amicustenebris | PSL - For Archie, Set After 4a

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PSL - For Archie, Set After 4a

With a kind of numbness that he hadn't felt since he cast Belle out of his castle and destroyed half his collection, Rumpelstiltskin made his way to civilization the very same night he was sent away. Once he hit the interstate it was not long before someone pulled over to offer help to the hobbling man, who looked like he'd wandered from a wreck. The stranger said they'd seen an abandoned car down the way a bit and offered to get him into town to call a tow truck.

He took advantage of his good fortune and was quickly able to access food, an ATM, a cane, and finally a place to collapse and eventually rent a car the following morning. He had thoughts of what he would have to do to figure out a way back over the town line. He understood the magic at work there, knew he could only go back in if summoned back in. But already the scheming began. Belle didn't understand his motivations, and he'd been incapable of correctly explaining. That was all there was to it. Part of him believed if he could say it right, if he could make sense of it all himself -- if he could just convince her that all she'd seen never meant he didn't love her? Then he could fix everything. Then he could be home with his wife, able to visit his son, able to walk and use magic.

He tried to call her from the phone in the motel. No answer. He tried a few times. There was an answer once. He couldn't speak.

Gold haunted that little hamlet outside of Ogunquit for a few days, with limited access to the internet or contact, just hoping he'd find some loophole that'd let him back in, afraid to wander out too far lest he lose his chance.

As far as he knew, Belle never caught on that he was calling. If she did, then she was patient. She stayed on the line longer than she needed. Spoke, and waited. Spoke. Then said goodbye. He couldn't work out why he could never say anything back, or even beg forgiveness. He kept doing it, knowing he couldn't stop himself crying afterward, knowing it was going to hurt every time, because he'd gotten so used to hearing her in the morning when she woke. And now when he called just to hear her it came with apprehension, certainty he'd hear that litany of accusations all over again, but he needed to. Maybe if he did speak, if he did let her know it was him, and he allowed it to happen, she might see he was sincere. She would forgive him. Remember she loved him. He would hand her the dagger and be her slave, be everything Zelena wanted him to be for her if that was what it took.

But he couldn't even bring himself to do that. It took him days to figure out why. That was when he headed south.

His rental car died just inside of Vermont. There were questions about his license. He switched to travel by bus from there -- crowded (good that he was traveling light), slow as sin -- he saw far more of the state than he really ever cared to. It felt ridiculously long for where he was headed, given how short a trip it had been by plane, but he didn't know if he could handle flying again. Not alone.

In Manhattan, the first place that he tried was Neal's old apartment, of course, and he did not expect to find it occupied -- by the Queen's married beau and his family, no less. They offered to leave it to him, which he declined. After a cursory search of the place, he found one or two familiar baubles, things his son held onto from his childhood all these years, somehow, things from their world, and he pocketed those, feeling an uncomfortable tightness that told him to get away, and he left as quickly as his legs could carry him.

Marion seemed especially keen to convince him to stay, at least until he found better accommodations.

He didn't trust it. He got away.

Crossing out into the evening air, he felt a rush of pent emotion and memory. Unkind words said in this very place. Hook's attack and his near death.

Then his actual death.

Then Neal's.

He went numb.

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Gold thought back to their exchange a moment. Short of Hopper implying it would be idiotic not to hear Emma and company out, he could not grasp when exactly the man thought he insulted him. And he was rather good about flying off the handle when he believed he was being attacked. Call it one of his talents.

"You likely came close to that, but I imagine that would be why you excused yourself."

Though he explained well enough why he had to leave: Gold was not the only one with something personal going on. Something he himself did not wish to discuss. And he imagined Archie felt the same.

Archie was caught in a weird dichotomy of wanting to talk out his problems yet feeling obligated to keep them to himself. An incredibly unhealthy mindset, but there were no other psychologists for him to talk to in Storybrooke and prescribing himself medication would be immediately noticed when getting filled by Tom Clark, and the rumor mill would have it all over Storybrooke before the day was out.

"I called you the biggest idiot in the Enchanted Forest," Archie said dryly. "In a hypothetical, sure, but it was still insulting you."

