Chapter Twenty-One.

Sometimes there was no good path to follow. He didn't like to believe that - Bae had jokingly called him the King of Loopholes at one point since they'd come back - but life had taught him that hard truth. It was rotten and sometimes - most of the time - it required difficult decisions to be made. That was one of the reasons why they kept him around, he wagered, because he would make those difficult decision, but he'd be damned if he ever understood why he always seemed to be blamed for them when everything came to light.

Rumplestiltskin pushed back the headache that continued to creep around behind his eyes and tried to focus on his task at hand. There was nothing he could do about what had happened, only what would happen, and he'd managed to get his side of things in as well as could be expected around the Blue Fairy's accusations. The point, in the end, was that Glinda was fated to die in every version of the future he'd found and that he'd simply turned her death into a way to keep the others alive. Most people would have been grateful that he'd saved their lives, but apparently the hero-types were just too good for that sort of thing. They were deciding his own fate now. Not that they'd dared to call it that, of course, but they were making their own difficult choices on if they would continue to align with the former Dark One or if they would break ties. Blue, of course, had called to jail him for his heinous crime, as she was framing it it, but that had caused its own disruption. There had been those that feared Rumplestiltskin's wrath at the attempt that would surely fail - it was good to know that even without his curse he still could instill a fair amount of fear within some - and a few that had recalled all the ways that he'd helped them, even if they couldn't stand by him now that he'd been involved in all of this.

The debate was still raging somewhere downstairs, but Rumple had walled himself off in his work tower. He couldn't handle the sound of the ignorant ideas or their absurd theories. They'd decide what they would, but in the end he knew they really were deciding his fate. If they chose to break away that would take the Charmings to their newly claimed castle - the one that he'd just helped them win back and that Regina was currently securing along with her thief - and with them Emma. That within itself didn't matter as much to him as the fact that where Emma went, so went Bae and Henry. The castle would be quiet again without his son seeking his advice - wasn't that a turn of events? - or his chance to teach his grandson magic. He and Belle would remain, absolutely secluded and unable to help those they loved.

Belle. Rumplestiltskin loosed a long breath out through his nose as he turned back to the project that both allowed him to be somewhat useful in his current state of limbo and distracted his mind from why he was there in the first place. After the battle had ended they had counted their injured and their dead. It had been a moment that he'd dreaded since speaking with Maurice and the visions that tried so desperately to get through, and he still had no relief. They'd found many people had gone missing, likely flung to all parts of the kingdom through magical traps and pitfalls. Some may have even been carried off by or turned into monkeys. It was difficult to say, and now that he was willing to look, his visions had gone haywire again, as if he'd stretched his powers just a bit too far, and he couldn't catch a hold of the one that had wanted so badly to get through before. Maurice was missing and Belle was devastated. He, of course, could do little, as the one thing that the others seemed to be in agreement on was the fact that he should remain a prisoner in his own castle until a decision was made.

The tracking spell that he'd been working on was simple, but necessary for finding those that had gone missing. He pulled a beaker from the flame and poured it in with the rest of the potion, watching smoke billow up and pour out of the top. It sat and while he waited he tried to reach again, finding the future fragmented and so scattered that did him little good. It wasn't as if it didn't exist at all, but he certainly couldn't make any sense of it.

"Grandpa?"

Rumplestiltskin startled, whirling around and nearly toppling off his seat at the sound of the voice. He'd closed down his tower tighter than usual, keeping anyone that desperately needed to speak with him at the bottom to call up to him. Henry had slipped through, as the blood magic had allowed, and stood uncertainly at the top of the stairs. A pang of guilt laced through the sorcerer as he realized that he hadn't sought the boy out upon his return or even after the terrible explanation that had done him little to no good. Someone must have explained it to him, and Rumple could only hope that it had been Bae or Emma and not that damned fairy that wanted nothing less than to tuck him away in his old cell for the rest of his days.

"Hey, Henry," he greeted after a moment, swallowing down the guilt and offering a strained smile instead.

