In celebration of Bae coming back (hopefully) a mini fic
Disclaimer- I never claimed to own anything in the first place
It had been a near century since Neal had been aboard the Jolly Roger, once again the waves crashing against the side of the ship and the rocking of the vessel was keeping him awake. He lay on the same bed he did when he was fourteen, this time however there were Lost Boys all across the floors and sleeping soundly. Neal had spent years on the road and sleeping in odd places, benches, cars, trees, even roofs. But no matter what he found he could never really sleep in motion. Neal got up and made his way across the room, careful not to step on any Lost Boys and quietly as possible closed the door behind him.
He didn't really recall the map of the ship, having only spent a week there after he had gone through his second portal. The doors were all loose and slightly opened, Snow and Charming had taken residence in one room along with Emma. He knew that Regina and Henry were in the one beside them, or more so Henry was sleeping and Regina was guarding him. Hook was still steering, Neal hoped not on the influence of rum. Trying to avoid the creaking floorboards he found a ladder that lead way to the deck and made his way up.
He took a look around, Tinker Bell was sleeping close to the head, Neal looked to the wheel and he didn't see Hook, yet the wheel was still turning, on instinct Neal quickly made his way up to it. Hook was on the ground fast asleep, he hadn't been drinking but he had obviously been exhausted. Neal looked at the ship's wheel again, it was moving, as though invisible hands were steering it.
His father.
Rumpelstiltskin was sitting on the ground, Pandora's box at his side and one hand in the air using magic to steer the ship. He looked up to his son who silently sat beside him. A smile crept onto Rumpelstiltskin's face, he had his son, he finally after all this time had his son.
Neal wanted to ask if his father was tired or if it was a good idea for him to be steering the ship if he was, that was until he remembered back to when Rumpelstiltskin first became the Dark One, things like sleeping and sometimes eating seemed beneath him, he had tried but found that basic needs eluded him. Injury and age and hunger and tiredness were all things that Rumpelstiltskin had almost forgotten after all these years.
Neal decided to break the silence, "I learned how to steer this once." The skill had probably faded after a century but he remembered learning. His father turned his head and raised his eyebrow in surprise.
"You spent time on this ship?"
Neal nodded, "After I landed here."
Rumpelstiltskin thought for a moment and inquired further, "You landed here, instead of A Land Without Magic?" his right hand was still raised and steering the ship.
"No, I um, I did go there at first but Pan's shadow brought me here."
Rumpelstiltskin nodded, a wave of thoughts and realizations crashing in his head, "How long were you here?"
Neal looked at his hands, "About a century." He mumbled.
He felt his father's eyes pierce through him, Rumpelstiltskin was looking at him with more regret than Neal thought it was possible to carry. His father sighed and put his hand down, the boat stopped for a moment. "Wouldn't have happened if I went with you the first time." He said. Neal knew this, he had had more years than he could count to go over every possible way his life could have turned out. If only his father went with him through the portal, if only Wendy had listened when he told her to stay away from magic, if only he had figured out how to trap the shadow when he was at the Darlings. There were too many 'if onlys' than he had cared for.
"It wasn't your-"
"Yes it was," Rumpelstiltskin's voice was a strange mixture of sadness and anger and loss, "if I had just gone with you the first time the shadow would have never gotten you and you would have never had to come to this island."
Silence followed that, that was true, but what was also true was that if it were not for his long waiting period on Neverland he would have never met Emma. Henry would not exist, a lot of things would not have happened and he knew that, but he didn't want to say it out loud for some reason.
"So you spent a hundred years looking for me?" he asked after a long pause.
"Three hundred actually." Rumpelstiltskin responded, Neal turned his head at that, three hundred years, his father had spent three hundred years trying to find him. "How did you do it?"
