Author's notes: Well, if you buy Cora's redemption in season 5, why not get the package deal and ship Rumple with her, too? I expect it would be an on-again, off-again thing, sprinkled with betrayals and murder attempts, but at least they wouldn't be bored. She's a better option IMO than canon!Belle at this point.

The title is from Annie Finch's poem "Coy Mistress", which was a response to the poem quoted in the summary, "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell.

The Shears of Fate can sever any destiny, even the Dark One's.

His fingers loosen and the golden blades fall. He hears them clattering to the ground. At least he was able to do what he needed to do — spin death into life like straw into gold — before he loses his grip at last.

It's all right, Rumplestiltskin tells himself. He's been living on borrowed time since his son died.

He hopes they'll be more careful with powerful magical artifacts after this. He won't be there to warn them anymore. Maybe... Belle. He strains to find her one last time before he is gone. He has severed his fate from hers. Only sentiment binds them now.

Good-bye, Belle. You will always have a place in my heart. He hopes she can hear his words, but he can't know for certain. The only certainty now is his death.

He finds himself in hell again, for the third time.

The first time, he had burned. The fires of hell are fed by guilt and regret. No one hated him more than himself. Stripped of self-deceptions and self-justifications by the clarity of death, he had been left a flayed husk writhing in the ashes of damnation.

This time it's different. He's cut himself free of all that. He's done what he's done; self-loathing is pointless. The voices of those he's harmed still cry out to him, but from a distance. As for those who harmed him, he's cut himself free of that, too. He no longer has any need of love or hate. He owes no more debts to anyone, living or dead.

It doesn't take long to find the pit, the fiery pit with the bridge that may or may not cross to the other side. Either way, it brings an end. Whether to a better place, or a worse one, he can be at peace. It's over. There's nothing to tie him to the world again. Nothing left to fear.

For a long time, he stands at the edge, contemplating that final leap of faith. He takes a step. Another. Then—

"Leaving us already?" A woman's voice tugs him back from the brink.

"Cora." He turns to greet her. "I thought you had moved on."

"I did, but I came back." She stands in the shadows, looking regal even in the drab pantsuit she wears in the fashion of the Land Without Magic.

"Why?"

"With Hades gone, this limbo was even more of a mess than ever." She closes the distance between them, a fond smirk on her face. Her tone holds no rancor towards him. "Someday my daughters will come here, and I don't want their souls to suffer if I can help them."

"Your maternal instincts do you credit," he says, but he has his doubts. "Are you sure it wasn't the power vacuum? After all, why stop at being a queen when you can be a god?"

Cora laughs. "Rumple, my dear, you know me too well. But you. I didn't expect to see you here for centuries yet. What lucky fool has their name on the Dark One dagger now?"

Rumplestiltskin draws the dagger from inside his jacket and shows it to Cora, his name inscribed in silvery-white letters on a black blade.

"It looks different now," she notes. She eyes his shorn hair. "As do you."

"It is different." He considers, then adds, "As am I."

"How is this possible?"

"I died once before." Perhaps it is not wise to confide in Cora; he knows she will only use the knowledge against him, but who else has ever understood him so well? "Then I was reborn out of elemental darkness." Elemental darkness — it sounds better than "black goo." Even dead, he has an image to maintain.

"Intriguing." How attentively she listens — Cora was always the best of his students.

"Later, my heart was drained of magic, but that was only a temporary state of affairs. I drank all of the darkness back in, and reforged this blade." He hides it away again, then concludes, "There is no Dark One anymore, there is only Rumplestiltskin."

"But you're here now. You must have died again. How?"

"Emma Swan," he tells her. "The savior. Like all saviors, she faced a prophecy of her own demise."

"I thought you were the one with the prophecy? A boy would be your undoing?"

"Did you read that in a book?" The Author's books are another manifestation of the powers of the Fates. Having snipped through his own destiny, Rumplestiltskin hopes that from now on, his story will not appear in those pages.

"Your grandson left it behind in the Underworld."

