Chapter 11: A Curse
"Save Baelfire!" Belle screams—the weight of the dagger enforcing the command—and in a whoosh of smoke, Rumplestiltskin summons his boy into his arms. Bae comes cocooned in the darkness of the Shadow, but Rumplestiltskin doesn't let that deter him, already scrabbling for hold of him.
"Give him to me!" he screams over the rush of hurricane-like winds. "He's my son!"
"Take him," the Shadow hisses, and for all that it doesn't raise its voice, the words are clearly audible between the groaning of Neverland itself as the world is reshaped all around them. In fact, the land itself seems to speak with the Shadow. "Take him and go. Do not come back."
"Trust me, dearie," Rumplestiltskin snarls, "I wasn't planning on it."
Then his son is in his arms. His son. His beautiful Bae, in his arms, heavy and limp, but alive and here, and after all this time, this is their true reunion.
"Rumple!" Belle cries.
He spins to see her holding onto a tree with all her might. The tree itself is bowing, though, straining beneath the force of the gale. Tightening his own grip on his limp son—so big, he's bigger than Rumplestiltskin, all grown up, a man now—Rumplestiltskin flourishes his hand and magics himself and the two people he loves up to the top of Deadman's Peak. From this vantage point, it's even more apparent that all of Neverland is being remade. Trees disappear beneath tidal waves, the ocean roars back outward to reveal caverns and fields, while the air itself has turned dry and almost cold. The ground tremors beneath their feet, but he's bought them a few moments at least.
"Baelfire!" Belle flutters over his son, her hands smoothing his hair back and coming away bloody. Rumplestiltskin shudders and reaches for his magic. Aided by Belle's most recent command, Save Baelfire, Rumplestiltskin heals the lump on Bae's crown and the gash on his temple.
"Bae." The name escapes him without his volition. "Bae, son. Please be okay."
They need to leave. He should be urging Belle to retrieve the pixie dust and wish them a portal back to their world.
But what world? What world does his son wish for them? Where can they be together?
All three of them, his heart pleads.
As he lays his son down on the ground, Belle kneels and fusses over Bae. It's a maternal touch she uses to pet his hair and straighten his coat, all the while her soft voice murmuring to him. It's beautiful, a sight Rumplestiltskin never even realized he longed for.
He startles when she reaches up to take his hand. "He'll be okay," she murmurs. "You saved him."
"He saved all of us," Rumplestiltskin corrects her. "He destroyed Pan."
"Good." There is a fierceness he's never heard in Belle's voice—never imagined could be there. But she looks back down to Bae, lifts his head onto her lap, nurturing and concerned and loving once more, and he wonders if his curse only tricked him into seeing that bit of malice to her. She's so kind, so gentle, that it seems absurd to think there is darkness hiding within her.
Bae's groan has both Rumplestiltskin and Belle tensing, their every bit of attention on the man lying between them.
"Papa," Bae murmurs. His eyes flutter open, and Rumplestiltskin collapses over him.
"I'm here, son. I'm here. Oh, Bae, you did it."
"You're a hero," Belle murmurs.
Awkwardly, Bae lifts his arms, half-hugging each of them even as he tries to pull himself upright. "Okay, okay. So…I guess I won?"
"And you're not staying here," Rumplestiltskin says as firmly as he can through his tears. "The Shadow told us to leave."
Bae's eyes widen, a desperate hope flooding through him until it's nearly painful to see. "Then what are we waiting for?"
Laughing, Belle says, "Nothing. Not anymore."
The instant Belle reaches for her bodice, both Rumplestiltskin and Bae flush and turn away, giving her a moment of privacy to retrieve the worn pouch of pixie dust from within her shirt.
"Is this enough?" she asks in a worried tone.
"Yeah," Bae says. "I measured it perfectly."
Rumplestiltskin takes a deep breath and vows to himself that he will not blame his son no matter what his answer. He will go wherever Bae goes. There is no life for him apart from his son, he's always known that.
"So." He meets Bae's gaze. "Where are we going, son?"
When Belle empties the pixie dust into the air, it forms a portal made of pink and purple and brilliant scarlet. It rotates the same way the portals made by magic beans do, but slower, more sedately. Bae thinks he should be worried about his choice. He should be scared to go through yet another portal. He should be making plans as to how he means to help his papa not succumb to the darkness yet again.
But he's none of those things. If he didn't force himself to ensure that the people he came to rescue, again, actually get out, he'd have dived in head-first and never looked back.
He thought he was meant to spend eternity in Neverland. He thought Pan's constant presence would keep him from ever having what he most wants. He thought…he thought all kinds of things that now seem wrong.
Maybe fate's on his side, after all.
If I were free to choose, I'd choose you, Emma. And I do.
"Ready, Papa?" he asks as Belle leaps into the portal.
"After you," Papa says. Dressed in only the silk black shirt and leather trousers that Pan made for him, Rumplestiltskin looks too small. Too thin. Too frail. Bae knows that will change, the instant they return to their world and the Dark Curse fully reclaims him. But for just an instant, Bae lets himself see his papa as someone who needs his protection.
"Papa," he says. "I'm never leaving you again. Here, take my hand. We'll go together, okay?"
And if the feel of his papa's hand in his, the way Rumplestiltskin steps right up to the portal with him, the synchronicity in their movements as they leap into the unknown…if all that helps heal the wound of the last time they stood over a portal—when Rumplestiltskin threw him back and the Hatter wrestled him down and Bae thought he might never recover—well, then all the bad things really are coming undone.
They land in a wooded area near a lake. Bae squeezes his papa's hand once before letting go so he can turn and try to orient himself. Belle rushes forward, and for a moment, Bae thinks she's coming for him, but then she hugs Papa and brushes his shirt smooth and offers him a warm smile, and Bae thinks he could get used to that soft look in his Papa's eyes and the happiness written across Belle's face.
Sure, maybe Papa's skin is turning gold and scaly. Maybe his eyes are widening, his pupils flattening, his nails turning into claws. Maybe it's the Dark One that smiles so crookedly at Belle, and maybe it's strange seeing a beautiful lady like Belle stepping into the arms of what looks to be a beast, but Bae's learned that the true monsters are those who smile like children, look like innocence, and sting with poison.