Rumpelstiltskin then proceeded to tell him about his second encounter with the seer, how he obtained the power of Sight, how he foresaw that a daughter of the woman Cora would cast a curse that would take everyone to a World Without Magic, how the daughter of True Love would be the Savior and break the curse when she turned 28, and how he had spent hundreds of years putting all the pieces in place. His son didn't quite know how to respond, he had spent a century on Neverland, every night wishing his father would come and rescue him and a century of telling himself after those wishes that his father didn't care for him, or else he wouldn't have let him go. Now he knew that all that time and longer his father had never stopped trying to get to him. He had just been looking in the wrong places.
"Finally, when the curse broke and everyone's memories returned, I brought magic to Storybrooke so I could find you, and with many complications in between, I enlisted the help of Miss Swan to find you in New York and, well, here we are." Rumpelstiltskin finished.
"Complications?" Neal asked.
His father let out a sound that vaguely sounded like a laugh, "Oh yes, that cursed town line." At his son's bemused expression, "Part of the curse is that no one in the town can leave, Emma and your son are the exception because they were not roped into the curse. When everyone in the town had false memories, if they tried to cross the line they would have an accident of some sort, when the curse broke, if you crossed the town line you would lose your memories and return to your curse self."
Neal thought for a moment, "What about August Booth?" remembering the man that had told him about Emma's true past and had caused him to leave her, "why could he leave?"
"I believe he somehow evaded the curse and traveled to that world the same way Miss Swan did." Rumpelstiltskin explained, "How do you know him?"
Neal sighed, "When Emma and I were together before Henry was born we were, well we weren't exactly on the right side of the law. We drove around and stole stuff and it wasn't exactly the ideal lifestyle but it was weirdly… nice." He shrugged, he noticed his father's expression, he was avidly drinking in every single word, every single fact about his son's life that he could receive. "But eventually we got tired of it and decided we just wanted to go somewhere and stay there and get jobs and not get into trouble. So I had these stolen watches that I was going to sell that would give us enough money to do that."
"Didn't work out did it?" his father asked, Neal shook his head and went back in his mind to the moment where August entered the picture.
"That's when August came in and he told me he knew who I was and who she was and he told me I had to stay away from her and let her fulfill her destiny as the Savior or else he would let out who I really was." The guilt was still with him from that event, when it had happened he had only been in the Land Without Magic for ten years, he had been careful, taken up a false name and a false life, unlike the first time no one had taken him in but he had learned a lot living on the streets. All that time he had been terrified that someone from his world would find him, all the resentment for his father had built up over the years and he had absolutely no desire to see him again. When August had revealed that he and Emma were from the Enchanted Forest and that he knew who Neal really was he had bolted, telling himself that Emma would be better off and that he was just keeping her from finding her family and becoming the Savior. But in actuality he knew who he was really running from, his father, his old life, magic, and everything to do with it, unfortunately that included Emma.
He didn't say any of it aloud, but Rumpelstiltskin knew what he meant and why he left Emma, the guilt his father had paralleled Neal's, his father didn't blame him for running away from his old life after all that had happened to him.
"He pretended to be you." Said Rumpelstiltskin after a few minutes. "August I mean, not long after Miss Swan arrived in Storybrooke he did too."
"Why?"
Rumpelstiltskin sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "He made it seem like he was you, coming back to 'make amends' with me, but he just wanted the dagger so he could use my magic to help himself." He remembered the day with bitterness, for a moment he thought that his son had come back and forgiven him, but it was just a desperate soul who needed his magic. Rumpelstiltskin felt that he had given a better apology to Pinocchio than he had to his actual son when they first spoke to each other.
"He tried to control you?" asked Neal, right now he and his father were in agreement over the immense dislike for August W. Booth. His father nodded.
"Didn't work though, there was no magic at that time so it was ineffectual."
"What did you do to him?" Neal asked, as much as he didn't like August he always hated it when his father hurt people, no matter what really.
"Nothing," to Neal's surprise, "his curse was spreading and he was turning into wood, he was dying anyway."
"But he isn't dead, I saw him transform into a boy again."
