A/N: Finally! The conclusion of this trilogy that I've had so much fun writing! I'm very nervous about this third one, both because it's the END (always a tricky thing to navigate) and also because there's a lot more direct action in it, which...isn't necessarily my thing. But I'm also very excited for it because it has a lot of moments I've been really looking forward to getting to share, so I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. There are 3 chapters planned, and I hope to post every other week.
As usual, no copyright infringement is intended. Many episode plots, characters, and quotes are used or twisted, and I take credit for none of them (except for loving them more than those creators do!).
Chapter 1
This job isn't worth the complications. Emma pulls her boot free of yet another twisting root, ignores the man behind her (hovering a bit too supportively), and wonders when this became her life. A small town, a fairy tale world, annoying woods, cold ocean—a son. An ex. Parents. None of this ever entered her wildest plans and yet…here she is.
"Not quite the urban jungle of Portland, huh?" the man asks from behind her, and Emma wants to roll her eyes at the fact that he can guess where her mind's at (wants to bristle at his presence, and smile at his teasing, and run so far and so fast that he can't catch her, and stop and face him until everything complicated and confusing is cleared up between them).
"I'm learning," she says instead.
"I don't doubt it," Neal replies. There's no flattery in his voice, but also no doubt, and Emma tries very hard to ignore how warm her chest glows in response. "So…why exactly are we out here again?"
"I'm out here because August said he saw a stranger prowling around the town line, the fifth report like that I've gotten. You're out here because you happened to be at the station"—as he is so often nowadays, usually around lunchtime, usually with some anecdote about the bagels they once shared, the prank she played on him years ago with sandwiches dripping in mayonnaise, some elaborate meal his papa made him that he didn't stay past the first course for—"and apparently have no sense of direction since you haven't stopped following me yet."
"No, I remember that," he says. She can hear the smirk in his voice. "I meant, why isn't Ruby with us? Couldn't she sniff out this stranger in no time?"
"Maybe," Emma says (she will never, never be comfortable with knowing her waitress—or anyone, really—is a werewolf). "But it's hard to mark the exact place where the town line is in the woods, and I don't want to risk anyone losing who they are."
"Oh." Amazingly, this actually makes Neal fall silent for more than a minute (a miracle, really).
It's Emma's turn to smirk. "Still not used to the place, huh?"
"No," he says in a voice so small it takes her aback. "I'm just trying to figure out if this is something else that's my fault."
"Hey." Emma turns on him, one hand up to point directly at his (too big, too vulnerable, too trusting) heart. "This isn't on you. Whatever Gold did or didn't do, that's on him. Not you. A kid isn't responsible for his parent's actions, okay?"
"Okay," he says. Too easily. Neal's as stubborn as Emma herself, and as guileless as his expression is now, she knows he's not even hearing her.
"Neal, seriously," she says—and she steps forward (breaching the careful two feet of distance they've both kept always between them since she found him hyperventilating in an alley). "You can't blame yourself for your dad having no boundaries. He loves you. He doesn't always show it in good ways. None of that is your fault."
"Isn't it?" Neal shrugs uncomfortably. "I'm the reason any of this is here at all. If I hadn't gone to the Blue Fairy, if I hadn't used that bean, if I hadn't—"
"Ugh, stop, okay?" Emma shudders and turns back to continue her search.
"What?" he asks, all confusion and innocence (he's a big fat liar, is what he is). "Have a problem with the fairies living in the convent? Or is it the magic beans? I know you used a magical wardrobe instead, you and your wooden friend, but some of us had to go with a bit more old-fashioned means. Have I told you that it was a shadow—a sentient shadow—that carried me to Neverland? Had to use a coconut and Tinker Bell's help to get out of that—"
"Seriously, stop talking," she says with a roll of her eyes. Very carefully, she keeps her back to him (he doesn't need to know that there's a smile fighting to break free of her careful mask; he doesn't need to know that somehow, when it's him talking, she can almost come to terms with the Disneyworld her life's turned into).
"I don't know, don't think I can. I haven't made any deals with a sea witch to give up my voice yet, so I plan on taking advantage of that."
"Have you seen a sea witch?" she can't help asking (she's dealt with werewolves, mice, Frankenstein's monster, and her own Disney-nice parents, but if there's a sea witch too, she might have to rethink that second deputy thing David asked her about).
"Not yet," Neal says easily. "But I saw enough mermaids around Skull Rock to know there's probably at least one out there. Why? Looking to make a deal?"
"Not on your life," she says. And laughs. She doesn't mean to. It just slips out. So sue her. Neal's funny. He's always been funny, it's one of the things that made her fall in love with him (way back when), the way he could make her laugh and could turn everything dark and depressing about their lives into something humorous and easily brushed aside.
The first time he kissed her, he told her they could pretend it was just a joke if she wanted. He wouldn't even mind if she laughed at him (he totally would have).
(Emma didn't laugh. She'd smiled. She'd hugged him. She'd kissed him again, and again and again and again, but she didn't laugh at him.)
But still. Just because she laughs around him (just because they've shared lunch every day for the past three weeks) doesn't mean they're dating. Just because he's a distraction from the low-level panic always roiling in her gut since she first held a storybook and realized magic is real (just because she smiles a lot more when he's around and doesn't brush him to the curb where he belongs) isn't reason enough for everyone who sees them together to ask her if they're back together.
"We're not dating," she blurts, so unexpectedly that even she flinches.
Neal just looks at her, a bit nonplussed. "Okay."
"If you thought we—"
"I didn't."
"Because I know what people"—by which she means the overly pushy, awkwardly nosy woman Mary Margaret has turned into while trying to figure out the mothering thing (and, hey, Emma actually tried to kidnap her kid while figuring out this parenting game, so it's not like she's casting stones here, but come on)—"some people, are saying, but I don't know if I'm ready—"
"Emma, I don't listen to gossip. And I don't think we're dating." He smirks. "Most days, I don't even think you like me."
She can't help smiling back. "That…actually makes it more likely that I'd date you."
And then the bastard does that thing he does, that thing where he slides from amusing to disarmingly sincere with no warning, just smirk to puppy dog eyes in .02 seconds. "I like this better," he all but mutters.
Something twists in her chest. "Not dating?"
"You liking me."
And they just stand there. Emma can't really make herself move. She knows she should, knows she should be searching for signs that people from the outside can get into their tiny, insular (precious) world. Knows she should be backing away and warning Neal that this isn't going anywhere (it can't; she'll never let herself hurt like that again, and since he's the only one who can make that happen, she just can't let him back into her life). Knows she should be doing anything but standing there, less than two feet between her and Neal (staring at her with the same eyes her son looks at her with, those dark hazel eyes that shift and change and draw her in), letting him have hope that she'll ever let him erase that last bit of distance (that yawning chasm) between them.
