A/N: Brief scenes taken from S3E11—Going Home, S4E6—Family Business, and S4E12—Heroes and Villains.

"You can try to keep the worst things down inside you. You can shove them away, not think about them, not deal. But they bubble up to the surface. They always do."

― Cynthia Hand, The Afterlife of Holly Chase

Stave Three: Bubbling Up

It was still dark when he opened his eyes again, so dark that he couldn't see more than the faintest illumination coming from the streetlamps outside through the thick drapes that concealed his bedroom window. Groggily he twisted his head to see the red LED display on the clock by the bedside. It was twelve forty-five. And unless Storybrooke was in the middle of a solar eclipse, it was nighttime. But was it still the same night, or had he slept 'round the clock?

He got up and made his way carefully to the light switch. If he could find his phone, he could check the date and answer that last question. He flicked the switch, but nothing happened. Well, there had been power earlier this evening. Perhaps a fuse had gone awry. He padded over to the window, wincing a bit when his foot came down on something smooth and hard with a muffled crunch. It appeared that he wouldn't be able to check his phone after all. As he cursed under his breath, the faint glow coming through the curtains vanished abruptly. At the same moment, so did the LED clock display.

Keeping one hand before him to warn him of any obstacles, he shuffled toward the window and tweaked back the curtain. Every streetlamp was out. Every window was dark. A power outage, then. And this time, he didn't believe that either the Snow Queen or the queen of Arendelle was responsible. He stumbled back to bed and tried not to think about the visit he'd had earlier, but now sleep eluded him. From the downstairs, he heard the antique clock chime a single bell and he looked about apprehensively, but the darkness in the room was all but impenetrable and he heard no other soul. He wondered whether he would hear a spirit, come to think of it. Fendrake had made enough noise, but he had no way of knowing whether that was typical—

His door creaked slightly as it opened, and Rumple sat bolt upright in bed as a slight figure holding a miner's lantern before her stepped into the room. Relief flooded him as he recognized the woman's face in its dim light. It was replaced almost at once by irritation at the intrusion and he snapped, "What on earth are you doing here?"

Snow White smiled primly. "I'm here to show you your past."

Rumple blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

For a moment, Snow looked confused. "You were visited last night by the ghost of someone you knew once, right? He told you to expect three spirits?"

"How the hell do you know about that?" Rumple demanded. "And what are you doing awake at this hour, anyway? My son's namesake not giving you a proper night's rest?"

"You so—Oh!" Her smile widened. "Sorry, I guess I thought he'd explained. No, I'm not really who I look like to you; she's probably home in bed. Somehow, we just… take on the seeming of people you know. I'm a little foggy on that part of it," she admitted apologetically. "It didn't really seem all that important when I was in training. Anyway," she continued, straightening her stance and resuming her earlier serenity, "Rumpelstiltskin, I've come for your benefit, to offer you a second chance to do the right thing."

Rumple tilted his head. "And you're… quite certain that you aren't the personage you most resemble?"

"Quite certain," she said. "I'm the spirit of the past."

"Long past?"

"Your past."

Rumple was starting to see spots in front of his eyes; the lantern was glowing a good deal more brightly than it had been at first and he asked Sn—the spir—no, he'd just go on thinking of her as Snow White so long as she intended to keep that appearance—Snow White—to douse it.

"I'm holding all the Light you've carried and shed over the years and you want me to extinguish it," she exclaimed. "Just like that?"

At once, his thoughts drifted to the doom that had been hanging over him since that so-called heart attack in Manhattan. If 'extinguishing' that light could have any impact on his present circumstances, then… Rumple swallowed hard. "Uh… let's not be hasty," he said.

"Actually," Snow said, "I'm afraid we must if we're to get through everything we have to. "Here, take my hand."

"Your husband won't object?"

"I'm not her, remember?" She held out her hand. "Take it."

Rumple did. A moment later, the room and everything in it vanished.

Flying through the air wasn't any more enjoyable this time than it had been with Fendrake. Rumple's stomach was roiling like a ship in a gale and he definitely didn't enjoy dangling. And one might have thought that any being here for his benefit would have given him time to get dressed and put on a coat before subjecting him to these winds!

