Chapter Four—"The Impossible"

Regina stared at the blood covered figure in Belle's arms for several long moments, gathering her thoughts carefully. Belle's hands were shaking, and the younger woman looked torn between terror and overwhelming joy, but Regina refused to fall into that trap. Rumplestiltskin was dead. They'd all seen what happened in Storybrooke, and there was no way in hell that Rumplestiltskin would allow himself to be trussed up and tortured like this. The imp always had a trick up his sleeve, and even when the Charmings had locked him up, only they, the insufferable do-gooders that they were, had been foolish enough to think he couldn't walk out of that cell at any time. Oh, Regina had been fooled at first, too, but then she'd actually listened to what he was saying.

"But why would I desire that, dearie? I'm exactly where I want to be," he had said to her a lifetime ago, locked in a dwarf- and fairy-made cage that he could have left the moment the fancy struck him. Was that what was happening here? Was the old trickster at it again, having fooled them all into thinking he was dead en route to the next step of his cursed longer game?

No. Regina couldn't allow her own imagination to run away with her. Rumplestiltskin had killed himself, an admittedly out of character action for the imp, yet one that had definitely happened. She'd watched it happen. Felt the magic swirling, both the darkness and the something else that had swallowed Rumplestiltskin and Pan together. It had been done with typically Rumplestiltskin-like flair, too, albeit with also more honesty than could usually be expected from him. That hadn't been a doppelganger dying in Storybrooke. This…whatever-he-was (whoever he was) had reacted with fear to Belle and Robin's hands, had flinched away like someone who had been tortured beyond human endurance. Ergo, it was not Rumplestiltskin. And this was some sort of trap.

"Belle. Robin. Step away from him," she said steadily, raising her hands. Whoever it was appeared to be unconscious, but Regina was taking no chances. Not with the mark she'd seen outside the door to this miserable little stone hut, and certainly not considering the message Belle had decoded.

Robin, thankfully, listened immediately, rising and stepping away from the mystery man. He shot Regina a curious look full of questions, but he trusted her enough to do as she said without hesitation. Belle, however, completely ignored her.

Such a foolish girl. Regina wanted to groan aloud, wanted to say things that definitely weren't in keeping with her own attempts to be better than she'd been in the past. Too brave by half, and never one to obey orders. "Belle," she snapped impatiently. "Step away. Now."

"What?" The younger woman finally looked up at Regina, her pretty face a mask of confusion.

"You know this can't be him." Regina tried to gentle her voice, but the words still came out harshly. "He's dead, Belle. We all saw—"

"Would you know Robin anywhere?" Belle cut her off harshly, and Regina's heart clenched inexplicably tight.

"That's not the same," she protested weakly.

"It is," Belle insisted, those damnably honest eyes of hers boring into Regina's. "I don't know how or why, but it's him. So, are you going to help him or not?"

Robin arrived at her side before Regina could figure out how to answer Belle's plea, touching her arm and giving her a concerned look. "What's going on, Regina?" the outlaw asked quietly.

"I'm not sure," she murmured, swallowing. "This should be impossible."

"What should be impossible?" Robin demanded. "Obviously the two of you are on some page I've been left off of, and I have absolutely no idea what's happening. So explain, if you please."

Regina scowled, but Belle answered immediately, her voice firm. "This is Rumplestiltskin."

"We don't know that," Regina interjected before Robin could protest that Rumplestiltskin was supposed to be dead. Everyone in the Enchanted Forest knew that, after all, and it didn't bear repeating.

"I do."

"No, you don't," Regina snapped. "Look, Belle, I know what you want this to be—believe me, I know"—her voice cracked as memories of Daniel welled up, as she remembered turning her True Love into dust and ash—"but magic can't bring back the dead. And even if he hadn't died, somehow, we're back home. He wouldn't be human."

