He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing here. Confusion, that was a rare feeling, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt it. But he knew that from the moment he'd come awake, confusion was all he'd felt.

He'd attempted sleep tonight because he felt as though the reality of his situation was getting to him. He hadn't seen Baelfire since Cora had died. He hadn't seen Belle since he'd left for New York City and hadn't talked to her since he'd last seen Baelfire. Henry was his grandson, and…

Henry…

That's what the nightmare had been about. He'd been on the brink of losing it ever since he woke up. His conscious mind was aware that it hadn't been the usual drama of Baelfire falling through the portal but hadn't been able to grasp what it had been until now. It was Henry. Henry in his shop. They'd been celebrating something. A birthday, perhaps? Henry had wanted to see one of the wands he had. Or maybe he'd wanted to take it. Whatever it was, he was aware of the fact that the wand ended up in his own hands, that he'd turned Henry to stone before he'd been swallowed up with an urge every bit as strong as the urge he'd had to hold onto the dagger when he'd let Baelfire fall through the portal.

The urge was to kill.

Reality was better than any dream.

He'd been foolish to think that the Dark Ones would let him sleep with everything going on in his life. They were laughing at him now, hissing under their breath and whispering in his ear just as they always did about not letting him ruin them as the Seer predicted. He knew attempting to sleep was a bad idea on some level. He hadn't had a peaceful night sleep, a restful night sleep since…

Belle.

He'd never really paid much attention to his good night's sleep while he was mortal. A good night's sleep as the Dark One came so rarely that it was precious. Now he knew that every night's sleep he'd had revolved around one person. Belle. The voices were quiet when she was with him. They stopped their mocking and hissing and nasty comments. With her, he could rest. Even when he'd had the nightmare, she'd helped him rest.

As if on instinct, he sat up in bed and looked over his shoulder. If all was the way it should have been, he'd have looked at her space on the bed, where she'd be sitting, rubbing his back, urging him to lie down and sleep again. But this wasn't normal. And as it was, what he found over his shoulder was her nightstand because he had attempted to sleep using the entire bed, just as Gold had done ever since he arrived in Storybrooke. Apparently, sometime during the night, he'd slid over to her side. Seeking her out, perhaps?

That thought nearly broke him. He huffed as he swept the blankets off of him and got out of the bed faster than he knew he could move. He'd meant to simply go about his day, and yet somehow…somehow, he'd ended up where he shouldn't have been. For the longest time that morning, he wandered around without any care or thought; he'd simply had the sense that he needed air and movement. Down near the docks, he'd turned the corner to one of the more private decks of some company or other he owned and stopped.

He'd arrived as if on instinct, and now that he was there, looking out over a small patch of grass and picnic tables, he was shocked to find he wasn't alone. Henry was there. Henry…and Baelfire. The pair were playing with a couple of wooden swords, so enveloped in each other they didn't appear to notice him standing there. That wasn't much of a surprise, the way the deck was designed and where they were playing, they'd have to be looking for him to see him, and they were too busy blocking blow after blow from one another.

Henry was good with a sword. Bae was better. He didn't understand how that could be possible. Baelfire had practiced as a child with him, but never enough to be as good as he was. Dread crept into them as he watched his son with his son, playing their game, running about, striking pose after pose. It was unnerving just how good Baelfire was. Perhaps because there was a reminder…there was something he didn't know, something that sent a chill up his spine because he suspected but couldn't bear the thought that it was true. Baelfire knew Hook, he knew how to sail a ship, and he knew how to use a sword...because he'd spent time in Neverland? It was all very unnerving, indeed. And caught in the center of it, right there before his own eyes, was Henry, the boy he'd killed in his dream last night. A boy that was obviously, quite quickly becoming part of Baelfire's life.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

A pair of heels making hollow thuds on the dock behind him distracted him enough to break his concentration. He turned his head, but his magic flared out and recognized Regina long before he laid eyes on her.

"Seems like we both have been pushed to the sidelines," she muttered almost sadly, walking up next to him.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled. After last night he wasn't particularly in the mood for Regina, especially given the hell she'd put them through recently. Shouldn't she be off hiding somewhere? Licking her wounds?

"The real question is, what's your son doing with mine?"

His mind went blank out of nothing but shock for half a second before he felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. No…it couldn't be that she didn't know! That was just too…sweet! Too perfect! And yet…

"Oh that!" he snickered. He reviewed the events of the last few days in his head carefully and quickly, part of him not believing that she didn't know. But it seemed there was no trick that he could find. "That's right, you didn't get the birth announcement, did you?"

There had been no time for anyone to have explained it to Regina, at least none that he could see. Hell, there was no reason that anyone would have told her. She'd been enemy number one as far as the Swans and all who were involved cared. She didn't know. And he couldn't wait to see the look on her face.

