Chapter Forty-Three—"The Brave Thing"
They were a day out from the Rabbit's house when Jafar tried to escape, and boy was Regina glad for it. She had been waiting for him to make his move, just waiting for him to do something stupid. Trudging across Wonderland for an entire week had been so utterly tedious without Jafar trying to do anything more than run his mouth and seduce her (although she'd had a bit of fun making a show of kissing Robin the third time he'd tried the seduction act). Still, the walk towards the White Rabbit's abode had just about killed Regina with boredom. When she'd agreed to come here, Regina had imagined death, chaos, and danger…not endless marches across increasingly psychedelic landscapes.
Now, however, things were finally getting interesting. Jafar was indeed powerful, and the spell he sent flying at her back would have disabled a less practiced sorceress. But Regina wasn't the type to turn her back on someone like Jafar without having a trick or two up her sleeve. Subtlety might not have been her strong suit, but she wasn't a fool. So she was ready, and her attack sent Jafar reeling backwards.
She didn't bother to call him to his lamp or to use a wish. No, she didn't need to. Instead, she turned on him with her hands raised and an evil grin on her face, ready to go to war.
"Is that the best you've got?" Regina demanded.
Jafar's handsome face twisted up in a snarl as Will and Robin hurriedly dodged out of the way. "Hardly."
"Shall I shoot him, my love?" Robin asked casually, bow already in hand.
"No," Regina replied before Jafar could act against the outlaw. "This little fight should alleviate the boredom a bit."
"A bit?" Jafar echoed, raising an eyebrow. The man did have style; she had to give him that. "I do think you're underestimating me, Your Majesty."
"I doubt that," she shot back.
"Then I shall have to prove you wrong," the sorcerer retorted, and power started to fly.
Jafar started with a tricky spell, one designed to trap Regina in stasis and take the lamp from her. She wasn't sure if a genie could possess their own lamp, of if he was just being overly optimistic, but Jafar clearly thought that he'd figured out some sort of trick that would gain him his freedom. The magic zeroed in on Regina in swirls of dark red that disguised the nasty darkness at its core, and Jafar had clearly been saving this spell for the 'perfect' moment. How long had he been working on it, waiting for her guard to go down? Not long enough!
Regina hated picking apart spells, hated using finesse when raw power would do. She probably could have found the multiple threads that needed to be pulled in order to disassemble the complicated spell the genie had thrown her way, but she didn't bother. Oh, she was a little impressed that Jafar had somehow gotten around the restrictions of his curse in order to cast something so crafty, but Regina certainly wasn't so awe-struck that she wasn't going to smash the genie into goo. So, she slammed her own power into Jafar's, focusing on her anger at his attempt to trap her and her frustration over still being stuck in Wonderland. Those emotions created a wave of darkness that ripped Jafar's carefully constructed spell apart,
"Is that finally your best, or do I have to wait longer?" she challenged the genie, grinning at her opponent. Jafar was finally proving himself to be an interesting adversary, and it was about damn time! Until now, he'd been about as entertaining as Sidney during the worst of his lovesick days, full of questions and not much else. Dull. Boring. Predictable.
Jafar laughed. "I'm only getting started."
"Good! I was beginning to think that being turned into a genie also turned you into a doormat," Regina taunted him.
"Oh, I'm nothing of the sort, I assure you," he replied, and Regina felt the next tricky spell—or set of spells—starting to build. They rose out of the very ground underneath her feet, but her grin stayed in place. She'd always enjoyed a good challenge, and battling Jafar would certainly be more fun than the rest of their trek through this miserable little world had been.
She let the next attack come and powered her way through that, too, leaving a shower of magic to rain down upon Jafar. The sorcerer-turned-genie yelped and jumped aside; apparently, he either couldn't teleport or couldn't manage it now that he was a genie, because he had to physically dodge. As he caught his balance, Regina followed her defense up with a first attack of her own, sending a wave of power racing towards Jafar's chest. He tried to bat the purple spark of magic aside with a shield, but it split into four pieces with a twitch of her fingers, and the smaller sparks each targeted one of his limbs. The sparks struck, sending sharp needles of pain through his nerves and paralyzing him—
Or at least Jafar should have been paralyzed. He threw Regina's attack aside far more quickly than she'd anticipated, following that up with another pair of spells designed to turn the Evil Queen into a rat.
