Chapter 10: A Truth
Belle has explored every inch of the tiny, crystalline cavern that has become her new cell, but she has yet to find anything that resembles a door. No opening, no crack, no secret passageway, just smooth stone that seems honey-gold when the moon is veiled and glows like crystal anytime the moon is allowed to gape down at this place of torments.
There isn't much to occupy her time or her thoughts. She's whispered countless stories to herself, entertained the corners of the cavern with memorized passages from the book still buried on Deadman's Peak, even drawn the profile of Baelfire's chipped cup a thousand times in the dust that stirs across the floor. None of it is enough to detract from that last image of Rumplestiltskin.
The before image: eyes wonderstruck and bewildered and just beginning to be touched by a dawning happiness.
And the after: all terror and shock and awful resignation as Pan pulled him into the open and held up his dagger.
Belle had still been reeling from the speed with which she'd lost such a treasured moment, but at the sight of that dark blade, she'd bent all her will—all her belief—to imagining it in her own hand.
"Take us from here," Pan had commanded the Dark One, and they vanished in a bloom of smoke that smelled of Rumplestiltskin.
Weeping had changed nothing. Belle had huddled close under the canopy, had started digging to retrieve the cup, desperate for something to hold onto, when Pan returned. Without a word, he'd escorted her to a boat. From the boat, she'd been taken to another island, this one shaped like a skull. It grew to immense size above her, though Belle knows she's since forgotten the full scope of it. It's hard to remember anything existing bigger than this cavern she can pace across in five strides.
Down a passageway, a right turn away from the yawning sense of a large space, and then she found herself in this smaller cavern.
"Only I get to change the game," Pan reproved her just before stone melted and hardened into a wall between him and Belle.
She was left alone. And she's been alone ever since.
Belle paces. She runs in place. She measures the cavern with her hand, with her forearm, with her foot, memorizing a dozen numbers that mean nothing and slip from her like water. She does everything she can to pretend she is more than just a girl in a rock. A girl in a cell. A girl forgotten.
But all along, she keeps her mouth tightly shut.
I love you.
She meant to say it. The words are sitting there on her tongue, readied in that moment she kissed Rumplestiltskin and felt him kiss her back, and now, denied the chance to say them, they are left to molder and rot in her mouth. If she opens her eyes, she thinks these words, this declaration, will escape her—and then she will have nothing to cling to. Besides, they are meant for Rumplestiltskin. Not Pan. Not Neverland. Not even herself.
Just Rumplestiltskin.
Above all else, she hopes that he is not alone. She doesn't want him to be hurting, or lonely, or scared. She wishes Pan would leave him be. But then, if she plans on making wishes, she might as well wish for Rumplestiltskin to be here with her, or for both of them to be free and safe back in their old world, Baelfire right beside them.
It takes her an embarrassingly long time to realize how she should be occupying her time.
Believing.
It's the only course left open to her. Her faith is the only weapon she still has. And here in Neverland, it should be the most powerful resource she possesses.
Maybe she's only fooling herself—it all happened so fast, after all. Maybe she's only succumbing to wishful thinking—it's too easy to do, when the hours stretch into eternities and nothing changes. But Belle is almost certain that in that split moment between Pan's unexpected appearance and his disappearance with Rumplestiltskin…she thinks that the dagger flickered.
There was, for just the blink of an eye, something solid in her own empty hand.
Belle cannot bear to think that it wasn't real. So instead, she bends all her attention to believing.
The secret, she thinks, is that the belief must be rooted in something real. Something fundamental to her being. Something inescapable.
And Belle doesn't care about Neverland. This place is a dreamworld, which Belle knows all too well due to her research, and it has no bearing on her as a person save in that it traps her here. No wonder her belief in it is limited compared to Pan's.
But love… True Love is the most powerful magic there is. With True Love, heroes have vanquished a thousand, thousand enemies, couples have triumphed, curses have been broken, and worlds have been saved.
And in that too-transient moment when her lips mingled with Rumplestiltskin's, she felt that magic.
Belle doesn't believe in Neverland.
But she does believe in Rumplestiltskin.
So she practices. A piece of pie, summoned to her hand. It tastes of chocolate and raspberry and is much more delicious than the bread that appears once a day. She summons a new cloak, warm and soft; a pillow for her head, not nearly as comfortable as Rumplestiltskin's chest. She imagines a book, but here her memory fails her, for it is only half-full, certain passages that are a blur in her mind failing to appear on the pages. Still, it's something.
It's more than she's ever managed before.
She's learned the trick well: if she can imagine Rumplestiltskin giving such an item to her…if she can summon up the image, every nuance of his dear face, the warmth of his calloused hands, the motivation he might have for gifting her with whatever item…then it's easy to believe in it enough to make her imagination reality.
But can she really believe that Rumplestiltskin would trust her with his dagger?
Should he trust her with it?
Belle paces her cavern, backward and forward, items appearing and disappearing all around her, and flips through every story she knows about the man she loves, every secret he's confided in her, every moment they've shared—searching for that one final piece that will convince her he loves her as much as she loves him.
She hopes…but she must believe, and believe with everything she is.
Beneath her tread, the cavern floor wears thin, but still she paces on.
Madness is his constant friend. It is closer than a shadow.
A shadow.
Rumplestiltskin giggles.
Shadows never stay close, after all. They move and shift, vanish and flee, tear and discard—a nightmare disguised as a dream.
"Or are they a dream disguised as a nightmare?" he asks himself.
The answer, the distinction, is important. It's the difference between winning a war and losing.
Only…he's not fighting a war. Impossible to fight when he is nothing more than a puppet.
