Chapter 3
Portal Dreams
He sat there at the table longer than he should have. He managed to eat the rest of the meat pie before it had gone completely cold, though he enjoyed none of it. The fire burned low by the time he dragged himself to Baelfire's bed to sleep. He didn't dare touch the one he'd shared with Milah.
In his dreams, magic beans and glowing green portals haunted him. Sometimes he relived the moment when, as a boy, he convinced his father that they could go somewhere no one knew them and start over, and his father had taken him through the portal to Neverland. This dream was always closely followed by the Neverland shadow pulling him away, his father saying things no boy who loved his papa should ever hear. Then he would let go of Rumple's hand and turn into a teenaged boy as the shadow pulled Rumple higher and higher, intending to take him away from Neverland and back to the village he had grown up in.
At other times, the dreams would shift, and it would be Rumplestiltskin and Bae on the edge of a portal. These were harder to discern. Sometimes Bae was four, sometimes fourteen. Sometimes they jumped through together, like Rumple and his father had. But then there were the ones in which Bae was sucked into the portal, by accident or intention, and Rumplestiltskin was left clinging to Bae with one hand and to a dagger buried in the ground with the other.
There was always a sense of a destiny-deciding decision in these dreams. Does he cling to Bae and pull him back to safety? Does he let go of the dagger and follow Bae through, praying that wherever they end up, it won't turn out like Neverland? Or, gods forbid, does he let go of Bae and let his boy fall through alone? Rumplestiltskin wakes weeping whenever this happens.
And so the days turn to weeks. He spends most of his time at the spinning wheel, only leaving the house when it becomes necessary to go into town for food and supplies, and to sell what he has spun. The neighbors ignore him as usual, but Elena takes pity on him and comes to visit from time to time. She rarely stays long, and never mentions Milah or Baelfire to him unless he does first. Even then, they speak only of happier times.
But Rumplestiltskin remembers her words from that first night alone.
You can get your son back. The only thing stopping you is yourself. Don't let the prophecy win.
The problem was the prophecy had won. His son was fatherless. And he was dust. Too cowardly to fight back against the fate that he had brought upon himself. Too weak to continue on much longer without his reason for living.
Life seemed to enjoy ripping his loved ones away and leaving him with nothing but the knowledge that he was little more than an unloved, lonely, lost boy. He could barely remember his mother. His father let the shadow of Neverland take Rumple away so he could make-believe he was a boy again. The spinner sisters who raised him were kind enough, but their pitying looks never let him think of them as family. And now Milah, whom he had loved with every hope that he'd had until the seer told him he was to have a son.
Desperate to live, desperate to give his son the life Rumplestiltskin had been denied, he had found a way home, only to watch the love in Milah's eyes disappear. She had walked out on him that night, but she returned. Their shared love for their son kept them together for a few years, and frankly Rumplestiltskin was amazed each night that she returned to their home. That she had finally left him was no longer a shock, but taking Bae with her was like a dagger to his tattered self-worth. Did Bae even miss his papa? How long would it take before the boy forgot Rumplestiltskin entirely and started calling the pirate captain father?
A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.
But what had fighting gotten him? Everything he'd done had been for his son, since before Baelfire was born. What did they want from him? To fight for the Duke, his village, his home, his wife, and die beneath the club of an ogre, making little to no difference in the war and never getting to see his then unborn son? To fight for Milah and by some miracle slay or otherwise subdue the pirate captain? Would she love him any more then, if the crew even let him escape alive? Or the alternative, if he had fought and died for Milah, what would he get then? He'd fought for his father too, in his way, but all he'd gotten was a deep, justified fear of abandonment.
No. The only thing worth fighting for was Bae. And he would never stop fighting for him. He would do nothing else. He would love nothing else. He would find a way. Milah took his son, but Rumplestiltskin would get him back.
He would find him.