35

A newborn child comes into the world with a scream – a cry of anguish at the sudden change of everything he knew, at the need to leave behind warmth, comfort, cozy darkness and complete harmony of the womb for the shivering cold, the harsh light, the painful grip of alien hands. Just a second ago he was the center of his own universe; now he is a small bit of flesh in a huge world filled with danger. So he screams, frightened, screams regretting his urge to be born at all – the urge he could not resist – screams wishing to return to safety; screams for help.

A man reborn comes back into the world with a scream – silent first, as the soul that rested in peace is stirred by the rush of fresh blood, getting audible soon, as blood thickens and turns into flesh and nerves to feel the coldness of dark night and fear the dark forces at work; turning into a howl later, as the mind clears and returned consciousness understands what is happening – and remembers the price of what is happening – and knows who is paying the price.

He knows, for he knows the blood that woke him from eternal slumber.

This blood is dearer to him than his own blood.

This should not be happening. 'No, no, no, no', he screams, inside – unable to stop the process he didn't start; pulled out into the world of the living with an urge he cannot resist, an urge stronger than midwife's pull; aware that his peace is gone forever and that he is in the grip of alien hands – in the power of somebody's ill will; somebody's blind love.

There is no coming back from this. There is no one to ask for help.

A newborn child calms down as his mother takes him to her breast; he calms down, soothed by her softness, her warmth, by the sweaty and milky smell of her skin. They make a covenant, a newborn babe and his parent: she promises to continue to be his shelter from all dangers of the world, to be forever there for him, so that he continues to be the center of universe for somebody. The moment a baby is born, his parents' life is dedicated to him, and to him only.

An old life for the new life – it is a fair exchange.

And this is a natural order of things, the way it should be. And even if parents cannot provide the child with safety he needs, even if they die, or prove weak of spirit, they must give everything they have, had ever had or would have to redeem this weakness – to make the child believe that world is a safe and happy place, because your parent takes care of you.

And even if to succeed the parent has to die, so be it: a life for a life, like in the beginning of things – price is the same, the exchange is fair.

And this is a natural order of things, the way it should be.

When a child dies to give life to his father, nature shudders, overturned.

An old man should not be brought back with the death of a young. A man who gave his life to save his son should not be resurrected by this very son's death.

The whole fabric of existence is torn by this.

His human heart, just reborn but immediately burdened by all its' former knowledge, is broken by this.

His magical body, created out of sacrificed blood, senses something else that fills him with dread. His flesh was given to him in a way abhorrent to nature – there is not a human bone in his body now. His flesh is all magic – blood magic, initiated by darkness. He is not his own master anymore: he belongs to the force that gave him flesh. It is a miracle that his mind and heart are intact – that they feel horror and regret at what happened; that he feels the love that makes all these things painful for him. A body made the way his is made should have been indifferent to everything but its power.

There should be no love in a body whose essence is darkness.

Yet he is full of love, which makes him squirm in pain – it is so alien to him now.

Yet he is full of love, and he knows where it comes from – from the look of her eyes, filling with tears as she sees him; from the sound of her voice as she calls him with this absurdly gentle name – the name of a man he used to be; the name of a man he still is to her.

She looks at the dark shadow he has become, and still sees the man she loves. That's what makes his heart beat, and love, and break.

She loves him, and that makes him himself.

She loves him, and that means there is hope for him – that there must be a way to redeem the abhorrent way that he was created anew. She used to urge his possessed flesh to regain humanity; now she will help him acquire humanity. It is possible; there is nothing love cannot do – it is the most powerful magic in the world.

She loves him, and he loves her, and there will be time for that, but first he'd do what any parent must do when the covenant is broken – when his child has come to harm. He must save his son – he must break the deal his stubborn boy made with the dark power possessing his father. A life is given, a soul is promised, but this must be undone – he is a king of loopholes, he will find a way for, with this new body, he gained new knowledge and immense power. He used to be hindered by human concept of impossibility. He knows now that there is no limit to what he can do; he can turn back time, he can change the order of things – he can split bodies, he can absorb souls – he is a force akin the wind or the sea now. One body dies so that other can live, the deal says; one soul comes to join the darkness as a hostage to ensure the deal is unbroken… No way poor, limp, desperate shepherd holding the power incomprehensible for him could have found a way around it; he would have been unable to do anything about it. But he is the Dark One, now, and the Dark One can do anything, even trick the force that created him. A life is not lost when the mind is alive – he knows that from experience. His boy's mind is what his boy is; he must preserve that; he will find a way to give him a living body, later. No way his boy's soul is going into the pit of darkness he called his father from; no way is his soul homeless so that it can be taken by darkness. They will share a body, this body that is as much his as his fathers, for he gave it up so that his father can be flesh and blood again.

