An Unashamed Rumbeller

His heart leapt.

He caught a glance at the figure of a body and a flash of something red bearing down on him before turning himself away and shrinking down to take cover.

"Don't hurt me, don't hurt me please!" he begged of Merida. This really had been a fool's errand, trying to run to a familiar place. How stupid could he have been! "Please…" He held his hands up and waited for a blow, a smack to the head, restraints on his wrists…an arrow in the back. He waited, growing more and more anxious with every second until-

"Oh! Hey, hey, it's okay! It's-it's just me!"

Her voice. The same voice he'd heard over and over again while he'd been in his coma. The same voice he'd been dreaming about. The voice he'd longed to hear since he woke up from his slumber.

Belle. Not Emma or Merida or the strange woman who worked in the library when Belle was busy. Belle. He felt himself relax as he risked a glance at her, terrified that it might be a trick, that Emma might be using her voice or even her likeness to trick him, to torture him.

But in her eyes, he saw only the Belle that he knew, the Belle that he loved. Emma couldn't fake that. Any Dark One would be incapable of recreating that look.

But he could only imagine what she saw when she looked at him, trembling and half in tears, curled up cowardly in the elevator like a child. He felt foolish. He felt weak. He could never be a hero the way Emma imagined.

"It's okay…"

"Belle…"

"I-it's just me…"

She treated him like a child. Or maybe like a frightened animal she feared might hurt itself in an effort to escape her. He didn't think he could ever remember a time when he'd been embarrassed in front of her like this, and yet he couldn't turn it off. He couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't stop trembling and blubbering no matter how much he wanted to. He made an attempt to stand, hoping that uncurling himself might help, but when pain flared through his leg, he remembered he wasn't even capable of standing up straight on his own at the moment. He was pathetic.

"Is it really you?" he questioned, holding onto the side of the elevator for dear life. If it was a trick, the elevator was safe. If it was a trick, he could just let himself fall back into it and hit the lever to take him down.

If it was a trick and Emma was nearby, not even that would be enough to run from her. How long would she be too busy to see to his capture? How long until she grew tired of waiting for Merida and just did it herself?

Belle replied with a certain "Yeah." And whether because he actually believed it or because he was just too tired not to, he allowed himself to accept that as truth enough. If it was a trick, it was a good one. Though she somehow looked gaunt, like she hadn't been eating well enough, the look in her eyes matched his Belle's perfectly. And if it was a trick and he was just too tired to realize it…well, at least he'd get a few minutes of fantasy before Emma gave up.

"She's after me."

He tried to step out of the elevator into the library lobby, but being around her made him forget again that he was incapable, and he nearly hit the floor on all fours.

"W-wait!" she cried before he caught himself on the back of a chair within reach. "It's okay. You're safe now! It's okay. It's okay!" She'd been reaching for a different chair before he'd grabbed his own. Now she grabbed it and sat down opposite him, perfectly at eye level, but her eyes didn't meet his; they swept over him, inspecting, as if she were looking for injury or illness. It was only when she looked up to finally meet his gaze that he felt something inside of him snap.

He felt tears pool in his eyes all over again as gratitude overwhelmed him. All that time hearing her voice, all that time holding onto the image of what she looked like and what it felt like to have her with him, and now here she was. But with Emma and Merida potentially just at his heels and no magic within arm's reach to protect himself, to protect them…he couldn't allow her to be here much longer. It was a liability. He was her liability. But before it ended, before he had to leave or was swept away by Dark Magic…

"Oh Belle…thank you!" he managed to breathe out.

"What?" she questioned, reminding him that she had no context for what was happening, no idea what was going on in his mind.

"No, I…I meant when I was in the coma. All I wanted to do was let go. After all I'd done, why did I deserve to live? And then I heard something…your voice. After all the things I'd done to you…you still stood by me! Belle, if it wasn't for you…I wouldn't even be alive!"

And now here he was. And there she was. And before he could stop himself, he reached out for her hands, to touch her skin, anything he could hold on to for real besides the echo of a voice in his head.

"Thank you!"

His words came out as sobs. His life right now might not be one he saw the value in fighting for. But at least he wasn't dead. At least he had the chance to apologize the way he should have. At least Nimue hadn't taken over and had her killed. It was something. He'd take something over nothing.

"Come on!" Belle pulled her hands abruptly out of his own and moved to stand. "It uh…it won't take Emma long to figure out where you've gone." She looked around frantically now, as if she expected she might see Emma standing in the stacks of her library. But if she hadn't come after him now, after however many hours he'd been away, he was confident that she wouldn't be here.

"If she wanted to find me, she should have already."

Merida was the one to worry about. Merida was the one who would…

Hunt him down.

Suddenly a horrible thought that hadn't entered his mind before this moment dawned on him. All this time he'd assumed that Emma would send Merida to fetch him because she was busy. But busy with what? Fetching him back for the girl, to train him up into the hero she desired, wasn't something that took time, not for a Dark One, not when he had no magic to defend himself. The time it would take to summon him back to that campsite would be only a snap of the fingers! Which could only mean she didn't want him back. She wanted him running. She wanted Merida to hunt him. Which meant…

"She wanted me to escape…"

"Tha-that doesn't make sense," Belle argued. "She kidnapped you!"

"Yeah, to turn me into a hero. So, I could pull Excalibur from the stone…"

"Well, how does letting you escape accomplish that?"

He didn't need Belle to prompt him with the questions his mind had already been trying to work out what was in it for Nimue if Emma let him run, let him escape. It didn't get Emma the sword that she needed. Not directly at least. But he'd known even before Merida had tried training him up in the woods that a hero was more than their worth with a sword. He knew it because many Dark Ones who had come before him had known it too. Heroism wasn't about wielding a sword; it was about acting with bravery, even when a sword wasn't present. Even when magic wasn't present.

He glanced up at Belle, standing there waiting for an answer. He had one. He had a theory. But it wasn't one he particularly wanted to have because if his theory was correct then it wasn't him that Emma and Merida would come for.

"She's coming after you…"

"Me? Why?!"

Bravery.

"To force me to protect you!" He'd screamed the words, but not because he was angry with her; he was angry with himself. He really couldn't have been more stupid! He was a Dark One, he knew how they thought, how they worked and planned. If, for half a second today, he had stopped to consider why Emma wasn't coming after him, then he might have stumbled upon this plan of hers before he'd come here, before he'd put Belle in danger, but now…he'd doomed her.

"She thinks that'll make me the hero that she needs. Belle, you're in danger." Because now, even if he left here and ran into the woods, he wouldn't be able to stay away. His concern for her would bring him right back to her. Fuck, he was an idiot as well as a coward.

"Okay. So…so what do we do?" Belle asked without so much as a quiver in her voice.

Magic. They needed magic. He needed magic to protect them, to get them away from magic. It was the only way. But that was the problem.

"The shop," he realized. "There's magic there that can help us."

"All right s-so…so we need to get to the shop and we need to get there before Emma can find us and come after us and kill us." She was on her feet in a heartbeat, glancing around the library, going to the windows. She hadn't yet put two and two together. She hadn't yet looked at how pathetic he was, how much he'd drag her down, how he was going to get her killed if they actually did that. "We'll go out the front way," she concluded, checking the road through the blinds once more, suddenly making him aware that it was still daylight. "I think it'll be faster for both of us."

"Belle…"

"All right…the coast is clear," she concluded before looking back at him. "We should go now!"

Oh, absolutely not.

"N-no, no, no, I'm sor-I-I can't. I can't go, I'm sorry."

She stopped dead in her tracks, looking down at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable and small. Weak. She always did have a way of making him feel like exactly the man he was.

"But your shop's only a hundred yards away!"

And one hundred yards away was too far for a coward with a bum leg. If Merida was waiting out there for them, if Emma was waiting, he'd get her killed before he had the chance to save her life.

"No, I'm…I'm sorry I can't."

"You made it out of the woods and through the mines…this isn't just about you getting back to your shop, is it?"

Oh, but it was. It was exactly what she thought it was and yet it wasn't.

"It's my leg," he admitted. But it was more than just the fact that he couldn't move like he used to without magic, without a crutch. It was why it was like this in the first place. And the second place! It was why he'd had magic for years before now, in the Enchanted Forest and in Storybrooke, and despite the fact that he'd had the ability to completely heal himself, he never had. There was a reason for that. It was punishment.

"It's a reminder of what I was when I fled the ogre wars, what I continued to be when I became the Dark One, and what I still am…is a coward."

"You've told me why you have that limp before!" she argued back. "Because you walked for days on a broken foot just so you could return to your son!"

"Do you know how the foot was broken in the first place? Because-"

"Because you broke it!" she finished for him, finally leaning in closer. "So that Baelfire wouldn't grow up without a father, Rumple…you may have made many mistakes in your life, but this isn't one of them."

Gods, sometimes he forgot just how much he'd told her. And just how much he hadn't. He had crafted a nice story for himself, hadn't he? A nice story that, when explained that way, almost made it look romantic and heroic rather than the truth it was.

"I have always seen the man behind the beast, all right, but now…now I see something else too. A hero. And you…you just need to learn to see him, too! Please, Rumple, I know you can do this. For me. You can do this for me," she encouraged, putting her hands back into his and squeezing.

Oh, that he could be. That he could be brave and heroic, be exactly what she wanted him to be, but he didn't know how! He never had!

But she had. She did. One of their most significant conversations in the castle, one of those that had stayed with him all these years, was the one they'd had about why she'd done what she'd done. Bravery. She'd always wanted to be brave, so she'd figured she'd do the brave thing and bravery would follow. And oh how he wanted to be brave for her now, how he wanted to be the hero that she claimed she saw when she looked at him.

He didn't know how to summon that courage within himself. But he knew what he could do.

He could do the brave thing. He could get out of this chair and hobble over to his shop as fast as he could, where resources were waiting for him that could protect them both. He could do the brave thing without being brave and simply hope that bravery would follow. She'd done it once for a kingdom she loved so very long ago. Perhaps he could do it now for the woman he loved more than anything.

For another hour he hiked. Each minute was a small celebration of just how far he'd gone and a growing fear that he wasn't getting far enough. Any minute could be the minute they recaptured him. Any minute Merida could find him. That was surely what was bound to happen. He knew that after more than two hours, Merida would have returned, and even if she hadn't gone to get Emma, she surely would have after discovering his disappearance. The Dark One could track him in a heartbeat. And for a long while he expected Emma to be waiting around every tree trunk or perched on every fallen log. But she wasn't. Which could only mean that she was too busy to fetch him herself and was leaving it to Merida. At least for now.

Nearly three hours in and he still hadn't found the town. There were no structures or views that were familiar in the least, but finally, up ahead, he saw something he did know. It was a cavern. A mining entrance. The wooden boards nailed across its entrance with warning words like "Caution!" and "Do not enter!" were almost comical. But welcome. Merida, judging from her talk and demeanor, was likely a skilled tracker. In the woods, he'd be a sitting duck. But in the mines...the mines were a maze of tunnels; footprints would be harder to track in the gravel, the dent from his cane would be easier to find, but the mine shafts were so small he could use the walls to keep himself upright, the carts too if he came upon them.

He knew it was a risk; he could just as easily get himself lost in those mines or fall down a shaft, or worse. He wasn't the Dark One anymore; injury, starvation, and hypothermia were all very real things he needed to consider. But he'd been wandering through these woods for hours now with no other sign of where he was. And the one good thing about the mines…all roads led to home.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a single porcelain shard of the teacup. It was just by chance that the largest remaining piece was the blue flower pattern, nearly intact. Before he left, he'd stuffed it into his pocket. It wasn't the teacup, or the chip, but it was at least something he might be able to give to Belle if he could find her. And these mines, the tunnels that ran under the town, all led to the same place, the cavern under the library. Belle. Home.

With all the convincing he needed done, he stuck the shard back in his pocket, pried one of the bottom-most boards away, just enough for him to crawl under and reach back through to set it upright so that from a distance the scene would look undisturbed. He chucked his walking stick away before he entered, then leaned on wall after wall, old crates, barrels, and the occasional working cart to get himself through.

He wandered for hours, keeping a mental map of where he was going before he finally started kicking stones into a pattern at crossroads so he'd know where he'd been and was going. It was hard work without the sun to guide him, but he did his best to follow the direction he thought the town was in. He was lucky enough to find a lantern and get it working for some of the darkest parts of the journey and then…

Like a miracle, the tunnel he was traversing opened up. And up. And up. He nearly cried when he finally recognized something. Snow White's old glass coffin. And the impossibly large cavern that Maleficent had guarded it in. He was home. He was under the library. Over there was the rock he'd hidden behind when he'd brought Maleficent back from the waking dead. And that meant that was the tunnel entrance that led to the shaft that would recall the elevator!

He wasted no time hobbling over to it, rejoicing in the firm, solid ground beneath his feet that made walking so much easier. And there! The control panel for the elevator. Home was only a ride away! And with Merida and Emma no longer in sight…

As the elevator came to a standstill before him, he paused before getting in as a terrible and dreadful thought jumped into his head.

What if this was a trap? What if Merida hadn't come to hunt him because she didn't need to? He was a cripple and a coward, without magic where the hell else would he go if he got away other than the shop? He wasn't the Dark One anymore, but if what he'd seen when he got back from New York was any indication, Belle kept his magical things in the shop. And if Belle, an ordinary human, could use his Dark One magic to make magic for himself, he didn't see any reason why he couldn't do it! Anything and everything he needed to hold her off would be there, and if she had his memories, she'd surely know that. Hell, even if she didn't have his memories, Nimue would certainly know that. Maybe they hadn't come to look for him because there was no use in spending the energy when they knew right where he'd end up!

They could be waiting for him, there at the top of the elevator, in the shop, in his home…and Belle…Belle…

She had nothing to do with this; Emma hadn't even mentioned her. But if Emma was waiting for him and Belle accidentally stumbled in? He had to leave her a note. A warning of some kind. It had to be at least dinner by now; he hoped that wherever she was, Will was keeping her safe. Or the Charmings. Someone! And he…

He suddenly didn't want to get into that elevator. Coming to the surface after being underground seemed like the dumbest idea he'd ever had, but what were his options? Go back? Back to what?! To potentially fall right into Merida's snare? To wander the woods? Stay here forever? Without food? Without clothes? Just die here?!

He couldn't stay here. As much as he wanted time to stop because he was safe in this moment, he no longer had that ability. But up above, the library had an apartment. Belle hadn't lived there for a while, but he knew that someone had been working in the library, helping Belle. It was possible that they were keeping things there. It surely had to be dark out by now, close to dinner time; perhaps he could hide away until the individual left, raid the upstairs kitchen, grab some provisions, a knife or two, then return and make a plan.