It's Neal who saves her.
Purposely, without breaking eye contact, he slides back a pace (and just like that, Emma can breathe again). Shoving his hands in his pockets, he looks around (and deprived of his focus, she can move again).
"Where is August anyway?" he asks. "Wasn't he going to meet you out here?"
"Is that guy ever where he's supposed to be?" she mutters. But truthfully, August has been toeing the line ever since Neal gave him a potion from Gold (one made of True Love, magic, and probably fairy dust or physical birdsong or something else completely made up) and he transformed back into flesh and blood. If the guy didn't still have terrible nightmares about becoming wood again—nightmares bad enough he has to retreat to the forest for privacy and solitude—Emma's not sure he'd ever leave Marco's side.
So the fact that he's not here…is suspicious.
"I don't know—" she starts to say.
"Looking for us?"
Emma whirls toward the sound of the woman's voice, one hand on her gun, the other outstretched (in front of Neal, as if she instinctively plans to protect him). What she finds seems incongruous in the midst of the forest: a pretty Black woman dressed in what looks to be a quintessential New Yorker's outfit, coat, scarf, heeled boots, and all. And of course, most importantly of all: the gun in her hand, pointed straight at Emma and Neal.
"Who are you?" Emma demands.
"Why do you have a gun?" Neal asks nearly on top of her.
"Well, incidentally enough, I was looking for you, Neal, but this is working out even better than I could have hoped."
"What?" Emma darts a quick look to Neal but sees no sign that he's covering anything. In fact, he looks more confused than she's ever seen him.
"Aww, don't tell me you don't remember me?" the woman asks. "I'm even wearing your scarf."
Neal's eyes widen. "The lady I bumped into? Tamara, was it?" He darts a sidelong look to Emma. "I accidentally spilled her coffee. She gave me her number, but I…I never called it."
"It doesn't matter to me," Emma hears herself saying (too sharply). Shaking her head, she lets her hand pull back her own black coat to reveal the badge on her belt. "Look, I'm the sheriff, okay? So just put the gun down and we can talk about what you're doing out here."
"What do you think, Greg? Should I put the gun down?"
"Not a chance," a man says from behind them, and though Emma chances a glance over her shoulder, she doesn't turn. She doesn't need to. Neal puts his back against hers, both of them facing their twin dangers head-on.
(Like they used to, when the bug was their home and Tallahassee was their future.)
"No, see, ever since I found you, we've been watching you, Neal. And you led us straight here—to the motherlode. We'll be able to destroy more magic with this town than we have in years."
"But not before talking to your mayor," Greg puts in. "Right?"
Tamara's hesitation is so slight Emma only notices it because her inner alarms go off at the lie in her voice when she says, "Right. Of course."
"Why me?" Neal says.
Emma presses her shoulders harder against his.
"Why are you looking for me?" he grates. "What did I ever do to you?"
"Nothing. But magic doesn't belong in this world, and you should never have been allowed to be here in the first place."
"Wait, you guys are, like, ICE for magical immigrants?" Emma nearly sputters. (Magic has been a big enough development; finding out the government might already know about a fairy tale world and have laws in place about it is just a bit too far on this crazy train.)
"We're the Home Office," Tamara says. "And none of you belong here. Magic is a cancer in this world. We're here to cure the Earth."
"Give me a break," Emma mutters under her breath. Louder, she says, "Look, this town is cut off from the rest of the world. You don't have to worry about—"
"Oh, we already have our instructions," Tamara says.
"And you're the one we need," Greg adds.
At the first scuffle behind her (at the loss of Neal's warmth against her back), Emma whirls, her gun half-drawn. But Tamara's there immediately, her gun unwavering in its sights on Emma's heart, and Greg already has Neal, his back pressed to Greg's chest, his gun flat against Neal's temple. Neal looks concerned, but not scared, nothing at all to match the terror suddenly sparking through Emma's veins.
"Neal's going to stay here with us," Tamara tells Emma. "But I'm going to let you go."
"What?" Emma's eyes go wide (she can't look at Neal; she can't look away from him).
"There's a boy," Tamara says. "He's important, and we want him. I've seen him around town with both of you. You're going to go get him, and in exchange, we'll let Neal go."
"I'm not going to do that," Emma says even as Neal shouts, "Emma, no!"
"I think you will," Tamara says. "You see, we're planning on blowing this whole town off the map. The only survivors are going to be Greg and me—and whoever is with us. So if you want Neal to live, if you want this boy to live, you're going to bring him to us."
Denials clog her throat. Instead of loosing them, Emma bites her tongue and thinks. The last time she was in a hostage situation, she was drugged and tied up, trapped in a stifling room with a madman who had a penchant for hats and a scar around his neck (the Mad Hatter, she thinks and almost laughs hysterically). The only way she got out of that was by playing into the situation.
She can do that.
She's the Savior, right? She can save Neal, and this boy (and she knows who it has to be that they're after, doesn't she? there's only one boy both her and Neal hang around together), and the town (her parents, and August, and the Mad Hatter and the werewolf waitress and the dwarfs who don't mind giving group hugs in the middle of the street, and even Frankenstein himself, everyone).
She can do this (Henry told her she could; he looks at her as if she can do anything).
"Okay," she says. "Okay, who's the boy?"
(Like she doesn't know. Like it'd ever be anyone else.)
Tamara unrolls a tiny scroll bearing the sketch of a boy.
"Henry," Emma and Neal say together.
"Bring him to us, and we'll ensure he remains safe. Do it without any trouble, and we'll let you and Neal both come to this side of the line. That's safe for you two, right?"
And Greg yanks on Neal's elbow, tugging and pulling until they're over a line that (almost) crackles in Emma's mind. Tamara backs up until she's with them, and Emma knows she could cross without losing anything—but so can bullets.
"Two hours," Greg says. "Or Neal dies and we come into town with a whole line of cavalry behind us—each one with a camera and a livestream account. Then it won't just be us wanting this town to become nothing more than a crater in the ground. Got it?"
"Got it," Emma says.
"Oh, one more thing." Tamara steps forward. "This whole town is a blight, but we've been told it's only here because of one man—the most dangerous of them all. So we have a message for him—you'll have time to deliver it before the deadline."
Neal's face goes expressionless (he's angry and upset and there's something darker that all his humor this morning was covering up, Emma knows, but underneath it all, Gold's his dad and she can't blame him for his worry).
(Emma's worried too and she doesn't even like Gold.)
"What message?" Emma asks.
Tamara pulls something from her pocket and tosses it to Emma. It just barely misses her and Emma has to bend to search for it among the undergrowth—a rookie mistake. When she looks up from the tiny object, Greg and Tamara (and Neal) are gone.
