Chapter Thirty-Four—"Lines Drawn"

Emma hadn't wanted to come back to the Dark Castle while her father and Neal were still securing the castle she'd been born in, but someone had to report back, and their tablet was still toasted. Rumplestiltskin had departed abruptly and without offering much explanation several hours earlier, which left her with the responsibility of going home and telling everyone that the kingdom was secure. Worse yet, Emma had teleported herself successfully exactly once before, and she wasn't all that confident that she could manage it a second time. Oh, she knew the theory just fine—Regina had prioritized teaching Emma a useful skill like that—but Emma had still been incredibly nervous when she'd disappeared in a swirl of white smoke.

The fact that she reappeared almost on top of her mother didn't help her stress level at all.

"Whoa—Emma?" Snow gasped, stumbling out of the way.

"Hi. Sorry." She smiled sheepishly as Regina—looking pale, bruised, and sickly on the bed—snickered.

"So glad to see you, Miss Swan," Regina drawled, sitting up painfully. She'd been sprawled against a stack of pillows when Emma had arrived almost on top of the chair that Snow had been sitting in, but now the Evil Queen was clearly determined not to lie down any longer, no matter how much it hurt.

"You look like hell," Emma said before she could stop herself.

Regina rolled her eyes. "So nice of you to point that out. You did hear that I went three for three with the Black Fairy, didn't you? When she tried to kidnap our son?"

"No!" Emma whipped around to glare at her mother. "When did that happen? No one said a word to Neal or I."

"I thought Rumplestiltskin would have said something," Snow replied immediately, shrugging helplessly. "He usually…"

"Keeps his cards close. Don't ever expect Rumple to share anything he deems irrelevant," Regina cut in, shrugging. "It doesn't matter. I survived, even if I did have to suffer the indignity of being healed by the damn blue bug."

"You still shouldn't call her that, Regina," Snow said softly, but even Emma couldn't sense any actual reprimand in her mother's voice.

"Oh, you don't care and you know it." The Evil Queen turned back to look at Emma, grimacing slightly. "I'm far more interested in the fact that you actually managed to teleport yourself here, all the way from our little kingdom. I'm impressed, Emma. For once."

"Has anyone told you lately that you can be a royal bitch sometimes?" Emma retorted conversationally.

"That's why they call us queens, dear." The tired smile showed dimples, and even Snow snickered at that one.

"So I managed to teleport. What's the big deal?" Emma tried to brush off the compliment—if it was a compliment. Regina being nice took some getting used to, even if it included a lot of sarcastic remarks and snarky attitude. Even though she'd been learning magic from Regina for a while now, and sharing her son with her for even longer, Emma still had a hard time thinking of Regina as a…friend. Or her mentor. Mentor sounded better.

"Even you know that's a big deal, Emma. Well done." The last words came out as a wheeze, though, and Emma didn't miss the worried look her mother sent Regina's way. It really is a brave new world, isn't it? Rumplestiltskin—jerk though he can be—wasn't wrong. Everything's changed. Otherwise, how could she be sitting here with her mother and the Evil Queen, calmly discussing her magic lessons?

"Look, what's more important at the moment is that we did it." Emma turned back to face Snow. "We took the castle back. David's there now, and so's Neal. The kingdom's ours."

Emma hadn't seen her mother light up with so much joy since Graham had been born. "It is?"

"It is." She'd barely had a chance to get the words out before Snow flung her arms around her.

"Oh, Emma, this is wonderful news! We'll be able to go home—and you'll be able to go home, for real this time. How does the castle look? Is it still in ruins, or did Regina's reversing the curse restore things?"

"Uh, it's not too bad," Emma replied awkwardly, returning the hug. "Could be better, but David's got the army working on repairs. And in the city, too. He says it should be habitable within a few weeks at most."

"I'll be back." Snow was glowing. "I need to tell Ruby and the others. This is so wonderful." She was practically dancing as she swept out the door in a flurry of big skirts and long hair, leaving Emma and Regina to stare at one another.

"Her enthusiasm has always been a bit…overwhelming," the Evil Queen said dryly. "Drove me mad when she was a child."

Despite herself, Emma snickered. "Yeah, I can imagine."

They shared a knowing look, and then Regina gestured tiredly at the chair next to her luxurious bed. "I'm sick of looking up at you. Sit down."

