Chapter 6
A/N. I worked on chapters 5 and 6 frantically to beat the broadcast of "Miller's Daughter." I made it! Now to see if I guessed right on any plot points.
Cora learns quickly and works hard. In the beginning he thinks she will be the one to cast the Final Curse for him; she has the talent, and she certainly has the temperament. He soon finds, however, she's too cold-blooded to be controlled.
Cora keeps up her end of the bargain, for she understands the laws of magic and realizes her own powers can be stripped if she fails to pay her debt. She is an adequate housekeeper and a tolerable cook. Cora works hard at the lovemaking too, and accepts instruction in that regard, but to her it is no more meaningful or entertaining than scubbing the pots and pans, and so, gradually, it becomes just another job to him too, a task that must be done to fulfill the terms of the contract.
She's a lousy mother. She leaves the baby unattended in the east wing while she's cleaning the west wing. She loses herself in the books he loans to her for study and she forgets to feed the baby. She practices her lessons into the wee hours of the morning and forgets to change diapers. When she's so absorbed, she doesn't hear the baby cry. Rumple has to storm down the winding staircase from his tower lab—he has two labs, and this one she's not allowed in, because it's where he works on the Final Curse. Complaining with every step, he runs to the baby's rescue. As the days flow into weeks, he seems to be spending as much time tending the baby as he does working on the curse, and he threatens to evict Cora. She apologizes, she takes him to bed in an effort to change his mood, but her mothering shows no improvement.
"Throw her out, that's what I'll do," he coos, jiggling the baby on his knee. "That'll teach her. Then she'll start taking care of you, poor little wee one." But none of that is true: she won't change and he won't throw her out—because that would mean throwing the baby out. Damn his eyes, he likes the brat.
Regina.
Cora calls her that because when Cora has come into her full power, she will make a queen of her daughter, but Rumple calls her "Apple Cheeks." Regina smiles when he does that, but she never laughs.
"Tending your child was never part of the bargain, dearie."
"I'm sorry, master. I don't mean for her to burden you. It's just that I'm working so hard."
"Yes, yes," he snaps. "And you have no interest in her."
He expects a denial of his accusation, but Cora shrugs.
"Then give her to me," he decides on an impulse.
"But I have plans, a great future for her—"
"Give her to me then until her eighteenth birthday, and then you can marry her to a blue blood." When Cora hesitates, he adds, "Give her to me and I will teach you a skill only I know."
And a new bargain is struck.
Jolly Roger 2:12 pm
Emma's phone buzzes. "It's David," she reports, and then she curses and relays the text message: "'In 302. They're gone.'"
"Gone where?" Bae asks.
David's answer comes back: "'No trace. Bell, Regina, Cora just vanished. Hsp staff saw no 1 cm or go, heard nothing. Sorry. Gold: where shd we look?'"
"'Jefferson's. Sidney's,'" Emma types back. "'Clock tower.'" She glances at Bae. "How much longer till we get there?"
Gold's butt interrupts the conversation. It's playing music.
He rolls to his side and the music grows louder. He recognizes it: Stevie Nicks' "Beauty and the Beast." Tongue in cheek, Belle chose this ring tone for him and her—and programmed it into his phone because he couldn't figure out how.
Belle?! Frantically, he fumbles for his back pocket.
"Mr. Gold? What are you doing?" Henry believes the poison has affected his mind.
It has and will, but for this moment Gold's thinking clearly. "Help me with my phone, would you?" he groans.
"I got this," Emma says and once again, fishes Gold's phone from his pocket.
Gold has trouble gripping the little thing; the muscles in his right hand have petrified. Emma keeps it for him, brings it to his ear. "Belle?" A thousand thoughts and hopes fly through the ether on the wings of that single word.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Rumple," a smoky voice purrs.
"Regina." In panic he manages to gain control of his hand and take the phone. He wants to shout questions, demand answers, threaten actions, but that's not how to win this game, so he forces his quavering voice into a lie. "How lovely to hear from you again, dear." Then he bares his teeth, which he knows Regina can hear through the change in the tone of his voice. "Pray tell, how did you get Belle's telephone?"
