Chapter Fourteen—"Strong Enough to Choose Not To"
There was an enormous amount of magic and magical potential in that shop, too much for even one such as her to sort it out. She might not have dared come so close or try such spells if the former Dark One turned Sorcerer had been conscious, but the transition from mortal to original power was surely enough to jar any human body, so there was no chance of him interfering. That had given her the time to slip into the alley behind Mr. Gold's pawnshop and try to determine which amongst those inside might be the one she sought, but the level of magical potential inside that little building was staggering.
Widow Morton had, upon awakening from the first curse, kept a careful eye upon the Dark One. She'd been powerless for some of that time, yet she'd still been fascinated by Rumplestiltskin. Upon their return after the second curse, she had contemplated approaching him with an offer of an alliance (a guise, of course, under which to determine the dagger's location), but he had quickly followed the path of his predecessors, with the darkness overcoming what little humanity he had. That, of course, had made him less than useful, and she had been glad to see the power transferred to another. Well, we knew that resurrection was a possibility when Merlin created the Vault of the Dark One, she thought with a shrug. I assume that being amongst such concentrated darkness merely sped up the process and the Dark One consumed the host that much faster.
Still, before she sought out the new Dark One and determined where Emma Swan had hidden the dagger, she needed to learn who the Truest Believer was. That little piece of crucial information was the hinge upon which all of her plans depended, particularly now that the previous one was finally dead. Her spell—cast shortly after Merlin had failed to consume the former Dark One—had brought her here, of all places, and while that didn't mean that the Truest Believer was currently inside the pawnshop, it did mean that something here would lead them to him or her.
Detecting the Truest Believer was incredibly difficult, but she already had her suspicions. So, she narrowed her eyes and looked at the various threads and streams of magic filling the air, focusing beyond the walls of the shop and letting the answers come to her. But she did not find what she was expecting, and the sheer overflow of magical potential almost knocked her back a step.
There was at least one person in that shop descended from a previous Truest Believer, and that alone was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Could the present Truest Believer be a descendant? If so, that makes the Heart doubly powerful, she realized with a sinking feeling of dread. And if not…that may be magic in itself. But that was not all. Two potential sources burned out at her, two people who believed and loved so strongly that they could change worlds with their belief. One was certainly the tiny brunette whose fierce kiss had brought Rumplestiltskin back from the edge, but who was the other? The pirate, the sorceress, or the boy? Perhaps the outlaw? She could not tell from here if the descendant was one of the two points of power, but she hoped that was the case. Otherwise, there would be three humans who might present a potential threat, and that discounted the wildcard that had inherited Merlin's power.
Assuming Merlin does not rally and overcome him, she told herself. She missed her old friend, and yet…perhaps it was better if Merlin did not win this battle. If an inexperienced original power represented the last of humanity's great magics, carrying out her plans would be so much easier. Add to that the fact that the new original power was a former Dark One, and she could almost predict which side of the spectrum he would fall upon.
Rumplestiltskin might not have been a typical Dark One, but he still had been the Dark One, and that meant his soul would never be free of that darkness, no matter how clean the Apprentice had tried to polish it.
Whomever the Truest Believer turned out to be, she could work with this. And win.
"There it is again," Henry said, and his mother gave him a droll look.
"I didn't hear anything," Regina said, rolling her eyes. She was sitting on a chair in the back of the pawn shop, flipping through a book in some language Henry couldn't read. Robin had pulled a stool up next to her—there really were an amazing number of places to sit in the back, assuming you could pull them out from underneath the various piles of stuff—but Henry had perched on the edge of the bed. Henry had been watching his grandfather as Belle talked to Hook up front, his mind spinning with all the crazy possibilities. Grandpa Gold had become the Sorcerer. For one thing, that was cooler than cool. But it was also really, really, good, because Merlin hadn't sounded like he wanted to help Emma at all.
"Neither did I," Robin replied, and Henry tried to push the thought aside. After all, he'd felt the noise as much as he'd heard it, which probably meant he was imagining things. Stuff like that hadn't happened since he'd been in Neverland, anyway, but there was so much magic in the air right now that he was bound to feel weird.
Henry had always thought that whoever had created the original Dark One might be a little shady, because who thought that shoehorning that much darkness into a person had been the right thing to do? If it was hitting Emma this hard, corrupting her enough that she would do things she never would have before, that meant the darkness did that to every Dark One. Emma hadn't had any darkness of her own before, and that probably meant she was better than most of her predecessors. She was fighting it, but Henry knew in his heart that his mom was losing the battle, and he was terrified for what would happen when—if!—she gave up.
Thinking like that made Henry shiver. Why would Merlin want to put that in a person? And then he'd said—straight out said—that the only way to destroy the darkness was to destroy the host, as if Emma didn't matter at all. Henry wasn't going to let that happen, but at least if Grandpa Gold was the Sorcerer, he understood. He wouldn't try to—
Suddenly, his grandfather jerked upright, his eyes open and looking wrong. "Where am I?"
