A Different Battle

Pairings: Rumplestiltskin/Belle (Rumbelle), with a possibility of eventual SwanFire.

Major Characters: Rumplestiltskin, Belle, Morgan le Fae, and others to follow as time goes by.

Summary: Morgan le Fae find out that her long-abandoned son has become the Dark One and comes to make amends. Years later, when Belle makes a deal to become the Dark One's maid, she never expected to find his mother living with him. Morgan, however, will understand exactly what lies between her son and his 'maid', and her influence will change everything. Or, the one where Rumplestiltskin's mother shows up at the Dark Castle shortly after Cora breaks his heart, changing the course of future events forever.

Warnings: References to rape/non-con.

Chapter 1—"Ruins of a Childhood"

Centuries Ago:

The boy didn't have a bit of magic.

Morgan sighed, watching the seven year old child—her child—struggle to raise the full bucket of water out of the well. He was small and slight, perhaps a little underfed, and was admittedly cute, at least for a child. He also had a pair of sorrowful brown eyes that were hauntingly familiar…but he had no magic.

She didn't even have to cast a spell to know the truth. The boy was fully human, and nothing else. Despite his lineage, he was mortal. Human. had nothing against humans on principle, of course, but there was no use denying that this was a disappointment. Oh, she had known that he was human when he had been born, else she never would have left him in his dishonest father's hands. I could not take him with me, and yet…yet I hoped things had changed, she thought from the shadows. There had been a tiny chance that the boy might develop into more than just a boring human, but it appeared that he took after his father.

This trip had turned out to be useless after all, just as Accolon had said it would be. Her visions clearly didn't revolve around this boy. Fortunately, she still had one son left, and Mordred was now certain to be the deciding force in the wars to come. It certainly wasn't going to be this one, anyway. Still, she kept watching as the boy finally wrestled the bucket out of the well, filling the one he had brought along with him and standing on his toes to put the original one back. Then he picked up his own bucket, lugging it inexpertly off to the east, towards the shops on High Street.

After a few minutes, the boy bumped into the baker. Morgan paused in her shadowing of him to listen to the short conversation, curious to see how the boy would handle the hulking man who clearly looked down upon him.

"Where are ye takin' that water, laddie?" the baker demanded gruffly.

"To my aunts'," the child answered, his voice so quiet that Morgan had to cast a quick spell to hear him.

"Who might 'ey be? I ain't seen ye 'round here before."

"The town spinsters," the boy whispered, and Morgan wanted to shake some confidence into him. Where is his father? Did the fool finally get himself killed? She didn't even remember his name, only his leering face. And the horrified expression he had worn when she left their child in his arms.

"Eh," the baker spat. "Strange 'uns, those two."

Morgan watched as he only shrugged, clearly intimidated by the butcher. Part of her wanted to step in, wanted to say something, but that was a road she wasn't prepared to go down. You walked away, she told herself. He's human, without magic, and therefore useless for your cause. She had made the right choice. She had made the only choice. More importantly, her last child could not survive the ravages of the crystal cave she still waited in, and Morgan had not the power to protect him.

So she walked away before the baker took the bucket from the boy, before she could see him walking home in tears to the two women who had taken her place. She had to leave. She could not come back. She would never see him again, and she would have to forget. A human child had no place in her world. He would be abused far worse there than he ever could be here, and Morgan could do nothing for him. She had not the power to protect him, even from her own home.

Seer though she was, Morgan did not anticipate seeing her youngest son ever again.

The Present

Cora had left him, but he would make her rue the day she had done so. In the last two months, Rumplestiltskin had sealed her fate. Cora wanted to be a princess? Fine. She could have her fifth son and her fancy dresses, have all the riches that King Xavier's kingdom could offer—but at a discount, of course, because Henry was only the fifth son, and Xavier's second least favorite at that. (His elder brother, Joseph, held that honor, but Joseph was only the fourth son, and far less comely and intelligent than Henry. But more stubborn. He would have survived power-hungry harpy far better, but Xavier didn't realize that yet). Rumplestiltskin didn't care about riches or who got which title; he was the Dark One and above such things.

