(Authors notes- big love to all for the reads n' reviews, thou rocketh my world :) This chapter is slightly different with less fluff, but bear with me as there is still plenty of sweet stuff to come)
"Ruby, why do you keep looking at me like that? It's kind of creepy", said Snow feeling slightly uncomfortable with the smirk of mischief parading on the face of the waitress.
"Oh, it's nothing….much. It's just last night I was on youtube and I found this band called Rammstein", replied Ruby as she opened her heart shaped tin and began to roll a cigarette, "They're this German band and they got this song called 'Sonne'"
"So?"
"Well, I checked out the official video for the song and….well, they have some pretty eye opening ideas about what Snow White was really like. Snorting stuff and when she starts spanking the…."
"Hey, not in front of Henry", blustered James putting his hands over the boy's ears.
"Hey, I'm not a kid you know", Henry said pulling away from this suddenly overprotective paternal figure James was shaping into.
"What was the name of that band again?", asked Archie as his cheek twitched strangely.
"Rammstein. That's R-A-M….", monotone Ruby leaning over with a devious smile.
"Stop that!", snapped Snow snatching the pencil away from where Archie was scribbling down their name on the cover of his notebook.
"I…oh…..sorry", replied the good Doctor with an awkward cough seeing the confused look on Henry's face.
"Man, how the hell did Regina do this on her own?", asked Emma as she opened a can of Red Bull and sat back down at the booth, finally allowed to return from her time out in the corner, her cheeks still bearing a touch of embarrassed pink, "It's so exhausting running round after them, let alone doing the laundry and making dinner and everything"
"Since when have you done the laundry? Or made them anything other than Pop Tarts?", smiled Snow, "But I guess we never gave Regina the credit she deserved. But I think it's only fair after all she did raising Henry that we look after her and Rumpy"
"Until we change them back", Henry said swilling his Coke around in his mouth in a way that he was never allowed to do with Regina.
"Yes…right…change them back", Snow said furtively as she possessively clenched Rumpy's wet t-shirt in her hands.
"Well it could've been worse", shrugged James, "They could've been two years old, at that age all kids can do is run and scream"
"So what do you think happened, Doc?", asked Ruby as her well-travelled tongue ran along the rolling paper.
"Why does everyone keep asking me that? I don't know all the who's, where's and what-the-hell's of all of this", Archie replied sipping his coffee and flicking through his notes, wincing at the generic brand still being used in the diner.
"But we can change them back?", asked Henry as he fidgeted on the cheap vinyl seat, playing with the frayed strands of duct tape from an old and half assed repair job.
"Well, I've made some progress with that idea. As you know I've spent the last week going through Mr Gold's shop and the whole plethora of tomes he had squirreled away there. I even found an original copy of…."
"Archie", said Emma as the caffeine began to ripple through her system.
"Oh sorry, I was straying off the point there. Anyway, hidden in his office, behind some old paintings, I found these books which he had penned himself. It seems he wrote down all kinds of spells and potions and things"
"Why would he do that? Why on earth would he risk someone else finding the secrets to his powers?", asked James as he craned his neck backwards trying to see into the backroom where the children slept soundly but the door was firmly closed.
"Maybe he didn't trust the magic used for the curse, like he was half expecting something to go wrong if it were to break. Like a back-up plan in case he was somehow incapacitated so he left enough of a trail so he could be helped, if we wanted to that is", Archie said going through his hastily scribbled notes.
"Seems kinda convenient doesn't it?", Emma, ever the cynic, quipped.
"Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, at this point we need all the help we can", James said silently hoping that failure was on the cards for his heart bulged in ways he never knew before when he looked on at Rumpy and Gina whenever they slept peacefully.
"So if we have Rumpy's…I mean, Rumpelstiltskin's spells and things, can we do it?", asked Snow as her thin fingers slid around her husband's arm grasping it a little tighter than intended.
"Well some of us have their magic back, the fairies and such, but we can't just blunder into this. We had to find the right magicks to use in conjunction with the spell or who knows what might happen?", Archie said finishing his coffee, trying not to roll his eyes seeing the brown circles around the cup where Ruby, as usual, hadn't bothered to wash it properly.
"Wait a minute, you're saying it's not foolproof?", Emma asked feeling strangely pensive as she unwittingly held the polystyrene cup containing Regina's new pet worm, carefully clutching it in a protective manner.
"Nothing is ever foolproof", Archie said knowing full well the price of ill magic.
"I'm not letting you use Rumpy and Gina as guinea pigs, they're just babies and you want to cast all manner of spells on them. W-what happens if it goes wrong? Then what, eh? They're put their trust and little hearts in our hands and I'm not going to let them down", said Snow with gusto as she broke off her words as the sob built in her chest.
