I don't have much to say about this one. It took a while to write it, but it pretty much wrote itself. It's also definitely a long one, but honestly I'm not mad at it.

Archie was accustomed to a number of the sounds that the door to his office had been used to make. He had heard the loud pounding from Grumpy's clenched fist and the tight rapping of the mayor's knuckles. David's sure, steady knocking could been easily recognized by the psychiatrist and he was sure he would immediately know Mr. Gold's muted knock should he ever hear it again. Emma's announcement of herself, usually not even bothered to request entry, was certainly memorable. But when a quiet tapping came during his lunch hour on a breezy Wednesday afternoon, Archie found he was stumped. This sound was timid, hesitant, and he was unsure if there were any Storybrooke residents who even fit that description anymore.

It could have been a refugee from the Land of Untold Stories, he supposed. But then, most of them were frightened of doctors, especially those of a psychological variety. Just the night before, a conversation between himself and a tight-lipped little man in a sailor's suit had attracted a small crowd at Granny's. The psychiatrist had been trying to explain that mental healthcare was not to be feared in this realm – at least, not in the twenty-first century – and that the 'asylum' under the hospital was more like a prison than a healthcare institution. A more permanent place for Storybrooke's criminals than the sheriff's station. Archie's heart went out to all those people who had arrived terrified and mistrusting, but he thought he had managed to convince a few of them that he could be trusted.

When he opened the door, however, it was not a refugee who stood on the other side. It was Belle.

"Belle," he greeted, eyes wide with surprise but still pleasant. She gave him a smile that fell just short of her usual warmth. The librarian seemed somehow smaller than normal, or maybe paler.

"Hey, Archie. Sorry, to just drop by like this. I was gonna call, but then I was already just across the street at Granny's," she loosely pointed in the general direction of Main Street, "so I figured if you weren't already with a client–"

"Please, come in." Archie normally tried to avoid cutting people off, but now he made an exception, gesturing for her to step inside his office. He stood to one side as she smiled again and obliged. Belle moved forward a few steps before stopping beside the sofa meant for Archie's patients and he gently shut his office door. "I'm sorry about the mess, I'm just trying to get organized in case…" The psychiatrist trailed off, stepping around Belle and leaning over the coffee table. He scooped up loose papers, jamming them into random files. He ambled over to his desk, scatterbrained as ever, and quickly wrapped what little sandwich he had left in crinkled saran wrap.

"In case anyone from the Land of Untold Stories needs your help," she finished for him. He glanced up to give her a self-conscious smile. It was at that moment, just before he returned his eyes to his desk, that he noticed what was off about Belle. She looked exhausted. The librarian had never been a particularly outgoing soul, even when things between her and Mr. Gold had been solid and happy. Hopeful. Belle had always been a quiet sort of strong. A force to be reckoned with, but no reckoning on her own. Now, standing in Archie's cozy office in her light blue dress and her oversized cardigan, he could see clearly how drawn the lines of her face had become. The circles underneath her eyes were bluer than ever before and the way her hand kept drifting between her stomach and the hem of her sleeve was more nervous than nurturing.

"Oh, please have a seat!" Archie gestured with a file before shoving it into a drawer. Belle sat down, still looking small and unsure.

For her part, she was not entirely sure why she had simply turned up outside of Archie's office that day. She knew that Killian would be around the ship less often now, but she still could not return to the apartment over the library. Though some of her things were still there, neither she nor the one-handed 'good kind of' pirate had been willing to stay for very long when she had gone to retrieve them just a week earlier. It was a decision she had recently come to be grateful she had made. Seeing the look in Rumple's eyes when he told her how he had imprisoned dozens of people in Mr. Hyde's asylum had made her nervous. When he told her how when his enemies had escaped Hyde's clutches, he had trapped both Hyde and Dr. Jekyll in the Land of Untold Stories, it only added to her anxiety. The cold detachment that no amount of sunlight could break through. That level of indifference was not foreign to her, but even with everything they had been through over the past few months, she had not seen it in years. Not since she had first come to his castle.

