Chapter 6—"Wiser But Unsure"
Another month passed as they danced around one another, sometimes talking and sometimes ignoring one another's presence. Rumplestiltskin was glad that his mother didn't try to, well, mother him too much; if she had, he would have undoubtedly have shut down entirely. He'd never had a mother, and Rumplestiltskin wouldn't have known what to do with one. Moira and Parcae, the two spinsters who he had grown up calling his aunts, had been beyond good to him, but they had never been his parents. Even at the tender age of seven, he'd been too aware of the fact that he'd had real parents, and the one who had raised him had abandoned him.
Moira and Parcae hand't actually been any relation of Malcolm's, which made it even more awkward when the other boys in Hamelin discovered that. He'd been mocked for being an orphan, mocked for being with 'those strange women', and mocked because he was taking up a woman's trade and spinning. It didn't matter that he was more skilled than any spinster in town other than his aunts by the age of ten, and it didn't matter that Moira got him apprenticed to a weaver when he was twelve. Rumplestiltskin mastered that art, too, but it meant leaving home for two crucial years, which he'd spent in Brenan, which was the next town over. He'd known how lucky he was, but that meant he wasn't home when Moira died, and Parcae was never the same after that.
So, his experience with family had always been that they left or had him leave. He spent that month expecting Fiona to walk out, to turn to him one day and say that she utterly despised him—either because he was a monster or because he wasn't as dark as he could be. Who could tell what the Black Fairy was looking for in a son? He still wasn't sure, and Fiona had been here for months. But she didn't walk away. Oh, she didn't stay still, didn't remain in the castle, but she told him before left, and she always came back.
His mother always came back.
"Why are you still here?" he asked sometime after the month ended. His voice was harsher than he'd meant it to be, but Rumplestiltskin didn't care. Or did he?
She wants to find out your weaknesses!
"I already told you that." Fiona turned to face him, clearly trying to contain her impatience with his inability to accept her presence. In some ways, he was glad that she reacted to his taunts and his demands; if she'd just sat there calmly, he wasn't sure how he would have dealt with it. Yet she didn't bother to get up from where she was sitting near the fire in the Great Hall, either. Rumplestiltskin had strode in and opened the conversation without so much as a hello, but he needed to know.
"Tell me again, why don't you? You're the Black Fairy, but we both know that you've been exiled for centuries and haven't exactly done much. Yet the moment you get free, you come to find your long lost son? Except I'm not what you expected, am I? Bit of a disappointment?"
"No, you aren't. Not at all." Rising, she turned to look him in the eye, and for once her smile wasn't even slightly mocking. "I expected a Dark One, someone who had long since given into the darkness…like I once did. Not someone who had made the same mistakes I did. Not someone I could understand."
Rumplestiltskin couldn't help flinching at the reference to the way he'd let Bae go. "Don't try to pretend that you don't think I'm a monster!"
"I'm not so sure you are."
Hearing the compassion in her voice as she said that nearly broke him into tiny pieces; Rumplestiltskin didn't know how to deal with someone reaching out, with kindness he hadn't asked for or hadn't earned. He wanted this, wanted it so badly that it hurt, but if his relationship with Cora had taught him anything, it was that he didn't deserve love. No one loved him, not the way he was now and not the way he had been before. He was the one who was always left, the one who no one loved once they got to know him. That was what he had always been, and now that he was the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin knew that it was only worse.
"Tell me what you want!" The words tore out of him in a bellow, and he couldn't hold the fury and pain back any longer. Rumplestiltskin gestured with his left hand, and the chair Fiona had been sitting in smashed into the fireplace, shattering into a hundred burning pieces. "No one comes here without wanting something!"
Fiona didn't even flinch. "You're right, of course. I do want something. Everyone does."
"Ah, here it is." Rumplestiltskin giggled harshly, spinning and flinging a hand up to emphasize his point. "What will it be, dearie? Power? Do you want the Dark One on your side to commit 'unspeakable' dark deeds, to cover the land in darkness?" The words burned in his throat, but he knew they had to be true, so Rumplestiltskin tried to sound flippant as he went on. She was the Black Fairy, after all. Her gentle affection had to be a lie. "Is it the same old game, covering all the realms in darkness, removing light and hope and love?"
