He was smiling. How could he not be smiling? Belle had just left, he hadn't clarified whether she was still coming for lunch, but she was going to go home with him tonight. She was going to go with him to test his potion at the town line, and then she was going to come home with him.

Admittedly, when he thought about testing the potion on himself, about crossing the town line with all of his power, the one wild card left in all of this, he thought he might be sick. But when he thought about the rewards, making dinner with Belle, planning his trip to wherever he might end up, meeting Baelfire again, excitement and joy overtook the fear for one brief moment in all his life. How could he not smile at that?

There was something that needed working on in the back room. That was where he'd gone just after she'd left. He was working now on autopilot, firmly in the mind of Mr. Gold, who could tinker and toy for days on end without actually thinking about his tasks. It was good to keep busy. All he wanted to do was go over to the library and spend the day with Belle and go out to the town line right now! Keeping busy would keep him here, where he belonged, and allow her to finish her chores as she'd said. It would allow them to-

His phone rang. Not the shop landline but the little cellphone that he kept at his side. The screen lit up and, on the front, he saw the name "Belle." His smile grew. He liked having this connection to her. Perhaps she was calling to ask about the possibility of lunch or ask about dinner. It was probably something she'd forgotten to ask him. After all, she'd been here only five minutes ago, barely.

"Hey, Belle!"

He winced at the sharp crackling sound of static. "Rumple!"

Her voice rang out over the noise. Was that excitement? Or panic?

"I'm…I'm in…man here…broke…ill me."

"Belle?" she was babbling, her language fast and rapid; he could make that out easily despite the interference. What was she saying? Something about a man? In the library? "You're breaking up. Who's in the library?"

He tried to keep his nerves calm. Both of them had a terrible habit of always reaching for fear first and foremost when it came to one another. He needed to trust his own magic. He hadn't sensed any magical beings going into the library. It could be innocent.

"I writ."

"Belle?"

"Han…sing ah…"

"Belle?"

He held his breath and listened.

"Hello?"

"Belle?"

A click on the other end and suddenly the static sound was gone. He took a breath, grabbed his coat off the rack, and then was off.

Fuck staying calm and not assuming the worst. She'd been calling for something. It sounded like someone was in the library. If he was overprotective, they could have that fight over dinner, but he'd never be able to go about the rest of the day if he didn't go and check that everything was all right.

Everything was not all right. He stepped into the library, and though he couldn't see Belle, the fact that something was wrong was immediately evident. In the lobby area, there was a cart overturned. Books lay scattered in a pile on the floor. There was only one heartbeat in the entire building, one familiar, very rapid heartbeat. It was coming from the elevator.

"I'm in" he'd gotten that much out of their conversation. She could have been saying she was in the library, but she just as easily could have been indicating she'd taken refuge in the elevator?

He summoned magic into his hands and used it on the elevator to override the locking mechanism and open the doors.

She was there, pressed against the backside of the elevator until he got the doors to open, and then she immediately launched herself forward into his arms.

"Belle-"

She slammed into him hard, wrapping her arms around him and holding him so tight it made him shake. She was trembling, her heart still racing…

"It's okay. It's okay."

He was saying it was okay, but in truth, he wasn't entirely sure it was. He hadn't felt her be this fragile since the night the Queens of Darkness had kidnapped her, a night she'd nearly gone into shock. He had much the same sense now that he'd had then, heal her, then hunt down the people responsible and either kill them or at the very least maim them until they learned their lesson. But healing her...that had to come first. She was shivering; Mr. Gold knew the best thing for her was to keep warm in that case.

"Here…" he whispered in her ear before he remembered the coat that he'd brought. He placed his jacket up and over her shoulders, hoping it would be enough to calm her so he could get to the bottom of what had happened. He could get her a blanket at the shop.

She pulled away from him, maintaining her grip on his arms as he wrapped her up. She looked around quickly, eyes darting from side to side, barely noticing the overturned books, a sure sign she already knew they were on the floor.

"Where…where is he?"

He. The man who had been in the library. The one that he was guessing at attacked her or, at the very least, scared her. He didn't know who "he" was yet, but he knew that there was no one else in this building besides the two of them. And he knew that when he got to the bottom of this, he was going to kill him.

"I don't know," he whispered to her. "But you've nothing to fear. I'm here now."

She parted her lips as she stared at him for a moment in relief. And then threw herself back into his arms and held on tight. He wished that he could share in her relief. But as she held fast to him and he replayed their gibberish phone call, he felt his skin grow cold. One word stuck out, one word that could make this all make sense.

Through the static, he'd heard her say "I writ," which was a nonsense thing to say during an attack.

"Pirate," however…that was a word that made everything fall into place.

"Sing ah."

She'd tried to tell him it was a Pirate missing a hand.

Fucking Captain Hook.

This chapter was meant to be two, but if I'd done that, it would have been far too short for even my taste. And if I added something to the last chapter or the next chapter, it would have made that chapter too clunky, so...here we are. This is the best I could do with this scene. The good news is that I don't think any others are too super short like this from here on out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Grace5231973 for your reviews of the last chapter. Short as it may be I hope that you'll think this is acceptable and you are ready to turn to the next chapter to see Rumple really unpack what's going on for better and worse, Peace and Happy Reading!