And there's still no sign of August.
And Emma has no idea how to be the Savior (somehow, she thinks this situation is going to require a bit more than a kiss to her son's forehead).
Squeezing her hand tight over the message Tamara threw her, Emma turns and begins to run toward Storybrooke.
(If there are tears on her cheeks, she pretends not to notice them.)
Belle doesn't want to be afraid of Rumplestiltskin. In fact, she refuses to be. She's very much aware of the darkest of his legends, but the worst he's ever done to her (when he thought her a spy placed in his home to watch him, to betray him, to fool him) is grab her by the arms and shake her twice. Not the best feeling, certainly not something she'd ever ask him to do again. But quite far removed from the whispered tales of crushed snails and gutted soldiers and vanished families.
So Belle isn't afraid of him. She's…upset. And shaken (as if he did take her by the arms and rattle her a second time). But she's not afraid. Of course not. Not of Rumple, her husband (the one she chose), the father with so much love to give and so much hurt to outrun.
But that didn't stop her from leaving their house the evening before. It didn't stop her from storming all the way across town to her bookstore. It didn't stop her from sleeping (well, tossing and turning quite restlessly, her arms always searching for Rumple as soon as she dropped into sleep) on the comfortable couch she never imagined would turn into her home away from home.
And now she has no idea where to go from here.
It all started at dinner the night before. At least once a week, Belle works incredibly hard to ensure that Neal comes over for dinner and that Rumple doesn't hide away from the chance to reconnect. As much tension (history) as there is between father and son, she can tell there is an overabundance of love there too, and that is reason enough to continue enduring the stilted, nerves-wrought evenings as they all try to find something to talk about that doesn't painfully jab at any hidden wounds or too-thin scars.
Unfortunately, that's almost impossible to do.
They'd almost made it through the whole dinner (for only the second time) when Neal, perhaps irritated that Rumple wouldn't even hear any thanks for helping August, had commented that his friend was doing so much better now that he'd been taking cooking lessons with Granny a couple times a week. "Maybe all he needed was a mother's touch," he said.
And that was enough to poke at something in Rumple (he had so many hidden wounds, most of which Belle didn't know about to try to help him protect), because he'd gone sad and quiet before saying, "Not all mothers are suited to the task."
Which had apparently provoked Neal's own bitterness (a strange, convoluted thing that rouses at the strangest of times, seemingly surprising even Neal himself more often than not). He'd scoffed and said, "Like Mom, huh, Pop? Is that why you ripped her heart out and crushed it to powder in front of her pirate lover?"
That had been hard enough, the ensuing fallout between father and son (Rumple's apologies, broken and stuttered and sounding insincere for all that; Neal's casual asides and rude brush-offs followed by his quick exit even before Belle could bring dessert out of the kitchen). What was worse, though, far worse was the way Rumple had kept his back to her even after the door slammed.
"Rumple?" she remembered saying (trying to reach out). "Is…is it true?"
He hadn't answered, which was, Belle decided yet again, the worst of all. His silence was like a whip that stung her exposed skin every time she tried to draw near. It was like a cold wind that sought out every corner, every crack, every place where two sides didn't quite match up, and snuck inside to freeze her out. It was like a void she couldn't fill even with all the love she shoved into it.
"I know you've done dark things!" she'd finally snapped at him (coaxing, cajoling, comforting, none of it did any good, and her temper could only be held for so long). "But what I can't understand is why you can't find the courage to open up to me!"
And she'd left.
And he hadn't followed.
And now here Belle is, for the hundredth time in the past twelve hours, going over and over the night before, trying to figure out the exact moment it all derailed and if she could have saved it at some hazy point she'd missed.
Belle looks down at her phone yet again, registers the blank screen (the proof that Rumple hasn't once reached out to her), and tosses it down on the couch in a fit of pique. It lands on the shawl she'd wrapped around herself while trying to sleep and slides to the floor.
Taking a deep breath, Belle counsels herself to patience. Getting angry isn't going to help the situation any. Better to wait this out (wait for her hurt feelings to fade and scab over; wait for Rumple to be alone long enough he won't turn her aside, for her own good, when she returns).
Or is it?
"He killed his own wife," she whispers aloud.
The mother of his child. His first love (she assumes; he's only spoken of two women before her). The woman he voluntarily, without the need for curses or false personalities, vowed to honor and love and cherish.
And he ripped out her heart. Crushed it to nothing. Walked away. And probably, if she knows him at all, never spoke of it again.
Fleeing the front room (the shawl he made for her with his own two hands; the phone absent of any calls or texts from him), Belle ducks into the tiny bathroom and splashes her face with cold water.
Her reflection stares back at her, pale and drawn tight, her eyes red-rimmed (it's no one's business but her own if she cried herself nearly sick the night before).
"He wouldn't do that to you," her reflection tells herself, and Belle flicks the light off before she can see if she believes herself or not.
She nearly shrieks when, coming out of the bathroom, she nearly runs into Emma, who's clearly just burst into the store, breathless and panting.
"Belle!" Emma gasps. "Is Gold here? Where is he?"
"Emma! What—"
"Gold! Where is he?"
"He's…he should be at the shop."
Emma lets out a frustrated noise and scrubs her hands over her face. "I was just there! He's not there, he's not answering his phone, and I have to find him before—" She makes another noise, a strange, choked sound that has her spinning toward the door. "I'll try his house, I guess."
"Wait!" Belle says. She has no idea what's going on (doesn't know if the sick twisting in her belly is from anger at Rumple or worry for him or just lack of sleep), but just because she stayed here last night doesn't mean she's suddenly stopped caring for her husband. "I know where he is."
Or…she hopes she does anyway.
In the months since the curse has been broken, Belle and Rumple have come a long way from the careful lines drawn between Isabel and Mr. Gold. But in the month since Bae's entered their lives, they've begun feeling their way through this marriage of theirs (past the curse, past the honeymoon stage).
When Belle's upset, she comes to her bookstore. When Rumple's upset, if he doesn't want to be distracted with constant interruptions, he retreats to his basement laboratory at home. Even if Emma were to pound on the front door, chances are he wouldn't hear her. Once Rumple starts spinning, there's very little that can break through the cloud of memories he spools around himself.
"What's going on?" Belle risks asking again as soon as she's buckled into the front seat of Emma's yellow car and directed her toward their house. "Has Rumple done something?"
"For a change, no," replies Emma. "There are people outside the town line here to destroy magic and they've taken Neal hostage until I turn Henry over to them for some ridiculous reason I can't figure out and I only have two hours—no, an hour and ten minutes—before they…"
"Before what?" Belle asks, her throat tight with horror. Her mind is crowded, too quickly, with images of Neal (so bold and casual and vulnerable) hurt and alone and waiting for help and scared for his son and hoping his papa will come after him (like he did for, as near as she can figure out, a couple centuries already).
