18.

Morning came particularly early, but Belle had never been a morning person. Habits of reading just before bed and getting lost in the book until the wee hours of the morning did not make for an early riser. Even when she worked for Rumple in the Dark Castle, he was constantly complaining, even though he never took the initiative to wake her up. He let her sleep and then complained. Her favourite was when he had started waiting breakfast on her, likely just to complain that it was cold by the time she arrived.

That was why she was a little surprised to wake to a dark room that morning. She blinked drowsily, trying to gain her bearings. A soft wimped from next to her in the bed caught her attention and she sat up. She was in Rumple's room and he seemed to be fighting against a nightmare of some kind. Belle reached out carefully, not quite sure how to wake him without adding to whatever terrors he was trying to face down. He was twisted up in the sheets and as her eyes adjusted to the shadows she saw how his brows drew together. "Rumple?" she whispered, touching his arm carefully.

Dark eyes flew open as he came awake. For a moment he didn't seem to know where he was or why there would be someone waking him, but as they focused in on her recognition followed. "Belle," he whispered, his voice a bit scratchy.

"Hey," she greeted him and leaned over to kiss his forehead. "You were having a nightmare." A frown tilted her lips downward, and she reached her hand up and rested the palm of it against his cheek. "And you're warm. Are you feeling well?"

He made a noncommittal sound and burrowed down a bit under the blankets, looking more than a little miserable. Belle frowned and smoothed back his hair. "Just try to get more sleep. Do you need anything?"

Rumplestiltskin shook his head and closed his eyes. He looked so very human in that moment that if he hadn't appeared as if he felt so terrible it would have made Belle smile. Right then, though, her thoughts were focused on helping him to feel better, so she pressed a kiss to his shoulder and slipped out of the bed, grabbing his robe from the back of the bathroom door before padding downstairs to see what they had that she could make for him.

Belle had become more accustomed to the odd noises that the house made over the month and a half that she had been there, so the heater kicking in and the house settling didn't cause her too much worry anymore. There was a strange noise coming from the living room that early morning, though, and she crept in as quietly as she could.

Blonde hair peeked over the top of the sofa facing the television and Belle rounded to see Emma curled up. She didn't look much happier than Rumple had. "Are you sick too?"

The teen glanced over as if she had heard her, just hadn't bothered to look over. "I think I ate something funny."

Belle frowned. "Rumple woke up ill this morning. I hope we're not passing something around."

"Wild night?" Emma teased and Belle rolled her eyes at the implication.

"I was going to make some tea. Would you like some?"

"Yeah, sure. Maybe it'll help." Emma unfolded herself from the couch and held onto the afghan that was wrapped around her shoulders.

"You're not running a fever or anything, are you?"

Emma shook her head. "Nah. I've just been feeling a little funny the last few days. I don't think it's anything."

Belle shrugged, putting the kettle on. She watched the teen out of the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything. She wasn't showing any of the symptoms that Rumple was, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't. His had come on very suddenly, so it didn't mean that they weren't all at risk for it.

She was filling the tea diffuser with loose leaves when the kettle began to sing and Emma plucked it off the stove. She never had a chance to pour the hot water in, though, as a crashing sound from upstairs caught both of their attention.

Belle took off in a sprint, Emma not far behind her. The older woman took the steps two at a time and slammed to a stop at the bedroom door, not wanting to wake Rumple if Bae had made the ruckus.

"What was that?" Baelfire asked from down the hall, looking like he'd been woken from a deep sleep. Well, that answered that question.

Rumple was laid out on the floor between the bed and the bathroom, curled in on himself and shaking violently when they entered. Belle went immediately to him, fingers pushing his hair back and checking to find that his fever had grown worse in the few minutes she had been downstairs. She couldn't get him to turn, though, and the harder she tried, the tighter he curled, coughing painfully and shuddering.

"Papa?" Bae called softly as he knelt on his father's other side. He reached out and took one of his hands and Rumple latched on. "Hey, c'mon. Talk to me, please?"

Rumplestiltskin tensed and Belle tried to catch Bae's eyes. Those brown eyes, so like his father's, were fixed on the trembling man. "Hurts," Rumple managed and Bae reached out with his free hand to brush grey streaked hair out of his face.

"It'll be okay, Papa," he promised and looked up to meet Belle's eyes. "We have to get him to the hospital."

"No," came the raspy response.

"Papa, you were fine last night and on the floor writhing this morning. We need to-"

"No," Rumplestiltskin answered only a little stronger. He may have offered more, but another coughing fit took hold and from the expression he wore, Bae didn't miss the flecks of red against Rumple's hand either.

Belle straightened. "I'm afraid you don't get to say no this time," she said firmly. "I'll go get his coat. Emma, warm up the car?"

"Yeah, sure," the blonde answered, gaze still fixed on Rumple who had stopped trying to argue.

