The Swan was here. She'd been in his castle years before she was ever supposed to be born! He'd spoken to her, and she'd given him the most wonderful news. He was going to see Baelfire again. The image of the man with graying black hair came to him. He'd seen him before with the original vision the Seer had given him, but he hadn't known in that moment that it was his son. Then, he'd just been a mysterious man from the future. Now…he found himself closing his eyes to relish that sight. He looked good. He had his mother's dark hair, but his eyes and even a bit of his coloring all belonged to him; his father. He was a rich tan color, as he'd once been when he'd lived in the sun as a boy. He wondered, did he work in the sun a lot? Was that why he tanned as he had? He didn't appear overly strong or weak, average perhaps. He slouched. His shoulders were hunched forward like he always was when he sat him at the spinning wheel as a boy. He didn't smile, he didn't hardly move at all in his vision, just looked at him with his head tilted down from under dark lashes. A look of distrust and uncertainty on his face…until the inevitable happened.

He replayed the image he'd seen in his head over and over again and each time he rejoiced when he saw Bae, but wanted to scream at the top of his lungs when he faded from view. He hated that, but at the same time, he knew it was necessary in order to push him. He had to fix that. Or else that image he had was all he was ever going to know of his son.

In his tower, he pulled free every single book he'd ever had on the theoretical idea of time portals. There were a lot of theories for it, but no successes and the Swan, in addition to not sharing her first name, had also left out exactly how the portal was made. Which one was right and had brought them here versus which ones were wrong…he hadn't a clue. He was hoping that once he started looking then one of the theories might stick out to him and compel him forward. But none did.

In the end, one book used the suggestion of a powerful bit of magic that he happened to have acquired once a long time ago that gave him an idea. There was a wand, one known for recreating magic; long and slender, curved like a spiral, with silver wiring at its base. He'd shivered as he read it, for when he'd acquired it originally, along with several other fairy wands, he'd been able to sense it was different. Perhaps that was why he'd shoved it into a drawer, placing it in its own box, far away from the others. The books he'd originally read when he'd done the research on it believed it was made by a strong wizard, maybe even Merlin, but he'd always known it wasn't. He knew the flavor of Merlin's magic from Nimue and it wasn't what was on that wand. Long ago when he'd first stumbled upon the wand, he hadn't a clue who's magic it belonged to, now that he'd come face to face with that magic, he knew exactly who's wand it was.

The Black Fairy; his mother.

All this time and he'd never guessed; all this time and it had taken him this long to put it together. Proof the world could always surprise him!

His mother's wand had the ability to recreate magic, and that spoke volumes as to why it wasn't written in any of the books he'd ever read about fairies. Useless, all of them. Almost as useless as books on the Black Fairy herself. That was why he'd started burning them after his encounter with her. They never held the truth to who she really was.

But, if the wand got all this sorted, if it could reopen the time portal the Swan had fallen out of and solve this mess they'd created, then it was worth it to use it.

Although, the time portal wasn't really the problem. He had the wand now, he could give it to the Swan have her activate her magic, and send the pair of them back. But if the relationship between Snow and David wasn't off on the right foot before they left then it never would be, and they'd return to nowhere.

He was starting to realize why he'd never dabbled in something as foolish as time travel to get his son back. It was so much easier to go forward and simply face life than it was to go back and keep everything else intact.

Of course, he was really only half paying attention as he studied. He kept one eye on his books and the other on the Swan and Hook with the help of his crystal ball. Not that there was really much to watch. By nightfall, the pair had arrived at a tavern, the same one that they'd seen Snow in. Much to his shock, he saw Hook, the present Hook, sitting with his crew at a table. So much for the idea that he'd know when a portal opened and the pirate returned. He seemed comfortable enough in this land to suggest he'd been back a while. He fought the urge to rush off and kill him for the second time today. He had, after all, just seen the future Hook working with the Swan. If he killed him now, then it was possible Jones would disappear, with no one to help the Savior he might have to do it. And besides…it could compromise Baelfire. He hated it, but it did appear that until whatever day this was in the future that came to pass, the pirate had a free pass from him.

Pity.

He caught onto their idea when the pair separated easily enough. The Swan got up from her seat, shed her cloak, lowered her bodice and stomped over to the present Killian Jones all the while he watched the future one slip out the door. Her cleavage practically in his face, the Captain had stopped what he was doing at once to flirt with her, as most pirates would. That was when he realized the trick wasn't to watch her. It was to watch Hook.

Hook climbed aboard his own vessel, spoke with Smee, still alive and looking young after all these years, and went into the Captain's Quarters. A few moments later, he was joined by Snow White where he promptly realized what their plan was. There were mirrors and shiny objects everywhere he could have used to look in on them through his own mirror and listen to it play out, but he didn't need sound to know what was happening. They intended to promise Snow White a ticket out of the port if she could steal the ring. It was simple and obvious, a plan he himself might have concocted given the situation, loathed as he was to admit that, but as it was…it wasn't his own situation. They had their problem to fix, and he had his problems to fix.

Problems.

Not problem.

Because he knew what they didn't and he knew that the time portal was not his only challenge…so was forgetting all this.

Knowledge of the future was a dangerous thing to have. He knew because he had it, and after a hundred years of having it, he'd come to the conclusion that he never knew all of it at once because it was a dangerous thing to toy with. It wasn't meant to be dictated. It wasn't meant to be foretold. He now knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was going to get to his Baelfire. But he also knew that the hope that he would get there, prior to meeting the Swan in the flesh was the one thing that drove him each and every day to keep going.

He couldn't afford to get lazy.

He couldn't afford not to have hope.

The knowledge was delightful, but the hope was what was going to get him there, not reassuring knowledge.