"Yes, well. I was undone. Death counts as 'undoing'."

"What of the savior?"

"The pirate tried to use the golden shears of fate to save Emma from her doom, but forgot to read the operating instructions." Typical of the Storybrooke heroes, he thinks, lurching from one emergency to another with no comprehension of the consequences of their own actions. "He severed her from herself, which only resulted in the two halves of herself killing each other."

"And where were my daughters in all this?"

"Distracted. They had too many other enemies on their plate." He is surprised that Cora hasn't been spying on them to know this already. Her takeover of the underworld must be keeping her too busy.

"And you?"

"I spliced Miss Swan's lifeline back together again, but it's always a life for a life. Mine was available and convenient, so here we are."

"Why would you die for Emma Swan?"

"I don't care about Emma Swan, but my grandson does. He doesn't deserve to lose both of his birth parents."

Cora nods in understanding.

"Besides, the incestuous vibes were reaching whole new levels of awkward. I know your daughters have been unfortunate in love, but throwing themselves at me won't help anyone." Death would have been an extreme reaction, but as an accidental benefit of his demise, he appreciates the escape.

Cora winces. "Yes, I can see how that would be distasteful. Still, I've resolved to let them handle their own affairs from now on."

"I won't say I'll ever harbor much fondness for Zelena, but maybe Regina will be a good influence on her. At least, once Regina comes to her senses and manages to integrate herself again." He can't forget what Zelena has done to him, but perhaps it's only just desserts for his own part in shaping her half-sister into someone willing to cast his Dark Curse.

"What about Belle? You've left her a widow. The last time you were in the underworld, you didn't even drop by to say hello to the woman you murdered, but I'm told you and your little wife were inseparable, even after you put her in Pandora's Box."

"It's over."

"Oh, but surely..." Cora's eyes search him, probing.

"Even if death had not parted us... Well." He drops his gaze. What is there to say? "If she had hated me, I might still have hoped for more, but at the end, she felt only disgust. No matter what I did, it was the wrong thing, in her eyes."

"I'm sorry." Her voice is sincere, without her usual half-mocking tone.

"Killian fucking Jones." For a moment, anger gets the better of him and the name slips out.

"Sorry?"

"Of all the places in Storybrooke, she decided to stay on the pirate's ship." He glances at Cora, grimaces at the look on her face.

"You mean, she and Hook..." Cora gestures suggestively, but her eyes betray surprise.

"No, no, no. She's just doing it to spite me." He forces down his rage. "As for him, he may have felt something for my first wife, but Belle is just another prop in the Captain Hook Show. Now that I'm out of the picture, maybe she'll find a friend who actually cares about her."

"Blind fool," Cora says softly, looking almost sympathetic. "But the living so often are. It took death to redeem myself in the eyes of my children, to understand what they wanted of me."

"Belle wants nothing from me now, not even my protection. I tried to protect her anyway, but anger makes for poor choices: I only made things worse."

"And the child you share? I heard rumors that Hades had a contract for your second-born."

"His mother will raise him. He's made it clear he wants nothing to do with his father."

"How sad. And if he changes his mind? Children... do. You can't give up on him, Rumple. You moved heaven and earth to find your Baelfire. Will you do less for your younger child?" She takes his hand between hers, in earnest now. She sounds like she actually cares.

Rumplestiltskin sighs. "If he wants to hear my voice, I left a cassette tape for him with his mother. If he chooses to listen — or to speak to me — it's more than a mere recording. Living or dead, it can serve as a conduit between us."

That, he thinks, is something else he and Cora have in common: they have destroyed their children's lives in the name of some misguided love.

"Oh, Rumple." She pulls him into her embrace. "I think you're the one who needs a friend."

"Don't we all?" His voice is muffled in her shoulder, but he returns the hug with a bitter snort of laughter. "But friendship isn't for people like us."

"And what about True Love?"

"True Love!" He breaks free, shoves Cora away and turns to face the pit again. "True Love is the strongest magic in all the realms..."

"So you've said." She touches his arm, but he shakes her off again.

