Chapter Text
White Gold
Chapter One: Separate the Voices
“Emma...you have to. Separate me and my father. You need him. You need him to tell you who the witch is. Do it.”
Emma stared at Neal's hands, clasped in hers, then at his drawn face, shifting between his own shape and Gold's. All her instincts were screaming that something bad was going to happen. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. It wasn't just the wrongness of seeing Gold and Neal sharing a body, or their shared pain as they wavered back and forth.
They didn't know how Rumplestiltskin had come back. They didn't know how Neal had been branded or why. And now this was happening.
“Emma, you gotta do it.” Neal's hand's clenched around hers, face contorting as it shifted between his square features and Gold's narrower ones.
She didn't want to, but she couldn't see any other choice. Neal was in pain, and when he'd been Gold, he'd been insane.
She tightened her grip on his hands and tried to focus, the way Gold had taught her to over a year ago. To feel what she wanted and needed to do.
Gold had been crying out about the voices. Too many voices and no room in his head, he'd said. So...I just need to separate all the voices. Separate them into different people. Rumplestiltskin, or Gold, and Neal. Just separate the voices Emma, you can do that.
She felt heat and pressure building up inside her. She held Neal's hand and focused on repeating the mantra, on her feeling of need, her desire to separate Gold and Neal before their shared mind drove them mad, or killed them. Her need to save Neal, for Henry, for herself. Her need to have Gold there, to give them the information they needed about the witch.
Separate the voices.
The pressure built, then exploded out of her and into Neal, knocking them apart. Emma yelped as she was flung backward, her shout echoed by two masculine voices. Voices she knew. Neal and Gold. Got it.
She sat up quickly, ignoring the throb of pain from her bruised ribs. Neal was lying on the ground a few feet away, his face a peculiar waxen color that made her stomach clench and her heart leap into her throat. Gold was a few feet further, having apparently crashed into and crumpled at the foot of a tree.
Emma ignored Gold and lunged for Neal, pulling him into her lap. His breath was coming in harsh panting breaths, and he looked like he was having a heart attack. “Neal? Neal! Hang on, hang in there, we'll take care of this...” His condition terrified her, especially since she had no idea what had happened to him. “Neal!”
Neal coughed roughly. “Sorry Emma...”
“Bae?” Gold staggered over to them, looking almost as wrecked as his son. “Bae?” He collapsed to his knees beside them, his expression stricken. “What have you done?” He took Neal's hand. “Bae, what have you done?”
“Sorry Papa. I had to...” Neal coughed.
“What is this?” Emma looked at the older sorcerer. “Gold...”
Neal shook his head. “Nothing you can do, Emma. Bringin' back the Dark One...” He coughed again. “A life for a life....”
Emma felt like she'd been sucker-punched. No, not sucker-punched. Hit by a car. “No. No, no no, Neal you can't do this to me...” Beside her Gold made a choking sound, shuddering, his eyes alight with pain and fear. “Can't you do something?”
“I...it's too far...” He curled his hands around Neal's, bowing his head over their linked fingers. “Bae, Bae, you've got to hold on. Just give me some time, I can fix this. Please Bae...it can't...not like this...”
“Papa...it's okay....”
“Move.” Emma jolted in shock, whipping her head up and back so fast she felt like she'd gotten whiplash.
There was a second Gold standing behind her. He looked a little less bedraggled and insane than his counterpart, though his face was drawn and his eyes were filled with pain. He came and knelt on Neal's right, then gently took his wrist. “Here. Give him to me. There's no time.”
Neal stared at him. “Papa...”
Gold, the first one, froze. Emma swallowed hard. “What the hell...”
The second Gold shook his head sharply. “There's no time. The spell is eating his life force. If you don't want him to die, then give him to me.” He tugged on Neal's wrist once more, and this time his counterpart released it.
Gently, the second apparition pulled Neal's hand palm up into his lap. Slender fingers traced the brand burned into his son's hand. “Not quite too late.” He pushed up the right sleeve of his shirt, arranging his arm so that Neal's hand was wrapped loosely over his pulse point, and closed his hand around Neal's wrist. “Brace yourself.”
Light flared silvery-white around their joined hands. Both Golds gasped, almost in unison. The first one collapsed backwards onto the forest floor, his eyes bright with pain and desperate hope.
Neal heaved upward, gasping like a drowning man who'd reached the surface. Color flooded his face. The light faded, and both Golds slumped, pale and trembling.
