They'd survived Winter. For the most part, at least. And to his great shock and surprise, they hadn't killed one another. Of course, it was probably still too early to say such a thing. Winter was still around, but the peak of it had gone. Blizzards no longer haunted them. The snow in the valley had melted, and now the mountain was finally thawing as well. It was still cold, but after the temperatures they'd had, the cold seemed downright warm. Business was slowly but surely returning to him as those seeking deals began making their way up to him once more. As for Belle, she started cleaning again with a fury, like spring had already sprung, when the reality was that Winter was in the throes of death.

He couldn't complain, though. Why would he? Their work kept the pair of them plenty busy, and the end of the cold meant that she was back to spending nights in the dungeon, which freed him to roam about once more as he wished. The Great Room, his Tower, the kitchens, in the dead of night when he was certain she'd be asleep, he was free to go where he wanted and do as he wanted. And lately, that included returning to a familiar hobby he hadn't left time for in quite a while.

He'd started reading again. First out of curiosity for the life that she encountered in her books but then because he did love to read but hadn't realized how much until she'd given him the bug. He'd started with La Belle et la Bete, her current favorite, but he wished he hadn't. Romances were never quite his thing and the plot of the book…it was far too familiar for him to be comfortable with it. Half the time he felt like he was reading a biography or listening to a Seer's Prophecy. At least once a page the phrase "too close to home" shot through his brain. It was the story of a wicked man who had been cursed and transformed into a beast along with his household. One day the father of three young women took a flower from his garden, and the beast only allowed him to return if he sent one of his daughters back to him in his place. The youngest daughter, Belle, was the one that had returned. Predictably the pair fell in love, the spell was broken, happily ever after…boring. Obviously, there were things that rang true for the situation he and Belle found themselves in; her name was Belle, more than one person had called him a beast in his life, there was a curse involved, after a terrible deal with an awful father the girl had moved in…but that was about where the comparison stopped.

Her Handsome Hero was a much better tale. There was romance within it, but it was a subplot. It was all about a young shepherd named Gideon seeking to win over his true love by proving he was more than worthy of her. He faced many hardships in order to do this, curses, spells, magic, villains…but in the end, he succeeded. He became a Prince and later a King, but nothing was more important to him that the love of the woman he'd managed to…well, it had been good up until the last bit.

He liked keeping up on the books she was reading. After their long Winter days together, he'd come to the conclusion that she was something of a riddle, and not just because he couldn't tell what role she had in his future. She'd changed somehow. In the beginning, she'd been a busybody, prying and loud, greedy for information. She'd been judgmental as well, fighting him on even the simplest of decisions and tasks. Now...she wasn't complacent, he didn't think that was ever a word that he'd use to describe her, but she did seem…content, perhaps. She was happy to get up in the morning, have breakfast with him, do chores during the day, pausing only to enjoy tea with him, then eat dinner at the table across from him and sit in the Great Room during the evening reading until bed. He did his best to keep her from his business, and she seemed to have realized that getting involved was of no use to her. It wasn't perfect, but it worked for them. It made things less tense. It allowed him to let his mind wander during the evening hours and allowed her imagination to drift off to wherever she was bound to go in the pages of her books.

He always waited until she was done with them. Completely done. Not just finished reading. For after she finished a book, she usually kept it up in her library on a table for a day or two. Sometimes he caught her rereading passages with a smile or tears in her eyes. And then, one day, when she decided she was truly ready to let it rest, she would store it back on a shelf, and that was when he would swoop in and remove it. He read it for himself night after night in his own bedroom, tried to see things through her eyes, picture the images the way she saw them. It was a way into her head now that she was settled. Sometimes it helped him understand her.

But not always…

She liked order. She liked schedules. She liked her time by the fire reading her book. So why then was she up and moving now?

For months they'd had the same schedule. For months they'd eaten their dinner then come into their Great Room to read and to spin before dinner. That was their evening. So what had motivated her so quickly after returning from the kitchens so rise from her seat without putting her nose in her book and leave the room? In the opposite direction of her cell?! She obviously wasn't going to bed!

He itched to get up, to follow her out the door, to run to his cauldron and see what she was doing for himself, to recall her and ask what she needed…instead he spun. He stayed right where he was and convinced himself it was nothing.

It was nothing! She was free to do as she wished and had been for a long time. Sitting in this room with him after dinner wasn't a requirement or an expectation. In fact, it was a good thing she'd gone. Just because he'd come to expect the behavior from her didn't mean it was good. She wasn't here to keep him company or spend time with him, she was here to keep the castle and the grounds in order. That was what a caretaker did. It was her job to be busy.

But his silent argument didn't stop him from having to hold in a sigh of relief when he heard her step back inside the room with…a ladder?