The bloody figure on the ground most certainly was human, without a flicker of shimmering gray-gold skin in sight. However, because his skin was actually hard to see beneath the wounds and the blood, Regina flipped a hand in his direction, just to be sure. A spark of magic leapt out of her palm willingly, speeding towards the man. The cellar was awfully dark, after all, still only illuminated by the flying ball of light she'd cast earlier. Senses could be tricked by careful enough spell work, and she would find whatever the catch was. Her magic swept over the prone form, confirming that yes, indeed, he was human. But waking.

"I hate to disappoint you, dearie," the man in Belle's arms rasped weakly, "but I was always human beneath the curse." He coughed, his entire body shaking. "And my curse is definitely…broken."

Awake, then. Though her spell was now feeding Regina an enormous amount of information on his physical condition, none of it was good. Her ears told her that breathing was obviously difficult for this fake-Rumplestiltskin, and the magic verified that the multitude of injuries were, at the very least, extremely real. There wasn't a glamor at work here hiding something deadly. Armed with that knowledge, she did the only thing she could think of, short of killing the imposter then and there.

"How?" Regina demanded.

He laughed weakly, an oddly familiar cadence to the breathless chuckle. "Killed myself…remember?" he whispered. "Or tried to, anyway."

Dizzy brown eyes flicked away from her, looking up at the woman who still cradled her head in his arms. Looking at her made his expression, still tight with pain, soften. "Belle…I'm sorry. So sorry…"

He coughed again, cutting off whatever else he was going to say with a convulsion. Regina swatted her glowing ball of light closer to his face, and watched him squint painfully. Belle, however, ignored the petty trick.

"Don't be sorry," Belle replied, her voice choked with emotion. "You're alive."

"Yes, and you won't be for long if you don't start explaining," Regina interjected, earning herself another furious look from Belle. Robin watched the pair of them cautiously, his eyes flickering back and forth as he assimilated everything that had been said and had been implied. But another low laugh came from the figure on the floor, ending in a racking cough that made his entire body shake.

"You're a smart woman…figure it out."

Realization hit Regina like the proverbial ton of bricks, making her snarl. Either this was Rumplestiltskin, or someone was doing the impersonation job of the century. Who else could combine so much snarkiness with the sickeningly soft expression Gold always wore while looking at Belle? "You're not saying—"

"Right in one." Rumplestiltskin's eyes slid shut.

"You bastard! You knew!"

"No…I didn't."

Rumplestiltskin passed out again.

Floating in a sea of pain, several moments passed before Rumplestiltskin could process the argument raging around him. Someone had wrapped him in a blanket—probably Belle, Belle, whose presence anchored him to sanity instead of the confusion and fear that had ruled his world for the last…however long it had been. He was warmer than he'd felt in forever, but still shivering, possibly with fever or maybe because he was just cold. It was hard to tell. His subconscious kept trying to reach for magic that he didn't have, listening for whispers that weren't there.

They were done quarrelling. Apparently he'd convinced Regina, hard though it had been to summon up the necessary personality to do so instead of curling up and sobbing out his soul in Belle's arms. His mind was still trying to jump headlong off a cliff; focusing was almost impossible, yet he'd managed it earlier and would have to manage it again. He wasn't going to show them how damaged he was.

"…I'm sorry," Regina was saying, her voice coming from what sounded like a great distance. "My magic…well, I was never much interested in learning anything that wasn't dark magic. I'm no healer. I can't help him. And if someone doesn't soon…I don't think he'll last the night."

"What?" That was Belle's horrified whisper, coming from very close. His hand was held in hers, Rumplestiltskin realized, his head still in her lap. Someone had moved him to his right side while he was unconscious, and the position was significantly more comfortable than on his back.

Everything still hurt so much. He had no hope of categorizing what hurt most; his body parts throbbed alternately, one pain overtaking another so quickly that it was hard to keep track of. But at least the pain could help him stay coherent, could help him fight off the memories and not-memories and somehow give the appearance of something like sanity.

