Chapter Eight—"Choices and Consequences"

"Rumple?"

Belle found him long after he'd run the gamut of out-of-control emotions, still curled up on the bed, boots and all. Rumplestiltskin was still shaking a little, though, and had been too lost in his confusing swirl of memories to even hear her come in, let alone notice her approach. Sitting down next to him on the bed, so close that her leg was almost touching his back, she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he jumped, his eyes flying open.

"Sorry," Belle whispered, and he just nodded away her apology, unable to find words. His head was pounding, and even though his magic had healed him—in a wild and uncontrolled way that hadn't banished most of the aches and pains—his limbs felt leaden. Her hand remained on his shoulder, though, and Rumplestiltskin was ashamed to realize how comforting he found Belle's touch. "You don't have to be okay, you know."

"I…" He wasn't sure what he was going to say, other than that it would have been an argument of some sort. But maybe not a coherent one.

"Come here," Belle said softly when he trailed off.

Still shaking, Rumplestiltskin sat up, half turning to face her and resisting the urge to hide the fact that he looked like hell behind another glamour. But Belle opened her arms and he gladly retreated into them, allowing her to pull him close. He still hated himself for the weakness, but couldn't stop from shuddering in relief while Belle held him tight. He had no idea how long passed while she held him in her arms, only that his breathing and shaking finally calmed, the horrible feelings of terror and loneliness easing for the first time in a year. Being busy had allowed Rumplestiltskin to push them aside earlier, but ignoring his demons had only made them stronger.

"I'm all right," he finally managed to say, his voice thick and scratchy. But Rumplestiltskin made no move to pull away, either.

"You don't have to be," Belle repeated.

He tried a laugh, but it came out a broken and harsh noise. "Of course I do. I'm Rumplestiltskin."

Was that bitterness in his voice? It was a sad day when he couldn't sort out his own feelings, let alone control them. But he was who he was, and even without being the Dark One, that meant something. It had to. Particularly with this new and overwhelming power, with magic that leapt lightly to mind the moment he even contemplated needing it. He had almost wanted to be powerless. The coward in him had just wanted a quiet life somewhere like he'd tried to have so many lifetimes earlier, had hoped for a split second that perhaps he could walk away from all of this, once and for all, be free of the very first deal he'd made, when he bargained for magic he could not understand. The coward in him wanted to hide.

But that was not to be, and most of him was glad for it. In his heart, Rumplestiltskin knew that he was no longer made for a quiet life. He'd be nothing without power, and being nothing did not suit him well. He had manipulated worlds with a flick of his fingers, had played generations like musical instruments or puppets on their strings. The poor spinner might still exist inside him, but that was no longer all he was…just as he was no longer the Dark One. Somewhere in there, Rumplestiltskin had become more than the sum of his past and his curse, and that was what remained even when he was free of the darkness. That, and extraordinary power that came from he knew not where.

All magic comes with a price.

The realization startled Rumplestiltskin out of Belle's arms, sitting bolt upright and holding his breath until he reminded himself to breathe once more. Turning his mind to magic, he truly studied his new power for the first time, watching the overlays the way only a sorcerer could in his own power. Colors danced everywhere in his mind's eye, woven together like fine silk, breathless and vast. Once, his power had been predominately dark, just as all of his magic that came from the curse was bound to be. The small fragments of color and light that existed in his old power had come from Rumplestiltskin's refusal to be limited; he had determinedly learned other magics, and learned them well, but at his core, he had still been a creature of darkness. No matter if he had been the first Dark One to manage to use anything save the darkness; he'd still been trapped by it, and had always known that.

Now, however… Now there was darkness, too, amidst the light, but more in equal measure. There was a balance of sorts, a beautiful array of options that offered him the opportunity to be whatever and whoever he chose. And this magic came without the heavy price of sheer evil attached. To someone less experienced with managing the cost of magic than Rumplestiltskin—doing so had been how he'd preserved a small corner of his soul as the Dark One—that sudden freedom might have made it seem like this magic came without a price, but he knew better. The only question was what the price actually was.

"Rumple?" Belle shook his shoulder gently, making him realize that it was not the first time she'd tried to get his attention. Shaking his head to clear it, he looked at her worried face, and tried to smile without much success. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing—or nothing in particular, anyway," he allowed. "I'm just…trying to figure this magic of mine out."

