Chapter Seven: Darkness All-Consuming
Four more days passed.
Henry's condition continued to improve. He hadn't regained consciousness, but his vitals were stable and his color was good. According to Whale, his condition was no worse than might be expected of a person recovering from serious trauma. He appeared to be in a deep, natural sleep, such as was common for healing patients. That he hadn't woken up was slightly worrisome, but considering that his state was caused by a curse, not too surprising. More importantly, he no longer appeared to be in any danger.
Gold, on the other hand, was deteriorating. At Neal's request, Emma and Belle had gone back to the hospital. Belle had gone to the doctor's office for a check-in, armed with a lot of questions. Emma had used the distraction to steal an IV line and as many saline and nutrient bags as she could possibly carry without looking suspicious. Hardly proper behavior for a sheriff, but she figured she or Regina could reimburse the hospital later. Or her parents could.
They'd taken the equipment back to Gold's and used a coat rack from the entryway to create a makeshift IV pole, then duck-taped the line to Gold's elbow. Fortunately, Mary Margaret had been a hospital volunteer long enough to pick up the basics of setting an IV line. She'd bruised Gold a bit, but Emma was just thankful they'd managed at all.
She was also grateful it hadn't broken Gold out of the spell, though she couldn't help the lingering fear that nothing could break Gold out. He seemed lost in his own memories, his expression locked into a permanent, pained grimace.
After that, Belle had allowed both Emma and Mary Margaret to help her with getting food and a few changes of clothes, but had otherwise remained at Rumplestiltskin's side. She and Neal traded sessions sleeping and watching over the tormented man, bathing his brow with damp cloths and attempting to get water down his throat every now and then. They also changed his bandages. There was nothing they could do for his clothes, though. Emma had been worried about the smell, until Regina brought in a set of scented candles and did something with a light touch of magic that cleared the air.
Emma watched from the doorway as Neal gently wiped a damp cloth over his father's brow, then checked the IV. It was Belle's turn to rest. She'd opted for the same choice Neal had, a heap of pillows and blankets and cushions from other parts of the house on the floor.
Emma moved closer, watching as Neal settled his father in a more comfortable position. She noticed that he or Belle had applied chapstick to Gold's lips, which were cracked and split and looked like they'd bled in a couple places.
Normally, she might have thought it was amusing, to see someone as composed and neat as the pawnbroker with chapped lips and rumpled hair.
It wasn't at all amusing now.
Neal looked up as she shifted closer. "Hey."
"Hey." She swallowed hard. "Any changes?"
"Not really. Hasn't got his voice back yet, or he just isn't talking. There's no way of telling how far he's gone, or how far he has left." Neal sighed. "Three hundred years is a long time."
"Yeah. I guess it is."
Neal sighed again, then bent forward to lean his head on the bed. After a moment, he spoke again, his voice muffled by his arms. "I wish I could stop it."
Emma tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Yeah. Me too."
Gold had said they might all wish the price was a life, and she was beginning to see why. This constant, endless torment weighed on all of them. Even Regina's acid dislike of the man had been worn down by watching him suffer.
She reached out and put a hand on Neal's shoulder, offering the little comfort she could. "I'm sorry. If I'd known..."
Neal jerked upright, a restless, almost angry, movement. "Wouldn't have mattered. He'd have done it anyway. He's such a stubborn..." He shook his head again. "And we would have let him. Even me. I would have said he deserved to know how screwed up he was. I didn't know..." Neal's words broke in a rough rasp. "I spent so long wanting to shove it in his face, how twisted being the Dark One was. Being angry at him. If I'd known it was like this..." He swiped an arm across his face, then looked up at Emma. "I don't know what to do."
"Yeah. Me neither." Emma watched as Gold flinched again. "I guess...all we can do is be here for him. Let him know we appreciate what he's done."
"He's my father. And I love him. I haven't told him that since I saw him again. He told me he loved me, but all I did was tell him I was still angry at him." Neal blinked and looked away, but Emma saw the sparkle of new tears in his eyes. "I gotta tell him I love him, Emma."
"Yeah." Emma let go and shoved her hand in her pocket, feeling awkward. She didn't know if she loved Gold, didn't know if she could. But he was family, and he was suffering to save her son. And that meant something to her.
She only hoped it would mean something to him too.
***SM***
Deal upon deal upon deal. He had lost track, in three hundred years of making deals. All that time, watching and waiting, accumulating favors and artifacts that he thought he might need.
He'd learned so many things during those years. The darkest of magics. The worst of behaviors.
