For once the world was perfect. For once things seemed to go their way.

Gideon was perfect and beautiful. Not a hair on his head was harmed. His eyes were closed in gentle sleep and she couldn't help but think that after the life he'd lived he deserved to have that peace at the moment. With any luck whatever memories he'd had would fade into dreams and those would be nothing but shapes and colors, a reality he no longer needed to live.

They were crying. Their son was a newborn, and yet it was she and her husband who were locked in a embrace around him blubbering far more like children than the adults they were. Their bodies swayed, mutually rocking their child back and forth until he let out a small noise and adjusted himself in her arms. They both chuckled at the motion, at the innocence and harmlessness of it. And when they glanced up at each other, two identical smiles on their faces, what came next was easy enough to desire. In an effort to get closer and touch her lips to his own she adjusted her weight and-

She got a very sudden and painful reminder of exactly why she was relying on him to hold her up. Still, she didn't shriek or cry out through the pain pulsing through her leg and up her calf. She let out a small gasp of surprise, and he adjusted. The grip he had on either side of her became tighter as she held her baby, unable to wipe the smile from her face even through her pain.

"Are you alright?" he whispered in the dark.

She nodded. "It's impossible for anything to be wrong."

She watched him nod in agreement as they corrected their stance to accommodate her injury. After what they'd lived through the past couple of weeks, there was very little that would upset her at the moment. Even a sprained ankle.

"We need to get that corrected," he muttered finally. She held tight to her baby, knowing what he was going to do without the words and was unsurprised to find themselves standing very suddenly in their pink house, couch right behind her legs and the coffee table behind his own.

"Careful now." He helped her fall back into the chair easily enough that their son didn't wake. She couldn't take her eyes off of him and only felt the way he gently moved her foot into his lap, as he'd done before, removed the shoe she wore and placed his hand over injury. The minutes ticked by as he concentrated on her and her alone, undisturbed by the little swaying she was doing with their son, unmoved when she slipped the shoe to her good foot off, and unswayed by the casual glances and smiles that she cast him as he worked.

He was wonderful. She knew that there was something he had yet to do, that every nerve in his body was probably aching to do and yet he didn't look up at her until the job was done, until pain receded to discomfort, and then slowly but steadily dulled and was forgotten.

"There now," he muttered, setting her leg gently back on the floor. "We should let that heal naturally the next time. Magic will only continue to make it worse."

She agreed. But instead of voicing her opinion sat forward with their son in their arms. After everything he'd done, he still hadn't had his chance…

"Rumple…this is your son."

Her mobility restored it was easy to lean forward and set the baby in his arms. She could tell that he hadn't expected it, not so quickly, but his arms automatically formed a haven for their son and she watched as his breath caught the minute she'd done it. Gideon looked smaller there, cradled against his father's chest. She was so small that Gideon was the full length of her chest, but with Rumple his head fit perfectly against his palm, the bulk of his body along the length of his forearm. She felt like she was made to hold Gideon, but she saw what that must have looked like when she watched Rumple hold him. They were both made for him. Or maybe he'd been made for them? She wasn't sure which it was anymore. And in her happiness true curiosity eluded her, and she was happy to surrender to the mystery and watch her husband hold his child for the first time.

He'd told her once that the happiest moment of his life was when he'd first held Baelfire in his arms. But as she watched the two of them and he began to cry and tremble over the weight of the infant and his blankets she wondered if it was possible to have more than one happiest moment in life.

"Oh, thank you, Belle," he breathed out on a sigh. "Thank you."

She felt her own tears swell, building out of happiness and guilt and even pride. "Don't thank me," she muttered rising so that she could sit beside him on the coffee table and look over his shoulder at their son. "We did it together. We both made him. I think he's got Neal's cheeks. And your nose."

"Your chin," he added moving a hand down over the curve of his face. Gideon was so deeply asleep he didn't even twitch.

"We already know he'll have your eyes…we know who he'll be physically, but who he'll grow up to be now is up to us. Without your mother he could have your bravery."

"Your optimism," he snorted.

"Your charm."

Beside her Rumple nodded. "Do you think I might get it right this time? That he might grow up to love us and make a young lady happy one day? Give us a grandchild?"

