Three days passed in which not a soul came to the shop. Perhaps the "closed" sign was actually working for once. Or perhaps word had spread that he was the Dark One again.

Rumplestiltskin sat in the backroom, where he'd barely left since he'd sent Miss Swan and Regina off. A half-empty bottle of Scotch sat beside him and he was well on his way to making it a fully empty bottle. A crystal lowball glass full of amber liquid in one hand, he stared despondently at the dagger in the other. His name was once again inscribed across it like a harbinger of cruel fate.

Bae was gone. Belle had left. And all he had remaining was this damned dagger.

The bell jingled above the front door. He bristled.

"Fuck off, we're closed!" he snapped with more vitriol than usual. He was in no mood to deal with gawkers and if they had any sense, they would hightail it the hell out.

He heard footsteps in the storefront, heading towards the back. He started to his feet with a growl. "Are you deaf and stupid? I said..."

Regina and Emma emerged from the front room. He aborted his attempt to rise and slumped back into his chair morosely. "Oh, it's you."

The pair of them glanced at the half-empty bottle, then shared a look. When did they start communicating like an old married couple, he wondered half-heartedly. Well, he thought idly, they did make a nice couple at least. Better than that damn pirate.

Then their eyes fell on the dagger gripped in his hand. He noticed and instinctively clutched it tighter.

It was Emma who spoke up. "I can still hear it, you know," she began quietly, a little uneasy. "The dagger. Why do I still hear it?"

He shrugged. "You two are now part of a very elite club-you are both former Dark Ones who are somehow still alive," he said flippantly, although perhaps with a shade of bitterness in his voice. "I expect the effect will fade with time. You were barely the Dark One for a month, after all."

The fact that they had both wreaked all sorts of ungodly havoc in that time was left unsaid.

"How did you do it, Gold?" Emma again. "How did you deal with that for centuries without going crazy? Without losing your soul?"

Who says I didn't, he thought silently. Or maybe those were the voices. He couldn't tell and didn't care at the moment. The whisky was making him a little fuzzy around the edges.

Oddly enough, he found himself answering honestly just the same. "I held onto hope that one day my family would be together again." Bae. He did this-again-for Bae and Bae's son.

"And now Neal is gone," Emma said softly.

"Yes, Miss Swan."

Regina and Emma shared another look. Damn it all, he felt as if he was being manipulated here somehow but he was too wrung out to be bothered.

"Rumple," it was Regina speaking now. "You still have family. We are your family now."

Emma picked it up now. "I know we've said it before, but never fully followed through. But Henry connects us all together and we're not going to forget what you did for us. Not this time."

"Hell, for as twisted as it all was, you've been a fixture in my life since I was a little girl. We were already practically family," Regina continued with a smirk.

He couldn't help but bark out a laugh at that, ridiculous as it was.

"Seriously," Emma went on, giving Regina a stern look and leveling a finger at Rumplestiltskin. "You're part of this family now and we damn well aren't going to let let you forget it either."

Something in the fierceness of her gaze suddenly seemed reminiscent of the Emma who had come to Storybrooke like a whirlwind to break the curse. The Emma that had taken a chainsaw to the mayor's apple tree. A woman who was determined and would not be swayed. It was actually rather refreshing. She had apparently bounced back to herself fairly well, although he knew that nobody bore this curse without being scarred by it in some way. They all shared that now.

Something changed between them in that moment. He cracked a half smile and pushed his glass away, unfinished, on the table.

"How can I argue with such polite discourse, Miss Swan?" he shot back at her, with an almost playful sarcasm.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, save it."

"Nine o'clock," Regina broke in smoothly. "Henry wants you to join us for dinner at Granny's."

He recalled another conversation with Regina from what seemed a long time ago. "An invitation to dinner, dearie?" he said with a smirk.

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes at him, although good-naturedly. "Would you rather just gather dust with the other ancient relics in this little museum of yours? Haul yourself up and just be there," she chided him.

"As you wish," he quipped back with his usual caustic charm.

They all knew he'd be there.