The fire was a nice contrast to her wet clothes after having gotten out of the pond. With the blanket wrapped around her snugly and Peter's arm around her shoulder on top of that, she had finally managed to stop shivering as they watched the glowing embers together. After leaving the pond, they had set up camp to rest up before they would take the long journey back to Peter's home, a place that he had described as somewhere magical and wonderful and where they could rebuild their lives. Neverland...even the name sounded wonderful. She wished her child was still alive to go there with them however. Thinking about it made her start to cry again and she wiped her wet cheek. "Malcolm?" she sniffed.
"Hmm?" Peter replied, though he kept his eyes closed and his head resting gently on top of her's.
"What happened...to Rumple?" she asked as she continued to stare at the embers. At the question, Peter's eyes quickly fluttered open and he stiffened slightly, causing her to shift and look up at him. Removing his arm from her, the boy stared into the fire, his brows furrowed in concentration as he picked up a twig and fidgeted with it.
"He's gone. Knowing why won't bring him back."
Sniffing once again, the girl huddled under her blanket and pulled it closer. Despite his words being true, she still wanted to know. "Please?" she insisted. Tossing the twig, he stood up abruptly and walked to the other side of the campfire where he began pacing, knowing that she'd never forgive him if he told her the truth. She'd keep pestering him about it though, she was a stubborn girl like that and she did have a right to know. So he decided to lie.
"You were sick." he started as he finally turned back to face her. Closing her eyes, the girl nodded.
"I remember." It was pneumonia, probably from a mixture of being malnourished and cold. She remembered feeling weak and coughing a lot, her body hot to the touch from fever and she had trouble breathing. The last thing she remembered was falling unconscious in the stable where they were squatting at the time, her child shouting at her to wake up though she was unable to reply to him. It was awful.
"I couldn't get you the medicine that you needed." Peter continued as he began pacing again. "You would've died if I hadn't met that shadow."
"A shadow?" she questioned as she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
"It told me about this fountain, a fountain of youth. He said that if I dipped you in the fountain's water, then you'd be better again." It was frightening how easily he could lie to her as he returned to her side and sat down, reaching out for her hand and squeezing it lightly, hoping that she would believe him. "Then it told me about Neverland and that we could live there and never grow old or sick ever again." Looking down at her hand in Peter's, it all started to make sense for the girl. That pond she had woken up in was a fountain of youth and it also explained why her husband looked as he did the day she had met him, youthful and boyishly charming. Or so she was lead to believe.
"And Rumple?" she questioned once again as she curled her fingers around his. A pained expression clouded his face as he closed his eyes, recalling that moment he turned his back on his own child in exchange for eternal youth, casting Rumple away.
"He was taken by the Indian tribe that guarded the fountain and killed. I tried to save him...to stop them but I couldn't-" His voice broke as he started to cry, selling the story he had spun with his tears. Feeling her heart break once again as she shared the grief that her husband was obviously experiencing, the girl tugged him close once again and rubbed his back, this time letting him be the one to cry on her shoulder.
"It's not your fault." she whispered comfortingly as she continued to rub his back. Peter clung tightly to his wife as she soothed him, his eyes focused on the woods behind them where his shadow had hidden itself from her all this time, watching them both intently. Both he and the shadow knew of course, that it was entirely his fault and no one else's...
The sound of humming filled the tower as she busied herself with the soup she was cooking in the fireplace. Stirring the large cast iron pot, she added in the mushrooms she had carefully chopped up and stirred those as well before ladling out a small amount of the soup and tasted it, deciding that it could use a little more salt. On top of the dining table that was set off to one side of the kitchen where she had laid out all the other ingredients for her soup, was a small jeweled box. Malcolm had spent the night with her, more energetic and playful than she had ever seen him. There was something different about him although she couldn't seem to figure out exactly what it was that put that extra bounce in his step.
In the morning, he left her, stating that pirates had landed on the island once again and he had to get rid of them to make Neverland safe. Before he left however, he gave her the jeweled box with strict instructions that she should never open it as it contained a great evil. He explained that the pirates wanted the box for their own greedy desires and that he needed her to keep it safe there in the tower that they shared. She then spent a good chunk of her morning examining every detail on the box from the bright red jewel on the top to the dark lines etched into the silver in intricate designs. For something that contained a great evil, she thought the box itself was very pretty. Though she was curious as to what this "great evil" inside it was exactly, she heeded her husband's warning and curbed her curiosity, setting the box down before starting on breakfast.
As she began sprinkling salt into her soup however, the box suddenly began rattling on top of the table. It was only for a moment and it stopped instantly the moment she stopped in her movements to glance over at it. Blinking over at the box to find that it was as she left it, the girl looked away and went back to her soup. After a minute of stirring, the box rattled again and she looked back at it to see that it was still as she had left it. "I really need to get out of this tower." the girl sighed as she placed a hand up to her forehead, deciding that she had been cooped inside for far too long and that her mind was starting to play tricks on her.
As if the box was testing her sanity, it began rattling again, this time so violently that it actually fell off the table and onto the floor which caused her to gasp in surprise. She backed up as far away from the box as she possibly could while it continued to rattle, the red jewel at the top faintly glowing. When it stopped entirely, going back to it's dormant state, the girl craned her neck to examine it as she slowly reached out and poked at the box with her ladle. She then quickly retracted her hand though the box didn't respond. No more shaking or glowing.
Reaching out once again, she decided to poke the box one last time to make sure that it was done shaking and scaring her when the ladle touched the red jewel and it responded, releasing a red smoke. The smoke took the form of an old man who suddenly lunged at her, a hand gripping her throat tightly as he backed her against the wall and pinned her there, causing her to drop her ladle while his vice grip slowly choked the life from her. After Rumple had been freed from his prison in the box, he had expected to find his father in his grip but discovered that it was a girl he was strangling instead. What was worse, was that she was a girl he knew well. "Mother?" he said breathlessly in disbelief as he let go of the girl and backed away from her.
