What he felt in the shop reminded him a lot of what he'd felt after their fight that morning when he'd gone down to the basement and knocked over the bookshelf. It had been indistinguishable then, but now he recognized it. His breaking heart brought back the emotions he'd once felt long ago when he'd stood on Killian Jones' ship, when he'd been escorted off and watched it sail into the great beyond with his wife. Pain. And guilt. And anguish. And fear. And shame.

This hurt. Losing her like this hurt. He'd been prepared for that. He'd been preparing himself since she came back for this moment, hesitant to bind his life too closely to her own, hoping that when this day came, it might be a clean break. But it was impossible. They were too rooted in one another, too attached. He'd never been this attached to another creature before in all his life, except for maybe his son. The break was not clean. And it hurt like hell.

Probably because of the other things he was experiencing. Guilt, shame, anguish…this could have been avoided. He'd thought they'd have more time together, and they could have. How long had he wanted to tell her about Baelfire? How many times had he told himself to be honest with her as David had told him? How often had he laid awake at night while she slept coming up with the perfect words to answer all her questions?! And yet, he'd never told her. He was a coward. A coward who kept putting it off and putting it off. A coward who kept "waiting for the right time." A coward who, even when the right time arrived this morning, hadn't been able to get a damn word out of his fucking mouth!

He was a coward.

And now she knew it just as Milah had known it, just as his parents had probably known it, just as Baelfire had known it.

Coward…he could practically see the sneer on Milah's face. In trying to hide that part of himself from Belle, he'd unintentionally put it on display. And now…

Now it should be a clean break. It hurt, and he was ashamed and beat down…he should walk away from her, let her go whatever way she wanted to go, and be done with it all, no more "best behavior." But he couldn't. He couldn't because of the red hat still in his hand.

He still loved her. And he knew her well enough to know that she still loved him too. That meant there were dangers in the world, very real dangers. Like Captain Hook. He'd never seen him in Storybrooke, but if Smee was here, then it was very possible Hook was too. It wasn't just Regina he had to worry about. There were so many others! He had promised to take care of her no matter what happened. He was going to fulfill that promise if it killed him. The question was how. How was he supposed to protect her when she wouldn't see him? When she had no roof over her head?

He could give her his house. He was fond of it but not so attached that he wouldn't give it up to her if she wanted it. But then, where would he stay? The cabin, perhaps, but he wanted her somewhere that he could keep watch over her even if he couldn't be with her. And the problem was that he doubted she would take the house even if she did see him long enough to offer. It wasn't tempting enough for her.

Tempting…

There was one other thing, something that he knew she wanted, something she'd already inquired about.

The library.

It was right across the street. Dilapidated for years, there was room in the budget for a librarian. Regina had simply never hired one. Mr. Gold never knew why, but he suspected it was to punish him. It had been to remind him of the place that Belle should have had when he'd thought she was dead. The place she should have been…the librarian position didn't pay much, but it came with an apartment for the caretaker for that reason. It was something she loved that would provide a roof over her head, in town where he could be close, and give her a paycheck. It solved everything, except…

Would she accept it from him? She was stubborn. She liked to make her own way, to prove herself. He imagined that she wouldn't take too well to learning that he'd gotten her the job, especially given their current state. The books would be tempting, though. And maybe with a little extra something…?

He pulled the truth serum he still had in his pocket free and sat it on the table before him. They were done. But he still wanted her to know the truth. Not just part of him, but all of him. He still wanted to tell her about Baelfire because he suspected she'd understand. Because of all the people he'd ever met, she deserved to understand more than anyone. Perhaps if he offered that truth when he gave her the library, it might not be enough to fix what he'd broken, but it might make her comfortable accepting the gift from him. It might leave him feeling a little less ashamed of himself. Only…

No. He couldn't do it with the serum, not that way. They'd never really talked about it, but that was because he'd already known that she didn't like his use of magic, at least not without knowing why he was using it. She might accept the truth of Baelfire once she knew it, but the fact that he'd taken magic to tell her, that it wasn't something he had done for her from the heart…he didn't think that she'd appreciate that. If he did this, it had to be on his own. Yet the very idea of it, after trying and failing so many times, had him shaking in his boots.

