Chapter Text
It was like a dream. But he knew it was a trap of some kind.
A trap like a dream, a prison. But instead of iron bars and a concrete floor, he knew the hell he'd been confined to was his own mind. It was a dream-like state he found himself in, a vision where the edges were hazy and blurry, undefined, out of focus. Everything looked and felt real, but he knew better. It wasn't like a dream. It was a nightmare. The dream was each time he shut his eyes and lost all manner of thought and consciousness.
It was bad in the beginning. He woke up in his bed in the castle. No fire in the hearth, but the sheets weren't cold. Neither were the blankets warm. But it didn't matter because he was tired. So tired, sleep beckoned him to return to his bed, and what felt like only moments later, he'd surrendered. When he next woke up, despite his exhaustion, he was at least aware enough to understand that he shouldn't be in this place, that he couldn't remember returning to the Enchanted Forest, or ever wishing to occupy this castle bedroom again. It was only then that he realized he shouldn't feel this way, that he shouldn't crave sleep as much as he did when he woke. In an effort to fight it, he forced himself out of his bed, forced himself to stand, to walk. It was only when he passed by a mirror that he paused his efforts out of shock.
His skin was normal. His appearance, entirely human. It was surprising. He was so accustomed to seeing himself one way in the mirrors of his castle, to being able to walk without a cane. Seeing himself in the castle mirror, uncovered, without a cursed mask to cloak his appearance...it was a shock. But not enough of one to keep him awake, not for long. That time, he'd made it to the chair by his fireplace before sleep once more consumed him.
He fought it. Every time he woke, he fought it a little bit more, but never for long. Sleep constantly threatened to envelop him. And he always gave in to it, because he couldn't seem not to. He was tired. Always. Every step that he took in his explorations took effort; every second he forced himself to remain awake was torture. And yet he wanted the effort, he wanted the torment because he wanted answers. He wanted to understand whatever curse he found himself trapped in!
He'd discovered the hazy edges of his vision and the lack of feeling early and quickly concluded that he was not actually in the Enchanted Forest or his castle. He understood, somehow, that he was in his own mind, and it chose to portray itself only as his castle. But that acceptance brought along a realization just as shocking as when he'd seen himself in the mirror.
He had the sense that he was alone. Completely alone. Which was terrifying all on its own. He hadn't been alone in his mind since before he was the Dark One. And yet no one but him populated the rooms of this massive castle, no one but him walked and crawled and dragged himself along the hallways seeking information, answers.
No matter how many times he tried to summon a face-Belle, Neal, Henry, hell, even Zoso-no one appeared. No matter how many times he tried to make the castle smaller, to turn it into his home in Storybrooke or the hovel or the cottage he'd shared with his aunts, nothing worked. It stayed the same. Always.
He had the sense that if he could just get to the front door, he'd be free. It should have been an easy task. There was no one to stop him, no one to put up a fight or distract him. But on the day that he finally managed to wake long enough to drag himself down the hall to the staircase, he looked over the foyer, exactly as he remembered it from when Belle had been in residence: carpet, table in the center, vase of roses on the table…but no door.
He'd nearly wept at the sight. The heavy, tall doors to his home were missing, replaced only with the same cold, gray colored stone the rest of the castle was made of. Despite sleep calling to him once more, he managed to slide himself down the stairs and into that foyer, where he forced himself back onto wobbly, sluggish feet. He figured he had only seconds before hibernation captured him again, but he also knew that door wasn't the only way out of this castle! The next closest doors would have been the servant's door, the one by the kitchen that Belle often found herself using.
Into the Great Room, he stumbled, determined to get down to the bowels of the castle, to escape! But that determination was thwarted by whatever spell had been placed over him, pulling him under. He'd barely made it to Belle's chair by the fire before he collapsed. The last thing he saw as his heavy eyelids closed once more…the beautiful windows Belle had been so determined to open to the light-they were gone. The curtains were pulled back, as she preferred them to be during the day. But there was only a wall where glass had once been.
The doors and the windows were gone. The fires were unlit, but the castle was neither hot nor cold; it was only unnoticeably comfortable. His vision blurred at the edges and he was tired. Impossibly tired. No healthy human being should need to sleep as much or as long as he was sleeping, which could only mean one thing. He was not a healthy human being. How could he be? After centuries of dark deeds and plots, after orchestrating the most powerful curse known to man…how could he not bear the scars of that?
Sitting in his chair in the Great Room, awake and tired but unmoving, struggling to keep his eyes open, he used his last minutes before sleep to reflect on what he saw, what he felt, the few things he knew to be true, and it gave him his answer.
