Ah, love. So fragile. So flammable.

Rumplestiltskin leaned against the cool brick wall across the drugstore, his form cloaked in shadow and glamour. To the average passerby, he didn't exist. But his eyes, ageless and sharp, tracked the staggering figure of Killian Jones as the pirate pushed through the automatic doors of the late-night pharmacy with far too much determination for a man who reeked of alcohol and heartbreak.

"How predictable," Rumple murmured, fingers drumming idly against the wall.

Inside, Killian moved like a man on a mission—head down, jaw clenched. Rumple didn't need to read his mind to know what this was about. He'd already seen enough. Emma had been distant. There had been one too many fights and arguments between the newly weds.

Through the glass, Rumple watched with idle amusement as Killian swept the shelves clean—test after test after test tossed into a plastic basket, fury building in his gait. The clerk gave him a wary look, but Killian didn't say a word. He paid in crumpled bills and stormed back into the night, and Rumple followed—silent, invisible.

The pirate's path home was unsteady, but charged. He was winding himself up tighter with every step, every imagined betrayal, every piece of a future Emma had not yet agreed to.

"Poor Captain," Rumple said with a smirk. "Still trying to wring certainty out of a woman who bleeds hesitation." He perched himself in the shadows of a tree across from the Swan-Jones house just in time to see the front door slam open.

Oh, it was already unraveling.

Killian barged inside like a man preparing for battle, and Rumple, unseen, stepped closer. A flick of his fingers widened the window just enough. He didn't need to hear every word—tone and magic told far more.

Boxes hit the table like accusations. Emma's face shifted from confusion to hurt to rage. And then the fight began.

It wasn't loud, not at first. They both still clung to control like it might save them. But Rumple had seen this before. He'd felt this exact kind of storm the night Belle left him, the night Bae had slipped from his fingers. This was the beginning of a breaking.

He smiled.

"Push her harder, Captain," he whispered. "Let's see how long she can hold."

Killian shouted something about a future, about family. Emma shouted back, her voice rising in pitch, her hands starting to glow.

There it is.

Her magic flared gold—unstable, raw, pure. The tests ignited in an instant. Flames danced across the table, casting flickering shadows over their faces like ghosts of what could've been. Burnt plastic. Singed cardboard. The future reduced to ash.

Emma looked horrified.

Perfect.

Rumple stepped closer to the house, invisible still, but close enough to feel the pulse of power that lingered in the air. The room crackled with it. That energy—Emma Swan's energy—laced with guilt, grief, and hope unfulfilled.

"Such waste," he murmured. "Such potential."

He uncorked a glass vial, small and delicate, rimmed with runes only he could see. With a small, circular motion, he pulled the residue from the air—light and smoke drawn like silk thread into the bottle.

When he looked back through the window, Emma was on her knees, staring at the ruined table. Alone now. Wounded.

Rumple didn't smile this time.

Sealing the vial with a whispered word, he disappeared into the night.

xxx

The air shimmered and split open like fabric as Rumplestiltskin stepped through the veil of time. One polished boot touched the forest floor, and the wound in reality sealed itself behind him with a hiss. Time travel was a delicate art—fragile, temperamental, and highly illegal by the rules of magic he himself had helped write. But Rumple had never been one for rules. Not when it came to shaping fate.

He emerged into the shadowed woods just beyond Queen Regina's private hunting grounds, a place few dared trespass. The trees here bent with secrets, and tonight, they whispered only for him.

He didn't wait long.

A flicker of smoke, the scent of incense and blood, and Baron Samedi stepped from the shadows. Clad in black, with a sharp grin carved across his face and bone charms clinking at his throat, his eyes gleaming when they met Rumple's. "You're late," he said, voice smooth as velvet but with an edge that could cut bone.

"You're lucky I came at all," Rumple replied, his own smile a thin blade. "I don't usually traffic in fertility spells. Particularly not for men already meddling where they shouldn't."

Baron laughed, tilting his head.

"A child. Why?" Rumple couldn't help his curiosity.

Baron nodded once. "A powerful one. Our magic combined… it will be a legacy like none before."

Rumple didn't correct him. Instead, he reached into the folds of his coat and retrieved the small crystal vial—Emma Swan's magic swirling within like captured sunlight and thunderclouds. Potent. Volatile. And now, the key to rewriting the story.

He held it between two fingers. "This will bypass the curse on her womb. Ancient magic, harvested from a rare source. One drop… and the impossible becomes inevitable."

Baron reached for it with greedy hands.

Rumple pulled it back. "There is a price," he said softly.

Baron's smile twitched. "Of course there is. Name it."

"When the child is conceived, the Queen cannot carry it." Rumple said.

Baron hesitated—but only for a second.

"Fine. I'm sure a simple peasant can do the hard work."

Rumple handed over the vial. He turned, preparing to slip back through time, when the Baron spoke again.

"She doesn't know," he said. "I've been careful. I've kept this plan hidden."

Rumple chuckled. "What is hidden will always come to light."

And with a final flourish of his hand, he vanished.

xxx

Moonlight slipped across silk sheets and stone walls. Regina lay curled against the warmth of Baron's chest, her breath slowing, the firelight casting gold over their tangled limbs.

He waited until she drifted near sleep. Then, with the softest whisper, he unstopped the vial and touched a single drop to her bare skin just below the navel. The magic sank in instantly—silent, golden, invisible. He didn't notice the shimmer beneath her skin. He didn't feel the essence shift—rejecting his blood, bonding instead with another. Emma Swan's magic. Emma's claim.

And somewhere deep within Regina's womb, where life had always withered before it began, a spark ignited. Silent. Miraculous. The moment the seed took root, it was stolen. Gone. Vanished before Regina could ever feel its flutter. She slept on, unaware that for the first time in her life, she had conceived.