Author's notes: My version of 6.19. While in many ways I loved episode 6.19, it was still a bit of a mess with the retcons, inconsistencies, recycling (poor Rumple, fated to die in the process of killing BOTH his parents? Does Fiona know what happened with Malcolm, LOL? And Rumple acting shady again...) and WTFs (especially regarding the fairies and why-kidnap-Gideon?).
For this story I'll continue with my non-canon take on the Black Fairy. And my version of the Final Battle, which, because I over-complicate things, will probably take more setup than canon does. Also, Rumple wasn't born with a Savior fate. (Although it appears my head-canon about the Shears wounding your timeline and leaving you vulnerable to "predatory destinies" wasn't that far off!) The Shears themselves are on my agenda, though I dunno if something will be revealed in canon before I get around to it. As for Tiger Lily, I loved her, but she's one of those retcons I don't want to deal with here.
"They say dead men tell no tales, but my father was surprisingly chatty the last time we met." Rumplestiltskin spoke slowly as he drew a circular design on the floor, using the glittering powder he had extracted from the skulls that once encrusted the base of the broken hourglass. He added fairy glyphs inside the circle, ones that represented his mother's name. Because he was no longer a child, his bare wish wasn't enough to call her; he needed the added power of this spell. "So I asked him about my mother. She left us when I was an infant, and I had never known why..."
"Did he tell you?" Belle sat off to one side with Gideon resting next to her. Tink stood watch at the entrance to the chamber, alert against the possibility of another attack from the Lost Boys.
"Yes. Perhaps he thought it made him look better in comparison." Rumplestiltskin shifted to the other side of his circle and continued with his drawing. He added a pinch of sand from the broken hourglass, turning the spell into a trap as well as a summoning. "No love lost between my parents, though at the beginning my father thought otherwise."
"Hard to imagine Pan in a romantic relationship with anyone," said Tink. "He never seemed one for women, and even with the boys, it wasn't... wasn't that kind of attraction."
"No. He gave all that up without a second thought when he became 'Peter Pan'," agreed Rumplestiltskin, "and I don't think he ever missed it. Neverland's magic required a child, and that was enough for him. But my mother, whatever her other shortcomings, isn't lacking in the looks department. She could be... persuasive. You can imagine."
"Yeah, but it's not the fairy way. It's the kind of thing Blue would take your wings for."
"I remember she wouldn't let Nova and Grumpy be together," Belle said. "But Rumple, your mother was already an outcast, wasn't she?"
"So she was. At any rate, she came to my father and made him all sorts of promises. He was flattered, I suspect, and felt as much for her as he ever had for anyone." Rumplestiltskin remembered the anger still simmering in Pan's eyes even after so many years. "That made it all the worse when she dumped him, and their newborn child, without a flicker of regret, only a reminder to fullfill his promise to her when the time came."
"What promise?" asked Belle. "Why did she abandon you?"
"Malcolm was supposed to take them to Neverland and make Father wish for her," whispered Gideon, rolling onto his side to look at Rumplestiltskin. "She told me... she sent them the magic bean when her son was seven years old, the most powerful age for a wish..."
Rumplestiltskin nodded to Gideon. "Yes. I didn't wonder about it then, but how else would the spinsters have acquired a magic bean? And so my father took us to Neverland, just as my mother wanted."
"Yet you didn't wish for her?" Tink glanced at him in puzzlement.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Fairies don't always understand human nature." Rumplestiltskin smiled faintly. "As you should know from your experiences with Regina."
"If you were as perverse as Regina was, I almost feel sorry for the Black Fairy," Tinker Bell grumbled.
"I don't think he was being perverse," said Belle. "If Rumple never knew his mother, if he thought she had abandoned him, naturally he wouldn't think to wish for her."
"She never wanted me. She hated me. That's what I thought — my father made sure of that. You see, people don't like to feel used. And if that was all he was to her, a means to an end, when he had once loved her — well, spite isn't pretty, but it is understandable." Rumplestiltskin reflected that he himself had been no more than a means to an end for his mother. At least his father had tried for awhile to care for his son, despite his resentment. His mother had abandoned him the day he was born.
