Deals were careful things. There was an art to dealmaking, especially when it included things of great importance; children, life and death, money. He had found in his lifetime that the key to making the sort of deals he offered was to do it quickly. Leave the mark with no time to think about it or the consequences. Overwhelm the poor soul with all the "what if's" and terrible regrets he could think of. Make them believe that there was no other choice but the one that he offered. It should be salvation to them, something they took because in that moment they believed they'd be foolish not to.

He'd never taken any numbers or bothered to do the statistics, but if he had to guess he'd say that since he became the Dark One, ninety percent of his deals had followed that pattern. The other ten percent was the category he found himself in today.

Nervous, jumpy, perhaps even a little sad; all were emotions he confronted in himself as he prepared to make a visit once more to Ruth's farm. David's father had died years ago, not long after he'd located James on Pleasure Island. He knew the woes of the family, for though he'd taken James to George and felt sure he was making the right choice, over the years the Seer had pushed him to continue watching the child. Now it was obvious why. He knew David, he knew the way he thought, what made him tick, the kind of man he was. He'd seen it all.

After the battle with Bo Peep the family had fallen on hard times. Though the warlord didn't often bother them these days, bills had. They'd sold off most of their land, done away with the barns and even well-cut fences in order to make end's meat. Still, other than their monetary woes, they were happy. David was happy.

And now, he was to be the bearer of bad news. Now he had to tell the mother that the son he'd taken from her years ago had died. This was a deal unlike any other he'd ever. Unlike others, this one was going to require time. Time he didn't have. Prince James had died yesterday morning. He'd made his deal with George last night, promising to deliver the boy to him by this day. David had been out in the field with the sheep nearly all morning, and now it was midafternoon. As the Dark One, he was conscious of the fact that he was running out of time to get him there. As a father, he knew there wasn't enough time in the world to tell a parent their child, a child he had taken, had died…and then convince them to give him the other.

When he arrived, the pair of them failed to notice him even though some of the sheep startled at his appearance. Mother and son were on the other side of the crudely made fence, talking intently about exactly what he needed them to be thinking about…money.

"Mother, please," David stressed. "As poor as we are, love is one thing I can afford. I will find a way to save this farm, but I won't do it by marrying for riches. When I marry, I want it to be because I choose to spend the rest of my life with someone I love."

The look Ruth responded with was one of sympathy. She reached out and cupped her son's cheek in her hand, gently at first, then gave him a couple of taps, meant to resemble half-hearted slaps. "When are you going to learn? You can't have everything."

What an ironic choice of words. Love and the farm…odd how what he was here to sell would lead to both!

"Or perhaps he can!" he announced, drawing their attention to him and striking a pose. After all, he wasn't meeting them for the first time, but this was undoubtedly the only time one of them would remember him. He gave a small laugh as David's face twisted in shock and then confusion. Ruth's reaction, however, was enough to remind him that he wasn't here because of a laughing matter. The woman paled, her jaw dropped, and while David's look was someone who was startled in a prank, the look on her face was one of absolute terror.

"Dark One…what are you doing here? What do you want?!" With little warning, the woman had grabbed her son's staff and taken two strides over to him. He didn't move or even flinch, merely let David vault himself over the fence and throw his arms around her.

"Mother! Mother, stop, what's happening?!"

Ruth was just as feisty as he remembered her, and smart too. Even after David took the staff from her, she never took her eyes off of him. She suspected something, but he doubted it was what he'd actually come here to say.

"I'm afraid I come bearing ill tidings," he announced, straightening his face and looking her in the eyes. This was the part of the job he did not relish at all. "Prince James has died."

The words took her no time at all to digest. In fact, her face paled so fast that he was certain she'd probably lapped up every bit of information she could on the Prince over these last few years, storing every little grain of fact as if it was gold. This was not something she wanted to store away, though he was certain she would until the day she died. Her reaction outdid anything he'd seen of George last night, betraying to the world the true parent between the two. Fiesty as she was and he'd always known her to be, she lost it all in that moment. She placed a hand over her heart and the other just below her belly, where the boys once resided safely and fell to her knees. He said nothing as David went to her side. He did nothing but remain stoic. He was cruel, but he wasn't so cruel as to disturb a woman who had just found out her child had died and was in mourning. For he knew that there truly was nothing in the moment that would help her. Nothing but time.