He tried to keep his eyes on his work, he tried to ignore her, but curiosity got the better of him, and he found himself shifting his gaze to watch her actions. They were not sneaky. She brought that ladder in with her head held high and her back straight and proud. She set it against the wall, some distance from him and his wheel, and it was only then that he paused. He made sure to focus on his wheel. To keep his eyes trained to anything but her but all other senses were screaming at him to pay attention. Finally, he heard the familiar groan of wood, but it hadn't come from his wheel. It was from the ladder. Footstep after footstep, it squeaked and squawked in a way that made his heart race. And probably for good reason. He hadn't known where she'd gotten a ladder from. He'd never set foot on one that easily accessible in this castle, which meant that it was old. Probably nearly as old as he was. Did she know that after a few years, ladders weren't as sturdy as they good be? Did she know how they could slip on the ground, how people could fall? He hadn't rescued her from the Queens of Darkness just for her to kill herself falling off a ladder.

His stomach gave a little flop a second later when he heard the stirring of fabric and a grunt of exasperation. He heard the sound again, and suddenly, without ever looking over at her, he knew what she was doing. She was trying to open the curtains again. He felt a small spark of pride catch inside of him. He knew it. He knew that the day would come when she would try again to open those. It seemed that day had arrived. He should have done something, he should have asked her what she was doing, teased her about it or reminded her that he hadn't wanted them open in the first place just to see what she would do with that information. But with that ladder moaning and groaning behind him and her heartbeat pounding in his ears, letting him know just how nervous she really was, he couldn't find it in him to tease her. He wondered…if he offered to open those curtains for her, would she stop being so foolish and come down to the solid ground?

"Why do you spin so much?"

His hands stopped moving with her words. He wanted to look over at her, but his head told him not to. It had been a while since they'd had a conversation, since she'd asked a question of him that she should have known he wasn't going to answer. It probably hadn't seemed to her like it was a personal question, but for him, it was possibly the most personal question she could have come up with.

"Sorry," she muttered when he took too long to answer. "It's just that you've spun straw into more gold than you could ever spend."

"I like to watch the wheel," he finally answered. Her heart was racing, and the more he imagined her precarious situation, the more he realized the answer wasn't going to do any harm, no matter how personal. "Helps me to forget…"

"Forget what?"

Now that was a personal question that he wasn't going to answer. It had been decades since Baelfire had walked these halls. There was almost no one alive that knew about his son or why he'd become this thing or what his true goal was now that they were separated, and he intended to keep it that way. Baelfire may be safe in a realm without magic, but he wasn't, and as Regina had reminded him not so very long ago, love was weakness.

So he paused for a moment, stopped the motion he was making, then sat back and stared blankly ahead. "I guess it worked!" he teased with a small laugh.

Finally, he risked a glance over at her. Though she was clinging to the top of that ladder for dear life, she let out a small airy burst of laughter and shook her head. She could have pried, had this been months ago when she first arrived she certainly would have. Now she just turned away and went back to trying to tug the curtains free. Up as high as she was, he felt his insides give a little tug every time she pulled on that curtain.

"What are you doing?" he questioned, rising up out of his seat and moving toward her. If she was going to be so insistent, and he'd never known her to be something other than insistent, there might be something he could do quietly. Strengthen the ladder? Perhaps find something heavy to set at its base so it wouldn't slide away? Get her a suit of mail so that she at least had some kind of protection?

"Opening these!" she answered as if it was obvious. "It's almost spring. We should let some light in."

And there she went again. Tug, tug, tug. She was going to hurt herself. But before he could suggest something, she stopped and glanced down at him with wide knowing eyes.

"What did you do, nail them down?"

She made it sound like it was a joke, but he couldn't bring himself to laugh. It wasn't funny. Because all at once he remembered that it was true. Because after she'd opened them last, after he'd given her the library, he'd shut the curtains, and had added nails to the top with a gleeful smile, just to complicate her the next time she tried opening them. He was the reason she was up there dangerously tugging away at the curtains. It didn't seem so funny now.

"Yes," he admitted with a small voice.

Maybe she didn't get it, maybe she didn't believe him, or maybe the problem was that she did. Her only response was to let out another small chuckle and turn back to the curtains. Tug, tug, tug. And just when his soul couldn't handle it anymore, just when he was about to tell her to stop being so stupid and get off the ladder so he could fix this with his magic, he saw it happen. In his head, the Seer sent him a vision.

The sound of the curtain ripping. Her body falling through the empty air. The Seer crying out "Catch her".

It was the sound of the curtain ripping that brought him back to this reality, to a moment so close to the vision he'd experienced he almost thought it was part of it. She lost her balance, her footing gave way, and she plummeted toward the bone-shattering ground at a speed that would have shocked a human, but made him feel like he was watching in slow motion.

Catch her.