Bae's just barely managed to turn around and catch sight of King David and Queen Snow's palace to the north—just barely thought Emma! and realized how close she is—when something sapphire and glistening nearly blinds him.
"You should not have come back here," a woman says through a glow that encapsulates the entire clearing around them.
Even after centuries, Bae would recognize that voice anywhere. It lives in his dreams, along the edges of it, reduced to the margins, but the very reason that any of it happened at all.
The Blue Fairy.
And she stinks of squid ink.
No. She doesn't. But the cage that materializes at the wave of her wand does.
Just one second. One moment where Bae squeezes his eyes shut against the glare—and when he opens them, there are yet another set of bars between him and Papa. Rumplestiltskin is surrounded by a cage that, as Bae watches, begins to glow purple with squid ink. Stumbling back from the force of the magic, Belle nearly falls.
"No!" Bae shouts, darting forward to grab the bars and strain against them. "Papa! Let him out! What are you doing?" he demands of the tiny hovering person who's pointing her wand straight at Rumplestiltskin.
A cage. Just another cage. Another trap he's led his papa directly into.
Will he ever be able to save him?
"He's the Dark One, child," the Blue Fairy says. "From the moment I learned that you were trying to rescue him, I've searched for a way to protect this world from his evil."
"You said I did that!" Bae snaps. He sets his back against the bars, intent on standing between her and his papa. "I'm the light that keeps him human. And I'm never leaving him again."
"Ah, child, that was a long time ago. He's had centuries under the domain of Neverland. His darkness has spread and infected the whole of his heart. Would you really unleash him on this world? How many innocents would suffer due to your misplaced trust?"
Against his will, Bae thinks of those soldiers, murdered in their front yard. That man who was turned into a snail. The blood of their maid on Papa's boots.
He hesitates.
Belle doesn't.
"How dare you?" Belle demands. She strides forward, her finger pointing toward the Blue Fairy, heedless of the magic wand between them. "This is evil. Rumple's been a prisoner for hundreds of years—and the first thing you do is condemn him to another prison? When was his trial? Where is his judge? Who will speak for him? Surely you, the neutral fairies who must rise above the affairs of mortals, would not presume to set yourself as judge, jury, and executioner?"
The Blue Fairy cants her chin high in the air. "The Dark One is a magical force, one that has troubled our world for millennia. This is fairy business. You may not realize this, child, but I am doing this for the good of all."
"No. No, you're not." Belle glares right back at her. "You're doing this because you're afraid."
"Bae."
His papa's voice, so quiet, so meek—so familiar—has Bae turning away from Belle to his papa. He wraps his hands around the bars and strains toward him.
"I'm going to get you out, Papa," he promises. "Don't worry."
"No." Rumplestiltskin shakes his head. His hands flutter above Bae's before Bae slides his fingers between the bars and snatches them up in his own. He remembers a time when he could find nothing familiar about these new hands of his papa's, but he cannot remember a single moment when he's been afraid to reach out and grab this hand in his own. He's always known that his papa would be there for him, reaching back. "Maybe this is for the best. I can feel it, Bae. The darkness. It's already whispering to me."
"I'm going to rescue you," Bae says. He feels like it's the only thing he ever says.
"Don't." Rumplestiltskin gives him a wobbly smile. It's the Dark One's face—the face that has visited Bae's nightmares intermittently—but it's his papa's smile, so tired and unassuming. And kind. Kind enough to give his last coin to a beggar. Kind enough to use a dark curse to save a thousand children from a useless war. Kind enough to try to save his son no matter how many times that son gets him tortured and imprisoned.
"Papa."
"You've done enough, Bae." At Bae's flinch, Papa presses forward. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? This way, you can still see me, but I won't hurt anyone. I'll be safe for you to be around."
"I don't want you imprisoned!" Bae cries. "This isn't saving you."
"You will come see me, won't you?" Papa asks, his eyes not quite meeting Bae's.
"I'm not leaving," he says again. "I'm staying with you. I didn't face down Pan just to see you trapped behind bars."
"But this way…" Rumplestiltskin swallows hard. "This way, you don't have to be afraid of me."
Bae's breath catches in his throat. "I'm not afraid of you," he finally says. "I've never been afraid of you. Papa, I'm afraid for you."
"You don't have to be. Fairies don't kill. I'm sure I'll be kept well enough."
"It's a cage!" Belle interjects. Suddenly, she's right there next to Bae, her shoulder pressed against his, her hands reaching through the bars. Rumplestiltsin ducks his head so his hair falls to hide the scales on his face from her. "Bae's right, Rumple, this isn't the way."
"It's the only way," the Blue Fairy intones.
Bae whirls on her. "I'll kill you," he says, low, threatening. "I'll find a way to rip the wings from your back and fashion them into a key to get him out."
"Child—"
"I'm not a child!" Bae yells. "I just destroyed Pan himself. You really think a fairy's going to be harder to kill than that monster?"
"His darkness has already corrupted you," she proclaims, all sadness and resignation. "We will keep the Dark One contained, for the good of all."
"No," Bae says over the sound of Belle's cry behind him. "No, you won't. Right now, fairy, your kind are welcomed in every land, by every ruler, but particularly by Snow and David. But when I tell them how far you've overstepped yourself, how cruel you really are…what do you think will happen when the people learn to be afraid of the fairies? When they cower at the sight of you? When they set out traps and find ways to repel your kind?"
"We are not evil. We grant wishes—"
"And never reveal the price. Well, I will. Belle's read every book she's ever gotten her hands on, and I'm used to not having a home. She's going to uncover every secret price you've exacted—and I'm going to travel to every land and tell everyone what secrets the fairies hide. I will destroy you, Reul Ghorm, even if it takes the rest of my life."
"Bae," Papa says, but Bae doesn't take his eyes from the fairy.
"Let. Him. Go."
"No," the Blue Fairy says. "I will not endanger the world for that monster."
"He's not the monster," Belle says. "You are."
"I'm sorry you feel that way. But the dwarfs are on their way to carry the Dark One somewhere safe. He will never be allowed to hurt anyone again."
