I don't own any characters from Once Upon a Time.

Thank you so much to everyone who read/favorited/followed my story. I was so thrilled with the response to the last chapter and very happy to pass the 10 review mark. Keeping my fingers crossed for some more reviews on this one. (-:)

Chapter 10

When he knocked on her door at Granny's Inn the next morning the first thing he noticed was that she looked different. She wore a simple grey sweater over tight, black pants. With jet black hair spilling down her back, low heel black boots completed her outfit. Even more than the outfit, the look in her eyes was also different. It seemed somehow tougher, more like a predator that looked through instead of at a person. Gone were the soft colors she used to wear and gone was the smile that came into her eyes that he so loved to see when they were together in the past few months since Emma came to town.

"I am glad you are here, Rumplestiltskin," she held the door open and moved aside to let him into the room. Her voice held not the slightest hint of familiarity. Instead, it was formal and business like. But lifetimes of reading people's emotions told him that there was still feeling there. With a shock he understood why her bags were packed the minute the curse broke and possibly before she even knew about Belle. Looking at her at that moment, he realized that she left him before he had a chance to leave her.

He started to say the first thing that came to his mind.

"Lee, I wanted to tell you, I think what you did at the bank was incredible."

"What?" her brow furrowed in confusion but she regained her composure quickly, "that's nothing. Thank you." She added after realizing that her reply may have been too brusque. "Actually, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. I am not sure if it matters now but I thought it would be better if you found out from me first. Detective Kincade offered me a job in Boston."

He interrupted her at once.

"You can't cross the town line, Lee. If you do, you will forget everything about your past life. Your curse memories will be the only ones you will have."

Her calm demeanor told him that she already knew and a cold dread slowly settled in the pit of his stomach.

"I know about the town line. I was there when Leroy came running with the news. I was going to tell you but then Charming said you already knew when he came to me to talk about Red's problem."

"Good. This means you know you can't go to Boston."

"I never considered going to Boston."

The cold dread now crept all the way up to his chest.

"What are you saying Lee?" His voice was quiet but his entire body tensed, white knuckles gripping the top of his cane.

She ran her hands through her hair and turned her back to him as she looked out the window. When she turned to face him once again, her answer was almost a whisper.

"Renik is looking for a way back to our old world. He offered me a different job."

"I have no doubt he did." The exasperation and sarcasm came through unmistakably in his voice.

"It's an offer I accepted."

"Lee…" He moved toward her but stopped when he saw tears glistening in her eyes.

"I am sorry," She lowered her voice as soon as he finished speaking, "but it is true."

"Lee, don't you see that we have other options now."

"Actually, I think our options are pretty straight forward," and her voice was once again firm, "you have the option to start a life with your true love and figure out the magic necessary to cross the town line without forgetting who you are and I have the option to get back to the only kind of work I know how to do."

"That's not the only choice you have." His voice rose again.

"What are you talking about?" Her voice rose along with his.

"You could stay with me, Lee." He pronounced the words almost in a whisper but she drew back and stared at him as if he slapped her. The amused smile that for a moment almost touched her eyes surprised him.

"Stay with you? As what, part of threesome?" and now her words dripped with sarcasm.

"As my wife, Leena. You could stay with me as my wife."

She slowly sat down in one of the two chairs in the room and raised her eyes to meet his.

"You can't live in the past forever. Alicia has been gone for a long time. It was OK to pretend I was her for one night in our old world. It is not OK to continue to use me to live in the past. You can have a life with Belle, a good life. You were my queen's husband, not mine, and I care about you too much to stand in the way of you having a real relationship with someone."

"I was your husband for many years too."

"Not by choice. I can't figure out why but that was all Regina's doing. I hope you agree that it wasn't a bad way to spend an almost thirty year curse but none of it was real."

"The last eight months since Emma came to town were real for me."

If anything, she now looked more shocked than ever. She got up, walked to the other end of the room before turning around to face him again but when she started speaking it was almost as if she spoke to herself.

"You got your memories back when Emma came to town, didn't you? That's why you started being so different. Of course, you didn't know Belle would come back so you spent those months trying to make sure I fell in love with you. It's not going to be as easy as crossing the town line to forget that you know. I bet it will take a few months before that memory is no longer an issue me."

"Stop it, Lee. Stop it," he couldn't help shouting now, "I loved you from the first time we made love in that tavern, for almost thirty years of this curse, and every day for the months I knew who you were, and never once did I think of you as a replacement for Alicia. My heart was yours long before I came to care about Belle. I made the terrible mistake of sending her away for the same reason I never came to find you, because I knew we would be ripped apart by this curse. Never in my life did I think that Belle and I could have a life together in the old world. In the five days since the curse broke in this world she tried to change me five times and got hurt five times when she realized I wouldn't change. You are my only chance to have a partner again, to truly share my life with someone again. I love you Leena, I loved you since I met you. Now it's up to you to decide if you want to share my life with me. Good or bad, that is your other option." When he realized that his hands came up and held on to her upper arms, he stepped back and immediately let her go. She sank down into the chair and lowered her head into her hands.

"You can't be serious?" were the first words out of her mouth.

"I am very serious, Lee."

"Rum," his heart rose at the familiar nickname he never thought to hear from her lips again, but the next words and the tears glistening in her eyes dashed his hopes once more, "No Farini could turn down what Renik offered me."

He realized then that he could no longer hold back the inkling of an idea that was pushed and buried deep down in his mind ever since Renik gave him the egg with the True Love potion inside. He felt that there was something not quite right about Renik's statement when he said that he could not collect the debt Malificent owed him if she was dead. Renik would have known that Malificent would not die if Emma killed her dragon form, she would simply take on a different shape. Now Rumplestilstkin knew without a doubt that in order to collect his debt Renik needed Malificent to not only be alive but able to take on her dragon form at will.

"He offered to let you be Dragon-rider, didn't he?" He knew, even as he said it, that what he dreaded most was happening right in front of his eyes. Her next words confirmed all his fears.

"No Farini could refuse that, Rum. You know that."

He always knew that this was the way Renik worked. Renik's slaves and puppets didn't know they were chess pieces in his game because he gave them the one thing they wanted most and filled the one need they may not have even realized they had. Rumplestiltskin knew that any attempt to talk her out of this would fail but he simply could not live with himself without trying.

"Lee, you can't think about agreeing to what he is asking. It's suicide. He doesn't care about you, not the way he cared about Alicia. Renik only knows that he now has what he always wanted, Dragon-rider and Queen as two different people instead of one. In the old world his magic allowed Pearlescent to choose her rider. Through his magic, that choice bonded rider and dragon and Pearlescent bound herself to Alicia. Here, he has no magic to do any of that. He has absolutely no idea how much control Malificent will have when she is in her dragon form. The fact that he even suggested this is proof that he doesn't care anything about you."

"I know the danger involved, Rum, and this is exactly my point. I need to have a life that allows me to make choices where whatever happens doesn't affect anyone but myself. That means I can't have anyone waiting for me to come home. You have a chance at a good life with Belle, free of shadows from the past, with a woman who can put you first in her life, who can even give you child if that's what you wanted. "

"Lee, please don't do this."

"Don't you see Rumplestilskin, I am not leaving you because I don't love you, I am leaving you because I do."

She stood up and no longer tried to hold back tears.

"You know it's the only way this works, Rum. You know that."

He left her room simply because at that moment he did not know what else to say.

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