The job was done. The task was complete. The voices in his head told him he was an idiot, told him that he was being stupid and taking a risk and would probably soon die by her hand when she betrayed them.

So he took that hand and shut them out. He let the warmth from her body move through his own and knew, without a doubt in his mind, that she was truly different. Unlike Cora, who he'd instantly regretted telling about the dagger, he felt not one worry over telling Belle, showing it to her, letting her know where it was hidden. He had the very certain feeling that if he'd allowed her to touch it, to hold it, she would have given it back. She didn't want the dagger. For some reason, he still to this day could not fathom, what she wanted was him. And of all the things he should want in this world, she was at the top of his list, a very close tie with Baelfire.

He couldn't stop touching her. After all that they'd done, after all they'd accomplished tonight, and even since she'd reappeared in his shop alive again, he didn't particularly want to stop touching her. And slowly, as their evening progressed, her hand was not enough for him. Their proximity shrank little by little. On the elevator, her hand became her arm. In the Library lobby, her arm became her back. Up the stairs to her apartment, he'd moved his arm around her waist to pull her closer. And when she'd left his side to fetch them dinner, the chill that she'd left had been enough that if he didn't press his leg into hers while they ate, then he'd never get the sustenance he needed.

It was the dishes that undid him. The moment she cleared away their clutter and stood by the sink to wash and scrub so they could go to bed grated on him. He didn't care for dishes or formalities. He didn't want to take her hard and fast as he had "last time." He just wanted to enjoy the night ahead. He wanted to leave what could wait for morning and live in this moment they were having.

He slipped an arm around her waist as she washed and pulled her closer to him so that she let out a happy girlish sound before he moved her hair over her shoulder and kissed the heated skin at the back of her neck. The sound she made when he did that was far more carnal and sophisticated all at once, and he realized quickly enough that her hands had gone still in the sink.

"This really won't take that long," she whispered, her voice so husky her rib cage vibrated against his own chest.

"It can be done later," he pointed out, and then they were gone. A tangle of limbs and tongues, they crashed into one another in the silent understanding that there was time to be made up for. They exchanged very few words with one another; words were not necessary. They'd exchanged plenty of words in these last few days, and he couldn't help but feel that it was because of that talking that they felt more deeply connected to one another than they had been before. Once, twice…he lost count after three.

They'd finally settled hours after they'd tumbled into bed. The sheets were a tangled mess around them, but they'd tried their best to right them as they'd leaned back into her bed with the silent understanding that this time there would be sleep. After they'd spent themselves, even he felt tired and longed to drop into rest.

What a wonderful way to end-

"Rumple?"

He breathed; her voice called him forth from the depths of rest to the shallowest part of consciousness where sleep eagerly fought to pull him back down. He shifted to ground himself and realized he'd been so close to sleep that he'd stopped rubbing her back.

"What?" he slurred as he forced his hand to move over her again.

"I can't sleep."

He didn't know how that was possible. He was the Dark One, and he was exhausted. She'd worn him out. How she couldn't manage just to close her eyes as she always did and let sleep come eluded him.

"Just close your eyes," he whispered, kissing her head. "It'll come eventually."

She was human. After the marathon they'd just endured, he was fairly positive it was impossible not to find sleep eventually. Sex was only half the reward. The other half was a deep, restful-

"Rumple?"

He made a noise to let her know he was awake, but it was only just barely.

"Who's Cora?"

He was awake. Suddenly and completely and wholly awake. How could he not be? He wasn't sure that she'd ever caught him by surprise like this.

"Rumple?"

"Belle…" he tried to make it sound gentle, but it practically came out as a growl. Days after the Cora incident…what the hell had brought this out? He'd promised to have a conversation with her about Cora, and he'd meant it but not here or now. Naked and in bed with her, the glow coming off her skin…this was not the right time.

"You really don't need to know that right now," he insisted.

But the answer seemed less than understandable to her as she pulled away and balanced on her elbow. "You told me you wanted me to know everything," she reminded him. "You said you would tell me-"

"Yes, but not now!" he argued. "Why do you need to know now?!"

"She knew about the dagger, Rumple. That's why you moved it!"

He opened his mouth to argue but realized he couldn't. No, he hadn't actually said those words exactly, but yes, he'd said Cora's name when they'd talked yesterday, and...yes, he'd implied it certainly. And Belle, being who she was, had been smart enough to put two and two together and...

Fuck!

"I want to understand why she knew about it. Tell me. Who's Cora?"

