Chapter Nine.

"You think you can find a way around Fate."

He turned, the suddenness of the voice startling. The seer stood amidst the darkness, her fiery hair flowing down her back in waves and she reached her hands out towards him, blue eyes watching from her palms. The expression on her face was bland and he felt like she was staring into his soul.

"A person isn't able to change Fate."

"A person shouldn't be able to change Fate," the seer corrected. "You've corrupted what should have been, Rumplestiltskin, and you continue to try to deny Fate its price."

"I don't see how I can be held responsible for changing my fate, as you say, if it was possible to change in the first place."

"Baelfire will die. You must learn the meaning of sacrifice."

"So what's the price? Bae's death or my learning?"

She stopped, her head tilted to the side and he knew he'd caught her. He knew the answer.

Rumplestiltskin.

His name cut through dream-filed sleep and dark eyes snapped open. The room was silent, streams of light making their way into the room to prove that he'd already slept later than he had meant to. He glanced over and Belle was still curled up, snuggled in close to him so that her forehead pressed against his shoulder. If he moved, he'd wake her, so he remained very still for a moment, not sure if he'd dreamt the tug of magic or not.

The second pull was sharper and Rumplestiltskin came fully back to wakefulness. Belle made a small sound at his side and he glanced over to find blue eyes blinking sleepily awake. "Hey," she greeted. "What's wrong?"

"Something's happening downstairs."

"What?"

He wasn't sure, and that was never a place he liked to be. He tossed back to covers and was out, magic pulling his clothes together on instinct. The fact that it came in that fashion was encouraging and he was at the door as Belle was sliding out of bed and reaching for a dress hanging over the back of a chair. "Go. I'll be right behind you. And Rumple?" He stopped, frozen before he allowed his magic to take him to the source of the problem. "Be careful."

A smile tugged at his thin lips. "Of course."

Rumplestiltskin didn't bother with theatrics as he flickered out of existence and back in. He still hadn't had much time to test his limits, but at least his magic seemed to be functioning when he needed it to. In the grand scheme of things, that's what mattered most. He could handle the tug of exhaustion and the headaches that accompanied large outpouring of power. It was within his limits, if just barely.

He reappeared at the source of the summoning. His Great Hall looked like a warzone. The table was flipped, his chair in pieces over to r in a corner, and anything that could be broken seemed to have been. Some of the injured people were huddling against the walls, but it didn't look like many were left. Snow White - the source of the call - Ruby, Tinker Bell, and that absurd excuse for a captain were fighting with flying monkeys that seemed to have made their way into his castle.

Rumple stopped suddenly, head tilted to one side as he studied them. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Apparently it works," Snow called over to the wolf girl as she dodged another monkey, a piece of what might have been his table in her hand to fend him off.

"I do hope you don't plan on calling me for every little thing," Rumple answered with a smirk playing across his lips. He flicked his fingers and the dark haired princess' near-to-useless weapon was replaced with a bow and quiver of arrows that she was much more accustomed to using. Even so, she didn't immediately send the first arrow flying and the former Dark One threw a curse at the monkey that flew past her and straight at the creature. It turned to ash even as she screamed for him to stop.

"No! The monkeys are the people that were in here!"

"It's spreading?" Rumple murmured thoughtfully. "Like a disease?"

"Something like that," Hook answered as he slammed half a chair into a particularly feisty monkey that looked ready to rip his throat out.

"We think it's through saliva or something like that," Ruby called.

"So what? You called me down here to tell me and expect me not to kill them?" Rumplestiltskin demanded, tossing up a shield in defence and watching the monkey angrily bounce off and then began to claw at the invisible protection like its own life depended on it. He glared at it.

"We were hoping you might be able to undo the spell Zelena put on them," Tinker Bell said.

"That's going to take time."

Snow turned towards him, eyes holding all the determination of the realms. "Can you at least stop the rest of them from turning?"

"All of these people have been bitten?"

It was as if a call came through and several monkeys paused their attack together and leapt for the window, pushing and shoving against the others to get out. "I need a live one to figure out how to reverse it. Zelena is talented and if this is a curse of her own making it'll take time and more understanding of how she's put it together."

"Are you going to… experiment on it?" Ruby asked, turning her nose up and Rumple rolled his eyes.

"Do you want to save these people or not? If these things get loose in the castle, they'll infect everyone. They're not like you, missie, that much is for sure. They'll kill us or turn us, whichever they can, and they won't stop until Zelena's killed or we can reverse the curse."

Surprisingly enough, it was Hook that asked the next question. "You just need one?"

Rumple turned with a snide remark on his tongue, but stopped, noticing the way that Jones was holding his arm close. "Are you volunteering, dearie?"

"Well, I'm going to turn one way or the other, and if you're right and one gets loose in the castle… Just try not to scar me for life any further than you have, alright?"