Gold rolled his eyes. "Doctor, I came up in an environment where people were physically attacked for the crime of being lame or mistreated by their family; you are going to have to do better than implying what you think I might be under a set of as yet unfulfilled circumstances."

Archie could definitely relate to the "mistreated by their family" part. Unfortunately.

He gave a wry chuckle. "Well, I still feel like I should apologize. That wasn't fair to you."

"But no less than expected, in a general sense." He wasn't about to start an argument by pointing out that fair is generally what he does, and nobody is especially fond of it.

"If you expect that from me, then I'm doing an even worse job than I thought," he muttered.

He really wasn't hungry, but he knew he needed to eat. He began slowly eating the sandwich. It probably tasted great, but it was ash in his mouth as his brain stewed over everything.

A sigh as he propped up the pillows on his bed and sat back. "...Doctor, I can make no assumptions about what personal demons all of this is bashing up against for you. That hardly stops any of them from existing. But it's also not going to change my answer to any of this."

Archie sighed. "Sorry." He gave his head a shake, refocusing on the matter at hand. "While I was out, did you give any thought to what's the next step?"

"No. I wish I had a more satisfying answer, for my own edification, but no. I am not at all accustomed to not having a clear path in front of me." And he doesn't like that the only one currently, possibly open to him feels like danger to be avoided.

"That's normal. Not knowing what the future will hold and being uncertain about it, I mean."

Welcome to the club, Gold.

Gold glowered. "I think after a year in a cage and everything since, I have experience enough to decide I'd rather opt out."

"And unlike Zelena's cage, you have the option to," Archie pointed out. "If you go back to Storybrooke and hear out Emma and the others, you're under no obligation to take any deal you might make. In fact, there's even the possibility of you being able to negotiate, compromise."

"There is also the possibility that if I do not consent to their terms, I will be cast out again, if that doesn't happen outright. Out where, as you have seen, I am very likely to die." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "But then, if I'm lucky I might get a few years completely debilitated if what's in me is feeling especially resentful. What a great bookend to being forced back to life if I don't opt to sacrifice a little more."

Wait a minute.

"Gold, you're overlooking the third option: The deal might not be to accept limitations to be able to stay in Storybrooke or be thrown out again but about any rules regarding contact with Belle and maybe Henry."

He crossed his arms self-consciously. "As long as she has the dagger, it doesn't matter what the other options are."

"So compromise with her. It's what all married couples need to do when they fight. Talk to her about coming up with boundaries you both can agree upon which won't require her to impel you with the dagger. Bring in a neutral third party if you need to."

"You are already speaking far ahead of what lies in the realm of possibility right now." All of that she would have to agree to. And as much as he wants to see her. Wants to hear something other than a venturing 'Hello?' on the phone line. Part of him also doesn't. And that part he doesn't fully comprehend, yet.

Perhaps it just feels wrong and foolish to hurt when he's the one that hurt her.

"And so are you," Archie pointed out. "You don't know what's waiting for you. It's obvious I don't know much about what's running through your head, but I do know that not knowing what's going to happen is causing you stress you don't need right now.

"Right now I think it'd be best if you focused on healing enough to at least reach the next step instead of trying to look so far ahead."

"Why don't you tell the dog not to use his sense of smell, while you're at it." There's humor in that somewhere, buried far down. Telling someone who is anxious not to be never stopped them, either, after all.

Archie closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a moment to compose himself. Gold wasn't the first person who'd dug his heels in when Archie had made a suggestion for improvement, clinging to what was unhealthy but familiar like a twisted security blanket.

"I'm not saying 'don't worry'. Anxiety doesn't just go away like that. I'm saying to focus that energy towards taking steps for your body to heal. Meditation to clear your mind so you can properly rest, for example."

"I used to be able to do that quite readily," he murmured.

"Do you think you could do it again? Not right now but whenever you decided to take a nap?"

A halfhearted, almost pained tug at the corner of his lips. "No. I don't imagine I am ever going to do that again."

"Why not? Have you forgotten how or is it something else?"

Spinning was always something he had been very good at. Effortlessly so. It was relaxing. And then the magic came to him and it became a way to pour everything negative out of himself. To turn it into something tangible and valuable.

And then of course it became a tool for someone else.

"I'd rather not talk about it. Suffice to say that it doesn't work anymore."

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