"Always the polite one, you," she retorted, but Emma sat. The moment she did so, her limbs started feeling like jello, and she practically melted into the chair. For a moment, her vision swam. "Man, when did I get so tired?"

"Do a lot of magic today?" Regina asked immediately.

"Yeah, a bit. There was this demon thing." Emma coughed, suddenly feeling like her innards had gone through a blender.

"All magic comes at—"

"A price, I know. Do you really have to keep saying that? Gold's bad enough," Emma cut her off, and Regina snorted out a painful sounding laugh.

"You have no idea what he used to sound like when he said that. Trust me when I say that the way he is now is an improvement. At least he doesn't…glitter."

"Glitter?" Emma echoed, and watched Regina grimace.

"Don't ask. Or, better yet, ask Rumplestiltskin to show you what he used to look like. He might even do it, particularly if he thinks that he'll scare the crap out of you," the older woman replied.

"I'll keep that in mind…" But Emma had no intention of asking Rumplestiltskin that—particularly when she still had plenty of questions for Regina. So, she squared her shoulders and addressed the matter that had been bothering her. "Why do you look so horrible after being healed? Is that normal?"

Was David going to look like this within a few days? He'd been fine when Emma left, but what if there was some delayed reaction?

"You're not listening terribly well today, are you?" Regina replied crossly, finally learning back against the pillows once more. Apparently, her pride had finally lost the battle with her body, and Emma had never seen her look so tired. "I told you. I went a few rounds with the Black Fairy. That's what the problem is. And no, it's not normal. Get a grip, Swan."

"Oh. Good." She tried not to sound too relieved, but it was hard. Particularly now that she was feeling so tired.

"Why so interested in healing all of a sudden? You try to do it on someone?"

"Actually, I succeeded," Emma admitted. "The demon thing—Rumplestiltskin said it was an elemental demon of fire—burned the hell out of my dad."

"And you healed him?"

Emma frowned. "You don't have to sound so surprised. "

"Healing is advanced magic, Emma," Regina retorted, sitting back up with a grimace. "Even though your basis is light magic, unlike mine, it should be beyond you right now."

"Why?"

"Because it takes more than emotion. Usually." The Evil Queen sighed painfully. "You're going to have to talk to Rumple about this, Emma. Healing…healing's never been something I do. And it's probably too late for me to learn it."

Emma would have asked more, but Regina started coughing again, and she decided that her curiosity would keep. The thought of learning anything from Rumplestiltskin made Emma more than a little uneasy—it wasn't that she was afraid of the older man, but he did sometimes give her the creeps. Worse yet, there were moments that Rumplestiltskin could remind her almost painfully of Neal, or even Henry, and that was the weirdest thing of all. Never mind the fact that Gold was the one person in her whacked up family that she'd never really managed to connect with. The fact that she was sleeping with his son only made the possibility of having to learn from him even more awkward.

There were times Belle forgot how very powerful Rumplestiltskin was and how much influence he could wield when he so desired to. Lord Soulis followed the pair of them out of the ballroom like a proud-but-kicked puppy, trailing Maurice and simply waiting for whatever 'word' Rumplestiltskin had demanded. Oh, he'd phrased it as a request, albeit not a very polite one, but it was plain that it was nothing of the sort. And Soulis, who was probably the most powerful single noble in the entirety of Snow and Charmings' dual kingdoms, had acquiesced immediately. Despite being in front of an assembled group of important nobles from his own kingdom and others.

She loved him dearly and knew what lay beneath the mask of the monster—or the mask of whatever he was choosing to be now—so Belle didn't often think of the amount of secular power Rumplestiltskin could exert with a simple turn of phrase. Yet not one of those royals had objected when he'd threatened them, and none of them even stopped to think that he might not get away with killing them if he so decided to. Just thinking of that sent a shiver down Belle's spine. She wished that he didn't have to act like this, but at least Rumple hadn't turned anyone into something small and squishable. That, she supposed, showed how much he'd grown and changed.

Rumplestiltskin never broke stride, but his left hand came up and a simple twirl of his wrist swept magic around himself, Belle, and Soulis, and suddenly they were standing inside Rumplestiltskin's favorite tower. Belle was no magic user, but she knew enough to know that doing so without permission to another sorcerer was extremely rude—and getting away with it served as an undeniable display of power. Tellingly, Soulis did not object.

