Chapter Text
Why do humans hold so tightly to that which was meant to dissipate? Maybe it’s because they sense that they too are mere shadows themselves, here today and dust tomorrow. All men are evil and then they die. One generation rises and another sets like the rising and the setting of the sun. Wealth, wisdom, greatness, power, love and eternal life were the things they bartered for and he met with them one by one pocketing prizes, souvenirs and favors from the desperate and needy. One in a thousand grasped the secret of life –one in a thousand enjoyed their passing moment in the sun –one in a thousand caught his eye. Rumplestiltskin sought out these few, these diamonds in the rough. He shelved tokens and favors from the nine hundred ninety-nine; little things that could help him keep that one person’s light burning that much longer.
Passing invisibly through the winding throng, the Dark One studied the faces of men, women and children. They couldn’t see him, but he could see them. Unaware of their blessed brevity they shopped, ate, drank, played, fought, killed, cried and hoped for what they couldn’t have. Always wanting more; that was the thing about humans, they’d rather fade away clinging to their fragile passing hopes, preferred it actually; to letting natural change take place. Life and love was meant to pass through our fingers as it had for all of eternity.
New York’s marquees lit up the evening sky, bathing the sidewalk in an eerie florescent patchwork of colors. Above all other cities Rumplestiltskin found more deals to be made in this bleeding metropolis. Desperate souls haunted the steel city in search of fame and fortune. A few succeeded, but more often than not, they either gave up or gave in to a carefully crafted deal.
Through the automatic doors of the city hospital, the Dark One strode purposefully. Bleeding, falling, fading, dying, dozens wilted on every side, but Rumplestiltskin moved on unseeing. He hadn’t come for the bruised and broken, his deals were made with the living. He paused briefly at the end of the hospital corridor, watching the doctor with detached boredom. This wasn’t the first deal the ambitious physician had made with Rumplestiltskin and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Invisible to the naked eye, he stood head to toe in polished dragon hide and russet silk, transformed and fitted to his narrow form. His chest and face were golden-green, scaled and dry but shimmering unearthly under the flickering florescent lights. Thigh-high laced leather boots wove up his legs from ankle to kneecap. He propped a shoulder against the discarded steel food rack and watched the nurses shuffle back and forth from the bedside of the dying politician. Their efforts were pointless, the Dark One reflected dispassionately. Death came for every man, king or pauper and a few years made little difference. Only Rumplestiltskin survived both time and the restrictions of human existence. Devil, dealer, baby stealer…wasn’t that what they called him? The cursed one who existed between time and space, making deals with the weakest and most desperate souls for all of eternity.
In an adjacent room the low hum of a monitor marked the death of an elderly woman. Rumplestiltskin nodded wordlessly at the sharp, black suited angel who’d come to collect the woman’s soul. Indifferent to the nurses’ pathetic struggles to revive her, he simply collected her essence and escorted it down the hall without a backwards glance.
To Rumplestiltskin’s left, giggles and squeals pierced the heavy atmosphere from the children’s ward. He turned and absently wandered through the double doors; the senator had a good three hours left, plenty of time to bargain. Beaming munchkins of various heights and ages on the ground or in wheelchairs huddled around a young woman in a plastic blue chair. Bathed in a stream of recessed lighting the animated brunette smiled brightly at the little assembly. She was holding up a children’s book, pointing to a colorful page where a magnificent, turquoise and red dragon had just been felled by a knight in shining armor. There was no end to the enthusiasm she rankled out of the pitiful brood. They popped up and hollered in blissful turns in response to her questions.
“‘Hurrah!’ the villagers cried. They waved banners in the air and cheered.” Hoisting her free arm in the air, she acted out the little scene for her rapt audience. The petite lass wore a canary yellow sundress of thin cotton that lightly skimmed the crest of her knees. Severing his observations, the storyteller broke halfway through her next sentence, “Come! Come on in!” she waved enthusiastically from the center of the mush pot. Rumplestiltskin turned apathetically from left to right. There was no one around him.
“Come on, join us! Don’t be shy!” her head lifted toward the distant corner where Rumplestiltskin stood in the double doorframe. If he wasn’t absolutely certain he was invisible to the human eye, he’d swear she was speaking to him. The thought caused him to stiffened involuntarily.
The crowd of children turned their innocent gaze to the empty open corridor where Rumplestiltskin stood stoic, frozen in place as if cemented in the speckled linoleum tile. She couldn’t really see him there? Could she?
“Teacher.” one strawberry blonde whispered loudly, “There’s no one there, teacher.”
“Hm? Are you sure, Samantha?”
“Yes, teacher. There’s no one over there.” The little girl dutifully searched the bright, florescent hall with her large, hazel eyes just to make sure.
After a moment the story continued and Rumplestiltskin, curiosity peeked, skirted the room cautiously in his waxed leather boots. Approaching the slim back of the narrator with silent steps he hovered ever so slightly over her left shoulder. The reading stopped abruptly again and Rumplestiltskin jolted back a step as if bitten. He perceived her heartbeat quicken just as his own ancient organ began to.