His grandson tried to return the smile, but it never quite made it and instead he settled for pulling over a stool and plopping himself down on it. Grandfather and grandson sat there for a few moments, watching each other as the motion set to the side until it was ready for use. Finally, Henry's eyes wandered too it. "That's going to help Belle find her dad, isn't it?"

The question brought a true smile from Rumplestiltskin. "I hope so."

"You don't like Moe… Sir Maurice very much, do you? Emma'd never tell me the whole story, but I know you and he got into a fight at least once. She put you in jail. You remember?"

"Yes, of course," Rumple murmured softly. He remembered the rage he'd felt towards a man that he was certain had been the death of Belle. Even once he'd found out that she was, in fact, alive, the grudge had stuck between them and it was only in the last conversation that they'd had that they'd begun to grow something close to civil. "But he is Belle's father."

"Guess that means he gets a pass then, huh?" Henry asked and that curious gaze was swiveled back around on him. It wasn't a vision, per se, but in that moment Rumplestiltskin felt a fear settle inside of him that threatened to claw its way up. He wasn't ready to let his family go. Not yet.

"Indeed."

"Grandpa? If Gramps and the others decide to go… can I stay here with you?"

This brought Rumplestiltskin's attention fully onto that moment and he blinked owlishly at the boy. "If David decides to go, I fear your mother and father will go as well," he said slowly.

"I know, but I was kind of thinking that you could work something up that would let me go in between. You know, like the teleportation spell you put on Belle's necklace so she could help look for her dad when Blue said you couldn't go. I could just sort of bounce back and forth." He paused, almost as if he were waiting for a confirmation, and when he didn't receive it his lips twitched downward just a little. "I mean… if you want me here."

"Henry, I'd like nothing better," his grandfather swore.

"Dad'd come too. He doesn't want to go either. He said he just got you back and that we should stick together if we're going to win."

A warmth settled into Rumplestiltskin's chest. "Your father said that?"

"Yeah, but we don't know what they've decided yet. Blue won't let Dad in and she kicked Mom out because she said that she'd just tell Dad. They've been in there for hours. I don't know what's taking them so long."

"Nor do I."

"It'll be okay. Gramps trusts you, even if he doesn't like what happened. He's loyal."

Rumplestiltskin sighed. "Sometimes loyalty isn't enough, Henry, but I hope you're right."

"I am. You'll see. They won't split our family up." He paused, rocking back on the stool he was seated on. "Grandpa? Can you teach me some magic while we wait?"

The sorcerer chuckled, ruffling the boy's hair. "I think now would be a perfect time to work on it."

He'd promised to trust him, but damn it all if he wasn't making that very difficult right now. It wasn't like his father had had the time to sit down and explain what he'd done after it had happened and before he spoke to everyone, but Bae was working very hard not to focus on the fact that he could have said something before everything went down. He knew his papa would have every excuse in the worlds as to why he hadn't. He didn't want Bae to talk him out of it or he'd thought that divulging the plan would throw something off - which, if Baelfire were honest with himself, was the most likely excuse his father would give - or any number of reasons. It didn't matter because his papa hadn't told him and they had to deal with whatever came at them from that point on.

Bae had been on his way to get the answers when he'd heard that Belle had returned - making use of a teleportation charm Rumplestiltskin had provided her with - and had detoured to find her looking much more put out than he'd hoped. "No news?" he guessed, hoping it was that rather than bad news.

Belle's lips thinned and she shook her head. "None yet. We're still looking."

"I bet he just got tossed like a few of the others we've come across. He'll be fine, Belle."

"I don't suppose…"

"If he's Seen anything, he hasn't told me." He paused, taking a moment to really look at her. He'd thought that the hours that had passed since the battle - leading them so deep into the night that it might as well have been the next day - had been rough in the Dark Castle, but Belle hadn't even had a chance to clean the mud from her leather coat or out of her hair. There was no blood on her, of course, as the pendant she wore around her neck kept her perfectly safe from harm, and Bae was certain that's the only reason his father had grit his teeth and told her that she should join the search for Maurice. It hadn't been what he wanted, his son knew, but it had been what Belle needed and he had to credit him for that. She looked exhausted now, with a hollowness in her eyes that was very foreign. "Listen, at first light, why don't I go back out with you and we'll start again?" he offered, watching her try to smile.

