He wanted to hunt. He wanted to kill and destroy. He wanted to feel bones break in his hands, watch blood gush, see life leave the eyes so nothing was left but a pitiful empty body. He wanted to watch someone else feel pain. If he did, it might just distract him from his own. To watch someone else's hopes and dreams fade from existence might make him forget what it felt like when all of his own vanished without a trace.

But he knew, truly and deeply, that wasn't going to make his hurt or his rage go away. It was like an open wound. Or at least it was now. Until this moment he hadn't even really known it had never been healed, not until his mother came along and tore it open again, revealing the infection festering just beneath his skin.

He wanted to be anywhere else in the world right now rather than where he was. He wanted to be in another realm. He wanted to hold his son tight in his arms, he wanted to kiss his face and tell him that he was precious and loved and important. In that moment, he would have given anything for that fantasy to be true. He would have given anything for any of his fantasies to be true! A dream of a mother and father who loved him, who thought his spinning was a miracle, who worked hard so he could go to school to make something of himself. Two parents who praised the home he'd built for himself, who helped him start his business, and visited every other night for dinner. Two parents who cheered for him when he took a wife at the well, who held their grandchildren with smiling faces, who helped him raise his children. In this fantasy, there was no war that ever separated them, no family friend who lusted after his wife, and his wife loved him so much she'd never be tempted any way. There was no magic in that fantasy, and that was what reminded him that it wasn't real, that it never would be real, that the people he came from were rotten and evil and cunning enough to make him sick.

He wanted to rage. He wanted to tear his castle apart brick by brick and forget tonight had ever happened. He wanted to pretend as though his emotions hadn't gotten the best of him, that his mother had not once again utterly destroyed his life. But he already had enough of a mess to clean up.

It took everything he had in him to sit down at his spinning wheel and pour everything into his thread. Never once had he used magic to spin, to enhance his own abilities, but he did now. He worked the machine so hard it would have broken if he'd not pushed magic into it so that it could handle the load. His hands moved unnaturally fast, he felt heat coming off his own fingers, from between his joints. His eyes darted back and forth from hand to wheel to mother-of-all to spindle so quickly it would have given any human a headache. There was a warm fuzzy feeling just behind his eyes, one that made his brain feel like mush when he realized he was going through the actions but wasn't really seeing.

The wheel always calmed him. It always helped him to forget. Spinning wheels didn't lie, they couldn't cheat, they couldn't deal, or make promises. They didn't disappear, they wanted more than they should, they always worked reliably, the same way, every time. Every time. Every damn time! When his parents were gone, the wheel had always been there for him. He could trust spinning wheels, more than he could trust his magic, more than he could trust himself, more than he could trust his parents, more than he could trust-

Belle.

The world came back into focus and the motion of the wheel stopped when he felt someone come into his territory. His magic flared, but it was nothing like what it was when the Blue Fairy entered. Two people, two very weak signatures. Belle carrying the baby. She'd found her way home just as he'd assumed she would in the woods, though sitting here now, head feeling a little bit clearer than it had then, he wouldn't have blamed her or pursued her if she hadn't returned. He was fooling himself, thinking that she might actually enjoy being here; there was not a person in the world who had enjoyed his company since he was born. Perhaps some people were just meant to be alone all their lives, to always lose and never win. Maybe he was one of them. Afterall, wasn't that what this Curse he was working on going to lead to? A boy would lead him to his son, and then that boy would be his undoing. There was no such thing as a happy ending for a creature like him.

"Leave," he commanded the moment Belle stepped into the room. He didn't look at her, but he could feel the anger pulsing off of her. She was still carrying the baby. The baby was still crying it was as if nothing had changed from the clearing except for where the sun was in the sky. It had taken her a while to get home, the sun would be up soon enough. And he wanted to be by himself. But when had the help ever listened to what he wanted, especially this help.