"I've written Snow," the third voice, the male voice, said. It was vaguely familiar, but his sluggish mind refused to remember how he recognized it. His memories of everything before the pain were so scattered; thinking was hard.

"And?" Regina prompted.

"She says that Tink left hours ago to join up with the army, something about an ambush and injuries and such. So I wrote Charming, and…"

He lost the rest of the sentence beneath a wave of pain, and a soft whimper escaped as he convulsed. The closer to full consciousness he came, the more the pain dug in. The convulsion died down, leaving his body shaking wildly.

"Can't you do anything at all?" Belle asked quietly.

"The only thing I can do is knock him out so that he doesn't feel the pain," his old student replied.

Yes, it was time to insert himself into the conversation, no matter how much talking hurt. Dredging up all the strength he had, Rumplestiltskin managed to whisper: "No."

"Rumple?" Belle's hand immediately squeezed his, making his lips twitch in what might have been a smile, once.

"Still here," he managed around his swollen tongue, tasting blood. How to explain to them that he probably wasn't going to die? He was pretty certain that the bands around his neck, wrists, and ankles were working some sort of magic on him, keeping him alive at the very least. "I'm…"

Unexpectedly, his mind took a right turn and the words he'd been planning to speak were buried under memories.

Pain. White light lancing through his soul, suffocating darkness racing up to meet it. "Not this time, old friend," she said, and he screamed.

The dagger. Split imagery. One: someone (him?) flat on his back on a table as a shadowy demon hovered, trapped, over his body and the dagger lying on his chest. Two: upright this time, chained to the wall, the dagger pressing against his heart, against the still-open wound he'd inflicted on himself, and power arcing red and black between the two. Both: screaming wildly.

Differentiating between reality and whatever else was impossible. Even his memories were hopelessly scrambled. How could he hope to concentrate on the here and now?

"…significant internal bleeding," Regina was saying. "When he's conscious, it won't be for long."

A hand on the back of his neck, pressing, and power forced its way into him, clawing at his soul. The hand stroked his hair as he screamed.

"What are these?" Belle asked, and he could almost feel her hand hovering over one of the bands.

"They look bronze," the man answered contemplatively. "No fastenings, though. Magic?"

"Definitely," Regina answered him, sounding less irritable than Rumplestiltskin expected her to. His little evil queen had always disliked pointing out the obvious.

"Fae magic," he managed to put in, forcibly turning his mind to the present. Old tricks worked; he could still focus with an effort. Three centuries of training his mind to respond to magic hadn't been wasted, then. He could still think.

He'd started to wonder about that sometime during the torture, when he'd been reduced to a mere vessel for fear and pain. Was that what the fae had wanted? To strip him of coherent thought, of his humanity, of anything that made him who he was? Instinct told him he was correct—"Just let go. Don't fight. Lose yourself, and everything will be all right."—but why? Why the promises, why the pain? Not knowing had been even worse than the torture itself.

"You mean fairy magic," Regina corrected him, pulling Rumplestiltskin free of his musings.

"No. There's…a difference." A significant one, but he couldn't dredge up the energy to explain. Another hard cough shook his body, and Rumplestiltskin tried unsuccessfully to bite back a moan of pain.

"The fae vanished hundreds of years ago. You taught me that," his protégé reminded him.

"Well, I'm afraid…I don't have the energy to continue your education at the moment," he retorted weakly, not mentioning that he didn't have the concentration to sort out relevant history from the agonized haze in his mind.

"Don't antagonize him," Belle chided Regina.

"Me? I'm not—oh, nevermind." He could hear her pacing. "Any response yet, Robin?"

"I'll go outside and check. It's kind of dark to read in here." Footsteps retreated, and he fought the urge to flinch. Footsteps meant pain—

Focus! Now is not the time to be a coward.

