Nope, I still don't own Once Upon ATime, but I do have one awesome case of the flu.
CHAPTER 8
The Enchanted Forest
But the next morning when Bae clambered down from his loft bed, he saw his papa arguing with a thick set man in farmer's clothing. His aunt Lucy stood facing the fire with her head bowed in defeat. Bae stood quietly in the corner witnessing it all.
The red faced man was clearly angry, but not so enraged that he forgot to whom he was speaking. "We had a deal, Dark One. You agreed to help me find and keep my wife if I supplied you with information concerning a certain pirate. Now, I've done my part, and it's your turn to keep your end of the bargain."
"Yes, yes, yes, but I thought she had been kidnapped. I didn't realize she ran away from you - " He leaned forward menacingly, his golden eyes burning with anger. " - because you were beating her"
His face open with curiosity, Bae questioned aloud, "Papa?"
The Dark One's evil grin faded into an enigmatic smile, which he bestowed on his son. "Oh, Bae, there you are. We -" he indicated Peter, Lucy, and himself - "were just having a family discussion."
"I don't want her to go." Bae really liked his aunt. "Can't you make her stay?" he asked. "You're the Dark One. Make a deal with him, so she can stay."
The Dark One pursed his lips far out as if he tasted something very bitter. "I can't, Bae," he told him. "It's not that simple."
"What's the point of being a powerful sorcerer if you can't make her stay?" was his anguished question.
"Bae, you're becoming quite the cynic." He waggled a talon tipped finger at this boy. However, before Bae could explode - he had much of Milah's temper - he smiled and explained. "Uncle Peter - " He spat the name. "- and Aunt Lucy are married. They made vows before God. I have no power to undo them," he admitted. "And," he continued looking about at Lucy with a twisted sort of smile, "I have to keep my deal and help Peter keep his wife." A wicked merriment played across the Dark One's face and he laughed aloud.
The weird, high-pitched giggle chilled Peter, but Lucy smiled. She trusted Rumple implicitly and knew if there were any help for her at all, he would find it.
"Here," the Dark One handed Peter a small pumpkin. "Put this on her head and order her as her husband to stay put."
"A pumpkin?" questioned Peter skeptically. "Why, I have a field full of these at home."
"Do youwant the help or not, dearie?" the Dark One asked, eyes gleaming with devilment.
Peter knew he had pushed too far, so he placed the pumpkin on this wife's head and ordered her to stay put. Immediately, she was sucked up and into the pumpkin while the Dark One broke out into a long series of high-pitched giggles at the impotent rage on Peter's face.
Bae's youthful voice piped up in horrified awe. "You put her in a pumpkin shell."
"You said," Peter sputtered, "that this would help me to keep her!"
"And, so it does, dearie," he responded. "Go head, take her home. She's all yours." He made shooing motions with his hands and cackled with delight.
"You cheated me!" Peter bellowed unwisely. "We had a deal, Dark One, and you altered the deal."
The Dark One leaned into Peter's face, spittle flying as he hissed ominously. "Then, pray I don't alter it further." Peter went corpse white, and he flew from the house, leaving the pumpkin. The door banged against the wall as he fled.
"What? Changed your mind, did you, dearie? Don't want her anymore?" The Dark One shouted into the morning. "No matter. I'll keep her for myself." Closing the door, he turned to face an angry Baelfire.
"You killed her!" he accused his papa. "You made Peter turn her into a pumpkin!"
"No, Bae," he spoke gently to the boy. "Your aunt Lucy isn't dead." He picked up the pumpkin and showed Bae. "She's just in a suspended form. She'll be right again as soon as she's awakened from her curse."
"Awaken her then!" the boy commanded.
A grimace pulled at the corners of his mouth. "It isn't that simple. I don't have a way to do that just yet, but I'll find a way. I promise." The Dark One carefully placed the pumpkin containing his sister-in-law into the back of a cupboard.
Later STORYBROOKE
It was a blessing for many. For others, though, it was bad when Emma Swan broke the curse in Storybrooke. As the spell broke and waves of magic washed over her, Attorney Linda Cucurbita - No, Lucy - remembered herself. She remembered, too, Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, and she remembered the fact that she loved him desperately.
She also remembered all those things that had happened to him in the past three hundred years. She remembered them because she was there. No, she wasn't immortal like he, but because she had been encased in the magical pumpkin, she had been cognizant of all that happened around her. And, like all manner of things enchanted, she had not aged.
Oh, what the poor man had been through! What a terrible toll those dark years had taken on the tender, gentle spinner. Once he lost Bae, Rumple's mind began to fray. In his obsession to find his son, he had forgotten about his search to free her from her abusive husband's cursed pumpkin shell. She was just another knick-knack in the dark castle. But she was conscious and heard everything that went on around her, for the Dark One often talked aloud to himself.
Then there was his needy love for Cora. Cora! Lucy could see right through her from the start. Another selfish cow just like Milah! Why they even looked alike with their long legs, fair face, perfect smile, and shining brown hair! And like Milah, she had used the poor, lonely man to get what she wanted - power, money, prestige. And, the poor dear, so lonely, so lost, so needy had fallen for her. With her betrayal, Rumplestiltskin's mind slipped further into madness, and her heart broke afresh every day because she could do nothing to ease his pain.
And, then there was the one bright light in his darkness, Belle. Lucy knew even before either of them that he and Belle were falling in love. She watched it happen right in front of her envious eyes. The knowledge had cast her to both the heights of glory to know that he had found True Love at last, and it threw her into a pit a selfish despair for she knew her Rumplestiltskin would never love her.
She listened with grieving heart as Regina told him of Belle's suicide. That was when Rumple truly became the Dark One. Nothing and no one mattered to him then. Nothing and no one could get in his way. His single-minded mania to find Bae drove him relentlessly and whipped him into a frothing madness. From her pumpkin palace inside the cabinet, she could only watch and pray that when the grand curse came, it would wipe away his bitter insanity along with his sour memories.
Yes, when the curse broke, Attorney Lucy Cucurbita wept with joy and sorrow. In this world of women's rights, she could live freely without fear of being forced to marry a man she didn't love. She might never share Rumple's name, but she was damned if she'd keep Peter's, so she officially changed her name to Ms. Lucy Farmer.