His deals had never failed him before, and yet more than twenty years later he was beginning to feel as though it had. Myrna and Martin still the worst sort of people, but they were old and fearful and desperate enough to continue to align themselves with him. They delivered on their deal regularly, presenting him with items from homes they robbed while they were on the road and the names of their hosts. They'd given him one of everything over the years: books, dolls, enchanted mirrors, clocks, candlesticks, potions, they even brought him a pair of glass shoes one time. But what they hadn't given him was answers.

Jiminy was grown now. A man of seven and thirty. But he still stayed with his parents, and he still kept an eye on him and yet there was nothing! Who was the dark-haired man he'd seen?! Why was the month of August so important to him? And, for that matter, what was the importance of the lively sheep farm on the outskirts of his old Kingdom that he felt drawn too? Why was he so entranced by the little boy that played outside with his father as he sheared those sheep? And the woman who he could sense magic coming off of but had no abilities herself…what did it all mean?! He wouldn't regret taking the Seer's magic, for it had brought him answers. But he understood why she'd called it a burden! It was dreadful having all the answers but not having the right questions to put them with!

And the time…it kept passing! On and on it went. Endlessly! Birthday after birthday after birthday, gone by, missed, unattended, until they'd arrived at this day.

Bae was fifty.

His child was five decades old!

And him? He still looked five decades old. He still looked just as he had thirty-five years ago. He would see his son again. He felt it. He knew it just as well as the Seer had when he'd told him. But what would he meet when he got there? An old man? Dust? Did he have grandchildren? Great-grandchildren? Had Baelfire married? Had he gotten a job as a spinner, or a cobbler, or a shop owner? Would he even recognize his boy? For all he knew, the dark-haired boy that had something to do with Jiminy was his son. But that man he'd seen in his vision was certainly no older than Jiminy was now. And Bae…Bae was fifty.

He lit a candle for him earlier in the day, just as he had every year on Bae's birthday. But it had been the only light that he'd allowed to penetrate the castle. Even the sunlight pouring in through the windows had been too much cheeriness for him, and so he'd shut the draperies to keep it out. Time was his captor, but there was nothing he could do to dissolve the time that separated him from his son, so instead he took it out on the light.

He'd retreated to his tower to spin thread into gold with an altered spinning wheel, so he didn't have to sit down to spin one or the other. He spun thread. If he chose, that thread became gold and spilled into a bowl for collection. For payment, for bartering…for something else.

Payment day. Proof that even the Dark One was capable of being generous and flexible. It had been a long time since he'd ordered specific days of payment from Myrna and Martin and their son Jiminy, simply because he'd soon discovered there was no need to make the arrangements. They may have been terrible people, but they were always sure to honor the bargain they'd made with him without having to remind them in dreadful or messy ways. They always brought him what they stole for him.

Today was that day. He was lost in thought when his senses came to life, and he felt his protection spell around the castle breach as he was at the wheel, carefully spinning the fine fibers of wool into thread and then pushing magic into them to transform them into gold. A decade ago, he would have had to stop all of his work and go to the window or meet the trespassers outside, but now all it took was a quick extension of his magic to know that a man and a horse had ridden up.

He closed his eyes, took a breath, tried to focus, and…

An image of the red-headed Jiminy on one of their horses came to mind.

A lot of good it did him to learn this now, but he supposed it was better than nothing. He'd find out in just a few moments if the vision he'd seen in his mind's eye was truly a vision or just an assumption he'd conjured through careful deduction. He would have sensed if it was more than one person with that horse, and he'd never seen Myrna and Martin separated for even a second. And who else but that family would be so bold as to come right in the front gate without trying to hide. He supposed it was always possible that it was an individual seeking his services, but Jiminy and his family were well past due for delivery and…

He sighed as he heard boots on the stairs below coming up to the tower. Strangers usually lingered, calling out his name in the foyer. Only the three of them knew exactly where to come to find him. Terrible as his parents were, they'd taught Jiminy as a young boy not to wander, at least not in this castle. And his opinion of the boy turned man was that he knew what was good for him and would obey the command his parents had given. Even if it was decades ago. Even if he clearly was miserable.

He entered in the exact same clothes with the exact same look on his face as he'd had in his vision. It had been his foresight then. Oh, how he prayed that meant he was gaining some kind of control!

Jiminy walked about the space with confidence, knowing he was able, but with the respect of someone who understood he was faced with a powerful being who could kill him easily if he pleased. He was a smart lad. Observant of those around him. He understood people far more than they understood themselves, but fortunately, so did the Dark One. The boy was no longer a boy. He could see he tired of his parents. And with his foresight telling him he was the one he wanted to ally himself with, he'd been waiting for the right time to make a very particular offer to him, one that would benefit the boy as well as himself if he did it just right. Perhaps then, when he learned of the dark-haired man, Jiminy might come and tell him directly instead of making him do the searching. The time for this offer was going to be soon. He could tell every time he'd arrived here lately. He was reaching his breaking point. The problem was that after more than three decades of being apart from his son, he was at his breaking point too. He was patient, Nimue had once told him. Clearly she'd never been separated from her child for what felt like a lifetime.