"Ah, Rumple, it's nice to see you looking so up to the part I have planned for you."
"Puppets of a king with a shadow crown," Rumplestiltskin sing-songs.
Nothing answers him. Why should it? He's alone. He's been alone most of his life, in one way or another, and he's used to it.
It will never change.
"She was here," he reminds himself. It's important for him to keep hope alive, he knows this. Without hope, a man is only a husk. So he keeps hope alive with these tiny tidbits that mean nothing.
She.
As if such a dream could ever be real.
She. A beautiful woman with dark hair, blue eyes, and an accent he'd not soon forget. Well, if he hadn't forgotten already.
His imagination can be quite good when he sets his mind to it—sets his mind; another titter as he imagines his clattering, spinning, whirling mind set into the mold like cookies ready to bake—and she is the result.
Kindness. Goodness. Willing company. Understanding soul. Lips that felt like bliss against his.
"Madness!" he chants. "Madness! Madness!"
"What did he do to you?" a piece of the night asks him. Its eyes glow like twin moons. No, that doesn't make any sense; there's only one moon. Like stars, then, and of course there are two, because the second one on the right leads to hell.
"Do? Do?!" Rumplestiltskin flourishes his hand and knocks against the leaves hanging from the tree at his back. As a child, he sat like this, clutching a shoe, and mourned for a man who would have been kinder to him had he actually thrown himself off the highest boughs to die. Now, Rumplestiltskin sits here and wonders what place Bae must pick to mourn the papa who would have been kinder to just die on the battlefield rather than sentence his own son to a fate as his boy.
"He showed me truth," Rumplestiltskin answers himself.
The night flutters, stars blinking. It's shaped like a man, and the limbs dangle. Like a doll. He only needs a cap and a vest to make the image complete.
"Truth destroys," Rumplestiltskin confides in the Shadow. "Truth breaks all illusions and shatters the magic."
But the Shadow, if it was ever there, is long gone. Rumplestiltskin is alone. The only gift he has to give to everyone he might care about—his absence.
Like his son, out there in another world, happy and living his own life—but thinking his papa hates him, threw him away.
Like her—a figment of his imagination, perhaps, but the best he's ever conjured up, and he wishes, in some dark, depraved part of himself, that he could remember what she looks like long enough to bring her back to partial life.
"Truth destroys," he whispers again. "The secrets are a mask. The lies are the curse. Speak the truth and the stories will break."
He can't remember why. He may never relearn the importance. But for some reason, he knows that, above anything else, he must remember these two words:
Truth destroys.
Bae lands in Neverland on Deadman's Peak. The stench of dreamshade gives it away, as does the sight of the moon lighting the landscape that is branded onto the backs of Bae's eyes. Slowly, hating even the very air he breathes, all humidity and heat, Bae looks around himself. It's all familiar—except the bedraggled canopy of leaves hanging over some crumpled shape.
Belle! he thinks, though he keeps the name inside. Pan must have felt him appear, but he hopes for at least a few moments of surprise.
When he bends under the shade made of leaves and fronds all woven together, Neal doesn't find Belle.
Instead, he finds the coat his papa was wearing the last time he saw him—all black dragonskin and heavy cuffs. It's dirty and scuffed, but it smells of wool and metal, and Bae doesn't curb the impulse to slide it on over his tunic and trousers. Underneath the coat, he finds a hole, half-dug up, or perhaps half-buried.
Pan will be here any moment, but it's not like Bae's come with an elaborate plan that needs time to set up. In fact, now that he's back here again—where Pan's always wanted him—he has all the time in the world.
Sitting cross-legged, Bae finds a stick and begins digging in the dirt. He uncovers a familiar-looking pack—scuffed and shaped by long use into the rough form of a book.
Belle, he thinks again. She was here. And so was Papa.
He wonders where they are now.
Inside the pack, he finds the book Belle compiled on all things Neverland. It makes him smile as he traces his fingers over the faded ink of a sentence: In Neverland, a shadow is only as solid as the reality of the form that makes it. Every loop, every curl, every choice of words reminds him of the woman who left everything to help him—and who lost everything too.
He's just about to flip the book closed when he sees something different. Scrawled writing, cramped and spidery, filling the last few blank pages.
It's Papa's handwriting. Not that they ever had much paper to spare, and what little they did get Papa always let Bae use for sketching, but Bae learned his own letters copying the shapes of this spidery alphabet in the ashes near their hearth-fire.
Papa and Belle, both combined in this single book. They were here. They were together.
The only other thing he finds in the pack is a teacup. Bae traces his thumb over the chipped rim and feels cold determination reshape his bones.
Resolutely, he repacks the book and the cup and slings it across his chest. He'll return it to Belle. It'll be his parting gift for her.
"Baelfire. You just can't stay away, can you?"
In his darkest nightmares, Bae thought that if he ever heard this voice again, he'd shatter and fly into a million pieces. He dreaded the slow deterioration of his soul under terror and fright and trauma.
But in reality…hearing it just makes him realize that he's survived. He's spent centuries with this boy-demon, and he's still here. Still alive. Still himself. Still unbeaten.
What are another few centuries? Waiting for Pan to die is just one last chore for him to see to.
"Pan," he says. "I'm here to make a deal with you."
Pan grins, wide and gleeful and smug. "Oh, Baelfire, Baelfire, Baelfire. I think you have me confused with someone. I don't make deals. I play games."
"Yeah? And who's your competition lately? Hard to stir up enough imagination to power all of Neverland when you're stuck in a rut with the same old players, huh?"