But he would make sure that Cora never wore a crown. That he could do, because he wouldn't have her as queen. If she'd married him, if she'd kept her damn promises, he would have given her anything. Crowns, power, the entire world if she'd wanted—but no, she had to choose the immediacy of 'power' over love. So he would make sure that her dream of being queen was never realized.

He enchanted Henry's brothers against her, protected them. All four would live good, long and healthy lives, as would their heirs. Xavier would last, too; Rumplestiltskin didn't blame the man for his part in Cora's little charade. Xavier was simply being what he was: power hungry and shrewd. Xavier hadn't lied. Xavier hadn't led him on. Xavier hadn't claimed to love him, hadn't soothed centuries of loneliness only to make it worse in the end. So Xavier would life. That would be his punishment for Cora. Her ambitions would be thwarted. Xavier's kingdom would prosper and shine, but Cora would never sit on its throne. He'd made sure of that.

Revenge was the best medicine for a broken heart, after all, and he'd hit Cora where it hurt the most. Eventually, he'd have her daughter cast the Dark Curse, too, and wouldn't that be sweet? No matter what Cora did, the baby growing in her belly would be his monster. Oh, not his daughter—and that was probably for the best, given what a disaster he'd been as a father and how horrid a mother he'd realized Cora would be—but he'd make her his.

"Hello?"

Rumplestiltskin sat up straight, almost falling off of his stool as he did. The voice came from the great hall, echoing into his tower and making him scowl. Oh, joy. He had another visitor. Another young woman, even, from the sound of her voice. Someone else to annoy him.

So he teleported into the great hall in a swirl of purple smoke, hoping to scare the life out of the stupid young thing. "I'm not teaching," he snapped. "I don't know why you people seem to think it's open season on the Dark One, but I am not going to teach you magic, no matter what you offer."

Somehow, word had gotten around that he'd taught Cora magic, and now every desperate young woman across six kingdoms felt the need to come to him. He wanted to kill them all, but if he did that, no one would know he'd rejected the lot. Then they'd keep coming, so he sent them away in various stages of disrepair. Their virtues he left intact—he wasn't that sort of monster, and had never taken anything Cora had not offered freely, nay, hungrily—but he tore their dreams to pieces, scared the wits out of them, and left them with the irrevocable understanding that magic came with a price, and his was not for sale. No matter how they batted their eyes at him and simpered.

Fools. They would have done better to make a deal with him.

"I am not here for magic lessons." The newcomer turned to face him. She was older, this one, beyond the idealistic flush of youth, and with brown eyes that screamed she'd seen years upon years of battle and pain. Her hair was a faded light brown, pulled carelessly away from her face, but her bearing told him that she was at least a noble. He could always tell. Her smile was crooked. "Rather the opposite, in fact."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Rumplestiltskin demanded, pitching his voice higher to appear more off-putting, less human. But his scowl did nothing to frighten her. Idiot.

"I am here because…because I am your mother, Rumplestiltskin. And I waited far too long."

"What?"

"I realize that this is probably something of a surprise to you. I don't know what that fool told you about me." The woman scowled, and Rumplestiltskin watched her warily, all the while feeling like his soul had just been emptied onto the floor at his feet. There was no way—none at all!—that she could be his mother. He was nearly three centuries old, and his mother, whoever she was, was long dead.

And even if she wasn't, she never wanted me, he knew. The certainty that both parents had abandoned him had weighed him down for his entire life.

"He told me that she dumped me on him 'like a needy, squealing, pig," he snapped, goaded into didn't mention that he'd always assumed that meant his mother had died in childbirth. It would have been typical of his father to try to make it her fault, and Rumplestiltskin had no memories of her, anyway. It had suited the gentle spinner he'd once been to think kindly of her, this mother he'd never known.

The Dark One was not so kind.

"I suppose I must have." She drew herself up, her expression resigned. "I thought you would be better off with him, better off amongst your own kind. I know he eventually left you with two spinsters, who I hope were kind to you."