Perhaps it was that indifference that had caused him to give her such a cryptic warning. By virtue of who he is, you must know this child will need protecting. You will need me, it's only a matter of time. To be fair, she had just finished telling him that he was little more than a self-loathing toxic substance. Not the words she had used, but she could only imagine that that was what he must have heard. In the moment, she had not cared, simply letting her newfound unease fuel her frustration. Looking back on it, perhaps she should have been more gentle. Then again, they had been married. They were going to have a child. Why should she not be completely honest with him? The whole situation had grown far too confusing for her to keep trying to puzzle it out on her own. She needed help.

"Again, I'm-I'm sorry to just drop in like this." Archie was not sure if Belle was repeating her earlier statement for his benefit or for her own.

"Oh no, it's no trouble at all," he reassured her, brushing away her concern as he straightened. Then he came to sit in the chair at the end of the coffee table, facing her. Storybrooke may have been created as a prison of sorts, but he had to hand it to the Dark Curse; this was an incredibly comfortable chair. "I heard about what happened with Jekyll on Killian's ship yesterday," he told her. Seeing her small, barely discernable flinch, Archie supposed someone with a better filter might not have mentioned that. Then again, it was his job to find the right buttons to push, and he doubted Belle was simply here for a friendly chat. Not sitting on his office's couch with what looked to be the weight of the sea on her shoulders.

"Did you?" she asked warily. He nodded.

"Side effect of living in a small town, I'm afraid." Belle took a deep breath and sighed.

"Yeah, I guess living in Rumple's castle for so long made me forget what that was like," she explained. Archie inclined his head and gazed at her with kind eyes, illuminated by the sunlight streaming through the half open blinds. After a moment of looking into them, Belle seemed to realize what she had just said. "Oh, I-I'm sorry." She gave breathless chuckle. "I didn't mean to say that."

"No, it's alright," Archie told her. Belle shook her head as if to clear it, eyes trailing down to the coffee table and he leaned forward, closer to her line of sight. "Really," he insisted, "it's okay." There was a short silence in which her eyes found him again. Then she nodded. "Frankly, I would've expected to see you in here sooner, considering everything that you've been through." Belle frowned, unsure of what he meant. "Your life has been a whirlwind since you came to Storybrooke, and the only real thing you've been able to-" he searched for the word he wanted, "to hang onto…" Archie hesitated for a moment, wondering how Belle would take the words he was about to say. But again, his job was to push the right buttons, so he pressed on. "…is the Dark One." He braced himself for the defense that usually came from Belle. In passing, he had seen her receive plenty of comments from the townspeople. People who simply could not understand what she saw in Gold.

Prior to officiating their wedding, he himself had been one of them. Belle had been the one to ask Archie to perform the ceremony. At first, he had almost wanted to say no. Back in the Enchanted Forest, the former cricket had caught himself thinking it would be best if the Charmings could find a way to kill the Dark One. That Rumplestiltskin was a monster and a menace and would never be anything more. Yet, here was this beautiful, intelligent, capable young woman who said she loved this beast – who wanted to marry him – and for a moment he could swear he saw their future shining in her hopeful eyes. So Archie had agreed to marry them, and he had not regretted it.

Until the night that same beautiful, intelligent, capable young woman forced her new husband over the town line.

When he heard what had happened, Archie had been shocked. Knowing all of the horrible things he had done, Belle had married him anyway. Even thinking that Gold had changed, marriage was a big step to take with someone like the Dark One. Trapping the fairies in the sorcerer's hat had not been the first villainous thing Gold had done since arriving in Storybrooke, and if allowed to remain inside the town, he had sincerely doubted it would be the last. But forcing him over the town line, knowing what that would mean – that she would never see her husband again – was an industrial-size decision. So he had offered Belle his psychotherapeutic services, and she had told him that she would be fine, and she had returned to her books.

Archie had been equally shocked when Belle returned to Gold. Being a couple took, at times, enormous effort from both parties under the best of circumstances. But Belle – hopeful, brave, overcompensating Belle – had gone back anyway. Not for the first time, Archie hoped she had made the right choice. That Gold would be a better man and that they could be happy together. Now, seeing her looking so small in his office with her blue dress and nodding in agreement, he wished he could go back to when she had asked him to officiate their wedding and tell her no.

"What happened on that ship?" Archie asked, brow furrowed in curiosity. Belle swallowed and blinked a few times.