But that couldn't be, his mother was dead. She had died when he was twelve years old from sickness. This had to be another one of his father's tricks, like the shadow pretending to be Belle in the woods. How low would his father sink to have it pretend to be his mother now just to get to Henry? In an angry outburst, he picked up a nearby knife she had been using to cut up her vegetables and swiped it at her, leaving a deep cut on her cheek. She let out a sharp cry at the assault, the pain bringing fresh tears to her eyes as drops of blood began to drip from the cut. Blood. She was bleeding. Rumple's eyes widened in surprise. Shadows and illusions couldn't bleed which meant she was real. But how? Dropping the knife, he took a step towards her which forced her to take another step back out of fear that he would hurt her again.
"S-stay away from me!" she shouted though her warning was practically harmless as she didn't have anything to defend herself with. She was pretty much stuck in this tower with this mad man after all. "Who are you?" she then demanded, not really caring to know his identity but hoped to distract him with conversation long enough that she could find a weapon or maybe sneak around him and hopefully find somewhere to hide. Arching an eyebrow, the man merely peered back at her curiously as he dropped his hands down at his sides. She didn't know who he was, further confirming his belief that this perhaps wasn't a trick after all.
"My name is Rumple." he finally replied. "Rumpelstiltskin. I'm your son."
Her brows furrowed at this, obviously not at all convinced about his identity. Was this the great evil Malcolm had described? This man who hurt her and pretended to be her son to cause further emotional scaring? "My son is dead so whatever trick you're playing at, it won't work." His gazed followed her, even as she continued to try and inch away from him.
"Is that what he told you? That I died?" he questioned, feeling his anger and hatred toward his father rising again. She said nothing, merely glaring over at him when the locket around her neck glinted in the light of the fireplace, catching his attention. ""Your name is Rapunzel and you were from a noble family. You gave up your title and your fortune when you fell in love with father and ran away with him." he started as he pointed at the piece of jewelry around her neck. "That locket. It was given to you by your father. Even when we were starving and out in the cold, father refused to sell it because he knows how much you loved it." Stopping in her tracks, the girl's expression changed from fear to one of surprise. How did he know that? "You used to sing a lullaby to me every night and whenever father and I came home you'd say 'Welcome home-'"
"Dearie." she finished for him in disbelief, realizing that an illusion and trickster couldn't possibly have known any of that. Her son was alive. He was alive and standing before her. "Rumple?" Rapunzel whispered as she took a step toward him and placed a gentle hand on his cheek. He smiled down at her, his own hand sliding easily over hers as the first of his tears began to fall.
"It's me mother."
A wave of emotions washed over them both as she pulled her son into a hug. "Oh god, all these years you were alive and I didn't know." she cried as she wrapped her arms around his neck and planned never to let him go again.
"It's not your fault." Rumple said before he pulled away from her but held onto her hands. Looking away from him, her saddened expression turned into one of anger and confusion.
"Your father lied to me. Why would he do that?" she questioned.
"Father's changed quite a bit since you died." Rumple replied simply, not having the heart or the time to tell her the truth.
"So I did die." she murmured. Another lie her husband had told her which made her begin to wonder just what else he was lying about.
"Mother, there are others in Neverland that I came with. I need to find them. They'll need my help." he went on to explain, cutting their bittersweet reunion short as he picked up the box he had popped out from and placed it in his pocket before he began heading out of the kitchen and up the spiraling staircase, dragging Rapunzel along with him. Once he had reached the top floor, he finally let go of her hand and walked over to the only window and exit out of the tower, pushing it open only to find they were several feet in the air and that there was no way down.
"This tower was built by magic." Rapunzel said as she stood by the window beside him and looked down. "The only way down is with pixie dust and your father took what I had left with him." Stepping away from the window, her son suddenly smirked over at her.
"In the land where I came from, there's a fairy tale about a girl trapped in a tower with no way down. It must've originated from here." Tilting her head, Rapunzel gazed at him with a look of confusion, unsure of what exactly it was that he found so amusing.
"And what happened to this girl in the story?" she asked.
"Well, since she was trapped in this tower, she grew up there and her hair grew with her, becoming longer and longer until she was able to use it as a rope and climb down." Rumple finished.
"That's a very nice story, Dearie, but I don't know how that helps us." Rapunzel replied. Last time she checked, her hair was only waist length and as long as her son's hair was, it certainly wasn't enough for them both to use it to climb down.
"Well, mother. It gives me an idea." he smirked once again as he took a step back from her and held up a hand, twisting it with a small flick of his wrist. Suddenly, Rapunzel's light blond hair began to grow rapidly, cascading down her back onto the floor and even then it didn't stop and just continued growing. Her blue eyes widened in surprise as she held a handful of her golden locks up to examine.
"You have magic." she murmured, still in shock as she dropped her hair and looked back at him. Her son had magic. That was new.
"Like father like son I suppose." he replied bitterly as he gathered as much of her hair as he could carry in his arms before he threw it over a sturdy hook in the room and created a makeshift pulley system. Once he was finished, he gathered up the ends of the golden locks and dropped them out the window where they reached all the way to the ground below. Once he finished, he turned back to his mother and offered her the crook of his elbow, a grin on his face that reminded her so much of his father, especially when Malcolm thought he was being particularly clever. "Shall we?" he asked as he held onto a section of her hair and stepped up onto the window's ledge. Returning his smile, Rapunzel picked up her skirts and wrapped her arm around his, taking a section of her hair in her free hand and climbed up on the edge as well before she closed her eyes, held her breath, and jumped...