Hurt her! Make her regret trying to use your feelings against you! The chorus of voices was almost deafening. But damn it all, despite the rage filling him, Rumplestiltskin couldn't bring himself to lash out at Fiona. She was his mother, and he hated himself for wanting this. For wanting her.
"No. What I want is my son back." Fiona stepped forward, and before Rumplestiltskin could pull away, she'd cupped his scaled face in her hands. "I don't care that you're the Dark One. In fact, I'm grateful for that, because it let you live long enough to find you again. I just want my precious boy, who I turned dark to protect. I don't care what you are. You are my son."
Rumplestiltskin laughed, because a high-pitched giggle the only way he could think to mask his confusion. "Stop lying to me."
He'd meant the words to come out strong. Instead, they wound up sounding like a plea.
"I'm not lying, Rumplestiltskin." Her whisper was soft enough that he could pretend Fiona hadn't said a word.
"Rumple." His lips moved on their own, and he wanted to curse them shut.
"What was that?"
He didn't want to answer; he wanted to flee. But his emotions were too tangled to trust his magic, so Rumplestiltskin wheeled around and made for the closest way out of the hall—until a hand caught his arm. Gently.
"Rumple," he all but muttered, blinking rapidly. "You can—I mean—if you—never mind."
He tried to pull away, but the hand squeezed his arm, and damn his broken soul, he didn't want to.
"Rumple, then," his mother said softly. Then he finally managed to scrape up enough focus to teleport away before he started crying.
Nimue was prattling on and on about betrayal or heartbreak, about not trusting and absolutely not letting her in, but he barely heard a word. Rumplestiltskin just threw himself onto the window seat in his tower and stared out at the world, trying not to feel.
A week after that, they were at odds again. Fiona thought things were going fairly well despite a few small arguments—they both had hot tempers and darkness that did not always mix—so she asked: "Will you tell me about the two spinsters that raised you?"
"Why?" Rumplestiltskin twisted to face her, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. But he was always suspicious, her boy. Before meeting him, Fiona had thought that darkness was merely a reflection of the methods one was willing to use, of the morality one was willing to ignore. Now, however, she was starting to realize that the Dark One was something else entirely.
She'd also started reading up on her son's condition, and learning that it truly was a terrible curse.
"Because I want to know you." Honesty was her friend in this case, even if Fiona wasn't always used to telling the truth. She swallowed hard. "Because…I looked in on you once as a boy, the only time I could find you. And because I hope they treated you well. "
"Would that make you feel better?" He went all Dark One with that question, high-pitched and sharp.
"Yes." Bluntness often brought him out of those funks, so Fiona just looked him in the eye. "And I'd like to kill them if they didn't, but I expect they're long dead."
Rumplestiltskin's shoulders slumped, the anger draining out of him. "They were kind. Moira and Parcae…they were good to me." A wistful edge entered his suddenly deeper voice. "We didn't have much, but they cared for me like I was their own. And they made sure I had a trade, a good one, and hope for a good future." His face closed off. "I ruined the rest myself."
"I don't find you very ruined."
"That's because you're the Black Fairy." He shot her an annoyed look. "And besides, I was talking about what I was…before."
"You were a spinner." Even if he hadn't told her that the spinsters had given him a trade, Fiona would have figured that out by the way her son spun for solace. It wasn't the life she would have chosen for him, but at least spinners were respected in society, valued.
"I was the town coward." Rumplestiltskin spat the words. "Even before I ran away from the war, I couldn't shake his reputation as a liar and a thief."
Fiona felt her jaw drop open. "Malcolm's?"
"Who else?" Bitterness made his tone even sharper, and Fiona filed away one more reason to commit spousal homicide. Not that she was certain that Malcolm still counted as her husband after he'd been turned into a powerful-but-crazy-child, but the thought of killing him was growing more and more appealing.
She contemplated asking for more details, but she knew he wouldn't open up about the neglect and abuse he'd suffered at his father's hands. Not yet, and perhaps not ever. So, Fiona turned back to the women who she found herself absurdly grateful for. "But before that…you were loved?"