Bae presses his back against the cage, feels his papa's hand gathering a handful of his coat, both of them desperate not to be separated yet again. "You're not touching him," he hisses.
"Bae." Belle tugs on Bae's sleeve and turns him to her. "Bae, you have to go."
"What?!" He tears his arm away from her, stung by his sudden sense of betrayal. "How can you say that? I'm not abandoning him!"
"Of course you're not. Neither of us are. I'm going to stay with him. But you…you are going to go talk to the King and Queen."
Bae's throat closes around a lump so thick it's painful.
"I grant you this last kindness," the Blue Fairy says suddenly, "a moment to say your farewells."
She vanishes in a sparkle and a glimmer.
"She's probably off to talk to the rulers before you can," Belle says almost bitterly. "Baelfire, please, you have to go. The King and Queen know you, right? Surely you talked to them again after your escape?"
"I…I stayed with them. They were very kind to me. But…" Bae looks away. He's not sure how to explain that they probably hate him now, after he all but kidnapped their precious daughter and led her straight into danger before abandoning her in the middle of nowhere. He'll be lucky if they don't shoot him on sight.
"You have to ask them for help. Beg for clemency. Do whatever you have to do to let them know that the fairies are imprisoning an innocent man without a trial. Snow and David wouldn't even execute the Evil Queen—there's no way they'll let your father languish in a cage."
"Belle, you don't know what happened—"
"You have to go," she says again. "Before the dwarfs get here and the fairies stop you. Please, Baelfire, go."
"Belle—"
"She's right, son." Rumplestiltskin meets his gaze. "It's all right. You only leave to save me, right?"
"I hate this!" Bae cries. For all his protestations that he's not a child, he's never felt so much like one. "I don't want to leave you!"
"Shh, I know." Rumplestiltskin tries to reach through the bars, but hisses when the stench of squid ink, sickly-sweet with the addition of fairy magic, grows thicker. He holds his hands against his chest as if he's been hurt. Bae reaches through for him and cradles his papa's burned hands in his. He ignores the sight of the claws.
"Papa."
"It's okay, Bae. You can do this."
Bae closes his eyes over tears that burn like acid. "I'm coming back," he whispers.
"I know."
"But first." Bae straightens and goes to find a rock. When he returns with a heavy boulder between his hands, he finds Belle whispering furiously with Papa. They both fall silent when they see him. "Just in case this works," Bae says, and he attacks the door of the cage with the boulder. He hits it again and again, over and over, roaring out his grief and his defiance.
And the cage door opens. It sags, lopsided, on its hinges, and creaks nearly open.
But Papa can't pass through. Every time he tries, he falls back with his teeth gritted and a new burn. Turns out that fairy magic on top of squid ink doesn't mix well with whatever Papa is now.
"Baelfire." Belle lays a gentle hand on Bae's shoulder, and at that soft touch, he falls still in his attack on the rest of the cage. "I'll stay with him."
"You promise?" he asks, nearly desperately.
"I promise," she says, and as if to prove it, she pulls open that lopsided door and steps into the cage.
Backed into the corner, Rumplestiltskin stares, his eyes wide and too large in his scaled face. Belle's smile is both for him and for Bae.
"I'll stay with him," she says again. "You go talk to the rulers."
"I love you, Papa," Bae says. Before he goes, he strips off his papa's coat and gives it back to him. He hopes wherever the fairies keep him, he won't be too cold. As he leans into the cage to wrap the coat around his papa's slender shoulders, he feels Belle touch his belt. When her hand retreats, she leaves a weight behind, and he knows instantly what it is—he's felt it countless times before. "I'm going to save you."
"I love you, son."
This time, when their hands fall away from each other, it's Bae who lets go first.
Before Belle can reach out to the corner where Rumplestiltskin cowers, the dwarfs arrive. They are, she must admit, friendly enough. To her. In fact, they spend a good deal of time trying to coax her out of the cage before finally giving in and repairing the door, replacing the padlock, all the while muttering threats and imprecations against the monster within.
"Any time you want out, sister," Grumpy tells her, "you just let me know and I'll get you out of there."
He glares at Rumplestiltskin, who gives no indication that he notices anything at all past the rubbing of his thumb over his forefinger.
"Rumple," Belle says softly. His shoulders shrink in on themselves, he doesn't look at her, and Belle resolves to wait until the dwarfs have finished carrying them to wherever the Blue Fairy means to keep them.
She wishes she'd never asked for the Blue Fairy's help. If she'd only known better, taken more time to read up on the stories of what happened after the fairies came, then she never would have alerted the Reul Ghorm to the fact that she and Baelfire meant to save the Dark One. And then the Blue Fairy wouldn't have known to collect and then use all their squirreled-away squid ink to form this cage. Wouldn't have been waiting and watching for the appearance of the Dark One. Using pixie dust as their gateway probably just painted a huge red X on their arrival to all fairy eyes, too.
This is all her fault. Baelfire hadn't wanted to ask the fairies for help. Belle had insisted. And now Rumplestiltskin hides in a corner, his face turned away from her, and Baelfire's distraught expression is seared onto the backs of her eyelids.
The dwarfs carry the cage through the woods on a path that leads to mines which themselves descend deep below the reach of the sun. Belle's hands clench the bars tight, both to keep herself steady in the rattling cage and to keep her panic under control. This is too much like that cell back in Neverland, all crystal and reflected light, but even there…even there, she had some measure of control.
Here, she doubts her belief will do anything. Not when everything she's ever believed about good and heroes and fairies is bending and melting away.
The dwarfs leave two torches, set to either side of the mouth leading back to this forgotten corner of the earth. Belle turns her back on the flickering light and tries to peer past the shadows to Rumplestiltskin.
"Rumple?" she asks, softly.
She tried to give him his dagger back, while Baelfire looked for a rock big enough to bash through dwarf metal. But Rumplestiltskin refused it.
"Don't let the fairies get it," he begged.
But Belle will not leave him. She refuses to hold power over his very soul.
So to keep it from the fairies, she gave it to Baelfire. He looked back at her, on his way out of that clearing, and they exchanged a single nod. They won't allow anyone to hurt Rumplestiltskin.
And that includes herself.