"I'm not going to ask you how wise you feel your association with those…people was," Rumplestiltskin began, releasing Belle's arm and stepping away from her to nonchalantly examine whatever potion he had brewing on one of his worktables. "I think we're a bit beyond that point."

Soulis—a darkly handsome man, with dignified gray highlights streaking through his black hair and startlingly dark blue eyes—merely swallowed. He looked too proud to defend himself, and confident that whatever Rumplestiltskin had singled him out for, it wasn't to kill him. Belle didn't know what kind of relationship the two men had; Soulis had mentioned having been taught by Cora, but did that mean he and Rumplestiltskin knew one another, or that they didn't?

"So, instead," Rumplestiltskin continued when Soulis remained wisely silent, "we'll discuss your future."

"Have you something particular in mind?" Soulis asked.

Rumplestiltskin turned to look at the other sorcerer. "You're new to this game. You escaped the curse that brought the rest of us to Storybrooke, only to find that your old mentor wasn't willing to bring you into her plans, and you wound up sheltering desperately in that ancient castle of yours, with few but your servants and 'students' for company. But it's a brave new world, now, and not the one you know."

"I'm waiting for you to get to your point," Soulis responded, his eyes narrowing. Belle suppressed a smile; so the other man did have a spine. She couldn't have imagined such a famously feared evil sorcerer without one, but Rumplestiltskin did tend to have that effect on people. He did, however, answer directly:

"Lines are being drawn. There's a war coming, and not one like the one these fools were playing at. This war might very well determine the future of our entire world, and it will be decided by magic, not by armies."

"You're talking about the growing conflict between the fairies and the fae. About the Black Fairy's return." Soulis was plainly smart, then, in addition to being powerful.

"Thinking about approaching her, are you?"

Soulis hesitated before answering, but Belle saw the glint of calculation in his eyes. "I had made no such decisions. Yet."

"I'd advise you not to, dearie. It didn't work out terribly well for Zelena." Rumplestiltskin's tone dropped a few octaves, and even Belle could hear the warning in his voice. "And it won't work out well for you."

Rumor was starting to get around that Baelfire had killed the Wicked Witch of the West, Belle knew, and Soulis was clearly taking that fact into consideration as he swallowed Rumplestiltskin's words. The fact that Rumplestiltskin's son had killed a sorceress who had chosen the opposite side would be lost on very few magic users, Belle expected, and it definitely wasn't lost on Soulis.

"Then what choice do I have?" the other man asked stiffly, his eyes cutting to Belle as if to wonder why she was there.

"Oh, you can choose whatever you like," Belle's love shrugged, waved a hand, ignoring the unspoken question. "But understand this: Danns' a'Bhàis is not the type to see you as anything other than a tool. If you wish to preserve your independence, you'll not choose her. And I think we both know that Ruel Ghorm won't have you."

Blue eyes sharpened. "But you will."

Rumplestiltskin just smiled. "I don't care about your petty power plays, and I don't care what entertainment you get up to with the young women you take on as students. That's a problem for Snow and Charming—and you don't want to make it mine. But you're human, and that's what counts at the moment. To me, anyway."

"How so?"

"The Blue Fairy would have you follow her blindly because she is 'right'. The Black Fairy will have you as her devoted slave. Neither cares to leave you the ability to choose who or what you will be," Rumplestiltskin replied seriously. "And I don't particularly care for that."

"You're building an alliance to counter their power," Soulis said with cautious interest, and Belle could see calculation whipping across his handsome features, could see him weighing and measuring power. The other sorcerer had only arrived at the Dark Castle the week before, but he'd clearly heard what had happened since Rumplestiltskin had returned, and he studied the former Dark One openly.

"I am."

"Why should I believe you'll be any better than them?"

That brought about a low chuckle. "Tell me, my Lord, when I have ever interfered in someone's ability to choose their own path. Oh, I'll manipulate you to meet my own ends, but I've never been interested in ruling anyone. Have I?"

A long moment of silence passed; Belle held her breath. She could see what Rumplestiltskin was doing here, and was glad that he'd chosen honesty over manipulation. Finally, Soulis asked, very directly: "Can you match them? The fairies? They're both original powers."

Rumplestiltskin just met his gaze levelly.

"Yes."