Merida didn't want him to be a hero; she couldn't care one way or another which way his life would have taken. No, what Merida needed was a hero. Any hero. Any person willing and capable of standing up to Emma so that she could get her heart back and free her three brothers. He'd gotten that much of a story out of her. She wasn't one to initiate conversation, but once she started, she rambled on until she'd poured out everything she knew on the topic. And as they'd fought, when he'd asked her more about why she needed this, what was driving her outside of Emma's commands, she'd told him that she didn't understand where she was or how she'd gotten here, she didn't even really know how Emma had gotten her heart. Her last memory was being in Camelot on a quest for whisps after her brothers, the princes of her kingdom, had been captured by rival clans. What she needed was for this business she was caught up in to be done so that she could get back to her kingdom, find her brothers, and take her throne so she could put a stop to the warring, and for that, the only tool she'd been given was him.

He certainly wasn't her first choice of "hero," but she'd observed that Emma was allowing him to get close to her, so whether he pulled Excalibur from the stone or got close enough to kill Emma himself, she didn't care; she just needed this to be over. And so, she worked him. Hard.

There were many different definitions of what a hero was or who they could be. For Merlin and his Authors, heroes were morally good individuals aligned with Light Magic. For him, a hero was someone who did the right thing no matter the cost, even if it meant doing some bad things along the way. Given her strategy, he assumed that, if asked, Merida would think a hero was someone brave, someone strong, capable of fighting off evil and cutting it down violently. As far as he was concerned, as far as he knew, people like that had been trying to pull Excalibur from the stone ever since Merlin had put it there. They had yet to have any luck, which, of course, meant this was all useless. But she didn't understand that. Or didn't believe it. Or wouldn't.

And so on into the night she worked him, until his feet and hands were blistered, until his legs were shaking from defending off attack after attack at her sword, until his clothes were covered in sweat and his hair was damp. His chest ached as it hadn't in a good long time, not his heart, just his muscles, from the effort of raising a sword with one arm and keeping himself upright with the other. His mid-section burned from keeping the rest of him standing up strong and solid. His thighs stung from the effort of old movements he'd thought he'd forgotten, but his body hadn't. But his ankle…that was what he thought might kill him. The pain of too much weight had him tripping more and more as the night wore on.

He had no idea what time it was. And frankly, he had no idea when it was. When he'd fallen asleep, it had been mid-July; now…he hadn't a clue. All he knew was that he'd been asleep for a considerable time, but he had yet to see a calendar, so he had no idea what month it was in Storybrooke. There was a chill in the night which wasn't unusual. Maine had mild temperatures even in the summer and often had cooler nights, but it didn't feel like summer anymore. It felt like fall was coming on. There was a dryness to the leaves as the wind rustled them, making him feel it wouldn't be long before temperatures dipped to freezing. How long were they going to be out here like this? How long would this go on?

He'd only just begun considering that question as Merida fought on when a cloud of magic had appeared that had them both pausing in their fight, both fearful of Emma. But to his shock, it wasn't Emma. The magic certainly had been Emma's, but it wasn't her that appeared. It was camping gear. A bare minimum for camping. A couple of shelters, some chairs, lanterns, matches, blankets.

Merida had wanted to go on, to ignore it and keep working, but he'd convinced her that rest was the better course, especially given that they had a camp to make up. She allowed it, but only after proclaiming, "First light, we are up and working at it again! You've come a long way, Rumpelstiltskin, but there is still much more to accomplish."

If only she knew there wasn't enough time to make him the hero she wanted him to be.

The pair of them made camp that night. Merida started a fire and left him to prepare some camping rations she didn't understand Emma had sent their way while she got the shelters up and the blankets laid out. The food was…fine, he supposed. And Merida too, as she took one taste then reminded herself, "Food is food." He was more interested in the water that Emma had left, gulping it down so greedily he knew that his body would use it rather than piss it out.

"You know," he tried to reason with her as they ate. "There is a way out of here, a place we could go together where it won't matter if Emma has your heart or not."

"More magic?" she questioned suspiciously.

"No, no, that's just it. This place is the opposite. It's a land without magic."

Merida looked at him as if he'd grown another head. He'd expected that, if he was honest. This wasn't the first time a stranger from their land had appeared in Storybrooke, and he was beginning to think it likely wouldn't be the last. But he had to start somewhere with her. Fighting with his body was not his strong suit, but words...words were his specialty.

"Look, beyond this town, beyond Storybrooke, is an entire world. In our land we call it the Land Without Magic. And if we run, if we can get across the town line, you'll be free from Emma's grasp and-"

"Become a tree."

"What? No!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get an idea like that?"

"A dwarf! Before Emma kidnapped me, everyone was going on about a dwarf who went over a town line and became a tree. There's a curse of some kind the Dark One has put on that line."

That…that wasn't possible. It was the Land Without Magic; ergo, magic shouldn't work beyond the town line!

Unless Emma had somehow figured out how to extend the border. Even if she did, he was almost certain she hadn't done it for the whole realm; that would take a massive amount of magic, and she seemed pretty intent on carrying out her plan here. She wouldn't put magic out there in the world unless she intended to use it out there.

Either way, he was certain whatever curse was there would not be one that extended the entire world, and if they stopped at his shop first, retrieved Belle, he was positive that he'd have something that could help them work around that.

"I have the solution," he tempted. This was a deal. He'd made deals all his life; he just had to do it again here, now, with her. "In my shop there is anti-transformation powder, it's very simple to take, very effective, and should ward against anything Emma has waiting over that line. If you let me go, we can both make a run for it and get over the town line. From there, we can figure out how to get you back to your brothers. We can-"

"No more talk!" Merida shouted, suddenly tossing her food into the fire. He was sickened at the way the flames grew around it so quickly. "You are a tempter and a coward, and I'll not let you make a fool out of me!"

That night Merida bound his hands and feet and took the walking stick he'd been using before retreating to her own shelter. She slept with a bow in one hand and his cane in the other. And it was tempting, so very, very tempting, to attempt an escape. But his body was feeling the effects of the work he'd put in. And Merida, with senses sharp as a tack, sleeping lightly only feet away…he wouldn't get away. Or at least not very far before she put an arrow in him. It was an inopportune time to escape. And so, against his better judgment, he huddled himself down on the cooling, hard ground and slept…until Merida woke him again at dawn, as promised, to work him some more.

"Breakfast later," she promised. "Fight first."

Sleeping on the forest floor had done very little for his aches and pains. Everything hurt, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. But with little choice, he rose when she cut his bindings away, observed that her shelter had already been torn down, and prepared to fight.

"Think I'll need this today?" she questioned as he brushed himself off, letting the teacup hang from her pinky once more. He no longer felt a panic in his belly when he saw her do it. She'd teased him with it all day yesterday, but not once had she ever dropped it. So instead, he shrugged, doing his best to appear unmoved and uncaring, before he said: "Let's just get to work."

"That's more like it!" she proclaimed, leaving the cup on the small chair by his camp.

And then they were back at it. More fighting, more swordplay, more working, more effort, more pain. There was agony in every step, every move he made, but he pushed back every bit as hard as she did. He had no choice. And while he waited for the perfect moment to come, he saw no harm in making himself a little bit stronger.

There was hardly light in the sky when they'd begun, by the time the next magical care package arrived, the birds were out and the sun was high in the sky. And Merida…Merida was so excited she was giddy.

As she moved to the campsite, she had a smile on her face. She practically pranced around him, reliving their morning sparring, highlighting her favorite moments like they were two pals out having fun rather than captives of the Dark One. Gone was the anger that she'd exhibited last night when he'd brought up the idea of making a run for it. Now, she was too wound up to care.

Emma had left them a bucket of chicken and some coffee. An odd combination but just fine for a quick bite and a bit of a pickup after a night on the ground. Judging by the sun's height in the sky, he'd say it had to be closer to noon than morning anyway.

Merida was equally as thrilled with their lunch as she was their dinner the night before. But she moved through it, once more repeating to herself "food is food" and devouring three pieces before he'd even finished one. It was only then that he realized she was quiet. Too quiet.

"I think a respite is called for," she determined, rising from her seat and picking up her bow. "And some hunting. I need some real food, not whatever you people call food in this strange kingdom."

Lies.

His prison guard was a good soldier, an immensely talented fighter, but a liar she was not. By his count, it had been about a day since Emma had forced her to bring him out here. It was time for a check-in. Whether that was something Emma was commanding or something Merida was eager to give in the hope that his work was good enough, he couldn't be sure, but he saw through the lie easily enough. Still, he let her think that he believed what she told him. He let her bind his hands and feet once more as she took his walking stick. That was the only time he challenged her.

"Won't that be cumbersome when hunting?"

"I'll leave it somewhere when I've made it far enough out. The point is to keep it from you, keep you from running, not use it m'self!"

Those words gave him hope. She thought it was truly that simple. Without a walking stick, she figured he'd be stuck. All this time he'd thought she was only taking the walking stick for good measure after binding his hands, but according to that logic, it was more like binding his hands and feet was only for good measure after taking his stick. And that was good. Because it meant that, either way, she trusted he wasn't going anywhere.

He counted to one thousand after she left. He counted to one thousand slowly and refused to let himself lie down on the blanket to relax as he did it. He couldn't risk falling asleep. Instead, he eyed several sharp-looking stones in his area, picking which ones he wanted to use first. If Merida had gone to get Emma, then he imagined he might have a decent head start before they arrived, but only if he acted quickly. This part of the Storybrooke woods was hilly but flat, with no rock formations. Whatever cavern Emma had taken up residence in would be a distance for Merida to travel. Of course, there was always the risk that she was summoning her, but why do it in private? Why not just do it at the campsite itself? No, she was going to her, wherever that was. He was willing to bet he had time, but not enough to be lazy.

The second he reached one thousand, he grabbed the first stone he'd chosen, located the sharp edge, and began to saw through the ropes at his hands. It broke only a few strokes in. He'd expected that, which was why he'd identified three other stones that would do the job, two of which he got multiple uses out of even as they snapped. One after another, they sawed and ripped through the rope's fibers, but it wasn't enough. One after another, they snapped in two, becoming unusable.

He fought the urge to growl out his frustrations and instead looked around for something else to use. Getting angry wasn't going to help him. Being smart would! The stone was sharp enough, but he needed something stronger, even sharper. He needed a knife, metal, hell, a shard of glass would work or…

His eyes landed on the teacup Merida had left resting on the edge of the camping stool. Porcelain. A unique material. While thin and delicate, it could be quite sharp and strong when broken down into smaller pieces, but to break it…

His heart twisted at the thought. Belle loved her little chipped teacup. He might not have been around her enough to know it lately, but the fact that it still existed and Merida had been so quick to find it suggested she still kept that cup close to her heart. A heart that he had already broken.

He wanted nothing more than to fix that heart. The memories he had of that night at the town line haunted him; whether he was human, a Dark One, or in a coma, the echo her heartache had left on his soul was unforgettable, a scar he'd carry with him for however long he lived. All he'd wanted since he felt her grief was to heal it. Shattering a treasured object didn't exactly seem like the way to go about doing that.

But if he didn't do it, if this was the only tool available to him and he didn't take the opportunity it presented, what would come of them then? He didn't know. His foresight was gone. And given who his captor was and what she wanted, given that she'd wanted this of him for centuries before Emma Swan was born, he didn't want to know what the future would look like if he stayed.

Emma wanted him to pull the sword from the stone and be a hero. Merida expected him to be a hero by getting her heart back for her so she could get home. Belle always wanted him to act heroically, but he…he just wanted Belle. And if he could fix things between them, now that he was no longer the Dark One, wasn't that a chance worth taking? Wouldn't shattering their beloved cup, in this case, be an act of bravery all on its own? Could it lead to a future where the two of them might sit in their home one day laughing at how scared he was to break a teacup, to trade that for all they did have?

All magic came with a cost, including magic of the heart. It was a cost he was willing to pay. Feeling suddenly determined, he shuffled over to where Merida had left the tiny cup and grabbed it. He acknowledged that it would be easiest to just take it, throw it to the ground, shatter it without a thought, and get it over with. But the second the porcelain was in his hands, he hesitated. If being out here had taught him anything, it was that muscle memory was a wonder, in so many ways. And this was one of them. After regarding the cup so tenderly for decades, it was impossible to be rough with it, impossible not to feel something when he picked it up. For years, it had been all that he'd had of her: a chipped cup and a memory that dwelt in the empty space she'd left in his heart. He looked it over now, turned it to see the chip she'd once made in it when she'd been so nervous and confused, eager to please, but never scared. Not his Belle. Shocked and put off, but never frightened of him. Though, perhaps, if her words while he'd been in the coma meant anything, she had been frightened for him. He didn't want that. He didn't want her to be scared for him, not ever. And he could only imagine that now, going missing from under her nose after however long he'd been asleep, and staying missing while Emma tormented the town, couldn't bring her much peace.

But he could. He knew he could because he always had. The man inside him had always brought her peace, and therefore he could again. He just needed to do what had to be done.

His heart raced in worry. He'd tried to put his hand to his head, to figure out how big a bump she'd left and whether or not he was bleeding, only to find his hands once more bound. Since he'd last been conscious, darkness had fallen. And where Merida had been all that time, and what she'd been doing, he was unsure, but she'd clearly taken the time to prop him against this tree and use a length of rope to tie his arms to it. They were spread out, the rope wrapped around the trunk as if it had been too short for anything else, and it left him feeling vulnerable to the girl in the blue dress now looking down at him.

It also left him feeling grateful that at least she'd left him sitting down, instead of forcing him to stand on a bad leg as Emma had.

"Well. Glad to see the bears didn't get ya," she teased with her sword clutched in her hands as she stood over him. Without warning, she sent that sword sailing through the night air, and he made a move, shrinking from it, avoiding it as much as the rope would allow-

The pull he felt on his arm vanished. He almost toppled over from the unexpected untethering, but a glance over at his hand revealed his was all in one piece; only the rope binding him had been cut through. And the girl…she stepped back and eyed him as one might a challenger, curling her wrist and twirling her sword again as if eager to drive it into him once more. Eager for a fight…

Not this again. What Emma wanted was simply not a possibility. Human beings didn't work the way she thought they could. He knew! He knew because he'd tried! He hadn't wanted to be the coward the village accused him of being, the cripple. He didn't want to be the villain in Belle's story, unable to give her what she desired. He'd tried again and again to fix those parts of him, to change, to be better. And time and time again he'd failed because it just wasn't possible. He'd tried too many times to count. So what was the point of trying now?

"Please. Please. I-I…I can't fight!" he begged as he removed the rope from his wrists.

"No. You won't fight. Big difference!" she argued. "You see, my father used to say, 'If you want a lad to fight, give him something to fight for.'"

He eyed her suspiciously as she lowered the sword before squatting down in front of him, bringing her eyes to his level. He assumed it was to impart some more of her father's "wisdom" upon him, until he felt the cold steel of the blade poke into his neck, just below his chin.

Jugular vein…one flick of her wrist and that was a death blow.

He resisted the urge he had to swallow nervously. "W-what are you doing?"

"Reminding you what you have to fight for."

From behind her back, she pulled something white and blue and small.

And delicate.

Belle's chipped cup.

The girl let it hang there between the two of them, dangling precariously from her pinky.

"Where did you get that…?" he rose to his feet as she did, determined to snatch it up from her, fearful as to how she might have gotten it. That should have been at his shop! Belle worked out of his shop; if she'd hurt her…!