He knew that tone. She wasn't going to sleep until she had her answers, until they'd had this conversation. This wasn't the time or the place that he'd imagined having it, but it appeared he didn't have a choice.

Fuck.

"Cora…" he sighed and got his hands under him, managing to lift himself into a sitting position as if that would make this less awkward, "is Regina's mother."

Another lie, just as he'd inadvertently told her earlier. Well, not a lie really, just not the entire truth, not the one she wanted.

"And how do you know her?" she prompted, seeing through his half truthful lies. But to mention to her the relationship he'd shared with Cora while they were like this, in bed, after they'd been intimate as they had been…he hated it. What would he give to be having this conversation elsewhere right now?

"Rumple," she muttered suddenly, reaching out to hold his hand between her own. "You can tell me anything."

Anything. Yes, he believed that. She'd proved that time and time again facing even his worst deeds as though they were nothing. But this…

Yes. It wasn't the time or the place, but she didn't know that. In the end she might come to regret it as much as he did, but she could take it. Could he?

"Cora was the daughter of a miller when I met her," he explained. "She'd gotten herself into trouble, telling the king that she could spin straw into gold, which she couldn't-"

"Which you could," she stated as if it were obvious. Indeed, it was.

He nodded. "She'd been given until morning to spin a room of straw into gold. She was desperate so I made a deal with her. I would spin the gold she required, and she would give me her first-born child."

"A…a child?" she questioned, furrowing her brow in nervous confusion that he batted away with his hand as if it were a fly. That detail, at least, was unimportant for her.

"I needed Regina to cast the Curse. I knew the child she bore would be the one to do it. But…Cora was smart. She didn't want me to spin the gold, she wanted me to teach her to spin the gold. She wanted me to teach her magic. She was…independent. I agreed to her condition, and when the king saw the gold that she had spun the next morning he gave her his son to marry."

He needed to go on, well aware that this was not where the story ended, it wasn't even the important part that she needed! He needed to tell her the rest! But damn, this was hard. Harder than the dagger. Maybe even harder than Baelfire. He couldn't understand why. Cora was nothing to him. But it was humiliating in so many ways. Coward…that part of him he kept hidden from all the world but not from her…oh, how he hoped she'd see past this. He hoped that she'd see that he treasured her so much more than he'd ever cared for Cora. She'd taken the news of Milah well, but Milah had betrayed him; left him. He'd let Cora pursue him and had cared for her more than he should have. Not the way he loved her, but-

"And?" Belle prodded beside him when he'd gone silent too long.

And…

He glanced at her wishing the truth wasn't what it was, but he had to tell her no matter what. This was the honesty of the heart that David had spoken of, the honesty that had brought them so far. He could do this.

"She was intoxicating," he admitted. "And clever, and greedy, and…she was a fair match for a monster like me."

He saw recognition and understanding pass over her face, and he knew, right then, that she knew what he wasn't saying. She understood. And he hated it.

"You, uh…you…you cared for her?"

"Not like this!" he insisted perhaps a bit too strongly, gripping her hand tight. "Never like this."

They had never consummated the sham of a relationship that they'd carried out, something he was eternally grateful for now in so many ways. But he also knew there was a time that he'd wanted to. He knew there was a time, just after he'd told Cora about the dagger, that he'd come close, oh so close, to crossing that threshold with her. He hadn't. For the same way that he'd managed to cross it tonight, over and over and over again, with Belle. Trust. He hadn't trusted Cora. Not wholly or completely. He'd loved her at that time, but some small part of him had distrusted her. She hadn't been enough to keep the Dark Ones quiet. She had been nothing like his Belle.

"So…what happened?" she prompted.

"She tricked me," he stated, his teeth grinding at the memory that was somehow still fresh enough to become painful, especially when he considered the woman who was now before him. "She used my own emotions against me. She convinced me that she wasn't satisfied with being a trophy, on the arm of the Prince forever, and would rather have me. I amended our previous agreement that she'd give me not her firstborn child, but our firstborn child."

She didn't like that. He noticed the way her breath hitched, the twitch in her jaw, the beat of her heart. He understood that reaction. He felt it too and was incredibly grateful now, looking back, that he hadn't followed through with that, no matter the trouble it had caused him during Regina's childhood.

"Obviously that never happened…"

"Why?" she pressed almost painfully.

He tried not to let the questioning frustrate him. He tried to remember that he'd be asking the same question if he were in her shoes. But he hated everything about this conversation. Everything about Cora. Everything about that time in his life. At this point, he just wanted to get it over with.