But he was still terrified. What happened if they came back? Regina might be able to hold off any pair of the lesser fae, but not her. Her magic was fathomless and immense, and she'd squash Regina like a bug. He had a hard time remembering what her face looked like, but he remembered her power well enough. Shaking again, Rumplestiltskin tried unsuccessfully to swallow back the fear that thought brought with it. However, Belle's hands still held his, and she squeezed gently when his breathing started to come harder and faster. Her lips brushed against his forehead, and Rumplestiltskin felt an echo of power spike through him.

Only once before had he felt that surge, felt the sheer golden magic sizzle through his veins. That had been moments before he'd yanked away from the woman he loved, consumed by rage and by fear, shoving her away instead of accepting that which she freely offered. Then he'd been powerful and yet had been dwarfed by the strength in her kiss, now he felt an echo calling to him, a memory of magic he no longer felt. Yet it was not just his memory. Couldn't be. Magic had been different in Storybrooke, and he'd never felt this there.

Her presence, her light kiss, calmed him, and Rumplestiltskin let out a shaky breath. Belle kept him anchored, always had.

"I love you, Rumplestiltskin," she whispered softly.

"…love you," he echoed, coughing back what tried to be a whimper of pain.

"I'll be right here," Belle said fiercely, and he could feel her glowering at Regina even though his eyes were shut.

He tried to smile for her, tried to tell her again how much he loved her, but then his mind folded under and memories assaulted him once more.

"David caught Tink just before she left. She's on her way," Robin announced as he ducked through the doorway several minutes later.

They'd brought Rumplestiltskin up from the cellar during his first bout of unconsciousness, and then Regina had cleaned him up with magic as best he could. Belle had wrapped his shivering body in the blanket out of her pack, trying not to notice how thin or hurt he was. Even while delirious, he whimpered periodically in pain, flinching away from hands that weren't there and shaking violently. She didn't dare think about how long they had hurt him for or how he'd gotten to Bremen—if Belle did, she might panic, and panicking wasn't what Rumplestiltskin needed at the moment. He needed her to be strong, so strong she would be.

He was alive. That was what mattered, that and keeping him alive. Regina's doubts made it hard to focus on the positive, though, but Belle kept reminding herself that Regina had admitted she knew little to nothing of healing. She has to be wrong, Belle told herself for the hundredth time, looking down at the fragile man twitching fitfully in her lap. She'd thought she'd lost him forever, and Belle refused to give up on him now.

"How long?" she asked Robin, terribly glad for his presence. Regina was growing more irritated by the moment, which Belle didn't blame her for—it only meant the queen was worried—but Robin handled her beautifully, deflecting the nasty comments with his smile before they could rise.

"Four or five hours," the outlaw replied, and Belle bit her lip. Did Rumplestiltskin have hours?

"Good," Regina bit out, making Belle's head snap around.

"What do you mean 'good'?" she demanded.

"I mean I'm still not convinced. This is entirely too convenient."

"It doesn't look convenient from where I'm sitting!"

Rumplestiltskin moaned softly, and Belle looked down worriedly. She hadn't meant to shout, but she was sick and tired of Regina's incessant doubts. Her heart knew this was Rumplestiltskin. It wasn't false hope, and she wasn't deceiving herself. True Love didn't lie, and Belle knew it was him as surely as she knew her own name. She'd know him anywhere, and Regina knew that, too, if only she'd let herself believe. Swallowing, she squeezed her love's hands again, but he didn't respond, sleeping or unconscious again.

She hoped it was sleeping. He was probably exhausted.

"She doesn't mean it that way, Belle," Robin interjected, again the voice of reason. "Regina, love, what do you mean?"

Regina stopped pacing when Robin put a hand on her arm, softening slightly. The older woman sighed, and gave Belle what might have been an apologetic look; it was hard to tell in the dark interior of the hut, with only Regina's magic lighting the room. The door was still open, but sunset had long since passed, and even the full moon outside didn't add much light to the closed off building. "Only that it makes no sense. Nothing adds up. First of all, assuming the letter you deciphered was real, Belle, it can only refer to Rumplestiltskin—but with his curse broken, he has no power. So an object of great magical power can't be him.

