Author's notes – This is written for the RumbelleIsHope event on Tumblr. It takes place several months after the season five finale, with Rumplestiltskin and Belle having just returned to Storybrooke and Henry trying to apologize for his actions during the finale. I also try to make some sense of all the plot holes in said finale. Lots of Rumbelle and 'Stiltskin family feelings.

Due to length, I split it into two parts. The first part is Henry and his girlfriend Violet, with Rumbelle appearing in the second part. The story is complete, so both parts are being posted together.

Imagine Henry's letter in part two handwritten as it appears in the cover art. Neither FFN, AO3 nor Tumblr allow me to be that creative.

"Hey, you okay?"

Henry jumped slightly at the light touch of a hand on his shoulder. As far as he had known, he was alone in the library – except for Astrid, who opened the library for a few hours every day as a favor for the absent Belle at Henry's suggestion and was currently in the stacks somewhere, putting up books one of the high school classes had been using for a history project. He hoped that Belle would be happy to learn that her beloved library had continued to operate during her absence.

Talking Mother Superior into allowing Astrid to do it had been fairly easy – Blue was pretty fond of Belle, after all. Henry also suspected that she knew the real reason why he was taking such an interest in the library. It was not really that difficult to figure out after she had spotted him coming and going from the pawn shop on a fairly regular basis, where he had been working doing general chores in order to start working off the debt he owed his grandfather for the money he had stolen.

Getting his mother to agree to reopen the library had been trickier. She had tried to cite a lack of funds in the city budget to hire someone even part-time, which Henry had thought was silly since it was not like the city was paying Belle a salary while she was gone anyway. Regina had only reluctantly agreed after Astrid said she was willing to do it on a volunteer basis as a favor to Belle.

Now if only the rest of it could be so easy. Working off the money he had stolen and convincing his mother to open up the library were nothing. The real test was still yet to come. He still had to face his grandparents in person, to face the reality of how he had come so close to literally destroying two lives.

His head whipped around and he looked up into the worried eyes of his girlfriend. He tried to force a smile, but it came off as more of a grimace. He glanced back down at the blank storybook open in front of him, the Author's Pen lying on top of it. "No," he said in a quiet voice, "not really."

Violet pulled out a chair and sat down next to him, taking one of his hands between hers and squeezing it gently. "Is this about your grandfather?" she asked in a worried tone. "I just had lunch with my dad at Granny's and heard someone say that he's back in Storybrooke with his wife."

"Yeah," he replied with a heavy sigh. He had been waiting for this day with a sense of anticipation and dread ever since they had concluded that Rumplestiltskin had gone through the portal at the fountain in order to find Belle. A few days earlier, courtesy of the dwarf-powered grapevine, word had gotten around that the Golds had come into the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for pre-natal vitamins, hand in hand – much to the surprise of just about everyone in town, who had somehow heard Emma's suggestion that Belle no longer wanted to be with her husband and had taken it as gospel truth. Henry had his suspicions about who had spread that story around, given the limited number of people who had been present when Emma had made the comment.

To be honest, Henry was not surprised that his grandparents were together. After the first aborted trip to the Underworld courtesy of the Dark Ones, it had been his phone call which had gotten Belle to return to town and reconcile with Rumplestiltskin in the first place. He was not sure where Emma had gotten the idea that she had about why True Love's Kiss had not worked to wake Belle up – everyone knew that True Love did not just die and his grandparents definitely shared True Love – and it was not like Emma had exchanged even two words with Belle during the brief time they had seen her in the Underworld, let alone had shared a deep, meaningful conversation about Belle's feelings, or lack thereof, for her husband. He also knew, thanks to the Author's Pen, that Belle had specifically asked that her father be the one to wake her up. Her feelings for her husband had not entered into it at all as far as Henry knew, at least not the way that everyone was thinking.

No, what surprised Henry was that his grandparents had come back to Storybrooke at all. It was obvious that no one wanted them around – or rather, wanted Rumplestiltskin around. No one seemed to care enough about Belle unless they needed to use her for something. There were times when Henry wanted to laugh every time someone lamented that Belle was not there to do their research for them in the fight against Mr. Hyde and the Evil Queen.

If they really cared, someone would have suggested trying to find her and help free her from the sleeping curse, but no one ever had. All he heard regarding Belle now was regret that they had to waste their time trying to find information that Belle seemed to always have right at her fingertips. Before it had started getting around that the Golds were back, no one had expressed any concern about Belle herself that he had heard, not even to wonder if she and the baby were safe wherever they had ended up.

It was no surprise that after everything that had happened, it would be logical to think that Rumplestiltskin wanted to be in Storybrooke about as much as the rest of Storybrooke wanted him. Why subject his pregnant wife to that kind of stress?

"You don't think he's going to try to hurt you, do you?" she asked. "I mean, he seemed pretty angry when…"

"No, no, no," he interrupted, shaking his head. "He wouldn't."