Why was this so difficult? He'd managed to tell David about her earlier, to let him catch a glimpse of them for her own sake. Why couldn't he let Belle catch a glimpse of Baelfire for her sake now? The library was the best thing for her. Perhaps that would be enough to motivate him. He had to try. One last time.

It was early morning by the time he'd finished his work and stepped into the bed and breakfast. He'd been up all night submitting paperwork in the town center, making sure anything that needed to be filed for the librarian position was filed. And then the most important part of it: he collected the key. During the night, he'd had time to work out a plan in his head, a plan to create an opportunity. An opportunity for Belle to see the library, smell the stale air the books had been warehoused and forgotten in, imagine the life she could have there! An opportunity for him to speak with her privately and see if he could finally tell her what she wanted, what she needed, to know. He had a plan. Now he just needed to put it into action. It all started at the Bed and Breakfast.

The front door was locked when he first entered, a fact he was appreciative of if his suspicion that Ruby had let Belle stay was correct. But he was the landlord of the entire fucking town and the Dark One. A lock wouldn't stop him. So, he opened the door, saw that it locked behind him, and then stood in the foyer and waited. With two wolves whose senses were far better than his own, he knew it was all he needed to do, and sure enough, a moment later, he heard creeks from the ceiling above him and then on the stairs. Granny stood there in a nightgown, hair tied up, a small crossbow in her hands that would have made anyone feel threatened but only made him feel even more impressed with the old woman.

"You're not welcome here," she growled out in a warning tone.

"I still own the town, including this inn. Technically it's my property and I'm welcome on it whenever I see fit."

There were more sounds on the stairs behind the old woman as Ruby suddenly appeared, a red robe that reminded him of something a boxer might wear slipped over her shoulders.

"Granny, it's okay. I'll take care of this," she whispered to her grandmother before squeezing her shoulders and coming down to his level. "He's not a threat."

"Not today," he confirmed.

Still, while Granny moved down the stairs, he noticed that she took up a spot by the living room and watched the pair of them with intense eyes that would give Belle a run for her money. Belle…that was why he was here. He needed to remember that.

"You've talked to Belle," he assumed, glancing at the girl in front of him who was showing enough leg to turn the head of any man, maybe even Mr. Gold, back in the day. But that was before Belle, before he'd fallen so fast and hard. Not even those legs were tempting.

Ruby nodded. "She's upstairs. Her heartbeat is steady…means she's asleep."

Indeed. He extended his senses, and there it was, a fourth steadying heartbeat that he knew by heart. She was sleeping through this. Good.

"What did she tell you?"

"Enough and enough only."

He felt a sense of relief at those words. "Enough" meant "not all." He'd never told her something important, but he couldn't, he refused to believe, that she'd ever tell anyone anything against him out of spite. It seemed he'd been right in that instinct. She might have told Ruby some things, but never anything he'd trusted to her. Belle wasn't like that, though it was amazing how it took a conversation like this to get him to believe it.

"She did say she didn't want to see you," Ruby pointed out.

"She did. I'm not here for that."

"What are you here for?"

"I love her." He said the words without thinking about them, without considering why he was using that declaration to answer a question like hers, but he knew in his own heart they were the right words. He'd never been able to make that declaration to anyone except Belle. He was shocked he was able to say it.

"Okay."

"I love her, and she has no other family. I feel responsible for her," he further explained before glancing at Granny. "Take whatever you spend on her out of the rent and in the morning…give her this," he extended the box to Ruby.

"Jewelry? You think that'll help?"

