Chapter Twenty-one.

A swirl of magic carried them away from the crowd of useless onlookers that Zoso had brought to be his spectators. He'd wanted to humiliate Rumplestiltskin in front of them, so why not stay? His mind wouldn't work through the puzzle. All he knew was that they were gone and landing hard in a room he didn't recognize. He was flat against a solid floor, pain spiking through him from the impact of landing and he choked, feeling his entire body seize up against it. Muscles clenched involuntarily and a moan left his throat, pained and quiet.

"This is better, isn't it? Away from the rabble. Just the two of us to discuss what needs to be done in this… situation," Zoso asked him from somewhere off to the side. He couldn't see him without craning his head and at the moment he just couldn't find it in himself to so. Breathing was difficult, though he kept on with it. It may not have been his blade, but it was having near the same effect as his own would. The poison spread through him and he choked against it. Focus was difficult, but he worked through it, trying to regain control in any way that he could. The pain could be pushed aside, he reminded himself. Zoso seemed to be doing that well enough right now.

"Well this is a bit of a disappointment," the elder Dark One groused, coming to stand next to him and at that point Rumple forced his eyes opened and to look up at him. He was still covered in a fair amount of his own blood and he seemed to wear it with pride. The smile that perked his lips was truly bordering on insane and he wondered if the curse might drive some Dark Ones mad. It certainly had those tendencies, he'd found over the years.

"Come back, Rumplestiltskin," Zoso called and he lifted his foot so that it hovered over him and it was only a split second before it happened that Rumple know what was coming. The boot came down against the wound, pressing down against him and he gave a choked off cry. It caught in his throat and his whole body jerked with the effort of keeping it in, slamming his head back against the hard flooring. Zoso leaned his weight against the already burning wound and the noise that came from Rumplestiltskin hardly sounded human.

"Welcome back," the grey haired man said with a dark smile and dug the toe of his boot in before pulling away to leave him gasping. He felt his magic surge within him despite it and he pushed, sending his attacker stumbling back with the surprising strength of the blow.

Rumplestiltskin himself couldn't make it from his place on the floor, though, as the pain shot through him. It felt like the blade was still inside of him, digging and twitching just a little to open up and cause damage to as many parts of him as possible. His insides had given way to the knife's sharp edges and he knew that if he hadn't been cursed he'd likely bleed out with the way it was pouring out of him now. It soaking his front and he was sure the dagger had gone all the way through him. His curse was feeding him the information and he vaguely wondered if it couldn't be doing something more useful… like healing it. Perhaps the Kris Dagger was the same in some ways, if his name was on it or not - if it were duplicated or not - and it would always be slow healing. The gash that Zelena had created with his own dagger against his ribs had taken weeks to fully close and heal.

Zoso chuckled as he steadied himself and let him lie there for a moment, gasping and sputtering against the pain before he finally regained something that resembled control. "What do you want?" he managed, looking up at him. He refuse to bow to this man, refused to cower. He might not be able to pull himself to his feet in that very moment, but without the dagger that bore Rumplestiltskin's name, Zoso couldn't kill him. Pain was temporary.

The elder man crouched down then, his eyes gleaming gold in the dim light and Rumple almost thought that he might see remnants of the curse on him even in this land. "I want what power brings. I want assurances."

"Of what?" The pain was starting to recede just a little and he was regaining his bearings once more. An uncontrolled attack had still sent the elder man back, but a controlled one that was more than a reaction - a spell or a curse instead of simply pushing forward with raw power - could provide him with the opening he'd need.

Zoso must have seen the clarity start to creep back in because he reached down, his hand coming down directly onto the wound and his fingers dug in there. A terrible scream bounced off the walls of the room and it took Rumplestiltskin just a moment to realize it was his own. "That I will never again answer to a master other than myself," the elder Dark One said as he continued to dig at the painful wound and Rumple's back arched up off the ground in any attempt he could find to get away from him. Zoso held on, though, digging and pulling and if he were actually tugging it wider open the younger man had no way of knowing. All he could feel was the utter agony that the action brought on.

Then Zoso removed his hand. The pain eased only a bit, but it was enough to gasp in a breath and hear him speak. "The only way to do that is to increase my power. Tell me where your dagger is, Rumplestiltskin, and I will return the favour you once did for me. I'll put you out of your misery. I'll take this burden of life from you."

"You're insane."