"You're in the shop," Henry answered automatically, noticing how Regina lowered her book and was watching his grandfather warily. "You don't remember, um, passing out?"
"No. I do not."
What was it that Hook had said about his accent? Merlin sounded like a bloody nobleman. Hook had been right! Somehow or another, wherever Grandpa Gold had come from in the Enchanted Forest—Henry forgot the name of that duchy—he ended up sounding vaguely Scottish. Merlin, who this had to be, sounded very British.
"Mom, I think—" he started, only to have Merlin swing to look at his mother.
"And you are?" Merlin demanded, looking Regina up and down critically.
"A friend of the man whose body you're busy stealing, so why don't you go back to whatever ether you're supposed to be in and leave us alone?" Regina snapped, and Henry couldn't help smiling.
Robin was already fingering his crossbow, watching Regina out of the corner of one eye and not quite aiming at Merlin. Meanwhile, Regina rose, putting the book she'd been toying with down. She approached Merlin with narrowed eyes,
"I am only here to—" Merlin cut off, looking confused, and Henry watched his eyes change. Rumplestiltskin's body twitched hard, his eyes sliding in and out of focus.
"Grandpa?" Henry asked. There was a battle going on there. Was Merlin fighting for control? How can we stop him? he wondered frantically. Does Grandpa Gold have to do this on his own?
Crack!
Henry jumped as Regina smacked Rumplestiltskin hard, right across the face. "Mom!"
"Owh! What was that for?" Rumplestiltskin demanded, and now he sounded Scottish again. And annoyed. Henry tried to hide his grin behind a cough, but Regina answered, utterly unperturbed:
"You were going all Merlin again, and I sure as hell wasn't going to kiss you to snap you out of it."
That made Rumplestiltskin blink. "I'd prefer the slap, thank you," he replied dryly, shaking his head. He looked dizzy to Henry, though.
"You okay, Grandpa?"
"Better now, I think," was the quiet reply; Rumplestiltskin was studying his hands instead of looking at any of the people in the room, turning them over again and again like he had never seen them before. "I feel so…different."
Henry watched in fascination, having never seen his paternal grandfather so unguarded. Rumplestiltskin usually showed the world exactly what he wanted others to see and no more, but right now, Henry felt like he could see the man behind that outer façade. Even more interestingly, he could see a slight glow forming on his grandfather's fingers, white and then blue and then finally golden. Rumplestiltskin studied that in silence, looking as breathless as he did dizzy. No one said anything for several moments, until Regina broke the silence again.
"You'd best get a hold on that magic before it flies off the handle," she said mildly. "Or before Merlin pops up to take it back."
"He won't," Rumplestiltskin muttered, blinking once more and then finally looking up. He took a deep breath, which seemed to center him a little. "Not for long, anyway."
"What happens if he tries?" Henry asked curiously.
Rumplestiltskin smiled crookedly. "He already has."
That was good enough for Henry; his grandfather was winning, which meant they wouldn't have to deal with Merlin. He hadn't forgotten that Rumplestiltskin had promised to help Emma, whereas Merlin seemed to want to destroy her so that he could get rid of the darkness. He opened his mouth to ask more, but Regina got in first, her voice flat.
"Why you?"
"Beg pardon?" Rumplestiltskin glanced at her, and Henry thought he saw faint golden flecks in his brown eyes.
"Why did that power want you?" she asked bluntly. "It can't have been just because the Apprentice marked you and left you empty, because your soul is still here."
Henry twisted to look at his mother, realizing that she was hurt by the fact that Merlin's power didn't want her. But it hadn't just rejected Regina, had it? The cloud—Merlin—had rejected Zelena, Maleficent, Lily, and Grandma Snow. It probably would have spit Henry out, too, if Emma hadn't gotten in the way. On the surface, that didn't make much sense. If Merlin had taken over, the earlier explanation of the Apprentice's plan would have been more than enough, but Rumplestiltskin seemed to be considering Regina's question carefully, until finally he shrugged.
"It almost wasn't," he admitted. "That…emptiness is still with me, and I suspect it will take a long time before it's gone, if ever. What little soul I have left may belong to me, but it's a little battered and reduced after belonging to the darkness for so long."
Henry had a feeling that 'a little battered' was a huge understatement, but he didn't comment. Instead, he glanced at Regina, who still seemed to be waiting for an answer. After a moment, Rumplestiltskin continued:
"As for the rest…do you recall how the Cherbourg went after Emma instead of you?"
"Of course." She rolled her eyes. "It was something ridiculous about the 'greatest potential for darkness'."