"Yeah." The smallest tick of a smile crossed his face before his expression changed to one of curiosity. "Tell me about the Dark Realm."
"Why?" Fiona felt her eyes narrowing; she didn't like thinking of that place, let alone talking about it.
"Curiosity, I suppose." A shrug.
"There's not much to say." Fiona shrugged. "It's a dreary and dark place, and not just with all the dark magic. I believe Blue created it, eons ago, to shove all the dark magic she could find into it. Until she added me to the mix. Foolish fairy."
Rumplestiltskin cocked his head. "Did it change you further?"
"Perhaps. I only had one truly dark moment before becoming the Black Fairy, so I suppose it's safe to say that the Dark Realm made me who I am today." She supposed she'd need to go back for the dark fairy dust at some point; leaving it there was reckless, and one never knew when it might prove useful.
"You stink of darkness."
"Excuse you!" Fiona couldn't help the way the words burst out, and she glared at her son for saying them. "That's no way to speak to your mother."
He just laughed. "Ah, but it's true. Every pore of you is soaked in it." A beat. "How?"
"I had children harvesting it, of course. Wasted innocence can turn any fairy crystal to darkness. I tried it myself, in the beginning—when I was desperate to find a way out that lasted more than a few minutes—but ironically, I wasn't dark or innocent enough. I was a wretched kind of neutral that proved useless in that realm. Until I started taking children."
"Children."
"Unwanted ones, in the main." She shrugged, thinking of the obnoxious boy 'Ed' who had mentioned Tiger Lily and started her on this road. A proper fairy would take care of that boy for helping in such a way, but there was nothing proper about Fiona. Not now. Perhaps there never was, she thought sadly, the next words slipping out: "I wanted to fill the hole in my heart, at first, to mother someone when I couldn't find you. But that realm only made me worse and worse, until I barely remembered what love was."
Her love for her son had been the one white light in her world, and hearing that he was alive had rejuvenated her in ways Fiona had never been able to imagine. But Rumplestiltskin wasn't ready to hear how far she'd fallen, or why she had. Perhaps he never would be.
The intensity in golden eyes as they zeroed in on her made Fiona shiver. "And are those children still there, Mother?"
"I suppose. They can't leave without me, and—"
"What?"
"What?" The sudden fury in his voice, the way Rumplestiltskin shot to his feet, absolutely mystified Fiona.
"I became this monster to protect children, not to abandon them in a realm that turns darkness ever blacker! And let me tell you, dearie, when the Dark One thinks you've gone too far, you've fallen quite hard."
Fiona couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Says the man whose father runs Neverland? I haven't seen you racing to the rescue of those boys, now, have I? Or did I miss something?"
"That's different." The words were a mutter.
She laughed. "How?"
"I was the price for his immortality. To kill him, I'd have to die." Rumplestiltskin twisted to glare at her again. "And I have no intention of dying."
"You had best not!" She was not going to lose her son so soon after finding him, and particularly not to that asshole her husband had become. "Yet I do wonder…perhaps turning him back into Malcolm would sever the bond between the two of you. He didn't have anything to do with you becoming the Dark One, did he?"
His eyes darkened. "No." Then he seemed to come out of his despondent funk enough to think. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason."
Because me giving up my power would have saved you from dying to defeat me, Fiona didn't say. I cut you away from your fate, but if we can remove whatever turned Malcolm into Pan, he can be stopped without you dying. Fiona wasn't ready to voice that, particularly because it would mean explaining what she'd done to her son, but it was worth thinking on.
His mother made no sense.
She was dark, yet she talked of ways to kill Pan without killing him. She was ridiculously protective of him, too—a would-be hero showed up and tried to slay him a month after Fiona arrived, and Rumplestiltskin didn't even get the chance to make the fool regret his choice before the Black Fairy tried to turn him into a frog. He'd shouted at her that he could defend himself whilst being secretly pleased; Fiona cared enough to work magic on his behalf, even if it was just a foolish knight who didn't even know how to kill the Dark One. He'd insisted on dealing with the knight himself, of course, terrifying the poor bastard until Sir Amadas agreed to collect hairs from a potential True Love couple he had been tracking, all to spare himself.