"Rumple cast a spell making it impossible for me to leave. He was trying to protect me from Mr. Hyde, but in the end," she took a deep breath in and chuckled at the irony, "I couldn't get away from Jekyll." Archie nodded in understanding. He was accustomed to the sounds his patients made as well. Laughter was rare, but always welcome. These breathy puffs of noise, however, were normally directed at the ceiling. And they were rarely happy. "I don't know what to do anymore," Belle continued. "I could always take care of myself when I was a child, but ever since I met Rumple I…" She sighed, and the psychiatrist could see how difficult this was for her. He remained silent. "I feel like all of my choices have been taken away from me. I had to either agree to go with him or let my people die. Stay in his dungeon or leave my true love. I was kidnapped by the Queen, I was locked in an asylum, I was given a new life with memories filled with darkness and then, as soon as I remembered who I was and who I loved, he was gone again." Belle shook her head, remembering. "And then he died." She shook her head again, at the unfairness of it all. "And everything that's happened since then has been such a…"

"Whirlwind?" Archie supplied, using the same word he had used earlier. She nodded. He was surprised at the way that this conversation had unfolded. Normally, his patients had to warm up to revealing the deep, vulnerable reasons they had for seeking him out. Belle must have been keeping this buried for a long time.

"And I-I'm not sure if it's too late for us to fix things, but I don't know how to let him be a part of our child's life if he stays like this." It was not the first time she had had the thought, but it was the first time she had said it out loud. David had told her that having his father gone had been worse than having him at home, melancholy drunkenness and all, and she had heard him. Then again, she could be reasonably sure that David's father had not been a dark sorcerer who had hurt hundreds of people.

Archie was sitting in silence, watching her face. He could see her thinking, though he had no idea what was going on inside of her mind. He waited for her to speak again.

"We've both spent so long reacting to other people and to each other…" she thought for another moment, "…it's like we've both forgotten how to stop and think." Archie frowned in thought for a moment.

"Could that, at least partly, be why you put yourself under the sleeping curse? To give yourself a chance to think?" Belle tilted her head to one side and gave a frown of her own.

"I don't know…" she finally admitted, clearly still thinking about it.

"Well, that's definitely something we can talk about if you want," Archie offered. Almost absentmindedly, Belle nodded. There was the shortest of pauses before his curiosity got the better of him. "Your husband made a deal with Mr. Hyde for information on how to wake you up. Clearly, he was willing to go to some pretty great lengths," he noted. Belle wanted to scoff, to roll her eyes, to write a novella about all of the reasons why that deal should never have been necessary. But her issues with her father were a discussion unto itself, so she nodded. She could not argue with how far her (ex) husband would go to protect her, misguided as he often was. "I have to ask-how did he wake you?" From the emotions that passed, ever-so briefly, over her face, Archie could tell he had prodded exactly the right button. Belle swallowed before she answered.

Mr. Gold held the small black box tightly in both hands as he stepped through the portal. Letting it go the first time had been a mistake, and one that he would not make again. No matter how he told himself that he had grabbed the crystal to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, or that this had to be one of those things that simply happened for a reason, he could not seem to make himself believe it. When he arrived in the cloud realm, he kept the box in hand.

Upon arriving, Gold had expected sentries. Patrolmen that he would need to dispatch, or at the very least disarm. He expected that when he woke Belle (always when, not if), she would not be pleased to find he had murdered presumably innocent guards for simply doing their job. But glancing around the hall in which he now found himself, there was no-one to be found. Looking up, he saw that the hall had no ceiling, and the patch of sky he could see was a light, pale blue with sparse, thin clouds. There were golden tapestries around him, fixed in place on the nearly matte silver walls. Most of them were abstract – intricately woven with seemingly no pattern to them. Only one of them had any discernible markings. An old, forgotten language to everyone, save himself. Gold paced over to a grey stone table, setting Pandora's Box down on the center but keeping one hand securely on the top of it. There was a stone pedestal just beside him, upon which sat a simple, silver urn. Out of practice though he was, he slowly deciphered the writing on the tapestry at the end of the hall where, he imagined, a throne would fit perfectly.

The slipper on the other foot, a journey taken, simply put.

To take the sand and wake thy love, what lies below must come above.

A simple question, nothing more will help thou reach beyond the door:

To wake thy love and set them free, what are you willing now to see?

Normally, Gold would have shrugged off the warning. Normally, he would have been unconcerned, certain that he and Belle could overcome anything to be together. Normally, he would not have felt this deep sense of foreboding creep into the pit of his stomach.

