The sun was setting. Rays poured through the cracks in the side of the house, more in need of attention than ever, leaving Rumpelstiltskin wondering if he could count the dust particles floating in the light, as if ordained by the gods. It took his mind off the searing pain of Bae's weight on his good leg. The story, bound in a thick yellowed book, was just one of ten folktales wastrels who fancied themselves authors collected from the peasants and then passed off as their own. In fact, Rumple recalled his own mother telling him these stories without the need of a book, or without the authors' need to water down some of the more gruesome details.
"'And they lived happily ever after,'" he read, feeling Bae's tensed body finally relax. He preferred the stories with the happy endings and his knuckles stayed pure white all the way until the story confirmed said happy ending.
"Papa?" Only eight years old and the boy already knew just how much power he could wield with his huge maple syrup eyes; no puppy could display them better. He looked down at him and pushed his brown mop of hair back. "Is this our happily ever after?"
"Well..." He closed the book. The rays faded away, the crackling fire now the only light source in their cottage. It smelled of straw and onions and pine. "Happily ever after doesn't mean the end. It means, well, it means another story. Is this your happily ever after?" Bae nodded, but then his face fell. He followed the grains in the wooden floor with his toes.
"I just wish Mama was here, too. Papa, will you ever marry again?"
"Oh, I don't know, Bae. A wicked stepmother? Don't want to get mixed up in that, do we?" he laughed, but his son had always been the more serious, more sensitive one.
"Strictly speaking, she wouldn't be your stepmother. She'd be mine," he said. "I'm sure there are nice ones."
"I'm sure."
"She'll be really pretty," he yawned, hopping off of him. Rumple winced when he knocked his knee. Leaping onto the bed, he ran back and snatched the book. Clamoring back into bed, he opened it back up to the illustration at the end of the book, a wedding. "We have more books than anyone in the village, don't we?"
Yes, son, all six of them.
"Think that'll impress her then?" he asked, smiling. They really should have sold at least half those books at various times and yet he couldn't bear to take them from Bae.
"Just promise that when you have both of us-"
"Bae-"
"Just promise that we'll all stay together, that nothing will drive us apart."
Rumple sighed and placed his hand on his son's shoulder. He looked him in the eye, man to man.
"I wouldn't trade you for anything, Bae, absolutely anything."