The hand of fate was in the end perhaps nothing more than their own potential futures, pulling strings across reality to save themselves. Drawn up through the roots, his essence absorbed into the mystical trees of Nevethe, Rumplestiltskin began to see the world as they did: threads of possibility refracted through the nexus created of true love.

Belle, he tried to say, wanting to share the thought with her, but she was gone.

Separated again. He was a shadow among shadows, his substance drained away by the Wood Beyond.

Belle! he called again. An answering pulse of awareness came along the crystal link, but nothing more concrete. A third time he called for her. Scanning through the possibilities layered through the Wood, he focused on the thread spliced into his own fate. He followed it as best he could, knowing her to be on the other end. Followed it until he ran into a wall.

It was a subtle wall, built of unreachable futures that had crept up imperceptibly around him until he was trapped. It was as if time had stopped for him. As if Nevethe had wrapped him in a bubble of unreality and set him aside.

"Rumplestiltskin." The voice seemed to come from nowhere, which meant the speaker stood outside the trap.

Rumplestiltskin growled in recognition, "Cogsworth. Still hanging on, are we?"

"As you can hear."

"You wanted us here, didn't you?" He gestured widely with limbs that weren't quite there, until imagination and willpower forced them back into existence along with his voice. "Why the warm welcome?"

"Things... things are not as calculated," the Timer said slowly. "An element of chaos, small uncertainties blowing up..."

"Ah, that's the technical term, is it?" Rumplestiltskin mocked. Then his eyes narrowed. "And by 'element of chaos,' you mean..."

"Quite," sighed Cogsworth. "Yourself, your wife, and... our meddling."

"Because if you hadn't meddled, you wouldn't have an army of Dark Ones on your doorstep — they wouldn't even know of your existence to find said doorstep."

"Yes."

Rumplestiltskin tested the walls again. "And you're afraid I'm here to join them?"

An enemy of love, came the thought, simultaneously foreign and familiar, words from another timeline.

"I hope not. I heard you calling for her. That is not the act of someone seeking to destroy true love."

"There is true love, and there is Nevethe," Rumplestiltskin reminded him. "Not the same!"

"But—"

"Ah, ah, ah! You set yourselves to be the guardians of the most powerful magic of all, and then used that to assassinate an innocent life before it could even take its first breath. Perhaps you deserve destruction!"

"The danger..." whispered Cogsworth. "That true love itself could be corrupted... We weighed the risks and chose the lesser evil."

"Then you're no better than Olympus." A black rage burned deep inside Rumplestiltskin, fueled by the ghost of the father whose child had been deemed a threat to Nevethe's order. What if it had been Bae? What if it had been Belle's child? But part of his anger came from his own guilt. A seer had foretold that a young boy would lead him to Bae, that the same child would be his undoing. Then I'll just have to kill him. The words had fallen so easily from his lips, and he had meant them. He liked to think that he wouldn't have followed through — that he, who had become the Dark One to save the children, would have stopped himself in the end. But he couldn't be sure. "You..."

"We failed him, you are right. We didn't see the consequences in time, and by the time we did, our options were limited." Cogsworth paused, then added, "We hoped you could do better."

Rumplestiltskin snorted. "May I remind you that my mother cut my fate. If you were hoping for a Savior, pin your hopes elsewhere."

"No, I told you, our calculations—"

"Have gone awry by your own admission." He cut himself off. This was going nowhere. Rumplestiltskin took a deep breath, closing his eyes, remembering Belle's faith in him. You're a good man. Belle, who could see paths that no one else could. "Never mind. Forgiveness has never been one of my virtues, but survival... that is something I am well-practiced in. Right now, we need each other."

"Then you've made your choice?" A sliver of hope crept into the Timer's question. "To save the Wood rather than destroy it?"