"Merlin's power was drawn in the same way, save for it was looking for the opposite potential, I think," Rumplestiltskin explained, making Henry and Regina both look at him in confusion. Did he mean the greatest potential for light? Before Henry could ask, his grandfather said: "You're wondering why it wasn't you?"
Regina grimaced, and Robin laid a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe."
"Potential is defined as the possibility of becoming something, dear," he said mildly. "You reached your potential for darkness long ago, which was why the Cherbourg went looking elsewhere for lunch. Now, however, you are in the midst of realizing your potential for light." A strained smile. "You've come a long way. I, however, have not."
"But you killed yourself to save everyone from Pan," Henry objected. He'd always wondered how the same man who had helped save him in Neverland, and who had killed Pan to save Storybrooke, could come back to life so differently. Henry had suspected that it had something to do with his father's death, but perhaps being resurrected had something to do with it, too.
"For every one step forward, I took a dozen backwards. Being the Dark One didn't help, of course—that much darkness makes doing the right thing extremely difficult—but I've always been a man who made wrong choices. I always chose darkness, because it gave me power."
"Well, you've got that, now," Regina pointed out, and did Rumplestiltskin look uncomfortable as he shrugged?
"I suppose I do."
Suddenly, he blinked again, and Henry had to catch him before he toppled right off the bed. "Grandpa?"
"I'm all right," Rumplestiltskin said softly, but he didn't sound like he believed it. "It's just…an adjustment."
"What is?" Henry asked curiously.
"Merlin was what we call an original power," was the soft and slightly uneven explanation. "A human body wrapped around a core of magic. That's why I think the power needed someone familiar with magic, else the transition would probably have killed whomever it chose."
"It looks uncomfortable," he said quietly.
Rumplestiltskin only grunted.
"You could just sleep it off," Robin spoke up for the first time Henry helped his grandfather lie back down.
"Not likely," Rumplestiltskin whispered.
"I could brew you a sleeping curse," Regina volunteered with a smile, and Henry twisted to stare at her.
"Mom!" He wasn't sure if that was funny or not, but his mother shrugged innocently.
"What? Belle could just wake him up when the worst has passed. She proved that earlier."
"Very funny, dearie," Rumplestiltskin rasped, but he did seem to drift off to sleep very quickly—or at least Henry didn't think he'd passed out. He looked like he was sleeping, anyway.
A few minutes later, Belle and Hook came out of the front room, and Henry relinquished his seat by the bedside to his grandmother who didn't want to be called that. Hopping up, he headed over to explore the back room, tuning out Regina relating their previous conversation to Belle as the other woman held Rumplestiltskin's hand worriedly. Henry wanted to tell her that it would all be all right, but this kind of thing wasn't anywhere in his book. Still, the fact that Rumplestiltskin was the Sorcerer now had to be good, didn't it? Merlin hadn't wanted to help Emma, but Henry had a feeling that Rumplestiltskin understood his mother entirely too well.
After a few minutes tinkering with a broken clock, Henry noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Someone was out in the alleyway, and were they trying to look through the window inside the back door? Curiously, Henry pulled the door open, only to find himself face to face with the woman he'd known as Widow Morton.
"Hi," he said with surprise, and she jumped.
"Oh, hello." Blue-green eyes focused on him, and for a moment, Henry felt like they burned straight into his soul before she blinked and smiled. "Henry, isn't it?"
"Yeah," he replied. "What are you doing here?"
Widow Morton—who had always seemed too young to be known by such a moniker, but that was Storybrooke for you—owned a dance studio near the hospital, but Henry hadn't seen her very often, particularly once the curse had broken. In fact, he couldn't remember her ever having been in his book, and he had no idea who she had been back in the Enchanted Forest. Now she looked a little different than he remembered her looking during the curse; then she'd worn glasses and her dark hair had always been up in a bun, and she'd always been dressed in baggy and frumpy clothes. Now she was in a severe-looking business suit, with her hair down and wearing heels that looked as tall as Henry's lunchbox. Her hair had been black before, but were those streaks of red in it, now?
"I'm sorry." There was something odd in her smile, though the words were innocent enough. "I must have taken a wrong turn. I was looking for the stairway up to Doctor Hopper's office."
"It's next door," Henry replied, feeling a little odd but trying to push that aside. "On the other side of the shop."
"Thank you, Henry." She turned to go, but a voice came from behind Henry before she went three steps.
"Queen Guinevere?"
Twisting around, Henry took in the shocked look on Hook's face and then looked back at the Widow Morton, who had frozen in place—and then turned to the pirate with a gracious smile.
"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sir."
"Captain Killian Jones," Hook said, seeming to come back on balance as Regina and Robin strode up to join them. "I was but a child during the war, but…I remember seeing your portraits growing up."
"That's terribly kind of you," she smiled. "I thought Mordred had destroyed them all."