"Rumple," she says again. Though every cell in her body strains toward him, she doesn't move. "Are you okay?"
He laughs. It's not the laugh she's heard only a scant couple times, the laugh so hard-won and so treasured. No, this is a giggle. A titter. A high-pitched snicker that takes her aback.
"Okay?" he asks. "How could I possibly be okay? Those pesky little gnats have me in a cage and you walked right into it. Now we're both trapped here and if you think that sanctimonious bug is above using the dagger, you really are too naïve to survive."
Rumplestiltskin has a temper, she already knew that, and this is hardly the first time he's snarled and snapped at her. It is the first time she hears real malice behind the words.
"I trust Baelfire," she says as calmly as she can manage. Slowly, she sinks down to sit with her back pressed uncomfortably against the bars. She will not be afraid of him. "And I know you do too."
"He left me." There is a real attempt at fury behind these words, but they are too forlorn to carry the act well.
Belle smiles wistfully. "He's coming back. He loves you, Rumple, remember?"
"Don't try that command with me!" he snaps.
"I can't," she tells him, willing him to understand, "even if I would."
And the silence stretches between them. A thin thread like spider-silk, strong and tensile and so delicate she's afraid to even breathe into it.
"Belle," he almost gasps, and then he's moving, scrabbling toward her, reaching out with hands that don't quite complete the journey.
Immediately, Belle moves to meet him halfway. She slides into his trembling arms, welcomes the touch of his shaking hands, curls up close to his rattling heart. And if she feels his touch searching for the dagger, affirming that it is gone, far out of danger, safe with his son, then she only opens herself more fully to him to allow him this peace of mind.
"Belle," he whispers. He sounds like himself again, though she knows the Dark One is still there, still the shadow in his wake. It will, she is afraid, only grow stronger with every moment that passes in this land. "Belle, you stayed."
"Of course I did." She looks up into his face, half in shadow, half in light, while her fingers play with the ends of his hair. "I don't want to leave you, Rumple. Please don't ask me to again."
"The curse," he says. "It's strongest here. You…you may think you saw something in me, before, but here, I'm the Dark One."
"I know. You were the Dark One in Neverland too," she points out.
"But here—"
"Here, you're still Rumplestiltskin." She tries a smile on him. "Just…with a bit more baggage."
His knuckle is feather-light on her cheek. Even in the dim lightning, she can see the awe on his face. "Oh, Belle, all I'm ever going to do is disappoint you."
"Rumple." Belle is trapped underground in a cage with a monster, completely alone aside from him, freshly escaped from a nightmare world. But it is only now, in this moment, with this question dangling on her lips, that she is truly afraid.
Do the brave thing, she tells herself, and maybe bravery will follow.
"Rumple, do you want me to stay?"
He doesn't answer for a long moment. His arms are banded tight around her, but the tips of his fingers just barely graze her face. "I don't…not want you to stay," he finally breathes out.
There are words in her mouth. Words that have been waiting there for a long time.
But why say them, when she can press them straight from her mouth, her tongue, her lips, to his?
"Rumple," she breathes, and she tilts her face up until his breath plays over her lips.
When she pauses, just for a second, Rumple lets out a tiny sound and tightens his hand against her spine to draw her closer.
Belle smiles—and kisses him.
Soldiers meet Bae before he makes it to the front gate. They take his name with grim faces, quickly confer together in furious whispers, and then escort him through palace corridors he might recognize if he could see anything but the sight of his papa looking so small in that tiny, stinking cage.
The sight of his papa with the Dark One's scales and eyes and power.
To his surprise, they do not take him to the throne room, and there is no one in the room he's deposited within. He has a moment of terror, thinking this is a cell and he will be trapped here like Milah is somewhere and he'll never make it back and Papa will think he never even looked back. But then, a deep breath later, Bae recognizes the room.
It's his. Or rather, the one he stayed in while he relearned how to live. The one where he and Emma shared their first kiss.
Tentatively, Bae tries the doors leading to the balcony, and when they open, he steps out. It's still daylight, no sign of the stars he and Emma pretended to map, but he can almost feel her here. His heart twinges in his chest, and he reaches up to lay his palm over the abused organ. In his other hand, he clenches tight the hilt of the dagger enslaving his papa in a cage more inescapable even than the Blue Fairy's.
"Neal."
He whirls toward that voice, and already, he knows what he will see.
Emma.
She stands on the threshold, and for a moment, a too-transient moment, he sees her as she was—young and brilliant and so happy to see him, bubbling over with plans for them. Then he blinks, and he sees her as she is—still young, but older in face, more reserved, dressed in a long gown of ice-blue, her expression shuttered. She doesn't make even a single move toward him.
"Emma," he breathes out. She's okay. She's safe. Pinocchio got her home.
"You're here," she says. If there's any emotion to her voice, he can't read it. "You've returned."
"I always…" The words die in his throat. He wasn't always planning to. In fact, his plans were the complete opposite. "I always wanted to," he says instead, because this at least is truth.
She sneers. "I'm sure."
Neal blinks, taken aback by the bitterness that feathers her voice. Her expression. Her stillness. Another blink, and the past her disappears still further, revealing more of this strange version of her.
"I'm sorry I left you, Emma," he says, tentative and sincere. "I didn't want to, I promise. But…"
"But you did anyway."
"I had to!" he cries. "You're the one who reminded me that I couldn't leave Belle and Papa trapped in Neverland. You helped me—you know I had to go."
"Alone?" she asks coldly. The spark he's so used to seeing in her is gone, search for it though he does. There's an iciness wrapped all around her. A cold frost that turns him frigid where he stands. "You left without so much as a goodbye."
"You never would have let me go alone," he says. "You would have insisted on coming with me."
"That was the plan."
"Emma, you're the princess!" he snaps. "You're…you're important. You're special. You're… You have so much to live for. You have so many people who love you. How could I be so selfish as to take you away from them just to put you in danger?"
"Selfish," she scoffs. "That's the word for it. I trusted you, Neal, and you just left. You used me for what you could get out of me, and then you left me behind like I was nothing."
Neal stares. He feels as if he's been kicked in the chest. "No. No, that's…that's not what happened. I didn't…"
"You got your Wonderland mushrooms. A bean. A portal. A way to save the only family you know about. A few nights of pleasure. And then you didn't need me anymore."