"Your papa needs you here. One of us needs to be."

There was guilt lacing her tone and Bae grimaced. "He'd be out with you if he could."

"I know, but if there's any hopes of keeping this alliance together he can't. He's been working on a tracking potion for me. That's actually why I'm here."

"You look like you could use some rest."

"I'll never be able to sleep. It's best I just get the potion, check on Rumple, and go back to looking." She paused, her gaze turning very meaningful. "If he were lost, what would you stop at to find him?"

"Nothing," came the answer without hesitation and it startled him a little, but he could see that it had also made her point rather nicely. "Well, I was on my way up there."

"Shall we then?" his father's fiance asked pleasantly and turned, but she stopped mid-step, her eyes fixated at the end of the hallway where a man was moving forward. He was tall and dark skinned. His stance was every bit that of a military man and he wore the uniform that Bae had seen many of David's men don to go into battle. Belle seemed to recognize him, but he nearly barreled right past them until she called out a name. "Alexander?"

He paused and turned, an apology already tumbling off his lips for a person that perhaps he should have known and greeted however briefly, but when his dark eyes came to rest on Belle they widened a fraction and he stood stiffly. "You."

A small smile touched her lips, though it didn't hold the usual warmth that Bae had seen when she greeted an old friend that she hadn't seen since before the curse. This one was rather sad and it didn't seem to have anything to do with her missing father or the fact that a committee of people was currently deciding if they believed her True Love to be a traitor or not.

"I suppose you would be here," the man said at last, his voice careful and guarded.

"I do live here," she answered softly and turned her attention to Bae when he cleared his throat awkwardly. Her face darkened just a little and she motioned between them. "Baelfire, this is Alexander."

"I've heard that name," Alexander said carefully, his gaze shifting to Bae. "You're his son."

That brought a snort of a laugh from him, despite the hostility in the words. "You mean Rumplestiltskin's? Yeah, I am. I'm going to guess you didn't have the most pleasant of run ins with my dad?"

"He killed my brother."

Bae glanced over to Belle, and while the story appeared to pull some unpleasant memories forward, she didn't waver. "That's not exactly how it happened," she said slowly, as if tasting her words as she spoke them to make sure that they were indeed the ones she meant to be heard.

There was definitely a story there, Baelfire knew, but with the way that Alexander was bristling it was one to be heard outside of his earshot. "I don't think I've seen you around, so if you're looking for David you're going to want to take this hallway down to where it bears right and you'll find the room they're in just at the end of the hallway there. You'll want to make sure not to get off that path though. The castle kind of has a mind of its own… and a twisted sense of humour."

Alexander cast him a weary look, but nodded. "Thank you," was all he said and turned on heel, leaving Bae and Belle in his wake. From the way that Belle exhaled, though, perhaps it was good that nothing worse had come from the meeting.

Without warning, Belle started walking, and moved to a door that Bae was certain hadn't been there when they'd stopped. "We met Alexander and his elder brother when I worked for your father. His brother was very angry with Rumple over something and had cast a curse over the little town that used to be at the bottom of the mountain to trap him there without magic. They nearly managed to kill him before he broke the curse, but it rebounded on the elder brother, leaving Alexander alive and… quite angry. From what Rumple has said, he actually became his jailer during the time just before the Dark Curse was cast."

"Guess there are two sides to every story," Bae murmured after a moment as the castle delivered them at the bottom of the work tower stairs.

Belle gave him a small smile. "Rumple made sure he lived because he said he was important to his curse, but really, I think it's because Alexander refused to harm me."

That sounded about right from his papa. Rumplestiltskin never liked to admit his motives, or at least rarely, because if too many of them came out into the open the strings wouldn't match up at all the right times. As they started up the stairs, the wards giving way for Bae, he decided that he could disagree with his actions without being angry at his father. They'd spent too many years living in anger already.