"Thank you very much," he giggled as he came forward to set a bag of goodies on the wooden table before him. He heard metal clang and smelled foreign, expensive perfume. A perfect job, as always. So long as he could continue to trace the objects. "And the names?" he reminded him as he stopped spinning and crept closer to inspect his goals. "To whom did these treasures belong?"

Obediently, Jiminy pulled a list out from a pocket of his clothing and placed it on top of the pile. Well done. Very well done.

He took a pair of sheering scissors and cut from the very spool he'd been working on a generous length of golden thread. Enough for Jiminy and his father and his mother to split, though he knew the boy did most of the stealing these days and his parents kept most of the wage. And he hoped it grated against him.

"Gold thread – for your thievery," he explained, tossing it at him. "Thank you. You can go."

But did he want to go? He'd been careful with how he dismissed him lately. Showing him no interest all the while attuning every sense he had working toward him. He was waiting to see if he would leave. Waiting for the day that he finally snapped and asked something more of him. And as the boy took his time hiding away his thread with a sneer on his face and walked slowly and unhappily toward the exit, his instinct told him that his waiting had paid off. He'd been waiting for this day.

"But you want something else, don't you?" he questioned, stopping the boy dead in his tracks. Jiminy paused before turning, a sure sign that curiosity had grown to the kind of temptation he needed to be able to work with him. He began looking around his table for what he'd need to finish a spell of his own doing, one he'd been preparing for the boy for some time now. His own magic-infused gold into a silver bowl. And a potion…a potion to change flesh to wood…to scramble the brains…to preserve youth.

"Something with…magic!" The second he added the potion to it the contents began to sizzle and hiss at him. And Jiminy jumped at the sounds, nearly out of his bones in fact, but still came closer and stood opposite him. He lured him in like he was fishing. The time was right.

"Every year, I'm stuck in that damn wagon…I want to be free!" he confessed quietly. "I want to…I want to be someone else, but something keeps holding me back."

"Something? Or Someone?" he corrected, picking up another potion that would induce compliance and silence.

"It's my parents," Jiminy admitted. Perfect. Just perfect.

He used his magic to wave his hands over the potion in the bowl, gather it up, and confine it in a little vile. A spell of his own working. A spell to give him exactly what he needed without that pesky little trait of irritation. But the trick was to convince the boy in front of him that he was the one who needed it! He had to get him to use it!

"Then I have exactly what you need. This…will set you free," he tempted, holding the vile out before him. "Pour it, sprinkle it, put it in their curds and whey…anything will work." He offered it to him, but when Jiminy reached out to take it, he pulled it away! "Ah! But you have nothing more to give to me," he pointed out. His stomach knotted as the boy opened his mouth to begin the negotiations, but he couldn't let them get that far. He already had a plan, an alliance with the boy without losing the objects he so desired. This had to work just so…

"Tell you what," he insisted first. "After the potion has done its work, leave them where they are, and I'll come collect them. It'll be my fee."

"What will become of them?" Jiminy questioned desperately.

That question was what he'd been afraid of and the reason he'd been waiting for Jiminy to tell him he was ready to do this. Problematic as their relationship was, as much as he despised what his parents did, they were still his parents. And in order for this to work, Jiminy had to sever the connection and convince him to turn his back just as that wretched Blue Fairy had convinced Baelfire to turn his back on him. He had to get Jiminy to overcome this, so he decided to take a page from the Blue Bug's book-she was, after all, an expert at separating children from their parents.

"Worry you not," he assured him with a smile before offering the vile to him one more time. "They'll be in safe hands…and you'll be free."

Slowly a smile crossed over Jiminy's face. Slowly he reached out, took the vile from his fingers. And slowly, but without hesitation, he shuffled out of the castle with his prize.

Ordinary chapter, we saw all this in the show, not much to comment on.

Thank you MerlockVonBaron, Grace5231973, Enomisje, Jennifer Baratta, and Fox24 for your reviews on the last chapter! I got Myrna and Martin! Yay! I'm so happy to hear that! Up next we'll conclude Jiminy's centric chapters. Only three chapters, I know. But even at the beginning of this I knew that it was going to be a long fiction so if I didn't need to spend too much time on a character or a story, I didn't. So Jiminy is short, but it's the centric that comes after Jiminy that I am most interested in introducing to you! Peace and Happy Reading!