He tried not to look down, but when he did despite himself, everything below zipped past in a blur and he was just as glad that he hadn't eaten anything before going to bed or it surely would have come up by now.

Through it all, the spirit's grip on his hand never slackened, and though it didn't feel uncomfortably tight, it was evidently firm enough to resist the winds howling about them.

This time, there were no chained ghosts about, but yet he sensed a malevolent presence about. He couldn't quite discern, though, whether it came from without or within and he closed his eyes the better to focus. It wasn't easy to clear his mind, not in these circumstances, but he persevered. It was coming… coming…

"Open your eyes," Snow White's quiet voice shattered his concentration. "We've arrived."

They were standing on a cobbled street in what appeared to be a decent-sized town. Timber-framed two-story buildings with slate-tiled roofs surrounded them. From down the street, they could hear the rhythmic pounding of a hammer on an anvil. "Do you recognize this place?" Snow asked him gently.

Rumple's eyes widened. "I do," he breathed. "I could probably find my way about blindfolded even now!"

As they made their way down the street, Rumple couldn't help but notice that none of the passersby so much as nodded to them in passing. "I don't recall everyone being this unfriendly, though," he remarked, as a cluster of school-aged children walked right through them. Stunned, he shot a glance at his guide, who smiled as she confirmed what he'd just realized.

"They're just shadows of what's already been. They can't see, hear, or touch us. For us, it's two out of three: we can see and hear them just fine." Before Rumple could reply, she took hold of his sleeve. "This way."

She was leading him to the blacksmith shop, where a small boy of about four or five sat on a crate by the entrance, idly twisting a bit of string and weaving it through his fingers. His heels kicked the crate beneath him in counterpoint to the smith's hammer. He didn't appear to be bored, so much as resigned.

"How quietly he sits," Snow remarked.

"Oh, he knows to behave himself," Rumple said sadly. "For all the good it will do him in the end."

"You know him."

Rumple snorted. "You know I do."

The pounding in the smithy stopped. The boy's heels still tapped softly, keeping up the rhythm. And then, a dark-haired man with a moustache and a short beard emerged. The boy looked up hopefully. "Papa?"

The man smiled. "Looks like I still remembered enough after all." He held his left hand open flat. From his right hand, he poured a number of silver coins. "…Four, five, six, seven…" He reached behind the boy's ear and extracted one coin more. "Eight," he concluded triumphantly, as the child giggled. "A week's wages in advance. Enough to get us dinner and lodgings for the night, with a bit left over!"

The smile on the boy's face gave way to a worried frown. "But there are seven days in a week. What will we do tomorrow?"

The man's face soured as well. "Don't you have any faith in your papa, Rumple?" he asked bitterly. "We'll do well enough tonight. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow. As for tonight, what would you say to millet soup with a bit of mutton? And to celebrate, berry tart for dessert!"

Young Rumple's face lit up and he eagerly slid his hand into his papa's.

Snow shook her head. "If he'd bought the bean-and-barley soup and forgone the meat and tart, those silvers would have covered a week's lodging and two daily meals, at least."

"I know," Rumple admitted. "I knew it then, too. But that was my father in happier times. For all his faults, and he had many, he never let me worry about the precariousness of our situation. In those days, at least, he was able to pull himself together and find enough work to support us, however temporarily." He sighed. "Back then, at any rate."

Snow nodded her understanding. "And later?"

Rumple opened his mouth to answer her, but the winds surrounded them, whisking them to their next destination and swallowing the words he'd been about to utter.

They were standing inside a spacious cottage now, with a great wheel in the center of the main room. Bobbins and spools of thread were displayed neatly on shelves along the wall. Other shelves held skeins of yarn. Baskets of combed wool fibers occupied each corner. And by the window, some years older now, the same boy sat peering out the window. From the kitchen, the fragrance of meat and pastry wafted through the air.

"How old are you here?" the spirit asked.

Rumple sighed. "Ten, I think. By now, my father had traded me away for a lifetime of youth and irresponsibility, and no matter how often I was assured it had nothing to do with any shortcoming on my part, I don't think I fully believed it. Not then," he added, just as the drapery that separated the kitchen from the main room parted and a middle-aged woman with a broad smile and a twinkle in her eye came out bearing a large, ceramic dish between the oven mitts on her hands. A golden crust crowned the top of the dish and both the elder and the younger Rumple found their mouths watering.

