For several long seconds, holding her in his arms was all he could think to do to stay rooted in reality. But then he'd realized that she was shaking, from cold or fear or shock, he didn't know, but he knew that none of those were good or ideal. He wanted to search the library, look for clues. The building itself was empty, but she'd barely been away from him for more than five minutes before she'd called him for help. He'd wager that if it was the pirate, he'd been here waiting for her when she returned. He needed to confirm his suspicions. He needed to see if he'd left any hints that it was him or where he'd gone, or better yet, how the fuck he'd gotten into this world when Smee had told him that he wasn't here.

"Belle," he whispered gently in her ear, releasing her and digging a hand into his pocket. "I want you to take my keys. Go back to the shop and wait for me there so that I can look around and-"

"No, no, no, no!" she interrupted before he could finish, holding him tighter to her. "Please! Please, don't leave me alone."

Shit. Begging. Belle never begged, not like this anyway. That was a bad sign.

"Let's just go. Please, let's leave together, right now."

"Belle-"

"Please!" she shrieked, pulling away from him to let him look at her face. The desperation and fear in her eyes were enough to make any man bend. For someone who loved her…he was helpless to give in.

He let out a frustrated sigh, but nodded at her request, then put a hand to her back, collected the cane he couldn't remember leaning against the elevator wall, and left with her. She didn't stop him to collect anything, didn't ask him to lock the library or pick up the books she'd dropped. She just let him lead her outside and back to the shop.

"Who was he? The man?" she asked once they were out in the open.

"No one you'll ever have to deal with again," he assured her as he quickly scanned the area for anyone unfamiliar or threatening. He didn't see anyone, but he meant his words. He'd spared that pirate enough, the next time he saw him, he'd kill him.

"I've already had to deal with him again!"

Again.

The admission caused him to freeze mid-stride, which caused him to stumble. Belle didn't notice, her eyes clearly set on the Pawn Shop ahead of her, but he grabbed her elbow and paused her before she could go any further. He stared into her eyes, trying to form the question he had to ask, but his heart was suddenly racing, and his mouth had gone dry.

Again?

Belle swallowed. "He came to my cell in the Queen's palace. He thought I would know how to defeat you, but since I didn't at the time, I was hardly worth his time," she explained as his stomach turned over. They should have been thinking about lunch right now. As it was, the last thing he wanted to do was eat. He had known Belle was alive, that she was with the Evil Queen? He had come to her there while he'd been off doing fate knew what for this Curse and she was suffering?

"Who is he?" Belle questioned again with more insistence.

Someone who wanted to hurt him, to "defeat" him, someone who had tracked Belle down not once but twice, someone who knew that destroying him wouldn't just take a dagger but could be done by killing someone he loved. Potentially a pirate. Potentially…

"One hand?" he asked for clarity.

Belle nodded.

Fuck.

"Hook," he snarled through gritted teeth, turning to walk her back to the shop. It wasn't enough. He wanted to take her home, put a protection spell around his house so thorough it would pick up a tick entering the property.

"Where…where did he come from?"

An excellent question he would like the answer to himself. After all these years, after all these months. Why was this happening now? How the hell had he come out of the woodwork, and where had he been?

"I can't answer that," he responded honestly. "Until this moment, I had it on good authority that Hook wasn't in Storybrooke, that the Curse hadn't worked on him."

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me…the information was reliable."

Smee had said he wasn't in Storybrooke, and while he could find doubt in that sniveling rodent, he couldn't find doubt in his own damn magic! He'd searched for Hook, and it had come up with nothing. And yet his protection spells at the library hadn't detected him because he had no magic on him, so he hadn't done it magically.

He needed to handle this immediately. And as for Belle...

"We should get you somewhere safe, get Ruby to take you to my house or stay at the diner for a while..."

"Where are you going?" Belle shrieked as he finally crossed the road, and she had to practically jog to keep up with him.

"The shop."

"Why?"

Wasn't that entirely obvious?

"Well…let's just say there are many wonderful things there that I could use to make sure that pirate never comes near you ever again."

Third time was the charm…if he had it his way, Hook would never get that third chance.

"Rumple, no, we need to report this to the sheriff. They'll take care of him."

"Take care of Hook"? Not likely. Not with a man who had sworn revenge hundreds of years ago, somehow found a way to live long enough to see it, hidden himself, or snuck into Storybrooke from where he didn't know…

"You're so close to finding your son, please…please don't let your hatred for this man get in the way of that."