He was no longer chained to the wall, at least. Grumpy supposed that had to count for something, insignificant though it was. The damn fae had even given him a pallet of sorts to sleep on, after healing the wounds he'd inflicted during the latest torture session. Grumpy had lost track of how many times Norco had tortured him, only that every five or so sessions, the bastard would heal him so that he could start the process all over again. Sometimes he even let Grumpy sleep before starting in again, and this must have been one of those times, otherwise he would not have woken up feeling so horrible.

The physical marks of torture might have been eradicated and his wounds closed, but Grumpy felt like they were still there. This was how it was every time, though; Norco didn't give him time for the ache to abate before starting in on him again. Despite himself, that thought made him shake. Grumpy was a courageous enough dwarf, and he could take the pain, but when Norco conjured up images of Astrid in his mind to torment him…

He remembered the last time he'd seen her, all smiles and laughter, healing yet another soldier who would not have walked again without Astrid's help. She'd been so brave, leaving the fairies like she had and deciding to fight—not just for their world, but for the two of them. It had taken the pair of them a long time to admit that they really were True Love, particularly after Blue had insisted that a dwarf and a fairy couldn't actually share anything meaningful. Grumpy was no rebel, and hadn't been since he'd been Dreamy, but he and Astrid had finally accepted that Blue was wrong and had decided to make a life together. It had been an odd life, one colored by war and full of danger, but it had been theirs. They had been happy.

And then Norco had killed her. This time, Grumpy didn't bother to try to stop the sobs that spilled over. He wasn't too proud to cry over the loss of his True Love, not any more. Norco had already seen him at his worst, so why fight it? He would save his resistance for where it counted.

So, when a door opened in a wall where there had previously been none a few minutes later, Grumpy didn't even bother to hide his tears. He just lifted his head to glare at the bastard who had killed his True Love and steeled himself for the worst.

Being wrapped in Charming's arms was like coming home, but just this once, Snow wished that the timing of their reunion could be just a little bit better.

Two weeks after Charming's army defeated the Witch and eight days after they had retaken the castle Snow and Charming had been married in, Rumplestiltskin delivered Charming back to the Dark Castle for one final meeting of the Grand Alliance. By that point, Snow had been made well aware of the dissension within their ranks—although Queen Leah had come to her and tried to forestall Rumplestiltskin's revelations, Snow had learned the hard way who to trust. Faced with the choice between Aurora's mother and the man who had become their ally in Neverland, Snow experienced no qualms and chose Rumplestiltskin.

She'd been more diplomatic than that when discussing the matter with Queen Leah and the other malcontents, of course, listening to their concerns and promising to address those issues in a future grand council, but Snow was no fool.

"We have a problem," she told her husband after they broke from their kiss. Snow wanted nothing more than to snuggle against David's broad chest, but they had apparently not yet earned such peace.

"Another one? Already?" David asked with a sigh, pulling back to look her in the eye. His handsome face was creased with concentration, but at least he didn't look as tired as Snow felt.

Eight days of trying to hold the Grand Alliance together had taken all the energy Snow had, plus Belle's surprisingly formidable diplomatic talents. Between them, they'd managed to win Ariel back to their side (and with her, Eric), and Sir Maurice had apparently made some inroads on convincing the Marquis de Limoges that allying against his daughter's lover was a bad idea. Rumplestiltskin had apparently taken care of Lord Soulis, who begged leave of Snow almost immediately after that disastrous meeting, offering abject apologies and murmuring about having something to do. But that was the limit of the good news. The others still held out, and Snow could feel the Grand Alliance crumbling despite her best efforts to stop it.

"The Grand Alliance is starting to fall apart," she told him without preamble. "I'm doing what I can, but…it's getting bad. Hubert and Leah are griping about everything from Regina and Rumplestiltskin to the fact that most of the Alliance has agreed to maintain our pre-curse borders. Rumplestiltskin managed to intimidate most of them out of outright action, but that's not going to last very long."

"Good intimidate or bad intimidate?" Charming asked immediately.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Snow had to smile. "Mostly good, I think. Belle said he was on his best behavior, more or less."

"Will wonders never cease."

"I'm glad you're back," Snow replied, snuggling into him. "Graham has missed you, and you've missed Emma's insane magic lessons. Regina has her teleporting all over the castle transforming everything in sight. It's driving Rumplestiltskin absolutely mad, and listening to the three of them rant at one another has been just a little entertaining."