She felt another wave of tears wash over her and nodded. "I think that's a very likely scenario, especially if we take things slowly, one day at a time," she choked out, laying her head on his shoulder. This was too much. It was a lot to take in! It was hard to believe that they'd woken up cursed, that they'd been terrified they'd never see Gideon again only hours ago, that they had been in that cave barely thirty minutes ago searching for his heart. And now he was here. The Black Fairy was gone and every drop of desperation and sadness she'd felt over the last few weeks seemed to vanish. For their world to go from almost over to starting anew in less than an hour was overwhelming. To hear her husband talking as he was now…she didn't think he'd ever behaved this way.

"Belle?"

"He's so tired…" she observed after a sniffle, wiping her eyes so he couldn't see just how much she was crying. "I should have saved that basket for him to sleep in. We have nothing here for him!"

"We'll need to go out first thing in the morning, but for tonight he'll be safe enough with us."

Yes, a curse had broken today. If what she'd seen afterward was any indication then there was no doubt in her mind that Storybrooke was a mess, just as it was after every curse. Stores would be shut down, people searching for loved ones, everyone trying to figure out what exactly had happened to them. There was no use in wading into all of that, and she had no desire to. They were here for the night. And while she imagined they would both be perfectly happy to take shifts in holding their baby, she didn't want their arms to get to tired and drop him, or Gideon to not be able to move about because he was curled so tight against them. A basket would have been perfect. Come to think of it…

"I have an idea."

Tearing herself away from her men was harder than she suspected but she managed to walk up the stairs, not bothering to turn the lights on, but rather living in the perpetual darkness they had been in downstairs. From Rumple's closet, she pulled free a laundry basket, then went to the linen closet and fetched a fresh pillowcase which she promptly stuffed with folded towels and set in the bottom of the basket. It wasn't much. But it would do for the night.

Before she went back down the stairs she found herself stopped by an object in the hall, one that she recognized. A bell jar. Her bell jar. She'd been keeping it by her nightstand but with the new curse shifting everything around it was now just sitting innocently enough on a table in the hallway, an unsuspecting decoration. She smiled as she added it to her basket and went back downstairs to find Rumple just as she'd left him, sitting on the coffee table holding their son in his arms and rocking him back and forth.

"He's so small, this should do for the night," she explained setting the basket down on the couch. She pulled her bell jar out and without conversation or question he rose and placed their son onto his makeshift mattress. He squirmed about for a moment at his freedom, then fell back into his deep slumber.

"Perfect," Rumple mumbled as he drifted off once more.

"I thought we could use this as a nightlight," she whispered setting the bell jar on the table beside Gideon.

"What is it?" he questioned.

"You don't know?"

He shook his head. "I've seen it in our room for weeks, and I can sense it's fairy magic but what it is I couldn't say. It's not an object I'm familiar with."

"It's you," she smiled taking her seat in the armchair across from him. "When we went to Camelot all I knew was that you were dying. I didn't want to go with them because I didn't want you to die alone, so Mother Superior gave it to me. Your life extended to the last petal. Of course, I didn't anticipate we'd be gone six weeks, but it worked. Whenever I wanted to check on you I only had to think of you-" at that, she closed her eyes and let the magic of the jar fall away so that it revealed the rose within "-and I'd know how you were…are. See there. Strong and healthy. It lets off a nice glow. Only for me, but I figure maybe Blue could alter it so that it works for him. Maybe it could show both of us someday."

Rumple gazed down at it, looking astonished in the red-gold glow that her rose emit in the dark room.

"It's beautiful," he finally whispered. For the first time that night their focus was on something other than their child. Their baby sound asleep in the basket on the couch they made eye contact and the sea of emotions raging inside of her picked out a new sensation, complete with questions that she had to have answered.

"What happened, Rumple?" she asked leaning forward in her chair. "How did this happen?"

Rumpelstiltskin sighed as he stared deep into the depths of her jar. "What happened is…I wasn't the Savior."

She shook her head. It was clear he thought that answered everything but after all that had happened it didn't seem nearly the complete answer that he seemed to think it was.

"But even Emma said-"

"We didn't see it all. The dream world took us only so far as to see my mother making the curse to protect me because I was the Savior and fated to die. When I left the shop the night before I had intended to destroy her, but I hesitated. She was…"

The silence spoke volumes. "She was your mother," she supplied for him.

He nodded and she was surprised to find that she understood perfectly. As much hate as he'd claimed to have for her in his life she had still been his mother. It would be difficult for anyone to do. But still…

"What happened Rumple? What did she do?"

