A/N: So, Goodreads didn't have a suitable Afterlife of Holly Chase quote for this chapter title. Here's another ACC riff for you!

Tara: He can change, there's good in him, somewhere. I know it.

Scrooge: People don't change.

Charles Dickens: He's been this way, for a long time. I'm not sure he can change.

Tara: Of course he can, he's not a monster.

Scrooge: I thought this was a ghost story, not a fairy tale.

—Susan Coyne, Les Standiford, "The Man Who Invented Christmas"

Stave Five: Ghosts, Fairies, and Monsters

Rumple wanted to call the spirit back and give it a piece of his mind! How… dared she? Oh, well he recalled the last time he'd heard a variation of that phrase. It had been uttered by Snow White, right before he'd lambasted Emma for her lack of faith and set out for Neverland without the others. To have this… doppelganger of Emma Swan fling that phrase at him was just… just…

How dared she?

Nobody knew better than he the current state of his heart. Nobody knew better how bleak his chances were, unless his plan to change his ending succeeded. But for that, he needed the Author. For that, he needed the ink. For that, he needed Ursula and Cruella—who were currently holed up at his cabin, doubtless wondering where he'd got off to. He had to get back to them.

From downstairs, he heard the clock beginning to strike the hour. Without really meaning to, he mentally counted the chimes, his eyebrows lifting when the peals continued after the first six bells. It was still dark out (seven). Surely the sun should be up (eight) if it was already past six (nine). It couldn't be the next night already (ten). …Could it? (eleven).

Rumple tensed at the final, twelfth, stroke and waited. Silence. He fumbled for the night table lamp and turned it on. There was nobody in the room with him. And the hallway was dark. He pulled open the door and flicked that switch as well. There was not a crumb left of the earlier feast. Even the table was gone. And yet, there was an eerie chill in the corridor, made all the more unnerving because it could not be explained away by a window inadvertently left open; there was no such aperture. He made his way cautiously down its length, alert for the source of the draft. Perhaps, it was coming from one of the other rooms, or a vent in the ceiling. He found nothing.

"Running late, are we?" he called, as he reached the top of the stair. "I was told to expect you at the last stroke of midnight, but you can't expect me to think highly of one who can't be bothered to be punc—"

An icy hand closed on his forearm and he lost his footing and toppled down the stairs.

He was dead. He was dead, he was dead, he was dead, he was dead, he was… He was damnably immortal and it was going to take more than a tumble to finish him off! As that thought penetrated, he realized that, besides the bone-numbing grip on his arm, he was in no pain whatsoever.

Hesitantly, he looked about. That was when he realized that he was floating in mid-air! His first instinct was to flail and cry out, but the black-cloaked figure beside him was already steering him down to the ground floor of the house before releasing him. Rumple cast a sharp look at the figure, but its cowled hood completely obscured its features. The cloak was loose and voluminous enough to conceal his newest visitor's gender as well. He sighed.

"So. I suppose you're here to show me my future, then," he guessed irritably, once his feet were firmly back on carpeted ground.

The figure inclined its head slightly.

"Well? Which face from my life are you borrowing?" His eyes narrowed. The figure had been a head taller than he when they'd been descending, but now, it was slightly shorter. It wasn't stoop-shouldered. Perhaps, his imagination was deceiving him. He tilted his head to one side. "You don't speak…" He frowned. "Honora?"

Cloaked shoulders seemed to shake in silent laughter. Then it stood upright once more, now towering more than a foot higher. Honora had certainly not been that tall. One black-gloved hand emerged from under the flowing fabric, beckoning to him.

Rumple shook his head, smiling wryly. "Well, at least you don't appear to be given much to prattling. I suppose that might make you my most agreeable visitor yet. All right, then. Let's be off and you can show me what you must." Hesitantly, he slid his own hand into the spirit's. Icy, it was, even through the glove, but its grip was firm as the front hallway dissolved about them and Rumple readied himself for whatever new scene was about to unfold before him.

They were standing in the convent, in what would have been the chapel during the Curse, when the fairies had truly believed themselves to be members of a religious order. Where the high altar should have been, however, stood a round pit of flickering blue fire. Blue stood before it, looking every inch an acolyte. As Rumple watched, Belle approached, carrying a large, cloth-wrapped bundle.

"This is the last of it," she said, setting it down at Blue's feet.

The Blue Fairy nodded sadly. "I fear that it won't be enough. There is so little Dark magic left that can be repurposed for a Light end. You need to join the others now."

Belle shook her head. "I can't believe he'd harm me. I'll talk to him. Deal if I must."

"The time for deals has passed," the fairy returned. "As has the time for love. There's nothing now that will stay his hand for long. Not even these," she added, unwrapping the bundle.

Rumple leaned forward. "I know those items," he said slowly. "They've been gathering dust in the shop since before the First Curse broke. What can she—or that annoying little insect—want with them now?"

His companion didn't reply.