"You have to take him back!" she ordered, striding over to his wheel and staring him dead in the eye. Ah, yes...very angry. Her tone was so forceful and her stance so set he wondered for a moment if he had done her a disservice in removing her from her father's court. She certainly had the attitude wives needed when dealing with their husbands, not to mention Queens needed in dealing with their Kings and courts. She might have changed the world if it wasn't for him.

"Now!" she demanded when he didn't do anything but stare back at her.

"I don't have to do anything!" he argued, throwing his voice for her own sake. If he let himself argue with her tonight, truly argue with his true self, then someone might get hurt. The persona of the Dark One wasn't just an assistance to him, it was the only thing standing between the pain he felt and Belle. So, with his mask firmly in place, he grit his teeth and tried to pretend he was fine as he'd claimed he was with her. "And you've caused enough damage tonight. Leave!"

He sidestepped her. There was a wheel in his tower and one in his room. He'd work elsewhere until dawn.

"Well, you can't just leave him here!" she called after him. "Are you going to raise him?! Am I?!"

"Let him be."

"I will not let him be!" she screamed with such force his boots finally stuck to the floor. She was getting dangerously close to seeing what he was protecting her from.

"And it's because of that remarkable inability you possess, you foolish, selfish girl, that the entire plan failed!" hollered back, striding across the room. This was usually were his victims backed down. They cowered, dropped their gaze, took a step away. But the way she stood her ground and held her head up high, meeting his eyes the entire way egged him on. "I'd have never sent that child or any child to live with her. She's a demon and nothing, and he was the bait. If it weren't for you, he'd be at home with his parents right now, and I'd have my answers. But now, since I can't get what I want, it seems fitting you should get what you want either, even if it means that he doesn't get what he wants. Misery for everyone!"

He wanted to see tears, he wanted to watch her give up, to accept the guilt that he knew, deep down, wasn't really hers. If anything, she'd helped to keep the child safe, acting bravely in the manner than he'd expected the Apprentice to act. But if he didn't place the blame on her shoulders, then that meant the fault was his own, that his seven-year-old self had taken over a Dark One that was over a hundred years old and he wasn't prepared to face that. Nor was he prepared to face the determination on her face. In spite of his accusations, she held strong. She didn't waver in her resolution, just examined his face as though she was searching for something.

It was something she wouldn't find. He turned on his heel to go again, hoping she would do the same and-

"Is that what you think?" she called out before he could leave. "That you'll never get your answers?" Before he could leave…he was the bloody Dark One, she didn't control him, if he wanted to go, he only had to think the thought and he'd be gone! Why was he letting her draw this out? "I don't believe that. I know that things we long for most often reveal themselves in the least likely of ways when we least expect it, and you…you will get your answers. I believe that. You can do anything when you set your mind to it; I've seen it, Rumpelstiltskin."

"Well then, you have seen too much and not enough at the same time," he spat over his shoulder. Pretty words from a pretty face. She didn't mean it. She was just telling him what he wanted to hear all so that he'd do what she wanted him to. Not tonight. "Leave! Return to the dungeon, and leave me in peace before I have you flogged for your actions."

Before he could wince at the very idea he'd created in his own head, he allowed himself to disappear from her sight.

This chapter (and the next) highlights how sometimes Belle's moments don't necessarily match up with Rumple's. In Moments this chapter and the next are one chapter. I had initially wanted that for Rumple's version, but when I wrote this from Rumple's POV I realized that it had to become two chapters. It worked better for his story to show how he punishes himself for his failings by isolating himself and running away. It is certainly not a coincidence that he calls Belle "girl" again for the first time since Robin Hood here. He's trying to separate himself from her. When he thinks of her as a woman he allows himself to be close, when he thinks of her as a girl it makes him back off a little, but in a time like this that just means that he retreats into himself and that's not good either.

Thank you Jennifer Baratta and Grace5231973 for your reviews on the last chapter. Up next we're going on to the conclusion of this conversation. After that we'll be on to a new episode! Peace and Happy Reading!