"The holidays may be a time for family gatherings," the woman said gently, "but they're also a time for missing those not with us."

"He could have been," the boy said glumly. "If he'd wanted to be."

"But he's still your father, Rumple," the woman said. "And it's only natural that you'd miss him more at this time of year, when everyone's visiting relations or being visited by them."

"Do you have family, Aunt Moira?" Rumple asked suddenly.

The woman set the dish down on the table. "I've Aisa, of course," she said. Then, sadly, "And once, I had a husband and a son."

"What happened to them?"

Moira sighed. "It was pestilence took them. That was a long time ago. Mostly, I… well, one doesn't forget such things, but most times, the pain doesn't cut as sharp. At this time of year, though…" She smiled. "Well, if it still pricks at me after so many years, I can just imagine what you must be feeling, this being your first year without him."

The younger Rumple shook his head. "I know I'm better off without him. You told me so and I didn't believe you."

"Because it's natural to believe the best about those we love, and no there's no shame in loving him. He is your father, still, after all."

"But he…" His voice was breaking and Moira pulled him close.

"He was part of your life for so long, Rumple. And he loved you enough to know that you'd have your best chance if you weren't tied to him. It's why he brought you to us in the first place. It may have been the wisest choice he ever made," she said as she stroked his hair.

The door of the hut opened and Aisa entered, carrying a basket. Rumple could just see a number of fat white candles poking out from under a checkered cloth. "Fairy blessings!" she proclaimed. "I bought the last dozen." Her smile faltered. "Is all well?"

"The boy's just missing his father. And isn't this the season for it?"

Aisa plopped herself down on the stool beside them. "It's your first Miners' Day without him," she said sympathetically. "Of course it's hard."

"I'm sorry!" Rumple whispered. "I'm not ungrateful for—"

"Ungrateful?" Moira made a clucking sound "Psshhttt! The heart is a complicated organ, and there's room enough in it for love and joy and pain and loss and sometimes all at once."

"Many times all at once," Aisa broke in.

"Tell you what," Moira said, "once the pie's cooled, I'll cut you the first piece."

"That's the ticket!" Aisa nodded. "And after supper, we'll spin for a bit and then we'll go down to the square."

"The square, of course!" Moira chimed in. "There'll be jugglers and flamethrowers tonight. And dancers—"

"Such dancers!" Aisa interrupted. "And puppets and pantomimes!"

"We'll make a proper outing of it!" Moira proclaimed. "After all, it is Miners' Day!"

Snow shook her head. "A few coppers for the pie ingredients, and maybe half that amount for the candles, and now they're going to leave most of an evening's work undone for some cheap entertainment."

"The cost is hardly what's important," the elder Rumple snapped.

"If they put in more time at the wheel, they'd probably have more to sell, and as the money came in, their influence and power would grow. Instead, they're squandering all that potential on frivolities."

How could he have ever thought that this… creature was Snow White? "There's more than one kind of power," he shot back. "Right here, right now, those women have the power to lift a child out of his misery or plunge him deeper into it. They're choosing to do the first! And while all magic may come with a price, the power that they wield this night has a worth beyond measure!" His eyes widened.

"Something wrong?" Not!Snow asked.

Rumple sighed. "I was just thinking that I could have let that little firefly put up the candle display in the shop, as she'd asked me to some weeks ago," he admitted. "That's all."

The spirit raised her shoulders in a slight shrug. "We have other places to visit this night," she said. "Come."

A number of years had evidently passed. Rumple was now seated at the wheel in the hut he knew so very well. The elder took in the visual cues: crutch in the corner, so it was after the First Ogre War. The hut still had a solid door, so Bae couldn't be older than nine. The window was shut and there were no potted herbs on the ledge. Milah was gone.

From outside came the sound of running feet squelching through mud and a moment later, a young boy burst into the hut. "Papa!" he exclaimed, "The dwarfs are here!"

Rumple looked up from his spinning. "Are they?" he asked his seven-year-old son with a twinkle in his eye. "Fancy a bit carved rock, then?"

Bae laughed. "No, Papa! They're selling candles. For Miners' Day!"

"What, is that here already?" Rumple asked, a bit too innocently. "Didn't we just celebrate it last year?"