Somehow, that seemed to strike a nerve, and Henry couldn't figure out why Hook flinched ever so slightly. Camelot seemed to be a very unhappy topic for him; even when they'd been there, Hook hadn't wanted to talk about his past. Henry knew that the pirate had grown up in Camelot, but every time he asked questions, Hook changed the subject. Yet this was Queen Guinevere? Arthur's queen? That was beyond exciting—but how had she come over with the first curse? Perhaps she'd run away when Mordred won the war? Henry had so many questions, but it was Hook who answered quietly:
"Nearly."
"Nearly," Guinevere mused with a small half-smile that practically screamed 'mystery'. "Jones…I don't know the name, but you look terribly familiar. Did I know your father?"
That blow struck home, and Hook jerked as if she'd actually struck him. "Of course not."
Even Henry could see that was a lie, but Guinevere either couldn't tell or chose not to call him on it.
"Pity," she said softly, her gaze shifting to look Hook up and down. "I might have liked him."
She didn't look old enough to have been queen when Hook was a child, Henry realized. Even though the curse had stopped people from aging at a normal rate, she still looked too young. Yet Hook seemed certain. Was there some sort of magic at play here? And why did she get named 'Widow Morton'? Henry wondered. The curse always chose names for a reason. She can be a widow because Arthur is dead, but I have to look up what 'Morton' means. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Arthur is dead. Le Morte d'Arthur? Terribly curious, he opened his mouth to ask—
"Emma, no!"
Belle's cry made Rumplestiltskin's eyes snap open; he'd been sleeping too deeply to notice the conversation happening around the back door, but when Belle's hand was yanked from his and she yelped Emma's name, he jerked into wakefulness, magic within him roaring to life. He was on his feet in an instant—marveling at the lack of pain in his right leg, which Merlin had fixed—but Rumplestiltskin stayed the spells that his instincts had brought to the surface. Merlin's nagging voice protested against ever giving the Dark One the upper hand, but Emma had Belle by the back of the neck, her left hand hovering threatening over Belle's heart.
"You don't want to do that, dear," Rumplestiltskin said softly, forcibly ignoring Merlin's advice and watching the magic in the room build. Regina had turned, too, her defenses flying up, but neither of them moved. He wasn't fool enough to think that Regina was worried for Belle—not after the stunt she'd pulled with Belle's heart—but Regina played on Team Hero, now, which meant she'd usually try to defend people.
"Don't I?" Emma said softly, and he could feel the darkness burning in her eyes. "You're Merlin. Don't pretend you care about her. I can tell that you're lying."
"Lying about what, exactly?" He was fairly sure he could stop her, but Rumplestiltskin needed to drop a few spells into place, first. So, he played for time, building a net of magic that even the Dark One couldn't detect, operating on a level of magic that he hadn't been certain existed until an hour before.
"You're not Rumplestiltskin," Emma spat. "You're the Sorcerer."
"I'm afraid that the two are one and the same, now," he replied, tying eight threads, then ten, then fifteen into place. Rumplestiltskin didn't want to trap Emma; no, she would have spotted that.
"They can't be. No former Dark One could ever become him."
He could see the rage and the fear in her eyes—but was that loneliness, too? Suddenly, Rumplestiltskin thought he understood. Emma had come to him for help, had come to him to be someone who would not judge her and would understand. Instead, now she thought she was faced by a man who had said—to her face!—that the only way to destroy the darkness was to destroy her, too. Not very politic, are we? he asked the annoyingly smug presence inside him.
Merlin was fading slowly, but the pompous enchanter was still existent enough to reply: I only said what must be done. To destroy the darkness—
Yeah, Rumplestiltskin had already gotten that memo, and he was already looking for a loophole. For now, however, he had to make sure that his successor didn't harm his wife.
"I didn't," he said honestly. "I'm not Merlin, Emma, and he doesn't control me—"
"Prove it," she cut him off, just as Rumplestiltskin slid the last thread of magic into place.
He flicked his fingers, and suddenly he was standing in Belle's place and she in his, only Rumplestiltskin was facing Emma, their bodies only a few inches apart. Immediately, the Dark One started to skitter back, dark purple power filling her hands in an attack, but Rumplestiltskin battered Emma's spells down with the overwhelming force of his magic. He over calculated as he caught her arm, and power exploded around both of them like a shockwave, thrumming through the air and bursting outwards like a crater. Tools and antiques shattered, rubble lining the floor of the shop, leaving an eerily empty area surrounding the Dark One and the Sorcerer. The over-use of magic made Rumplestiltskin and Emma both jump; he hadn't meant to let so much power out, but controlling it seemed impossible at the moment.
Emma tried to jerk away from him, but Rumplestiltskin found magic challenging into his hands, making his grip on her arm strong enough that even the Dark One could not pull away. She snarled, the sound a soft sneer of fury, but their eyes locked and Rumplestiltskin held her gaze.