"You're trying to focus on anything other than your own emotions, you mean."

"I'm not—" he sighed. "Well, maybe."

"You were tortured for a year," Belle pointed out in her ever-logical, gentle way. "I'd be more worried if you were fine with that. You're—"

"Still a monster," he cut her off automatically.

Belle glared at him, her hand still on his shoulder. "Still human. You're not a monster."

But oh, he almost wanted that to be true. Being a monster was simple, even when he was trying not to be one for her sake, for Bae's. That was a battle he understood, even if it was one he often lost. It was familiar, and a part of him yearned for that. Because Rumplestiltskin was pretty sure he'd figured out the price for this new magic of his, and he wasn't certain that he wanted to pay it.

"I could still be," he told her. "So easily."

"Do you want to?" she asked quietly, her blue eyes meeting his without judging him. For the thousandth time, Rumplestiltskin realized how lucky he had been to find her, how a capriciously wrought deal had brought him True Love with a woman who actually did understand his many layers, yet never stopped pushing him to be better.

"I don't know," Rumplestiltskin answered honestly.

"Are you mad at me for using magic the way I am, Henry?" Regina asked her son quietly.

The first day after Henry's return had been an absolute whirlwind of reunions, and she hadn't gotten much time to spend with Henry alone. Navigating the complex mess of their odd family was always a chore, and much though Regina appreciated the fact that she really did belong for the first time her in life, she didn't want to let Snow and the others monopolize her son's time. Emma was different; at least she understood what it was like to share their son, and they'd come to a sort of unspoken agreement even before Henry had been kidnapped and taken to Neverland. But the others kept trying to smother Henry with affection, leaving Regina to be only one of a group around him instead of having time they could spend alone. Even her blooming relationship with Robin (and with Roland, who could not remember his mother and clung to Regina as if she already was his mother) didn't erase the ache in her heart that missing Henry created, so when Henry came to her the second morning, Regina was more than happy to find a quiet corner to talk to him in.

Her little boy smiled. He'd grown so big in the year she'd missed and was almost a man now. Looking at him made her eyes to mist over and her throat grow tight.

"Of course not," Henry replied immediately. "I mean, you're doing it for the right reasons, right?"

"I'm trying," Regina admitted. "Sometimes it's hard."

Over the last year, she'd often thought of how Henry hadn't wanted her to use magic back in Storybrooke, how he'd pushed her to find other ways to live. Of course, Henry hadn't said anything after their return from Neverland, but there hadn't been much time where it wasn't actually Pan in Henry's body, and Regina had wondered if her son might still feel that she was better off without magic. After all, it was magic in the form of Pan's curse and then hers that tore them apart once more, and it was magic that had allowed Pan to trick her. Would Henry be disappointed in what she had become? Regina feared he would, because she didn't know what she'd be in the Enchanted Forest without magic…and the others needed her.

Before Rumplestiltskin had returned—and then, quite predictably, vanished as thoroughly as if he wasn't in the same castle as everyone else—Regina had been the only magic user fighting against the Witch if one didn't count the fairies. They needed her. Much though she hated to admit it, that need was one of the most addicting drugs she'd ever encountered, worse than even dark magic. For the first time in her entire life, Regina actually felt like she was making a difference, like others were depending upon her, and she liked that feeling.

"Grandma Snow says that you're the reason they haven't lost the war already," Henry said next, and Regina felt a genuine if wry smile warm her face.

"Does she now?"

Leave it to Snow to say something so damn heartfelt to my son, and of course, she means it. Snow's way of wearing her heart on her sleeve, of being so free with her forgiveness and affections, still left Regina feeling uneasy, but at least thinking of her stepdaughter no longer caused the burning need for vengeance it once had.

"Yeah. Mom asked her if she'd gone crazy, but that's just Emma. And Grandma Snow just said that things are different now."

"Oh, they certainly are." Regina moved over to sit next to Henry, wrapping an arm around him. "I missed you, Henry."

"I missed you, too, Mom."