"Oh, means something to you, doesn't it?" the girl taunted. "Oh! If you want it, you're gonna have to fight me for it."

He'd been reaching out for the cup, but now the girl tossed her own sword at him, and on instinct, he caught it. He caught it as she continued to let one of Belle's most precious possessions hang from her little finger, as she let it shake. She was going to break it!

It was half instinct, half plan to toss the sword aside and strike with his hands, to surprise her so she'd be unprepared.

But she was faster than he was. And he was unpracticed. She dodged quickly as he crashed to the ground hard.

"Oh! I see it's chipped, eh? Oh, must be fragile. We wouldn't want to drop it, now, would we?"

"No, please. Please don't. Don't!"

She pulled a sword from her belt and moved toward him. "Oh!" he only just barely managed to dodge it.

"So, what happened? Did your Belle see the yellow-bellied man you really are? I bet you she did, didn't she? Oh, that had to sting!"

Fire grew in his chest. One that he hadn't felt in years, decades, maybe not since he'd destroyed the rest of the pieces that went with that old, chipped cup. The sword he'd tossed aside was within his reach, and without question or plan or thought, he reached for it, used the stick to pull himself to his feet, and swung with everything he had.

He felt the sting of reverberation once more from palm to shoulder as the girl balked at him. He'd missed. He'd been too slow. She'd blocked him all too easily, and now he wasn't sure he'd ever get it back! Fury cooled in him as panic set in.

"Oh! Did you feel that?" she questioned, pushing him back, looking unsurprised that now he seemed able to catch himself on the walking stick she'd made. Muscle memory was a godssend.

"Feel what?" he questioned, regaining his footing. This stick was different than his last. It required an adjustment, but his body remembered how to move with it well enough. And though he'd never fought with a sword before while he'd used his cane, trained as he'd been in the army, it wouldn't take him long to figure out how to compensate, how to move, how to get what was his back from his young prison mate.

"That swing right there! You weren't thinking of yourself or the limp. You were thinking of her. That was an act of true bravery!"

Was it?!

"Ready to try again? Eh? Eh?" With each question she poked, tapping her sword against his, as they used to do when he was in training for the army, trying to egg him on, build him up, feed his excitement or anger or whatever it was in him that had once made him a soldier.

Was it Belle he'd been thinking of when he'd attacked? Or was it just that teacup, just the reminder of how it felt to be out of control with rage or powerlessness?

The girl aimed another poke at him and this time he didn't back down, didn't resist, merely knocked her away as he might have in the olden days when he sparred with Rolf.

"Good!" the girl smiled. "Because we've got a long way to go before you're ready to take on Emma."

He balked at her words. "Take on Emma." So that was the girl's plan. Not make him into a hero to get the sword but make him into a hero to free her from Emma. He wasn't a hero. He could never be a hero. This plan of Emma's was a folly, and he knew it. But he was tired, so tired of failure and being helpless and losing every damn battle he'd ever come up against. This girl wasn't magical; she was a well-trained soldier taking orders up against a former well-trained soldier who had once beaten Prince Charming just for the hell of it.

His stomach hurt. His head spun. His ankle screamed. His chest heaved.

He was going to be sick. He was…he was almost certain he was going to be sick. He waited on his hands and knees, grass prickling the skin of his palms, for the breakfast he'd had to come up. It didn't.

Was it the magic doing this to him? Or was it just fear? He couldn't remember ever taking Belle anywhere by magic and watching her have this reaction. His unwilling companion didn't seem to be having this kind of reaction…

From some unknown place he hadn't observed, the girl drew a sword and threw it at him.

"Don't think about running. With that limp, you wouldn't make it ten feet. Pick up the bloody sword and let's make a hero of you."

Fuck, he was going to die. He wasn't sure what he had to do to convince Emma, to convince Nimue, that it wouldn't work. If nothing else, his reaction to this, whether it was the Dark Magic or just the fear of the entire situation, proved that it wasn't possible for him to be a hero, not without his magic!

Without his magic, he was nothing more than a coward.

He managed to make it to a tree to hold himself up, something significantly more difficult here on a hill with uneven ground rather than Emma's twisted little dungeon. As his leg shook and strained with effort, he found himself wishing that he'd had the forethought to fix it for real when he'd had magic. He'd always avoided that option. Fixing bone with magic always left it susceptible and brittle in the end; no one knew why. Magicians had theories, but he never cared enough to explore those theories; all he'd known was that he avoided it, knowing that in order to do it completely, he'd have to rebreak the bones he'd once shattered and obliterated in the first place, and that would surely be painful. So, he'd taken the coward's way out, even with that. He used magic to take away the pain, to imagine himself better. Why would he need to truly fix the problem when he'd always be powerful?

He was an idiot.

And now he was going to die because of it.

He glanced down at the sword on the ground as the girl pulled one from her belt, and he felt his heart rate skyrocket. He could work with this. He had no choice but to work with this!

Neither he nor the girl wanted to be here, but he knew she wasn't going to let him go; she couldn't if Emma had her heart. There had to be a workaround he could find, preferably before the girl accidentally cut his head off.

"But I-I can barely stand, much less fight someone," he reasoned, finding any excuse he could to stall the girl. Had Emma said her name was Merida? He could think of one person from their land he knew by that name. Dove's father had brought him back a birth announcement once, years before the Curse, probably around the time that Belle was born, of a Princess from Dunbrough by that name. Three brothers had followed in that family, triplets, if he remembered correctly. Dove had brought him scattered news of the princess over the years. Supposedly, Merida had made quite the reputation for herself as a warrior within her clan. Archery, swordsmanship, he'd even heard she'd wrestled a bear with her bare hands once. Nonsense, he was sure. But aside from the rumors and stories, he knew nothing more of the girl. One and the same? Or coincidence? Either way it would be bad news for him.

Merida nodded as she sheathed her sword, acknowledging his handicap, and for just one precious moment he thought that maybe they could talk. Talking was his greatest skill! Maybe they could figure out some loophole the pair of them could exploit in Emma's plan. He'd been the Dark One for centuries, Emma, maybe months at best!

But before he could say another word, the girl tromped off to a place by the tree where her bow and quiver had been placed, most likely with magic. She picked up a long thick tree branch, not unlike the kind he'd used to get himself from the town line to the diner, or the one he'd hobbled around on before he'd become the Dark One. She gave it a good swift kick and watched it snap before she brought the larger half back to him.

"Now you can stand. All a man needs is a sword and one good hand. You've got both, so pick it up."

Once more, with a hiss of sharpened metal, she unsheathed her sword. He moved forward slowly. Deliberately. Though the time he'd used a branch for a cane had been short in comparison to his long life, it had left an indelible scar on him; he knew how to walk and move with one. But he didn't see any reason to let her in on that. He didn't want this. He didn't want any of this, and though he was trained to handle one long ago, when he was a soldier, he could tell by the way the girl twirled the sword in her wrist that she could all too easily kill him if she got too excited.

He'd barely bent forward to pick the piece of metal up, and he felt a reverberating sting from the palm of his hand through his shoulder. With one fell thwack, she'd knocked it out of his hands.

"Look, t-this is useless!" he declared. "If she wants me to pull Excalibur, then…then let me try. When I fail, she can move on."

"When you fail, there's no moving on. You turn to dust."

Damn…she knew. He hadn't planned on that. He was betting she wouldn't know that. And that if the option appealed to her, then he might be able to circumvent that step in his plan before it came to that. So much for that idea. Perhaps another? Perhaps an appeal to the heart?

"What do you care what happens to me?"

"I don't! I care what happens to me! And my brothers and my kingdom…none of which I can help while this goes on," she cried, advancing on him. "So whether you like it or not, you're going to get me home."

He shook his head. Three brothers…no coincidence, this was almost certainly the princess. And, if he was honest, he liked her spunk. He admired her desperation, and clearly she was a woman of talent, but clearly Emma didn't realize…just because she commanded someone to do something with a heart didn't mean it could be done. This girl, this poor woman that she'd trapped up in her plan…she would grow old and die before he became a hero. Her brothers would be the ones who turned to dust, her Kingdom forgotten. He'd been a coward before he was the Dark One. Without his magic…what else could he be?

"I can never be brave."

"Me whole fate rests in a coward's hands. It's really come to this?" she grumbled, moving away from him and taking her place again. "Yes, you will be! You have to!"

"You have the wrong man."

The girl glared at him, then took large, determined strides in his direction. He winced and shrunk from the feel of the sword she pressed first to his neck and then to his back as she got far too close to him for comfort. He wondered…had Emma given her a command for what she should do to him if she failed?

"Well, if words won't drive you, we'll have to figure another way, now, won't we? There has to be something. And I'm gonna find it."

He'd heard Belle plenty while he'd been asleep. Especially before he'd woken, her voice had been the strongest, most prevalent of the familiar tones he'd heard. And the things that she'd been saying, begging him to hang on, to wake up, telling him that she wasn't giving up on him. He'd woken up here with Emma, but he'd passed out in the shop. He hadn't a clue where he'd been in the time time between-the shop, the library, the house-but wherever it was, Belle had been there; she'd been checking on him. He couldn't believe that he could disappear and she wouldn't be searching the streets for him, even if she was still angry at him.

Someone had to be looking for him. Someone had to come. And when they did-

There was that noise again. Twice, forward and backward. A scrape and a squeak, a squeak then a scrape. A door opening and closing. And footsteps. Not a single pair as there had been before, but two. He held his breath as he waited, hopeful that it might be Belle and anyone else! Belle and Regina, Belle and Mary Margaret, Belle and Archie. Fuck, he'd rejoice if it were Belle and Will Scarlett that he saw…

But alas, it appeared his hearing wasn't what it had been when he'd been the Dark One. The flames only illuminated Emma. There was, yet again, another tray in her hands, and something more, something in the brief glimpse when her eyes met his. Regret. A look that was purely Emma Swan. And regret. He had a small jump of hope that it might mean she'd release him. She'd left him to stand here for gods knew how long, and the bones were aching. Without magic, that ankle just couldn't take weight. And with that little crumb of hope and a few choice words, he was hoping he might be able to finally convince her to at least let him rest it.

Emma placed the food on the same stool before him that she had before, not unlike how Zelena used to when she'd kept him as her little pet.

"Better eat up." With a wave of her hand, his bindings were gone, and her gaze was steely again. "You're gonna need your strength if you're going to remove the sword," she insisted before moving away again, as though getting too close to him for too long burned. He knew that feeling too.

He rubbed his hands over his wrists, the places the ropes had dug in and rubbed raw. He was amazed he hadn't collapsed completely with his leg, but…the sword…they were back to that idea? Had he not already proved he couldn't do it? How many times were they going to have this conversation?

"I, uh…I won't be able to do that," he persisted, trying to keep his tone gentle and kind, weak and submissive. All he needed was one moment of Emma Swan taking pity on him or one moment of Nimue coming to her senses and giving up on him the way she always said she would. He didn't care which worked; he just needed one of them to get him out of here so he could run! "You should really just let me go. Please. I-I need to see Belle."

"You're not going anywhere until you get me my sword," she sighed, crossing her arms and leaning against the thing as though it were nothing but an armrest.

"Well, you have so much power. W-w-why do you need Excalibur?"

As though he didn't already know. As if she wouldn't already have access to the fact that he knew…

"Tell me, when you were the Dark One, did you advertise your plans?"

She would have also been the first to know that was a "no." But did she know it based on her experience with him or based on memories she now possessed? He couldn't tell. He didn't know how this would work if the Curse had been extracted without killing him or how it would work with Emma being Emma! What she was!

She'd been a Savior going into this. Although it did take him time to control his powers, she'd already been stronger than he was when he'd taken on the Curse. But she'd also resist having the Darkness, whereas he'd embraced it. They might have been even, and that meant that it was possible she didn't have full access to every Dark One yet.

But Nimue was the one in charge. Whether she'd revealed herself and her plans to Emma or not, Emma now clearly had something Nimue had been waiting for all her life; there was no reason to think she didn't know what it meant. But if what he'd seen before was any indication, she was seeing someone. Nimue wouldn't reveal herself right away. If he was right, that his memories hadn't been included in the curse because he hadn't been killed, then it wasn't him that she was seeing. Zoso would be his next guess. Of course, if he was wrong, and she was seeing him as her guide…perhaps he could use that.

"My plans were always hidden. But my reasons were not. Every time I used magic, I told myself it was all for my son, to protect him."

"How noble."

"Despite my best intentions…I still lost him."

"I'm stronger than you were."

Maybe. But only maybe. One moment of Emma Swan or one moment of Nimue, it didn't matter!

He took a step forward, intending to close some distance between them, to let Emma see his desperation or Nimue see his hopelessness, but before he could finish his step, he felt pain shoot up from ankle to hip, and suddenly the stone advanced on him faster than he'd intended. He used his hand to catch himself on the rock before he could hit anything vital. He'd forgotten how terrifying it could be, being helpless.

It wasn't intentional, but to inspire doubt in Nimue or stir empathy in Emma…either way, it could work in his favor. "Well, that…that doesn't really matter. The more you justify what you're doing, the more you push them away. And take it from me…you will always lose the ones you love the most."

He touched a nerve. He could see it there in the small waver of Emma's gaze. For just a second, it wasn't Nimue's black eyes staring back at him but Emma's. Her empathy was all he'd need to-

"Merida."

He jumped at the sound of her voice as someone in an ancient-looking blue-green dress he'd never met before appeared out of the shadows. He knew he'd heard more than one set of footsteps.

"Yes, Dark One?" Curly red hair, what this realm would call a Scottish accent, bow and arrow…he searched his memories, all of them, his, Gold's, the Seers…but he was certain this woman wasn't familiar.

"Get him out of my sight. Take him to the woods and begin."

"How long do you think you can hold my heart and threaten me?"

"Hold her heart"? Emma was taking hearts already?!

Quickly, he scuttled across the room like a crab, half falling as he reached out for the stone wall to keep him upright. She wanted him to pull the sword free as a hero, but taking his heart wouldn't allow that; he knew that. But did she?

"As long as it takes me to get what I want."

"Maybe. But I'm thinking I can break your spell!"

He watched as the woman advanced on Emma, fists raised. It only took a second for Nimue to summon a glowing red heart into Emma's hand and round on her. The girl stopped dead in her tracks with tears in her eyes. He watched her breath catch as her spine arched, probably from pain. All she'd needed was a command to stop the girl, but he knew that if he were Emma, he too would have likely given that heart a squeeze. As a reminder.

"Now, take him to the woods…and make me a hero," Emma demanded.

He'd pressed his forehead into the palm of his hands as if the pressure might help him remember while he'd struggled to come to terms with what had happened to him. He'd managed to put pieces of it together the last time Emma had been there, but piecing together information and truly taking it in were two different things. The enormity, the sheer weight of what he'd worked through, was astounding and terrifying all at once.