How to kill, in so many ways he'd practically lost track. How to punish. How to torture, a thing that once would have made him sick to the point of fainting. By the end of his second century, he'd become a master at it, and able to laugh as he worked.
Memory after memory replayed in his mind, people he had used, people he had punished. People he had manipulated. He'd sworn as a child never to be that kind of man. A man like his father, or like the cruel men who often traded with his father, or like the Duke who sent children to war.
In the end, he'd become worse. He'd rationalized it all as part of the search for his son, necessary for power to do what he needed to do, but in the end no reason could erase what he'd done. What he'd become. A monster.
The memory scene shifted again, leaving him kneeling on the cold marble floor of a palace. A palace he knew well. His heart sank, then turned to ice as he realized what he was about to witness.
A young woman, long black hair framing a face just maturing from childhood to adulthood. A girl with wounded and frightened but still bearing innocent eyes.
The Dark One giggled with delight. "Now this is a pretty, familiar scene, isn't it? Quite a fond memory, no? The day you found the last players in your game? The last piece of the puzzle."
Regina.
He watched himself appear to the young princess, about to be Queen and still reeling from the death of her love. Watched himself smile.
'You don't know me, but I know you dearie. Held you in my arms. You were once promised to me, in a sense...I can help you with your problems.'
"No..."
He watched himself prey on a young woman's tears, her grief and her anger. Twist them into a desperate, twisted hope, and something darker. A need for vengeance and a chance to claim it.
He watched himself coax Regina down the first step of the path to darkness, when she shoved her mother through the looking glass and into Wonderland.
"Of course, it wasn't just about taking advantage of her grief, now was it? Not at all. There's so much more to the story." The Dark One snickered.
"Yes." His voice cracked painfully. "I..."
He'd known what Cora was, and how she'd raised her daughter. He'd known what would happen to Regina, when she succeeded in ridding herself of her mother.
Vengeance would be sweet. But then the girl who'd spent her entire life being controlled and manipulated would be cut adrift. No one to guide her. No one she could trust to advise her. No one to teach her how to make her own way in the world. She'd realize soon enough how uncertain she was. And then…
"Well, come on now. Spit it out, dearie. You know the drill by now I'm sure."
"I took advantage of her. Of her anger. Of her grief. She lost...her love...and I used it. I used her for the Curse. But here...I used her vulnerability."
"To further your own ends. You took a young innocent and turned her into the Evil Queen. All for a spell. And you didn't even tell her that she wouldn't even get what she wanted from it. Twisted her into an all-consuming need for vengeance, and didn't even tell her she wouldn't get it." The Dark One sneered.
"I know. I know..." He watched Regina take the first step, shoving her mother through the mirror while he smiled in the background. "I..."
The scene shifted, to the day they'd begun their lessons. Lessons in magic, lessons in darkness.
He watched himself manipulate Regina's heart, feeding her need for vengeance. Her anger. Her hatred. Her envy and frustration. All the while convincing herself that she'd never really fall prey to the darkness.
One spell at a time, he led his student down the darkest of paths. Coaxing, convincing, making it look less dark than it was.
He'd thought himself beyond tears. He'd thought there was nothing he'd done that could exceed the horrors he had committed over three hundred years.
He watched himself deliberately, knowingly, corrupt an innocent with empty promises. Twist her and turn her, as his life had twisted him, until she was as dark as he, as broken and filled with pain and empty ambitions.
He watched, and he wept for the evil he had done. The innocent he had broken into the form of the Evil Queen.
"Regina...I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
***SM***
Emma was contemplating going for coffee when Gold suddenly stirred, a soft, broken cry coming from his mouth. "No..."
Neal shot out of his chair, and Belle pushed her way upright, blinking sleep from her eyes.
Gold shuddered, and a tear slid down his face. "I..." His voice cracked on the word, breathless and painful. "I used…took advantage...she lost..." The words were disjointed, broken, rasping against his throat. Another tear joined the first.
Then a name, seemingly wrenched from the depths of his being. "Regina...I'm sorry."
Neal blinked. "The Queen? Why's he apologizing to her?"
Emma shook her head. "Why don't we ask her?" She pulled out her phone and dialed the now familiar number.
Two rings, and Regina answered. "I hope you have a good reason for calling me, Miss Swan."
"There's been a development. Can you come to Gold's?"
"Give me ten minutes." The line went dead.
Fifteen minutes later, Regina entered the room. "What's happened?"
"He was calling for you." Emma gestured to the bed.
Gold was trembling. His voice had long since faded again, but his lips continued to move, shaping an apology he lacked the ability to voice.