While Snow had been raised to lead, David had learned through immediate necessity. He was not a diplomat, even if he'd learned to curb his more blunt nature in favour of diplomacy over the years. It was the only thing that had saved him in the long and drawn out discussion with his wife's patron fairy and the others that had taken their places as leaders in this alliance against Zelena and Pan and it was the only thing, in the end, that had kept the room civil. Snow had finally listened to him some hours before - for the sake of their unborn child - and had turned in, leaving David to wade through the troubled waters alone. Even Emma had been turned out, a request that he'd very reluctantly dealt with.

The decision had finally been made after much debate on all issues involved. Curse or no curse, some said, Rumplestiltskin still posed many of the same threats he did while under his curse and to align with him had been folly from the beginning. David had disagreed, as aligning with the former Dark One had brought his daughter and his grandson through when Regina had reversed her curse and had saved his and several others' lives when George had betrayed them. Thankfully, Philip and Thomas hadn't forgotten that and he thought that it might have been what saved them from rushing into thoroughly foolish endeavor of trying to lock him away somewhere. That and the fact that doing so while within his castle would be just shy of suicide.

They'd reached a compromise, or at least that's what they'd called it. Blue didn't think it was harsh enough and David thought it was too much, but that didn't really matter at this point. He was not the only vote that counted around the table and they needed troops to win against their enemies. If there was one thing that he and Rumplestiltskin could always agree on, it was that sacrifices were made for family.

That didn't make the discussion that he was about to walk into any easier, of course.

Philip had offered to speak to the sorcerer, but David had instantly declined. If it must be done, he would be the one to do it. He'd meant to go straight from the meeting to Rumplestiltskin's tower where he was certain the other man would be, but between Blue wanting to continue on after the decision was made and Alexander showing up to alert them that the castle had been secured, he'd been delayed over an hour. Now, though, he found himself at the base of the stairs that circled up to the work room and he couldn't go any further. An invisible wall had stopped him, not allowing him to take even the first step up. He'd never had a reason to approach any of the rooms that Rumplestiltskin had sealed off using blood magic, but the waiting spell sent a strange chill through him, as if to convey that he was not welcome.

"David?"

David looked up to see Belle leaning just around the last place that the staircase curved before it hit the bottom stretch. He hadn't even known she was back, but she looked exhausted. "Hey. I'm looking for Rumplestiltskin."

"He's up here." She leaned back around and called up. "Rumple, David's here. Let him in?"

There was some grousing from above, but the spell shimmered, making the wall visible to the naked eye for just a moment before fading back out of sight. He stared at it, wondering if that was supposed to mean something to him and Belle motioned for him to follow.

He did so hesitantly, finding that he could step through where he could not moments before and he followed her up the stairs. Rumplestiltskin was seated at his workbench with Neal perched up on the deep windowsill. Henry looked to have dozed off while visiting and was curled up on what might have been a cot conjured up just for him, curled beneath a blanket to keep the chill out. He looked so peaceful and David felt a pang of regret lace through him.

"Made your decision, have you?"

Not his, David wanted to say, but he knew that they had to stand together on this. "Yes."

Belle took a seat next to him and the former Dark One wrapped an arm around his fiance as she leaned into him. "I will warn you, David, that if you're here to try to drag me back to some prison that you think might hold me-"

"I wouldn't have stood by that," the blond prince answered quickly. "You've done too much to help us. We all see that."

"Most of you," Rumplestiltskin corrected him and they both knew to whom he was referring.

"All but one, really," David concurred. He pulled in a deep breath, looking around. "There's no easy way to say this, because I know how you're going to see it. Hell, I'd see it the same way if I were in your shoes-"

"Your little alliance splits or all of you ban together and leave me here, is that what it boiled down to?"

"Surely not," Belle cut in.

"I'm afraid that is the decision that's been made. While we agree that you've been helpful in our efforts, you've openly admitted that you manipulated the situation to use a good woman's death to your advantage."

"And yours, by the way. You were among the body count in more than one of the possible futures, Charming, don't forget that."

David grimaced at the nickname. It had caught on after Snow had begun to call him that, but he had never heard the name leave Rumplestiltskin's lips without a fair amount of sarcasm accompanying it. "A woman is still dead."