He knew that he'd been asleep for a while, but how long was "a while?" Long enough, apparently, for Emma to be corrupted by the Dark One Curse, long enough for her to master magic and be comfortable with it, long enough for her to give in to Nimue's manipulations and somehow bring Excalibur to Storybrooke. And yet, when he looked at his hands and peered at his reflection in the cup of water that Emma had provided him, he could see that he hadn't aged.

He couldn't be sure how long after he'd passed out in the back of his shop an anonymous Savior had arrived to remove the Curse from him, but given how close he'd been to the brink of the abyss, he'd guess it was within hours, if not minutes. They'd placed a Preservation Spell on him, that much had been clear even from within the confines of his mind. That could explain the lack of aging. But he didn't get the sense that years had gone by.

Time had been strange, to say the least, while he'd been trapped. Time hadn't existed, and yet he'd felt as though he could feel it passing. It was as though he'd been outside the bounds of it, which, with a Preservation Spell, wasn't entirely untrue. He knew time had passed, but how long exactly was unclear. Years seemed too long, days too short, months seemed the most likely. How many months? Two? Six? Eleven? He hadn't been able to pin that information down. The cavern he was in was comfortable enough with his jacket. Though there were torches to keep the light, he'd have expected it to be colder if they'd made it to winter in Storybrooke. But if Emma's magic had crafted this place, basing that belief on temperature alone was a folly.

He'd eaten the meal Emma had left for him as he considered his non-existent options. Skinless grilled chicken, rice, broccoli…something his doctors in New York would have been thrilled he was eating, but he assumed it wasn't so much to do with his weight and more that she'd given him a diet that would be easy on the stomach for someone who'd had a non-working digestive system, potentially for months. It was a kindness given what he saw around him. Or didn't see. This prison was bigger than the dog cage Zelena had kept him locked up in, but no more luxurious. Though the temperature was "comfortable," the slab of stone he'd woken up on was not. And he'd made note that there were no facilities here, only a bucket in the corner. How kind of the new Dark One to consider giving him a diet he was unlikely to throw up so as not to force him to live with the mingled scent of his own vomit and shit…

He'd tried to sleep on that uncomfortable slab of stone after he ate, but found sleep fleeting. It wasn't that he wasn't tired. He was. It was perplexing and baffling how he might have been asleep for months and yet longed for more sleep, but he couldn't. His mind wouldn't let him. His mind…

It was so quiet in his head. A state he usually longed for and only ever achieved with immense concentration, or sleeping by Belle's side, but with the voices gone and only his own left, it was an entirely different kind of quiet that he found unsettling. Especially when he considered who those voices were currently talking about and what they might have been whispering into her ear.

The images he had of Emma staring into the air beyond Excalibur when he'd woken were seared into his brain. He could remember all too well how Zoso had come to him in his early days as a guide, a puppet for Nimue, to introduce him to the craft before she came forward herself to explain the purpose of the Dark Ones, her purpose…the destruction of Light Magic.

Who was it Emma was seeing now, he wondered? Zoso? Brutus? Alyssa? Looking over the sword in the stone before him, he wouldn't be one bit surprised if it were Nimue herself.

Footsteps echoed along the gravel beyond his iron bars, and he felt the food he'd eaten, however long ago, shift. She was back. Still dressed in black, still paler than he'd ever seen her, Emma carried another tray into his cell and set it down on the same little stool that she'd just used magic to make the previous one disappear from.

Porridge with berries. That was his childhood favorite. He swallowed hard as he eyed her up, suddenly curious about something he hadn't considered before. It wasn't him she saw, was it? He hadn't been killed by the dagger; therefore, it wasn't possible that his memories joined the collective as the others had. It wasn't him that she saw as her guide. Was it?

"That's enough rest for now!"

Chicken and rice, followed by rest, followed by porridge…had he been here all night? Was it morning?

Oh, he wanted to ignore the food she'd brought to him, wanted to be able to ignore it, but he was only human now, and the chicken and rice felt like an eternity ago as his stomach ached with hunger. Dark Ones were notorious for their rash behavior; he couldn't count on getting another meal when he wanted it, which meant that he needed to eat what she offered him when she offered it. So, he grabbed the bowl off the tray and ate. Unlike the last time when she'd left him to his peace and quiet, this time she stayed, this time she watched as he devoured the porridge. Her gaze was unsettling but not unfamiliar. He'd been dealing with Dark Ones too long not to recognize their stare. When he finished his breakfast, he set the bowl back on the tray and sat back against the wall he was crouched against.

"Is there something more I can do for you?" he questioned gently, curiously. Emma leered at him for a moment before reaching down toward the tray and picking up…a flower? He hadn't even noticed that she'd set a small vase on the tray she'd brought, like a decoration for breakfast in bed. She put the flower to her nose, as if to smell, before she turned from him and moved around Excalibur.

"I want you to pull the sword from the stone."

His eyes drifted to the red jeweled handle as she watched him from the other side of the rock with an unblinking stare.

"I can't."

"That's a premature conclusion when you haven't even tried."

So that's what she wanted with him. A blank slate of a heart meant he could become a hero in her mind. And a hero would be able to pull the sword from the stone, but that wasn't how it worked. That certainly wasn't how Excalibur worked, as Nimue certainly had explained to her. And giving a man some chicken and porridge did not make a hero overnight!

But she was a young Dark One, at least compared to some, like him. Young Dark Ones were susceptible and teachable, which was why Nimue sent the former Dark Ones to guide and teach. If it wasn't him she was seeing in her mind's eye, perhaps he could at least take advantage of how she saw him in reality.

"No, see…" He struggled to get to his feet, his ankle refusing to cooperate on the gravel when he didn't have a cane. He practically threw himself from the wall of his cell to the stone where he caught his weight again. He wanted to be closer, wanted to break invisible lines she'd drawn in the sand to reach Emma, not Nimue.

"You have all the memories of the Dark Ones that came before you. Search them, and you'll see. "I can't try to pull Excalibur free. Those who try and are unworthy turn to ash. If I so much as attempt to-"

But before he could finish his sentence, she let out a frustrated cry, held up her hand, and he felt the air leave his lungs as his back collided with the bars behind him. His head throbbed from the bang it took, his ankle whined from the weight of his body, but he felt ropes come up along his appendages to bind him where he stood.

"No wonder you needed this curse. You've never taken a risk in your life!"

His heart was racing as fear threatened to devour him. It was typical of the coward he was, every bit as typical as the outburst Emma had just experienced was for a Dark One. He swallowed hard as he looked over at her. She hadn't left the room yet, but she did turn from him. Resting upon the rock, her attention was suddenly absorbed by the flower she held in her hand.

Nimue…where Emma should have been standing, the First was all he saw. He needed to go through her to get to Emma, the Savior. She was still young, and if she was still seeing Dark Ones as a guide, he knew better than anyone that she was still reachable. He just had to cut through the noise in her head.

"You're contemplating something," he assumed gently. "Contemplating because something has gone wrong, something you hadn't planned on."

Emma said nothing, just stood there considering the flower in her hand. Nimue was speaking, whispering in her ear, it didn't matter whose voice she was using, it was Nimue! It was always Nimue. If he could just get Emma back! He knew her better than that monster did; he'd helped shape her into what she was! All he needed was a few moments of Emma back, and he knew he could get her to release him, to send him back to Belle.

The knowledge he had in his head from when he was the Dark One wasn't gone. If Belle could use his magic without being magical, then so could he! He could leave here, he could figure out how to protect himself, how to hide from her, how to hide Belle! He just needed a few moments!

"I remember how the darkness feels," he tried reasoning. "But you don't have to give in to it. You just…you could just set me free."

Finally, the Dark One spun around to face him. "The only one who can get me that sword is you," she stated with a harsh chill in her voice that was certainly more Nimue than Emma.

Change of plan. Maybe...maybe Nimue was good. With Emma, he'd have to appeal to her emotions. With Nimue…they'd known each other far longer than either would have liked. Perhaps he only needed to remind the bitch who he was without her magic in his veins.

"I can't be the hero you want," he reminded her. A reminder was all she'd need; she was well aware of who he was beneath the Curse. Of who he'd been…

Face set hard as stone, Emma cast the flower away and walked intently around the stone. Despite the pain in his ankle, he did his best to press himself against the iron gate behind him. He only had a single thought that appearing the coward as a reminder to Nimue was not the worst idea. There was only a small part of him that wished he were acting.

"Of course you can. You're like a dull knife sitting in a drawer. But don't worry. I have just the thing to sharpen you up."

"What?"

He was aware that he'd been asleep for a very long time, and even more so, he was aware that "asleep" was the wrong word for it. He remembered everything from the time he'd been trapped in the prison of his mind, and knew that he'd figured out long ago that someone, likely the Blue Fairy, had placed him into a preservation spell.

It was for that reason alone that he was aware he wasn't the Dark One anymore. The preservation spell had been to heal his soul from the trauma of the Curse, from having it ripped away from him after centuries of melding together.

He was aware of the pain in his ankle.

He was aware of the voices he'd heard while he'd been under.

He was aware that he was in some place now he'd never been.

And he was especially aware that he was in this strange place with perhaps the most dangerous person he could be with.

Nimue…wearing the skin of Emma Swan.

It took only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark cavern that he found himself in, torches on the walls, orange and yellow rock for walls, and iron bars visible at the end of the room, which he could see without craning his neck. And Emma Swan, dressed entirely in black, her blonde hair turned white, swept up into a tight, practical style that gave her a harsh look. Her gaze was cold, her red lips only a thin line of intolerance against her pale face. She'd never looked so unimpressed with him.

It took him a heartbeat to put everything together, to reorder and analyze the memories of the voices he had in his head while he'd been under the Preservation Spell. It took only that moment to assess that he shouldn't be awake.

When a Preservation Spell was lifted properly, the individual woke rested and energized. They woke feeling as though they'd simply had the best night's rest of their life. And yet, as he lay here, he could feel the weakness in his body, the stiff, sore ache of muscles that hadn't been used in gods knew how long. He could feel the voids in his heart where blackness had once been.

It was instinct that led him to reach out and sense the magic that he was certain still clung to him, to understand what had happened, how he'd been pulled out of his slumber early, and why it had been done. It was instinct…

And it was the strangest sensation in the world to realize that he couldn't do what he was attempting. He couldn't feel. He couldn't sense. He couldn't even reach. It was like an amputation. It felt as though a hand that he'd had practically his entire life had been lobbed away with a sword. He could feel the place in his mind where he'd once controlled it, but try as he may, nothing activated it.

Because nothing was there to activate.

He wasn't magical anymore. He wasn't the Dark One.

She was…Emma…

"A storm raged around the Savior, a cloud of black on the streets of Storybrooke as streetlights were destroyed, and she held the dagger in her hands. The Darkness found her."

He'd had that vision so long ago, back before he'd wed Belle, before Peter Pan, before he'd found Baelfire, even before Lacey! He'd not thought about it nearly enough, not questioned the possibility or the implications of it.

Probably because it scared him. He could not fathom how the Darkness could ever be outside of his body, how the Savior he'd worked so carefully to craft in a certain image would ever inhabit it, even when he'd been trying to blacken her heart! He could not understand how he'd ever be alive to see it happen. Now he could…

When he began to put the voices he'd heard inside his castle together, to reorder them into a long chain, he realized he didn't have the entire story, but he had enough of it to work through some of the basics.

Someone had excised the blackness from him. Regina or Emma, perhaps working with the Blue Fairy, he wasn't sure how, but it was done. And he was certain it hadn't gone according to plan because Emma had inherited it.

He should be free. Free of the Dark One. Free of the dagger. Free of Nimue.

So why was she here again? Why was she staring down at him now, using Emma's face as a mask?

Because Emma was the Dark One now. And he felt…fear.

"What do you want from me? You are the Dark One now, not me."

Emma moved to roll her eyes only…they stopped. She wasn't rolling her eyes, she was looking across the room at someone at…no one? It was a risk taking his gaze off of her, but when he quickly glanced in the same direction she was looking, he found no one there, only a familiar rock with half a sword sticking out of it, and yet…he was certain that was not what she was looking at, not who she was looking at.

Excalibur.

Excalibur was here?!

"That's right," Emma confirmed, turning her attention back to him. "You are not dark. You are also not light. You are nothing. Your heart is a blank slate. And that, little man, makes you useful."

Emma got down low, squatting beside him so close that they were a breath away. Fuck, was this what it felt like being on the side of someone who had no respect for personal space or boundaries? Was this what it was like on the other side of trying to manipulate and scare?

"Because now I can make you into the last thing you ever thought you would be. A hero. And not just any hero. The purest who's ever lived, and then…"

Emma looked off to the side once more. This time her gaze lingered. He followed that gaze once more, half expecting that maybe the quick look he'd given before just hadn't given him enough time to spot someone. But there was no one. Only half a sword that Nimue had desired all his life. A sword that he knew could destroy all Light Magic if reunited with its other half. And given Emma's swagger, given her confidence, he had a feeling that she most certainly was in possession of his-her dagger.

"And then…" she breathed again, turning back to him with the excited eyes of Nimue. "I have a job for you."

He shrank from her as much as he could. Pressed himself into the hard, uncomfortable stone she'd made half an effort with. It wasn't far enough.

"Get some rest," she commanded, backing away and moving toward what could only be the door to his new prison. "Eat…" She paused there, glancing at something just to the side of her. The sword and the stone were nowhere in her gaze; it was just air.

"You're going to need your strength!" she suddenly called back over her shoulder, moving out of the room so that the iron bars slammed shut behind her. He was suddenly aware of a tray with food on it sitting on a stool fairly close to him. But he watched her go. He took in the stone with its jeweled handle and the intricate design he knew so well on the blade. And he looked through it to the place that Emma had been staring at, the place by the bars where he'd checked three times for another individual and saw nothing.

He saw nothing. But he also knew better. Either Emma was staring, communicating silently in looks and gazes at nothing at all, or…there was an unseen demon orchestrating her every move.

His skin was normal. His appearance, entirely human. It was surprising. He was so accustomed to seeing himself one way in the mirrors of his castle, to being able to walk without a cane. Seeing himself in the castle mirror, uncovered, without a cursed mask to cloak his appearance...it was a shock. But not enough of one to keep him awake, not for long. That time, he'd made it to the chair by his fireplace before sleep once more consumed him.

He fought it. Every time he woke, he fought it a little bit more, but never for long. Sleep constantly threatened to envelop him. And he always gave in to it, because he couldn't seem not to. He was tired. Always. Every step that he took in his explorations took effort; every second he forced himself to remain awake was torture. And yet he wanted the effort, he wanted the torment because he wanted answers. He wanted to understand whatever curse he found himself trapped in!

He'd discovered the hazy edges of his vision and the lack of feeling early and quickly concluded that he was not actually in the Enchanted Forest or his castle. He understood, somehow, that he was in his own mind, and it chose to portray itself only as his castle. But that acceptance brought along a realization just as shocking as when he'd seen himself in the mirror.

He had the sense that he was alone. Completely alone. Which was terrifying all on its own. He hadn't been alone in his mind since before he was the Dark One. And yet no one but him populated the rooms of this massive castle, no one but him walked and crawled and dragged himself along the hallways seeking information, answers.

