Chapter 36
"Henry, how about if we go shopping this evening?"
The boy grins. "Need a new iPad again? I told you, Grandpa, hittin' it with a cane won't make it stop buffering."
"No, I thought we might pay a visit to Mr. Browning's."
"The tailor?"
"I promised you a proper dress suit. And while we're at it, we ought to take a look at tuxes."
"Huh?"
"After that, we'll stop by the video store, and then some ice cream at Amy's."
As Gold ushers Henry into the Caddy, he's determined to make the most of this grandfather-grandson outing. . . just in case, when the trial ends, Henry doesn't want anything more to do with him.
The trial is over. Regina's been pronounced guilty. Snow will pronounce sentence, but she needs to consult with some advisers first.
Gold's been invited to the royal war council meeting in the City Council Chambers, not because he's a leader, nor because he's a councilor or a town elder, but because he's an expert on all things magic. Belle too, partly by her association with him, partly by her own developing expertise on the same subject, has been invited. Blue, Jefferson, Marco, Whale, Leroy, Archie and the Lucases round out the invited. At the head of the tables (for they're meeting in the diner and four tables have been pushed together) are the royals.
"I've asked you in to generate some ideas for Regina's sentence," Snow begins. "It's not just about punishing her; it's about keeping this town safe from her. We can't punish her as we would anyone else. Put her in regular prison and she'll simply magic right out."
"Execute her," Leroy blurts, as if it's obvious.
"That's not what we do in this world," Archie objects. "In this world, we believe in second chances."
Leroy squints. "You goody-goodies forget it's what she'd do to any of us, in a heartbeat."
"Well, we're better than that."
"I want to hear other options before I consider that one," Snow announces. Gold remembers her first attempt to execute Regina: he doubts if she can attempt it again.
David suggests. "Ban her to another realm, but we don't have the means to open a portal, do we?" He raises an eyebrow at Jefferson, who shakes his head.
"Leave her where she is," Marco suggests.
"The fairy dust supply is running out," Blue points out. "We have enough for six days."
"A sleeping spell," Emma suggests. "Like she tried to do to my mom. As a temporary fix, until we figure out something better."
Belle shakes her head. "It would be a passive form of execution, Em. The only way to break a sleeping curse—"
"Is True Love's Kiss," Emma concludes. Her face falls. "And that's not an option for Regina." She glances hopefully at Gold. "Not even if Henry kissed her?"
"For True Love to exist, it must exist on both sides," he answers. "Pure and unselfish."
"'Love is patient. Love is kind,'" Belle quotes. "'It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs—'"
Gold picks up the quotation. "'Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes.'" Belle grasps his hand and beams at him; he feels as though they've just spoken wedding vows, here in this company of friends and allies and not-friends.
Blue has closed her eyes, listening. "'Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.'"
"'Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.'" Gold smiles at Belle, the one who fully knows him.
The room has fallen silent, most of its occupants looking puzzled or impatient to get back to the argument; Snow's agape in wonder.
Gold shrugs. "That's why True Love's Kiss won't work with Regina. Henry can deliver, but she can't." The words they've just spoken itch at the back of his mind: he's afraid what's true about Regina is true about him too. He loves Belle, but his love falls short. It always will.
"How about if we send her across the town line," Jefferson offers. "The barrier's been strengthened; she won't be able to cross back over. She won't even remember Storybrooke or any of us. We'll be safe from her. Henry will be protected. The world out there will be protected, because she'll have no magic. Her memory will be reset to a time before she acquired magic."
Snow looks to Gold. "So that would be age eighteen, wouldn't it? I remember the first time you came to the Spiral Castle; it was three or four months after my father died."
"No," Gold corrects her. "She summoned me for the first time when she was sixteen. The power was with her then, very strong, though she didn't realize it. But if she is returned to the time before magic touched her. . . she will cease to exist; her mother was a sorceress, so Regina was born into magic."
"That would be a quick and painless execution," Leroy points out. "Satisfied, Hopper?"
The psychiatrist sputters. "No! No execution!"
"You think she deserves to live, after everything she's done?" Marco breaks in. "All the families she broke up, the children who grew up without their parents—" his voice cracks. "My boy. . . You tell them, Gold. You saw those children."
Gold nods but before he can speak, Hopper continues, "Not for her sake! I'm not asking you to spare her; I'm asking you to think of those families, those friends"—he squeezes Marco's shoulder. "How can they heal if Regina's executed?"
"How can they heal if they don't get justice?" Marco interrupts.