That hits home. He sees it land, like an ink-tipped bolt. Pan narrows his eyes and says, "Are you saying you're better than all the Lost Boys combined? That's a bold statement. Cocky, some might call it."
"You wanted me for a reason," Bae says evenly. "Well, here I am. And here I'll stay—on one condition."
"And what is that?"
"You let Papa and Belle go. They get to leave Neverland, go back home, and live out the rest of their lives free of you."
"And you'll stay."
"I'll stay."
Stay, he thinks, and watch you die. And burn your body when you go. And torch this place to ash even if it means I go up in smoke too.
"You know," Pan says, too conversationally. "This all could have been accomplished a long time ago. I told you that your father could go free if you only did one thing for me."
Bae stiffens, his jaw clenched so hard he actually feels a couple teeth move.
"Do you still have the dagger?" Pan asks, and Bae nearly breaks.
Closing his eyes, he thinks of Emma. Of the firelight on her skin. The touch of her fingers running through his hair. The sloppy kiss she landed on his brow during one of their breaks from digging for water.
When he opens his eyes, he is resolute once more.
"You know I don't," he says.
"A pity. You could still do that one thing I asked of you."
"Do you have the dagger?" Bae asks. "Because I'll do it. Hand it to me, and I'll give the command you wanted."
Pan's laugh echoes over the peak. "No, that ship sailed long ago."
"Then we're back to my original offer."
The night seems to hold its breath. Even the humidity breaks, just for a moment, as Pan studies him.
"There's something different about you, Baelfire," he muses. "Maybe I don't even need you anymore."
Bae doesn't let himself flinch. "You really want to take that chance?"
The heart of the Truest Believer. Whatever that is, it has a powerful hold on Pan. Bae's never seen him want something so badly. The desire for it shines outward from behind every dark corner and shadowed edge of him.
"Say I agree to this deal," Pan says. "How long would you stay for?"
"Forever," Bae says. "But first…I want to see them. I want to know they're okay."
Pan smiles his victor's smile. "Oh, they're exactly as you left them."
"I don't believe you."
"Baelfire." Pan shakes his head. "Have I ever lied to you?"
The instant Belle hears the scrape and groan of stone melting, she believes her cavern empty. All her imagined items vanish, leaving her standing in a cleared space, hands empty, eyes wide, heart thumping with terror at the close call.
At first, she only sees Pan. He stands in front of her, hands on his hips, and studies her with narrowed eyes.
"How have you liked your vacation, little mother?" he asks.
Then Baelfire shoulders past him, already reaching for her—and dressed in Rumplestiltskin's coat.
For an instant, Belle wonders if she believed him into existence too before he wraps her in his arms and she realizes this can only ever be real.
"Baelfire!" she gasps, and then she's crying, weeping into his neck, arms trembling as she hangs onto him with every bit of strength left to her. "You're alive! But…you were supposed to be safe! Why are you here again? Did he kidnap you? You have to get away!"
"Shh, it's okay." Baelfire pulls back and offers her a smile she doesn't recognize. It's small, faint, bitter around the edges, but so strong, so defiant, that it takes her breath away. He's moved beyond that half-boy, half-man she knew, has grown into himself, into the man he should have been allowed to be centuries ago. Even without knowing the specifics, Belle feels herself swelling with pride for him.
"Baelfire," she murmurs. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"I'm going to get you out of here," he promises. "You and Papa both. I've made a deal with Pan."
"Baelfire, no!"
He smooths his hand down her arm until he reaches her hand. "It's okay," he says again. "This is for the best, I promise. You and Papa will get to go home. Look after him for me, okay? I know he's not easy to get along with, but…make sure he doesn't get too lonely? Try not to let him get lost in the darkness."
"He won't leave without you," she says.
"He won't have any choice."
And Belle's heart twists in her chest.
The dagger.
All this time she's been staring at Baelfire, arguing with his stubborn resolve, and Pan's been right behind him the whole time.
Very carefully, Belle keeps her eyes on Baelfire. "He loves you," she says. "He talks about you all the time. He would never choose to leave you."
Briefly, so briefly she'd have missed it if she blinked, Baelfire's face crumples. The boy she knew is still in there, after all.
And that's when Belle realizes—the one and only reason Rumplestiltskin would give her his dagger.
"Baelfire, your papa would do anything for you," she says.
And she believes.
"And I'd do anything for him," Baelfire replies. "That's why you have to help him. You have to go with him. You have to get him home. You're good at research, Belle, maybe you can find a way to break his curse—not like I did. Don't ruin him. Just…please, I know I've already cost you so much, but please help him."
"I will," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper as she leans in close to his ear. "I love him."
Baelfire's eyes widen.
"Well?" Pan asks, too brash, too loud. "You've seen her. She's alive. She's well. She's sane as any woman can be who'd find something worthy of affection in your coward of a father. Or is that: monster of a father. Either way…we're done here."
"Here." Quickly, Baelfire pulls something off his shoulder, and only when she touches it does Belle realize it's her pack.
"My chipped cup," she says. She bites her lip to hold back her sob. She takes the pack, all too happy to hug it close to her, an extra layer of protection from Pan's sharp eyes.
"You have everything I've given you?" Baelfire asks. There's something weighted in his eyes despite the casualness of his tone.
Belle breathes deep to feel the shift of that tiny pouch of pixie dust, still tucked inside her bodice. "Yes," she assures him.
He nods, then hugs her. Too tight, too quick, too clumsy, but Belle treasures every second of it.
Then Pan says his name, Baelfire steps back, once, again, again, and the stone reforms into a wall before her very eyes.
And still Belle believes.