"I understand Snow, I really do", said the bespectacled man seeing the tears brimming in her eyes, "But that's not our only problem"
"Meaning?", asked Ruby as she pulled the cigarette from her mouth before she could even light it after seeing the disapproving glares coming her way.
"The Dark One", replied Archie as he cast a guilty eye towards the back room where the children were. But blocking his line of sight was Granny who was sneakily adding her measure of scotch to her coffee, being very quiet so as not to disturb the toddlers who weren't slumbering at all.
"Gina…you 'sleep?", whispered Rumpy, his heart still clinging to the fear which had accompanied him all his days.
"No…I keep finkin' of that Daft Vader that Auntie Wuby told us 'bout. A-and I can't sleep without Poppy", replied Regina softly.
"Who?"
"My pony"
"Oh", Rumpy said as he snuggled in closer to her as he dropped his gaze, "Gina ….d-do you fink I gots a magic bawoon?"
"Huh?", said Regina picking at the drying mud stains on her Winnie-The-Pooh t-shirt.
"I-I wished for a….Mama….a-and a Daddy…. to look after me a-and wove me", he said looking over towards the door of the backroom, "A-and I fink I gots them"
"You mean Mrs Snow and Mister James?"
"Yeah", he replied a little scared of getting his battered hopes up. "D-do you fink they wove me?"
"I fink so. I knows I wove you, Wumpy", Regina said with a toothy smile.
"I wove you too, Gina", he said with a blush and a giggle, but once he saw the smile fade from her face he became worried, "What's wong?"
"I…I wish I had a magic bawoon too", she sighed as a sad frown crumpled her adorable little face.
"Y-you can wish on my bawoon, if you like"
"Weally?"
"Uh-huh", he nodded back as Regina smiled again before pushing back the itchy blanket and struggled to her knees and put her hands together as if in prayer.
"Dear Mister Bawoon….I wish my Daddy was here, but I knows he's fighting some bad men far away. So….can I have a Mommy? I never had one who woves me 'fore", she said as a sad and solitary tear ran down her chubby little cheek. "Mister Bawoon…..c-can Miss Emma be my Mommy now…. pwease"
Rumpy, not noticing the turning of the door handle, crawled up beside her and copied her actions, hoping that his magic balloon would make their dreams come true.
So they would get their happy ending.
The handle stopped moving as Granny moved back away from the door wearing a soft smile, not wanting to burst the hopes of such innocents. She stepped over to the register once more and put down the plate of cookies she was about to give the children and sipped her alcohol laced coffee once more and steered her attention back to the booth across from her.
"You see, now Rumpy has been reverted to a child, to a time in his life when the Dark One hadn't commandeered his soul, he is now free", Archie said flicking over the pages in his notebook not wanting to press the matter.
"Ok, you're losing me here", Emma said still trying to get to grips of the ways of the old realm.
"Well, none of us knew the real Rumpelstiltskin, only the creature controlling him. You see, he was once a man but in an act of desperation he came under the control of the Dark One, all the years he span his wickedness he was nothing but a puppet, a body in which the true manifestation of evil could call home. The man buried deep inside could do nothing to stop the cruelty he was unfurling, he was merely a tool to be used by dark and vindictive powers", explained Archie.
"So the Dark One no longer exists then?", asked the Sheriff crumpled her can of Red Bull.
"Sorry, but the spirit of the Dark One cannot be destroyed. Like the old saying goes 'you can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea. It's the essence of evil and all it can do is be transferred from one person to another"
"So where did it go then? Did it go back to the guy before?", pressed the Sheriff struggling to keep up.
"No, it doesn't work like that. I believe that once the powers of the Dark One couldn't return to Rumpelstiltskin….. it sought another host"
"So whoever the Dark One is now, shouldn't we be able to recognise them? You know with the grey skin and evil and aura and that?", asked Ruby toying with her dangling earring.
"It's not as simple as that, it never is. Because the powers never transferred through their natural path, the spirit of evil is dormant in whomever it lies in now. But, judging by what I've put together from the books, the wake of malice will slowly creep into the mind of its new host, like a thousand cruel voices scratching away at their psyche until they crack as the Dark One demands release", Archie said as his fingers clutched anxiously around his pencil.
"So what you're saying is….?", asked Emma still not getting the whole picture.
"The powers of The Dark One is residing in someone here in town, the evil will seep into their soul and grind down their mind until …obeying the darkness taking over their heart. …. t-they….take the knife of the previous host a-and…"
"Archie, surely you don't mean?", gasped Snow as her fingernails dug into James' arm and her tears spilled down her face.
"I-I'm afraid so….the Dark One will only be released if….they kill Rumpy"