The room was closing in on her. It was growing smaller and smaller by the second. She fought to keep the padded walls away from her, to stop their shrinking, she was pressing against them with everything she had, all the while, aware of a voice laughing at her through a little glass hole in the metal door. A woman with a slim face, entertained by her suffering, caught her eye as she screamed and cried for rescue.

"You can't always get what you want, now can you, Belle."

The ground had just begun to turn to fire and the walls to red, it was enough reminder to tell her she was dreaming. She could rescue herself! Aurora had taught her how to free herself from the Red Room she just had to get control and-

"Wake up!"

She gasped as she sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, feeling far more exhausted than she had when she'd gone to sleep. But she was surprised to find she wasn't alone as she had been when she went to bed. Rumpelstiltskin was sitting at her side, still wearing his suit pants and dress shirt, he'd shed his jacket, vest, and tie just as he had been doing every day after work. His shoes were off, he'd been walking around in his socks and even she recognized that it was odd that was what she took note of when his hands were wrapped around her forearms, holding her up as she glanced to their open bedroom door. She was awake.

"You're okay," he breathed. "You're alright."

She wouldn't have guessed that from the way her heart was racing, or how desperate her lungs were for air.

"It was only a nightmare," he soothed finally loosening his grip so she could hold herself up. "I could hear you all the way downstairs. The asylum again?"

She nodded, embarrassed that after all this time it was still her nemesis. All the horrors she'd known in her life, and that silly little room still had the ability to fling her from sleep and give her a panic attack! Well, that silly little room and a bit more.

"It's always the asylum, only this time-"

They both ceased moving and talking as a sound drifted in through the open door, one they could both easily identify and were immediately attentive to. Gideon was awake too.

Rumple glanced back at her, then quickly released the last of his hold, it was only then that she realized he'd been holding her hand. "I'll get him."

He was out of the room in a flash, leaving her alone to soothe her own heartbeat…just as he had every night since their first night here as a family. It had been one week, one week since they had Gideon back and though things still were getting to resemble normal, every day she was made more and more aware of the ways in which they were not normal. This was one of them.

Normal was having him here. Normal was sleeping in his arms, by her side because it kept nightmares like this at bay. Normal would have been a nightmare in which Regina laughed at her from the other side of the window, not the Black Fairy. Normal was a woman unafraid to kiss her husband…

And there was perhaps the point that bothered her the most. It had been a week since they'd gotten Gideon back, and more than a week since she'd last kissed her own husband. It was a silly thing to be bothered by, but something that was growing, chafing at her every single day there were here together. They were doing fine, great really, Gideon was cared for every night. The library and the shop were back to fully functioning parts of the town. She had keys to the house, car, library, and shop again. On Monday the schools were supposed to open for children now that the curse had been mostly cleaned up and families were reunited. Things were so calm again that they'd made an appointment for someone to come Tuesday to change the sign over the Pawn Shop back to Gold's instead of "Gold and Son"! Things were so close to being normal again. And yet every single day they had dinner together, put their son to bed in his room and then parted at the stairs and every night her blush grew hotter than the night before. She slept in their room every night, he went downstairs and whenever she rolled over she could hear him tinkering away at little gadgets and broken antiques. They hadn't kissed, they'd barely touched other than quick exchanges to hand Gideon to one or the other, the signs of affection they had been showing in the start of the week seemed to be fading with every passing day. Every day it became more and more awkward, and every day she questioned whether or not it was right.

The first few nights she'd told herself it was fine, that maybe going slowly was good for them. But now she found herself constantly wondering and frustrated over it. Slow was good but how slow was too slow?! It would be up to her to determine that, she knew that much. Her husband was too chivalrous a man to be the one to initiate anything beyond what he was certain she wanted. That had always been clear even in the earliest stages of their relationship, when they'd been in the castle and gone the perhaps the slowest. His affection matched her own but would go no further, and now she felt as though it was burning her up from the inside out.

