"You... you're dead?" The last Rumplestiltskin knew, Cora had been alive and well in Wonderland behind the oversized mask of the Queen of Hearts. "Now, who could have achieved that, I wonder? The Jabberwock? Jafar?"

Cora scoffed. "I had their measure. They couldn't have touched me. No, it was Zelena."

Rumplestiltskin flinched. The name woke the dark ghost that haunted his soul, stirring a curdled stew of love and resentment. "And how did that happen?"

"Somehow she got her hands on a candle that burns at both ends. You know the one."

He nodded. A rare and powerful artifact. He had one in his vault at the Dark Castle, which meant the other Dark One, the one enslaved by Zelena, must have had one, too. Mortally wounded by Nevethe, barely escaping with her last breaths, she would have been desperate. That explained half of it. The other half— "And your heart?"

"I was careless. I didn't think anyone would be able to find the vault where I had hidden it, much less break through the wards," Cora admitted. She narrowed her eyes at Rumplestiltskin. "I would suspect you, dear, except you have no reason to help her."

"No. I wouldn't." He held Cora's gaze with a veneer of calm, but she had always seen too much. That she saw him now — looking all too mortal — and seemed unsurprised spoke to her having done her research. Nettled to find himself a step behind, he added, "Not that I was above giving Regina a nudge now and again."

"As it led me to a crown, I won't hold it against you." Cora smiled, all the more unnerving now that she had her heart back. Not that it meant anything, he reminded himself. "All water under the bridge. There's no use holding onto old grudges when one is already dead."

Rumplestiltskin snorted. "I'm not dead yet, dearie."

"Yes, so I've heard. Actually, that's why I'm here."

"Spit it out, then. What do you want?" He ran a length of gold thread through his fingers, surreptitiously reaching for his magic, but it was locked away out of reach. He didn't dare push too hard, lest he alert Hades.

Cora gave him a knowing look. "I think we can help each other. You see, Regina is also here, and not dead. Her soul is currently trapped in Tartarus."

Just like Belle and Baelfire, only they were there in more than spirit. Rumplestiltskin's fingers tensed. "Oh? And how did that happen?"

"I'm not certain." Cora picked her way through the hovel, deftly avoiding the leaks and the muddy patches. She pulled out a stool from under the battered wooden table (one he almost remembered from another life) and sat down. "It happened after I died. The point is, I need to free her and send her back to the living world, but as a dead soul, I can't open that gate. You can. You will have to, anyway, as I assume you don't intend on making this your new permanent residence."

"Hmm." Rumplestiltskin let the thread drop from his fingers. "It's not my intentions that count, apparently."

"I can see that." Cora swept her gaze around their dismal surroundings. "Hades has you trapped in a distorted memory. You could break free, but you haven't. Why?"

He shrugged. "It could be worse." As long as Hades held that contract, Rumplestiltskin wouldn't really be free. Not that he wanted to admit any weakness to Cora.

Not that she couldn't guess. Her eyes narrowed at him. "He's holding something over you, isn't he? The dagger?"

Rumplestiltskin shook his head.

Cora smiled. "Come, now, Rumple. We'll never get anywhere if we can't put aside our differences and trust each other."

He snorted. He had trusted her once, hadn't he? And then she had ripped out her own heart and betrayed him.

The smile faded. "I understand your reluctance, but under the circumstances, we both need all the allies we can find." She was right, and they both knew it.

Rumplestiltskin sighed. He plucked up a length of gold thread and snapped it free, then silently offered it to Cora.

She wrapped it around her fingers. "I give my word to do no harm to you or yours, by action or inaction, by truth or deception, in this realm or any other, from now until you free me of this oath whether by death or by word alone." The thread shimmered and vanished, binding her words into the weave of fate.

Rumplestiltskin gave her a startled look. That was... unexpectedly generous of her. Not completely without loopholes, but a deal that was completely airtight drew the ire of the fates. "I make no such promise..."

"I'm not here to play games with you, Rumple."

He shut his eyes for a moment. If she truly could help, and he threw that help away because he was a coward... no. Sometimes the risk was worth it. "Before I became the Dark One, I once made a contract..."

Cora listened patiently as he spoke. He wasn't sure how much of it she knew already, but she merely nodded as he finished his explanation. "And now your wife is both pregnant and within Hades' domain." Her lips twitched in a hint of amusement. "So you got married after all. To a royal princess, no less. Now who's the social climber?"

"Shut up."

"Belle of Avonlea. A strange girl, by all accounts." Cora dropped the pretense of ignorance. Naturally she had always kept a close eye on the Enchanted Forest, or how else would she have known to find Regina in her exile?

"Don't talk about her," growled Rumplestiltskin, hating to hear Belle's name in Cora's mouth.

"I'm sorry." Cora sounded sincere, for once. Her voice softened, "And I'm glad you found your son. We both want our families to be safe."