Preservation Spell.
He was human. But after centuries of darkness, his human form was only half of who he had once been. It had to be true.
Preservation Spells were powerful magic. He didn't know who had placed it on him or why. The magic was beyond Emma's knowledge. Regina could do it, but only just barely, and this one was far too strong for her abilities. The Blue Fairy was capable. Why she'd agree to help him after all these years was beyond him, but she was currently his best guess.
Preservation Spells were used when someone needed time. Usually, the individual was dying or suffering in some terrible way that would lead to death, and so the spell was placed over them to force their body to come to a halt. He'd read only a few experiences of those who had gone through it and lived to tell the tale. They usually reported feeling an awareness of time passing while feeling abnormally tired.
That was certainly the case with him. He had the sense of time passing, of being out of his body despite not being able to see what was really going on with him. But there was no hunger, no need to relieve himself, no need to fidget. He knew he was still beyond his mind.
He also knew that somehow, someway, the Darkness had been removed from him. He was clueless as to how it had happened. All his last memories hinted at Nimue taking her victory, but he knew that she hadn't, and the only way that would have been possible was for the demons to have been excised from his chest, his brain, his heart! He knew Nimue hadn't won because of the voices.
If he was trapped in his own mind, then he knew that he should see the faces of the voices he'd been hearing his whole life. Nimue wouldn't stay away from him; she'd enjoy the torment of watching him squirm. Zoso would also likely seek him out, he needed camaraderie. Gorgon, who was angry enough to punch him, the twins, the Dark One who sat with him in Zelena's fucking cage…
His castle was a big place! But the Dark Ones were too numerous and too unique to keep hidden from him for as long as he felt the passage of time. If they were still part of him, then he should have run into one of them by now, should have heard someone's voice by now! Instead, all he heard were the whispers of those who were not in his castle, not in his head, but in the outside world.
The sounds were odd. Sometimes the voices he heard seemed very distant, and there were too many to home in on to make out words. Those conversations came through as a hum, constant and chattering, when he could stay awake long enough to listen. On very rare occasions, he was lucky enough to make out snippets of conversations.
"That monstrosity took Emma, where did they go?" Hook demanded.
"She is now where all Darkness is born. In your realm," a voice that he only vaguely recognized as the Apprentice answered back.
Those instances of conversation were rare. Most of the time, when he heard distinct voices, they came through as single lines or fragments of a sentence.
"I hope you know how lucky you are to have a heart like hers. For my sake, I hope you both know how lucky you are to have…"
Will Scarlett.
"You may yet live into your destiny, Rumpelstiltskin."
The Blue Fairy…whatever secretive meaning was behind that escaped him.
The voices came through at random, it seemed. Sometimes, when he could keep his eyes open long enough to form cohesive thoughts and theorize, he thought that they might be in some sort of order, but usually he couldn't be bothered to identify that order in time. All he usually had time to do was imagine the face of the person behind the voice, their gestures, and nuances.
"You son of a Bitch! You made me this way!"
Regina…he could see the sneer of her upper lip in the way that she spoke with rage and anger. Anger he feared might have been directed at him.
"I'm going to get us answers."
Emma, with all her usual pomp and determination.
"Go help them with Emma."
The Blue Fairy, endlessly, nauseatingly encouraging for only the right people.
"Give us time…"
Belle. Her voice, unlike all the other voices, always seemed to come through, clear as a bell. Sometimes it even woke him from his sleepy stupor.
"It's not just me, Rumple. Henry wants you back, too."
"I can't leave him here alone like this."
"Can you even hear me?"
"Yes!" he'd managed to cry out, to shout at the top of his lungs. But the sound only came out as a whisper, his voice raw and weak from disuse and exhaustion. It didn't stop him from trying. "Yes, I can hear you, Belle! Keep talking, please keep talking!" He begged her. He screamed for her. He cried on the days that he was loneliest and longed for freedom!
"Now if I were the Darke One…where would I hide my car?"
"Still breathing? Where is the old man?"
"We can't do this without you, I can't do this without you, please…please don't do this! Please stay with me!"
"I'm here, Belle!" he shouted at her plea, ignoring all others. "I'm here, don't give up on me, please!"
On the days he felt stronger, more awake, he beat on the walls of his prison, places where he knew there should be windows and doors, access to the outside! Anywhere the veil might be thin enough, he could get a message beyond his prison!
"Come back to me!"
He tried! He was trying! But Preservation Spells were all about healing, not of the body but of the mind and heart, given what he'd gone through before this, he could only guess it was his heart in need of healing, he just couldn't figure out how to do it! Not here! Not alone! He needed her!
