I don't own Once Upon a Time.

Note: The place names are not spelling errors. This is not quite the same world as the one we know.

The monster in its dark cave shifted in its chains. They thought they had killed it. They thought it was trapped and tamed. They were wrong.

That was what it told itself when it could feel hope dying. They were wrong. A moment would come. They would be careless, the chains would be broken, and it would break free.

When despair threatened to drown it, that was what it clung to. Here in the dark, that was what it whispered to itself, over and over: hold on, wait, the time will come.

And, then, it would make them pay.

Rumplestiltskin woke, his heart pounding. It was always the same nightmare. Bae and he in the dark woods, the pit opening up in front of them, demonic lights reaching for them both as Bae screamed for him to keep their deal.

He had. Gods help him, he had.

This city, Londyn, was like a madman's tale. Seen from a distance, it glowed in the night. Lights shone through the fog like a sea of jewels. He'd seen homes that kings could envy as he stood outside, begging.

It was what he did when he couldn't find work, which was often enough. The mills, the ships at the docks, they all wanted able bodied men, not a shriveled cripple.

He looked around the small hole he and Bae called home, a cranny tucked into the maze-like alleys that, so far, no one else seemed to have discovered or wanted. If someone ever did challenge them for it . . . well, Rumplestiltskin couldn't fight for it.

Time to get up, he thought. He'd been told of a stable across town that might be hiring. He'd had a way with animals, once. He knew how to brush and curry a horse, and he could muck out a stable despite his leg. Perhaps, it would be enough.

He got up, reaching over for Bae to wake him.

But, the boy was gone.

Rumplestiltskin looked around in a panic. If there was one thing he'd learned in this world, it was how dangerous it was to a child alone. They'd had too many near brushes already.

There was a voice from outside. "Papa?" Bae whispered, coming in. "Papa, are you there?"

"Bae!" They kept quiet in their small hole, but Rumplestiltskin couldn't keep the relief out of his voice. "Where were you?"

"Down by the baker's," Bae said. But, he didn't meet his father's eyes as he went on. "They—their delivery boy was sick and—they needed someone. Quickly. So, I did it. The baker gave me these." Bae showed him two loaves of bread.

Rumplestiltskin stared at them. This was good bread, fresh-baked that morning. And his son was a terrible liar. Quietly, he asked, "What did you really do, Bae?"

"Papa—"

"Bae, tell me."

Bae looked away. "It doesn't matter, Papa. I'm all right. No one saw me."

"Bae—"

"I was careful, Papa. And you need this. You didn't eat yesterday. Or the day before."

It seemed Rumple wasn't a good liar, either. He'd thought Bae had believed his stories, that he hadn't been able to wait before wolfing his share down when he'd got some food for both of them, that what he handed the boy was only half of what he'd been able to scrape together.

This world was killing them, he thought, killing their souls along with their bodies. "I'm sorry, Bae. I never meant for this to happen."

"It's not your fault, Papa."

"Isn't it? It's my job to look after you, Bae. You know what they do to thieves, here." At best, Bae might be sent to the workhouse. He'd heard how children died there, starving on the paltry rations—even less than what they had now. Others were sold like slaves into "apprenticeships" no one else would take, even in this city of desperate souls. Like the sweeps' boys who too often fell to their deaths or suffocated in the chimneys they were sent to clean.

Or worse, Rumplestiltskin thought. He'd heard drunks looking at Bae comment on the "pretty boy"—and other men, cold sober and calculating. If the workhouse would sell a child to the sweeps, he didn't doubt they would sell his son to anyone else who offered them money.

But, at least, whether in the workhouse or sold in the city, Rumplestiltskin would have hope of finding his son again. If the boy were taken as a thief, he might be transported, even hung.

"I'm so sorry, son," he said. The words were so weak and inadequate. They were also all he had to offer.

Bae handed him a loaf. "Here, Papa. Please, eat. You're too weak."

Reluctantly, Rumplestiltskin took it from him. It was white bread, soft and sweet, with none of the taste of sawdust or mold, unlike the bread they usually managed to get, when they got any. He forced himself to eat slowly. Bae was right. It had been close to two days since his last meal.

They couldn't live like this, he thought. He had to find a solution. If he could just hold on till Bae was large enough to do a man's work in this world. Work at the docks, perhaps. Or even the mills—the work wasn't all bad, there. Not all of it.

Rumplestiltskin had heard how workers in the coal mines died of black lung, choking on the years of dust they'd breathed in. But, even that might be a better fate than what waited for them here in the city. A miner might live for years, have a home, a family, have a full stomach and a warm bed waiting for him at the end of the day. He might be a grandfather before lung sickness found him. He might be one of the ones who never had it at all.

But, that was a man's life, not a child's. There were mines where they hired children, tying them carts and making them drag them like mules, beating them if they were too slow or if, gods save them, they fell down from exhaustion. Those children weren't expected to live long enough to get black lung.

For the rest, there had been a weavers' guild years back, but the mills had killed it. There were shepherds to the north and west on what had once been farmland. Most of the families who had lived there had been forced away, their homes burned or torn down if they refused to go. The landowners had had their pick of able-bodied survivors to watch their flocks. The two trades Rumplestiltskin had been trained to were useless.

He could read and write—and he had been given a few pennies, now and then, by those who couldn't to write a letter or explain an agreement. But those were rare times. A ragged beggar wasn't someone you trusted with your messages, even if he only asked for a farthing. And the skill wasn't so very rare in these lands, even among the poor.

He ate the stolen bread slowly, praying to the gods, wondering if they could hear him in this world. Or if they cared. He had already sold his soul, hadn't he? He had killed a man. Or a demon—he still didn't know which Zoso was—and taken his powers. And his madness.

He had killed men under that curse. Slaughtered them for nothing, for letting his son scrape his knee in the street.

They had come here to escape the curse, to a land without magic where Rumplestiltskin was just a poor, crippled beggar.

I should have taken the bean and left Bae behind, he thought. I could have left him with gold and land and even some magic to protect him. He would have had a home and friends, people who cared what happened to him.

I should never have brought him here.

Do you hear me, gods? He asked the sky. Bae wouldn't leave his father—and his father was selfish enough to bring him here with him.

Please, destroy me if you want. You know I've earned it. But, help me save my son.