No one knew that. Rumplestiltskin had buried his past so deeply that no one would—except he had told Cora, hadn't he? You fool! Clearly, this was another of Cora's tricks. As if breaking his heart wasn't bad enough, she now wanted to send some sad old woman to pretend to be his mother? He had known she was a cold-blooded bitch, but this was beyond what even he would have thought of her. Kill her, the voice of his darkness whispered, sounding like Zoso. He didn't always see the other Dark Ones, not anymore, but he could always, always hear them. Kill them both.

Magic leapt to his hands, making his entire body shiver with power and rage. Rumplestiltskin needed Cora—at least until her daughter was properly damaged by her—but he didn't need Cora's puppet. So, he teleported himself swiftly, landing inches away from her and reaching out to grab her throat in one clawed hand. He squeezed roughly, using magic to move them both roughly until her back slammed against the wall and she made a gratifying little cough-like squeak.

"Joke's on you, dearie." The words snapped out of him like something breaking. "I'm a little older than your typical Dark One by centuries. My mother would be long dead."

Hauntingly familiar brown eyes met his evenly. "I am Morgan of Cornwall. You might know me as Morgan le Fae. I am not precisely what you would call a normal human being with a traditional lifespan."

Rumplestiltskin dropped her like a hot rock, skittering backwards a step. She couldn't be. Firstly, Morgan of Cornwall was a legend. She was one of the greatest sorceresses of all time, far older than he, if stories were to be believed. Morgan was certainly old enough to be his mother—by at least two centuries—if this woman was who she claimed to be. My mother is dead, he thought desperately. Isn't she?

She's lying, Nimue's acid whisper insisted. Just kill her. And part of Rumplestiltskin wanted to listen so badly. The mere suggestion that this woman, Morgan, might be his mother brought with it too much pain, brought up too many memories he preferred dead and buried. Years of experience as the Dark One, however, told him that whatever Nimue wanted was probably in direct conflict with anything that was actually good for him, so Rumplestiltskin ignored her.

"Why should I believe you?"

"I assume you would believe blood magic. And I would think"—she glanced around—"that in a castle like this, you have several doors, locks, or other objects that are so enchanted. Point me at one, and I will prove it to you."

He was too much of a sorcerer to doubt she could pass such a test if she had suggested it—even if he would demand proof. But that was simply him being detail-oriented, particular. Ornery, even. That did not, however, lessen the emotional impact that the realization had. "You…you could be…"

"Another long lost relative?" Morgan chuckled. "It is possible. I had four children other than you, though only one had children of his own. But if you grew up in Hamelin and your father's name was Malcolm, you are—"

"Enough!" He loomed forward again, this time his fury all Rumplestiltskin and not the Dark Ones inside him. He didn't want to be reminded of his father, not even by this woman who claimed to be his mother. Yet that line of thought, hateful though it was, brought up a thousand other questions. "How would he"—he refused to use his father's name—"manage to sire a child on you? Assuming you are who you claim to be."

Rumplestiltskin snapped the last sentence nastily, but he could hardly ignore the magic swirling around Morgan. Some of it was ruined, long wasted and sucked away by working greater magics even he couldn't identify at first glance. But there was certainly power there, real power, and old Malcolm hadn't been worth anything in that respect. His precious little game of follow the lady wouldn't have won him the admiration of any woman with half a brain, and Rumplestiltskin had always suspected that his mother had been a whore, a fool, or too new to town to know what Malcolm was.

For the first time, Morgan looked away. "Let us satisfy your suspicions first, shall we? Then perhaps I will tell you the story. It is not…a nice one."

Well, at least that fit. If she'd come in here with arms full of teacups and roses, there was no way Rumplestiltskin would have believed her. But the haunted look in her eyes was one he knew all too well. It was the look of someone who had been stepped on one too many times by the world, who had tried to do what was right and had it explode in their face a thousand times over. Morgan looked tired, and a little broken, and those brown eyes told stories that were far too much like his own.

He had to test her, of course. A half dozen times, with different locks, spells, and traps, just to make sure. But Morgan passed every one of them, all without using a bit of magic that Rumplestiltskin could detect. By the end of an hour, there was no denying that she was related to him. After a second hour, even Rumplestiltskin had to accept that he was facing his mother.

His mother.