"I'd have thought that you would have asked me not to kill you."

"I suppose I thought that went without saying, but I forgot for a moment who I was walking to."

The two old enemies squared off for a moment, either man studying the other. They'd lived for centuries with a deep-seated hate between them, and now the pirate was volunteering to put his life in Rumplestiltskin's hands. Well, perhaps not exactly, as the alternative would be becoming Zelena's pet monkey and potentially killing the woman that he was there to attempt to woo.

"I'd just ask… that you endeavour to bring me back to myself," Hook managed through gritted teeth and his blue eyes met Rumple's own dark ones. He was changing. It had already begun.

"Very well," the former Dark One said tightly and in a whirl of smoke the pirate was gone, leaving them with only the last few humans that were quickly melting into winged monkeys. He sighed as they too disappeared, though to a different location than Hook. Zelena wouldn't miss one pirate, though she might miss several of her winged creatures if they didn't come when she called. There was no need to tip their hand immediately.

"What did you do with him?" Snow demanded.

"He's locked in the dungeons so that he can't hurt anyone."

"And you can revert what the witch has done to him?" Tink asked.

"We shall see."

News about the attack on the Great Hall spread like wildfire through the castle. Belle had gone down shortly after Rumple and she was hearing whispers by the time she'd made it to the bottom step. The fact that she'd found the room in chaos with only a handful of the injured that she'd helped situate there the night before remaining was not helpful and it acted like a strong breeze to spread the fires of rumour.

That had been hours before and nothing she'd learned about the entire event had put her at ease. Their friends were flying monkeys, Snow was quietly unhappy with the idea that Rumplestiltskin was conducting experiments to revert Hook back into his usual obnoxious self rather than his new - yet equally obnoxious - howling self, and though she knew that he was actually putting effort into it, Rumple hadn't found anything of any use from Killian Jones yet in his immediate studies of the curse. The Charmings, as he called them, had begun to hassle him almost immediately over it and he'd locked himself away in his tower so that the majority of the castle's inhabitants couldn't reach him to grill him on what had happened that morning or demand answers that he didn't have yet.

Belle sighed as she took the last couple of steps up the winding staircase and stopped at the top, feeling the brief tingle of magical wards that would have kept anyone else from approaching Rumplestiltskin's work tower. She watched him, his back turned to her and he was busy scribbling frantically against a parchment as potions of various colours and consistencies bubbled to his left. He hadn't noticed that she was there, but that wasn't abnormal. Belle had learned early on just how fixated he could be when he had his mind on something, and while he might not have been inclined to return Hook to his natural state, it was a problem to fix his mind on. It also gave him an excuse to avoid the crowds downstairs so that he could make time to find his own limits, something she suspected that he'd be working on as much or more while locked away there.

"I brought dinner," Belle offered, making her presence known.

Rumple turned to look at her, expression startled only briefly before his lips twitched upward. "Thank you," he said as he stood, moving to meet her halfway. "You didn't need to do that."

"Well, if I know you, then you likely didn't have lunch, and if I don't make sure that you eat something you wouldn't have dinner either." Her voice was soft and she saw his lips thin out in an expression he often wore when he thought she was being too kind. More than he deserved, he'd told her often enough, and she knew she was wasting her breath to try to convince him otherwise in that manner. It would take time for him to see himself the way she saw him: a good man hiding beneath layers and layers of hurt and self-preservation. He would get there someday, and she'd have his hand in her own the whole way. Belle smiled, leaning forward and up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "So I thought I'd come to you."

"I have been quite busy."

She pulled a spare stool over to the table and looked for a place to set the tray that held their dinner. "Have you had a chance to find anything?"

He sighed. "I've had a handful of students over the years that I've been alive, and often when I come across them again they've only managed to advance in the smallest of steps past what I taught them. Even Cora was that way, though she was quite talented. Regina has made many things her own, but everything she's done has either been a variation of what I taught her while she was my pupil or something that I instructed her in after. Zelena-"

"Zelena was your student then?"

He blinked at her, expression saying that he'd thought he'd mentioned that. He hadn't, of course, and when she'd tried to broach the subject on their way to the Dark Castle just a few days before he'd shut down terribly over it, as he did with anything that he didn't want to talk about. She'd resigned herself, finally, to the fact that this was simply the man she loved. Much like love itself, she needed to pull back the layers slowly and carefully. To rip at them risked damaging the man beneath, and heaven knew that there'd been enough damage done in the years before she'd known him.

"Yes, briefly," he said as he dipped his spoon into the soup she'd brought, pouring it back out again. "I turned her away after making my decision between she and Regina in regards to who would cast my curse."

"She seems very talented. Why did you turn her away?"