"If you ever threaten my wife again," he said softly, "you and I are going to have a lot more than words, dear."
Rumplestiltskin could feel his rage building, and dark magic gathering with it. The feeling wasn't the same as it had been when he had been the Dark One; then, the rage had fed the darkness and the darkness had answered with glorious power. Now, however, the power was different. It responded to his emotions, yes, but this wasn't just darkness. No, this was darkness and light in equal measure, love entwined with worry and rage, all sweeping around Rumplestiltskin and Emma like a semi-transparent tornado.
"Words?" she mocked him, and he could hear the imp coming out full-force. "Is that all you have, old man?"
"Don't tempt me," Rumplestiltskin snarled, and magic lashed out before he could catch it, smashing into the shelves on the wall behind Emma and tearing them to pieces. The merchandise that wasn't immediately destroyed cascaded to the floor, making Hook and Robin jump away, but Rumplestiltskin's wild magic still wasn't finished. Even as he frantically reached for thoughts and emotions to calm it, power ricocheted off the wall and rocketed towards the one behind Rumplestiltskin, narrowly missing Regina and burning a hole through to the alley outside.
Then, finally, Rumplestiltskin managed to calm the magical storm brewing inside him, shoving it down, bottling it up, and belatedly realizing that the power at his fingertips was unlike anything he'd ever dealt with before. As the Dark One, he'd had a nearly bottomless well of power at his fingertips, one he rarely dug deeply into, instead preferring a finer touch. But now—now—he felt like he was staring into a vast ocean of power, one that he barely could wrap his mind around. Every bit of magic he used seemed two or three times more powerful than Rumplestiltskin had intended it to, and that was more than unsettling for a man who had been incredibly powerful before. Until I had no magic at all, anyway, he thought, coming down out of the fury over Emma threatening Belle. Maybe that has something to do with my lack of control, now.
Emma, meanwhile, seemed to be the only one in the shop who wasn't alarmed by his display. She just cocked her head curiously, a strange smile playing over her lips: "Temper, temper…" she drawled.
His head was starting to spin again; the power might obey him—if wildly—but Rumplestiltskin's body still wasn't up to hosting it. "As I said," Rumplestiltskin replied as levelly as he could. "Don't tempt me. I'm no Merlin, and I know what you are. I've been there. Don't lose control of yourself, and don't let that darkness goad you into doing anything you know better than. You start letting that happen, and you'll never stop."
Uncertainty stole across her expression, and suddenly, Rumplestiltskin was looking at Emma Swan, and not the Dark One. "I don't know how to stop it," she whispered. "Do I…do I give someone the dagger?"
"No." Just hearing her ask that question—brokenly and yet so determined to do the right thing—made his throat tight. "Not if you ever want to own your own soul again. You have to learn how to stop yourself."
Giving the dagger away was the easy answer. He'd tried that with Belle, but by then the darkness had its claws in too deep and Rumplestiltskin had already lost the battle for his soul. His heart was too dark, brought there by a combination of his own misdeeds, being resurrected, and then being controlled for too long, and he had lied to her time and again, abusing her trust and stealing the dagger back. Could it work for Emma? Perhaps. But even Belle had given in to the temptation to use the dagger, and he suspected that Hook or Emma's parents would be no better. They'd have the best of intentions, but… If Emma was ever going to come out of this on the other side as herself, she needed to cling to that with all of her soul, not have someone else do it for her.
"That's rich, coming from you," Emma laughed bitterly.
"I did it for centuries," he reminded her, grimacing. His stomach felt ready to fold in on itself, and his body was alternating between too hot and freezing cold. "You can as well. Now—"
"We'll help you, Emma," a voice came from his left, and Rumplestiltskin and Emma both turned to see her parents watching from the doorway that led to the front of the shop. Belatedly, Rumplestiltskin realized that they'd been there from almost the beginning, and wasn't that just beautiful?
Emma's feelings clearly matched his, because her lost expression turned hard. "I didn't ask for your help," she snapped.
"We're your parents," David said. "We'll be here for you regardless—"
"Just like you were when I was growing up," the Dark One cut him off, jerking her arm free of Rumplestiltskin's grasp. "Right. I keep forgetting how you've always been there for me."
"Emma—"
"Forget it," she snarled, and Rumplestiltskin's senses filled with dark magic as she disappeared in a swirl of black smoke.
You should have stopped her, Merlin's voice said, and just hearing it increased his headache tenfold. You're the only one who can.
"What was that about?" Snow asked him, looking around the back room with wide eyes. Rumplestiltskin took a moment to follow her gaze, blinking dizzily. I've just destroyed half of my own shop. Damn.
"Which part?" he asked, swaying slightly as Belle came to his side.
