And that's it for this time. Not as many, but I hope you liked them! :)

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Written for Marlex at Comment Fic. Prompt: sometimes with loss comes clarity

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"She died," Regina tells him with such relish that he wants to choke the smile out of her. But he cannot move, cannot speak but for a gasped denial. In his own castle, behind his best defenses, he's laid low by the images that accompany those words: the girl, hurt and bleeding, broken and worse, despair leading her to a last act of defiance (and it would be defiance, to the end).

There's a sob building in his throat. A howl that cannot - must not - be heard by another soul.

The Dark One doesn't love.

But Rumpelstiltskin... Rumpelstiltskin might have.