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That night they made love. That night they shared sensual caresses and gentle touches. Belle lay naked on her back, while Rumpelstiltskin treated her like a goddess and worshipped her body. Everything he did was an ode to her motherhood. He planted the most sensual and sweetest kisses on her belly. He kissed her around the navel, going lower, giving special attention and tenderness to her womb. He acted like his affectionate gestures would reach their child. And maybe they did. His lips brushed her creamy skin up to her breasts, drawing their firm roundness, relishing their softness, tasting their fertility. Belle breathed deep and hard. The slow and gentle senses stirring her more than the fiery passion they often shared. It was a new experience for her. No man had ever showed her this kind of reverence. Rumpelstitlskin never had behaved this devotedly before and she shivered under his new ways.

Never in her life had Belle felt so sacred under the gaze and touch of a man. She wanted him. And she wanted him to want her. She released a soft gratifying moan when Rumpelstiltskin entered her warm wetness with no rush and slowly pushed himself until he was completely inside of her. He smiled as their faces were close, noses touching. She smiled back, drunken in his love and caresses. Soon she was meowing softly against his ear, the slow but steady trusts increasing the pleasure by the second. It was a marvelous dance, slow but intense, sweet but hot, tender but sensual. Their arms and legs were wrapped around each other, nails softly digging the flesh, their faces pressed together and sharing the same air. The temperature rose as the slow pace became pleasantly torturous. Gentle and lazy moans became the music of this electrifying dance and reached their highest notes when their bodies connected as one.

They remained quiet, lying next to each other, their bodies still wrapped. They enjoyed the afterglow, panting softly, hair damp, skin sweaty, cheeks flushed. Belle never had felt this kind of pleasure before. She never had made love this way with anybody. And so she kissed Rumpelstiltskin passionately. Thankfully. Longingly. But soon, tiredness would demand the toll of her body, and she would surrender to sleep in the arms of her lover.

Belle was familiar with the expression all good things come to an end, but she had not expected the blissfulness they shared the day before to end so quickly. Rumpelstitlskin was sweet and kind at all times, but Belle was no fool. When she woke up the following morning, he was still there with her, lying next to her, still holding her close. He was awake and however he looked at her full of love, his eyes and smile were full of sadness. The rest of the day he acted his normal self, but she could sense an aura of gloom surrounding him at all times. It was all very subtle and sometimes she even thought she was imagining things. That it was her insecurity playing games with her mind and making her paranoid. She had a suspicion about the origin of this melancholy but dared not to bring it up. So she chose to ignore it.

Belle also knew that, when you ignore a problem, it doesn't mean it will disappear. And by the third day she was finally forced to confront reality. For the first time in weeks, she woke up alone and was surprised to find it extremely uncomfortable to see an empty and cold space next to her. She concentrated her senses and her magical hearing quickly picked up a sound. A recurring, repetitive, rotating sound. He was at the spinning wheel.

Belle quickly washed herself, dressed up and headed to the dark room where Rumpelstitlskin always tried to forget his miseries. She halted by the entrance, the dim light of the small window illuminating her face. She watched for a while Rumpelstitlskin's hands work skillfully and diligently, turning the wheel around and around, holding a long delicate golden thread between his fingers.

"You are up early." Rumpelstitlskin said without facing her, his voice a mere whisper, yet perfectly perceptible.

"You were up earlier." Belle countered and ventured the dark gloomy room. She took a seat next to him and watched Rumpelstitlskin spin for a while. "Why aren't you happy?" She finally asked the question that hung in the air for days already. The question to an answer she feared so greatly. He sighed and stopped the spinning wheel. There was a long pause, a heavy silence, as he seemed to be lost for words.

"How can I be happy being father to this new child, while my other child is fatherless?" He finally whispered with a cracked voice, his brown eyes avoiding azure ones.

"You made a deal. You knew the consequences." Belle calmly spoke.

"Are we still living according to the deal?" He replied, his voice shaky but louder, bitter and hurt.

"The way we are living has nothing to do with the deal we made." She cautiously stated. Rumpelstitlskin finally turned his head to face her. Pain, hurt and despair haunted the depths of his eyes.

"I want to make a new deal."

"You have offered everything you could ever offer. There will be no deal."

"It is not fair I should father one child while I abandon the other!"

"You didn't abandon him. You saved him, remember? Besides, he's fourteen. He can handle himself."

"He's a child! He needs his father! I am the only family he has and I did abandon him!"

"And what do you want me to do? Bring him to the castle? Have him live here? He will be isolated, because I will not have a teenager running freely around knowing where I live, knowing I am pregnant so he'll slip his tongue and people will come and try to kill our child!"

"Stop being so melodramatic!"

"How dare you?"

"How dare you? You give me a child while you steal the other one away!"

"I am not stealing anything from you!"

"Yes, you are! You are stealing a part of my soul! You have no idea the pain I have to go through every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep, having him as my first and last though! Did you really believe I would forget him? Do you even understand the horror it is to be separated of your child? It kills me. It's like every day, a part of me dies!" He yelled frustrated, hurt and distressed. His voice echoed in the room and Belle looked at him like if he had just hit her full in her face. She stood up, hands fidgeting with her dress.

"I can give you a potion to forget him."

"Are you insane? You really think I want to forget my son?" Rumpelstiltskin said looking up at her with great incredibility.

"The pain will disappear." She whispered tentatively.

"So will other things." He pointed out, knowing perfectly well what happened with Snow White after she drank the potion. "I won't be me anymore."

Another long and heavy silence followed. After a while, Rumpelstitlskin shook his head dejectedly. He turned the wheel over again and again. Belle watched him put all his mind into the wheel, into the golden thread. It was his way off distracting and forcing himself to forget temporarily his sorrows. Forgetting them long enough for the pain to become bearable.