"How will that make anyone feel better, if we as a society commit murder? Let her live her life in prison, as a reminder that we punish evil, but we do it in an honorable—"
"Execution is a just and fair punishment, where we come from," David interjects. "In some cases, it's absolutely necessary for public safety. And in some cases, like this one, it's actually the humane thing. Even if we could find a way to keep her in prison without the fairy dust—"
"Gotta be a way to take her magic away." Whale adds. "Electroshock, a drug—"
"Not possible," Blue interrupts. "We've researched the question thoroughly. It's not possible to take a sorcerer's magic away."
"She'd whack any of us in a New York minute! Man up, people! We got kids to protect here!"
Snow stands and slaps her hand on the table. "People, please! Can we have some order here?" She glares at Leroy. "Some decorum? We're not here to debate her character or even what punishment she deserves. We're here to figure out what punishments are possible, since our resources are running out."
"You got any ideas, Gold?" David redirects everyone's attention.
Emma nudges Gold. "Help us, Obi-wan Stiltskin. You're our only hope."
In his hands, Gold is turning over and over a comb he's swiped from Belle's tote bag. He doesn't look up.
"Well?" Leroy demands. "What about it, Stiltskin? Come on, don't just sit there all smug and smart-assy. And we ain't makin' any deals for the information, either. You owe us."
Gold returns the comb to the tote bag and look up at Snow. "I don't have a solution at hand for you, Your Majesty."
"But you could get one?" Emma latches onto his phrasing—she's learned a lot about interpreting his particular use of words.
"Probably not." He stands, then bends to say to Belle, "I'll be in my lab, sweetheart, if you need me for anything." And he walks away.
Unsure footsteps make the stairs leading into the basement creak. Gold glances up from the tome he's translating to find Henry, in carpet slippers and striped pajamas, coming slowly down. The father in him pushes Gold to chastise Henry for being up so late, but the grandfather in him tells the father to shut up. The puffiness under the boy's eyes shows that Emma's told him the verdict.
Wisely, for once, Gold remains silent, leaving it to Henry to make the first move. At the foot of the stairs, Henry lets his gaze wander over the lab equipment, the potions and powders, and the bird perched on his grandfather's shoulder. Then he moves a little closer. This isn't his first visit to the lab, but he knows that for the untrained, this can be a treacherous place. "Hi."
"Hi," Gold replies.
"Thanks for the Happy Trails box set. Oh, and the clothes."
Gold holds back a smile: Bae was the same way; he'd start a request for a favor with an expression of gratitude for a previous favor. "You're welcome."
"Emma told me about the verdict."
"Yeah. I'm sorry, Henry."
"She didn't say what would happen to my mom."
"It hasn't been decided yet."
"There's got to be a way," Henry blurts, waving at the lab equipment. "So they don't kill her."
Gold also stares at the equipment, seeing it through Henry's eyes.
"Please, I know you can do it." The anxiety on the boy's face is an adult's. "She's done a lot of bad things but she doesn't deserve to die."
Gold pretends to examine a vial so he doesn't have to look at Henry.
Then Henry makes his voice cold, reminding Gold of himself. "She's no different than you."
When Gold doesn't reply, Henry starts back up the stairs. Gold calls him back. "Henry. . . I'm working on it."
"You're not working hard enough."
As Gold's mouth falls open, Henry runs up the stairs.
The bird pecks at Gold's scalp. "Ow!"
Gold walks over to the jail, walking, rather than transporting himself, because he wants to think and the quiet night permits his thoughts to roam. He's still imagining the comb. . . .
Sleepy, who's taken some No-Doz and is sipping cappuccino, is guarding Regina. This is a particularly dangerous phase of her punishment, while her physical and mental state fluctuate. Four days of fairy dust left. Four days for Snow to pass sentence.
Sleepy glances up from Teresa of the Faint Smile as Gold enters. He looks doubtful, then makes up his mind and nods when Gold asks to speak to the prisoner. "Go ahead. I don't think you're likely to try to bust her out, after what she did to Belle."
Shooting the dwarf a scowl for his intrusiveness, Gold seats himself on the blue naugahyde couch and watches Regina. The witch, seated in a posture that mirrors his, glares back at him. It's a staring contest, then, a childish staring contest that they're reduced to, after years of insults, threats, lies and double-crosses. But she's too wan and worn to fight, and he doesn't have the stomach to fight one who can't squabble back. Or maybe it's just the fairy dust getting to him already, making him weak.
He blinks first. "'Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.' Do you still feel that way, Regina?"
She rolls her eyes. "What are you talking about? You're not going to suggest I get on my knees and beg Snow White for my life, are you?"
