Chapter Thirteen: A Father's Love
Doc's eyes widened as he looked to the child, then to Rumpelstiltskin, seeing some similarities, though he'd have never expected Baelfire to be his son! The doctor sighed, now understanding the situation to an enlightened extent.
"Just don't use any more magic," Doc said. "It'll only make it worse. Let me do my job." Belle took tight hold of Rumpel's hand, leading him to sit down in the chair she'd pulled up while she stood beside Bae.
Doc continued to press on Bae's chest, finding that the boy's heart rate still dropped. His chest was barely moving. Doc sighed, getting an idea, at least until the test results came back.
The dwarf loomed over Bae, taking the oxygen off of him, thinking it wasn't oxygen Bae needed...
He held Bae's nose, and began to release carbon dioxide into the boy's mouth. Rumpel nearly passed out, feeling awkward and a little freaked out that Doc would try such an extreme, not to mention desperate, attempt to save Bae. Belle wondered why Doc was doing all of this, despite knowing that Bae was Rumpelstiltskin's son. Rumpel was not the most well liked person, probably second to last from Regina. Perhaps Belle was not the only one to care for a beast.
To distract Rumpel, she brought Doc's book over to him, and he glanced through more pages, not finding anything that could match Bae's condition, nothing even in the parts of the book which requested much stronger substances and mixtures.
A doctor came scrambling into the room, and Doc turned from giving Bae CPR.
"Well?" Doc asked, waiting impatiently for the doctor to catch his breath.
"No traces-of poison," the doctor panted, his hands on his knees. He looked up at Doc. "Nothing abnormal in his system-just a-just a failing heart and lungs it seems. Nothing in his blood."
Doc turned back, and Rumpelstiltskin was angered but he hadn't the strength to stand up and shake that doctor to his death. However, Doc wouldn't give up on the boy, and Rumpelstiltskin watched as Doc preformed CPR, still, on the boy.
The room grew silence again, but Bae's heart rate fell slowly on the machine, and Rumpel stared frantically at each page, but there was just nothing there...nothing that matched Bae's condition. They needed HER book to figure out how to reverse the hold between him and his son.
"There's nothing more I can do," Doc confessed. "Not without knowing what it is. There are no signs of anything!" He released his mouth from Bae's. The boy's heart fell further, and his chest heaved up, making it appear as though he was sighing.
In the next moment, he exhaled painfully slow, resting his head down against the pillow completely relaxed.
Bae's pulse flattened.
"NO!" Rumpelstiltskin shouted, dropping the book to the ground, sending a loud THUMP through the air, but he didn't care. He shook Bae over and over.
"NO! Bae, Son...speak to me. Bae!" Rumpel shouted. Doc and Belle stood on either side of the bed, watching as Rumpelstiltskin loomed over his son. Snow felt a tear in her eyes, remembering that Emma was in this exact position just months ago, and that Rumpelstiltskin has a son!
Well, he had a son.
Belle was afraid to touch Rumpel, fearing that he'd cast her aside in an instant and not give a care in the world about how much force he used against her. Tears came to her eyes too, because for those few weeks Bae stayed with them, she began to think of Bae a little as her own, though she never had one herself ever. There was something about him: perhaps his kindness, or his generosity, or maybe it was that innocent look on his face whenever he came into the house for a break from Mr. Gold's shop for an hour, but he stuck with her. She hadn't realized how much she actually cared for an almost complete stranger until she saw the line flatten on the machine, and the helplessness Rumpelstiltskin must be feeling as he desperately shook his son.
Imagine, after having him for such a short time, only to watch him die before his eyes... that was just tragic to Belle.
"Bae, I'm not letting you go. I won't let you do this," Rumpel said, staring down at the boy. "I won't let you die. I will never let go again, you hear me? I know you're in there Bae. Bae!"
"I'm sorry Rumpelstiltskin," Doc said gently, a melancholy gaze in his eyes. "But there's just nothing more we can do."
Mr. Gold then began to push on Bae's chest as Doc had before, when Bae actually had a pulse. Belle felt even worse, while Doc shook his head slowly, backing away. The boy was dead to him, so Rumpel's efforts seemed that of one desperate soul. The dwarf let him be, thinking it best to just exit the room altogether.
