"I don't think you know what you're asking of me Ms. Swan. Going down to the underworld, you don't know what you're getting yourself into."
"I don't care."
"Oh, but you might latter." Gold said warningly. "I will do as you ask, but, only if you allow me to give a fair warning to you family."
"What are you talking about?"
"They will go with you Emma, they will literally follow you into the darkest regions of Hell itself to help you. You can't ask them to do that without telling them the risks."
Later, on the edge of the lake.
"Good you're all here." Gold said smiling.
"Yes, now why don't you get on with it?" Regina said.
"Not so hasty, first you all need to know what will await you."
"We don't care." David said.
"Charming, really, it's so funny to see you think you don't care." Then Gold disappeared.
"Gold." Emma yelled.
"Snow."
Everyone suddenly turned, to see a strange man standing near Mary Margret, well, strange to all but two of them. "Dad?"
"Leopold?"
"Oh, my darling Snow." Leopold said, coming up and hugging his daughter.
"Oh dad, I missed you."
"Of course you did my girl, you love me, you always wanted me to come back, and now I'm here."
"Yes, yes that's…" But then he disappeared. Snow was shocked. "Dad."
"David." Suddenly David turned, to see his mother. "Did you miss my son?"
"Yes, what are you…" But then she also disappeared.
"Well, that was a bit of a letdown." Gold appeared again where he was a moment ago. "Now both David and Mary Margret, your parents, are dead and trapped in the underworld for all eternity, and we haven't even been gone five minutes."
"What are you talking about?" Henry asked, the least shaken up of the group.
"What are the dead, our loved ones, or those we hate, but the memories we have after they are gone." Gold said as if it explained everything. "When we are down there, you will see everyone you've lost. Now I'm immortal, so it really doesn't matter, a tear filled reunion with my son would be just that. But for any of you, it's not. The moment you go down there, still living, everyone you ever wronged or loved will know about it, they will antagonize you, try and get you mad, if they succeed, if you admit that you hate them, they can literally steal your hate and use it to leave the underworld, and the more pieces of you they take, the more of you will remain trapped down there, and the more of them that gets to leave."
"Doesn't sound so bad." Henry said, but he sounded like he was trying to reassure himself more than state a fact.
"Oh, no. That's the least of your worries. If you run in to someone you love, like, say, a dead father." He said looking at Mary. "Or mother." He then looked at David. "They would take your ability to love."
"But that's not possible; no magic can take love away." Regina said.
"And no magic can bring back the dead." Gold said. "But we are entering a place where those rules no longer apply. And in this place, every word you speak, every move you make, must be measured, thought out, and devoid of meaning. Because every time you give them something, it means more of them can leave, and more of you has to stay, until finally there is nothing left for you to give and you're trapped in the underworld." Gold said sternly. "And if you ever say you miss them, or how you wish they didn't have to die, that right there is giving permission for a free for all."
"Okay, so we just don't interact with anyone until we find Hook, easy." Emma said.
"Oh, you say that now. But tell me, how will we find him if we can't ask where he is?" Gold asked. "Or what happens if someone you once truly cared for is being attacked?" Gold asked. "Could you step back and not save Neal or Graham if they were being attacked?" Emma faltered for a moment, which was all Gold needed. "You see, that right there, that little moment of weakness, the urge to go and save them, which is all they would need to take away your heroic virtue or your love that compelled you to go save them. This is Hell dearie, it takes everything good that you love, all that makes you a decent person, and twists it to make you suffer, and every one of your faults, magnified, so that they cause a thousand times the suffering they once did." Gold said, trying to show just how serious this all was. "In that place, your greatest enemy isn't something you can see, it's not something you can attack with a sword or throw a fireball at or reason with, because the thing that will ultimately leave you trapped down there, your greatest enemy, is yourself."
"Why are you telling us this?" Regina asked. "You don't actually care about us."
