Author's notes: Based on a prompt by rumpelstiltskinrocks. Follows the alternate Rumple and Bae glimpsed in the last chapter of "Unwoven from the Loom of Fate" going home to their version of reality.
Regina: The intent was perfectly clear.
Mr. Gold: Oh, let's not talk about intent. Intent is meaningless.
Regina: Intent is everything.
— S01E19 "The Return"
In another world, his father helped people. The power that terrified Baelfire — the power that had turned Rumplestiltskin into a monster — had become a force to protect everyone, not just one boy. Maybe the bean hadn't been the right answer (all magic came with a price). Maybe they didn't have to run away again. Maybe they could stay. Maybe they could make things better.
"It sounds too good to be true," his father murmured, shaking his head at Baelfire's vision. "Schlaraffenland? It's just a silly story for little children."
"But what if we could make it true?" Baelfire searched the Dark One's face for any hint of the kind, generous man he had once been. "Please, Papa."
"Fine dreams turn into nightmares in the blink of an eye," muttered his father under his breath. "When I was younger than you, I thought..." He bit off the rest of the sentence, giving Baelfire a troubled look.
"We have to try, Papa. We can show everyone that the Dark One can be a good man, and they won't hate us anymore." Bae had gone from being the coward's son to the monster's son. Wouldn't it be wonderful to change that? For a single shining moment Rumplestiltskin had been a hero. Now they seemed to be drowning in darkness, but what if there was a way out? Something better than a magic bean. The fairies hadn't stopped the ogres. Why should he listen to them now? "You have power now. You just have to use it to help people instead of hurting them. Please, that's what I want. You asked me before..."
After a long silence, his father relented, harsh mask softening into something more familiar. He nodded. "Very well, son. Tell me what you want me to do."
"Beggars? That's where you want to start?" Rumplestiltskin shook his head at his son's foolishness. "They lie, they trick!"
"At least they don't force people to kiss their boots!" Baelfire tried to explain what he had seen. "They know what it's like to be poor. And since they have nothing, they have more freedom."
"Freedom to starve!" Rumplestiltskin had seen things, too, in that nightmare wood — illusions and shadows and haunting regrets. You will leave your son fatherless... Neverland had already tried to steal Bae from him. What if this was another trap? He took a deep breath. No. This was what his son wanted of him. He was the Dark One now. If he could spin gold out of straw, he could turn a dream into reality. He wasn't his father. He would never forget that this was all for Bae. He held up a conciliatory hand as another thought came to him. "But maybe it's not such a strange idea. They have not been seen in the Frontlands since the war started, but I hear they still walk the other kingdoms."
Bae frowned in confusion. "Who, Papa?"
"The friars. Holy beggars who are said to help the common people."
"No. Your curse makes a mockery of your charity, Dark One." The man in the brown robe looked at them in mingled sympathy and horror.
Rumplestiltskin and his son had traveled across mountains and rivers into the White Kingdom, where the mendicant monks could be found wandering the roads from village to village, preaching and doing good according to their faith.
A faith which rejected the Dark One no matter his intentions.
"Intent is meaningless," said the friar. "Your touch leads to ruin. That is the nature of your curse."
"I should have killed him!" the Dark One raged. Life and death had been decided in the blink of an eye, in the look on his son's face and in the centuries of guilt that haunted in his soul (memories from another life).
"But you didn't! And I'm glad you didn't. That means he was wrong." Baelfire's voice barely shook, the terror fading from his eyes with distance from that deadly moment of choice. "You can be better."
Rumplestiltskin sat down heavily on the stool across from Bae. He bowed his head, letting the anger drain from him with each breath. Finally, he dared a glance at his son. "Maybe. Maybe we can try closer to home. What else is a beggar but a desperate soul? Desperate enough to deal with the Dark One."
The war had left plenty of folk lost, displaced, penniless, hopeless, with nothing left but to rely on the mercy of others.
The fairies had their order of friars. The Dark One made his own order of beggar 'knights'. He tried to organize them according to Baelfire's vision, clothing and feeding them and sending them out to deliver his aid to their fellows in misery. A flicker of light warmed his darkened heart when he saw that Morraine, the one child who had never seemed to fear the Dark One, volunteered herself to help Bae in his efforts.
A threat? A few lives wrenched back from the brink of starvation, a glimmer of hope offered to orphans and widows, a miraculous cure or two offered to those who had no gold for the healer. What did that amount to? A threat!?
Because some beggars had quietly given their fealty to the Dark One rather than to the Duke of the Frontlands?
It was too pitiful.
A Duke willing to send children to the battlefield — a Duke willing to wield a war to keep himself in power — had no mercy for those who threatened that power.