She believes until she can't hear any more sign of them outside her cell. She believes as she sits down and curls her knees up under her chin. And she doesn't stop believing when she pulls her pack aside and studies the dagger now tucked into her belt.
Rumplestiltskin, it reads, fogged over by her stuttered breaths.
"I love you." The words finally escape her—but they haven't moldered. Haven't decayed. Haven't withered in the least. No, they are still fresh and strong and everything.
She loves him, and he loves his son, and for his son's sake, to save Baelfire, Rumplestiltskin would give her his dagger a thousand times over.
Even in Neverland, True Love is the most powerful magic of all.
"Why here?" Bae asks as Pan leads him deep into the Pixie Woods. "I thought no one went this way."
"Only me," Pan says arrogantly. "All of Neverland is mine."
"But they don't even bloom anymore." Baelfire smirks at him. "What's wrong? Can't get it up anymore?"
Pan arches a brow high. "Would you rather I be keeping your beloved papa in a cage still?"
"That tiny cell you have Belle in is hardly any better," he can't resist complaining. "She doesn't deserve that."
"Oh, really? She was using words and kindness to sway the Lost Boys away from me."
At that, Bae can't help but laugh. "Good," he says. "They should have all followed her."
"She's easy to love." There's a smirk playing along the edges of Pan's mouth. "Even poor, lonely Rumple couldn't resist her allure."
Yeah. Okay. Bae heard Belle's confession, and he saw the proof that they obviously spent a bit of time together on Deadman's Peak, but…the only woman he remembers seeing Papa with is his mom.
The only person his papa's ever loved…has been him.
"Seems women can love cowards," Pan continues. "A few can, at least. I guess we'll have to wait and see if she can love a beast as well."
"Papa deserves love," Bae says. He believes it too. For the most part. If he doesn't think about that mute maid, and that man who became a snail only be crushed underfoot, and so many others. But that wasn't Papa, not wholly. It was the Dark One.
And if anyone can find a way to free Papa from his curse, it'll be Belle.
Assuming Papa will let her, a little voice inside Bae whispers. Maybe Rumplestiltskin will choose his power over her the way he chose it over Bae the last time he tried a rescue.
"You're sure you don't have the dagger?" he hears himself asking again.
Pan smirks over his shoulder. "Sounds like someone should have kept better care of it. I only gave it to you how many times?"
"Yeah, well, forgive me for not wanting to turn my own father into a—" His voice dies in his throat as he emerges into a clearing lorded over by a tree so tall it almost looks as if its top branches are brushing against the moon. But the tree isn't what captures his attention.
The man hunched into a ball at the foot of it, weeping into his knees, murmuring what sounds like gibberish, is much more important to Bae than any tree.
He means to call out. To say Papa and let Rumplestiltskin know that he's here.
But he can't speak at all. He can't even breathe.
"Come, laddie, don't tell me it's that time again?" Pan calls out. Strolling over to Rumplestiltskin, he taps his shoulder with the back of his hand. "You have a visitor. Would it help you any if I promise that he's real this time?"
Bae's eyes narrow into slits. Bile burns his throat at the way Rumplestiltskin cowers away from Pan's voice.
"Leave him alone," he growls.
Rumplestiltskin freezes, his sobs cut off.
"You have to be blunt to cut through the madness these days," Pan tells him. "You'll see."
"Bae," Rumplestiltskin keens.
At that, Bae conquers his paralysis. He swoops in close to his papa and kneels down beside him, pushing Pan back by sheer proximity. "I'm here, Papa," he says. "I'm here."
A little at a time, Rumplestiltskin peers up from his knees and the cage of his hands woven over his eyes. "Bae," he whispers again. He looks puzzled. A lump grows in Bae's throat at the tentative way Papa's hand brushes against the coat Bae wears.
"Papa," Bae says. "I came back for you."
Rumplestiltskin's eyes go shuttered. "A trick," he says, and curls back in on himself. "Bae's not here. He left. He's safe. He's gone. He's not coming back. He can't be around me. He needs to stay safe."
"I'm really here, Papa." Bae slides his hands over Papa's and tries to ease them away from their bruising grip on his own face. "I told you I'd come back for you. Remember? I've only ever left you so that I could save you."
"Bae." Papa lets out one sob and then uncurls all at once, his hands greedy and grasping. Bae has been prey for too long not to feel a sharp surge of fear at the tight embrace his papa wants. But this is his father—Papa, the man who held him when he was a child, who fed him off his own plate, who left a whole world to be with him, who loves him.
"I'm here, Papa!" he exclaims, and he bends and folds and tucks himself until he can fit in the circle of his papa's arms. "I love you."
"Oh, please, forgive me, son! Forgive me! I don't deserve you, but all I can ask—"
"I love you," Bae interrupts. "I love you. I forgive you. Just…please forgive me."
"What?" Rumplestiltskin pulls back far enough to blink at him. In his arms, Bae can feel the protruding knobs of Papa's spine, the jutted edges of his ribs, and he mourns at how small Rumplestiltskin has become. "No, my beautiful boy, no, you've done nothing that needs forgiveness."
There are a thousand things Bae wants to say then, but no time for any of it.
"Time for us to move on, Baelfire," Pan says. "I have all kinds of adventures planned for us."
Papa's eyes sharpen. Clear. Bae can all but see the madness eddying enough for sanity to shine through as he looks between Bae and Pan. Bae can't quite hold his stare.
"Whatever you have planned," Rumplestiltskin says, "don't do it."
"I'm saving you. That's all I've ever wanted to do."