She will understand.

She knows how much his boy means to him – how much he loves him; she knows how much this love is part of all the love in his life – his love for her.

Love is the most powerful magic in the world. It comes with the steepest price.

But the Dark One can pay it. He can do anything.

The Dark One can do anything, but only if he is free. And the moment his freedom is taken from him, the moment the selfish, unstable, jealous girl whom he spurned once takes hold of him, for no other reason but to please her vicious soul, is the moment when he walks through the gates of his personal hell.

He saved his son's spirit, and that was the last act of his free will – the last act of the omnipotent force, powered by darkness, yet driven by love. The moment it happened, the moment his boy's mind entered his mind to share it and cloud it with his loves, intentions and regrets, his freedom ended – his self became diffused.

The omnipotence ended, not just because he is controlled with the dagger – if the wicked girl knew what he is able to do, she could have still made him do all the things in his power; thank goodness she doesn't know. The omnipotence ended because with Bae inside him, he became that much more human again – that much more a man to suffer and fear and make mistakes again; that much more a man to love and hope and fight, again. His boy had always gave him strength to remain a good man – he always helped him; he has done it again.

The omnipotence ended because he was reminded of his human weakness – of his vulnerability. Human or magical, he never served any master. Even when he was the lowest of men, he still went free, and strove to escape all bonds that tied him; he tricked his way out of the army, he revolted against the duke and overcame him, he gave himself to darkness so that he'd always have the power to freely do what he thought best and just and right. And now, when he escaped the prison of death, when he was ready to oppose his new dark power with his stubborn love, it was turned against him – his love became the very way his enemy reached through his defenses. 'Kill her', he was told. And, but for the distracting presence of his son inside him, he would have done it – and went on living with it, for he cannot die…

Could there be a clearer image of just how powerless he became?

The omnipotence ended; his freedom was stolen, and this symbolic act feels like a physical thing – as if a hand is strangling him, gripping his throat, giving him only so much air as to continue breathing. As if strange eyes are staring at him, standing there naked, defenseless, possessed with greatest of powers yet unable to be his own master; smiling at his frustration. He is completely exposed to his mistress; all of him on display, as if he is an animal in a cage.

Well, he is an animal in a cage, now.

He is a plaything for the wicked girl who never had toys when she was little; curious and ruthless, she is ever ready to prod him with a stick, as children do with frogs – to pull off his wings as if he were a fly. All just for pleasure of watching him shudder and gasp in pain.

He thought he knew what humiliation was when he was human – when people sneered at him, called him a coward, when his wife defaced him and soldiers trod on him and made him kiss their boots. He thought he knew humiliation when his own son was ashamed of him; when his father called him a worm. He had no idea what real humiliation is like, then – he does now. This fickle, careless kid, she can do what she pleases with him. If she'd tell him to take off his clothes and dance in the great hall of the royal castle, he will. If she'd tell him to cut off his arm, he will. If she'd tell him to bed her, he will. If she'd tell him to open his mind to her, he will – he'd have no choice. There is no way to fight her.

And she is doing it all for fun, really, for she does not really need him – 'the brain of the smartest of men', says the spell she is building, but it is not as if he was the smartest man in the world; the spell works as the wizard builds it, and he is smartest for her because she has chosen so, and she has done it because watching him suffer gives her trills – watching him in her power gives her trills; she has found a way to avenge him for not loving her when she had this stupid crush on him, her teacher, all these years ago.

She brought him back from the dead, she killed his son, she chased away his love – all for fun… All because this girl is envious of everything around her, eager to steal what others have and, most of all, jealous of love.