Beggars! What could such a ragged mob of half-starved commoners do against heavily armed knights? They were cut down by the dozens, a hundred, two hundred, no match for the Duke's ogre-slaying elite, now turned against civilians.
The girl once saved by the Dark One — murdered.
And the Dark One did nothing.
Bae!
A moment's gullibility was all it took to defang the Dark One. A beggar who wasn't, an ex-soldier bought by the Duke and sent on a secret mission, easily overpowered the untrained boy. And Rumplestiltskin was rendered helpless because they knew, because everyone knew, that before he was the Dark One, he was a father. Once a coward, always a coward.
He watched, terrified into immobility, as the soldiers came. As reports filtered in of mass slaughter. As the architect of his undoing finally showed himself and took charge of his prize.
"The dagger. Give it to me, or he dies." The Duke of the Frontlands (oh, how Rumplestiltskin regretted sparing that worthless life, not wanting to throw his homeland into the chaos of a succession war) gripped Baelfire in an iron embrace, sharp steel drawing a line of blood from the boy's throat.
He met his son's gaze. A silent apology twisted his lips. Weak. Powerless. His fingers twitched. The dagger... maybe...
You can't! The darkness was frantic. Do you want to be that weakling again? If you give up the dagger, he'll kill him anyway. Don't be stupid!
Rumplestiltskin felt the magic roaring through him, straining to blast his enemies with hellfire. But before they died, his son would die. Bae! And magic could not bring back the dead. Lips dry, tongue heavy, he forced the words of surrender out of his mouth: "Yes. Yes..."
A strangled cry interrupted him. A sudden blur of motion. Baelfire had flung himself forward, a wild surge that caught the Duke off guard — right into the sword at his neck.
"Bae!" Rumplestiltskin's magic wrapped itself around his son and in that brief moment of confusion, they were home. Cradling the boy in his arms, Rumplestiltskin lowered him gently to the bed. "Bae? No, no, no..."
Blood. So much blood. Purple magic closed the gaping wound, but it was no use. The boy's pulse weakened and died under Rumplestiltskin's trembling fingers. Blank eyes stared at nothing and no breath moved in his chest. The Dark One reached deeper with his magic, grasping at the new-flown soul, trying to force it back into the flesh, but something repelled his touch.
Fairy magic!
The Duke's sword was forged with fairy magic, blessed by Reul Ghorm to strike down dark creatures. And now that included the son of the Dark One.
"He's just a boy!" Rumplestiltskin cursed the fairies in his heart, tears of furious grief blurring his vision. "Oh, Bae, why? Why...?"
But he had seen the answer in the dread on his son's face. Because Bae knew. Rumplestiltskin hadn't wanted him to remember (had served him a cup of tea to wash away those memories) but even when forgotten by his conscious mind, the shadow of Beowulf lingered. Baelfire had seen it before, the horror of the Dark One's dagger in an enemy's hand. He refused to let it happen again. No matter what his refusal cost.
Blood for blood. The Duke died, impaled on his own sword. They all died. What was a human warrior against the full power of the Dark One? Even the fairies fled his wrath. He didn't stop until he saw the frightened eyes of a peasant child hiding behind his mother. Eyes that reminded him of his innocent son. One fragile thread of sanity pulled him back and stayed his hand.
Enough.
"I promise you, Bae." Later, kneeling on his son's grave, he remembered the good intentions before the slaughter. "The dream you died for, I will make it true."
No more greedy, heartless nobles. Only the Dark One, Rumplestiltskin, the new lord of the Frontlands. The throne he claimed was built on a heap of corpses, but it was his now. As for the future... who could tell?
And that was when he remembered the seer.
Author's notes: The most fearsome thing in this world is not demons or dark magic, but the evil in a human heart. (I've been watching/reading too many Chinese ancient-setting fantasy shows/novels lately, so consider this a wuxia/xianxia/xianhuan/whatever-influenced AU... we can blame that for any OOC actions/dialogue in this story!)
In canon, the Duke had control of the Dark One and could presumably have ended the war with the ogres if he wanted to (since Rumple, given the same power, did it pretty much instantly). In canon, Beowulf's sword was forged by the Blue Fairy. Supposedly, it was "enchanted with light magic to ensure that whoever carries it into battle will be hailed as a hero", and Beowulf seemed to believe it. Apparently Blue values appearances more than reality. Perhaps she didn't care to end the war, either. My head-canon here is that Blue was allied with the Duke and found it useful for him to hold the Dark One's leash. As for friars, Robin Hood's Friar Tuck existed in canon, so I'm just extrapolating for this AU.