Once Upon Another Time

by Anti-Kryptonite

"Kill me," Zoso hisses. "No," Rumplestiltskin decides. (Rumplestiltskin controls rather than kills, Bae negotiates rather than runs, Cora delegates rather than confronts, Regina cooperates rather than rebels, and still the curse is cast, the Savior comes, the boy believes, and worlds are torn apart by a father's love. How much really would change if one decision was altered?)

17. Quite The Common Betrayal

Chapter 17: Quite The Common Betrayal

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-Flashback-

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The clearing was barren. Green grass, dirt peeking though in several places, a few trees sprouting up from piles of boulders, but in the center, nothing. Not even a hint that water ran deep below the soil. Water that carried a legend nearly as old as the dagger's.

"Nostos," Rumplestiltskin muttered. When he blinked, the clearing faded beneath the image of a lake, deep and dark and populated by sirens. It was so immediate, so real, that Rumplestiltskin held his breath and waited for the chill of soaked clothes.

"It's there," Zoso confirmed, though it took a moment for Rumplestiltskin to realize that he was only talking about Nostos (the water that could bring back what one most wanted), not the sirens or the cold. "It's been, oh, centuries at least since anyone could dig deep enough to bring forth the waters, but this is the place."

Rumplestiltskin shivered and squeezed his eyes shut to ignore the sight of a sword swinging toward him, a siren transforming from brunette to blonde. The future tumbled like handmade balls through his mind's eye until the present was nearly hidden from him entirely.

"Nostos," he said again (it helped him focus the visions), and he saw water. Not a lake, this time, but a well—not here, he thought, but he didn't know why he thought it. He was standing in front of it and the well was his only chance to save who he loved and—

And it was gone. Once more, he stood in a clearing, alone save for Zoso, who watched him with clinical interest.

"They're getting worse," the Dark One observed. "You need to learn control."

"I'm trying," Rumplestiltskin snapped, wincing when he heard the whine to his own voice. But he was trying. It had been three weeks since they tracked down the seer who once threatened Bae with fatherlessness (three weeks since Rumplestiltskin killed her with his bare hands held over her flickering eyes, her heated palms; six weeks since he last held Bae in his arms, since he heard him say Papa and knew why he was here, why life mattered), and the visions only seemed to be growing more frequent, more overwhelming.

"You need a lodestone," Zoso said for the hundredth time. "Something to concentrate on to remind you of what's real and what's not."

"Have you ever possessed foresight like this?" Rumplestiltskin demanded. "No? Then don't think you can tell me how easy it's supposed to be!"

"Fine," Zoso said. Rumplestiltskin didn't need to see him to know he was rolling his eyes. "I might not have foresight—thank you for rubbing it in, Master of the Dagger, by the way—but I have lived a very long time and picked up some things here and there. But, sure, by all means, if you want to stumble through all alone…"

"I'm sorry." Rumplestiltskin sighed and rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes (he dropped them hastily, when he thought of the seer with her stitched-over face and her eerie eyed-hands). "I'm just…I'm so tired. Every night, when I try to sleep, I can't stop seeing all these possibilities. Snippets. Fragments. So quick, some so short, that I can't make out any of them. But they're so real."

Zoso stepped to his side, his head tilted. "It's because when you try to sleep, you think of Baelfire."

"I think of him all the time."

Purple mist flashed in front of him. A shadow creature (Rumplestiltskin swallowed back a yelp and pretended that shadow meant anything other than what it did: a childhood nightmare brought into the present, or, well, the future). A window. Unfamiliar children, a girl, two boys. An empty street. The smell of trash. Hunger panged in his stomach until he nearly groaned with it.

Zoso was still talking. "But you can't stop thinking of him when you're falling asleep. The visions react to your focus."

"But I can't understand them!" Rumplestiltskin cried. "Some of them show me a world without magic, only strange inventions and roads of black stone, all hazy and half made up of only impressions. Some show a world of…"

(Neverland. It would take eternities more before Rumplestiltskin wouldn't recognize that cursed place, and eternities beyond that until he could say its name without flinching.)

"A different world. A monster who collects Lost Boys." Rumplestiltskin hunched his shoulders. "I see Bae as a boy. Sometimes I know he's grown even though I can't see his face. Sometimes he doesn't know me. Sometimes he's… How can I make sense of it all?"

"You're not seeing one single future. You're seeing a plethora of possibilities. Whatever you decide to do here and now, Rumplestiltskin, will determine which of those fragments becomes the true future."

Weight like a mountain crushed his back. Rumplestiltskin wrapped his fingers in the trailing ends of Bae's shawl and stiffened his spine.

His son was worth it. Finding Bae, rescuing him (being his hero), would make all of this worth it.

(Even Milah? Her heart crushed in his palm, her eyes going vacant, her body tread under his heels liked dirt? Even the seer, as desperate as Zoso for an end, her hands turned from feverish to ice-cold in his grip, her last breath speaking out yet another foreboding prophecy for him, every bit as destructive as the hammer he'd once let swing?)

"I think we should make Nostos into a lake," he said as authoritatively as he could manage. "Water that can return to you what was lost can only be of use to us."

"Should I call the water up?" Zoso asked.

Rumplestiltskin frowned (ignored glimmers of himself on a pier, talking to a woman in a boat, something small and glistening in his hand, remembered anguish tightening his throat). "I thought you said that using magic to call up magical items could dilute their effectiveness."

"Ah." There was a flicker marring Zoso's usual flat expression. Rumplestiltskin would have loved to try to translate it, but he was currently being inundated with the image of a tower, a desk covered in scrolls, red ink splashed across them, a pit of betrayal opening in his chest (or was it in Zoso's chest? did the foretelling only relate to himself, or could he see through other's eyes?). "You remembered."

"Magic has saved my son's life countless times," Rumplestiltskin gritted. "Of course I listen when you explain it."

"Well, magic can have a diluting effect in specific circumstances. But Nostos's powers are so effective—does it really matter?"

"I don't know what we'll need it for. And we're not in a hurry." Rumplestiltskin looked away, guilt squeezing his chest as he saw stretching out ahead of him a line of candles lit for Bae's birthday, so many that his heart quelled in his chest at the thought of counting them, each one a solitary, lonely remembrance (his son always, always in the future, waiting for him). "A dam upriver, maybe an unusually high amount of rain this spring, some effective landslides…we can bring Nostos back as a lake without using magic directly."

Zoso hesitated. Rumplestiltskin tried very hard to keep his hands away from the dagger in his belt (the Dark One spoke so much more freely when they could both ignore the imbalance of power between them). Finally, he said, "That will take years. Maybe even decades."

"I know."

"You think Baelfire will still be lost by then?"

"Yes," Rumplestiltskin admitted. "At least, for us. But time moves differently in different worlds, right? Maybe it won't feel that long for him."

The flash of a tiny cave in Neverland's claustrophobic jungle, a coconut lighting the birthdays of countless years (two candles, twinned, in separate worlds, connected but so incredibly distant), a boy waiting, alone, afraid.

Rumplestiltskin keened, silently, in his chest, and looked back out toward the clearing to try to hide his distress. Zoso got angry when Rumplestiltskin grew openly upset, and the angrier Zoso got, the harder it was for Rumplestiltskin not to join in (the harder it was to retain his sanity beneath the deluge of endless possibilities, the absence of Bae).

"Maybe," the Dark One allowed, conciliatory. Patronizing.

"What does it feel like, to live forever?" Rumplestiltskin asked. There was a chill to the air, a nip to the breeze, and a layer of frost over the clearing, but he felt warmer with Zoso standing beside him (he didn't feel so isolated, so out of his depth, when he remembered there was someone with him on this quest).

Zoso was silent.

Rumplestiltskin told himself he wasn't disappointed, and wondered why the glimpses of the futures only rarely showed him the Dark One. Were their magics really so dissimilar? Or was the Dark One too hard to be pinned down, dissected and understood, by other, less dark magics?

He turned his head to look at Zoso, and just barely caught Zoso's slight recoil. As if he thought Rumplestiltskin were about to draw the dagger and compel the truth from him.

"You don't have to answer," Rumplestiltskin assured him, feeling sick.

Most of the time, he hated controlling Zoso. Hated having that power over a person. (Sometimes, though, oh, sometimes, there was a whisper threading through the back of his mind that called him liar, that reminded him he relished the power; that told the truth and made him realize what a monster he was for keeping the dagger always at hand.) Since the disappointment in Bae's eyes, that first year he wasn't helpless anymore, Rumplestiltskin had tried to keep his commands few, tried to remember to ask for advice or help rather than demand it. But since Bae had been taken from him…well, there had been so very many commands (so many crimes; murders), though not all of them had been delegated out.

(Did that make him the monster? It couldn't, it couldn't, he was supposed to be Bae's hero.)

"I don't know what it feels like," Zoso said abruptly. "This…well, what I do isn't really living, is it? The Dark One mantle has passed from one desperate soul to another, and though I feel the weight—the memories—of all of them…my life has rarely been my own. I've been so often commanded to sleep, or to do nothing, and so life slips away from me."

Zoso sounded only contemplative. Neither bitter, nor resigned, the sample factualness of it struck Rumplestiltskin like an arrow.

"Sometimes," Zoso hummed, "I feel old down to the very last ephemeral fiber of my soul. But most of the time, I feel…half-formed."

"I'm sorry," Rumplestiltskin whispered. Images, like lightning bursts, flashed across his vision: Zoso free, his dagger returned to him by force. Zoso slaughtering tens of thousands, cackling with insanity, his pointed teeth dripping blood. Rumplestiltskin weeping, alone. Bae lost and afraid and forever and ever outside of reach.

Zoso free, the dagger handed over willingly by Rumplestiltskin, and then simply vanishing. No death. No murder spree. No genocide. But no Baelfire either. No rescue. No heroic papa. Nothing but a lonely, starving death in this clearing, all will to move, to live, to keep trying, removed from him.

Zoso dead, the dagger in his chest and Rumplestiltskin's hand turning gold and the name etched across its blade transforming, elongating. The Dark One in every mirror he passed. Insanity like a stormcloud that followed him everywhere. Bae returned to him, but turning his back, shaking his head, repudiating, hating.

He should never have taken the seer's power, Rumplestiltskin thought. Except he needed it. Bae needed it, and so of course he'd had to. He just wished there was one good future to be seen and to cling to.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again as he chose to do nothing.