"Oh, I bet it has," her husband laughed with her. "So, what do we do about this new problem?"

"There's a meeting this afternoon," she admitted. "I was really hoping you'd be back for it. Now that people can start repopulating the kingdoms that the Witch had taken, Queen Leah is pressing for a re-addressal of all the terms upon which the alliance was formed. I am, of course, pressing for an actual treaty between all consenting kingdoms that formalizes the Alliance."

"Which means we'll probably get peace, the same old borders, and no Grand Alliance."

"And you say you suck at politics." She beamed up at Charming. No matter how bad things got, Snow knew that they could face any challenge, so long as they were together. Hooking her arm through his, Snow led the way towards the ballroom Rumplestiltskin had grudgingly volunteered as a council chamber.

"I do suck at politics. I do the fighting, you do the talking, remember?" David reminded her, and Snow only laughed.

"Sure you do."

The final meeting of the Grand Alliance had taken hours longer than anyone had expected, and it had taken all of Rumplestiltskin's self-control not to storm out or start pacing. Eventually, he'd started constructing and deconstructing various spells within his mind, ignoring the political firestorm raging in the meantime. Belle was fully involved in the discourse, however, so he did listen when she spoke, trying to hold back his proud smile every time she made mincemeat of one idiot or another. Her father was surprisingly helpful, too, which made it the second time Sir Maurice had surprised Rumplestiltskin in the last eight days. Apparently, the man isn't as much a coward as I thought he was…despite the fact that he somehow thought sending Belle over the town line was the best way to get her away from me.

Rumplestiltskin would never forget that little incident, and he'd probably never forgive it, either. But Belle had asked him to not hold it against her father, so he would try. Watching Maurice support Belle fully certainly helped him hate the man a little less, anyway, so Rumplestiltskin tried to think of it in those terms while he played with magic in his mind and tuned out the politicians. Snow was, of course, utterly brilliant in her speech extolling the continued need for the Grand Alliance, particularly while kingdoms were repopulated and the threat of the Black Fairy and the fae was dealt with. Rumplestiltskin chose not to speak up during that impassioned plea; everyone in the room already knew what kind of problem the Black Fairy presented, and those who were inclined to listen to him already knew where he stood on that matter. Overall, he said very little in the meeting, although his presence was more than enough to remind everyone which side he was on.

Afterwards, while Belle and the others continued to play politics, Rumplestiltskin headed up to his workroom in his favorite tower, desperately needing the time away from prying eyes and stupid assumptions. So, he shrugged out of his dragonhide jacket and banished it to a coat rack with a wave of one hand, falling into his favorite chair and trying to ignore the persistent stinging from his side. He needed to think. Watching Belle's brilliance had only made him reconsider the same thought that had been plaguing him since she'd thrown that huge hint his way about making an honest woman out of her.

It wasn't that Rumplestiltskin didn't love Belle with all his heart. It wasn't even that he was afraid of commitment—he'd committed to her in every conceivable way except the one that mattered to the rest of the world. Belle knew that he loved her, and he had long since decided that he would lay his heart at her feet and trust her to treat it well. Really, it was just that a small part of Rumplestiltskin still cringed at the idea of forcing Belle to tie herself to someone so dark as he had been. He was under no illusions. Even with his curse broken, Rumplestiltskin was not a good man, and Belle was so utterly better than that. She deserved so much more than he could ever offer her…except that theirs was True Love.

True Love. Years after she'd first kissed him, years after Rumplestiltskin had accepted the truth, he still found it utterly ludicrous. If he stopped to think about it too much, anyway. The likelihood of someone who had willingly taken on such a curse as he finding the single most powerful magic in any world was so infinitesimal that it was unthinkable…and yet Belle loved him as much as he loved her. He knew that, just as he knew that Belle was ready to spend the rest of her life with him.

And Belle deserved better than being forced to wait for him to scrape up enough courage to ask her. Taking a deep breath, Rumplestiltskin opened a hidden drawer on the bottom of his work bench. The compartment was small, only four by four inches and just over an inch deep, but it didn't need to be large. The only thing in it was a small blue velvet bag, much like the one he'd once kept the shattered remnants of their chipped cup inside.