"Assuming you dispel this little trap of yours." Rumplestiltskin's anger flared again at their lack of trust. He was his own Rumplestiltskin, not one of the others — Cogsworth and Lumiere had known him for years, but now they were afraid of him? Even in Nevethe, he was seen as a monster? You ARE a monster. "How long did you think you could hold me here?"

"If you came as an enemy, then long enough to delay you and siphon off as much of your magic as we could," Cogsworth said candidly.

Rumplestiltskin nodded. It made sense, if they couldn't defeat the Dark Ones in open battle. Now the question became, could he defeat that gathered force of darkness? Not alone. He knew that much. "I need to find Belle."

"You need to find your tree," countered Cogsworth. "You will need its power."

"Belle—"

"She will find her own way there," said Cogsworth firmly. "The Wood will see to that."

Rumplestiltskin hoped it would do the same for him. He grasped the threads of impossibility that held him and twisted. Show me. This time Nevethe acquiesced to his will, the bubble of unreality floating through the space of could-be and would-be futures to one mutually agreed on. For a moment Rumplestiltskin felt the eyes of the old Queen, peering at him out of the past. The deal is struck.

The bubble popped, depositing him back into his own time.

There was no air, only fire. One careless gasp (trusting in the Dark One's immortality to protect him) seared his lungs. A blaze of yellow-orange burned against his closed eyelids, heat blasting his skin. The Wood had become a furnace.

As a mortal man, Rumplestiltskin had once walked through a burning castle to save his son, but that was nothing to this inferno that made torches of the towering trees, their smoke thick with true love's magic corrupted into hate. Yet the raging storm, that not even the Dark One could survive for long, also protected him from the others — the ones who wanted Nevethe to burn.

Let it burn, hissed the ghost lost within his soul.

Rumplestiltskin gritted his teeth and denied that spiteful voice. He fled the torments of flesh, retreating into shadow and exerting his magic to deflect the fire away from himself. He forced his eyes open against the stinging residue of smoke he had caught full in his face upon arrival. The roaring wind of the fire dimmed to an angry murmur.

Somewhere beyond the fire, his tree — his and Belle's — was in danger of burning. He had to find it before the flames did.

The tree was made of true love, their true love. He had to believe in that love until it bled from his heart, and surrender to its pull. And when he did...

A light shone through the smoke. He followed the path it made, until he came to the sapling, sheltered from the raging fire by an ancient fallen trunk, charred black to the brink of crumbling, but it had held long enough. Rumplestiltskin knelt by the sapling, stretching out a hand for balance against the burnt tree. Soot clung to his skin, touching him with a scattering of memories too faded to see. He silently thanked whatever forgotten lovers the tree had memorialized and the protective spirit they had left behind.

Rumplestiltskin focused his magic on the sapling. Its slender trunk and handful of leaves were dry and brittle from the heat, sparks carried on the wind burning tiny holes in the leaves, only magic keeping it from going up in flame, a matchstick compared to the giant torches that the older trees had become. It held onto life by the thinnest of possibilities, a possibility he had to nurture. It went against the grain of dark magic, but he had to try.

An impish laugh broke his concentration. "This is pointless, dearie. So, so fragile a thing, this love of yours. Even if you can save it, what then? It will split your heart open like a root growing through a boulder. Worse than being stabbed by the dagger..."

"Shut up," hissed Rumplestiltskin, not bothering to look at the speaker. Where was Belle? He needed her help.

"You are the Dark One. Do you think anyone can love you, truly? She will see you for what you are, but you won't see the betrayal until it's too late. Love will leave you broken and bleeding, a pathetic groveling fool too weak to—"

"No." Rumplestiltskin tried to shut out the cruel voice. He muttered, half to himself, "Their fates are their tragedies to bear. It has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with Belle. We are..."

"You're one of us. Who knows better than Rumplestiltskin the lies that he tells himself?" sneered the other. "It's only a matter of time. Your delusions will only hurt you in the end."

