Rumplestiltskin is cracked but not broken. Yet.
In the late hours, when Rumple is weary and vulnerable, with only the orange light from his bedchamber's fireplace to guide him, with only the crackle from the fire to talk to him, the spinner bemoans his son's loss and cries into his pillow. Of the legion who seek after power and who, had they the opportunity, would have crushed Zoso without hesitation or remorse and would have made something of themselves with their new magic, how did it happen that this craven coward succeeded in seizing the dagger? The Fates, the Dark One concludes, must have been drunk the day they bound together the life-threads of the Dark One with those of this fool. It is left, then, to the Dark One to make a man of this whimpering sheep.
The child, with his brazen disrespect of magic and his control over the spinner, is gone forever, but Rumplestiltskin clings just the same to memory and hope. He clutches them with the same ignorant stubborness that he clung to the dagger that night when he dangled over the vortex. He requires a push into despair if he's ever going to achieve anything worth remembering.
The spinner sits in one of the two high-backed chairs set before the fire. He's chosen the chair farther from the door—Bae's chair—and he just sits and stares, as he's done every night since That Night. Situating himself in the deepest corner of the spinner's imagination, the Dark One goes to work, plucking the filaments of thought as a minstrel would pluck the strings of a lute.
"You were—were, not are—his father. You could have ordered him to drop his silly notions of breaking your curse and he would have obeyed because he loved and respected you. Could have.
"You are the vessel of evil. You should have used your impulse for destruction right from the beginning to destroy fairies, starting with the lyingest one of all. You should have smote her from the sky with a single blow, picked her up from the dirt by the throat and yanked her wings off one by one as she writhed and screamed, then dropped her at your feet. You should have crushed her beneath your boot, with all her minions watching: let this be a lesson to all who would corrupt mankind with false hope or steal innocent children from their loving fathers with magic tricks. Should have.
"You have—have, not had—more power than any breathing being in existence. You could have brought your magic down upon the vortex, with a flick of your hand crumbled the hills beyond into loose rock to fill the gaping hole, summoned demons to carry Bae to safety. . . but in your sniveling terror you released—released, not lost hold of—his hand and surrendered him to a future worse than sudden death. A single second of clear-headed courage on your part, Papa, would have saved the boy. Would have."
Rumplestiltskin rises, thrusts his hands into the flames and savors the pain that flares through his body, driving away grief, regret, loneliness, love; leaving behind enflamed rage. The spinner elevates his charred hands, making an offering, and demands—demands, not requests—the Dark One accept a deal: control of the spinner's hands and head and soul in return for the blackness necessary to find and implement the curse that will destroy this world. The Dark One giggles, barely noticing what the spinner did not offer: his heart. An insignificance, anyway.
Could have, should have, would have: the most powerful spell known to man. Works every time.