December 2013
Days went by without an appearance by Zelena. At least, he assumed they were days: he could only judge the passage of time by the meals that her magic presented him. He assumed her absence meant she was busy assembling the ingredients for her spell and therefore was closer to enacting her plan. . . closer to destroying Belle, Bae and Henry. The voices in Rumplestiltskin's head were in an uproar over this (at least, the Dark One, Rumple and Bae all agreed Zelena had to be stopped), making it impossible for him to pull two thoughts together, let alone formulate an escape plan.
But he could still feel. He wished it were otherwise. Spinning didn't drive his emotions underground as it used to: the nails lined up neatly on the crossbar of his cage kept pulling him away from the once-hypnotic motion of the wheel, kept pulling him into the past. In the gaps between shouts of the voices in his head, he slipped backwards in memories so vivid he could no longer sense the cage or the cellar or anything else in the present moment: his eyes, his ears, his nostrils were filled with memories. Even as his hands transmuted useless straw into useless gold, his mind was locked in the past, with the ghosts of the people who had taken his innocence, his pride, his hope, his ability to trust and to love: Malcolm, Milah, Hook, Cora. And seeping up from the oily surface of those memories was a thought: what had been taken from him, he'd taken from others. The lessons he'd learned from his tormentors, he'd carried into his relationships with Bae, Regina, Zelena, Henry and Belle. The betrayed had become a betrayer.
"It's Christmas!" Wrapped snugly in her cape and tights, Zelena seemed oblivious to the blast of snow that swirled around her legs as she clattered down the stairs with a tray in her hands. "Happy Christmas, my pet! I've brought you a treat." As she approached the cage, she whipped off the napkin covering the plate, and a cloud of heat rose from the food contained therein. With a flutter of her magic, the tray vanished from her hands and appeared on the straw-covered floor of his cage. She wasn't lying, for once; she'd brought him a full meal: ham, yams, green beans, rolls and pumpkin pie. To his coffee she'd added a splash of whiskey.
After months of half-meals, his stomach couldn't handle so much solid food. The very aroma made him choke. He tried to turn away, but her urging—from anyone else, an invitation; from the dagger-holder, a command—made him pick up the fork and attempt to eat. Moments after swallowing the first mouthful, he'd vomited.
Insulted, she shouted at him and with her magic, flipped the tray upside down. She stormed back up the steps, slamming the cellar door.
It was only then that he noticed the sprig of mistletoe she'd hung from the bars of his cage.