"They said they're going to destroy the town. I don't… And August is missing and I can't get a hold of Dad and…and why do they want Henry? How do they have a drawing of him?"
"I don't know." Belle reaches out and pats Emma's arm gently (a quick touch because the sheriff has always struck her as someone who shies away from too much tactile comfort). "But Rumple will help."
"He'd better." Emma's voice goes grim. "Whoever these people are, they know about him and they blame him for all of it."
Belle's heart leaps into her throat. "Why?"
"Because he made the curse! Because he brought magic here! Because he's got his fingers in every stupid fairytale pie that shouldn't be here!"
Belle lets the angry words die away completely before she says, very softly, "Neal's his son. And Henry's his grandson. He'll do anything and everything necessary to save them. You know that."
"Do I?" Emma retorts, but her shoulders ease, ever so slightly.
"That's the one thing about Rumple you can always absolutely depend on," Belle murmurs. "His complete and utter love for his family."
(But do wives count? Or is it just blood that matters?)
"And the town?" Emma asks. "Will he care about saving that?"
"Of course he will," Belle says more confidently than she feels. Her bookstore is here, where they shared their first kiss. His shop, where they spent their first (twenty-eighth) anniversary. Their home, with the cozy library and the chair he sits on to watch her read and the couch where she coaxes him to rest his head in her lap. Their bedroom, full of sweet memories, lit by a single lamp, where she should have stayed the night before (she has to stop running, has to stop hiding, avoiding, when the situation seems too big for the non-hero she hates remembering she is outside her books).
The brakes squeal from the force with which Emma pulls up to Belle's home, and Belle's hands shake as she unlocks the front door and leads Emma back out through the door in the kitchen. Some of the tension in her gut eases when she catches sight of movement through the window into the basement.
"Rumple?" she calls as she knocks at the door. Before she can ensure that he won't unleash a nasty spell at whoever startles him, Emma shoulders past her and straight into the cellar.
"Gold! Neal needs your help—he's been taken hostage by a woman named Tamara he met in New York and a man named Greg. You know either of them?"
By the time Belle makes her way down the creaky steps without tripping, Rumple's immediate reaction is already masked and hidden away.
"They followed him here?" he asks.
"They say they're with something called the Home Office and their mission is to destroy all magic that doesn't belong in this world. They plan on blowing up the whole town in"—Emma checks her phone—"eighty-seven minutes, but first they want Henry. They had a sketch of him on some ancient scroll."
"I don't know of a Home Office," Rumple says, his tone dull, his eyes sharp as dragon's teeth.
"Well, they know you, and they said they had a message for you. This look familiar?"
Rumple catches the tiny object Emma lobs his way in one hand, his sneer firmly fixed in place—until he looks down at whatever's in his hand. Belle nearly gasps at how quickly the blood drains from his face to leave him looking shaken and scared, eyes too big, mouth trembling, tears on the brink of falling.
"You do know them!" Emma snaps triumphantly.
"Rumple?" Belle asks, softly. Skirting around Emma, she comes up on Rumple from the side, careful to keep her touch soft as she clasps his elbow. "Are you all right?"
"He has my son," Rumple mutters. "I thought I protected him, but I never stopped him at all. He must have planned this."
"Who?"
Shutters slam over Rumple's eyes, padlocks seal over his mouth, and the moat comes up between him and everyone else (even Belle, still with her hand on his arm).
"Miss Swan," he says with far too much composure. He straightens in place and tucks the little object (a doll made of straw, Belle finally sees, dressed in a jacket of blue) into an inner pocket of his coat. "There's no way to blow up an entire town short of alerting the entire country to missiles being fired on small-town Maine. Or these people somehow making it to Regina's vault to unearth some ridiculous fail-safe she thought necessary to hammer onto my curse. Alert the populace to be alert to any strangers, station a guard outside the vault, and that should take care of Storybrooke. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a son to rescue."
"What?" Emma gapes at him. "I'm not just going to leave Neal out there alone! I'm coming with you!"
"You have no idea what you're dealing with. Get out of my way."
"Rumple!" Belle tugs on his elbow before Emma can unleash the tirade they can all see building inside her. "Please, talk to us! Let us help you! We all want to save Bae. Just tell us what's going on."
"Why?" he snarls at her, unexpectedly tugging his arm free of her touch. "So you can walk away from me yet again?"
Belle doesn't let herself get angry (if she can be upset about his penchant for withholding truths, he can be frustrated with her propensity for storming off when upset). "It's Bae," she says as softly as her urgency allows. "We love him too, Rumple. Let us help save him. Please."
The moment stretches, Rumple's stare locked on her before his eyes fall away and he mutters, "Fine. Whoever this man and woman are, they are mere pawns in another player's game. He cares nothing for magic in this world, but he's a master manipulator. He's been after Bae for centuries, and if I'd known he could come to this world, I'd have… No matter." Rumple swallows hard and looks away, letting his hair hide his expression from both Belle and Emma. "I won't let him have Bae. Not again. I'll—"
"You can't cross the town line," Emma interrupts. "But I can. Tell me what to do."
"I can cross the town line, actually," Rumple says caustically. "I've created a new True Love potion," and here, just for an instant, his eyes slide toward Belle's before he stiffens, "one that if placed on a person's most treasured object offers protection from the counter-curse on the town line."
"Where is this guy you're so scared of? The one behind it all?" Emma asks. "Is he here? Do you know where he is?"
"If he's found a way to Storybrooke…" Rumple narrows his eyes. "That doesn't matter. He'll stay where there's magic, meaning we have a chance to get to Bae on the other side without running into him."
"I can get to him," Emma says. "You have magic, Gold, and you know who this mastermind is. So you take the bad guy, and I'll get Neal."
Rumple smiles his thin, cold smile at Emma, and Belle knows what his answer is even before he speaks. "You know, Miss Swan, when your parents imprisoned me in a lightless, damp cell for upholding a simple deal—"
"Not the way I heard this story," Emma mutters.
"I kept myself occupied between their sparse meals of gruel and worms by using a jar of squid ink—a magical nullifier—to write your name over and over on a scroll, hundreds, even thousands of times."
Emma makes a face. "That's not creepy at all."
"I did that," Rumple lectures, "because I knew you'd be the Savior. Because I knew, in this new world, the first time I heard your name, I'd remember who I really am. Who I did all this for. And it worked. That first night we met at the inn, I became Rumplestiltskin again—and all to save my son. Everything I've done for over three-hundred years is for Baelfire. So what makes you think I'll just leave him alone and helpless now?"