"A rat?" Regina laughed incredulously, rolling her eyes theatrically. "Is that the most creative spell you've got?"
"I thought it fitting. It was either that or carrier pigeon," Jafar retorted with a sly smile, batting aside the ball of power she'd retaliated with. Jafar hadn't bothered to destroy it, just let the glowing purple ball fly into a pair of nearby trees. Of course, the trees immediately started burning.
"Oi!" Will shouted. "Mind the forest fires, you two."
Jafar chuckled dangerously, but Regina just sighed in annoyance. Robin was already shooting her a pleading look, so she waved a hand and made a rain cloud appear over the pair of burning pines, drowning the fire before it could spread. After all, she didn't really want to continue this duel in the middle of a forest fire, and even if she did, she didn't need it spreading and adding even more evil to her reputation. That action, rather predictably, made her opponent raise an eyebrow.
"I didn't know that the resume of Evil Queens included putting out forest fires," he purred, his dark eyes curious.
Regina shrugged. "So, I'm a little bit reformed. I prefer to kill people on purpose, and not by accident, these days."
"Oh, do you now? I'd love to hear that story."
"I bet you would."
But Regina didn't wait for Jafar to ask another question, and she certainly wasn't about to share her life story. Instead, she hit him with a wall of fire of her own, wrapping Jafar in a raging inferno until he quashed the flames with a surge of his own power coupled with a clever dismantling of her spell. He was good, damn good, but Regina was better. She laughed.
"Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm too reformed, dear. I'm still plenty evil to defeat you."
"I wouldn't dream of making such an assumption."
His next attack was a variant of her wall of fire, turning it into a vortex that tried to engulf Regina and sweep her away like a bastardized tornado. She barely managed to dodge it in time, and the ends of her dress were caught up in the flames. That meant Regina had to spare a moment to salvage the hem before it started to smolder, which made her scowl. "This is one of my favorite dresses!" she snarled.
"So sorry," he replied immediately, barely stopping her next attack, which actually shoved Jafar back several feet, his heels kicking up mud as he skidded, hands up to stop her spell. Jafar was starting to sweat, just a little.
"Liar," she shot back, and he grinned.
"A gentlemen never lies to a lady. Particularly to a queen."
"Then you're clearly no gentlemen."
Jafar shrugged. "Sorcerers rarely are."
The next attack was one he'd clearly been building in the background, crafty and powerful and designed to fog up Regina's brain. That was subtle and smart; if he could slow her reaction time down, affect her mind, he could bog her down and maybe even get the lamp. But just because Regina disliked unweaving spells didn't mean she couldn't, so she found the necessary thread just like her old mentor had taught her. One tug later, Jafar's spell collapsed to the ground between them, golden and dirty looking, shimmering there like a drunk snake. But it came back almost immediately, twice as strong and three times as tricky, so Regina quashed that with a giant fist of power as she yanked the necessary threads one last time.
She was still angry enough—even if she was having a blast reveling in that fury—that the magic required little effort, but she could see his spells starting to take a toll on Jafar. His handsome face was pinched with exhaustion, and no wonder; he probably had to fight off his genie's curse in order to act like a sorcerer at all. Regina, however, had no such handicaps, and she was certainly perceptive enough to notice when Jafar's eyes slid towards Robin. Immediately, she knew what he was about to do.
He was a villain, after all. Regina knew how Jafar thought. She'd been a villain for most of her formative years, and no evil sorcerer worth the name would fail to notice when their opponent's True Love was standing nearby, defenseless save for a bow.
Almost without thought, Regina's hands came up, white light filling her palms as her love for Robin overrode her fury and her darkness. She whipped that magic forward, barely bothering to craft her love into a spell, just directing it at Jafar before the sorcerer could reach out and pull Robin towards him. The magic barely made it there in time, but it did, striking Jafar full in the chest and throwing him backwards into the same pair of trees that had been burning earlier. He hit hard, grunting painfully and trying to pull himself away from the trees, but Regina's magic held him tightly, pinning Jafar against the larger of the two trees no matter how hard he fought. His own power beat uselessly against hers like a child throwing a tantrum, but to no avail.