No matter how many times he tried to summon a face-Belle, Neal, Henry, hell, even Zoso-no one appeared. No matter how many times he tried to make the castle smaller, to turn it into his home in Storybrooke or the hovel or the cottage he'd shared with his aunts, nothing worked. It stayed the same. Always.

He had the sense that if he could just get to the front door, he'd be free. It should have been an easy task. There was no one to stop him, no one to put up a fight or distract him. But on the day that he finally managed to wake long enough to drag himself down the hall to the staircase, he looked over the foyer, exactly as he remembered it from when Belle had been in residence: carpet, table in the center, vase of roses on the table…but no door.

He'd nearly wept at the sight. The heavy, tall doors to his home were missing, replaced only with the same cold, gray colored stone the rest of the castle was made of. Despite sleep calling to him once more, he managed to slide himself down the stairs and into that foyer, where he forced himself back onto wobbly, sluggish feet. He figured he had only seconds before hibernation captured him again, but he also knew that door wasn't the only way out of this castle! The next closest doors would have been the servant's door, the one by the kitchen that Belle often found herself using.

Into the Great Room, he stumbled, determined to get down to the bowels of the castle, to escape! But that determination was thwarted by whatever spell had been placed over him, pulling him under. He'd barely made it to Belle's chair by the fire before he collapsed. The last thing he saw as his heavy eyelids closed once more…the beautiful windows Belle had been so determined to open to the light-they were gone. The curtains were pulled back, as she preferred them to be during the day. But there was only a wall where glass had once been.

The doors and the windows were gone. The fires were unlit, but the castle was neither hot nor cold; it was only unnoticeably comfortable. His vision blurred at the edges and he was tired. Impossibly tired. No healthy human being should need to sleep as much or as long as he was sleeping, which could only mean one thing. He was not a healthy human being. How could he be? After centuries of dark deeds and plots, after orchestrating the most powerful curse known to man…how could he not bear the scars of that?

Sitting in his chair in the Great Room, awake and tired but unmoving, struggling to keep his eyes open, he used his last minutes before sleep to reflect on what he saw, what he felt, the few things he knew to be true, and it gave him his answer.

Preservation Spell.

He was human. But after centuries of darkness, his human form was only half of who he had once been. It had to be true.

Preservation Spells were powerful magic. He didn't know who had placed it on him or why. The magic was beyond Emma's knowledge. Regina could do it, but only just barely, and this one was far too strong for her abilities. The Blue Fairy was capable. Why she'd agree to help him after all these years was beyond him, but she was currently his best guess.

Preservation Spells were used when someone needed time. Usually, the individual was dying or suffering in some terrible way that would lead to death, and so the spell was placed over them to force their body to come to a halt. He'd read only a few experiences of those who had gone through it and lived to tell the tale. They usually reported feeling an awareness of time passing while feeling abnormally tired.

That was certainly the case with him. He had the sense of time passing, of being out of his body despite not being able to see what was really going on with him. But there was no hunger, no need to relieve himself, no need to fidget. He knew he was still beyond his mind.

He also knew that somehow, someway, the Darkness had been removed from him. He was clueless as to how it had happened. All his last memories hinted at Nimue taking her victory, but he knew that she hadn't, and the only way that would have been possible was for the demons to have been excised from his chest, his brain, his heart! He knew Nimue hadn't won because of the voices.

If he was trapped in his own mind, then he knew that he should see the faces of the voices he'd been hearing his whole life. Nimue wouldn't stay away from him; she'd enjoy the torment of watching him squirm. Zoso would also likely seek him out, he needed camaraderie. Gorgon, who was angry enough to punch him, the twins, the Dark One who sat with him in Zelena's fucking cage…

His castle was a big place! But the Dark Ones were too numerous and too unique to keep hidden from him for as long as he felt the passage of time. If they were still part of him, then he should have run into one of them by now, should have heard someone's voice by now! Instead, all he heard were the whispers of those who were not in his castle, not in his head, but in the outside world.

The sounds were odd. Sometimes the voices he heard seemed very distant, and there were too many to home in on to make out words. Those conversations came through as a hum, constant and chattering, when he could stay awake long enough to listen. On very rare occasions, he was lucky enough to make out snippets of conversations.

"That monstrosity took Emma, where did they go?" Hook demanded.

"She is now where all Darkness is born. In your realm," a voice that he only vaguely recognized as the Apprentice answered back.

Those instances of conversation were rare. Most of the time, when he heard distinct voices, they came through as single lines or fragments of a sentence.

"I hope you know how lucky you are to have a heart like hers. For my sake, I hope you both know how lucky you are to have…"

Will Scarlett.

"You may yet live into your destiny, Rumpelstiltskin."

The Blue Fairy…whatever secretive meaning was behind that escaped him.

The voices came through at random, it seemed. Sometimes, when he could keep his eyes open long enough to form cohesive thoughts and theorize, he thought that they might be in some sort of order, but usually he couldn't be bothered to identify that order in time. All he usually had time to do was imagine the face of the person behind the voice, their gestures, and nuances.

"You son of a Bitch! You made me this way!"

Regina…he could see the sneer of her upper lip in the way that she spoke with rage and anger. Anger he feared might have been directed at him.

"I'm going to get us answers."

Emma, with all her usual pomp and determination.

"Go help them with Emma."

The Blue Fairy, endlessly, nauseatingly encouraging for only the right people.

"Give us time…"

Belle. Her voice, unlike all the other voices, always seemed to come through, clear as a bell. Sometimes it even woke him from his sleepy stupor.

"It's not just me, Rumple. Henry wants you back, too."

"I can't leave him here alone like this."

"Can you even hear me?"

"Yes!" he'd managed to cry out, to shout at the top of his lungs. But the sound only came out as a whisper, his voice raw and weak from disuse and exhaustion. It didn't stop him from trying. "Yes, I can hear you, Belle! Keep talking, please keep talking!" He begged her. He screamed for her. He cried on the days that he was loneliest and longed for freedom!

"Now if I were the Darke One…where would I hide my car?"

"Still breathing? Where is the old man?"

"We can't do this without you, I can't do this without you, please…please don't do this! Please stay with me!"

"I'm here, Belle!" he shouted at her plea, ignoring all others. "I'm here, don't give up on me, please!"

On the days he felt stronger, more awake, he beat on the walls of his prison, places where he knew there should be windows and doors, access to the outside! Anywhere the veil might be thin enough, he could get a message beyond his prison!

"Come back to me!"

He tried! He was trying! But Preservation Spells were all about healing, not of the body but of the mind and heart, given what he'd gone through before this, he could only guess it was his heart in need of healing, he just couldn't figure out how to do it! Not here! Not alone! He needed her!

"Cowards run. You're only a coward if you choose not to wake up. A hero would wake up. A man…a man would come home! He'd do whatever it took. I'm asking you to do whatever it takes now. Please."

"I'm trying…I'm trying, Belle, I promise…" he swore it as tears streamed down his cheeks. But some days, if he was honest, he found himself right back in his empty bed, in his isolated bedroom, pulling the covers over his head, not because he needed sleep but because he wanted to deaden the voices, deaden the hope they brought that was slowly seeping out of him. How long had it been since he'd last heard her voice? Now there were only strangers.

"Still no change?"

"I brought one of my favorites today, I thought we'd explore it together. 'Hope is a thing with feathers…'"

"Friends…like before?"

"Help me make him comfortable."

"This rose is now linked to your beast, Belle."

"I'm back…"

Oh, there she was, his angelic voice, his miracle, his reason for trying to wake!

"It's True Love!"

Yes, it was. It always was. It was True Love! But what True Love didn't know how to counter a simple preservation spell?! What True Love couldn't be bothered to try even a single kiss to wake him?

"You may be willing to give up on yourself, but I'm not!"

He wasn't giving up. At least he didn't think he was giving up, he was just…tired. So very tired. His body ached with disuse. His mind was bored hanging on to threads of conversations. Listening to Regina's idle chatter when she sat by his side, as if she thought he might assist her with what she was working on, just like old times.

"What do you know about eliminating Light Magic? Listen to this…"

Words…words that he knew from Nimue's mind, words that he knew she'd longed to read for herself. Words he couldn't bring himself to care about.

"Some mentor you are. I'm trying to solve the unsolvable, and you're just lying there. Why is it that you are always too busy when I need you the most?"

Oh, that he could respond! That he could do more than lie there and be useless!

But his heart…his poor heart!

Regina and her accusations he could ignore easily enough. It was torture listening to the pleas of the one he loved the most, begging him to do something that he couldn't do! He was beginning to feel like he'd walked the halls of this windowless, doorless castle far longer than he'd ever stalked the halls of the real one he'd left behind. He'd done everything he could think of. What more was there?

"I'm going to figure this out. I'll fight for this so long as you will, just…just keep fighting."

But how could he when it was all folly? He wasn't the Dark One anymore; he wasn't anything but a wounded, imperfect human. Maybe sleeping was the best thing he could do. Maybe there was a reason he craved it in this dark dungeon; maybe it was the answer. Though to sleep and risk not hearing her beautiful voice, not hearing words that he felt his soul craved more than sleep…what kind of a risk would that bring?

If he stopped fighting against the sleep, if he willingly gave in to it, would he ever wake again?

"Please…"

Would he ever hear her again?

"Please…"

Would he ever see her again?

"Please…"

He was a prisoner to his own mind. To his own body. He'd lost count of how many days he woke up in his bed, in his chair, on the floor after sleep won the battle. He was tired of being tired! He was tired of opening his eyes after what he was certain was a long rest, only to close them again immediately for another. He was tired of loneliness, tired of healing, tired of being in this purgatory!

Sometimes he woke up, he almost wished that if he wasn't going to recover, his body would just let him die and get it over with.

"Please…"

And then he'd hear her voice again. Her pleading, begging voice and think…

Just one more nap…

And then…

Something summoned him from his sleep. Something he hadn't expected or thought possible with this spell.

He needed to get up.

Oh, he was tired, still so tired, but he could feel a tugging inside his chest, something pulling him out of his bed, out of his room and down the hallway to the stairs where he saw…

The door.

The door that led from his castle to the grounds outside…they'd returned. And they'd never looked more menacing or imposing than they suddenly did now. After ages of looking at nothing but a closed-off wall, he knew something was at work, something that wasn't right, and it was for that reason alone that he knew he shouldn't go through that door. As much as he'd longed for a door or even just a window to appear all the time he'd been here, it was too suspicious that it show up now, while he was so tired, without Belle's voice to encourage him, beg him to move forward!

But he found his legs moving anyway. Against his will, whether he wanted them to or not, he was drawn to that door and unable to stop himself. He found himself terrified, a rock was stuck in his throat as he tried to fight it, tried to make his body behave, to stop his strides to it, but it was as though something else was controlling him, something else was pushing his body forward. He'd been the Dark One for centuries; he knew what it felt like not to be in control of his own body!

Light Magic was unable to seize control of an individual in such a way. Dark Magic, on the other hand...Dark Magic most certainly could.

He swallowed nervously as he stared over at her. He wanted to move. He wanted to run. But his body wasn't working, wasn't responding to his commands. Could it be…was it, Belle? Had she taken the dagger? Had she gone?

"Belle…" he managed to whisper as he looked around at the little he could see without his head moving. "Where is she?" His voice felt foreign, his throat strangely raw. No matter how many times he swallowed, he just couldn't seem to shake the rock lodged in his throat.

"Gone," Nimue responded. "Up and left you for her own safety, I imagine."

His voice let out a pathetic little whimper of happiness. Gone was good. Gone was what he wanted. Gone was safe.

"Oh, I wouldn't get too excited about that," Nimue went on. "You protected her heart. Your magic, a piece of us is inside of her. When push comes to shove…she'll be easy to find."

He heard his heart begin to beat rapidly as the other Dark Ones laughed at him in his head. No. Belle was smart. She'd understand what was at stake. She'd run. She'd get Henry and she'd take Will, and she'd get them out of Storybrooke for their own safety, just like he'd intended last year. She'd be tempted to come back for him, but so would Henry, and between Will and wanting to set a good example for the boy…that would save her. She'd be safe.

Nimue laughed beside him. "Rumple…even if she does leave, we all know it's only a matter of time until we rule this place and figure out how to expand beyond this little spit of a town. First, we take the town. Then we take the realm. And from there…who knows," she mused, staring up at the ceiling as though she could see right through the roof to the stars beyond. "Perhaps we figure a way back to the place we belong, back to Merlin's tower. Perhaps we destroy Light Magic once and for all, like we were always meant to do!"

No, not that again. Not that old, tired dream she'd been harping about since before half the town was even born!

"And why not? Why shouldn't we dream big?!" she argued, rolling onto her side and reaching up to brush her fingers almost lovingly over his forehead. "You are already doing the impossible, Rumple. Let's not doubt what you are capable of once that last cursed fleck of red makes its way out of our system." She smiled that wicked, rotted grin of hers and patted him on the chest, just over his heart. His body tensed. It spasmed against her touch, her evil.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Nimue smiled, lying back down beside him as though she was simply waiting for sleep to overwhelm. "It's almost over. And once it is, you'll never feel any of these pains again. You'll be strong, you'll be what every Dark One has only ever dreamed of being. Undefeatable."

His vision began to fade to black once more as the pain began to claim his body, and her laughter filled his ears. As he lay there in darkness, still conscious, still feeling everything, he conjured Belle's face from his memory. The way she looked the first time he saw her in her blue dress. The look on her face the first time she'd kissed him. That stubborn angry look she'd had when he'd dismissed her. The moment on the hill when he turned around to find that she remembered him. The look on her face after they'd made love the first time. How she'd smiled when he asked her to marry him, the radiance on her face when they were wed, the sly grin when she'd suggested they break in to a strangers house for their honeymoon, the excitement when they'd first talked about children…the courage she'd had only moments ago to stay with him even as he'd insisted she leave.

He wished he'd kissed her in that moment. He wished he had a moment now to do it. But he knew there was no time left. But maybe…just maybe…

He forced his eyes open once more, finding a joyful Nimue still lying beside him as she had been.

He pushed the magic he had into his muscles, he wiggled his fingers, dug his palms into the earth, he sat up, and wiped the smile off of Nimue's face.

"What are you doing?" she spat, sneered at him...

He looked to the place where he'd tossed the dagger. Gone. Good. Maybe Belle would buy him some time.

It took all his energy, but he rotated his torso, got onto his hands and knees, and looked to the curtain where the backroom was.

There was magic back there. He was the only one who could remove his heart, perhaps if he took it out, if he left it for someone to find, someone to crush with the Dark Curse still in it…

"NO!" Nimue shrieked.

His body tensed and seized once more, leaving him without air in his lungs as he crashed back down to the floor.

From somewhere above, Nimue began to laugh again. Then Zoso. Then Percival. Then Mary. Then the twins. Then Gorgon. Then Larry. Then Liesel. Then…

One by one, he heard them all join him in the room, manifesting as he fought them, laughing as his eyes closed and their laughter began to fade.

He'd failed.

Again.