After a moment, Rumple sighed. "She's wrong, you know. I'd always have time to talk to Belle." A trace of anger crept into his voice. "And that gnat ought to know it, too. What can she be playing at?"

Silence greeted his query.

The Blue Fairy added several items to a small pile to her left. The rest, she consigned to the fire pit with an expression of revulsion.

Rumple sighed when it was clear that his companion had no intention of replying. "Well, are there any answers to be garnered here or are they to be found elsewhere?" He fixed the spirit with a questioning look.

The black-robed figure still said nothing, but after a moment, a claw-like hand gloved in black leather beckoned him. Frowning, Rumple took a hesitant step closer. As he did, the scene before his eyes began to fade and he steeled himself to face whatever it was they were to encounter next.

Jefferson was standing before a small headstone. With an expression of profound tenderness, he laid down a stuffed white rabbit, leaning it against the stone.

"No…" Rumple whispered, but as Jefferson rose once more, he could plainly see the inscription on the grey granite: Paige Hatter, Beloved Daughter. He turned helplessly to the spirit. "She wasn't supposed to…"

"Jefferson," a new voice spoke from behind him and he turned to see Emma standing there with her parents. "Jefferson," she repeated, "Blue says we haven't got much longer."

The hatter sucked in his breath. "You'd better go, then," he said dully.

"You couldn't…?" David started to say.

Jefferson gave him a tired smile. "I couldn't get it to work when I wanted to; there didn't seem to be much point in trying now."

"But…" Snow's face twisted, as she tried to think of something to say. "It… it might be our best chance."

The hatter shook his head. "You know it won't be," he said quietly. "It might buy you time. An extra few months, a year more at the most. There's no stopping what's going on now and there's only so far you can outrun it. Me? I don't have any reason to. Not anymore. And I wouldn't leave Paige anyway."

The other three exchanged sad looks. Finally, Emma spoke. "I guess everyone will be going over the town line in an hour, then. If you decide at the last minute to come with us, meet us there."

"I appreciate the sentiment," Jefferson said, "but I think we all know I won't. That… thing is hungry. And the more it consumes, the more its appetite is going to grow. I wish you all the luck staving off the inevitable, but—"

"There's always hope," Snow interrupted him, but it struck Rumple chillingly that this time, she was rattling off the words as a rote phrase. She didn't actually believe them.

Jefferson shook his head again and gave her a sad smile. "Well, I suppose there is," he allowed. "But not much of it."

"Some, though," David said, and his words sounded hollow to Rumple too.

He turned to the spirit. "And you're not going to tell me the nature of this threat, are you? I suppose I couldn't stop it either? Or did they just not bother asking?" He frowned. "They did learn of my returning here, didn't they?"

The spirit seemed to be his own height now. It gave him a slight shrug that could have meant anything. Then it motioned once more for Rumple to accompany him.

"I really do hope that at some point, you'll tell me the point of all this," Rumple said with a sigh as he followed his otherworldly guide to their next destination.

They were inside the shop again. Leroy, growing all the more agitated as he spoke with Belle.

"I'm in no danger," Belle was saying stubbornly. "He'd never harm me."

"Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't," Leroy said. "What out there isn't him anymore, sister."

"He's still in there," Belle insisted. "Somewhere. If I can reach him…"

Wild-eyed, Leroy reached for her. Then he seemed to notice the counter between them and thought better. "Sister, listen to me, we have to get out here now! It's coming!" When Belle still didn't move, he shook his head despairingly and turned, hurrying toward the door. He opened it, but slammed it shut almost at once. "It's here!"

Rumple wasn't entirely certain what sort of threat the town was currently facing, though something inside him told him that the answer was one he really ought to know. All the same, he hurried forward, interposing himself between the dwarf and the door, ready to defend Belle against whatever was out there. Instead, he suddenly found himself outside on Main Street. He whirled angrily on the spirit. "Send me back inside!" he demanded.

Then, he realized that the town was eerily silent. Above them, the night sky hung, a sky with neither moon nor star nor… cloud. How could it be so… His eyes widened and he lunged for the shop. "No! Belle, get out of there! GET OUT!"

An icy whirlwind seemed to blast through him and hover outside the shop, waiting.

After a moment, the door opened and Belle emerged, her face pale, but her eyes and voice steady. "Rumple," she said softly. "I-I know you're there. I know you're still fighting. You can't let the Darkness win. You're better than this."

Watching Rumple shook his head. "I'm not," he whispered. "Not really. Not without you."

Still, impossibly, the spiraling winds seemed to slow their approach. Belle smiled. "Rumple," she whispered.

Then the gale-force gusts roared and Rumple shrieked in horror, as the currents engulfed his love, blasted the flesh from her bones and reduced every building on the street to rubble.