"All she wanted was for her daughter to someday be Queen," he answered honestly. "All she wanted was power and she surely wouldn't have gotten that with me. She manipulated me to change the deal so that I would never receive the child for helping her because the child would never exist. She went on to become a bitter old woman incapable of feeling anything for anyone including Regina!"

The end.

"And you eventually got the Queen to cast the Curse to this land," she concluded for him.

He met her eyes and nodded.

That was it. That was the story with the addition of an epilogue, far more than he was comfortable telling, but he'd done it anyway. Now maybe they could forget about the entire thing, truly forget about it, both of them, and get some sleep.

"And she knew about the dagger, about…about Baelfire?"

"She knew," he confirmed. "She knew certain aspects of my life before I was the Dark One, yes." The second she cast her gaze away, he tightened the grip he had on her hand. This was what he didn't want. He didn't want her to feel like she wasn't as special to him as she was. She didn't want her to feel jealous or inferior. "But I've never disclosed as much to another soul as I have to you."

She turned back to him, and her chin tipped up to search his gaze, something like hope flickering between his eyes. Finally a break. A small one, but a break, so good news he could give to her.

"I've lived a long time," he breathed. "And there have been others, only a handful, here and there, that have managed to get some glimpse of my life and my plans. But no one has ever held so much of my past as you do. Cora knew I had a son…but she didn't even know his name!" he realized suddenly, overwhelmed at the realization he'd stumbled upon. He'd never considered that before. He'd never shared Bae's name with anyone who hadn't known it before…save for one person.

"No one but you has ever known that."

She liked that. She liked it a lot. Every muscle in her body that had tightened through the tale suddenly eased and a small smile curved over her mouth. He looked down at their joined hands, a gesture he realized they often did, so many times without ever realizing it. He'd had sex before her, he'd had love before her, but he'd never had intimacy. He'd never had security with sex and love joined in one perfect person.

He hated this conversation.

He loved her.

"You kissed her?"

His gaze shot off their hands and he immediately looked to her, hoping that he'd heard the question wrong. Was she really asking that? Now? Here? After they'd just barely gotten through that conversation? She really wanted to add insult to injury?

Yes, she did. In his silence she raised her eyebrows at him, prodding him silently.

"Yes," he was finally forced to answer.

"While you were cursed," she pressed. "You kissed her while you were cursed?"

"Multiple times!" And he didn't see why it was important, or she was-

"And you remained cursed. After you kissed her…you were still cursed?"

He opened his mouth to respond but had to close it again as the realization of what she was getting at dawned on him. He smiled at the minx beside him, the woman who held his hand and his heart and was jealous enough over the worst relationship of his life to make sure there was one last thing about their relationship that she cherished, that she could hold above the head of any others who may have come before.

"Yes," he confirmed happily for her. "Yes, I remained cursed each and every time."

A smile, proud and happy, spread over her face. She nodded with certainty as if she'd gotten the answer he knew she'd wanted, and he was pleased that it was a truthful answer, pleased to share in the joy of that one unique quality that she and she alone would always possess.

"Good," she muttered before leaning up to kiss him and then settle against his side as she always did. "Sounds like you won in the end."

His arm wrapped around her automatically, no matter how shocked he was by the sudden easy way she'd settled into him. He was helpless to return her gesture, to settle back into the bed so that they could sleep soundly and hold each other as they drifted off.

He'd won in the end. He'd always insisted that. He might have lost a battle to Cora, but he most certainly had won the war. And when it came to women and not to luck, when it came down to what their relationship had been and the relationship he shared with the beauty beside him now…

"Yes," he agreed, kissing the top of her head once more before letting his own fall back on the pillow so he could close his eyes. "For once in my life I was the lucky one."

Still love this scene. Again, my evidence for something like this existing is that simply that Belle is observant and smart. Cora came up with Regina in the diner, and I don't see her letting it go. And there is evidence later in the series that Belle possesses knowledge of the relationship that could only come from Rumple, so whether it actually happened in a scene like this or elsewhere, I think it's safe to say that Rumple did end up telling Belle about Cora and their relationship. Still, I enjoyed writing it out for you and imagining it being told this way. I enjoyed making Belle a little bit jealous and Rumple getting an opportunity to compare them to each other and realize just how little he felt for the woman.

Our next chapter is also sort of quiet and slow, and it'll officially lead us into 2x11 and the final episode of this fiction. Dread it not, though, we're not quite at the end yet! And...well...there's a thought in the next chapter that keen observers in Moments might not be shocked at, but I'm hoping it'll catch you off guard, and you'll like it! Onward we move! Peace and Happy Reading!