(I'm sorry for taking away your free will. I'm sorry for keeping you enslaved. For using you. For treating you like a weapon rather than a person.)

(I'm sorry I can't do this without you. I'm sorry I still need you. I need advice and instruction and magic. I need an anchor to hold me to reality. I need help because never once in my life have I ever accomplished anything I set out to do.)

"You know," he blurted out, as Milah's face (seared onto the backs of his eyelids) taunted him, and the seer whispered indictments, and Bae screamed for his papa to save him—as guilt scorched his insides, "when this is over, when we've rescued Bae…I'll give you the dagger."

Zoso laughed. A dry, wasted sound like bones rotting in a grave. Like he'd forgotten what the actual meaning of laughter was. "A grand sentiment, but that's a long time from now."

Rumplestiltskin looked away. The Dark One had no idea how long this might take. (Not that it would. Rumplestiltskin wouldn't let it take that long. He'd let these visions drown him and overwhelm him for as long as it took, no matter the cost on his sanity or his soul or his conscience, until he found a sure, quicker way to Bae.)

"Power corrupts," Zoso said in that dry whisper that was sometimes the only point of normalcy left in Rumplestiltskin's life without Bae's routines to give him direction. "You have a goal right now, something to give you purpose. Focus. Direction. It keeps you on the straight and narrow. But once that's over…the power of the dagger will own you. You'll never be rid of it."

"What if I promise?"

"You'll break it. It's nothing personal. It's just the way the dagger works."

"But I don't want to be a monster," Rumplestiltskin whimpered. He didn't mean for the pitiful truth to slip out, but his head was pounding, realities mingling and vanishing only to reappear, and it was a truth he feared he was losing sight of.

Slowly, almost gently, Zoso smiled a thin, bloodless smile. "You already are one." Before Rumplestiltskin could absorb that gut-punch, he added, "But so are we all in many ways. And if it means that I may yet get what I originally wanted from you, I don't mind so much."

Rumplestiltskin couldn't look at him anymore (couldn't face him). He stared out over the clearing that would one day, a decade or four from now, be covered by water with magical properties. Nostos would grow to lap against far shores, would house sirens and call to princes and inspire quests. And in some world without magic, in a place Rumplestiltskin could hardly imagine, this water would save the life of the person he loved.

He could see it. He knew it.

And if it could save Bae…maybe it could bring him back too (maybe it could erase forever all the glimpses of Neverland and Bae and Peter Pan that Rumplestiltskin was doing his utmost to deny).

"Don't worry yourself over it," Zoso said with a shrug. He even went so far as to clasp Rumplestiltskin's shoulder, a touch so brief that Rumplestiltskin almost thought he imagined it. "The truth is that I don't want the dagger."

Rumplestiltskin scoffed.

"No, I don't. It's been so long since I've possessed free will that I wouldn't even know what to do with it. And when I was my own, before the dagger…" Zoso's eyes went distant, his brow creasing, as if it hurt him to recall something so long ago. "Before the dagger, I didn't really amount to much. I didn't accomplish anything. All I ever knew was hunger and humiliation and desperation. That's what life is. It's all struggle and pain, and for what? Nothing makes all the trouble worth it."

"That's not true," Rumplestiltskin insisted. It couldn't be. The good parts might be small, like Nostos, almost impossible to see, but they were still there, and one day, they would grow and expand, all-important, powerful enough to bring him everything he loved.

"You're young," Zoso said dismissively. "Life—and the dagger—will cure you of that optimism sooner or later."

"I don't feel young," Rumplestiltskin sighed. "I feel so old. As if I've endured lifetimes. As if centuries have passed like days and days have stretched into eons. And yet, there's one thing that makes it all worth it."

"We're all good at lying to ourselves, aren't we?"

"No. Bae is worth it. He is." Rumplestiltskin stepped closer to Zoso, met his eyes, didn't reach at all for the dagger. "And not just for me, but for you too. You said you didn't amount to much, didn't accomplish anything—saving Bae will make up for all of that. If you help me save him, that will be worth any amount of lifetimes."

"He's not my son." Zoso narrowed his eyes, defensive, lashing out. "Maybe not even yours."

"I'm going to tell you a story," Rumplestiltskin said.

"Lucky me." Zoso rolled his eyes, but this wasn't the first time Rumplestiltskin had done this (nights when he couldn't sleep, days when he couldn't remember the right shade of Bae's eyes, moments when he needed the reminder, stories were all Rumplestiltskin had to cling to, and Zoso was his only companion now), and Rumplestiltskin didn't miss the way Zoso relaxed slightly. As if the stories soothed him as much as they did Rumplestiltskin.

"When Bae was five, our sheepdog was hurt. She caught her paw in a hole of some kind while running. I was afraid we'd have to put her out of her misery and tend the sheep ourselves, but Bae wouldn't hear of it. He was only a little thing, but he dragged that dog in by the fire, and he woke every hour during the night to give her water. He fed her by hand. He changed and washed her dressings, pounding away on the soiled fabric with all the might of his little hands. He healed that dog by the power of sheer love, I think, and laughed and laughed the first time she could run again." Rumplestiltskin took in a shuddering breath. "Bae doesn't know how to give up, I don't think. Any time there's a setback, he always just…finds another way. And he'll be waiting for us to do the same."

Zoso was silent as Rumplestiltskin tried to manage the turmoil of emotions the story had stirred up within him. A wind curled through the clearing and sent a shiver through Rumplestiltskin, but the Dark One was motionless.

"This boy of yours…" Zoso breathed out. "He's a determined thing, isn't he? I remember the way he tried to keep himself between you and me. Always interrupting us. Finding reasons to keep you busy."

Despite himself, Rumplestiltskin frowned. Had Bae done that? He remembered that Baelfire was often uneasy in Zoso's presence, but had he really hated him? But that didn't make any sense. Zoso had saved them.

"If something bad were to happen to him—like being kidnapped by a pirate—well, there's no telling what that determination might turn into." Zoso hmmed. "What he could be molded into.

"He knows I'm coming for him," Rumplestiltskin insisted (he did, didn't he? Surely, surely, Bae knew that Rumplestiltskin would never stop looking for him). "He only has to wait for me."

"The boldest souls often carry the potential of becoming the darkest…" Zoso murmured, so quietly Rumplestiltskin had to lean in to try to decipher the last of his words. He startled when the Dark One abruptly declared, "I will help you find your son, Rumplestiltskin. He is yours, after all, and no one is allowed to steal from the Dark One."

Relief rushed through Rumplestiltskin so quickly that he staggered. He hadn't realized what a burden it was, carrying alone the responsibility of saving his son, until it was halved by Zoso's promise.

"We can begin by flooding Nostos." Zoso leveled a calculating glance Rumplestiltskin's way. "Shall I divert a river or two?"

It was a test. Rumplestiltskin didn't have to be clever to realize that. Would he trust the Dark One? Was this a partnership or just a slave doing his master's bidding unwillingly?

"Go, please," Rumplestiltskin said, and Zoso smiled as he vanished.

Rumplestiltskin smiled, too, though it was a sad version. "A world away and you're still helping me, son," he whispered to the breeze. "Still turning the unlikeliest of us into brave heroes."

"Is that true?"

The tinkling voice, the chime of magic against the cold air, the glitter of sparkles that gilded the frost as a tiny star grew to a palm-sized woman—all of it startled Rumplestiltskin. Before he could even yell, he'd already drawn the dagger and was brandishing it at the woman.

The fairy.

He'd heard stories of them, tales of unlikely blessings and unlooked-for solutions dusted in fairy dust and granted desires, but he'd never seen one. Truthfully, he'd thought them nothing more than wishful thinking.

But here she was, azure as his nicest thread, bedecked in finery his eyes couldn't quite follow, the mythical wand held in her hand.

In contrast, the dagger in his hand felt like raw sewage. Rumplestiltskin was abruptly sure that his expensive clothing, his fitted boots, his luxurious cloak were nothing more than rags compared to her glamor. All the magic, the commands, the murders seemed, suddenly, to be etched over his entire being, filth and blood and his inner unworthiness transcribed into the open.

"What—what do you want? What are you doing here?"

The blue fairy smiled at him, soft as sugar, sweet as caramel, rich as everything he'd never been able to afford as a spinner, as far above him as the stars in the sky.

"I've come to ask for your help."

Nothing else she could have said would have shocked him as much.

"You… What? How could I help you?"

"That dagger you're holding." The fairy shuddered, lights sparking off her and falling to vanish midway to the ground. She hovered just high enough that Rumplestiltskin had to look up at her, his neck cricked uncomfortably. "It's evil. A darkness that has troubled this world for millennia."

Rumplestiltskin tightened his grip on the dagger and dropped his hand into his cloak. Something about the way her eyes darkened as she looked at the dagger made him suddenly eager to keep it out of sight. Good thing he'd made Zoso put wards on the dagger to keep anyone from swiping it out of his hands.

"But you can change all that, Rumplestiltskin," the fairy said, and she was brilliant again, so gentle and kind that he swayed toward her.

And then away.

(Kindness had never been a part of his life. Gentleness, freely offered, was never for him. It was only ever a mirage.)

"Me?" he asked. "What could I do that the fairies can't?"

"We can't touch darkness such as that," she said. "All we can do is try to contain it. But you…there's a spark of light still inside you that no other Dark One has ever had. And that means we finally have a chance. Do you want to save the world, Rumplestiltskin?"

Sweet words like seduction and a pretty face kept half concealed by the light she cast, dispelling any shadows—it discomfited Rumplestiltskin.

"I've never wanted to be a hero," he said.

They both knew it was a lie.

(All he'd wanted, left behind as a child and disdaining kindness in favor of the father he loved, was to be a hero that could save his papa. All he'd wanted, newly married and brimming with desire to change his lot in life, was to be a hero that could make his wife proud. All he wanted, as a father, was to be a hero capable not only of ending the Ogre's War, but of bringing his son back from whatever world he'd been forced into.)

"You could be the greatest hero our world has ever known. All you have to do is help us contain the darkness inherent in that dagger."

"And what exactly does that entail?" he asked, suspicious and distrusting. He wished Zoso were here, inside his skin, strengthening his spine, making him taller, whispering words of direction in his ear.

"We've created a safe place for you. It required much sacrifice." Sadness gilded the fairy's words like false gold over copper. "Much dwarf blood was spilled, and my sisters gave up years of their hard labor, but we've fashioned a room where the Dark One can be contained. Where his evil can no longer reach out to stain the world."