They were standing in the clock tower, the icy air seeping in through the fractured clock face, as the winds howled outside. Rumple's face was buried in his hands, as hot tears coursed down his cheeks. Finally, he turned to the spirit, who was still hovering silently close by. "She knew I'd save her," he whispered. "She was that convinced I'd be there in the nick of time as I have been in the past. Why wasn't I?" His voice broke and he whirled on his companion, his face contorting with anger. "I wish you would have taken me back a bit further," he snapped. "Surely they must have come to me for help as always, only this time," he shook his head, his anger draining away again almost as quickly as it had flashed, "I suppose I turned them down. Another time I put my personal issues ahead of the collective benefit?" But there was something about it that didn't seem quite right, some obvious missing piece to the puzzle that was keeping him from seeing the whole picture. Something he just wasn't seeing right now.

His question had been rhetorical, but the spirit—his own height again—seemed to be shaking with laughter once more. "Well, what's so funny?" Rumple demanded irritably. "If I'm misinterpreting what I'm seeing, perhaps you might be so good as to enlighten me, hmmm?" He waited a moment. "Still not going to answer," he snapped. "I'm beginning to think that you, unlike your predecessors, actually enjoy tormenting me. And yet, it seems I'm supposed to learn something from all of this. He frowned. "What is it? That my end will not be a happy one? I've known that for quite some time. Unless…" His eyes narrowed. "There is something I can do to avert this, isn't there?"

He wasn't really expecting a response anymore.

"Well," he sighed, "you've been showing me how tragedy has touched others, better people than I ever had a hope of being. If it was to prepare me for my own position in this time and place, I suppose we'd best get on with it. Have I already fled for the outside world? Am I cowering in my cabin?" A tiny thread of hope seized him. "Am I hard at work trying to defeat this threat? Where am I?"

Shoulders still shaking with laughter, and now standing a head shorter, the spirit held out a gloved hand. Rumple took it, and as he did, the flowing sleeve fell back a half-inch revealing some sort of glittering hide beneath the cloak. Rumple raised an eyebrow. "Has disco made a comeback in this future?" he asked. "If so, I must say I'm in a worse dystopia than I could have ever imagined."

The only reply he received from his companion was a tightening grip on his fingers as the clock tower interior vanished once more.

They were standing at the town line now. A line of cars, trucks, SUVs, and even a few bicycles was moving steadily over it. Most of the vehicles had luggage strapped to their roofs and the bikers wore bulging backpacks. In the other lane, the one for incoming traffic, Emma, Regina, and the fairies—Blue at their head—stood clustered together.

"You must go now," Blue was saying. "We can hold him off for a little."

"Not long enough," Emma said. "You need us."

"Your family needs you," Blue countered. "Storybrooke needs you. You are the only one left who knows anything about the world outside this town. If its inhabitants are to have their best chance—"

"She's right," Regina said huskily. "Go, Emma. Look after Henry. Try to stay alive as long as you can." She smiled sadly. "It'll take him a bit longer to overpower a world without magic; he'll probably start on the other realms first. That gives you time."

"And when we do have to face him, he'll be that much stronger and I won't have my magic," Emma said.

"Neither will he."

Rumple didn't think he'd ever heard Regina sound that bleak before. Emma yes, but that had been before she knew who she was and what she could do. This Emma was one who had a full understanding of her abilities and knew with certainty that they wouldn't be enough.

Rumple turned to the spirit. "What are they facing?" he asked. "And why aren't I standing there with them?" His eyes widened. "Did it… kill me already?"

The spirit towered over him, laughing silently as it first nodded and then shook its head. Rumple turned his back in disgust. "You're no help at all," he muttered. Then his breath caught. "That force!" he gasped. "It's—"

As though the Blue Fairy had heard him, she gasped. "We're out of time!" she exclaimed. "Savior, go! Your Majesty—"

"Just try and stop me," Regina said with a ferocity that belied the fear in her eyes. "Go, Emma. Get Henry out of here. Now."

"NO!" The passenger door of Emma's yellow bug opened and a teenaged boy nearly tumbled out.

"Henry!" Rumple thought that everyone present, in or outside of a vehicle had just screamed the lad's name, himself included. Well, not his companion, of course, but everyone else.

Recklessly, Henry eluded his mothers' frantic grasps and charged down the road toward the dark maelstrom. "Grandpa!" he yelled. "Stop! Stop doing this! Please!"

Thunderstruck, Rumple turned to the spirit. "I'm behind all of this?" he gasped.

A nod, accompanied by an almost-negligent shrug.

The maelstrom engulfed Henry and continued its advance. Regina, Emma and the fairies raised their hands and electric light shot forth from fingers and wands. It wouldn't be enough, Rumple thought sickly. And was Henry…?

Rumple seized the spirit—his own height again now—by the shoulders and shook him violently. "What is that? What did I set in motion? How do I stop it? TELL ME! TELL—!"

The spirit's cloak fell back and Rumple's face twisted in horror as the first sound escaped from its lips. A high-pitched giggle.

The face of the spirit was his own.