Something lit through Zoso's eyes and Rumple suddenly sure he was right. The man was insane. He laid a hand flat against the wound, the pain spiking again, but this time he directed a spell through it and it rushed in, spurred on through the hole created by the copied Kris Dagger and Zoso's magic filled him, ripping at his insides like thousands of needles. Part of him realized that this was what had killed Midas and Maurice. It had shredded the mortals and left only a tattered shadow of their living selves for their loved ones to mourn over. Rumplestiltskin wondered just what it would do to him. His curse wouldn't allow him to die without his own dagger tearing apart his heart, but his body was so very, very human in the Land Without Magic and he felt it pull and rip with the spell coursing through him. He coughed, blood rising up and he struggled to breath around it as it filled his throat, spilling out the corners of his mouth.

"Amazing what the power does," Zoso breathed, standing to watch him convulse in agony against the floor, his screams clawing their way up his throat and out as the magic continued to rip and shred and tear.

And then is stopped, leaving him with the feeling that he was bleeding all over and perhaps he was. His own magic had immediately ceased its useless reports on the damage to him and had begun scurrying to try to fix whatever it could that was not directly caused by the dagger. He didn't have the strength left in him to lift his head to see, but fighting back suddenly became an unattainable goal. Everything he had was working to repair the damage. It wouldn't have taken him this far in the Enchanted Forest, the wounds would have barely had time to form before they closed, but here things were so very, very different.

"The dagger, Rumplestiltskin."

"You've got your own," the younger Dark One managed. "You can't have mine."

Zoso snorted. "I won't touch your son, if that's what you're worried about. That's the deal I'll make with you."

Dark eyes rolled so that they could meet ones that shone gold with power. "Why should I believe you?"

"Because you don't have a choice."

"There's always a choice, isn't that what you taught me? I won't make you a deal, Zoso, so you might as well kill me." A pained, humourless breath of a chuckle left him. "Oh wait, you can't. So stop wasting both of our times."

He was sure the full extent of the pain would return - perhaps another spell would be cast born completely of darkness and hate and desperation that built up the Dark One's curse at its most powerful points - but instead the older man stopped, studying him for a moment. "You didn't keep it well."

Rumplestiltskin knew exactly what he meant as he said it. His dagger. He had not kept his dagger well. He'd allowed it to be taken - thrown away, in reality - and someone else had owned him for a length. He tried to keep the fear from creeping in, the thought of captivity. He remembered the old beggar on the road that he and Bae had come across, the same one that stared at him now. Possibly for the first time in Zoso's existence he was in control of his own powers, but the knowledge of what it mean to have someone else own you was still there. It still drove him.

My life was such a burden.

"When?" he asked, and surprisingly enough Rumple heard himself answer.

"Recently."

Zoso pushed a long breath through his nose and straightened. "Very well. We really are wasting time here then. You, though, have other weaknesses. I'll have your dagger, but first, shall we show your little town where the true power lies?"

Rumple felt a somewhat foreign power overtake him and they were swept away again. He landed back on Main Street, somehow on his feet, but he knees immediately gave and he went crashing to the asphalt below. He heard Belle scream his name and Zoso chuckled. "More than one weakness, it would seem," he almost purred.

No, not Belle. Not his Belle. He was laid out flat against the street, but he pressed the palms of his hands down and tried to push himself up to his knees. He didn't quite make it and the warning his magic gave him hurt almost as much as the pain of crashing down against his wounds. Stop, it warned. As he'd found out recently enough, even he had limits here. They thought he had a nasty habit of self preservation, but Rumplestiltskin knew that he had nothing on his curse, and he was it's living host. It would assure that he remained alive for its own sake, even at the cost of those he loved.

Belle hadn't been frozen with the rest, but as soon as Zoso had focused in on her she lost control over her own movements. Rumple could see the spell wrap around her, carrying her forward like a marionette being controlled by the puppeteer. Zoso pulled on the strings, meeting her just a few yards away from Rumplestiltskin's prone form, and grabbed her by the chin to force her to look up. "Quite the beauty," he said and she met his hungry gaze bravely.

"You're not going to win," she said, despite his grip on her.

"Oh? And why's that?"

"Because Rumple's going to defeat you."

Zoso chuckled, tightening his grip until she winced. "I think you've misunderstood something about your Rumple, m'dear. He's no hero that will vanquish the villain."

It was Belle's turn to laugh, the sound stronger than Zoso obviously expected. "He'll be the first to say he's no hero, but unlike you he has people he loves. And love is stronger than any darkness."

"Foolish girl," Zoso growled and shifted his grip to her throat.

Rumplestiltskin felt the power gather as he pushed the dark spell at his love, but Belle's name didn't even make it to his lips before the spell rebounded on the older Dark One and he was flung back, slamming into tattered street and rolling hard before he finally stopped, laid out with a new crater dug out around him from the force in which he hit.