"But…he tried to harm you!" he countered.

"But why?"

Why?! Why not?! This was what he'd been afraid of in keeping her in his life, publicly. People knew they were seeing one another; some probably knew they shared True Love or would figure it out soon enough. She'd make herself a target, not only for those wishing to find and take the dagger but for those wishing to hurt him. She was his weakness; they'd use her against him just as they could the dagger.

The dagger…

His stomach rolled again.

He had to get her someplace safe and check on the dagger.

"What happened between you two?" Belle questioned beside him.

Oh, that was something they certainly didn't need to get into at a time like this, something she really would regret knowing far more than Cora.

"Belle…you know this is really not your concern," he managed to choke out as he pushed her along the way. But he knew the instant that he'd said the words they weren't going to be enough for her, that she wasn't going to like them. Sure enough, she dug her heels in, turned on him so that he had no choice but to stop walking her back to safety.

"He attacked me; it most definitely is my concern!"

Fuck, she was dug in. They didn't have time for this argument. He needed to get her off the streets, and he needed to take her somewhere safe. He had to check on the dagger, find Hook, kill him…

He threw his hands up in the air out of frustration.

The shortest distance between two points was a straight line. She wanted to know the tale, they could argue about it and waste time, or he could tell it to her, get it over with, and get on with the search.

Fine.

"Many years ago…I was married to a woman named Milah until Hook crossed our paths.

"She was…Baelfire's mother," she correctly assumed.

"Yeah…" though he preferred not to bestow her with such an honor after the way that she'd behaved and abandoned him. All for Captain Killian Jones…what a waste. "And because of that marauding cur, he grew up without her! He took my wife, he took Bae's mother…so I took his hand."

Belle stiffened as he moved around her, hoping that she wouldn't flee or be too put off by the news. It wasn't the whole story, of course. It was just the basics, just what he needed to get her moving again and off the street. She'd forgiven him for so many things, surely a feud over a missing hand in a time of terror was something she could also overlook for the sake of-

"That's why he came after me," he heard her breathe, catching up to him again. "But, uh…what about…what about her? What did he do?"

Most days, when he wasn't the target of her inquisitions, he found her curiosity and intuition incredibly attractive. It had allowed them to have conversations in the past without ever having to say a single word. However, when turned on him like this, when she was prying at what had happened with Cora and to Milah, demanding to know what he'd done, he wished she was a little less intuitive. He glanced at her, hoping she'd pick up on the fact that while he'd answer that question eventually, as he had the questions of Milah, this wasn't the time for it. The news that he'd killed his first wife had to be delivered very delicately, especially to the woman that he'd had the overwhelming desire to make his second and last wife only days ago.

But she was not easily swayed, not easily tricked or distracted, not by him. He heard her sigh beside him and then found his way barred by her again, by her smile and her body, and the hands that she wrapped around the one he had resting on his cane.

"Rumple, you can…you can tell me anything…" she assured him again.

Damn that phrase. She'd used it now more times than he could count, always before getting him to rip apart his soul and bare the deepest, darkest of sins he had. It always worked. But he'd also noticed that it held true. She could get him to confess with that phrase, and every time she'd said it, forgiveness had followed.

But this…the truth about what happened to Milah, about what he'd done to her, not what Hook had done…

It wasn't that he didn't believe her. It was simply that he believed there was a time and a place for everything. He would tell her what happened to Milah one day, just as he'd told her about Cora and Baelfire. But now, when Hook could still be close by and targeting her…now was not the time or the place.

"She died," he answered honestly. "That's all that matters."

A Long Short Walk seemed like an appropriate title for this chapter given its contents and the fact that the Pawn Shop is literally across the street from the library. Despite the short distance, they manage to cover a lot in this conversation, but that is simply because of necessity. Without the beginning remarks in this chapter that come before we get to the seen stuff, the rest of the conversation doesn't make sense because they have to share their information. Rumple goes from having no idea who attacked her to knowing it was Hook. And Belle goes from not knowing the guy who came after her in the cell to knowing his name. To make those leaps, there had to be some addition to their conversation.

Thank you, Grace5231973, for your review of the last chapter. I'm hopeful that you'll enjoy hearing Rumple's version of this scene. He's certainly in that state of high stress and anger that makes him a lot of fun to deal with. Many of these chapters are very emotionally driven for him, as most things are, and I really enjoy getting to write them! Peace and Happy Reading!