She knew the moment he'd asked to take another trip exactly where he wanted to go and she knew that she couldn't waste any time, or allow him to lose heart and change his mind. They had to go and they had go fast. So without taking the time to change, without taking the time to pack anything more than their single bags, the two of them left the house.

The trip to the graveyard was quiet. Just as quiet as the time she'd made the trip with Ruby for Archie's funeral, just as quiet as when she and Rumple had driven out there in search of Pan, just as quiet as when she'd last gone out there to bury Neal, a friend she didn't know she'd lost. It was painful to be back again, she had the overwhelming urge to cry the moment they pulled in and the unfamiliar headstones greeted her. But she was sure that it was nothing compared the way Rumple felt, looking around the cemetery, casting timid but important glances at the names on the markers. He was Neal's father…and he had no idea where his own child was buried.

"He's through there," she muttered, her voice unable to be any louder. Rumple responded though, heard her loud and clear and stopped the car right where it was. "He's just through there," she repeated, "around that corner and by the tree." He heard her. She knew he did, she could see his eyes follow the path her pointed finger at given him until his eyes arrived at the headstone that belonged to Neal. No. Not Neal. He was Neal to her. He was Neal to Emma and Mary Margaret and David. Neal to Henry. But right now, it wasn't Neal that Rumpelstiltskin had come to see. It was Baelfire. His boy. And as much as she'd loved him, as much as she'd always love him and hold him in her heart, she just couldn't imagine how hard this must have been for the man sitting next to her.

"I can go with you," she suggested, reaching over and taking his hand as he stared ahead of him. "You don't need to go alone."

"No, I want to," his voice was only a whisper as he tore his gaze away from the dot of a marker ahead of him and let out a breath glancing down at their entwined fingers. But the distraction she'd given him was brief. Like metal drawn to a magnet he seemed unable to look away from his son's grave and only a moment later his eyes glanced over the car hood again and into the distance.

She wanted so badly to go with him, to walk over there by his side to say hello to her friend and give him the proper send off that she'd been denied days ago because Zelena had stolen him from her mind.

But he wanted to go alone. Frightening and terrifying as it was he wanted to have this moment alone with his son. She could respect that and he deserved that much. There would be time for her to talk to Neal later. The two of them could return as a pair some other day. This was Rumple's time.

"Hey," she cooed, breaking into his concentration again. Living before the dead. As much as she wanted to talk to Neal herself, she had to take care of his father first. "It's okay, you can…you can do this," she whispered applying a gentle pressure to his hand.

He offered her a sigh and squeezed her hand back before glancing over at her and giving her a questionable nod. It was supposed to be a happy and confident nod, one that reassure her as well as him but she could see through it all to easily. He believed that she believed he could do this. But he didn't quite believe it himself yet. So she leaned over and kissed him one last time before reaching up and tightening the already tight knot on his tie as his security blanket. "Alright," she whispered, "you're ready."

He nodded, and like a bird dropping out of the nest into an unknown world below, Rumpelstiltskin left the car and walked down the path he had never trod for an unknown sight. Neal. Baelfire.

Strange how she felt like that was going to be the most difficult thing to remember. There was a time that she didn't think she'd ever get used to the idea of calling him "Neal" but now the thought of "Baelfire"…it was strange. So strange. All that time that she'd spent with him, all the time that she'd learned how to be a friend. And now here she was. Not as a friend, not as a sister, or a mother…but as a wife! Neal's step-mother! Officially! But…

No, that just didn't feel right either. The idea of being his "step-mother" or anyone's step-anything just felt strange! So much stranger than it had the night at the grave when she realized she'd been tied to them all with or without marriage. Pan was her father-in-law. Henry her step-grandson. But she much preferred the informality that night at the graveyard had to offer them than the titles she bore now. A title didn't necessarily mean that there was a relationship and that was what she craved most of all. A year ago when everyone had returned to Storybrooke from Neverland that was what she'd wanted most with Neal…and now?

If she could use Zelena's time portal, there was so much that she'd change. So much that had happened between then and now that she wanted to warn everyone about so that she wouldn't be sitting here alone in this car. She'd tell herself to trust her instinct, that it wasn't just trauma. That Henry wasn't just Henry. She'd give more to Neal in the beginning of their relationship, she wouldn't just cling to him, she would have supported him more, done her best to guide him. She would have told them both not to trust Lumiere, to believe that there was another way to bring her love back, and she would have warned Bae of the price that he'd have to pay. That because of one poor choice, he never would be able to see his son again. But mostly, right now, if she could change some in the past, she would have changed how she'd been the last time that she'd been here, at this grave.

She would have liked to tell Neal everything that he'd done for her. How much she'd loved him. How important he was to her. She would have liked to tell him how much she enjoyed all of their talks. She would have said…

A headstone. She would have said all these things to a headstone. A cold, lifeless piece of rock! She sighed as she lifted her head up and found Rumple, his back to her as he knelt down at the site of Neal's grave. She'd never been particularly spiritual, but…she did have a sense, a firm belief that those that were lost were never truly gone forever. She'd always hated her mother's grave, she'd never felt any love from it, not the way she did the first time she'd put on her necklace or read the books she'd left behind…she imagined that Neal's grave would feel no better than that.