"A cell." Rumplestiltskin swallowed. "That's what you made: a dungeon without a key."

"The Dark One is immortal. If you, as the Dark One…" The fairy paused, studied him closely, then smiled a smile that made Rumplestiltskin's hackles rise. "If whoever possessed the dagger were to step inside that room, the Enchanted Forest would never need to fear the villainy of the Dark One again."

"Where was this cell a decade ago?"

The fairy frowned, just for an instant, but Rumplestiltskin caught it. "What?"

"What about two years ago? When the Dark One terrorized the Frontlands and forced us to sacrifice our children for a war that would never end. When families shivered to hear of the Dark One, and parents were strangled merely for looking at him wrong. When there was nothing more terrifying in all the lands than mention of the Duke's puppet. Where were you then?"

"We do not condone violence," the fairy said, soft as sunlight, fragile as spiderwebs. Useless as a green bean when he needed a magic bean. "We cannot force the Dark One into this room, and there has never been a Dark One before who's managed to retain any of his humanity."

"So here you are."

"Here we are. Rumplestiltskin," the blue fairy flew closer, mesmerizing and aglow and nothing more than an illusion, "this would make you a legend. They would tell stories of you for a thousand years. Mermaids would carry news of you to every realm. Crowds would chant your name. Families would have you to thank for never having to fear the way you once did."

"But I would be trapped in a dungeon."

"You would be a hero."

"And my son?" Rumplestiltskin met the fairy's tiny eyes. "What about him? Would your fairies go to save him? Would they scour all the realms and tell the mermaids to quit carrying stories and bring my son back to where he's safe instead? Would your fairies give up years of their labor, would the dwarfs shed their blood, would the rulers of this world work together, to rescue Baelfire?"

It would mean he couldn't save his son. It would mean Rumplestiltskin wouldn't be the first thing Bae saw.

But if it meant that Bae was saved sooner (if it meant that Rumplestiltskin and Bae never had to see Neverland or Pan), then maybe it would be worth it.

(Especially if Zoso were still outside the cell to let Rumplestiltskin out when Bae was safe again.)

"Rumplestiltskin…" There was something sad in the fairy's voice. "I'm sorry, but Baelfire has his own path to tread. Heroes must make sacrifices."

Rumplestiltskin's grip on the dagger tightened until it branded every detail of its hilt into his palm. His vision flashed red (not with possible futures; with fury). His blood steamed. His bones creaked.

The world tilted all around him, bowing away from his rage. (Kill, destroy, command, the dagger whispered.)

"Sacrifices," he repeated with a trill. "My son is not a sacrifice. The last person who asked me to think of him that way died screaming no matter that he was a duke. And if you're the good guys—you're asking me to give up my son to possible torment. To death. To thinking his father doesn't love him. While the Dark One…well, this dagger gives me everything I need to find Bae. To rescue him. To be his hero."

The fairy's blue darkened as she floated higher. "If you choose to save your son rather than an entire world, you're not a hero at all. You're a monster."

"Better a monster than a fairy," he spat, and lunged for her. She darted away, looking so betrayed, so offended, so innocent, that Rumplestiltskin wanted to tear her wings from her back and drown her in the trickles of Nostos. "Better a father than an eternal prisoner."

"Bae is beyond your reach," she stated as if simply saying it so made it reality (his visions disagreed; it would take a long time, so much longer than he wanted, but he would see Bae again). "But here, there are many sons, many fathers, whole families, who will suffer at the Dark One's hands."

"Let them burn," Rumplestiltskin said coldly. "Let this whole world burn for all I care. All that matters to me is my son! If it takes me a thousand years, if it means cursing the whole of the Enchanted Forest, if it requires crafting another Dark One—I'll do whatever it takes to save Bae!"

She opened her mouth, but Rumplestiltskin swiped at her with the dagger, and that was apparently too much for her.

"You could have saved him already," were her parting words as she flapped away. "If you weren't so much of a coward, you could have gone through the portal after him and saved both him and the world."

She was wrong (a father and son going through a portal together could end in nothing but tragedy), but the words stung anyway.

Rumplestiltskin stared at the dawning stars so hard his eyes watered (glimpses tumbled across his sight: a prince and a princess; golden curls; a woman with dark eyes and a name that broke; a scroll with a curse scrawled across its parchment face; a little boy with red hair and red cap and red eyes, tears spilling freely) and waited for Zoso to return.

Fairies are not to be trusted, he decided. But Zoso…well, Zoso returned with the beginnings of a lake and information about a pair of slippers that could traverse worlds. Zoso had made him a promise and was there at his side every day and had begun to teach him magic even Rumplestiltskin could accomplish.

Yes, maybe Zoso could be trusted, after all. For Bae.

And maybe for other things too.

---

-Storybrooke-

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Branches tear at her hair, twigs trip her up, thorns catch against her clothes, and still Regina runs. Details leap out at her like flashes of clarity granted by lightning bolts, there then gone so quickly she can scarcely register them. A tree with roots so gnarled it resembles a labyrinth in vertical form. A dip in the ground she narrowly avoids only to stumble a moment later over something she doesn't see. The shawl in her hands is snatched at by a bush here, a bough there, unexpected thorns, but Regina holds on with everything she is and keeps it tucked close to her chest.

The pirate's pursuit dwindles, then fades, and still Regina runs, desperate to get away (desperate to divorce herself entirely from her mother).

(But there's nowhere to run far enough for that.)

"Regina!"

Regina startles back at the person abruptly in front of her, and narrowly avoids colliding with David by falling backward. He catches her hands and yanks her toward him to save her from crashing to the muddy ground.

"Are you all right?"

"My mother," she stammers. "She's at the town line. She has—"

"We know. Emma and Gold are on their way there now. They just dropped me off because I saw someone running through the woods. I didn't know it was you. Are you all right?"

"Jones was right behind me," she warns him, but David shrugs it away with a pat of the gun once more holstered at his side.

"I hope he does show up. But just in case he's turned back, I need to catch up with Emma and make sure she's not outnumbered."

"Didn't you say Gold was with her?" Regina asks, so bitterly that David (hero that he is) looks disconcerted. "I'm sure he can take care of himself."

"There's no magic here," David says (as if Regina needs the reminder). "Besides, Emma's with him."

Ah, yes. Of course. Emma Swan, the beloved savior. His daughter.

Henry's mother.

Bile churns up from Regina's stomach to nudge against the back of her throat, and she swallows heavily. Henry. She can't believe she hasn't seen him since the hospital. Can't believe that he's really okay (but of course he is; the Savior did for him what Regina couldn't). Can't believe that she's had to waste time with all these plots and schemes when she could have been hugging him, holding him close, making him soup (making sure he knows she loves him more than Emma ever can).

"You okay?"

Regina's always liked David. Oh, sure, she went through her jealous periods (shepherd boy is not so different from stable boy, after all, but where Regina's love was cruelly stolen from her, Snow's was miraculously returned to her time after time after time), but David has always possessed both a kindness and a steel to him that Regina (envies) admires. Even here, cursed to be so much less, he did everything he could to try to help her. The fact that in this moment, clearly worried about his newfound daughter, he pauses to make sure she's okay reminds her that before Storybrooke, she wasn't entirely alone.

"Do you want to wait here?" David asks her. The prospect is so tempting that Regina nearly sobs at the chance. Actually does shed a few tears when she has to turn it down.

"I'll come with you," she says. "Mother… Well, I should see it through to the end."

And so she does.

She sees Cora snatch for a dagger with such unholy glee in her eyes that Regina nearly vomits at the thought of the family resemblance between them. She sees Rumplestiltskin, unmoving as he cradles Belle's body, face his death without flinching.

She doesn't see David pull the trigger. But she hears it. It reverberates through her, echoing and ricocheting until her entire body trembles. (David always did promise he'd save her from her mother.)

And she sees her mother fall to her knees, to her side, to her back. Regina's legs shake beneath her as she runs forward, straining for her mother (she doesn't want this, she does, she doesn't, she's not sure, it's too soon to decide). Cora doesn't see her. Her hand twitches toward the dagger—

And then her eyes go wide. Still. Unseeing.

The plotting, the scheming, the calculating, all finally silenced.

Regina stops mid-step and stares. Movement is beyond her. Thought escapes her. She's encased in numbness, turned statue-like as she tries to process the barrage of emotions that should be overwhelming her…but isn't.

She doesn't feel anything.

No grief.

No triumph.

No sorrow over all the chances they no longer have, the opportunities she always dreamed of, to truly bond with her mother.

No relief to finally be free of the terror, the manipulation, the pressure her mother inflicted on her 'for her own good.'

Instead, she can only think of a moment she hasn't recalled in years. A moment when she was young, so young she had to tug on Cora's skirts for attention (so young she wasn't too scared to do so), and Cora had smiled down at her. Had stroked her hair. Had called her beautiful and hugged her close to her side. She'd smelled of rich perfume and looked like a queen, and young Regina had been so glad this was her mother.

A single moment of warmth, even affection.

It's like a crack down the side of Regina's heart. She's spent so long hating her mother that it's revelatory to remember that there had been tiny moments like that one sprinkled throughout her life. All gone now.

And nothing is different. She waits, but nothing changes.

Regina still feels scared. Unprepared. Outmatched. But more importantly, she still feels, beneath all that, the undercurrent of rage she doesn't dare admit to (lest everyone think her Cora come again). She still feels soiled and broken and evil.

Except now, with Cora dead, Regina has no one to blame for her villainous tendencies. No one…save herself.

She's no savior. No hero. She's nothing but a second-rate villain ripe for the breaking moment when all meek masks will fall away (when Henry will see her as she truly is).

Gradually, Regina becomes aware of her surroundings again. She sees Emma wrestling Hook into the back of her car with handcuffs. She watches David (no sign of guilt in his eyes; no hint of vindication now that he's finally saved her from her mother) bend over Gold's wrecked form, his mouth moving, his hands soft on Gold's back until Gold throws him off and curls in deeper around Belle.

"She's not dead!" Gold spits, and then David's on the phone, and soon there are ambulances and Ruby driving up in David's squad car, and so many people ready and more than willing to rejoice over the death of the Heartless Queen.