Belle had taken the time to dress in fresh clothes and return to the bedside. "He was apologizing."
Neal nodded. "Was wondering if you knew why."
Regina's mouth thinned. Then she shook herself slightly. "How much do you know about my relationship with Rumplestiltskin?"
Emma frowned. "Seemed a little...antagonistic. I honestly thought you guys hated each other for some reason."
"Not exactly." Regina's mouth twisted in what might have been a grimace. "He was my teacher. Everything I learned about magic, I learned from him. I followed him, listened to him, because he promised me I could have vengeance for the death of the man I loved. I wanted to punish my mother and Snow White, and he told me he'd show me how. And he did, for my mother at least."
"The Curse...it was supposed to be your vengeance against Snow. That's what Henry told me."
"That's what Rumplestiltskin told me. But, as I clearly discovered...that wasn't the case." Her dark eyes fixed on Neal. "Your father promised me vengeance, taught me dark magic, trained me to be the Evil Queen, even had me sacrifice the last person I loved...and as it turned out, it was all so he could come and find you, Mr. Cassidy. All so I would cast this curse, to bring us..." Her hand swiped at the town. "Here, to this world. He never intended the curse to last. Not even for me to find happiness."
Neal's jaw tightened. "Bet that pissed you off."
"You have no idea." Regina turned her gaze to Gold. "I realized barely a few years in that the vengeance I'd gained was a hollow thing. Not worth the price. And then, of course, the savior came. And everything I thought I'd gained fell to pieces."
"So you do hate him." Emma winced.
"I did." Regina frowned. "Honestly, life would be much simpler if I did hate him."
"But..." Belle frowned. "He was using you..."
"And I used him. I wanted vengeance, and I took his teachings to help me achieve it. I also spent several years trying to undermine his power. Besides, he may have cheated me of my revenge but...he also brought me Henry. He gave me my son." Regina's eyes were fierce. "That means something to me."
"Do you think you'll ever forgive him?" Belle spoke up again.
Regina's lips pursed. "I don't know. But there are a few things I do know."
She leveled a hard look at Neal. "I have a son. I would do anything I thought I had to for him. Even if he hated me for it. Knowing that, and knowing that he has you...I may hate what he did to me, but I also admit to...a certain understanding of his motives. If our positions had been reversed, I would have done the same thing. A hundred times over."
Neal looked away. "Yeah. I just wish he hadn't had to. If he'd just...not broken our deal."
"Dark magic, Mr. Cassidy, is more dangerous than most people understand." Regina drew a ball of fire into her hand. "It's addicting. And it's powerful. Even with the best of intentions, it twists you. Blinds you and everyone else around you. The only reason I even have a hope of being a better person is because of Henry. Most people who dabble in dark magic don't get second chances, or recognize them. Snow White taught me that. So did your father." She snuffed the fire. "I'd suggest you think carefully about whether or not you're mistaking an inability to do something for an unwillingness to."
Neal nodded. "You're saying...his curse..."
"The Curse of the Dark One is one of the most powerful in existence, Mr. Cassidy. Not even the curse I cast to come here was as strong." Her glance went to Belle, then back to Neal. "I told you I researched him, looking for his weaknesses. I encountered something interesting in my research. There's never been a Dark One who loved. There has never been a Dark One capable of healing magic. Or any light magic at all. You might consider what that means, while you wait for him to wake up." She cast one last look at the sleeping man, then turned and left. Moments later, they heard the distant click of the front door latch.
Belle frowned. "I don't understand. Why did she call him the Dark One…?"
Neal grimaced. "When I was a kid, some soldiers came to take me away to war. My dad didn't want me to go. He knew I'd get killed. Some beggar told him this story, about how if he could get this artifact, he could become powerful enough to save me from the war. He was desperate, so he did it. Stole the artifact and used it. And he got cursed, turned into the Dark One." He ducked his head. "My dad got cursed for me." He looked back at the unconscious man's face, twisted into it's expression of agonized grief. "I never thought about what it meant, that he could heal my wounds and take care of me."
"Sounds like he really cared for you." Emma put her hand on Neal's shoulder. He reached back and squeezed her fingers. "So, what's the plan?"
Neal looked back at her. "What?"
"He's talking about Regina, right?" Emma studied Gold's face. "That means we only have a few years left before this is done. Which means we only have...what, half a day at most? We'd better have a plan in place for how to deal with him and Henry waking up, especially if it's as bad as Regina said it would be."
Author's Note: For some reason, I just couldn't get Regina to really hate him. I think their relationship is too complicated for it to be that simple.
Next up...Belle.