Happy without magic? Of course he hadn’t been happy before his magic. Before his magic, he had a childhood of being treated as a burden, a parasite, for no other reason than being born. He hadn’t even had the basic, unconditional love of his parents to cherish - his father did little to disguise his dislike for his son’s existence, and Rumple was not fooled by his half-hearted display of pretend fatherly care. His father loathed him simply because, like any other child, he needed food, shelter, love and time, things his father had no intention of sacrificing to raise his son to be happy.
So he had been miserable. He had been neglected and abandoned, and taught from a very young age that he was unlovable and unwanted. Rumple’s only drive in life was to ensure he would never become the cold, selfish man his father was.
He had gone to such lengths to do so that he had, without a second thought to his own happiness or reputation, taken the brand and shame of being the village coward as a price to pay to ensure his son was not raised fatherless like Rumple had been. Unlike Malcolm, who would sacrifice nothing for his son, Rumple sacrificed anything he had - and he didn’t have much more than his reputation and honour to give. So he gave it, and marred his reputation and brought shame on himself. And he didn’t care, so long as his son could be happy.
And when he had lacked the physical strength to defend his family from the powerful men who would drag his son to die in a war, Rumple had given up his mind and sanity to gain the powers of the Dark One, to be able to protect his family. For a brief time, he had been happy…no…elated that he could do something to defend them, rather than wallow in the frustration of being useless and unable to do anything but run or be hit, physically unable to fight back at their level. Now he could fight back. He could protect his son, as a father should.
…And his son had hated him for it. Bitterly, Rumple had thought once or twice that Bae had inherited his grandfather’s selfishness - that he would hate Rumple for fighting back with the power he had, but also would have grown to hate him for being weak and unable to fight back when others attacked their family.
Perhaps there was no pleasing him. Perhaps nothing Rumple did would ever be the right choice. To take power and fight back…or to remain weak and be beaten over and over each time he tried to protect anything he loved.
Bae wanted him to give up his powers and live with him in this new land. And now, he didn’t want him to? Because he’d have to give up his bitter memories?
“Your memories made you who you are today…and my memories made me the person I am today. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, is the exact person you hate. Wouldn’t it make sense to get rid of those memories and get rid of the man you hate, and have the old me back? I thought that was what you wanted?” Rumple snapped, starting to get frustrated as his apparent inabilty to get anything right.
Neal’s eyes narrowed slightly at the increased frustration that simply radiated off of his father. Somewhere at the core of their conversation, there was an essential miscommunication between the two of them. It had been like that for such a long time that Neal wondered if they were ever going to get to the same line of thought again without butting heads. But the risk had to be taken in order for there to be progress. There was one remark that made him grit his teeth, however, and eyebrows laced together in a deeply troubled frown.
"I don’t hate you, Papa.”
His intonation was in obvious contrast with his father’s; the man assumed the wrong things, and perhaps Neal’s own behavior had lead to that. It was true that he’d loathed the man for the longest time, loathed his choice of abandoning him in favor of keeping his magic, but now that they were at the brink of a very important decision, everything was different. The only intention he’d had in pressing the subject of memories was the fact that he did believe they shared happy memories, whereas his father had focused on nothing but the negativity of their shared lives. It made him sad to realize that the quiet moments he’d shared with his father had been along the same line of unhappiness as everything else.
“I hate how magic’s ruined everything we’ve ever had.”
And just as he’d suspected, it had even tainted the good memories. Perhaps the option of having him step over the town line was the best after all; at least if he did get his memories back later on, perhaps they would be untainted.
