The blue bird entered the dining hall, landing by Rumplestiltskin's side on the stool where he was sitting, hands working on the spinning wheel, making him sigh in frustration as he stopped turning the straw into gold to take the rolled paper that the bird deposited there before flying away. He stood up and held it up to Belle, who was at the chaise, reading a book.

"I don't like this."

"Excuse me?" She said, lifting her gaze from the pages she had been reading, clearly confused.

"This." Rumplestiltskin insisted, waving the rolled paper in front of her face. "I don't like the idea of you and Regina writing for each other."

"She only wrote me once. Twice, if you count the letter you're holding."

"I still don't appreciate this friendship between you two. You shouldn't be telling her anything about you or what happens inside the walls of this castle. This must stop."

Leaving her book aside, Belle grabbed the letter from him. "Ok, you're sounding paranoiac, so let's clear thing. I'm not friends with Regina. I did not tell her anything about me, you or our baby and she only wrote to thank me and say that she was safe."

"And why is she writing again?"

"If you let me read the letter, I may find out."

Rolling his eyes, he nodded to show her that he was going to keep quiet for a while to let her read, so Belle unrolled the paper, quickly reading all the content of it.

"Whoa, Regina is staying at Sherwood Forest." She said with a smile.

"What?"

"It seems that Robin convinced her to stay with him. She writes that he is a persuasive person, but she is still willing to bring him to her home."

"Alright, the former Evil Queen is happy, now end of corresponding for you."

He made the letter disappear from her hands with his magic and Belle tried to stand up, but the weight of her seven-month pregnant belly made her fell back to the chaise. Sighing she held her hand up to Rumple and let him help her to get on her feet.

"Our little one is getting bigger every day." He pointed out, laying a hand on her stomach.

Sighing, Belle felt the baby react at this small touch, moving inside her with such speed that it made her breathless. "Yeah, and he or she is really agitated. I barely slept last night."

The imp kneeled in front of his lover, his face at the level of her belly and whispered: "Be good to your mama, she needs to sleep."

But the sound of his voice, was something their child liked very much and it only caused it to kick again. Smiling, Belle thought that this baby was going to be an insistent little thing, just like his parents. Rumple kissed the place where they felt it kicking and then rose in the ball of his feet, giving her a look full of love.

She took his hand and led him upstairs, right to the nursery, where she opened the wardrobe and grabbed something she had placed there just yesterday. A golden knitting blanket.

"Take a look at this." The young lady said, passing it to him. "I finally managed to finish."

Rumplestiltskin smiled running his fingers through it, as if that simples blanket was something very cherished. "It's lovely, Belle."

"You can be true with me," she bit her lip, knowing that it was not perfect, because whenever the maids tried to teach her to properly knit when she lived in her father's castle, Belle ended up hiding in the library, preferring the company of her books instead of all those lessons that always seemed so pointless. "I'm aware that I was never good at that."

"I'm telling the true. I love it."

His fingers were still smoothing the blanket, but his eyes seemed distant to Belle, even when he spoke again. "I want to talk to you about something, sweetheart."

"What is it?"

"It's about the baby's name."

Rubbing his back, she laid her head on his shoulder, cuddling against him. "Do you already have something in mind?"

"Not exactly. I wanted to ask you to name it. It's very important to me if you do so."

"Why?" Belle asked, narrowing her eyes, her fingers massaging his scalp, before a memory came up to her mind. The memory of the day Rumple had summoned the Black Fairy to confront her. "Oh, it is because your mother never named you?"

Moving to the other side, he placed the blanket inside the crib. "Naming a child is constructing a bond, making a promise of never letting it go." He sighed. "My mother left me. Milah left Bae."

Belle walked to him, opening her arms to hug the imp, hiding her face in his chest for a second, enjoying the feel of his arms around her, as he tightened his grip, like she was what was keeping him alive. "Rumple I will never leave you and our child." She said in an insurer tone. "It was you who named Baelfire?"

"No, but Milah was never the greatest mother alive, not even when she was still with him."

Their last conversation about his first family came to surface and Belle gave a questionable look to him. "I thought she died."

"She did, years after running away with a pirate, leaving her family behind."