"I'll stay with him," Bae promised softly and Belle nodded. She forced herself to turn and take the stairs, pulling Rumple's robe around her own shoulders tightly as she all but flew back down the stairs.

Baelfire was no expert on medicine, but he had had plenty of experience with dangerous illnesses when he was young. The village he had grown up with was no stranger to death, whether by ogre attack or, as it often was during the bitter winters, by sickness. As a child, not too long after his mother had abandoned them, he had nearly lost his papa to one particular sickness that went around and had done everything in his limited power to keep him fighting. He had begged and pleaded as only a child could, never quite sure if his father had even heard him.

He felt like he was doing that at that moment as he sat on the floor of his papa's bedroom and held tightly to his hand. "This isn't natural, is it?" he whispered.

"No," Rumplestiltskin rasped.

"Magnus gets to people," Bae echoed the warning given just after he'd come to town. "The hospital. Will it be safe? What about Whale?"

"Hate him."

"Yeah, I get that, but can Magnus get to him?"

"Could, but not likely." He pulled in a rattling breath. "Too many medical debts. Would be... forgiven if he had."

"Okay, then you're going. I just got you back. I'm not losing you now."

His papa frowned a little, squeezing his fingers. "Not going," he promised roughly.

It sounded like another argument at first, but the meaning behind to words seeped in and Bae gave a tight smile. "Good."

Belle came back up with her own long jacket and scarf leaving only the hems of her pajama bottoms showing. She handed Baelfire his and let him slip it on until they worked together to get his papa down the stairs and to the car. They had to stop a couple of times, but they got him in. The trip to the hospital was tensely silent with only weak coughs and hushed whispers to break it.

By the time they reached it Rumplestiltskin had gone frighteningly quiet between Bae and Belle in the back seat. Baelfire pushed down the rising panic for what felt like the millionth time as they managed to get him out of the car and inside, people swarming them as they came through the door. Someone had called ahead. Good. He began following them back to the back, but a hand latched onto his upper arm and stopped him mid step. "I'm afraid you can't go back there," the nurse, a man standing several inches taller than Bae and broad across the shoulders, said gruffly.

"Like hell I can't. That's my father."

"Dr Whale will take good care of him," the man promised. "If you could fill out some paperwork as his next of kin?"

Bae felt a sick knot grow in his stomach as he tried to look past the paperwork being waved in his face. "He'll be okay, though, right?"

"They'll take care of him," Belle promised at his side and she took the paperwork. "He'll have it over in a few minutes. Thank you."

The man looked uncertain at first, but finally nodded and released Baelfire's arm. He pulled away irritably and shot him a glare before following Belle over to the stiff-backed chairs.

"It's not his fault," she murmured reasonably.

"I'm well aware of whose fault it is," Rumplestiltskin's son snapped. "This has to end. I don't know how, but it has to. Magnus has come too close just since I got here and-"

"One step at a time," she promised as she sat next to him, Emma on his other side.

Bae looked between the two women and the piles of paperwork in his lap, feeling the waves of panic pushed back a little at least. The dam wasn't steady and it was littered with cracks and holes where the terror threatened to sweep through it, but as Emma leaned in, taking his free hand in hers and Belle offered a reassuring smile, he loosed a breath.

"You really are your father's son," Belle said softly. "All panic first."

"You really think he's going to be okay?"

"I know he is. I didn't just get back to him to lose him. Neither did you, did you?"

"No."

"See? We'll fight for him and even Magnus can't take him from us."

Baelfire nodded slowly and leaned into Emma at his side. She had her head propped on his shoulder now and he pressed his temple against blonde hair. She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to as her fingers tightened around his and he snatched up the pen to jot down what he knew of the information that they had requested.

He was drowning in the memories. He had been tied down and fastened into place, the old cleric looming over him with sightless eyes and a sneer that just didn't end. He could remember blinking up and smarting off in the way he had so often done when handling an enemy of any kind back home, but he'd found out very quickly that, no matter how many times they went back and forth, he should never underestimate Magnus for any reason.

The cleric had ripped into him, pushing a spell through a hole he'd made in the Dark One's scaly skin and his howls had likely been heard for miles around. The pain had been unbearable and he had never thought that he could feel anything like it again. At least he hadn't thought he could and live through it.

He wasn't free from it yet.

A terrible scream, much like the ones in the memories, ripped through him, and he couldn't have stopped it if he'd tried. His whole body was rebelling against him, fighting him and in turn he was fighting his restraints. He needed to get out of there. He needed to escape. Magnus was damned determined to kill him, and if he lay around and let him, well, then no one would be around to keep his family safe, would they? He had to fight.