"She said he was selfish," said Gideon.
"That he was." Rumplestiltskin remembered all too clearly the day his father had cast him away in exchange for eternal youth and magic. "Instead of a new start for his family, he decided to take Neverland and all its power for himself alone."
"That's awful," said Belle, her eyes wide and hurt on his behalf.
He looked away, knowing that he didn't deserve her sympathy, not when he was himself equally selfish, and continued so. "It doesn't matter anymore. It was all long ago. We need to get Gideon's shadow back. If that means my mother returns to Neverland, so be it. Look at the state of the place — she's welcome to it!"
"But will she cooperate? Do you have a deal with her?" asked Tink.
"Not as such," he had to admit. It was a gamble, but the alternatives were worse, and there was no point in discussing them now. "But she knows what I want. I've taken precautions. If she won't deliver..."
"We'll make sure she does." Belle's face took on a determined, almost murderous expression. She gripped her son's hand. "We'll never stop fighting for you, Gideon."
"Be careful," said Gideon. "She... she's powerful. Her cloak of shadows draws on the power of two hundred souls. Her wand—"
"I know. I've used it before." Rumplestiltskin stared down at his spell circle, hoping it was strong enough to hold his mother. "It doesn't matter. We'll do whatever we have to do. Now..." He swept his hand over the spell and concentrated, focusing his wish on the Black Fairy.
Mother!
Like an arrow flying through the ether, Rumplestiltskin's wish pierced the barriers between realms to reach the one he sought. Ancient bindings crumbled, and the geas that once kept the Black Fairy in exile faded into memory.
A cloud of darkness swirled up from the spell circle, dissipating to reveal the tall, elegant figure of his mother. Her gaze swept over the faces gathered around her, then stopped on Rumplestiltskin. Her lips curved in a triumphant smile. "At last. Thank you, son."
"Spare me your gratitude."
"Now, now..." The Black Fairy started to take a step, but a shimmer of magic locked her in place. Her expression changed. "What is this? Release me!"
"Return Gideon's shadow, first."
"A deal, is it?" The Black Fairy laughed indulgently. "Surely there's no need for such formality. We're all family here."
Rumplestiltskin shot her a cold glare. When had she ever been family to him? When she had stolen his son and imprisoned the boy for twenty-eight years? But he bit back the words. If she didn't already understand their pain, she never would.
"Oh, very well. I release Gideon's shadow, and you unlock your little spell trap. Do we have a deal, Dark One?" Her tone was mocking, but her eyes were merciless. If he didn't agree to the deal, she was fully capable of finishing what she had begun, leaving his son to die the death of the shadow-torn. And that would leave him no option except — no, it wouldn't come to that.
"Yes," he grated, aware of Belle and Gideon listening and hanging on every word of the exchange. Even Tink was watching them. "We have a deal."
"Good." The Black Fairy gestured carelessly towards Gideon. A shadow flew out of her cloak, overshooting its target before returning to circle over his head. At her expectant look, Rumplestiltskin gritted his teeth and released her from his spell circle. She smiled and scuffed the sandy floor deliberately with a foot, erasing his carefully drawn patterns.
Meanwhile, Gideon sat up with his mother's help. He reached up for his shadow and it mirrored his movements, lightless arms stretching back down, but their fingers passed through each other. He bit back a frustrated cry and tried again, but once again his hands slid through the shadow. No matter how many times he tried, he couldn't grasp the dark, immaterial shape, not even when Belle added her own efforts to his.
"A shame." The Black Fairy smirked at the sight. "You lack your brother's affinity for shadow magic. The blood runs too thinly in you, boy."
"You knew," Rumplestiltskin started angrily, but he had no time for his rage. He moved forward. "Gideon, I can help you."
