Prompt: I would love a prompt Neal finds out what Rumple did to Milah then goes to confront him about it. Rumple tries to blame Hook. Neal's angry-ish, Rumple uses magic to stop Neal from leaving the shop. Rumple tells Neal the whole truth including why he did it, it's because of him. Neal forgives. They hug, Rumple cups his cheek.

He cradles the cup in his hand, the fine china, crisp and bright in a distinct contrast to the rough, leathery skin of his aging hands. He does not consider himself a proud man, not by any means, and definitely not vain. Vanity was a sin in which he prayed on in weaker people. You'd be surprised how many people would trade their vitality, their family, for a full head of hair or clear skin or a flat belly. Pathetic. Just like his father and his desperate, eternal clinging to youth long lost.

Vanity was the most foolish of sins and Rumplestiltskin would not let himself fall victim to it under any circumstances, but he must admit, he did admire his own hands. Strong and calloused in all the right ways, they were the hands of spinner, a provider, a father.

They had cradled his newborn son's head with strength and confidence, even as the rest of his body was overcome with shaking. Even when his leg buckled under the weight of his body. And they never failed to deliver as he spent evening's awake feeding thread after thread into the spinning wheel, the skin on the tips of his fingers having grown too thick over the years to still be punctured by the glistening needle.

Along with his eyes and his mind, Bae had inherited similar hands and Rumple appreciated that he could pass something of worth along to his son, besides from the legacy of child abandonment and cowardice that haunted him.

Still, he did not appreciate such hands when they were swaying angrily in the air demanding answers from him about a woman who had died centuries ago.

"Bae, son, what has brought this on? Things in Storybrooke have been going so well, why dredge up an ugly past?" He asks, placing the cup on the counter. His accent always forces itself out with twice the strength when he is with his son, and he hears himself sounding just like he did 300 years ago.

"It's Neal! And I don't care about the present right now. I want to know about the past! Did you kill Mama?" Neal fumes, and while his own voice may sound as it did in that old spinner hut, Neal's has changed so much. It's no longer high and cracking with puberty. It now bellows with bass. It's the voice not of a boy, whose concerns his father could take away with a treat and a story, but of a grown man demanding answers.

"Ba-Neal, I-I've told you this tale already. Your mother was killed by pirates. That Hook – the same one who parades himself around town with your girlfriend – He took her away and when she was no use to him, he..he killed her."

Neal looks at his father with a frown. His large brown eyes, crumpling with confusion.

"Emma's not my-" He starts before shrugging it off as unimportant. Now is not the time to be distracted. "You're lying papa. Hook told me the truth. He told me that you killed her."

"And you believe that pirate over your own father?"

"It's not him I believe in. I wouldn't need him to say it. I can see that you're lying. You have the same tell you did when I was 14, that little crinkle right below your left eye." He points to the same place on his own face. "I would know it anywhere. It's the same one you had when I told you about the bean the blue fairy gave me."

The shop falls silent, and normally Rumple would embrace the quiet. It's how he usually liked his store. Peaceful. But now the silence rings in his ears and takes away his breath until he can feel himself suffocating.

Neal shrugs, sensing that has father is not going to tell him the truth. He heads toward the shop door.

"I'm not going to be home tonight or maybe for a while. Don't try to contact me."

Rumple can sense that he is losing his son all over again. The air around him gets even thinner and harder to keep in. He reaches a hand out for Bae.

"Son, wait." He doesn't expect Bae to pause but he does. "I will tell you the truth, just please don't leave again. I can't- I can't lose you again, Bae."

Neal nods and watches as his father reaches to the shelf behind him. The older man moves some canisters around until he pulls out a glass bottle full of scotch and two shot glasses. He pour one for himself and knocks it back. Then he pours another two and passes one to his son.

"That day on the docks, when you're mother left, she didn't die. She ran away to be with..him. I didn't not know that though. I thought she had been captured, taken prisoner, and I was- I was too weak to fight for her." He says, his voice quivering with tears. It's like he is right back there, telling his wee son how his mama would not be coming home now or ever.

"I didn't see her again for 6 years. I was the Dark One by then and worse of all I-I had already lost you, Bae. I was searching everywhere and I found a man who claimed to have a magic bean. If I could just get my hands on it you and I could be united. That's when I heard about the pirates who had docked in town and I knew it was him. I was strong now. I could get my revenge, not for me, but for her. I challenged the captain to a duel but just as I was about to do him in, who should appear but your mother. She hadn't been taken at all Bae. She had run away. From me, from us."

Neal takes a sip of his drink and brings his hand up to massage his forehead.

"That's not an excuse to kill her." He mumbles.

"I know that now, Bae but at the time…We meet the next day to make an exchange but right before our deal was struck, I ask – I ask how-how she could leave you..knowing what it would be like without her. And as she fumbled for an excuse do you know what I saw in her eyes, Bae? Vindication. Not on ounce of regret."

Rumple moves over to the spot where Bae stands. His son's head is down and his face distorted to a frown, but he can see the beginning of tears welling in his boy's eyes.

He sighs before continuing.

"While I was looking for you, as desperate as a madman, it killed me to think that she just walked away."

Neal turns his head up, nodding it lightly and curling his lips into his teeth.

"I am sorry, son. If I could go back I'd make a different choice. Not for her." He says with a sneer, "but for you. So you could see her for yourself."

He clasps an arm around Neal, a gesture the younger man returns.

"It's alright, papa."

Rumple cups his son's cheek, just as he had done when the man was a baby and smiles and bittersweet smile. He looks again at his hands, thinking of all the destruction and pain and death they have caused and grimaces. When his son cups his own hand over his father's though he is given one more reason to love his hands, as he sees how perfectly that fit into his sons.

Sorry this one took so long, guys. I am pretty happy with how this turned out but because I am not that familiar with writing Rumple and Neal, it took a while to get into the right headspace. It was fun though, writing characters I haven't written before.