He nodded shortly. "And that can't happen as long as Hades holds that contract."

"What you need is leverage over him. A way to force him to void the contract." Cora met his gaze and smiled again. "As it happens, I know how we can get that leverage."

It was hard not to trust him. Hades looked at her with such a look of sly adoration — an offer of love entwined with a charming selfishness — that she found it hard to resist. The knowledge that she, Zelena, was his first choice, was seductive.

"I never wanted Persephone," he told her. "A spy foisted on me by my damned brother. She spent half her time in the sunlit lands carrying on with a pack of goat-footed drunkards... her right, she said, marriage or no marriage." Hades snorted. "'A woman has needs.' That's what she used to say."

"Sounds absolutely dreadful."

"Not that she showed any particular 'need' for her own husband," Hades grumbled. "When she was down here in the Underworld, she spent most of her time moping about and complaining."

"Well, judging by her conspicuous absence now, I take it she came to a sticky end?" Zelena kept her tone light, but she swore to herself that she would not humiliate herself by becoming some illicit mistress, not even to a god. While Hades didn't have his brother's reputation as a philanderer, he was still a man.

Hades chuckled. "Alas, a tragic accident took her away from us. It seems a few drops of water from the River of Souls got into the water one day when she was in the bath — I can't imagine how that could have happened — and now she's enjoying a little family reunion with the Titans in Tartarus."

Zelena suppressed a grin. "My, my, the Underworld seems positively hazardous to one's health..."

"Don't worry, darling. You're worth a thousand of her." Hades clasped her hands. "You have nothing to fear. I promise I'll protect you."

"I wish I could believe you..." She really wanted to, but she had been disappointed too many times to let go of her doubts just yet. She needed proof. She pulled her hands free and took a step back. "I need a little more time. I need to think... what if this is a terrible mistake?"

Hades looked disappointed, but didn't follow. "I understand. Take all the time you need."

"Thank you." Zelena turned and fled before she surrendered to her own desperate wishes. A treacherous part of her heart couldn't help but warm to Hades' regard. She didn't trust it. She reminded herself that neither her mother nor her sister had found any happiness with a man. Nothing even close to true love, a possibility which Hades dangled before her as if he truly believed she deserved it. Deserved happiness that didn't have to be clawed kicking and screaming out of the tapestry of fate. Love that was... real?

Because deep in her mind, she knew that what she had stolen from her enslaved Dark One had not been that. Not real, even if she had forced it to be true.

"Hades and Zelena? Zelena?" The name came out in a hiss. Rumplestiltskin's gut churned with a dark spike of jealousy, jealousy that belonged to the ghost from another reality. "You can't be serious."

"It's true," Cora assured him. "The god of the Underworld courts the Wicked Witch of Oz, and though she has not quite accepted his advances yet, it's only a matter of time."

"You suggest that we, what, kidnap her and hold her for ransom?" Rumplestiltskin knew the answer, but needed to hear her say it.

"Precisely."

"Zelena, your first-born daughter. The one you abandoned."

"The one who murdered me."

"To save her own life." Rumplestiltskin glared at the woman who could be more cold-blooded with her heart in her chest than many others not so burdened. "As her parent, you—"

"I'm not you, Rumple." She cut him off, her gaze softening. "You're too sentimental. You would have volunteered, had it been your child..."

He ground his teeth, thinking of Bae. "I abandoned my child, too, but I regretted it instantly. You..."

"I made a choice," Cora said steadily. "Because you can't have everything. That was a lesson I learned long before I ever met you. I chose Regina. Then and now."

"They are both your children! You have a duty to both."

"You never had two before. I wonder, if you had to choose one to save, which one would you choose?" Cora mused. "The older one, or the one yet unborn?"

"I would save both. I will save both!" he shouted. The worst of it was that, behind his disgust and denial, Rumplestiltskin understood that sometimes it wasn't possible. He understood Cora's reasoning, too, in calculating that it was better to raise one child to the heights even if it meant sacrificing the other.

"And if you can't?" Cora prodded gently.

"I will always try." He understood her reasoning, but had never agreed with it. Perhaps it had been a mercy that Cora had walked away from him all those years ago, no matter what feelings they might have had for each other. He let out a breath. "But it hardly matters now. Zelena is not my daughter. I'll do what I must."

"You do have the power? An empty threat will carry no weight with Hades."

Rumplestiltskin nodded. It was difficult to harm the shade of someone already dead, but he knew enough soulcraft to know how it could be done, and with the power he had taken from Merlin, he had magic enough. The memories of the other Rumplestiltskin stirred, opening an abyss in his mind. Darkness deep enough to annihilate a soul, and anger enough to do it to the woman who had broken him.

With Cora's help, it wasn't difficult to silently escape the prison Hades had constructed for him. Rumplestiltskin left behind an illusion of himself to spin uselessly at the wheel.

