Australia

Lacey's best memory ever was before her parents moved to Maine. She would have been maybe seven or eight, her parents took her out to Elouera Beach in Sydney. It was a little out of the way, but it wasn't nearly as busy as Bondi. She still remembered the way the sunscreen her mother had smeared all over her had smelled, and she remembered how incredibly impatient she'd been to get into the water already before her mother was finally sure that she wouldn't come out burned to a crisp.

The waves were high and her mother hadn't let her get too far out into the surf, but there were teenage boys on surfboards that she could see in the distance. When it was time to come out and have lunch, she'd watched them as they chatted between themselves while they waited for good waves to come up. Lacey wasn't entirely sure what made a wave 'good' for them, but occasionally she'd see one start to tense up before he started paddling ahead of the wave, waiting for that breathless moment when suddenly he'd jump up on his feet and let the wave carry him where it wanted him to go. Every time, the ride ended with the guy in the water, and every time his head would pop up with a big smile on his face as he retrieved his board and went back out to meet his friends.

"Papa," she'd said between bites of fish and chips sold to them by a bored looking teenage girl whose eyes, like Lacey's, kept wandering out to the boys on their boards. "Can I try that?"

Her father had followed her gaze out into the waves and a big smile had bloomed on his face.

"When you're a little older, Lace," he had said, patting her on the head. "You know, your old man used to do a bit of surfing."

Her mother had smiled at the memory, and Lacey had sat enthralled as her father told her all about his exploits as a young man, leading up to meeting her mother sitting near a bonfire with a few other friends and realizing she was the girl for him after watching her clean a fish someone had caught. Cindy French had blushed a bright pink and called her husband a flatterer and then sent her daughter back out swimming.

They'd stayed at the beach until the sun went down, and Lacey was far too tired to move anymore. She fell asleep in the backseat on the way home, and dreamed of the strange freedom of the waves and her own bonfires someday. Of course, a few years later Cindy had been diagnosed with skin cancer and told to stay out of the sun, and Moe had packed his family up and immigrated to Maine where there wasn't a hole in the ozone layer to threaten his wife and his daughter.

Three years after that, Cindy was hit by a drunk driver and Lacey's entire world had collapsed around her. She didn't know if her father ever really forgave himself for bringing them to the place where her mother had been crossing the street at exactly the right time to be hit by that truck, but then she also didn't know for sure that she'd ever really forgiven him for it, either. They both knew that none of it was his fault, but it was so much easier to pretend that it was than it ever had been to contemplate the horrifying uncertainty of life and how sometimes when you tried to protect the person you loved they'd end up hurt even worse.

Storybrooke, 2011

Belle felt useless. She felt pregnant, and useless, and the nesting instinct had finally kicked in and she'd never wanted to mop a floor the way she suddenly did. They were still months out from the baby being born, and they weren't even planning on being in Storybrooke when she gave birth, but suddenly the fact that there was only a half-assed nursery in the house so far was driving her up a wall. Lacey had purchased a crib and a few stuffed animals, but very little else. There were no clothes, no diapers, no car seat. The idea of her daughter not even having sheets yet was giving Belle the worst sorts of fits and she wanted desperately to run out and fix it, but Rumple was locked in the basement working on the potion he'd said Prince James needed to deal with Regina. She couldn't interrupt him. What he was doing was incredibly important and Belle knew that, but damn she just wanted to buy a rocking chair.

Her daughter didn't have a name yet, either. Lacey had settled on the name Piper Neveah, but Belle had barely had time to come to terms with being pregnant yet and she certainly hadn't had time to think about names. She wasn't even sure which ones Rumple would like - she only barely knew the name of his son.

Belle was listlessly walking from room to room, scavenging things she thought the baby might be able to use and she wasn't even sure what purpose she thought it would even serve. The room that Lacey had chosen for the baby was painted a bright pink already and it clashed horribly with the little figurines she'd taken out of the study and set up on a shelf in the baby's room. Once they were there, she needed to change the furniture to match the crib. One of the guest bedrooms provided some end tables that matched the wood of the crib well enough. She was pondering whether or not she could move the dresser herself when Rumple found her.

"I thought you'd still be working," she said as soon as she saw him.

"The potion has to steep," he replied, watching her pull drawers out and set them on the bed. "What are you doing?"

"We don't have furniture for the baby," she said as evenly as possible. She knew it didn't make sense, but she was really hoping he wouldn't make her feel stupid for it either.