"He's right, dearie." Another Rumplestiltskin had found them. Then another, and another. A chorus of voices (his own) pouring lifetimes of pain into his ears. Memories filled the air, made vicious by the corrupted magic from the burning trees. "It will happen to you as it happened to us all."

Love is pain. Love is blindness. Love is betrayal. Love is loss.

He felt himself sinking beneath the waves of their resentment. Even the ghost that haunted him joined in the chorus, dragging him down from inside. If he lost this battle... if it was lost already, he still couldn't let the others destroy this tree. He would do it himself. He drew the dagger with a trembling hand, let the edge rest against his other palm.

Blood on the tree.

It would release its power to him. Perhaps it would be enough to save himself, save Belle, save their children from the fury of the Dark Ones.

But before he could make the cut, soft fingers closed around his wrist, pulling back the blade.

"Rumple, stop!" Belle was there, her presence a breath of cool air shielding him from the flames.

"Belle," he whispered gratefully, trembling under her touch.

"Don't listen to them. Our future hasn't been decided yet." Belle swept her magic around him, adding new voices to the dark chorus that had nearly drowned him. "You see, on my way to find you, I also found these other versions of ourselves... ones who still find worth in love. In life, with all its joys and sorrows."

He could feel them. The ones willing to fight for the survival of Nevethe.

"Our tree," he said, his breath no longer burning in his throat. "It isn't strong enough. We must... we must feed it."

"Not your blood!" Belle's grip tightened on his wrist.

"No. No..." His head clearer now, he saw what they had to do. "So much power already... already released. Take it back..." He concentrated, drawing fire and smoke to himself. "You have the gift of seeing the best in me... even when I couldn't." His vision darkened as he had known it would, the corrupted magic polluting the air. How many trees had been destroyed already? "Please..." The magic choked him, turned to ashes in his mouth.

Then Belle was there, holding him up when he thought he would collapse to the ground. He felt her presence threading itself through his heart. A light shining on everything he was and could ever be. He had been here before, she reminded him. Trying to protect his son, their home threatened by fire and death.

That's not war. That's sacrifice. The words echoed out of the past.

"If it's a sacrifice, don't let it be for nothing," Belle took the words and reshaped them. "You sacrificed yourself, Rumple, that's what these trees are. These Dark Ones, they have nothing else left. All their pain, everything they've lost, that's their own hopes they're burning. We have to give it back to them."

You found a way out before. You can do it again.

The chorus of dark voices laughed. Ogres and dukes were nothing, in the end. It was love and fear that magic had no power against... except here, in this wood where that disease could be eradicated once and for all.

His memories flooded with guilt, his, and Belle's, and shadows of the others. It was true. They had driven the ones they loved best away. Wounded them and left them bleeding.

But Belle held on, not letting him give up. We all make mistakes. In this place, we can see them more clearly than ever. In this wood, where time and space are no barriers to vision. We can learn and do better.

She pushed, and the balance shifted. They could all see, all the gathered possibilities sharing their realities with each other. Wounds could heal in time. She showed them another Rumplestiltskin, who had found another chance at happiness with a Timer. Another Belle who had become a werewolf to run with her red-hooded lover under the moon.

We are our own destroyers, Belle told them. We are our own saviors.

It seemed impossible, yet her eyes revealed new paths shining out of the old broken ones. He had thrown himself into the abyss, trusting in her to catch him, just as she had trusted him. It didn't matter how many Rumplestiltskins didn't believe her — in this life, with this Belle, he had made his choice. This time, it didn't matter how deeply he fell into darkness, because he could always see her. The deeper the darkness, the more brightly she shone.

Yes, he answered her in his thoughts.

No, cried the dark chorus. She lies. There are no happy endings for the Dark One; only failure!

And he couldn't deny the truth of that, of his own failures, and those of his other selves: a litany of pain encompassing the Dark One and everyone around him. There was no happiness to be found in darkness.

Fire cleanses. In ashes, peace.

