Wielding the Weapon
Summary: Based on "The Cricket Game." Rumplestiltskin's thoughts during the events surrounding Regina's almost-execution.
She can't die.
She can't and she won't.
He will not allow it.
But only because he needs her to wield the Dark Curse for him.
There is no other reason.
Regina may have foolishly, stupidly traded it away to Maleficent for that damned Sleeping Curse, but he's confident she will be able to get it back from the golden-haired sorceress. Regina could have actually brewed the Sleeping Curse herself, of course, even given her disastrous first attempt (he will not think about how he cradled her, soothed her after she injured herself in the trying), but the ingredients were exceedingly rare, and when he'd refused to give them to her, she turned to Maleficent, the only other person known to have the components on hand.
Regina had traded away the curse he gave her, the one he'd worked on for centuries. The one he'd so carefully crafted, the one he so desperately needed her to wield, so he could get to a land without magic. She'd traded away the curse that had to be enacted so he could finally, finally find his son. She'd traded it away for a curse that undone by a simple kiss.
Damn her. Leave it to his wicked … leave it to Regina to defy expectation, to unwittingly unravel all his careful and subtle manipulations of her and everyone else.
But he is Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One. He is very good at manipulation, and he doesn't think it will take all that much pulling of puppet strings to get things back on track, and see that the Curse is cast.
Of course, Regina has to live in order for that to happen.
He watches, hidden in plain sight, hidden from all eyes, even hers. As she stands there, helpless, powerless, the thought occurs to him that she is still beautiful, even like this, all stripped down and in the plainest of garments, facing death.
The thought makes him angry.
As does the notion that he will save her life, if it comes to that.
Regina is strong, bitter and defiant and hateful to the last. In a perverse sort of way, it makes him proud.
In another way, it makes him almost sad.
Almost.
As the arrows fly towards her, his black, twisted little heart seems to beat faster. He summons his magic, his energy, and prepares to –
"Stop!" Snow White shouts, and the hated Blue Fairy freezes the arrows in mid-air.
But …
But he wanted to be the one to save …
No. He stops himself, stops the thought cold. He is not here to save Regina. This has never been about saving her, never. It has always been about wielding her. She is what she has always been to him.
A tool. A puppet. A pawn.
A weapon.
He makes his lips form a triumphant smirk. He should have known sweet Snow would not be able to go through with it. She wants desperately to believe that the woman who saved her life, the woman who she once loved as a mother, is not completely gone.
Snow is desperate, desperate to bring that woman back.
Rumplestiltskin knows how to recognize a desperate soul. She's ripe for a deal.
And so he makes one. And Regina reacts precisely as he expects her to, and now she knows she cannot hurt them.
Not in this realm, at least.
Which leaves her with one option, the only option he wants her to have.
"I'm your friend," he tells the Evil Queen afterwards. Of course, that's a lie, and they both know it. He's been many things to her – teacher, tormentor, lover – but he's never been her friend, and he never will be.
She still listens to him though, and heeds what he has to say. Perhaps Snow White was right, after a fashion. Underneath it all, there is still a vestige of the old Regina. But what Snow doesn't understand is that not only was she "good," then, she also craved validation and approval, something she never got from the mother that bore her.
He'd given that to her, for a time. He'd taught her and praised her and made her feel powerful.
And oh, how eagerly he'd taken what she offered in return. The sweet warm hunger of her in his arms, the way she'd writhed, the way she'd clutched him, the way she'd moaned his name as they –
No. He will not think about that. Not anymore. Not ever again. With his true love dead, it seems downright … blasphemous to think of … that.
The important thing is, the day he's worked so long and hard for is finally coming. Regina is going to wield the Dark Curse for him at last.
That's the only thing he cares about. That, and nothing else. That's the only reason his black, twisted little heart beat faster when she was about to be executed.
Regina was never anything more to him than a weapon to be wielded in the battle to find his son.
And he will keep repeating that to himself, over and over, until he knows it's the truth.