“Teacho?” A little sooty haired toddler placed one of his pudgy hands on her knee. “Ow you otay, Teacho?”
When the storyteller turned to face the little boy, Rumplestiltskin got a good clear look at her sky blue eyes fringed with long black lashes in a soft, oval face. Clearly blind, the sapphire circles were glossy and unfocused. Full pink lips painted a smile that started at the corners of her ripe mouth and spread far and wide, covering her cheeks in a ripple of dimples.
After a long while the little enthusiasts filed out of the room to their respective corners and the girl stood alone in the center of the round, cherry red carpet. She stooped to search out and gather up the meager stack of fairytales. The smile started again –crinkling up into the creamy cheeks, revealing a line of straight white teeth.
“Are you still here?”
“Yes,” he thought to himself, circling her cautiously. She was a lovely little thing, small and slight with waist length wavy chestnut hair bound with a simple thin, satin ribbon.
“I think you are,” she nodded with a confident tip of her dainty chin. “You’re welcome any time. Many children are too shy to come forward and hear the stories, but don’t worry about anything –you’re always welcome. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer she swung a worn canvas tote across her shoulder and stuffed the childrens’ books inside. Feeling along the lush carpet at her feet, she located a long red and white cane and standing slowly, she shuffled carefully down the hall toward the neon exit sign.
Aware of the slipping hour, Rumplestiltskin pivoted toward the hall doors, from whence he’d come when he spotted a small blue book the girl had forgotten under her plastic chair. Rumplestiltskin picked it up and thumbed through the brightly painted pages –another kind of fairy tale he mused with a half grin. Vanishing the thin volume with a snap of his fingers he magicked it to his treasury of keepsakes and stalked toward the surgery room.
Laid out on the operating table unconscious, the graying politician’s chest was exposed and already prepped for surgery. The portly old man had led a completely selfish life, suffocating his existence with greed and materialism and bringing misery to everyone around him. Miraculously saving him would, obviously earn the young Doctor a good deal of public acclamation. Rumplestiltskin glanced at his prize, a particular heart the surgeon had collected for this upcoming procedure.
“Dr. Whale,” Rumplestiltskin greeted. With a dramatic flurry of purple wind, followed by a signature high pitched giggle he revealed himself behind the physicians back. The surgeon swung around, toppling over a tray of newly disinfected instruments. The man was clearly at wits end. His cropped blond hair fell limply against his head and wisps of it stuck to the perspiration on his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and outlined with dark circles, but they shifted nervously towards the door where his nurses would be entering any minute. The Dark One clapped his hands eagerly and without a moment of hesitation, produced a long document and a feathered pen from a swirl of magic.
“Ready to make your deal?”
“You know what I want,” the weary doctor responded with a tip of his chin. “But what do you want?”
“I thought you’d never ask!” The Dark One squealed and pranced on tiptoe over to the ice chest on a nearby table. Propping open the lid with one of his long green fingers he wrinkled his nose, grinned, and pointed to the living organ. “I want that!”
“The heart?” Whale gaped at the devilish imp for only an instant before wearily kneading both thumbs into the temples of his throbbing head with a defeated sigh. “Won’t I need that?” he asked without looking up.
The Dark One’s eyes twinkled with mischief as he took another glance in the cooler, “This?” He pointed with an innocent shake of his green index finger. “No, you don’t need that. You need blood…” From beneath his slender wrist he produced a dark red vile not much bigger than his own thumb. “This blood.”
Whale conceded with a weary shrug. “I’ll hand it over to you once this is over with.”
Rumplestiltskin smiled, his reptilian eyes dancing with delight, “Agreed. Now sign here if you please.”
Twenty minutes later, possessed of his prize he exited through the automatic glass doors. The air outside was humid despite the lack of summer sunlight. At the cross-section an ambulance and police cars shielded wreckage from the sight of passersby, but Rumplestiltskin casually slipped between the partitions. A desperate, distraught young man was howling at a cop, gesturing wildly beside his delivery truck at the incident before him. The Dark One took everything in. On the pavement lay a very still, very familiar young woman with long chestnut curls around a bloodied oval face. A gurney was carefully cradling her slight form and able-bodied medics were assisting it into the vehicle. Someone in the crowd was crying. A nurse and a small child stood off to the side, pointing and talking in hushed tones. Rumplestiltskin recognized the little child as one of the burn victims in the children’s ward where the woman had read.
They were shutting the door now, taking her away to the emergency entrance on the far side of the building. Rumplestiltskin followed the ambulance, hardly knowing why. He barely knew the girl –had hardly seen enough to warrant his devoted attention, and yet he knew there was something startlingly different about this individual. She had sensed him, even if she couldn’t see him (for multiple reasons) and that intrigued Rumplestiltskin. He’d meant to seek her out after his deal with Whale, perhaps follow her and see what her life consisted of, now there would be nothing to follow. The Dark One knew enough of life and death to recognize her likely fate; it was too late and that frustrated him.