"Emma," Snow said pointedly. "What did you do to her?"
Of course it was his fault. Of course he was still the villain of the piece. Rumplestiltskin supposed he should not be surprised; these people had spent their lives assuming he would be in the wrong. Once, that might have made him angry, but now it just made him feel tired.
"Nothing," Rumplestiltskin replied, leaning more heavily on Belle than he wanted to the moment she took his arm. "She was under the mistaken impression that I was Merlin…again."
The last word came out wryly as Rumplestiltskin tried to blink the dizziness away, but that just made his head spin harder. Wordlessly, Belle slipped an arm around his waist, and he fought to stop himself from melting into her.
"Why aren't you?" Snow, as always, was as blunt as a battering ram. "We needed Merlin's help. What did you do?"
"How can you ask that?" Belle cut in before Rumplestiltskin could answer. It was probably a good thing that she did, because magic was beginning to crackle within him once more, his core growing ever warmer, feeling like embers burning towards a raging fire. "Rumplestiltskin stopped the power that attacked you—and others—and he almost sacrificed his life doing it. How can you ask such a thing?"
To give Snow credit, she started looking guilty before Belle even finished speaking. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I just…the Apprentice said that Merlin was the only one who could defeat the darkness."
"Don't give Merlin too much credit," Regina spoke up. "You missed him saying that the only way to destroy the darkness was to destroy the host. He didn't look too eager to help Emma. He just seemed to want her dead."
"But…" Snow blinked. "Then how are we going to help Emma?"
"Ask the new Sorcerer," Regina said helpfully, and Rumplestiltskin wasn't quite dizzy enough to miss the rude gesture she directed his way.
"The new…?" Snow trailed off.
"Yes," Rumplestiltskin breathed before anyone could start another barrage of questions. "Once…once the power is done settling in, anyway."
"Yeah, you might want to learn to control that," Regina said sarcastically, but he was too drained to even glare at her.
Rumplestiltskin scowled. "Thanks for the advice. I hadn't thought of that."
"Look, we can talk about this later," Belle took control of the conversation as he sagged, magic racing through him and making everything hurt. Was he shaking? Rumplestiltskin couldn't tell. Belle seemed to notice he was fading and helped him back over to the cot, where he sat down heavily. "Right now, Rumplestiltskin needs to rest. Regina, would you bring the rest of those books by when you have time? We might need them."
"It's not like I can open them, so sure. Why not?" was the dry response, and Rumplestiltskin didn't notice as the others filed out, until Henry stopped to speak to him.
"You can be a hero, now, Grandpa," the lad said, sounding so happy about it that Rumplestiltskin didn't have the heart to say something sarcastic.
"I'm no hero, Henry," he said softly. "I'll settle for just trying to be…a better man."
"That's how it starts," Henry replied brightly, and his smile was huge. "Can I come see you tomorrow?"
"Of course you can," Rumplestiltskin whispered, and the boy finally followed his adopted mother out. Then he finally let himself collapse into Belle, his eyes sliding shut and Merlin's voice echoing in his mind:
You're going to have to get the dagger away from her, you know. There's no other way.
Shaken and more than a little angry, Emma headed home after her encounter with Rumplestiltskin. She was fairly sure that he wasn't lying, though that upset her more than she could express. But Merlin would never have gone off the handle like that when Belle was in danger, which was why Emma had chosen to threaten the librarian. It had been the fastest way to figure out who was really in control of Rumplestiltskin's body, and she didn't regret doing so. She just wasn't sure why she was so angry over the fact that Rumplestiltskin was now apparently the Sorcerer.
Part of her wondered if that was because she had been supposed to be the good one. She'd been the Savior, the one who everyone turned to when they needed light magic and someone to do the right thing. Now there was a Sorcerer in town, someone immensely powerful and it wasn't even the legendary Merlin. No, it was the man who had lost control of the darkness and left her to pick up the pieces. Rumplestiltskin got that power like it was some sort of reward, and that didn't sit well with the Savior side of her or the Dark One side of her. It's not that, though, Emma thought dejectedly, throwing herself down on her black leather couch. He was supposed to understand.
She'd gone to Rumplestiltskin for help because he had been the Dark One. He'd been trustworthy because he was the only one who understood what was going on inside her, the only one who understood what it was like to be so thoroughly surrounded by darkness that you could no longer identify which bits of your soul were yours and which tended towards evil. But now he was corrupted by something else, by a power that the darkness inside her raged against instinctively. The Dark One and the Sorcerer were meant to be opposed; she knew that as well as she knew her own name. And that meant he wouldn't help her. He'd be like Merlin, and would want to destroy her, even if he claimed differently.