There were bitter in his voice, what made Belle's heart break a little. She didn't know Milah, but she could say that she disliked that woman. What kind of person do something like that? Abandoning a husband was already bad, but a child? Someone you conceived and carried inside you? It was something too cruel to be considered.

As a mother herself, she could certainly say that she would never leave her baby. And Rumplestiltskin, she loved him too much to imagine herself giving up on him and Belle wanted him to know that, because enough people had let him down during his life. She cupped both his cheeks and bumped their noses together in the way she knew that would make him laugh.

"Hey, look at me. I will never be like your ex-wife. I believe in our love."

Hope appeared in his eyes as he captured her lips briefly in his, in the most sweet of the kisses.

"Thank you, Belle. For loving the man behind the beast."


She was completely uncomfortable again. Things were bad for her body during the first months of her pregnancy, before Rumple had made those potions to make her feel better, now however everything started to bother her again. Belle felt too big, the baby moved too much all the time smashing her organs and making her breathless.

To complete her discomfort, yesterday the baby had turned around, getting in position for the birth, what made her feel his head making a estrange pressure between her legs. She was almost afraid to do something that could happen to hurt it, so she tried to sit mostly still as she could, not that it was an easy thing, as any position she tried hurt her somehow.

Rumplestiltskin had been gone for about four days now, to make his last deals before spending some time without getting out for them, to help her in the end of the pregnancy and their child's arrival.

She was at the chaise, looking at the spinning wheel while eating her second piece of lemon pie. After eight months, she still craved the same thing.

"Are you expecting the wheel to move with magic?" Rumplestiltskin asked, appearing by her side, brought by his magic.

Turning her head with a huge smile, Belle left the plate aside on the small table near them and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, I've missed you!"

"So did I."

She kissed him slowly, romantically at first, but then his tongue entered her mouth to enlace itself with hers and Rumple bent her to the chaise, running a hand to her back. "I'm really wanting to take you to our chambers right now.

Immediately, Belle stopped, pulling away from him.

"You can't be serious."

"I am."

"Rumple, I'm looking like a giant fat pig, you can't possibly desire me like this."

Even wanting to deny it, she was seeing the prove of it in his lustful eyes, observing her like she was some kind of goddess. "Well, I do. And you're definitely not looking like a giant fat pig, you're radiant and beautiful carrying my child."

His fingers traced the curve of her breast, breathing in hardly. She shivered with her own need, but she was too big and her body was too tired and aching for that.

"Thank you for your kindness, but this is not going to happen today."

"Belle, I've been out for days, I want you."

Cupping his cheek, she felt a little bad for not giving him what he wanted when he was looking at her with such passion, but at that moment, she couldn't. "I'm not comfortable with this right now. I am feeling the head."

If his cheeks could go red, Belle knew it would've. Rumplestiltskin looked embarrassed as his glance lowered to his trousers. "What? I'm not - "

"Not yours, stupid. The baby's. He is positioned to get out."

"Oh."

Things seemed to make sense for in and he turned to sat on the chaise, helping Belle to do the same, both staring at her swollen belly.

"It won't take long for me to go into labour now."

Nodding, Rumple breathed in. "Are you scared?"

In fact, he seemed more scared with just the perspective of the labour, than she ever did during all those months of restless readings about the subject. But Belle wasn't a fool, she knew that as much as it was a natural thing, there were risks that both mother and child could face during it and she hoped that when the time came, Mrs. Potts was really a so great midwife as the rumours about her accused to. Rumple had told his lover, that he had chosen her because of her reputation of well-succeeded births.

"A little." She finally confessed, catching her lower lip between her teeth. "My books describe it as a really painful thing and I've heard about enough women dying in childbirth."

Grabbing both of her hands in his, the imp pressed a kiss to each of Belle's fingers. "I'll be there with you all the time, sweetheart. Nothing bad is going to happen with you or the baby."

"I know. We will be fine in the end." She said, hopefully, wanting that her words came to be true in the future.

A lot of things were passing through Rumplestiltskin's mind. He had lost one whole family once, his wife cheated on him and then left without even stop to think about their young son, and then, he and Bae were separated by his wrong choices. The last few months, Rumple had been feeling in paradise as he had found almost everything he ever wanted with Belle.