"In order to cast the Dark Curse one must sacrifice the heart of the thing they love most. Desperation makes for truly strong magic, Belle, as you've seen before. Zelena had little left by the time she came to me and she found… something there." His voice was soft. Distant. Belle watched him carefully and reached forward to wrap her fingers in his. He squeezed and continued. "Oh, nothing too terrible, m'dear. Not for me, at any rate. I found that she was a little too fond of me and in the end, I was the only person she was fond of due to her jealous streak that gave her the lovely hue you've seen. I couldn't risk it."

"What did Regina sacrifice to cast the curse?" Belle asked, the question leaving her lips before she'd weighed the cost of learning the answer. She and Regina were far from being friendly, but they did stand on the same side these days.

Rumple's thin lips pressed together and his eyes focused on the table in front of him. "That's… really not for me to say," he answered carefully. "Just know that she paid a steep price. It was one that I do think she regretted."

Belle hummed softly at the thought but let it go as she stood, circling around behind Rumplestiltskin and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He leaned back into her and she hugged him from behind. He thought she was brave, she knew. He'd told her so many, many times, but in the end Belle was no stranger to that nervous tightening in one's chest or the terrible flutter in one's stomach just before a question of some weight is asked. "Rumple, we've been so busy that we haven't had time to discuss it, but you said we would."

"Discuss what?"

She smiled, hearing the genuine confusion in his voice. "What you Saw yesterday that made you send Bae away when Pan and Zelena attacked."

He stiffened in her arms and she pressed a kiss to his cheek, hoping to calm him with it. Whatever it was they could work through it. They always did.

Rumplestiltskin pulled in a deep breath and pulled her hand up to his lips to press a kiss to her palm. "I've been working my way through my visions," he said slowly. "I've been… seeing someone."

"Do you know them?"

"Well, yes. And no. She's dead."

"Who was she?"

"The seer that I received my Sight from."

Belle nodded slowly. She'd always assumed that his Sight had been part of the Dark One's curse, or perhaps a bit of magic that was simply learned, but she'd learned to take new knowledge like this in stride. That within itself should have said how often it came in this manner. "What did she say?"

"Well, it's not so much her as my mind trying to make sense of the visions now. I think… she's a way to filter them."

"That doesn't answer the question, Rumple," Belle prodded gently.

"I suppose it doesn't. She said… she said that I've changed my fate. That I was supposed to die in order to save you and Bae."

"That absurd."

He shrugged and leaned back against her a bit more. "Perhaps, but that's what I'm Seeing. The price for bringing Henry over and for… whatever change I made to my own fate is learning the meaning of sacrifice. My visions have told me that that Bae's death has been preset."

Belle suddenly felt like she'd stepped outside of the castle gates in the dead of winter by the way that the chill took over her. She tightened her grip around her love. "But now you know. You can stop it."

"Yes," he breathed, though she could hear the hesitation in his voice. He knew that he wanted to, knew that he would give anything to do it, but not how he could do it just yet. He was still working on that particular problem, and it suddenly she felt certain that he hadn't done much in the way of looking for a cure for those that had been turned into Zelena's personal pets. When compared to saving his only child, the others meant less than nothing to him. That wasn't to say that he wouldn't find it, but it wouldn't be his focus, even if he told the others that it was.

"You'll find a way," Belle promised. "I know you, Rumple. You are the most determined man I've ever met. When you set your sights on something you achieve it, no matter what. If you've changed your own fate, you can change his."

"No matter the cost," he breathed.

"Well, I should hope this doesn't require you to toss us all back into Storybrooke," Belle murmured with a small laugh. When he looked at her she was still smiling. "Though I'll stand by you, Rumplestiltskin, in whatever you need from me."

"I'm afraid." The confession was soft and he clung the her arms that were around his shoulders. "I'm afraid that I'll simply fall back into the useless spinner that couldn't protect anyone. I want - no I need - my family to be safe, Belle. I just want to keep you and Bae safe. Henry too. I need my family to be safe."

She felt something flutter in her chest. She was his family. "We'll find a way to defeat Zelena and Pan and things will even out. You'll see."

"How can you be so optimistic?" he chuckled.

"I don't have the option of taking a look into a sometimes distorted future. I think that gives me a bit of an advantage, from what I can tell." She circled around so that she could lean over and press a kiss to his lips. They lingered there a moment, reveling in the fact that they could. His hand came to the side of her face and when they finally did break, his dark eyes were warm and full of emotions that she wasn't sure even he could sort through all the way. "The future isn't always what it seems, isn't that true?"

"That is true," he acknowledged softly.

"Then you'll find a way to save Bae. Sacrifice doesn't mean you'll lose him forever, Rumple. We'll find a way to come out of this whole. You just have to have faith."

Growing up, Henry hadn't had much hope for a family. Regina had loved him, he knew that now, but it hadn't seemed like it during great stretches of his life. She'd been a single mom, so until he'd found Emma and Emma had found, he hadn't even been able to contemplate what having a dad could be like. Even now he was just beginning to understand what that really meant as Neal and he had been separated off and on since he'd met him. Brothers and sisters though? He hadn't even contemplated that.

