She woke up in the middle of the night. Mostly because one of those weird nightmares that she has been having in the last few days. The reason for that happening, she didn't know yet. Probably because she was tired, or probably because she was just simply scared that something bad could happen again.
She turned to the other side of the bed; trying to reach his warm body, with hope to make the nightmares go away but when she stretches her arm, the only thing she could feel was empty sheets and a pillow. She opened her eyes again to confirm that he wasn't there. She looked around the room and nothing. There was no sign of him in that place.
She steps outside the bed, shoeing her slippers and grabbing her robe to protect her from the night cold. Step by step she went to the bathroom… and still he wasn't there. It was just when she was in the hallway from the first floor that he started to think. Probably he was in the basement again. Probably he woke up in the middle of the night just to do spells and practicing magic. It wouldn't be the first time and she was pretty sure that it wouldn't be the last one also.
Still, she looked into every single room in that floor, and the results were the same. She was starting to become worried. Where could he really be?
She went down the stairs and when she was looking around again she could finally see a figure sitting down in one of the sofas. She took little steps in his direction and looks careful to his face.
He was shrunken in his own body and his right leg, stretch into the floor. Slowly she reaches for his shoulder and that simple gest makes him look up to her bright blue eyes. She could already tell the pain that he was feeling right now. And for the looks of it, it was to blame his leg again.
"Rumple…. What's the problem?" She simply asks while sitting down next to him in a slowly motion. After that, she puts her right hand above his left one and holds it like there was no tomorrow.
He sighs. "The problem is that even with all the magic in the world, here I'm just a limp old man that can't even have a simple night with a bloody knee pain."
We really need to work out in that self-esteem. She thought. "Hey." She said and he looks back at her. "You are not a limp old man. It's not your fault that you feel pain. It's your body's fault. It's just a simple flaw. Everybody has flaws."
"It's not a flaw, Belle… It's a reminder about how coward I am."
She looks right into his eyes and could already see that he was back again in the past. It was in moments like this that she could really see the man inside him, the man that regrets his mistakes in the past, not the face of the dark one like most people see. She just smiles, probably that would help.
"You did that so you wouldn't leave your son fatherless. So Baelfire could grow up and know that he always would have his father besides him, to protect him. Even if you lost him, god, you became the dark one so you could protect him. You were not a coward… you were just a father that would move any ocean to protect his child." She said to him. Gold stars at his leg from a few moments and when his look returns to Belle he could see a little smile upon her face. She pulls him into a hug and the smile grows. "Come on…" She said and then pulls out of the recent hug. "I heard that there's nothing better for the pain then a good night of sleep."