"Of course I don't care. And why would I? Every one of you would have left me for dead when you knew I was Emma's prisoner." Gold said, but he wasn't accusing them. "I'm nothing but a plot device to any of you really. If we had the author here, now, he'd say that is all I am to any of you. A source of information when needed, a person who can get stuff done, or move something along, or get you out of a tight spot." He said with a sad smile. "You're all happy to use me and forget about me, only coming back next week when a new villain strolls into town. After all, put me in a cage, have me see my own son die in my arms, let me die three or four times, cut my honey moon short, whatever, just make sure I'm in my shop in time for you to ask for my help." He looked at them all before continuing. "I mean so little to all of you, that even with your combined heroicness and sense of justice and urge to do right to all men and women, all of you, combined, it wasn't enough for you to even offer me a ride home that day."
The realization of that truth struck a chord in each of them. "But, I'm a man of my principles, despite what you might think about me, I've never strayed from those principles."
"You lied to Belle." Charming interrupted.
"No I didn't." Gold said with all knowing smirk. "It's just that no one ever asks the right questions." He then looked over at Regina. "For instance, instead of asking if I gave Belle the real dagger, what you should ask is whether or not Regina ever had the real dagger to then give to Belle in the first place." He then looked at Emma. "Instead of asking me whether or not the hat was safe, perhaps Emma should have asked whether or not she would survive. Or an even easier question to ask would be, instead of wondering how I could betray you all and be my opportunistic self, what you should really be asking is why wouldn't I try and get my magic back?" Gold said, carefully looking at each of the group. "The question wasn't actually rhetorical. I'm being serious, why do all of you presume that just because you all can turn those heroic instincts on and off depending on whom it is you're dealing with, that you think I can turn off 300 years of hard learned survival instincts." He said once again giving them all a moment to answer.
But no one did. "All right, here's an easy one, what happened to me over that missing year?" Again no one answered. "Oh come now, didn't one of you ask me, I'm sure at least the Sheriff would have wanted to know so as to fill out a complete report." He said looking directly at Emma. "I mean surely, all of you being heroes; one of you was concerned for my well-being, and at least asked if I was all right, just because it would affect the greater good of the town."
None of them spoke; they didn't even try to look ashamed. "Well all right then, how about a much easier question." He then looked at Emma again. "How many stones?"
Emma along with the rest of the group was taken aback by the question. "Excuse me?"
"How many stones were used to make that root cellar I was held captive in?" Gold asked. Emma's mouth simply hung open. "378. How many wire squares made up my cage?" Again no answer. "574. How many steps to go down." Once again no answer. Gold just couldn't hold back a laugh. "Seven. But you know, true madness wasn't counting the number of stones used to make my prison, it wasn't even when I named them all." He once again focused in on Emma, giving her a very steady glare. "And when we started arguing, my son and I, sharing the same mind, counting the same stones, naming them, and then arguing over what the name should be. That… wasn't the truly maddening part." He said shocking the group. "The truly maddening part was the day I walked back down the seven steps into that root cellar, closing the door to my cage behind me, into my little space of 574 squares, and as I started to count and list off the names of each 378 stones, all I was met with was silence, because I had left my son's body in a forest, and for the first time in over a year, or to be more precise, in over 300 years, I was alone. That's when the madness truly took hold."
Nobody spoke for a moment or two, but then Regina did. "And as sad as that is Gold, it doesn't give you the right to do what you did."
He just looked at her before shaking his head. "I suppose you're right, I mean kill one pirate, in prison a few fairies, wright happy ending for yourself, I guess I didn't have the right to do that. I mean look at you. Try and create a world where I'm happy, I have no right. But you certainly do, your mother abused you for many years, killed your fiancé right in front of you, and you went off and banished her to Wonderland, that certainly gives you the right to cast a curse to do, basically the same thing. I mean I certainly never had an abusive parent; I never lost anyone important to me." He said, staring her down. "The simple fact is, I've never done anything to anyone I didn't experience in the same or a worse way."
"Oh, we all know that's not true." Snow said.
"Oh really." Gold said. "Your child was taken from you by a curse, but you were guaranteed a chance to see her again 28 years later. Mine was almost taken from me by force to die on the front lines of the Ogre wars, and then I lost him for over 300 years with my guarantee being I would die soon after I saw him."