Except, according to Rumplestiltskin, she hadn't been heartless, not since they'd arrived in Storybrooke. Which meant that all the secret fantasies Regina harbored over the years about returning Cora's heart to her chest and finally being bestowed with all her mother's love (apologies and weeping and hugs as warm and soft as that moment she just remembered) were nothing more than pretty lies she told herself at night.

Even her delusions aren't spared by the latest of Rumplestiltskin's victories.

Regina tightens her hands, cloth between them, and only then remembers the shawl she still holds. She should return it. Rumplestiltskin will need something to hold onto when his love finally bleeds out. Glancing up, she sees David hold Gold back as the paramedics load Belle onto a stretcher, surrounding her, their movements quick and sharp, their voices staccato. It doesn't look like it will be long.

"Hey, Regina?"

Startling, Regina meets eyes with Emma Swan for the first time since…since Henry ambushed Emma (showed Regina just how much he longed for a truly heroic mother rather than her) in Granny's.

"I just wanted to let you know that…Henry's okay."

"I know," Regina says. Does Emma really think that she'd be standing here, messing around with villains and heroes alike, if she believed Henry was still dying? "Congratulations on breaking the curse."

There's something uneasy in Emma's expression, but she only says, "Well, I just thought you should know. That book you gave me…it was really helpful. I was wondering, though—who wrote it? Where did it come from?"

"It appeared here when we did," Regina says with a slight shake of her head. She can't bear to say Gold's name right now (to admit to more of his influence on her life; to confess that she worked with him even knowing they might end up here, with her mother dead and Regina still a monster and everything still just the same). "A backdoor, if you will. Curses are intuitive, and always willing to be broken."

Emma blinks once, again, again, then she shakes herself and says, "Well, I should get Hook into a cell."

"What are you going to do with him?" Regina hears herself ask.

"He just tried to kill Belle," Emma says, her voice hard. "He's staying locked up."

"For how long?" Regina tilts her head. "Is there going to be a trial? Or will we do like in our old world and let the rulers judge him? And if so, which ones?"

"I don't know," Emma says slowly, obviously disconcerted. "But there's no way I'm letting a kidnapper and attempted murderer on the loose to do it all over again later."

A kidnapper (like Regina, helping to drag Belle out here). A murderer (like Regina, with Graham's blood still thick on her hands and the smell of Maleficent's ash clogging her nostrils).

Emma loves Henry (how could she not?). She won't want anything between her and reclaiming the son she gave up without a second thought all those years ago. It wouldn't take much effort at all for someone (for one of Cora's countless enemies) to convince her to lock Regina up and throw away the key. And Rumplestiltskin, Regina's only ally…

Well, he's preoccupied, isn't he? Regina turns and sees David helping him into the back of the ambulance with Belle, watches it go tearing off into the night, Gold's shawl still tangled in her hands.

"Where is Henry?" Regina asks. Her voice sounds as if it comes from a million miles away. "I want my son."

The pause is slight. But oh so marked.

(Emma doesn't want to tell her.)

"I asked Mary Margaret to keep him safe."

Snow White. Regina's step-sister. Her friend. But Emma's mother (If you had a child, Regina, you could do anything. Anything. Like stand between her stepsister and her grandson. Like take the only person who really loves Regina away from her and gift him to the Savior who's her daughter, whose love Snow will naturally do anything to win).

Ice grows over Regina's heart, spreads through her veins, concentrates in her fingers. She wishes Rumplestiltskin had brought magic back before getting distracted with a meaningless girl.

"I want my son," Regina says again, unyielding.

Another pause before Emma backs up half a step. "Right. Right, of course. I'll…I'll call Mary Margaret and have her meet us at—"

"The hospital." Regina folds the shawl into a tiny bundle and stuffs it in her coat pocket. "And I'll need a ride there, thank you."

The drive over is stilted. Hook tries several flirtatious forays, most directed to Emma, whom he seems to think he has a shot of winning to his side. Regina's seen more improbable things, but she thinks of the implacability of Emma's voice when she called him a murderer, and doesn't think she'd bet on the pirate. The stop at the police station is quick, though it feels endless, and Emma's back in a matter of moments.

"Mary Margaret said she'd be there," Emma says. She sounds awkward. Regina doesn't care. There's a tension building in her, a cord pulled ever more taut, making her muscles ready themselves for fight or flight (and Regina's tired of fleeing, of hiding, of pretending; she's ready to fight).

She meant to give the shawl back to Rumplestiltskin. It's the whole reason she stole it from Hook. It's why she told Emma to take her to the hospital. Rumplestiltskin promised, long ago, to give her an escape from her mother, and he's held up his end of the bargain. She should give him the shawl.

But…

She heard enough, between Cora and the pirate, to know that Rumplestiltskin has a son, and is searching for him, and that this shawl belonged to him.

And why should Rumplestiltskin get his son if Regina doesn't get hers?

Why should the man who watched her mother die without shedding a single tear for her get everything he wants? Whether Belle lives or dies, Rumplestiltskin has mourned her already and is well used to loss (perhaps more familiar with it than its opposite), and he will recalculate his aims quickly. He'll be off to find his son or whatever else it is he plans to do here, and he'll forget all about Regina.

But Regina knows Rumplestiltskin. The imp self-projects. Badly. All the time. Any person he meets, good or bad, he finds something similar to himself in them, or perhaps sees only the antithesis, and reacts accordingly.

And if he's looking for his son…if Regina needs help keeping her son…he'll cast them in the same boat.

He'll help her, just like he did before.

They can still be allies.

"Listen," Emma says just as she parks them in front of the hospital. "I guess you…you knew, somehow, this whole time, what was going on. And you did what you could to help me."

"Someone had to tell August where to bring you on your twenty-eighth birthday."

"August. And you. Right."

Regina squares her shoulders. "I just wanted Henry to be free. He doesn't deserve to grow up in a cursed town filled with people made into weak shadows of themselves. So save your thanks, okay?"

"I'm just trying to say that…" Emma swallows and visibly forces herself to look at Regina. "I know this must have all been really hard on you, and I'm…I'm sorry about Cora."

"No, you're not." Regina draws a finger down the condensation on the car window. "But neither am I."

It didn't change anything. Her mother never loved her. It isn't Cora's influence that darkens Regina's heart until her rage is ready to erupt, damn all the consequences.

"Okay, then."

"Wait." Since Emma's already half out of the car, Regina exits herself and moves around the car to stand just in front of the Savior. "I hope you know that the deal August and I made included the understanding that you acknowledge Henry is my son. Breaking the curse doesn't change anything. Your name was the one written through the curse, your parents' True Love the seal placed on the end of the curse, and that's the only thing that makes you a savior. But it doesn't make you a mother. I'm the one who's taken care of Henry, explained every question, calmed every nightmare, soothed every fever. He's mine, and I won't let you take him away from me."

"I love him," Emma says defiantly. The lines around her mouth, her eyes, tighten until she looks like Snow at her most stubborn. "And he loves me too. Do you really think it's a good idea to freeze people out of his life that really care for him? You may have adopted him, Regina, but I'm in his life now and I'm not just going to disappear now that you got what you wanted."

"You think this is what I wanted?" Regina barks out a laugh. "You think any of this has anything to do with what I want? Look around you, Emma—you have August, and two parents willing to sacrifice anything for you, and a town prepared to venerate you. All I have is Henry. Are you really so selfish that you'd steal him from me?"

"I'm not trying to steal anything! But are you really so scared that you'd try to kick me out of my son's—"

"He's not your son," Regina cries. "I'm his mother!"

"Emma!" David bursts through the hospital's front doors and jogs down the steps toward them. "Did you get Jones squared away?"

It's only reluctantly that Emma breaks their stand-off, and Regina feels wrung out and deflated without the brimming tension keeping her upright.

She feels that fury boiling closer to the surface (ready to turn her into the next Cora, her mother's Shadow).

"Yeah," Emma says after a minute in which David looks between them curiously. "Everything's fine. Is Mary Margaret here yet?"

"No, but we can wait in the lobby. I don't feel comfortable leaving Gold alone right now."

"Belle?" Emma asks, a line between her brows.

David's face falls into their usual careworn lines (Regina wonders, sometimes, if he regrets ever leaving his sheep farm; it was surely simpler there). "It's not looking good."

Regina hangs back as they troop into the lobby. The shawl, in its compact shape within her pocket, bumps against her thigh with every step, reminding her that she needs help.

Or at least, she needs a threat, one large enough to make Gold think he'll lose his son too.

Once upon a time, Regina was the person that David would go to with that concerned look on his face. He'd stand close to her and bend in to hear her and search her face as she answered as if he could see her sincerity in visible letters written over her eyes. But now, he seems to have forgotten all about her, his attention fixed on Emma to the exclusion of all else. And for all that she stands with her hands in her back pockets and keeps her expression guarded, Regina can tell that Emma's soaking up the attention.

Well enough. That makes it easy for Regina to slip away and ghost down the corridors. One of the (few) benefits of keeping her memories this whole time is that she knows who people were before as well as who they are now, which makes it so much simpler to use them.

Regina Mills knows that Sydney Glass always cleans the hospital during the night as part of his probation. Princess (Shadow) Regina knows that the genie has always held an unhealthy fascination with her (it made it easy for Cora to frame him for Leopold's death, and though she'd seemed surprised by the genie's final wish, she hadn't quibbled over using his mirror-self by way of leveraging his creepy feelings for her daughter). Together, those two pieces of information make it easy to track him down and slip him a skeleton key and a promise of rewards should he do one tiny little favor for her.

If the part of Savior is already taken (if being a hero is beyond her), then Regina knows what part is left for her to play.

Let the pirate roam free (murderers have to stick together, after all) to threaten Rumplestiltskin and distract Emma and her parents. Let Sydney take the fall for releasing him if it comes to that (at least then she'll be sure he's not stalking her again) and leave Regina free to reunite with Henry and begin planning an escape for them (she's tired of Storybrooke, ready for a new beginning).

"Mom!"

That name, spoken in that little boy's voice, directed her way soothes all the shivers still working their way across Regina's skin from dealing with Glass. The feel of a small (though taller every day it seems) body catapulting himself into her arms, wrapping himself as far around her as he can go, burying his face against her side…this is what she needed.

This is the feeling (of joy, triumph, relief, even grief) that she's been waiting for since watching her mother's hidden heart cease beating. This is everything she needs and all that she wants and worth all the sacrifices she's made (the crimes she's committed) today. (That fury eases, dulls, next to the feel of her son in her arms.)