He pointed out to his son, still playing with wooden swords in excellent form with Henry…his son. "That's Henry's father."

He didn't know what he expected from Regina; wide eyes, perhaps, a look of disbelief, maybe a slack jaw…what he got was almost better than any of those imagined reactions. It was nothing. There was no reaction. No twitch of her jaw, no recognition in her eyes, no inhale of breath, no shock, no disbelief…nothing. It was as if her entire brain had stopped working for a moment at the news. And getting to see Regina in that state…that was priceless enough that it almost made everything leading up to this moment worth it.

"What?" she finally questioned in a low confused tone.

He smiled again. He was enjoying this too much, but after all the hell Regina had put him through and the craziness of the past few days, he felt like he deserved a bit of joy.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" he questioned. "Miss Swan and my son-"

"Your Henry's grandfather?!" Regina burst out mercifully before inventing details he didn't particularly want to imagine. Still, he swallowed. The outburst was a bit more like what he'd initially expected. He supposed that meant that Regina's brain was working again, and his fun was mostly over. Mostly…he'd like to take one final jab at the girl who thought she was alone in the world now without her mother. If only she knew…

"Guess that makes us family. He's got my eyes, don't you think?" he muttered before striding away. Henry and Bae were on the move. They'd shifted their play to an area less easy to see from where he'd been hiding, and while he knew that Bae didn't particularly want to see him, part of him wanted to be seen by him. He couldn't quite understand that urge, but he gave into it easily.

"You did this!" Regina growled behind him. He heard her move, listened to her steps quicken to catch up to him. As much as he didn't particularly care for this conversation, he didn't stop her.

"Trust me, dearie, it was as much a shock to me as it is to you."

"No!" she shouted. "You must have known! When I adopted him, it was you who procured him for me. You expect me to believe that that was a coincidence."

"No, not coincidence, fate," he corrected, wanting desperately to roll his eyes at her. How could she not understand how this worked by now? "And apparently, fate has a sense of humor."

"Fate…" Regina snarled as they appeared at the bottom of the ramp and emerged from that red fence to the very ground Henry and Baelfire were sparring on. "So, you're playing the part of the loving grandpa now?"

He smiled, happy to let her think what she wanted to believe, all the while flashes of the nightmare he'd been startled from the night before played in his mind. He wasn't particularly sure what role he was playing right now, but he was sure it wasn't "loving grandpa."

"They won't accept you," Regina added when he didn't respond. "No matter what you do, not your son, not any of them."

"We'll see," he answered in a non-committal tone, happy to let her keep talking to no one if that was what she really wanted. Baelfire and Henry had moved just around that corner…he could nearly see them again…

"I've already seen, Gold," Regina kept rambling as he kept walking. "I've seen your dark heart, and it always wins out. You always choose darkness."

An empty heart and a chipped cup…

Sadness nearly threatened to overtake him as he heard Belle's words echo in his mind. He had to fight to remember that this wasn't about any of that, but it was difficult to do when he wasn't entirely sure what "this" was about, to begin with. But Belle, her voice, those words…they weren't true. They might have been long ago, but with her, before the town line, he'd been different. His heart, dark as it was, had played second fiddle to the brightness that she brought out in him. He was capable of rejecting darkness. He was capable of loving. He was capable of caring and letting other people see him as such, even if it felt like it burned. The question at the moment was if he wanted that now? With Henry as well as Baelfire? Could he want it, considering it might be the last thing he ever did, given the Seer's prophecy?

He didn't know. But if he didn't know, then he knew someone else who didn't know either…

"You think you know me, dearie. But you don't," he snapped at Regina.

"I know you well enough," she countered. "If your own son couldn't bring out the good in you…who will?"

Welcome to 2x19. We're about to start diving into the Lacey half of this fiction which amazed me as I wrote Rumple because this was an entire fiction all on its own in Moments. As I told you before, there was a time that I did consider separating this fiction into two. I was even more tempted after I wrote the last chapter of 2x17, and there seemed to be a natural breaking point. But then I wrote this chapter, and I knew that keeping them together was a good choice because, at the heart of this, it's all the same theme. It all deals with family bonds. In the first half, Rumple learns who his family is; now, he has to understand what it means to be in that family. One might say he needs to learn how to bond with that term. Ironic...

Thank you so much for your reviews on the previous chapter, Grace! I know getting into 2x19 brings up a lot of feelings for Belle fans, but this section presented many challenges outside of working with Rumple and Lacey. Seriously, it got to the point where I was almost relieved when I got to one of those chapters because the rest of these chapters...sometimes they just don't make sense. Even getting Rumple from this scene to the next in the show. It should seem pretty straightforward; Regina sees Rumple, "who's gonna bring out the good in you" and Rumple goes to see Belle. Easy, right. Straightforward. Wrong! All because of one stupid little detail which is coming up tomorrow. Can you guess it? Peace and Happy Reading!