Belle sighed softly. She knew this couldn't continue like this. Rumpelstiltskin would whether enter in a permanent state of depression, go mad or revolt against her. She knew it was no life for him. Despite her powers and magic, she couldn't stop his suffering. And watching him like this hurt her deeply. Belle knew what she had to do. The Dark One urged her to remain selfish and true to her own interests, but the Dark One's old ways didn't apply to this particular situation. And so, Belle made a decision.

"I release you from our deal." Belle spoke firmly, ignoring the Dark One's anger and frustration. "You are free to go and do whatever you want to." The wheel stopped. Rumpelstilskin remained frozen for a while. Then he turned around, so he could face her. She could see in his brow's manner and eyes he didn't believe his own ears.

"You what?"

"You heard me. You can leave." Rumpelstitlskin's eyes widened from surprise and incredibility.

"You'll let me go to my son?" Belle nodded, her heart already crying. "You…You trust me to come back?"

"Oh, no. I expect I'll never see you again." Another heavy silence filled the room. Belle could see Rumpelstiltskin was processing her words, analyzing their meaning, searching for any possible loophole. After a while he stood up and held her hands on his.

"You silly woman! Your pregnancy hormones are messing with your head. Didn't I tell you before? I'll stay with you forever."

"And I said I'm releasing you from the deal." She replied upset, doing her best not to burst into tears.

"I am not talking about the deal." He said with a smile. "Look, since I'm free now to do whatever I want, this is what's going to happen. I'll leave to find my boy. Then I'll explain him the whole situation and will give him the choice of coming to live here or not. But even if he chooses not to live in the Dark Castle, I will return. I'll continue visiting him and supporting him as a father, but I will never leave you."

"Sounds reasonable." She admitted with a lump in her throat and scolded herself for not coming up with this solution. She still didn't like the possibility of the boy moving into the castle, but it was a way better option than losing Rumpelstiltskin. "I don't suppose I could come with you?"

"No. I-I truly wish you could, but…I don't think it would be good for Bae…Hey. This is my journey, Belle. This is my journey. I'm afraid it's something I have to do alone." He said and Belle smiled at him comprehending.

"I know. But, it doesn't matter."

"And why not?"

"Because you'll find him. And, when you do, I'll be here waiting for you when you get back."

They looked at each other, love all over their faces. They were both happy they found a way of overcoming this barrier. They kissed, a bittersweet kiss, full of passion and fears. This was farewell, but a short farewell. Rumpelstiltskin still couldn't believe he was free again, that Belle had found in her heart the will to revoke the deal. And this rare deed of altruism only made him want to be with her even the more. He pressed his fingers on hers one last time before leaving in a puff of purple smoke, her watery eyes being the last thing he saw. It hurt him to leave her like this, but he had a new mission now. He hoped the boy would chose to live in the Dark Castle and learn, within time, to like Belle. Just like he hoped Belle had still room in her dark heart to love another soul. He reappeared at the edge of his home-village. His search had begun.

"Your Majesty. He is out again." The magical mirror informed Queen Regina from behind the glass.

"Where is he this time?" Regina asked. After her talk with Hook, they both continued searching for the spinner separately, using their own methods. They had agreed the first one to find him would let the other party know. The reason she had given the pirate a small magical mirror so they could contact anytime. Since then, Regina had continued following the Dark One's slave movements daily, patiently, waiting for the ideal opportunity to present itself before her.

"In his home village."

"Why would he be there?"

"He seems to be looking for somebody. He was indicated to follow the main road to the next village."

"The one that crosses Sherwood's Forest?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." Regina smirked maliciously. This was the opportunity she was waiting for. "Call the pirate."

Rumpelstitlskin was walking for already a couple hours in the shades of Sherwood's Forest. He had expected to find Baelfire in his home village. Instead, he learned the boy had left it for almost two months now. It had been Moraine (apparently the only person there not to show any fear for him) who told him about Baelfire's quest in finding him. Rumpelstitlskin wondered if Belle had known about this all along. If she had conveniently hidden that information away from him. But then again, why would she want to delay him in his search? He almost had the urge to go back to the Dark Castle and ask her to track down his son through magical mirrors, instead of making an unnecessary walk through the woods. But the new information had filled his mind and heart with fears. He was worried about the stories Baelfire would hear during his travelling. If his fellow-villagers had created an absurd dark mythology around his persona, only the gods knew what kind of silly rumors were told in other villages, towns and cities. This fact alone brought the whole situation into a different light. Rumpelstiltskin needed the silence and fresh air to set some ideas in order. He was thinking about what he should tell the boy. How to tell him some of those horrible rumors were true. Most of all, he was terrified for his son's reaction and wondered what the teenager would think about his own father.

Rumpelstiltskin was so deeply lost in his concerns; he failed to see a shadow moving between the trees. It was only when he heard the sound of a twig crack that he stopped in his tracks. The realized the woods were oddly silent. There was some rustling behind the trees and turned to the sound's direction. Suddenly, he heard a war cry coming from behind him and quickly turned around. But it had been too late. It all happened too fast. Before he knew it, Killian Jones was in front of him and his hook was stuck in his chest. Rumpelstiltskin gasped startled, the blinding pain making him lose all the strength in his legs. He fell against the trunk of a tree, staring wide-eyed and opened mouth as the pirate prepared to strike him a second time.

"Tick tock. Time's up, crocodile!" Hook said with a crazy smile. "You took Milah, my love, my happiness. And for that, I now take your life!"


The following chapters will be tough.

But, there is always a light in the end of the tunnel.

What did you think of this chapter?

Please, do continue reviewing :)