"And I'm not worth it." Papa cups his cheek in his hand, and Bae nearly cries at the feel of it. He forgot. How could he have forgotten what it feels like to be held so preciously by his papa? "Don't stay here, Bae. Flee. Get out. And don't come back."
"I had to. For you, and for Belle."
There's a strange look in Papa's eyes, a sort of glazed incomprehension. "Belle," he whispers, and then a strange, high-pitched giggle erupts from his mouth. "It's all a dream. Just a nightmare dressed up in reality. But all dreams fade and all nightmares end—if only to begin anew."
"Papa?"
"Truth destroys," he nearly sings. "Secrets will out and illusions will fade and nothing will remain."
"Papa, I'm really here."
"Shadows are drawn to the light. They can't help it. They're bored. They're fascinated by the different."
"Papa," Bae begs him. "It's me. I'm right here."
"A game!" As if he can't even hear Bae, can't see him, Rumplestiltskin looks up to Pan. "You love games, Papa. A game to determine the fate of my son."
It's silent. Neverland is so still Bae feels as if time has halted within already arrested time.
Papa.
It's a familiar word. But it isn't Baelfire who said it.
It's Rumplestiltskin. Rumplestiltskin looking at Pan and calling him...
Papa.
"I only play games with those who have a chance of winning," Pan says.
"A game," Rumplestiltskin repeats. He lunges for Pan, still on his knees, reaching up and dragging the boy-demon down, fingers hooked like claws through his leafy shirt. "You play. Bae plays. The winner takes all. The Lady. Follow the Lady. Truth destroys."
Truth destroys. Bae feels raw. Chafed and abraded until his nerves are all exposed to open air. He is too big for this place. He is too small for this revelation. He is never, ever just right enough to emerge the winner.
"Truth," Pan scoffs as he shoves Rumplestiltskin aside. "What do you know of truth, laddie? You still think your first wife was taken from you against her will. You would still rather tell yourself the lie that you maimed yourself just so you could be a father to your boy when everyone who knows you knows you did it because you were afraid to face battle. You still think your son cares about you even while cursed, or that a woman could love you, or that you were worth leaving Neverland for."
Papa. The word echoes and resounds, ricocheting from one thought to another.
"Enough," he says. And he stands to face Pan. "That's enough. I'll play for Papa—and for Belle. I win, they go free. You win, you keep them and me."
"But you already agreed to stay."
Over Papa's broken cry, Bae says, "I did. I will."
"Fine." Pan's smile stretches wide. "A game of truth or dare. With truth the only option—if you dare."
"But not here," Bae says.
"Truth destroys," Rumplestiltskin whimpers, again and again, a repetitive chant that rings eerily through the clearing. "Secrets are only truths waiting to fire."
"Where, then?" Pan asks skeptically. "You think I won't win if we're not in Neverland?"
"Oh, we'll still be in Neverland," Bae says. "We'll play in Echo Cave."
At his feet, Rumplestiltskin goes mute.
Pan studies him for too long—his eyes make Bae feel as if he's been flayed and pulled apart.
"Echo Cave," Pan says, and then he laughs. "This will be so much fun!"
"Rumplestiltskin," Belle whispers to the dagger. With belief and reality all mixed together, she wonders if the dagger really does warm in response to her voice or if she only imagines that it does—and thus, makes it happen. "Stay where you are and don't react, but hear me."
He has to do whatever she commands. The dagger is his soul, in effect, his very being all tied up in it, every string of his free will leading back to this cold, engraved metal. Her own soul shudders in revulsion at the thought. She wishes she could tuck the dagger aside and only touch it again in order to hand it over to Rumplestiltskin.
But she's trapped, and so is he, and this is the only way she knows to save not only them, but Bae too.
"Conjure me a puff of blue smoke if you can hear me," she whispers.
Sapphire steam swirls up into her eyes, and Belle shakes with joy.
"If you're alone," she says, "bring me to you."
Nothing happens.
He's not alone. A shudder runs through her at the thought of what Pan might be putting him through. Unless it's Bae. She hopes it is.
"When it's safe to do so," she says, "bring me to you. Until then, if you can do it without giving yourself away, heal whatever wounds you have. Make yourself comfortable. Help yourself."
It's the best she can do without knowing where he is or what Pan's done to him.
Belle finds herself pacing once more, her hand clenched tightly around the dagger. She'll die before she lets it go, she knows that. She'll never let Pan have it again—even if she has to stab him with it.
In her storybooks, heroes kill rarely and only when they are given no other choice. In real life, Belle has a feeling that things are not so clearcut. But she remembers what it felt like to hold Rumplestiltskin together as he shattered with grief over losing his son. She remembers the hate she felt in her heart for Pan, and she doesn't need to look far to know that hate is still there.
If it comes to a choice between Rumplestiltskin's dagger and Pan's life, she knows which she'll choose. And maybe she'll pay for it, maybe she'll never sleep through another night again, but it will be worth it.
Between one step and the next, Belle finds herself transported to a forest clearing. The trees are different than the jungle ones she's used to, taller and more familiar, and the humidity is slightly less on this side of the island. But Belle notices nothing beyond that because Rumplestiltskin straightens from the huddled shape he was twisted into at the base of a tree. He stands, and then he just stares at her.
"Rumple!" she cries, and she leaps for him.
He stumbles back into the tree to keep distance between them, his hands fluttering at his sides, his face drawn far back from hers.
Of course. She still holds his dagger.
"Here." She thrusts it out toward him. "Take it. It's yours. I don't want it."
Nothing. Just that long bewildered stare.
"Rumple," she says, more slowly, as gentle as she can make her voice. "It's me. I'm here."