"No." The Black Fairy's hand clapped down on Rumplestiltskin's shoulder from behind, and he froze in place. A tingle of magic ran down his spine, shooting out tendrils through every muscle, holding him immobile.
Furious, Rumplestiltskin gathered all his strength, but he found himself unable to break free. How? How is she doing this?
Fool! hissed the darkness. You gave yourself to her. The law of three...
Magic worked by threes; he already knew that, but when had he given himself into his mother's power?
Once by birth, once in wishing her to Neverland...
That's two, he thought. But the third? Then he heard his own voice in memory: ...Rumplestiltskin is your son! Stupid, stupid, stupid. He cursed himself for an idiot. He had freely offered up his own name, years ago when he had first met her in the Enchanted Forest, an act of bravado in confronting the mother who had condemned him to a lifetime of pain. He had never thought that he would ever call upon her again.
A mistake that his son was now paying for.
"Rumple!" Belle's frantic plea woke him from his nightmarish reverie.
He longed to speak, to save Gideon, but the Black Fairy's spell was unbreakable.
"Oh, you don't want his 'help'," she said. "Don't you know what he had planned?"
"What are you talking about? The only plan is to save our son."
The Black Fairy scoffed. "Of course he didn't tell you, you silly, naive child. But he can't hide his secrets from his own mother."
"What secrets?" Belle stiffened, and her gaze went to Rumplestiltskin.
His heart sank. He wished he could shut his eyes, so he wouldn't have to see the doubt in her face.
"He is too much his father's son: weak as his father, selfish as his father, dishonest as his father," said the Black Fairy. "And now that he's slain Pan, he intends to take his place as master of Neverland. Why else is he here?"
"We came here to avoid you!" Belle protested.
"Yet when he realized I had what he needed, he summoned me."
"But why would he want Neverland? It's a nightmare. We've had nothing but trouble since we arrived."
"That's what it is now, but it has the potential to be much more. And my son knows exactly how to restore it."
That's not true, Rumplestiltskin wanted to say, but his mother's binding held him silent. And even if he could speak... maybe it was true. The pieces fell into place in his head, and he saw how it could be done, how Neverland could be renewed, how its power could be his to control. If he was willing to pay the price.
"No..." Belle looked at him.
"Yes," said the Black Fairy. "Why else did he bring Tinker Bell? He needed a full-blooded fairy on the one hand, and his son's shadow on the other — a shadow fed from infancy on the dreams of lost children."
Was that why she had kidnapped Gideon? Rumplestiltskin had barely dabbled with shadow magic, but his mother was an expert. And she had no qualms about using her own family...
"He did heal my hand." Tink raised the appendage in question and wiggled her fingers. "He may be the Dark One, but everyone knows that the Black Fairy's evil is even older."
"Is that what Blue told you? That treacherous hypocrite may believe her own lies, but she is responsible for more misery than I ever was."
"But—"
"Oh, shut up." The Black Fairy gestured impatiently, freezing Tinker Bell in place. She turned to Gideon. "Boy. Listen to me. You wanted to be a hero. Your father would deprive you of that opportunity. If you let him get his hands on your shadow, he'll never let it go."
"Gideon is our son. He wouldn't..." Belle began, but her voice trailed off into uncertainty.
"He sacrificed one son. What makes you think he won't sacrifice another?"
No. Never. Was that what his mother really thought of him? Rumplestiltskin knew he was no hero, knew he had made mistakes, but that was not one he would repeat. Bae... And if Belle believed her — he knew how thin a thread the trust was between them. Not that long ago, Belle had been afraid of what he might do to Gideon. Now, after what he had almost done to Tinker Bell, he deserved all her doubts...
"No. You're wrong." Belle met his eyes, and he saw that despite everything, she still retained a sliver of faith in him. Then she turned back to the Black Fairy. "You're the one who wants to sacrifice Gideon. This is your plan!"
"Is... is this true?" Gideon gave up his futile efforts to catch his own shadow and turned back to face his parents and grandmother.
"I'm acting for the greater good. My son only wants more power for his own selfish reasons, the same as his father before him."