He then looked at Emma. "You never knew who your parents were for 28 years, feeling abandoned, but you had the gift of ignorance, of the possibility that you were given up for loving reasons. I was abandoned after having my ignorance taken from me, I KNEW that my father hated me, that he didn't just abandon me but cast me aside like last week's trash, and made sure I knew that's what I was to him. You reunited with both your parents with a warm embrace and feelings of love; I reunited with mine with a death grip and a knife in the back."
He then looked at David. "I took your father from you, or at least that is what you want to believe, but let's be honest, your father was a weak man who couldn't provide for his family, I offered him a deal that would feed and cloth you when he couldn't, and he gave me your brother. He never complained, never fought, he didn't even try to negotiate, he just took the deal, and then turned to drink to drown out the sorrow of how weak he was. Without me, you all would have died from hunger, or have been sent to be servants in some rich noble's house. What I did, wasn't take away your father, I gave him the chance to thrive, he chose to die a drunk." Gold gave David a minuet, almost daring the man to challenge his words.
"And as for your Mr. Hood, Regina, you blame me for not telling him about Zelena, I did try, he was just to thick to listen, and I made a deal because I was dyeing from heart failure."
"She raped him." Regina said, looking very angry. "She impersonated Marian and raped him."
"Yes, and…" This shocked the group, what kind of reaction was that? "Like I said, I never put anyone through anything I didn't go through or worse." He said, evenly, without malice, just stating a fact.
One that made the whole group's mouth drops at the implication.
He then looked at Regina. "If it's any consolation, at least he thought it was the woman he loved, or at least a woman he used to love, that he were crawling into bed with. And she didn't use magic to force him to be… excited, or made it so he had to… enjoy it." He said.
After a few moments of a very heavy silence, Regina finally spoke. "Rumple, I didn't..."
"Care." Gold interrupted. "Don't worry about it, I wouldn't. After all, you were a freshly rehabilitated villain, acting with no more honor or dishonor then several self-proclaimed and self-righteous heroes." He then gave a slight chuckle. "Or maybe it's the other way around, maybe the hero should be worried about the fact that they acted no better than any recently rehabilitated villain. Someone who, less than 24 hours after declaring herself rehabilitated, was planning on finding a way to travel back in time and make sure the woman she thought was Marian died in the past like she was supposed to."
"But enough about that." He said after a heavy pause. "Why not we talk about that fact that none of you should go to Hell."
"Because you hate Hook and don't want us to save him." Snow said.
"Oh no, I want you to try and save him."
"What?" Emma asked. "Why?"
"If you all go down into Hell, I become the only game in town."
"But you're coming with." Charming said.
"No." Gold said. "Our deal was to open the door, not step through with you. And even if I were to leave, go to Hell with you, Miss Swan didn't make a deal with me to open the door to let you all come back, yet."
"I believe the treat of my destroying you will work." Emma said.
"Actually." Gold then flicked his wrist and Emma crumpled to the ground. "Panic and you die." Gold said.
"What the Hell are you doing!?" Charming yelled, running to his daughter. Everyone else in the group looking at him, tense.
"Proving a point." Gold said. "You Em-ma, need a reminder, a reminder that while you may have magic, and you may have some control, you are still just a bratty child." He said, slowly walking over to Emma and then crouching down to her level as she gasped for air. "This is a simple constricting spell, cuts off your air, not to kill you, but so that if you panic or try and exert yourself, you can die because you aren't getting enough air."
"Stop it right now!" Snow yelled. Gold just looked at her and her husband before they both went down as well, he then looked back at a very angry Emma.
"You see, you might be powerful, but that doesn't make you dangerous to me, it makes you dangerous like a nuke, it goes off and you might just kill everyone, friend and foe. Compared to my power Emma, your nothing special, your mortal, and I have been around a lot longer then you." He then released the spell, then got up and walked away. "You a reckless, arrogant, ignorant of your own failings, and assume to much. I mean really, your going to go to Hell, with me being your only way out, and you have the gall to think you have leverage over me." Gold laughed at the statement, mocking them. "You don't even know the first thing about Hell, how it works, who is in charge."
"We will figure that out while we are there." Emma said angrily.