"I need you," he whispers. His eyes fall to the floor, unable to see this angry, abandoned woman who wears Emma's face. Unable to stomach the thought that he did this to her. As if he's Pan, as if he carries the legacy of his grandfather, turning everything he touches to poison. "I need you too much to tie you down to me when… I couldn't… Even if I hadn't gone back to Neverland, nothing ever could have happened between us." He takes a deep breath but feels lightheaded anyway. "Pan needed my son in order to live. He would have killed him. I can never… There can never be a son."
At Emma's sharp gasp, Neal looks up. The ice in her eyes has cracked. It's still there, but thinner than he imagined. Brittle, even, unable to stand up to the slightest pressure.
"Emma?"
"You can't have kids." She laughs, then, so suddenly that Neal can only stare. "Are you kidding me?"
Neal's cheeks burn with mortification. With hurt. "So, maybe you weren't thinking about marrying me," he mumbles. "Doesn't mean that I—"
"Neal, you do realize people can have kids without getting married, don't you?"
"What?"
The distance between them feels wider than the chasm in Echo Cave. Neal and Emma regard each other, both noting the differences, the similarities, in the other. Neal wishes he could cross that space with a step or two, wishes he could pull her into his arms, wishes she would kiss him back. He's so tired, and he feels so alone, and he missed her in a way he didn't even dare fully realize until the sight of her made all his walls crumble to nothing.
But she stands so aloof. Her eyes measure him rather than take him in, weigh up whatever it is she's looking for rather than yearn for him. And he can't move. He's too cold already.
"I did it," he offers in a quiet voice. Maybe he ruined her. Maybe she hates him. But she deserves to know that she didn't help him in vain. She saved them all. "I saved Papa and Belle. Pan is dead."
"Pan is dead." Emma looks away for the first time in the conversation. "So your son doesn't have to worry."
Neal furrows his brow. "My papa has to worry," he says. "As soon as we got here, the Blue Fairy magicked up a cage around him. She plans on locking him away for eternity."
"All alone?" Emma asks, and for the first time, he recognizes her. He recognizes the horror in her voice at this prospect, and it warms his heart and thaws the ice between them. There is a flicker of sparks catching fire between them.
"Yes," he says, nearly shattering at this show of understanding. "Another cage. Another prison. They don't even plan on putting him on trial! And Pan did have the dagger—you were right, you were always right, Papa would never have let me go, and I can't leave him, Emma, I can't just let him rot in some cage when all he's ever done is love me—"
"Shh. Shh. Neal. It's okay. We're going to make this okay." And she crosses the chasm between them—not with a truth, but with a hope—and takes him in his arms, and finally, finally, Neal is home.
He's home. And he's alive. And he's safe. And Emma holds onto him as if she never wants to let go. And this is all far too good to be true. Briefly, he wonders if he's imagining this, back in Dark Hollow, just dreaming familiar, extraordinary things onto the Shadows around him.
"I'm sorry, Emma," he breathes into her neck as he folds down into her. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want to leave you. I've missed you so much. I can't lose Papa again."
He's not even making sense. He knows that. But he's been strong for so long, and he's tired. He's so tired. When is the last time he's even slept? It feels as if it's been eternities.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, again and again. "I'm sorry."
"Shh." Emma strokes a hand through his hair. "It's okay. I'm going to help you."
"No." He pulls back but can't quite make himself let go of her completely, so he finds himself stroking her arms, feeling the warmth of her beneath her expensive dress. "No. I'm not here to use you, okay? I…I never meant to do that. I never could have done anything without you, but that doesn't mean I only care about you because—"
"Neal. I know."
"You do?" He frowns and wrinkles his brow. "Are you sure? Because a minute ago, it didn't seem that—"
"I was trying to protect someone. But now…now I know that you did protect them."
"What are you talking about?" he asks bluntly. If he is dreaming this all up, the Shadows aren't playing the script right.
"Neal, how much time has passed for you?"
He can't breathe. Not this again.
"Not…not very long. We were only there a day or two, just a few." Although…he and Pan had traded so many truths that his throat had gone hoarse. But no, no, it wasn't long. "No longer than a week."
Emma grimaces. "Um. Okay. See, here's the thing…"
"It's been longer than that?"
"Yeah. A lot longer. A little over a year."
"A year." Neal steps back, feels the railing of the balcony jar against the small of his back. "A whole year."
"A whole year. A year in which…kind of a lot happened."
"Your parents…?" He can't even get the question all the way out.
She shakes her head and takes handfuls of his tunic to pull him back to her. "They're fine. They're okay. I mean, they're kind of mad at you, but the good news is that I have a lot more power now than I did last year."
"Power?"
"Responsibility." She rolls her eyes. "They're trying to get me ready to take over, so…you know, they listen to me about things. Most of the time."
A spark of hope ignites a conflagration in his chest, and he lifts her and spins her. "Then you can tell the Blue Fairy to let Papa go?" A flicker of guilt rushes through him and he sets her quickly down. "I mean, if you want, I'm not trying to use you—"
"Yeah, uh, a say on the council is nowhere near what you'd need to give a command to the head of the fairies."
"But Reul Ghorm listens to your parents, doesn't she?"
"Not really. She tells them stuff, sure. And occasionally helps if Mom asks her. But she doesn't really take commands."
"But…" Neal feels his hope fading. He can't see anything but Papa withering to nothing behind bars, waiting for his son to come visit him, letting Neal go over and over again and never revealing how much it costs him. "Papa's in a cage right now. I promised I'd save him, but I can't do anything. Belle's with him. She walked straight into the cage after him, Emma, and refused to leave. But I promised them I'd find a way out."
"And we will." Emma takes his face in her hands and makes him meet her gaze. There's nothing of ice, nothing cold, nothing unfamiliar, in her green eyes. She is ablaze, brilliant, like a sun held within the circle of his arms. "Neal, do you trust me?"
Bae's lived lifetimes in a world where no one was trustworthy. He's been manipulated countless times by half-truths and implied lies. Betrayal has come to be nothing more than a basic fact of life to him. But Bae has the beginnings of Neal in him, too. And now, looking into Emma's eyes, all Neal can think is that she cares.
