Dark Ones were instinctively selfish. They sought to protect themselves, save themselves, above anyone else in the world. For their own purposes, they would lie, cheat, steal, and con. Then they'd do it a thousand times over again just to escape the consequences of their actions.

Yet here he was, burning…and he didn't give a fuck.

His body was on fire. His skin felt like it was aflame. His blood boiling as his mouth and tongue found lips and flesh and sensitive areas that made her gasp for breath. And he reveled in it. Every gasp, every breath, every sound of pleasure that poured out of her mouth left him feeling heady and powerful, weak and strong all at one time. His hands followed the curves of her body, his fingers tangled in her hair. He burned with every rock of their hips. And he didn't care if it never stopped.

She felt incredible. Belle made him feel alive and young and healthy, as though he was thriving. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt any of those things, couldn't remember if he ever had. He couldn't remember ever really wanting to before, not until there was her.

When they were finished, she wrapped herself around him again, just as she had the previous two nights, and he let himself cling to her as well. He didn't care if he'd spend the night using magic to regulate his body temperature in order to assure they stayed like this. If this was what she wanted and what he wanted, then he'd make sure it would be done. So, when she melted into his skin, he let his fingers filter through the tangles of her hair, felt his way up and down her spine, and kissed her forehead. Oh, he hoped she knew how much he loved her, how much he cherished her.

"I could get used to this," she went on quietly. "I could get used to being with you this way every night for the rest of my life."

He couldn't help it. He gave a small snort at her idea of a perfect future. It was his idea of a perfect world, too, in all honesty. This was the third night in a row they'd done this, and he had no regrets, not like before, but he understood the way the world worked, the way human bodies worked. He knew that every single night for the rest of their lives was a wish for the afterlife only, especially with her so young.

But now that he thought of it, they needed to start thinking about this in a safer way. He loved being with her like this just as she did, but if they kept it up, then at this rate, she'd be pregnant before he left to find Baelfire. He'd had a vision once, of her holding a baby in her arms, but the thought of that image coming so soon after her return to him…he'd be grateful for any child they had, but if he had a choice, he wanted to wait. He wanted to enjoy what they had a little while longer without the complexity of children. Especially when he considered the rest of the Seer's Prophecy and the boy that would be his undoing, maybe the small baby he'd seen her with was something he'd leave for her after he was gone. There was a sad thought.

"Not every night," he muttered, forcing himself away from thoughts of leaving her alone in the world with a child.

But instead of nodding in confirmation or understanding, she turned her head to glance up at him. "You don't think we could?"

"No, it's not that we couldn't," he corrected immediately when her voice sounded almost hurt at the suggestion. "I just mean we shouldn't. We can't."

"Why?" she demanded after a quiet moment. She sounded angrier than before as she pushed herself up on her elbow to look down at him. "Why can't we? Why 'shouldn't' we?"

Yes, that was anger. She'd misunderstood him though he couldn't figure out how. She'd put pieces of his life together in that castle, large quantities of it, with only single sentences, sometimes one-word sentences! But this wasn't making sense to her?

It was odd. Something about it didn't feel right.

"Because if we're not careful, you'll be pregnant before we ever have any time to ourselves," he pointed out.

He expected to see recognition, a flash of understanding that would make her laugh at the conclusions she'd jumped to before she lay down next to him again. But that wasn't her reaction. He didn't see understanding, only confusion and…fear?

"So, we have to stop?" she questioned sadly, "permanently?"

"No," he laughed at the sadness in her voice. "We just…"

The sudden look of desperation on her face stopped his words as he realized…maybe she wasn't the one that had misunderstood. Maybe it was him. She was confused and still looking fearful. Maybe it wasn't the concept of not having sex that scared her, but something else.

Birth control, having sex led to babies; did he really have to explain it to her? He'd known about it in their world, and he was the village idiot. If he'd known it even then, she should have also. So why was she looking so confused and worried? Why was she looking like his remarks were brand new to her? She'd been engaged, for heaven's sake! Queens produced heirs. But there wasn't a single trace of recognition on her face. It baffled him. And terrified him in a way he couldn't quite understand.

"You really don't know this?" he half asked, half stated. No answer came. And he felt anger grow inside of him. "Didn't anyone ever tell you? Prepare you for this or tell you about…you?! Your body?"