"Of course not. But you once traded your magic for the satisfaction you thought revenge would bring. Would you trade again for your life?" When her face remains immobile, he tries, "Or a chance to be with Henry, occasionally?"
"This is a joke, isn't it? Rubbing it in–"
"I'm serious."
Now her brows relax. "I'm listening."
"If it were possible–not saying it is–but if it were possible to surrender your magic in return for your life and your freedom–say, being exiled from Storybrooke, but perhaps a couple of times a year, Henry would visit you, under supervision, would you accept that deal and honor your end of it?"
"Is this coming from the Charmings?"
"No. I think it could be, though."
She pinches her mouth together. "I heard the nitwits talking. If you send me across the town line, unless you find another breech in the boundary, I'll vanish, won't I?"
"That's not how I propose stripping you of your magic."
"Then how?"
"Right now it's just a theory, but if I could do as I say, would you agree to surrender your magic?"
"Ridiculous question. Who wouldn't choose freedom and family over magic?"
"I didn't. If I can make it happen, would you live up to your end: accept the loss of your power and a permanent exile?"
"And Henry will come to see me twice a year."
"Supervised, possibly with Ms. Swan, possibly me." Gold flashes his teeth at her. "And my wife, Belle."
Regina raises an eyebrow. "Wife. I suppose you win, then." When he doesn't rise to the bait, she continues the negotiation–though they both know it's a flimsy gamble she's taking, counting on the fairy dust to run out before Snow decides on a sentence, or Snow to back down at the last minute and release her rather than execute her. "Two weeks for each visit. And when Henry is eighteen, he's free to see me whenever he wants."
"I may make that proposal to Snow." Gold stands. His eyes are burning, his head aching from the dust.
"May? Screw you, Rumple. You're just jerking me around, aren't you?"
"No, Regina, believe it or not, for once, I'm being straight with you. I told you, this is just a theory right now. If I can make it reality, I'll propose it to Snow." He starts for the exit.
She calls out after him, "Well, don't theorize too long."
"How did you bring magic here?"
Blue has asked that question three times. The first two times, he answered with quips. The third time, he answered more respectfully. "Someday I'll tell you, but not yet."
But he's ready today. It's a foot forward, testing the solidarity of the groundwork these past months have laid. Because as the weeks have passed and no other solution has turned up, he's moved closer and closer to the certainty that what he doesn't want to do—the price he dreads paying—is the only solution. And with only two days of fairy dust remaining and no sentence rendered yet from Snow, he needs to act soon. But this test of trust must come first.
When she arrives for the day's experiments, her arms laden with baskets of plants and seeds, he takes her instead into the living room. "You've been asking me how I brought magic to Storybrooke." He licks his lips unconsciously. "I'm ready to tell you."
She sets the baskets at her feet, smooths her skirt and folds her hands.
He stares at a stain on the carpet—Henry spilled grape juice there last night; Gold will fix it with magic, but not just yet. He kind of likes having a few stains and broken things around: it comes with having kids in the house. He's thinking of Henry as he begins his story.
In general terms–for he is still an acquisitive, secretive soul and it took him two centuries to find the right formula–he tells Blue how he bottled True Love. . . and why. She listens in awed silence and her expression becomes quizzical. He assumes it's the historic achievement she's impressed with, but when he finishes his story, the fairy cocks her head. "I knew you loved your son, in a fashion, and I know you love Belle, to whatever extent a Dark One can love. But I didn't know that you honored love so."
"Oh, I'm quite the fan, in all its permutations," he quips to cover his discomfort. He's gone too far, talked too much: revealed to her his weakness. He blusters like Rumplestiltskin then, as if there's so much to do today he can barely decide where to start. "Now, just a thought, just an experiment, but what if the same procedure I used to bottle True Love were to, I don't know, be used to try to bottle the opposite?"
"True Hate?" Blue queries.
"For convenience we can call it that. But more precisely, a combination of opposing forces."
"I would suppose something horrible would happen. Hate can only produce–"
"Destruction," he finishes. "At least, that's my theory. If True Love creates magic—"
"True Hate destroys it." Blue sits back in her chair to mull it over. "Maybe. . . . Or maybe something worse."
Gold shrugs and stands. "Just a thought. Come, let's get back to that muscle-building potion for Micky."
As they walk down to the basement, Blue continues to ponder. "Where would you even find the ingredients? You'd need the hair of two people who truly hate each other."
"The two I thought to be the most likely candidates, it turns out, no longer qualify." He glances sideways at her. "Yes, you're right. Forget it. It was just a wild idea." Dodged that bullet. But his stomach's in knots.