Slowly, Rumplestiltskin removed the bag and dumped its contents into his hand, studying the ring for a long moment. He'd made the ring back in Storybrooke, having actually started it before Belle lost her memories and became Lacey, and had finished it the night before Pan had cast his curse and everything changed. Regina's reversal of her curse had deposited the bag here from a similar location in his basement, which Rumplestiltskin had confirmed as soon as he had come back to his own castle after his time as a prisoner. But being the coward he was, he'd left the ring here after making sure it had transferred over, waiting for the perfect moment that would never come so long as the war lasted.

After all, what about their relationship had ever been easy?

Turning the ring over in his hand, Rumplestiltskin studied it, focusing past the protective spells he'd weaved into the gold and looking at the ring itself. He had needed weeks to spin gold fine enough for this purpose, wanting the strands to be thin and pure enough to weave together. Finally, he'd twisted eight strands together—eight for a lover who was committed and brave, for the one who kept a relationship stable and secure—fusing them with magic and twisting a ninth strand around the others to bind them together. Numerology was part of magic, and one was for the leader, for the determined and self-assured, for Belle who always took the lead in love. One and eight together represented the sum of her soul, everything he loved about her. Just as the star sapphire he chose matched her eyes perfectly.

The star sapphire was the strongest of stones after the diamond, believed by some cultures to be a powerful talisman for guiding travelers and seekers of all kinds. He had acquired this particular star sapphire centuries before he'd even met Belle, having accepted it in a deal because of the sheer blue brilliance of the stone and how rare that was. Still, Rumplestiltskin had never had any intention of using it…until he'd decided that the best ring he could give Belle was one he'd made himself.

Symbolism was an inherent part of magic, so when Rumplestiltskin had started crafting the ring, weaving the strands of gold together with dexterous fingers and careful magic, he had embraced every one of those symbol to protect the woman he loved. Even from himself. Committed and brave. Stable and secure. Determined and self-assured, the woman who kept him on a better path, the woman who made him stronger. Belle had sought love and found it in the darkest of places, and Rumplestiltskin wove every bit of the love he'd found in her into that ring. Four small diamonds flanked the sapphire, with the last strand of gold wrapping around those. But the physical construction of the ring had taken much less time than the hundreds of protective spells he had pieced together—and created, in the case of many.

Rumplestiltskin turned the ring over in his left hand, studying it. It would protect Belle even when he could not, or protect her from him, something he had been particularly desirous to do while he was the Dark One. Now there was no curse, no demon, living inside him and always driving him towards darkness. Rumplestiltskin could reasonably expect never to be a danger to Belle, but he had no reason to remove those spells. In fact, now he could dig into Merlin's memories and craft a few more.

The fingers of his right hand glowed white, tracing over the ring from a few inches above his palm, Magic leapt into the gold, playing over it like gentle white lightning for several seconds before disappearing into the ring. There. He was done. Now he only had to scrape up the courage to—

"What'cha doing, Grandpa?" a young voice interrupted, and Rumplestiltskin's head snapped up to stare at his grandson.

"Henry." Surprise tore the word out of him, and Rumplestiltskin sat back in his chair. "What are you doing here?"

"I was bored."

Despite himself, Rumplestiltskin chuckled. "Were you now?"

He'd spent so little time with his grandson since finding out that Henry was Bae's son that shocking day in Manhattan. There had always been something in the way—first, his own determination that Henry was the boy who would be his undoing, and then Pan's curse followed by Regina's. Rumplestiltskin had been so busy since his rescue that he'd had all of three actual conversations with the boy, and seeing Henry here made him realize that how much he had already missed.

"Yeah," Henry admitted, grabbing a stool that had been along one wall and dragging it over to the workbench. "Everyone else is off playing politics and trying to make nice with people who don't really like them, 'cept Mom, and she's asleep again. What are you doing?"

"Escaping the politicians," he replied with a wry smile.

Henry laughed with him, and an unexpected rush of warmth raced through Rumplestiltskin. There were times that the boy next to him reminded him so very much of Baelfire, of the innocent and loving boy his son had been before Rumplestiltskin had taken on his former curse. Henry had Bae's smile, and his brown eyes were practically the exact same shade as Rumplestiltskin's own. Family had always been very important to him—his life was defined by the actions he had taken to protect those he loved—but Rumplestiltskin suddenly realized, very guiltily, that he'd done very little to get to know his grandson.

