He returned to his shop that morning feeling renewed, with an energy he hadn't felt like he'd possessed in many hundreds of years, if ever. He felt…he wasn't sure he had words for what he felt. Alive? Thriving? Like the luckiest damn bastard that had ever walked the face of this world or the last or the next? Honesty of the heart…that was a concept he'd never in a million years would have thought he'd embrace. And yet, here he was, feeling it right down to his black soul when he was with Belle. She should have said goodbye to him for good last night. She should have listened to everything that he said and then kicked him out, told him that she never wanted to see him again so that he knew if he ever came near her again, she'd kill him. Instead, he'd told her everything, and she'd stayed. She hadn't liked what she'd had to tell him, but the fact that he'd told her, that he'd shared everything with her…"honesty of the heart," as David had called, it was a fucking miracle cure. And it left him in his shop to consider other things.

He hadn't lied to her. He was looking forward to their lunch the next day, counting down the hours until it was time to see her again, but in the meantime, he kept himself busy with other tasks, and his brain began to consider quite seriously things he had only thought about before.

He worked to bind his two potions together; the memory enhancer and the talisman spell were one by lunchtime. Now, all he needed to do was pour a bit of that potion over the top of the object he wished to make a talisman, Bae's shawl, and so long as he kept that shawl with him, he should be able to maintain his memories outside of Storybrooke, beyond the town line barrier. Furthermore, he was pleased with the sheer amount of the stuff combining the two potions left him with. It was good because he knew that he wasn't done yet. It still needed something. When he walked through the town line, it would recognize that magic and work to take it from him. He needed to add something to it to ensure that the magic remained intact when he crossed. The experiments that he'd done to begin all this already pointed him in two directions: strong magic and weak magic.

His first option was to mask the magic within with a spell that was so strong, so overwhelming, that hid his magic and offered itself up as a sacrifice for the town line to take. The second option worked much the same way but with weak magic. He could find a spell that would hide his magic and trick the line into believing that he was a being of little to no power, so that when he walked through it, it took only a small amount and left him still strong. Two options, many variations, hours of experimenting, all to get one answer in the end. Daunting as the task was, he kept at it, all through the day and night. He worked on it as he communicated with Dove about a party that night for Emma and Mary Margaret's return and confirmation that Dove could not locate Aurora. Interesting information, but all either unimportant drivel or old news to him. He worked on his experiments and let his mind wander to the dagger.

He was going to tell Belle about it. He'd made up his mind. The night before had gone so well he was almost bursting at the seams to do it. Taking it with him into the real world was his true preference, but he had to admit that out in that world, there were dangers for it he did not know about. Leaving it here, unguarded, while he was out in a World Without Magic and wouldn't be able to sense it had him feeling nervous. But now, he had an ally. Now he had someone he could trust with its location and importance. It might terrify him to think of leaving her to it all on her own, but his Belle was a remarkable woman. She showed bravery and courage, and beyond all that, she was intelligent. He'd never had someone so firmly on his side before, and for the first time in all his life, he couldn't wait to tell her everything.

He warmed when she let herself into the shop the next day, carrying a basket that he could only assume was their lunch. Smart woman…this way, they were guaranteed privacy. A lunch break all to themselves, it was perfect. Nearly as perfect as she was. As he settled it on the counter between them, he reached for her hand, and she leaned over to exchange the kiss he'd wanted to give her. Perfect. So perfect he might have been blushing without stopping himself. Oh, how hard and how fast he had fallen in only a few short weeks.

"Ah, well, that looks delicious!" he beamed as she shucked off her jacket, and he peeked inside. "Thank you very much, Belle!"

She smiled and reached into the basket to pull out what she'd brought-

And the bell over the door of his shop rang out. Emma, Mary Margaret, and David came striding in so purposefully that he knew he could tell them to leave all he wanted, and they wouldn't until they came for whatever they needed. He should have locked the damn door.