Fiona seemed put out that she wasn't allowed to kill the idiot, but Rumplestiltskin ignored her pouting. She'd get over the disappointment, or she'd go find some fairy or another to take her frustration out on. Rumplestiltskin found the fact that his mother hated most fairies very surprising, particularly since she'd been born one herself. Yet her anger with the Blue Fairy surpassed his own, which Rumplestiltskin sometimes found suspicious. He'd asked why, but she always demurred, referencing her exile and saying no more. He knew there was something else under the surface, but Rumplestiltskin was patient. It would wait.
Months passed, he grew to know his mother a little more...and he hated himself for loving her.
There was no time like the present to eat some crow, Fiona supposed. The longer she was out of the Dark Realm, the more she realized that it had tainted her. She'd grown to hate so strongly that she'd never noticed how much she was changing. No, that was wrong. She hadn't cared. She had known what she'd become, taking children and mistreating them, but her fate had seemed to be to embrace lonely darkness, so that was what she had done.
No more. If she was going to help her son, she had to start by listening to him. This would matter to Rumplestiltskin, and perhaps it would help him find his way back towards the light. Even if certain insolent children were trying to drive her mad.
"What's the catch?" Edmund demanded, his chin jutting out at her defiantly.
"Would you rather stay here, stupid boy, or do you want your freedom?" Fiona hadn't thought freeing the idiots would be so difficult, and she desperately wanted to rethink this entire plan. I'm doing this for my son, she told herself. If I can't be better, he won't even try.
"Freedom isn't freedom if there's a catch."
"The catch is that I don't want you anymore. Any of you." Fiona sniffed, still annoyed. "I want this realm to be empty of every living thing. Forever."
The darkness was already starting to eat at her. She could feel it prickling on her skin, could feel its murderous touch. Staying here much longer would doom her if she didn't find someone to take her rage out on.
"Why?"
"Why do you care? Just take your freedom and be happy!"
He just glared at her. "I'm not going to be happy if you take me back to Neverland."
Fiona barely resisted the urge to scream.
When his magic alerted him to the fact that someone had entered his castle, it had never entered Rumplestiltskin's mind that it might be Cora. But when he walked into the great hall, there she was, looking beautiful enough to break his heart all over again. He stopped cold, and he was pretty sure that his heart stopped, too.
"What are you doing here?"
Rumplestiltskin had meant to sound threatening, but even he had to admit that he just sounded broken. Cora, however, was all smiles when she turned to face him.
"Rumple." Immediately, she started forward, but he was wise enough to skitter back. That made her stop. "Can't we talk like the old friends we are?"
"We're not friends, dearie," he snapped. Then he swallowed hard.
"Of course we are. You won't let one small mistake get in the way of that, will you?" Cora stepped forward again, reaching a hand out.
"One. Small. Mistake?" His voice small, Rumplestiltskin backed another uncertain step away from her.
"Yes. A mistake. And I'm sorry, Rumple. So very sorry. I never should have left you." Cora looked sorry, too, standing before him like a supplicant, her smile sad and wan.
Nervously, Rumplestiltskin licked his lips, trying to slow his racing heart. He'd been so furious with her, so certain that she'd never loved him. He'd done his damnedest to deny her the power she wanted, too, but what if Cora had been wrong? What if ten months apart had taught her that she wanted love more than power? She looked like she was being honest; she looked heartbroken. Just like he felt.
Don't be fooled, Spinner! Zoso's voice echoed in his head like thunder, making his head pound. She's using you again! Yet he could still feel the darkness coiling excitedly; it liked Cora. It always had. Cora tasted of blood and ambition, of power and even more darkness. Cora took what she wanted, just like it always wanted him to do. Cora was not shy or uncertain. Not ever.
"You're not sorry. You didn't love me." He backed up another step, trying to push back how badly he wanted to fold into her arms.
"Of course I did. And I still do." Finally, she managed to grab his hand, and Rumplestiltskin stopped trying to get away. "I made a mistake, Rumple. I thought that power would be enough. It isn't."