A few hours later she was wheeled down the hall to a recovery room where Rumplestiltskin waited. Having delivered the heart to its desired recipient he’d returned here to pace impatiently in the room he knew she’d be taken to. All magic had a price. There was no deal to be made with an unconscious victim and no relatives present for payment, so the Dark One waited for the surgery to be complete and the sleeping girl to be settled in the recovery unit. He opened the curtains, allowing the silvery light to fall softly across her bandaged brow. They were alone. With only the moonlight illuminating her gentle curves, he stalked the length of the bed, studying her. One hand suspended a foot above her broken body; purple mist glowed from his palm as he searched her for internal injury.
The girl was in a coma –a fatal one from what he discerned. She had only a couple of days before she slipped from this world. Snatching the clipboard from the end of her bed he read the surgeon’s hasty script. They’d found her identification in the knapsack she carried. Her name was Belle. Rumplestiltskin smiled to himself, “Belle,” it suited her. Perching on the crown of a nearby chair he rested both waxed crocodile skin boots on the mauve seat cushion and watched her.
“Go on in, Samantha.” A half-hour later the little child from the sidewalk stepped hesitantly hand-in-hand with her nurse to the bedside of the young woman. Pausing beside her still, white hand, the little girl stooped a pressed a kiss to the top.
“Get well, Belle! We miss you.” The child picked up the hand and gently stroked it with her tiny fingers. “We’re all waiting for you. Everyone knows you’re here: Gordy, Tishana, Megan, Karen, Alice, the kids from the tenth floor and even Stevie –though he still don’t say nothin’. But he misses you too. Please get better soon, Belle!” The little girl gave the hand a firm squeeze before her nurse whisked her away.
It was only a short while before other children filed in, always accompanied by staff and always visiting only briefly. Nurses and other employees also came to check on the young woman, some sniffled, some looked on sadly, some brought trinkets, a few touched her hand and one even stopped to pray. Over the next hour the visits were almost constant. Rumplestiltskin sat on his perch watching each proceeding with piqued curiosity.
“She was able to see the good in people.” The words were uttered without emotion, the clean-cut stoic suit stood rigid at the foot of the hospital bed. The Angel of Death appeared deceptively, invitingly human with his disarming mop of floppy blonde hair and watery blue eyes. “Rare.” Head cocked inquisitively to the side, Death squared his gaze at the Dealer. “I find myself wondering…Why are you here?”
Rumplestiltskin descended from his narrow roost and met his old acquaintance with a devilish grin, his black teeth and thin lips creating a sickly smile where welcome was attempted. “Have you come to take her?” he asked with practiced disinterest.
“Yes.” Motionless and detached the angel took a stiff step closer to the sleeping girl, robotically leaning over her fading frame while his eyes searched for the soul he’d soon claim. “…but not yet.” His back snapped upright, while his eyes sought out the Dark One in the pale light, “in four days time. I thought that perhaps there was something you needed. I wondered why you are here? You do not deal with the dying.” The Angel of Death was a deliberate, unpracticed speaker –the words fell from his lips like clunky, typewritten phrases.
“No,” the imp snapped with practiced aplomb. “But the girl was…unique. You say she saw good in everyone?”
“Yes,” Death responded unaffectedly. “But, not in you.” The same expressionless, empty eyes calmly surveyed the demon across form him. “She cannot see good where good does not exist,” he concluded flatly.
“Where good does not exist…” The Dark One tasted the words thoughtfully. Juggling each one with bitter rebellion, he ran a blackened, long tough nail lightly over her sallow cheek. “How long does she have?”
“Three nights, four days.”
Rumplestiltskin gazed thoughtfully at the motionless figure stretched out on the bed. “Would you like to make a deal, Old Friend?”
This comment sparked the first flicker of emotion across Death’s creamy upraised brow. “What kind of deal? I would like to hear this deal.” The angel of death settled stiffly on the edge of the hospital mattress, hands folded deliberately in the lap of his black wool suit.
Rumplestiltskin templed his scaled green fingers with reflective taps. “Three nights! Four days!” he trilled with devilish delight, “to prove that the girl can find good in even me.” The imp jutted his chin in a mock pout and topped it with a shrill giggle. “If, by sunset on the fourth day she hasn’t found any good in me, I will concede that you’re right and you may –take her away!” Rumplestiltskin emphasized with a flourish of his wrist. “I’ll also throw in that ‘trinket’ I obtained that I know you’ve been coveting. However…if you’re wrong...” The fabled legends met eye to eye as the Dark One leaned over the Angel of Death with brimming excitement and wiggled his index finger in the immortal’s face. “You have to let her live until she’s old and gray. Do we have a deal?”
Death rose up from his seat and slowly extended his stiff hand to grip the Dark One’s scaly green claw. “I like this,” he declared quietly with an unpracticed smile. “I would like to make this deal.”
Rumplestiltskin delivered a snappy shake and a wide, toothy grin of his own as Death left the room.
With all mirth spent in the golden-green eyes, the Dark One bent over Belle’s face and studied every line, curve and milky plain before gripping her inanimate hand in his own scaly grasp. “We shall see…” his whisper hovered in the purple mist that enshrouded the girl and the master of darkness.