This was a joke, a misunderstanding. He hoped it was a joke. But as her face began to change and morph at his question, he realized it wasn't, not to her. She shook her head, averted her eyes, looked away.

"I never wanted to know," she admitted quietly, falling back to her side of the bed. No, he didn't buy that for a second. That was a reaction of shame. Shame! There was no joke that could elicit a reaction like that. She was the most intelligent person he'd ever met, man or woman! In the castle, she'd studied languages for the fun of it. But she'd never asked questions? Never wanted to know? What the hell had happened to her in that palace?! What would make such an intelligent and curious individual turn away from knowledge?

She glanced over at him, but when her eyes met his own, she quickly blushed and averted them again as if she were embarrassed.

He was just beginning to consider what to ask her when she sighed and reluctantly began to weave her tale, a sad one indeed. She was a princess, expected to marry, become Queen, and produce an heir. Growing up watching her parents and listening to stories made it all sound so lovely, but no one had ever delivered to her a solid truth, an honest truth about the process of it, not her mother or her father. In fact, it sounded as though her mother had actively monitored the books she read and the conversations she kept to be sure she never discovered anything even the slightest bit suggestive.

During the war she'd been promised to Gaston, she'd been part of a deal, a bride for soldiers to fight off the ogres, a disgusting trade considering he himself had offered a deal to Maurice to handle the ogres, and he'd turned him down. A deal with the devil was too much...offering his daughter up to a pig of a man was fine, apparently. After her mother died, the betrothal had become an engagement, which she hadn't wanted but accepted as she felt it was her duty to. Only then, when Gaston had moved in, and her wedding date loomed closer, had anyone, a maid by the sound of it, told her anything.

It had been done coldly, perhaps not with the intent of being cruel, but it was a cruel way to learn about it all the same. The maid had told her in an effort to help her understand, to make things easier. Instead, she'd been too violated at the news to feel any comfort and instead run away. She'd tried to learn on her own, to read the books she'd never managed to sneak past her mother, but she never managed very well, unable to get the thoughts and images her maid had placed in her head to settle.

She was crying by the time she confessed she'd given up trying to figure it out; convinced herself it was just better not to know. He couldn't blame her. He couldn't take much more after that either.

"Belle…"

His heart ached, his jaw tightened as tears threatened to overwhelm her, and he wished, he wanted, so badly, to tell her something, anything that might make it better in some way. But he didn't have the words. Not for her. Oh, he had words, a few choice words, words he'd like to deliver to her father on the other end of his cane for inflicting something so terrible on her. He'd given his daughter away and given permission for her to be used again and again! And the way her nurse had described it…no wonder she hadn't wanted to know about it or never been curious again. It probably left a bad taste in her mouth; it certainly had his. It had left her scarred. Not physically, no, but it was terrible what they'd groomed her for.

He didn't want to touch her, not in a way that was too intimate, not with a history like that, but he didn't want to leave her alone there to cry either. His touch had eased her nightmares every morning thus far; he wondered if it could ease this one too.

Gingerly, he rolled himself over and placed his hand against her cheek. He leaned down to touch his forehead to her own, hoping to prevent the approaching panic attack he'd brought on. He didn't dare kiss her. Not right now. He didn't want her to think he had any expectations of her. None. Not even to speak.

"You don't have to say anymore," he responded when she opened her mouth to continue. "I understand."

He wished he didn't have to understand. He wished she'd had a different kind of life, a different kind of expectation. It was a terrible, terrible fate her family had left her to. A terrible ordeal to go through. It was a miracle she'd survived. It was a miracle he was still in this room and not hunting down her father for allowing something like that in his only daughter. He hoped he never saw him again, hoped she never had to see him again.

"I just…" she took a deep breath and looked into her again, her panic fading with time. "I just never wanted to know after that. In everything that I'd ever read, the couple had always been in love. I never wanted to know what I'd be missing because I never thought I would be in love, ever, let alone when my time came. I never thought I'd be cared for. It was humiliating enough I didn't want it to be any worse than it was by knowing what I'd be missing.

"But then you came for me, and I was so happy with you, Rumple," she breathed, the smile on her face growing as she swallowed her tears. She was calm again, certain of herself. She was his own, his fighter. "Even in the beginning when I wasn't, some part of me knew I'd been spared that terrible thing. Anything was better than experiencing that. And now we're here, together, like this…but in a way that makes it worse!