So she did what she always did when that feeling took over, she focused on Gideon. Her heart beating normally and her breathing restored she found her slippers and wandered down the hall to where she found Gideon and Rumple sitting together in the rocking chair by the bed. To her surprise, it was lit in a reddish-gold light!

"His rose! It works!" she exclaimed moving over to examine it further. "He was thinking about us."

But her stomach gave an uneasy lurch when she looked at it and realized the rose wasn't what she remembered. When she'd first uncovered it for him and been linked only to him it had been strong and healthy. But this rose, she was shocked to find, was wilting. It had petals missing, floating toward the bottom of the glass jar. It worried her. When Mother Superior had linked it to both of them, she'd said only that it would reflect the two of them now. But he was immortal and she…she wasn't feeling particularly sick at the moment. Why on earth would it look like that?

"Worrying about us is probably more accurate," Rumple muttered at her from the rocking chair, reminding her that it was well past midnight and Gideon was awake. She should worry about the rose, about the pair of them, when she was sure he was fine.

"I'm sorry. Did I frighten him?"

"Hard to tell," he answered tucking a blanket tight around him. "You were crying out, but there's only one way to know for sure…" With that Rumple rose from his seat and stood toe to toe with her so that he could settle Gideon into her arms. Almost instantly Gideon began to calm, looking up at her with tearful eyes that nearly made her cry.

"There now," he whispered. She was the medicine that he had needed. It was a touching reality until she realized she'd also been the cause of the problem.

"I didn't mean to frighten him," she apologized, kissing his head as his eyelids began to droop again.

"You can't help nightmares, Belle, not after what you've been through."

"I thought they'd fade after a while, at least I'd hoped they would..."

"They have," he assured her. "There was a time you were up every other night with them. One every few weeks is progress."

She smiled, the memories from all those times she'd truly been startled awake in tears were somehow still fresh. As were the memories of his arms around her, his body pressed against his own, the soothing words he'd whisper until she stopped whimper ad kept watch so she could sleep again. The feeling of his fingers on her back were so vivid she would have believed he was doing it now if he wasn't standing in front of her.

"You used to rub my back until I fell back to sleep," she pointed out, blushing.

"It seemed to bring you some comfort." Yes, he'd told her once that was why he did it. That even in sleep, it seemed to have a calming effect on her, and he'd liked knowing that he had that power, no magic required.

She was smiling when she looked up into his eyes, but the moment she saw them illuminated in the glow of their rose, it faded. That feeling again, the one that made her heart pound nervously, the one that made her want to push away from him just as much as she wanted to pull him closer...it was back. Her head felt light, and the world began to spin around them as she considered what she was supposed to do. Was it the right time? Was it not? Was it too soon? If something happened now would it go too far too fast? If nothing happened now would it ever happen? Was it too late?

"He's quiet now," Rumple finally muttered, breaking her string of thought and forcing her to look down at their son. He was right. She'd lost time standing there staring at him and now Gideon was happily asleep again. The light from his rose had died as the glass fogged over once more. Then, without warning lit up once more. She looked down at her son, but he was sleeping just as deeply as he had been a second ago.

"It would appear that so long as your dreams are pleasant, his should be too."

She smiled, realizing what Rumple had already put together in his own head. He was dreaming of them.

"You should go back to sleep, Belle. I'll put him to bed."

That was becoming normal. He'd been keeping watch over Gideon during the nights this past week, letting her sleep so that she was awake and happy the night day. She kept expecting the way it taxed him to show on his face, but it never seemed to. Even now as he carefully maneuvered their child out of her arms and back into his own, he always seemed happy for the opportunity to watch over him. He was a good father.

"Rumple…"

She wanted to say something, to express something important to him, but staring at him with their son she couldn't for the life of her remember what those sentiments were. Words were lost behind tears of gratefulness and adoration gathering in her eyes. And with a surprisingly steady hand, she found herself reaching up to trace the curve of his jaw. She watched mesmerized as she let her thumb brush against the skin on his cheek and he closed his eyes to let himself melt into her touch. She'd been looking all this week for signs of tension in his eyes or face; she hadn't realized until just now he'd been carrying it in his neck and shoulders. For the sigh that escaped from his chest was deep and could be nothing else but the release of what he'd been holding in, unwilling to give until she made it clear she was willing to take.