"Additionally, some of those wounds are really old. Those…bands are interfering with my ability to figure out everything that's wrong with him, but since we haven't seen him since our return, I'd guess he's been here the entire time. And why in the world would anyone keep Rumplestiltskin alive that long, particularly when he's human?"

Swallowing, Belle fought down a sudden wave of nausea. The curse had returned them to the Enchanted Forest a year ago. Could Rumplestiltskin really have been suffering that entire time? She didn't even want to think that, couldn't imagine him living with pain for that long while he knew everyone he loved thought he was dead, and that no one was coming for him. Tears threatened to enter her eyes, but she forced them back. I'll cry later. Much later. Not now.

"Who are the fae?" she asked to distract herself. Perhaps the answer to Regina's question lay in who had locked Rumplestiltskin in here.

"Evil fairies." The queen shrugged. "Followers of the Black Fairy. They vanished centuries ago."

"Obviously they didn't vanish completely if they're still putting her mark on buildings," Robin replied offhandedly, gesturing at the open door. "Could they be working with the Witch?"

"Maybe." Crossing her arms, Regina turned to stare at the door. "But then why would they want him? This still doesn't make any sense."

"Unless it's a distraction?"

But Belle shook her head in response to Robin's question before Regina could answer. "No one would believe it if they told us they had him," she said softly, her eyes drifting back to Rumplestiltskin's shaking shoulders. "Even me. We all watched him die."

Regina was right. The situation made no sense. Oh, the queen had explained that there was magic inherent in a self-sacrifice, perhaps magic enough to save Rumplestiltskin's life when he'd killed Pan to save others, but that magic should have been utterly incompatible with dark magic, which was what he must have used to kill Pan. And Belle knew enough about the curse of the Dark One to know that it couldn't be broken without killing the Dark One or without True Love's kiss, and the later definitely hadn't happened that day. True Love's kiss wouldn't work in Storybrooke, anyway; Rumplestiltskin had explained that to her once, in vague terms, about how much of his curse remained trapped in the Enchanted Forest, so they could kiss all they liked without affecting his powers.

Only curses created in Storybrooke could be broken in Storybrooke had been his theory, or at least where the old and powerful ones were concerned. But his curse obviously was broken—the face under the blood and the bruises was human, the torn skin pale and flesh colored. His eyes were so very human, too, full of pain when they were open but the same ones she remembered filled with such warmth every time they turned to her. Just looking at Rumplestiltskin hurt, knowing he was in so much pain and unable to help him at all.

All she could do was hold him and hope he hung on long enough for Tinker Bell to arrive.

"Do you think he has another couple of hours?" she asked quietly, hating how tiny her voice sounded.

Looking regretful, Regina shook her head silently. Belle bit her lip again, blinking back tears.

"Can we call another fairy?" Robin asked suddenly. "Someone who might get here faster?"

"You can try," Regina snorted. "It goes without saying that none of them will come to me."

Neither of them bothered to mention that the fairies wouldn't come to Belle, either; in their opinion, she'd been tainted by her association with Rumplestiltskin, even when they'd thought him dead. Robin might stand a chance of summoning one of them, however; the outlaw was enough of a hero type that the fairies probably would like him.

"Right then. I'll go try."

No fairies answered, even the Blue Fairy when Robin tried to call her. Belle supposed she shouldn't be surprised; Blue had all but told them she would be out of touch for months, and that the humans in the Enchanted Forest would have to fight the war by themselves while she prepared the fairies for something she would not explain. Still, the fairies' inaction rankled, and for once she could see that Regina was in perfect agreement with her. Fairies were supposed to help people, but sometimes it seemed like they only did so when it coincided with their agenda, whatever it was. Robin looked at the pair oddly when they voiced that thought, but Regina only shook her head, scowling, while Belle returned her attention to Rumplestiltskin.