Gold even pressed his mouth to Bae's a few times, but then he began to feel odd again. Something about performing mouth-to-mouth, even if it was his own son, did not sit well with him. Belle couldn't watch this anymore, and when she looked the other way, she saw Snow White behind the glass, looking towards them with sympathy. Snow waved to Belle, knowing that she felt a heavy sense of loss. Doc left the room after picking up his book.
Out in the hall, the dwarf spoke to Snow.
"He's suffering a great loss. I didn't know he had a son," Doc said.
"Yeah, didn't see that coming," Snow replied. "Reminds me of Henry actually. I know Emma was there for Henry...she broke the curse by telling Henry she loved him and then kissing him. Hey! Do you think that would work with this?"
Doc looked away for a moment, pondering the scenario.
"I doubt it." Snow slouched back a little, having no more ideas about what they could do for Bae.
"Doc?" she asked. "I know Rumpelstiltskin isn't the most popular man around. What made you help Baelfire?"
Doc smirked. "It's not Bae's fault his father has magic. We can't pick family, but we can make decisions, Snow. I chose to help Baelfire because no one deserves death at his age, no matter what the circumstances."
He then decided to join the other doctors, glancing at the book for future reference, Baelfire in his mind. Snow looked back through the glass to see Belle cautiously approaching Rumpel.
"Just use it," Belle told him.
"What?" Rumpel asked, not believing what he was hearing, especially coming from her mouth.
"He's gone, so the spell must've worn off," Belle was trying to be reasonable, but tears were coming fast as she spoke. "Can't you do something?"
"Magic can do much, but not that!" Rumpel told her. "There's nothing about resurrection. What's dead-is dead...besides, Bae always hated magic."
Belle gave up, not knowing what else to do, and all that she could hear was that constant drone of the machine reminding her that Bae was really dead. She pulled up another chair, sitting to think.
Rumpelstiltskin stared at his son, placing a hand on the boy's head. Magic was the thing that got him into this mess. This entire mess: the Evil Queen, Storybrooke, all of it. To use it again on Baelfire to try and bring him back was a fool's errand, even he could see such a fact at this moment. There were some things magic could not provide, and life certainly was one of them.
"Bae," he said. "I know I haven't been the best father for you, with what I've done to you. I let you go...and I never should have. Ever since that day, I'd-I'd walk every evening, thinking that I would find you someday, somewhere in the forrest. But I never did. I created the curse so I could find you, because that was the only way to find you. If your mother would have been there, she'd have put me in my place, that's for sure..."
Rumpel smirked at the memory.
"But what's done is done. Now I know you never liked magic, and I could never understand why...until I realized after I-I realized what you meant, that we were better off in a place without magic. Both of us. You didn't find me to spend a few months with me and then die, Bae. That's not why you came! I never lost sight of my goal to find you, never. I even hurt a few souls along the way..."
He looked at Belle who simply returned the gaze. "But I didn't want to lose sight of what really mattered. You have every right to be mad, to give up, to die, but please, for my sake son, you can't die. I didn't put in all this work just to let you go again!
"I remember when you told me that all you wanted was to be with me. I told you I could conjure anything you desire, but you wanted something no amount magic could bring you. I picked the power once, now...now I choose you.
"If there's one thing you've shown me, Bae, it's never to run...and you're right, you've always been right. I shouldn't have run. To-Today-" Rumpelstiltskin found tears running down his face. "Today I'm not running!"
One last time, Rumpel found the courage to breathe for his son again, hoping this would be the one that woke Bae up. His hands began to shake precariously.
"Bae, I'm making you a deal. I will not give up, but you have to promise to fight...fight Bae! I'm meeting you in the middle...I'll be here when you wake up, right beside you, and I will never leave you again! Baelfire! By the gods open your eyes. Open your eyes so I can see you, so that I can tell you how much you mean to me. Open your eyes so you can listen so I can tell you-" another tear...but just one.
"-so I can I tell you how much I've always loved you."
Rumpelstiltskin took a hold of Bae's right hand, squeezing it perhaps a little too tightly, and as a tear of his hit Bae's face, he kissed his son on the forehead.