Emma stared at the three of them. Neal was gulping in deep breaths of air, but his color had returned to normal and he felt warmer under her hands. She put two fingers to his pulse and found it fast but strong. In contrast, both Golds looked on the verge of collapse. “What the hell just happened?”
It was the second Gold who answered her. “Life force binding spell. Bae's dying, but I'm immortal unless I'm destroyed. Perfect combination.” He was breathing heavily. So was his more disheveled other self. “At the very least, it buys us time. It may actually save him, once his life force is replenished.”
Neal coughed. “But...all magic has a price...” His voice was already stronger.
“It's already managed.” Gold sighed.
Emma found herself staring, first at one Gold, then the other. “Could someone please explain to me why there are two of you now?”
Both Golds chuckled, a dry raspy sound. Then the first one answered her. “That's your fault dearie.”
“ What? ”
The second one picked up the explanation. “You tried to separate the voices, but without the proper control, you separated all of us. Neal, the Dark One, and me.”
“What? Like...you were a multiple personality?”
“In a sense. You see...” He huffed a breath and tilted his head back, shaking his wild hair out of his eyes. “There are certain rules to magic. All magic has a price. True Love breaks all curses. And, the most important one here...Dark Magic cannot abide a willing sacrifice.”
“A willing sacrifice...when you killed yourself to stop Pan.” Neal pushed himself upright, still leaning partially on Emma.
“Exactly. There's never been a Dark One who did such a thing. It's not supposed to be possible.”
The first Gold - Emma supposed he was the Dark One - laughed harshly. “Never been a Dark One...who loved anything besides power, dearie.”
The second Gold nodded. “Doing what I did...I shouldn't be the Dark One any longer. But I was the last to hold the knife, and the curse was never truly broken. So when Bae activated the vault of the Dark One, I was summoned back. But sacrifice creates it's own magic under it's own rules.”
“And then you sacrificed the dagger and your freedom, even your sanity, to save me.” Neal's voice turned rough, hoarse.
“And I grew stronger. And now, thanks to Miss Swann...” He dipped his head in a bow that might have been mocking or genuine either one. “We have this.” He gestured at his counterpart. “He's cursed, and I am not. I have the power invested by the sacrifice, mine and Bae's, he has the power of the Dark One.”
The other Gold flinched. “And it's price.”
“And it's price.” He nodded.
“Great. More complications. What do we do now?” Honestly, she just wanted to put her head in her hands and hide. “Can you tell us who the witch is? And what to do about her?”
Both Golds flinched in unison. Then the first one spoke. “Zelena. The witch is Zelena.” Then he flinched again, hunching in on himself.
Neal sat forward. “Papa?”
“She's hunting for him. For me. Compelling us. And separated like this, he can't fight her compulsion. She knows the general area from her monkey. She'll be here soon.” The second Gold winced as well, jaw clenching for a brief moment. “We need to leave.”
The first Gold looked up at Emma, eyes wide with pain and desperation. “Take them both. Get them out of here, before Zelena finds out the truth.” He grimaced again. “Hurry.”
Emma swallowed. “What about you?”
“She's bound me with a command to stay until she arrives. I have no choice.” Gold - The Dark One - lashed out and shoved her, pushing her backward. “Go. Leave me. Quickly.”
“Papa...” Neal sat up, reaching for the huddled form.
The first Gold knocked his hand away. “Go. Bae, please...go. Otherwise, she will make me hurt you.”
Emma saw the fear in his eyes. That decided her. “Right. Let me call David and tell him to meet us at the car.” She stood and helped Neal to his feet. He was still a little shaky, so she jerked her head at the other Rumplestiltskin, the one who wasn't trying to bury himself in the roots of a tree. “Help me with him.”
Gold stood, wincing a little, then got his arm around his son. The other Gold jerked further away, pressing himself back into the tree, shoulders hunched and head down.
Emma hit the number to speed dial David. “Hey, yeah. Meet me back at your back at the car. I found Gold, and I've got some information we really need to know. But we need to get out of here and I mean fast. So move it.” She barely waited for David to reply before she hung up and took Neal's other side. “Come on.”
Neal hesitated a moment. Then he whispered softly. “I'll find a way to save you.”
The Gold cowering on the ground nodded once, a short jerky movement, then raised his face. “I believe you.” Then he looked away.
Emma felt a lump in her throat, and the Gold standing beside her looked pained. After a moment, she tugged on Neal's arm. “Let's go.” Neal nodded, and the three of them stumbled off through the trees.