My dearest Belle,
I write this letter to you on this day, this very special day to give you the proper explanation you rightfully deserve, an explanation long overdue.
I was never the man you know today. I was simple, a poor spinner with a son and wife that had a terrible falling. My upbringing wasn't a wholesome one. My mother died when I was a babe and my father was a gambling drunk who cared very little for me but I cared greatly for him. I acquired a magic bean that would bring my father and me to a land where we could start over and be together but he traded me for youth so that he could stay in Neverland and live forever without me, without the baggage. I didn't want to go. I didn't understand it and there was no one to explain it to me. I lived years wondering why, why my father would leave me but as the years went by and I had a son all my own I understood a bit more. My father was afraid, and as was I, but I vowed to be a man my son could look up to and would want to be one day, but I failed him.
Baelfire was to be drafted to the war when he turned 14. I couldn't live with that, to have my only son taken away from me. So I searched for a loophole and once I found it I became obsessed with it. Zoso, the Dark One before me was controlled by the sinister man that was to take my boy. I had to take that power but I didn't just want to control that power I wanted to have it for myself. Being poor I always dreamt of having it all. This was my way of getting it so I stole the dagger and summoned Zoso. I killed him with it and took his magic, a power I feared but it filled me with courage, a coward's courage.
I then killed the men that were to take my son and vowed to use the power to save the children of the front lines and I did. But I then became consumed by magic and I used it in ways even the devil frowned upon. My son took it upon himself to do what I did as a boy and found a magic bean that was to take us to a land where we could start over. But cowards do what cowards do, and I broke a promise to my son and I abandoned him like my father did to me. Forever I will regret that decision.
Just to brush over and to not bore you with my sob story I'll make this quick. My wife left me for the pirate you know as Hook. She couldn't stand to be with a man like me, so she abandoned her son and I. I sought revenge; I killed Milah and took Captain Jones' hand.
Years later I fell in lust for a women. Thought it was love until she left me for a king, for a whole other kind of power that I could not give to her. I cannot say you were my first love but my sweet Belle; you are the first and final that holds my heart. You are the flicker of light in my ocean of darkness. You have shown me the truth and the beauty that lies in the ugly. Being with you made me realize that I needn't power, and that I needn't magic to feel whole, I only need you and your love. I realize I can never win you back and I have accepted that. I am not creating excuses for what I've done. I just wish for you to understand why, and not live like me, wondering and trying to decipher whether it was your fault or not. Whether there was more you could have done. I'm here to let you know that none of this is, and that my unfortunate end should not hang heavy on your shoulders. I've gotten what I deserved and I deserve no sympathy and no form of proper recognition. Though I do ask this of you. I wish for you to remember me as the man you wished me to be. To remember the good times and loving kisses we shared. The moments where I made you smile, laugh and made you feel like a queen because to me, you are. You are the most beautiful soul to walk the realms. You are perfection and you alone tamed the beast.
I am forever in love with you. Everything I had belongs to you now. Do with it as you please. Create the life I could never give you. Forever from the grave I will look after you and adore you from wherever I lay. For watching you may seem as an eternal suffer for me, it is an honor to see my true love happy and prosperous. There are not enough words in the world to express my love for you so I'll leave it at this, I love you for now and forever, my Belle. Happy anniversary.
Sincerely yours,
Rumplestiltskin
Belle's heart flushed as she read the letter of her first love. Her eyes filled with tears and guilt. The words were pure and from the heart. She had never read such a truth. Belle so wished he would have told her face-to-face. Still from the grave he chose his cowardice.
Belle will forever hold a flame for him for he has loved her as no other can but his evil spirit intoxicated the air and his demise was his only way of freeing himself from his curse. A Joy filled her at the fact that he is now liberated from his self-imprisonment. She felt as if her duty to him has now been fulfilled. Belle smiled as she read the last few lines and whispered to the letter. "I love you too, my Rum." She kissed his name and stayed there hazily. It felt as if she kissed his soft lips. She looked up staring at his spinning wheel from the back of his shop where she sat. She gazed at all his belongings and remembered all the times she shared with him. She stood and put her hand on her rounded belly and walked out the shop and down the street. Rumplestiltskin will forever be remembered not as an evildoer but as a man, unrelenting, a loving father and husband who will sacrifice all he is and all he has for those he held dear.