They found Zelena alone and distracted, wandering in a gloomy, lifeless garden of rocks, sand, withered grass, and skeletons of trees. Rumplestiltskin immobilized her and Cora stuffed her into what looked like an ordinary grain sack.

"Hades set me to work at the mill," Cora explained. "I borrowed one of the empty sacks and enchanted it."

The sack was as much part of this realm as the rocks or the dead trees. Cora had twisted the magic Hades used to bind his victims in their own memories to her own use. Now it kept Zelena's magic contained without requiring constant effort from either of her captors.

"Clever," Rumplestiltskin acknowledged.

Cora smiled, looking pleased despite the circumstances. "Well, shall we?"

Zelena recognized the dark magic that imprisoned her. Its touch had once thrilled her, but now it sickened her. Death had purged her soul of the 'true love' she had grafted into herself from the tree she had stolen from her captive Rumplestiltskin. Now all her instincts recoiled from that warped magic, magic that had become contorted into hatred and pain. A stabbing sense of betrayal and jealousy left behind in this Rumplestiltskin...

...who showed nothing of that when he jerked the sack off her head. He gave her barely a glance before turning to the man standing before them.

"Zelena." It was Hades.

Zelena tried to go to him, but her feet were frozen in place. "I... I tried to stop them, but..."

"It's not your fault," he soothed.

They were standing at a crossroads in a rocky wasteland, a desolate piece of the Underworld that Zelena didn't recognize. "Cheerful spot for a meeting..."

"This isn't a social call," Rumplestiltskin said coldly. The darkness tightened around her. She bit back a gasp of pain. "I believe I have something you want..."

Hades twitched, hand raised, but the Dark One cut him off.

"Don't try it. I can destroy her before you can stop me." He paused, letting the truth of his words sink in. "But there's a simple way for both of us to get what we want."

Hades sighed and waved his hand, summoning a piece of parchment. Zelena could read enough of it to understand what it was. A contract, signed by Rumplestiltskin. A contract that clearly gave the god some kind of leverage over the Dark One.

Rumplestiltskin nodded. "Nullify the contract and I'll release the witch."

Hades glared, but he didn't argue. He made a show of ripping up the parchment and setting the pieces on fire. "There, done. Now let her go."

"You can have her." The darkness withdrew abruptly from Zelena. Even as she staggered forward, Rumplestiltskin vanished in a cloud of smoke.

"Zelena!" Hades hurried to catch her in his arms.

She let herself enjoy the embrace for a moment, then pulled back as the implications of his actions sank in. Zelena looked at him in wonder. "You had the Dark One on a leash." She, of all people, knew how valuable that was. "You gave that up... for me? I didn't think..."

"You didn't think I would?" Hades chuckled. "When will you believe I'd do anything for you?"

"I think I'm getting there." Zelena searched his eyes, found a warmth that had begun to melt away her doubts. Then she broke away, unnerved by what she had seen and the yearning in her own heart. "Maybe I'll let you persuade me. But a desolate wasteland is hardly conducive to declarations of love. Take me home?"

"Home?"

"Your home..." Or so said the hope blossoming in her soul.

That was the beginning. Hades threw himself into a stilted, awkward courtship that Zelena met with just as much awkwardness. Brought up in the Wood Beyond among the Timers, Zelena had never done anything so messily human before. It was nothing like the domestic fantasy she had play-acted with her Dark One. This was uncertainty and doubt as she and Hades forged a real connection. But awkwardness gave way to laughter and ease in each other's company and something more.

There was a kiss. A flare of light. A startled gasp.

"What..." Zelena hardly dared say it. "Was that...?"

Hades, eyes wide, rubbed at his chest. "My heart. It's beating again!" He pulled her into another kiss. Caught up in the moment, she barely noticed when the ground rumbled beneath them.

The Apprentice was haunted by the fear that he was running out of time. The Underworld was rife with rumors of Hades and his affair with a mortal shade. More investigation gave him a name: Zelena, the bastard daughter of Cora. It didn't seem possible that someone as dark and selfish as Hades could find true love, and with someone as vile as Zelena? The Apprentice shuddered at the thought, but he couldn't dismiss it.

They needed to act now, before Hades broke free of the Underworld. Gaston was spoiling for a fight, but the Apprentice wasn't so reckless. He thought about the dagger he kept hidden, the one that gave him command of a more palatable servant. Perhaps he had been too hasty to send her to Tartarus — but no, he needed her there. How else to lure Rumplestiltskin into his own prison? It held Titans and ancient monsters. It would hold the Dark One.

He couldn't use the dagger, but he still had the hat. If he added the powers of the other dead Dark Ones to his arsenal, he would be nigh-invincible.

"Finally!" was Gaston's exasperated response when the Apprentice told him the plan. "About time you grew a pair..."