The next few days passed quietly. Rumplestiltskin avoided the others like the plague, staying in his room or his tower and trying to sleep off the aches, pains, and doubts. He accomplished the first two, more or less, but had little success with the third. By the time the fifth morning rolled around, however, he at least had a better grip on his own mind, having mostly separated out which memories were his and which were not. A few well-placed mental blocks (not unlike the ones he'd used to contain his curse-created memories back in Storybrooke) kept the not-memories from intruding when he didn't want them to, allowing him to achieve a sort of equilibrium that actually let him feel sane, not just act like it.

The quietness in his mind also took some getting used to. Nearly three hundred years had passed while he listened to his curse whisper in his mind, urging him towards violence and darkness and rage. Rumplestiltskin had learned to placate the monster within himself to a certain degree: he made deals to manage the price of magic, manipulated rather than killed when it would serve his larger purpose, and generally channeled his darkness where he wanted it to go rather than where it preferred. He'd lived with it for so long that his inner imp was almost an old friend, and finding out that his mind his own was rather…startling.

However, it helped that the curse had been broken before the fae held him, that even when his mind had cartwheeled off the deep end and his memories made no sense, his terrors were all his own. It also helped that he'd almost alwayshad nightmares. Once he'd learned to use those same mental blocks as the Dark One, he'd shoved aside the memories of his predecessors, save for when they proved useful, but those blocks no more worked in his sleep then than they did now. Plenty of his old nightmares had been driven by things Rumplestiltskin had done, but the majority of them had actually been scenes out of horrors other Dark Ones had visited upon people in the centuries before Rumplestiltskin took the dagger. Or horrors visited upon them when someone else had the dagger.

Now, of course, his nightmares were almost solely his own, either from his confused memories or just from the torture he'd endured. He'd been tempted, more than once, to mix himself up a potion to provide himself with dreamless sleep, but the same stubbornness that kept him from asking for help kept him from indulging. Dreams were the subconscious' way of expressing itself, and what little soul he still had left was quite battered enough without his damaging it willy-nilly with potions. Instead, he chose to endure the nightmares and was simply thankful that Belle was there to see him through them.

Thankfully, she was as stubborn as he was, and every time he managed to say something stupid and try to drive her away—for her own safety or sanity, more often than not—she shot him down. Rumplestiltskin always regretted such words almost as soon as he said them, but he didn't exactly have a habit of making the right choices.

"Are you going to show your face today?" Belle asked him that morning, her voice neutral.

Dawn had found him unable to sleep and Rumplestiltskin had gone to his tower to spin instead. Belle had finally drifted off after his last bout of nightmares, and she got little enough sleep while trying to deal with his demons. Unwilling to share his own insomnia with her, he'd slipped away while she slept peacefully, drawing on his new magic to dress and send himself to the workroom in his tower.

The transition came dizzily fast, but he was at least gratified to find that his oldest spinning wheel had returned home. This was the same wheel that had been in his basement in Storybrooke; the larger and nicer one that had been in his shop's backroom must have gone back to the castle's great hall. This wheel, however, had been the one he'd inherited from the spinsters who raised him, the one that a poor spinner had used to earn a living for his wife and child. Rumplestiltskin had spent many of his darker and more self-loathing moments wondering why he'd kept it at all, but right now he was very glad that he had. Watching the wheel let him blank his mind out, let him concentrate on the simple repetitive motions of his hands and one foot on the pedal, and just for a little while, it let him forget.

Belle had, of course, found him some hours after he'd realized that he was still spinning gold, and now he turned slightly to answer her question.

"Does that mean you want me to stop playing the monster in the tower?" he asked lightly.

Belle scowled. Glared. "You're not a monster."

"It was a quip, sweetheart." Rumplestiltskin gave her a small smile, which only earned him an exasperated look. No, his fiery beauty probably never would like him joking about that, particularly now. Still, when he stopped spinning to clear space for her to sit next to him at the wheel, Belle relented and smiled back before she joined him.

"You're looking better," she said instead of arguing.

"I feel better." I think. "I'm starting to get a handle on this magic, anyway."

Two days had passed before Rumplestiltskin had admitted to Belle that his new power was a mystery to him. Before that, he'd just slept, ate what Belle fed him, and generally tried to figure out who he was without the curse. Meanwhile, Belle had run interference with everyone else in the castle, convinced them to leave him alone, and sent a short message to Baelfire to tell him that his father was alive. Rumplestiltskin wasn't sure how he would have managed to put himself together without her constant reassuring presence, but all quips aside, he was starting to feel like he could face the world again without flinching.

