When he appeared from the beyond she was crying and her face was swollen and a line of tears trailed a glistening milky way down her cheeks and he thought she was beautiful. She was beautiful and when the waterfall of her hair parted her reddened eyes reflected no disgust and no pity, only the petrified empathy of self-preservation and he loved her.
He told her that he would do anything for her.
She said, "Thank you."
He wanted all of her; the silent weeping condensing into sniffles, the calloused hands unclenching, the red nail marks fading from her palms. She gave him her necklace and he was satisfied.
When he was done, everything was transformed. The dingy walls glittered and the dank cell felt like an imperial throne room and she was sleeping while he fingered her necklace in his misshapen hands and watched her chest move up and down, up and down. He knew he couldn't stay for long. When she woke up, she wouldn't need him anymore and then she wouldn't see him like she saw him before and while his work was not a sham and while the walls would continue to shine in the sun as they did now under the feeble moonlight – all this would remain but he would fade. He would cease to sparkle in her eyes.
The next day he felt it again, that tug, pulling on his essence as he rested, and he was there and she was there and he ignored that tiny part of her – that part that expected him to obey her commands now that he had done it once.
He needed to know that she needed him too. Her ring would not fit on his fingers so he placed it inside his front pocket.
While she slept he worked his magic and once again the damp organic decay became solid and timeless and yet for him the glowing shimmer that filled the room was nothing compared to the pale softness of her toes, peeking out from under the heavy woolen blankets.
The third time it was different. She was still beautiful and desperate but now she was jealous of him and regretted her dependence on his powers. He could feel the pieces of his self reaching out to her and pulling back and wanting to help and wanting to hurt her and he hated himself and he loved her and he hated her and he loved himself.
"I need to know that you need me," he said. "I want your baby, the one you will have with him."
She closed her eyes and he knew it was over.
There was a long wait until she could look at him.
"Yes. Do it."
As always she fell asleep before the magic happened, and by the morning he was gone.
Eventually, she forgot about him. She married the man she longed to impress, she fell into love or something like it, she became pregnant. She watched her midsection grow round, she lived through the infinity of waiting, the infinity of pain, the infinity of happiness. At the end of forever he was waiting for her.
It always ends like this, he thought as he watched her step in front of the crib, her back stiff with protective instincts. Even though she was the one who was angry, she whose energies were writhing and ugly as they struggled to break past the glowing bonds of her promise it was he who felt darker, whose heart was cast in shadow by the unexpected abyss that parted him from her reflected light.
"I will give you all the riches in the kingdom in return for my son," she implored.
She disgusted him and he hated her and he wanted that tiny piece of her that was uncorrupted.
"No, a living creature is dearer to me than all the treasures in the world," he replied.
He argued to himself that this baby was as good as his, that without him there would have been no child, no mother, that he was as much the father to this child as the powerful man sleeping in the adjacent room. He looked at her and she had changed. The rich brocade of her dress overwhelmed her body and her inner strength had been divided into new responsibilities and foreign powers.
"Please." She began to sob, wheezing first into a silk handkerchief and then, losing control, she buried her head in the puffy fabric of her sleeves.
He couldn't do it.
"If you can call me by my true name in three days I will let you keep the child." He gave her three days in return for the three they had shared.
He saw her nodding, saw the survival instinct in her eyes brighten. He smiled and left.
The first day he was bored. The names were common to him; they lacked the subtle cunning that had drawn him to her the first time she called for help, the craftiness that had lain dormant under her trembling naïveté when she first saw him and in him saw a way out - a way to impress the king. He was tired of repeating his simple answer, "That is not my name."
The second day proved as tedious as the first. He could see her mind working, combining improbable antecedents with Latin and Greek roots, with place-names and archaic formulae, but once again he found himself with the same reply, "No, that is not my name."
As the second day wore on she began to pace in front of the crib, holding in strangled shrieks of frustration. Her emotion fascinated him.
On the night of the second day he found himself unable to leave. He longed to gaze upon her movements for he realized that – whether she was able to discover his name or not – he would never be able to stay. She would never love him the way she loved him that first time, she would never need him like she needed him then. He hid below her windowsill and watched her gently rock her baby to sleep, her lips moving in a wordless lullaby.
When he arrived on the third day she was crying and her face was swollen and a line of tears trailed a glistening milky way down her cheeks and he thought she was beautiful. She was beautiful and when the waterfall of her hair parted her reddened eyes reflected no disgust and no pity, only the petrified empathy of self-preservation and he loved her.
She said, "I have told you all the names in existence. I have sent messengers to scour the land for any possible names I could have missed. I have done everything I can. If you must, then take my child."
As she spoke she clutched the baby to her chest, pulling tighter into a protective cocoon even as she extended her arms towards him.
He took the child into his arms, carefully marveling at the tiny nose, the fingers reaching up towards his own lined features, his rumpled hair, his wrinkled clothes. He was about to leave when he felt her hand on his shoulder. It was the first time she had initiated physical contact and the warmth of her fingers mushroomed through his body.
"What is your name?" she asked him, her voice coming out in breathless gasps.
He said, "My name is Rumplestiltskin."
She tasted the syllables, "Rumplestiltskin. Rumplestiltskin." In that moment their eyes connected, bloodshot cornflower blue to alien emerald green. He gently passed the baby back into her arms and disappeared.