"They never wanted me to have this," she muttered to him, closing her eyes and covering one of his hands with her own as if savoring the feeling of his touch. "Never even let me try to have it. They were saving me for something terrible, hoping I'd be ignorant and never know so that on the day I finally did have sex for the first time, I'd never know the difference and think it was perfectly normal.

"But it is different!" she shouted almost angrily. "I might not have anything to compare it to, but I know it's different! I don't feel used with you; I feel loved. And I don't think you've taken anything from me, I feel like I gave you something, and you gave me something of equal value. I don't fear it with you. I want it. I feel like I need it…you! I never thought I'd be in love, but I am! It's so different with you than what they wanted me to experience. I'm so glad you came for me, and I'm so glad that I went with you, and I'm so glad that it was you I was meant for, you with me now. I'm so happy that I'm with someone who loves me!"

He could have cried out in triumph at her proclamation.

"I do, Sweetheart," he muttered, gazing down at her beautiful face. "I do love you, more than you could ever know."

Even if she bore the stains of tears, she was still beautiful to him, maybe even more now than she had been before. His beautiful, intelligent woman…she was right. She might not have had anything to compare this to, but he did. What he had with Milah didn't even come close to what he felt with her. The love they shared-it made a difference.

She began to cry again at his words. There was just as much emotion behind those tears as he felt circling through him. She was happy, but it was also residual leftover from what she'd gone through, tears she'd never been allowed to have before. He loved her bravery and heroics, but he was honored by the fact that she felt she didn't have to be that way around him, thrilled that she felt safe when she was vulnerable. So, he let himself comfort her. He wiped the tears from her cheeks, kissed her forehead, under her tear-stained eyes, being as tender and gentle as he possibly could. And when she didn't pull away, when she held his hand tighter and reached out for him, he gathered her form up in his arms and rolled again so that he held her tight against his chest as she cried.

"You are safe here," he whispered, kissing the top of her head. "I promise you are safe with me, and you won't ever have to go back to that life. I won't allow it." He wouldn't stand for it. Her father could storm in and demand her; he'd like to see how he fared against him now. He'd never been angrier in his life.

She sniffled and clung tightly to him as her sobs began to subside. "I trust you," she whispered, her voice raw, "I believe you. But Rumple…do we have to stop?" she asked, propping herself up so they could look at each other.

He sighed. "If this is what you want-"

"I do," she insisted. "I want this more than anything. I want you more than anything!"

"No, sweetheart, we don't have to stop..."

He was happy to explain it to her, to tell her the little that he knew, that he understood so that she could feel comfortable. He was happier to lay out options for her and discover that the very same method he and Milah had used to get pregnant could not be relied upon to keep her from getting pregnant.

"We can be old-fashioned, like everyone in our realm is-was. We change nothing about what we're doing and be careful concerning when. From the little I know, a woman cannot get pregnant every day of the month. There is a cycle to it, a rhythm. We can do a bit of reading, some research, find the days we are safe and the days we aren't, and work around it. From what I understand," he added confidently, remembering one happy fact clearly, "there are far more days that we can make love than the days we can't."

She broke into a wide smile suddenly. She liked that option. He did too. And so the next morning, instead of focusing on his desire to find Baelfire, he focused instead on his desire to give her what others in her life never had. Knowledge. He broke into the library across the street and spent the morning finding books. Not for himself but for her. He'd thought about it, of course, about learning himself and telling her what he found out, but he didn't want to talk down to her. He didn't want to have to hear information second-hand or be dependent on him for knowledge that concerned her. After what her family had put her through, she needed a little bit of independence as well as knowledge. So, he'd give it to her.

The books that he found on anatomy, health, and wellness were thick. She wouldn't need to read the entire thing, of course, but he made up his mind that until she had some knowledge and understanding, until she knew more about herself and initiated something on her own, sex would be off the table. Gods, he hoped she was still a fast learner.

He brought the books home with him at lunch and left them when her for the day. When he returned home, he was pleased to find that the house was in the same state as he'd left it. She hadn't cleaned, it appeared, though she had made dinner, all on her own. It was also nice to see her smile brighten when she finally stepped into the hall to greet him. He could see some of the books he'd brought her sitting out in the family room, some marked with little bits of paper, others sitting wide open. She'd spent her afternoon learning. He prayed it was something of value.