"But your family said…"

Henry let out a short, bitter laugh. "When it comes to my Grandpa," he explained, "the rest of my family are hardly unbiased sources. They claim to know him, but they don't – not really. I guess I let myself get sucked into that and forgot a lot of things that I do know about him. I just wasn't thinking."

"But even you said he's hurt a lot of people," Violet reminded him.

"Not me," he said, "and not my dad, and definitely not Belle. Not like that, anyway. Did you know he even died for us?"

Violet shook her head, lines of confusion creasing her forehead. "I don't understand."

"It's a really long story," he said with a shrug. He considered for a brief moment just how to condense the story. He did not really want to explain how the big bad of his story was actually his great-grandfather who had spent several centuries living as a teenage bully. "The short version is this really evil guy was threatening us – threatening the entire town – and the only way to stop him was for Grandpa to sacrifice his life. He did that for Belle and my dad and me…we were his reasons, but what he did saved everyone in Storybrooke and no one cared. They were all just thankful that they thought they didn't have to deal with Rumplestiltskin anymore."

"That sounds pretty…cold, I guess," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Anyway, there was some other stuff going on at that time and everyone here was being forced to go back to the Enchanted Forest – Storybrooke was going to be destroyed because of what Pan had set into motion – but I couldn't go with them because I had been born here in the Land Without Magic. My mom – my birth mom, Emma – was going to stay with me and my other mom gave us fake memories of an entire life spent together. I wasn't supposed to have ever remembered that Storybrooke had even existed. When I was saying goodbye to my dad, he said that he was sorry that I would never remember the sacrifice Grandpa had made for us and that I would never know the man who would go to the ends of all the realms to protect his family."

"That's sad," Violet said, brushing a tear away from the corner of her eye.

"Yeah," Henry said sadly, blinking back his own tears. He tried to push aside the fact that the conversation had ended up being the last he would ever have with his dad, but it was difficult not to think about it, especially since his dad had died before he had regained his memories. His dad had died when his son did not even know who he was. "My dad had over three hundred years' worth of reasons why he was so angry at his dad, but none of that mattered in the end. I can't believe I let myself forget about all that. I think my dad would be so disappointed in me right now.

"You know," he continued, "when we came back from the Underworld, my Grandma Snow asked if everyone had made it back. You know what I told her? Grandpa made it back with Belle I think. 'I think'?"

"You didn't know for sure?" Violet asked.

"Not then," he admitted reluctantly, shaking his head. Now, looking back after everything else that had happened, it was just one of a number of things that made him sick to his stomach just to think about, let alone acknowledge. "There was a pregnant woman with us in the Underworld and none of us cared enough to make sure she got out of there. Only Grandpa cared. When my mom was the Dark One, Belle was the only one I could talk to, the only one who would listen to me when I wanted to talk about what it felt like to have a parent who was the Dark One. It was kind of like being able to talk to my dad – they had talked a lot back in the Enchanted Forest when they were trying to find a way to bring back Grandpa after what happened with Pan. She is the closest thing I have to a grandmother on dad's side of the family, but I didn't even think about her or the baby – my dad's unborn brother or sister – when I was so determined to destroy magic."

Henry picked up the Author's Pen and turned it over between his fingers. "I used this to write the Olympian Crystal into my hand," he said, his voice distant. He now realized that he had been determined to play at being a god, and just like so many gods in fiction, he had not cared who had gotten hurt as long as he had gotten what he had wanted. He had been right originally, when he had told the Apprentice that kind of power was too much of a temptation.

He snorted as he remembered what his grandfather always liked to say – "All magic comes with a price." That one certainly had. It had nearly cost an innocent woman and an unborn child their lives. It had cost him a little piece of his soul and the right to call himself a hero like he wanted. Heroes were supposed to take others into consideration, not act for their own selfish ends.

"Why didn't I just write Belle awake?" he mused. "That was all Grandpa wanted to use the crystal for and I could have done it with the stroke of the pen. It never even occurred to me to try that. I was so caught up in my own selfish wants that I never thought about the two people whose lives were at risk due to my actions."

"But I thought I heard someone say that Hook guy said your grandfather wanted more power," Violet asked, "that it wasn't just about waking up his wife?"

Henry laughed bitterly. "When trying to figure out my Grandpa's motives," he said, "Hook is the absolute last person that anyone should listen to. He and Grandpa have been enemies for over 300 years. He even shot Belle a few years ago as revenge against Grandpa."

"What!?" Violet exclaimed, her eyes widening in shock. "Your mom is dating a guy who shot your grandfather's wife just because he wanted revenge against your grandfather?" She shook her head in disbelief. "No wonder the two sides of your family don't get along."

"The thing is," Henry continued, "is that Belle is one of the sweetest, nicest people I know. I love her – she is family and I do think of her as my grandmother, even though we're not blood related. She does so much to help everyone – she's the town librarian and the first person that everyone goes to when they need help researching something – but no one ever thanks her and the one time she asked for help in return, no one could be bothered, even though it was my mom Emma's fault that Belle needed help in the first place."