Regina had never bothered to banish the storm cloud she'd sent over to the burning trees, and magic was a bit odd in Wonderland, so rain started pelting down on Jafar's face, turning the sorcerer's expression supremely disgruntled and very soggy. Will snorted out a laugh as Jafar gave up fighting, but Regina just stepped in close. The rain, of course, didn't touch her.
"If you ever even think about threatening any of us again, you'll be living for centuries in that lamp," she snarled.
"Will I?" he countered, the expression in his eyes far from defeated. "I thought you had a new owner to deliver me to, like a good little delivery girl."
Regina grinned nastily, not at all put out by the insult. If Jafar had given in, it would have been much less fun. And she wouldn't have respected him at all. "Believe me, I'm getting the better end of this bargain. Rumplestiltskin's going to owe me a favor, and you get to stay in the Dark Castle."
There. She'd dropped the bomb and watched Jafar's mouth gape open in response. No, he hadn't expected that at all, had he? And that was why Regina had waited so long to tell him. Now Jafar knew that he couldn't defeat her, not even if she didn't bother to use his lamp, and now he knew where he was going once they reached the Enchanted Forest. It had been worth the wait—Jafar's expression was priceless.
"What would the Dark One want with a genie?" he asked, obviously trying to hide his nervousness. And failing.
Regina smiled mysteriously. "I didn't ask."
No need to tell Jafar that Rumplestiltskin had told her what he wanted of Jafar without her having to ask. No need to tell Jafar that Rumplestiltskin was no longer the Dark One, either; truth be told, Rumple was a great deal more dangerous these days, even if he was trying to be nicer (in the same way Regina was, complete with sharp edges and no small amount of temper. Neither of them would ever be purely good, and Regina was quite content with that, thank you very much). No, she'd let Jafar find out for himself and fret in the meantime. That was much more fun.
He was starting to have trouble telling time again.
After the year he'd spent in Danns' a'Bhàis' hands, Rumplestiltskin had become no stranger to pain. He'd never like it, and pain would always frighten him on an intensely deep and personal level, but three centuries of dangerous living had taught him to deal with his fears—provided he had the power to fight back. Reminding himself that he wasn't powerless now was hard; the bronze bands continued digging into his neck, wrists, and ankles, isolating him from his magic and keeping Rumplestiltskin from fighting back. For someone who had become defined by the power he could wield, not being able to touch it was both crippling and terrifying, but he managed to fight back the urge to panic. Usually.
As best he could tell, something around a week had passed since he'd fallen into the Black Fairy's trap and been deposited into this windowless, door-less, and utterly empty room. But it might have been longer. There was a constant amount of light in the room, not too bright and not too dark, with no indications at all of when it was night or day outside. Truthfully, Rumplestiltskin didn't even know if time passed normally inside the fae's realms, or if he might be somewhere where an hour inside equaled a minute outside. Or a year. Perhaps only hours had passed for Belle since he'd been caught. He had no way to know, and that worried him more than anything else. Last time, his family had already thought him dead and Rumplestiltskin had not been concerned that Belle or Bae might try to come after him. Now—surprisingly—he was confident enough in their love to know that they would want to rescue him, and terrified that they would wind up hurt because of it.
He had to act soon. Rumplestiltskin could mark time by Danns' visits, and she came like clockwork, twice, he thought, per day. One of the female fae who had tortured him in Bremen appeared between Danns' visits, and now he had a name to put with her face: Jhudora. She was every bit as vicious as she had been before, although the fae now seemed inclined to use magic to cause (and recreate) pain rather than more mundane tools of torture, hammering him with pure darkness and other spells to try to break him down. It was a change in tactics that Rumplestiltskin hardly appreciated; either way, he was left drifting and dumb, his mind sluggish and everything hurting.
But he was still gathering magic, more from Jhudora than from Danns, because the younger fae was more careless than her queen. And now he almost had enough.
"Up," a voice commanded, and magic yanked Rumplestiltskin to his feet before he had a chance to realize that Danns was even in the room.