"Belle." The name sounds as if he has unearthed it from the center of the world. As if it is a relic from millennia past.
"Yes," she says, blinking back tears. "You know me. Remember? You—"
He screams. A low, ragged sound that scrapes against the air itself.
"Rumple!" She reaches for him, barely managing to tuck the dagger in her belt so she doesn't accidentally cut him with its scalloped edges. His knees give out, and though she catches him, they both end up on the ground, all tangled together. At first, she thinks he's trying to crawl away from her, but then she feels his hands sliding beneath her ribcage, his mouth against her chin, and she realizes he's tracing her contours, as if testing the reality of each of her curves. At that realization, she goes pliant beneath him, moving only to lift her arms over his shoulders and slide her fingers back into his hair.
"I'm here," she croons. "I'm here. I'm okay. He didn't hurt me. It's me, Rumple. What did he do to you?"
"He made me remember," he grits out. She gasps as his lips caress her throat, her shoulder, her collarbone. "He made me remember everything."
"Then you do remember me," she says. "Don't you? All the stories we shared. The book you wrote stories in for me. Baelfire."
"Bae."
"That's right." Following his example, Belle presses her mouth against his cheek, his temple, the crown of his head. He's pressed up against her, nearly crushing her with his angular weight—she hopes he never moves. "I told you stories about him. Remember the chipped cup? I have it here with me. Baelfire brought it back to me from our canopy. You remember the leaves you braided together to give me shelter? When I fell, you caught me in your arms."
"Belle!" he gasps, and his hands press her tighter against him. There is saltwater pooling in the hollow of her throat; beneath her hands, his angular shoulders shake and judder.
"That's right, Rumple. It's me. Belle. You spoke to me by writing words in sand, do you remember that? I've always loved to read, and before I ever heard your voice, I was already drawn to your words."
"You're real?" he murmurs, sounding so thunderstruck, so bewildered, that her heart turns over in her chest in its bid to get to him, to comfort and soothe and heal him.
"I'm real. I told you that you aren't a monster, remember? Do you remember how I proved it to you?"
He freezes atop her. She thinks she can feel his heart beating far too rapidly against his chest.
"I kissed you," she breathes into his ear. "And it was a man I kissed."
"I didn't hurt you?" he asks.
Belle's not sure if she laughs or sobs. "No! You'd never hurt me, Rumple, not ever."
If she expected him to kiss her then, she's sorely disappointed. Before she can quite process even that he's moving, Rumplestiltskin is suddenly a good foot away from her, brushing his clothes off and then, belatedly, offering her a hand to help her stand too. She straightens her cloak and makes sure she still has the pack Baelfire gave her.
"Here." She offers him the dagger again. It's the only reason she can think that he seems so suddenly standoffish toward her. "Please, take it?"
His hand reaches for it, a yearning look in his eyes, before he clenches his hand into a fist and turns away from her. Every muscle in his body is corded tight.
"Rumple?"
"Keep it," he grates. "Please. Just for a little longer. I need you to…"
"Anything," she promises, caught between drifting closer and keeping the distance he seems to crave.
"I need you to command me."
"No!"
"Belle." He turns just enough to meet her eyes. "I need you to command me to be sane."
She blinks. "I…I don't think that's—"
"Please. I need to focus. I need to be able to think. Please, Belle, please just…help me get past the noise."
"Rumple…" She bites her lip. "I don't want to command you."
Slowly, tentatively, he takes a step toward her, bends to lift her free hand in his, and raises his head. His eyes are dark and open—and earnest. "Please, Belle," he says. "I trust you."
"Okay," she says reluctantly. "But just for a little while. Once we're free of here, I'm giving it back to you."
His smile is wistful. "I hope you do."
"I will," she promises as firmly as possible.
"Then…command me."
Belle squeezes her eyes shut. "Rumplestiltskin…focus. Think. Be sane."
Magic is about intent, she reminds herself. Hopefully, that will be enough to carry him past the frighteningly literal connotations her words might have to bring him over to the other side.
Some burden seems to slough off Rumplestiltskin's shoulders. His eyes are more piercing than she's ever seen them before. "Thank you, sweetheart," he says. His voice is more resolute, more clear, than she's ever heard it before. "I know what we need to do."
"Does that involve leaving this place forever?" she asks. "Because I know how."
"Not without Bae," Rumplestiltskin says. "And I know exactly where he is."
Bae stands on a narrow bridge twin to the thin platform Pan stands on. Parallel lines of rock, jutting out from one end of the cave and reaching toward the opposite side.
"I belong here, in Neverland," Bae says, and the ground groans and elongates beneath his feet.
"I couldn't care less about most of the Lost Boys," Pan says, and his bridge too grows and stretches.
"I'm afraid of the me you've turned me into," Bae says. He wobbles closer to the opposite end of the chasm.
"This place is the only place I truly feel I belong," Pan says. His bridge is longer, by just a pace, than Bae's.
On the bit of ground they're both racing toward, there's nothing. Bae isn't playing to win anything for himself. He's only playing for Papa, for Belle, and that means that whatever darkness, whatever terrible dirty secrets he dredges up from the depths of his soul, it'll all be worth it.
Pan, on the other hand, looks like he's having the time of his life. The more his bridge grows, the wider his smile stretches, the more Shadows come to hover over his head. Now that Bae thinks of it, he wonders if the Shadows haven't always been drawn to Pan's emotional extremes. The angrier, the more jubilant, even the more contemplative Pan grows, the more commonplace the Shadows become. Bae never put it together, never thought much about it—not until Papa's half-mad exclamation about Shadows being drawn to the light.
They're bored, he said.