"I trust you," he says. "Emma, I love you."
Her whole face softens. "Then I think there's someone you should meet."
"Right now?"
"Trust me, you're going to want to. Because when you meet him…it's going to change your life."
"And it'll help save Papa?"
Emma laughs. "He sure saved me."
Belle kisses him, and a tidal wave of magic is unleashed all around them. Rumplestiltskin feels it, like a warm rush of water, like a heated blanket on a cold night, but the magic is secondary, almost negligible compared to the feel of Belle pressing into him, her hands delving into his hair, her mouth opening beneath his.
Every voice in his head goes quiet. Every whispered temptation disappears. Everything in the world vanishes—save Belle.
They're in a cage only just tall enough for him to stand upright, barely wide enough for them to sit without touching each other. They're buried beneath the earth, nearly entirely in the dark, the bars locked over them, squid ink choking him with its fumes. His papa is dead, forever gone. He himself is cursed and back in the world where his curse is alive and well and so much stronger than him. Back to the world his son sacrificed to restore his papa back to his weak and cowardly self. And his son is gone, maybe never to return.
But Belle.
Belle pulls him down on top of her as she reclines, her arms wrapped so tightly around him that there will never be a danger of him disappearing, and her hair tickles his nose, her knees dig painfully into his hip as he lurches off-center, loathe to let his mouth part from hers, and this is all so real that it feels as if he has, finally, awoken from a centuries' long nightmare.
The slide of her lips over his has him shuddering, has him lowering to his elbows and letting the full length of him press against her. She doesn't stiffen. Doesn't shove him away. Instead, she draws him closer, and her hands push only at his coat and only until he shrugs it off. Then she pulls him back down into her, and Rumplestiltskin lets out a sound he's never heard himself make before.
"Rumple," she breathes into his mouth, and he swallows down that noise and every other one she makes until he needs to breathe, until she's gasping, and then he drags his lips down her chin, her throat, to the fastening of her cloak that she impatiently tugs free and throws aside. His fingers dare to paint pretty words against her collarbone, moving downward, searching for flesh beneath clothing, and Belle whines so high in her throat he can't resist kissing her again just to taste that needy sound.
I love you, he thinks. And he knows it is a mistake. He knows she will come to regret it. He knows how this will end—women don't like to be married to cowards, or love them.
But for now…for now, Belle squirms underneath him until all his thoughts take wing, and her hands sketch the jutting angles of his ribs beneath his shirt, and one of her ankles hooks around his—
Blaring agony rips through his ankle and has him swearing and falling to the side to grasp for his leg, for whatever has bitten clean through it and now holds it in slavering jaws.
But there's nothing there. Just old scar tissue from centuries ago. Old scar tissue…and an old ache that settles back like embers caught in the joint. A familiar pain.
From before he had magic.
Before he was the Dark One.
"Belle…" he says over her worried coos and anxious inquiries. She is a silhouetted shape over him—not a shadow, there's too much light in her for that—and she holds all the power here and he hopes, he hopes, this is not the day she regrets him.
"Belle," he says again. And for just a moment, awash in the warmth of magic more powerful than any he's ever felt before, emptied of darkness, he is brave. "Do you love me?"
Her smile splits the darkness into a thousand pieces. "I do," she says in a rush. "Of course I do. I love you, Rumplestiltskin."
Tension he didn't even realize he was carrying slips from him, leaving him weightless. And yet, contrarily, he has never been so filled up with hope, expanding around the swollen growth of it, bursting to full bloom within him.
"And I love you," he says. Before she can do more than bend to kiss him again, he says, "You don't happen to see any big rocks around, do you? Because I think we can leave this cage as soon as we get the door open."
Emma puts a baby in his arms. At first, Neal doesn't know why they're here, in what is clearly a nursery with a crib and a unicorn mobile and about a thousand toys. He doesn't know why Emma's eyes are softer than he's ever seen them as she scoops the baby up from his crib like she's done it a hundred times before. And he doesn't know why she watches so expectantly as she places the baby in his arms, all warm and bundled up in a shawl striped red and gray.
"I named him Nolan," Emma says. She looks almost shy as she chances a glance up at him from the baby. "It means champion. Just like Neal."
And that's when Neal knows.
That's when his heart clenches and dies in his chest only to be birthed anew, like a phoenix, rising from the ashes as a completely different person—the person he most wants to be.
This baby's father.
"Hey," Neal says, his voice almost inaudible. The baby's eyes flutter and open, and Neal can't breathe as he stares into hazel eyes that are the loveliest things he's ever seen—so lovely he could take flight, could fly in any and every world. "Hey, Nolan. It's me. I'm so glad to meet you. I'm your papa."
And he could swear the baby smiles at him. He could cry as the baby—his son—reaches up through the swaddling to make a grab for his face. He ends up playing his fingers through the hair around Neal's mouth, and Emma laughs.
"Told you that was a look. It's grown on me, but he seems to like it already."
"He's mine?" Neal chokes out, wanting to look to her for guidance, for answers, for reassurance, but not able to tear his eyes from every flicker, every twitch, this baby makes. "He's ours? Really?"
No Shadows could have possibly dreamed this up.
"Yeah, Neal. He's ours. And he's kind of the reason my parents are a tad upset with you. But he's also the reason they'll forgive you. I mean, you are their future son-in-law."
Now his eyes fly up to her, Emma, all gold and blue and brilliant in this room he never would have imagined for her—for them—but that is suddenly his favorite place in every world.
Emma smiles nervously. "If…that's okay with you? 'Cause I kind of already told everyone that you planned to marry me as soon as you made it back. It was Pinocchio's idea—kind of spin the whole run-off-and-leave-me-pregnant thing as instead you trying to pass some stupid trial or something to earn the right to my hand. I thought it sounded stupid, but he swore it would work. And I mean, Mom and Dad bought it. Kind of. But if you don't want to marry me, then—"
"I want to," Neal blurts out so fast the words fall all over each other. He tightens his grip on Nolan—his son!—and reaches for Emma with the other. "There's nothing I want more. I love you, Emma, and I'm never leaving you again. You or our son."
