"Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly!"

-Sir Philip Sidney, "Astrophel and Stella"

He becomes aware that his chest is expanding and contracting: out, in, out, in, out, in. Slowly, deeply, easily. Gradually he realizes it's his lungs that are causing the movements of his chest. His nervous system scans the chest, then the rest of his body, and reports back to the brain that nothing hurts. Nothing.

Calmly, his brain searches his memory banks for an answer and one is found. Ah yes, he's dead; that's why he feels nothing. Then beneath his fingertips he becomes aware of something round and hard. As his fingers move, reporting back that the object they're touching is a button, his brain—still clinically calm, fully relaxed—adds this new information to the previous observations and decides more research much be done before a conclusion can be reached. He tries to open his eyes, and only then realizes they're already open. This interests, rather than disturbs, him. He orders the eyes to focus.

Yes, that's his hand lying on his chest. Or more precisely, his still-buttoned waistcoat. His black Armani waistcoat, which matches his black Armani jacket, which is unbuttoned and has dropped open. And that's his purple silk shirt, rumpled, beneath the waistcoat, and his burgundy silk tie, the Windsor knot loose. How untidy; how unlike him.

His fingers shift across his chest, gathering more information. He's lying on his back on a hard surface. Nothing hurts. Nothing is broken, not even a button. The delicate fabric of his shirt is neither torn nor wet nor sticky with blood. He frowns and forces his eyes open wider. His eyes confirm his fingers' analysis. His clothes, though wrinkled, are undamaged. His chest is undamaged. He is undamaged.

He hears the scrape of a shoe, and he rolls his head in that direction. He finds two small, mismatched ankle boots, roughened on the outer edges because the wearer tends to walk duck-footed. One boot is a little bigger than the other; they were paired when their proper mates became unusable. (How does he know that?)

Above the boots, woolen hose of indeterminate color and a gray woolen tunic belted with a bit of rope. Above the tunic, a diamond face framed by uncombed, shoulder-length brown hair. A long, pointed nose and large, deep brown eyes dominate the face. The eyes are unguarded; it will be another year before they learn to deceive.

Gold can pinpoint the child's age because of the boots. These are the boots he owned when he was seven.

He raises up on his elbows and stares hard into the brown eyes. The child flinches, blinks, looks away, then looks back again, tilting his head curiously. He's sitting with his knees drawn to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Hesitantly, the peasant reaches out, plucks at the Armani jacket, fingers it, and Gold smiles: yes, of course this peasant would admire the cloth: after all, producing cloth is how his caretakers make their living.

"This is what I wear—wore—in the Land without Magic?" the peasant speaks in the language of Old Loameth.

Gold can't translate all the words—he's forgotten much of the language—but he doesn't have to: he knows what the peasant would ask. His mouth quirks up. "Yes."

"It's very fine."

The lad leaves the rest of his thought dangling, but Gold finishes it for him. Something clicks in his brain and the language comes back to him. "Yes. I'm rich. In many ways."

The peasant's eyes travel down to Gold's Italian leather shoes, polished to a mirror shine, as always. He sucks in a breath. "I don't walk in dirt any more," he comments.

"Or splay-footed," Gold adds. He sits up, still surprised by the lack of pain. He fingers his chest and finds himself intact. The knife wound has healed completely.

The peasant nods toward Gold's belly and grins. "I eat good."

"Yes."

He sniffs. "I smell funny."

"I don't smell of sheep any more. I no longer spin wool."

The peasant seizes Gold's right hand and turns it over, inspecting the fingertips. "But I still spin." He releases the hand.

"Yes. I spin straw into gold."

The peasant narrows his eyes. "Oh. I'm a liar too, I guess."

Gold laughs.

"Rumplestiltskin?"

A new voice joins the conversation. Gold scoots himself sideways so he can face both his peasant-self and the newcomer, a tall being with long, white hair and the white robes of a priest. Gold can't tell from the shapeless garment nor the soft features nor the soft voice what gender the newcomer is, and that disconcerts him.

"A few of us would like to meet you," the newcomer says. "Would you mind?"

Gold glances sideways at Peasant Rumple, who seems unperturbed by the new presence or the question. "All right."

Behind the newcomer appear a dozen other white-garbed, white-haired beings, almost indistinguishable from one another. They're all staring at him and talking among themselves. One of them dares to address Gold: "What made you do it?" And others, emboldened, take up the questioning: "What were you feeling at the time?" "How did you find it in you?" "What changed in that moment that enabled you to do that?"

Gold frowns and asks the leader, "What are they talking about?"