Finally, for the first time, she doesn't feel like she's waiting for anything. She feels as if she's attained everything she ever wanted.

"Henry," she murmurs into his hair.

"I missed you, Mom! Where were you? It was Operation Cobra stuff, wasn't it? I knew if you were busy, it'd be to save all of us."

"What?" Regina keeps her hands on Henry's shoulders, but moves so she can see his face.

Save.

"Are you okay?" Henry's eyes blur with tears. "I heard about Grandmother. Is it…is it okay if I kind of miss her?"

"Yeah," she says hoarsely. "Yeah, Henry, it's okay. I kind of miss her too."

Henry leans forward to hug her again. "I'm sorry you had to be alone during all that. You know you could have come and got me, right?"

Regina makes her voice firm. "No, I needed you to be safe."

"But you went, even though it was dangerous." Henry looks up, his eyes very serious, and Regina reminds herself just how good her son is at eavesdropping (he probably knows more about what's gone on today than anyone except Rumplestiltskin). "You were brave, just like in the book."

"I'm…not a very good hero." Guiltily, Regina thinks about the ex-felon she just sent off on a prison break. The shawl she's keeping tucked away. The deal she made with Jones earlier. "Sometimes I don't think I'm a hero at all."

"All the heroes think that sometimes," Henry says without a flicker of surprise or unease. "I guess you have to doubt yourself sometimes just to make it more powerful when you do the right thing."

The shaking that's been afflicting Regina from within since she held a knife and felt it slide through Graham's ribcage (since she called for Rumplestiltskin and made a deal for power that was, as she knew far too well, addictive) finally eases. Regina wraps herself around Henry, breathes deep of his little boy smell (nearly buried beneath hospital astringency), and etches this moment over every other soft moment (over every nearly forgotten memory of Mother's random fondness or Daddy's ineffectual love) because it matters more.

"Henry," she says, "you know there's nothing more that I want than to be your mom, right?"

Henry frowns up at her. "You are my mom."

Her heart breaks and knits together stronger over the chunk Cora took of it.

Maybe she's not a hero. Maybe she's not even a villain. But she's a mother (and she can do anything).

"Right. Then I need you to stay with Mary Margaret and David tonight, okay? There's something I have to do."

"Can I come with you?"

"No, not this time. Soon, though. I just need to…I need to save someone. One last bit of Operation Cobra. Then I'll come find you and we'll be together without having to worry about Grandmother ever again, okay?"

Despite his clear reluctance, Henry nods. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course. Tomorrow."

"Be careful," he commands her, finger pointed at her and everything (always the parent, the brave one, the hero, while she follows in his shadow).

"I will. I love you, Henry."

"I love you too."

Regina doesn't watch him leave (she's not that strong); she turns and strides away herself, deeper into the hospital.

What she means to do is find Rumplestiltskin and return his son's shawl to him.

What she does is head for an exit door that's always confused her. Her visits to the hospital have been few and far between (occasional forays only, to break into Whale's files and try to see just how much of David's sickness was curse-related and how much was belief-related), but every time she's noted the exit door in the middle of the hospital, far from any exterior walls. The keypad alongside it seems like a lot of security to bother with should there be an emergency and everyone need the closest exit.

Regina types in a few different codes (the one for Cora's safe in her office, the one for the vault in the cemetery; Cora's birthday, her father's, her own), before she finally lucks out (the date they arrived in Storybrooke; Regina should have known: Cora's ultimate triumph). The door swings open and Regina slips through.

It could be a trap. Rumplestiltskin knows how to set his own distractions and texting her a mysterious message about Cora's secret hidden beneath the hospital while Regina was standing next to a hostage he cared about is a pretty obvious one. But Rumplestiltskin, though he's been cruel and merciless and manipulative, has never been wasteful with her. A trap like this seems too contrived, too haphazard, for the Dark One.

The steps lead down to a desk. There's a nurse standing there, watching her come with an impassive expression. Behind her is a long hallway lit only dimly by a few flickering lights. The place smells of dank rot, harsh chemicals, and terror.

(It's a dungeon every bit as much as those in Cora's tower.)

"I'm here to see the prisoners," Regina half-says, half-guesses.

The nurse shrugs. "Suit yourself."

It seems far too easy. Regina's back prickles as she walks past the nurse. When she risks a look back, though, the nurse is busy with some papers on her desk. Whatever her expectations about what Cora hid down her, they fall a bit at this sign that Cora obviously didn't care if Regina came here or not. But Cora had looked almost worried when Regina confronted her about whatever is hidden here. She hadn't disputed Rumplestiltskin's assertion that whatever's down here could control Regina.

So she keeps going. She passes doors, so many that by the time she thinks to count them, the first are already out of sight. Finally, around a corner with a dead end in sight, Regina sees a sign of life in one of the cells. The door is locked, but the blocked window built into it rattles and hums. No, something beyond it hums. Something inside the cell. Someone.

Regina expects her hand to shake when she reaches out to lift the shutter, but it doesn't. She's so surprised by this that she's more focused on her hand than she is on the face staring back at her from just inside the door. Startling back, the shutter falls with a clatter. Regina's heart races in her throat. Her pants echo loudly in the empty hallway; the humming has stopped.

Slowly, carefully, Regina pulls open the shutter again.

A girl looks back at her. Pale and short with colorless hair and eyes far too blue for her dim surroundings.

Regina recognizes her even through the signs of trauma and neglect.

"Please," Aurora says. Tears spring to life in her eyes, refracting their blue until the hallway almost appears lit by the diffused light. "Please, help me. Will you let me out?"

Regina jumps backward again. The shutter's clatter falls like stones to the floor.

Make sure that sleeping beauty doesn't get to be happy. Maleficent's final condition rattles through Regina's head. She can still feel the residue of poison on her hands, hear the dragon's snuffle as Maleficent voluntarily breathed in her death, smell the reptilian char.

This has nothing to do with her. Regina's never had any dealings with Aurora. And haven't Phillip and Mulan been searching endlessly for the sleeping beauty throughout the curse? Now that they have their memories back, they'll find her in no time. Aurora won't be here much longer, and Regina doesn't even have to break her deal to soothe her conscience.

But that means she sent Henry off for nothing—worse, sent him off with Snow and Charming, which means Emma. Which means she practically handed him gift-wrapped to the Savior, and for what?

This was all for nothing. Rumplestiltskin was obviously just playing one of his tricks again, moving pieces on the board without ever explaining the point or purpose.

Regina turns back the way she came, and that's when she hears it: a slow, thumping sound from the last cell. Ignoring the rattling of Aurora's window and her dull shouting, Regina edges toward the dead end. She passes a cell with the door wide open (Belle's, she assumes; she's heard the rumors that Belle wasn't alone down here), and then encounters a door with six deadbolts all up and down it. The window is rusted nearly shut. Regina struggles with it for only a moment before she begins undoing the locks instead.

The rhythmic thudding stops.

To the music of Aurora's calls for help, Regina throws open the locks and then tugs on the door. It doesn't budge, as if the hinges have never had to work before. Throwing all her strength into the effort, Regina pulls the door open wide.

Inside, the darkness congregates. There's a bed built into the wall, made of cement, empty of mattress or blankets. There's no window in this cell. Nothing but a box barely taller than a man, barely wider than arms spread wide. And atop the bed, shrouded in shadows, is a body.

No. Not a body. A person. Whoever it is, he's still alive. One of the feet twitches, thudding against the wall, mark of life. Of presence.

There's something that makes Regina want to run. Something inside her that begs her to slam the door closed, throw the locks, run out of this place, and never look back.

(But Henry thinks she can save people. He thinks she's brave. He thinks she's a hero.)

Regina's hands shake so badly as she pulls out her cellphone and fumbles for the flashlight that she nearly drops it. When she sees the form illuminated (so familiar, even after all these years), she does drop it.

It taps against the floor, the light scattering wide. A flash of dark hair, darker than the beard matting his face. Strong hands, once calloused and strong and so, so gentle. Eyes staring straight up, dark and soft and beautiful in a way Regina had never seen before (or since). The limber form she once knew, the muscles she traced with her fingers, the suppleness she dragged her lips along, have wasted and withered.

But still she knows him. She loves him.

He didn't run. He didn't disappear. He wasn't stripped of his heart and then buried in an unmarked grave. He never left her, not of his own free will. She didn't get him killed. He wasn't anointed with the dust of his crushed heart.

Instead, he's here. Breathing. Hardly conscious of her. Barely able to move. Alive.

"Daniel," Regina whispers.

(Maybe Cora really did love her after all.)

---

Storybrooke is a ghost town. Down every street, along each avenue, no matter which direction August looks, he sees no sign of anyone. As if everyone has disappeared. Vanished to another world. Returned home without him (and he'll never see his papa, Emma, again).

"Where is everyone?" Neal asks. He's slouched low in the passenger seat, peering out the window as if afraid he'll be turned to stone should anyone catch sight of him in return. "I thought you said this town was actually an entire world. Weren't there still people there when it was brought here?"

"There are people—and I'm pretty sure some are from more than just our world." August grimaces at the sound of his own irritation.

He's not impressed by the car Neal forced them to borrow (if the definition of 'borrow' includes jimmying open the door, hotwiring it to start, and completely ignoring all of August's protests about leaving his motorcycle outside Neal's apartment building). He's not convinced he really needed to be the one driving to get them past the town line (Neal's in a bit of denial, August has decided, and doesn't like to admit that he's as much a transplant as August himself), and he's as jittery with impatience to see his family as he is terrified to have to face them. Above all, he's in pain and trying not to show it (perhaps he's in a bit of denial too).

But that doesn't mean he should snap at Neal. Right now, Neal's the only hope he has.

Smoothing out his voice, he says, "Maybe they're all hiding. The Heartless Queen doesn't have to hide who she is anymore."

"Oh, that's great," Neal drawls. "I'm already so glad I came."

"Emma will fight her and win," August says. If he's faking the confidence in his voice, he's not doing it for Neal's sake. All that stuff about the Final Battle that the adults had spent their time pre-curse debating has never seemed so real as now, when he envisions Emma alone and outmatched against all of Cora's magic.

"Emma shouldn't have to fight anyone," Neal mutters. "Are you planning on helping her?"

It's a simple question. So simple it stumps him (and since he's turning into wood so quickly already, he doesn't appreciate the premature muteness).