"Thankfully, August Wayne Booth is no more." His father slightly smiled at that, " Pinocchio has returned and the boy has no recollection of ever being Mr. Booth."
"Bet you aren't too happy about that?"
"Actually, his particular situation worked out in my favor." Rumpelstiltskin said without realizing it. Neal gave him a puzzled look and his father gave him and explanation, "I was in need of a potion that brought back memories, as luck would have it a hair from his head was the missing ingredient."
"Why did you need a memory potion?"
He replied in one word, "Belle." A smile, an actual genuine smile that Neal thought had been solely reserved for him was now for a woman named Belle. It was unbelievable in the best way possible.
Neal had heard about Belle, seen her in passing, though apparently it hadn't exactly been her, "Emma told me what happened to her, with Regina and all." He said, Rumpelstiltskin smirked in a lighthearted way that didn't mean he was up to something. Having his old face back had it's advantages, he could have his emotions on his face for once instead of having them buried in darkness.
"I have a feeling Miss Swan didn't tell you the whole story of that little endeavor." Rumpelstiltskin started, "It wasn't Regina who originally altered her memories, it happened to be that pirate right there." He pointed to the sleeping man that was Captain Hook. The villains, or so they were called, looked bizarrely normal and not dangerous when they were sleeping, the leather offset the image though.
"Hook changed her memories?" Neal asked, knowing that the Captain did not posses magic.
"He intended to kill her, but instead he settled for shooting her so she fell across the town line. She lost all of her memories." He explained with bitterness, "looking back on it I would have probably done the same after what I did to Mi-" Rumpelstiltskin stopped himself before saying the name of his ex-wife. Did Bae know about what happened? When he was on the ship did Hook tell him?
Neal looked down, "I know what happened." His words pierced his father in the chest, so Hook had told him, his son sighed, "I'm not ready to have this conversation." He said with unmistakable bitterness.
"Bae-"
"Tell me about Belle."
Rumpelstiltskin thought were to begin, he was glad that his son didn't want to talk about Milah, but with Belle, their story was so long and rarely happy that he didn't know how to tell it to his son.
"I met her a long time ago, in a deal," Neal let out a small laugh at that, of course he had, "her kingdom was being overtaken by Ogres and she made a deal with me that if she became my maid then I would save her kingdom."
"Her kingdom?" Neal asked, his father responded with a nod, "she's a princess?"
"Yes actually." Rumpelstiltskin smiled, Belle was a princess, still was to be technical, yet she fell in love with the most feared monster in all the lands. The fact still boggled Rumpelstiltskin beyond belief.
"I'm guessing the movie wasn't exactly accurate?" said Neal, remembering the animated feature he had seen a couple years after his arrival in the Land Without Magic. Rumpelstiltskin looked completely baffled, "forget it." He made a hand gesture for his father to continue.
"So she went with me, saved her kingdom, and we sort of…" he trailed off, not knowing at all how to explain how he and Belle had fell in love. "she was the only one in a long time who cared." He decided upon. "She asked me about my past, saw past all the darkness, she wasn't afraid of me, and I could talk to her, I liked talking to her. She's interesting, so many royals were dreadfully boring but she, she is something entirely different. Always talked about adventures and being a hero, seeing the world." He smiled fondly, "She loves books, she used to just sit in the library for days on end when she lived in my castle."
"You had a castle?" his son asked before he could help himself. His father had often talked about getting a castle for his son in his early days of becoming the Dark One. Baelfire had hated the idea with a passion.
"It was vacant when I found it." Said Rumpelstiltskin, that was only sort of true, he had made a deal with a rich Duke and when he couldn't live up to his end of the bargain he had given the Dark One his castle. So it was technically vacant. "Anyway, she didn't try to get out of our deal, she found everything fascinating, always asking me about my 'adventures'." Rumpelstiltskin let out another one of his rare smiles that were reserved for only two people on the Earth, well perhaps three because of Henry.