"Ah! Nothing warms the heart more than a family reunited!" he pronounced, making his way out to them. "You have your mother's chin, Ms. Swan-"

"We know that you killed him!" Emma spat before he could work his way up to the glorious moment he could tell them that he was busy and they could bloody well fuck off. But with a pronouncement like that, he knew something like that would never work. At least now he knew why they were here.

"And your father's tact…"

"Someone's dead?" Belle questioned over his shoulder.

"Dr. Hopper," Emma answered, glancing over his shoulder at Belle as if she was a suspect, as if she thought Belle might have a hand in the death solely because he might. But he didn't.

True, he already knew about Archie's death. Dove had texted him perhaps an hour or so ago to inform him of the unfortunate death. It was the only thing that had given him pause in the last day and a half since he'd last seen Belle. He hadn't thought anything of the death, to be honest, other than to think that it was a loss. He hadn't been close to the cricket, but he hadn't exactly wished him harm either. He'd served his purpose in finding his son, but still, hearing about the sudden loss had piqued his interest for all of two minutes when he heard about it.

"How did he die?" he'd texted Dove.

The answer was simply, "no one has said yet. Seems it happened in the night. The only one around when he died was his dog."

It was a shame. But not one that affected him enough to stop his work. At best, it might shake the puppet out of hiding. So he'd returned to it and figured he'd hear about the death through gossip for the foreseeable future. He hadn't planned on being accused of the murder.

"Why on earth would you think I had anything to do with that?"

"Because all the evidence points to Regina!" Emma stated as if it were obvious.

"And she's not possibly capable of doing something so vile?!" Belle spat back, sidling up to him and offering his own thoughts before he could. An ally…he really had never had one like her before in his life.

"It's a frame job," Emma explained as if that proved he was the one who had actually killed the cricket.

"It wouldn't be the first time you used someone to try to hurt her," Mary Margaret accused.

He smirked. No, it wouldn't…but that still offered no proof that he was the one who had done it this time either. And in this world, the relevant phrase here was "innocent until proven guilty."

"Nice to see your memory is still intact, dearie," he replied calmly before giving a small shake of his head. "But this time, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you; it wasn't me."

"Why should we believe you?" David questioned, crossing his arms over his chest as if he'd just given all the irrefutable proof he needed. Admittedly, it wasn't a bad argument. He did have past precedence for such a thing; a lawyer here would probably make the same argument in court. But here in Storybrooke, they had two things that the outside world did not. First, they had magic. Second, they had a Savior capable of using magic. The extent of her powers he'd not yet seen and hardly thought of, but when the opportunity to observe them presented itself…

"Because I can prove it. Ask the witness."

"No one was there," Emma snapped in an unimpressed tone. Like father, like daughter.

"Well, that's not strictly true now, is it?" he pressed, recalling the information that Dove had sent him. There was a simple way to extract memories from animals. The magic required was minimal, but the reading of those extracted memories was a bit more…challenging. Not impossible. It wasn't a difficult spell; it just wasn't an easy spell. It would give him a good baseline for seeing exactly what Emma could do. Once she realized what he was talking about, of course.

"Pongo!" she finally gasped after a second. Her eyes went wide before she glanced back at her parents. "Pongo was there!"

"Pongo's a dog, Emma," Mary Margaret sighed as if it were foolish. If they were planning on talking to him, then it was a foolish suggestion, but fortunately, magic let them be a bit more creative.

"And he has eyes, doesn't he?" he interjected quickly. "Let's put them to good use. Bring him to me."

And so we start 2x10 with a lot of excitement. As if Rumple being on ridiculously good terms with Belle wasn't enough, we also see more headway made in the process of Rumple getting out of town. He's managed to combine the two potions he's determined that he needs. Now all he has to do is figure out how to mask them; that's progress there. And then, of course, there is the problem of Archie. Poor Archie. What a shame their lovely lunch had to be interrupted with that kind of news.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Grace5231973, for your review of the last chapter. I really appreciate that. I split this scene and the next in two again, just because I felt that the lead-up to what comes next would only clutter the scene that is really important. All that and more is coming at you in the next chapter. Peace and Happy Reading!