For what feels like his entire life, August has focused entirely (when not distracted by the pleasures of the flesh) on getting Emma to Storybrooke. On helping her be open to the idea of fairytales. On pretending she won't hate him when the truth comes out. On reuniting with his father and even Jiminy, who'd once seemed so annoying but now, in hindsight, seemed like he'd be a great friend.

None of his thoughts (his plans, his hopes, his calculations) have gone beyond that. But the Spinner had warned them all that the curse wasn't the only obstacle they'd face. He'd prophesied something much worse.

"Of course I'll help," August says after a pause that stretches like a siren. "If Emma will let me."

"Why wouldn't she let you? She calls you her guardian angel, for crying out loud. If she'll let anyone help her, it'll be you."

"Emma's never been good at accepting help." August takes a hand from the wheel (it's not like there's any traffic anyway) and clamps his fingers over his leg. The pain doesn't abate, and he can't even register the weight of his hand on his thigh. Driving will soon be a suicidal venture. "And by now, if the curse is actually broken, she probably wants nothing to do with me."

Neal rolls his eyes. "I know the feeling. Why did you have to tell her I betrayed her? If you hadn't—"

"If I hadn't, she'd have gone after you. Told you she was pregnant. Maybe even kept Henry. And then she'd never have come here—or are you saying that you'd have encouraged her to come to a magically cursed town?"

Tension fills up the interior of the stolen car until August can hardly breathe (or is that tension in his chest only because his lungs are petrifying, his ribcage hardening?). Neal's face tightens until he looks thunderous, his hand moving to the door handle as if he plans to jump free.

"There's no magic in this world," he grits out. "You said even here there isn't."

"There isn't." When Neal sags in visible relief, August frowns at him. "What's wrong?"

"A lot, man!" Neal exclaims. "For instance, what's wrong with your leg?"

It was only a matter of time until someone noticed. August has been ignoring the growing heaviness of his leg for days now, but at Neal's attention, he actually feels them turning wooden. With effort, he manages to heave his foot onto the brake. The car squeals to such an abrupt stop that Neal has to throw up his hands to keep from crashing into the dashboard.

"I'm sorry!" August exclaims. "I…I think you should drive."

But Neal isn't looking at him anymore. He's staring straight ahead, in the direction of the school, where people spill out of the front doors and tables have been set up in a line on the lawn.

Something in August's chest loosens at this proof that he isn't trapped in the wrong world yet again.

"What's going on?"

"Damage control," August says.

She did it. Emma broke the curse.

"Everyone's remembered who they are." August looks away from the distant crowd and rubs at his leg compulsively. "Now they're all looking for their loved ones."

"Right." Neal's tone is so flat, his eyes so opaque, that August can feel the weight of untold stories hovering in Neal's wake, threatening to smash him (maybe it's why he can't stop running). "And where's yours?"

August closes his eyes (opens them in a hurry at the thought that he might calcify with them still closed, trapped forever in the dark). "The hospital," he decides. He didn't think it wise to tell Neal, in the same conversation when he learned that he was a father, that his son was meant to be cursed to eternal sleep in order to galvanize Emma into action. But he knows Emma. If Henry's at risk, she'll be right there at his side. She wouldn't leave him (like Geppetto made Pinocchio leave him).

There's a moment when August thinks he might not be able to stand. When unfolding himself out of the car seems like a herculean feat. Fear tightens his throat, makes it hard to breathe (wood doesn't breathe at all, not like a real boy does), but he forces himself to calm, makes himself bend and turn and twist and straighten as flesh and blood does. And he makes it.

Neal's halfway around the car when he stumbles to a halt. It's dim, dawn only beginning to color the world, but August would swear Neal's face turns white.

"What is it?" August looks over his shoulder, but he sees nothing.

"I…" Neal sets his mouth in a grim line. "I need to…"

"Neal?"

"I'll meet you at the hospital." Without even a look back, Neal jogs quickly out of sight. Tempted to call him after him, August reminds himself of the crowd of people a few blocks up, and makes himself be quiet.

"Looks like I'm still driving," he tells himself.

It's a bit of a harrowing drive, but he makes it (though it's a good thing not many other people in Storybrooke are feeling confident enough in their cursed memories to drive right now). When he finally spills out of the car, staggering back to lean against the door, August promises himself he's never getting back inside it again. Not until (if) he's been fixed back to a real boy.

The stairs up to the lit hospital take him several minutes. August doesn't mind. He's hoping Neal will jog out of the shadows to catch up with him. He doesn't want to have to face Emma without Henry's father at his side to draw her ire.

But he should have known. Miracles are limited, and he's already had his (he wished on a star and saw a Blue Fairy and received his geas). He's maxed out his quota.

There are more people here. August avoids meeting anyone's eyes, hunched in on himself as he wanders the hallways. Maybe he's paranoid, but it feels like his waist is thickening. It's hard to lift his chest with every inhale. Harder to bend his elbows.

He's not going to make it. All his worries about having to face Emma, and none of it will amount to anything. By the time she finds him, he'll be nothing more than a carved piece of wood, expertly crafted to resemble a man (but just a facsimile of one, an almost, a picture, a hollow shell filled with an old man's wish and nothing good of his own).

His eyes burn. August closes them and forces himself still. The hallway in which he stands is quiet, out of the way; he's standing near a window, out of anyone's path but where, presumably, some sunlight might fall. He wonders if he'll be aware of it, if the warmth will penetrate through his dead exterior, if the traces of magic here will keep him just barely alive.

He wonders if his father will ever find him. Will recognize his handiwork (changed and altered by time and temptation, but still bearing the stamp of Geppetto's workmanship). Will weep at what has become of the boy he thought could be selfless and brave and true (but is actually none of those things).

"August?"

Her voice. So familiar, it sinks deep inside August, warmer than the sunlight just gilding the window. It cuts through the ambient noise and slides right through him. Strangely, he finds himself relieved (or maybe it's not so strange: no one wants to die alone). She's found him. She truly is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, hunting down her family no matter what comes between.

He hopes she will still claim him as her family (as her guardian angel) now that she knows the truth.

There is just enough real left about him that he can turn to see her striding toward him, golden curls spilling down her back, badge gleaming at her hip, surprise turning to anger on her features.

"August, where have you been? You can't answer your phone?"

"My phone?" August feels a frown, though he's unsure if it translates to his actual face. "I…it died. I haven't been able to charge it for a while."

He's lying (he always lies). But how could he talk to her over the phone as if nothing were different? As if he could still be her guardian angel? (As if she weren't his?)

"August—"

"You broke the curse." His voice sounds strained, but he makes himself smile for her. She deserves a smile.

Of course, he usually only smiles when he lies. He can't blame her for remembering all her irritation at the sight of this latest ruse.

"You knew about it. All this time—our whole lives—you've known about this place. About the curse and—and the Savior, and my parents—you knew who they were, you've always known, and you what? Just lied about everything?"

"I'm Pinocchio," he hears himself say. The sound of this—the truth—is so staggering that if he weren't currently made more of wood than flesh, he might have fallen to the floor at the utterance of it (all his strings snipped for the last time). At the sound of the one thing he's never been allowed to say, even once, in this world (names have power, he told her that once). "Lying is what I do."

Emma flinches, as if he's slapped her. As if he's hurt her.

And he has. He knows he has. He's always known that no matter what he did, it would never be enough.

They both came here through the enchanted wardrobe. He knew where he really came from. She didn't. And so they could never be the same. Could never really be true partners or allies. They're not actually siblings. He's not really a guardian angel (just the unworthy receiver of all Geppetto's unconditional love). The only thing that's real, that's always been true, is that she's the Savior (Storybrooke's, sure, but also his).

"Everything you've ever done, everything you…it's all been to get me here. To manipulate me into breaking this curse. All those phone-calls. The stories. Your writing. All that talk about fairytales. The 'presents' you gave me for my birthdays—you just needed me to be some stupid savior. You've been working with Regina behind my back, making deals about Henry, pushing me into a corner like I'm some kind of puppet—"

August can't help his derisive laugh. It sputters out of his mouth like some kind of deranged sob. "Don't talk to me about puppets," he says. "I was made a puppet, born a puppet, taken advantage of as a puppet, and even in this world, that's still all I've ever been."

"And what does that make me? Your toy? Your—"

"My strings," he murmurs. He wants to cry. He can't believe there aren't tears streaming down his face (wood doesn't weep; tears are for the living, and even his wood is long dead). "The strings that keep me dancing and playing into the story."

"You know what? Screw this." Emma stands up straighter. Her expression closes itself off. She's walling him out. Blocking him from every vulnerable part of her. Shutting him away so that he can never touch her again (so that she'll never care again, never say "August?" in that quietly happy way she used to answer his calls with). "You're right. All you are is a liar. Not a guardian angel. Not anything but a self-serving, selfish boy."

August stares right at her. "You're right. You're absolutely right. When we first got here, before we were separated, I used to come to your crib every night. I was the only one who could get you to sleep. I'd wrap you in that blanket of yours and rock you to sleep. Then, after they'd sent me to bed, I'd sneak back and hang over the side of your crib. Every night, I told you my story. It was my way of reminding myself who I really was. The only way I knew how to help you. But then one day I realized…it was a fool's errand. I couldn't even get them to foster us out together. There was no way I could stay with you and protect you like I'd been charged to do. And that's when I realized that telling you the story of Pinocchio was stupid. All it did was teach you all the ways I'd eventually let you down.

"I'm not real," he forces himself to say (to finally, really acknowledge). "August is just a name I stole off the calendar when they took us into custody. And Pinocchio…he's nothing but a block of wood. So you're absolutely right. They never should have sent me with you. They never should have entrusted me with anything, let alone you, Emma. Because I was never going to do anything but fail you."

There are tears in her eyes (because she's real; she's worthy; she's selfless and brave and true; she's never needed him; they could have sent her through the wardrobe alone and she'd still be standing here, bold and stalwart and victorious). "You were supposed to be my guardian angel," she says, so quietly, so sadly, that if he could still move, he'd sweep her up in a hug (and he wouldn't regret it even if she took a swing at him for it).

"I'm sorry," he chokes. "The only reason I was sent was to protect you and prepare you and help you—and I couldn't do it."

"No." The voice behind him is so familiar that August feels himself rooted in place. Helpless. Terrified. Afraid to look and see that his father really is there. Afraid that he won't be. "That is not the reason I sent you to this world."

