Rumplestiltskin carefully wrote another E on the parchment fragment. Emma…. So far the squid ink had not paralyzed him. He supposed it was because he was cut off from magic in this cage. Or because he was careful not to spill any on himself. Getting the ink, quill, and paper had been ridiculously easy: as easy as any spell cast months ago for this specific purpose could be. The guard was being quite obliging at the moment; he was sound asleep at his post. It allowed Rumplestiltskin the privacy he so rarely had since being incarcerated. Privacy he so desperately wanted, needed.

Baelfire sat crossed legged on an outcropping of rock. "Papa, are you sure you've thought this through?"

The Dark One looked up from his writing, "Of course I have, Bae. I've thought of nothing but you since I let you go. Everything I have done for the last few centuries has been for you and you alone."

"The blind seer said you'd see me again. But when do I arrive in this new land? If I get there the same day you do, and I'm somehow still fourteen, I'll be 42 when the curse breaks. About as old as you were when you changed. But how can I still be fourteen after hundreds of years? I could be a father, a grandfather, by the time you find me. I could be on my death bed. What if I've become a bad person? What if I've embraced my own darkness?"

"You are my son. I love you…. There is nothing you could ever do that would make me not love you. You don't have to forgive me; you probably won't forgive me. But. I made a deal with you, and I broke it. I have to uphold my end of the bargain." Rumplestiltskin resumed writing Emma over and over on his parchment. "I only ever wanted for you to be happy, for us to be a family. This is the only way for me to try to make amends."

"But all those people, Papa. Do you think I will forgive you after you've sacrificed so many lives?"

"Well, it's not as if I'm killing them."

Belle leaned against the wall next to Bae. "Was my life, our love, a part of that sacrifice?"

"You were supposed to just leave, Belle. Not die."

She snorted. "My power means more to me than you. You said that to me when you sent me away."

"Papa, you didn't…"

"Bae…" Rumplestiltskin pleaded. "You don't understand. Neither of you understand. There are few things in this world or the next that are more horrendous than a father abandoning his son. I failed you once, Bae. Belle… please understand. I couldn't fail him again."

Belle knelt in front of him, "I would have understood. If only you had had the courage to tell me the truth…. I would have stayed strong." She placed her hand on his, stilling the quill's motion over the page. "I loved you. And you loved me. We could have gone through this together."

"Belle," he sighed, gently removing his hand from under hers. "No. You would have forbidden me this path. You would have insisted that I find another way…. But, this Curse. It's the only way."

Baelfire grunted, interrupting the tender moment. "All you wanted is for me to be happy?" he queried, returning to a previous topic of conversation. "Maybe at one point. I wanted my papa back. Not the Dark One."

"I know, son," Rumplestiltskin assured him quickly. "That's what I'm doing."

"So why did you make a vial of True Love? Why did you write a way to bring magic to a land with no magic into the Curse?"

Unwilling (unable?) to lie to Baelfire, even if he was only a figment of imagination, about why he needed magic, Rumplestiltskin started laughing, banishing his ghosts.

A wisp of black smoke, the kind that didn't come from torches, followed a mouse skittering back and forth through the mine tunnels. The mad man in the cage grinned. Regina shouldn't transform using a cloud of smoke if she wants to stay undetected by me. And use a quieter sleeping spell on the guards…. He unfolded himself from where he perched in the back of his cage. "It's just us, Dearie," he called out in a sing-song voice. "You can show yourself." Half hidden from her view by the wavering torchlight, he struggled to contain his excitement. Today. Finally, after hundreds of years of waiting and plotting, today was the day. After months of going mad, being mad, the Dark One was abruptly, completely, and totally sane. No need for laughter to contain the shadows and ghosts now. For here on, until the Curse blew him away, the mad man aura would all be an act.

The mouse shimmered, transformed in another cloud of smoke into the Evil Queen. She stretched, easing kinks caused by the mouse form. "That curse you gave me," she purred stroking the ribbon-like parchment holding his Curse, "It's not working."

"Oh so worried. So, so worried," he teased. "Like Snow and her lovely new husband."

Regina stilled, "What?"

"They paid me a visit, as well." He almost danced his way to the bars of the cage and started climbing them. "They were very anxious…about you and the Curse."

"What'd you tell them?" The queen advanced until mere inches separated their faces. He could see that she was not enjoying have to look up at him, for the moment her superior in height as well as knowledge.

"The truth!" he squealed. "That nothing can stop the darkness. Except, of course, their unborn child. You see, no matter how powerful, all curses can be broken. Their child is the key. Of course, the curse has to be enacted first," he chided.

"Tell me what I did wrong," she commanded softly.

"For that, there's a price," he hissed.

"What do you want?"

"Simple. In this new land, I want comfort." He clutched the bars like a child clutches a favorite toy or blanket. "I want a good life."

Regina interrupted, "Fine. You'll have an estate. Be rich."

"I wasn't finished. There's more!"

"There always is with you." Regina sounded disgusted. But was it at his child-like pleadings or the necessity of having to admit defeat to a captured enemy?

"In this new land," he breathed, "Should I ever come to you for any reason, you must heed my every request. You must do whatever I say. So long as I say… 'please'."

Her disgust became tinged with exasperation. "You do realize, that should I succeed, you won't remember any of this."

"Oh, well then. What's the harm?"

"Deal." Rumplestiltskin grinned at Regina accepting his bargain so easily, and backed away from the bars. "What must I do to enact this curse?" she questioned softly.

His grin became wider; he gestured towards his chest. "You need to sacrifice a heart."

"I sacrificed my prized steed."

Rumplestiltskin launched himself at Regina, gripped her throat through the bars of his cage. He let slip his mask of insanity, let her glimpse the terrifying reality of a fully aware, fully in control, Dark One just long enough for her to doubt herself, her plans. Long enough for her to fear for her life. "A horse? This is the curse to end all curses. You think a horse is going to do?" Sarcasm dripped from his voice. "Great power requires great sacrifice. The heart you need must come from something far more precious."

"Tell me what will suffice." She was trembling under his hand, but her voice remained steady.

"The heart of the thing you love most," was her answer.

Regina slapped Rumplestiltskin's hand from her neck. "What I love most died because of Snow White," she spat.

Rumplestiltskin's insanity mask fell back into place. "Ooh. Is there no one else you twoo-ly love?" he crooned. "This curse isn't going to be easy. Vengeance never is, Dearie. You have to ask yourself the simple question: how far are you willing to go?"

"As far as it takes."

"Then please don't waste everyone's time and just do it," he pleaded. "You know what you love. Now go kill it."

Regina glared at her former mentor before turning on her heel and striding down the tunnel. Rumplestiltskin retreated to the rock seat in the back of his cage. Long ago he had used foresight to watch Regina as she cried while pulling her father's heart from his chest. Watched Henry die from the shock of having his heart ripped from his body. Watched her tear stained, stony, and determined face as she first buried her father's body, and later removed that heart from a box and tossed it into her cauldron. Watched purple smoke bubble up and over the rim, filling the stone circle and beyond, saw the lightning flashes eerily illuminate the clouds. He closed his eyes and remembered it all.

And then he felt it: a trickle of power seeping into his body. She did it! The laughter came bubbling out: maniacal, twisted, joyful. Louder and more frantic as the trickle swelled into a stream, then a river, then an ocean until the full might and magic of the Dark Ones infused every cell of his being.

Between the echoes of his laughter, he heard the murmurs of his guards talking to each other, smelled the slop one brought for his 'dinner'. A grate at the bottom of the now ineffectual cage door slid open. Rumplestiltskin jumped across his cell and grabbed the guard's arm. "It has begun."