AN: Hello, everyone. Sorry for the huge delay – my back is doing much, much better now, but I'm still not really feeling my best, so please bear with me. I want to thank everyone for your lovely, lovely comments and well-wishes. This is such a sweet and friendly fandom and you're all so wonderful! I'd especially like to thank Cat4444 for her amazing, thought-provoking feedback, which helped me sort myself out enough to figure out what I wanted to say here.

In this chapter, people talk and talk and talk and talk and absolutely nothing of any import or interest happens. Mostly. Whoops. D:

VI: Fortification

This kiss seemed the exact opposite of the one she had stolen that morning. She could feel his palm, broad and warm on the back of her head, tugging lightly on her hair in a way that was not painful, but very present. His mouth worked against hers, tongue slipping between them to taste against her own. He leaned too far forward against her, leaning his right shoulder into her for balance.

Slowly, she raised her own arms, one curving around his waist to steady him, the other finally climbing up to thread through his hair, combing through it with her fingers. His hair was thin and soft against her fingers, and she tucked her other arm around him tighter, shifting their combined weight when he started to lean.

When her grip tightened on him, he suddenly broke off, stumbling back a few painful steps, leaning heavily against his staff. He rubbed the back of his left wrist against his mouth, frowning at the faint streak of red left behind by his split lip.

Both of them looked at opposite corners of the room, catching their breath.

Finally, Emma said softly, "Well, I guess that makes us even?"

His eyes flitted to her face and he frowned. "Even?" He repeated. His voice was low and ragged, and he swallowed repeatedly to moisten his throat.

She could see the pulse point hammering in his neck from five paces away. She jammed her hands down where pockets would have been in a pair of jeans, wiping her palms on her trousers when they hit air. "I just meant that I kissed you and... and you kissed me. So we're even."

"...Even." He said again, leaning both hands on the staff now, looking weary.

Her stomach growled, loud in the quiet of the room, and she felt her face flush further. His lips twitched up in a ghost of a smile, and he indicated the hearth with his head.

She nodded and turned around to stoke up the remnants of the fire, grateful for something to do. She heard him hobble across the room to his bed, where he let out a long, low hiss as he sat gingerly.

Neither spoke while she heated some of the leftover stew and pulled free a few more slices of the thick, butter bread wrapped in a nearby basket. Finally, she passed him his portion of the food and sat hesitantly on the bed beside him.

He shifted to the right, and she studied her food, unsure if he had moved to give her more space or to create some between them.

Finally, he spoke, so quietly she nearly didn't hear him over the sensation of her own chewing. "...I was afraid you wouldn't come back."

Emma turned to study his face. His lips quirked to the left in a sad half-smile, letting his eyes cast down to the side. "I'm sorry," she offered eventually, feeling that sense of half-shame she felt when he looked so unhappy.

"Well," he inhaled, shoulders and expression perking up deliberately, "It's done with now." He set his own bowl aside, rubbing his chest with his right hand, palming his way up to his throat and back down nervously.

She scratched at the back of her head, trying not to think about the way his fingers had felt tugging her hair just a few minutes earlier. "...So what happens now?" She asked, looking at him with a sideways glance.

He looked over to her, and then back to the spinning wheel. "I should get back to work," He answered, but she could hear the hesitation there, the invitation to continue the conversation.

"Where I come from," She began, holding her bowl in both hands, feeling the weight of it against her palms. "Where I come from..." She didn't know where she was going with this, and she flexed her hands feeling the fired clay under her muscles, remembering the warmth of his breath on her fingers and the solid curve of his waist under her hand.

"I knew a man - Well, I really didn't know him all that well, really," She corrected, biting her lip for a moment before launching into a rambling outpouring, "He liked me. I mean... I guess he did. He seemed like he did. He said he did." She nodded to herself.

He drew up his left leg, bending it to turn and face her, hands clasped in his lap expectantly, letting his bad leg turn sideways on the floor, straight-kneed.

Emma sighed and kept talking, surprising herself as she continued, "He seemed very cool and collected at first, but then... all of the sudden, he just started falling apart." She shook her head sadly at the memory, eyes far away.

"He was looking for something. He said he didn't know how to feel anything - like he didn't have a heart. And when he kissed me... it seemed like everything just made perfect sense for him at last. I don't know how, but he sorted it all out, just like that... And I never could."

"What happened to him?" He said hoarsely, eyes on her face.

"He died," She said quickly, feeling a prickle of tears at the corners of her eyes. She rubbed her face, expression almost quizzical when her fingers came back moist. "He had a heart attack. And he died." She laughed with no humor, "Right in front of me. I couldn't do a thing to save him."

"I'm sorry," He offered. They sat quietly, both looking in opposite directions again. Finally, he exhaled, squaring his shoulders. Still looking away, he asked, "Is that why you kissed me this morning? You were trying to find answers? Trying to feel?"

Emma scratched at the side of her head again, sighing. "I don't know. I... I've never been a very trusting person. Kind of comes with the territory of the way I grew up. I was an orphan, bounced from foster family to foster family. They all seemed nice at first, but then it always fell apart. Drugs, drinking, violence... "

She took a deep, cleansing breath. "…Sometimes they just didn't even care. I was a paycheck to them and they looked right through me. ...I think those kinds were the worst. 'Cause even if you're angry at someone, you have to see them to hit them, you know?"

He nodded, looking down. She followed his gaze to where his leg turned out at the side, and she knew he did know.

"It's a lot easier not to care," He murmured.

"I've gotten pretty good at it," She agreed.

He glanced at her, that hint of a smile back on his lips. "But that's not entirely true," He said. Raising his hand, he tipped one finger at her as he spoke, "You care about everyone. You don't want to, and maybe you don't always notice. But you do. You want to help people like you were never helped. You want to leave things better than you found them. You're a good person, Emma Swan."