"You're a smart boy. Figure it out. Now, let's cut through the bull, shall we?"
"By all means."
"I know you're dying and I have what you need to live." She sends him a photo of the blue vial. "Your directions were spot-on. Thank you. But we won't be FedExing it to you. You're going to have to come and get it."
"I. . . see. . . " he says slowly.
"I'm sure you have doubts, but we want you to live. We really do. That's why we're keeping this medication safe for you. Snow and her minions tried to steal it—they would have you dead. But then, they don't have the dagger, do they?"
"What do you want, Regina?" His voice shudders.
"Come into town. As soon as you arrive, your dagger will signal us, and we'll bring you the medication. We want you healthy just as much as you do. After all, what good is a dead Dark One? And here's a little extra incentive."
Again Gold pulls the phone from his ear to look at the screen. An image of a frightened Belle in hospital gown appears. The image flutters and then pulls back and he can now see the reason for her distress: she's bound, and Cora is standing beside her. In her left hand Cora holds a handful of Belle's hair; in the other, hovering inches from Belle's stomach, she wields the dagger. Gold lets out a groan but turns his head so Regina won't hear.
"You see the situation you're in. Now what are you going to do about it? I understand you've been hesitant to return to town, even though you're dying—any minute now, from the way it sounds." Regina clicks her tongue in mock pity. "What a sad choice, Rumple, to allow Hook to win in such a. . . such a déclassé way. After the thousands of deaths you've cheated, to die from a hook to the chest."
His mind races, trying to figure out how she knows these details. A spy among the Lost Boys? Hardly. These boys are loyal to Bae; besides, Regina doesn't even know they exist. Something technological, then. Perhaps he's underestimated her in that regard. He never really bothered to learn the secrets of technological espionage; he'd preferred human spies and he'd assumed, with her talent for mirrors, she needed no other means of spying. That's the problem with age; you get a little too comfortable with the old ways. What else does she know? He needn't ask; Regina's never been able to resist the temptation of showing off.
"A poisoned hook," she continues. "And with the antidote right here. Here's an idea! Suppose you tell me where you are and I'll bring it to you."
"Stop wasting my time and get to the point, Regina."
"I'm serious, Rumple. Serious as a heart attack—yours. You saw that we have the dagger, so you know I'm not lying when I say we want you to live. We will have gone to a whole lot of trouble for nothing, and a dear friend of Snow's will have died for nothing, if you just sit there, wherever you are, and allow yourself to die." She pauses but he doesn't answer. "I know you, Rumplestiltskin. Above everything else, you want to live. You'll give up anything else before you'll give up your life. And Mother and I quite agree: a dead Dark One is a useless Dark One. So we offer you a deal you can't refuse: your life, and all you have to do is walk into town. We will stay out of your way. Walk into town—or if you're too sick to walk, tell me where you are and I'll come for you. Meet me at your shop and I'll bring it to you, and we will stand by quietly as you recuperate."
"Because a sick Dark One is almost as useless as dead one."
"Precisely. And if you act now, we'll throw in a bonus, free of charge: one slightly damaged Belle. Cracked, but I'm sure she still rings your chimes, doesn't she? Walk into town, that's all it takes, and as soon as you've swallowed that antidote, we'll let her go."
"No you won't. I know you, Regina."
"Oh, it's true; I'll take an oath on a bushel of apples. She's an inconvenience anyway. We'll let her go as soon as you're up and prancing again. But Rumple, this is a limited-time offer. If we don't see your sweet little tushy walking through that shop door within the next thirty minutes, Belle's dead. With your dagger, nonetheless. Isn't that delicious? It will be just as if you were here holding the hilt yourself."
Henry can hear his former mother's smug voice leaking out from Gold's ear. His face and hands twist with anxiety. Being the kind of kid he is—being a Charming—he probably feels guilty, as though it's his fault his mother behaves this way, as though he should have converted her to the Light Side before he left to live with Emma. The Charming arrogance: they think they can change people.