Belle stood, eyes wide even as Zoso disappeared in swirl of smoke. "Rumple," she breathed and was able to move then, rushing to drop down by his side.

Rumple felt a rush of relief. His protection spell had held. She was safe. Belle and Bae were both safe. Belle's hand was against his cheek now and he felt her lips against his and her tears against his face.

"Papa?" Bae's voice sounded to his side and when Belle pulled back he saw his son as well. He reached a hand up and felt it filled immediately. They were safe. As the unconsciousness closed in around him, he knew they were safe, and that was really all that mattered in the end.

Baelfire's mother had left when he was eight. At the time, his papa had told him that she had died and he could hardly remember the details. Looking back, he should have seen the hesitation, should have known the signs, but what eight-year-old boy does? He knew now that his mother had left them. Pan had told him once, in a fit of rage, that he was good at being abandoned, just like his father had been. "Like father, like son," Pan had spat, angry over being bested by the fifteen year old over something or the other. Bae hardly remembered it now, but as he sat at his father's bedside he hoped that his terrible grandfather had been wrong. His papa had been willing to split the worlds apart - twice - to get to him, so surely he wouldn't leave him now.

It had been an obvious power play when Zoso had attacked Rumplestiltskin the way he did on Main Street and Bae still didn't know what all was done to his father in the time in which the two Dark Ones had been gone. They'd vanished only to reappear a short time later - really, it had felt like an eternity while the were gone, but several people had assured him that it had only been a short period of time - with Rumplestiltskin barely conscious and the older Dark One trying to take out Belle as the final blow. Leave it to his papa to think ahead and win through strategy even over power. His curse hadn't made him clever, simply given him the time to sharpen his natural wit to a deadly point when need be.

Dr Whale had wanted to take him to the hospital, but Belle and Bae had both argued that almost in unison. Zoso was after something that he apparently could only get from Rumplestiltskin and the hospital had no protection whatsoever. Even Regina had said that relying on Rumple's formerly cast protection spells over his own home would be the safer route. She'd explained how he had a tendency to set up spells with blood magic allowing entrance and the only other exceptions could be made by those with the power to enter. In other words Bae - and likely Belle, as he would have made his own exception for her as she lived there - would have full control over who entered the home, no matter the power level of the person trying to enter. So Whale had finally agreed to treat Bae's injured father at his home, and that was where he currently lay.

It had been just over twenty-four hours now and Whale had just left - he stopped by every few hours to check on him - with the same report: his body was healing at an abnormally fast rate, but the deep wound that had just barely missed severing his spine was where the danger truly lay. It wasn't keeping up the rate that the other wounds were and he'd lost more blood than any human being should have been aloud to lose. Whale couldn't explain it other than the injured man's magic was keeping him alive.

Rumplestiltskin had barely stirred since they'd eased him into the bed. The shallower cuts and scrapes that had marred his skin from the battle were almost nonexistent now, but he remained pale and unresponsive even as his son held tightly to his hand. It was strange that after running from the man for so long that the thought of him slipping away now set a deep fear within his chest.

"I can't lose you again," Bae whispered, pressing a kiss to his father's limp hand. "Please, Papa." He'd begged him again and again, and he certainly wasn't surprised at the distinct lack of response he received this time as well. The elder man slept on, his breathing steadier than should have been expected and his pulse regular. When Bae had first seen him after they'd reappeared, his father looked like a man just barely clinging to life. Blood had been everywhere, both from the wound just below his ribs and from whatever else Zoso had done to him. It was dried at the corner of his mouth like it had filled his lungs, but as far as Whale could see any damage that had been done was healing or already healed now, with the exception of the knife wound.

"Any change?" Belle asked from the entrance, leaning against the frame that led from the sitting area into the actual bedroom. Bae gripped the hand in his own a little tighter.

You didn't let go.

I couldn't bear to.

"He hasn't woken up."

She pulled a chair up to the bed since Bae was sitting on her side. She motioned for him to stay where he was and he sank back to lean against the headboard. It was odd how quickly they seemed to fall into the routine, but neither had been willing to leave his side for very long. They switched off when they needed to, and this time Belle had returned with a stack of books to continue her research. So far she'd pulled a surprising number of books that had detailed history of the Frontlands littered through them. Bae hadn't even been aware that his childhood home had made it into a book, much less multiple. He'd never thought that the lands gave much of a damn what happened to them.

"Find anything yet?" he asked softly.

"Bits and pieces. I've been following the lead we found right before Zoso interrupted it. This man was the fifth son of the Duke of the Frontlands some four hundred or so years ago. He rose to power when his father and siblings died in a terrible accident."