Probably without turning people into noxious creatures for looking at him wrong, too.

"Is it helping?"

Rumplestiltskin considered skirting the topic before replying: "Magic always does."

Belle just squeezed his arm and offered him another smile that made his heart flutter in a better way than it had in at least a year. "So, have you decided yet?"

"Decided what?" Search his mind though he did, Rumplestiltskin couldn't recall what he was supposed to be deciding about, and Belle's soft laugh didn't help matters.

"Whether you want to be a monster or not, of course."

"Ah. That." Finally, his crooked smile felt real enough, even to him, and the expression hadn't even been forced. But he did know the answer. I want the life where you and I are together, he had told her back in Storybrooke. Belle deserved better than a monster, and for the first time in their convoluted relationship, he was in a position to give her something, someone, better than the monster he had been. "You know, I do believe I have."

"And are you going to share this realization with me?" Her playful smile told him that Belle knew that he wouldn't choose darkness over her, not again, hard though it might be to be something new.

Still, he wasn't upset with his decision. Uneasy, perhaps—but not unhappy.

"I suppose I'll simply be Rumplestiltskin," he answered honestly. "I'll never make the hero type, Belle—even before I was the Dark One, I was never that…good. But that doesn't mean I have to be evil, either. I can try to be better, or at least to do things for the right reasons."

The smile she turned on him was as bright as the sun, and he knew that he'd finally said the right thing, finally made the right choice.

There was nothing to say that he'd keep doing that, of course, but it was a start.

"Good luck to you," David said, shaking Thomas' hand with a smile. Standing next to the King—people had finally decided to start calling Charming a king after their last victory, it seemed—Baelfire wasn't surprised that Prince Thomas didn't offer to shake his hand, and just gave the younger man a parting nod.

Thomas was obviously trying to ignore Rumplestiltskin's son, particularly now that rumors that the old trickster lived were working their way around the army, but Baelfire let the attempted insult slide. He didn't care if Thomas' nose was out of joint. His father was alive. He still burned to know the details of how it had happened, however, because Belle's note, sent via tablet from the Dark Castle, was maddeningly short. (Rumplestiltskin's alive and home, she'd written. He's fine. More later – Belle). Of course, the others kept looking at Bae like he was supposed to know how Rumplestiltskin had pulled off the impossible. Again. Even Thomas had asked, though he'd seemed more wary than pleased, of course. He was probably wondering if he'd wind up vanishing again for payment on that reneged-upon deal now that Rumplestiltskin was back, but Bae didn't have any answers for him.

Unfortunately, that only made Thomas more hostile, particularly when Bae didn't bother to hide the fact that he was happy with the news. Because he was happy. Finally. He'd spent years running from magic, spent years being furious with his father for choosing power over him, and then hadn't even wanted to admit that there might be something of his father left inside the Dark One after all. It had taken their misadventures in Neverland to prove to Bae that his father had changed—or maybe he hadn't understood him very well in the first place. After all, he'd been fifteen when he left the Enchanted Forest, and the years he'd spent in Neverland meant that was a long time ago. Perhaps he'd been wrong, or perhaps Rumplestiltskin had just changed. Either way, it meant that Baelfire had lost his father right after he'd gotten him back, and that loss had been almost crippling.

Losing his father certainly was responsible for his closeness with Belle, and even the odd friendship of sorts he'd formed with Regina. He'd wished a hundred times for just a few more days, for just a chance to say any one of the thousand things he should have said before Rumplestiltskin sacrificed himself to save them. And now he had that chance, so Thomas and the others who were upset by it could be damned for all Bae cared.

Ella was rather more polite than her husband, and even kissed him on the cheek before her husband shot her a dirty look. She stepped back to Thomas' side as the prince replied:

"Thank you. There's lots of work to do, but it'll be worth it. And you and Snow are always welcome, of course. Along with Emma, of course."