"What greater good could be worth the death of your own grandson?" Belle asked in angry disbelief.
"You told me you wanted my help," said Gideon. "But it was my death you wanted all along?"
"It isn't death; it's apotheosis." The Black Fairy moved to sweep a hand over the broken hourglass. The sand sparkled briefly before returning to a dull off-white. "Together we can make Neverland whole again: your shadow will ascend to the Throne of Day, as I will take the Throne of Night. What is your fleshly form or earthly name compared to that glory?"
"They told me about Neverland," said Gideon, staring into the Black Fairy's cloak. "It's a place of nightmares and terror."
"That's only half the story. The nightmares of Neverland show you fear that you may learn courage; the dreams of Neverland show you impossibilities to open the doors of imagination. When the Final Battle comes, where else will the children find refuge and hope if not in Neverland?"
"Wait, what 'Final Battle'?" Belle broke in.
"Oh yes, the Final Battle is nearly upon us." The Black Fairy smiled grimly. "The powers of heaven and hell will be loosed upon the realms, and horror will stalk the sleep of children." She looked at Rumplestiltskin and Gideon. "You who are of my blood, you share my Sight... you know this to be true."
Gideon shrank away, covering his eyes with his hands and shaking his head. "I... I don't know..."
Belle reached out to her son with a comforting arm, but her eyes turned towards her husband. "Rumple...?"
And he didn't know what he would have said, if he could have answered her. The future had never been clear to him. Once he had indeed prophesied a 'final battle', but he had been mad from his captivity at the time, barely holding onto enough sanity to say what he had to in order to move the Evil Queen and the Charmings into position right before the first casting of the Dark Curse. After that, the realms had been torn open and in their new lives, he had only had Mr Gold's mundane memories. Later, events had overtaken him and he had not had the inclination to reconsider his own demented ramblings.
"Deny it if you wish," his mother said, "but your cowardice changes nothing. You've played the part required of you. Now it's your son's turn to fulfill his destiny."
"Destiny..." Gideon repeated the word slowly.
"There's no 'destiny' except the one you choose," Belle told her son.
It's not that simple, thought Rumplestiltskin. But Belle wasn't a seer. She couldn't sense the lines of fate tightening around them, a deadly net of inevitability. Gideon had seen it, when they had met him in the dreamworld before his birth. Even Emma Swan had glimpsed something of that future, according to Regina. The Final Battle.
Gideon's hands slid away from his face and he gazed distantly at the Black Fairy. "My destiny was to destroy you, Grandmother."
"Nonsense. It is transformation, not destruction."
Rumplestiltskin wondered why she bothered. Why did she feel the need to justify herself to her grandson? Would it assuage her guilty conscience? If Gideon consented to his own sacrifice, then she wouldn't have to call herself a murderer? Tell yourself you did the right thing... He was all too familiar with that litany. He struggled again to break free of his mother's spell, but it was useless. He was trapped, bound to watch open-eyed as another son died before him.
"Don't listen to her." Belle hugged Gideon protectively. "If she had any good in her heart, she would return your shadow."
"Clinging to your life when so many others are at stake — I thought you were stronger than that, Gideon. And you, Belle, you filled his head with ideas about heroes and bravery, yet here you are with your coward's counsel." The Black Fairy sneered, "You and my son, you make quite the pair."
"What kind of hero sacrifices their own family? That's the opposite of heroism!"
"But what if... what if it's true? About the Final Battle?" Gideon shifted away from his mother, his expression troubled. His gaze became unfocused, as if lost in some private vision. "If Neverland is needed..."
"We'll find another way," Belle said fiercely.
"There is no other way," snapped the Black Fairy. "Neverland has become a festering wound. It has to be either cauterized or healed, or the infection will spread, and the outcome of the Final Battle will be darker than you can imagine."
Belle looked at Rumplestiltskin again, and again he was uncertain. His mother's words could well be true. Time was broken in Neverland. The magic that remained was corrupted. That much he had seen for himself. But the lengths she was willing to go to in order to fix this realm, the price she would pay... it was a terrifying thought.