Belle reels from this new information (Rumple was trapped in a dark cave, just like her; he was betrayed by those he hoped for better from, just like she was; his entire being, his whole self, is all wrapped up in his son, even more so than Belle's already realized), but Emma is unfazed, sliding a step to keep herself interposed between Rumple and the door.
"Because I'm Emma," she says.
"Miss Swan—"
"Emma," she says again. "I'm the Savior, right? And I'm Emma. Everything you did to get me here, it's because you knew I could be a Savior."
He scoffs. "Because you could break a curse I specifically designed for that purpose—"
"And because I love Neal—Bae—too." Emma swallows, everything in her posture screaming fear, reluctance, desperation (sincerity). "I do. I've always loved him. And I won't let anything happen to him, I promise."
"No hero has ever bothered to save anyone I love," Rumple grits (Belle flinches away from the raw pain exposed in these few words).
"I'm not a hero," Emma says, her eyes locked on his. "I'm the Savior."
Swallowing, Belle makes herself do the brave thing (maybe, like her mother once told her, bravery would follow soon enough). "I'll go with her, Rumple," she says. "You know how much I love Bae. I'll bring your son back to you."
"Belle…"
"Look," Emma exclaims, "we're family now, right? And I promise you, I will save Neal from Greg and Tamara. But who's going to save him from whoever sent them? Whoever's here to steal his son?"
Rumple meets Emma's eyes for a long moment, his stare so intense that Belle might have shrunk back if it were directed her way. But Emma doesn't flinch, doesn't recoil, doesn't back down. (Isabel, wound through Belle, there like gold thread woven through a shawl, shimmering brightly and vividly in certain lights, thinks back to when she wondered, suspected, feared that her husband was having an affair with this newcomer. Belle, more sure of Rumplestiltskin, shoves the unburied fear back into its shallow grave.)
Finally, just when Belle thinks she might scream from the tension, Rumple flourishes his free hand. A small bottle that shimmers gold and emerald appears in his hand. "This is a tracking potion," he says. "Pour it over this…" Turning, he goes to his spinning wheel and retrieves a scrap of cloth Belle hadn't noticed there on his stool. It's not new work (nothing bright or metallic about its worn length), but well-loved, and Rumple hands it over to Emma only reluctantly. "This was Bae's. If you wear it around your neck, it will pull you toward Bae wherever he is, even across the town line."
"Got it." Emma nods decisively. "I mean, not really, because this magic stuff makes no sense, but—"
"Emma," Rumple says, quite purposely, and Emma falls silent.
"Right. I've got this."
"We've got this," Belle says.
And for the first time since the night before, when Rumple looks to Belle, she doesn't even think of their argument, or the secrets still between them (the crimes, the blood on his hands, the insecure fears hidden in her heart). She sees his dark, expressive eyes, and she thinks only of her husband.
"Belle," he says. "I don't think you should go. It's too dangerous for you to be that close to the line—I don't have a personal item of yours from before to protect your memories."
(Belle fingers her wedding ring, thinks of the vast similarities, the minute differences, between Belle and Isabel, and she wonders…)
"I'll stay back," she assures him. Dimly, she's aware of Emma giving them space and pulling out her phone, calling her parents, talking about guarding Henry, asking Regina about the vault, alerting the town to be on the lookout for strangers. But more immediately, Belle's focused completely on her husband. "I'll be the distraction, keeping Greg and Tamara's attention on this side of the line while Emma circles around to get Neal free."
It's a flimsy plan, and they both know it. Rumple doesn't even do her the courtesy of pretending it's anything more than a shot in the dark.
"Please, Belle," he says. "There are too many things that can go wrong. I don't want to lose you and Bae—"
"You're not going to." Stepping forward (be brave, she reminds herself), she takes his hand in both of hers and wills him to believe her (to believe in her). "Even if something goes wrong, it won't matter. So I'll turn into Isabel. Isabel trusts her husband, Rumple, and she'll want to help save your son as much as I do."
"But…"
And it's there. Just for a moment. A spare second. But she sees it: a gleam. A glow. A wish. Right there in his eyes, shooting across his pupils like a shooting star.
And Belle realizes that maybe she's always wondered, a bit, which of her he'd prefer. Who it is he loves more. I wish I could keep you, he whispered when the curse was nearly broken and his son almost within reach. Isabel? he asked, brimming with impossible hope when she met him at the cabin, fully herself for the first time. And in his most desperate moments, isn't it always Isabel he asks for, begs for, as he sags into her arms?
(It's Isabel, after all, that he fell in love with, his memories returned, his quest on hold, his curse muted.
It's Belle that walks away from him, that vomits at the thought of being married to him, that has a father who hurts him by trying to take her away from her husband.)
"I'm not afraid," Belle tells them both. "I'm not worried. Even if I cross the town line, it doesn't matter."
"Why not?" he asks in a broken voice.
She lifts her hand and lays it flat over his cheek. "Because," she says, "the first time we kiss, you'll bring me back. Your kiss will save me. It's True Love, remember?"
This isn't a test. It's not. So what if this is the perfect way to gauge how long it will take him to kiss her (if he will find reasons to delay)? This is a simple plan, a necessary one seeing as his son's life depends on it, and it has nothing to do with her own (foolish) insecurities.
But maybe Rumple doesn't trust himself either, because he lays his hand over hers on his cheek and says, "I think you should go to the shop and get the True Love potion."
"What?"
"You're right. It's True Love. We can't protect your memories, but it can bring them back. You'll simply have to drink it and you'll be Belle again. Please, Belle, it's in the safe. You know the combination. Go get it, then come back here, and you can help Emma save Bae."
"Rumple, I don't—"
"Belle, please. And here, take this too." Pulling free of her touch, he retrieves something from a locked box on his worktable and then presses it into her hands: a gun. "Point this, pull that, and anyone who tries to be hurt will be taken care of, okay?"
"I know how a gun works, Rumple." She pauses (the weight is uncomfortable, unfamiliar; she didn't even know Rumple owned a gun). "Well, in theory, anyway. I don't think—"
"You need some form of protection, and if I can't be there, then this is the best I can do."
"Rumple." Belle pulls at his sleeve, then his jacket, his tie, pulling him closer and closer to her. "This person…who is he?"
"Peter Pan," he whispers, and there is such a tone in his voice, such a twisted, horrible emotion buried there in his eyes, that Belle is struck mute.
(She knows her husband has secrets. She knows he has centuries and lifetimes of sad stories in his life. But this…coming up full-tilt against such proof of his anguish, it rips at her heart.)
(How can she possibly help him when he is so hurt?)
"Ready?" Emma asks from behind them. Then, abruptly, she tilts her head and stares into the distance. "What is that? You hear that? Where is it—"
"Belle's going to run to the shop really quickly."