"Excuse us." The leader almost blushes. "It's just such a rare occurrence that we're all naturally curious. Some of us have never seen anything like it."

Gold subconsciously fingers the buttons of his waistcoat. Suddenly his mouth declares what his brain has already surmised: "I'm dead, aren't I?"

The leader shrugs slightly. "There's no such thing as death."

Gold looks around, but finds no clue in the environment to tell him where he is: in fact, there's nothing. Just the hard surface he's sitting on—not dirt, concrete or tile. No walls, no sky, no horizon. He won't ask the question preying on his mind because he dreads the answer, so instead he seeks more information. "What's your name?"

"Astrophel."

He's never heard the name before, so he can't place it in a location, time or gender. "What are you?"

The leader straightens his/her shoulders in pride. "A greeter."

Gold mutters, "Where am I, then: Wal-mart?"

Astrophel glances at his/her companions, who nod encouragingly; he/she then replies, "You moderns would call it a 'pit-stop.'" When Gold's frown doesn't release, Astrophel tries again. "A way-station. Limbo."

A murmur of disagreement arises among the ranks, and Astrophel corrects him/herself. "Well, not the way you might think of it. Judgment's already been passed; you're here just until you decide your next move."

"I decide?" Gold echoes. "What do you mean, I decide?"

"Well, you've got some choices. Because of what you did in your last moments, the Master's leaving it up to you to choose."

"You said 'Judgment's already been passed.' I guess I came out okay, if I'm being given a choice."

"Very okay."

Gold rests his elbows on his knees. "Then, clearly, you've made a mistake. You got the wrong guy."

Astrophel cocks a grin at him. "How many Rumplestiltskins do you think there are? And no, the Master never makes a mistake. You're our guy."

"What I did at the end—patricide is rewarded here?"

"That's not what you did and you know it," Astrophel grumbles.

"I prevented a massacre," the Peasant Rumple declares. "I gave my life for my fellow man."

Gold snorts. "Nothing so noble. I fixed a problem that I'd caused. Finally kept a promise to protect Bae."

"Yes, you did both of those fine deeds," Astrophel agrees. "But none of that is what brought you here. It just balanced the scales. What tipped the scales in your favor—and why we're all so fascinated with you—is what you did after that."

"What are you talking about? What I did after I killed my father was, apparently, I died." Gold unbuttons the top button on his shirt. He's still looking for a wound, or at least a scar, to verify the dagger's having pierced him. To confirm his suicide.

Astrophel kneels and takes his wrist, drawing his hand away from his chest. "But before you died, you did something. . ." Astrophel's voice catches. "Remarkable. Truly remarkable."

"We haven't seen the likes in decades." Another of the beings says.

Others murmur, "Not in that world." "What made you do it?"

Gold wrenches his wrist away from Astrophel. "Do what?" He's becoming annoyed with their cryptic answers.

"He doesn't know."

Peasant Rumple grasps Gold's shoulder, causing him to look around. "As we died, I kissed my father and I forgave him."

Astrophel adds, "And loved him. That's the truly remarkable part." Heads nod and wide eyes stare at Gold in amazement. "In that moment, despite all he had done to you, and all he would have done to your family, you forgave him and loved him. What you felt in that moment, what you gave him: no anger, no shame, no fear. Pure love."

Another of the beings takes a small step forward. "Only we can do that."

"And those of your kind who've cast their weakness aside and surrendered control of their souls to the Master," Astrophel concludes.

Gold can't look at Astrophel any longer; it hurts his eyes. He turns his attention to Peasant Rumple, whose skin is sunburnt and rough, whose ribs protrude and who smells of sheep, but whose eyes are large with innocence. Yet to be abandoned, though his wandering father leaves him in the care and love of two weird women (if they were human at all), this Rumple is sheltered from the world; in another year, he would go out into it and learn it already had a place for him, a lonely, fearful place.

"I loved him," Gold admits.

"That's why the Master is hoping you can help Bae," Rumple says.

Now he has Gold's full attention. "What?"

Rumple draws a circle on the ground. He touches the center, and when he removes his finger, an image appears: Neal, wearing a hoodie and jeans, his modern clothes incongruent in his ancient castle surroundings as he walks up winding stone stairs and opens a heavy wooden door. In the spacious room before him lies a cluttered worktable; on the shelves lining the stone walls are leather-bound books, ribbon-tied scrolls, wooden boxes, liquid-filled vials. "The East Tower," Gold remembers. "What's he doing?"

Neal scans the contents of the table, picking up various instruments and studying them. He grunts in annoyance, then says over his shoulder, "He wouldn't have given her the only copy."

