Chapter Text
Rumpelstiltskin was not surprised when the summons led him to Storybrook Hospital. Hospitals were notoriously full of desperate souls.
No one stopped him as he entered the building, proceeded to the emergency room, and passed the nurse’s station. His quest led him to one of the few private rooms in the ER, and with a flourish he flung open the door in a fashion to intimidate the poor soul within.
Only there was no one there; the room was completely empty. The bed was unmade and the tray that once held the meal the hospital provided for the occupant sat empty on the side table. This raised the question: “Who eats hospital food; other than just the jello?” A soul would have to be desperate just to accomplish that task. Was his caller a homeless person, looking for shelter and food at any opportunity? Or was it some young adult, who was desperate to be thin and beautiful and who had tried to accomplish this by starving themselves? The empty tray was not enough of a clue to discern who his summoner was.
No other clue to the person’s identity could be gleaned from the barren room and no clue to their current location could be detected either. Mr. Gold looked around the room puzzled. Thought it was true that magic was different in this world, it should not be this off… this wrong about a summons. What was going on?
Just as he took one last look around the room before deciding to give up on this fools errand, a little voice could be heard from behind the door of the dark bathroom.
“Dark One I summon th_ee.”
Out of all the surprises Rumpel had had today, that voice was the real shocker.
A child! It was a child that had summoned him?
Sure, many children had tried to summon The Dark One. Either as a playful dare to prove their bravery to friends; or because Daddy would not get them that pet/toy/dessert that they simply had to have or else the world was just going to end. As a rule Rumpelstiltskin did not make deals with children. They had nothing to offer in trade; their demands were petty; and in truth, children were never truly desperate. Their innocent minds often could not really understand the desperate situations some found themselves in, or that little grain of hope, that belief that the world was truly a wonderful place deep down, still clung to them.
A desperate child was not hard to find, but a desperate soul within a child, what was something Rumpel had yet to see.
Although the imp knew he was not going to be making a deal with the child behind the door, curiosity got the better of him and he took a seat in the only chair in the room and waited for the bathroom door to open.