"Mother?! Mother, what's wrong? What's wrong with her?" David questioned of him as she sank further to the ground.

For the first time in a long while he felt true surprise throw him out of balance. "Oh dear," he muttered, looking at the woman, knowing she was incapable of answering. "It would seem you kept to your deal of silence and never did tell him, did you?"

Suddenly all this got far more complicated than he'd expected, more than he'd wanted, and he felt like he was intruding on a family matter on the worst day of their lives. This was one of the few times he would have liked to walk away, to return to his castle and sit in the quiet with Belle for a while, spinning as she read. But he had little choice in the matter. This needed to be done today.

"Tell me what?! Mother…" David reached down again to attempt to pull her to her feet.

"See to your dear mother," he ordered of the boy. "Once you've done that, I have need of you."

He watched the pair of them from a bench in the yard as David got Ruth to her feet and moved her to the door of their home. He didn't take her into the house. In the end, she managed to pull herself together and wouldn't let him, but she did allow David to disappear for a moment inside. He returned a few minutes later with what he assumed was a gourd of water. She drank it down quickly, and he watched as her color returned, her tears dried, and she took a few deep breaths. She hugged her son as she sniffled and the last dregs of overwhelming grief waned into sorrow.

"I had no idea the prince meant so much to you," he heard David mutter against her shoulder.

"Oh no…no, you wouldn't…you wouldn't know because…because we couldn't tell you," Ruth admitted. It was a lowly thing to do, to listen to this particular conversation. But in his own defense, they were having it practically right in front of him after they'd had the opportunity to move inside. If they'd wanted privacy, they should have taken it. Besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't spied on them before. Now he was simply out in the open about it.

"Mother…what haven't you told me? Who is that man? What is he?! What does he know that I don't?"

"Oh my son," she stepped up close and once again put her hand to his cheek. She took a breath, but instead of words to David, she looked over at him. Her gaze was questioning, and it wasn't hard to decipher. The deal was not to tell…could she now? He nodded at her then turned to look forward, giving the illusion of privacy, but listened as she took another breath. Frankly, he was shocked she'd kept that part of the deal from David at all. "You have…had a brother."

There was a shuffle from David's direction, and he glanced over to see the man had taken a step out of his mother's grasp. Now it was his turn to turn white. His heart had skipped a beat at the news, and now he squinted at his mother as if she was the sun. It was a look of searching and disbelief, one that begged for the truth while desperate to erase it all at once.

"A…a brother?" he choked.

Ruth nodded gently, then wiped a tear from her eye. "A twin brother, yes. You were born weak, both of you. And the King had no children! We needed medicine or the pair of you wouldn't survive. The Dark One…he came in the night…he offered us an option that would allow you both to live."

For a moment, the False Prince paced, he moved away from his mother and rubbed his jaw as if thinking of something intense. But then he turned back, and when he saw his mother, his features softened.

"A twin brother?" David breathed, obviously still taking it in. "And you gave him to that man?"

"We were poor, barely surviving, then…" Ruth paused, and he glanced back over at Ruth only to see she'd looked at him to. "He came along with an offer. One of you for the farm." He turned away, but continued to listen. It was an interesting tale that she spun, but not exactly the truth. The farm had not exactly been the cost of the boy, it had been the medicine, but he had left him that Florin, which was enough to keep this place up and running for long enough. Perhaps that's how she comforted herself, by thinking that she gave away her son not for a bottle of medicine but for her property.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"The deal forbade us from ever speaking of it. Your father regretted the decision the minute that man took your brother. He carried the guilt with him to his grave." He heard Ruth's heart skip and looked over to see her grab her son's hand. In his head, there was a push from the Seer, one that told him that dealing with Ruth wasn't going to get him what he wanted. He needed to talk to the boy, to David and preferably alone lest Ruth tell him to do something that worked against him. He had no doubt in his mind that David would trust his mother over him. If she asked him to stay, he would. And that was a problem.

