Chapter 10
He makes a cup of chamomile and forces himself to pick up his pen to write the steps out. He can't begin to count the number of times he's done this since the night he screamed at the Reul Ghorm and dragged from her the single word that thereafter controlled his thoughts, his actions and his dreams: curse. How perverse that his only source of hope was a curse, but, he supposes, anything to do with the Dark One must be perverse.
So as he waits behind his counter, his hand trembling, he writes out the steps for the thousandth time. There's no need, of course; every breath he's taken in three centuries has carved the steps into his bones. But he can't afford for nervousness to lead to haste; he must trust the plan to which he's sworn a blood oath of allegiance. It will work. He's Seen enough of the pieces of the future to have faith in the plan: the mother's kiss, the airplane, the return of his magic. Tonight a woman in red leather will slay a dragon with her father's sword, the True Love bottled for a rainy day will be freed, a town will awaken, Belle will love him again and Rumplestiltskin–and who knows who else, for this has never ever been done before–will inhale magic, exhale power.
But for now he drinks tea, writes out the steps and tries not to tremble as three hundred years' labor comes to fruition in one night.
He dreamt of her last night. Not Belinda but Belle, and not in their friendly kitchen but in the Great Hall. She stood over him, he shrinking in his oversized chair and trying to placate her with a weak smile. But she crossed her arms and smirked his trademark smirk, and speaking in a perfect imitation of his imp voice, she pronounced him a liar. "'I will love nothing else.' But you broke that vow too, didn't you?" Then she unfolded her arms and smiled her Belle smile. "And I'm glad, because I love you, too. And Bae will be glad. Loving me doesn't make you disloyal to Bae. It makes your love for him more powerful."
He blinks the dream memory away and focuses on his list. His pen, which apparently has a will of its own, has written, "7. Drop vial into waters of Lake Nostros. 8. Use power of love to locate Bae."
He scratches out "love" and writes in "magic," as Step 8 is supposed to read. He finishes the list quickly, sips tea and tries to focus. The process, the process, it will work, one step at a–
Except for the first time ever, he's thinking about reordering the steps. If Emma breaks the curse before Rumple's finished bringing magic to the world, Belle and Dove are going to have a hell of a lot of convoluted emotions and thoughts to deal with all at once, and no one to navigate them through it. They're strong, they will recover, but there's a little one who's not so strong who must be protected against the violence of the stress that her mother will experience as her psyche splits in two.
My fault, Gold's pen writes. I am her father.
The lawyer in him goes all legalistic for a moment: Stepfather is all you can ever be to that child, and you're not even that yet. You have no rights or responsibilities to her.
The man in him answers: Bullshit.
If there is any sliver of stubbornness remaining in him, pushing him to stick to the plan, it's obliterated when his service bell tinkles and the Evil Queen and the savior storm through his door, for the moment, warriors united; for the moment, no longer playing their prescribed roles but rather acting from the deepest part of the heart. Parents who will do anything to save their child.
Damn it, isn't that what brought him to this place, too? As the warrior-mothers storm his glass barricade, his left hand trembles and his right draws a slash across the list. "Gold, you have to help us," the savior is saying as Rumple writes across the slash one word representing the step that will come next in his plan: ADELENA.
"I'll tell you how to save your boy." His mouth has gone dry: the truth drags across his tongue, but at least it comes. "If you will help me save mine."
Regina has already begun formulating her arguments and accusations and they spill from her like black ink spilled across a pristine page, but Emma is listening. Emma flattens her hands on the counter (one hand on either side of the case holding her father's sword, as she will soon be startled to learn) and leans in. Fury flames in her eyes, her thought obvious: are you so low as to put a price on a child's life? But then something in his tone or his eyes connects with her, desperate parent to desperate parent, and for a moment she's gobsmacked, but she leans on the fortitude that this world has forced her to develop, and she extends her open hand. "Deal."
He shakes her hand. For the moment, the case holding her father's sword will remain closed. "This is how you will break both curses." His glance flickers to Regina, but a small nod from her assures him she is still more mother than queen. There is shame in the slump of her shoulders, but no regret, and he gives her a small nod back. "For the sake of our children."
"For Henry," Regina agrees, then makes a space in this new vow for her former master to add a name. "And for. . . ."
"For Baelfire. And for Adelena."