Still, he needed to focus. Knowing all that he knew about magic, he very much doubted that he would have another chance at waking Belle. So, he took a deep breath and waved a hand over the box. Gold was accustomed to the way that this magic worked – the swirl of color as his sleeping wife materialized before him. Next came the unfamiliar part. After he had placed the box on the floor, far enough from his foot that he felt confident he would not accidentally trap himself inside, he reached down into the urn beside him.

He was surprised to find that it was about three quarters of the way full. The sand inside seemed to be finer that the sand he would find on the beaches in Storybrooke, but it was not quite powdery and did not stick underneath his fingernails. He grasped a sizeable pinch of it and slowly, carefully, lifted it in the palm of his hand until it was just in front of his face. The sand was the same shimmering golden color as the thread woven through the tapestries on the walls. It was beautiful.

With all of the care in all the realms, Gold tossed it up into the air, letting it settle over both himself and Belle. He barely had time to lean forward against the table before his surroundings went dark. It was a strange sensation; like falling deep down into himself and falling away from himself at once. Some part of his consciousness seemed to be tumbling through the air until it found solid ground.

So this was what a sleeping curse was like.

Gold was surrounded by blackness. It was as if someone had coated his surroundings in squid ink. He was fully capable of moving, but refrained at the chance that coming in contact with any new surface would paralyze him. Yet, oddly, he could still clearly see his hands. Looking down, he saw that his feet were entirely visible. Where he stood was cold, but he could feel heat emanating from something to his left. The moment he turned towards the warmth, however, he felt his instincts pulling him in the other direction. In an instant – but not so quickly as to appear startled – he pivoted to face the other way. When he did, there stood a man.

The man's skin was as dark as a star-filled sky, his eyes standing out brightly in comparison. Rather than containing a true iris color, it seemed that the same shimmering sand that Gold had sprinkled himself and Belle with was twisting and flowing within the eyes that gazed upon him now. The man wore a pearly white robe with an almost silvery aura, and his hands were clasped easily in front of him.

"…who are you?" Gold asked him. His voice came out more harshly than he intended, but he supposed that may be a good thing. The man before him seemed unbothered.

"I suppose you would call me a sandman." His hands, though he never moved them, were worn and callused, like a carpenter's would be. "But you can call me Jon." Gold did not respond, his expression remaining flat, eyes assessing. He was afraid that if he spoke, he would give away his desperation. He needed to find Belle. He needed to wake her up.

Almost as if he had heard the thoughts racing through Gold's head, the sandman nodded. A wry smile turned up the corner of his mouth.

"And you must be the Dark One who wants to wake Belle," he inferred.

"Where is she?" The sandman paid no mind to Gold's abrasive distrust of him. He gestured forward, indicating that Gold should turn back around. After a moment of hesitation, he did. Almost immediately, the sandman was at his side. With no words spoken between them, they were walking towards the warmth Gold could still feel.

"No doubt you have some experience with these curses. You know that waking her will be no simple task if she does not want to be awoken."

"Of course she does. She has to do what's best for our child now." The sandman beside him seemed to have something to say, but he remained silent. Gold expected their surroundings to grow warmer and warmer, and for the red flames he knew were awaiting them in this netherworld to light their way. Instead, the heat surrounding them remained steady – almost comforting. Their locale did light up, but with rich browns and dull golds, first blurring together, then gradually becoming more and more clear. Before he had even grasped what was happening, Gold recognized where they were. "My castle."

"Yes," the sandman confirmed. "I have created a dream world for your slumbering wife. Now, all you have to do is find her and wake her." Gold drifted away from him, looking all around. "Go quickly, you haven't much time."

"Meaning what?" Gold asked. But when he turned back to face the sandman, he was gone.

Normally, Gold would have liked to spend at least some time searching for the strange man. What had his warning meant, exactly? Just how much time did he have? When it came to Belle, however, he simply could not risk it. So he turned back to the great double doors before him, strode forward, and pushed them open. Belle was busying herself dusting his collection in her simple blue dress. She turned around when she heard him enter the room.

"Rumple," she greeted, frowning. "What are you doing here?" Not what's going on? Not have you come to wake me? Not even a hello. For some reason, that stung.

"I've come to wake you." If anything, her frown deepened. She stepped carefully down from the stepladder upon which she had been perched.