Word that Emma and Henry were back had arrived shortly before Belle's note had, making that day the single best one in Bae's entire life. Five days later, he was still so light-hearted that no amount of petty insults from silly princelings could ruin his good mood, so he happily ignored Thomas' attempts to belittle him. Knowing that Emma and Henry were safe at the Dark Castle meant more to him than anything else, even if it had been Hook to bring them back. He'd kicked himself more than once for not insisting on going to New York instead of Hook—Neal Cassidy knew that city, and knew the world that Hook had only spent a few brief months in—but the fact remained that he'd been needed here, and he had made a difference while Hook had been off playing hero. Now he could only hope that Emma hadn't decided that Hook coming from her meant Bae didn't care.

There are times that being responsible really sucks, he thought to himself. Like now, when I need to help set up our new line of defenses instead of rushing home to greet my kid and my-whatever-she is.

Thomas and his entourage finally mounted their horses and rode away, leaving David and Baelfire standing alone. Bae watched the group of thirty or so—all countrymen of Thomas' heading home—for several long moments before saying what was on his mind. Even then, his own words made him scowl. Bae didn't relish playing the part of paranoid-in-chief; he'd just wound up in that role since he was surrounded by optimists. And he was too used to watching people double cross one another, probably due to his years in Neverland.

Bae sighed. "You're going to have to keep an eye on his father, you know."

"I know," David replied with a sigh of his own. "King Francis is…well, let's just say that I wish we'd been able to free Midas' kingdom first. Midas doesn't have an ounce of back down in him, and I don't think the Witch intimidates him one bit."

"I suppose it's hard to be intimidated by someone you can turn to gold with a touch," Bae agreed with a chuckle. "You know, kill an enemy and turn a profit all at the same time."

David snorted. "Unlimited ability to make gold or no, that's not a problem I'd like to have. I'd rather finance my kingdom the old fashioned way."

"Kingdoms," Bae corrected him with a smile. "Don't you have two?"

"Well, one of them is technically Snow's, but we are in this together, so…"

"I wish someone would tell King Francis that." He tried not to scowl, but it was hard. The last time Baelfire had seen King Francis—who, if possible, disliked him even more than Thomas did—the old king had been adamant that his kingdom had to be the first freed from the Witch's grasp. Unfortunately, his arguments had been persuasive in terms of strategy and geography if nothing else, but the way he'd argued for his own territory had put Bae's teeth on edge.

It didn't help that the other royals all knew Francis well enough to understand the type of king he was. He always allied himself with the strongest power around. He'd been one of Regina's firmer allies in Storybrooke (he'd been Judge Herman there, which had given the mayor an advantage that couldn't be discounted), and back before the curse, he'd apparently been in bed with Midas and Regina both, bouncing between whichever could offer him a better deal at the time. At the bottom line, King Francis was like a damn weathervane, swinging whichever way the wind blew.

"I don't think telling him will help at all," David replied with uncharacteristic frustration. "Threatening him might work, but what can we do that wouldn't scare him into the Witch's arms?"

"Thomas offered to come back to the army."

"So?"

"So take him up on it." The pieces were rapidly falling into place inside Baelfire's head, and little though he might have liked Prince Thomas, he knew that the kid had a much stronger sense of honor than his father did. "Even King Francis isn't pragmatic enough to sacrifice his son and heir. If Thomas is here, fighting with us, Francis will stay on our side."

"And that gives us the ability to feed the army," David agreed. "Francis' kingdom has farmland to spare, and when he gets people working the land again…"

"Exactly."

I hate politics. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best they had. Baelfire wasn't sure when he'd wandered into the deep waters of Enchanted Forest politics, but here he was—advising a flipping King on what to do to keep their fragile alliance together. Worse yet, the King in question was the father of the woman he was in love with, and Bae still wasn't quite sure how to approach that topic with David. Somewhere during the last year, he and David had become actual friends, so how did he explain to David that he still wanted a relationship with his daughter? David and Snow accepted the fact that he was Henry's father without too much argument, but accepting youthful indiscretions and accepting a relationship were so not the same thing.

Was he playing at politics to prove to them that he was worthy of Emma? To be honest, Bae wasn't sure. At least he knew that he hadn't come out to the army for that reason, but politics were another matter entirely. Why couldn't the girl he fell for years ago have been as simple as she seemed back then? Why did Emma have to be a damn princess?