Swaying drunkenly, he caught himself on the wall as his boots made contact with the floor, wheezing for air. Breathing was hard; he had a few cracked ribs and definitely some internal bleeding, not to mention the wounds that Danns' spell of reversal had reopened under his clothing. But his power—not the bands, Rumplestiltskin suddenly realized—kept him alive, mitigating the worst of the damage to support him, which meant he could stand. Barely. Leaning on the wall made it easier, and without that support, Rumplestiltskin was fairly certain he would have collapsed. The room was already spinning.
"Can't even bother to say hello, first?" he panted, just to have something to say. Dark magic still raced through him, though not as intrusively agonizing as when Danns turned the pressure up; this was just the dregs of the last bout. And this, Rumplestiltskin sensed, was only her starting point.
Perhaps she was short on talented and motivated torturers with Norco dead. In that case, Rumplestiltskin had done himself a favor.
"Then hello," Danns smiled. His defiance seemed to amuse her these days, but then they were having all kinds of interesting conversations between the sessions of pain. "Have you decided, yet?"
"Decided what?" he rasped, yet again. There was a formula to their conversations, a circle they always wound up completing.
"If you'll join me, of course."
That was different. She'd asked for service previously, wanted him willingly committed to her cause or as her slave, the Dark One. A part of Rumplestiltskin, the poor spinner who was so used to being bullied and was ready to grasp any way out of a bad situation, wanted to leap on that option, wanted to take the deal she was offering just to spare himself pain. But no. He didn't need to do that; he'd almost gathered enough magic, now, and did not have much longer to wait. Was he Merlin, to withstand thirty years of agony? Of course not. But he was Rumplestiltskin, so he did not have to. He had his loophole and would exploit it. Soon enough, he would make his own way out of this terrible place, and never again would he allow himself to be put in a situation like this.
"My answer to that won't change, dear," he replied softly, meeting the Black Fairy's gaze squarely. Was that regret in her hazel eyes? "I'm no Merlin, to worship the ground you walk on."
With her long silver dress sweeping around her, Danns stepped close to him, reaching up to touch his cheek, her fingers feather-light. "Yet we could be such good friends," she countered softly. "I know you have no love for my sister, for her 'perfect' world. Why not stand with me in all ways that matter?"
She was lonely, Rumplestiltskin suddenly realized. Lonely enough to offer him something like equality, which she'd never done before. Danns' a'Bhàis had destroyed and enslaved her best friend, and she now wanted someone to take his place. A part of Rumplestiltskin actually felt pity for her; he knew the aching loneliness inside of her, knew what it was to look across centuries alone and with an empty heart. She had regretted her actions, much too late to change anything, and the centuries since Merlin had died had not been kind to Danns' soul. Then Rumplestiltskin had inherited Merlin's powers, and now Danns hoped he would take on the mantle of something more…personal.
"Your methods leave something to be desired if you're aiming for my friendship," he retorted, wondering how far she would go.
"And your attitude is remarkably unrepentant if you wish to earn mine," Danns snapped back.
Ah. Lonely, yes, but not reckless. Nor stupid. He'd not be able to manipulate her into healing him, much though Rumplestiltskin had momentarily hoped that he could. If she'd been willing to do so, perhaps as a sign of good faith, he might have tried to play upon her loneliness, but Rumplestiltskin had a feeling that doing so would be akin to playing with fire. If he toyed with her emotions (any more than he already had in allowing her to assume he was Merlin), Danns was likely to lash out. Killing an original power was damnably hard, but his family had no such protection. She knew about Henry, now, and by extension she knew about Baelfire. If she'd noticed who called him to destroy Norco, she might even know about Belle, might know that he loved someone, even if she had no idea it was True Love—and never would, not if Rumplestiltskin could prevent it. Yet he would not endanger his family just to play with the Black Fairy.
Rumplestiltskin pulled away from the hand on his cheek, staggering weakly when he did so. Everything hurt, and he could feel magic still working under his skin like red hot needles. Still, he managed a smile, hard-edged and nasty. "I'm not a terribly repentant person, I'm afraid."
"I did gather that about you." Strangely enough, Danns sounded more pleased than not, but her eyes remained hard. "So tell me, Rumplestiltskin. What kind of man are you? You say you're no Merlin, but what are you?"