"Why? What's happened?" Her tone could only be described as suspicious. Of what, however, Gold had no idea. He looked down at himself. Same dark coat, same dark suit. Nothing about him was different. So why was Belle so confused? He looked at her with a frown of his own.

"Belle, you're under a–"

"A sleeping curse," she nodded. "I know. Haven't you brought me to my father?" Gold was unsure of how to respond to that. Despite his own issues with Maurice, he did not know how to tell the mother of his child that her father had gone to yet another extreme to keep them separated. "We're not still in the Underworld?" She seemed unwilling to come any closer to him, remaining on one end of the long table at the center of the hall while he remained on the other.

"No!" he was quick to reassure her. "I brought you to the hall of a sandman so I could wake you up." At this, she shook her head. Her frown lost some of its confusion, but now it seemed almost…saddened. His feet wanted to carry him to her, and one of them managed to shift forward, but at that moment they felt numb.

"Wake me up? Rumple, I don't know if you can." It was like all of the emotion of losing this woman time and time again had chosen that precise moment to come crashing over his head. Faster than he could control them, there were tears in his wide eyes. All of a sudden, his feet carried him all the way to her and Belle, being conscious that it was only a dream, allowed them to.

"Belle, please." He begged as he made his way there. "I-I know I've made mistakes–"

"Not mistakes, Rumple. You've made wrong choices." He looked like his heart was slowly being crushed.

"…yes." Belle chuckled as she gathered herself, but it came out more like a scoff.

"Look, I remember our first dance after we got married…okay? And I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt as safe as when I was in your arms – my heart was all yours. But even then, you were lying to me. All of this," she gestured between the two of them, shaking her head, "it's all been a lie." Belle looked at Rumple as though she was really seeing him for the first time. "If you were pure evil, if you were just 'the Dark One,'" the quotation was evident in her voice as her frown melted completely away, "then maybe I could forgive you because that's all you could be. But you…" she shook her head again, "you do feel love. And you could be a good man, if you tried. If you want to be my true love again, be worthy of it." Normally, the sight of Rumple with tears in his eyes would make Belle melt. But this time was different. This time, she knew she had to stay strong, regardless of what it meant for her. She would rather remain under this sleeping curse for years to come than continue enabling him to be the beast he was when they first met. His next words, however, almost broke her resolve.

"…what if I fail?" he whispered. Belle's brow furrowed, but she stayed strong.

"What if you don't try?" She thought back to the last time she had asked that of him, in Zelena's cellar. He had failed then, but not for lack of effort. No matter how awful he could be, Rumple had always tried for her. She had to grant him that. "I love you, Rumple, I always will, but–"

"Then wake up." Before he could stop them, he found his hands were on her arms, barely grazing the skin of her elbows. She glanced down but did not protest, and he took that as a positive sign. "Just, try to go back. Remember," he pleaded. Gold touched his lips to Belle's forehead then, for just a moment. The second they made contact, the room around them shifted and he felt his dark heart surge. It was as if he had been under the sleeping curse, waiting for her love to wake him.

Around them they could see her memories replaying. The moment they started falling when she had literally fallen into his arms. Him asking her why she came back after he set her free. Belle watched as she lay on her bed in the Queen's dungeon, asleep but calling out for him. And then they were in the woods as the first curse broke, then his shop when she came back the next morning, the day she chose him. All those moments; extracting Pongo's memories, the day he told her who she was, even if she could not remember, the day she did remember, him stepping off of Killian's ship with Henry and Bae, the day he came back to her after they defeated Zelena – the day he proposed. Even through all of the heartbreak she had suffered, Belle had loved Rumple. When his heart became overcome by all of his darkness, she had returned to him because she loved him. Knowing full well that it was too much – that there was too much hurt between them – she had stayed by his side during his coma, because she still loved him. And when she landed in the Underworld and found out he was the Dark One once again, she had felt her heart shatter. As she continued to work with him, she felt she was only twisting a knife further into her own chest. Belle had finally been forced to recognize that she had fully and with reckless abandon loved every single part of him, even the ones he could not see, and she knew exactly who he was. Who he could be if he just believed – just trusted her.

Because Rumplestiltskin was her true love, and no dark magic nor broken promise would ever be capable of changing that most powerful magic of all.