Emma's eyes dart back to Rumple. "We don't have time—"
"We'll make time for this. While she's gone, you and I are going to have a conversation about magic."
"Gold." Emma's eyes widen in genuine fear. "I don't have anything to do with magic."
"Of course you do. You're the product of True Love, Miss Swan. Magic runs through your very blood. And if it's a choice between Bae being hurt or you using magic, I'm telling you right now that you'd better choose correctly or I'll kill everyone you love before finally ending you."
"Rumple!" Belle snaps.
He goes silent, though he doesn't apologize. Belle doesn't bother looking at just how shaken Emma is, just throws herself into his arms, giving him no choice but to catch her.
"Be safe," she whispers into his ear. "Be careful. Don't make Bae and me come back to find you've done anything foolish."
"Oh, my beautiful Belle." He pulls back (Belle tenses) just to caress his knuckle over her cheek. "You don't even hear the music, do you? You are…remarkable."
Her brow wrinkles in confusion before he bends his head and kisses her.
It's too fierce. Too desperate. Too messy and chaotic, born of fear, steeped in terror, drained of hope.
"I will see you again," she insists.
He doesn't believe her (he never believes her, only waits for her words to be proved lies).
"I love you," he says. "If you believe nothing else of me, please know that. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone but Bae. I would never hurt you."
"I know," she breathes (and knows it for truth; she didn't run because she's afraid of him—she ran because even learning that he murdered his first wife isn't enough to put the slightest dent in her love for him). "And I love you too."
She's out the door and in his car, on her way to the shop, when she realizes why she hated that kiss, his promise, her reply.
It tasted of goodbye. It sounded like last words. She feels anything but the acceptance her own words implied.
This isn't the end, she vows. She won't let it be (no matter what the cost).
"I'm not magic," Emma says behind him.
Rumplestiltskin closes his eyes and tries to hold onto the lingering hints of warmth: on his lips, against his chest, over his arms. They slip away too quickly (as everything good does), and he is left with the scent of dust, the tang of magic, the cold of his fate finally having arrived.
It took almost fourteen years for the seer's first prediction to come true. In comparison, three centuries, give or take a decade, is a huge surplus of time to see her second prediction finally play itself out.
"You are not magic," he says as he finally turns back to the Savior. He made her that way, but still…she is a Charming, isn't she, and that family has a startling tendency to actually succeed in the most far-fetched of schemes. Of course, usually he's helping them along, but he'll help her too, so maybe it will work out in the end.
If anyone deserves to be saved, it's Bae. And Rumplestiltskin isn't planning on evading his fate this time, so perhaps destiny will see fit to be merciful to his son.
(And if not…well, Rumplestiltskin hasn't been planning for his undoing these past months for nothing.)
"Magic is emotion," he lectures while inwardly, he compiles his arguments (his pleas). "It emerges when you most need it so long as you reach for it with the power of your deepest emotions. Anger, hate, shame, revenge—or love, protectiveness, affection—whatever most powers you. It can be hard for the cynics, but never fear, Miss Swan, your mother's blood must run in your veins somewhere."
"It won't work on the other side of the town line, though, right?"
"No, but you will be bringing my son back, won't you?"
"I'm not leaving Henry!" she snaps.
"I never said you were."
Henry. The boy Pan wants. The boy he's sent deluded minions after. The one boy in town that Rumplestiltskin will go out of his way to look out for. The boy that ties Bae and the Charming family together.
The boy. (His undoing.)
Or perhaps it is August, who reported the outsiders, who claimed he'd meet Emma and Neal at the town line, who brought Neal to town and helped facilitate their reunion.
Or it could be Bae himself. A boy leading to his own self is just the sort of cryptic folderol seers (including himself) are known for.
Or (and this is the possibility he has dreaded the most) it could be Pan. The boy who bought that definition with the sacrifice of his own son. The father who traded it away and ran from the title and scorned the very thing that made him into something bigger than himself.
Or it could be any of a dozen other things. None of it matters, not anymore, not when his undoing is staring him right in the face.
Rumplestiltskin meets Emma's glare with his own. "The point is that you've promised you will do whatever it takes to save my boy, and I'm holding you to that. Should it be magic that is required, then best remember: reach for the emotion that powers you and don't—hold—back."
"Fine. Now are you going to tell me who's threatening the town?"
"Does it matter?" He arches a brow at her. "I'll handle it, as I've said. That's the beauty of a deal when both sides uphold their end—mutual satisfaction."
Emma made a face. "Still, it'd be nice if I knew what to look out for."
"Believe me, if you see him, you'll know he doesn't belong."
"Oookay. You really take the cryptic thing a bit far, don't you?"
"Then let me be clear on this, Miss Swan: you owe me a favor. An unspecified favor, of my choosing, to be cashed in whenever I decide."
"Come on, Gold, enough with the jaded schtick! I don't need a favor to save Neal—"
"No, not that. Or not wholly." He holds up a hand between them. "I'm…trusting you—or at least Belle—to save him. But the favor I want comes after that. I want you to save both him and Belle. Bae's always been far too brave for his own good, always willing to throw himself into danger for the sake of others. And Belle…well, every inch of her is a hero. One better than the usual kind because she doesn't just save one from danger, she also saves you from yourself."
"That's sweet, but can we get to the point?"
Rumplestiltskin looks at this Savior he prophesied, foresaw, ensured, all but midwifed, set and moved and played like a pawn…and he hopes she is so much more than he ever dreamed she could be.
"They're going to want to save me," he says quietly. "And you can't let them. This is my favor: You will not let Belle or Bae anywhere near me. No matter what it takes, no matter what you have to do, you keep them away from me and the person I'm going to face."
For the first time, Emma's façade drops. It's not the sheriff studying him. Not the Savior scrutinizing every bit of him for clues. Not the bail bondsperson searching him for hidden meanings or motives.
It's Emma. The baby left on the side of the road. The orphan abandoned for younger and better children. The young woman betrayed to prison and a decision too big for her.
"You hear it, don't you?" he asks. "The music."
She blinks. "What is it?" she asks. "It sounds…it's the saddest thing I've ever heard. I thought it was your magic or something."
"Not mine. The Pied Piper's. Only those who feel unloved, abandoned, can hear it."
"And…you hear it?"
"I've heard it my entire life," he says with a sneer. "But, yes, it's particularly annoying at the moment." His breath catches in his throat, and for some reason (maybe because she is so raw and something in him can't help but respond to that), he adds, "Do you think Bae hears it?"
"I…I don't know." But she's a Charming, which means she's a terrible liar.
Rumplestiltskin squeezes his eyes shut and has to hold his magic close with an iron fist to keep from splintering every musical instrument in the whole town (he longs for silence, now, in a way he never has before).
