Killian is the only one who notices the look on her face.
It's just a brief flicker, the tiniest change of expression whenever her gaze drifts to Robin holding his daughter, but he notices.
Belle stays quiet for most of her visit, too much happening between Henry and David and Snow and whatever mess they've all gotten themselves into Zelena, but when she slips outside, Killian pulls Emma close.
"I'm going to talk to her," he whispers.
Her brow furrows. "What's going on?" she asks, her voice low.
"I suspect it's not my story to tell, love. I'll just be a few minutes."
Emma glances at the door, considering, and then back to him. "You're a good friend, you know." She smiles a little, giving his hand a quick squeeze.
He's got a long way to go before that will ever be true, he suspects, but he doesn't argue, merely slips outside while everyone else is leaning over the new pages Henry has written.
She's not gone far, sitting at the foot of the stairwell, hands fidgeting in her lap. He descends the stairs slowly, giving her time to retreat or put him off, but she turns her head and smiles sheepishly when she sees it's him.
It's not quite an invitation, but it'll do.
He sits next to her on the stair. "And what might you be doing out here?"
She shrugs, looking back down at her hands. "Just thinking." She sighs. "I assume you know Rumple's the Dark One again."
"Aye."
She shakes her head, a disbelieving, watery smile on her face. "I don't know why I kept believing him. He just keeps - I don't know why i can't - "
"You keep believing him because he loves you," he tells her gently. "It's a difficult thing to let go of."
Belle finally looks at him then. "But I'm still not enough."
His jaw clenches, and he feels it roiling up inside him again, that centuries-long urge to plunge the dagger into that demon's heart. Not just for the sake of his own revenge, but for every soul he's wronged over the years.
"Of course you are," he insists, his voice low and deadly. "The only shortcomings here belong to the bloody Crocodile, not you."
"Is what he said true?" she asks quietly. "You sacrificed yourself for everyone else?"
"I attempted it, yes. Seems he had other plans."
"Oh."
They both grow quiet, staring down at their feet, and he takes to playing the tip of his hook. Belle has thrown him off with her questions, and he momentarily forgot why he came to her in the first place.
He just hopes he isn't wrong about this.
"I was with Milah for many years," he finally says. "We often talked about taking Bae with us, on the ship once he was old enough. Being a family together finally." He can see Belle lift her head out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't look at her as he continues. "But the one thing she was most adamant about was that we could never, ever have a child of our own."
He can feel her tensing next to him. "Killian…"
"And could you believe? I wanted it. I wanted nothing more than to have a family with her. And we couldn't." He swallows to steady his voice, and keeps going. "You see, her husband had made a deal to give away his second-born child to save the life of his first. And she didn't know if that deal applied to her as well, but it wasn't a chance she was willing to take. He took that choice from her."
He takes a chance, glances up in her direction, and the tears in her eyes tell him all he needs to know.
"Are you all right, love?"
Her face falls and his arm is around her in an instant, pulling her into his side and letting her muffle her sobs into his shoulder, and he prays to every god in existence that no one comes looking for them in the next few minutes.
She composes herself remarkably quickly, seemingly aware that their privacy is a tenuous thing at best. "I just found out today," she tells him, wiping at her eyes. "He says he'll fix it, find some way out of it all."
The bastard is just selfish enough to do it, Killian thinks, but it's hardly the best thing to say to her at the moment.
"I won't tell the others," he promises, "but Belle, you must know the lengths he would be willing to go to get out of that deal. He wouldn't hesitate to damn us and the rest of the world for all eternity if it means he gets what he wants."
She nods through her sniffles. "I know. I'll… I'll figure out some way to tell them. That's what I was doing out here in the first place."
He nods, giving her arm a gentle squeeze before pulling away. "You know you're not alone in this."
She blinks back another fresh bout of tears, but this time her smile seems genuine, shaky as it is. "Yeah," she says. "I know."