We —"

"Deal!" Jefferson blurted, cutting David off. Gold sneered: you could always count on Jefferson to keep things interesting, at the very least.

"No! Why would you agree to that, Jefferson? You know I never—"

But whatever David's objections, Gold didn't care in the least. He turned and walked away, arm tingling a bit where Belle – Miss French – had touched his sleeve.

…

"You should have let me jump us to the front of the landing queue," Jefferson groused at David when they were safely on the ground, back in Storybrooke.

"Striking a match and telling the Tower you smell smoke in the cockpit is not standard flight-deck procedure," the Captain replied, utterly without humor.

Jefferson groaned. Sometimes he thought David knew less about flying than a penguin, but the two stripes on his sleeve to Nolan's three meant that David was in charge, and the blonde Boy Scout knew it too. Damn Gold three times over for that nasty piece of work; David Nolan couldn't even give his wife a Valentine's card without causing a small-town scandal and a scene with his mistress on Main Street. Whoever thought he ought to be in command of an aircraft needed their head examined.

But that was Gold all over, wasn't it? He'd rather an uncertain, easily intimidated Captain like David – a safe pilot, Gold called him – than a charismatic, sky-wise, actually good pilot like Jefferson. And, keeping Jefferson on as First Officer, he ensured that he had a safe pilot in charge of a good pilot at all times. Not that it did anything to improve the old skinflint's moods.

"I'm the Captain, Jefferson," David unnecessarily reminded him. "I'm in command, so if I say we divert, then—"

"Divert we shall?" Jefferson finished for him. It was a speech he'd heard more times than he could count from the younger, less experienced up-start.

Though they were the same age, Jefferson took to the sky like a lark, whereas David was more of a duck. Or an ostrich. Jefferson had been piloting planes with the Civil Air Patrol since before he could even drive a car, qualified for his license at 18, and made a good living in his younger days, before he'd been caught smuggling Cuban cigars; David only barely qualified at age 33, after a failed career as a veterinary assistant and a Sheriff's deputy. If Nolan made him call him "Sir" or "Skipper" one more time…

"Yes, actually," David nodded, and it took all of the First Officer's considerable self-control not to roll his eyes. "So that time we diverted because your watch alarm went off, that was an entirely reasonable use of your Captainly authority? Or the time—"

"It was a new watch, with a very odd alarm," the Captain hedged.

"Right, well, since you're the Captain I'll leave the flight plan and cargo supervision to you when we go to Atlanta, shall I? I'm sure Gold won't want anything unreasonable for a favor, like an un-paid flight to Montreal over the Easter holidays." They both winced at that memory, and left the air field for the day.

…

David checked his altimeters three times in two minutes, but they got off the ground in Atlanta without so much as a rumble. Mr. Gold wasn't flying with them today — he always missed the flights where David managed to get it right, didn't he? — and Belle brought them their coffees right on schedule.

"Do you know," David mentioned to Jefferson, "We'll actually arrive early if these tailwinds keep up."

"That'll cook Gold's goose," the co-pilot grinned. Though he was being spectacularly unhelpful, it did help to have company. Flights could get terribly boring when it was just one person, alone in the cockpit.

They didn't have much in common — Jefferson always thought he knew best, always had a smart answer on par with one of Gold's infamous quips — but they'd agreed , at last, that taking $100 of the old miser's money was grounds enough for a truce. Or at least for Jefferson not to sabotage him too much.

And, indeed, it couldn't have gone better. The antiques they needed to transport were in the hangar, as scheduled; the movers loaded them into the hold without dropping anything — and he even remembered to turn off the hold heating to keep it from getting humid. Gold wouldn't have anything to criticize about that, as long as the cargo straps held tight.

"Gold's Goose… Oh, that's a fun game!" cheered Jefferson.

"What is?" David asked, getting comfortable in his seat.

"Alliterative euphemisms. Gold's Goose. Belle's Buttons."

"Hey!" Belle objected, swatting him upside the head. After a beat, she added, "Jefferson's Juice."

"We'll accept that!" the co-pilot hooted. "Well?"

"Well what?" asked David.

"It's your turn, come on!"

"Oh, uh…." David hated their word games. He was bad at them, frankly, and beyond that, Jefferson, Belle, and Gold all had silver tongues. "Gold's… Grouse?" he tried.

"Boo!" hissed Jefferson. "Try again."

David was spared having to 'try again' when the satellite phone rang.

"M3P Air, Captain Nolan speaking," he answered in his most professional tone. "Yes, this is Juliet-Lima-Yankee. Yes, the swish one. Yes... No. Oh, no. Um… I'll confer with my first officer and call you back."

"What was that?" Belle asked, leaning over his shoulder to look out the fuselage.

"That was the Tower at Atlanta. Apparently their, uh, very pregnant hangar cat has gone missing. And, uh, the last place they saw her was napping in one of Gold's old wardrobes. They wanted to make sure we, uh, knew about it."

"Oh no," Jefferson sighed. "David, no. I know that look. We're not diverting. For a hypothetical cat? No."

"But Jefferson!" Belle championed. "It's just a mum looking for a place to have her kittens. We could divert quickly and—"

"No," Jefferson insisted. "I'm not owing Gold another favor over this. Besides, the cat will be fine. Gold always sets his hold to the ambient temperature on the ground when we're hauling antiques, and it was a balmy 70 degrees in Atlanta today."

Oh, no. No, no, no, no…

"That's, uh, not exactly right," David admitted. "I turned it down."

"You turned it down?"

"Off, actually. I thought it would get humid! It's, uh, bad for the wood, right?"

"Oh no," Jefferson groaned. David thought that summed things up perfectly.

"Well we've got to divert, then," Belle concluded primly.

"For a cat?" David countered, second-guessing himself at every turn. "That's what you want me to tell Gold? That we diverted for a pregnant cat which may or may not be in our hold."

"It's Schrodinger's Litter," Jefferson snarked.

"What do you think, Jefferson?" David finally asked, hands fidgeting with the controls. Gold would kill him – actually kill him - if he touched down for anything less than a missing wing or a burnt-out engine.

"That's your decision, Skipper," Jefferson replied, unhelpful as ever.

"I hardly think Mr. Gold would be upset that you stopped to save a life — many lives!" Belle tried again.

He wouldn't be mad at Belle, David thought privately. Belle could do no wrong in Gold's eyes, though she seemed oblivious to this fact.

"Uh… Jefferson… how long does it take a cat in the hold to freeze to death? We're only 3 hours from home now, so…"

"Less than three hours," Jefferson told him, not waiting for him to finish.

"But it's not like they'd be able to tell how it died, right?" He needed to stay calm. David could think his way out of this. He could. He just needed to focus on the problem and not panic.

The co-pilot grinned, but kept his mouth shut. Jefferson never had this problem - the First Officer always had a plan - but David wouldn't put it past him to concoct a plan that caused a mother cat and her kittens to freeze to death.

"It will definitely die if you don't divert," Belle told him, and that was all it took to decide. He liked animals – who didn't? – and it wasn't fair to risk killing one due to his own negligence.

David picked up his radio and called down to Air Traffic Control at the nearest landing strip.

"Juliette-Lima-Yankee here, we uh… we need to make an unscheduled landing."

"Have you got an emergency?" the voice on the other side asked.

"Well, uh…" The words simply weren't forming.

Then, like a guiding devil perched on his shoulder, Jefferson struck a single match on the console.

"I think I smell smoke in the flight deck, Captain. Do you smell smoke in the flight deck?"

David sighed with an air of finality. "Yes, Jefferson, I do."