"Hate to interrupt this tender moment," he inserted. "Time is of the essence."

Ruth glared at him, looked at him with a gaze so cold that he would have shivered if he still could. David, on the other hand, looked at him almost as if he was no longer scared, as if he was just any other man.

"Mother, wait in the house while I deal with this," he insisted gently enough. A perfect and unexpected pronouncement. It turned out he didn't have to deal with the mother, after all, just the future father of the key to his entire plan.

"What do you want from me?" David asked, meandering over to him.

"Oh, not me, dear. The King. He needs a prince to slay a dragon," he answered, animatedly pretending to stab an imaginary foe to drive the point home. A task like that should have shaken the heart of any shepherd, even one who had a little training with a sword as he knew David had. But his expression didn't change, he didn't look skeptical or fearful or even hopeful. He just looked detached as if he hadn't anything to worry about, for it wasn't his problem. That was a mindset he needed to change.

"I'm not a dragon slayer."

"No, but your brother was. This newfound kinship will be your salvation. Simply play the part. The King's knights will take care of everything else. All you must do, is deliver the dragon's head to Midas," he announced, unveiling his plan just as he had to King George just a few short hours ago. It was simple and fool-proof. And most important of all, it got David in the position he needed to be to meet Snow White.

But there wasn't an ounce of excitement on the shepherd's face. James had been a fun-loving sort of prince…he was beginning to wonder if the shepherd had ever heard the word. What country boy wouldn't be at least a little ecstatic to go and play Prince for a day?

"What's in it for you?" David asked skeptically.

"What's in it for me is my business. You should be asking yourself what's in it for you," he answered, turning the subject back on him. "You do this, your poor mother, well…the King is going to make sure she never wants for anything ever again. Your farm will be saved and you…should you survive," he muttered off-handly, "you shall come home the conquering hero. Now, don't tell me you don't want that?"

Finally, he saw the slightest shift in the shepherd's posture, one that went from unwarranted pride to humble defeat as he looked upon the field, the small Kingdom that had once been his was dwindling. The possibility of getting it back should have been too strong to resist. He need not know that he would never return to see it for himself.

"I don't have a choice, do I?" he finally muttered.

"Oh, everyone has a choice, dearie!" he remarked, sitting back and crossing his legs. "Just make sure it's the right one." The deal was made. If he was asking that question, it was as good as done.

"My mother and I…if I go through this...this little charade of yours…we'll keep the farm."

"Sheep and all!" he informed him with certainty. George had given him the authority to promise him any kind of riches or promises it took. He did love a desperate King. Almost as much as he loved a desperate farmer. That was the one thing in dealmaking that never changed, no matter the situation. When two people both had something the other needed, a deal could always be struck.

"I'll do it."

He let out a loud laugh and clapped his hands together at the pronouncement. "Right choice, dearie! That…is the right choice indeed!"

I am so hoping you'll think this chapter came out okay. It's not like I usually like to do it this way. In a perfect world telling Ruth James was dead would have been one chapter, David learning about James would have been another, and then we would have ended up with Rumple finally talking to David in its own chapter, but I found there just wasn't enough material to do that. We get little snippets of Rumple's visit to Ruth's farm but we never actually get the entire thing. So this chapter is really the combination of three separate snippets, with me adding in the "in-between" parts. I'm hoping it all flows together. There are a few places I had to ask myself if I'd written that line or if the writers did and that's usually a pretty good omen. I hope you'll think the same.

Thank you Jennifer Baratta, Grace5231973, and Alarda for your reviews on the last chapter. And good job Jennifer! You guessed correctly regarding the previous chapter with Jack Horner! Yay! So glad someone got it! I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this scene but really looking forward to what's coming up next. It's a scene we never really got to see but I always wished we did! I can't wait! Peace and Happy Reading!