For once in a long time, too long for her to remember neither body nor mind rebelled against him. With the slightest bit of pressure against the back of his neck he lowered his head just as she wanted and when he was the proper distance, she leaned forward and put her lips to his. It was a small kiss, a shadow, an echo, of the kisses they had once shared in the midst of late night passion. But it was tender and loving enough to make her heart hammer. She could feel her pulse drumming at her throat and every place their skin touched. His neck beneath her hand. Her nose brushing next to his own. Their mouths that separated only for a second after their first kiss before they both moved for a second, even smaller kiss.

She couldn't open her eyes afterwards, just let her hand linger over his shoulder and their foreheads bend together as they breathed. A kiss. Two kisses actually. Two kisses after such a long, long time…since before he'd left for the Underworld. Just after Gideon was conceived. That would have been nearly two months ago, at least. She'd kissed him once before he'd gone off to face his mother over a week ago but it had been so hurried and frenzied, full of emotion and busy that after experiencing this she wasn't sure she could count it. That had been something entirely different than what had just passed between them.

Standing against him now she had the distinct feeling that it had been too long…and yet just right. Beside them, Gideon gave a jerk and took a deep breath. He awoke suddenly and gurgled breaking their small bubbled as they both looked down to check on him. Awake, but not upset. Certainly, sleepy though, if it his eyes were any indication. She smiled as she leaned down to kiss her little man on the forehead and whisper happy things into his ear. He quickly squirmed closer to his father, and dropped back into sleep in record time. As much as she wanted to hold him again, she too was itching for sleep, and Rumple had already volunteered. Father-son bonding was just as important as mother and son.

"Good-night my sweet men," she whispered to her son, loud enough for Rumple to hear.

"Good-night, Belle," he whispered back sounding breathless as she'd gone. She blushed when she left the room, a blush that was far different from what she'd been doing when she normally went to bed. And perhaps it was a trick of the light, or merely her imagination, but on her way out she could have sworn she saw a familiar wink and glimmer come from the rose by Gideon's crib. Something she knew to be a fallen petal attaching itself to a green stem that suddenly stood a little taller.

This chapter is really what Moments Grown was always meant to be about. I know I already mentioned this in Moments Explored and Unexplored, but the entire reason I separated these two fictions is because they had two very different purposes. While MX&U was meant to heal their foundation, MG was always meant to turn them into a couple again, give them a healthy marriage, and restore intimacy as they took care of their son. I liked the idea that they try in this fiction to go slow. A theme throughout all of Moments is that these two have been all or nothing from the first moment they got together and this is both of them saying "wait, hold up, let's take this one step at a time." It's meant to harken back to their days in the castle and help them fall in love all over again. This fiction, in many ways, is a slow burn...even if it's only 14 chapters.

Thank you to Grace5231973 and Fox24 for your reviews on the last chapter, I'm so happy that you enjoyed it and were happy to see Rapunzel back! I do love her! And I did mention that I would talk a bit about how these chapters as well as many of the next few fictions were going to be set up in this chapter. The way Moments Grown is set up is nothing new. Moments fictions have always either had a short couple of weeks timeframe where chapters occur one right after another or a longer weeks/months/years timeframe where chapters are a little more scattered. Obviously, at fourteen chapters to cover a 5 week period of time, MG is the second one. This means that a lot of my "writing rules" go out the window. I don't really have a word limit I like to hit, I just write for as long as the chapter requires. This also means that there is not so many filler chapters because there is no use for them in fictions where a big amount of time is covered. Each chapter introduces you to what has been going on, tells you the important things you need to know, makes it's point and it's done. I do hope that you don't mind these kinds of chapters because I'm warning you now that the next Moments fiction is also done in this way. Sorry, it's just the way things are. Peace and Happy Reading!