"A woman that would have been dead anyway. I simply used something that would happen no matter what and made sure other terrible things didn't happen, yet I'm the monster for it." He stood and David wasn't sure that the temperature didn't drop a few degrees. His words were certainly icy enough. "Do you know what I think, Charming? I think you lot need people like Regina and I that are willing to think outside of your little constructed box. You need us to do the things you're not willing to do."

"Rumplestiltskin-"

"Not finished yet, dearie," the former Dark One snapped, and while Belle and Neal were watching him warily, neither moved to stop him. "You need us to do your dirty work as much as you need that damn fairy's approval. I have no doubt that when she's not willing to do what needs to be done to keep the lot of you alive - and likely it'll be after several of you are dead and gone by that point - you'll come crawling back to me for help."

"We can't just continue on as if nothing happened."

"You're right. You won your castle back. Congratulations. Happy now?"

David let out a sharp breath and tried not to look too directly into the elder man's eyes. It was strange, but he thought that those darker, more human eyes could give off a more intense look than the reptilian ones ever had. The man that stood before him was most certainly not the Dark One any longer. He'd fought with them, he'd shed blood and suffered injuries, and now they were tossing him aside. He wasn't wrong, and David knew it, but those that said they could not look past his actions were not wrong either and this had been the best solution that all parties could live with. Well, most parties.

"I know that you feel-"

"You don't know what I feel," Rumplestiltskin cut him off sharply, his voice louder than it had been and all eyes immediately turned to the slumbering boy on the cot. He stirred, but didn't rouse fully into wakefulness. When he spoke again, the sorcerer's voice was controlled. "You don't know anything, but you think you do. That'll get you into trouble."

"Papa," Neal said softly from his spot.

"I'm not taking your family away from you, Rumplestiltskin," David breathed out, his words so rushed that the elder man couldn't have jumped in the middle of them if he'd wanted to.

"Aren't you? Tell me, will my grandson be staying here?"

"He'll go home with his mother."

"Of course he will. Tell me, Charming, how well have you thought this through? Without Regina to transport you over the distance, you'll be covering it on foot. Now, I know there's not just a great distance between here and Regina's castle, but there is some, including a trip down and through the mountain. Zelena is after Henry and I wouldn't count Pan out of wanting his heart either. You'll make him a target and an easy one at that."

"We'll protect him."

Rumplestiltskin snorted. "So I see you've thought it through about as well as you did the battle to take the castle."

"Which worked out," David countered.

"Because of me!"

The prince wasn't sure if Belle and Neal were holding their tongues because they agreed or simply because they thought it best to get all of this out in the open. It really didn't matter, the other man's sharp tone was slowly chipping away at the uncertainty that David had felt towards this decision and he stole a glance back to their mutual grandson. "I would protect Henry with my life," he swore. "We know she doesn't have all the stones and you have said it yourself that without them she'd be a fool to try to cast the spell with just him, so unless you've Seen something, I'd suggest you stop trying to use him to get what you want."

Rumplestiltskin went stiff at the words, dark eyes focused in entirely on the younger man and David straightened his shoulders.

"Have you Seen anything?" David pressed.

"No." The word was sharp and tense as it left his mouth, just as his posture was, but there was a flash of something in his eyes and David thought it looked like something akin to betrayal.

"We'll be leaving within the next few days," David said, his voice a little softer. "Neal, you're welcome to come along, of course, but I understand if you stay."

"I'll let you know," Rumplestiltskin's son answered carefully.

"Of course." No one stopped him for any further words as he turned to leave and all David could think about was how poorly suited he was for the political dance. He knew that what had been done had been needed, but he couldn't shake the look that Rumplestiltskin had given him. The man hid behind more masks and more walls than anyone he'd ever met, yet the young prince feared that that had been truth shining through. He did feel betrayed, and he wondered what that would mean for their ragtag little family further down the line.

TBC

Notes: I'm really glad this is going up this evening because I've been running around like crazy all day. Usually I have more time to write than I did and get the editing done during my lunchtime at work. Not today apparently.

Next time - Henry tries to find a way to stay, Belle hears news about her father, and Rumple receives a very unwelcome guest.