"She showed me what came next, what happened after the Red Fairy stopped her from casting the curse and realized she was the Evil I was bound to defeat," he answered finally taking his eyes off the rose and moving restlessly around the room. He looked in on Gideon and up at the clock, then out the window and finally when his eyes landed on her own he sat back down on the coffee table opposite her. "The Red Fairy had an idea, how to stop that prophecy from coming true. She found the shears, the same ones I'd threatened to use with Gideon, she told my mother that if she severed her own destiny then she might be able to spare our relationship and I would still be free to do the good in the world I was meant to do."

"But she didn't…" she assumed.

"No…she severed my tie instead, claiming she needed the power to protect me." Well if that wasn't the biggest dose of irony she'd ever heard, she didn't know what was. "I'm not the Savior, Belle. And I couldn't bring myself to destroy her with that knowledge."

In his sadness, she smiled and sat forward so that she could grasp his hand. "But you did Rumple! You did destroy her tonight. You saved Gideon and all the children!" The children. The one part of this she hadn't considered until now. She should have known that Rumple hadn't done what he'd said he was going to do. Gideon had told them that if she were destroyed then her magic, everything she'd created in that realm, would be undone. That must have been why Gidoen was with them now, as a baby. Her magic had influenced time in that realm to work faster, without that influence time had turned back as if none of it had ever happened. And without a Dark Realm to go to, Gideon had ended up where he belonged, back with them. She only hoped that all the other children who had been trapped in that realm would find their way to loving homes just as he had. Maybe there was a way they could get the fairies to check.

"And tonight?" she finally pressed. "What happened tonight?"

He sat quiet for a moment, thinking as he let her hold his hand. "I chose magic," he finally answered. His eyes were distant and unfocused as he remembered something, looked at something that wasn't in the room with them. Then all at once he blinked. He looked at her and then Gideon, and then swallowed when he looked back at her.

"When I let my mother live, I chose magic and the price wasn't just losing my wife and child, my son thought his mother didn't love him, and my wife was afraid to leave her home…it wasn't just me suffering for my choices anymore, it was those I loved. All magic comes with a price and the price was suddenly just…too high to keep paying."

She smiled, feeling something like relief stretch through her heart. There was something different about him in that answer. Something she'd never seen before. It was him. It was a decision that belonged to him. It wasn't Rumple giving up magic because she'd asked him to, or going off to be a hero because he thought that was what she wanted. That decision, that conclusion had been all his own. He hadn't done this for her. It was for him. And it was amazing.

"Rumple…" she leaned forward, hoping the shadows cast by the rose obscured the tears running down her eyes a the moment. "You-"

But before she could get the words out there was a noise coming from the basket, followed by a sneeze and a cry and they were both on their feet in a heartbeat.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she demanded as Rumple reached into their makeshift crib and pulled their son back into his arms.

She watched as he looked him over, the pulled out his own handkerchief to wipe his nose. "Nothing, I think he's just hungry," he answered.

A feeling of dread swirled right down into the pit of her stomach as she looked at the darkness outside of the window then down at her own chest, remembering that it would be as easy as just finding him a place to sleep. And this late at night, after a battle, she knew nothing would be open, not in Storybrooke. Not after a curse.

"Right…food…I-I can't, I'm healed…" Things had progressed too fast and with the fairies magic her breasts had never swollen with milk for a newborn which was exactly what they were in need of right now.

"Relax Belle," Rumple murmured, doing the only thing that actually made her mind calm and setting their son in her arms. "There is fresh milk in the refrigerator. Cow's milk isn't ideal but we'll warm it up and water it down, he'll be fine for the night until we can get him some formula."

She nodded, trusting what he was saying because she didn't know any better. Between the pair of him he was the experienced parent.

"And what do we use for a bottle?"

"We'll think of something," he said confidently, rocking Gideon side to side. "We'll improvise until the sun comes up. He's already experienced the worst of life, anything we give him from here can only be better than what he's had."

Hi! For those of you that are just checking out this fiction, welcome! For those of you who are a fan of the Moments Series, welcome back! I hope you'll enjoy this fiction. It's the 15th in the Moments Series, a series that is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of Belle's perspective during the Once Upon a Time series. This fiction features everything that happened in Storybrooke from the moment that Belle and Rumple first get Gideon back up to the family dinner scene in "The Final Battle Part II".

If you enjoy this fiction, please review! I always enjoy those wonderful gems waiting for me in my inbox, and I love writing back to thank you personally for reading! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!