Violet frowned as she tried to put things together in her mind. "You're talking about when your grandfather was in a coma and disappeared, right?" Henry nodded. "Why wouldn't they help? That doesn't make any sense. Aren't heroes supposed to help people?"

Henry tossed the pen back down with a frustrated sigh. "Is it really heroic when you pick and choose who you are going to help and when?" he wondered. "Emma kidnapped Grandpa and had someone threaten to kill Belle if he didn't cooperate with her, but everyone else excused what she was doing, saying it was the darkness causing her to do those things."

"But then wouldn't the same apply to your grandfather as well?" she asked. Henry could have kissed her for that. As far as he knew, Violet was the first person to draw the same conclusion he had come to weeks earlier. "If it was the darkness that caused your mother to do those awful things, and your grandfather is the Dark One now, then wouldn't everything that he does be for the same reason? How can people not judge them according to the same standards?"

"You would think so," he said in a bitter tone. "I've been thinking about that a lot while my grandparents have been gone."

"Did you come to any conclusions?"

Henry shook his head. "It's not fair," he said. "If Mom was not responsible for her actions as the Dark One, then they shouldn't hold Grandpa responsible either. If they want Grandpa to accept responsibility, then it should be the same for Mom. She kidnapped Grandpa, had someone try to kill Belle, used Belle to blackmail Grandpa into taking us to the Underworld to rescue Hook and made a deal to help Hades when Hades was threatening my grandparents and their baby. Some of that was after Mom was no longer the Dark One, but everyone seems to think it's okay for her to do all that stuff because she is supposedly a 'hero'." He made air quotes with his fingers, a look of disgust crossing his face as he did so. It had been a hard realization to come to, that the rest of his family were not quite the heroes that he, that everyone else thought they were.

He took a deep breath to steady himself before continuing, "I even heard them talking about when my other grandparents, Hook and Zelena fell through that portal to the Hyde's asylum. Grandma Snow told Hyde that Belle was the Dark One's wife and was pregnant and that's why Hyde kidnapped her when we were in New York, to use her as leverage against my Grandpa."

"I don't understand."

"Hyde was holding all of them prisoner," he explained, "and he thought they had something to do with my Grandpa, whom he had apparently crossed paths with a while back, so Grandma Snow tried to convince Hyde that Grandpa was their enemy by throwing Belle under the bus."

"'Under the bus'?" Violet repeated in confusion.

"Sorry," Henry said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "It's a saying from this land. It basically means betraying someone. Snow put Belle and my unborn aunt or uncle in danger hoping that Hyde would let everyone go once he knew they hated Grandpa, too. She told Hyde it was my Grandpa's fault they were in his asylum because Grandpa had been stealing magic to save Belle and the baby and it had messed up the portal Zelena had opened. Hyde didn't even know Belle and the baby existed until Snow mentioned it. Once she mentioned it, Hyde knew he had someone – two someones, actually – he could use against my Grandpa."

"So Hyde kidnapped Belle," Violet concluded, "and then you destroyed magic, which could have trapped Belle in the sleeping curse forever."

"No," he countered, "it's worse. Much worse. I've been under a sleeping curse, before magic came to Storybrooke. In a land without magic, the sleeping curse is deadly. I died, but then Emma was able to give me True Love's Kiss and revive me. Without magic, even if Belle had not been trapped in Pandora's Box and needed to be released first, the sleeping curse could have killed her and the baby. But without magic, Grandpa couldn't let her out of the box, not to mention waking her up. I've also been in Pandora's Box, thanks to Pan. I have an idea of what she went through being trapped in there. I did that. I nearly killed Belle and the baby and also caused them to be trapped in the box longer than they needed to be."

"No wonder your grandfather was so desperate to stop you from destroying magic," she said in understanding, squeezing his hand again.

Henry nodded, thankful to finally have someone to whom he could tell all this. If he had dared bring this up with anyone in his family, they probably would have just told him to forget about it because Rumplestiltskin had brought everything on to himself. Even assuming that was true, why should Belle and the baby have to suffer for that? It was not like Belle had chosen to share True Love with someone who had been possessed by a curse for over three centuries. "He knew she and the baby would die without magic," he said.

"But your moms were acting like he was going to hurt you to stop you."

"He wouldn't have," he said, shaking his head in emphasis. "If he was going to hurt me, he would have when he took the crystal back from us in the library, but he didn't. He just put us to sleep until he could get away."

She nodded, recognizing the sense behind what he was saying. "So what now?" Violet asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I want to see them, to apologize – for all the good that will do. But right now, I don't know if Grandpa would even let me in the front door. I wouldn't blame him after everything. Heck, I'm not even sure why they came back to Storybrooke. There's certainly nothing keeping them here."

"Isn't there?" she wondered, gesturing towards him.

"You're not trying to suggest that they came back because of me?" Henry said in amazement. "Why would they after what I did?"

"Because you're still their grandson," she replied, "and they still love you. Didn't you just say that your grandfather died to protect you? That's a pretty strong bond to break."

"I don't know," he said, looking down again at the blank storybook in front of him. "I just don't know anymore."

To be concluded in part two…