Emma must have spent an hour stewing before Killian showed up, but the moment she felt his presence at the door, she waved a hand to open it before he could even knock. Unsettled though she was, however, Emma didn't rush into his arms like she wanted to. Her lover had proven untrustworthy, too, and the darkness inside her desperately wanted to make him suffer for it. Make him beg for forgiveness, the darkness whispered. Make him crawl on his knees to you and grovel. Indignantly, Emma pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the present. She loved Killian. Angry though she might be, she would not hurt him.
"I wondered how long it would take you to show up," she said, pointedly not rising from the couch and watching him darkly.
"There were many questions to answer after you left, love," Killian replied, coming over as if he meant to sit beside her, but Emma stood before he could, taking a step away from him.
Hurt flashed through his eyes, and she felt a vicious pleasure roll through her. Emma stepped on the feeling as hard as she could, but still asked sharply: "And how do you know 'Queen Guinevere'?" she demanded. "You never told me you were from Camelot!"
That made him blink. "You never asked."
"Never asked?" Emma hissed. "You took my son there! You were from the place where this all began, and you never bothered to tell me."
"Emma—" He reached for her, but she jerked away.
"No," she said flatly. "You're going to tell me the truth."
"Whatever you want to know. Emma, I promise that I've never lied to you," Killian replied, sounding desperate. "You never cared about the past before, and Camelot is a place that I try very hard not to think about. I never went back after my brother died, not until Henry and I went to try to find help for you."
"Yes, and you brought back someone who wanted to destroy me. Your idea of help needs a little work."
He flinched again, and part of Emma felt guilty. The anger rolling through her wasn't all her own, was it? She had to get a handle on this. Taking a deep breath, she added:
"I know you were trying to help," she said more softly. "I just wish you'd talked to me first."
"You were rather hard to find at the time, love."
That made her smile wryly. "I suppose I was." Another deep breath helped quell her rage—or the darkness'—a little. "Tell me everything. Did your father really abandon you when you were a boy, or was that just a story to make us seem more alike?"
"No, he left when I was five. My brother and I had accompanied him on a trip just as the war broke out, and he abandoned us on board the ship," Killian told her, looking away with what seemed to be real pain. "Our mother died a few years later, after we went into hiding."
"Why did you have to go into hiding?"
He grimaced. "Mordred wanted my father dead, and the rest of us with him. My mother never would say why."
"Tell me about your family," Emma whispered, intrigued and stepping in closer. Killian was being truthful with her, now; she had been a fool to mistrust him. That was the darkness, of course. It was paranoid and disliked love; Emma would have to find a way to overcome that so that she never hurt Killian the way Gold had hurt Belle. So, now she stepped forward and placed her hands on Killian's chest, looking in his eyes and smiling as gently as she could.
"My father was a knight…"
Belle wasn't sure what to make of Rumplestiltskin. He'd displayed an enormous amount of magic when Emma had threatened to rip her heart out, but now her husband seemed as weak as a kitten, leaning on her and shivering. He seemed cold, so Belle wrapped a blanket around him and held him tightly, stroking his hair as he sweated and shook. One moment he would seem to be burning with a fever and the next he was freezing; Belle could feel an echo of something rolling through him. Her best guess was that this was his body trying to adapt to the magic, like Regina had speculated earlier, so Belle just hold him and tried to help Rumplestiltskin weather the storm as best she could.
Nearly an hour passed before he said anything or even responded to her voice, and by then his shaking had at least slowed. Rumplestiltskin's voice was a scratchy whisper, and he still sounded a little dizzy: "Sorry about that."
"About what?"
"Lately, you keep having to take care of me," he said, straightening with a grimace.
Belle smiled. "I don't mind."
"Even now that I have magic again?" was the immediate response, and Belle didn't miss the flash of panic in his eyes.
"Of course not. Rumple, are you worried about that?" she asked, reaching up to touch his cheek. Belle had always been good at reading Rumplestiltskin, and now she could see that he was downright terrified. Hadn't they talked about this? Oh, she had hoped that his low self-esteem was at least in part due to the darkness that used to inhabit him, but Rumplestiltskin's self-confidence still seemed almost non-existent. Belle leaned in close, looking him right in the eyes as she continued: "I almost lost you, and you're worried that I don't like you having magic? I am so proud of you for going out there—and for fighting for us."
He looked away. "I couldn't even do that without help."
"Rumple."
"I just…I don't know what I am, now, sweetheart. I thought I was growing used to being powerless, to being…normal. And now this," he said softly. "I don't know what to do with it, or how to be the 'Sorcerer'. Everyone's looking at me to do things, and I'm just trying to ignore Merlin prattling on in my head."
"He's in your head?" Belle echoed, and Rumplestiltskin snorted, sounding a little punch drunk.
"I don't think he appreciated being displaced."