"It's not jewelry. It's the key to the library," he explained. "You said she wanted a job. Storybrooke has the money in the budget for a librarian, and there's an apartment for the caretaker. That should get her started."

Ruby looked the tiny box over before giving it a shake so that the key thudded around inside. Then she peeled her gaze up and glanced at him. "She'll want to go investigate. Should I assume that when she opens the door, you'll be waiting to talk to her?"

He swallowed and looked down at his hands folded over his cane. Clever wolf.

"I just want to speak with her," he assured her. "Just once more. I want to be honest with her. I've tried since she's been with me, but…it's difficult after so many years of being-"

"You?" Ruby finished.

"In a manner of speaking."

Ruby sighed, folded her arms so that the box was tucked under her arm. "I get that. Honesty is difficult, I should know. I spent years being a mindless monster once a month because I couldn't be honest with myself and accept what I was or what I'd done. Once I learned to accept myself, the rest fell into place."

He opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. This time it had nothing to do with telling the truth to another, but everything to do with suddenly realizing the truth for himself. All at once, he knew why he couldn't tell Belle about Baelfire. He knew what was holding him back. All this time, he'd been thinking he needed to tell her the truth about his future, about going out into the world to find Baelfire. The truth was that to do that, he needed to tell her the truth about his past. He needed to tell her not about the son he was going to find but about how he'd lost him in the first place. He needed to tell her about the past that he'd been hiding from her because he wasn't willing to share who he'd once been with her.

Coward. In order to tell her about Baelfire now, he had to tell her about Baelfire then, how they'd been separated, how he'd let him go, how he'd failed. Which might even mean telling her about Milah, how he'd failed her and she him. It might mean making confessions about The Ogre Wars and his leg. I meant revealing to her not the Dark One but the coward that lay beneath.

That feeling he'd had before she'd gone slowly crept in on him, only this time he recognized it. Fear. It had been so long since he'd felt it; he'd either forgotten it or pushed it down so far he chose not to remember it. But its sudden presence seemed to confirm what it was he felt. He was afraid to tell her about who he'd been, what he'd been. The way she looked at him sometimes, it was like…like she thought he was a hero, thought he was someone strong and courageous. The thought of telling her that she was wrong, that he was a coward just as she might suspect…it made him nearly sick. But that was what he owed her, what this situation required. True honesty about who he was; really was.

"I suppose that's all I hope for," he finally managed to sputter out. "I owe her the truth, the honest truth. If she doesn't want to be with me, then I'll leave her be. I've no interest in holding her captive or in being anything like her father. You have my word on that."

Ruby swallowed again, and she bit the inside of her cheek as she swayed uneasily as if she wanted to say and do something but was keeping herself from it. "She said she didn't want to see you."

"I know-"

"But!" she interrupted quickly. "Give it time. I'm not saying she's going to give you a warm welcome when you see her, but I think with time, she'll change her mind. She seems hurt, but not broken."

"She's a strong woman. It would take more to break her than she thinks."

Ruby nodded as if he'd just said something she approved of though he wasn't sure he understood what that was. "Go. I'll give her the key at breakfast, and you'll forgive rent for this month on the inn and the diner."

"I have no objections to that deal." He had to keep himself from smiling at her tenacity. He didn't know how Belle found these people, people who were strong and protective…but at the moment, given what he knew, he was rather grateful for it. "I don't know what she's told you about her time in Storybrooke."

"A lot."

"Then you might already know…if she accepts the library and the apartment that goes along with it…she's going to need some help navigating this world. If it can't be me, she's going to need a friend."

"Lucky for her, she's already got one."

He nodded, feeling oddly reassured despite the wolf's nature. On that satisfying note, he turned to see himself out and-

"If I do you this favor, perhaps you could do me one," Ruby suddenly stated before he got to the door. He paused. If he were human, his coloring would have drained as he felt the reassuring sensations fade quickly.

"Are you trying to make a deal with me?"