"Is that who we're facing?" Emma asks with an admirable attempt at not sounding completely disbelieving. "The Pied Piper? He steals kids, right? And rats?"
"His story's been twisted. He goes by a different name, really, one you've heard in another story. A boy who refuses to grow up. Who lives on an island filled with Shadows. Who steals children from their homes and lures boys away from their families and refuses to ever change his wild ways."
Emma chokes on skepticism. "Peter Pan?!" she exclaims. "Are you serious? He's a bad guy? He's…scary? I thought he was just some kid afraid of puberty."
"This world has no magic and cannot comprehend the truth of our world," he replies shortly. "It mangles any slippage beyond recognition, seeking to drain the power of our stories before they're disseminated through the realm."
"Still…Rumplestiltskin versus Peter Pan." Emma almost smiles. "I know who I'd bet on in that cage match."
"Would you?" Rumplestiltskin shakes his head. "Well, we'll see, won't we? But in the meantime, I want your word that you will keep Bae and Belle safe."
"From Peter Pan?"
"From everything. Don't let them come after me. And whatever you do, don't let them face Pan. And if worse comes to worst, you get them out of Storybrooke. I don't care how you do it. I don't care if they hate you for the rest of their lives. You keep them safe. Do I have your word?"
"Gold…"
"You owe me a favor!" he snarls. "No one breaks deals with me!"
"All right!" Emma snaps. "Fine! I'll do it! I'll keep them away. I'll keep them—and Henry—safe. But you'd better do everything you can—use all the magic, all your sneaky loopholes, every stolen item in your ridiculous shop—to make sure you get out of this alive because I don't need those two mad at me forever, you got it?"
"Oh, don't worry, Miss Swan: self-interest has always been a nasty habit of mine."
"Yeah, right," Emma scoffs. And then she surprises him by grabbing his hand. "Be careful, Gold, all right? Seriously. Don't be a hero."
"I assure you, there's never been any danger of that."
And with a swirl of his hand, he sends her and her car to his shop where Belle should have retrieved the True Love potion by now. Even if he dies in the next few moments (prophetic terms are rarely so straightforward, but it's not outside the realm of possibility), even if his father banishes him to another world, eternally separated from the Land Without Magic, at least Belle's memories will be safeguarded. The potion is powerful enough to tear an entire world to pieces; the least it can do is bring Belle forward from behind the veil of Isabel.
(No True Love's Kiss for him, not the Dark One, the father who let his son go even knowing what that felt like, the man who murdered one wife and terrified his second.)
A final snap of his fingers and Rumple settles a spell of protection over Henry, one keyed to Regina's survival rather than his own. He has no doubt that Emma has her parents guarding the boy, but…well, they've always needed some subtle help here and there. For Bae's sake, he will give the boy a bit of an extra protection.
But then there's no more reason to delay (except fear, his age-old companion). Slowly, Rumplestiltskin heads to his spinning wheel. It turns without the slightest creak, gold threads littered at his feet, his son's shawl glaring in its absence. Spinning was his sole comfort after his father threw him away. It is the one throughline that has remained the same in every stage of his life. Now, touching the wheel, remembering Belle's kiss (she's afraid of him now, as he knew she would be, but she let him kiss her goodbye, and he clings to that), he calls his dagger to hand.
Facing his father with this weakness hanging around is too dangerous. But so many of his protection spells are bound with blood magic (and for all Pan's body is magical, magic recognizes family, like calls to like, and it's close enough to count). And the minute hand on the clock above the library is too obvious for a boy who can fly.
If he were in a magical world, Rumplestiltskin would cut his shadow free and send it to another realm with the dagger. But here, in Storybrooke, the best he can do is spell the dagger with another name, another heart, and the remnants of Belle's kiss still lingering on his lips.
"Thank you, Belle," he murmurs as the dagger fades from view (only their kiss can bring it back, and he knows how unlikely that is; he does not mourn the thought of never seeing the cursed blade again). Even without the True Love potion, the woman he never saw in any foretelling or vision will save him again. (He hopes she won't begrudge him that).
The wisping melodies of his father's pipes furl through the air. Rumplestiltskin is tempted to bat them away, but turns out he needs them (as Pan must have gleefully taken into account). With heavy steps, he limps his way up out of the basement and through to the street. He sent Belle in his car, but that gives him excuse to walk slowly in the direction the music lures him toward.
Like a coward.
Like a man who's trying to think a way out of this.
(But evading, running, hiding, those are the hallmarks of a scared little spinner he vowed he'd never be again. Trying to find a way out of his undoing will only backfire on Bae, maybe on Belle, and that's something he can't risk.)
Taking a deep breath in search of elusive courage (as if it'll appear for him now, when it has eluded him his entire, unnatural life), Rumplestiltskin lets the magical music pick him up and whisk him to Peter Pan.
He materializes in the woods, facing the well that is all that is left of Lake Nostos.
Peter Pan looks up from his pipes and breaks into a wide grin. The music fades into nothingness as he spreads his hands wide.
(The sight of him, after so long, still so different from the beloved face Rumplestiltskin imagines in his most secret of hearts, strikes like a curse.)
"Ah, laddie!" he exclaims. "How long has it been? How many worlds? But here we are, reunited at last!"
"You say that like I had a choice," Rumplestiltskin sneers.
It's a good façade. Rote words of sarcasm to hide what the sight of this body, this monster, does to him. (There is oil in his veins, sludge in his brain, old, rotting muck seeping up out of his bones: the decaying trauma of a wound so old he cannot imagine himself without it.)
Peter Pan's green eyes widen. His blonde hair sparkles in the light of the sun dappling through endless leaves. His narrow, thin-fingered hand spreads in a flourishing gesture (that rings too familiar, of days long gone, of a childhood Rumple shouldn't miss but…sometimes…does).
It is a stranger before him. The figure of his nightmares. The boogeyman under his bed and in his closet and lurking in his psyche.
(It is the darkest of dark ones, the villain that cast a shadow so large Rumplestiltskin could not help but to follow in his steps. Could not escape becoming him.)
"Is that any way to talk after I've given you such a gift? Come, Rumple, let's let bygones be bygones. We can start over."
"I don't want anything from you," Rumplestiltskin lies. "I learned a long time ago not to depend on you."
"Oh, but you do," Pan purrs. "Depend on me. You've always known we'd meet again. I admit, I had my own doubts, but that boy of yours…well, a veritable treasure trove, isn't he? And aren't you grateful I gave him back to you?"
Trying to stay above the overwhelming deluge of fury (of hatred, of grief, of longing for a different life), Rumplestiltskin narrows his eyes and clenches his fists. "Don't even speak of him."