And there's no Pan to ruin this.
Her smile is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen—until Nolan smiles, too, and laughs at them.
Neal never even imagined it was possible to be so happy.
"No rocks," Belle says after a thorough search of all the ground within arm's reach. Rumplestiltskin still seems a bit hesitant to get too close to the ink-soaked bars, despite the fact that he's tested that it's safe for him now several times. Belle wishes the torches were closer, or that they could bask in the sunlight she misses so badly—she wants to see him.
It's not that his Dark One look repulsed her. Not at all! In fact, she wouldn't have minded several hours or days of being able to study those scales more closely. His claws were effortlessly gentle whenever he touched her. And his eyes—well, they certainly captured her attention.
But now he looks as he did in Neverland, but different, ever so subtly. Lighter, somehow. More real. If she had sunshine, or any kind of light, Belle would insist on sitting down right up close to him and memorizing him all over again—if he would let her. Even after their heated kisses, he still tends to duck away from any perusal that last too long.
"So we're still stuck here," Rumplestiltskin says.
"Looks that way." Belle takes a step closer to him. "But not for long. Surely, when Baelfire brings help and they see that you're not the Dark One anymore, they'll let us go."
"You can go any time," he reminds her, his voice almost wistful. "And we don't know when Bae's coming back."
Belle narrows her eyes. "You mean if, don't you? You really think he's going to just leave you here?"
"I think Bae will never stop being a hero. But I also think that there are a great many things that happen in life that we never see coming. Anything could happen to him."
"He's coming," Belle says simply. "And he's going to be so happy to see that your curse is broken."
"Yes." Rumplestiltskin turns away, and even though she knows he doesn't like the smell of the bars, he moves closer to them. Just to get away from her? "He'll be happy. And relieved."
Biting her lip, Belle tries very hard to think before she speaks. To take this slowly. To not just rush in and ruin whatever tentative thing is growing between them. "And," she says, "are you happy?"
He looks over his shoulder at her. "I love you," he says, and even though she can tell that's not the end of his sentence, it makes her nearly glow to hear it. "And I love Bae, and I want you both to be happy."
"We are," she says. "Or, well, I am now, and he will be."
"You won't be for long," he predicts glumly, and sinks to the floor of the cage.
Unable to keep herself still for even a second longer, Belle swoops down to sit beside him. Her skin still tingles from his kisses, his caresses, his nearness, and she wishes they could go back to exploring that new facet of their relationship, but the more sensible part of her recognizes that Rumplestiltskin has just gone through a life-altering change and he needs time to process that. And a cage where the fairies or dwarfs might pass by at any moment is perhaps not the best place for all the exploring she wishes to do.
Taking Rumple's hand in both of hers, Belle turns into his side in an attempt to replicate the way they sat so often together under their canopy on Deadman's Peak. "Rumple," she says, "what's wrong?"
"I'm nothing," he says, and sags against her. "I'm lame. Friendless. And without the power…Belle, I'm a coward."
"What?" She reaches up, trying to turn his face toward her, but he resists and squeezes his eyes shut. "That's not true! Rumple, you've done so many brave things since I've known you! You gave up everything for Bae and you faced Pan and—"
"Only because I had magic. Or because I was compelled to. Without magic, Belle, I'm just…"
"An ordinary man?" Belle smiles at him, inches closer, slides her hand up from his shirt to the tendons of his throat. She feels it as he swallows. "You're a hero, Rumple."
"But I'm not."
"You are."
"Belle!" he exclaims, and she'd be worried about his frustration if she didn't feel him simultaneously place a hand on the dip of her waist.
Their lips are so close. He's so close. And kissing is better than her books ever made it seem. And…and…
"What if I'm not?" he whispers. "Just…think about it, Belle, please? What if I'm not the hero you think? What if I'm not brave?"
"But—"
"Because one day you're going to see behind all the adventures and the danger. You're going to see who I really am. And if you decide to leave me then… Just, please, think about it now. Know now."
"Rumple."
Under her touch, he's shaking. Minute tremors that drain her of her giddy joy.
So she takes a breath. And she thinks about it. Or tries to. But how can she possibly imagine Rumplestiltskin as anything but brave when she's never seen him be anything else? He's not a knight. He will never charge full-on into the lair of a dragon. The waving banners of war, the gleaming armor of knights, the grand quests of princes—those are not what Rumplestiltskin is built for. But by a home hearth, cozied up in a place just for family, awash with the fervor of his love for family, Belle has already seen, again and again, that Rumplestiltskin excels in doing anything for the ones he loves. It is a quieter, homelier bravery than her books tell of, perhaps, but it is all the more mesmerizing for its humble zeal.
"Rumple," Belle says. "I love you. And when you find something that's worth fighting for, you never give up. I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to walk away." A twinge of conscience assails her—the memory of arguments with her father, with Gaston, even with Baelfire a time or two—and she adds, "Well, I might walk away when I'm angry, but I'll always come back. I promise."
"And if I'm not worth fighting for?" he asks. But he's pulling her close, he's bending his head, he's breathing unsteadily.
"Rumple," she says. "Our kiss broke your curse. Only True Love can do that. You're never not going to be worth everything to me."
And this time, he's the one who kisses her.
"Take deep breaths," Emma advises. "You sure you've got him?"
"Please don't take him," Neal begs, and holds Nolan tighter against his chest. He wishes he had somewhere to put the dagger hidden in the back of his belt under his cloak; even the thought of its darkness being so near his boy makes his heart skip a beat. But, no, he won't trust it with anyone else but Belle. Not even Emma, not until Papa at least meets her and learns he can trust her just like Neal does.
Emma smiles and smooths a hand over the cap on Nolan's head. Earlier, Neal had been compelled to take off that cap and run his fingers through his son's downy hair, but Emma said he'd get cold so he replaced it. Neal presses his mouth against that cap and breathes in the scent of baby—of his son.
Be brave, he thinks. For Nolan. For Emma. For Papa. For Belle. For me.
With Emma's hand looped through his elbow, tucked between Nolan and his own heart, Neal steps into the council chambers. Snow White and David sit in chairs side by side at the round table, while above them floats the tiny glowing form of Reul Ghorm.