Still, there was time yet to fix that. And fix it I shall. Against all odds, Rumplestiltskin had managed to somehow rebuild his relationship with his son, and he would no longer himself to ignore Bae's child just because he was busy.

"I thought you'd be better at tolerating them," Henry remarked with a shrug. "I mean, didn't you spend a couple of hundred years manipulating people into doing what you wanted?"

Coming from someone else, the question might have been an accusation, but Henry just sounded curious.

"Ah, but what you're forgetting is that I only dealt with them on my terms," Rumplestiltskin corrected his grandson. "This"—he gestured vaguely at the door—"politicking is for royals and nobles, not for sly old tricksters like me. That's the other side of your family, lad."

Henry laughed. "Then I must take after you, because after ten minutes of listening to Grandma Snow and Queen Leah, I thought my head was going to explode."

"Try not to let that literally happen. Creates quite a mess."

The look of utter surprise that crossed his grandson's face was reward enough for the quip; Rumplestiltskin could read Henry's expression well enough to know that the lad probably didn't think he had a sense of humor, and wasn't precisely sure what to do with evidence to the contrary. But, then, what had he been for most of Henry's life? First Gold had been his adopted mother's rival/friend/enemy, and then Rumplestiltskin had been the looming dark presence that was neither enemy nor ally to his extended family. The mess in Neverland had established him firmly as a protector of Henry's, but even Rumplestiltskin had to admit that his attempt to kill himself had derailed any hopes of building a relationship based upon that.

"So, uh, what's that?" Henry asked after a moment's laughter, gesturing at the ring still in Rumplestiltskin's hand.

Instinct reared up, and the desire to simply vanish the precious piece of jewelry and deny Henry had ever seen it was overwhelming. Rumplestiltskin almost gave in to the urge, but stopped himself at the last minute. Still, he wasn't sure how to actually answer the question, and found himself shrugging uncomfortably.

"It looks kind of small for you," his grandson commented when Rumplestiltskin said nothing, and then he saw realization dawn on Henry's face. The boy really was too bright for his own good. "Is that for Belle?"

Anyone else would have gotten snapped at for smirking like that; since it was Henry, Rumplestiltskin only sighed. "And if it is?"

"You're gonna ask her to marry you! That's so awesome. Will that make her my grandmother?"

"Only if she says yes." Of course, now his stomach was twisting into knots, and he was only talking about asking Belle to marry him. The fact that Rumplestiltskin knew for certain that she loved him did nothing to calm his nerves.

"Of course she'll say yes," Henry replied confidently. "You guys are True Love, aren't you? I mean, my book said she almost broke your curse."

People always forget, Belle had told Emma, and Belle had been right. Rumplestiltskin couldn't count the number of people who had tried to tell Belle that he was no good, that she should leave him and get away while she still could. The first months while they had tried to rebuild their relationship hadn't just been rocky because he'd been a fool; outsiders kept trying to "save" Belle from him. From the Blue Fairy to Snow White, they'd all tried to convince Belle that they knew better than she did, and there were times where Rumplestiltskin had agreed with them. But he'd learned to fight for Belle, even when he doubted himself. True Love had to be fought for.

"Yes," he said softly. "Yes, we are."

"Then why are you so worried?" his grandson asked cheerfully.

Rumplestiltskin sighed again. "Life's not always as easy as storybooks would have it be," he replied slowly. "True Love is no guarantee of a happy ending."

"Well, not if you don't fight for it, it isn't," the sage lad said. "But you two have fought for each other lots. I've seen you together, and it's obvious what you mean to each other. She'll say yes."

"I hope you're right, Henry." Damn his nerves. His voice wanted to shake, and it every bit all of the self-control Rumplestiltskin possessed to keep his tone steady.

"I am." Surprisingly, Henry reached out and grabbed Rumplestiltskin's hand, confidence shining in his brown eyes. "You've got this, Grandpa. I know it."

He almost snorted, almost said something ridiculously cutting and self-defensive, but somehow a smile wormed its way onto Rumplestiltskin's face instead. Heart of the Truest Believer, indeed! "Thank you, Henry."

A/N: Henry obviously didn't want to leave well enough alone, and someone needed to prod this Rumplestiltskin, so he volunteered. Cheeky teenager! Next up is Chapter 35: "Control the Center", in which Rumplestiltskin manipulates, Emma demonstrates more magic, and Regina 'decides' to go on a trip.

Please let me know what you think!