All magic comes with a price.
The words ring in the Dark One's ears, mocking him in low whispers that only he can hear, and he knows he's gone mad. He paid the price for his power, over and over again. First his mortality, then Baelfire, and finally Belle. With nothing left to lose, why not help the Queen take everything else, with the curse that eradicated happiness and true love and magic and memories? He'd lost everything, why shouldn't they?
When the curse unraveled like so much golden thread, that hadn't bothered him either-at least Regina's anger gave him some glee. His skin regained its shimmer and he tossed his cane out like the garbage it was, and his magic coursed through his veins again like an old friend, like a drug he'd never truly been weaned from.
Then there were sides to be chosen. Emma seemed to lead most of the town, at least the ones who mattered-Snow White and Prince Charming and Red Riding Hood (who even the Queen was terrified of, when the full moon rolled around) and many others. The Dark One reluctantly joined them, too, for his enmity of Regina had grown only harder and colder since they'd been in Storybrooke, and as the town fell, he hoped to be on the winning side.
The buildings began to change, melting and freezing to their more solid, more real forms. The Mayor's House was first, expanding and unweaving into the Queen's all-too-familiar castle. The Dark One thought little of it when the nearby hospital was next, stretching itself into the shadows of an enormous tower with barred windows that were never lit. It matched the Queen's castle nicely, actually, though infuriated his compatriots with the added defense it gave her.
When the battle came, the big one, the Dark One thought it would be fanciful to strike it down with a few strikes of lightning, but nothing too flashy, not even any thunder to follow it up.
And that is when he hears the screaming, and the voices in his head.
All magic comes with a price.
And the tower is burning and falling, and he's close enough to feel the heat of the flames through his usual leather. Everyone else is charging the Queen's castle, swords and bows in hand, but the Dark One had frozen. Recognition, remembrance. Memories of a blue-eyed woman he tried so hard to stifle.
Once upon a time, he had dragged her through his castle, across cruel stone floors, and listened to her yell and cry out (all because she loved him), and that was nothing and everything like the screams now, echoing through the air. When the tower makes its final, sickening crash to the ground, suddenly like a toppled toy, the screaming ceases.
And he is running toward it, though his mind, always so spry, has not yet caught up to why.
Nearby the battle, the war, rages on, but the Dark One is occupied, picking through rubbled black bricks, some of them still on fire-he can feel his hands burning too, smell the smoke arising from the whole bloody mess and leeching onto his clothing. He himself could be on fire for all he knows, but the Dark One is lost in a fear that wraps around his throat and crushes his chest tighter than smoke or fire.
When he finds her body, bloody, burned, and broken, he drags her from the wreckage, toward the forest.
She loves trees, he recalls.
Belle's clad in what remains of a hospitals gown, her chestnut curls turned mostly to ashes. Seething red burns adorn her flesh, and nearly all of her bones are broken. Eyes closed, chest still, empty of breath. He knows without having to search for a pulse that he won't find one anyway.
All magic comes with a price.
He remembers that, now that it's too late. And keeping the price in mind, the Dark One places a hand on one of her thin, dead shoulders, and lets the magic flow. It's tough magic, sharp as daggers, but when it's finished Belle's eyes flutter open.
Blue as ever.
"Rumpelstiltskin," she whispers. A small, secret smile spreads across her face, and he can't help but smile too, through his tears. "I knew you'd come."
He wants to tell her he's too late, there's nothing he can do. But he stays silent, lets his Belle raise her dead, broken arm up, and cradle his face against the palm of her hand.
A moment later, and the magic flees. So does Belle, her arm falling with a thud back to the ground, eyelids shuttered back down. But he has to pay for even those few seconds of bliss. He's traded one curse for another, harsher one.
Rumpelstiltskin rises from the corpse of his lover, remembers the Queen who had held her captive for so long, made him believe she was dead. He limps toward her castle, determined to make her pay the price in any way he can, even without the aid of his magic.