"It…isn't?"
He didn't want to sound hopeful. He didn't want to want her, but Cora had accepted him for who he was. She hadn't turned away from his ugly face, or been afraid of him. Cora had embraced his darkness, and she'd loved him for that. She said she loves me. Those words had shaken Rumplestiltskin to his very core, because he'd been so utterly convinced that Cora had been using him before. But what if she hadn't? Then use her, Zoso relented. Use her love for you to manipulate her the way she manipulated you. A cold chill ran through him, though, and Rumplestiltskin knew he couldn't do that. Not because he was too nice or too good to use someone, but because he wanted more.
So much more.
"Of course not. I should have listened to my heart." Cora gave him a tentative smile, stepping closer. He could almost feel her breath, now. "I won't ask for your forgiveness. I know it's too soon for that."
"You're—you're still married." He couldn't ignore the hand in his, but Rumplestiltskin could see the ring on her other hand.
"Unfortunately, yes. You were right about Henry. He's spineless and weak, but he is the father of my daughter, and I cannot disadvantage her by leaving him. You understand, don't you?"
She was offering him everything save marriage, wasn't she? Cora wanted him. He could see that in her eyes, could practically feel the desire radiating off of her as she moved closer and closer, her lips almost touching his. Part of Rumplestiltskin, the foolish spinner who had once dreamt dreams of honor and glory, was repulsed by the very idea. But the rest of him cackled at the thought of cuckolding a prince, of loving a princess-by-marriage and having the kind of dark partner who would revel in the curse with him. My mother would do that, but her love isn't the same as a lover's. Cora would help shape her daughter to cast the curse so long as it gave her power, and they could have that. Together.
Take what you want. She wants it to. Don't hesitate now, Spinner! Zoso's encouragement was almost enough to push Rumplestiltskin into action; he could feel his body quivering with desire and anticipation. But, no. He would wait for Cora to make the first move. He had earned that.
Then she leaned forward to do exactly what he'd hoped and dreaded, lips brushing against his lightly and then more hungrily, and Rumplestiltskin could not help leaning into her kiss. He'd hated her so much, but he missed her, missed this one chance at love, the only one he had. Even with his mother there, he was so very alone, because he never could be certain when Fiona would decide he was just a beast and leave. Cora was as dark as he was, though, and—
Magic sizzled through his body, suddenly, and everything stopped.
Cora pulled back. "I'm sorry, Rumple, dear. Did you think I would risk people questioning Regina's legitimacy, or that of any other children I might have, all for love?" She chuckled softly, stepping away from him. "But I did do my research, just as you taught me. Squid ink is remarkably useful, isn't it?"
"You—you—you!" He was so angry he could barely get words out.
You fool! The voices inside him shouted a raging chorus, each screaming for his attention. How could you be so stupid as to let her get so close? But he couldn't move. Not a muscle. Not even an inch. Magic wouldn't respond to his commands, either; nothing happened. He was an utter fool.
"Love is never enough." Cora shrugged, tucking away the handkerchief with which she had lightly touched his hand. "But, as you've blocked my traditional avenues to power by protecting the lives of King Xavier and Henry's annoying brothers, I shall have to reach for a different kind of power. Yours."
"…What?"
He asked the question, but his heart had already stopped. Rumplestiltskin knew exactly what Cora wanted. She didn't want him at all. Maybe she never had. I did do my research, she'd said. And he'd told her too much, back in the months where he'd loved her and trusted her. Cora knew. And the darkness inside him was screaming as furiously as Rumplestiltskin wanted to, howling in rage and terror, knowing it was about to be trapped and used.
"I know your dagger is here." Cora met his eyes levelly, her face devoid of all emotion save satisfaction. "And when I find it, I have all the power I could ever possibly want—and you on your knees before me."
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this story! Fiona is such a fun character to add to the narrative. But, for everyone who is wondering when Belle will arrive, we'll see her in chapter 8.
Next up, Chapter 7—"He Fell Into Despair", in which Cora meets the Dark Castle's other resident, the dagger rests in new hands, and Rumplestiltskin and Fiona finally discuss the Dark Curse.