"Don't you understand what that means? Magic," he hisses. "It's a tool of the Fates. True Love is how they manipulate us. But I've cut myself free!" Memories flood his mind, belying his words. He laughs through the tears that threaten his fragile peace.

"Rumple..."

He stares into the mists rising from the abyss, breathing carefully until his calm returns. "What do you want, Cora?"

"Maybe I just wanted to see my old teacher, bid him a last farewell," she says lightly.

"You wanted to see if I still had any power," he says. When he turns, he sees by the look on her face that his guess is accurate. She has been testing him all along, subtly, but his magical senses tell him the story.

"And you do," she says. "I wanted to ask for your help."

"Since you can't compel it," he says dryly. His dagger is well-protected and beyond her reach. His recent carelessness with Hyde has taught him to take better precautions. "So what kind of help are you looking for?"

"You said it already. I have to become a god."

"Really, dearie?" He can't help but be amused at her ambition. "I was only joking when I said that."

"I'm not," says Cora. "I can hold this realm for now, but not if Zeus makes up his mind to appoint a true god to replace Hades."

"And what do you expect me to do? My power has its limits. I can't just wave my hand and turn you into a deity."

"I know that, but if anyone can find a way, it'll be you."

"Flattery is worth even less than gold," he says. "Assuming I could, why would I help you? What can you offer me, this time?"

"A challenge," she says. She nods at the end of the bridge. "No matter what awaits you, it'll be a waste. Death, by definition, is an ending. An end to the story, an end to doing things."

"Peace," says Rumplestiltskin. "I welcome it."

"Tedium," says Cora. She reaches for his hand again, and this time he does not resist as she draws him away from the pit. "Come now, isn't there anything that still moves you? Anything that you want?"

He doesn't answer.

She touches his face. "I saw it. Don't deny it. Fate. You're still angry at the Fates. For using you. For burdening you with True Love and then taunting you with it."

He pulls back, sinks into the shadows. "What's the use? Fate rules even the gods. No one can fight the Fates and win."

"No one can spin straw into gold," she reminds him.

"That's just magic."

"And magic is impossible, until it isn't. If you can master the Fates, then bestowing godhood on someone is easy."

He scoffs. "Easy to say! I've barely managed to sever myself from the Fates, and now you want me to challenge them?"

"Yes."

"You've never lacked for courage," he says. Unlike him, he thinks, remembering their first meeting in the tower. "Or imagination."

She smiles, and he sees the sharp edge behind her smile. She's set her challenge to him in a way that doesn't threaten his power. It's his heart she is gambling with, then.

"Only love," he concludes. "You ripped out your own heart to be rid of it."

"Not this time," she says. "I promise."

The promise is binding, when spoken to someone with his nature. He closes his eyes, a pang of regret shading his thoughts. So this is her offer. He echoes his own long-ago words, "I can give you nothing but darkness and isolation..."

"And love?" she asks, as she asked once before.

"I don't know." He looks at her again, sees the loneliness in her eyes. Her marriage had been long and loveless, with a husband she had never respected. It had been her own choice. Does she regret it now? It doesn't matter. They are where they are. Prince Henry has moved on. Cora remains here.

"We're older and wiser now, Rumple," she suggests.

"That's debatable, dearie. What we are is more dead."

"But we haven't stopped. Not yet."

"You'll never stop until your name is dust," says Rumplestiltskin. "Or I could throw you into the River of Souls now and save us all a world of pain." It doesn't take magic to know that her success will not be cheaply bought, and that a defeat could cost them even more.

"Is that what you want?"

Ambition. Love. He studies her face and wonders, which is the lie? Or are both true? The truth is, he's lonely, too. He finds an odd comfort in her companionship, even after all their mutual betrayals. To defy the Fates together, to challenge the gods themselves. Hubris, he thinks. But then again, wasn't that the story of their lives?

"Or do we have a deal?"

"What the hell. Let's do it." Rumplestiltskin smiles and sticks out a hand. "We have a deal."