She didn't have anything of Neal's. She figured she could go back to Granny's and find something from his room to keep later but she felt love when she thought about him. She felt warm when she thought about him. Why did she need a headstone to talk to her best friend? Why did prayers have to be so formal to an unnamed deity she'd never known? Why couldn't she just talk to the person she missed most? Where would she start if he was sitting in the car with her instead of laying beneath the ground?

"There's a lot I want to say…I don't really know where to begin…but…I miss you..." she choked out. The words came easier and quicker than she'd expected. But they were right. "I miss everything about you. The way we had dinner together, the stories we told, but I think I miss talking to you the most. Few people ever really understand each other the way you and I did and…sometimes I find myself wondering how I'm going to get by if I don't have you to talk to!" She glanced back over at the grave, to the form of her husband blurred by tears. She'd get by, she'd talk to him now, but that didn't mean it would ever be the same.

"I think you'd be impressed with how much he's changed," she muttered, leaning her head back and looking at the red roof of the car. "Sometimes I'm impressed with how much he's changed. That the monster that locked me in a dungeon cell the first day I met him could do something so touching as light candles for a wedding, but…he does make me happy Neal. He truly does. And…you once told me that I deserved better than a dungeon, now I have it and…I promise that I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure he gets the life that he deserves as well. The life that I know you wanted him to have…

"And Henry!" she added quickly, remembering just how much the boy meant to him as well. "I promised you before you left that I'd make sure Rumple was in good hands…but I'll make sure Henry's looked after as well. I doubt he'll have much need of me between Regina and Emma but…I'll do what I can to keep him safe for you. I promise I'll do what I can so he won't forget you, so that he'll know you as well as I do."

He'd be happy. She'd known him well enough in their time together to know that he'd be happy at every proclamation. She deserved more than that dungeon. She deserved to be happy, to have the wedding she'd had last night, the man slowly walking back to the car, and the family that she'd found herself surrounded by before they'd ever actually been family. He'd want her to stay by Rumple. To keep him in check as they both knew that only she could, to make sure that this life he'd chosen to live now was everything it hadn't been before. And he'd want her to look after Henry. He want her to look after him if only because he knew her and trusted her. She was the one in town that truly had the last memories of Henry's father, that could tell him stories about who he was before he died and how hard he'd fought to get back to him. He'd want Henry to know all that…for the pair of them.

"Things will be good for him Neal," she muttered as Rumple came back to the car looking, maybe not happy, but at least a little less burdened than when he'd gone over. "I'll make sure to keep every promise I ever made you…no matter what."

She was quiet by the time Rumple slipped back in the car and shut the door. She knew his son better than he did, but that didn't mean that she had to remind him of that painful fact. She and Neal…they could talk any time she supposed, they'd be friends for the rest of her life, whether Neal was here or not, but for now she didn't need to be a friend, or a step-mother or even a step-grandmother, frightening as that concept was. For now she just needed to play the role she felt she'd been playing for the last year. For now she just needed to be his wife.

She reached out for him when he got back in the car, gently moved her fingers over his arm and shoulder, waiting for him to make the move closer to her, to get himself together enough for him to let her be what he needed her to be. Finally he did. He reached up and grasped her hand in his own again, held it tightly between his own fingers before glancing over with a handsome proud smirk that she felt he had earned. "I love you," he stated.

It made her smile. He'd said it with no hesitation, no doubt, no waiver in his voice. It was a fact. For both of them the truest fact that he could have said amidst a cemetery of bad memories and a night of horrible dreams. They loved each other. That was all they needed to move on from this place…with or without Neal.

"And I love you, too," she confirmed happily.

He gave her a small nod of acknowledgment, then broke into a beaming smile before kissing the back of her hand, releasing her, and starting the car again. "Now..." he sighed looking over at her again, the face of the man he'd been this morning at the cabin. "Where does my beautiful wife intend to take me?"


You wouldn't believe how difficult this scene was for me to write. I wanted her to have this little moment with Neal because it's going to usher in more than one moment in the future, but what to have her say...In the end I just closed my eyes and wrote and when I opened them this is what came out. I hope that ya'll find it okay. If not there is more to come, probably not in this fiction but certainly in what is to come. This relationship is just to important to Belle for me to drop completely.

Thanks to Kathryn Claire O'Connor, Meredith Pechta, Grace5231973, Sshk0409, PaigeJillian, Fox24, Ladybugsmomma, Kagi-chan2, Teresa Martin, Raizen Yusuke, Deweymay, and Skitzoeinhoven for your reviews of the last chapter. They were much appreciated. Filler I know, but like I said, I feel like fluff chapters are necessary at this point. We get so little fluff, don't you agree? Peace and Happy Reading!