It left him only one option. Memory Potion. He had to not know. He had to give up the image of his son in his head, and return to hope. There was one problem, even if they succeeded tomorrow, he didn't have enough Memory Potion to forget through this morning which meant he'd have to brew more…but it would be necessary.

He was reluctant to forget all this. Knowledge wasn't just dangerous, it was also power, but in this case, it was power he wouldn't need until after he had his son back. He'd seen the Swan, he'd read books on time portals before, the causes and the effects, and he knew what all this meant. The Swan had been produced by a time in which he had no assurance of the future and in that timeline things had gone on as they should have and he got Baelfire back. He couldn't risk doing anything differently than he had in that timeline…even if her presence here meant that was a story that no longer existed. And besides the fact, he couldn't risk doing anything different in regards to anything else and that included…

It was a miracle they'd fallen for each other.

He didn't want to hear those words, but he had, and now he couldn't get them out of his head. A miracle that he and Belle had fallen for one another. Fallen in love? Impossible!

Except for the fact that it didn't feel that way anymore. Even as he thought of it now, his heart was hammering all over again, nearly as bad as when he'd stood behind her at that mirror. All over again the images that he'd seen the day she'd fallen off the ladder came back to him. He could see them now so clearly! Touching her, holding her, fighting with her, sharing a bed with her…maybe sharing a baby with her?!

It could have been fantasy, just like he'd initially dismissed it as. Or...

It could have been the Seer all along, a vision of a life to come that was well-lived, well-loved if some of those images were accurate.

Well loved…was that what he felt for her? Love? Was he even capable of falling in love? Especially with a woman like her. She was so smart and beautiful, and kind and gentle. She was special. And he was so...

"Rumpelstiltskin?"

At first, he thought that it was his imagination, that he just liked hearing his name from her mouth so much that he was just allowing himself to recall it. But then he saw her blue dress in the dark light and realized she was really there, with a tray in her hand. He had the sudden urge to get up and help her with it. Would he have had that thought if the Swan hadn't come?

"You didn't come down tonight."

"Too busy," he muttered, staring at her as he recalled his vision of her in white. Why did he feel like he was seeing her for the first time?

"I'll just…set it here then. I'll get the dishes later," she commented, setting his dinner on his table.

"I'll see to them myself," he added. It was the strangest thing. Just as much as he wanted her to sit opposite him and do something simple, like read, he wanted her gone. He didn't want to want what he wanted. He wanted his own thoughts to make sense again!

"I'll come back for them in the morning," she insisted stubbornly. "Is there anything I can get you before then?"

"You can leave," he snapped cruelly. He was certain that just this morning it was something he would have ordered and not thought twice about it. And yet now hated the way he sounded. He wanted to make it up to her. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to do a lot more than that with her.

"If you say so," she smirked, looking as though she didn't believe him as she descended the stairs and left him feeling like he could breathe again. He couldn't blame her, to be honest, he wasn't sure he believed it himself. Fall in love with a perfect woman like her? He would be lucky enough to have the most perfect woman in the world fall in love with him?

Ah, but this was where his dilemma was born, it was what he'd been struggling with since the Seer put those images into his head. Love was weakness. It was dangerous. Especially for her, given these circumstances. Because if he fell for her, if it was love, true love, then he had no need of Regina. If it was love and he grew to cherish her as much as he feared he could, then all it would take was a single good strong yank to rip her heart from her chest, and he could cast his Curse himself. There would be no need to prepare Regina for it, no need to wait, and there would be no need to continue to stay so involved in everyone else's fucking lives! He could do it and go see Baelfire; to hell with what the Swan implied!

Or he couldn't.

He wouldn't.

It was going to take a special kind of anger for Regina to tear her own father's heart from his chest, to kill him. If he came to love Belle, he wasn't sure he could manage that kind of anger with her. Which meant there would come a time he'd have to choose a life with her or a life with his son, and he had no interest in pursuing that choice. Frankly, from where he sat now, the thought of doing that to her was…it was unthinkable already! Was it possible he was farther gone than he thought?

With this knowledge he had now, he could change it. He could dismiss her, free her, send her so far away that he never had to worry about seeing her again, never worry about those images coming true, never worry that he'd have to make such a choice.

Or he could drink the potion. He could forget what the Swan had said. He could go back to the time that he'd pretended those images were nothing but his own invention, fantasies…and risk it coming true without a warning. He had to make a choice and he didn't want to. He needed a loophole. There had to be some kind of a loophole! Some way to remember without remembering, to warn himself!

He sighed as he got up out of his seat, intending to use his crystal ball to check back in on the Savior and Hook. Open the portal, make a potion to forget this, correct their timeline…find a loophole. He'd add it to his long and growing list of things "to do".

Filler chapter. So, yeah, like I warned you, this chapter is more reflective. It is a filler chapter by definition. Not only was there a lot that had to happen between the time that CS left Rumple in his castle to the moment that they saw each other again outside Midas' castle, but there was also a plan that Rumple needed to concoct, discoveries that had to be made about the Black Fairy's wand, and of course he had a lot of thoughts that needed to be processed. Considering the last chapter and the next chapter, I stuck all of this into this chapter and found that it flowed together really well! Yes, it's filler chapter, but it's one of my favorite filler chapters, because of all the dots that he connects and what he thinks about it all.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Spunkymouse, Alarda, Grace5231973, Jennifer Baratta, and Ysabel for your reviews I absolutely loved reading them! I know it's filler, but I'm really curious about what you think about this chapter given it's content. Slow and quiet, yes. But decent? Was it worth the chapter? Was it enough Rumbelle for you? Can't wait to hear it all! Peace and Happy Reading!