"Sounds like the movie." Muttered Neal despite himself, receiving another puzzled look from Rumpelstiltskin. "Maybe I'll show you some day." Rumpelstiltskin nodded, he knew what movies were but he didn't think that their story was note worthy enough to become one. Storybrooke didn't get new media, movies, music, anything until Emma arrived.
"It didn't go well at first," Rumpelstiltskin started, he knew he had to tell his son about this part, maybe leaving out a few details, "I let her leave one day, expecting her not to return, and she ran into Regina, she told Belle that she could break my curse with True Love's Kiss, she tried it and it didn't go well."
"True Love's Kiss?" asked Neal, his father nodded, "that's a real thing?"
"Quite."
"So what happened, did it not work?" he asked, Rumpelstiltskin sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"No it did," he looked down, not wanting to remember what he had done, "but I didn't believe it." Neal narrowed his eyes in confusion. "I convinced myself she was working for Regina, working against me." He felt something hard in his throat. "So I forced her out."
He felt his son's stare on him, not looking at him, "I was a coward again, didn't think she could love me." Neal processes this.
"But she came back to you, when you all got here."
"Sort of," he said, "Regina came to me years before the curse and told me that she had died, she told me her father had locked her away and tortured her because of her association with me. Then that she had thrown herself off a tower." The words didn't hurt as much now, Rumpelstiltskin used to unwillingly repeat them over and over again when he had first heard of her suicide. The words were still heavy after thirty years. But when he learned that she was alive the truth set in and the fake pain faded. "In actuality Regina had captured her and locked her away in her own prison, then after the curse was set she was locked in an asylum for twenty eight years with no memories and no identity."
His words were full of anger and distain, perhaps for himself and more likely for Regina, but Neal understood. If Regina had not helped them save Henry and as he had heard, raised him well for ten years, he would hate the Queen from what he had heard. He didn't know Belle but from what he had heard she didn't deserve at all what Regina had done to her. Neal pictured something like that happening to Emma after she went to prison and he shuddered the thought out of his head.
"That's-that's horrible." Neal managed, though his voice contained enough emotion for his father to understand what he meant.
"Indeed, but one of my… allies you could say found her and freed her from the hospital." He smiled again, finally a memory that didn't hurt, "she didn't remember me at first but shortly after she found me the curse was broken and she regained her memories." He could feel her hug, see her smile, he couldn't wait to see her once they returned to Storybrooke.
Neal remembered the first time he heard about her, his father was on his deathbed and told Emma he wanted to, no, needed to speak to Belle. Now Neal knew that she hadn't had any memories at the time, but his father had given a speech of love and regret and comfort to this woman. There wasn't much of his childhood that he remembered that involved his mother, but Neal knew for a fact that his parents had never felt that way about each other. His mother hated Rumpelstiltskin before he was the Dark One for reason he still didn't truly know, and she had left. It never felt like a loss to him because Milah had never really been around.
Yet here was this woman Belle, who made the all-powerful Dark One give speeches of love and libraries and made him want to go back to the best version of himself.
When Neal had first heard that he had been angry, maybe jealous, of this stranger who made his father want to make himself better for, yet he hadn't for his own son. But hearing Rumpelstiltskin's words now, it made more sense, he had been alone and seemingly miserable for three centuries, and there was apparently Belle who had come along and cared. Perhaps she had earned it.
"It'll be nice to meet her, not as, Lucy was it?"
"Lacey," Rumpelstiltskin rolled his eyes slightly, "I've told her a lot about you, she'll want to meet you as well." Neal smiled at that. "You should get some sleep, we're getting back tomorrow." His son nodded and stood up to make his way back to below deck.
"Yes papa." He said with slight sarcasm, for a moment feeling like he was fourteen again.
Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes and practically breathed in the moment, he glanced at the box which contained his own father. He had his son, his grandson, he was returning to his True Love.
In that moment the world seemed in order.