"... Mr Gold," one voice managed to work its way through the sound of pounding in his head. It wasn't Magnus. He wasn't in the Enchanted Forest with the cleric forcing ancient, light magic through his system as he'd once tried to do to break him. Magnus used much less direct approaches in this Land Without Magic.

Poison, his mind supplied. It really was no different, in the end.

Every breath of air that he managed to drag down his throat and into his lungs felt like it was mixed with ash and embers. He was burning, and with each passing moment, he was certain the flames would overtake him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he was in the hospital and that Bae and Belle had won out in their arguments, but that hardly mattered right then. In that moment, all he could feel were the hands reaching out of the darkness, latching onto his arms and holding him down. There were voices, too, though he couldn't make out the words. He was fairly certain, at least, that Magnus was not one of them.

"Hold him," one voice cut through the thick muck of his mind and he managed to pull away from at least one set of hands. Dark eyes flew open and he saw white surrounding him and finally a face that bent down in his. "Mr Gold, you need to hold still."

They were stronger than he was, and if his fever weren't so high he might have been able to put together that they worked for the hospital. But it was and he didn't, so he fought them, because that was all Rumplestiltskin knew how to do. He was a survivor, and right now he knew that he was under a full attack by his enemy. It varied at any given moment if he remembered exactly how that attack was being dealt, though.

Magnus had gotten to someone, he realized in a moment of clarity. Likely the owner of the restaurant, by the way that he'd been sputtering and stammering that night. They'd slipped something into his food or his drink and now it was ripping him apart from the inside out. If he had had access to his magic he would have known it was coming and he could have fought it. As it stood now, he was entirely reliant on the idiot that had received his medical degree from a curse.

The voices were fading again and Rumplestiltskin was floating in pain. Whatever they'd given him seemed strong enough to disconnect him from being able to trash about, but not enough to pull him away. He was finally bringing his own mind back under control, if not his body, and was able to fully remind himself of where he was and piece together what had happened for all the good it did him. He forced his eyes open again and through the fog he saw Whale bending over.

"Easy, Mr Gold. We'll have you back on your feet in no time," the doctor promised.

Rumplestiltskin opened his mouth, though what he would have told him he didn't know. A cleric had poisoned him to end a grudge that he'd had against he and his predecessors for centuries. No, that likely wouldn't have gone over well at all. Whatever he'd been trying to say, though, came out in a gasping cough and he felt himself sinking back into darkness.

The girl was a menace. She had known that from the beginning, but now it had taken root like rotten fruit threatening to spread its poison and destroy everything that Regina had put together. She didn't have any particular qualms with Rumple finding his Happy Ending and whatnot. She had her curse, her revenge, and if he wanted to curl up and play house in this horribly quaint little land, she would withhold most judgement. Most of it, as long as it didn't get in the way of said curse and said revenge, which it now was.

She and Rumple could have handled Magnus if he'd just focused. First was his son, but she could hardly complain about that. Baelfire or Neal or whatever the boy wanted to be called these days had woken the Dark One up. Inadvertently, he'd given the Evil Queen a fighting chance, because she knew that she was the next one on the cleric's chopping block. No, she didn't mind the son, it was that damn maid that made her blood boil. She was a distraction. She was the reason that Rumplestiltskin lay dying in a hospital bed now.

Regina didn't have room for anything else as she seethed over the thoughts, stalking down the hallway and towards the room number Neal had told her when he'd called with the news. She was livid, and if Belle weren't careful, she might find herself on the wrong end of a particularly nasty accident while her lover was in the hospital, just as long as it couldn't be linked back to the mayor. It wouldn't do her any good to rid him of distraction if it turned his rage on her instead.

"Come to see Gold?"

The Evil Queen startled, blinking owlishly at the blonde teen who sat in a chair in the hallway. Emma Swan looked tired and worried as she tilted her head back towards the door to her left. "Neal's in there with him. Belle too. Dr Whale doesn't know what kind of poison it is. He said he's never seen anything like it."

"I'm sure he hasn't," Regina said tightly. She knew why Neal had called her, and it wasn't an expression of loyalty. There had been hope in Rumple's son's voice on the phone, even if he didn't say it. He hoped that a sorceress from the Enchanted Forest could help reverse whatever Magnus had done.

"You think it's something from… What did Neal call it?"

"From back home?" Regina asked quietly, and Emma nodded. "I wouldn't put it past the sneaky bastard to have slipped something through. He shouldn't have been able to come through himself, so there's no telling what other structures of the curse he bent to his own will." She was boiling now. This was her curse, dammit. It was meant to provide her satisfaction, her revenge, not to provide a path for some self righteous cleric to kill off her former mentor. If Rumplestiltskin was going to die, it was going to be her decision, not Magnus'.

"You know a lot about magic, right? Could you reverse it or something?" The teen chewed on her bottom lip and her hazel eyes were fixed on Regina. "Neal just got his dad back."