"You're happier than normal," he observed as he held her.

She pressed her lips to his neck, and he bit back a shiver as she pulled away. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by the shrill beeping of the timer on the oven. She pulled him back to the kitchen with her, and he wondered as he watched her move about, stopping the timer and checking something on the stove. The oven timer…he didn't think he'd taught her to use that. Bright and beautiful, just as she'd always been.

"The books you gave me were helpful, and I read something today, something important," she chatted away as she strained what looked like pasta in the sink. He took a glance down at the table. On one side, she had placemats, silverware, and napkins sitting out that hadn't been set yet, and at the other end, calendars were scattered about. Markings had been made in those calendars that he was positive Mr. Gold had never made, if only because he couldn't make sense of them. He had a suspicion, but he didn't want to assume, so he looked away and found a bottle of wine sitting out.

"What's that?" he questioned amicably, finding the corkscrew to help her set the table for dinner. He didn't quite finish his task, not before he suddenly felt arms, her arms come around his middle, and her head rest gently against his back.

"The Rhythm Method," she whispered.

He nearly sighed in relief. The calendars, the books, her mood…it was exactly what he'd hoped it had been about.

He moved his hands over her own and held her tighter against him. "Tell me about it."

So, she did. She let him go, and they talked as he set the table and she put food on their plates. She talked about everything that she'd learned as they ate. Not just talked. This wasn't chatting. She went on and on about what she'd learned just as animatedly as if she'd taken a day trip to Paris and seen the Eiffel Tower. He'd never known anyone to fall into books the way she did, any book, it appeared.

"I found a calendar upstairs," she went on, reaching for the one at the end of the table that had the strange markings on it. "I charted and counted, I checked and double-checked, remembered everything I could, even through the hazy memories, but I got it right, I'm certain of it!"

"And?"

And suddenly, she broke into a wide grin and laid her hand against his own before tossing away the calendar and leaning over to kiss him. The meaning behind it was clear. They were fine. No risk of pregnancy, at least not tonight. And that meant that if she wanted to, they could-

Her single, happy kiss evolved into something more, something hungry and promising. He'd barely had time to bask in the feeling of it deepening before he heard the scrape of the kitchen chair against the floor, felt her move, and before he knew it, there was a weight in his lap. Her weight. They broke just long enough for him to see that she'd gotten up out of her seat to straddle his waist and could feel her even now winding her arms around his neck and into his hair, and…

Heaven help him, he couldn't have resisted even if he wanted to. She sighed and tipped her head back as he left a trail of kisses down her neck, over the skin at her collar bone and lower, as much as the blouse she was wearing would let him before her fingers called him back to her. She pulled him closer, and he let his hands wander over her as their mouths moved in unison until she pulled away, breaking their kiss but not their embrace, allowing her head to rest upon his own.

They'd been at the dinner table, fully clothed, enjoying a meal, and just like that, he'd forgotten every other need a human body could have...save for one.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, motioning toward the food behind them. She didn't even glance at it as her blush crept up her neck.

"Not anymore."

Okay, small lie. This was not a chapter in Exile; this was about two chapters in Exile. Two chapters that had good bits to them and other bits that most certainly needed to be in Exile. But, in order to close out the storyline that was started by the other chapters, I took what I could that was appropriate and crafted them into their own chapter. If you are a Banishment reader, you can, of course, read both of those chapters, uncut, from Rumple's point of view in Banishment.

Thank you to Alarda and Grace5231973 for your reviews on the last chapter. I'm delighted you appreciated me bring Bo Peep and her stupid little staff back for that chapter so that season 4 is a little bit better understood. I hope that you'll enjoy this chapter too. Yes, it's a little bit more sexual than I'd like to be, but I couldn't help but appreciate Rumple in his chapter. Say what you like about the Dark One, but credit to the man for being a feminist. Yeah, I know, a feminist wrote it, but I wrote it with his character in mind. Rumple certainly does teach in OUAT, but he never mansplains. In fact, all we've seen suggests that he is adamant about people understanding and researching for themselves. So when it came to Rumple getting the info that Belle needed, not only was it important to me that he pass the information on and not be the one to explain it, but it was in character for Rumple, and that's what makes me love him through the good and bad. Peace and Happy Reading!