He wasn't going to have another chance, not in this life, not with Belle.

He could feel it now. It was almost over.

He'd doomed the whole damn world.

***

Welcome to the end! This chapter had a really big job to do, and I don't mean just rotating Rumple's body since it's in a different position than Belle left it when she ran out of the shop to tell the others he needed help. No, this chapter had a big job to do because I have been planning on the big things coming in season 5 for a long time now, and I knew this chapter had to be the lead-in to it. Series writing 101...you have to have an enemy, a consistent enemy. The enemy doesn't have to be the Big Bad in every single book or movie or season or fiction, but they always have to be there, in the background in some way. Whether you realize it or not The Dark One has been the enemy of Rumple's series since day 1. The Dark One will continue to be the enemy of this series until the end. But of course I've had to be creative with that in order to tell the story right because, in my opinion, short-sightedness is one of the problems A&E suffered from and I didn't want to suffer the same affliction with my version. So, I promise, if you go back through this series, at every important juncture, at every critical moment for our Rumple, you will see...the Dark One is always there, egging him on. The next fiction is going to focus on that a lot. It's also going to hold some really important, key events that I don't think you see coming along Rumple's path and for all of these reasons, I am so very, very excited for you to read it.

The next fiction in the Dark One Chronicles will be The Chronicles of the Dark One: The Heart of the Beast. I asked you weeks ago for opinions when publishing, and there was a very clear message I received from almost everyone...publish as they become available. So, in a few days I begin my binge on TDC:HotB as well as the two Moments fictions that pair with it, and then, sometime in January, I'll be getting that fiction out to you. It's shorter, for obvious reasons, only about 49 chapters, but I think that's good. I'm hopeful (but not promising) I'll be able to continue this good streak I've got going into 5B. But really, all I'm hoping for is that you join me for 5A as I think it's one you'll really enjoy.

There was a dull thud on the wood floor beside him. The dagger. It had just been in the same hands that now swept over him as she gazed down with worried eyes.

Belle…

She'd done this. He'd been so far gone, but the last he knew of that dagger, it had been in his jacket, and now she'd just set it aside. Clever woman…she'd used it to somehow bring him back.

For truth.

He hadn't heard the command that she'd made, but he felt it. He felt it in the uncontainable urge he had to tell her everything, to explain what was happening to him and why it was a problem.

"Hey! What's happening?" she questioned as he became aware of his surroundings, aware of the magic, aware of her…

The dagger…he had to give it to her. It might be the only thing capable of stopping him, controlling him when the darkness truly did take over. He wasn't sure how well it would work with her will alone, how long she'd be able to focus enough to contain him...but she needed to know.

She deserved to know.

"It's my heart," he explained, surprised that he could suddenly breathe. "The last human fleck of red…it's disappearing."

"Your ability to love," she assumed as he finished pushing himself up. He felt a wave of relief wash over him as he stared at her.

She knew.

Of course she knew, his wife was a brilliant woman. And thank the gods she was, because that would make all of this so much easier to explain. Mostly…

"At least…in the end, I got one last taste…"

Her brow furrowed as she looked him over in confusion. This was the part he feared he'd never be able to make her understand.

But he had to try.

"We were happy in there. We were in love!"

She huffed. And shook her head in something like disbelief that made his stomach turn. What had Isaac written? Had the marriage they had in the book all been an act for her? Something less than it was for him?

"I was already in love," she whispered.

He held in a gasp at her proclamation. "Already in love?" Before? With him? Despite…despite… everything?

"Everything we had in the book, you could have had here! You could have been a good man with a good marriage for real! Why wasn't it good enough?"

He felt tears gather in his eyes as he remembered their honeymoon, up until he'd found the hat and even the moments beyond…

That was what he'd wanted. That was what he'd promised Neal he was going to do. He wanted to be a good man with a good marriage so badly, he'd wanted to do things over again the right way, but…

But he'd needed that hat. He'd needed it because he was the Dark One. Because his heart was black. Because he was the villain. Because at the end of the day…

"Because I didn't believe it," he realized. He didn't believe it because in this dreadful state he was in…

"Who could ever love me?"

He hadn't meant to ask the question out loud. But as the tears began to roll down his cheeks, Belle looked at him not with anger or hate, but sorrow. And perhaps a bit of justified frustration.

"I knew what I was getting, Rumple!" she insisted before reaching for his hand and placing it against her cheek. The gesture nearly broke him. He'd wanted to touch her for so long, he'd wanted to apologize for so long, he'd wanted the truth to come out since he'd first lied to her! Now it was. All of it. It was happening at the very last second, but at least it was happening. "I wasn't going to pull back!"

"But I made you do just that…"

She deserved better. She deserved so much better than him. She deserved all those things he'd wanted to give her. A good marriage, to a good man, babies, travel, a job, a life! If he couldn't stop the blackness in his heart, if the story couldn't be changed, then he wanted her to have those things! All of them. He never wanted her to feel the heartbreak she'd felt with him on the road ever again. And if Will Scarlet was the one who could do that, could give her everything that he couldn't…so be it.

"There's a whole world out there, Belle, for you! Go with Will!"

She shook her head as she leaned forward to put her hands on him, getting closer, not farther away. "I don't love Will."

He felt another round of tears roll down his cheeks as something tight he hadn't known had been inside of him released at her words. He still felt panic and fear, but somewhere else, there was relief too.

"And I am not letting you die alone!"

Panic and fear took hold again. She didn't understand. This wasn't going to be death, not death like she imagined. It was going to be worse. So much worse. This was going to be hell on earth, and she needed to get as far away as she could, with Will and anyone else that she could, even if that meant crossing the town line. She needed to take the dagger with her when she went.

But instead of pushing her away. Instead of telling her this, instead of forcing her to go… he felt himself move his hands over her face, memorizing every plane and angle of it that he could, just in case it helped when he was no longer himself.

He couldn't bring himself to kiss her. What good would it do? When it didn't free him from this curse, he'd have only himself to thank for that, for purposely rejecting the gift she'd first given him long ago, and then sealing himself against what he'd seen as future potential threats like that. He'd practically asked for this to happen to him, begged for it. So instead of kissing her, he brought her closer, let her forehead rest against his own in a way that was far more intimate than any kiss could have ever been.

Maybe that was good. He didn't know what kind of monster he'd become when all this was over, if he'd keep his memories or his sanity, but if the beast within could recognize her scent, or her face, or the feeling of calm that she brought to him, then maybe that would make a difference somehow.

Somehow…

"Come now, Rumple…you don't truly believe that now, do you?" Nimue inserted from across the room. "The time has nearly arrived. You think a smell will be enough to save your girl?"

No. No, he didn't.

Which was why, as much as he wanted to, he couldn't allow himself to get lost in this moment. He had to prepare her for what was to come.

He reached around her for the dagger. "Go!" he commanded. "Far away! When the man is gone, only the Dark One remains."

He tossed the dagger away from him. He'd intended to tell her to take it with her, but suddenly he felt pain and tightness slam back into him with vengeance. The command she'd given…he must have fulfilled it and now…now he could feel himself beginning to crash all over again.

"And that is…"

But he hadn't finished! He needed her to understand!

"…more dangerous…than you…"

He had to get it out!

"…than you can ever imagine…"

Blackness clouded his vision as he fell to the floor.

Nimue laughed.

"Rumple!" Belle cried.

He just…he just…he needed more time!

"Hey!"

He'd used magic to take himself to another forest, the place he'd first met the Red Fairy. When night fell, he planned to demand she tie him to the dagger. He was going to give it to Belle, she had always kept him whole and sane, now she'd help clean him as well.

But he'd never gotten the opportunity to do it. Because merely a second after he arrived, there had been a ringing, a silencing in his ears, followed by a blinding light just like…just like…

Just like before.

When he'd stared all this.

He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a knight with a bad conscious. He wasn't a man with a happy, healthy marriage or a living child. He wasn't the Light One.

He was the Dark One. His marriage, his family, broken. His heart dying. Maybe the worst villain that had ever existed.

"Or perhaps the best, depending on how you look at it…"

Across the room, he realized that he wasn't alone. He was never alone. Nimue was there, looking down on him, smiling like the dog who had caught the car. And Isaac…

Isaac was at the counter he'd last seen him at, climbing to his feet, looking around as if he'd lost something, which he had. The book and the quill he'd last seen him with…they were gone. Along with something else…

His magic.

Everything he'd felt in that place, everything he'd seen and helped to create, had all been a lie, all but one thing, it seemed. Isaac. When he'd encountered him in that place, his power had been nothing but residue, like the black smoke that rose once a fire had been snuffed out. Isaac wasn't the Author anymore. Instead, it was…

Oh, he'd been so stupid. The damn answer had been staring at him in the face for weeks, months even, and he'd never put two and two together because he'd been so fucking caught up in all this mess it had never dawned on him.

Henry, his grandson…he'd felt something in him, in this very shop, months ago, when Elsa had been loose and he'd asked him about learning magic. He'd felt something below the surface, a different kind of magic that warranted investigation but never came to fruition because he'd been so damn focused on a hat and stars. He hadn't even realized that same magic had been exactly what he'd felt in Isaac, the same magic in that damn pen he'd found! Fuck, he knew that magic he'd felt on him felt familiar; he knew he'd sensed it before, but he'd never paused long enough to realize where!

In the storybook, what he'd felt rotting in Isaac had been strong and alive in Henry. Henry was an Author. The new Author, it seemed.

"We're back! We can't be back, not unless…not unless you failed to stop Regina! Not unless…he succeeded!"

Henry was the new Author and the subject of the old one's ire. And he…he was a Dark One with a rapidly blackening heart.

He was weak. And getting weaker by the second. Upon first arrival, he'd felt fine, but the longer he lay here, the longer his body reoriented itself to this world and shed itself of the magic of the other world. He could slowly feel the darkness reclaiming his heart. That was bad. It was very bad.

Suddenly, the author grabbed something on the counter and took off running. "No. W-w-wait a minute!" he cried, getting to his feet with shaky legs. "Where are you going?!"

"Sorry…" he apologized emotionlessly as gravity and pain began to claim him once more and he grasped the counter to stay upright. "Can't risk that bum ticker of yours slowing me down."

Belle.

He could feel her then. On the property. She was here.

The door to the shop swung open, nearly smacking Isaac in the face, and oh, how he wished that it had. Instead, he only paused, looked Belle over in the frame, and pointed over his shoulder. "He's all yours, lady," Isaac stated, and then he was gone. His plan, his salvation, his happy ending walked right out the door…even as his happiness walked in.

"Belle," he breathed as she closed the door behind her. "You came back for me…"

But even as he reached for her, he could see the fire in her eyes, the anger. She was here. But he had a feeling it wasn't out of love.

"I came back to make sure you weren't going to try to hurt anybody else!"

Hurt people?! No…no, she needed to understand! What he'd done…it would have saved people! His heart was the real threat.

"No, no, you don't understand. I only did what I…what I…thought was…best…"

He tried to take a step toward her, but the ground lurched beneath him and his chest squeezed in a way that made his vision go black. He felt pain in his shoulder and realized too late that he'd fallen, hit the floor in a great crash. Ordinarily, he would have diverted magic to that part of his body, but when he tried…when he tried…he tried…

Belle.

Belle was there, she was screaming. She was begging for someone, for something…

He forced his eyes open to look for the assault but found only her.

He was on the ground. His shoulder hurt.

Belle was at his side, looking panicked.

His chest!

Fuck, his chest hurt.

"Rumple!" Belle crept closer as he struggled to move, to look around the room.

He only found Nimue chuckling in the corner.

"Rumple, what's happening?"

Time was up. If he couldn't save everyone from himself. Perhaps he could save her.

"Oh, Belle, I'm sorry. I tried…Belle…I tried so hard. I failed again."

"Failed? Rumple…Rumple, what did you do? What did you try to do?!

There was no time for all that now. Not that she'd ever believe him even if she knew. Once upon a time, she might have, but now?!

"I…I can't. I can't tell you-"

"You can!" she yelled back, so firmly that he had to close his mouth and listen. He hadn't heard a voice like that since his aunts chastised him for not listening. "Rumple, for once in our life tell me the truth! Let me make up my own mind about what I can and cannot understand!"

Could he? Could he tell the tale in the little time he had left?

"Rumple?"

Could he ever make it make sense? Could he ever make her see things the way he saw them?

"Rumple!"

"I tried…"

He tried. He tried to manage his breathing, just like he'd learned at the hospital. Inhale. Exhale. He didn't feel as though it was working. But he needed to try! He owed her that much.

"I tried to give you everything you wanted," he swallowed, ignoring his body. "Everything I wanted us to be. I tried to…I tried to be good, to clear my heart, to be the man you dreamed."

He tried.

"I couldn't do it. My heart's gone black. And…"

A sudden pressure was beginning to build. He didn't have long at all. He had to make her see. Had to make her understand.

Had to make her leave.

"No matter what I do…I always return to the darkness. Even when I got the author to write another book, convinced him to rewrite our story…I still couldn't outrun…"

The pressure stole his breath…

"…I couldn't escape…"

It blackened his vision.

The church was one of those locations in the middle of the woods that only those who lived in the forest, as they did, knew how to reach. Isolated in a small field, no farms or homes, no stalls or shops anywhere around it. It was peaceful, quiet. And it was his hope that if he arrived by magic, he could simply wait quietly in the woods to see if anyone came by looking to be married. If no one did, then that was all the better for him, and he could safely dismiss Isaac's claims. But if they did…well then…he'd be there to stop Regina if she attempted to stop it.

By magic, he took himself into the woods, just outside of the church. To his shock and horror, he heard the sound of a harp playing inside, and a man, perhaps the same holy man who had once married him and Belle, speaking. It was happening. Just as Isaac said it would, it was happening! Theoretically, it seemed like it was already far enough into the ceremony that nothing would stop the wedding from happening, but…

There they were.

Barely a stone's throw from the church, Henry, the Boy Who Pulsed, the Bandit Regina, and a strange blonde woman he'd never seen before, armed with only a sword, stood there…talking?

"I don't even know what to say to him," Regina said to the woman as they stared at the church.

"I think in this case actions speak louder than words," she answered.

"Once you and Robin share True Love's Kiss, everything should be great again," Henry assured her.

Well…darn! For goodness' sake…was it true? There was a small part of him up until this moment that had been holding out for Isaac's story to be completely rubbish, but things happening the way that he'd said they would made that seem like an impossibility! And the way Henry was talking about…

Everything would be "great" again, he claimed? Great for who? If this was true, then he'd go back to being a villain! A coward with a dead son who couldn't count on him. And Belle would know it! Would she even want to be his wife in that scenario? Would they even have little Neal in this other world?

His mind was racing, going over the facts in his head, fears he didn't even know he had were growing. How could he be less than he was now? How could he not be good? What choice did he have?

The way the Stranger had made it seem, it appeared that he had no choice, all roads led to someone who was going to be less than he was now. Either he let Regina go through with her plan, let her interrupt the wedding and he went back to being "the worst villain of all" or…

Or he killed her.