She snorted faintly, "Well, I don't think I'm a bad one."

"And you're not empty, either," He finished.

She smiled then, faint but genuine. Wanting to do something to show her appreciate in response, she tried to imagine what Mary Margaret would do in a situation like this. Reaching over, she let her hand rest over his clasped ones, patting him lightly in what she hoped would be interpreted as a comforting, grateful gesture.

"So what about you?" She asked, shifting her right thigh to turn inward towards him, until they were nearly face-to-face. "What were you looking for?"

He inhaled again, eyebrows rising nearly to his hairline. He worried his lower lip, trying to find the words he wanted. "I... I've been alone... For quite some time now. I don't know how to... I've never actually... uh."

Emma's face twisted into something sad and surprised, mouth opening in a grimace. "Don't tell me... I stole your first kiss?"

His eyes flared wide for a moment, brows quirking as his shoulders twitched in a minute shrug. "Yeah, well," He mumbled.

She rubbed her face again in a sheepish gesture. "How old are you?" She blurted.

He frowned and pursed his lips. "34?" It almost sounded like a question.

"Huh." Her throat twitched in surprise and she nodded. "That's not so bad."

"For what?" He murmured. She realized he was blushing lightly, hands wringing together in his lap as he continued to study to right corner of the walls.

"...Observation," She said finally.

He snorted at that, nodding.

"I'm sorry I kissed you without asking," Emma said softly, looking steadily at him.

"A bit of warning would be... Would be nice," He replied.

"So you're saying we could try it again?" She murmured, shifting to sit a bit closer on the bed. Internally, she wondered what the hell she was doing. This man was a stranger, even more than Graham had been. He wasn't Gold. He wasn't even from the same universe, according to Henry. His next question caught her off-guard.

He turned to look at her, his smile tired now. "Why would you want to?"

Good question, she thought, biting her lip.

"We've only just met each other," He said, looking away again. "I don't want you to think that it's... I don't want you to feel obligated to do anything, just because you think perhaps you should..."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a second!" She cried, raising a hand to stop him, "Are you saying you think I kissed you because I thought it was expected of me?"

"Didn't you?"

"I did it because I wanted to!" She snapped, surprising the pair of them with her quick and confident response. Blushing, she turned her declaration over in her head, examining it from all angles.

It wasn't that he was attractive, she thought, but her brain quickly supplied the thought that he certainly wasn't unattractive either, which she shoved back into another corner to examine later. He was kind and gentle, so unlike the forceful, almost gangster-like machinations of Gold.

He had known hardship, real pain and suffering, even more than she had. But where she had built confidence and determination around herself like a fortress, he had only walls of fear and self-doubt.

She realized he was right about her, that he had softly and quietly cut right to the heart of her - her desire to be a hero, be Henry's savior, and right wrongs to give people better lives. That if she could somehow fix others lives, it would somehow make up for being unable to fix her own.

She thought of the way Gold had sized her up during the election; the way he had been one step ahead of her every emotion, her every action. She could see shades of similarities between the two of them, a phrase here, a gesture there, and in his core, a perceptive, quiet person who could see what made people tick.

Emma had told herself countless times that she did not like Gold, no matter how pleasant or helpful or intelligent or capable he seemed. She didn't like people who didn't play by 'good' rules, and, while he certainly ascribed heavily to a playbook of some kind, it was one she really could not feel good about most of the time.

Still, she realized in her internal contemplation that she did like Rumpelstiltskin. The world was stacked against this man, and his life was lonely and painful at every turn. Yet, still he worked hard, and didn't give up or let his circumstances destroy him. He'd gone to the market because he needed to; even though he had to have known those men would set on him. He'd stopped to help a stranger in the woods, knowing no one would have done the same for him. He'd given her food, shelter, clothing, as well as his privacy.

She thought of Gold's distress over having been robbed; his face when he realized someone had violated his sanctuary. Rumpelstiltskin was a private man as well, but he had bared himself to her, allowed her to see his vulnerabilities, and trusted her not to exploit them, based on his assessment of her character. He thought she was a good person, and so he wanted to help her. Not out of want of repayment, as Gold would have done, but out of simple kindness.

Emma realized she was touched by this complex, shyly dedicated man. She had spent a lifetime dismissing romantic possibilities, distilling the interactions down to the physical to avoid feeling vulnerable to another person. But here was a man who would not, who could not hurt her, even though the same could not be said for her to him. In letting his walls down, she realized he had weakened a cornerstone of her own.

Finally, she realized he was staring at her, eyes concerned, body leaning towards her expectantly. She wondered how long she had been puzzling through this in her mind, staring at nothing silently. Her face flushed and she cleared her throat. "Uh... Sorry. Got lost in thought."

He nodded, relaxing back again, one hand curving up to rub at the back of his neck. She watched his hand, fingers gripping and loosening around the column of his throat, reminded somehow of the way he nodded to himself while spinning.

"Hey..." Emma said softly, edging closer on the bed. "Can I... uh..."

"...Yes." He said almost breathlessly, almost excitedly, his expression melting into something so tender that for a moment, she couldn't move.

Instead of kissing him, Emma leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. He stiffened for a moment, before leaning into the embrace. She felt his own arms, wiry and warm, around her back, her shoulders. She held him tightly, chin hooked over his shoulder, one hand in his hair, the other around his middle.

He let out a sigh that she felt through her whole ribcage. She closed her eyes when he turned his head. Her chin dipped into empty air as he shifted out from under her, and then she felt his mouth on hers, hesitant and questioning.

Smiling into the kiss, she opened her mouth to him, feeling the cornerstone of her sturdy walls finally collapse completely.