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Be What You Want
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The light of the dawn has no meaning,
you're lost in the haze of the night.
The strength that should be there within you
is wasted and all left behind
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Regina could never kill her father. She simply couldn't.
Some people aren't strong enough to rip a beating heart free from a chest and create a curse that will destroy everything and everyone. Regina was never strong enough.
Rumplestiltskin is though. He's desperate enough, and sometimes enough desperation can amount to strength. That's why he escapes those feeble barriers holding him captive and takes off, skin glittering under the darkness of the night. He's a wicked beast, and he's through with petty deals and making victories through contracts.
He needs one thing, and thing alone.
A heart.
.
It takes him a year to find her.
He digs his heels and snaps his teeth, but yet he finds her.
There was never a grave dug for her, and there never was a tower. But there was a wicked queen, and that's where he will start and where it will end. He finds her in a dungeon, chained and tortured.
Rumplestiltskin wants to take her though. He wants to carry her home and to his castle like a hero, back to her library and his safety. He shudders and shakes, drawing in close to her. She's not a fool because she knows exactly what he wants and he's had it all along.
Her love.
He thinks of his son vanishing into nothing, and imagines her dead body mixed in with Milah's. It's a hideous abstract design, but he can't escape the reality of which he has created since the day he grabbed hold of that dagger.
There's a chorus of angry and pained voices, guards with their broken hands and shattered hips. They're screaming at him, but they don't matter.
She's not dead.
She was never dead.
("Well played, dearie.")
He wants to be Prince Charming for her, but in reality he is just the monster and she's just an unlucky victim. She knows this, pressing her hands tight over her chest so tightly. "Please don't do this."
"I'm sorry, Belle." He has so many things to say, and not enough time to say it because there is never enough time to simply say it. She is twisting and shaking, her back a bloody mess and her knuckles are so swollen. All he can do is taste the ozone and ash.
He plunges his claw into her chest, digging out the most precious heart in all of the worlds.
The moment he creates the curse, she will die. So similar to Milah.
He rips her heart in half.
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He doesn't understand what he has done until he's miles away from the tiny little women locked away in chains and nightmares. (once, she had searched for adventure. once she had struggled for love. once she was his and now she'll never be his.)
It's too late for love now.
Crimson mist starts to unfurl out of the cauldron and he hisses from the endless pain. Happy endings were only miseries and tragedies.
He knew that.
The world would know that.
"Forgive me, Belle." He whispers.
.
He wakes up alone.
Welcome to Storybrooke.
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