He could kill Regina, stop this plan, and spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it, trying to let something good grow from bad soil. He was going to do evil one way or another…only one of those ways seemed the lesser of two evils. For everyone.

"Okay," Regina swallowed nervously, making the girl beside her smirk. "What?"

"You don't remember this, but I promised once I'd help you find your happy ending," she explained. "I'm just glad I'm here to see it. You got this Regina."

No, he couldn't allow it. For his own sake. For Belle. For their child.

"I'm afraid none of you are crashing this wedding, dearies," he announced sadly, stepping up closer to them, ready to attack. The least he could do was make this quick and painless. She may have been a Bandit, but no thief deserved to suffer.

He drew his sword, and the blonde followed suit, taking a defensive posture as though she stood a chance at fighting him. She didn't, of course. Not unless she wanted to live. And he wanted her to. There was no reason this needed to be bloodier than it had to be.

"Go!" the woman commanded. "I got the Dark One."

"Dark One?!" he scoffed, suddenly feeling like maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing to take care of this girl just as easily as he intended to take care of Regina. "I'm afraid you have the wrong name, Dearie."

She began to circle and he followed step. "We'll see about that…"

He did see. He saw Regina and Henry move around them, closer to the Church. He wasn't going to let them get inside.

"Regina, go!" the woman shouted.

But she was dawdling, wasting time. She didn't want to do this. If she'd wanted to do it, she would have done it before now. She was the cowardly one, not him. Which meant that he had time.

He attacked. Regina jogged to the door, and he and the woman clashed with swords. She was inexperienced, nothing against the training he'd received in the army. But he had to admit…it was fun to spar for a moment. Ogres weren't exactly creatures that made for interesting battle!

He kept an eye on Regina as he worked with the woman. She stood at the door, pausing, as if she was watching the proceedings, and suddenly it dawned on him…perhaps he didn't need to do anything at all. Perhaps he didn't need to kill Regina; perhaps his reputation would be intact, and he wouldn't have to kill anyone. Maybe he only needed to stall this woman and let Regina make the right decision, not to impede on anyone's happiness, theirs or his!

And then he saw Regina take a step, a single step closer to getting into that building, and he panicked. He used his magic against the blonde, to blast her back where she landed safely on a pile of flour sacks. She wasn't dead, he hadn't harmed his conscious yet, she was only knocked out. But when the boy grabbed the sword from her hand and took a stance to face him…something in his stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch.

"Out of my way, boy."

"You have to get through me to get to her!" he shouted.

He didn't want to do that. Killing a thief was one thing, killing an adult another, but to kill a boy this age, one with magic he didn't understand, one who was still so much a child…it was unconscionable. He glanced up at Regina, still stalled at the door of the church. Perhaps he wouldn't have to.

"Go!" the boy cried, glancing behind him to the very place he was staring. "You have to stop that wedding!"

Enough of this. It was inconceivable that the shouting hadn't stopped the wedding already. He used his sword to disarm the boy easily before pointing his sword at him once more as threateningly as he could. Scaring a child was a much lesser offense than killing them.

"You won't hurt me," the boy declared, not budging even an inch. "You're supposed to be a hero here."

Here. He was a hero here because elsewhere, where this boy and that man had come from…he was not. He couldn't tolerate a life of villainy. He wouldn't.

"And that's exactly why I must do this…to ensure I remain one."

The boy's magic, his ideas, his encouragement…they were dangerous. To him, to the world, to Belle. He couldn't let them stand. He raised his sword, ready to remove the boy and his lies from this world for good. But when the sword came down, the person before him wasn't the boy, it was-

"Mom."

Regina. She'd stood before the boy, taken the blow herself. There was an instinct in him to rush forward, to help, to save, until he remembered…this was the result he'd wanted all along.

"It's done…"

"What's wrong?" Belle inquired immediately. He must have looked worried and panicked for her to have picked up on it so quickly.

With a hard swallow, he grabbed a chair for himself as he so often did when they needed to have a talk between the two of them. For now, he was grateful infant ears had no concept of sensical words, though he was aware that doing things this way would be more difficult as Neal got older and more curious.

If…

If Neal got older. Oh, he hated this burden.

"I've just learned of a threat to our realm," he answered, sitting down in the chair beside her. "If left unchecked, it'll destroy all that we've built together…all our happiness."

She took the heavily modified news just about as well as he figured that she would. Though he could see the panic and horror at such an idea settle into her face first, she quickly shook it off, looking at him like the hero she knew he was, the hero he wanted to be.

"But you're the Light One," she scoffed. "Whatever this force is, you'll overcome it." She had confidence in him, in his abilities. He knew that before she ever opened her mouth. What he wouldn't give to go back to being sure of that fact. To be as confident as she was.

"It's more complicated than that," he explained, knowing that he was getting to the part where he was going to have to be careful with how he discussed things with her. The possibilities Isaac presented him with were tearing him up inside; he couldn't bear to have her look at him with even the smallest tint of deception or uncertainty.

"Eliminating this threat means I have to make a difficult choice. And if I make the wrong one-"

"But you won't!" she exclaimed, leaning forward and placing her hand over his own. "You never do. You're a hero, Rumple."

"Yeah, but what if I'm not?"

He hadn't meant to give voice to the words in his head, to doubt his heroism in the face of his potential villainy. But it was a fact that sometimes, when he looked into her eyes, he struggled not to tell her everything on his mind. He needed to be more careful.

Now he stared at her, at his beloved wife, wondering what she'd taken away from that comment, what she would assume he'd meant. Her gaze softened, it went pitiful for a moment, then she rolled her eyes and shifted in her seat to grab another teacup on the table behind her. He could smell it from a mile away—it was his favorite brew. She was always thoughtful like that.

"Here, things never seem quite as bleak after a cup of tea…"

He smiled as she handed him the cup. Those were his words, not hers. Just after he'd rescued her, he'd returned one day to find her in tears because she'd burned the soup she'd made for their dinner. He found it hysterical that it mattered that much, but the tears in her eyes had told him that it had meant something to her, something he hadn't understood yet because he couldn't see how deeply rooted the title of "caretaker" ran in her veins. He hadn't really known what to do then, only remembered that when he was upset over things that seemed big, his aunts had always prepared him a cup of his favorite tea and recited those very words. "Things never seem quite as bleak after a cup of tea." So, in that moment, he'd sat her down on the couch, made her a cup of tea, served it with those words, and smiled when the corners of her mouth turned up and she proclaimed he was right.

He took the cup from her with a smile. His aunts were right then, they were right now. A brief cup of tea with the woman he loved did have a tendency to make things better. It had a tendency to-

His stomach lurched as he shifted in his seat with the tea and felt himself lose his grip on it, sending it to the floor with the unmistakable clatter of broken porcelain.

"Oh, Belle, I'm so sorry!" he muttered as he reached down to pick up the pieces and examine the damage he'd done.

"It's all right," she assured him, looking over the pieces in his hands. "It's fine! See, it's just chipped! We can fix it."

A chip in the cup…was that all that this was bound to be for him? Could it be? The right answer was the wrong answer. To preserve his life, his happiness, the happiness of all the realm…could he remove one life to save the rest? It would be shameful, a chink in his armor, a chip in the cup. Was it really something that could be easily fixed or ignored and not cause harm to the story unfolding before him?

"I'm not so sure it's as simple as that…"

Again, he hadn't meant to say those words out loud! And yet they'd come out. As he'd sat there with his thoughts and his wife considering doing the worst, most villainous thing of his life, at least as far as he could remember, they simply popped out! And Belle had heard.

"Rumple…what's going on?" she questioned, leaning forward and taking his hand again. "Tell me. Talk to me. You can always talk to me."

"I know that, it's just…"

Perhaps this was a mistake. He didn't keep secrets from his wife for good reason, but this was too much for any one person to handle, too much for him to handle.

A chip in the cup, a chink in his armor…that look in her eyes…perhaps she'd already given him the answer that he needed. He couldn't imagine a world where they didn't have this, where he didn't have her or Neal, where she didn't look at him as a hero. It was an awful thing that Isaac was asking of him to preserve this life. But it wasn't just for him. What about her? What about the people?! If he had truly been one of the worst villains of all, then wasn't it better for everyone if he was the hero? He glanced at the clock. There was a wedding today for Robin Hood, which was the wedding he was told he couldn't allow Regina to stop. Perhaps taking time to think about it like this had been the true problem.

"I'm afraid someone is in trouble. Now."

"Now?" she balked, looking at him in shock. Excusing himself for immediate danger wasn't unheard of, but it was a little suspicious, he knew. Besides that fact, he'd promised they'd have the evening together, but…wasn't that what this was all for? An evening together? If he could stop Regina from stopping the wedding, then wouldn't he be able to simply return here quickly so that they could have the evening they wanted together? Have the life they'd built?!

The right thing to do was the wrong thing. It was awful, and terrible…but it was for the greater good.

"I don't want to disappoint you. We had such a wonderful evening planned, and I know we've looked forward to it-"

She leaned forward and kissed him before he could say anything else. She kissed him with understanding as well as passion because he knew that she understood; she always did.

"You could never disappoint me," she promised when she broke their kiss. "Go! We'll be here when you return."

Even with less than half the details, she always understood. That was what he wanted out of life. This. Every day for the rest of his life, he wanted it. With her. And their child. If he did this, then he'd never have to think about the possibility of what he might have been or who he might become ever again. They deserved that.

"How was I ever so lucky as to have ended up with such a wonderful wife?"

She beamed at the words he hadn't meant to say aloud. "I'm the lucky one," she whispered before leaning in and kissing him once more. "Go! Be a hero, my Rumpelstiltskin."

"I'll be back later!" he assured her as he got up and went to the door for his sword. "And then we're going to be together. Always, we'll be together."

"Wow...he sure left in a hurry," Belle stated when she returned with a pail of fresh water. Instantly guilt overtook him as he realized…he hadn't made sure Belle was okay. He'd put a protection spell over Neal, but Belle had just made a trip to the well, and he'd allowed Isaac to leave, knowing that Belle was out there all alone. It was a stupid thing to do. How could he have been so callous?! So self-absorbed?! So…so…

Villainous?

"Is everything all right?" Belle questioned, looking him over.

He was a villain. Potentially the worst that ever existed?

No! It should be something easy to dismiss, to laugh at, to deny, only…

Bae.

"I'm…I-I'm not sure just yet," he answered, looking Belle and Neal over.

How could he have known about Bae? How could he have known it was the only secret he kept in his marriage? Why would he share one true thing and then such awful truths? What was he going to tell Belle? She expected something from him, clearly.

"I think…I think I gave our visitor poor directions," he excused as she continued to stare at him with worry in her eyes. He understood the worry. He was worried. Why was he worried? He knew who he was!

Didn't he?

"Well…he just left, I'm sure you could still catch him if-"

"Yes!" he exclaimed before she'd even finished her thought. That was what he needed! He needed to catch him out in the wild, away from his son and wife, away from those he sought to protect! He needed more information, an explanation about how he'd known about Baelfire!

"Yes, that's a remarkable idea. I'll be back soon, Belle. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about today!" he kissed her swiftly on the cheek and heard her holler something about starting on tea, but he was already out. He'd left Merlin saddled when he arrived, intending to return and settle him in after removing his armor. Now he mounted the steed once more, grateful he'd kept him as he was. He didn't need magic to track the man; he'd left footprints behind. It was all too easy to follow him into the woods and-

He halted Merlin once he was in the thick of it, once he could no longer see the house behind him.

And what?

Track him down? Find him? Hunt him?

Those were things that villains did, were they not?

And once he found him, what was he going to do to him exactly? Ask him nicely about the information he'd given him? He wanted to know how he'd gotten the information about Baelfire, how he knew what no one else did!

But as he replayed the strange encounter back in his head, he realized that the man had already told him. His claim was that this, everything around him, was a story the man had written. Written at his behest.

Because he was a villain.

It seemed preposterous! The idea that this world he knew and had history in was real, his happy marriage, his heroic actions, his growing family…how on earth could none of it be real?! If it was fake, then wouldn't he have Baelfire now? Wouldn't he have envisioned a life where his son was here with him and happy and alive, and he hadn't been too late to save him?! Why would he torture himself like that?!

Unless the alternative was worse than the reality.

Magic couldn't bring people back from the dead. It couldn't turn back the clock. But magic could potentially rewrite...

With a huff, he dismounted Merlin and paced a few steps away. Then a few steps back. His head was hurting, aching with a sudden pain that he ignored as he thought through it.

If this was a spell, if what Isaac had said was true, then…was it? Was it possible that his son had died a horrible death because he was a…a coward?! Had he sacrificed another world where he was a villain so that he could forget, have his memories rewritten, so that he could remember those last heroic moments with Baelfire when he'd simply arrived too late, gotten distracted?

Magic always had its fatal flaws. He couldn't imagine exactly what would have gone into casting a spell like that, the power, the planning, the preparation; he couldn't fathom any of it, but he knew it would leave side effects. Like an aching head…

Like that feeling of concentrating on something too hard made it even more confusing. Like saying the same word over and over again made it sound odd and distorted.

It would hurt like his head hurt now.

With a groan, he sat down on a fallen log and dropped his head into his hands. He needed a distraction. He needed to stop thinking about it to make it go away!

But how in the name of all that was good was he supposed to stop thinking about it with that insufferable label hanging over his head?

Villain!

And worse…what was he supposed to do about it?

Was this world a lie? Was it something he himself had crafted? He couldn't be sure about that, but he knew that he liked it. He loved his life here, his wife and son…

Gods, was he even married in his other life? Did he know Belle? Did they have a child?!

How miserable must he have been to do this? To craft a world where he was burdened by this kind of greatness but found it worthy because of his blessings.

He didn't want to find out.

But that was exactly what was going to happen, according to Isaac, a man who seemed to possess the omnipotence of one of Belle's favorite authors. The boy he'd met earlier, the boy who had magic like that man…he'd said that he had the power to undo this life, his life, this world, all of it! And then what? He'd go back to being a treacherous villain? A coward? Carrying the weight of his death on his shoulders, a weight he had been so desperate to outrun, he'd done all of this?!

Oh, he needed to breathe. His chest was beginning to hurt, his lungs felt too big for the small space they occupied, and his heart raced!

He was a hero. Not a villain. He had no recollection of what he'd been before, if there ever was a before, but he knew that the picture Isaac had somehow painted him with those few details told him he didn't want to experience it. And all he needed to do to make sure it didn't happen, all he had to do was…

Kill.

Regina.

The bandit in the woods.

Her true love was Robin Hood, he'd said, another bandit in these parts, but he was going to marry someone else, and somehow, if Regina stopped the wedding, that would undo all this magic. How?

It didn't make any sense. If he was the one who had set this up, why would he have crafted a failsafe around two individuals he had hardly any knowledge or care for?! It didn't make sense!

Except for the parts he was coming to find made sense.

The pain in his head was getting worse.