"No, because even though I just met her, I consider Belle a friend, and that means that no matter what happens, I'm going to make sure she's taken care of."

He sighed in relief. Good. That was the right thing to say. "What can I do for you?"

"I mentioned I become a mindless monster once a month, and you didn't blink an eye. Same at the diner when I said I could smell Belle because of the wolf thing. You know what I am?"

His gaze naturally fell to Granny, who glared at him but said nothing. She didn't have to speak; her eyes said it all. He looked back at the girl. "Yes."

"Back in our land, before I learned to control my inner wolf, I had a cloak. It helped to keep me human on the full moon."

Again, he glanced to Granny, but the old woman revealed nothing of their history. If she hadn't told the girl, then he had no interest in doing it either. "I'm familiar with the magic."

"Good. People say that things ended up in your shop after the Curse, with magic back and the Full Moon coming up…I think I have need of it. Have you seen it?"

He wanted to growl as his stomach tied up into knots all over again. Everything about this situation, aside from not being with Belle himself, had gone perfectly until he'd remembered that little detail. He didn't particularly want her anywhere near Belle on the night of the coming full moon, especially given the answer to her question.

"It's not in my shop. I haven't seen it. But because I am a fair man, I'll check my records. I'll let you know if I hear anything."

Deal or not, he would fulfill that favor. Belle had a thing for finding monsters and wanting to fix them. The last thing he needed was for her to think she could cure a werewolf.

I had so much fun writing this freaking chapter I can't even tell you! I told you in the last chapter that we knew where the episode was going but how we were going to get there was important. To me, how Ruby ended up with that key was always a bit of a mystery and yet not at the same time. The way she tells Belle "someone" dropped it off, with that little teasing lilt in her voice, always indicated to me that she knew who it was that had left it. But, for Ruby to go from eyeing him suspiciously the day before to sending her into the library with him, I always thought that had to be one hell of a conversation. I really loved Ruby for this discussion with Rumple. As per her upcoming conversation with Whale, she's like the poster child for "accept who you are." She was the perfect person to get Rumple from "it's not about telling her about the future, it's about sharing your past." I think she is also the best person here to match wits with Rumple. She correctly guesses that he'll be waiting in the library and is sort of able to look at him and know that where Belle is concerned, he's telling the truth and won't hurt her. And I liked making her honest with Rumple in telling him, "Hey, give her time. She'll probably come around." At the same time, I also wanted to be super careful with her words because I never wanted anything that she said or anything Rumple offered to come off as him paying Ruby for her friendship. It's not like that at all. Thus why Ruby mentions that she's already got a friend, and no matter how he acts, she's going to be Belle's friend. That made me like her even more.

Thank you so much for your comments on the last chapter, Grace5231973! I hope that you'll like this small little interlude here in 2x04. I liked getting the opportunity to see one of Belle's few close and positive relationships through Rumple's eyes. It kind of has the feeling here of looking at the backside of water. And, in part, it also involves me being willing to put my money where my mouth was. Anyone who read Moments in it's later fictions will know that once Ruby goes away, I give Belle another friend, Rapunzel. I kept her in my story even though she'd basically gone away from the series, mostly just because Belle needed a friend in her life. Throughout the Moments timeline, not only was Belle friends with her, but Rumple also had a great deal of respect for her and eventually saw Rapunzel and clan as family as well. When those chapters were posted in Moments we talked about what would cause Rumple to give his respect to someone as he did to Rapunzel. I said that I thought it was two things. The first was being fiercely loyal to the people that Rumple loves and is loyal to. The second was not being afraid of him. While Rapunzel will eventually come to possess both of those traits, I worked hard in this chapter to make sure that as Ruby was Belle's "first friend," she embodied both of those things as well. She shows no fear in haggling with the Dark One, shows deep loyalty to Belle in the process, and it doesn't hurt that she comes from Granny, a woman that has already earned his respect. I really hope you like this chapter as much as I do. Peace and Happy Reading!