"Cowards run. You're only a coward if you choose not to wake up. A hero would wake up. A man…a man would come home! He'd do whatever it took. I'm asking you to do whatever it takes now. Please."
"I'm trying…I'm trying, Belle, I promise…" he swore it as tears streamed down his cheeks. But some days, if he was honest, he found himself right back in his empty bed, in his isolated bedroom, pulling the covers over his head, not because he needed sleep but because he wanted to deaden the voices, deaden the hope they brought that was slowly seeping out of him. How long had it been since he'd last heard her voice? Now there were only strangers.
"Still no change?"
"I brought one of my favorites today, I thought we'd explore it together. 'Hope is a thing with feathers…'"
"Friends…like before?"
"Help me make him comfortable."
"This rose is now linked to your beast, Belle."
"I'm back…"
Oh, there she was, his angelic voice, his miracle, his reason for trying to wake!
"It's True Love!"
Yes, it was. It always was. It was True Love! But what True Love didn't know how to counter a simple preservation spell?! What True Love couldn't be bothered to try even a single kiss to wake him?
"You may be willing to give up on yourself, but I'm not!"
He wasn't giving up. At least he didn't think he was giving up, he was just…tired. So very tired. His body ached with disuse. His mind was bored hanging on to threads of conversations. Listening to Regina's idle chatter when she sat by his side, as if she thought he might assist her with what she was working on, just like old times.
"What do you know about eliminating Light Magic? Listen to this…"
Words…words that he knew from Nimue's mind, words that he knew she'd longed to read for herself. Words he couldn't bring himself to care about.
"Some mentor you are. I'm trying to solve the unsolvable, and you're just lying there. Why is it that you are always too busy when I need you the most?"
Oh, that he could respond! That he could do more than lie there and be useless!
But his heart…his poor heart!
Regina and her accusations he could ignore easily enough. It was torture listening to the pleas of the one he loved the most, begging him to do something that he couldn't do! He was beginning to feel like he'd walked the halls of this windowless, doorless castle far longer than he'd ever stalked the halls of the real one he'd left behind. He'd done everything he could think of. What more was there?
"I'm going to figure this out. I'll fight for this so long as you will, just…just keep fighting."
But how could he when it was all folly? He wasn't the Dark One anymore; he wasn't anything but a wounded, imperfect human. Maybe sleeping was the best thing he could do. Maybe there was a reason he craved it in this dark dungeon; maybe it was the answer. Though to sleep and risk not hearing her beautiful voice, not hearing words that he felt his soul craved more than sleep…what kind of a risk would that bring?
If he stopped fighting against the sleep, if he willingly gave in to it, would he ever wake again?
"Please…"
Would he ever hear her again?
"Please…"
Would he ever see her again?
"Please…"
He was a prisoner to his own mind. To his own body. He'd lost count of how many days he woke up in his bed, in his chair, on the floor after sleep won the battle. He was tired of being tired! He was tired of opening his eyes after what he was certain was a long rest, only to close them again immediately for another. He was tired of loneliness, tired of healing, tired of being in this purgatory!
Sometimes he woke up, he almost wished that if he wasn't going to recover, his body would just let him die and get it over with.
"Please…"
And then he'd hear her voice again. Her pleading, begging voice and think…
Just one more nap…
And then…
Something summoned him from his sleep. Something he hadn't expected or thought possible with this spell.
He needed to get up.
Oh, he was tired, still so tired, but he could feel a tugging inside his chest, something pulling him out of his bed, out of his room and down the hallway to the stairs where he saw…
The door.
The door that led from his castle to the grounds outside…they'd returned. And they'd never looked more menacing or imposing than they suddenly did now. After ages of looking at nothing but a closed-off wall, he knew something was at work, something that wasn't right, and it was for that reason alone that he knew he shouldn't go through that door. As much as he'd longed for a door or even just a window to appear all the time he'd been here, it was too suspicious that it show up now, while he was so tired, without Belle's voice to encourage him, beg him to move forward!
But he found his legs moving anyway. Against his will, whether he wanted them to or not, he was drawn to that door and unable to stop himself. He found himself terrified, a rock was stuck in his throat as he tried to fight it, tried to make his body behave, to stop his strides to it, but it was as though something else was controlling him, something else was pushing his body forward. He'd been the Dark One for centuries; he knew what it felt like not to be in control of his own body!
Light Magic was unable to seize control of an individual in such a way. Dark Magic, on the other hand...Dark Magic most certainly could.
And so, he held his breath as he felt his hand come to rest upon the handle of the door before him, and against his will…he pushed it open.