The women exchange a surprised glance. Emma then peers at Gold. "Two–?" She gives her head a shake to remind herself to focus on the urgent task at hand. "We'll swap baby photos later. How do we wake Henry?"
He gives her a small smile of pride. Someday he'll tell her how much like her father she is in her singlemindedness. Someday he may even tell her son a few stories about a matchmaking imp without whom there might have been no Emma and Henry. But she's right; it's time now to get to business.
And then from the corner of his eye he catches a movement from Regina. The queen takes a step back, lowering her widened eyes to her hands, which she abruptly rubs together. He knows this gesture: he saw it several times during the early months of her training, when she'd done something cruel, something she regretted. Her Lady Macbeth gesture.
"Regina?" he prompts.
His voice compels her to look up at him. "I'm sorry," she says, but before she can explain why, the queen in her emerges. "Proceed, Mr. Gold. How do we break the curse?"
He frowns a little; she's up to something, but she'll tell him about it eventually. She always does. He gives his attention back to Emma. This is not how it's supposed to go; there's no step in his three-hundred-year-old plan that says, "Be open and honest with the savior." So he hesitates, until in the back of his mind he hears her father's voice: "I have done all that you have asked of me" and he realizes that Emma will, too.
The last person he trusted, as he is now trusting Emma, was the caretaker of his estate.
Rumplestiltskin clasps Emma's hand, sharing the strength of his experience, sharing the strength of her innocence. "No greater power exists, Ms. Swan, than True Love. With it your father and mother have defeated every spell that has been thrown at them. With it you will break the strongest curse that has ever been created. Go to your son and wake him–"
Emma's read the Snow White story. She finishes the sentence: "With a kiss."
His Caddy is right behind Regina's Mercedes as it runs a red light and speeds through the school zone. He follows suit: if the mayor and the sheriff don't have to follow traffic laws, why should an ordinary citizen? But at Blackbird Lane they part company, the Mercedes making a left toward the hospital; Gold proceeds straight ahead on Moncton until he's at the edge of town, and then he takes an unnamed asphalt road south, past some empty fields, until he comes upon a ranch house that sits alone on a hill. The garage door is up: Dove's Yukon sits inside, beside Belinda's Honda. From a tool shed in the backyard Gold hears hammering; at the house, the outer door is open, and through the closed screen door he hears Tchaikovsky's "Winter Dreams."
Hovering above the steel mailbox that sits on a post at the end of the driveway is a white wooden dove on the wing; on the box itself is painted in bright blue "The Doves."
He suddenly realizes he has no idea what to tell them. This spontaneity isn't like him: when it comes to preparedness, the Boy Scouts have nothing on Rumplestiltskin. He stands on their porch, staring at the "Welcome" mat and searching for an opening line, an excuse for coming here, where he's never been.
The floorboards squeak. He looks up to her puzzled half-smile. They just stand there, staring through the mesh, until something shifts in her gaze: he thinks it's a knowing that has arisen in her eyes, and he could swear it's Rumplestiltskin the Sorcerer she's seeing, not Gold, and his body straightens and his cane clatters to the porch. He doesn't seem to need it any more.
She flings the screen door out of her way and flies into his arms. Her hands press against his shoulder blades, pushing him tight against her; her face presses against his jacket and he suddenly resents Armani and all the other designers of men's business fashions, because he can't feel her through three layers of cloth. Nor, with her face tucked into his shoulder, can he see her expression. He's half-crazy to know if she remembers, but he won't scare her by asking. With one arm around her waist and one hand stroking her hair, he leaves it to his touch to say what he can't conjure words for. She's breathing heavily, her body rising and falling beneath his hand.
They clutch each other, deaf to the hammering in the tool shed, deaf to the frantic distant barking of a dog, deaf to the flurry of beating wings as a flock of robins streaks across the sky. He can hear nothing of the commotion around him, but he can hear her breathe.
And then everything stops.
She raises her face as a rainbow passes over it, bars of yellow and orange and violet and green light, and he cups her face, and his thumb tingles where he touches her cheek. His entire hand tingles, his body and her body begin to shudder, the floorboards beneath his Italian shoes shake, and she pulls away, though she takes both his hands in hers. "Rumple, what's happening? Rumple?"
He searches her face. "Belle, do you know me? Do you remember me?"
The rainbow fades, the floorboards and their bodies steady, and after some hesitation the gentle spring breeze resumes and the robins settle in trees, singing about the strange storm they've just experienced.