"As I told you," she says with only the merest glance to Neal. "The darkness has corrupted him. You would be wise to limit his contact with any whom you care for."
"And just who are you talking about?" Emma asks. "Surely not Neal, your future King?"
"We serve no mortal rulers," sniffs the Blue Fairy.
Emma blatantly ignores her and turns to her parents. "Mom, Dad, he's done it. Neal has vanquished Peter Pan and returned to me. I believe we all agreed on what that meant?"
David's eyes are stern, but nowhere near as unyielding as Snow White's.
"That agreement was made before we knew that the Darkness could be so widespread," the Queen says. "Emma, Neverland has a far-reaching effect. Belle told us that Pan could wipe memories and rewrite personalities. The person you think you know might—"
"Belle is here," Neal interrupts. "She can tell you herself what happens in Neverland, a firsthand account even. Or she could—if she weren't currently locked in a cage with my papa."
"The Dark One," David interrupts. "I'm sorry, Neal, but your father is the Dark One. He's not just an innocent in all this."
"Neither was Regina," Emma says. "But now she walks among the people with her reformed thief."
"She's proved herself to us."
"Then give Rumplestiltskin a chance to do the same." Emma steps away from Neal in order to face both her parents. "You said that everyone in our kingdom, no matter how important or how ordinary, deserved the right to a free trial. You said that we have to give everyone a chance to show their better side. Well, Neal's father is in our kingdom, and Dark One or not, he deserves the right to a trial at the least, a second chance at the most. He's done nothing yet to break any of our crimes."
"Simply by existing, the Dark One sullies this world." The Blue Fairy floats closer, and Neal can't help the way he turns to put his body between the fairy and his son. Of course, that puts Papa's dagger nearer her, so he backs away altogether. "Princess, please, hear me: you have never encountered an evil as great as that of the Dark One. Simply because it's been centuries that he's been locked safely from this world, you think yourself safe from the horrors he can unleash. But if given freedom, I assure you, he will cover this land in darkness."
"How can you say that?" Neal burst out. "You don't even know him!"
"Of course I do. The man abandoned by his cowardly father only to grow up to be a spinner who himself ran from a battle in which he could have saved others. A self-maimed cripple who let his wife be taken and his son be frightened by the curse which he took on in order to obtain power for himself."
"You're a liar!" Neal spits. "That's not who Papa is at all! He was abandoned by his father—but he put that behind him. He learned a trade and fell in love and got married, and when he was drafted, he went to war like he was supposed to. He only crippled himself so he could come back and ensure his own son didn't grow up fatherless like he did. His wife loathed him and mistreated him and took out all her anger on him—I was there, I remember, and you want to know what he did? He took it. All of it. Because he thought he deserved it, and because he thought it was better directed at him than at me. And when I was going to be taken and sent off to a war I couldn't possibly survive, he did everything he could to save me—which, yes, meant taking on a curse, but he didn't know the truth of it. He was desperate. And for as evil as you think he is, as dark as his curse truly is, when I asked him to go to the Land Without Magic with me…he did. He left his whole world. He let go of the magic. He sacrificed everything for his son."
"That was a long time ago," the fairy says. "Before Pan had centuries to manipulate him."
"Papa's the one who told me how to kill Pan." Neal only narrowly bites back the truth that doing so meant helping to kill his own father. Rumplestiltskin wouldn't thank him for airing that bit of family laundry, and the fairy doesn't deserve to know it anyway. She would only use it to make them fear Rumplestiltskin more. "Without Papa, I never would have managed to destroy Peter Pan."
"Baelfire—"
"My name is Neal," he grits.
"And he's my fiancé." Emma steps up to stand by his side, her hand automatically reaching to pat Nolan on his arm. "And the father of the future King."
"He's the Dark One's son," the Blue Fairy says. "He's compromised."
Emma smirks triumphantly before wiping it away, so quickly Neal almost thinks he imagined it. She turns once more to her parents. "You hear that? No one's ever going to trust Neal if they only see him as the Dark One's son. What do you think that means for Nolan? Do you really want people to revile him as the Dark One's grandson? To hate him? Fear him?"
"They wouldn't do that!" Snow White gasps. "He's our grandchild. No one would think—"
"They will if you keep his other grandfather locked up in a hole in the ground," Emma says. She moves to take her mom's hand, reaches for her dad, pulls them both toward her. "When he's old enough to ask questions, what are you going to tell Nolan about his grandfather? How are you going to explain that you locked him in a cage under our very feet, kept in the dark, and that he is never going to be given the chance to be free?"
Snow's expression crumples while David's turns determined. "We will not allow that to happen," the King declares.
"Your Majesties," the Blue Fairy begins, when something warm and colored rushes through the room. It feels like a wave surging over his feet, except it shudders through his heart, and Neal hugs Nolan closer to his chest, warmed and wanting to share the good feeling with his son.
"What was that?" Emma demands, her body interposed between Nolan and the rest of the room.
The King and Queen exchange a brief, telling look. "True Love's Kiss," Snow says quietly.
"No! For the Dark One?" The Blue Fairy's face blanches before she disappears in a sparkling of light.
"You don't think…" David begins. "It couldn't be…"
Emma narrows her eyes at Neal. "You said Belle stayed with your father. She stepped into the cage with him."
That warm feeling only grows, swelling and expanding until Neal feels a sense of magnanimous charity toward everyone in the room—well, now that the Blue Fairy is gone.
"She said she loves him," he admits, and watches as Emma whirls on her parents.
"True Love," she says. "You above all people know the strength of that. Your true love helped win your kingdom back. There's no way you'd be willing to set yourself against it now! If Rumplestiltskin can love truly, he cannot be all dark!"
Neal hides his smile against the tiny cap over Nolan's head to avoid smirking at the outmaneuvered rulers, and whispers into his son's ear, "You see that, kid? That's your mom. Isn't she amazing?"
A/N: Originally, this whole section was going to be longer and angstier, but by this point in the story, I kind of felt that they'd all been through enough, so we got True Love's Kiss and open communication a LOT faster. Hope that's okay with everyone - I know I was definitely ready for some happiness!