"What if she's right?" Gideon wavered between his mother and grandmother. "I saw... I'm not sure what I saw."
"I'll make the decision easy for you," the Black Fairy said, her patience clearly at an end. "You wanted to free the children I've taken. Well, now that I'm here, I don't need them anymore."
"You'll release them?" Gideon straightened, eyes locked on his grandmother.
Don't trust her, thought Rumplestiltskin, but he had no power to intervene. It broke his heart to hear the hope in his son's voice, knowing that it would be betrayed.
"Certainly." The Black Fairy swept her arm up, her cloak of shadows billowing outwards with the movement. For a moment, the walls of Skull Rock vanished, and the cloak flew up to cover the sky. Small, cloth-bundled shapes tumbled out of the shadows. Then time took them, and they grew up, grew old, as time seized them and aged them in an instant.
Then the chamber closed in around them again, and there was only one left inside, writhing on the ground and mewling piteously.
"What...what's happening?" Belle stood frozen in shock, while Gideon moved to the wizened figure before them.
"He's... he's dying. You did this!" Gideon lunged at his grandmother, but she batted him away.
"I did nothing. It's only that outside the protection of my cloak, they are vulnerable to time." The Black Fairy gestured, and her cloak folded itself back around her body. "It was my magic that kept them children. You were twenty-eight years in the Dark Realm, boy. How long do you think it was for them?"
"No..." Gideon clambered back to his feet. "Fix this! You can fix this."
"Yes, I can, if Neverland is restored and its time mended. Then the hours and years will no longer weigh upon the children; the clock will turn back and their youth be returned." The Black Fairy paused, lifting her gaze to Gideon's detached shadow. "Of course, to do that, you know what is needed."
"Gideon, no," whispered Belle, reaching for her son's arm.
Gideon didn't look at her. "I... I promised them. That I would save them."
Oh, Gideon. Rumplestiltskin knew, then, that his mother had won. His son would not abandon the children he had promised to protect, even ones he had only met in dreams.
"And so you shall."
"Then let's get this over with." He slumped back, then, as if the life had already been taken from him. Belle caught him and eased him to the floor.
"You can't do this!" she cried out, lifting her hand in a last-ditch magical attack against the Black Fairy.
"Your son is a hero. Don't take that away from him." The Black Fairy blocked the spell, then reached out, holding Gideon's shadow in one hand and her wand in the other. She completed what she had begun, draining the dark energy out of Gideon and transferring it into the shadow, then erasing the name that bound them. Gideon fell back, unconscious, into his mother's arms.
The rite was ancient, its roots buried deep in Neverland. Rumplestiltskin could see that much, though the details of the magic eluded him. His mother enacted it without hesitation. Soon enough, the oversized hourglass, the symbolic heart of Neverland's timeless power, was clean and whole again. Sand filled the top, trickling grain by grain through the neck. The skulls surrounding its base grinned once more with secret knowledge.
The Black Fairy gleamed with new authority. Above her, the resurrected Shadow of Neverland circled, eyes glowing with no hint of its old identity. Yet — something of memory remained. The Shadow swooped low, dragging time in its wake, and wherever it flew, ancient bodies were pulled back, rejuvenated. The lone figure on the ground became an infant again. And in Belle's arms, Gideon slipped back in time as the years were unwound.
Of course, thought Rumplestiltskin. Gideon, too, had once been carried in the Black Fairy's cloak.
Already, the Shadow had flown out the window, traveling with the speed of thought through the rest of Neverland. Then—
The silence of the night broke as two hundred abandoned babies burst out crying. Here in the magical center of the realm, they could hear all of them, as wishes if not as literal sound, no matter the physical separation.
"The children! You can't just leave them out there," said Tinker Bell.