He didn't need the reminder or suggestion or whatever the hell the Seer thought it was. On instinct, he'd thrown out his arms and stepped forward. Her weight slammed into him and forced him to regain his own balance, he took a step closer to the window and found himself standing in the blazing, blinding light of day. It was dazzling. Though she'd let it in before, it was the first time he was letting himself take it in for decades. And she…

Her heart was thudding away at an unnatural speed. Or was it his own. She was still there, nestled in his arms, looking back at him with eyes that were familiar, and that was when he realized there was something more than familiar about this scene. Or rather, there was something that would be familiar about it.

The images hit strong, with a force not unlike her falling into him. Flashes of pictures, things that he knew hadn't happened yet filled his head and pulled him into himself and away from her.

Belle in his arms now, her face cupped against his palm, holding her just like this when she was old and wrinkled.

Belle in an outfit of white that didn't quite fit the world they knew now.

Belle rushing off to hug a tall man with a case in one hand.

Belle angry, angrier than he'd ever seen her before or known her to be, screaming at him with a golden bracelet on her arm that reeked of his own magic.

Belle walking by his side, her hands firmly around his elbow as they moved.

Belle standing across from something important between them on a mysterious black road, beaming at him as he felt himself beam back.

Belle with a baby in her arms, smiling down at it as he watched from the door.

There were more. Too many to catch, but as they finally began to slow, one image remained, lingering longer than before. It wasn't like the other images. It didn't flicker in his mind as a single glimpse, this one moved. It was the other half of the vision he'd seen before.

An anonymous woman with brown hair and a bare shoulder in his bed. Finally, after years of wondering and waiting, the woman turned over to rest her head on his shoulder and wrap her arm over his chest. He felt himself hold her hand there as his other arm wrapped around her back and he glanced down at her. She was still asleep, her eyes closed with a gentle smile on her face as if she was happy he'd returned from somewhere.

The woman was Belle.

The world came back to him so quickly it startled him, forced him to expel her from his arms so that she gasped when he dropped her. He had the strangest, strongest urge to step forward and apologize, to make sure that she was alright, but instead he took a step back. He withdrew from her space, to a distance that would not be so easy to touch her. His heart was suddenly racing nearly as fast as her own was.

"Th-thank you," she breathed, twisting and turning, straightening her dress as he shifted his weight. "Thank you."

He shook his head and held his hands up, an attempt to keep her and that beating heart far from him.

"No matter," he dismissed. Words were difficult. His mouth was dry.

His wheel. He wanted his wheel. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to sit at his wheel and erase what he'd seen, erase the images. He wanted his heart to stop racing, his skin to stop tingling from the unexpected want of her, he wanted his pants not to feel so suddenly tight in the front! He hadn't had a reaction like that…ever. Not to anyone. Not with Milah, or Margery, or Cora, but with her...

"I'll uh…put the curtains back up."

There was a sound to her words like a chuckle, a laugh, like she was trying to dismiss the entire thing, as if she weren't turning bright red at what had happened. But there was no dismissing it. At the end of the day, she would write it off as a clumsy moment. How was he supposed to write it off? How was he supposed to process what he'd seen? How was he to forget what he'd felt?

"Ah…there's no need," he resigned. He wanted desperately to return to his wheel. The last thing he wanted was to watch her up there for the next hour, worried that she'd fall again and panicking at what he might see if he did. "I'll get used to it."

He felt like he was on fire as he turned his back on her, his insides all twisted up and getting worse by the minute.

What now?

So...there it is now...out int he open for all the world to see. It's a classic Rumbelle scene, and I dared to add something a little extra to it, and now I'm nervous af. But here was the thing, as I thought this chapter through I always knew there was something really special that had happened in that "catch", something that really altered him and seemed to shake him. And yes, it could be his instinct to catch her, but I felt like that wouldn't quite get to him the way it seemed to in this scene. So, I had the Seer finally reveal this to him. And really, I made that choice too because I feel like the Seer sort of flirts the line of "just another voice in my head" versus having a relationship with Rumple. She chooses to reveal things to him at very opportune times. Too early and something is preventable, too late and things could go awry. She always gives her information at just the right time. So I liked the idea that she didn't give him this info before now because, well, I think he would have stayed too far away from her to keep the future intact. But she shows him now because she knows, on some level, you're in love with her and no matter what you do from here on out this is going to happen.

Thank you Jennifer Baratta and Grace5231973 for your reviews. Up next we've got a very short chapter. It's really the follow up to this chapter, the way he "processes" this new information and how he decides what he's going to do about it...or not do, you'll have to discover it yourself. I'm sorry it's short but it really was it's own chapter that didn't belong at the end of this one. And, I am, of course, now sitting here, waiting for your responses to this chapter since I'm super anxious you'll hate what I added. Please let me know. Peace and Happy Reading!