But Pan's the power behind Neverland. And he's dying. And if he's dying, if the Shadows are growing bored…then an explosion of newness, of absolute creativity, will bring them all here.
And Bae knows better than anyone that the Shadows are always hungry.
Truth destroys.
"I've abandoned every person who's ever loved me," Bae says, and struggles to keep his balance above the ugly truths—and the fatal drop below.
Rumplestiltskin stares as Belle lifts his hand to her chest. Her fingers press against his, sandwiched between her palm and her collarbone. Then, she draws his hand down. He shudders and lets out a quick breath—and feels it. There, safe between her breasts, a tiny pouch.
"Sand in the wind," he says, careful to add a lilt to the words in case Pan's paying attention to this corner of Neverland. A breath released, skipped, given up, and there's a pile of sand between them.
Dust? he writes.
Still holding onto his hand, Belle meets his eyes, smiles, and nods. "Bae loves you," she says. "He wouldn't leave without you."
Banishing the sand, Rumplestiltskin nods. There's a cold, ruthless part of his mind that knows Belle is far too idealistic. Naïve, even gullible. She believes because she wishes to, and she wishes to because it fits the narrative she's shaped her mind around. Just because she believes something doesn't make it true.
Except…that's how she got the dagger. So maybe, a softer, more blurred part of his mind whispers, maybe Belle is magic all her own. Maybe she can use the goodness and the courage and the strength within herself to create it in others.
"Come with me," he says, and he weaves his fingers between hers.
"To Baelfire?" she asks even as she steps far closer than he expected her to.
"Not yet." Rumplestiltskin longs to see his son with this clarity of vision—he'd finally be able to say everything he's wanted to for so long. First, the curse had set him mad and the need for the words had escaped him. Then, in the Land Without Magic, he'd been too weak, too pitiful, too desperate to cobble up the words Bae deserved. And here, he's been driven mad, controlled, imprisoned, forbidden from ever explaining himself to his son.
But now…now with Belle's diamond-sharp thoughts in his head, with his power nearly his to command, with Pan's defeat not only probable, but imminent…now, he can finally tell Bae the truth.
Truth destroys, whispers that ruthless part of himself.
Bae deserves only the truth, the other part argues.
Rumplestiltskin shakes his head and focuses on Belle's clear blue eyes. "We have to talk to the Shadow," he says.
"Which one?" she asks.
"The only one that matters. The Shadow of Neverland itself."
Belle's brow creases, but she only nods. "Okay. Where is it?"
"It's here," he says, and then, against his will, begrudging every inch, he cranes his neck to look up to the top of Peter Pan's Thinking Tree.
Bae's throat is hoarse. His mouth is as dry as the surface of Lake Nostos. He wishes he'd kept some Wonderland mushrooms so he could grow large enough that he could simply step over this chasm before him and declare himself the de facto winner.
"I'm dying," Pan proclaims, his tone the very opposite of defeated, and his bridge shifts until it is only six feet from the other side.
"I'm afraid," Bae admits. "I'm afraid that I'm nothing but a coward and a failure."
His bridge grows a bit, but this is not a well-hidden truth, and he still has eight feet to go.
Belle watches Rumplestiltskin climb from one bough to another, even higher. The memory of how she fell from a similar tree, how he caught her, assails her and makes her long, sharply, to be safe with him once more. She's tired of this place. She hates it. She wants Rumplestiltskin to be safe, to invite her near, to do whatever he wishes without the dagger between them.
There's a stiffness to his posture as he climbs that worries her. It's a reflection, she thinks, of that old, scarred terror that eclipsed his eyes as he spoke of having to ascend into this tree.
"If I don't come back down," he told her, "you have to go to Echo Cave without me. Promise you'll get Bae out. Promise you'll look after him."
"We'll get him out," she said. "We'll look after him."
He doesn't believe her. That's okay. Belle believes enough for them both.
And if he falls, she vows, she will catch him.
"I lied about the command I wanted you to give to Rumple," Pan says, and Bae can't help but gape over at him.
"What?" he demands even as Pan's bridge groans with its new expansion.
Pan shrugs. "How do you think that would have worked, exactly? You really think the command would have changed Rumple on an elemental level?"
"You said that if I held onto the dagger and commanded him to be good, that you'd let him go and he wouldn't be a monster anymore—for as long as I held onto the dagger. That if I stayed here forever holding onto it, then the immortal Dark One would be a force for good."
"And you believed me." Pan laughs so loud and so long that stones rattle from the sides of the cave. "Oh, Baelfire, does Rumple know how little faith you have in him? All those times you vowed never to give him that command because you thought it would alter his very being. Change the Papa you loved. But Rumple's always been good—even under a dark curse. Your command would have done nothing but show him just what kind of monster you think he really is."
"I hate you," Bae hisses. "I hate you more than anything in any world."
Pan laughs again. "No, you don't," he crows. "Go on, Baelfire. You want to win this game of ours? Tell the truth."
Bae swallows something that tastes a lot like blood. "I hate myself more than I could ever hate you," he whispers.
And his bridge swells toward the opposite end.
The Shadow is waiting for him at the top of the tree.
"Tell me a story," it says. "Something new. Something I've never heard before."
"You wouldn't need stories if you could still bring people here in their dreams," Rumplestiltskin counters. "Face it, you never should have made a deal with my father."
"His imagination was boundless," the Shadow intones.
"Was," Rumplestiltskin repeats. "But he's sucked dry, isn't he? This isn't what Neverland is supposed to be. You're not built for it."
"We're lonely," the Shadow groans, and for a second, it strains so thin Rumplestiltskin can see the ground—too far below—through its abdomen.