"But…but is that like the darkness? Something trying to possess you?" she worried, her heart jumping into her throat. Rumple had been free of the darkness for so short of a time. Was he now possessed by something else, simply because he'd tried to save everyone from that destructive golden cloud of power?
"No, no, it's not the same," her husband replied quickly, and Belle wanted so badly to take that at face value. But could he tell her the truth, or was Merlin like the darkness, corrupting even his internal thoughts? "It's…I can hear him, but I can ignore him. More or less. I expect he'll fade with time."
"Are you sure? Really sure?" Belle whispered.
He nodded, looking away again as if he was ashamed. "It might be easier if this power was something seeking to control me. But…it isn't. Now, it's just me, and I don't—I don't know if I know how to deal with that. With the responsibility. I'm the Sorcerer, Belle."
"I'll help," Belle promised, pulling him in to her arms again. She feared he might pull away—Rumple was touchy when he went on his self-loathing kicks—but instead he melted into her, burying his face into her shoulder. He still felt both hot and cold, still seemed uncomfortable and shaky, but she just held him tightly as Rumplestiltskin's arms snaked around her waist in return.
"Thank you," he whispered, and Belle could feel him calming down as the minutes ticked by.
While Rumplestiltskin got a grip on himself—and on the magic she could still see flirting through the air from time to time, she took a moment to look around the back room of the shop. It really did look like a giant crater had formed in middle of the room; the power Rumplestiltskin had turned on Emma had actually dug into the floor a little bit, and the empty circle where they'd stood was surrounded by broken bits of shelving, antiques, and who-knew-what. The hole in the wall above the bed was about the size and shape of a coffee table book, and it went straight through to the alley outside, allowing the setting sun to stream in, bathing the room in dark reds and oranges. The alleyway was empty, now—Widow Morton, or Guinevere, had disappeared shortly after Emma showed up—but Belle could still hear cars out on Main Street every now and then.
They'd have to get that fixed, but with the way Rumplestiltskin's magic seemed to be unpredictable, it was probably better to call Dove in to do the job than for him to try to fix it. Checking a sigh, Belle turned her head to inspect the rest of the disaster. A few shelves off in the far right corner seemed untouched, but nearly everything else had at least been knocked over. The back of the shop had never been the most organized of places—even though Rumple always claimed he knew exactly where everything was—but now boxes were overturned, books were scattered across the floor, and—
"Oh, no," she breathed, noticing the fight's latest victim. "Your wheel."
That made Rumplestiltskin look up, but when he looked at the broken spinning wheel, the mix of emotions that crossed his face was not the worry or sadness Belle expected. "It's no matter," he said softly, glancing away as he sat up, straightening his suit.
"No matter? Rumple, I know how important spinning is to you."
"It isn't," her husband answered shortly, and before Belle could realize he was moving, he'd pulled away from her and stood.
Rising, Belle couldn't keep the confusion out of her voice. "What?"
"I don't spin anymore."
Rumplestiltskin's voice was flat, almost dead, and it took Belle a moment to realize that she hadn't seen him spin since…since they'd freed him from Zelena. Since he'd come back to life? No, that's wrong, she realized. There was a wheel in his cage. There was golden straw on the floor. Didn't she have him spin a golden brain for her?
"You can't spin without thinking of her, can you?" she whispered, reaching out for his hands. Fortunately, he didn't pull away.
"No," he whispered. She always—she always—I don't want to think about what she did."
"Oh, Rumple." Belle just reached out and pulled him close, holding him tightly for a long moment while he shook. No one else in the town ever thought about the damage Zelena had done to him, did they? They just assumed it was fine, and they'd locked that witch away in the asylum like she'd only ever hurt Robin and Regina. To be fair, Zelena's vindictiveness had certainly not been limited to Rumplestiltskin, and she'd raped Robin as surely as she ever had Rumple, but part of Belle still burned over the indignity of it all.
Still, her husband was far more important to her than what anyone else thought, so she drew him away from the magically-caused carnage gently. "Let's get you home."
Rumplestiltskin nodded wordlessly, and they headed out to the car together. The Cadillac was miraculously intact, despite the spell that had gone straight through the shop wall and burned a deep mark into the wall on the other side of the alleyway, and they drove home in companionable silence. Belle knew that Rumplestiltskin would need time to get used to being the Sorcerer, but he had fought back when Merlin tried to take over. He had fought for her, and she'd fight for him, too.
A/N: So, Widow Morton is revealed to be Queen Guinevere—but is she only Guinevere? And why would she want to find the Heart of the Truest Believer? And perhaps even more importantly, how will the fact that Hook is continuing to hide his past (now from everyone except Emma), impact our heroes?
Stay tuned for Chapter Fifteen—"Ride the Tide", in which Arthur's funeral bier appears in Storybrooke, Henry tries to connect with Emma, David and Hook meet Mordred, and Rumplestiltskin has a chat with Merlin.