Pan's moue screams of affected offense. "How insulting! Why, I took care of him for infinitely longer than you managed to! When you threw him away, who do you think found him and gave him a place to stay? A family? A way to grow strong and brave and nothing at all like his worm of a father?"
(There are chills spreading up from his feet, radiating down from the crown of his head, chills that encase him in frost and make fire roll off him so that smoke steams up between them.)
"You tortured him. You stole him from his safe place and made him feel alone and tormented him for centuries."
"Is that how he tells the story?" Pan smirks. "You know how boys are. All those tall tales."
The Dark One inside Rumplestiltskin is ravening and feral, straining to leap and gnash and destroy. But the little boy that is the seed at the root of Rumplestiltskin is keening and rocking and missing. Together, the two facets cancel each other out, and it is only a useless lump of flesh and inert magic that faces down his father (no, not his father, the creature that replaced his father; the villain powered and immortalized by Rumplestiltskin's own constant sense of abandonment).
"You know, it was quite a pain to get here," the boy continues, so casual, so conversational that Rumplestiltskin wants to strike him dead immediately. He leaps lightly to the rim of the well and balances there as if he's barely aware of his audience (but Rumplestiltskin has spent too long playing the showman himself to believe the lie). "My Shadow can come, of course, as can the Lost Boys I can bear to part with, but me? You've got to give it to Baelfire—he knows how to pick 'em, doesn't he?"
"Don't. Say. His. Name."
Pan ignores him (perhaps the only similarity between him and the man who was once a father). "I had to first visit our world—for old time's sake, you know—and follow some witch who was rather interested in you to a beanstalk and a giant and a lake. All rather boring for all it should have felt like a treasure hunt. You might have livened the whole thing up, but I've tired of the pirate and that Cora wasn't nearly as much fun as her daughter seems to be. In the end, though, her own crimes caught up to her. Can you believe there are actually 'heroes' who manned up and did what should have been done without moaning about pure hearts and morals that change from day to day? I hardly could either, but there you are. Left me the clear winner of the quest, and now here I am. A reunion. I should have brought eggs in a basket to fully recapture those days—another time?"
"You're not staying," Rumplestiltskin grits past the swell of memories (Cora, dressed in scarlet and reeking of determination; gowned in white and promising love; cloaked and blank-faced as she broke him with so few words—gone and dead now, and he shouldn't mourn her, he won't, he shouldn't).
"Well, I didn't plan to," Pan says, and then throws his arms out wide, made tall by the well so that Rumplestiltskin has to strain his neck to look up at him. "But this place! It's like a tiny world all to yourself. So many little playthings to toy with. So much potential here. And you did so helpfully bring back magic—and the fairy dust."
And that's the moment, the exact instant, just as Pan's feet leave the rim of the well and the boy hovers there in the air, looking pleased and proud and anything but parental, that Rumplestiltskin realizes how high the stakes actually are.
This isn't just about his past. Or Bae. Or Belle. Or him at all (he should have known; it's never about him where Pan is concerned). This is about the realms themselves.
Neverland is a dream realm. But Storybrooke…a magical Storybrooke is a stepping stone to every realm there is.
"We'll start here, my boy," Pan says grandly. "And then from there…well, who knows where we'll end up? No more counting stars and limiting ourselves when we can reach them all, is there?"
"It'll never work," Rumplestiltskin says (he's half-reminding himself, half-hoping). "Your very existence is powered by Neverland. The further you get from it, the less powerful you'll be."
"Poor little Rumple. Always ten steps behind." Pan descends to the earth, too close, his eyes nearly level with Rumplestiltskin's. For all the pity in his voice, there is nothing but aloof curiosity in his expression. "I was powered by Neverland. By my…sacrifice, if you will. But now…things are going to be different. A new heart—a new outlook on life. A new sacrifice—a new lifetime of power."
"Henry," Rumplestiltskin realizes. (There is a rushing in his ears, a blurring of his vision, a sickness in his gut, all roaring, spiraling, catching him up and beating him down and freezing him in place, and Pan's right: he's too slow.)
"Henry," Pan says, slowly, with relish. "The heart of the truest believer. Have you ever heard of a more powerful magical component? The Shadow will never go hungry again. And I will never have to worry about you again."
"What are you—"
His throat closes up. His mind is twisting, shrinking, curling in on itself. Words escape him. Movement eludes him. But then, why is he falling? The sky rushes in over him, the ground catches him to its bosom, and he can't look away when Pan kneels over him, a ridiculous attempt at concern painted so childishly over his features.
"Well, see, you're the sacrifice, laddie. It makes a certain sort of poetic sense, doesn't it? You gave me Neverland, and now you'll give me Storybrooke. I wish I could say I tried to make Henry's heart enough of a sacrifice, but that'd be a lie. What do I care for the boy? Frankly, after searching for him for three centuries, I'm kind of sick to death of his face. But you…oh, it'll be so much fun to get to do this to you again."
"Why?" Rumplestiltskin gasps. His hand reaches, strains, catches against Pan's tunic. Pan knocks it aside like he means nothing.
"Because you've always been such a terrible inconvenience to me. Always needing and wanting and demanding, this whining larva stealing all my time and attention and money and dreams. But this town is built on your mind, laddie. It exists because you dreamed it, and it works because you engineered it, and it circulates magic because you believe in it—Storybrooke is nothing but a manifestation of your bones and your blood and your brain. All that remains for me to make it mine…is to take your heart and salt the ground with its mangled remains."
"No! Papa—"
"Shh, shh, it's all right, my boy. It'll only be painful for a while. Soon, it will be over. Soon—after I've wrung every drop of magic from your flesh. After I've cut the bonds of this town from your soul. After I've undone the last of your efforts to create this place."
"Bae!" he moans through his terror.
"Well, aye, I probably will have to kill him just to get rid of the last spark in your heart, but don't worry. I'll make it quick, just for you. You can rest assured knowing that this town—your real pride and joy, isn't it, seeing as you spent more time nurturing it than you did your own son—well, it'll live on forever. I'll take good care of it, I promise you that. And when I'm through with it…there are plenty more realms just waiting for a rousing game of fun."
(There is a lump in his heart. A stone in his chest. A spark of lightning playing through his being. Belle, he thinks. Bae. I'm sorry.)
"Now." Pan stands up, already looking away, on to bigger, better, bolder things than the shrunken remains of his son. "I think I should set the gameboard. You stay here and…" He wrinkles his nose. "Dry out a bit, huh? Don't fight it, just let the magic leave you. It'll be better for you in the long run. I'll be back before it's over. You and I still have a bit of unfinished business before the end."
"Papa!"
But it's too late (and wouldn't have mattered even if he weren't already flown far distant). Pan is gone, and try as he might, Rumplestiltskin cannot make himself stand.
In the back of his mind, the voices of the Dark One have fallen utterly silent.