They were edging up on their sixth full week in the Dark Castle, and Roland had attached himself to Henry like a shadow. He was quickly becoming the little brother that Henry hadn't even known to want. Even at four years old, he was sharp and clever, brought up in the Enchanted Forest and he'd lived through the curse on that side of things. He needed most of a room to tell a story, as he loved to speak while running to all corners to play the parts of various men in his father's band. Whenever Robin needed someone to watch Roland, Henry was always the first to volunteer, and the boys had hit it off better than could have been expected. It helped that Roland's dad had been the older boy's fairytale hero as a child.

One of the stories that Roland told was about how his papa had saved Henry's mama. Henry had listened with interest as Roland told a rather wild tale, but Robin himself confirmed most of the highlighted details. Zelena and Regina had been fighting, Zelena had been ready to steal the younger woman's heart, and Robin had shot her with a squid ink - coated arrow. Henry had brought it up to Regina at breakfast the next day and had only received a glare from his adopted mother, while Emma nearly choked on the oatmeal she'd been shoveling down her throat.

"I think he's rather handsome," Grandma Snow had said, but Regina had only glared.

"He smells like forrest."

After that, Henry had dropped it until a better time.

He hadn't forgotten it, though, and he'd set out to watch Regina and Robin when they were in the room together, which was surprisingly often now. There was always something for both of them to do and when they weren't being pulled in by Gramps for some sort of super-secret meetings that neither of the boys had invites to or dealing with a wild collection of people that were staying in an enchanted castle that had only recently been put back together - that had been truly spectacular to watch his Grandpa Gold piece together parts of the castle and Henry had spent some time wandering through and watching stones knit themselves back together and furniture put right without a hand to set it there - they did seem to spend at least part of their time together. When he asked, though, Henry was very firmly told it was because Roland and he were together, therefore it only made sense that they'd be in the same room and that he needed to drop whatever he was insinuating. Her denials only made him more interested though.

His mom had told him the story about Daniel after he'd attacked Henry in the stables in Storybrooke. He knew she'd been heartbroken and, if she had her way, would remain so probably until her dying day, but her son couldn't stand for that. There was something between she and Robin, he knew, even if she didn't know herself. He just had to get her to see it and to accept it. Accepting it was really the biggest problem on hand, but he was pretty sure he was up to the task. Someone needed to be.

That's how Henry found himself searching the hallways for a certain blonde fairy. He'd read in his book that Tinker Bell and Regina had been friends at one time and that Tinker Bell had tried to direct her towards the love that would help mend her heart. The fairy had come through with them and had stuck around even when the Blue Fairy tried to pull all of the others away. Tink had a mind of her own and Henry wagered that she was driven by a real good, not the set of rules that didn't always make sense that Blue seemed to follow like her very existence depended on it.

"Hey, Tink," he greeted as he hit the top step of the staircase leading to Belle's library.

She turned, grinning at him. "Hey there, Henry. Come to look for your book I'm always hearing so much about?"

"I'm not sure I need it now that I'm actually here," he answered with a smile to match hers. "But… I am here to ask you about something that was in my book."

"Me? I was in your book?"

"Not much, but there was a page or two in there from when you met my mom."

Blonde eyebrows shot up and her smile faded. "When I met Regina, you mean?"

"Yeah. My book said you were trying to help her find True Love and that she got scared and ran. Well, it didn't say that specifically, but I can read between the lines."

The smile returned slowly. "You are quite clever."

"I come from a long line on both sides," Henry answered with a shrug. "Do you remember anything about the man that you said was supposed to be her True Love?"

"Neither of us ever saw his face, but he looked tall. He was blond, I think, but the lighting was… a bit dim." Her face scrunched up a little in thought and she leaned against the ladder she'd been about to scale for whatever tome she was after. "Oh, and he had a tattoo."

"A tattoo?" the dark haired boy echoed.

"Mm. It was of a lion. She didn't go in though, so they never met."

"If they met now, though, what do you think would happen? I mean, we're back in the Enchanted Forest. Anything could happen, right?"

"I suppose so, but your mother… isn't the type to go looking."

"She's afraid to be happy, I know."

Tink smiled again. "You really are quite clever. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason."

"I have a hard time believing that."

Henry flashed her a grin that Emma would have said he had inherited from Neal. It was the one that typically got him what he wanted. It was time to find out if his theory was right. If so, maybe his mom would have a chance for happiness after all.

TBC

Notes:

This weekend was terrible for writing, but I did get a chance to go see Maleficent. I recommend it. Completely. Disney did not disappoint.

In the next chapter - Emma and Bae have a date while Rumplestiltskin finds a use for Hook.