He went to the shop the next day, needing some time off and he kept the sign in the door reading "closed". He didn't need anyone talking to him today, not even the Savior. Nothing could save this day.
He'd said yes.
He was really fucking screwed now.
He didn't know what had come over him. He didn't crack under pressure. He'd had literal centuries to build up facades and masks to keep people from knowing him. They'd only ever known the acts, the songs and the legends. He was the most powerful, the most terrifying sorcerer in the realm and he was being picked apart at the seams by some middle-aged Englishman with a thing for Tarantino movies and snuggles on the couch.
What?
The Dark One did most certainly not snuggle and enjoy it.
And then Ian would look at him like the whole world could disappear and it wouldn't matter as long as they were together and Rumpelstiltskin wanted to scream.
A part of him wished he could allow himself to just curl up in Ian's embrace and let everything else wait for a while. But waiting around never did him any favors, and finding Baelfire was the sole reason of the creation of this curse. Years, no, decades of planning had brought him this close and he couldn't be distracted now because soft words were making him weak in the knees. If he stayed in Storybrooke, let the Savior leave town again, then everything would have been for nothing. He would have put all these people in so much pain for nothing. He could live with the fact that Regina may have suffered. She's murdered Belle because she'd lost her usefulness. But if this curse kept going strong, then only Regina would have her happy ending.
If Emma left...
28 years they'd been waiting without even realizing it, for her to set them all free.
They wouldn't know. No one would ever know.
Gold sighed.
Being human was something he'd taken for granted for far too long. It was easier to be the monster people thought he was. Fewer questions and less people to poke at his carefully constructed walls. But now… He needed to get the hell out of Storybrooke.
For weeks he'd been waiting patiently.
Emma Swan was going to set them all free.
She was going to set him free.
Emma Swan was the Savior.