For the first time in his life, Rumplestiltskin had a mother. That didn't mean he could trust her, of course; he knew full well that parents, at least his parents, were not to be trusted. She'll only want your power, Nimue reminded him softly, and Rumplestiltskin felt his odd and hesitant excitement cool abruptly. Why would she want Rumplestiltskin? Even Cora only wanted your power, and you thought she loved you. Fool. Banishing the small strongbox he'd held while Morgan proved she could open it, Rumplestiltskin pulled away from his mother.

He'd neglected to think of one other possible reason why someone like Morgan of Cornwall would sleep with a huckster and a thief. She's just like him. Lies with a pretty smile, and then cuts you where it hurts. He didn't know if that last thought was his or one of the others; perhaps it had been Nimue, or even Zoso, but Rumplestiltskin didn't care. That didn't make it less true.

"Do you believe me, now?" Morgan asked softly, as if she couldn't sense his sudden coldness.

"Yes." Armoring himself with his anger—he would not suffer another heartbreak!—Rumplestiltskin swung to look at her with a snarl. "And that brings us back to the original question, dearie. What do you want? Hmmm? Come to find a way to take power to replace what you lost?"

She blinked, staring at him like he'd gone insane. And maybe he had. He was a Dark One who had thought he could find love, after all. They didn't come crazier than that.

"I don't need your power, Rumplestiltskin," his mother said softly. "I have enough of my own, and I am far too well acquainted with the price you must pay for your own. No…I came because I should have come for you centuries ago. I should never have left you in the first place."

Part of him burned to hear those words, and there was still a little boy within the monster who wanted to throw himself at his mother and cry. But he was the Dark One, not a lost and broken boy, so Rumplestiltskin did no such thing. He just narrowed his eyes. "Easy to say that now." His smile was nasty, all sharp edges that were not caused by the broken shards of his soul, thank you very much. "But you did. And now you've can reap the benefits of what you've sown."

"I would not have come here if I was not prepared to do that." Morgan swallowed, but she didn't look as nervous as she did sad. "And I don't think an apology from me will mean anything to you, but I am sorry."

"Why don't you think that'll mean anything?" he snapped before he could stop himself, trying to ignore the last three words. He didn't want a mother. He didn't need a mother. It was far too late. "Because I'm the Dark One? Because the Dark One can't possibly feel or care?"

Of course that was it. He was a monster, and monsters did not have feelings like men.

"No." Amazingly, Morgan stepped forward, putting a hand on his arm. Rumplestiltskin twisted to stare at that hand, not knowing what to do with it. "Being the Dark One doesn't make you feel less. I simply meant that I had hurt you enough already."

How long had it been since someone had touched him? Cora had, but she'd only wanted his power. This was…this was his mother. She had to want something. She had to. He knew how to deal with that. Nothing else made sense.

"Had I been here, perhaps you would not have had to make the choices you've made," Morgan said softly.

"I…"

His mouth worked uselessly, gums flapping emptily. Rumplestiltskin, silver-tongued wordsmith that he was, had nothing to say. He didn't know how to cope with someone offering compassion. This wasn't darkness, this wasn't lust born of a joined love for power. This was a simpler love, something softer and more open than he'd ever experienced in his life.

"I will tell you my story if you tell me yours." His mother's smile was crooked. "I suspect both have their ugly moments, but it is a start."

Don't let her in. She won't love you. She'll see you for what you are and hate you for it! He had to get control of this situation somehow. "What makes you think that you can walk in my castle and make demands?"

"I am not making demands—"

"I am not a child!" Rumplestiltskin cut her off, white hot fury rising to meet the infuriating calm she displayed. "I don't want you here, and I don't need anyone!"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous." Morgan's brown eyes blazed. "Of course you do. We all do. Being a lonely monster in a castle may fit every cliché there is, but you are no typical Dark One, so stop acting like it!"

That jerked him up short. Rumplestiltskin didn't really know how to respond to that, so in the end, he wound up telling her his story.

All of it.

A/N: Several readers asked me to post this here, so here it is! This story is something of a remix of "Ruins of Camelot," but you need not have read that or anything else in the "Ruins & Battles" series for this to make sense.

Next up: Rumplestiltskin and Morgan get to know one another—and fight. A lot.