Tinker Bell arrived early, just three hours later, stumbling through the door and looking exhausted. But her wand was in hand already, and Regina had met her outside to explain, so Belle only looked up at her hopefully. Against all odds, Rumplestiltskin had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the last hour or so, mostly coherent but obviously in too much pain to say much. Belle only held him as tightly as she dared, whispering to him to hold on when she thought he could hear her. He replied a few times, his words sometimes disjointed and sometimes making sense, but he was still in there, somewhere.

"I'll have to get those bands off before I can do anything," Tink explained softly, her green outfit an odd shade of aquamarine in the harsh blue light. "They're definitely fairy magic—dark fairy magic."

"Can you help him?" Belle asked, her heart pounding in her chest.

"I can stabilize him, at least," the fairy replied, lifting her wand as she crouched next to Belle. "I'm pretty tired, and healing this many injuries isn't as simple as just shaking your wand. More will have to wait, I'm afraid."

Ruthlessly, Belle shoved down her own disappointment. "Anything will help." Stabilizing him meant Rumplestiltskin would be in less pain, at least. Didn't it?

"Right, then."

Tink lifted her wand, and it began to glow, filling the hut with a green glimmer that easily overpowered Regina's ball of light. Slowly, she bought the tip of the wand down on the band around Rumplestiltskin's right wrist, and when that began to glow, shifted her wand to the one on his left wrist. Although both started glowing green, like the magic from Tink's wand, their shine slowly grew darker, until the bands shimmered only slightly, an odd mixture of bronze and black. Then Rumplestiltskin let out a sharp whimper, and both snapped open, falling off his wrists and to the floor.

"Don't touch them," Tink ordered, moving onto the bands around his ankles. The same process repeated itself for those, but this time Rumplestiltskin convulsed in pain as they came off, his head snapping back hard in Belle's lap. She squeezed his fingers gently, but he seemed not to notice.

Without a further word, Tinker Bell moved onto the band around his neck, impossibly tight as it was. Belle briefly wondered why Tink hadn't started there, though she supposed that the fairy might have wanted to save the hardest one for last, for once she had enough experience to know that she could get it off quickly. Either way, Tinker Bell's wand touched down after only a moment's hesitation. Much to Belle's surprise, Rumplestiltskin's eyes flew open the moment the wand made contact, and he cried out in pain as the band started to shimmer. His entire body jerked once, and then twice, and Belle could hear him struggling for air.

Finally, the band snapped open, and a flick of Tink's wand pulled it away from Belle's lap, gathering it up with the other four bands and moving the group off to the side. But Belle's attention wasn't on them; she was too busy watching as Rumplestiltskin slumped.

"Rumple?" she whispered frantically. His eyes were closed again, and he was shaking weakly.

"…still here."

She let out an explosive breath of relief, squeezing his hand again. Meanwhile, Tinker Bell raised her wand once more, studying Rumplestiltskin's face.

"Ready?" the fairy asked him, receiving a faint nod in response. "Good. I have to warn you—this might hurt a bit."

Belle thought he tried to laugh, but Tink's wand had already started moving. Its tip began to glow green once more, but the moment the shimmering green dust started moving towards Rumplestiltskin, a burst of red, black, and gold magic leapt off him, hammering into the fairy. Tink crashed into the far wall before she even had a chance to cry out, but the wave of magic slammed into Regina and Robin as well, sending both flying into the same wall.

Belle was left unharmed, left to watch as Rumplestiltskin cried out in shock and in pain, convulsing in her arms.

A/N:Thank you again to everyone who reviewed! Today's question is: what do you think that odd magic leaping off Rumplestiltskin was? And if you think you've got that one figured out, how do you think Hook is going to convince Emma to come back to the Enchanted Forest with him? The answers to both those questions will be in Chapter 5: "Inherent Powers". In the meantime, please let me know what you thought of this chapter!