The plan involved luring the dead Dark Ones to the Apprentice's fortified rock. It was more of a small village now, settled with the disaffected shades they had recruited, a group led by two men who had been Gaston's most loyal followers when they had been alive. None of their makeshift army had magic, but the Apprentice had supplied them with charms for their weapons and armor to even the odds.

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

The Apprentice just hadn't thought the old saying would apply so catastrophically to him.

The Dark Ones, instead of fighting the Apprentice, willingly threw themselves into the yawning vortex of the Hat. That was when the Apprentice learned that Merlin's magic was finite. Instead of being absorbed and contained, the Dark Ones exploded the binding spell, freeing themselves and coming out stronger for having devoured the Hat's magic.

It took mere seconds for them to rout the Apprentice's little army. Even Gaston was thrown into the rock with enough force to break his skull and shatter his spine. Now they converged on the Apprentice, a circle of shrouded figures radiating dark magic.

Desperate, the Apprentice drew the dagger. A summons wasn't possible between the Underworld and Tartarus, but power was still anchored in the metal, light magic to counter the darkness. It wasn't enough.

A wave of power knocked the dagger out of his hand, leaving him numb to the shoulder. Every spell he cast was shredded, one after another, until bleeding and exhausted, the Apprentice had nothing left.

That was when they decapitated him.

Zelena blinked at the dour procession that interrupted her celebratory dinner with Hades. A score of hooded figures in dark robes glided up to the high table. The one in the lead proffered a covered silver platter to the god of the dead.

"What's this, dessert?" Zelena smirked at her true love. "Presentation could use some work. I suggest a touch of color. Or setting a cake on fire, that's a classic..."

The leader barely seemed to glance at Zelena from beneath his hood before turning his attention back to Hades.

Hades rolled his eyes. "Drama queens, every one... it must be a job requirement." He waved a hand at the procession. "Yes, yes, get on with it!"

The leader lifted the silver cover with a flourish, revealing a man's head, the bushy white beard stained with fresh blood and the eyes blank and empty.

Zelena blinked at the gruesome sight. "Well, that's doing nothing for my appetite."

Hades grunted in agreement. "She has a point."

The leader replaced the cover, then set the platter on the table. "We have fulfilled our end of the deal..."

"Yes, yes, well done." He frowned at the man. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood tonight." He patted Zelena's hand and she squeezed it back. "Fine, fine, the ferryman is waiting for you at the docks. Now get out of my sight and go wreak havoc on the sunlit lands, or whatever it is your dark little hearts desire..."

All twenty hooded figures bowed gravely, none of them showing their faces, then turned and left as quietly as they had arrived.

After they were gone, Zelena looked at Hades. "What was all that about? And whose head is that?"

Hades chuckled. "No one, darling. Just a silly mouse who thought he could become a god. Merlin's treacherous apprentice and one of my brother's little minions."

Zelena nodded. "And that lot... not your regular wait staff, were they?" She had recognized the taint of their magic. "They were all Dark Ones..."

Hades gave her an approving glance. "Exactly. They'll keep my dear siblings on Olympus busy when we leave this place."

"And when will that be?"

"Just one more thing to take care of," Hades said. "Have you ever heard of the Olympian crystal?"

Gaston should have been destroyed, his soul disintegrated by the darkness that soaked his shattered bones.

Chance or fate dictated otherwise. A dagger, thrown down like a fall of a die, landed too close to the dead hunter. Light magic intertwined itself with the dying embers of divine magic and preserved the name that lingered in the air even after life was long gone.

He opened his eyes. Remembered himself. Picked up the dagger fallen next to his broken hand. A hand that knit itself back together...

There was a name on the blade.

Belle of Avonlea, he read. Belle? Belle was here?

It took Gaston a long time to put his thoughts together and question the handful of survivors he tracked down, but in the end he knew. It was the old man. He had been holding onto this dagger all along, holding out on Gaston! He wanted to kill the bastard, but it seemed the Apprentice was already dead (no loss).

But Belle — Belle who had made a fool of him, humiliated him, refused him. Gaston knew what the dagger meant, could feel the magic in it. Well, he had another chance with her now, didn't he? She would be properly his this time, and he would destroy the beast who had stolen her from him.

He returned to the stony hilltop where the damned Apprentice had made him practice his magic. This time, Gaston had better things to do than conjure houses. No. All he needed was a door — the right door.

A door to Belle.

The ferry glides smoothly along its river, carrying twenty hooded figures out of the Underworld. The gray mists close in.

Then someone counts, and counts again. The number is wrong.

"You!"

One of them is a traitor. But by the time the others realize, it is too late. He's scuttled their boat. Water flows in and the bottom sinks beneath their weight.

"Why?"

There's no answer. They are left to wonder forever, trapped in the misty void between the worlds.