Rumplestiltskin tightens his grip on the tree and squeezes his eyes shut. "Then let children visit again. I'm not talking about harvesting their dreams the way Pan has you doing now. Let them come here. Let them explore. Feed their imagination rather than devour it."
"Tell me a story," it says again.
"No," Rumplestiltskin replies. "Tell yourself a story. Make up your own tales. Learn to be something more than you are now."
"We can't," it admits in a low tone as it swoops so low Rumplestiltskin nearly cowers back. "Pan is bound to us for as long as his heart lasts."
"But what if he breaks your deal?" Rumplestiltskin asks. The ruthless part of his mind strains toward the Shadow, reading every blurred tick. The softer side feels sorry for this land that seems to have taken on a bit more than it could chew. Made a deal it didn't understand.
Rumplestiltskin knows the feeling.
"Pan won't abandon us."
"No. But he lied. A long time ago. And you helped him lie. But what if he tells the truth? Will your deal still stand then?"
The Shadow doesn't say anything.
"I've never liked you," Pan says. "I needed you, but I don't like you. You've never been imaginative enough. Such a practical little boy who grew up to be far too pragmatic of a man."
"Not much of a truth," Bae taunts, though Pan's bridge is two feet farther along than his own. "I could have told you that one."
"Well, one doesn't get to pick their own family, does one?" Pan replies, and grins at Bae's shaken reaction.
Papa, Rumplestiltskin said. And Bae's always known that Rumplestiltskin is too familiar with Neverland, that he knew Pan even in their old world when he seemed nothing more than the Pied Piper.
"It's my fault Papa almost died," Bae says, and feels the ground shake beneath him. Three feet left to go.
"Oh, find something new to worry about." Pan rolls his eyes. "You're lucky the coward went through the portal with you at all. Two out of five seers I talked to predicted he'd let go of your hand and stay behind. Oh, the trouble that would have caused. But so much fun."
"What are you talking about? Seers?"
"I need the heart of the Truest Believer," Pan says, locking eyes with Bae as his bridge grows. Two feet left. Two secrets. He's going to win.
"I know who the Truest Believer is," Bae says. "It's my son."
"And I don't need you anymore."
That shouldn't be a secret. Why is his bridge elongating?
Unless…
Bae's mind shrinks away from the conclusion it leaps toward.
Not right now. Not yet. Pan has only one secret left to tell, while Bae has two. He'll never make it.
Truth destroys.
Bae doesn't need to reach the chasm, after all. He just needs to make sure Pan's truth is the one that brings down all of Neverland.
That's the only way to win in Neverland, after all—change the whole game mid-play.
"Papa's my only family," he makes himself say. It'll be worth it, he thinks. He just has to say it. He has to face it. It's the truth after all. "He's my only family…because I killed my mother's lover and then I condemned her to a lifetime in prison. And sometimes…I wish it was her I killed instead of Jones."
His bridge stretches.
Pan glows. He's triumphant. He's smug. He's gleeful and giddy and all too ready to gloat.
Say it, Bae thinks. Tell me the truth you think will destroy me.
And he does.
"You have more family than you think," Pan says, savoring each word. "The truth is, Rumplestiltskin's my son. Say hello to your grandfather, Baelfire."
Pan's bridge connects to the other side, but Bae barely notices. Outside the cave, from all across the island, the ground begins to quake and shriek. The moon dims and goes dark, leaving only a few torches to light the interior of the cave. Above Pan's head, the Shadows swirl and coalesce until there is only one form. One being. His eyes glow, while far away, ocean waves surge and crash and build to surge higher until the tides are rolling past beaches, toppling trees, scattering humidity with cold salt spray.
"What's happening?" Pan calls to the Shadow. "What is this?"
"You're not a kid," Bae says in a cold, hard voice. "A child can't have a child, and he definitely can't have a grandchild."
Truth destroys.
"You don't believe anymore," the Shadow hisses at Pan. "You broke the agreement."
"No!" Pan's eyes are wide. In fact, his whole expression is one Bae's never seen before. As he watches, the features shift, distort, alter—until it's an entirely different face. A man's face. Bearded and worn, old beyond its time. Before Bae's very eyes, his brown hair turns gray turns silver turns white turns thin.
"This isn't the deal!" the man screams at the Shadow. "My time isn't up yet!"
The Shadow drifts closer, closer, closer, peering at this stranger that Bae refuses to recognize any piece of. "Why didn't you kill him?" the Shadow asks lowly. "Why did you keep your son here as a reminder? If you'd let him go…nothing could have broken our agreement."
"I can't die," the man says softly as he stares at his hand, wrinkling and shrinking and turning age-spotted before his very eyes. "I'm not ready to die."
"Hey, Pan," Bae says. He waits until Pan's looking at him before he smiles his own reflection of Pan's victor smile. "Bet you can't wait to find out what hell's like when you're not the one ruling the place, huh?"
Withered skin turns parchment-thin before draining of all color—no, all life. Pan's body deteriorates and falls in a pile of bones that rattle against the floor of Echo Cave. Above his head, Bae hears the stones shifting in the beginnings of a cave-in.
The Shadow swoops toward him, and Bae dives toward the exit. Something frigid and frostbitten catches him up by his ribcage. The ground falls away beneath his feet as the torches go dark.
Bae feels himself falling and can't help but scream as he brings his arms up to cover his head.
With a roar that deafens him, Echo Cave collapses on top of him and Bae is swallowed up in darkness so absolute he cannot imagine a way free of it.
It seems his fate really is to be trapped in Neverland for all eternity.