Bae laughed again. "It comes every year, Papa! Can we get candles?"

Rumple nodded indulgently. "Still two copper each?" he asked, hobbling over to the shelf. He removed the lid from a small clay pot and extracted a threadbare pouch that jingled slightly.

Bae hesitated.

"Don't tell me that's gone up too?" Rumple asked with some dismay.

"No, Papa," Bae said. "Not for the regular kind. But this year, they've got some that smell like pine and cedar and sandalwood."

"When did you ever get a whiff of those?" Rumple asked incredulously. Not one of those trees was native to the area.

"Well, I didn't," Bae admitted. "Until today, at the candle stand in the square. But they smell really good. And," he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the next, "lanolin… doesn't."

"Ahhhh," Rumple replied. "So, the truth comes out."

"You're not upset, are you, Papa?"

"What, that you dislike certain pronounced odors? Certainly not, son. Though rushes and straw come cheaper, I'd think." He sighed. "How much are these exotically-perfumed items then?" he asked.

"Three copper," Bae said. "B-but rushes are fine, if that's too much."

Rumple considered. Then, slowly, he tipped three coins into his palm. "Just one, mind you. We can… keep it on the mantle to make the hut smell nice until shearing season, when we'll light it," he added with a smile.

Bae's face lit up as he held out his hand for the coins. "Thank you, Papa!"

"Remember," Rumple said, "we'll need to make do with sheep tallow to light our way to the common in two nights, if you mean to go to the festivities this year."

"I'll remember," Bae said at once. "And thank you, again!"

The two phantoms looked at one another. "You certainly made his day," 'Snow' remarked.

"Well, it only comes once a year," Rumple murmured. "There's no harm in a bit of indulgence, and at least, candles serve a practical purpose."

The spirit smiled. "Time's wasting. Next stop."

They were in his castle. Rumple watched as the Dark One lit a thick candle the color of dark honey. The fragrance of sandalwood filled the air, as this version of himself said sadly, "Too many years to count, Bae, but I've counted every one."

"Which Miners' Day is this?" the spirit beside him asked.

"It's two weeks too late for that, dearie," Rumple said absently. "And that candle didn't come from any fairy or dwarf. No, that's one I fashioned myself. For his birthday." He shook his head. "He really was partial to sandalwood." His voice broke. "And I would have given him a forest of them if I could have had him back."

A soft sound from behind made him turn, even as his counterpart looked up. And Rumple felt his already heavy heart begin to melt as he beheld Belle standing before him, her blue eyes soft and warm with affection—no. No, his elder self could see what his younger wouldn't acknowledge: that wasn't mere affection in Belle's eyes. She loved him. Even then, it had been love.

"And I threw it all away," he muttered.

"Pardon?" Snow asked, even as Belle began to apologize for her intrusion.

"I refused to recognize her love when I had it. First I drove her away and in the end," he said bitterly, "she returned the favor."

"They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Rumple shook his head. "I didn't scorn her. Not really. But I didn't trust her enough, and because of that, she came to believe that I didn't trust her at all."

"Should you have trusted her more fully, then?" Snow asked, and before Rumple could answer, the mist began to swirl once more.

Even before his vision cleared, he heard his own voice saying, "Belle, I gave you that dagger because I trusted you. Because I thought you would never want to control me." He whirled furiously on his companion.

"Take me out of here!" he snapped. "I don't need to relive this!"

"I'm just trying to show you that perhaps, your mistrust was well deserved. She did try to control you, after all."

"She wanted to be a hero," Rumple gritted through clenched teeth. "She went about it all wrong, much as I did long ago, when the Ogres War would have taken my son from me, but her intentions were good. And she came to realize her error in short order."

As though in response to his words, the scene shifted slightly. Their surroundings were the same, but from the way the light filtered in through the blinds, it was some hours later. And Belle was on her knees embracing this earlier version of himself, who was bleeding from a shallow cut on his neck.

"…All I managed to do," Belle was sobbing, "was abuse the dagger a-and take advantage of you. My True Love. I-I don't even know if I deserve to be with you anymore."

"You ask me," the spirit with Snow White's face drawled, "I'd say you both deserve each other." Her tone was anything but complimentary.