"Marco?" Emma says, but August knows that it's not Marco (the kind employer who took a strange drifter under his wing) who moves into his line of vision.

It's Geppetto. The famed craftsman, renowned for his skill with wood, lauded for his exquisite detail and lifelike works. The childless father who yearned for something real and finally set out to create for himself what he most wanted. The lined face that is the first thing Pinocchio ever saw, his arms the first embrace Pinocchio knew, his open forgiveness the first thing Pinocchio learned to depend on. The one person (before Emma) he would die for.

And the one person August is the most terrified of, now so close that August could reach out and touch him if the consequences of his sins weren't imprisoning his arms at his sides.

"I didn't send you here to look out for Emma," Geppetto says. "I sent you here to save you. Of course I cared about the newborn princess, but you…you are my son. You had only just been made real, and you were so young, so precious…how could I let you be cursed to another yet another prison? I made a deal with the Spinner to send you through the wardrobe because I wanted you to be safe. I love you, Pinocchio, my son."

He's supposed to be a guardian angel. He's supposed to be a hero. He's supposed to be good.

He's none of those things.

But Geppetto still calls him son, and that's enough to make up for everything else (almost).

"Papa!" August can't breathe through the shame, through the bark crusting over his chest. "I'm sorry. I tried to be brave and selfless, but I'm scared and I don't want to be wood again. And all I could tell in this world were lies. I'm sorry I disappointed you."

"Oh, my boy, you didn't. You could never." And Geppetto hugs him. He shakes and he's warm and his arms are still as delicately controlled as ever—and August wishes he could feel it. He wishes on every blue star there is in any world that he could hug his father back. But more than that, he wishes he could take away the pain he put in Emma's face, blatant as she stares at him over Geppetto's shoulder.

He loves his father, but for most of his life, it's been Emma who's his family. Emma he thought of when he grew tired of the transient life, when he grew bored with ever and always being the stranger. Emma who he loves enough to die for (but that isn't his fate; instead, he'll die for his failings).

"I'm sorry," he tells her over his father's shoulder, and maybe it's because finally, he's telling her nothing but the truth. Maybe it's because even with a limited supply, he gets a dying wish too. Whatever it is, Emma softens and swallows back the lump in her throat.

"You did protect me," she says.

He can't see anymore. The world's gone fuzzily gray, his eyes useless blue stones set in a carved face, but he can still hear Emma (and it's the sound of her voice that's always been home to him).

"I never felt completely alone, August, because I always had you. You've always been there for me, as much as you could be. And sure, maybe you're as crappy a guardian angel as I am a Savior, but we get the job done in our own messy way, don't we?"

"Emma." His mouth barely moves, but he needs to say this. "You don't have to be the Savior. Just be…Emma. That's all I want."

"August—" she says—

—and—

—he's—

—wood—

—and—

—a—

—minute—

—or—

—a—

—lifetime—

—passes—

—Papa—

—Emma—

—he—

—blinks—

—and purple fills his vision. Smoke engulfing him, waking dormant terror of fire, but this isn't smoke.

It's magic.

It tingles through his pine flesh, burns in his jeweled eyes, wakes him and given him life (thought and feeling and regret).

August lifts his arms, wraps them around Geppetto (hanging off of him, weeping into his shoulder, calling his name), and tries not to cry—and fails.

Because he's still made of wood, his fingers blocks, his eyes cold stones, his flesh porous and unfeeling. He's still a puppet without strings. Still a failure. A liar. And now his uncanny wooden state warns everyone who sees him just how selfish, cowardly, and deceptive he really is.

And as if to prove that, their little tableau is interrupted by the arrival of August's very own scapegoat.

"What was that?" he demands until he stumbles to a halt as he takes in the three people standing in this quiet, out-of-the-way area.

Geppetto looks up. August tenses. Emma blanches.

"Neal?" she gasps.

And August thinks that maybe, in a minute or two, Neal might envy him his senseless body.

---

He's dreamed this before. Dark dreams of danger (because of him), of enemies converging, seeking weakness, catching up his, blood spilling over his hands. Blue eyes losing that strange, special light that keeps them looking his way. Voice forever silenced (like the bell Jefferson named her). Nightmares unending, driving him from sleep to rise in the night and sit at his wheel and focus on things he could actually accomplish, the person he could still save.

Rumplestiltskin stares at the red coating his hands, staining the gold handle of his cane, marring his once-pristine suit, and wonders when he'll wake up.

The fluorescent lights glare down on him, buzzing in his ears, so strong he fancies he could reach out and snatch up the electricity, bend it to his will, send it gently, so gently, along Belle's skin, cauterizing wounds, stopping the bleeding, healing torn flesh and compromised heart. He wonders how many utterances of his name it would take to build up enough near-dead magic for him to summon up that purple smoke he once saw hundreds of times a day.

"Rumplestiltskin?"

Ah, that's one. But the shiver of power fades too quickly.

"Mr. Gold?"

No. That one doesn't work at all. No shiver, no buzz, nothing but the reminder of his constant prison (his, it was designed for him, so why is Belle the one paying the price?).

"Rumplestiltskin." Something about this invocation of his name (something about the lack of fear in Prince Charming's voice, and the way he lets his hand fall on Rumplestiltskin's shoulder) catches his attention. "Dr. Whale has news about Belle."

Dr. Whale. What a joke. This is what Belle's life depends on? A man from a world so drained of life it holds no color, no joy, and no happy endings? A man whose only claim to fame is his insane attempt to conquer death and the bumbling mistake his hubris produced?

(Of course, better him than Rumplestiltskin. Or better yet, no one at all. No one decides my fate but me, she once told him, when he asked if her father knew about the deal she'd made with him.)

It's long past time to wake up. None of his other nightmares have ever descended quite so far as this.

"I'm afraid there's little I can do," the macabre doctor says, still nearly colorless. "I was able to remove the bullet, but the internal bleeding is severe. Her heart is overworked."

A mirthless smile quirks Rumplestiltskin's lips. Overworked. Of course it is. Belle follows her heart, always, leads through impulse and empathy before all else, extends compassion when everyone else would turn their backs, offers kindness (devotion) to monsters and villains. Where Cora's heart was so unused it might have easily doubled for a newborn's, Belle's heart has been overextended in ways that couldn't help but tax her.

And now, all her kindness is repaid.

There are more words, of course. The science Dr. Frankenstein reveres is never simple, never as effective as he pretends it is. All Rumplestiltskin needs to know (all these nightmares would ever allow) is that Belle has been placed in a medical coma, and there's no way to know if she'll ever wake up.

"Like a curse," Rumplestiltskin mutters.

David's prattling on, something about hope and belief and patience; his usual staples (the kind of thing that only works for those arbitrarily appointed the heroes). Rumplestiltskin brushes him aside, ignores Dr. Frankenstein, and follows the trail that hums against his skin even more strongly than the buzz of the lights. It leads him to Belle's room, to glass walls (like a glass coffin) and a bed with a princess laid atop it (awaiting her valiant prince) and the realization that maybe this isn't a nightmare.

Maybe it's a dream.

There is magic here, after all. Just a touch, a faded echo of it, but here. Growing stronger with every invocation of his name, with every touch of imbued magic expended—every True Love's Kiss that takes place in this transplanted town. And as he well knows, True Love is magic so strong, so awash with its own power, that it cannot be simply dissolved. That power must go somewhere, must build and build, feeding on itself, stored in the fissure between worlds, just waiting to be unleashed. If Rumplestiltskin could only tap that…could draw it forth…could wake it and use it in service of Belle...

(Or there's another way…another power waiting, lurking, building…another course open to him.)

It's not actually Belle laying on that bed anymore, after all, is it? It's his little mouse instead. He saw her wake in Belle's eyes, as she fell backward over that glittering (poisonous) line. Saw that knowing in the valiant princess's eyes fade into the blind trust of the little mouse.

The Lady Belle knows what a mistake it is to love the coward he truly is.

The escaped prisoner Belle hasn't yet learned that putting her trust in Mr. Gold is the wrong thing to do. For all that he wrote their story out and listened to her read it aloud to him in her slow, beautiful voice (for all that he tried to warn her that trusting him would bring her to no good), she still agreed to stay away from the library as he'd asked her. She still swayed so close to him before leaving for the night, still looked up at him so soft and open, as if she wanted him to incline into her until their lips met and parted only to meet again.

Maybe…maybe she does love him. Maybe it's enough to work.

(It has to. It must. Because if it doesn't…if he has to decide between Belle's death and the dagger, between her and his son… No, this has to work.)

The voice in the back of his mind screams as Rumplestiltskin drifts nearer and nearer Belle, his eyes cataloguing each of her features (she's so pale, so wan, so drained, so lifeless, but so must Snow White have appeared to David once upon a time). The voice sounds suspiciously like Zoso's, so for all that it reminds him a gunshot isn't a curse, others' True Love can't always be harnessed for his intents, only Emma's kiss could work here and that isn't True Love so much as a magical loophole sealed through magic no one else had ever been able to bottle before…for all the truth the voice whispers, Rumplestiltskin will never listen to Zoso. Not again. (Not when last time, and the time before, and who knows how many times before that, it always ended with a knife twisted in his back.)

"This will work," he tells himself (drowns out the whisper of better sense). "I love her. She…she once loved me. And if I can tap into the True Love of all the reunited couples here in Storybrooke, it could heal her."

Right. If this were a dream rather than a nightmare.

(But he knows better, doesn't he? It's been centuries since Rumplestiltskin has dreamed. Lifetimes since he's been able to imagine anything but the worst.)

Rumplestiltskin sets his cane aside and places a trembling hand over Belle's. He thinks of another world, of Belle's first morning when she served him burned toast and undercooked eggs littered with cracked shells. She'd been so unapologetic, despite the tremor she couldn't quite hide. She'd stared him straight in the eyes and said it was the best she could do, but if he let her bring a cookbook from home, she'd learn to do better. Whatever flaw she possessed, whatever weakness others have imposed on her, Belle's always been so willing, so able, to go beyond them. To do better. To be more. To not be constrained or controlled by anything other than her own mind.