"Of course I—" She suddenly drops her face into her hands. "My head hurts. Gods, I—" Her eyes search the environment frantically and she hisses at him. "Shh! Do you hear them? They're coming."
"Who, sweetheart? Who's coming?" He slides his hands along her arms comfortingly.
"She wants me to tell her your secrets, but I'll never tell," Belle shakes her head wildly. "She wants to bring you to your knees, she says. She won't kill you; you're still useful to her, but she wants you on your knees to her. She threw me against the wall with her magic. She chained me to the wall. No food, no water, she told them, but one of them helped me anyway."
"She? Do you mean Regina?" He touches her cheek but she won't look at him.
"The ogres did this. What's left for us to take back to their families? Arms and legs strewn everywhere. An entire regiment slaughtered in less than two hours."
"Belle, Belle, come back to me," he pleads. "That's the past. Don't stay there."
"He's a very nice man, Daddy. Yes, he works for Gold, but he's a. . ." her voice trails off. She licks her lips uncertainly. "He takes good care of me. Hello, Mayor Mills. Yes, it's a lovely day. Yes, we're very lucky to live here."
He takes her face in his hands and forces her to look at him. "Belle, breathe. Slowly. Focus on your breath. Breathe, sweetheart. For the baby, Belle. Come back to me."
"The baby." She nods and gulps for air.
"The baby." He mimics the breathing pattern he wants her to take. "Breathe. We're here, in Storybrooke. We're safe."
She leans against his shoulder, feeling his chest rise and fall against her head, and gradually she gains control of her breathing. After a long moment she shifts to stand on her own, and then she peers at him.
"Belle, do you remember me?" He chokes on the words.
She searches his eyes. Suddenly her hands sink into his hair, drag his head down, and she presses her mouth against his. She's come back to him; he knows it when she draws back from the kiss.
"This," she murmurs. "This is real."
Their smiles make promises of a future of more. Their smiles make promises of a future together.
"Rumple, I remember," she laughs breathlessly. "You and me and a chipped cup, and a deal we made."
"It's forever, darling," he reminds her, and she rests her hands on his chest. He sets his hands on hers, and as his right hand brushes against the ring finger of her left hand, they stop smiling. They stop smiling but their fingers thread together and they don't let go, and the light in their eyes doesn't extinguish.
"After all we've been through, I won't be separated from you again, not even for a day," Belle insists.
"I won't let go," he assures her, planting kisses on the palms of her hands. "Never again."
"I don't want to hurt him. He's been very good to me."
"He's my friend." There's no way the three—no, the four—of them will get out of this without a hell of a lot of pain.
Gold suddenly needs her closer. With a rumble in his throat, he yanks her back into his embrace and brings his mouth to hers. Just before their lips meet, he moans, "I've missed you so much, Belle. I've needed you, since that day you fell into my arms, and I've loved you, ever since the day you asked to know me."
Words rush out of her. "All this time, I thought I was feeling things I shouldn't, wanting to be with you. I felt so guilty, but I couldn't stop myself; I only felt right when we were together. It was so confusing. When I went home to Jo, I felt like I was cheating on you."
"We'll sort it out, the life you lived here, from the life in the Enchanted Forest. We'll be all right. I'll explain it all." Explain and ask forgiveness, because even after he'd come to know her, even after he'd fallen in love with her the first time, he'd continued to build the curse—though he honestly can't say whether, if he'd known she was alive and in Regina's possession, he would have gone through with it. He's asked himself that question a hundred times, and most of the time, the answer has been an image of himself tearing down the Spiral Palace with his bare hands, and once he'd freed Belle, he'd have set those hands to work on her captor's throat.
Belle stirs in his arms, putting out the fire for revenge and igniting in his belly a fire of a different sort. Screw revenge. He has the savior's promise of help, so soon he will have Bae; and right here, right now and forever, he has Belle. Every cell in his body and hers sings to him that assurance, but Malcolm's castoff and Milah's cuckold and Hordor's bootlicker and the butt of Hook's joke still live in corners of his mind, so he needs to hear Belle say the words aloud. "But Belle—"
She nods furiously. "Yes. Yes, I love you."
He breathes her name in relief. "Belle." He can't wait any longer for another kiss.
"Lady Belle? Master Rumplestiltskin?"
Gold lifts his head toward the voice. "Josiah?" The master sorcerer reddens.