Some of the irritation started to taper away and the queen's shoulders drooped a little. Somehow it was different coming from this girl who had just barely begun to believe in magic. She had every reason to distrust Regina from what she had seen so far, but she seemed more than willing to continue on with their strange little friendship. "I know. Let's see what can be done, shall we?"

Emma nodded and they moved into the room. Neal was slumped in a chair on the furthest side of the bed, Belle in the one closest to the door. She had hold of Rumple's hand like she hadn't let go since she had come into the room, her thumb working its way over his knuckles and along the back of his hand. She glanced over when Regina and Emma entered, offering a tired smile. "Hey," she whispered and pressed a kiss to the Dark One's hand before she released it to stand.

Regina took a deep breath, forcing herself to focus. At least one of them could. She didn't have any distractions. Snow White had seen to that years ago. "How is he?"

Belle's lips tilted downward and her clear eyes shifted back to look at Rumple. "Not good. Dr Whale can't figure out what it is."

"So I hear," the queen murmured and stepped forward. Without a word the bookworm shifted out of her way and Regina couldn't help but smirk a little. She might be a brave little thing, but if she wanted to save her dear Rumple, she would have to make way for those that could. Being needed in such a way wasn't quite the same feeling that being feared gave off, but hey, she'd take what she could get at this point.

Rumplestiltskin was unnervingly pale against the white sheets. They hadn't shoved a tube down his throat to help him breathe, which was a good sign, but an oxygen mask was fitted carefully over his nose and mouth, pushing air down his throat and into his lungs. His brows were slightly drawn together, even in sleep, but his fingers remained lax against the sheets at his sides. She reached forward, thinking at first that the heat was just fever, but the monitor didn't show that it burned quite as hot as it felt to the touch. Rumple had always told her that someday she would regret focusing too narrowly on her studies, and in that moment she had to quietly agree with him.

"Any idea?" Neal asked groggily from his chair. When he'd woken enough to notice that she had arrived, Regina didn't know.

"No matter how powerful Magnus is, he couldn't bring a spell through to enact against Rumple here. It would have to be mixed chemically."

"So a potion?" the Dark One's son asked.

"Of sorts."

"Can you counter it?" Belle murmured.

"That's the problem. If it's not from this world, I'm not sure how easily an antidote can be made in this world." She loosed a breath, gaze sweeping over the sleeping pawnbroker. "Rumple would know, but he's rather useless right now."

"Magnus would know," Neal growled, unfolding himself from his seat and Regina blinked. The young man was decently well mannered, although he had a snarky streak a mile long, but there were times when he looked and acted a great deal like his father. The way his eyes darkened in that moment, his jaw tightened, and his posture took on someone ready and willing to move in the direction that they needed to go reminded her of her former mentor in the moment just before someone's life came to an abrupt end.

"Yeah, well, what are you going to do? Walk up and ask him?" Emma grumbled, hand waving in the air as she mimicked. "'Hey, Mr Sorcerer, sir, could you please reverse whatever the hell you did to my dad? That would be awesome.' Pretty sure he's going to say no."

Neal - or perhaps Baelfire really was the more appropriate name in that moment - sidestepped his girlfriend. "I didn't say I was going to ask."

Regina blinked as the young man swept around her and out the door. Emma took a breath where she was. "I'm going to go make sure that Graham doesn't have to pick him up for homicide. Can you guys call if anything changes?"

"Of course," Belle agreed and Emma turned to look directly at the Evil Queen.

"If he could figure it out, so can you."

"I'll do what I can," she promised the teen and watched her go.

"Emma is very fond of you," Belle said slowly and Regina found herself under that uncomfortable, clear blue gaze. She didn't like it one bit.

"Yeah, well, no one said the girl was bright, did they?"

"She has a good heart. Please, don't let her down."

"Listen, I can only do what I can do for your boyfriend. I need him alive too, you know."

Belle shook her head. "That's not what I mean. I know you'll do what you can for Rumple. I mean… don't push Emma away. I haven't known her very long, but I get the impression that she's a bit like Rumple and probably a bit like you. She doesn't trust easily, but she trusts you."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but I hope she's right."

Regina snorted out a small laugh. "Me too," she whispered, and somehow she meant it.

TBC

Notes: Hey, guys! I am so sorry for the inconsistency as of late. I've had a couple of emails making sure I'm still alive over here, and I am! I promise! Life has been super busy lately and that has been coupled with an incredibly stubborn muse. When my brain gets like that, I often tend to go and do something else, because the writing ends up getting scrapped anyway. I love this story too much to put up crappy chapters. No matter what my muse does, I refuse to let this story drop. I know where it's going and I'm excited to get there, but it may just take a bit more than my usual outpouring of writing that I usually have with Once fanfiction :)

Next time - Regina looks for a way to save Rumple while Bae goes to confront Magnus.