"This is just like Neverland Miss Swan, only worse. You assume that you can learn by trial of fire, but it will be hellfire, tell me, do you even know what happens when you die in Hell?"
There was a long silence, everyone trying to understand what he meant. "How do you mean, die in Hell, it's the land of the dead." Henry said.
"And a band of the living are coming to town, and the living can die. But what happens if the living die in Hell?" Gold asked.
After a moment of silence, Charming finally asked. "What happens?"
"I don't know." Gold said. "The only thing I have is a theory. Every heard of Orpheus?"
"He was that man that played his harp, made the rocks dry, and then went down into hell to get his wife, but Hades said that he couldn't look back to see her until they had left the underworld."
"Yes, only that's not his name, no one knows what his name really was."
"Why is that relevant?" Regina asked.
"When he went on his quest to the underworld, he took a friend with him, an Author, who wrote down what happened, I came across his personal journal, in it he describes how he had enchanted the book and quill to write as they walked, at the end of the journey, the book recorded how he Orpheus had tried, upon seeing his love going back down into Hell, had tried to grab her, but he tripped and fell, hitting his head against the ground, as he fell behind the closing gates of the underworld. And then, nothing."
"What?"
"Nothing, the Author looked around, he knew why he was in the field, what he had just done, everything, except he couldn't remember the face or name of who he had been with. He then looked back over the book, and he saw that any drawing or mention of his name had been erased. He then went to the town the book said he had met his friend at, at least he thinks they were friends, he wasn't sure. The house was there, but the name on the door was gone, and when he asked around the town, everyone knew someone had lived in the house, but no one could remember if it was just one person, or a family, or who it was or what they looked like."
"So what your saying is… if we die down there, no one will remember us?" Charming asked.
"No, worse. The Author then read through the story he had written and found that the whoever he had been with was a musician, he then went to find some of his music that he had written down, and found it was all blank. His theory was, and I think it's correct, is that if you die down there, everything about you is removed from the world. Every thing you ever built, every memory you ever made, everything, gone. Because when you die down there, you go to a place from before death, the Void, Oblivion itself."
"That doesn't sound good." Henry said.
"It does get worse. Because you might be gone, but people around you still know you existed, you leave behind a hole in their memories." He then looked over at Regina. "Henry would know he was adopted by someone, but constantly wonder who they were, what did they look like, did they love him or not, Robin would know he met someone special, but never be able to remember anything about you, did you have blond hair or dark, did you love Roland, were you a woman or a man." He then turned to Snow and Charming. "Of course, Regina is the least at risk, I have no idea what would happen to Emma or Henry if one of you died, maybe they would fade from existence, maybe they would become a blank shell, like David Nolan was when he first woke up, no memories of anything, not even your own name, not knowing who you are, or who anyone else is, and no one could tell you because they wouldn't know who they were either." He then finally settled on Emma. "Not sure what damage it might do if you faded, would the curse ever be broken, would Henry be okay, would Regina feel and emptiness in her heart because she knows she adopted some child but can't remember a thing about what they did for over 13 years, would she still be a villain because someone who helped he stay on the strait and narrow never did, would she still have Robin? And then there are your parents, they know they gave you up, but did they ever see you again, did you love them, hate them, did you replace them?"
He let all of what he had said; the weight of their decision become real and let all of the scenarios play through their heads. "If you go down there, you risk so much more then your lives, you risk your very existence."
Reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated. I think. I have been sick as a dog, with at one point possibly the honest to goodness influenza, and the trial went, not well, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Overnights might happen eventually, but there is a loophole or to where it might not.
I might not be doing much for a while, got to catch up on school and stuff, but in a few weeks the term will be over and so I might have more breathing room.
So, why did I write this, because it was just a little something to do, and because I am still really on the fence about another work of mine that might never see the light of day and that may be cursed or something because it keeps finding ways to be deleted because of technical errors.
So this is my semi-traditional between the season brakes story, and I want to express how, if the show is going to be breaking the rules and letting people be brought back from the dead, I think there needs to be some major counter balance of some kind, and this seems like a good one.
Might do more with this, might not. I really don't know.
Cheers to Sunday and the beginning of 5B.
Thank you.
-OrthankG1.