For the first time, Belle found herself truly face to face with all of that love, all of those moments. But it did not crumble her as she thought it might. Her heart felt…full. It was that love that would give her their child. Their child.

Belle's eyes sprung open. No longer was she caught in a sea of memory. She was in a great hall, with floors and columns of marble and walls of silver. Golden tapestries and banners hung all around, and she herself was sat upon a smooth stone table. Beside her, Gold stood leaning against the table, his eyes still shut.

"Rumple?" Belle called. But he did not respond. Because for all of the love Belle had seen, there was also pain. And now Gold was finally seeing it clearly.

He could pick out some of the moments, but many of them had faded from his own memory. Hearing her sob for her fate in his castle's dungeon night after night, only to see her lift her chin the following morning and talk back when no-one else would have dared. Ever the brave soul. The tears in her eyes when she first called him a coward and the hollowness of her footsteps as he sent her away. Belle had believed so thoroughly that he cared more for her than for his power. Now for the first time, he saw the night she stopped believing that through her eyes. The night she had forced him over the town line. It had been one of the worst nights of his many lifetimes, in some ways worse than losing Bae, because a part of him had seen it coming and begged him to stop before he lost this second chance. But seeing it through her eyes was worse.

He had betrayed their love, their marriage, her friends, and everything she believed in. And she had seen none of it. Standing before her, begging her to give him another chance as she held in her hand what she believed to be the thing he loved most, she saw the man she loved. But how many times would she allow love to make her a fool before she accepted the truth?

Only months later, days after she did give him that new chance, he only proved her right. He lied to her yet again, even as he had ushered her out of harm's way, fighting back his sobs. All he had were crocodile tears and empty promises. He had never changed. He would never change.

"Rumple!" Suddenly, her voice reached him. Gold's eyes snapped open and he jerked upright. It took a moment for his eyes to find her again, but when they did, something was off. The relief he normally felt at her presence now froze. This was not good. Remorse, horror, anything would have been better than this cold feeling of dread.

She was going to leave. There was no reason for her to stay.

"Belle–"

"Did you see him?" she pressed on over him. Her hand drifted absentmindedly to her stomach as Gold nodded.

In her dream, just before she had woken, a young child had appeared. He could not have been more than seven, but he was running, rounding the corner of her memories. The child had been holding out his hands, a frightened look on his round face as he cried out to them – to her.

"No, wait!" There had been more power in those two words than any explanation he could have given them.

"Our child. Rumple, our son." Gold put a hand out, almost reaching her arm before thinking better of it. He set his hand down on the table instead, almost touching her.

"That's not possible, Belle. It was just a dream, it couldn't have been our child," he tried to reassure her, but his voice gave him away. Gold was shaken by the boy's appearance too.

"No, but it was," Belle insisted, shaking her head. "He was trying to warn me. I don't think he wanted me to wake up…to you." Gold was stung, but he did not flinch. He only swallowed and looked up at the mother of his child. His former wife. The woman he had betrayed more times than he could count, even times he had not realized she had learned of until now.

"It's not what I love most," he blurted. Now he flinched. Belle looked at him again, coming out of her own thoughts.

"What?" she asked, expression filled with confusion.

"The dagger. When the gauntlet led you to it, you said it was the thing I loved most," he explained, his voice hushed. Belle shook her head, brow furrowed even more deeply.

"What does that have to do wi–?"

"That gauntlet leads one to the greatest weakness of whomever one chooses. The dagger is my greatest weakness, it's the only thing that can kill me. But the thing I loved the most," he caught her eye again, something gentle in his, "was you. And now, it's you and our child." Belle's brow melted back into its normal position on her drawn, but ever beautiful face. She opened her mouth to speak, shaking her head slightly again, but Gold continued. "It was our shared true love for this child that caused you to awaken," he gestured to where her hand still rested on her stomach.

"Actually," came a voice from behind Gold, "that was me." Gold spun around, hand raised and ready to throw the ball of flames now sitting within it. Belle's hand darted up to still her ex-husband's when she saw who had spoken. He came out from behind a column, hands clasped before him, and though Belle could not remember ever seeing him before, she knew his face. She had seen those eyes, deep and swirling with gold.

"Sandman," Gold growled, dropping his hand and allowing the fire to fade away. Belle's hand lifted away from his arm.