"Sounds fishy," Bae murmured and she nodded.

"Rumours followed him his entire tenure as duke, including one that said that he held a powerful sorcerer in his employ."

"Zoso?"

"I think so, or at least a Dark One. I'm still looking through. There was something promising…" She shifted through her stack until she found a collection of what looked like old papers, bound together only by an aged, thin string and Bae couldn't help but wonder how it had ever made its way into his papa's collection. It seemed to be what she had been searching for and she held it up, skimming through them. "Yes, this is it. See? They seem to be some sort of journal notes. They were tucked away in one of the history tomes that Rumple had me looking at."

Bae started to reach out to take the offered papers, but the slight twitch of fingers against his own took his entire attention and he looked immediately to his father. His eyelids were fluttering, either while dreaming or trying to pull himself up to break through the last layer of consciousness. Bae squeezed his hand, hoping to coax him closer to wakefulness and was rewarded with eyes the same colour as his own sliding tiredly open. "Hey," his papa greeted quietly, his whisper rough, but he forced a smile out with it.

"Hey yourself," Bae answered, tightening his grip a little more. "How are you feeling?"

"Bit like hell."

"You look like it."

This brought a chuckle from the injured man, but he seemed to be coming further around and he shifted, wincing as he did, but his gaze fell over to Belle who was now beaming. "Glad you're both safe," he whispered at last.

Belle's smile did not fade and she leaned over from her place next to the bed to place a kiss against his forehead. "No fever this time, at least."

He made a small sound of acknowledgement. "He didn't hurt you, did he?" Rumplestiltskin asked after a moment and Belle shook her head.

"No. It would seem that I had someone looking after me.".

The weight that had pressed down on him for the last day seemed to ease a bit as Bae watched his papa and Belle exchange looks between them and he couldn't help the feeling that his father had been right: nothing happened by chance. He couldn't say that if he'd known as a child that falling through that portal would have put his father together with a woman that could reawaken the humanity in him or that it would bring him together with Emma that he would have understood any of it, but looking back he realized that he felt a little less bitter about everything. He wasn't quite sure when that had happened, just that it had, and that within itself was a relief of a great burden he'd carried around for far too many years.

Rumplestiltskin perked suddenly, dark eyes that had been lulling shut and back towards sleep were wide open again.

"What is it, Papa?" Bae asked about the time that both he and Belle heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

He was almost on his feet when his father reached out, catching him by the wrist with a more relaxed look settling in again. Rumplestiltskin didn't actually say anything, but glanced over towards the door where Henry was coming through. The teen grinned widely. "You're awake!"

"So I am."

The grin only widened as Henry moved through the opening that separated the sitting room from the bedroom and invited himself up to sit with his dad and and grandpa, but beneath Rumplestiltskin's pleased expression lurked something that didn't sit right with Bae. "Papa, what's up?"

Rumple reached forward, his hand coming up to the side of his grandson's face in an affectionate gesture. "You've been coming by?"

"I was worried," Henry said, his shoulders slumped a little as if he thought he'd done something wrong. "Are you upset?"

"Oh no," Bae's father breathed. "It's just… he had no reason to connect you to me until now."

Baelfire's eyes widened. "Can you cast the same spell on him as you did on Belle and me?"

"Eventually, but as of now…" He winced, his hand going to the place over the wound and he sunk down a little further into the pillows beneath him. "I just can't."

"You think he'll come after me?" Henry asked, and to his credit he sounded more curious than afraid. Hell, after everything the kid had been through, having a former Dark One after him was just par for the course.

Bae watched his papa for a moment, his eyes closed tightly against rising pain and he pulled in a breath, forcing a smile that wasn't entirely convincing. "You know I wouldn't let him hurt you. What do you say to staying here for a day or two? Just until I get my feet back under me."

"That's just going to take a day or two?" the day asked with raised eyebrows.

"He'll be up and around in no time," Bae answered for him, pulling Henry into a side hug on the bed. "I'll be here. It'll be fun."

"Like a bachelor's house… but with Belle."

Belle choked out a laugh. "Something like that."

Bae watched his son's grin grow, but the kid seemed to know the weight behind the situation. Though hadn't bothered to, Bae could come and go as he please, the looming threat not quite as potent to him with his father's spell protecting him, but Henry was a ripe target to go after. He'd do anything to see his son safe, he knew, even if he had to keep him in until this was all over. One glance at his father told him it was just another thing he finally understood now and he hoped Henry would understand it better than he had at his age. He was a smart kid after all.

TBC

Notes: In the next chapter - Belle makes headway on her research, Rumple pushes his limits, and Zoso tries to form an alliance.