So far, Operation Jellyfish was a bust. Ever since he and his mom had arrived in the Enchanted Forest, Henry had been trying to find a way to convince his othermom to teach him magic. Regina had seemed worried at first that he'd be angry at her for using magic, and though he'd tried to reassure her—which was easy, because everyone kept talking about all the good Regina had done, and how badly they'd needed her over the last year—he still hadn't managed to get around to his point subtly enough. But coming right out and asking wasn't an option, particularly since he didn't get much time alone with Regina. Left to her own devices, Regina would probably offer to teach him, but things weren't that simple.

Henry knew his birth mom well enough to know that Emma wouldn't like him learning magic, particularly since she seemed disinclined to learn to use her own magic, an odd decision that he didn't understand at all. Emma seemed to have a special kind of magic, too, or at least one that most people didn't have, which meant she had double the reasons to learn, but she wasn't listening to that kind of logic, even when Regina mentioned it. They only started arguing, and had to agree to disagree. So Henry doubted that Emma wanted him to learn, which meant he had to sneak around her.

It was kind of funny that Operation Jellyfish wasn't about avoiding Regina's attention. No, this time he meant to outfox his other mother by convincing Regina that it was her idea to teach him magic. Unfortunately, so far she'd ignored all of his hints. Henry didn't think his mother was stupid, which meant she was deliberately overlooking his attempt to be subtle. That probably had something to do with the way Pan had tricked her when he was in Henry's body, but Henry wasn't about to give up. And when Regina's many wards around the Dark Castle detected something odd—odd as in funny but not dangerous—he asked if he could go along with her when she went out to see which wild animal had managed to trap itself in a magical net. Emma was busy with Hook, talking about something or another, so Regina let him tag along.

He peppered her with questions about what magic she'd used during the mile-long walk out to her wards, hoping that Regina might come up with the idea on her own, but she seemed more interested in talking about the friends he'd made and the classes he'd taken back in New York. Why do parents always care about school and stuff? It's not like I'm going to use that here in the Enchanted Forest! The moment Hook had given him and Emma their memories back, Henry had been able to think of little else. He'd waited his entire life to come back to the home he should have grown up in, and he didn't want to waste time thinking about school now.

It wasn't that Henry minded learning. He just wanted to learn something other than dry Land Without Magic type academic stuff. But thinking about learning actually gave him an idea, so he answered Regina's next question about his school with:

"Do you think you could teach me to ride a horse, Mom? David started showing me back in Storybrooke, but we never really got very far."

Regina stopped to stare at him, a soft smile growing on her face. "Of course I can, Henry. Do you really want to learn?"

"Definitely! I mean, everyone needs to know here, right? And it seems really fun."

"Riding can be fun, but it can also be a lot of work," his mom replied. "Are you ready for that?"

"I'm thirteen, not three. I can work hard." He would, too, and not just because getting Regina to teach him to ride was maybe the first step towards getting her to teach him magic. Henry also missed spending time with just the two of them, the way it had been back in Storybrooke before everything changed. He wouldn't trade his new life for anything, but he did miss having Regina to himself.

"You'd better work hard," she cautioned him, but the stern words were ruined by her smile. "I started riding when I was much younger than you are now, so you'll have a lot of catching up to do."

"How old were you when you started?"

A faraway look drifted onto her face, suddenly making Regina look much younger. "Six. My father always loved horses."

"You named me after him, right?" He remembered the casket in the vault in Storybrooke, and spent a moment wondering where it had gone in this new world. Most items seemed to have gone back to where they were before the curse hit; would that have returned to Grandma Snow's kingdom, too?

"I did." Her smile was wistful. "You remind me of him, sometimes. Even if you aren't actually related by blood."

On impulse, Henry hugged his mother one-armed as they walked, and basked in the radiant smile she gave him. Years ago, when he'd thought Regina didn't love him, he'd been so very wrong. She'd just had problems showing it, but he understood that now that he was older and wiser.

"You're still my mom," he said softly. "And—"

Henry cut off as Regina stopped abruptly, stepping in front of him as her hands came up.

"What's wrong?" he asked breathlessly, his heart suddenly pounding.