He wanted answers, but he didn't. Isaac was no doubt somewhere up ahead, still very catchable. But he wasn't sure he wanted to catch him. He wasn't sure what he could ask to make it all make sense, and he wasn't sure he wanted more details about the world that they'd come from. The little he'd gotten was already bad enough. But to walk away from a threat to him like this, a threat to Belle, their son, the happy life he remembered building with her and for him…

He took a deep breath, in and out.

He didn't want to talk to Isaac again. Not ever, frankly. He didn't trust him. But there was one person he always wanted to talk to, one person he trusted completely, who was level-headed and always offered good advice. Belle.

No, he couldn't tell her everything. He wasn't really keeping Bae a secret from Belle; it wasn't that he didn't think that she could handle it. It was only that thus far, Bae was his own. Belle didn't need to know about his past marriage; there was nothing in their life that remained from those days, nothing but the title he bore now. One day, he'd share it with her. When he was ready. But right now, in the midst of this…it wasn't the time.

And he certainly wasn't going to tell her what Isaac told her. She knew him as a hero and nothing more. The very idea that Baelfire might have seen him as any less in some foreign life was nearly too much to bear. Belle didn't need that kind of pressure or stress.

No, he couldn't tell her everything. But he could still talk to her. He'd figure out a way. What Isaac suggested he do to preserve this life…it was villainous all on its own. If he was going to do it, he needed to know that it was truly worth it, that Belle was truly happy, that she wanted to stay happy. One villainous act to protect their happy ending…the cost was high, but the magic it would potentially bring with it might just be worth it.

He was so eager to see her when he finally arrived back home that he didn't bother to unsaddle Merlin. He'd do it after he got his own armor off and kissed his wife, which was all too easy when he opened the door and found her practically waiting there for him.

He barely had time to get her name out of his mouth before she was in his arms, and her mouth was pressed eagerly against his. All it took was that kiss to make the trials of the day melt away. Just one kiss from her and suddenly he was no longer the Light One, just a man. A very lucky man with a growing family he was proud of, his son reminded him with a small gurgle, interrupting their embrace.

"Seems like someone else wants to celebrate your return," Belle whispered, glancing over at little Neal. Seeing him sleeping there in his cradle peacefully, he very much doubted that. More than likely, it was just gas that had made him gurgle, but he allowed Belle to believe what she wanted to believe as they broke apart and he finally closed the door behind him.

"And how is the newest member of our dear family?" he questioned, leaning forward for a closer look at their boy.

"With any luck, he'll grow up to be just like dear old dad!"

It wasn't often that someone could sneak up on him, but someone had just managed.

When he turned in the direction of a stranger's voice, he saw a man, sitting in one of their chairs with a glass of water and…something more…

This man-he was like that boy from earlier. Henry had been his name. He was like him in so many ways: the fact that he couldn't place his face despite doing his best to get to know everyone in the forest, the strange clothes that he wore, and there was one other thing, too.

There was magic in him. Or, at least, there had been. It was the same strange magic that he'd found on Henry, a magic that didn't shimmer or vibrate but rather pulsed. However, now that he had another individual to compare it to, he could see that Henry's pulsing had been stronger somehow. While yes, it had been just below the surface, a seed not yet grown, the pulse that this man possessed was weak in a strange way. It was withering, beat by beat; it was dissipating. What was that supposed to mean? And what were the chances that he'd encounter a boy with strange magic in his wanderings, then a man with that same magical signature would show up, in his house, on the exact same day?

"Belle! You didn't tell me we had a visitor!" he commented loudly.

"Name's Isaac," the stranger answered before she could explain. "I was traveling through your village when your wife invited me in to slake my thirst."

Lie. He'd told Belle not to allow anyone in the house when he was gone. That didn't mean she never did; it just meant she was careful to ensure that the people she invited in were only there under dire circumstances. If he'd needed water, she would have likely offered it to him outside, not allowed him in, not while the baby was sleeping.

"Oh! Not to be too picky," the stranger, Isaac, commented as Belle came back into the room, "but the water tastes a little murky."

"Oh! I'll get some that's fresh from the well!" she commented before leaving the room to do, he assumed, exactly what she said she'd do.

Exactly what Isaac wanted her to do? He could sense a false smile a mile away, and this greasy man…he was a rat if he'd ever seen one. He didn't know what he was here for, but it wasn't water.

"You didn't come here for the water," he pointed out the moment Belle was out of earshot.

"Perceptive in all worlds. Good!" Isaac sprang up from his seat, and he turned back to Neal, happily sleeping away, ignorant of what was going on. He used his magic to cast a protection charm over the boy the moment he heard Isaac move. He wasn't going to lose another son to a distraction. "Yes. I came here to warn you. Your happiness is in danger."

His happiness? In danger? What an odd thing to suggest.

"From what?"

"A boy."

A boy?

"He's on a mission to help the bandit, Regina. If he succeeds, everything you have will be destroyed!"

He looked the strange man over, confused by his words, by his expression, by his clothes, his reasoning, everything. What was going on here?

"Not to mention what I have..."

"Ha!" he exclaimed, catching the man off guard in the silence as he answered at least one of his questions. Why would this stranger risk telling him these strange things? Greed. Isaac didn't care about anyone else's happiness, only his own. Something he possessed. But what was this warning about anyway?

A boy could take away his life? His happiness? Magic like that would take a powerful individual, and the power he'd sensed in young Henry wasn't. It was growing and certainly stronger than this man's, but it was still meager compared to his own. Even compared to Queen Snow White's, which was almost irrelevant because comparing what he felt in Snow White to Henry was like comparing apples to oranges. No…he knew a threat when he saw one. The boy was strange, but a threat he was not.

"What nonsense. How can some stranger's actions affect my life?"

"Because your happiness, your entire life…it's not real. I know because I am the one who created it…with magic. And it is all about to crumble."

What was he talking about, "creating his happiness"? He'd created his happiness. He'd done it, no one else. Especially not him and his dying magic. And yet…some whisper inside of him told him to stay focused.

"Regina's true love is about to marry another. She's going to try and stop the wedding. You cannot let her succeed. You have to kill her."

Kill?!

"Demon!" he cried, drawing his sword and leveling it at his neck. The Light One kill another human being?! Even one like Regina…preposterous! His entire story was filth. Perhaps it was a test from the Red Fairy, something to see if he was still worthy of his power. His gifts. "You've been sent here to try to corrupt me."

"You have already been corrupted!" Isaac insisted. "Before all of this, you were a villain…maybe the worst one of all. Which is why you had me use magic to rewrite your story. Look, I can prove it to you. I-I know things…the secrets that you've kept from Belle, the ones about your first son…Baelfire."

If his grip wasn't as tight as it was, he might have dropped his sword on the ground. Instead, he felt it lower to the ground with a thud as his arm gave out from the shock.

Baelfire.

No one knew about Baelfire, not even Belle. But it wasn't a "secret" in the awful way Isaac made it sound. He hadn't tried to keep it from her was just…

Bae was a lifetime ago. This marriage he had with Belle was a new life, a new opportunity for him. He loved Bae, but he didn't see how the ghost of his first son was relevant to this life they were building together. And frankly, at this point, it wasn't that he didn't trust Belle with the truth, he'd trust her with his life! At this point the weight of sharing it with her after all this time together felt like some sort of betrayal. Well, damn…

Isaac was right, it was a secret. One he wasn't particularly proud of now that he realized it. But, still…how could this stranger have heard it?

"Where did you hear that name?"

"In this story, he was killed in the Ogre Wars despite your heroic efforts. But in reality, he died because of your cowardice."

Cowardice? That…that wasn't him, that wasn't their story at all. He'd never been scared a day in his life! Bae had died in the ogre wars as a hero, the result of a freak accident, a series of events set off by an ogre. He'd saved a child! And he'd tried to save him, truly he had…

"No, no, no. I…I protected him. I did my best, I…I was honorable."

"No. You weren't. He died because of you."

"Liar!" he cried, raising his sword once more in defense even as his mind's eye saw that vision again, Bae's hand outstretched reaching for him in his moment of distraction, the moment he could have cast the spell to save him. It was an accident. A freak accident. He was no villain; he was a hero. Bae knew that. He did. He had. Just like Belle knew it now. Just like Neal surely would. One day. He'd made a promise when he took on these powers. He wouldn't let himself be corrupted.

"Get out of here…now!" he pushed, forcing the man away from Neal and closer to that door.

"All right. I'll go," he conceded. "But deep down, you know I'm right. You're not really a hero. And if you don't kill Regina and keep her from her happy ending, then everyone, including Belle, will know, too."

He didn't lower his sword, even as the man turned to leave. He wasn't about to let his guard down around this one, not with his son present, even with a protection spell. Not when he somehow knew that man was going to hesitate on his way out the door.

The screaming he heard this morning was close. And it wasn't panicked or hysterical, which gave him hope. After years of doing this job, he'd trained the villagers that their best defense against ogres, if they got through the traps, was silence. The blind bastards worked from scent and sound, and so if they wandered into a village, the last thing someone should do was scream. That would only draw them near. So, in his experience, screaming villagers came from only two things these days. The first was panicked and hysterical; usually, that meant that someone, despite their best efforts, had been killed or maimed. The second was sorrowful, which he usually found meant that property, livelihood, was damaged in some way.

The screams like he heard gave him hope because property his magic could fix. It could even heal the maimed if he got there in time, but the dead…his magic couldn't bring the dead back. He'd learned that the hard way.

After saddling Merlin, he rode off in the direction of those screams and found exactly what he'd expected. The air smelled like lightning, a sure sign that one of the wards Belle had designed herself had gone off. And the screaming he'd heard? It was from the home of the Miller's Daughter. She'd been caught off guard; the mill was in shambles, the poor girl covered in dust and other debris, but the ward had done its job. There were no ogres in sight.

"Here now, girl!" he proclaimed upon arrival. "Tis not so bad, I will set everything the way it was! Your family is alive and all will be well, you'll see. Why, we'll even reset the trap that scared the beasts off!"

"No!"

He turned to see an elderly woman doing her best to run toward him, though her old bones held her back.

"Ogre Slayer! You mustn't waste time!" she exclaimed as he came closer to her. "You must go after them! Ogres!"

Ogres. Plural.

One on its own was enough for a village to handle, but multiple beasts running around these woods posed a problem.

"How many?" he inquired immediately, mounting Merlin again.

"At least five! Please, Sir! They went that way," she pointed in the direction of another village not far off. "My family lives in that village! My daughter and my grandchildren! Please warn them!"

Oh, he'd do more than warn them. "Fear not! I'll save them all!"

He wasted no time. He kicked Merlin's belly, and the pair of them went flying in the direction of danger. He used his hearing to listen for the beasts, for the thud of abnormally large footfalls, shifts in the tree. He preferred that over using his magic to sniff them out. The village that the old woman had directed him to, he knew it well. They frequently found themselves in the midst of ogre attacks, as it was home to a butcher, and the scent of meat was easy for them to pick up and track. For that reason, they had applied more traps there than usual, but he was struggling to remember if they'd repaired those traps after the last attack a month or so back. He hoped they had; he hoped his memory was faulty. But the second he heard screams…he had his doubts.

He spent the morning tracking the beasts. Going village to village trying to locate all of them, but it soon became obvious that the ogres had parted ways, and it made his job all the more difficult. The damage and devastation he encountered that morning was unreal. And as morning bled into afternoon and only two of the beasts had been located and disposed of, he knew today was going to prove to be a greater trial than he'd expected.

That afternoon, the day's pattern continued. He'd only just gotten back onto Merlin and begun looking at the tracks one of the beasts had left behind when he heard more screaming.

"Help!" he heard a young man with a scratchy voice call out as he neared. "Help me!"

Oh, he could smell the beast even before he crested the hill. He could see them.

If there were traps in place, the beast had gotten through them. And while it seemed the rest of the village was inside, doing as they were taught, keeping quiet, one boy had been caught off guard. He appeared to be behind an overturned wagon as, thankfully, only one of the monsters advanced on him. He pulled up close to him and let his horse whinny loudly at the halt, so that the ogre would hear them instead of the boy's screams.

It worked. The beast turned his attention to the pair of them, and he began to summon his magic into the palm of his hand. When the ogre roared and took a step closer to him, he released his magic, willing the creature's heart to stop on the spot. It staggered, crying out before falling only seconds later backward toward what appeared to be a house. He used his magic to redirect the giant's body; to protect the structures around him and make sure the ogre fell into the town square, where it could easily be disposed of, no doubt by the butcher who lived here. There had been enough damage for one day, already too much he had to clean up.

It was almost too easy. But he needed it to be easy. The woman said there were five. Now he'd killed three, which meant there were still two more he needed to round up in addition to getting back to the mill and homes to repair the damage. Today was proving to be busy indeed.

"The monster is dead. The ogre slayer saved us!" he heard a woman cry out behind him. He glanced to his right as the villagers began pouring out of their homes. He half expected the boy to run to one of them or maybe one of them to run to him, but upon further inspection, he could see he couldn't.

The young boy he'd heard scream; he wasn't one of the boys that he'd seen around here before. He was dressed in strange clothes and bound to the wagon that had been overturned. Someone had tied him there. Ordinarily, he might think it was his friend's idea of a joke; young boys at that age could be stupidly cruel like that, but in this case, the fact that he was wearing strange clothes and had been left tied there like an offering for an ogre was the least strange thing about the boy.

He was magical.

At least that was what he thought he was sensing in him, although he had to admit that he hadn't smelled magic like that in his life. Most magic shimmered, vibrated in a way. And how fast it moved, how bright it glowed, depended upon the strength and talent of the individual who possessed it, but with this boy…it was steady and yet not. It pulsed almost like a heartbeat. Like a seed planted but not yet grown. Not yet realized. There was something there, something just beneath the surface. It was…odd.

"Thank you!" The woman who had called out now crept closer to him on his other side, smiling up at him. Whatever it was he sensed in the boy was also distracting. It reminded him that he was still wearing his helmet, and he moved to open it up so they could at least see his face. Belle always said that after these attacks, no matter how busy he was, a smile could go a long way. "If there's anything my family and I can do to repay you…"

"Good deeds have their own reward. This comes with no price," he assured her before turning back to the boy. He used his magic once more to untie him. "Are you all right, boy?" he called as he stepped away from his death trap and rubbed his wrists. "What's your name?"

"Uh, Henry."

Henry. Not a name he recognized in these parts.

"I am Rumpelstiltskin, a knight at your service. Do you have any family around here?"

"Y-yeah," he stuttered, staring up at him. It was probably shock, either from his experience with the ogre or meeting him. "I think so. Yeah."

The boy and whatever was inside of him warranted investigation and perhaps even mentorship. It wouldn't be the first time he'd guided a young child with potential gifts for good in the right direction, however…

From afar, he could hear the roar of another ogre. It was a reminder that there was still work out there to be done. And as interested as he was in young Henry, he was currently suffering from a nosebleed as well as the shock. He didn't need to be interrogated; he needed to be sent home to be tended to. Now that he had a name, he could come back and speak to the boy later, once he'd tackled the other two ogres. Once Henry was well rested.

"Then I suggest you run home for your supper, Henry, because I…I have another village to save."