Tricky. Bitter. Loved by people far better than I will ever be, and somehow no longer completely evil, Rumplestiltskin didn't say. He was a boy who had been abandoned and a father who had chosen power over his beloved son, only to spend three centuries trying to make up for that horrid mistake. He was a man who had embraced the darkest of evils to save that same son, and who had somehow come out the other side with something of a soul to call his own. He was the Dark One who had broken his own curse to save those he loved, and who had thought he would die doing so. He'd never be a saint, and he would probably never have enough regrets to satisfy Belle's conscience, but Rumplestiltskin was a slightly better man that the curse had made him, and that had to count for something.
Particularly here.
"It's not what I am that should worry you, dear," he murmured, letting his eyes hint at truths yet to be uncovered. "You already know that. It's who I am that you should be concerned with."
"And who is that?" Danns purred, reaching out to touch his face again and laughing softly when he almost fell in his effort to pull away once more.
"Rumplestiltskin, of course," he replied, and was rewarded by the way her lips twitched angrily.
Then her hand suddenly moved downwards to wrap around his throat, and before Rumplestiltskin could even think to pull away or push her back, darkness and pain tore into him. Screaming in surprise as much as agony, he was distantly aware of the way his body convulsed, his shoulders bouncing hard off the wood paneled wall behind him. Rumplestiltskin's vision went white then gray and then white again, blood red stars exploding in front of his eyes. But Danns was far stronger than her slender figure would suggest, and she held him up, pressing him back against the wall and forcing Rumplestiltskin to stay on his feet. He choked helplessly, flailing and reaching desperately for magic he could not touch. Every instinct Rumplestiltskin had told him to attack Danns, but his power would not answer his call. Could not.
Several agonizing moments passed before Rumplestiltskin remembered that he owned a fully functional set of hands, that he could at least shove her away so he could breathe. But when he tried that, a flick of the Black Fairy's fingers shoved his arms back against the wall, pinning them there as if a set of chains held him. Knowing it was pointless, Rumplestiltskin struggled against the hold of her magic, fighting mindlessly to get away from the magic ripping through him and hand holding him up by the throat. An eternity ticked by before she loosened her grip enough to allow him to breathe at all, allowing her magic to hold him on his feet since he could stand through the pain. Even longer passed before the darkness stopped attacking him, before his muscles stopped spasming and twitching and every pain center in his body was able to calm down.
Danns' magic held him on his feet like a puppet on strings until Rumplestiltskin could support himself. Finally, she stepped back and released him, cocking her head and studying him curiously as he slumped against the wall. His chest was burning; had one of his cracked ribs popped out of place? Without magic, Rumplestiltskin couldn't tell, but his vision was still doing the can-can.
"We're going to the Vault," she told him abruptly, and now it was Rumplestiltskin's turn to cock his head.
"You're going to be more specific than that," he told her between short, hiccup-y gasps for air. "There are many vaults in this world."
Danns' a'Bhàis smiled. "But there is only one that I created, one where the full strength of your curse will be at my disposal, where—no matter what safeguards you have put in place, the dagger will come to me—and where I will make you the Dark One once more."
Coming back to the Dark Castle was oddly…comforting. You know a place is home when you miss it after you've left, Bae had once told Emma, back on that first day they'd met, when he'd broken into a county fair and they'd sat on the swings. He'd had no idea how much he would come to love her, not then—then, Emma had merely been a vaguely interesting girl who had tried to steal the car Neal had already stolen. But he'd covered for her, and then invited her along, because something in Emma struck a cord in him. She'd been as lonely as Bae (as Neal) had been, just as lost in a world she never truly belonged in. Fate really did have a sense of humor, he supposed. What else could have brought them together, could have given them such a wonderful son as Henry was, and could have finally brought them here?
"It's so much quieter without everyone and their mother here," Emma commented, looking around the great hall.
"You mean without your mother here?" he quipped, exchanging a grin with his son.
"Can I see the treasure room, Belle?" Henry piped up immediately.
Bae's almost-stepmother chuckled, although her smile never quite reached her worried eyes. "Which one? There's at least six."