"I know that creature," she hissed, making Henry's eyes follow Regina's. There. About twenty feet away, shielded from view by a tree before now, a short black unicorn stood trapped in an invisible web of magic, staring pathetically at the pair. It didn't seem afraid of them, though, and seemed just to be waiting patiently for someone to free it.

"Aren't unicorns supposed to be good?" Henry wondered. "How could it get caught in your magic, if the spells are only supposed to keep the bad creatures out?"

The unicorn bleated hopefully as if to underline Henry's point, stretching its nose out towards him in a silent plea for help. Although the stubby-legged creature was nothing like Henry had expected a unicorn to look—he'd always imagined them a lot taller and way more majestic—it looked so sad and so friendly that he felt obligated to help it. And to pet it, too. Was it okay to pet unicorns?

"It's not the unicorn I'm worried about, Henry," Regina growled, looking around cautiously.

"Then what is it? We can't just leave him there. We should help him."

Regina scowled. "Not just yet. What I'm worried about is that—"

"That my innocent pet would only be trapped if I put it there?" another voice intruded, and Henry spun around to face a second woman, one who wore an interesting headdress and was clad in many shades of purple and black. Her voice was ice cold, however, and her face twisted up in evil amusement. She had one hand on a staff, and stood a dozen or so feet away from them where Henry had been certain there'd been only grass a few moments earlier. "You're slipping, Regina," the other sorceress said, because she had to be using magic. "You should have noticed the ruse as soon as you left the Dark Castle."

"I was distracted," his mom ground out, clenching her fists. "Maleficent."

"Hello to you, too, old friend."

But there was nothing friendly in her voice, and Henry was really starting to get worried. Be brave, he told himself. He came from a family of heroes and sorcerers. Henry wouldn't let himself be anything other than strong. "Mom?" he whispered. "What's going on?"

"I'll handle this, Henry," was all Regina said, stepping in front of him.

He swallowed as Maleficent's cold gaze zeroed in on him. Her hair was loose and dark shadows framed her eyes, giving her a wild look. Despite his resolution to be brave, Henry shivered.

"So you're the boy," Maleficent said thoughtfully. "Stand aside. Unlike your 'mother,' I do not make war upon children or innocents."

Henry scowled, remembering the stories in his book. "Didn't you curse Sleeping Beauty at her christening? I'd say cursing a baby counts for evil."

"Be silent!" the fallen fairy thundered, her fury making wind whip viciously around Henry and Regina. But Regina didn't back down; in fact, she stepped closer to the other sorceress, her hands up and ready to cast magic.

"Leave my son out of this, Maleficent," she snarled. "But if you want a fight, you've got one."

"Oh, I want more than a fight, Regina," the other retorted. "I want revenge."

"Get in line."

Something very like pain crossed Maleficent's face before it was replaced by hard anger. "I was your friend! I would have stood by you, and instead you forced me to guard a stupid broken coffin for twenty-eight years! And if that wasn't insult enough, your magic wouldn't even let me die when the savior threw her sword into my heart. No, it forced my spirit to stand guard over your failsafe, just in case you wanted to destroy everyone a second time," she spat. "But unfortunately for you, I was a fairy. And you left me alive."

"Are you going to try to talk me to death?" Regina demanded, laughing. Her obvious confidence made Henry stare; he'd never really seen this side of his mother, and she was amazing. "Because I promise you that even if I am trying to be good, my magic is no less powerful than it was. And I'm sure you remember who won our last encounter."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten," Maleficent replied, and her staff came up.

Regina moved to counter her, but no sooner had the words left Maleficent's mouth than a sudden wall of darkness rose up out of the ground in front of Regina and Henry, thick and black and feeling of death. It hit them both before Henry could even begin to shout a warning, and then everything went black.

A/N: So, the questions for this chapter: 1) What do you think Maleficent has in mind for Regina, and 2) What do you think the price of Rumplestiltskin's new magic is? Some of you came very close in guessing where his magic comes from, but the cost of it is something else entirely.

In the meantime, please review to let me know what you think! Stay tuned for Chapter 9: "Strange Bedfellows," in which Emma, Henry, Hook, and an unexpected ally go to look into Regina's disappearance, and Charming runs afoul of one of the Witch's nastier attacks.