The elder Rumple shook his head. "She never deserved any of what I put her through. I deceived her. I manipulated her. She was the only good thing I had left in my life, and I was so afraid that if she knew the truth, I'd lose her too. And I did," he added miserably, as Belle continued to weep in 'her' Rumple's arms.

"I never should have kept a secret from you, especially 'cause I know that you'd never keep one from me. I love you, Rumple."

"And I love you too," both Rumples said in unison.

The latest iteration turned to the spirit. "For your sake, I hope you don't next intend to bring me…"

He was standing by the town line on a night he recalled all too well before he could finish his sentence. He fixed the spirit with a thunderous glare. "…Here," he finished, just as Belle spoke to his pleading earlier self.

"You told me," she said furiously, "that gauntlet could lead you to... to someone's weakness, to the thing they loved the most. Well, you know where it led me, Rumple? To the real dagger. Your true love is your power."

He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to relive these events barely six weeks since the first time. And he especially didn't want to hear the worst possible response to that accusation tumble next from his lips.

"I like the power," his earlier self said, and it was all he could do not to face-palm. "But there's nothing wrong with power, not when it means that... That I... That we... That we can have it all."

Belle wasn't having any of it. And watching these shadows of what had been play the scene out, the later Rumple wasn't entirely sure he was either. Even now, he was trying to justify what was unjustifiable. Had he apologized right then and there, could it have possibly made a difference? No excuses, no rationalizations. Would it have been too little too late, or might she have calmed down enough to truly hear him out?

"I just wanted you," she was saying. "I wanted to be chosen, not... I tried to be everything for you, Rumple. But I wasn't. And I... I lost my way trying to help you find yourself. Not anymore."

He felt the same terror his earlier self had at that. He hadn't loved many people in his life, but eventually, every last one of them had decided they were better off without him and kicked him to the curb. His parents, his wife, Cora… Even Bae. The Blue Fairy must have told Bae what Aisa and Moira had said to him all those years ago: that he needed to make a life away from his father. Like father, like son, Bae hadn't listened. But years later, when they'd been reunited, Bae had wanted nothing to do with him, and Rumple wondered how long it had taken him to reach that point. And now, he could add Belle to that list.

"Please, Belle," his earlier self pleaded. "I... I... I'll make it up to you. I... I... I've changed once before. I can do it again."

Belle's next words stabbed into him with a pain keener than he would have felt had she used the dagger. "You've never changed," she snarled.

It was true, but he could at least, do better! He would, if she'd only give him a chance. "Please," he tried again, but she wasn't hearing it.

"No!" she told him. "It's too late. Once I... I saw the man behind the beast. Now there's only a beast. Rumpelstiltskin, I command you... to leave Storybrooke…"

"As I said," the spirit said dryly, "your mistrust might not have been as ill-placed as you seem to think."

"I destroyed that trust!" Rumple snapped. "I spent so long deceiving her that in the end, she couldn't let herself think that I might change! And why would she? I'm the Dark One! I… can't!"

"That's more than I know," the spirit said, and the look on her face had Rumple thinking again that it was truly Snow White standing before him. "I'm the embodiment of what was, and the past cannot be changed. But then," she said, and suddenly, they were back in his bedroom, "I'm only the first spirit you'll be meeting. And if there was no hope for you, Rumpelstiltskin, then there would be no point in these visitations. Change may not come easily, but never think that it can't come at all." And with that, she waved her hand over the lantern and the room was suddenly plunged into total darkness.

"So if I fail, it's all on me, then, is it?" Rumple demanded. "If I was just a bit better or braver or— But I'm not! I'm… not," he repeated heavily.

There was no answer. No sense of another's presence. He was alone in the darkness. Alone in his Darkness.

And then, he saw a line of light coming from the hallway on the other side of the door. And a new, but very familiar voice, said from the other side, "Cut the crap, Gold. And stop feeling sorry for yourself. If you want to succeed," as the voice continued talking, he groped his way toward the door, "you know it's going to take—"

Rumple pulled open the door. The hallway was ablaze with more illumination than he'd ever installed in that passageway. And standing before him, flanked by a groaning table with a feast the like of what had been served in King Leopold's banquet hall, was a smiling Emma Swan.

"—a real leap of faith!"