With no doubt, she had become his safe haven. Her love for him was too good to be true, she accepted him, cared for him, desired him and with her love he had won a gift. The chance of being a father again. If only Baelfire was with them, his happiness would be complete, but for now, he considered himself lucky and feared losing this.

It was true that during all of those days he spent away from the Dark Castle, Rumplestiltskin was not fully concentrated in his deals as he usually was. In each instant, the ghost of the labour that his darling Belle was soon going to face, was haunting him, like distant cruel voices whispering in his ear that that was going to be the moment that he would lose both his love and his unborn child. Now he was truly afraid, just not wanted her to be aware of that.

"Have you eaten well?" The Dark One asked in concern.

Belle waved her head positively, gesticulating to the plate placed in the small table beside the chaise where they were sitting. "You just interrupted my second piece of pie."

"Still remaining with this?"

"The baby likes."

He couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. Rumplestiltskin had been eager to fill all of his lover's cravings, but even wanting to eat a different kind of fruit each week, she always ended up sticking with the lemon pie, something that she had appreciated even before getting pregnant. Now she was obsessed with that. "You like."

"Yeah, but I'm with child and this my ultimate craving." Belle said, stopping a hand at the top of her stomach. "I have been thinking about names."

"Did you decide on something?"

"Not yet, but I have good ones. Do you want to hear?"

The last days, she had spent all her time in the library, looking through name-meaning books, but it hadn't helped her that much. Belle found out that no matter what meaning a name had it would only fit her baby if it somehow was special for her, so she changed her fonts of source and started to use her own brain to think about something or someone that sounded important for her and at the same time, remembered her of Rumplestiltskin.

Now, she so wished him to hear her list. However, all her lover did was to shook his head. "Better not. I don't want to interfere in your decision."

"Rumple, this is your child too."

"I'm pretty aware of that, sweetheart," he said, with a wicked smile in his lips. "But I'm sure that I will like any name you pick."

"Really? Because I was thinking about Snow White or Regina for a girl and maybe Charming for a boy." She joked.

The expression that crossed his face was hilarious. His eyes widened, jaw dropped and he stood up suddenly, throwing his arms in the air dramatically before pointing an accusative finger to her, trying to show his point of view. "Charming is not even a real name. And you're not naming my little princess after the Evil Queen."

She laughed out loud. "Snow White, then."

"Belle!"

When she managed to stop laughing, her chest was aching and she covered her mouth, hiding the smile that insisted to appear in reflect to his angry face. "Oh, I was joking. I would never put any of those names in our baby."

"Bad joke."

"I love when you get exasperated over something like this." Belle said before tapping the empty space by her side in the chaise. "Come here, Rumple, you really need to relax."

Hesitantly he came to sit by her side and Belle's hand stroke his thigh in a gest of comfort.

"I can't relax when you attempt to use Snow White as our baby's name."

"You're really crushing out my dreams." Belle said, still laughing at him.

They were so involved in their talk that Belle jumped in place when she felt her dress getting wet. She gasped, a sudden pain coming from her womb and causing tears to come to her eyes.

"Oh, no."

"Sweetheart?"

Gripping Rumple's hand, she gave him a scared look. "My water. It broke." Another pain hit her and Belle had to bit her lip to keep herself from screaming. "Gods, it can't be happening it's too soon."

By her counting she should still have at least four or three weeks before the baby arrived and now it was happening. Belle was terrified and when her gaze met her lover's she realized that he was too. But they couldn't just stay there afraid of the inevitable, they need to move.

"Rumplestiltskin!" She shout out, trying to wake him from his frozen state. "What are you still doing here? Go get Mrs. Potts!"

He blinked. "Mrs. Potts, yeah, alright, I'm going."

"Then go!"

A contraction came and Belle shut her eyes closed for a moment. When she opened them, she was in their chambers, laid in the bed, her dress changed to a nightgown.

"I'll be back soon." Rumplestiltskin promised, before disappearing, leaving Belle alone to deal with her pain.


Comment answers:

Aj (Chapters 7 and 8): Yeah, Rumple & Belle have real bad arguments. But they always make amends. Thank you for reading!