"I told you," the man said amiably, "call me Jon." Gold simply stared at him, the hard edge never leaving his gaze. The sandman, Jon, never lost his pleasant demeanor, however, and he directed his soft smile over to Belle when she spoke.

"But why? I don't understand."

"Oh, it's a simple enough magic, removing someone from the realm of slumber." Gold scoffed in the back of his throat. Was this sandman showing off? Feigning humility to paint himself as a hero?

"Yes, but if you can wake people from sleeping curses, why not wake them all?" Jon shrugged, his broad, rounded shoulders rising and falling like a sand dune.

"The affairs of those who curse and are cursed are not my business."

"Then why wake Belle?" Gold ground out, still distrustful. Jon's curious eyes found the Dark One making sure to stand between Belle and himself. He raised his eyebrows.

"You came to my home." Belle frowned. Gold was confused but refused to show it. "Charged into the realm of slumber to break a curse and shared your memories with me in order to do it." At this, he glanced away from the two of them, over to the wall. "Come to think of it, some of those would make interesting dreams," he mused. Gold sighed in frustration, Belle cleared her throat, and Jon's gaze slowly found the Dark One again. "I believe you would call that a deal?" Reluctantly, Gold nodded. After a moment's hesitation, Belle spoke up again.

"Thank you," she said. Jon nodded kindly to her. Then he spoke to Gold one last time.

"Do be careful not to lose them again."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Gold was losing his patience. There was no change in Jon's face – he still had that same strange smile. But instead of answering, he began to fade. It started at his head, his forehead shimmering with gold and disappearing, then spread to his neck, his shoulders, all the way down to his feet. It was a slow fade, but in no time at all, he was gone.

Belle had to call her ex-husband's name a few times before finally getting his attention. Both of them felt strange, as if they had just woken up from a sleep somehow deeper than any sleeping curse. But both knew that what had just happened was no dream.

"Rumple." Once again, Gold's attention snapped back to Belle and he turned back around to face her. "What just happened? Do you know him?" Maybe it was simply the time she had spent with the Dark One that was causing her to be so suspicious, but Belle could not shake the feeling that there was more going on than what Jon had told them. That he had to have some other, more sinister motivation for waking her.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it, Belle. You're awake now, and that's all that matters." With that, he pulled the sorcerer's wand out of an inner pocket. Holding his other hand out, palm up, he waved the wand lightly in the air. A small amulet on a leather cord appeared and he held it out to her.

"Here." She frowned questioningly first at it, then at him.

"What is it?" she inquired warily.

"Those who have been under a sleeping curse often find themselves in a sort of netherworld after awakening from it; in your dreams, you may find your way back. This will allow you to control it." Belle's frown lifted once more, but left behind a small crease between her eyes. She reached out and carefully took the necklace from her ex-husband's hand.

"Thank you," she said guardedly. He simply nodded. She could see pain in his eyes and on his tightly closed lips, but she made no comment on it as she draped the amulet around her neck and tucked it into her shirt.

"The rest, I imagine, we can discuss at home." Raising the wand once more, Gold stepped away from the table and waved it slowly in a swirling motion. White sparks trailed away from the wand tip and gradually, a doorway materialized before him, with a spinning vortex of white and midnight blue.

"I'll go, but…I can't make a home with you," Belle's voice came from beside him. He looked to her as she hopped down from the stone slab and moved toward the portal before stopping and turning to face him once more. "After everything we've been through, Rumple, everything you've done–"

"Belle, please." Gold's eyes were wide and his voice shook. He could hear the exhaustion in her voice – could see the pained resolve in her eyes.

"I have always loved you, but it was never enough for you, was it?" Gold shook his head and tried to speak again, but Belle pressed on. It was her turn now. Finally. "And now our son has given me a warning, and I'm going to do right by him," she insisted. "I hope you can do the same, Rumple…I really do."

And then she turned away.

And then she walked through the portal, back to Storybrooke.

Gold felt his leg weaken, like the magic had gotten away from it and followed her. He stumbled back a step, staring after her, watching the portal as it slowly closed. Gold reached out weakly behind himself, only just finding purchase on the stone table as he finally let his emotions take hold. He closed his eyes as the tears fell, just as he had all those years ago, only the first time of the times she had left.

Only the first of the times he had driven her away.

In the Swedish tradition, the sandman is actually called Jon or John Blund. I'm not sure why, feel free to message me or send me an ask if you do!