"No, of course not. I'm not a monster." The Black Fairy glanced at Rumplestiltskin, but he had hurried to Belle's side as soon as he felt his mother's spell lift, and he had no attention to spare for her. Distantly, he heard the Black Fairy and Tinker Bell talking, but they were soon gone from Skull Rock, along with the baby that had been on the ground.
"Belle." He touched her shoulder gently, and she raised a tear-stained face to him.
"Our son, Rumple." She held the infant Gideon close to her chest, as if she could infuse him with life. He lay in her arms with unnatural stillness. He looked no more than a few days old now, as if he had never spent decades in the Dark Realm. "He's..."
Dying, she didn't say. Rumplestiltskin longed to reassure her, but he didn't want to give her false hope after his plan to summon the Black Fairy had done nothing but delay the inevitable. He slid his hands around their son. "Please, Belle. Let me... let me say good-bye."
After a long moment, Belle loosened her grip. Choking back sobs, she nodded and whispered, "All right." Then she pulled Gideon away. "You're not, not going to... with the dagger. Not when he's, he's just..."
"A baby. I know. I won't curse him. Trust me, Belle." It wouldn't work, anyway. Without his shadow, Gideon's soul wouldn't be strong enough to tether itself to the Dark One dagger. Not that Belle needed to hear that right now. "Please."
This time Belle allowed Rumplestiltskin to lift their son in his arms. As Belle sank down with her face hidden behind her hands, Rumplestiltskin turned and took a few steps away and knelt with his son at the base of the hourglass.
The spell wasn't difficult, not for him. It wasn't even that painful — just a quick slice across his left palm, and a few drops of blood daubed on his son's tiny hands. He called his shadow back to him, drained its Darkness back into himself, then bound the rest to Gideon. Blood magic allowed him to rechristen the shadow with his son's name. Even as he slumped with his back against the stone, feeling weaker than he had in centuries, he smiled to see his son drawing strength with each new breath.
It had worked, then.
Before he could call out to Belle, Gideon, unsettled by his father's unsteady hold on him, wailed in distress. Across the chamber, Belle jerked up her head in shock. She scrambled over to them at once and scooped up the baby from her husband, bouncing him gently until he quieted again. "He... is he...?"
"He'll live. He'll thrive," whispered Rumplestiltskin, struggling to draw breath. "I promise, Belle. He's fine."
"But... how...?" Her eyes widened as she took in Rumplestiltskin's condition. "Rumple, what did you... no... you gave him your shadow?"
He nodded slightly. "I'm afraid so. I'd hoped to avoid it, but, well." He lifted a hand in resignation. "I ran out of options."
"But you'll die!" Belle shook her head. "No. Not again. There must be some way, some loophole..."
"No loopholes."
"Can you... can't you, I don't know, split your shadow and you each have half? Snow White and her prince share a single heart."
"It doesn't work like that." Rumplestiltskin knew how tenacious she could be, but the last time it had only led them into tragedy in the end. This time, he hoped she could find peace, but he knew he had only left her with an even heavier burden. He dragged the dagger out of his jacket and tossed it on the ground between them. His name was already beginning to fade from the blade. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I leave you this legacy. You deserve better, but we have no choice at this point. Use it to protect our son..."
"No!" Belle dropped to her knees and picked up the dagger. "What if I...what if I command you to live?"
"Belle, stop. You'll only make things worse." He felt too tired to explain, but he caught her gaze and saw that, deep down, she understood. They had done this before. Magic always came with a price. "This is for the best."
"The best!"
Rumplestiltskin's eyes closed, and he no longer had the energy to force them open again. "You were right, after all. I am too weak to be good. Better that I remove myself before I do something unforgivable. I almost... with Tinker Bell..."
Suddenly, he felt her hand on his shoulder. "But you didn't!"
He let his head tilt to one side in negation. "You... stopped me."
"You stopped yourself, Rumple. What I said — I was wrong. You mustn't think that," she pleaded. "If you die thinking that..."
"It doesn't matter. Not anymore. I love you, Belle. And Gideon..." The rest of the sentence faded as blackness closed around him.
"Rumple!"