Yet there is one thing she is not aware of, his ruthless jailor. She does not realize that every pain she inflicts on him is a blessing in disguise: it makes him feel human, and it takes him farther from the monster reborn in the vault, and closer to the man he used to be. She does not realize that every moment he spends talking with his son, safe inside him and alive as ever, is healing; he was never closer with him – he was told he'd be reunited with his boy, and now he truly is. She does not understand that, even though he had to close his heart to the call of his love, for fear of driving her near and harming her, he still feels her; why, sometimes he can actually hear her, talking to him, quietly, saying just one phrase: 'I love you'. And he knows he is still himself – a difficult thing sometimes, when there are two minds living in one body.

He knows he rambles, he knows he is losing it sometimes – it is an effort to hold two souls together, it is hard even for the most magical of bodies. Yet inside, bizarrely, he never loses hope. He is full of his love, glowing quietly, waiting for a miracle – working to make this miracle possible; and he is full of Bae's love too, because the boy is just as insistent in his wish to find his Emma as he is to reunite with Belle.

And there comes a moment when all his pains are momentarily healed, and all his striving for goodness is rewarded – She comes, and he gets to see her magical eyes, filled with tears but full of love, and he gets to feel her warmth, and to touch her trembling hand; he gets a chance to tell her how much he loves her, and that there is still hope. And, despite all his inability to reach her as fully as he would have wanted, he gets to see that she understood him – his message reached her, and consoled her.

The sudden spark of light in her sad eyes – this is something no wicked heart can take away from him.

He did what was necessary – he told the good ones how to fight the witch; and when it became clear that to do it they'd have to go back to the world with no magic, Bae mentally slapped him on the shoulder – he understood that the new curse would take him to Emma. 'I knew you'd do it, papa!'

And then he smiled. And he smiled back.

God knows how it all looked to anyone who happened to be watching them.

But then his son, being the rush boy that he is, did a rush thing – when the curse was approaching, he took over and stole from them the memory potion they needed; poor boy, he did not realize the importance of their memory being intact.

For when the curse came, and they woke up, they were back to where they started – in that moment of horror in the darkness of the vault, when father realized that he is coming back to life for the price of his son's death. The Dark One, knowing his new power and the horrible source of it; burdened with a piece of humanity tormenting him from the inside – burdened with guilt at having failed as a parent; the boy in him, confused and scared, constantly questioning: 'What happened? What shall we do now?' None of them remembering the progress they made throughout the year – none of them remembering the force of their love – of their hope.

He forgot the look Belle gave him on the clearing – that look of love.

He forgot the sound of his human name on her lips.

He forgot how she came to him, and spoke to him through the bars of his cage, and how her magical eyes shone with that constant, everlasting love for him; and, having lost that memory, he lost his self.

He feels her love, but he feels no call from her; her love seems darker – all sadness, all guilt, all loss – no hope at all.

What hope could she have, if she thinks him dead?

He forgot the light that sustained him in his captivity – he remembers only the pain, the mindless cruelty of the wicked heart in whose power he is thrown.

And the pain is a hundred times stronger now, when there is no consolation.

And his tormentor's power became darker now for in this new world where no one knew her she became bolder, and her mood changed, and her greed and desires grew more intense.

And she found new ways to torment him.

To be touched by the hands whose touch repulses him.

To be touched by the poisoned breath; feeling those sneering, cruel lips so close to his face he could sense their warmth.

Seeing this mellow gleam in her eyes, going all dreamy on him now that he looks human. That girlish crush of hers, turning all dark and dangerous now.

Feeling her evil mind going all over him as palpably as if she touched him with her hands.

Feeling his skin crawl every time she walks into the cellar where she keeps him – in the dark, in a cage, like an animal.

Knowing he is powerless. Dead to the world – dead to her. Imprisoned, bereft of hope, humiliated, victimized – completely open to each and any whim this mad girl might have.

He thought he knew what humiliation was, when he was the lowest of men. He was sneered at, called a coward, his wife left him, his son was ashamed of him, his father despised him.

But he was never raped.

And now he is – mentally as yet, but every time she smiles and licks her lips at him, he knows she'll have her way.

And he'd do her bidding.

And live with it afterwards, for he cannot die.