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You must return home by the last stroke of midnight because the magic will be gone - and everything will return to what it was.

Cinderella has never run so fast and so far in her life. She knows she has to get out of the palace before Kit (the prince, she corrects herself) finds out that all of this is a farce. She's even less than a simple country girl, she's a servant, and her dress is rags and her servants are animals. Her coach is a pumpkin. There's no way he can see all of that, he'd never understand.

Her mother had told her that there were some who would never understand the magic in the world around them and Cinderella has found that to be true. Her stepmother and stepsisters, for example, would never consider Gus and her other mice friends to be just as individual and precious as they are. Cinderella is certain they see them as vermin; though, really, they have more warmth and kindness in their tiny bodies than her stepfamily has all together.

Still, she cannot fault them. It is their nature and they are not likely to change. All she can do is show them kindness and love and hope that they can recognize it for what it is; they are, after all, everything she has left in the world. Them, and the house, and she promised to love the house for her mother and father. She'll always keep that promise.

Her heart is in her throat as it seems like the prince and his men are going to catch up to her and one of her glass slippers slides off her feet, tumbling down the palace steps. She does not dare go back for it - if she halts even for a moment, she won't have enough time to get home before all of the magic fades away. She doesn't know if it's instant or if it takes a little while and Cinderella is not entirely sure she wants to find out until she's clear and away and can cherish the memory on her own all alone. This is not something she wants to share with family. This is something she wants just for herself, one of the few things she's ever wanted to keep secret and safe.

She makes her way down to the end of the road where her carriage is and tugs open the door, sliding inside just as her footmen start growing tails and turning a peculiar shade of green. It's best if they begin this madcap run now before the carriage loses its wheels.

Except...the coach is gone. Gone are the luxurious seats and they haven't been replaced by pumpkin pulp, as she'd expect. Instead, she's settled on a fairly plump couch upholstered in velvet and surrounded by people coming and going. Their manner of dress is strange and as her beautiful blue confection of a gown melts away into soft and tattered pink, Cinderella isn't sure why this place hasn't faded away too. Why is she not back in her attic, surrounded by mice? Where is the screeching of her stepmother and stepsisters? The ringing of the bells?

She hears only one bell, too high and too tinny to be the servant's bell and Cinderella lifts her head to see that there's a wide desk and someone standing behind it. Perhaps he has answers. She makes her way toward him but stumbles, still only wearing the one shoe, and finds herself sprawled on the carpeted floor.

There's a pair of shoes in front of her and it's the shoes she addresses, rather than the person's face.

"Could I trouble you to help me up? I seem to have lost a shoe and it's made me clumsy."

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"Yes, like that," Charming agrees warmly, because he understands that some words might not make that much sense, but he's more than happy to explain however will help her to understand. "And yes, I imagine they would if they knew I was missing. Time works very strangely here," Charming explains. "It stops. So when I return, they don't even know that I've been missing, which just means I miss them all the more."

"Time doesn't pass? So...if I were here, my stepmother wouldn't notice I've gone?"

That is a pleasing prospect, especially considering Cinderella doesn't think she's had a full night's sleep since her father died.

"No, I don't imagine she would, unless she managed to figure out how to get here, too," he says, a touch cautious because he knows the topic of stepmothers can be a dicey one, given Snow's experience with Regina. "Is she hurting you somehow?" he asks warily.

Cinderella has never been asked this directly before and she does not know how to respond. Part of her wants to say yes, she is, but she does not wish for her stepmother or stepsisters to be turned out. Where would they go, exactly? Things are better as they are.

Then again, this place is far away from them. Perhaps it is safe to confide a very small bit.

"Things have not been good since my father died."

"I know how that feels," Charming says gently, though in his case, it's just him and his actual mother. Sometimes, losing someone you care so much about changes life in ways that affect you in surprising ways. "I'm sorry," he offers his deepest sympathies. "Here, maybe we should walk. I can show you some of the places to eat and sleep that are here?"

"That would be wonderful," Cinderella says, trying to lighten her voice and cheer up a bit. Her mother had always told her to be courageous and while it has been a struggle recently, it seems a little easier to do it in the face of kindness and concern rather than scorn.

"You have been most kind to me. I only hope I will have a chance to return the favor."

Charming gives a nod of his head, gesturing onwards. "Here we are," he says. "I'm David," he introduces himself. "Or Prince Charming, but I feel like when I introduce myself using that name, people tend to think I'm more egotistical than I really am, when really it's just my wife's favourite name for me."

"I'm Cinderella," she says, nodding her head in deference to him. "Are you truly a prince, David?"

If he is, he seems kind and genuine and unaffected by his lofty position and that is something that Cinderella admires.

"By circumstance, yes," he admits, a humble smile on his face given that he's hardly much of a prince these days, even if he still wants to lead Storybrooke as if he is. "It's a long, complicate story," he admits, not sure he wants to spend his time boring her with it.

"Oh, well, I've always loved long stories. You'll have to indulge me after I've settled in," Cinderella decides. She thinks it might be romantic, to become a prince through circumstance and not birth. It could be an exciting tale.

"We'll make a date of it," Charming promises, in that amicable way that has no romance attached to it. He gives her a nod of his head, thinking of the last person he'd known with her name and bearing. "I hope you don't think I'm being rude," he says, "but I think I've met someone like you before. Not exactly, just like you in some ways."

"Oh, really? Tell me, what was she like?" Cinderella is always impressed whenever someone gives her a compliment and being compared to someone he's met before seems like a compliment; it's been a long time since she's been on the receiving end of one of those.

"Kind and gentle, a good-hearted woman," Charming says, thinking of Ashley and Cinderella, knowing that the both of them are the same woman the same as he's David and David Nolan, but at least for Ashley, Regina's curse had only trapped her on the cusp of a child. "You seem just as virtuous," he praises her.

Cinderella blushes softly. "Oh, well, I have never been so honored by a compliment. You flatter too much. In truth, it has been a long, long while since I have had a kind word and I feel a little dizzy from someone thinking of me as someone of worth, much less as a virtuous woman."

"How is it that you haven't heard kind words in such a long time?" Charming asks cautiously, given that he knows that such things need to be tread on carefully, never sure what someone's history might hold. "You seem plenty virtuous and kind to me."

"I'm not always...appreciated," Cinderella says delicately. She doesn't want to be rude and she certainly doesn't want to burden Charming with her problems.

"I think people forget that everyone has feelings and dreams and emotions. Some of us just seem invisible."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he says sincerely. "No one should ever be put in a position like that, especially not when everyone ought to get an equal chance at living those dreams," he goes on. "I know my life wouldn't be the same if I hadn't been given that chance."

"Well, you've been kind and this is a new place," Cinderella says, determined to be cheerful about this. "So there is a chance for a new beginning, is there not?"

"I know all too much about being in strange places and not feeling like anyone's there to help you," he admits, trying not to think about being David Nolan and bringing those issues on himself by his spineless indecision. "I do hope you find some happiness here," he offers. "It seems like a good place for it."