"Really? I only found four," the teen replied. Then he stepped forward and, without warning, wrapped his arms around Belle. "Grandpa will be okay," he told her with all the confidence a child could muster. "I know he will."
Bae could see the pain cross Belle's face. She was amazingly strong, but even the strongest people had to break sometimes, and he knew that she was taking his father's disappearance hard. In the beginning, he hadn't at all understood what Belle saw in Rumplestiltskin, but he'd realized early on that her love for his father was true. And now that Rumplestiltskin was missing, she looked like she had a hole torn in her soul.
"Thank you, Henry," Belle said softly, hugging him back.
Man, their son was amazing. Bae met Emma's eyes with a crooked smile of his own. He was worried, too, but Henry really was rather extraordinary. There was something about Henry's confidence that was just contagious. The way Henry could believe so purely was simply extraordinary. When Henry pulled back from Belle, Emma spoke up.
"C'mon, kiddo. You want to explore, and your dad and Belle probably want to figure out what we're going to do to help your grandfather," she said, steering Henry out of the great hall and leaving the pair of them alone.
"So," Bae sighed when the other two were gone. "What are we going to do? Do we do what Papa wants and sit tight, or do you have a plan?"
"I don't know," Belle admitted, crossing over to a settee and sinking onto it. "If the message Tink delivered was correct, I'm not sure we can get to him. But how can we leave him there?"
"Particularly given what happened to him last time," he agreed, sitting down next to her when Belle patted the settee invitingly.
"He wants us to stay out of it, but I'm not sure I can," she said softly, glancing down at her hands. "Why is it that he never understands how we're willing to fight for him, too?"
"Because he's the most hardheaded idiot I've ever met," Bae answered bluntly. "I love him, but once Pop gets an idea in his head…well, he's always been like that. Even when I was a little kid."
"And he never can quite bring himself to understand that we love him as much as he loves us," Belle added sadly. "He doesn't think he deserves it."
Bae swallowed hard. "Some of that's probably my fault," he said hesitantly, and Belle's head whipped around so she could stare at him.
"Don't say that," she admonished him, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "A lot of things have happened to your father, Bae, and you aren't at fault for anything that occurred after you left. I know he doesn't blame you, that he'd never blame you. So don't even say that, okay?"
"I just…"
"No." Belle squeezed his arm. "Don't go there. Don't blame yourself. We'll get him back, no matter what."
The guilt he felt surprised Bae as much as it seemed to shock Belle, and it took him a long moment to push the feeling aside. Intellectually, he knew that the monster who had let him go was nothing like the father he had now—then, Rumplestiltskin had been consumed by darkness, had hurt people all the time, and had absolutely terrified Baelfire. Now, however, Rumplestiltskin was closer to the man he had been before the curse, and even if there was still plenty of darkness inside him, it was a darkness Bae could live with. Even before his curse had broken, Rumplestiltskin had been different: more capable of love and better able to contain the evil inside him. He was the father Bae had missed so terribly during those horrible years in Neverland, the one he thought he'd lost forever after Rumplestiltskin killed Pan…and Bae didn't want to face even the possibility of losing him. Not like this.
Despite what Belle said, he knew that he bore a little of the blame for his father's insecurities. Pan had abandoned him first, but Bae hadn't helped matters by running away in New York and by refusing to believe Rumplestiltskin in Neverland. Perhaps he could be absolved for what had happened at the portal that had initially dropped him into the Land Without Magic, but Bae knew that in the complicated mess their lives had become, he was not entirely innocent. Neither was his father, of course, but they'd fixed things. And then this had happened.
"Yeah," he managed to say after a moment, pushing his worries aside for Belle's sake. "We will."
A/N: Thank you for reading, and please take a moment to let me know what you think! Next up is Chapter 44: "The King of Loopholes", where the Black Fairy brings Rumplestiltskin to the Vault, Maleficent is Up To Something, and Rumplestiltskin makes his move.
As a note…we're getting into the endgame here with this story, probably the last ten chapters or so. There's lots left to happen, however. Do you think that the Black Fairy is finally going to go down? Is Blue going to get her comeuppance, or is she going to continue on like she has always done? And speaking of futures, will Rumplestiltskin and Belle ever manage to get married?