As tightly as Belle embraced him, as if to pull his soul out of the flames, she could not but be singed by their doubts. So you might fail, she acknowledged. So what? Everyone does, sometimes. But sometimes you succeed. Sometimes someone helps. Even if you can only save one other by your efforts, isn't that worth it?

The voices fell silent, considering. Another memory surfaced, from another life: You spent so long... waiting... all to be with your son. Now he's gone. Tell me, Rumple, was he really worth all that trouble? The answer from the past came then, beginning with a single whisper, gradually growing in strength as one after another joined in: Every bit of it. He was family...

And in Belle's vision, they were all family. All of them worth the effort. If you can no longer find light in your own heart, then look for its reflections elsewhere.In her eyes, she promised, they were worthy of love.

Belief came slowly. Together, he and Belle reached out to the besieging army. One at a time, they peeled another Dark One from the mob. Each one brought a swirl of the corrupted magic. Filtered through Belle's unwavering faith in them, the magic let itself be changed, be bound to the sapling, with Rumplestiltskin and Belle standing at its heart.

Thus fed, the sapling grew. Wood rose all around them. Rumplestiltskin and Belle were inside their tree, the tree that was the living manifestation of their love. But they, it, had to become more.

How much more? wondered Belle.

Nevethe needs its anchor. Its axis mundi, Rumplestiltskin said, quoting from the Yrktheran Book of Fate, one of the more reliable of the ancient tomes he had consulted while researching his Dark Curse. The center of the nexus. The tree that binds the light above the leaves and the dark beneath the roots.

Like Atlas holding up Olympus.

Close enough. Though he hoped they would have more freedom of movement, he knew part of their souls would always be here.

The flames receded under the expanding shadow of the new tree. The air cooled, became breathable again. Sanity returned to the eyes of the ravaging horde.

Go back into the world, Belle told them in the face of their lost, bewildered expressions. Save those you can save. Free the enslaved. Comfort the bereaved. Give your other selves the chance you wished you had. Bless them with the courage to speak the truth, to hear the truth.

As the dark army dissipated, Rumplestiltskin thought it would not be so simple as that. What scourge had they loosed onto the infinite realms? He knew too well what kind of 'justice' a Dark One meted upon those who had offended him.

But Belle insisted he was no monster. They're you. They're us. I saw... the Wood showed me... Nevethe calls them 'Dark Hunters'. Trust yourself...

Rumplestiltskin scoffed. He shook his head, shrugging away his misgivings. They had more immediate concerns.

"The gods and the Titans," Belle named it out loud, this calamity they themselves had triggered. "They'll tear the realms apart."

"With the Queen dead, the old agreements between Olympus, the Titans, and Nevethe are void," said Rumplestiltskin.

"We'll remind them why it was a good idea." Belle's eyes flashed with steely resolve.

Rumplestiltskin nodded. "Oh yes... that we shall." He raised his voice then, addressing the shadows gathering all around them under the leaves of their tree, now grown vast enough to hold the Wood together under its own gravity. "Isn't that right, dearies?"

The Timers stepped into existence at his words, a flurry of movement and indistinct babble, though Rumplestiltskin judged them to be pleased by the resolution of the siege..

"You did it!" Lumiere called out from the crowd.

"We knew you could," Cogsworth put in. "We had every confidence in you."

"Of course you did." Rumplestiltskin rolled his eyes, but didn't bother to argue. As long as they supported him now, he didn't care about their little revisions of history. Luckily, the Timers had the sense to know where they stood, which was between humanity and the ancient forces that regarded them as little more than livestock or vermin. "Let's hope your confidence extends to ending another war..."

"The gods and the Titans?" said Lumiere. "And if they will not listen?"

"Then we will make them bleed." A vicious grin twisted his mouth. He held in his bones all the destructive potential of the fire that had laid waste to half of Nevethe. Olympus itself would not fare much better if he freed that inferno there, and the gods had no Belle to pacify the Dark One.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that. Belle took his hand and squeezed it gently.

"They will listen," she said.