Rumplestiltskin bends until he can smell the antiseptic on Belle's skin, the astringent soap in her hair, the newness of her sheets. He thinks of the second night the Belle of Storybrooke ventured to his pawnshop. So careful around him after his near-breakdown when she asked him who he was. So tentatively happy when he invited her upstairs for tea. She didn't recognize their cup, but she handled it so gently anyway (she didn't remember him, but she treated him so kindly nonetheless). And when she told him that she only knew her name because he'd given it to her, Rumplestiltskin had been forced to clamp onto the table tightly enough to break it just to keep him from scooping her into his arms and holding her so tightly she could never be parted from him again. She's always been so able to break through all his defenses, his plans, his better sense, and dance her way into his heart until he forgets how impossible a happy ending is for them.

"I love you," he whispers (to both Belles, to the her that is true within both versions of herself).

And he kisses her.

Fool, Zoso cackles within him. Your plan was nothing more than a fragile thread and some habitual delusion. You think she really loves you? You never had a chance of tapping into anything but your own stupidity.

Rumplestiltskin opens his eyes (tears spill from the brims to splash against her cold cheeks), and feels his heart crack clean through when he sees that nothing has changed.

Belle doesn't wake. She doesn't sigh. She doesn't scream. She does nothing but lay there and continue to die.

(Because of him.)

"Belle," he pleads, a broken whimper that reminds him of the useless, helpless, powerless cripple he once was. Before a dagger. Before the Dark One. Before he realized just how far he'd go to protect the ones he loves (that used to be only Bae, his precious boy; but somehow, in some magical way of her own, Belle has won an immovable place in his heart too, God help her).

Bending over Belle's hand, Rumplestiltskin blots out the fluorescent lights, the hum of magic, the whisper of memory. "Please, Belle," he whispers into her palm, secrets like the ones she's always kept so well for him. "You have to wake up. You have to be okay. You've always wanted me to be a better man, and I…I can't be that without you."

He's been here before. Sitting at the bedside of his loved one, praying to any power in the universe, wishing on every star, demanding a miracle. He knows how this ends.

Without the dagger (without the Dark One), Belle will die, just as Bae would have died in the Ogre's War.

Already, he can feel the pulse in her wrist turning sluggish. The machines that wreath her bed beep faster, glow with more red than green.

She's going to die.

And it's his fault. He could have killed Cora a thousand times, could have exiled her to any world, could have kept her heart and squeezed it to dust, even in this magicless world, the first time she dared utter Belle's name. But he did none of those things. He let Cora live, he helped her with her revenge, he gave her back her heart—and of course he had reasons for all those things, but intent is meaningless.

Rumplestiltskin might as well have struck Belle down himself.

After all, he nearly did before, didn't he? He'd thought it, considered it, imagined it: ripping her heart from her chest and sacrificing it for Bae. He'd had to break it instead, when he made her hate him and sent her out into the world without any protection whatsoever.

He chose Bae over her, and he can't regret that because it saved her life—but not for long enough. Not good enough.

And now…can he really do it again?

"I need you to tell me what to do," he says.

Belle says nothing.

You know what you have to do, Zoso whispers.

"You're not Zoso," Rumplestiltskin reminds himself. The voice is nothing more than memories and his darker side, not the Dark One he controlled for centuries.

(But it could be. It might be. All he has to do is take the dagger. Go to that well in the woods. Drop the True Love potion into the Lake he and Zoso brought back together.)

He wishes the voice were Zoso's. He wishes Zoso were here right now, ready to tell him what to do, give him direction, offer him advice, begrudgingly dole out helpful lessons. He wishes he weren't so alone.

But wishes never come true. Nightmares never end. And Bae isn't here, hasn't been here for three hundred years. It's just him, and Belle, and soon, so very soon, it will only be Rumplestiltskin.

And Rumplestiltskin's never amounted to anything on his own.

"Help me," he breathes out.

Bae's out there, somewhere, and for all the curses and portals and town lines between them, Rumplestiltskin's been promised that he will see him again.

But Belle…she has no one. And he's never seen her in any of his visions of the future. And if she dies here, there will never be hope of a reunion. Dead is dead. Nothing changes that.

The Dark One is her only hope. After all, the Dark One can heal her with a wave of his hand (and a price, one Rumplestiltskin will willingly pay). All Rumplestiltskin himself can do is weep uselessly in the corner.

(Never again.)

Rumplestiltskin sets Belle's hand delicately against the rough sheets (he'll have Dove bring warm, silk bedding; Belle deserves only the best). He drops another kiss to her brow (for himself, really; for courage and strength and a reminder of everything he cannot bear to lose). He walks out of her room (he calls Dove, who will be here within moments to guard her door; none of his enemies will get through to use her against him again, especially not Zoso).

It's a simple matter to take his car, still parked in the lot, and drive toward the library. Though he'd planned to have Emma take him there, they'd only gotten halfway there before he'd changed his mind and directed them to his shop instead. It's been a long time since Rumplestiltskin was stupid enough to walk into a battle with all his weapons in one place.

This time, though, despite the images of Bae flashing in front of his eyes, Rumplestiltskin makes it to the library, up the stairs, and into the clocktower.

For the first time in nearly twenty-nine years, he holds the dagger in his hand. Strange, to think that once he'd held it every day. Wore it everywhere. Touched it as necessary. Commanded another's very soul with it. Here, he feels nothing save a vague trickle of unease at the name etched across its blade.

Hurriedly, Rumplestiltskin wraps the blade in a scarf (just an ordinary, everyday scarf; not the shawl the pirate stole from him) and shoves it in his breast pocket.

Pausing for a lingering glance at Belle's apartment (he carries no misguided hopes that she will ever invite him in after she wakes up to realize he got her shot; and especially not when her memories are returned and she realizes anew how much he deserves her hate), Rumplestiltskin reminds himself what he's doing this for.

Bae's still out there, and one day (soon), he will see Bae again (will have to answer for his crimes, and atone for his weaknesses, and try to explain to his son why it took him so very long to rescue him), but Belle's need is more immediate. His son has been waiting for centuries (Rumplestiltskin's heart keens); he can wait a while more.

(And maybe, maybe, if it takes long enough to find him, Rumplestiltskin will never have to tell him what a monster his papa became.)

The drive to the footpath leading to the well simultaneously takes an eternity and no time at all. Before he has quite come to terms with his own decision, Rumplestiltskin finds himself already limping his way to the summit of the hill. He doesn't want to do this. It's worse than any nightmare he's ever dreamed. He never planned on doing this. The threat of it was always supposed to be enough.

Funny, isn't it? For all those times he thought himself a slaver, keeping Zoso chained to his will, it was really the other way around. The dagger (the whispers, the constant temptations, the darkness spreading out to contaminate his own heart) was really in control the entire time. Zoso whispered and hinted, insinuated and taunted, manipulated and bullied, and in the end, it was him pulling the strings all along.

Coming to this world was supposed to be an escape. A new start. But now he'll have to face the Dark One anyway.

You're a coward, the voice whispers, and it's not Zoso (it's never been Zoso).

It's him. The worst parts of himself, awoken by the darkness of the dagger, growing stronger every year without his boy to anchor him.

I'm a coward. I don't want to face this. I don't want to see the Dark One, not once, not ever.

But his tracking spells were trampled beneath the pirate's feet. His key in the form of Bae's baby shawl was stolen from him. Even Belle's cup, the last reminder of any good he might have retained, is nothing but splinters and shards.

Magic is the only way to save Belle (he saw it, long ago, that this well would be the only way to save the person he loves).

The only way to find his son (he saw it, long ago, that this well would bring him what he lost).

And he's always known this would have to happen. He can lie to himself all he wants, but he's known, known since he felt Zoso's betrayal in every cell of his body, that one day there would be a reckoning.

The True Love potion burns in his hand, sharp counterpoint to the cold blade in his other hand. Two halves of the same magic: one good, one evil. One necessary, the other just as important. He needs them both for all that he longs to simply throw them away and never look back.

"I am devoted to you," Belle said, and how can he repay that by abandoning her yet again? How can he let her die when she's the only bright point in his life?

"It'll be you and me. Just us," Bae once said. "We'll get to live the life we've always wanted."

But that won't happen now. Not with the Dark One between them. It had taken Zoso to point out what Rumplestiltskin had been so blind to, after all. Bae had never liked the knife. He'd always wanted them to be rid of it. He'd been happiest when the Dark One was nowhere around, happiest when it was just him and his papa.

I'd do anything to make you happy, Bae, he thought.

Anything. Except sacrifice Belle (again).

He's failed his son once, again, and now again.

"I'm sorry," Rumplestiltskin says—and he drops the potion into the well.

It spins, end over end, glass shining both from the light reflecting off it outside and inside. The potion itself seems to gleam deeper, more intense, rich with possibilities.

With damnation.

It disappears with a splash. Barely a second later, purple smoke erupts from the well and spills over onto the ground. Instinctually, Rumplestiltskin flinches back, but it's useless. The magic envelops him and surges for the town, covering every inch of ground, straining for the sky, coating all of Storybrooke in the very magic that gave it birth (dark and light, the darkest of curses and the truest of loves; Storybrooke wouldn't exist without either, without both).

Rumplestiltskin can't see the future here (or at least, he couldn't; who knows now), but he knows what the last nail on a coffin sounds like when it's hammered in.

Zoso's won after all, just as he always predicted.

Bae will never be his now. He'll hate Rumplestiltskin. He'll despise him. He'll run on his own and never look back.

Because for all that Baelfire loved Rumplestiltskin, he's always loathed the Dark One.

Rumplestiltskin breathes in the purple smoke. Feels magic fill him up, swelling and strengthening, straining against the confines of his no-longer-mortal body. The pain in his ankle fades. The ache in his muscles recedes. The clarity of his vision sharpens, his thoughts razor-edged, his bloodstream crackling with power enough to make the utterances of his name seem like nothing more than static electricity.

Why did he hesitate so long to bring back magic? What possible reason did he have to avoid this power? It can do nothing but make him better, braver—make him matter. Of course he'll find Baelfire, and Baelfire will love him, will forgive him, will be happy to be with his father once again. And Belle will live; he can win her back, can prove to her how much he loves her.

Everything will work out. He has all the power in the world to ensure it. Magic may come with a price, but at least it comes. At least it answers his call, and grants his wishes, and drives away his terror. It makes him strong. Powerful.

Everything he has always dreamed of being.

Nothing can stop him. The power is like elixir in his bloodstream, courage in his heart, strength in his bones.

"I'm coming, Bae," he says, lowly. Purposely. "You'll be all right, Belle."

In his hand, the silk covering falls away from the Dark One's dagger to reveal the name branded over its silver-black flesh.

Rumplestiltskin.