"No, that wouldn't be like him," a feminine voice agrees. Although he can't see her, Gold recognizes the accent instantly and breathes her name: "Belle."

"He liked to write in Old Loamethese." Neal begins inspecting the nearest books. "At least, he did in my day. Even if he switched over to Modern Tagalaan, I have a feeling he would've written the curse in the old language."

"To reflect the gravity of it," Belle agrees. "I can read Modern Loamethese. Perhaps I can recognize some of the words. I certainly can recognize his handwriting. We can begin by eliminating the books that he didn't write."

"The curse?" Gold echoes. "They're looking for the Final Curse?"

"Malcolm's curse destroyed Storybrooke and sent everyone back to the Enchanted Forest," Astrophel explains. "Except for Emma and Henry. They were sent to Boston; their memories were replaced with false ones."

Gold pales. "Bae's going to re-create the curse in hopes it will take him back there."

"And Belle is helping him," Astrophel adds. "He's all she has left of you."

"No!" Gold protests. "They don't know—it's my fault; I never told them the details. They don't know what the curse requires."

"Or what it takes away from the creator and the caster," Peasant Rumple says.

"They won't be able to finish it," Gold argues. "They're too good."

"Bae is desperate,"Astrophel remarks. He need not explain further: the single word resonates clearly.

Gold runs his hands through his hair. "He will become—"

"Like you," Peasant Rumple finishes.

Gold scrambles to his feet, and his younger self follows suit. "Send me back." Gold grasps a handful of Astrophel's white robe. It feels like nothing he's touched before; it feels like what he imagines a cloud would feel like. "You said I have a choice. You said the Master gave me a choice." He forces himself to slow down and speak more precisely, lest the Master is a trickster of words too. "Send me to the Dark Castle, to Bae. So I can stop him from becoming me."

Astrophel smiles, but raises a warning hand. "You haven't heard your other choice."

"There is no other choice," Gold snaps. "My son needs me."

"But the Master is also offering you Heaven," one of Astrophel's cohorts supplies.

"Heaven," Gold repeats, searching the creature's eyes. He finds no deception there. "Heaven. Then the Master isn't. . . a powerful mage or. . ."

Astrophel speaks gently. "It wasn't some Master Mage that brought you here, Rumplestiltskin. God has taken you back from death, judged you, and was pleased; and it's God that now offers you the choice: go home to the Dark Castle to fight for your son or go home to Heaven. If you choose to come with us, don't worry about Bae: God will send him another champion. God loves Bae and Belle as much as you do; they will not be abandoned. So, you see, it truly is a choice."

"Send me to the Dark Castle," Gold insists.

"Be aware: there's a risk. You'll be yourself again, exposed to the same temptations and torments as before. Prone to fear, anger. There are no guarantees you'll make it back here, when you die again."

"Send me to the Dark Castle."

A delighted murmur arises among Astrophel's cohorts, and one of them steps forward. "May I shake your hand, Rumplestiltskin?"

"What?" Gold screws up his nose, but before he can object, each of the angels has taken a turn shaking his hand, clasping his shoulder and wishing him well.

Astrophel grins full-out, like a proud parent showing off a kindergartener on the first day of school. "God has a. . . special affinity for parents fighting for their child. You're going right back out into the heart of your addiction, but you'll have help this time." He/she crouches and taps into the circle; now Belle's image appears. She's chewing her lip and flipping through a book. "There's Belle, of course, who always knows where the lines should be drawn."

"I promised her I'd never not listen to her again," Gold says fondly. "A promise I shall keep."

"And there's me," Peasant Rumple chimes in. He approaches confidently and clutches Gold's hand. "I'm going with you." Before Gold can ask for clarification, the child takes another step towards Gold and suddenly vanishes. Gold feels a sunbeam bursting in his chest, spreading out through his entire body: he feels energized, as he did in the first moments after magic entered his body, but this new energy is clean and light. It makes the back of his head tingle in the same way that cuddling the infant Bae or kissing Belle used to. The Peasant Rumple has come home bringing with him his innocence. Gold presses a hand to his chest in a sort of welcome.

Astrophel clasps his/her hands together. "Belle and Little Rumple will guide you the right way, but it's up to you to make the journey. When you're in doubt or tempted beyond endurance, listen to them; it will be the Master speaking through them." The angel steps backward, extending his/her arms at his/her sides. "Goodbye, Rumplestiltskin. We hope to see you here again, and escort you home." As one, the angels bow deeply in a style that's very familiar.

Gold feels dizzy and his sight winks out.