"Do you want help?" he asked, moving forward to take one of the drawers from her. "You shouldn't be lifting things."

"It's not that heavy," she replied, testing the weight of the dresser. "I just want to make sure she has a home to come back to once we've found Bae."

He paused for a second, and if she hadn't known him so well she never would have even noticed it. She wasn't quite sure what he was thinking, and she knew he wouldn't tell her if she asked.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. "I could make something."

"I'm not," she replied. "I just...I think the nesting impulse finally kicked in."

"I'll get someone to move the furniture for you," he said. "And if you like we can go buy furniture once Regina is dealt with. Whatever you like."

"We're going to have to eventually," she said. "We won't be traveling forever."

"I suppose not," he replied and something in the way he said it triggered Belle's curiosity.

"How long do you think we'll be traveling?" she asked him and he glanced towards her quickly.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't even know how old he'll be."

"No?"

"It was a long time ago," he replied with a shrug, as though that explained everything. "A lot can happen."

It was a frustrating non-answer, but she didn't push him this time. Rumple didn't like to tell her things, but Belle was beginning to realize more and more that she didn't necessarily want to hear the things he was unwilling to share with her. She would learn the truth of his son at some point from the boy (man?) himself, but for right now the important thing had to be repairing whatever they had left of their relationship before their daughter arrived.

Belle picked up the drawers she'd pulled out of the dresser and started moving them to the nursery. She heard him pick one up himself, as well as the distinctive cadence of his footsteps behind her.

"How did the potion go?" she asked him as she put the drawers near where she planned for the dresser to go.

"It will do what Charming needs," he replied cryptically and she resisted the urge to throttle him. She was trying to respect his boundaries and let him get used to her being there before she pushed him too hard, but a woman had to have her limits.

"Which is?"

"It will render Regina powerless long enough for him to retrieve young Henry."

"And what will keep her from coming back for him?" she asked. "If it's just a temporary measure, then won't she just come back when it wears off?"

"Probably," he replied. "But even Regina isn't entirely unreasonable. So far she hasn't wanted to commit any proper atrocities in front of her son."

He shrugged, and she knew that he was essentially at a loss as to how to proceed past that himself. A thought occurred to her, then.

"How did Regina get magic?" she asked. "She came in the shop that day looking for a book because she didn't have any."

She watched his lips press into a thin line.

"That would be the question, wouldn't it?" he said. "The magic was here from the moment I brought it, but she wasn't able to access it. I don't know if she found a way past her mental block or some other artifact that I hadn't known of. Either way, you can rest assured that will be dealt with."

"You think she might come after me," Belle replied before adding: "and the baby."

"I won't lie," he said, turning away as casually as possible and picking up one of the little tchochkes she'd brought into the nursery to examine it. "It's a possibility. The longer we stay here the larger a threat I am. It's possible she might want some...leverage."

Belle hadn't quite realized when she'd lived with him in the Dark Castle how deeply the threat of someone gaining leverage over him had affected Rumplestiltskin. He'd traded the gauntlet to save her from the three witches once, but even then she hadn't really understood the purpose of that hostage situation or his reason for getting her back. Not until she'd encountered Regina on that road and had the idea of true love dangled over her head that all the moments of their life together had come crashing into clarity, like taking a step back from a tapestry and suddenly seeing the whole scene rather than the individual stitches.

Even having never met Baelfire, Belle knew his father loved him more than anything. Rumple had sacrificed all hope of a happy ending with her in exchange for his son, and with her own child coming (even under the circumstances she found herself in) she thought perhaps she could finally understand at least a little of what had driven the man before her into such darkness. She and her child would represent a new weakness to him, and she knew he would do whatever he deemed necessary to protect them from threats.

Before she could second guess herself, she came up behind him and wound her arms around his middle. She pressed her cheek against the middle of his back and felt his muscles tense in response to her proximity, but she simply held him until he relaxed and she felt his free hand tentatively come to rest over hers.

"I'd like us to fix this," she said quietly. It was the thing she wouldn't dare say to his face - things were too raw still, too new. "But I need you to trust me the way I trust you."

He was silent for so long she wasn't sure he'd even heard her, but eventually his head jerked in a stiff nod.

"I'm trying," he whispered in a voice so soft she almost thought she was dreaming it.

He didn't continue, but then she'd been surprised to get that much out of him. Belle held Rumple just a moment longer before disentangling herself and stepping away. He glanced back at her, but neither one spoke as they both found things to keep themselves busy in different rooms.

She wanted to forgive him, but he had to earn it first.