Watching the boy quake, Gold has the answer to his dilemma. He can divide Regina from Cora and save himself and Belle in one stroke: he can trade Henry for Belle and the antidote. It's all Regina really wants; though she loves power, she loves Henry more, and she fears the Dark One too much to take him on a slave. She knows the history. He made a point of teaching it to her when he accepted her as an apprentice, lest she get ideas: though the Dark One himself is immortal, without exception, masters of the Dark One have had notoriously short and miserable lives.
He curls his lips back and begins to make the deal. "Regina, dear, I have a counteroffer that I'm sure you'll find much more to your liking." But he can't do it. He makes the mistake of glancing at those little hands which have been tending him all afternoon, little hands shaped just like his father's, little hands with the same blood pumping through the veins. Family. Gold can no more sacrifice Henry than he could sacrifice Bae or Belle. Cora was right: love is weakness.
Cora, swirling like a ballerina in her billowing dressing gown, lovely Cora, so fresh and fair, a hundred years younger than the monster she's just bedded, but a hundred years ahead of him in darkness. He is his own master, but she owns him, has bought him for the price of a few flattering words, a flirtatious toss of her luxurious hair, which she allows him to sink his ugly claws into. When he kisses her, she betrays no suggestion of revulsion; worse, she opens her mouth to him. When he lays her on his bed, she moans for him and he's caught. When he takes her the first time the spinner in him believes he's stealing her innocence, though the Dark One knows better: her hands know just where to go, her hips know just how to move, her mouth is far too wise in the ways of lovemaking. Still, he feels a twinge of guilt, which she milks; so many ways of manipulation there are, and she has mastered them all.
Only later, as he lies ensnared in her arms, his heart pounding with hope, does he remember the warning: True Love's kiss will break the dark curse. He glances at the woman whose smooth white cheek lies against his scaly chest, whose fingers entwine with his claws, and his heart breaks because yes, she's changed him, but only on the inside. The maid in his arms has taught him the ways of her world and he will never forget the lesson: love is weakness.
But he glances at Henry's little hands; he closes his eyes and sees Belle in her blue dress falling into his arms, and Cora's lesson is broken. Love is strength.
So he doesn't make the deal, and he's ashamed of himself for even thinking it; blame it on the Dark One. After three centuries, Gold hardly knows how to be anything else. He clenches his jaw as a dampness burns his eyes.
"A counteroffer?" Regina scoffs. "All right, let's hear it."
"You release Belle and return the dagger to Mary Margaret—"
"And?"
"And then bite me." He hangs up on her.
In the third year of her apprenticeship, Cora cons her way into the bed of a minor prince, one so far removed by blood and temperament from any throne that he will never rule. Which is just as well for his people, Rumple thinks; the prince is a milquetoast, and from what Cora reports—for she doesn't mind sharing the details of her affair; she feels nothing for her master and assumes he feels nothing for her—his talents in bed are equally lacking.
But the affair provides an opportunity Cora has longed for: through this prince she can introduce Regina to court. Cora's lowly status (she passes herself off the widow of a duke of a distant realm) should exclude her as a candidate for wife, but she secures her position with a classic con: she (mis)informs the prince that she's pregnant with his child. A quick and quiet wedding is arranged.
She announces this to Rumple as though she expects him to be happy for her. Truthfully, he doesn't care; he's grown tired of her services anyway, and it's time to seek a new apprentice, someone who can cast his curse. But then she walks out with Regina.
His magic tosses her into his dungeon. "We had a deal!" he shouts at her. "Regina is mine!"
"The prince can give her the one thing you can't: a pedigree. For her sake, let her go," Cora reasons. It's a logical argument, delivered bloodlessly, but neither he nor the laws of magic will allow it to stand.
"The debt must be paid!"
Cora places her hands on her hips. "What then? What will you take for Regina?"
The ungrateful child is crying and clutching at her mother's skirts, and he realizes he's already lost. But Cora will pay dearly, and for the rest of her life. Before she can blink Rumplestiltskin thrusts his hand into her breast and yanks out her heart. As he watches her lift Regina into the prince's carriage, he gives the heart a squeeze. Anyone else would scream in pain: Cora just climbs into the carriage and rides away.
He locks the heart into a jewelry box and keeps it as a souvenir.